Spirits in the Wires (49 page)

“You can always e-mail me, care of the Wordwood,” I tell him. Then I smile. “Just think, you'll finally have a way to contact me whenever you want. Won't that make a change.”

“But I'll never see you again.”

“Oh, this gig won't last forever,” I say.

Everybody knows I'm lying—including him. After all, we all got the same telepathic message from the leviathan. Whoever stays becomes a gateway spirit and there'll be no coming back from that. For all I know, the change already started for me, back when I fell off the leviathan and into the light. Something happened to me then.

So we won't be seeing each other again.

But he doesn't call me on it—he knows how stubborn I can be once I make up my mind about something—and neither does anyone else.

“Say hello to Saskia for me,” I say.

He nods. “Thanks for keeping her safe.”

“It was my pleasure,” I tell him and I mean it.

Then we all say our goodbyes and they open a door in the air to take them back into the consensual world—a one-way trip back. I want to look away, but I find I need this one last glimpse of what I'm leaving behind. All I see is some basement. A worktable. Stairs leading up.

I lean closer as they start to step through, one after the other. Then, just as the door's starting to close, I feel a shove from behind me and I'm falling through, arms flailing for balance.

And the door in the air whispers shut behind me.

Were we always

strangers,

or did we only

learn to become

this way?

—S
ASKIA
M
ADDING,

“Strangers”
(Mirrors,
1995)

We land in a tangle of limbs
on a cement floor. I suppose I should be grateful that I'm not on the bottom, but all I'm really concerned with is figuring out who gave me the shove and took my place back in the Word-wood. I have my suspicions.

Because I'm on top, it's easier for me to extract myself from the pile. I do a quick head count. Christy. Raul and Bojo. Suzi.

I was right and I get a little nervous twitch in the pit of my stomach.

It was Aaran.

No wonder he was so helpful and ready to take my side when we were arguing about who should stay. He must have had this planned from the moment the leviathan came into our heads and told us what we needed to do. What
one
of us needed to do.

And it wasn't me after all.

I can't tell what's stronger: relief that I'm not stuck back there in the Wordwood with the leviathan, or the worry about what Aaran will get up to in there.

Christy and Raul regard me with some confusion, but Bojo and Suzi get it right away.

“Oh, you fool,” Suzi says softly, and I know she's not talking about me.

“He made his choice,” I say.

I'm feeling a little weird. Do they all feel that way? That I was supposed to be the one to stay behind?

Suzi seems to understand what I'm thinking because she looks right over at me and gives me a half-hearted smile.

“He means well,” she says. “But from everything I've come to know about him, he hasn't had that much experience at playing the good guy. And I don't know that he's strong enough to take on something like this. He's not like you in that way.”

I've never been good at compliments so I don't acknowledge it. But it sure makes me feel better.

“This is going to be hard on you,” I say. “You two had a thing going, didn't you?”

She shakes her head. “We had the start of something, but I'm not sure what. I like him—I like him a lot, actually—but we met under circumstances that could have gotten in the way of a long-term relationship. You know, once we got past the rush of getting to know each other.”

“Like your being born in the Wordwood.”

“Not to mention his picking me up while I was panhandling.”

“That wouldn't make a difference,” Christy says. “Not if you care about each other.”

Suzi looks away from me, but not before I see the wet shine in her eyes.

Way to go, Christy, I think. Here we are trying to downplay Suzi's feelings for Aaran, and you have to come out with something like that. But I know he didn't mean to make her feel bad. He's thinking about himself and Saskia, trying to show how this kind of thing can work out. Trouble is, we're way past the chance of that happening.

“So does anybody know where we are?” I ask.

Adding anything to what we've just been talking about is only going to make Suzi feel worse, so I opt to change the subject.

“The basement of Holly's store,” Bojo says.

I've been in the store before, but never down here. There's something in the air I can't quite place. A hint of the otherworld that goes beyond the fact that the basement has been used as a place to cross over. Now that I think of it, I got that same feeling upstairs the few times I've come into the store. I just put that down to all the books. They've always seemed like magic to me. I mean, talk about your doorways into other worlds.

“I need to use the phone,” Raul says. “To call… home …”

That makes Christy perk up. Raul wants to check on his lover Benny. Christy needs to see if Saskia made it back. Because none of us know what happened to all the other people who disappeared into the Wordwood. Did they get away before the white light burned everything away?

We troop up the stairs just in time to see yet another otherworld door open in the middle of the bookstore. Holly and Geordie come through it, along with a tall woman dressed like a skateboarder with a little twig girl by her side. I recognize the woman from revels in Hinterland. Her name's Galfreya, but I think she calls herself Mother Crone when she's here in the consensual world.

There's all sorts of confusion as our two parties meet—which is only heightened when a door opens at the back of the store and a hob and a little yapping Jack Russell terrier are added to the mix. As soon as I see the hob, I realize what that hint of the magic I feel here is. Holly's got a book-store hob living in her store.

While Holly picks up her dog and tries to calm it down, I catch Gal-freya's eye. She nods hello and has the same “funny to see you here” look in her eyes that's probably in my own. Then I do a quick fade into the borderlands and leave them all to sort it out.

I just want to go home, but first I have to check in at Christy's apartment to make sure that Saskia's okay.

I don't know why I assumed that Saskia was back, safe in the apartment she shared with Christy. I just did. So I have a moment's panic when I slip in— stepping sideways from the borderlands as I always do—and she isn't there.

I call her name. Soft. Then louder.

My heartbeat becomes a quick thunder in my chest as I go from room to room in the apartment.

The sudden ringing of the phone makes me jump. Christy, looking for Saskia. I don't pick it up. What could I say to him?

I remember the white flash when I was falling from the leviathan's shoulder. Had it burned her away?

Then I see clothing scattered on their bed. The jeans and T-shirt she was wearing in the Wordwood the last time I saw her.

She just got cleaned up and went out looking for Christy.

The sense of relief that floods me is almost physical. I find myself sitting on the edge of the bed and reach over to touch the jeans as though to assure myself that they're real.

I wonder if she knows he went to Holly's store? Probably not. So, where would she go? Geordie's place, I decide. Or the professor's house,where Jilly's still recuperating from the car crash that took her out of commission last year. I decide to try Geordie's first because it's on the way to the professor's house.

I take another shortcut through the borderlands and step back into the consensual world in the alley behind the apartment, startling an old orange torn with a torn ear. He goes skittering off through a hole in the fence of one of the yards backing onto the other side of the alley, while I walk around to the front. My heart lifts when I see Saskia going up the steps of the building. She jumps when I call her name. A huge grin lights her features when she sees me and she hurries over to give me a hug.

“You made it,” she says as she steps back. “I was so worried about you.”

I nod. “I was worried about you, too.”

“I was just looking for Christy …”

“I figured as much. He's at Holly's store.”

She turns to look for the bus stop, but I take her arm and walk her back into the alley with me.

“I really have to see him,” she says.

“I know you do. That's why I'm taking you the quick way.”

I step her into the borderlands, get my bearings, then pop back out with her into the consensual world at the same place I left Holly's store a few minutes ago. Christy's on the phone—calling home again, I guess. Everybody else is still talking a mile a minute, except for Bojo, who's leaning against the front door, a half smile on his lips as he takes it all in.

Saskia turns to me. “You'll have to teach me that trick.”

“Any time,” I tell her.

Then I leave her to run over to where Christy's trying to reach her by phone, and I finally get to go home.

Okay, here's what happened, or at least what I remember and was able to find out later. Some of it's been confirmed by news reports, back in the consensual world. A lot of it, for obvious reasons, can't be. The funny thing is what people actually remember, which isn't a lot. You can still find the original reports of the disappearances in newspaper morgues and on-line, but there isn't any of the follow-up you'd expect from a story this big. If you were paranoid, you might think it was a government cover-up, or if you know what I know, you might think the leviathan had something to do with it through his on-line resources now that he's got Aaran on board to make contact with the outside world again.

But
people
don't remember. It's like there was some little blip in reality and now that it's over, no one's willing to even think about it anymore. No, that implies choice. What we have here is like it never even happened in the first place.

All those people who disappeared reappeared from wherever they'd originally vanished. At least, I think they all made it back. I know Holly's friends did, but they don't remember any more of what happened than anybody else does. Even Jackson's clueless. I went by to see him and he just stood there in the doorway of his apartment looking at me—the way you do when you've opened the door on a stranger and you're not quite ready to let them in, but you're still willing to see what they want.

I'd have turned around and walked away, except for the faint puzzle of recognition I see in the back of his eyes.

“You don't really remember me, do you?” I say.

He shakes his head. “You seem a little familiar. …”

“Guess I really made an impression.”

“I'm sorry, I just—”

“It was a joke,” I tell him.

He still doesn't seem too big in the sense of humour department.

“It was a long time ago,” I say. “We met in a library.”

He shakes his head again. “I can't remember the last time I was in a library.” He pauses for a moment, then steps aside. “Do you want to come in?”

“No,” I say. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

He gets a nervous look. “Why wouldn't I be?”

I wonder at his nervousness, then I remember him telling us about the prank he played on some bank, the one that let Aaran blackmail him. So he remembers that much.

“No reason,” I tell him. I start to turn away, then look back at him. “A word of advice: Next time someone tries to blackmail you into sending a virus anywhere, maybe you'd be better off owning up to what you did and taking your medicine.”

“What do you know?”

I smile. Not “What do you mean?” but “What do you know?”

“Nothing that's going anywhere. Just remember what I said.”

“But he—”

Jackson stops himself.

“Don't worry about Aaran,” I say. “He's out of your life now. Just don't get into any more trouble.”

“Who are
you?”

I shrug. “Maybe I'm your conscience,” I tell him.

“Do you have something to do with the bunch of people I found in my apartment when I…”

“When you what?”

I can see the confusion deepening in him as he tries to work it out.

“I was going to say when I got back,” he says, “but that's not right. I haven't been anywhere …”

“Don't give yourself a headache,” I tell him. “And maybe try to find yourself a better hobby than hacking bank computers and sending out viruses.”

“Wait a second …”

But then I do walk away, down the stairs and out of his life.

Christy has a theory about all of this forgetfulness. Of course, Christy has a theory about everything, bless his heart, but this one makes a certain amount of sense. I can't remember how we got to talking about it. I wasn't even planning on having a conversation with him that morning. The shades and curtains are all drawn, and it's comfortably gloomy inside when I slip into their apartment. I thought they'd both still be asleep—I just came by to stand at the end of their bed like the shadow I am, reassuring myself that, yes, they're still safe. I don't realize that Christy's awake and lying on the sofa in the living room until his voice comes to me from out of the darkness.

“I wanted to thank you again for rescuing my girl,” he says. “I was so worried.”

He's not being disrespectful, calling Saskia his girl. No more than she is when she refers to him as her boy. I think they'll still be doing it in their eighties. At least I hope they will.

“You don't have to,” I tell him. I sit down in the wing-backed chair so that we can see each other without Christy having to get up from where he's lying. “I like her and I wouldn't want to see anything happen to her either.”

“You do? Like her, I mean.”

“Why wouldn't I?”

“Well, you're my shadow. I just assumed you wouldn't.”

“Because I'm supposed to be all the things that you're not?”

He nods his head.

“Jeez, will you get with the program,” I tell him. “That happened when we were seven years old. You've had plenty of time to reacquire all sorts of bad traits since then. Just like I've had the time to acquire some good ones.”

“So, do you think we're more the same than not these days?”