Widdershins (27 page)

“He was dead when I hung him on that tree,” the blind man said.

Big Dan nodded. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t. It didn’t matter anymore. The doonie was alive now.

“How did you find this place anyway?” he asked. “A doonie’s hidey-hole is supposed to be impenetrable.”

The blind green-bree shrugged. “I came upon it while I was swimming.”

“Swimming? There are no rivers near here.”

“There are always rivers,” Odawa told him. “If you know how to see them.”

Big Dan gave another noncommittal nod.

“Your water clans probably have the same ability,” the blind man added. “I wouldn’t know,” Big Dan said. “You’re the first I’ve ever spent any time with and you’re not even close to kin.”

He was just a great big pluiking green-bree, maybe blind, maybe not, but for damn sure too full of his own importance.

Big Dan looked over to where his men were lounging against the trees while they waited. He was suddenly tired of all of this. What had started as a kind of game to relieve boredom and perhaps raise his standing among the fairy clans was turning more sour than he’d ever admit to anyone but himself. The truth was he didn’t care for either Odawa or Grey’s problems. He didn’t care about this girl. And he was sick and tired of feeling like no more than an errand boy for the blind piece of shite who’d gotten him into all of this.

Happily, Odawa kept his own counsel while they waited for Rabedy and his companions to return. As soon as they did, Big Dan walked over to get their report.

“Well?” he asked. “I see you don’t have the girl. Do you at least have any news?”

“She’s gone,” Luren said, picking his nose as he spoke. “Both of them—like they never were. Rabedy tracked them to a beach on some grey sea, but they were already gone when we got there. The pony’s tracks started nowhere, then ended the same, but we couldn’t find a way through to wherever it was that they went.”

Rabedy nodded. “We hunted up and down the beach, but it was all grey sand, and then a fog came rolling in from the water and we couldn’t see anything anymore anyway, so we came back.”

“Where was this beach?” Odawa asked.

Rabedy shrugged. “Somewhere in the otherworld.”

“Could you see the sun? The moon or stars? Was the water east or west of the land?”

Rabedy and the other two bogans took a step back under the blind green-bree’s sudden barrage of questions. Luren shot Big Dan a questioning look, but Odawa spoke before Big Dan could.

“Answer me, you stupid little men,” he demanded, his voice booming between the trees. “Surely your tiny brains will let you do that much.”

“Hold on there,” Big Dan said.

The green-bree turned, his blind gaze fixing on the bogans’ chief.

“This is
my
business,” he began.

His voice had gone soft, dangerous, and low now.

“And these are my men,” Big Dan said before he could go on. “So you’ll be respectful to them, or you won’t speak at all.”

“This from the one who constantly berates them himself.”

“What I do or don’t is none of your pluiking business. While you’re working for me, you’ll do as I say, or you’ll take a hike up your own arse.”

“Working for
you
?”

Big Dan gave him a dangerous smile. “Well, I’m sure as shite not working for you.”

“Why you—”

“And before you go on,” Big Dan added, finally enjoying himself for a change, “think on this: Piss me off enough and I’ll speak a name you won’t want to hear, and then you will
have
to do as I say.”

“You’re bluffing,” the blind man said. “You know nothing about me but what I’ve chosen to share—certainly not my name.”

“So try me.”

The blind gaze lay on Big Dan for a long moment, then Odawa shrugged and smiled.

“Why are we arguing?” he said. “We’re allies. Partners in this endeavour. We each have everything to gain if we’re successful.”

Big Dan nodded. “So, why do you think the doonie took her to your
croi baile
—your heart home?”

The green-bree was unable to hide his surprise.

“How could you know?” he asked.

“This land is full of stories,” Big Dan replied. “Do you think we don’t hear them, just because we came to its shores later? One of them tells of a corbae who pecked out the eyes of a salmon on a night it was so cold he froze half in and half out of the water. We have a story like that back in the Isles—on Achill Island. The difference, it seems, is that on this side of the ocean that corbae was a grey jay instead of an old crow.”

Odawa said nothing.

“This new version I’ve heard,” Big Dan went on, “took place long ago on the western shores of this land—coincidentally, the same place you and Grey are from. A landscape of grey shores and tall pines. The story names the salmon by his true name, if not the corbae.”

“I don’t know that story,” Odawa finally said.

“Of course you don’t. But that place the doonie fled to with the girl—you suspect it’s your
croi baile,
don’t you? That little piece of our own true home that each of us carries inside us. I’m guessing you left a bit of it in the doonie when you killed him.”

“It’s possible. Now you see why I have to track him down.”

“Sure,” Big Dan said.

He wouldn’t want anyone to have access to the place where his own heart home manifested in the otherworld either. No one would.

“And why I have to do this by myself,” Odawa added. “The doonie owes me.”

“What? Now you’ve got a vendetta against him, as well as Grey?”

“He owes me an explanation as to how he survived the death I gave him.”

“You said it was the girl that brought him back.”

Odawa nodded. “She’ll have some explaining to do also.”

“Fair enough,” Big Dan said. “Can you get there on your own?”

“To my heart home? Of course. But not this other beach your men found. I’m not entirely convinced they’re the same place.”

Big Dan turned to Rabedy. “Show him the way and then come right back. It’s time we got back to some real bogan business.”

“You’re dissolving our partnership?” Odawa asked.

“Nah. But I’m getting tired of all the pussyfooting about we’re doing when it comes to this pluiking corbae. These complicated schemes of yours—that’s not a bogan’s way. When you’re ready to finish the business proper, let me know and we’ll lend you the help we promised.”

“You don’t think I will deliver what I promised?”

“I didn’t say that. I just know I’ve got a man dead, and we’ve been doing a lot of running around without much profit to show for our efforts. What am I supposed to tell Gathlen’s mam and da? I should have something fine to offer them for their loss. Gold. Silver. Or at least a death they can brag about. But all I’ve got is the story of him dying the way he did, killed by some pluiking little girl while we’re running around playing fetch for some green-bree. How do you think that’s going to wash?”

“I understand,” Odawa said.

He seemed to take no offense at the derogatory term. Maybe he didn’t know what it meant.

“But let me ask you this,” he added. “Will one of your company travel with me to be my eyes?”

“To be your servant, you mean.”

“No, I will treat him with the respect you rightfully demanded of me.”

Big Dan didn’t speak for a long moment.

“Only if somebody volunteers,” he finally said.

He looked at his men, but none of them were interested until Rabedy stepped forward.

“I’ll go, Uncle,” he said.

Big Dan hid his surprise. What was this? The little pluiker actually showing some backbone?

“Fair enough,” he said.

Then he took Rabedy aside and whispered a name in his ear. He studied Odawa as he did it and saw the twitch in the blind man’s cheek. The other bogans hadn’t heard, but when your true name was spoken, even as the tiniest whisper, you always knew.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Odawa said. “My word is good.”

“I know,” Big Dan said. “And so is the name I gave him. But promises made or not, I had to do it. His mam’d have my hide if I let her boy head off into the unknown without my giving him the best I could to keep him safe.”

“You surprise me,” Odawa said.

“What? That I care about family?”

But the blind green-bree only shook his head.

“Come, Rabedy,” he said. “Show me this beach, if you would.”

Then the two of them stepped away.

Big Dan stared at the place they’d crossed over, then shook his head. There might be no good to come of this, but the boy had volunteered and he’d given him the best protection he could.

He turned away.

“Let’s go fetch Gathlen,” he told his men, “and bring his body home.”

When he started for the Doonie’s Stane, his men fell in beside him.

The Hard Road to Travel

Jilly

What do they say about meeting
a bear in the woods? Oh right, you shouldn’t. And to make sure you don’t, you should make a lot of noise so that they’ll know where you are and keep their distance because, supposedly, they’re as nervous of us as we are of them. Which is all good, except this bear doesn’t seem the least bit nervous. He’s giving me a look like I’m Goldilocks, ate his porridge, broke his chair, slept in his bed, and now it’s payback time.

Don’t look him in the eye, I think. That’ll only make it worse.

Or is that just for dogs?

Maybe you’re
supposed
to look them in the eye?

I can’t remember. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to run—not that I could anyway. My legs are shaking so badly I’m surprised I’m still standing.

“I’m really not good to eat,” I say.

I don’t even know why I’m talking. But that’s me, I can never keep my mouth shut.

“I mean, look at me. I’m just this skinny girl who seriously wouldn’t taste very good.”

God, he’s big. Really,
really
big. And doesn’t it just figure? For years people have been warning me about the supernatural menaces to be found in the otherworld, but nobody ever said anything about gigantic bears.

I keep waiting for him to attack, but all he does is glare at me. I’m totally surprised that I’m still alive. Maybe he likes the sound of my voice.

Maybe he’s not hungry.

Maybe he’s one of Joe’s cousins and just
looks
like a bear and now he’s pissed off at me because I’m acting like I think he wants to eat me.

But maybe he
does
want to eat me and he’s just trying to decide on the best recipe.

Skinny girl with a honey-nut glaze.

Roasted flank of Jilly with a side of roots and berries.

Or perhaps the ever-popular and simple to prepare Jilly Tartar.

I’m babbling, if only in my own head. I stand here shaking like the proverbial leaf, moths of morbid nonsense banging around in my brain, and I can’t stop either.

And then she shows up, stepping out from behind the bear like wandering around in the woods with a giant bear is the most natural thing in the world to be doing and hello, where’s yours?

She looks like a little girl, eight or nine years old, barefoot and dressed in a baggy green-brown shirt and Capri pants. Her face is sweet and open, her thick blonde shoulder-length hair spilling out from under a loose rusty-red cloth cap that trails off down her back to a point at its end. But I’m not ready to take appearances at face value. This is the otherworld, so she could be a thousand years old and only wearing the shape of a young girl with innocent eyes. Unless you’ve got a built-in magic detect-o-meter like Joe does, there’s no way to tell.

And the really funny thing is—funny strange, not funny ha ha—is that I feel like I’ve seen her before only I can’t remember where. I just have the feeling that the memory’s not a good one.

“Don’t be scared of him,” she says. “He’s just a big old teddy bear.”

“Right.”

The bear looks no less menacing and grim, but I feel a bit of hope at her words. I mean, she’s standing right beside him and he hasn’t mauled
her,
has he?

Except then she says, “It’s me you should be scared of.”