Crossroads (27 page)

"The water holds no taint here," he said, watching Kira kneel to drink. "Where are you coming from, then, not the Citadel?"

Kira frowned, shaking her head as she wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

"I don’t know what the Citadel is," she admitted.

At that the boy’s eyes grew even craftier. "How could you not?"

"I’m not from around here," she said, rising.

"Where are you from, then?"

Kira sighed. "Somewhere else. Look, I just want to get back to my friends."

The boy chewed his lower lip, staring for a moment at the knife in her belt.

"You go armed. Where did you get that if you come not from the Citadel?"

"I made it. I needed it to kill a Grig."

The boy gasped, then glared at her. "You lie. Grigs are not so easily killed that one lone girl could do it."

Kira felt anger rising in her throat. She shook her head and turned back up the slope the way she had come.

"Where do you think you’re going?" called the lad.

She glanced over her shoulder. "Wherever it is, I’ll get there without your help."

"Go back that way far enough, and you will find the Encroachment. Finding it, you will lose your way, and losing your way you will surely die."

His words snagged her like a net, and the truth she sensed in them lent them added weight. She stared up the through the fronds, and in that instant she felt the same doom and gloom she had been feeling since coming to this odd place even stronger than before. When she looked at the boy he had gone silent, nodding at her that he felt it as well. There was something happening that she had no way of understanding, some evil insinuating itself upon this world by its mere presence. She backed quietly down and across the icy stream.

"Grigs?" she whispered.

The boy shrugged. He stared at her for only a moment before snatching up her hand and dragging her away.

"Come," he said, quietly leading her into the trees on the far side of the stream. "If it is Grigs they do not like the water. Mayhap they will not follow us this way."

Sheila drove slowly because the wind through the opening where the windshield had been caused her eyes to tear up, and even at that speed the roar through the cab of the car sounded as loud as a freight train. They wouldn’t make it far in this shape, and Marguerite was right, Sheila didn’t want to chance getting pulled over and questioned as to how the damage had occurred. She had no idea what she would say, or what Jen might blurt out for that matter-stipulating that they ran into anyone who could even hear or see her. There was no telling whether being crazy enough to believe that a Grig had leapt atop the car and broken out the windshield would be enough to get her locked up, but it just might.

In the outlying industrial area of Hagerstown, Pennsylvania she pulled into an all night convenience store with dawn still an hour away. Slamming the nozzle into the tank, she stared at the bleak, ramshackle concrete warehouses surrounding them. Rusted, iron-framed windows peered anxiously out at the night, and-incongruously-somewhere in the distance a misplaced owl hooted. The sound bothered her, because she sensed that it was more than just a nightbird lost somehow in this manmade forest. The cry of the creature seemed to be a warning.

She shoved the nozzle back into the pump and plopped down in the driver’s seat again, digging through her purse for cash. For a long time-well before Kira or Jen had appeared-Sheila had felt as though the world were collapsing around her, and there was nothing that she could do about it. She had struggled for control in her own life by starting a business and buying a home, taking care of her own little patch of ground. She’d always been a pay-your-bills-on-time, keep-your-appointments, cup-half-empty kind of girl. But now the cup seemed to be draining before her eyes, and bills and appointments didn’t appear all that important anymore.

But there was another secret
side of Sheila that she had hidden away for as long as she could remember, and with each passing second she could feel it wanting to burst forth. The feeble grip on reality that she had clung to for so long as a barrier against madness was slipping, and the presence of her mother and Jen in the car only made things worse. Impossibly worse. They lived in that world that Sheila had so long denied-if
living
was the right word to describe either of them-and now they were conspiring to drag her into it feet first. She glanced toward the store and realized that her mother was inside. What in the world was she doing?

"You carry the seed of an Original," said Jen, quietly.

"What?" said Sheila, spinning in her seat.

"You carry the seed," repeated Jen, both her eyes flashing, "but you also are of the wild magic of this world."

Sheila frowned. "The only magic on this world is the magic of despair and disillusion."

"You know better."

Sheila glared at her. "You don’t know anything about me."

Jen nodded. "I know your past, and I am part of your present. Therefore I will be a part of your future."

"Do you always speak in riddles?"

"Do I? Or do you always refuse to accept things you know?"

"What do you think I know?"

"That you are no more as you seem than I, than Kira, than your mother."

"What you see is what you get with me."

"I see a great deal."

"You certainly are a lot more talkative than when I first met you."

"It is because I am reaching my fulfillment."

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?"

"We all become what we need to become."

"And just what are you becoming?" asked Sheila, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"What is required."

"To protect Kira? That’s your ultimate purpose, isn’t it?"

"That is the reason I was told that I was created."

"So you’ll keep her safe?"

Jen frowned. "That is my purpose."

Sheila nodded. "But we don’t always manage to accomplish our purpose, do we?"

"No," Jen admitted.

"So what do we do to protect her now?"

Jen stared deep into her eyes, and for a moment Sheila felt as though there were someone else, inside her head. She drew back, quivering, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away.

"Do not deny who or what you are. Every ounce of magic is required now."

"I don’t believe in magic," said Sheila, not even able to believe the lie any longer.

"You speak to the dead."    

Sheila sighed, shaking her head. "They speak to me."

"And you have not listened."

"I don’t want to listen! How would you like if it people came to you everywhere, talking, pleading, laughing, crying, and
you
were the only one who could see them?"

Jen held her silence.

"I have to pay for the gas," said Sheila, climbing out of the car again.

But instead of heading directly to the counter where an acne-faced young man sat avidly wrapped up in a Penthouse magazine, Sheila spotted her mother, following a short, balding man around near the coolers. To her surprise her mother was talking quietly to the man who stopped to lean against the cooler doors, resting both hands on his chest as though he were having a heart attack.

"It’s going to be all right," said Marguerite, quietly. "This is your burden now, and you must bear it, but you must also accept that death is not the end."

Sheila could tell that the man didn’t really hear
her mother. But something was happening. She could see it in the tautness of his cheeks, the way his lower lip was locked between his teeth.

"He’s in great pain," said Marguerite.

Sheila nodded. It didn’t take an astrologer to tell her that. Marguerite shook her head as though mind reading were now one of her talents as well.

"He can’t really hear me, but I think I’m touching him on some level."

Sheila jerked her head toward the front of the store. She felt bad for the man, but they had enough problems of their own at the moment. But Marguerite ignored her.

"It really is going to be all right," Marguerite murmured, close to the man’s ear.

The man turned toward Marguerite, but Sheila sensed that he still wasn’t really seeing her, or, if he was, he wasn’t fully accepting what he saw or heard. She knew the feeling well. When he noticed Sheila he tried to pull himself together, straightening, brushing his shirt down with one hand as he shoved a few thin strands of black wavy hair from his eyes with the other.

"Sorry," he said. "I forgot what I was doing."

"That’s okay," said Sheila. "It really will be all right."

She hadn’t meant to echo her mother’s words, but they had a powerful effect. The man jerked as though the floor were electrified, and once more he looked as if he were trying to focus on Marguerite. Sheila felt as though she were on the brink of a high cliff, but was she about to leap to her death, or soar off of it like the nightbird? She thought of Kira, lost and alone, God knew where. Kira had leaped off a cliff for her without thinking.

"Death is not the end," she said, quietly.     

"What?" gasped the man.

"It isn’t. Death is just another step."

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Because I do," said Sheila, sighing. "Believe me. I do."

The man nibbled his lip a little more, then nodded as though he truly
wanted
to believe her. "My wife... she has a cancer. The doctors have tried everything, but there’s no hope. Now she’s come home... to wait for the end."

"It’s a road we all must travel," whispered Sheila, wondering where the words were coming from. Marguerite wasn’t speaking them to her.

She had stepped off the cliff, but rather than falling she felt as though she were drifting upon some high wind current, borne along to some destination she could not yet imagine. For the first time in her life she had given herself up to a destiny beyond her control, and there was both an exhilaration and a terror to the journey that was mind numbing. But she had no choice now but to open herself to this new reality.

"I can’t live without her," said the man.

"You won’t have to. I promise."

"Who are you?" asked the man. "Why are you here?"

"I’m trying to help a little girl."

"A little girl?"

Sheila nodded but offered no more.

"My wife and I love kids. We always have. You have no idea what children mean to us."

"Are you feeling a little better now?" asked Sheila, still wanting to get moving.

She glanced at her mother. Marguerite nodded, but she continued to stare at the man as though seeing a lot more there than Sheila could.

"Tell him about us," said Marguerite.

Sheila frowned. That was definitely a bad idea. The less sane people knew about them the better, but Marguerite was adamant.

"Tell him."

The man took advantage of the silence to introduce himself as Max, and Sheila sighed.

"Max, my name is Sheila , and you’re not going to believe who I am or why I’m here."

She gave him an abbreviated explanation of what had happened, about Kira and Jen and Marguerite. When she finished she brushed her hand toward her mother.

"Can you see her now?"

Max frowned, shaking his head, and giving Sheila a hopeful but wary look.

"No, but I have to admit that before you got here I thought I felt something. Like a guardian angel, maybe."

Sheila chuckled. "I think that would make my mother very happy. In fact I know it does."

"I can fix your windshield," said Max. "I own a glass company."

Sheila wasn’t even surprised.

When they got to the counter Max insisted upon paying not only for Sheila’s gas but also for the sodas and packaged sandwiches she’d picked up for herself and Jen. Max followed her to the car and climbed into the front seat. Marguerite slipped into the back with Jen without bothering to open the door.

"My shop is just up the road," explained Max. "I couldn’t sleep. So I walked to the store for donuts and milk."

Sheila passed a soda to Jen, then dug out the plastic wrapped sandwiches. Max watched as Jen wolfed hers.

"Can you see both of them?" she asked.

"Both? I can’t even see one. I didn’t realize that ghosts ate."

Sheila explained about Jen, and Max shook his head.

"Am I finally going crazy, or is this really happening?"

Sheila chuckled. "It wasn’t that long ago that I was still asking myself the same question, but I’m afraid it’s really happening."

She started the car and followed Max’s directions through the darkened back streets.

"My wife and I have lived over the shop since we got married. We always wanted kids. Planned to save our money and build a nice home outside of town when they came along. But she... My wife can’t have children. I’ve been wondering... since the cancer came, I mean, whether maybe her hurt, all that disappointment, maybe it had something to do with causing the disease. The doctors say no, but sometimes I think they just say what they think you want to hear."

"It meant that much to her, you think?"

"It meant that much to both of us, but I tried to hide it. She took it all on herself as it was. One time... she asked me once if I wanted a divorce. My God."

He stared away outside the window, and Sheila glanced over her shoulder at Marguerite. Her mother shook her head sadly.

"I couldn’t have lived without her. I needed her to understand that. Hell, yes, I wanted children, but not if it meant losing her. Lately we’ve been talking... She’s kind of accepted what’s going to happen, but she knows I can’t. We’ve been discussing..."

Sheila reached out and rested her hand gently on Max’s arm, and he turned back to her.

"It’s going to be all right," she said, wondering why she was so certain.

Chapter 36

Sheila eyed the floor-length mirrors on either side of her nervously as she leaned back in the metal chair until she was afraid it would tip. It was almost dawn outside, the barest glow struggling to illuminate the brick parapet of the building across the narrow back street. After listening to the sounds of Max’s tinkering eking into the shop waiting room for over an hour a sudden quiet quickly became disconcerting. Marguerite sat in the chair beside Sheila, reading a two-year-old People Magazine, but tossing glances toward the open door. Jen stood staring into Max’s workshop. After a few minutes of continued silence Sheila climbed from her chair and went to have a look, nudging Jen aside.