Crossroads (28 page)

Row upon row of metal, floor-to-ceiling racks were laden with windshields and stacked plate glass and Plexi, filtering the flourescent light from what she assumed was an open work area beyond. For over an hour they had heard sounds of metal and glass, padding footsteps, Max humming to himself as he worked.

Now the silence seemed both deafening and threatening.

"He’s taking a long time in there," muttered Sheila.

Jen nodded. When Marguerite slipped beside them Sheila glanced at all the mirrors again, but they still reflected only the waiting room, some of them creating weird corridors of endless reflections that she instinctively turned away from. That was too much like looking into some passage to another, far stranger world. If any world could be said to be stranger than the one in which she now found herself.    

She took one step closer to the shop entrance, but a clicking noise behind her caused her to whirl. Jen caught her as she stumbled.

A door opened beside the front desk and a small, haggard looking woman with sunken eyes, wearing a cotton robe and furry slippers entered the waiting room. She stared at them, then smiled shyly.

"You must be the people Max called up about," she said, in a shaky voice.

She looked as though she might collapse at any moment, and Sheila hurried to her.

"You shouldn’t be down here," she said, quietly. "You don’t look well."

"I’m not well," admitted the woman. "I just wanted to make sure Max didn’t need any help. If I don’t watch him he’ll mess up your bill."

Sheila smiled. "He’s doing fine, I’m sure. Can I help you back to bed?"

The woman shook her head. "I’m stronger than I look. Has he been working on your car all this time?"

"Yes."

The woman frowned. "That’s odd. It shouldn’t take this long for a simple windshield. I’ll just see how he’s doing."

"No," said Sheila, stepping in her way.

But when Sheila glanced at Jen for backup, Jen just shrugged. Well, fine.
She
might believe in unalterable fate, but Sheila wasn’t so sure she didn’t have some input into her own or that of those around her, and letting the woman into the shop just then certainly didn’t seem like a good idea. She glanced at Marguerite for confirmation, but her mother was standing behind the woman now with a stoic look on her face as well.

"Why are you keeping me out of the shop?" said the woman with just a tinge of worry entering her quavering voice.

 Sheila could almost see the disease eating away at her.

"We’re not keeping you out," Sheila insisted, "but Max said you were sick. Shouldn’t you be in bed?"

The woman’s eyes took on a crafty look. "You just sit yourself down. I’ll find out how Max is doing."

But Sheila wasn’t ready to concede defeat. "Let
me
go instead."

"You’ll do nothing of the sort," said the woman. "Customers aren’t allowed in the shop." She nodded toward the sign over the door. "Our liability would kill us. Just wait here."

Sheila gave one last plaintive look at Jen, but there was no help there. Reluctantly she stepped aside, and the woman hobbled away between the tall metal racks, her furry slippers silent as bunnies on the hard concrete floor. Sheila edged beside Jen again, both of them staring into the mirky confines of the shop, watching the woman’s shadow intertwine with the angular silhouettes inside and then disappear.

"Max?" called the woman, her voice echoing sadly.

An almost imperceptible clicking sound seemed to follow her, and Marguerite gasped. Sheila spun on her mother. Marguerite was staring through the doorway with a horror-filled expression on her face.

"I knew it would be soon," she muttered. "I didn’t know how."

"But you know now," said Sheila, glaring at her.

"I foresaw her death, Sheila," said Marguerite, unable to take her eyes off the open doorway. "I didn’t create it."

"Well, then do something to stop it," insisted Sheila.

Marguerite shook her head. "I wouldn’t know how. I can’t stop one of those things. I just tell fortunes."

Sheila spun on Jen. "Stop this. Stop it now."

"I cannot."

"You stopped the Grig before."

"I stopped time. I can do that, but only to protect Kira, and it would not matter if I could do it here. Time always wins."

Sheila listened to the furtive clicking of the Grig stalking its prey. Hot, frustrated rage welled within her overwhelming her fear. She glanced around the waiting room for something, anything she could use for a weapon. In the corner beside the front door rested one long metal side of what must have been a tall, free-standing mirror frame. She grasped it like a club, turning back to the door. Jen and Marguerite blocked her path.

"We must go," said Jen, nodding toward the exit.

"I’m not going anywhere," said Sheila, her grip flexing and unflexing on the sharp edges of the frame. It wasn’t the perfect weapon, that was sure, but it had a sharp point and enough heft to it that she might get a couple of good swipes at the bastard. She wanted to see what Grig blood looked like.

"What’s supposed to happen will happen" said Jen, sadly.

Sheila nodded, shoving through both of them.

"Fine," she said, angrily, resting the frame on her shoulder as she passed into the shop, "let it happen."

Chapter 37

The boy led Kira down a winding slope between thicker stands of fern trees. The claw-shaped crimson moon continued to follow them eerily through the forest. The well-worn path was solid, but as she glanced back over her shoulder she was surprised to see a globulus green mass flow out to cover it. Slowly the amorphous goop formed into ferns. The boy caught her eye and nodded.

"The forest here is still our friend."

"What do you mean,
here?"

The boy shrugged, shouldering aside a thick green frond and holding it for her to pass. "The forest was once vast, but the Lost are no longer safe everywhere."

"Is that what you call yourself?" asked Kira.

The boy chuckled. "You are exceeding strange. You claim to come not from the Citadel, and you know nothing of the forest or the Lost?"

Kira shook her head. "I’m really not from around here."

"Truly. I am called Stomper."

Kira extended her hand. "I’m Kira."

The boy stared at her palm curiously, then turned back to the trail.

"What does Kira mean?" he asked, trudging up a steep slope.

"I don’t think it means anything."

He stopped and stared at her curiously again. "A name must mean something."

"Not where I come from."

"Exceeding strange," he muttered, climbing again.

They crested a low rise, and Kira gasped as she saw the dimensions of the forest where it fell away onto a low plain before them. It might have been vast
once
to the boy, but it seemed pretty big to Kira even now. The fern trees disappeared into the distance, and two great orange suns were just rising to glisten upon the dew-freshened fronds all the way to the horizon. The menacing moon was holding on dearly with two claws, but it looked soon to disappear, and Kira was glad.

"It’s beautiful," she whispered, pointing at the forest.

"It is that," said Stomper, nodding. "Beautiful and sometimes dangerous now."

"Are you taking me to your parents?" asked Kira.

"Parents?"

"Your mother and father."

Stomper frowned. "You speak oddly, and sometimes your words I do not understand."

Kira stared. How could anyone not know the meaning of mother or father? But she noticed something peculiar in the boy’s eyes, as though he
did
understand but did not want to admit it. Why?

"Who takes care of you?"

"Ah," said Stomper, nodding again. "The Elder. You shall meet her."

"This Elder raised you from an infant?"

Again Stomper frowned. "What is infant?"

"A baby."

He shook his head, and Kira made a cradle of her arms.

"A tiny child."

"No one is ever that tiny," insisted Stomper.

His words only made her feel even more lost and alone in this totally alien world. What she had taken to be a cloud shadow near the horizon shifted, and she realized that there weren’t any clouds in the sky after all. The shape was on the distant ground. She squinted, trying to make out what it might be. Stomper followed her eyes.

"The Encroachment," he said, spitting onto the trail.

"What’s that?"

"It is where the Mogul’s power meets the old forest. It grows with each passing minute, and the old forest fades. The Encroachment is not a place you would want to stumble into during the day. And after dark-"

He stopped as though something had caught in his throat, and he shuddered.

"Wait," said Kira, when he turned back to the trail.

Stomper stared.

"Do you know where I can find a mirror?" she asked.

Suddenly his face clouded, and she sensed a threat she had not felt before.

"What’s the matter?" she asked, backing away a step and unconsciously placing her hand upon the dagger.

"Why do you know this word, and why do you test me, thus?" whispered Stomper, his eyes flashing, his fists clenched.

"I don’t know what you mean. Honestly, I didn’t mean to insult you."

"Insult me? Truly you are too different-and possibly too dangerous-for one such as me to deal with, but if you wish to live to reach the Elder, do not speak thus again."

Kira opened her mouth, but Stomper raised one finger, and the hard turn of his jaw told her that if she so much as gasped she would have to use the dagger to defend herself. She nodded, and he led on into the forest, wondering how one so young spoke like such an old man.

Stomper led Kira to a clearing in the fern trees where the ground was covered in more of the odd, alien greenery, but here it looked almost like grass. And when Kira stepped upon it it made the same disconcerting moaning noise she’d heard before. Stomper gave her one of his curious looks until he saw her staring at her feet.

"It’s just Whineweed," he said. "You aren’t hurting it."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because it sings when we dance," he said, motioning for her to follow again.

She did, but the sound still bothered her. She noticed, though, that other faces were appearing about the clearing. Boys and girls, some younger but none much older than Stomper, wearing the same rough clothing, and all bare of feet. She saw no shelters and no fires although the fronds here seemed to all emit a dull phosphorescence, like the dusty gleam of a million lightning bugs. This certainly didn’t look like any place she was going to find a mirror to get herself out of this world, and in fact, after the way Stomper had reacted before, she was reluctant to even mention one.

As they neared the far end of the clearing she noticed that the fern trees grew closer together, the fronds interweaving into something approximating a roof over a wide open area, and several more of the kids were gathered inside, eating something with their fingers that looked gooey and smelled cloyingly sweet. They all stared at her curiously, then turned as more fronds parted, and an old woman wearing a dark robe made of burlap stepped through. She leaned upon a gnarled wooden staff, and her straight gray hair hung to her thin belly, but her dark eyes were as bright as any child in the group. Kira heard a collective gasp, and when she glanced over her shoulder she saw that all the kids-including Stomper-were down on their knees with their faces in the Whineweed. She turned back to the woman, refusing to be cowed.

The old lady regarded her evenly, as though waiting a moment longer to see if Kira would fall to her knees. When Kira didn’t she chuckled.

"So what has Stomper brought me, then?" she said, her voice rattling dryly.

"She knows nothing of the forest, Elder," said Stomper, raising his head only slightly.

"I can see that from the manner of her dress," said the old woman. "Where do you come from, child?"

"From another world."

The Elder nodded sagely. "And how did you get here?"

Kira hesitated. "Through a looking glass," she said, at last, praying that that term wouldn’t get her into trouble.

Apparently it didn’t excite Stomper or the kids, but the old woman’s eye lit up. "And what is that you have in your sash?"

Kira’s hand drifted to the hilt of the knife.

"Do you mean to threaten us?" asked the Elder.

Kira shook her head and jerked her hand away.

"Well that you do not," said the old woman. "We are not so defenseless as we appear."

"She claims to have killed a Grig with the blade," said Stomper.

"Is this so?"

Kira nodded.

"There is much more to you than meets the eye, girl."

"I need to get back to my friends," said Kira, tiredly. "Can you help?"

"Mayhap I can," said the Elder, scratching her chin, "and mayhap it is better that you remain here."

"No!" said Kira. "I have to get back."

"Why?"

"Because it’s what I’m supposed to do."

"And how do you know so clearly what it is that you are supposed to do? Are you a soothsayer?"

"No."

"Do you dream dreams?"

Kira chewed her lip, thinking. "I have nightmares, sometimes."

"I fear that there are naught but nightmares left now."

"What is this place?" asked Kira, realizing for the first time how totally exhausted she felt, her head lolling on her shoulders.

"Bring her to my satch," said the Elder, disappearing back into the ferns.

Stomper and another of the boys caught Kira’s elbows and helped her down the covered path, winding between the thick green bases of the trees, finally leading her into a good sized room within another wall and ceiling of fronds. In places the ground rose up, covered by a soft carpet of Whinegrass, and Stomper forced Kira down upon one of the hummocks. She sat on a  bump that turned out to be as soft as any pillow, although she had to rest perfectly still to quiet the grass.