Crossroads (32 page)

Suddenly Sheila understood something else as well.

"How long have the Lost been here?" she asked. "In Otherworld?"

The Elder smiled at her, knowingly. "Forty of your earth years."

Kira nodded. "They crossed over in this direction at the same time the Originals escaped to our world."

"Yes. It was not planned. One of the glasses through which the Originals entered your world happened to be in a place where these children were kept. They had no parents from birth. They were..."

"Orphans," said Sheila, quietly. "They never knew their parents."

The Elder nodded.

"That’s why you stayed here," whispered Kira. "To protect the Lost."

"They had no lives there on your world and no love. It was a terrible place even worse in its way than this one was becoming. I did try to explain the dangers of remaining here to them, but they were only children, and once I heard their stories. I... I find it hard to believe that their lives here could have been worse than what they would have lived there."

"Probably not," admitted Sheila.

"She can’t ever go back, though, can she?" said Kira, nodding toward Cynthia.

"No. Not until it is finally her time to walk that road."

"I guess staying here would be a small price to pay for the gift of life," said Sheila.

"Life is indeed a gift," said the Elder, "but she has received another more precious. Look at her."

Cynthia watched the dancers with eyes as round and sparkling as Christmas tree bulbs. The boys and girls cavorted like Olympic gymnasts, and with each tumble Max’s wife oohed or ahhed, sometimes a twinge of fear darkening her face, her hands reaching out as though to catch the child. Sheila could see love warming the woman’s face, and she saw something else as well.

The Lost were obviously enjoying playing to this crowd of two immensely. She could read it in their eyes and the brilliant smiles on their faces. Here was a pair born and bred to nurture, but a couple that had seen their one dream go unfulfilled all their adult lives, and suddenly before them lay the family they had always wanted, more family than they might ever have wished for, and a family that would never grow up and leave them. And that family
wanted
desperately to be nurtured by this pair. The Elder might have kept them safe for forty years, and they worshiped her for it, but she was a leader, a mentor, not a mother or father.

Sheila wanted to capture the looks on all the faces of the Lost and Max and his wife, and store them away somewhere in her head for all time. She wanted to record the feeling of wonder and warmth she felt so she could replay it again and again if depression ever returned to eat at her soul. When Kira slipped her small hand into Sheila’s and leaned her head on Sheila’s shoulder Sheila stifled a sob.

  "You okay?" asked Clem, leaning on the wooden helm of the
Mary O
, and staring out at the island two hundred yards off the starboard bow. He didn’t want to admit that he’d had to slip a pill beneath his tongue on the run down the path to the dock. Hell, Silky had made the trek in better shape than he had.

The sun was a bright golden ball over the north Atlantic behind them, but there was a nasty looking darkness on the horizon towards the coast, and Clem knew the storm he’d been sensing for days was coming.

"I’m alright," said Silky.

Beneath the comforting glow of the sun Clem felt a little silly now riding out the low rollers, the engine rumbling soothingly beneath his feet.

"What were we running from?" he asked.

Silky shrugged. "Shandan sensed danger."

"But I thought you said none of those Grigs could make it onto the island," argued Clem."You don’t think this Mogul fella has finally made it all the way across-"

Silky stared at him.

"Well... yeah. I mean I understand about the... hitchhiker and all, but you said he was just like a ghost or a shadow or something. Ghosts can’t hurt you... Can they?"

"I don’t know anymore. I wouldn’t count on it."

"How come the Grigs are afraid of water, anyway.?"

Silky sighed, resting both hands on the combing beneath the large ports. "Probably for the same reason the Mogul can’t completely cross over into this world. Because he doesn’t have all these Oculets, yet. I imagine when the Mogul gets his full powers the Grigs won’t be scared of much after that."

Silky pulled the amulet out of his shirt and gave Clem a good look before stowing it again. "These are what he’s after from all the Originals. Some of my friends managed to get theirs to No Legs before they were murdered. The Grigs killed the other Originals and took their Oculets back into Otherworld to the Mogul, but I’m pretty sure until he gets the last one the Mogul can still only cross over in spirit form. Lucky for us if that’s so."

"So can he hurt us in his spirit form or not?"

Silky frowned. "Even weakened, the Mogul is a force to be reckoned with. He overpowered the Originals so quickly that Otherworld was reeling when we left."

"Reeling. But what about the part that you said survives?"

Silky shook his head. "There was one strong willed woman who chose to remain. She could not bring herself to leave the Lost."

Before Clem could ask, Silky explained.

"And these
kids
never age?" said Clem, shaking his head.

"They will eventually die, as all do, but they don’t age."       

"Sounds too much like fucking Peter Pan."

Silky laughed, but it had a hollow, sad sound to Clem.

"The Mogul isn’t Captain Hook," said Silky, "and when he gets here in all his evil glory Peter isn’t going to save us."

"Well, what is?" asked Clem, refusing to believe that there was absolutely no hope.

But Silky shook his head again.

"I don’t know," he said, so softly that Clem could barely hear him over the waves crashing far below them. "Maybe not a goddamned thing."   

Clem frowned, turning the wheel to bring the
Mary O
bow first into a larger wave. The sea was picking up.

"What do you want to do, head for the mainland?"

"Can we stay here for a bit?" asked Silky, staring plaintively toward the island.

Clem could read his old friend’s face, and what he saw there was a mixture of guilt and frustration.... and fear.

"He told us to run," said Clem, quietly.

Silky nodded. "Just a bit longer."

Chapter 42

Kira, watched as the exhausted dancers settled into a circle. Max and his wife joined them. Kira could hear their laughter and low conversation, but she could not make out the words. Jen and Sheila stood to one side, as though they sensed that Kira and the Elder’s conversation was private.

"It was you I saw out on the path," said Kira.

The Elder frowned.

"You disappeared into the trees before the Grig came back for me," Kira insisted.

"Why do you think I was there?"

Kira shrugged. "You have a mirror. Don’t you?"

The old woman watched her without answering.

"The Grig and I crossed from my world to this one through the mirror in Sheila’s car. Sheila, Jen, and the others got here through the mirror in Max’s shop, but I think there has to be another mirror on this side for us to have come out of."

"I was prepared to fight the Grig," said the Elder, "but when you appeared I thought it best that I disappear since I had no way of knowing whether you served the Mogul... I am sorry. I do not have Shandan’s powers, and my vision into your world is misty at best. I have tried to look so many times..."

Her last words carried a grief so heavy as to be almost a sob.

"How do we get home?" asked Kira, realizing the old woman wasn’t ready to answer her. "I forced the Grig into the mirror, but I got sucked in after it. I don’t want to be here."

"But it appears that the mirror wants you here."

Kira had never thought of that. She’d never considered the idea that mirrors were any more than some kind of doors the Grigs and the
Empty-eyed-man
used.

"Why would it want me here?" she asked.

The old woman shrugged. "We cannot always know the why of things. Sometimes we are barely lucky enough to reason out the how or the where we should go."

"I want to go back to my world. We were trying to find a place Jen and I have been looking for since my parents were murdered."

The Elder stared down at her. "How were your parents killed, child?"

"Grigs."

"They came into your world looking for your parents?"

Kira nodded.

"And they have been following you?" continued the old woman.

"Yes."

"And what is this place you search for?"

"Graves Island," said Kira, frowning when the old woman gasped.

"This is what the place is called on your world?" asked the old woman, stepping so close to Kira that Kira could smell something like herbs or spices in the weave of her loose fitting garment. "Why do you seek it?"

"I don’t know. I just know I need to get there. Marguerite says it was owned by my grandfather. Shandan Graves."

The old woman gasped again, sinking to her knees in front of Kira.

"Can it be true?" she whispered, her eyes narrowing. "Your father. What was his name?"

"Rader."

The old woman’s eyes widened, and suddenly she locked her arms around Kira, hugging her tightly. Clearly her father and her grandfather’s names meant a great deal to the Elder.

"So Rader is dead," whispered the old woman, at last.

"Yes," said Kira, sadly.

The Elder squeezed her tighter, then let her go. "Shandan Graves is my soulmate, my husband. Rader was our son, and you are my granddaughter, child."

Kira was stunned, but looking closer she could see her father’s blue eyes, the curious upturn of his lips. Although she barely knew this woman she sensed in that instant that now the Elder would die for her as surely as Jen would, that she would sacrifice anything for the last of her line. Kira felt almost as though she
were
home, as though a small chunk of the great weight of sadness that had been weighing on her shoulders for so long had been lifted. Her throat constricted, her knees felt weak, and her heart pounded in her chest.

"I don’t know what to do," she said, quietly.

Her grandmother nodded.

"I am a Keeper of the Glass," she admitted at last.

"You do have a mirror?"

The Elder pressed a finger to Kira’s lips. "You must be more careful of the word. It is a thing of evil portents, and evil portents bring evil deeds."

"Why do you have a... glass, then?" asked Kira.

"I am one of the last survivors of the Dreamtime. Your father, and your grandfather, and... others, were once great mages in our land. Then came the Mogul, and we were placed into bondage, forced to serve his evil. When Shandan led the exodus out of this world, I remained, but he left me with the one glass...in case. He thought that in that last instant before the Mogul destroyed me I might be able to flee to some other world, but he knew as well as me it was an illusion. Once the Mogul controls all, every world will be as horrible as Otherworld."                   

"Do you think that I can really change anything by staying here?" asked Kira. "Or am I just going to have to run and hide for the rest of my life?"

"I think you are a piece in a puzzle."

"Where do I fit?"

"That is something that you alone may discover. But know this. The child of Rader, the granddaughter of Shandan is not an inconsequential piece. You will surely play an important part in the last Great Game."

Suddenly wide fronds parted behind the Elder and Stomper shoved his head through. His eyes were wide, and his lips pulled back in a nasty leer.

"Grigs come," he snarled.

"Grigs alone?" asked the Elder.

Stomper shook his head. "
He
is not with them."

"I led them to you," said Kira, plaintively.

Was there nowhere she could go where she would be safe? Was it impossible for her to ever know another human being without them being in terrible danger? How was this ever going to end? She feared that she had some idea, and it wasn’t good. 

"Whether that is true or not is of no consequence," said the old woman. "They were due to invade the forest. Today or next week. With you or without you. The invasion was coming. That they come in daylight is an evil omen, but the Mogul cannot leave the forest standing, and he cannot destroy it as long as I or one of the Lost survive."

"What’s so important about the forest?" asked Kira, as the Elder nudged her toward the fronds where Stomper had just vanished. She glanced over her shoulder as Sheila and Jen followed.

The Elder shoved her and Sheila through the fronds into a narrow corridor between the trees where the suns gleamed brightly orange overhead. Jen followed, watching the trail behind them. Through the forest Kira could hear the telltale clicking of untold numbers of Grigs approaching. She fingered the dagger in her belt.

"The forest is the source of the last of the good that resides in our world," whispered the Elder, nudging her along. "The Grigs defile it by their very touch."

The Lost-some alone, some in small groups-appeared amid the trees and vanished just as quickly. Stomper rushed up to the Elder and urged her to hurry. Then he disappeared again as well.

"Where are Max and his wife?" asked Sheila in a worried voice.

"They are being spirited away," said the Elder. "Better that they do not follow us."

"Because we’re what the Grigs
are really after," said Kira.

The Elder nodded.

The forest closed in behind them as though their path had never been almost as if the trees themselves were putting up a defense against the Grigs
.
When they reached a wide chasm over a white rapids the old woman stopped, kneeling beside the base of a very tall fern tree, running her hands along the smooth bark, muttering under her breath. To Kira’s amazement the tree slowly leaned over until it spanned the gorge, and the Elder climbed upon it, offering her hand. Kira stared down into the raging flood far below and shivered, imagining herself falling, plunging beneath the water’s roiling surface, dragged under and away. Jen nudged up closely behind her.