Forest Moon Rising (51 page)

“W
HAT WAS THAT ABOUT YOU having demon blood in you?” Gollum asked quietly as he helped me negotiate a pile of cave debris that nearly blocked the passage.

I didn’t really need the help, but it felt good to let his strength and height aid me.

I took comfort that I wasn’t alone in these tunnels. There was a malevolent presence here. Resentment. Fear. Greed.

“Um . . .”

“We didn’t tell anyone,” Phonetia said. “The Nörglein figured that out on his own.”

So I told my Gollum how Pete had bound the girls and how Lucia and I had broken the spell. Then I slowly and carefully told him about Lucia and my Noncoiré ancestor; sounding out my own emotions as I spoke. He had a right to know.

“In a weird way that makes sense,” Gollum said. Then he grew silent.

“What? No lecture? No dissertation?”

I sensed his shrug more than saw it. I had to watch where I put my feet on the uneven ground in the limited light.

“I can see the safety lights in the main tunnel,” E.T. announced.

“Thank God,” I muttered.

Help me!
A faint cry in the distance froze me to the bone.

“Did you hear that?” I started shaking. My feet refused to take the next three steps, even though the way was clear.

“Hear what?” Phonetia asked. She stopped too, turning her head right and left.

Get out!
a different voice said; closer this time.

“I don’t hear anything,” Gollum said. He pushed his glasses higher on his nose, as if that enhanced his hearing.

Despair threatened to overwhelm me. Tears burned in my eyes. No hope. No way out. Nothing but this endless darkness, pain, thirst, hunger. Fear. Alone.

I was going to die alone in this god-awful place.

My legs turned to jelly. I sank to my knees weeping. My shoulders felt too heavy to remain upright. I curled in on myself, resting my forehead on the cold earth, not caring that a sharp rock pressed against sensitive flesh.

Gollum knelt beside me, cradling my body against his.

No help. No use.

“Maybe it’s the ghosts,” E.T. whispered.

“They don’t bother with us much,” Phonetia added.

“Father never cleared them out,” Oak added. “He said they kept mundanes from penetrating the tunnels far enough to know just how deep they go.”

“Greed from the gold rush eras intensifies all the emotion of the spirits that refuse to leave,” Doug added. He spun in place, arms extended, palms up, absorbing the psychic emotions.

“Is it true that Doreen is the mother of one of us?” Cedar spoke for the first time.

“Yes,” I said, clinging to the ordinary world of words, questions, and answers.

The heavy ache of despair lifted a little. I was able to pull myself up a bit.

“You’re more sensitive than most to otherworldly creatures,” Gollum said. “We already know you’re a projecting empath. Probably a receiver too. You’ve got to blank your mind to the echoes of the past. They are long dead. They cannot hurt you. There is nothing you can do to help them.”

“I can get a priest down here tomorrow morning and exorcise them,” I replied firmly. Determination returned. I stumbled to my feet. Gollum rose up with me, taking my hand in his.

That little bit of connection to a living human helped banish the weight of the dead. I wasn’t alone.

We moved on, clambering over the last obstacles to the clear passage that rose gradually. Brick archways led to side tunnels; each one the subbasement of a different building. Wooden walls closed off holding cells for the Shanghai shipmasters, and the white slavers.

I guessed we turned west, uphill and away from the river.

I heard footsteps, loud and clear from the northeast. I started shaking again.

Gollum thumbed off his light.

“They’re real this time,” Phonetia whispered. She and her sister melted against a smoothly carved dirt wall, blending with the earth. Becoming invisible. I followed their example, finding worn bricks and crumbling mortar behind me. At times I can become a chameleon. A shift of posture, rearrangement of hair and costume and I blend in, sending questing eyes everywhere but at me.

All three boys did their own disappearing act in a shadowed alcove fitted out with stacks of bunk bed frames, four up on each of three walls with barely three feet walking space in the center. An opium den.

“Probably just a caretaker,” Gollum whispered, drawing me closer with an arm around my shoulders.

“Tess? I know you’re down here somewhere,” Donovan called.

Gollum turned on his light again, aiming it directly into the newcomer’s eyes.

Donovan shaded his brow with one hand as he walked hesitantly out of a side corridor.

“Where’d you come from?” I asked, pushing Gollum’s hand down so Donovan wasn’t blinded by the flashlight.

“I own the building that used to house a saloon with a Shanghai trapdoor. The trapdoor is still there if you know how to find it. But it’s easier to come down the cellar stairs into the basement.” He flashed a grin.

“Shanghai trapdoor?” I mused. “That explains the ghosts.”

Donovan blanched, then recovered his normal aplomb.

“You hear them too, don’t you,” I commented, stepping out from behind the light so Donovan could find me.

“The passage is clear and easy going for about a half mile, then it gets rough, narrow and steep. You up to it?” Donovan avoided the subject of ghosts. He’d probably lived with them every day during the eight hundred years he inhabited a gargoyle statue.

“Did you complete . . . your . . . errand?” Gollum asked. He kept a wary eye on all five of the children.

Donovan nodded mutely. “The old bastard won’t rape any more women, or bind any more men. Lady Lucia made sure of that before we weighted the body with plastic bottles filled with stones and dumped it into the river.” He turned his head away and swallowed heavily.

“I bet that Lucia’s handling of the body wasn’t pretty.”

We all nodded in mute agreement. I swallowed my gag reflex. Motherhood had mellowed Lady Lucia, but only when it suited her. I briefly worried about Sophia’s upbringing with a bloodthirsty demon mother. Lucia was right to give her to me.

Suddenly, I didn’t want that sweet and innocent child growing up like her mother. I’d made my decision and wouldn’t postpone our discussion any longer. We’d figure out the details tomorrow. My feet really wanted to retreat and protect the child.

But I owed Sean a rescue first.

Determinedly, I set a brisk pace through the tunnel. I didn’t look right or left. I didn’t want to know the horrors that had taken place down here when Portland was an ungoverned seaport. Gold in California, gold in eastern Oregon, gold in the Black Hills. All that greed had prompted men and women to behave as badly as any demon.

“Is it true, Mr. Donovan?” Oak asked quietly as we trudged along.

“Is what true?”

“That the Cooper woman is mother to one of us.” Like the boys didn’t believe me.

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

“We don’t know. But when I marry Doreen in two weeks, I will adopt both of you.”

Good for him.

“Unless Tess agrees to marry me first. Then I’ll adopt all five of you.” Donovan flashed me a bright grin. His teeth nearly glowed in the beam of the flashlight. “I’ll give you the saloon as a wedding present and you can turn the tunnels into an amusement park.”

I groaned. “Not a chance, Donovan. I’m spoken for.” I slipped my hand into Gollum’s.

“Isn’t he taken?” Donovan protested.

“Not any more,” Gollum replied. Then he stopped abruptly, playing the light over a seemingly blank brick wall with a pile of dirt and building debris at its base. “End of the road. We’ll have to turn back. Maybe one of the side tunnels,” he said.

The ones filled with ghosts.

“No, it’s not the end of the road,” E.T. said. She surged from behind and grabbed the light from Gollum. “See this crack between dirt and brick?”

Before we could reply she twisted sideways and slithered through. She shone the light backward, illuminating the impassible path.

“It’s easy,” Phonetia echoed. She too slid inward.

“Maybe for you two. You’re vine skinny,” I complained.

“So are you, love.” Gollum pushed me forward. Sure enough the crack was wider than it looked. Rough rock and dirt scraped my sweater, reopening the mostly forgotten sword wound as I inched my way through. Then I popped out into a wider room. I could just barely see steps cut into the rocky slope that formed the back wall.

“Not far now,” Oak said as he too came through the barrier.

“I don’t want to be adopted. Not by you. Not by anyone even if the Cooper woman gave birth to me,” Cedar said defiantly. He blocked Donovan and Gollum from entering the crack.

“Cedar, we talked about this,” Oak said. He sounded worried.

“Who will guard the forest if we give in to these people? Who will tend it with the love and care it needs to protect it from casual bits of harm and major influxes of danger?”

We all stopped and thought about that.

“Cedar, you don’t have to do it all alone. It’s time to let humans help you,” I reassured him. That was a lesson I’d found hard to learn.

“Father says . . . said that humans are incompetent, and more dangerous than fire during a drought.” He stood solid and strong in the wind of my argument.

“The Nörglein never grew with the times. He knew humans with the medieval belief that the forest was a dark and dangerous place to be destroyed or avoided. Because he kept it that way.”

I let that sink in a moment before continuing. “Because of the Nörglein and creatures who didn’t really belong there, the forest
was
a place to be exploited and eliminated for the protection of people and their families. Humanity has learned a lot about the value of the forest. We’re working hard to preserve what we have and restore some of what we’ve lost.”

“You’ve lost too much! The forest we have is barely enough!” Cedar cried. Moisture gathered in his eyes. He truly loved his patch of wilderness.

“I know someone who has trained volunteers to help a forest grow and thrive,” I said quietly. “My aunt, MoonFeather, is a special person. She has an affinity with the natural world. She’ll know how to keep you involved with the volunteers while you lead a more human life in a family. In case you haven’t noticed, Portland . . . the entire state has spearheaded conservation. With your help we can do even more.”

Cedar bit the insides of his cheeks. “I’ll help you tonight because I do not like the minions with tattoos growing marijuana in
my
forest.” He pushed himself through the crack with some difficulty, his barrel chest scraping the dirt hard. “But I will not leave with any of you when you remove the Sean person from my home.”

Donovan reached an arm through and grabbed the boy’s shirt.

“Easy. Don’t force the issue,” Gollum said.

“He only knows threats and violence. He won’t respond to anything else,” Donovan protested.

“All the more reason to break the cycle of threats and violence. Give him a chance to get used to the idea of regular meals, a comfortable home, and family to keep loneliness at bay. There will also be friends, books, TV and movies, more cons and gaming for him to adjust to. Let him think.”

My Gollum knew what he was doing. He planted the seeds of ideas. Only time would tell if they fell on fertile ground.

“We’ll talk later,” Donovan promised.

We pushed upward in silence.

My calves burned from the steep climb. Too often I felt Gollum push my back upward and welcomed the boost.

E.T. and her sister bounced up the steps as if they danced on the flat. I thought I was fit. They put me to shame.

A whiny tenor voice drifted downward:

I recognized the old Irish drinking song about a ship. Taken out of context, as it usually was, it could mean a whole lot of bawdy things.

The girls rolled their eyes and pressed on.

“What?” I mouthed more than whispered.

“Shush. We’re close. They’ll hear us,” Phonetia admonished. “Sound carries strangely here.”

I finally recognized Sean as the off-key vocalist. He wandered around several high notes before finding one he could settle on. Not the one meant for the song.

I can sing better than that,
Scrap said on a yawn as he popped out of nothing and onto my shoulder with precision I hadn’t seen in him before.

“Pinpoint landing, Scrap. Good one.” I relaxed a bit knowing my friend and ally had come back.

Uh, oh. Scrap had lingered in his recovery too long and had to use a bit of time travel to get back to me before disaster struck.

He wouldn’t have risked slipping up on the tricky maneuver if disaster weren’t about to close in on us.