8 Gone is the Witch (30 page)

“That
-a-way!” Yammer pointed behind us.

“There?” said Tony. “Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. Don’t`cha think I know my way around these parts after two dang years?”

Carlos laughed, but kept his
comments to himself.

I said to Tony, “
We came from there.”

“
I know. That way takes us back to the desert.”

“Desert?” Yammer looked at us as if we had just fallen off the back of a
treklapod. “Why, the desert’s a four day walk that-a-way.” He pointed in the other direction.

“Impossible
.”

“
You know, he may be right,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

I drew his attention to the campfire. “Look where the wind is taking the smoke.”

“Yeah
, towards the desert.”

“
It looks that way, but I’m telling you, we left the desert with the wind at our backs.”

“So?”

“So, it was blowing in from the desert.”

“
The wind changed direction.”

“I’m with Lilith on this one, Tony
,” said Carlos.

“Big surprise. You’re always with Lilith.”

“I, too,” said Ursula. “The way forward is the way of the wind.” She pointed to the trees. All had a slight growth lean favoring the direction of the smoke. “Prevailing winds through desert sands doth coax the mighty tree.”

“What?”

“She’s talking about the prevailing winds,” I said. “They blow constant off the desert, influencing the natural bend in the trees.”

“Okay, fine
. We follow the wind.” Tony gave Yammer a hard stare. “But if we come out at the desert and find we wasted a half day, someone’s going to pay.”

“Yeah, yeah, big man
,” I said. “Come on.” I stood and helped Ursula to her feet. “We should get a move on. It’ll be dark soon.”

Carlos
looked around, puzzled. “It’s always dark.”

“I know, but on every journey someone
eventually says that. I just wanted to get that in.”

We headed out single file
, following the wind and ignoring every instinct telling us that we were backtracking to the desert. Tony took the lead. He was certain we would pop out hours later at the edge of the desert and wanted to be the first to say I told you so. Ursula and I stepped in behind him. Carlos maintained a close tail on us and Jerome on him.

For the first
few hours, things went smoothly. I didn’t recognize a single landmark and nothing about the path we blazed suggested we had past that way before. Then things got strange. I began seeing footprints, our footprints, sunk in the mud an inch or more and dried to a crusty flake.

“Hey guys?” I stopped
and bent down for a closer look. “Check this out. These are ours.”

“Footprints?” said Carlos.

“Yeah.”

“I knew it
,” said Tony. “Told you we came this way before.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean?”

“These footprints are
all pointing in the same direction we’re heading now.”

“
What? Let me see.” Tony got down on one knee to inspect the prints. “How can that be?”

Carlos
looked back in the direction from which we came. “We must be going in circles. It’s the only explanation.”

“
We’re not. Look.” I scratched at the dry ground with my nails. “These prints were made days ago.”

“
Then they can’t be ours.”

“Oh, they’re ours
all right,” said Tony, pointing at one of the larger sets. “See, these are mine. There’s Lilith’s. Ursula’s. These here are yours, Carlos, and look. Those are Jerome’s.”

“So
, what does it mean?”

“It means we’ve been here before
,” I said.

“It’s funny I don’t remember.”

Ursula said, “What shall we do?”

Tony stood and squinted into the darkness
before us. “Let’s go make some memories.”

We pushed on
, following a path that we had obviously traveled before, yet never set eyes on in our lives. I kept waiting for a feeling of déjà vu, some inexplicable sense of familiarity, perhaps triggered by a sight, a sound or aroma previously experienced. Yet even the fear of the unknown seemed fresh and new in a way never before realized.

We followed our footsteps another
hour or so before Tony held his hand up, signaling us to halt. He lowered himself onto one knee again and swept the ground lightly with his hand.

I
touched his shoulder. “What is it?”

His eyes were still scanning the ground
, only now far beyond the reach of his hand. “Strange. There’s another set of prints now.”

“Other than ours?”

“Yes. Looks like we’re being followed.”

“Animal?”

He rolled his eyes up at me. “Man.”

We all turned
instinctively and looked back at the trail behind us. We couldn’t see him, but we could feel his presence, whoever
he
was.

“Forget it,” I said,
hoping to allay fears of something we had no control over. “It’s probably nothing. Likely someone followed the same path days behind us.”

“She’s right,” said Tony, b
ut I knew he wasn’t buying it. The mysterious tracks he found were set just as deep in the mud as our own, indicating they were made at the same time. Still, he played it cool. “Let’s keep moving everyone, but stay vigilant.”

We continued walking, our formation tight at first, but as time
passed, we inevitably spread out. Soon, our line stretched so thin that at times, thanks to the curves in the path, I lost sight of both Tony walking in front of me, and the others walking behind.

I remember thinking that we could
probably all use a rest and stopping would allow us to tighten up our ranks again. I was just about to suggest that, when Tony pulled up short and dropped back to the ground. I hurried to him.

“What now?”

“The other footprints.” He looked up from the tracks. “They’re gone.”

“The follower?”

“Yes.”

Carlos came up behind us. “What’s
wrong, Tony?”

“He stopped following us.”

“Who?”

“The
boogeyman! Who do you think?”

“
That’s good then, isn’t it?”

“Maybe not
.”

“Wh
y do you say that?”

“
There’s another set of prints missing now.”

“
Whose?”

Tony
looked up at us and scowled. “Jerome’s.”

We
all looked back for Jerome. He was gone.

“
Hey, where’d he go?” I asked.

“He was behind me a second ago
,” Carlos answered.

“Look!” Ursula
directed our attention to a new set of tracks heading off into the woods.

“That’s hi
s,” I pointed. “That’s the stranger’s footprints. And look, those are heel marks.”

“
They’re Jerome’s,” said Carlos. “Someone dragged him off. We have to save him.”

“No. Wait
.” Tony snatched Carlos by the wrist and pulled him back. “We can’t go running off into the forest all half-cocked.”

He pulled his gun.
“Then we go full-cocked.”

“
Carlos, no,” I said. “He’s right. We don’t know who or what’s out there. We can’t risk splitting up.”

“
I don’t care.” He jerked his arm free of Tony’s grip and leveled a hardened stare at him. “I’d risk it for you,” is all he said, and ran off into the woods.

Tony
shook his head and took a deep breath. “All right, listen, you two. I want you to stay here and don’t move. We’ll be right back.”

Before I could insert a sarcastic, “Yeah, right,”
into the mix, he was gone. I looked at Ursula. “You ready?”

“Doth thou enjoy looking at my butt?”

“Um, not exactly.”

She smiled devilishly.
“Then move thee thy legs or my butt is all thou shalt see.”

“What?”

She peeled off into the woods in a sprint, gaining a dozen steps on me before I realized what she had done.

“You
bitch!” I yelled, and tore off after her.

Now then, Ursula has never been a
quick runner, always too ladylike for such things. You can blame her seventeenth century upbringing for that. It’s a shame, too, because she’s built exactly like me, and I can run the spots off a leopard.

But to hear her laughing as she ran, having herself a good old time
even in the face of constant danger and imminent death... Well, it made me happy. Crazy, isn’t it? Happiness in the Eighth Sphere?

I
purposely didn’t catch her until she met up again with Tony and Carlos. They were standing on a rocky ledge, overlooking a steep ravine. Ursula was shamefully out of breath. Tony, too. Carlos was breathing heavy, but his concentration had him looking sharp and alert.

Tony
looked at me scornfully. “I thought I told you two to stay where you were.”

“You did
. Don’t do that again.”

“He’s got him,” said Carlos.

“Who,” I asked.

“Yammer.” He
pointed across the ravine. “See that flicker of firelight?”

“
What, that tiny star spec that looks like glitter on a gnat’s ass?”

“Yeah
.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s his campfire.”

“How do you know it’s Yammer?”

“I recognize the stone formation off to the right.”

“Get out
. Really?”

“
Wait,” said Tony. “It took us all day to walk around this entire ravine. How did he get back over there in just ten minutes?”

“
I don’t know, but that’s him. He has Jerome.”

“
So what do we do about it?”

“W
hat do you mean? We go and get him back.”

“How? We
have no way of crossing this ravine. It’s too treacherous to even try.”

“And we certainly can’t go back the way we came.” I
said, tapping my wrist where my watch would have been if I had one. “It’ll take hours. By then Jerome will be...”

“Dead?” Carlos finished.

“Well, I was going to say toast, but whatever.”

“
Shortcut,” said Ursula.

“Excuse me?”

“Aye. What hath he that we hath not, but knowledge of a route much shorter?”

“
Of course!” I snapped my fingers to punctuate my point. “A portal. That would explain the dry footprints.”

“I don’t get it,” said Tony. “Explain it to me.”

“Look. I think the reason Yammer was so surprised to see Ursula is because he had seen her before, and us, too.”

“He had? When?”

“About ten minutes from now.”

“
Wait a second. Slow down. My head’s spinning. How could Yammer have seen us before we walked into his camp, if we haven’t yet walked into his camp?”

“Simple. There’s a
time-space portal around here somewhere. I think he used it after following us in the woods and grabbing Jerome.”

“A
time-space portal, eh?”

“Yeah, a wormhole or whatever you want to call it. That’s how we’re going to get back across the ravine to save
Jerome. If it’s not too late.”

“
What do you mean?”

“Well
...” I made a tisk sound through my teeth and sighed. “You remember that rat Yammer had skewered over the fire?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think it was a rat.”

Chapter Seventeen

We spent the next
few minutes looking for the portal. Funny, you’d think it’d be easy. Just follow the footprints until they end.

Not the case.

“I don’t get it,” said Tony. “The footprints end here, but where’s the portal?”

Carlos said, “Maybe it moved
.”

“How could it move?”

“It could,” I said, reminding him that conversion points were transient. “They come and go as they please.”