A Fair Fight (16 page)

“
No, no,” Megan hurried to reassure, like she had so many times a year before. “Nothing serious, nothing rock-band-like.”

“
I...Megan I'm not...” Her mother sighed. “I can't say thinking of your getting involved in the music scene beyond school doesn't still make me nervous. I made mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger. I want to try to look out for you. But you have a talent. A very real talent, and I want to nurture that. I've always been so worried about so many things, but I see you with the nice, responsible boy, and working so hard, and I realize, I need to maybe try to trust you a little more. Because I'd always tried not to make you afraid the way I was. I don't think I managed that too well. I'm sorry I haven't always been a very good mother."

Megan took a few moments, tears welling up in her eyes, trying to figure out what to say. Finally, she just hugged her mother for a long time. She wanted to tell her everything right then, but there was just too much running through her mind to figure out where to start. "Thank you, Mom. I love you. And I want to have a long talk about a lot of things. Including Justin and music and...way too much else. But I really need to do something first, okay?" She finally managed.

Sheila looked a little confused, but nodded. "Okay, honey. I'll be here."

Chapter 23: Shakespeare in the Park

"We couldn't do this at home, in my bed?" Megan asked the pixie, as they moved through the park. Lani and Justin paced some way behind them, intending to stand guard where they wouldn't interrupt. The Count circled above, likewise keeping watch. While there were some quiet places in the park, there was no absolute guarantee of privacy.

"Of course not. We really needed to find someplace really attuned to Mab, to increase the odds she'll notice."

"All of this work to get to the right realm of dreams, or level, or whatever it is, and she might not even notice?"

"The Queen is a busy lady. She has nightmares, prophecies, and cold sores to deliver. I mean, really, if you went to the house of, uhm, someone really busy, like a nurse, or a long-haul driver, or Katy Perry's lawyers, would you just expect them to be there?"

"Okay, no, I guess not. But honestly, does it matter where we start, then, if we're trying to get to a specific place? I'd probably sleep a lot easier in my bed."

"Yes, but we don't want you to sleep easier. We want you to sleep just difficult enough. And meanwhile, increase the chances that Mab or one of her messengers will notice

"And how I sleep changes that?"

"How, where, when... there's other questions, too, but what you sleep is a thing best lef
t
to journalists and philosophers.”

Megan sighed and found a large tree, sitting down and settling against it. "Okay, like this?"

"I don't know. Are you getting sleepy?"

"Not really."

"Then my career as a hypnotist is shot,” Ashling said. “Oh well, cue the music!"

Megan turned on the tablet she borrowed from Lani and put the drive with the audio file in. She set the speakers as loud as she could, glad that the others were keeping watch for hikers. She started to sing with the music, adding the bardic magic elements and letting the harmony help cover for the missing note. It took a bit longer than she recalled the last lullaby taking, but eventually, she started to drift.

A squirrel raced over Megan's shoulder, down her jacket, and then across her legs, before scrambling across the grass, causing her to start awake. Megan shivered with the steady breeze, and glanced up into the darkness at the chittering from the tree above. She could only see flickers of movement, flashes of brown, red, and gray, moving through the thick branches, calling and answering.

Greater awareness started to dawn. The squirrels were a lot louder and more numerous. The branches of the tree were much thicker than those of the tree Megan had fallen asleep against. Looking up, the rest of the tree was orders of magnitude bigger, seeming to extend for a mile or more into the sky.

What she first thought was another squirrel turned out to be Ashling climbing up Megan's sleeve to her shoulder. “Now, we should probably be somewhere within the gates of horn. Stay away from the gates of ivory, and definitely stay away from the gates to your junior high school. Those lead to the dream where you're naked in class.”

“
What?” said Megan.

"Dreams lead all sorts of places. Which aren't really places, but you've moved through the portals and took the Queen's Road last year, so you know how that works."

"Actually, I really don't."

"Even better," Ashling said. "We're in the right spot, anyway. That tree isn't normally here though, so it must be specific to your dream. The squirrels have also noticed you, so either your mind brought a bunch of squirrels with you, or we're on the right track."

"How will we know which one it is? I think the second one, because I don't normally dream of squirrels. Or not until lately.”

"Start climbing, and once you do, don't look down."

Megan stood, turned, and grabbed the first handholds she could, starting to climb. She'd gotten used to the pixie, when acting as a guide, being very serious when she said things like not opening your eyes on paths between worlds, and assumed not looking down was much the same. Even so, her peripheral vision was no longer perceiving any ground around her, like it had just fallen away when she started climbing.

Despite short arms and legs, instead of riding on Megan's shoulder, Ashling scrambled up the tree more quickly than Megan could, guiding the way. Despite her own warnings, the pixie did look back now and then to check on Megan. After what seemed like an hour of constant upward climb without any sign they were any closer to the top, Ashling gestured for her to halt. Megan pulled herself into a branch to rest. "What's the matter?"

"You're climbing without rhythm."

"I'm almost positive that's something else, Ashling."

"No, really. Listen."

Megan closed her eyes, focusing on the sounds around her. At first, she just heard squirrels and the breeze. After several seconds, though, she heard a metallic clang in the distance. A few seconds later, there was another, then another. The timing was slow and steady, not as random as the other noises.

Megan nodded to the pixie, and started climbing again, trying to time her movements up the tree with the metallic sound. As she did, the noise of the wind became less and less random as well, and she started to recognize notes, as she had from the gates of Findias. She started to hum, trying to piece it together. It was familiar, but it took her a while to place it, before she finally realized she was humming along to the Kahales' favorite song, a folk rendition of Kipling's "Hymn to Breaking Strain." At that realization, the noise shifted from notes on the wind to the sound of guitars picking the tune. There wasn't exactly any sign of the tree having a stereo, but dreams were dreams.

Once she picked up on that, the climbing went far easier. Before long, a couple of squirrels joined in, climbing alongside her, pacing Megan instead of scrambling up ahead of her. Not long after, there were four, and then seven, and then at least a dozen, all climbing up the tree around her and Ashling. Finally, as one, they turned, and moved out along a branch instead of continuing upward. Taking it as a sign, Megan moved over to the branch, which was easily large enough to walk on.

When the squirrels all stopped, standing at attention, Megan paused as well. All of the squirrels dropped to three legs, tucking one under them to tip their bodies in approximations of deep bows. When Ashling dropped to one knee and bowed her head, Megan followed Ashling's example, even though she couldn't see any sign of anyone they should be bowing to.

As soon as everyone had taken the more respectful stance, a carriage came tearing down the side of the tree. Eight squirrels served to bear the wheeled vehicle, with four in front, pulling it along, and four tethered to the back, keeping the carriage from tumbling down the tree, as if the vehicle were some odd hybrid of carriage and palanquin.

The tiny vehicle neared, then raced along the side, and then the underside of the branch Megan was standing on, passing beneath her, before the squirrels guided it back around to the top of the branch, in front of the assemblage. Out of the carriage came a figure in a green silk dress over whom Ashling could tower.

The Unseelie King had a voice like chocolate. Queen Mab had a voice like Grandma O'Reilly's red wine.

“
You're going the wrong way.”

Chapter 24: Scratch

Following the carriage down the tree, Megan scratched her hand on the bark, just enough to draw blood. “Ouch.”

A nearly-microscopic hand drew back the carriage's gossamer curtain. “Problem, dear?”

“
Just a scratch,” Megan said. “But you'd think I'd've hurt myself enough for the week.”

"One occasionally has to decide if the journey is really worth the blood spent in achieving it." Mab said, before a change in the scenery of the tree caught Megan's attention—and prompted Mab to add, "No, no. Not that way."

Megan had to navigate well around a section of tree that was coated in frost, with branches thick with snow and ice... save that the ice didn't reflect, and the snow didn't sparkle. The winter ice and snow her father so loved still had sheen and beauty, amidst the chill. This was all just somehow dead. "Where we go, there's a different kind of chill," Mab said. "Unlike Jotunheim, this will spare your fingers and toes, perhaps, but too long, and your spirit may freeze where you go."

Some way further down, there were things moving down amidst the root network, but nothing Megan could make out clearly. There was also a horrible noise that almost drowned out the music, some sort of echoing scraping noise that seemed to come from all over. Trying not to bother Mab too much, Megan whispered to Ashling, "What's all that noise?"

"Fingernails," the pixie whispered back. "Down that way is Helheim. We're not going there. Just one of the neighbors."

"Ah. So... the dead people are scratching at the wood. How's...how's that working out for them?”

“
For them? Not well. But someone's collecting all the chipped-off fingernails for the shipbuilders,” Ashling said.

Megan shuddered but continued down, following to where Mab had turned the chariot, moving along the surface of the roots. When she finally got onto solid footing, she paused to check her hand again, wishing she had Lani's first-aid kit. Thankfully, it wasn't bad.

Despite Ashling's assurance that nothing would get out, she kept watching for something trying to grab at her ankles. Though the carriage had little trouble, Megan nearly slipped a couple of times, finally noticing that, while it wasn't nearly as bad as the frozen section of the tree above, the area she was walking on had collected just enough frost to be slippery, while the rest of the wooden expanse was just wet.

Eventually, they came to a recessed area where several roots had grown together, forming something of a natural, mossy bowl in the wood. The recess was filled with water, with a thin crust of ice formed over the top.

Mab exited her carriage again, walking up to the water, this time using a pushpin like it was a cane. "We're as close as we're going to get just now. But we can have a look."

"So, you're going to use the pool for scrying on somewhere?" Megan asked, kneeling next to the recess.

Mab shifted her pin in her hand, holding on near the point, and using the red circle at the head of the pin to smash down on the ice. The impact mark was small at first, but after two more, a network of cracks started spreading through the ice. "No. I'm going to read the ice. Especially because the ice is misbehaving."

Megan blinked. "How can ice misbehave?"

"This time of year? It should know May Day approaches, and its time nears an end. It should be ready to rest... but instead it spreads. In Svartalfheim, it bridges gaps, it grows. Slowly, easily broken... but this ice... it seems to think there should, perhaps, be six more weeks of winter, and then more." Mab said.

Megan looked between Ashling and Mab. "I think that might be something else."

Mab smiled. "Just so, dear. Better weeks than three years?"

Megan looked down at the cracks in the ice, formed from the impact of the pin. "You said it was cold there? But this is different?"

"Cold it is,” Mab said. “But it will take the cold of the Fimbulwinter before it grows strong enough to bridge the gap between worlds. Until then, well, we can take a look."

“
And until then,” Ashling noted, “The dark elves'll just have to work on their ice-sculpting skills. First snowmen, then world domination."

"Do they sculpt with anything else?" Megan asked, remembering the obsidian hand in her previous dream, the one that seemed like a living statue.

"Only ice and shadow...anymore," Mab replied, without explanation.

"And they're really, really good with ice, which kind of means giving them more of it is extra bad," Ashling began. "Like, their least talented kindergarteners would put those people who make giant ice swans for fancy weddings to shame. Except, you know, people would prefer ice swans instead of ice Professor Moriartys at their weddings, so they couldn't get many jobs. Low job prospects didn't help their mood any."