Enchanted Forests (47 page)

You're lying to yourself. Mart, she told herself. She was gut-

scared to go in there, to confront her memories—or the lack of

them. But if she didn't face them, how would she ever face her

patients? If you can't do it for yourself, do it for your career.

With her usual skewed thoroughness, she had prepared for her

ordeal. ("You're nuts" she'd been told, but she remembered

her day camp training enough to want to be Prepared. So she had

her pocket phone and her Capstun, illegal as it was, tucked in a

fanny pack. Her Swiss army knife, the one with all the blades.

No pistol, though she'd been tempted: bullets ricocheted on

rocks. And, just for old time's sake, she'd pick up a big stick.

After all, it had worked the last time. Are you really enjoying

this? she accused herself.

It was a nice, tidy arsenal, but she'd have traded all her arma-

ment for her old "utility ring" from outer space.

Martha walked to the pond, still bordered with moss and long

pallid tendrils that an unfortunate exposure to college botany

helped her to recognize as exposed roots. The mud was reddish

brown. There was iron in the soil here, iron throughout the Ma-

honing and Shenango valleys where the burning open hearths of

the great steel mills, after more than a century of wealth, had fi-

nally been quenched.

Nevertheless, right now, the "hairy stuff" and the reddish mud

were the hair and blood of that bogey Mark had scared them

THE MONSTERS OF MILL CREEK PARK   309

with the summer that she was Marty and free, for the last time

in her life: The Monster of Flaboongie. She hadn't thought of

that for years either.

From the softball field near the pavilion shrill voices rose. Still

playing ball, were they? Bless them. She waved. Good: they

would remember seeing her. If only she could piay with them;

but she had never been that good a player.

She waded into the water and toward the first line of rocks.

Water swirled over and around them. The rock glowed gold and

green as the sun pierced the water and struck the stone beneath

Black tadpoles and a few fish fled her ankles.

She planted feet and stick carefully. Up to the next level, then

to the slippery rocks of the next. This is really stupid and dan-

gerous, the grown-up in her mind told her. Nonsense, she told it

back. I'd have to pay to do this in the Rockies. And they'd praise

me for surviving Outward Bound.

Up ahead loomed the cave—or was that really the cave she re-

membered? The rocks didn't seem to slant over the same way,

and the opening they framed was dauntily black. She fumbled in

her pouch for her flashlight, which could double as a club.

She tucked the light between her teeth as she started up the

last course of rocks. Now she hung on with her hands as the wa-

ter poured over them at about the strength of a really good

shower. Despite herself, Martha laughed.

Water splashed in her face. She jerked her head back. For an

instant, as she blinked, a memory returned: she had not climbed

this high. She had been carried.

Her stomach chilled. So the Stranger had caught her after all.

What then? Had he carried her to the cave. and then . -.

She didn't have to know. She could turn around and go back

right now.

And then she would never know, except that she would know

one thing: she had countenanced a lie about herself.

You don't have to think the worst. Not yet. But if you were

carried, it explains how the rocks look different from here than

from below.

Despite the chill of the water, sweat streaked her sides and

face as she pulled herself from the water onto the rock platform

leading to the cave. She wouldn't have to bend over to get in.

That was right. They hadn't had to, and they were tall.

Had there been more than one Stranger, then?

Something splashed behind her. Martha thrust out with the

310 Susan Shwartz

stick, jumped, and scuttled forward. Before she knew it, she had

taken refuge in the cave, her heart pounding.

Her flashlight glowed on a broken bottle, but only one. Why.

it wasn't bad in here after all. No old condoms or needles, noth-

ing but a little mud, some rocks—her knees suddenly went limp,

and she sank down on a rock so well-placed you'd think some-

one set it there on purpose.

She stretched out a little and played the light about the cave.

Her own shadow loomed up, huge with huge feet.

She blinked, and memory flashed across her thoughts once

more me way light and darkness flash together when film breaks

in a movie camera. Huge feet. Big feet.

It wasn't the Stranger who had brought her here at all. It was

someone else. Someone with huge feet- Big feet.

Bigfoot. Sasquatch, though she thought they all lived in the

Northwest.

Apparently not. This one had thrown the man across the pool

and brought her to this ... this refuge. How could she have for-

gotten?

Easy, if she were made to forget

Just as clearly as when she was a child, memory produced the

voice that had spoken in her thoughts.

hurt you?>

Bigfoot had saved her, at considerable risk to himself—and to

his family. There had, she remembered now, been three of them.

Like Goldilocks. If she'd been fearful, so had they. Not, of

course, of the child she'd been, but of the fate a missing child

could bring upon them. So they had fled a wood that they, too,

loved. She hoped they'd made their way up North and found oth-

ers of their own kind-

Martha laughed, surprised at the heart's ease she felt. Despite

the darkness, this cave held only peace. And memory.

How can you be sure?

Little Bigfoot Baby sasquatch. The child she'd been had liked

the bigfoot child. Had traded gifts with him, gifts neither was al-

lowed to keep. H" she could find those gifts ...

Think back, Martha. Think back.

A hollow in the ground. A flat rock. A heavy rock. She trained

her flashlight on the ground. Ahhhhh. There! She was down

upon her knees before she knew it. Her adult strength made

heavy work of what a Bigfoot child had accomplished with ease,

and she pushed the upper rock away. Yes! There was the flat

rock. The bigfoot child had laid it over the treasures two children

THE MONSTERS OF MILL CREEK PARK   311

gave each other, treasures too dangerous to let them keep In all

those years, the rocks had not been disturbed.

Use the stick, idiot. No telling what else might lie beneath that

rock.

She poked the rock aside. A worm slid out. "Eeeuw," said Dr.

Martha Chamey.

And then she bent closer, shining her light on what she saw;

an ivory statue, like an ancient chesspiece or something

prehistoric—Sasquatch in miniature. And, placed lovingly beside

it, the tiny Jewish star her parents thought she'd lost as she fled

the Stranger.

up.>

Tears flowed down her face, making the star twinkle in her

grimy hand. She had, she had returned and dug the treasure up,

but she could never, ever tell the friend whose dad had saved her

from the Stranger.

Unless, of course, she turned into one of those people who

stalked the trails for Sasquatch: some kind of nut. There were

enough nuts in the world; certainly, in saving her, the Bigfoot

dad hadn't meant her to grow up that way. She had been very

carefully brought up, just like his son. Too much so. The cau-

tious creature she had become was never worth the risk they

took. Perhaps, if she had remembered ...

Oh, she did remember now. They'd risked breaking out of hid-

ing to protect her, and all they really wanted was to be left alone.

Nice people, she thought. Decent people she'd have been glad to

have for neighbors. So she would keep this old cache safe and go

away quietly. But she remembered now, and she would do what

neighbors did: she'd repay them.

They had saved her. The least she could do was leave them in

peace. It was the neighborly thing to do. The star she carried glit-

tered. Before she left the cave, she put it around her neck.

/ hope you found the peace you wanted, she thought across the

years. / hope you found it too.

The Memory 01 Peace

by Kate Ellhtt

Kate Eliiott is the author of the novels of the Jaran, in-

cluding Jaran and The Law of Becoming. Upcoming nov-

els include The Golden Key, a fantasy co-authored with

Melanie Pawn and Jennifer Roberson. Dragon's Heart, the

first volume of the fantasy trilogy Crown of Stars, will be

out next year.

Spring came, and with it, clear skies, clear days, and a clear view

of the ruins of Trient falling and rising along the hills in a stark

curve. Smoke rose near the central market square from a fresh

fire sown by the guns of the Marrazzano mercenaries. Jontano

crouched next to the sheltering bulk of a fallen column and

watched the smoke drift lazily up and up past the wall of green-

ing forest that ringed the city and farther up still into the endless

blue of the heavens.

When it was quiet, as it was now, he could almost imagine

himself as that smoke, dissipating, dissolving into the air,

"Hsst, Jono, look what I found!"

He jumped, caught himself, and managed to look unsurprised

when Stepha ran, hunched over, through the maze of the fallen

temple and flung herself down next to him. She undid the strings

of her pack.

"You've never seen things like this!"

But Stepha always bragged. Jontano wasn't impressed by the

pickings: an empty glass jar, six painted playing cards, a slender

book with crisped edges but no writing on its leather cover, a

THE MEMORY OF PEACE        313

length of fancy silver ribbon, four long red feathers, and ten col-

ored marbles.

"That won't buy much flour," he retorted. "Where'd you find

this?"

"You're just jealous I went by myself. It all came from the

Apothecary's Shop, the one midway down Murderer's Row."

"You idiot! Not one thing here is worth risking your life for."

Murderer's Row had once been known as Prince Walafrid Bou-

levard, but no one called it that now, since the entire Boulevard

was well within reach of the cannon and, at me farthest end, the

muskets of the Marrazzanos.

"Everyone said Old Aldo was a witch. Maybe these have

some power."

"Ha! If he was a witch, then why couldn't he spare his own

shop and his own life?" But the cards were pretty. Jontano

picked one up even though he didn't want Stepha to think he ad-

mired her foolhardy courage.

"No one saw him dead. He could still be alive." Her expres-

sion turned sly, and she lowered her voice for dramatic effect. "I

heard a noise, like rats, when I was in the shop. Maybe he was

hiding from me. Everything was all turned over and broken, ex-

cept for that old painting of the forest that hangs behind the

counter. It was the strangest thing, with the hole in the roof and

all, but it still hung there, as if it hadn't been disturbed at all. Not

even wet."

"Here, this isn't wet either," he said, showing her the face of

the card, "and it has a forest painted on it."

"You are jealous! Ha!" But she examined the card with him.

The colors were as fresh as if they had just been painted onto

the card: the pale green buds of spring leaves, the thin parchment

bark of birches, die scaly gray skin of tulip trees and the denser

brown bark of fir, a few dots of color, violet and gold and a deep

purpling blue, marked clumps of forest flowers along the ground.

'1 don't see how anyone could paint things so tiny," said

Stepha.

They use a brush with a single bristle. Don't you know any-

thing?"

Before she could reply, the sky exploded. They both ducked

instinctively. Cannon boomed. A nearby house caved in- A wail-

ing rose up into the air, the alarm, and farther away, smoke rose

from newly-shattered buildings.

Stepha shoveled her treasures into the bag and scuttled down

me hill, dodging this way and that. Jono, still clutching the card,

314 Kate Elliott

ran after her, not bothering to bend over. Not even the famous

Marrazzanos could aim well enough to hit them here, as far

away as they were from the lines, but if a ball or shot happened

to land close by, then it scarcely mattered whether you were bent

in two or running straight up like a man.

He caught up to Stepha just as a great crash sounded from the

ruins behind and a column fell, smashing onto the hollow where

they had just sheltered. Shards flew. Stepha grunted in pain, and

Jontano felt a spray like a hundred bees stinging along his back.

As they darted into the safety of an alley, a double round of

shot hit what remained of the roof of the old temple. It caved in

with a resounding roar. Dust poured up in the sky in a roiling

brown cloud. Then they turned a comer, and another, and ran