Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) (74 page)

She was a very fierce looking tree, and when she shifted in the sunlight Jack thought he saw a glint of iron within her pale, peeling bark. What sort of a tree had iron inside? Why a tree like that could be entirely rotten and never fall down.

“What were you thinking, imagining that you exist without papers to prove so?”

It was the tallest birch that had spoken. Her voice was like the rustle of a summer breeze through whip-green saplings. Her eyes were dark as knots and her nose a long slender bough that stretched down toward him as she bent with a great groan to where he stood digging his toes into the soil so that he would not shake before her.

“If I don’t exist without papers,” Jack said slowly, “then I ought to be allowed to cross the border. Because if I don’t exist, I’m not really here, am I?”

This seemed to give the birches pause, for the tallest drew her mossy eyebrows down as though she suspected him of trying to trick her. They put their great shaggy heads together, whispering and rustling, sometimes ascending to strange squeaky sounds that rended the ear. Finally, they moved apart and the tall one, who seemed to be their foremost spokesperson, said—

“You’d best be who you say you are, Comrade Ragged, or there will be great trouble for you. Just this one time, we will allow you to cross the border despite your egregious lack of papers.”

He wasted no time starting across the border, the moss squelchy ground that surrounded the roots giving way to his feet. Something moved, curving and sinuous, beneath one foot, causing him to overbalance and fall. His hands sunk into the dripping moss and he felt the movement with his fingers, abrupt and awful. The tree roots were moving and the trees above hissing and laughing, a terrible laughter that sent a strange paralysis through him.

Already one ankle was caught fast in a coiling root, pulling him inexorably down to where he knew he would surely suffocate in the earth and die. Aengus was barking madly and snapping at the roots that coiled and struck out at him, trying to drag him down with his master.

The pressure was terrible, like a horrible squeezing snake sucking the breath out through his skin. He could not believe he had come all this way only to die like this, leaving no trace behind other than a slight disarrangement of earth. Then, blessedly, a hand gripped his hard and a voice said, “hang on tight.” Someone was pulling on him, pulling him free of the terrible death-dealing roots.

He scrabbled along the ground, as quick as he could, but one root still clung, fierce as a wolf’s fangs, around his ankle. Suddenly there was a ringing sound like that of an axe against iron, followed by a terrible shriek and the root was gone from his ankle.

“Come on, hurry, we have to get you clear of these trees!” There was an arm under him and he pulled himself up, dragging behind the creature that had saved him.

They stopped near a hawthorn hedge, and Jack collapsed on the ground, though he made certain to stay a goodly distance from the hawthorn’s roots. The bitter soapy smell of the hedge helped to clear his head. His rescuer was bent over his ankle, inspecting it. It—the creature—was filthy, was his first thought, its hair a great tangle of smokey black and its face and limbs smudged with dirt and the juice of green things. It was not immediately apparent if the creature was male or female, so wild was its countenance and dress. It wore a badger skin tunic and its feet were bare and long-toed as a sloth’s. The cloud of hair was so mad that he thought perhaps he saw a wee owl peeking out between swirls of dark curls.

He drew in a sharp breath and jerked his ankle away for the bone was terribly bruised, and while the creature seemed to mean well, it was not gentle in its ministrations. The creature gave him a sharp look and said, “You will have to come with me. I don’t have the right herbs to heal you, nor the skill, but I know one who does.”

“Thank you for saving me,” Jack said. “Might I ask what your name is?”

“Muireann,” the creature said and Jack gave a sigh of relief, for though it only meant calm sea, it seemed to him it must surely be the name of a girl. She gave him a very direct look, and he saw that, indeed, beneath the skin and the dirt and plant smears, it was a girl.

He stood, hobbling slightly in her wake. Aengus seemed to have no reservations about this new entity, which reassured Jack that she didn’t intend him harm. She set a goodly pace, her legs long and well muscled if slightly scrawny. She wasn’t a great talker, for most of the journey was conducted in utter silence, but she stopped to listen a great deal, cocking her head in this direction or that, though he could not hear a blessed thing.

They walked on until the sun was sinking into the west, the dim settling into the valleys and nooks between rocks and grass, and he could sense the small velvety creatures of the twilight come out, peering from behind shrubs, noses twitching at the strangers passing through their realm. He wondered how much further they had to go, for his ankle hurt horribly and he didn’t think he could go on much longer. Then without warning she stopped, he looked up from the narrow roadway and gasped.

The mound loomed massively in front of him and his heart stuttered within his chest as he recognized it. The old woman had warned him about the people of the Hollow Hills, and here he had willingly followed one straight home. He remembered the legends from his own place, where it was said if you entered into those hills you would return one day to find your world entirely different, with great spans of time having passed and all that had been familiar, all those you had loved, long disappeared. But hadn’t that already happened to him? He no longer knew how long he had been gone, or the way back home. He was already hopelessly lost. All that was left was his pursuit of the Crooked Man. Sometimes, he was so tired and discouraged that he could hardly remember why he chased after such an awful creature.

He followed Muireann toward the mound, for he did not know what else to do, and he was too hungry and too tired, and too homesick to flee on his own into the dark. The land sloped downward as the mound grew ever larger, until it blocked out the sky and the evening’s first stars entirely. He followed the girl down a long tunnel into the earth, deeper and deeper until suddenly they emerged into a long hall that seemed lit with a thousand candles, so bright did it shine. It was filled with the most beautiful people Jack had ever seen. A great banquet was taking place and the light, warmth, and smells of cooking meat and ale overwhelmed him, starved as he was. Everything swirled in front of him in a riot of earthen brown, gilt silver and molten gold. The people were dancing, even the smallest of them, whirling like dervishes or skipping lightly in strange patterns. It was dancing of a sort he had never before seen. And the music was like nothing he had ever heard, so sweet and lamenting that it shivered in his spine and made his throat tight with unshed tears. He had never wanted home so badly as he did now, and he felt his heart crack a little knowing how very far he was from his old room and the lilac tree that grew up past his window, his mother’s laugh that was like bells on a summer night and the scent of his father’s pipe, always letting him know he was safe.

He felt the girl’s hand slip into his own as though she sensed how near he was to tears. She pulled him away from the feasting and music and mad revelry, up a set of winding stairs to a quiet room deep in the castle. Muireann pointed out where he should lie down, and lit a fire in the hearth to remove the chill from the room.

As he sat down on the bed, an old woman entered the room. Aengus lay down beside him, his one black eye and one blue darting about in suspicion at their new surroundings. The woman was hunchbacked and sprouted three whiskers from her chin: one silver, one gold and one black as night. Her arms were the oddest things about her though, for they started at the shoulder as perfectly good people arms and ended in feathers, as if she were half owl, half woman.

Neither Muireann nor Jack said a word, Jack being too stunned to string a sentence together and Muireann seemingly of the opinion that the woman knew her business and needed no guidance from her. The woman bent directly over Jack’s ankle, turning it this way and that with her feathered fingers and making soft sounds, half hoot, half words. Deciding what was needed, she drew a stout length of linen out of her small bag, and laying it on the floor, proceeded to crush a variety of herbs onto it before wrapping it tightly around Jack’s ankle. The red-hot pain lancing through it began to subside at once.

“Thank you,” he said, very quietly, because her kindness and soft touch had undone him and he did not want to cry in front of her though he sensed she was not the sort of woman to be discomfited by a boy’s tears. She brushed a wingtip over his face, soft as a heartbeat, and Jack felt terribly tired, as though her feathers held a sleeping potion. She bundled up her herbs and left.

Muireann had been busy as the woman had tended his ankle for now she held out a goblet to him, a fine silver-chased thing, blackened about its edges with age and use. He wanted the liquid in that cup more than he had ever wanted anything, for his thirst was raging in him, but he remembered all the warnings about the people of the Hollow Hills and shrank back from her offering.

“I know what you’ve heard, Jack,” she said simply. “I know why you’re wary, but it’s not as you think. Time won’t suddenly melt away because of a drink nor a crust of bread—as much as one might wish such things could be, they simply aren’t, neither in your world nor in mine.”

And so he took the goblet, because he was here and tired and so thirsty and he wanted to believe the girl’s words. It held water, water cool across his tongue, water that tasted softly of other things: flowers, honey and the shape of the snowflakes it had once been.

She gave him bread after that, with some cheese and apples, and they ate together. For Aengus there was an earthen bowl of water and a bone still heavy with meat. After he had eaten his fill, Jack had no memory of the room around him or even of lying down, but he slept for what seemed a long time and no time at all, Aengus tucked up tight to his chest.

He awoke on a mattress stuffed with oat straw, the scent of rosemary surrounding him. He sat up and looked around, confused at first, his hand automatically reaching out to touch the rough reassurance of Aengus’ coat. He appeared to be in a tower, built of crumbling stone that had not been repaired in many long years. Small flowers sprouted out of the cracks and a large tapestry covered one wall. At first he thought the wind was moving it, for the tower was airy to say the least, with breezes playing through the cracks and holes.

He walked to the deep window seat and looked out over the land below. The morning was new. There was still dew upon the grass. The river that wound through the meadows beyond was little more than a hazy silver ribbon. But… hadn’t they descended a long track into the mound? How was it that land, trees, and a sinuous river now appeared before him? He rubbed his eyes but the countryside remained, verdant and beautiful, hazed with sun and summer’s warmth. He turned away from the window, disturbed. How could it be summer already when it had been spring only yesterday? Had he slept that long?

He turned to the tapestry, needing to ground himself in something unchanging. It was an old tapestry, tattered, that told the tale of a Knight and a Lady—for weren’t those always the best and the oldest of tales? He crossed the room to look more closely at it, for the wind was moving it in soft, slow ripples, obscuring some of the pictures. What he saw there froze him to the spot. Everything in the tapestry
was
moving, and it wasn’t the simple movement of the wind—the knight trotted up to a castle gate, small puffs of dust rising then settling in the wake of his horse’s hooves, a lady leaned sighing from a tower window, her long hair rippling in the breeze. Small men and women tilled fields, herded cows, or stood in the doorways of tiny huts, smoke coiling from tilted chimney pots. Jack looked closer at the Knight, so close that he could smell the horse and hear the chuff of its breathing and the rattle of the Knight’s mail. The Knight turned in his saddle, as though he sensed Jack’s gaze. Jack drew in a short, sharp breath of shock. He knew the Knight, knew that face, had seen it before… then he realized, it was his own self, aged many years, as though he had waited a lifetime here at that castle gate and was now old and tired, an eternal knight errant, instead of the young man he truly was.

The Knight rose up on the miniature spurs, and Jack wondered how it felt in that world? Was it as if threads were being strained each time they moved, or was that simply their world and they moved with ease inside it?

The Knight was trying to speak to him, but it didn’t matter how close Jack got to the tapestry, he could not understand what he was saying. It seemed urgent though, as if he were trying to warn him. It was then that Muireann came into the room, considerably tidied from the night before though he still thought there was a tiny owl hiding amidst the curls on her head.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” she said. He looked at her more closely than his exhaustion and pain had allowed the night before. Her eyes were the color of spring gooseberries, her skin as pale as new snow and her hair as dark as… well, as night. She had a tiny face, delicate even, when her expression wasn’t as fierce as it had been last evening.

“It’s summer,” he said, feeling strangely awkward suddenly.

She smiled, and it was like watching a translucent blossom open under the sun. “Of course, it’s summer,” she said, “what other season could it possibly be?”

Jack thought there was likely no answer to that so he kept his tongue still. She had brought breakfast and he was ravenous. They sat on the floor of the stone tower, amid the flowers growing from the walls and the watery breath of the mosses and feasted on bread, fruit and strong ale that was as dark as Muireann’s hair. After, she held out her hand to him.

“Come away with me, Jack. I have much to show you.”

And so he took her hand, which fitted into his like a puzzle piece into the center of a picture and followed her down the tower stairs into her world.