Moonlight & Vines
Authors: Charles de Lint
Moonlight
and Vines
By Charles de Lint from Tom Doherty Associates
ANGEL OF DARKNESS
DREAMS UNDERFOOT
THE FAIR IN EMAIN MACHA
FORESTS OF THE HEART
FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM
GREENMANTLE
I'LL BE WATCHING YOU
INTO THE GREEN
THE IVORY AND THE HORN
JACK OF KINROWAN
THE LITTLE COUNTRY
MEMORY AND DREAM
MOONHEART
MOONLIGHT AND VINES
MULENGRO
THE ONION GIRL
SOMEPLACE TO BE FLYING
SPIRITS IN THE WIRES
SPIRITWALK
SVAHA
TAPPING THE DREAM TREE
TRADER
WIDDERSHINS
THE WILD WOOD
YARROW
and Vines
A Newford Collection
Charles de Lint
The city, characters, and events to be found in these pages are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
MOONLIGHT AND VINES
Copyright © 1999 by Charles de Lint
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Edited by Terri Windling
Designed by Nancy Resnick
Grateful acknowledgments are made to: Kiya Heartwood for the use of lines from her song “Robert's Waltz” from the Wishing Chair album
Singing with the Red Wolves
(Terrakin Records). Copyright © 1996 by Kiya Heartwood, Outlaw Hill Publishing. Lyrics reprinted by permission. For more information about Kiya, her band Wishing Chair, or Terrakin Records, call 1-800-ROAD-DOG, or e-mail [email protected].
An Orb Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
De Lint, Charles.
         Moonlight and vines : a Newford collection / Charles de Lint.
                  p. cm.
         “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
         ISBN 0-765-30917-3
         EAN 978-0-765-30917-4
         1. City and town lifeâNorth AmericaâFiction. 2. Newford (Imaginary
     place)âFiction. 3. Fantastic fiction, Canadian. I. Title.
     PR9199.3.D357M67 1999
     813'.54âdc21
98-44610
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
0Â Â Â 9Â Â Â 8Â Â Â 7Â Â Â 6Â Â Â 5Â Â Â 4
“Sweetgrass & City Streets” is original to this collection.
“Saskia” first appeared in
Space Opera
, edited by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough; DAW Books, 1996. Copyright © 1996 by Charles de Lint.
“In This Soul of a Woman” first appeared in
Love in Vein
, edited by Poppy Z. Brite; HarperPrism, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Charles de Lint.
“The Big Sky” first appeared in
Heaven Sent
, edited by Peter Crowther; DAW Books, 1995. Copyright © 1995 by Charles de Lint.
“Birds” first appeared in
The Shimmering Door
, edited by Katharine Kerr; Harper-Prism, 1996. Copyright © 1996 by Charles de Lint.
“Passing” was first published in
Excalibur
, edited by Richard Gilliam, Martin H. Greenberg and Edward E. Kramer; Warner Books, 1995. Copyright © 1995 by Charles de Lint.
“Held Safe by Moonlight and Vines” first appeared in
Castle Perilous
, edited by John DeChancie and Martin H. Greenberg; DAW Books, 1996. Copyright © 1996 by Charles de Lint.
“In the Pines” first appeared in
Destination Unknown
, edited by Peter Crowther; White Wolf Publishing, 1997. Copyright © 1997 by Charles de Lint.
“Shining Nowhere but in the Dark” first appeared in
Realms of Fantasy
, Vol. 3, No. 1, October, 1996. Copyright © 1996 by Charles de Lint.
“If I Close My Eyes Forever” is original to this collection.
“Heartfires” first appeared as a limited edition chapbook published by Triskell Press, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Charles de Lint.
“The Invisibles” first appeared in
David Copperfield's Beyond Imagination
, edited by David Copperfield and Janet Berliner; HarperPrism, 1997. Copyright © 1997 by Charles de Lint.
“Seven for a Secret” first appeared in
Immortal Unicorn
, edited by Peter S. Beagle and Janet Berliner, New York: HarperPrism, 1995. Copyright © 1995 by Charles de Lint.
“Crow Girls” first appeared as a limited edition chapbook published by Triskell Press, 1995. Copyright © 1995 by Charles de Lint.
“Wild Horses” first appeared in
Tarot Fantastic
, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Lawrence Schimel; DAW Books, 1997. Copyright © 1997 by Charles de Lint.
“In the Land of the Unforgiven” is original to this collection.
“My Life as a Bird” first appeared as a limited edition chapbook published by Triskell Press, 1996. Copyright © 1996 by Charles de Lint.
“China Doll” first appeared in
The Crow: Shattered Lives and Broken Dreams
, edited by James O'Barr and Edward E. Kramer; Del Rey, 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Charles de Lint.
“In the Quiet After Midnight” first appeared in
Olympus
, edited by Bruce D. Arthurs and Martin H. Greenberg; DAW Books, 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Charles de Lint.
“The Pennymen” first appeared in
Black Cats and Broken Mirrors
, edited by John Heifers and Martin H. Greenberg; DAW Books, 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Charles de Lint.
“Twa Corbies” first appeared in
Twenty 3: A Miscellany
, edited by Anna Hepworth, Simon Oxwell and Grant Watson; Infinite Monkeys/Western Australian Science Fiction Foundation, 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Charles de Lint.
“The Fields Beyond the Fields” first appeared as a limited edition chapbook published by Triskell Press, 1997. Copyright © 1997 by Charles de Lint.
for all those
who seek light
in the darkness
for all those
who shine light
into the darkness
Held Safe by Moonlight and Vines
Shining Nowhere but in the Dark
I've said it before, but it bears repeating: No creative endeavor takes place in a vacuum. I've been very lucky in having incredibly supportive people in my life to help in the existence of these stories, be it in terms of the nuts and bolts of editing and the like, or on more elusive, inspirational levels. To name them all would be an impossible task, but I do want to mention at least a few:
First my wife MaryAnn, for fine-tuning the words, for asking the “What if?” behind the genesis of many of the fictional elements, and for making the writing process so much less lonely;
My longtime editor Terri Windling, and all the wonderful folks at Tor Books and at my Canadian distributor H. B. Fenn, but particularly Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Jenna Felice, Andy LeCount, Suzanne Halls-worth, and of course, Tom Doherty and Harold Fenn. Short-story collections aren't exactly the bread and butter of the publishing industry these days, but the interest and support they have shown for my previous collections,
Dreams Underfoot
and
The Ivory and the Horn
, are what helped to make them the successes that they are;
Friends such as Rodger Turner, Lisa Wilkins, Pat Caven, Andrew and Alice Vachss, Charles Saunders, Charles Vess, Karen Shaffer, Bruce McEwen, and Paul Brandon who are there to commiserate when I get whiny, and cheer me on when things are going well;
The individual editors who first commissioned these stories: Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Poppy Z. Brite, Peter Crowther, Katharine Kerr, Richard Gilliam, Martin H. Greenberg, Edward E.
Kramer, John DeChancie, Darrell Schweitzer, Neil Gaiman, Shawna McCarthy, Joe Lansdale, David Copperfield, Janet Berliner, Peter S. Beagle, Lawrence Schimel, Ed Gorman, James O'Barr, Bruce D. Arthurs, John Heifers, and Grant Watson;
And last, though certainly not least, my readers without whom these stories would only be soliloquies. From meeting many of you at various readings, signings, and other events, as well as the large amount of mail that arrives daily in my physical and virtual mailboxes, it's readily obvious that I'm blessed with a loyal readership made up of those for whom taking the moment for a random act of kindness is as natural as breathing. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.
If you are on the Internet, come visit my home page. The URL (address) is
http://www.cyberus.ca/~cdl
.
âCharles de Lint
Ottawa, Spring 1998
Bushes and briar,
thunder and fire
.
In the ceremony
that is night,
the concrete forest
can be anywhere,
anywhen.
In the wail of a siren
rising up from the distance,
I hear a heartbeat,
a drumbeat, a dancebeat.
I hear my own
heart
fire
beat.
I hear chanting.
Eagle feather, crow's caw
Coyote song, cat's paw
Ya-ha-hey, hip hop rapping
Fiddle jig, drumbeat tapping
Once a
Once a
Once upon a time
I smell the sweet smoke
of smudge sticks,
of tobacco,
of sweetgrass on the corner
where cultures collide
and wisdoms meet.
And in that moment of grace,
where tales branch,
bud to leaf,
where moonlight
mingles with streetlight,
I see old spirits in new skins,
bearing beadwork,
carrying spare change and charms,
walking dreams,
walking large.
They whisper.
They whisper to each other
with the sound of talking drums,
finger pads brushing taut hides.
They whisper,
their voices carrying,
deliberately,
like distant thunder,
approaching.
Bushes and briar
. . .
âWendelessen
The music in my heart I bore Long after it was heard no more.
â
Wordsworth
I envy the music lovers hear.
I see them walking hand in hand, standing close to each other in a queue at a theater or subway station, heads touching while they sit on a park bench, and I ache to hear the song that plays between them: The stirring chords of romance's first bloom, the stately airs that whisper between a couple long in love. You can see it in the way they look at each other, the shared glances, the touch of a hand on an elbow, the smile that can only be so sweet for the one you love. You can almost hear it, if you listen close. Almost, but not quite, because the music belongs to them and all you can have of it is a vague echo that rises up from the bittersweet murmur and shuffle of your own memories, ragged shadows stirring restlessly, called to mind by some forgotten incident, remembered only in the late night, the early morning. Or in the happiness of others.
My own happinesses have been few and short-lived, through no choice of my own. That lack of a lasting relationship is the only thing I share with my brother besides a childhood neither of us cares to dwell upon. We always seem to fall in love with women that circumstance steals from us, we chase after ghosts and spirits and are left holding only memories
and dreams. It's not that we want what we can't have; it's that we've held all we could want and then had to watch it slip away.
