Strangewood (21 page)

She didn't want to talk about it.

"Listen, if you hear from him, please tell him to call
me right away. It's my night to stay with Nathan, so if he's not coming back
tonight, that's okay. But I'm worried about him. He's . . . been a little on
edge lately."

"If he calls, I'll tell him."

The conversation lasted less than thirty seconds longer and
then Emily snapped the phone shut. She laid it on the Formica table and picked
up her quickly cooling broth. Inside, whatever had been mixed with water to
invent that concoction had begun to settle down into sediment at the bottom of
the cup. Her stomach turned, and Emily set the broth back down on the table.

For a moment, she chewed her lip. Her fingers drummed idly
on the table — something close to the old
Lone Ranger
theme song
— and at length she picked up the phone again, flipped it open, and hit
the speed dial for Thomas at home.

The machine picked up. "Hi. It's Thomas. You can take
it from here."

She counted nine beeps, so there were at least three
messages on top of the six she had left. Emily almost hung up; what was the
use? But instead, she waited until the end and tried not to sound as worried as
she felt.

"Thomas, me again. Look, I just want to know how your
appointment went today. I'll be at the hospital all night, and you can try my
cell phone if I'm not in the room. I'm . . ."

Emily sighed, almost didn't say it.

"I'm worried about you."

In the living room of his house in Ardsley, Thomas Randall
lay on the sofa, his head propped on a pair of green throw pillows. The volume
on the answering machine was turned up just enough so he could make out Emily's
words. He didn't move. Hadn't moved, in fact, for nearly half an hour. Instead,
he simply lay there with the television remote control in hand and idly surfed
cable channels.

Eventually, he came across an old episode of
The Twilight
Zone
and paused a moment. He remembered it instantly, one of his favorites.
"A Stop at Willoughby," it was called.

The empty prescription bottle that had held his phenobarbital
lay on its side on the coffee table. Thomas glanced at it as his hand slipped
off his chest and hung loosely down to scrape the carpet. After a moment, the
remote dropped from his fingers, but Thomas didn't even notice.

His eyes closed slowly.

* * * * *

The Up-River leveled out and flowed in a straight line
across the highest peak of the Bald Mountains. This high, there were no trees,
nor even any vegetation. Only the stone and the water that had cut through it
ages and ages ago, before there were any stories to tell. The Up-River ran
across the mountaintop until it reached a sheer cliff that dropped away down
the other side, into the Misty Nothing. A short distance away, a water spout
erupted from the ground itself. This was the source of the Up-River. From
there, it began the long circuitous route that would bring it round to the peak
all over again. For the Up-River coiled around the world like the serpent son
of Loki.

Despite the bright and savage sun, the wind blew cold across
the stone, chopping the water without mercy. At the edge of the water stood an
angry pony, its coat matted with filth, its bones knocking with the chill. A
tuft of green feathers, which sprouted from its head, whipped about in the
breeze, and it stamped its hooves impatiently.

"Damned dwarf," the pony muttered, thick lips
curling back from huge teeth. It stamped again, its deep green tail flitting
back and forth across its rump.

The pony's name was Feathertop. This name was one of the
things that concerned it greatly, and one of the things that had led it to side
with the Jackal Lantern in the current crisis. For Feathertop knew that had not
always been his name. Even a horse was smart enough to realize that a mare
doesn't just dump a foal and name him Feathertop. The feathers weren't very
likely to have been there at birth, and his mother must have had something else
in mind in any case.

No, something or someone had named him Feathertop, and it
certainly wasn't his mother. But if not her, then who?

The question drove a spike of pain through his head, and he
stamped and snorted, then produced a neigh that could be heard even over the
whistle of the wind over the rocks and the rambling of the river. It hurt to
think about. Feathertop was not at all certain he wanted an answer to that
question. In fact, he was rather sure he did not.

But the question had never occurred to him until The Boy had
stopped coming. Had stopped caring. And he believed, as the Jackal Lantern did,
that Strangewood must have The Boy back at whatever cost. If only to make the
question go away.

To make the pain stop.

His fat nostrils opened wider, and Feathertop lifted his
head. He'd smelled something, carried along by the breeze. The scent of The
Boy, but not The Boy. Not exactly. Accompanying it was the rank body odor of
Feathertop's best friend, also known, at times, as “the damned dwarf,” or
something significantly more colorful.

Narrowing his eyes, Feathertop saw the small skiff as it
crested the mountain and began to float along the river toward the tumble into
the Misty Nothing. As the boat drew near, Grumbler paddling furiously to reach
the calm swirl near the riverbank, Feathertop noticed immediately the absence
of his friend's favored fedora.

It occurred to him that now might not be the time to
chastise Grumbler for his tardiness. Not unless he wanted a very large caliber
bullet through his equine brain.

He had also noticed something else immediately, however. Something
about which he could not stop himself from inquiring. As Grumbler jumped out of
the boat into the shallows at the river's edge and dragged the skiff to the
bank, Feathertop looked at him anxiously.

"I have the boy," Grumbler said, huffing with
effort as he pulled the stern of the boat over the rocky edge of the water.

And Feathertop had seen the boy. It was wonderful news. Though
the child was asleep for the moment, it was without a doubt Nathan Randall. The
Jackal Lantern would be pleased. But, still . . .

"Where's Gourdon?" Feathertop asked, staring at
Grumbler, then glancing momentarily at the inside of the skiff and its captive,
before turning anywhere else.

Grumbler grunted and hauled on the skiff. "He lost it. Had
to shoot him."

Feathertop snickered. "He was never the ripest gourd in
the garden, was he?"

Grumbler turned to stare at him, eyes narrowed angrily. His
right hand had strayed beneath his jacket, the tips of his fingers brushing
against the grip of one of his Colts.

"It wasn't something I wanted to do,
shit-for-brains," Grumbler snapped.

Then the dwarf just shook his head and turned his back on
the pony, reaching into the skiff to lift the sleeping boy into his arms. "Swear
to God, pony boy, I just don't know about you any more. Sometimes I think your
little brain's got as bad a case of vegetable rot as that squash head had. You
be careful I don't have to put you down as well."

Grumbler looked down almost lovingly at the boy's sleeping
face and then started off across the cold stone of the mountaintop, the harsh
sun beating down on his hatless head as the wind ruffled his hair. Feathertop
watched him go, the son of The Boy in his arms.

In the distance, across the hard expanse of craggy stone,
rose the rock and wood fortress of the Jackal Lantern. When time was young,
there had been soil on top of the Bald Mountains, and trees had grown from the
soil. Or so the legends had it. All those trees had gone into the construction
of the fortress.

Feathertop shivered, and this time it wasn't the wind but
the very sight of that edifice that sent that chill rippling down his spine. In
every rampart, every gate, every wall, every turret . . . in every damnable
stone, the fortress radiated evil. Like the hellish light burning within the
Jackal Lantern's overlarge head, evil was a beacon behind the battlements.

The pony had always feared old Jack, but there was nothing
to be done for it now. Evil was the only thing The Boy might take note of, the
only thing that might bring him back. Good and evil, it was life or death for
them all, now.

* * * * *

As she followed Broadway down through Tarrytown and
Irvington on her way to her ex-husband's house in Ardsley, Emily began to grow
more and more agitated. The radio played harmless and soulless love songs, and
they grated on her. Long before she took the turn into the well-groomed family
neighborhood where Thomas had moved after the divorce, Emily had turned the
radio off.

In the silence of the car, as the last light of day was
consumed by the night and the darkness swept over her world, Emily's mind began
to race with all the things Thomas had told her. All the things he had seen in
his hallucinations.

Her headlights cut the shadows ahead. The streetlamp in
front of Thomas's house was out, or had yet to snap on in its preordained
obedience. Three houses down, Emily noticed an ache in her fingers and looked
down to see how white her knuckles were and how tightly they gripped the
steering wheel.

She glanced up.

A black, formless shape rocketed toward her windshield.

Emily screamed, swerved, hit the brakes. But too late. The
thing hit the windshield with a wet smack and a crunch that might have been
bone but was most certainly glass. The tires squealed.

Heart convulsing painfully in her chest, Emily tried to
catch her breath, reached up to her face, and found, to her surprise, that she
was crying. Hysteria nearly overcame her, but she fought it back. Her chest
hurt, and she wondered how hard she had hit the steering wheel. She remembered
the sound of the horn now, and was surprised it had not registered at first.

The far right side of the windshield was now covered with a
spiderweb of cracks. Looking at it made Emily feel awfully vulnerable, so she
turned her eyes away. With a deep breath, she opened the door and stepped out
of the car, looking around to see exactly what it was that had crashed into
her.

Stuck beneath the windshield wiper was a single black
feather.

On the ground just in front of the car lay the mangled
corpse of a huge black crow, its blood pooling around it.

Absurdly, Emily thought of Thomas's story, the crow he'd
seen that he truly believed had spoken to him. She even thought it was Dave
Crow, one of the twin birds from
Adventures in Strangewood
. For a
moment, her mind started down a path that would do neither of them any good. It
wasn't uncommon. Anyone who had walked in a cemetery at night or heard a tree
branch scrape the side of the house in the wee hours of the morning might have
entertained the same foolishness. Emily knew better. She shook it off, smiled
at herself, and then looked disdainfully at the cracked windshield.

"I hope there's nothing wrong with you, Thomas,"
she said to the night. "'Cause I'm sure as hell not paying for
that
."

The car was still running, and as Emily opened the door, she
heard a
caw
high above. She craned her neck to look up and saw a black
shape cross the moon. It might have been a bat, if not for the cawing. But it
wasn't a bat. It was another crow, just like the one that had splintered her
windshield, dying in the process.

Its twin.

As he glided over the home of The Boy, Barry Crow's heart
was heavy with anguished guilt and grief. Dave was his brother, his twin. Every
memory in Barry's life was a memory that included Dave.

But Dave had tried to reach the woman. He would have spoken
to her. For those who had allied themselves with the General had realized that
she was The Boy's anchor in this world. If she believed in him, and held on to
him, he might be able to return to Strangewood, along with Nathan. That must
not be allowed to happen. The Jackal Lantern's plan did not include her. There
was no room for her in the story he had been spinning, and so she must not
believe.

If Dave had spoken to her, she might not have heard him at
all. Strangewood had never really touched her, and so she might have been
unable to understand what was asked of her. But they could take no chances. The
woman must not become involved.

She must never believe.

Barry cawed, and a feather slipped from him and drifted to
the ground as though a tear had fallen from his wing.

He had taken his own brother's life so that Strangewood
might live.

Emily had knocked more than a dozen times before she dared
use her own key to gain entrance into Thomas's house. As she stepped over the
threshold, she called his name. The syllables came back to her like an echo
down a canyon, like the roar of the ocean within a hollow shell.

The house was empty of life.

But not empty.

She found Thomas on the carpet in the living room in a
puddle of his own dried vomit. His eyes were rolled up in his head, only the
whites showing, and his breathing was shallow, with too-long lapses between
breaths. The gray streak that ran through his hair above his left ear was caked
with blood, and Emily realized he must have hit his head somewhere.

Unless he had been attacked.

With a gasp, she stepped back and looked around the room. Thomas
believed someone had been stalking him. Now Emily was forced to wonder if he
was correct. For a moment, she stood frozen in the living room above his still
form, vacillating between her fear and her concern for this man with whom she
had brought Nathan into the world.

Then she moved. Whether he'd been attacked or not didn't
matter. The only thing that mattered was that he needed help. She went to the
phone, saw the blinking red light and the little number “10,” signifying the
number of messages he'd received and either ignored or never gotten around to
listening to.