Summer (13 page)

At first I thought she meant the
sluagh
army. But that didn’t make any sense, because we’d been tracking the ghouls west and Gabby’s attention was focused in the opposite direction. West, from where we’d come, and there was nothing much back there but our hidey hole and the poisonous lake, and beyond that—

“Oh.” I swallowed hard. “Are you sure? I mean, how?
Gone
gone? Are you sure it hasn’t just moved? I mean, it has been, hasn’t it? Moving around?”

She set her back to the east and regarded me with worried brown eyes. “This world is not so large I wouldn’t be able to feel a tear like that no matter where it opened: east, west, south, north or in between. It aches likes a rotten tooth in my head, it always has done, since you forced it open. Nay. The gate’s gone from this world. Closed.”

“Closed.” Richard had tried to blow it shut and failed. I’d begun to think maybe it was something only I could do, shut the door I’d summoned. It smarted my pride a little to be proved otherwise. “There’s no one out here but us.” I gripped my elbows tight to hide a shiver and then shuddered anyway because Gabby’s blood ointment made my fingers stick to the fabric of my shirt.

“Closed from the other side,” Gabby said gently.

“From the other…
galla!
Shit!” Realization hurt worse than poison in my lungs, it was an actual physical pain behind my ribs where I thought my heart lived. “Why?”

Gabby didn’t reply. Either she really didn’t have any answers, or she didn’t have any answers she wanted to share with me. Either way, things were definitely looking grim, mostly because I hate being helpless. Usually, even if I don’t have all the answers, I can at least pretend.

“Fine.” I shrugged. “I’ll just open a new one, once we’ve rescued Aine and Richard. No big deal. I’ve done it once, I can do it again.”

Gabby still didn’t answer, and now she looked at the toes of my boots or the center of her globe or even the black as tar sky. Anywhere but at me. And that’s when I remembered I’d lost my magic.

We trudged uphill as the eerie white moon rose at our backs. The moon or sun or whatever it was reminded me of
sluagh
flesh, more dead than alive and ready to combust at any moment. The higher we climbed the easier the air was to breathe. The trail narrowed along a cliff ledge and then widened suddenly into a horseshoe-shaped plateau, ringed on three sides by stone. Even if the place hadn’t been littered with black feathers and bits of fetid ooze, I could have guessed the Host had spent some time there, resting or reorganizing or whatever it was it needed to do.

The ground was drier, protected by the ring of low stone. The gravel was disturbed, scraped into many large hollows. They’d made themselves shallow nests against the wind. Yes, they’d slept there, and eaten too. There were crumbs mixed in with the gravel, bits of oat and grain that reminded me of nothing so much as granola.

“Not ghoul food,” I let a handful of grain and gravel run between my fingers as we paused to catch our breath. “The
sluagh
prefer blood and bone and sweet meat. Gristle and muscle in a pinch.”

Gabby tilted her head to one side. “More bread crumbs?” she suggested.

“Maybe.” I shrugged. My feet hurt and Gabby’s salve was beginning to peel and fall in flakes from my hands and neck and face, baring my tender skin underneath. We were far enough away from the poisonous lake that maybe it wouldn’t matter, but I still shuddered a little in anticipation of pain. “This is as good a place to stop as any.”

Now Gabby looked surprised. Probably she could walk on forever. Probably she expected me to stagger on in pursuit until I dropped of exhaustion.  Not so much earlier I might have, but ever since I’d learned my best friend had nearly killed himself trying to fix a mistake I’d made in haste, something inside me had grown cautious.

“I need to rest,” I said. Sleep would be good, but I wasn’t sure I’d manage that miracle. “And think. I need a plan.”

Gabby opened her mouth and then shut it again. Probably she knew, as I did, that it was difficult to come up with a plan when there was no indication at all of what lay ahead.

“I could use sleep,” she admitted, surprising me. She glanced around, eyeing the ring of stone with resignation. “This place will do. Wake me when you’re ready to move on.”

She settled in a hollow that had been dug from the gravel by
sluagh
claws, bending delicately in on herself, draping the fold of her gown over the lower half of her face, using her clasped hands as a pillow. It was the curl of a rodent and not the
sidhe
she now was. I had to bite my lower lip to keep back a nervous snigger.

I sat on the ground against a curve of rock. It was warmer down low, away from the shine of the rising moon and fitful, acrid breezes. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but at least I was off my aching feet.

I propped my chin on my fist and considered the
sluagh
debris left behind amongst the shale and wondered what I was supposed to do next.

The cave wasn’t very big. Summer, who wasn’t tall, had to duck her chin to keep the ceiling from scraping the top of her head. Barker had to hunch his shoulders and bend at the knees. She was glad of his fingers still linked with her own because she knew any moment now, he would let go and send her forward by herself.

Lolo’s excited chattering drifted back from up ahead. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he didn’t sound frightened at all, and his excitement made Summer want to grind her teeth. She was meant to be the brave one in the group, the princess returning to Court. Instead she was breaking out all over in goosepimples, shivering even though the seaside cave was anything but chill.

“Did it hurt?” she whispered. “When you came over?”

It was dim in the cave, but not pitch black. Filtered light fell from above onto the narrow, sandy path, picking out bits of buried sea glass in the walls and turning Barker’s red hair orange.

“We didn’t go willingly,” he said, looking ahead down the gently winding path. “So, aye, it wasn’t pleasant. This should be different. You’re crossing between worlds of your own accord.”

“Should be.” Summer rolled her eyes. “You’ve got no clue, have you?”

“No,” Barker admitted. He smiled slightly. Then he released her hand and Summer was on her own. “Ready?”

The shards of sea glass embedded in the cave wall were blue and emerald, but Summer thought Barker’s eyes were greener. He crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his chin in the direction of Lolo’s drifting laughter. The sandy path curved down and around like the inside of an empty nautilus seashell, only the crooked walls were sandstone and jeweled glass instead of smooth pink.

“Yes.” Summer stood as tall as she could without bruising her head on the low ceiling. “Tell Mama”she gulped back a sudden urge to puke right there in the magic cave and on Barker’s fancy biker boots—”tell Mama we’ll fix it.”

A wrinkle appeared on Barker’s forehead, not quite a frown, but close. She thought he sighed but she only really heard the sound in her head. Then he awarded her a stiff half-bow, the same sort he’d always given her papa. He turned and walked away.

Summer stood rooted in place, watching as Barker disappeared up and around the spine of the nautilus. She touched
Buairt
on its chain around her neck. She couldn’t hear Lolo anymore and that realization made her turn and hurry in the direction her companions had gone. More than anything she didn’t want to be left alone with the weight of her burden.

The path dipped sharply down, the turning becoming so tight Summer had to shift herself sideways and edge between sandpaper walls. She wondered how the bull-like friar had managed to make it through. Sand trickled from the ceiling in tiny golden waterfalls. It occurred to her at last that there was no possible way the soft slant of light from above was natural and she felt stupid for not recognizing the magic at once. When she stopped and looked up, shading her eyes with one hand against the rivulet of trickling sand, she found the chips of fairy amber buried in the sand alongside sea glass and broken shell, a wide constellation of honey-colored stars, together bright enough to mimic the fall of mortal sunshine.

Uneasy, she looked away and continued her sideways scrape down into the earth.

“Summer!” Lolo’s excited screech made her jump and knock her scalp on the ceiling. She yelped, the sudden bump bringing tears to her eyes. More sand crumbled from above, dusting her shoulders. “You won’t believe this! There’s an entire ’nother cave down here.
Massive
.
”

All at once Summer knew she should turn back, wriggle her way backwards along the spiral until she reached the shelter of the upper cave, then turn and run away into the morning. She’d throw
Buairt
into the sea, as far past the waves as she could manage, and she wouldn’t let herself care if the necklace sank or washed ashore hours later. She’d walk into town and take a cab to the airport and a plane to the West Coast, or maybe even Europe, and she’d never once look back.

Because her papa was murdered and her mama had honestly never been quite right in the head, and their odd little family had always been Winter’s unspoken responsibility, but now Winter was gone too, probably as good as dead and Summer didn’t really feel much of anything at all except that driving need to run away.

“Hey.” Lolo poked his head around the inside of the nautilus. He was grinning wide and white and eager and his braids were sparkling with traces of amber. “You’re not stuck, are you? I mean, it’s tight, but you didn’t eat that many hotel chocolates.”

“Shut up.” Summer dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands, grinding until the pain chased away the constriction in her chest. “I’m coming.”

The rest of the way forward was a wriggle and a pop and the narrow passage spit her out almost on top of Lolo. He caught her as she stumbled, gripping her elbow to keep her upright. He was stronger than he looked.

She glanced around for Hannah and Brother Dan and was relieved to see they hadn’t moved far from the mouth of the nautilus. They stood together on Lolo’s other side, the changeling hunched in upon herself, shoulders drawn up against her ears. The friar stood with his feet spread and his knees bent, his mass tilted forward. He reminded Summer of a tree buffeted by strong wind, but the air in the cavern was stale and calm.

“What’s wrong?” She clutched
Buairt
, bracing for the worst, but saw only an enormous underground cavern, dripping pale stalactites, pocked here and there with flat blue puddles of still water. The ceiling disappeared overhead, black as the night sky, but the sandstone walls glittered with helpful amber light.

“I don’t remember this place,” Hannah said, hushed.

“Why should you?” Summer retorted. “You were a baby.”

Hannah opened her mouth then shut it with a snap. Brother Dan seemed stupefied by the ceiling. Lolo hadn’t let go of Summer’s arm.

“Well.” Summer shook Lolo off and took three brave steps into the cavern. It was easier to be brave if she pretended she was Winter, so she tried to mimic his cocky swagger.  “Now what?”

For once none of her companions had an answer. Even Lolo kept his mouth shut. Summer scrubbed frustrated fingers through her hair, wincing when she dislodged sand. Then she crossed her arms over her ribs and glared.

“Where’s the Gate?” She scowled first at Hannah and then at Brother Dan. “There should be a Gate, right?”

Hannah’s blank expression didn’t change. Brother Dan let his bushy brows rise and fall.

“I’m no expert in fay magic,” he replied. “But I’ve an eye for measurement and you might think about the ceiling.”

“What about it?” Summer flicked a glance upward and then away. She didn’t like the darkness floating above their heads. It made her remember that caves usually came with bats.

Brother Dan flashed a dry smile. He shoved his hands into the front pocket of his jeans while he studied the perimeter of the cave. “We’re maybe thirty feet into the earth,” he said casually. “Not very deep, not really. Thirty feet below sea level.”

Summer shook her head. She didn’t know what the friar was getting at and she didn’t like not knowing. Lolo caught on before she did. He fished around in the pocket of his jacket and came up with a penlight. She should have guessed he’d be carrying one; he’d lived most of his life sleeping underground.

He flicked the light on and pointed it straight above their heads. The beam was white and narrow and surprisingly strong. It pierced the closest shadows only to get lost again. Summer couldn’t help feeling as though she was looking down into an inky abyss instead of up in search of the ceiling.

“Fairy tricks,” Hannah hissed. “Remember? Willa warned us.”

“She also said the cave was small.” Lolo waved the penlight around, trying to catch a glimpse of anything overhead. “This is the size of a movie theater. It can’t have changed that much in ten years…could it?”

“There are more things on heaven and earth,” Brother Dan murmured. The friar gave up watching Lolo test the shadows and instead crossed to the nearest puddle. Summer trailed after. Brother Dan gripped her sleeve before she could dip a finger in the smooth water.

“Careful.”

“Doesn’t look very deep.” She could see the bottom of the pool, muck and glittering fairy grit.

“Fairy tricks,” the friar echoed. “Fall in and find yourself drowning, maybe.”

Hannah squatted and plucked a stone from the cave floor. Still crouched, she flicked the stone at the puddle. Her aim was perfect. The stone split the surface of the water with a soft plop, sending rainbow ripples to the edge of the puddle. Brother Dan was busy watching the stone as it sank, but Summer found herself staring at Hannah’s still outstretched hand and the amber bracelet hanging on the other girl’s wrist, shocked by a sudden realization.

Barker and his matching bracelet were no longer part of the group. Summer’s own magics were barely strong enough to muffle her footsteps on a leaf littered street.

“Hannah Francis is crazy,” Winter had warned Mama in Summer’s hearing, just before he’d let the changeling into their Manhattan penthouse. “Not the useful sort of crazy, either. She likes fire, and she hates everyone who isn’t Hannah Francis, and she’ll crisp us to grease and bone if she thinks she can get away with it.”

Summer pressed her lips together to keep back a worried squeak. Hannah, still on her heels in the sand, smiled back. It was the sort of smile that wasn’t friendly at all and had way more teeth than necessary.

Not for the first time since she’d watched her papa murdered on Sixth Avenue, Summer wished she’d spent more time learning the Cants he’d tried to teach her and less time with her nose buried in a Vogue magazine.

“It’s gone,” Brother Dan said. “Disappeared five seconds after it split the surface.” He took a step away from the edge of the water. “Lorenzo. Don’t try it. Stay away from the puddles.”

Lolo paused, penlight dangling dangerously over a second puddle. He scowled at the back of the friar’s head. Summer was darkly impressed. Brother Dan seemed to have Winter’s talent for anticipating Lolo’s mischief.

“We might need the light later, stupid,” Summer said before Lolo could toss the penlight into the water just to make a point. “Use your brain. Come on, let’s find the Gate. Brother Dan, could you—you and Hannah—take the far half? Lolo and I will take this half.” She knew it was a cop-out to put the changeling under Daniel’s supervision, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Maybe we’re supposed to jump into the puddles,” Lolo suggested hopefully. “Maybe that rock disappeared because it fell right into Fairyland.”

“Nay,” said Hannah, startling them all. She rose to her feet.  “
Uiscí nimhiúil
. Poison. The priest’s right, stay away from them.”

Lolo’s eyebrows bounced comically over his glare. “Thought you couldn’t remember nothing.”

“I cannot,” the changeling replied, smug beneath the brim of her cap. “But I have a nose. I can smell the poison. Any
sidhe
could. The waters stink of iron and blood. Pain.”

Summer opened her mouth to disagree, then shut it again, uncertain. She could smell salt and sand and Lolo’s constant sweaty musk and a bit of damp, but nothing at all from the puddles. Lolo must have noticed her hesitation because he made another face, then shrugged.

“Come on, day’s not getting any longer. If there’s a way between here and there, we’d better find it.”

It felt to Summer as though they searched for hours, tip-toeing around the edges of the
uiscí nimhiúil
, patting and scratching at sandstone walls, trying to ignore the eerie darkness hanging above their heads. Brother Dan borrowed Lolo’s penlight and used it to peer into fissures no wider than the width of his thumb. Lolo got down on his hands and knees and brushed his palms over the ground like he hoped the door was somehow buried beneath a thin layer of grit. Summer gave up trying to follow him and walked the length of the west wall for the fifteenth time. Hannah, having given up on the search stupidly early, sat criss-cross-applesauce beneath a large stalactite, scowling.

“There’s nothing here.” As usual Lolo was the first to grow impatient. He climbed to his feet, brushing sand from his jeans. “Either Willa and the rest of them are mental, or someone’s having a neat little giggle at our expense.” The last was directed at Hannah, along with a rude gesture.

The changeling stared back. Cut sideways by the shadow of the stalactite, Hannah looked pale and fragile, like one of those fancy Lladro sculptures Summer used to covet as a child. She’d wanted a porcelain swan more than life when she was seven, made Winter walk her past the Fifth Avenue boutique window every day on the way home from school.

Then one day Winter was gone, and so was the Lladro swan, because the display shelf was switched over to kitchen mixers and stainless cooking utensils, and Summer lost all interest. She forgot to want the swan because it was more important to want Winter, but even years later she sometimes dreamed of that curved porcelain neck and the sharp beak, painted black, and when she woke, surprised, she felt no bigger than eight again.

“There’s nothing I desire more than to leave this place and return to my rightful home,” Hannah told Lolo. She sat still as sculpted porcelain and watched him through narrowed eyes. “If I thought I could find my way without
her
you’d all be dead and burnt.” She licked her lips, darting a quick glance between Summer and Brother Dan and back again. “I don’t know the way.”