Where The Heart Lives (4 page)

And then he looked at her, and
in his eyes, a question. Uncertainty.

“If I go, I won’t be back,”
Lucy said, speaking to them both, but looking at Barnabus. “I know it.”

Knew it like the truth. Just as
with those visions of the day previous, she could feel inside her head the
future tumbling away into a dark cold place, and if she went with Mr. Wiseman,
that would be her fate. Something lonely and awful. Like having her wings cut
after a taste of flying.

Miss Lindsay’s eyes flashed
golden, and this time Lucy was certain it was not her imagination. “You want to
stay here? You’re sure of it?”

Lucy nodded, struggling with
her fear. She knew it was terrible—
she
was terrible—and her father, her father would think
she was just like her mother—
but she did not
care. She had to stay. Something would break inside her if she left this tiny
world within the forest—this dangerous forest—this little place with these
strange and wonderful people who made her felt safe and welcome. If her mother
had felt this way, all those years ago, then Lucy could forgive her. She
understood now, what could drive a woman to abandon all. She understood, and if
it was selfish, then so be it. She would be selfish, and happy.

“Barnabus,” said Miss Lindsay
crisply, “take Lucy to the pond at the bottom of the hill. I’ll handle Wilbur. When
he’s gone, I’ll come fetch you both.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucy said,
suddenly regretting the trouble she was causing the woman. “If
you
don’t want me -- ”

“No.” Miss Lindsay brushed her
fingers across the girl’s forehead. “You are no trouble to me or this family. This
is your home.”

And with that, she turned and
strode away toward the cemetery, where Mr. Wiseman was helping the mourners
unload the coffin. Barnabus tugged on Lucy’s hand. It took her a moment to
follow; she kept hearing those words, seeing those golden eyes, and felt inside
her a flush that could have been what Henry spoke of, that sense of running
away. The grand adventure. Making a new world from the old. She was not
married, but it felt the same: a union, in its own way.

She and Barnabus crossed the
meadow, chased by crows. They climbed a gentle slope through scattered oaks,
and at the crest of the hill gazed down upon a body of still water, blue from
the sky and filled with lily pads and brown ducks. The forest nudged the
northern edge of the pond, but the sun chased back the shadows and the grass
was tall and green.

A rough dock jutted from the
shore. Barnabus and Lucy sat at the end of it, careful of splinters, and
dangled their feet in the water. After a short time, he reached over and held
her hand.

She liked that, and felt a stab
of fear that she might have to give it up. But then she remembered Miss
Lindsay’s calm strength and said, “They’re good people, aren’t they? Henry and
Miss Lindsay. But they’re not…like other folk. Regular, I mean.” She had been
about to say
normal
,
but recalled Miss Lindsay’s feelings about that word.

Barnabus nodded, squeezing her
hand. He did not appear at all perturbed by her question or the implication,
but rather, seemed comfortable with the truth: that Henry and Miss Lindsay
were
different,
inexplicably so, and that it was natural. Like the wind or the moon. She liked
that too.

“How long have you lived here?”
Lucy asked him, jumping slightly as fish nibbled on her toes.

He spread out his fingers. Five,
then two. Seven years.

“And before that? Did you
really live in the forest?”

Barnabus shrugged, gazing past
her at the dense tree line. His mouth moved, but not a sound emerged except the
whistle of his breath. He looked, for a moment, frustrated—and Lucy wondered
what it would be like to have no voice, to have a lifetime bottled up inside
her without words or sound. She reached out, unthinking, and touched his lips
with her fingers. She only meant to tell him it was all right, that he did not
need to explain, but his face was so close and his eyes were so deep and blue,
that she found herself leaning, leaning, until she felt the heat of his breath
and her fingers slipped away, only to be replaced by her mouth.

Lucy had never kissed a boy. His
taste was sweet and hot—toe-curling, a delight. It frightened her, but not
enough to give it up.

It did not last. Lucy heard a
weeping cry, and broke away, staring at the woods. She heard it again, a voice
calling out, and it took her only a moment to find that pale feminine face,
luminous in the rich green shadows of the forest. Lucy leapt to her feet and
ran. She felt Barnabus behind her, but did not look back, afraid if she did the
woman would disappear.

Mary.
A crow shrieked above her head—an animal caw that sounded very human.

She reached the edge of the
forest just as Barnabus caught up with her. She thought she heard Henry
shouting, but Mary was there—right in front of her—and the woman whispered,
“Please, help me.”

Lucy sucked in her breath—fighting
for courage—and jammed her hands through the underbrush toward Mary. Barnabus
grabbed her waist—another set of hands joined his, as well—but it was too late.
Something took hold of her wrists, yanking hard—and the face in front of her
changed. It stopped being Mary, and became instead a shadow, a gasp of night,
like that slithering tendril of nothingness she had witnessed in her vision.

Raw terror bucked through her
body. She tried to pull back, fighting with all her strength. Whispers rose
from the trees—all those voices she had almost forgotten, soaring into her head
like a scream.

Lucy was pulled into the
forest.

***

The first thing she noticed,
when she could see again, was that the world around her seemed quite ordinary. She
was in the forest, yes, but she had been inside forests before, and this was no
different. The shadows were long and the canopy thick, and the twilight that
filled the air was neither gloomy nor particularly menacing. It was simply
dense—with vines of wild rose and new spurting growths of seedlings; poison
ivy, ferns, tiny bowing cedars and those massive trunks of oak that spread fat
like squatting giants all around her. She smelled the earth, something else—like
rain—and the air was still and warm and humid.

Lucy turned in one slow circle,
trying to find the edge of the forest. She was close, she knew she should see
Barnabus or Henry—at least hear voices—but even the birds did not sing, and all
she could see was leaf and branch and shadow.

“Hello?” she called out, thinking
of that creature who had pulled her inside the wood. Fear clutched her throat,
pounding against her heart, but she steadied herself, fought herself, and
regained control. She thought of Mary, too. Trapped here for twenty years. She
wondered if the same would happen to her.

She heard something, and turned
in time to see an immense pale figure part the gloom. A white stag. Tall and
broad, with a deep chest and a long neck that glittered as though sprinkled
with dew. Its hooves had been polished to the sheen of pearls, and its eyes
glowed with a wild raging light. Tiny bells hung from its silver antlers, and
the sounds they made were those same whispered voices Lucy had heard in her
head—now louder, cries and sorrow ringing with every delicate knell.

A woman sat upon the stag. She
was divine: pale and slender, sparkling as though spun with stars and diamonds,
her hair so long it almost swept the ground. A Snow Queen, with a manner that
begged a bow. White furs and silks crisscrossed her high breasts, which were
quite nearly exposed, though covered with faint lines of pale rose, curling
like poems and wings upon the skin below her throat.

She held herself with such
lightness, Lucy imagined she might float to fall, and as the stag stepped near,
Lucy saw that the woman was perched on a fine dainty saddle shaped like a frog.

“Witch” was not the right word
for this woman, Lucy thought. A witch was human. And this…creature…most
definitely was not.

“You are trespassing on the
land of the
Sidhe
,”
said the woman, her voice strong, ringing. “What say you?”

“I say no,” replied Lucy
awkwardly, fighting for courage. “You brought me here. So I was invited.”

A faint smile touched the
woman’s mouth. “You thought you were saving a heart that belongs to me. So you
are a thief. Much worse, I think.”

Lucy steeled herself. “You’re
talking about Mary. Mary doesn’t belong to you.”

The stag shook its head and the
bells wept. Lucy thought she heard Mary’s voice within those tones. She closed
her eyes for just a moment, searching. Listening hard, but when she looked
again at the woman, she was gone from the stag.

A cold hand caressed the back
of Lucy’s neck, and she flinched, whirling. The woman stood before her,
impossibly tall. Her eyes were as green as a spring leaf in morning sun: crisp,
sharp, ageless. She peered at Lucy like she was a snowy owl, and the girl a
mouse, and there was a hunger there that was implacable and terrifying.

“All that enter the forest
belong to me,” said the woman softly. “And now you, as well.”

“No,” Lucy said. “I want to go
home.”

“Home.” The woman smiled. “This
is home.”

“There are people waiting for
me. For Mary, too.”

“Mary,” she said quietly. “Mary
betrayed my trust. She tried to fetch help. You. Quite shocking that you were
able to see and hear her. I find that fascinating.”

Lucy did not. “Let us go. Please.”

“For what reason?” The witch
smiled, tilting her head. “Shall I tell you a riddle and have you guess the
answer? Or perhaps have you perform three impossible tasks, each more harrowing
than the other. Oh, better still, tell me stories to keep me amused. Be my
fool, my jester of the wood, and
perhaps
in a year or twenty I will release you.”

Lucy doubted that. So she said
nothing, instead waiting, watching, refusing to let herself feel a moment lost.
The woman’s smile faltered, just slightly, and that momentary weakness
humanized her presence in ways that made her seem less regal than ridiculous—as
though her shocking appearance was nothing but an attempt to impress, awe, and
intimidate.

Lucy suddenly felt stronger. “I
won’t beg you. I won’t be a fool.”

“You already are,” said the
woman darkly. “You are nothing.”

“No more than you,” Lucy
replied recklessly, following her intuition. Perhaps too well: a cold hand
grabbed her chin with crushing strength, yanking up until she stood on her
toes, forced to look the woman in the eyes.

“You love,” she whispered
harshly. “I can smell it on you. Should we test that love? Do you truly think
the one your heart cares for would wait? That handsome young man who used to be
mine?”

“Barnabus,” Lucy said, hoarse.

“
Barnabus
,”
she hissed. “I raised him long before that old crow sank her claws into his
heart. He was
mine
. My
son
, in every way but
one. But
that
one…he
remembered.”

“He did not love you.” Lucy
could feel it, see it: a little boy with blue eyes running naked and wild,
engaging with the woman, but never with emotion. Never with affection, or a
smile.

The woman glanced away, and
then, softly, almost to herself: “He would never call me mother. He refused. And
so I punished him.”

“You took his voice.”

“I could not have him calling
another by the name he refused me.”

“So if someone refuses you, you
hurt them? What good does that do?”

The woman gave her a sharp
look. “Respect must be shown. I am a queen.”

“You are a queen who is alone,”
Lucy said, and the woman released her so quickly, she staggered, rubbing her
aching chin.

The woman—the queen, the
Sidhe,
whatever that might
be—watched her with cool steady eyes, a gaze Lucy now knew Barnabus copied
well. She met those ageless eyes, letting her thoughts roam, picking up as she
did tendrils of some alternate vision: the woman in her finery, wandering the
endless expanse of forest, alone. So very alone.

“You wanted Henry to love you
as a man loves a woman,” Lucy whispered. “You wanted Barnabus to love you as a
mother. And there have been others, haven’t there? People who caught your eye. You
brought them here, and then you hurt them because you couldn't understand why
they didn’t return what you feel.”

“Love,” whispered the woman. “It
is a myth that belongs only to humans, and those who pretend to be like them. It
cannot last.”

“I used to think that,” Lucy
told her. “Until I met Henry, and I saw how he loves.”

“Henry will give up his wife.”

“Henry will love her forever.”

The woman smiled coldly. “Forever
does not exist for mortal love.”

“It doesn’t exist for
immortals, either,” Lucy said, still listening to that little voice inside her
head. “Or maybe that’s just you.”

The woman sucked in her breath;
the stag backed away, eyes keen on its mistress. Lucy did not retreat. She took
a step, overcome, as though she could hear her soul humming, as though the
world was in her veins, alive and strong. Her heart, full to burst—and she
thought of Barnabus, Henry, Miss Lindsay. People who cared for her. People
she
cared for, in ways she
had not known possible.

She loved them. She
loved
. And she knew what
that was now, even if it was never returned. Even if one day, it all fell away.

The woman flinched, staring at
her. She began to speak, then stopped. Light burned in her eyes, but Lucy did
not falter, nor did her heart dim. The woman turned, and in a muffled voice
said, “Go. Leave.  You have your freedom. I give you my word.”