Widdershins (68 page)

“It’s not that.”

“I have to earn your trust again. I understand that.”

I shook my head. “It’s not just that. You say you had me under an enchantment and I believe you, but the truth is, you almost didn’t need it. Deep down inside, all I wanted these past few years was to not be locked into a relationship with any woman—even one as gorgeous as you. I know that sounds crazy. But really, for all my trying to get you to commit more, I wanted it casual, too.”

“But you were always pushing for more.”

“I know. I did want more. It just took me forever to figure out who I really wanted it with. It took me learning she feels the same way that I do. It took me dying and her crying over the changeling mess that was left of my body—and if that doesn’t bring the point home, I don’t know what could.”

“I’m not going to just give up,” she said.

“We can’t choose who we love—or who we don’t.”

“Don’t you think I know that? Why do you think I’m here? I’m ready to give it all up. The court, magic, everything.”

“You shouldn’t have to change who you are to be with the person you love.”

“No, that’s just the way it works when a fairy falls for a mortal.”

“Galfreya . . .”

She didn’t let me finish. Instead, she just kissed me—a hard and passionate kiss filled with magic, but the magic of a woman, not a fairy. It was demanding and expectant, but yielding, too. And I admit it was a long moment before I finally pushed her away.

What can I say? I’m a guy and she’s a gorgeous woman. We have history. My body responded to her because of it, because it knew the familiar way we fit together. Because it felt right, just the way it always did.

But I did push her away.

“You can’t say you didn’t feel anything,” she said.

“That’s not the point.”

“I think it’s the whole point.”

She stepped toward me again, but I backed off a step.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But it’s too late. Everything’s changed. I want to be with Jilly now.”

She folded her arms across her chest.

“And where is Jilly?” she asked.

“She’s . . .”

I didn’t even know how to begin to explain the world inside Jilly’s head.

I settled on, “She has some stuff she needs to deal with.”

“Without you.”

I wasn’t particularly happy about it myself, but that was neither here nor there.

“It happens,” I said.

I glanced away from her across the mesa top. Christiana was leaning against a pile of rocks that were covered with petroglyphs. Lizzie and Timony were farther away, the doonie studiously trying to pretend that he wasn’t watching us. I turned back to Galfreya.

“There’s not a whole lot else to say,” I told her. “Maybe we should rejoin the others.”

Her gaze met mine, and I saw the world of hurt sitting there in her eyes.

Why now? I couldn’t help but wonder. After all the time we’d been together and she’d never said anything, why had our relationship suddenly become so important to her?

She looked as though she was going to say something else, but then she simply nodded and we started back toward the others. Christiana immediately bounced up from where she’d been sitting.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“It didn’t,” Galfreya said.

And then she disappeared. Took that step from this world, away into another.

Christiana looked confused. “What’d I say?”

“Nothing,” I told her. “But if you were aiming for a career as a match-maker, you might want to consider some other options.”

“But you guys are so great together.”

“I guess we were. In our own way. But . . . everything’s changed.”

“She only did what she did to keep you safe,” Christiana said. “Because she loves you. Granted, she should have talked with you about it first, but come on, Geordie. Give her a chance. I know she’s sincere.”

“I want to be with Jilly,” I said.

“You . . .”

“And she wants to be with me.”

Christiana’s eyes went wide and then she grinned.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she said.

“Why is that so strange?”

She shrugged, still grinning.

“It’s just—well, according to Christy, the two of you have been doing this dance for pretty much ever, but no one ever thought you guys would get your heads out of the sand long enough to realize how perfect you are for each other.”

I smiled. “So you approve?”

“Approve? What does what I think have to do with anything? But yeah. Since you’re asking. I totally approve. Jilly’s going to be the coolest sister-in-law.”

“I didn’t say we were getting married.”

“I know, I know. It’s just a figure of speech. Everything’s good. In fact, it’s great.”

“What’s great?” Lizzie asked as she and Timony came up to join us. “And where did Mother Crone go?”

“Who cares?” Christiana told her. “Geordie and Jilly are finally going to be a couple.”

Lizzie smiled.

“But speaking of Jilly,” Christiana went on. “Where is she? And what was all this crap about you dying and coming back?”

“It’s a long weird story.”

“And we’re in a hurry to go where?”

So we all sat in the shade of the petroglyphs and got caught up with each other’s stories. But the whole time I couldn’t stop worrying about Jilly. I knew—better than anyone, maybe, considering I was the one who’d died—just how powerful Del was. I wanted to be full of hope, but the longer Jilly was gone, the heavier my heart grew.

Joe

There was something solid underfoot
—dirt, he thought, though he couldn’t see it. It just had that rough and uneven texture against the soles of his boots. And he could hear the sound of moving water. A river, maybe. Or waves lapping against a lake shore. There was an echo, so it was hard to tell what it actually was, or where it was coming from.

Everything else was mist. An oddly dry mist that was of no particular temperature, but it certainly wasn’t cool.

Joe didn’t know where he was, but he knew it couldn’t be good. The last thing he remembered was turning, but not quickly enough. That club of Minisino’s caught him on the back of the head and then . . . and then . . .

There was this.

Whatever this was.

Mist. Silence, except for the sound of that water. Nothing to smell. Nothing to see.

All things considered, he could guess where Minisino’s club had sent him. There were stories about a place that lay between the world of the living and wherever the dead go when their time was finally up and done. A kind of holding ground. Supposedly, everybody paused here on their journey. Most went on, took the next turn of the wheel. Those that didn’t . . . they stayed here, or haunted the world of the living. Restless. Unhappy. Unable to go back, unable to move on.

The key here was, you had to be dead to reach this place.

Funny. He’d always thought he’d be looking death straight in the face when his time came. Instead, he’d been taken down by a coward’s blow from behind.

It was his own damn fault.

He should have stayed on track. He should never have let himself get involved in a war that wasn’t going to happen anyway. He should have realized that the ghost buffalo couldn’t cause any damage if they crossed over to the world of the living, and let the fairy courts and buffalo sort it out between themselves.

It didn’t help that nobody else had seen it, either. Not Tatiana or Jack. Not Ayabe. Not even Raven. None of them.

Only that slip of a shadow of Christy’s had her eyes open wide enough to actually see what was going on.

Being distracted as he’d been was no excuse, but what he should have done was forget the buffalo and concentrate on his own business. Family business. The kinds of things that buffalo war chiefs and fairy queens didn’t care about and certainly wouldn’t lend a helping hand to fix because they were too busy creating endless crises of their own.

But it was too late now. He wasn’t going to see either Cassie or Jilly again. Wasn’t going to hunt with Honey, carouse with Jack, shoot a game of pool at Jimmy’s, or have any more arguments with old Jack Whiteduck back on the rez.

That wheel had turned all the way to the end and let him off here.

He turned around in a slow circle, trying to decide where to go. Heading for the water seemed like a good bet. At least it would be a start. Trouble was, he just couldn’t pinpoint where it was. It sounded like it was coming from all around him.

Maybe it was. Maybe he was on an island.

Then he heard something else—the scuffle of a footstep in the dirt. He faced that direction and then there was Minisino, stepping out of the mist.

“Which one of them killed you?” Joe asked him.

The buffalo war chief stopped and studied him without expression for a long moment.

“The big fat black man,” he said finally. “Picked me up with one hand and gave me a shake that broke my neck.”

“Raven.”

Minisino nodded.

The thought that Lucius would avenge him surprised Joe, considering how everything Joe did seemed to annoy him.

“I thought it’d be Jack,” he said.

“The coyote? He tried.”

“You didn’t hurt him, I hope.”

“Didn’t really get a chance.”

“Good.” Joe waited a beat, then added, “So was this the outcome you were looking to have?”

He couldn’t help the dig. Hell, the buffalo’s stupidity had gotten him killed, so Joe felt he was entitled to say pretty much anything he damn well felt like saying.

Minisino glared at him. “Things would have gone just fine if you and your friends had minded your own business.”

“What makes you think it wasn’t our business?”

“You’re a half-breed, but I don’t remember hearing that there was any cerva or fairy blood in that mix.”

“See, that’s where you screwed up,” Joe told him. “You have no respect for anybody but yourself. If you had half the heart you think you do, you’d understand that everything that happens is everybody’s business. You see something wrong, you do something about it. You don’t turn and walk away.”

“What the hell do you think I was doing? Cerva were being killed. I was going to stop it.”

“You know you can’t lie in this place, don’t you?” Joe said.

“I’m not—”

Joe shook his head. “No, don’t even try. Christiana had it right. You just wanted to be the big shot in the campfire stories. Anything you did was for the sake of power. To be looked up to. To be remembered. Tatiana cares more about those poor dead cerva than you ever did.”

“You think you know all the answers, don’t you?”

“No, just a few of the little ones.”

Minisino shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. You died with me today. Maybe you’ve got some big scary spirit power hiding there inside your half-breed body, but in the end it didn’t do you any more good than my army did me. I can still count the coup for your death.”

Big scary spirit power? Joe thought. What the hell was he talking about?

But all he said was, “I don’t think a coward’s blow from behind counts as taking coup.”

“Who cares? You’re still dead.”

Minisino turned away then.

“I’ll see you in the hunting grounds,” he said over his shoulder. “And when I do, I’ll kill you again.” He paused long enough to give Joe a grin. “Maybe that’s what eternal bliss means. I get to kill little pissants like you, over and over and over again.”

And then he disappeared into the fog.

Joe listened to him go. There was the sound of footsteps. Then something being dragged on the dirt. A splash. A creak of wood. More water splashing, this time against something hollow. Then nothing.

He’d launched a canoe. Joe realized. And now he was paddling off into the next turn of his wheel.

He waited a moment, then set off in the direction Minisino had taken. When he came to the place where water met land, he still couldn’t see either. But he did see the bow of a second canoe.

This one was his, he supposed.

He touched the rough cedar of its side, but he didn’t launch the craft. He had no intention of stepping on any new wheel just yet. That mystery could wait. He had unfinished business with the living. He wasn’t sure if he could interact with them—some spirits could, some couldn’t—but he had to at least see them one more time. Cassie and Jilly. Jack. Honey.

He turned and retraced his steps through the mist. Twenty paces later, he stepped in water and only just stopped himself from losing his balance and falling in.

Maybe this
was
an island. Except . . .

He reached forward and there it was. The bow of a canoe. It was either the same one he’d just left behind, or so similar it might as well be.

He turned and set off a third time, and again after twenty paces or so, he was stopped by water and found a cedar canoe.

Interesting.

If there was one thing Joe had a knack for, it was finding things. His sense of direction—whether in the world Raven had made or the otherworlds—was uncanny. It was like he had a compass hardwired into his brain. He never got lost.

But here . . .

He smiled. Well, life was complicated. Why should death be any different?

He looked through the mist, over the water. There was nothing to see. No sound came to him except for the water. Lapping against the shore by his feet. Washing softly against the end of the canoe that was in the water.