Forests of the Heart (59 page)

“They’re right,” she said. “There’s no way we could hope to stop the Glasduine on our own. Go ahead,” she added to Tommy’s aunts. “Only, please. Try to be careful with what you call up.”

“Thank you,” Sunday said.

Zulema nodded. “You could help us. Your own medicine runs strong and by helping us, you would be there to keep watch and sweep away any residue my sister and I might miss.”

“I don’t know…”

“We don’t plan any sort of complicated ceremony,” Sunday assured her. “More a mild form of divination. We only want to call up a memory of the Glasduine’s passage so that we can then track it to where it crossed over.”

Nuala remained reluctant, but gave in. “Very well. I will help you.”

“It would be better if we had a drum,” Zulema said. “Do you have one in the house? We didn’t think to bring one.”

“A drum,” Nuala repeated.

“It will make it easier to connect to the world’s heartbeat,” Sunday explained. “So the
manitou
will hear us.”

Nuala nodded in understanding. “I don’t have one,” she said. “But I do have something else that would work.”

She left them to go into the house. Tommy’s aunts stepped through the rubble to get closer to the wall, with Salvador trailing along behind. Miki took the time to light a cigarette, then she turned to Tommy.

“So do you do a lot of this in your spare time?” she asked.

“Yeah, right. This is as new to me as it is to you.”

“Hey, I could be some big-time sorceress. How would you know?”

He only smiled and shook his head. “And that’s why you work in a record store.”

“It could be my secret identity.”

“Could be,” Tommy agreed. “Just like I’ve got a harem of supermodels waiting for me at home for when we’re done here.”

Miki sighed. “Bloody hell. Can you believe we’re actually here, taking any of this seriously?”

“It’s probably a little easier for me,” Tommy said. “I mean, these are my aunts, after all. The thing is, I just always thought it was stories, all this talk of
manidò-akì
and
manitou”

“Yeah, I had my own fill of fairy tales when I was growing up.”

They fell silent when Nuala returned. She carried a small brassy-looking dish about the size of a salad bowl that Miki recognized from having seen a bunch of them in a shop on Lee Street specializing in jewelry and clothing imported from the Far East. Their stock also included all kinds of incense and soaps, statues and knickknacks, bamboo flutes, meditation mats, but it was the Tibetan singing bowls like the one Nuala was carrying that had really captured Miki’s fancy. The store’s stock had ranged from those tiny enough to hold in the palm of your hand to one so big it would take a couple of husky men to simply lift it.

The shopkeeper had talked about the seven different metals that were used in the casting of the bowls, showed her the wooden stick shaped like a pestle that was used to play it, and then demonstrated how the bowls were used. First he tapped the stick against the side of the bowl, waking a clear, bell-like sound that seemed to ring for ages. But what had really sold Miki on them was when he rubbed the stick around the lip of the bowl. It was like the way you could get a musical note using a wet finger on the rim of a wineglass, but the sound he woke from the bowl was like the voice of the earth itself, a low, thrumming sound that felt as though it was coming up from the center of the world to resonate deep in her chest and belly.

She would have bought one then and there, but if she was to have one, she’d want one of the big ones, and they were selling for a few hundred dollars, which she couldn’t possibly afford at the time.

“What’s with the Tibetan bowl? Tommy asked Nuala, obviously recognizing the instrument as well. “I thought you were Irish.”

“Should we all be defined by only one facet of who we are?” she replied. “Would you prefer to only be known as an Indian? Or the driver of one of Angel’s vans? As an abused child? As a recovered alcoholic? Or aren’t you all these things and more?”

Tommy flushed. “How do you know all this?”

“How can she not?” Sunday said, laying a hand on his shoulder. She gave Nuala a small, respectful bow. “I see now that you are a
manitou
yourself. Far from home, perhaps, but no less venerable because of that.”

Nuala gave a dismissive wave with her hand. “I’m only a housekeeper.”

“And I am an only child,” Sunday replied.

Nuala sighed. “We are all who we are, none of us more important than the other.”

But Tommy’s eyes had gone wide. Miki knew exactly how he was feeling because she was still stumbling over Sunday describing the housekeeper as belonging to the spiritworld.

“Wait a sec’,” she said. “Do you mean—”

“We don’t have time for this,” Zulema said, interrupting.

Nuala nodded. She sat down on a piece of the wall. With the bowl on her lap, she began to caress its perimeter with the stick. Within moments the circular motion woke up a deep, resonant drone that seemed far out of proportion for the size of the bowl. Sunday and Zulema sat on their heels in front of Nuala so that the three of them made up the points of a triangle. Miki and the others stood back, watching.

Sunday took smudgesticks out of her pocket and gave one to her sister. When they lit them, the sweet smell of cedar and sage filled the air. Miki shook her head. Anyone looking at them would think they were getting soaked by the freezing rain that continued to fall a heartbeat away from wherever it was that they were standing, but here they were, untouched by the weather and dry enough to be burning smudgesticks.

Sunday and Zulema began to chant, their voices rising and falling in twinned cadences that played against the thrumming drone that came from the bowl. Nuala remained silent, but her eyes were closed in concentration.

“What’re they saying?” Miki whispered to Tommy.

“I don’t know exactly. Calling on the spirits to help, I’m guessing.”

“We’re not going to see them, are we?” Miki asked. “I mean, they’re not going to actually show up or anything, right?”

Salvador leaned close to catch Tommy’s answer, a worried look in his features.

“I don’t think so …”

“Todo está loco,”
Salvador muttered.

Miki didn’t really know any Spanish, but it wasn’t hard to figure out what he’d said. Things
were
crazy.

“No kidding,” she said.

And then the strangeness factor got cranked up yet another notch.

The chanting suddenly broke off. The hum of the bowl took longer to fade, although Nuala had removed the stick from its rim long moments before.

Turning back to look at the wall of the house, Miki and the others were just in time to see a flood of light come spilling through the makeshift wooden barrier that had been built over the hole the Glasduine had made when escaping. It was a dazzling display made up of a thousand different shades of green, veined with blue and gold and amber bands, all of it shimmering and shifting. The light hung there by the wall, a throbbing glow that swelled with each rhythmic pulse until it suddenly sped off across the lawn, disappearing into the trees. In its wake it left behind a pathway of that same green and gold light that undulated from the wall of the house to where it ran into the woods. It was like a ribbon touched by a constant breeze, four feet across. light in which colors glimmered and flared, watching.

The three women backed away from it until they were standing near Miki and the others.

“This isn’t right,” Zulema said.

Sunday nodded, turning to Nuala. “Believe me. This is nothing we called up.”

‘It’s easy to see now that

“I know,” the housekeeper said, her voice tired. it was there all along—invisible until we allowed it to manifest itself. I knew we should have left well enough alone.”

“But what
is
it?” Miki wanted to know.

She walked up closer to it. The pulsing of the colors woke an odd yearning inside her. They put her in mind of childhood days when she was able to escape the pubs and kitchens where her uncle held court, and her father drank himself senseless. The smell of peat came to her. The rich greens of hills.

“It has something to do with the Glasduine,” Nuala said. “I can feel its presence in that light.”

Miki glanced at her before returning her gaze to the mesmerizing ribbon of light.

“But the Glasduine’s evil,” she said. “Isn’t that what you told us? This doesn’t feel evil at all.”

“No,” Nuala agreed. “It simply is.”

Sunday nodded. “This is the thread connecting the Glasduine to the place from which it was drawn.”

“You mean like some kind of spiritual umbilical cord?” Tommy asked.

“Pretty much,” Zulema told him.

“It almost looks like you could pick it up,” Miki said. “Like … like the fabric they use in those installations that people have done where they run some piece of cloth that’s hundreds and hundreds of yards long over the side of a building, or across a lawn like this. I wonder what it feels like.”

“Don’t!” Nuala and Sunday said simultaneously.

But they were too late. Miki had already stooped down to touch the pulsing ribbon. Her hands went into the light and she was immediately pulled onto it and carried away, tumbling head over heels along the length of the path that the Glasduine had taken after bursting through the wall.

“Oh, shit!” Tommy cried.

He ran forward to try and grab her legs before it took her too far away. Zulema moved to block his way, but she miscalculated and only succeeded in knocking him off-balance. His arms pinwheeled for balance before he fell onto the ribbon as well. The light carried him off, as quickly and smoothly as it had Miki, and then they were both gone.

“We must—” Sunday began.

“Do nothing,” Zulema said, her voice heavy with the loss they were both feeling. “Except finish the task Nancy left us. We’ll follow the path to where it crosses over and close this world to the creature.”

“But…”

“I know. We should have realized that Whiteduck’s prophecies always have a way of fulfilling themselves, no matter how we try to forestall them.”

“But Miki,” Salvador said, staring helplessly at the pulsing ribbon. “And your nephew. What will become of them?”

“We must protect this world from the creature’s return,” Zulema told him. “That is our first priority.”

The Creek sisters left the two of them standing there by the house and followed the ribbon of light into the woods, their backs stooped as though they carried a great weight.

Salvador turned to Nuala. “
¿Y bien?”
he said. “They said you have some power over the spirits. Won’t you help them?”

Nuala shook her head. “I can’t. I have no power except for that which lets me protect this house in my charge.” She glanced at where the creature had broken through from the sculpting studio. “And you see how effective I have been.”

She collected her singing bowl from where she’d left it, then walked back towards the kitchen door.

“Mayo ellos vaya con Dios,”
Salvador said in a low voice.

He made the sign of the cross, then slowly followed the housekeeper inside.

At some point, the Gentry simply refused to run anymore.

What passed for hours in the world they’d left behind was a hunt of long days and nights in the spiritworld. The Gentry ran as wolves through an ever-changing landscape, deeper and deeper into the spiritworld, the Glasduine following relentlessly on their heels. They managed to keep ahead of the creature, but it pressed them so close that they could get no respite, not even a moment’s rest. No matter what tricks or wiles they brought into play, the Glasduine saw through them all. In the end it came to a test of endurance and finally the Gentry turned on their pursuer, determined to make a stand while they still had the strength to fight.

What they had wasn’t enough, Donal realized as the Glasduine finally came face to face with its quarry. What they had would never have been enough. They were a primal force, but the Glasduine was a part of the very source from which the Gentry drew their strengths.

Most recently, the chase had led through a territory of high mountains and deep canyons, with the Gentry loping along ridgebacks, scrambling up slopes of loose rock fragments and boulders, the Glasduine following in their wake as though they were joined, their minds linked, their fates inexorably tied to each other. The Gentry made their stand at the flank of a towering butte where two canyons met in a V. They were to await the leader’s signal, attacking as a group, rather than individuals. But when the Glasduine came upon them, one of the wolves couldn’t wait.

He lunged for the Glasduine’s throat only to be plucked from the air and torn to pieces. Sickened, Donal tried to turn the Glasduine away from attacking the rest, but with that first kill, he couldn’t pretend to be in control any longer. While he might have set the Glasduine on the trail of the wolves, the creature had taken up the chase only because it had its own score to settle with them.

For a long moment the Gentry stood motionless, staring at the remains of their comrade that lay scattered upon the stones around the Glasduine. It was only when they attacked, coming at the creature from all sides in a snarling rush, that Donal realized that they, too, knew they had no hope to bring their pursuer down. They attacked as they did so that they would die fighting, as the hard men they were, rather than be hunted down like rodents.

The battle was short, though the Gentry fought like devils. The leader was the last to die. He met the Glasduine’s gaze without flinching, a half-smile playing on his lips, blood dripping from a half-dozen wounds, his companions torn apart, transformed by the Glasduine into nothing more than chunks of bleeding flesh.

“Ah, you’re hard,” he said. He spat on the stones at his feet, a spew of red. “I’ll give you that. But I’ve this much bloody consolation. You’re corrupted now and there’s no going back for you. All it took was killing the first of us and you’re just as bloody damned as I am.”

Donal couldn’t tell if the Gentry’s leader was talking to him or the Glasduine. It didn’t matter. Either way it was true.