The Troupe (49 page)

“You crazy
bitch
!” cried Colette.

The lady ignored her. “Are we still agreed?” she asked the wolf.

“We are,” he said finally.

“Good,” she said. “Then I will retreat to enjoy my little trophy, and leave you yours.” She and the remainder of the host stepped back into the woods, and faded into the darkness. Soon it was like they’d never been there at all, and there was only George, his two friends, and all the wolves of the world.

George, Colette, and Stanley stood shivering on the edge of the shore. The sea of wolves watched them, unmoving and unblinking. They simply stood there, draining everything out of the world until it
was as cold and gray and terrible as them. Soon George’s breath smoked just as much as when he’d journeyed through the wastelands.

One of the wolves finally spoke, his voice soft and low: “We know you have the Light.”

Neither George, nor Stanley, nor Colette moved or answered.

“We know it was not on Silenus’s person,” he said. “That much we have confirmed. It was something he took with him. Perhaps in a lantern. Perhaps in a box. Whatever it is, we want it.”

Still none of them did anything.

“You have led us across many lands,” said the wolf. “Across many places, under many skies. But enough is enough. Time has no meaning to us. And now there is very little of it left for you. We
will
find it, eventually.”

George resisted glancing sideways at his two friends. While he had no intention of surrendering the First Song, he found he now knew even less about it than he had before. It was not in Silenus’s steamer trunk; that was full of restoratives and liquors, for reasons George could not possibly imagine. And yet Silenus and Stanley had always taken the chest with them when they’d gone to gather the echoes… He wanted very badly to look at Stanley now, since he would surely know where Silenus had stored it, but George did not dare draw attention to the one remaining member who knew anything about the song.

“One of you must know,” said the wolf. “The others are expendable.” He walked over to them, hands clasped quaintly behind his back. “We can do things to you. Horrible things. Things that cannot be expressed in words. And the rest of you can watch. Is that what you want?” He studied them and moved toward George. “We know this one, for instance. We’ve met him. And we know he knows nothing at all…”

Stanley made a strangled noise and pulled George back. The wolf’s smile increased very slightly. “Ah, yes,” he said. “We think this one will do, won’t he?”

“No!” said Colette.

The wolf stopped. “No what?”

Colette hesitated. The wolf walked over to her and peered into her eyes. “No what?”

She took a breath. “I’ll… I’ll tell you where it is. Just don’t hurt him.”

“Colette, no!” cried George “You can’t—”

The wolf moved in a way that George’s eye could not fully see, but suddenly the wolf was standing before him with one hand quivering an inch from the side of his neck. “It would be so very easy to strike your head from your body,” the wolf said. “It would hardly be any trouble at all.”

“Enough,” said Colette. “He won’t interfere.”

“Let us hope,” said the wolf. He dropped his hand. “Now. Show us.”

“All three of us have to get it,” she said.

“What?” said the wolf, irritated. “All of you? Why?”

“It’s incredibly heavy. It’s the First Song, isn’t it? How could it be anything but heavy?”

The wolf frowned. “Where is it?”

She pointed to the huge black office door that was still standing open in the side of the boulder. “In there.”

The wolf walked over to it and inspected the door. “Interesting,” he said. “Naturally, this could be a trap. Or you could be planning to run inside and this door would take you away. So why don’t we just…” The wolf grasped the door and began to pull. There was a shuddering groan from the door, as if it was being pulled not only from its hinges but from some much larger structure that could not be seen with the eye. But then there came a snap and the wolf wrenched the door free, and he broke it on his knee and tossed it into the water.

“There,” he said. “That should take care of that. We still won’t go into the room—that would be foolish—but we will watch. Go inside
with your friends, little girl, and get the Light. And if you do not, we will have to come in after you. And then this one,” he said, gesturing to George, “he will never forgive you for what we will do to him.”

Colette began to walk toward the door. George and Stanley followed, and George could tell Stanley was just as confused as he was. As he eyed the splintered flotsam out on the waves of the lake George dearly hoped Colette’s plan, if there was one, had not involved the door in any way.

They entered Silenus’s office. It was very cluttered, as they’d tossed in their luggage without any coordination when they last packed. George glanced over the many items in the room and wondered what Colette could possibly have in mind.

“Stay close to me, all right?” she whispered.

“Make sure you are visible,” called the wolf from the door. “Like we told you, the last thing we want to do is come in.”

“We will,” Colette called back.

As she navigated through the mounds of boxes and props George noticed there was something very large sticking out ahead: the rolled-up backdrop Kingsley had used in his act. George had forgotten they’d tossed it in here. Colette nodded to it, and Stanley took one end and George took the other, while she helped hold up the middle section.

“This is the Light?” asked the wolf as they carried it out the office door. “It looks like… paper.”

“That’s because it hasn’t been unrolled,” said Colette. “The Light is rolled up with it.”

“Then unroll it, please,” said the wolf. “Slowly.”

Colette began to walk backward, gradually unfurling the big backdrop. George and Stanley held the roll up as it spun around in their hands. The backdrop was utterly blank, so he could not understand what she was doing, but then he saw she was whispering to it, and he managed to catch a few of her words: “… Please help us, just this once. We were never cruel to you, please…”

The sea of wolves gathered around them, their necks craning to look at the backdrop as it unfurled. “Where is it?” asked one. “We don’t see anything.”

“It’s almost done,” said Colette, but her voice shook.

George stared at the backdrop. It was still completely blank. Could it not have heard her? Or was it refusing whatever she was asking of it? There were only a few remaining feet left to unfurl…

Then he saw something, a tiny flicker of color in the center of the backdrop. “There it is!” cried one of the wolves.

“Yes. There it is,” said Colette. She looked up at Stanley and George. “Underneath! Now!” she shouted. She flung her hands up and sent a huge wave through the backdrop, and George and Stanley ducked underneath and pulled their corners down while Colette dragged down her end. George had no idea what they were doing, but they all crouched underneath the rippling dome of the backdrop until they were completely concealed by it.

There was an immense snarl as the wolves all reacted, and George braced himself for their attack… yet then the snarl unexpectedly turned into pained shrieks.

“My eyes!” cried a voice.

“I can’t see!” said another.

“Where are they?” said a third. “What is happening?”

George peeked out from under a fold in the backdrop. The wolves were still surrounding them, but their faces were lit with a blinding white light that seemed to be coming from the backdrop itself. They raised their arms to try to block it out, but most fell stumbling back. Some were even running away as if it burned them.

“What did you tell it to do?” asked George.

“I told it to show them a light,” Colette said. “Now come on! We have to stay under, but we need to move up the hill!”

George, Stanley, and Colette began to shuffle away from the shore, each keeping the backdrop clamped down over them. George kept expecting for them to bump into one of the wolves, but
apparently the light was so bright they kept falling back. Soon there was grass and stone below their feet and the ground began to gently slope up.

“Thank you,” whispered Colette to the backdrop, yet if it heard it did not respond.

Then they finally bumped into something, but they saw it was a tree. Colette breathed a sigh of relief: they’d reached the outskirts of the woods. Yet before they could say anything they heard a furious growl, and a voice called out, “Just shed these weak fucking forms and get them!”

There was a sound from outside the backdrop like immense paws falling to the ground, and then they were dashed onto their sides, still clutching the backdrop. George felt it tear in his hands, and as he tumbled he saw he and Colette had fallen one way and kept most of the backdrop, and Stanley had fallen the other way with a shred of it clutched to his chest. George stared at their fragment: something enormous had batted their little makeshift shield, something with many claws, judging from the backdrop’s jagged edge. He saw something huge and dark padding toward them from the woods out of the corner of his eye, and guessed that whatever the wolves were underneath those images of men in gray, they were not at all susceptible to blinding light.

“Run!” cried George, and he and Colette fled up into the hill, the remaining part of the backdrop fluttering behind them like a flag. The wolves gave chase, and George saw Stanley crouched behind a tree with his piece of the backdrop, watching them run. He stared after George, clearly terrified, but then shook his head and slipped away into the dark.

George and Colette dodged through the trees as the forest filled with many snarls and roars. His breath burned in his throat and they both stumbled over roots and stones, but they kept staggering up the
side of the hill, keenly aware of their dark pursuers mere yards behind them.

Then Colette grabbed his arm and threw him into a little stony pit in the hill. She leaped in beside him and pulled the backdrop up over them like a blanket. George tried to ask her what she was doing, but she shook her head and held a finger to her lips.

Huge footfalls sounded nearby. There was a sound of snarling, and George tensed, waiting for the attack. But the wolf did not attack: from the sound of its footsteps, it ran right past them and leaped farther up the hill. They waited, but it did not come back. George heard others running nearby, but they did not stop or seem aware of the two of them cowering in the stony pit.

“What’s going on?” whispered George.

Colette shushed him. She reached out and gently turned over one corner of the backdrop. George squinted to see what she was showing him, and he saw that the top surface of the backdrop had changed to moonlit stones and pinecones and rocky earth.

“Camouflage,” she said to him softly.

George nodded, but then he froze. “They can smell us,” he said.

She stared at him, horrified. It was obvious she hadn’t thought of that.

As if to confirm their worst fears, they heard footsteps nearby, and a snuffling. The wolf outside paused, and sniffed again. There was a faint, curious, “Hm,” as if the wolf was delighted to discover something, and they heard footsteps walking their way.

Colette grabbed a sharp rock and readied to attack the wolf if it should discover them, but George reached out and steadied her hand. She gave him a quizzical look, and he shook his head. He was not sure why, but that single “Hm” had been familiar. He was sure he’d heard that voice before…

Then, to their shock, one side of the backdrop lifted up and a wolf dropped in with them. Colette nearly screamed, but George clapped a hand over her mouth. In one instant, he’d seen the wolf was not like
any of the others: for one, he still retained his human image, but he also wore a bright red coat and a feathered hat, and his face was fixed in an expression of gleeful excitement.

The wolf in red waved happily. “Hello again!” he said in what he thought was a whisper, but was actually quite loud.

George frantically gestured to lower its voice.

“Oh,” said the wolf in red, this time more quietly. “I’m sorry. I’ve never whispered before. Am I whispering now? Is this a whisper? A good one?”

“Yes,” said George softly. Colette looked at him, bewildered, and he shook his head at her again.

“How interesting!” said the wolf. “I must make a note of how this works.”

He reached into his coat to produce his notebook, but then he saw George’s outraged stare. “Oh, yes! Never mind! That’s right! You’re trapped and hiding, correct?”

“Yes,” said George, irritated.

“How marvelous!” said the wolf. “What is this strange contraption you have above your heads? I’ve never seen anything like it so far.”

“What do you want?” asked George.

“Why, to help you, of course.”

Both of them stared at him. “Why would you want to do that?” asked George.

The wolf looked troubled. “Ah. Well… I’ve come to some decisions recently, you see, and I think… I think that, even though existing is very painful sometimes, and very confusing, I think I would like it to… go on. Yes. I would like for things to continue. And even though my brothers wish for the opposite, I find I must disagree with them. I like your Light. I want you to keep it. And I want you to stay alive.” The wolf smiled gently at both of them, and seemed to notice Colette for the first time. “Good gracious! Who is this? Wait! I know! Is this the girl you are so in love with?”

Despite their dangerous circumstances, George reddened. “What are you going to do?”

The wolf looked grave, then sad. He took a breath, and said, “What I am going to do… is give you a gift.” Then he opened his mouth incredibly wide, wide enough that his jaw was much larger than his head, a vast cavern of a mouth, and he reached up and put his hand inside it.

George and Colette both recoiled at the sight. But then they saw there was something twinkling in the wolf’s mouth, like a bright lure trapped in the maw of a fish. The wolf plucked it up and gently pulled it out, and as he did his mouth returned to its normal size.

George felt every hair on his body lean toward the jewel of light in the wolf’s fingers. He became aware of a very soft chanting, not within the pit in the ground, but within his mind…