Camp 2017: Book Man rewrites
21 posts in this topic.
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Word count goal is a joke b/c I just need to get this draft done and I dunno how many words it's gonna take. WITH THAT IN MIND. Here we go. Might as well log it whenever I get more done.
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Day 1: 1946 words.
Spoiler
Narodnaya’s voice followed them for a long time after she had vanished, ringing in their heads even as the mountain range and forest neared. By the time they reached the treeline, the sun was setting and their damp clothes chilled them. At least they wouldn’t have to spend another night on the bog.
Without having any idea what Glasswood looked like, Christian knew this wasn’t it. The trees had unnaturally straight trunks, matte black, which stabbed into the sky higher than trees had any right to be.
“They look like lampposts,” Sarah said.
Poorly maintained lampposts, Christian thought. A wave of homesickness swamped him. Cherry Street with its gleaming streetlamps that bathed his house in warm yellow light. Here the sun couldn’t cast anything better than a dim, reddish glow.
The canopy was a tangle of black boughs and twisted black leaves like iron scrollwork. No wonder the sun couldn’t break through, Christian thought as he craned his neck for a better look. Then he noticed that the source of light wasn’t the sun. Glowing bulbs in the shape of peaches studded the canopy.
“Maybe they are lampposts,” he said. “Or are they trees?”
“And why can’t they be both?” a voice boomed overhead. He and Sarah jumped violently.
Perched on a branch far above, swinging her feet, was a rotund woman. At least, Christian thought from the voice that she was a woman. The red bulbs (fruits?) reduced her to a paunchy silhouette. She flung herself from the branch and scurred down the groove black trunk like a clanky squirrel.
Even after she had planted her booted feet on the forest floor, details of her face remained a mystery: she wore an enormous scarlet welding mask. Leather encased the rest of her impressive girth, leather so thick it might have been made of rhinoceros hide.
“It’s close-minded fools who can’t see the beauty of duality,” she barked. Christian and Sarah winced. Evidently, she had only one volume. “The trees are lanterns. The lanterns are trees. Are you simpletons?”
She raised the welding mask, and Christian stepped back hastily. Beneath the mask, her face was a patchwork of grey skin that looked like bits of old metal fused together—except her cheeks, which shone ruddy like the fire of a bellows. Her eyes were bright blue and round and glittered like sapphires.
“Where did they come from?” Sarah asked. Christian expected the strange woman to call them simpletons again, but she didn’t.
“I grew them, of course! Planted each one with my own hands, from young lamplings out of the Great Iron Forest. Of course, it takes quite the black thumb to coax them into growing so tall and producing such fine fruit.”
As if in response to her words, the trees waved their leaves like tiny hands. Metal clanged musically throughout the forest.
The woman chuckled. Her laughter clanked, too. “Modest, aren’t they? They get so embarrassed when they think I’m flattering them. What they don’t understand is that I’m always flattering myself.”
“But who are you?” Christian asked. Cold, lost, and aching, he swam in a haze of befuddlement over this odd forest and its equally odd, incredibly loud inhabitant.
Her eyebrows crept up her forehead until they seemed in danger of flying off. They were thick, metallic grey, and perfectly regular.
“Why, the Metalworker, of course. I can see you’re not from around here.”
She emphasized you’re as if to indicate that anyone of any importance at all would’ve known exactly who she was. Her sapphire eyes glittered as he glanced between him and Sarah, awaiting some sign of recognition.
“Of course we’re not from around here,” Sarah said. “We’re not even from this world, or planet, or whatever you want to call it.”
The Metalworker stared at her in surprise for a minute and then burst into clanky laughter.
“Not from this world? Well!” She wiped her eyes, though Christian could see no tears in her eyes. “The very idea. You must be daft.”
Christian kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. Her booming voice made his head throb.
“I am not,” Sarah snapped. “And neither’s he. But we’re parched and exhausted and half-starved, not to mention lost. So if you—”
“Of course, they say Goblin fled this world for another.” Amazing how her voice thundered even when it seemed she was talking to herself. She elbowed Sarah (who did not look pleased about it) and spoke in a conspiratorial boom. “But you know what I think is that Neva had him executed and doesn’t want anyone to know. That’s where all this ‘other worlds’ nonsense comes from. If Goblin is in another world, I can tell you which one: the Great Hereafter!”
“Yeah, all right,” Sarah said, stepping closer to Christian to avoid further elbowing. “But we’re really—”
The bellows-fire in the Metalworker’s cheeks dimmed.
“Hard to believe he turned out so bad. Always a good lad, Goblin was, for all the mischief he got up to. Good with growing things.” She paused, her face as grey and sober as an overcast sky. Then her cheeks flared up again, and she chuckled. “Nearly as good as me, but he could never catch up. I’ve nearly a thousand years’ experience on him. With lampposts, that is. Never could get those nasty old greenleafs to take. With lampposts, now—”
Sarah sighed.
“Come on,” she muttered to Christian. They headed deeper into the lampposts, leaving the Metalworker to her prattle. Christian felt a little bad for their incivility, but only a little. It didn’t seem like there would’ve been a way to escape her politely, not when she cut them off every time they spoke! And that after scaring them half to death and calling them simpletons and saying they were daft. They’d find their own way through the lampposts.
His stomach whined. They’d find their own food, too. He’d never been one for camping, and he had a terrible sense of direction, but there was Sarah. She was a police detective. She was bound to be good at all those tough, outdoorsy sorts of things, right?
They’d been walking for a long while, Sarah’s head bobbing left and right as she took in their surroundings, when finally she said, “What the hell are you supposed to eat in a forest of lampposts?”
It was true, Christian realized. It wasn’t like they were out in the wilds of Scotland. Everything was made of iron, probably, anyway, except maybe the strange reddish fruits. Bulbs. Whatever they were. He wished they’d thought to fill up on cranberries back on the bog. Now he wasn’t sure which direction the bog was. He opened his mouth to ask Sarah but then decided against it. If she didn’t know, either, they were well and truly lost. He didn’t want to know. Was bog water safe to drink? He didn’t know that, either.
“There’s bound to be water around here somewhere,” Sarah said a while later. Christian didn’t reply. His mouth felt like cotton and tasted like a sewer. He hoped she was right, kept hoping she was right, but maybe iron trees didn’t need water—maybe water made them rust. Maybe there was no water in the entire forest.
Why had they ever come to this wretched place? he wondered miserably as the day wore on, forgetting they hadn’t come by choice. The sun appeared to be setting outside the wood. The reddish fruits brightened overhead like streetlamps at the deepening of dusk, but they hadn’t found food or water and had come no closer to finding Liza.
“What I wouldn’t give,” Sarah said, yet a while later, “for some splintery old wooden trees and a fire.”
“And some food to cook on it,” Christian rasped. It was the first time he’d opened his mouth in hours. He barely got the words unstuck from his throat. Sarah stopped walking and looked at him.
“You sound awful,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, too, but not as bad as his. “We need to find water.”
“Maybe there isn’t any.”
“There has to be. Come on.”
He lagged behind as they kept walking. She seemed tireless, marching through the lampposts as if she knew exactly where they were going. He wished he had a bicycle. He’d cycle right on out of this horrible forest.
His stomach gurgled more belligerently as night crept up on them, but the forest seemed devoid of anything edible. New plants appeared, each as inedible as the last. Wrought-iron vines twisted up tree trunks or wove together into statues. Clusters of rubies, emeralds, tourmaline, and opal hung from golden shrubs. Silvery stalks with flowers of beaten copper sprouted at the bases of trees and rocks.
“Wow,” Sarah said, stopping just long enough to rub a golden leaf between her fingers. “We could buy enough food for a year with a handful of this crap, if there was anywhere to buy it.”
She noticed Christian doggedly dragging after her and stood up straight, waiting for him to catch up. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, too tired and thirsty to answer. She gave a small smile.
“Not used to this kind of thing, eh?”
“I cycle,” he managed to say. “But. I always take water.”
She made a face. “Yeah, I’m sort of dying here. We’ll find some water, okay? We will. I promise.”
“I know,” Christian said, even though he didn’t. They walked on.
He didn’t like the vines. At first he’d thought they had grown into laced iron statues of birds and beasts, or twisted around the lampposts. But as he saw more and more of them, he realized they hadn’t grown that way; they were growing that way, now, noticeably, all around. Tendrils crept along the forest floor, snaking up the lampposts, stopping their silent creeping to twist around as if watching their journey. He shivered and hurried along, trying to keep close to Sarah.
It was long after nightfall when they finally found water. The bulbs in the trees glowed brightly as ever. Something owlish sounded in the distance, less a hoot than a metallic grating like a rusted scissors-lift.
“Here,” Sarah said. She reached the river first but waited, squatting on the riverbank to guide him to the water. He blushed was glad she’d done so; he felt ready to fall down and was pretty sure he would’ve fallen right into the water if she hadn’t had a hand on his shoulder. “It looks all right to drink.”
Christian stuck his hands in the water and slurped noisily, too thirsty to feel embarrassed. The water was freezing cold and made his teeth ache, but he didn’t care. When he’d drunk his fill, he rolled over onto his back and stared up through the iron canopy while Sarah took her turn. He caught a glimpse of the night sky through a gap in the leaves.
Sarah sighed deeply and sat back on her haunches.
“Thank God,” she said. Then she laughed.
“What?” Christian asked.
“Look at you,” she said. “Your shirt’s a mess.”
He glanced down and saw rusty leaf litter staining his shirt orange where he’d lain on the riverbank. He looked back up and pointed at Sarah with a tired grin.
“Your shirt,” he said. She looked down and laughed again, brushing away the rust coloring her own shirt, and Christian laughed, too, and they laughed and laughed over nothing at all, laughed until their throats were so raw and dry that they had to stop and drink more water. Then, exhausted and drunk from laughing, they flopped back in the rusty leaf litter and fell asleep side by side. -
OH RIGHT. I definitely actually did this last night, for the first time all week.
Day 6: 1203 words.Spoiler
The cat was kneading his stomach. Christian’s mouth curved into a smile.
“Stop that,” he said without opening his eyes.
The cat persisted. Strange that he didn’t hear any purring. Usually the cat sat on his stomach and purred so loudly that he’d lie awake until the alarm sounded. Annoying, really. But he couldn’t stop smiling.
“Cut it out,” he said. His bed felt awfully hard and scratchy, and his comforter too.
The cat continued kneading his stomach. He opened his eyes.
He was on his back in the forest of lampposts, lying on the rusty leaf litter. It was not his cat; iron vines poked and prodded at him. More of them had curled over and around him in the night. He struggled free, flinging them away with a cry. The vines recoiled and slithered off through the leaves.
Christian rubbed his eyes. He missed his cat.
“Morning,” Sarah called. She was sitting on the riverbank, dangling her feet in the water. Her shoes sat beside her on the shore. “How are we feeling this morning?”
Christian fell back into the leaf litter with a groan.
“Yeah, me too,” Sarah said. Iron leaves were tangled in her hair and clothes and left her looking generally rust-colored. Christian was pretty sure he didn’t look any better. She drew her feet out of the water, patted them more or less dry, and slipped back into her shoes. “We’d better get a move-on. The sooner we get out of here, the faster we’ll find something to eat.”
“Here, here,” Christian said.
“We’ll follow the river. That’s bound to lead us out eventually.”
That might have been true, but following the river proved harder than they thought. It was nothing more than a small stream, really, and it kept branching off into other streams as they went. They had no idea which of these streams might lead out, which would do so quickly, which might lead them to people, so they guessed as best they could and told each other that they were lucky to at least have a consistent, if someone metallic-tasting, source of water now. Christian did find it comforting. The stream was more musical than most to begin with, and a breeze would sometimes blow through the silver reeds lining the banks and sound like a chorus of pipers. And it was nice to at least have something to follow, rather than wandering aimlessly through the lampposts, even if you weren’t quite sure where it was leading.
Then, too, sunlight filtered in from somewhere. He couldn’t tell where, as there was no gap in the intricate black canopy overhead. The reddish fruits’ light grew dimmer and dimmer as the sun rose outside the forest. Although it was harder to see without the glow overhead, the light they had was clear and grey rather than the stuffy red light of before. It was so much less oppressive that it lifted his spirits. Several hours into their walk, his spirits rose so high he felt he might be able to fly right out of the forest.
“Look!” he cried hoarsely. He pointed, but he didn’t need to; a smile had already spread across Sarah’s face.
“Daylight!”
Real daylight, warm and blue. Their pace quickened the closer they got to the light, quickened until they were sprinting, and then, when the daylight was upon them, they skidded to a stop.
A bog stretched before them. Unless the lampposts were hedged by identical bogs on either end, Christian and Sarah had circled back around to the bog they’d left the morning before. There was the thick layer of sphagnum studded with evergreens and carnivorous plants, the cranberries hanging in shining clusters in the sun.
“Well,” Sarah said, “at least we can eat.”
They stepped out into the sunlight, squinting. A breeze ruffled the cranberry plants and the evergreen needles; a bird keened something shrill and thin in the distance. Otherwise, the bog was silent. That was fine with Christian. Sunshine, real fruit, and no sign of that marsh witch anywhere.
They sat on the edge of the bog, where the sphagnum and water met the forest floor, eating cranberries and not caring too much about the water soaking through the seats of their trousers. The more they ate, the less sure Christian was that they were cranberries.
“They taste like vanilla,” he said. “Underneath, I mean.”
“Like spiced rum,” Sarah said, and raised one in the air as if toasting him. “Cheers.”
When they could eat no more, they crammed their pockets full of as many berries as they could hold. The sun hung low in the sky when they finally stood, stretched, and heard the voice.
I told you to be gone.
Christian’s left foot broke through the sphagnum and sank shin-deep in the water below. He started to panic, but Sarah gripped him under the arms firmly and pulled him free.
“Thanks,” he quavered.
Narodnaya drifted overhead, surveying them with an unreadable expression. He couldn’t help taking a step back, almost stepping right into Sarah. The marsh-witch’s face was just so alarming, with its flat nose and sharp angles and grey-green skin.
Wait, no. he shouldn’t think that. She’d hear him.
He blanched as her eyes flashed. Too late.
I want you to leave.
“We were leaving,” Sarah said. “But there’s no food in that—did you know that forest is entirely made of metal?”
Of course it is. Everyone knows that.
“Well, we didn’t,” Sarah said, somewhat crossly. The marsh-witch’s everyone rang with the same disdain the Metalworker’s you’re had. “We haven’t got forests made of metal where we come from.”
“We didn’t mean to come back,” Christian said. He appreciated the fact that Sarah took charge so easily—it saved him having to, God knows he didn’t want to—but he was afraid she’d get too snappish, and then who knew what this frightening creature might do to them? “We couldn’t find any food in there—”
Narodnaya snorted. Oh no? The scuttlefish know where to find it.
Sarah and Christian glanced at each other. Scuttlefish?
“Whatever,” Sarah said.
Christian nudged her with his elbow. Narodnaya was glaring at her alarmingly.
“What she meant is,” he said, his mouth very dry, “we got turned around. But then we found ourselves back out here, and these cranberries—these cranberries! They’re better than any cranberries I’ve ever had, and ten times the size—”
Humans are so easily impressed by the mundane.
Christian deflated. Sarah glared right back at Narodnaya.
“If you want us to get out of here,” she said, “you could start by telling us the fastest way through the forest.”
You had so much trouble finding your way that I wonder if I should not escort you.
“Oh, no,” Christian stammered. “Oh, no, no, thank you, that won’t be necessary. I’m sure we can make our way. No. Thank you kindly, we really do appreciate—”
The marsh-witch’s green eyes glittered with mirth. Her lipless mouth formed something that might, in some context, be considered a smile, maybe.
If you insist.
“He does,” Sarah started to say, but Christian was really starting to panic now and batted her on the arm. “Ow.” -
Day 7: 963 words.
(I'll probably do more with this as well, but we're doing a game tonight so I dunno if I'll log it until tomorrow.)Spoiler
There was a voice at the door, if you could call it the door when it was just the flaps of another tent.
“Knock, knock,” Rowan called gently.
Liza wiped her face on a too-long sleeve. They’d dug up an old nightshirt for her to wear, and it was too big for her. But it made her feel safe, like she could draw it over her and shut the world out, if she wanted to.
“Come in,” she said. She wouldn’t have blamed the ringmaster for simply barging in—it was her tent, after all. Liza was the intruder. But Rowan was courteous if she was anything. Liza had never found anyone so comforting.
Rowan smiled as she entered. “Feeling better, are we?”
Liza opened her mouth, fully intending to lie, but instead what came out was a sigh and, “Well, I’m dry, at least.”
She leaned back on her pillows. They’d set her up with a cot in a small bit of the big top they all shared, sectioned off with extra silks or blankets. You could hear everything going on in other parts of the tents, or at least the voices, if not the actual words, but she found that comforting, too. Rain pattered on the big top.
“D’you mind?” Rowan asked. Liza shook her head. The ringmaster sat on the edge of her cot and patted her shoulder. “Do you need another blanket? I’m afraid you’ll catch a chill.”
“M’all right,” Liza said, shifting under her quilt. It was nice to have someone fretting over her, nice to have someone to lie in bed and talk to after a week alone.
“Good. Now, love, why don’t you tell me what all’s wrong?”
Liza didn’t say anything. In the first fright and then relief of finding people, some of it had spilled out, but now that things were calm and dry and warm, she didn’t know where to start. If she wanted to start.
Rowan’s hand had not left her shoulder. It squeezed lightly. “Darling, I can’t do a thing to help you if you don’t tell me what it is you need help with.”
Tears stung Liza’s eyes. And although she hadn’t known what to say a moment before, suddenly she found herself telling Rowan everything. Everything. The park and the attack and Duncan’s disappearance, yes, but her feelings of lonesomeness this week and even before that, the homesickness for London that she hadn’t even admitted to Duncan, her sister’s distance, her father’s death, her mother’s drinking. Everything. Somewhere in there, she sat up, and somewhere after that she started crying. It was the longest, hardest, ugliest cry she’d ever had in her life. It hurt to cry, but it hurt worse not to, and she felt like she was making up for all the crying she hadn’t done in the face of pain and hardship in the last sixty years.
Rowan never said a thing. She held Liza when she started crying and rubbed her back and listened until Liza had cried herself out, laughed, and said with a hiccup, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
Rowan smiled at her, and Liza noted with some relief that it wasn’t the pitying kind of smile most people gave you after they saw you crying.
“You had to tell someone, I imagine.”
“Mmm,” Liza agreed. Without thinking, she snuggled deeper into Rowan’s hug like a child.
“Now,” Rowan said thoughtfully, “I don’t know what to do about Mr. Abernathy and your detective. If they were thrown off-course by the wraiths, they could be anywhere.”
Liza shivered. “Wraiths?”
“Oh, yes. That’s likely what those nasties were in the portal. They’re not corporeal creatures, you know—more misty sorts of things that love to lurk about places solid beings like us don’t have much truck with. Portals into other worlds, fairy rings, the Land of the Dead—places you and I wouldn’t consider places at all. Goblin may have sent them to throw us off course, but he’d hardly need to—wraiths glory in mayhem and destruction. I’m sure the sound of frightened people rampaging through their land excited them.”
Liza shivered again, and Rowan held her tighter.
“As I was saying,” she went on, “there’s nothing to be done about that. We’ll just have to hope your friends find their way here sometime soon. But your husband—”
Liza wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
“Graham!” Rowan shouted suddenly, startling her. The big top fell silent for a moment. Then a voice replied, “He’s not back yet, miss.”
“Yes, right,” Rowan mused. “I’d forgot. The traps. Well, Wayland, you might know anyhow. Duncan Smith, that’s Isadora’s boy, isn’t it?”
“Yes, miss, I think so.”
“Well then! Carry on.” The talking resumed elsewhere in the tent, and Rowan turned back to Liza with a triumphant expression. “There, you see?”
Liza did not see.
“I know where we can find your husband,” Rowan said.
Liza sat up straight as though she’d been stung and looked at the ringmaster, not daring to believe it was true. “You do? Where? Can you take me to him?”
“Hush, love. All in good time. It’s raining cats and dogs yet out there, and I’m not about to let you out in this weather again. We’ll go tomorrow.”
“But—”
“None of that! You need your sleep—a good, warm, dry one at that. Tomorrow, love. I promise you.”
Liza hesitated, but there was a look in Rowan’s eyes that said quite plainly she’d drag Liza right back into bed if she so much as thought of getting out of it. And the quilt was so warm and comfortable, and the sound of the rain and the murmured conversations so nice.
“Well,” she said, “all right. Tomorrow.” -
Day 8: 549 words.
Spoiler
He couldn’t have said why, exactly. But gradually, the drowning and the panic and the squeeze and the pull were replaced by images. Images of places he knew, and people. There was Bea, younger, pre-stroke, standing in his father’s kitchen, making tea and nodding as he told her about his latest favorite book. There was his aunt, the librarian, showing him the newest shipment of books they’d gotten in. There was his father, who had never really understood his obsession with books but got down on the floor in the kitchen of the Book House to paper the baseboard in fiction. Duncan, chuckling as he tried and failed to make a balloon animal; Liza offering him a biscuit from her own lunch in the office lunchroom; Moira’s brief but glorious smiles; the cat coming to greet him when he came home from work. Without his even noticing it, his limbs loosened, his breathing steadied, and soon he was better.
He sighed, a little shakily. He met the marsh-witch’s steady, green-eyed gaze and found it didn’t frighten him.
“Thank you,” he said.
Sarah looked at her too, clearly not at all sure what had just happened.
“He—you’re better?” she said to Christian. He nodded, and she turned back to Narodnaya. “Well, I’ll be damned. How’d you do that?”
The marsh-witch ducked her head, looking almost embarrassed. Memory. I found his favorite memories and helped them through. They blocked out…
“It was a panic attack,” Christian mumbled, feeling a little embarrassed now that his panic had subsided. “There’s, um. There wasn’t really anything to block, they just kind of…happen.”
“How’d you—you say you found his memories?”
Narodnaya shrugged her bony shoulders. I can see anything that isn’t buried too far below the surface—as long as people do not try to block me.
“Is that normally how you’d stop panicking?” Sarah asked, but Christian shook his head.
“Normally I’m not really able to think about anything but the fact that I’m panicking.”
“Jesus,” Sarah said. “Wow. You’re. Wow. That’s amazing.”
The marsh-witch’s thin eyebrows disappeared into her forehead. Christian, meanwhile, feeling that Sarah was poking fun at him for being so pathetic, curled up again, although at least now he wasn’t panicky.
“I know. It’s pathetic.”
“No!” Sarah said, so fervently he dared to look back at her. “No, it’s. You’re amazing, Christian Abernathy. How often do you get panic attacks, like every day?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” Christian said. He relaxed slightly. He wasn’t sure where she was going with this, but it sounded like something better than what he’d expected.
“Wow,” Sarah repeated. “But you have a job. Like, you go to work every day. And you—God, if it were me, I don’t think I could—”
She swore. Then she calmed down and said, in a more normal tone of voice, “You’re a surprisingly strong person, Christian.”
“Oh.” Christian blushed, but it was a good blush. He’d never thought of himself that way. “Well. Um. Thank—thank you. I mean. I mean. I do have medication I take, sometimes. Not with me, obviously. But, you know. It’s not like I’m doing this by myself.”
“You shouldn’t have to. You’d take insulin if you had diabetes, right? You’d wear a cast if you had a broken arm?” -
Day 9: (223 words)
Spoiler
Christian smiled slightly. He remembered Bea saying something to that effect to his father once, when his father found out that he’d started taking medication for his panic attacks. “Yeah, I would.”
“So,” Sarah said. She stood up, stretched, and looked at the marsh-witch. “Well. Thank you, I guess. That was. Wow.”
“Thank you,” Christian said again. Sarah gave him a hand up.
The marsh-witch, looking embarrassed again, nodded off to the northwest. There’s a stream that way. If you stick to the biggest branch, you can follow it all the way through the forest.
Then, without so much as a goodbye, she vanished.
“Flighty, isn’t she,” Sarah said. “You all right?”
“I am now.”
She smiled. “Come on.”
They quickly found the creek that had led them out to the bog and followed it until they found a larger branch. The lampposts were farther apart here. Sunlight shone on the iron branches and leaves, dazzling where it pierced the canopy and hit the stream, which widened further as they walked along. It was blinding in the tangled dimness of the iron forest, but they picked their careful way downriver. If only it was a real forest, Christian thought. His feet hurt, his socks still wet, and he wished there was grass and moss to walk in instead of crumbling, rusty iron leaves. -
Day 12: Book Man rewrites (779 words)
Spoiler
The light was greener here, as well; there were birch trees, real birch trees, mixed in with the lampposts.
“[quotes a poem but the one I was thinking of doesn’t work, so keep looking],” Sarah said. Christian looked at her with surprise.
“[poet’s name],” he said. “You know it?”
She grinned. “I do have a life outside of police work, you know.”
She slipped out of her shoes and socks, flexing her toes in the grass. “Ahhhhhh. That’s better. Turn around.”
Christian obeyed. “Why?” he asked the lamppost in front of him.
“Because I could use a bath, and just because we’re out in the wilderness doesn’t mean you need to look at me while I’m undressing.”
Christian blushed and stared very hard at the lamppost. A moment later, Sarah called, “All clear.”
He didn’t move.
“It’s all right, Christian. I’m in the water. You won’t see anything.”
He turned around cautiously, just in case, but she was right: all he could see were her face and neck. He could imagine she was wearing a bathing suit in there. The water was clear but reflected the sky and leaves, and even those were broken with ripples.
“Joining me?” she asked. He blushed harder. “It’s all right if you don’t want to. It feels great, though.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Look,” Sarah said. “I’ll turn around in case you change your mind so I don’t see you either, okay?”
He didn’t answer, but she turned around anyway. His face was beet-red, he knew without looking, and he’d always been a bit uncomfortable with nudity—his or anyone else’s. Prudish, really. He wasn’t sure where it had come from, since his father was only judgmental of other people’s nakedness and Bea wasn’t prudish at all.
But the water did look awfully inviting. He was sweaty and smelly, and the thought of how the water would feel on his feet…
He hid behind a silver shrub and stripped. His clothes had to be peeled off, they clung to him so, and the thought of putting them on again once he was clean disheartened him. Oh, well. Nothing much to be done about that. He peered around the bush to make sure Sarah wasn’t looking. She was swimming about, now, but on the far side of the pool and with her back still to him.
“I’m coming in now,” he called, just in case.
He fairly sprinted for the pool and plunged in before anyone could see him—never mind that no one else was there.
“Clear,” he sputtered.
Sarah turned back around and smiled at him. “See? Not so bad, is it.”
He shrugged. He felt a little better about his nakedness now that the water made everything wobbly and difficult to make out. Always better when he couldn’t see it.
“D’you think there are fish in here?” Sarah asked. “We could have a good dinner if we can figure out how to catch one.”
He shrugged again. He was a poor fisher even when he had bait and tackle, and now they had neither. He dove under and came up feeling refreshed and less stiff. Swimming was one of the few physical activities he’d always found enjoyable, except for the embarrassment of changing rooms.
“I’ve never done this before,” he said.
“What?”
“Skinny-dipping.”
Sarah looked like she was trying very hard not to smile again. “I never would’ve guessed.”
They gamboled in the water until their fingers and toes pruned. Christian was just starting to relax when he saw Sarah stiffen. He didn’t ask why. The back of his neck prickled.
“Is—is anyone there?” he asked. He’d meant to shout it, but it came out as a whisper. He moved closer to Sarah, forgetting that they were both naked.
“Feels that way,” she said.
“Do you think—do you think it’s that marsh-witch?”
“One way to find out.” She cupped her hands to her mouth and called, “Narodnaya?”
No one answered.
“Or it might be Liza?” Christian said, more hopefully than he felt.
Sarah shrugged but called, “Liza?”
The forest was silent except for birdcalls and the fluty sounds of the wind in the grasses further back along the river. They listened for a long, long moment.
“We’re imagining things,” Sarah said at last. But when they turned around, they saw a cluster of beautiful and unearthly people staring at them from beside the waterfall. There were perhaps half a dozen of them, all with deep blue skin and long, lean bodies, hair that fell in damp dark waves past their shoulders, and silvery tattoos. All of them were naked but did not seem to share Christian’s embarrassment at all. -
Day 14: Book man rewrites (1012 words)
(it didn't feel like that much when I was writing it, so YAY ME)Spoiler
“Come on, Christian!” Sarah cried, over and over again, tugging on his arm, but he didn’t move. She wasn’t even sure he could hear her. The sirens’ song made her head fuzzy—she felt like she was looking at Christian, the sirens, the waterfall through a haze, but she kept trying to get him to come along.
No good. He didn’t respond in the slightest to her fingers on his arm or her urgent voice in his ear. He was awfully transfixed for a guy who had been so embarrassed by nudity a moment ago.
Eventually she gave up and dove into the water. It washed over her face but didn’t block out the song, but her head felt clearer. She had the idea of swimming to shore for her gun, wrapped up in her clothes—but when she surfaced, she found a man, blue and silver like the others, with the same long, dark hair. He smiled at her. She swallowed.
The man’s baritone joined the women’s song. Sarah’s brain went fuzzy again. She had just enough awareness of what was going on to back away—right into Christian, who didn’t seem to feel her bump into him at all.
The sirens closed in on them. Despite the danger, the danger Sarah knew was in their song with every inch of her that was made up of policewoman, some part of her brain (or perhaps something other than her brain) took fierce joy in the closeness, the smoothness of the sirens’ skin, their curves and muscles, their smell like a fresh breeze off the water. The man smiled again through his song and touched her neck. Her brain shut off. There was nothing but the water, the sirens, their song. Behind her, Christian still stood mesmerized as the other sirens circled him, tracing circles on him with their fingers.
The man stopped singing long enough to kiss Sarah hotly on the mouth.
It was the worst kiss she’d ever had, predatory, rough. It stole her breath and frightened her; it felt like drowning. The man was still smiling when he drew back, but Sarah wrenched herself out of the dizziness and drowning and punched him square in the nose.
There was a moment, an almost comical expression on his face, and then the siren screeched in pain. Black blood ran from his nose. Sarah’s hand hurt like hell, but she didn’t waste any time. Fully in control of herself now, she swam for shore. A yell stopped her.
“Sarah!” It was Christian, his own spell broken as the sirens’ song died away. He was white and dripping and gasping for breath. The other three sirens still had him in their grip, their fingers like steel traps as he twisted and turned, trying to get away.
“Help me,” he moaned.
She hesitated. Should she keep on for the shore and get her gun, scare them off? Or would that give them too much time to hurt him? Maybe she should try to wrench him from their grasp first, but if they started singing again—
The siren whose nose she had broken decided for her. Still gushing black blood, he headed her off as she headed for shore. Even in pain, he swam faster and better than she—she darted back to Christian like a fish, swung another punch, wildly, and missed—but she’d distracted them, now, and one of the women let go of him to go after her instead.
Their singing recommenced, but it took on a different tune, one stranger and more menacing, full of dissonant chords. Christian thrashed about, managing to get loose of the other sirens, but it didn’t matter, they were still four on two and all closing in again, and the water seemed to weigh Sarah and Christian down while the sirens glided forward as if it wasn’t there. They looked increasingly less beautiful as they approached. Their eyes grew darker and darker until they were swallowed up in blackness. Claws erupted from their fingers, and silver fish scales shimmered on their legs, all at discord with the lovely leanness of their bodies. Sarah started feeling fuzzy again.
She manage to splash away as the sirens closed in, but Christian had frozen up again. One of them grabbed him by the hair and yanked head back, exposing his throat. The male with the unbroken nose ran a gentle claw down his neck and gave a fangy smile. Christian shuddered and twisted in the grasp of the other siren, trying to escape, but her hand tightened in his hair until he cried out in pain. Sarah couldn’t bring herself to splash back. Her legs were exhausted, jello-like, ready to give out. All she could do, as the siren whose nose she had broken swooped down on her with a vengeance, was think: We’re going to die.
They were going to die here, now, quite unpleasantly, and no one would ever know—not their families, not their coworkers, not their friends, and perhaps Liza had not reached Glasswood after all and would wander this miserable world, also not knowing, until she, too, came to a violent end…
The sirens’ singing broke into an awful squall as something grey-green appeared in midair and hissed at them like an angry cat.
“Narodnaya!” Christian cried.
Well, Sarah thought numbly, at least she was a danger they knew. The marsh-witch’s voice sounded in their heads even as she matched the screeching of the sirens with a louder, much more horrible screech of her own. Follow the stream. I’ll join you when I can.
Her voice cleared Sarah’s head once more. Sarah splashed back to Christian, grabbed him, and dragged him toward shore. Her legs were shaking, but she managed to pull them both out on land. The moment they were free of the water, Christian sprinted toward the silver bush he’d changed behind, but Narodnaya’s voice rang out sharply. No, you foolish human! I will bring your clothes. Go!
Sarah hardly remembered having clothes nearby. They ran off, naked, through the forest. -
Day 15: 186 words
Spoiler
Liza awoke sometime late, late at night or early, early in the morning. It was dark, anyway. Rain still pattered on the big top; thunder rolled in the distance. Otherwise, the only sounds were the odd bird call somewhere in the strange glass forest and the gentle snores of her hosts. A loud snort from someone nearby. Liza smiled slightly, wondering if it was Rowan. Somehow, the ringmaster struck her as an unashamed snorer.
She lay awake for a while, listening to the rain and staring up into the darkness at the ceiling she couldn’t see. Rowan knew where Duncan was. Rowan knew.
Rowan knew where Duncan was.
Liza felt she ought to be freaking out about it—that she should be anxious, excited, something, she should feel some particular way about seeing him in the morning—but she wasn’t. She felt…no way in particular. Calm. Slightly annoyed that she couldn’t fall back asleep.
It just didn’t feel possible. This whole long, lonely, stupid week of not knowing where her husband was, and now this woman she had only just met knew where he was? No. -
Day 16: Book Man rewrites (815 words)
Spoiler
There were sudden whispered cries of hello as someone entered the big top: Graham Chelsea, back from a night’s hunting.
“Got breakfast for us, didja?”
“Pee-hoo, lookit the size of it!”
“Good eats today, ain’t we?”
Rowan’s voice, sounding sleepy, cut through the chatter. “Take it outside, the lot of you! Some of us don’t care to rise so early.”
There was a round of laughter and teasing from the troupe, but she sounded unperturbed. “Shove off. Wake us when breakfast is ready.”
Muffled giggling as a handful of circus folk headed outside to start a fire. Liza could hear their voices, though not their words, outside the tent as they greeted their noncircus friends and divvied up the morning’s chores. She didn’t understand how they could be so cheery. Hadn’t they faced the same sudden attack as she had in the park? Hadn’t they felt the cold eyes and misty presence of the wraiths in the portal?
Then again, they’d all come through together. If only Christian and Sarah were here with her, she’d probably feel better, too.
She let out a shaky sigh and hugged her pillow, hoping they were safe.
The tent brightened as the sun rose higher, the light reddish like the stripes on the tent silks. More movement as the rest of the circus folk awoke, washed, dressed, squabbled. At long last, there were cries from outside.
“Up you get, you lazy so-and-so’s!”
“Oi, lazybones! Breakfast is ready.”
“I say we eat what we want and leave them as is still sleeping the scraps and nothing more.”
“Hear, hear!”
Rowan’s voice again, sounding much more awake. “Up, up, up, my dears! Time to break our fast—be sure to thank Graham for that! Graham, those aren’t your clothes from last night? You’ll catch your death of cold, you silly fool! Why, they’re still damp. Go change—yes, now, I won’t have you taking ill just because you didn’t think to change when you got back. Good heavens. And a warm bath after breakfast, Graham, that’s an order.”
Liza shuffled toward the flap separating her room from the rest of the tent when she remembered she was wearing a borrowed nightshirt and had no idea where her own clothes, damp or not, might be. She stood in barefooted indecision, hungry but unwilling to let these strangers see her in nightclothes. Rowan rescued her.
“So you are up!” she said, peering into Liza’s room. “Breakfast, darling. Or aren’t you hungry?”
“Very,” Liza said. “But my clothes…”
The ringmaster clapped a hand to her forehead. “So thoughtless of me! Of course, we must get you some proper clothes, mustn’t we? Yours should be dry, if you want them, but I can’t imagine the state they’re in after your nighttime drenching.”
A short while later, she was in someone’s dress and wishing she’d put on her own clothes after all. The dress was no doubt in better condition, but it ran tight on her—not to mention the fact that it was, well, “old-fashioned” would have been an understatement. “Antique” was nearer the mark. But even if it had been brand-new, she still felt vaguely like she was in a nightshirt; she rarely wore dresses. Her legs felt exposed without trousers, even though they were in fact hidden under yards of peachy fabric. At least the shoes were her own: a little stiff after their wetting last night, but they fit right and would doubtless soften back up with a little walking.
“Far from perfect, I’m afraid,” Rowan said, surveying her, “but it’ll have to do for now. Perhaps I can have Mathilda fix your clothes up later.”
Liza followed her outside, blinking in the morning sunlight. Rowan smiled.
“Come on, then!”
But Liza couldn’t come on, then, because she was too busy staring, open-mouthed, at the forest.
Glass trees glittered and shone in the sunlight, throwing spots of color onto the lush turquoise grass. Their shadows wobbled vaguely over everything, giving the impression of being underwater. Leaves of stained glass waved gently in the canopy, chiming sweetly, and on the ground stained glass flowers grew in clumps: roses, violets, multi-colored daisies. Liza was overwhelmed by color and light so beautiful she could’ve wept. But she didn’t, because Rowan’s entire troupe was grinning at the expression on her face.
Breakfast seemed to last half the day as the circus troupe sat around a fire, laughing and joking, telling stories, interrupting each other, slapping their knees, stealing each other’s food. Rowan was the queen of it all, grinning along with the rest of them, just as loud and full of good cheer. Other than Liza, who felt a little out of her element in the midst of so much gaiety, only Graham Chelsea (freshly dressed) seemed separate from it. He ate in silence and smiled only occasionally when coaxed into it by the circus’s contortionist. -
Day 18: Book Man rewrites (327 words)
Spoiler
Liza tore her eyes away from the riotous color and sat down, trying to ignore the laughter of her hosts. They knew, didn’t they, that there was nothing like this back home?
“What about Duncan?” she asked as they started in on a breakfast of an unidentifiable but tasty meat.
“All in good time, darling. Breakfast first.”
Liza downed her food and then sat twiddling her thumbs as the rest of them ate unhurriedly....
The rest of the forest was not so merry. People Liza recognized vaguely from last night’s fair were sooty and grimy, crusted with dried blood, dressed in ragged bandages, wearing exhaustion like a cloak and expressions that said plainly they were trying not to weep. There were permanent dwellings scattered amongst the trees, things like log cabins but made of colored glass instead of wood, and their owners were all over, helping the refugees from the fair bind wounds, repair wagons and carts, and pitch tents. Compared to the rest, Rowan and her troupe, with their in-tact circus tent and breakfast already prepared, were living like kings. To be sure, every ragged person who walked by was offered a seat and some food, but all the same—Liza didn’t understand it. She didn’t understand how they could be so cheery.
At long, long, long last, Rowan stood up and brushed the turquoise grass from her tights. “Well, well, my dears, I’ve promised our new friend here I’d help her out with a personal matter. You know what to do.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the troupe chorused, all at slightly different times, and they hopped up and went about their chores. Some cleaned up the fire; some went into the tent and reemerged with bandages and stored foods and tools and liquor; some went right over to those who were building, repairing, or binding wounds and joined in. Their good cheer never dissipated. If anything, it seemed more intentional.
Rowan smiled around at them fondly. -
Day 19: Book Man rewrites (942 words)
Spoiler
“It’s good eggs I’ve got in my family.”
Liza stared at her. “Your…?”
The ringmaster laughed. “Don’t be daft, my dear, they’re not all really my family! Good heavens, d’you think we’re Catholic or something? But your troupe is as good as your family in this business—or should be, says I, and if they’re not, well, you’re doing something wrong. Oh—Isadora!”
She waved a hand wildly at a woman some distance ahead, a tiny woman in riding habit and old boots. “Isadora! Isadora Pratt! A moment, if you please.”
The woman turned and gazed at her disdainfully. No love lost there, Liza thought, but the woman waited for them to catch up nonetheless. She had skin the color and texture of old leather and a marvelous amount of silvery hair hanging over her shoulder in a thick braid. Twin stars sparkled in her large, black eyes, but her mouth was wide and toad-like and didn’t match the rest of her at all—her straight back and haughty bearing bespoke a once-great beauty who had been in no doubt about her attractiveness, but the corners of her mouth were turned down in displeasure and gave Liza the impression that she’d never smiled in her life.
“I do not please,” she said. “There’s much to do, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Now, now, Isadora, we can’t all be as grumpy as you all the time. Someone must be the face of optimism in such dire situations.”
Rowan’s tone was still pleasant and cheery, but Liza, giving her a sideways glance (the woman’s eyes rather unsettled her), noticed her face turning red.
“Be quick about it,” the woman named Isadora said. “What do you want?”
Rowan leaned forward.
“I meant to inquire about your son,” she said, waggling her eyebrows meaningfully. Something in Isadora’s face tightened. “His wife’s here looking for him, and I thought if he’d be anywhere—”
Isadora’s thin eyebrows crept up her forehead as she turned to Liza with renewed interest. “His wife! This can’t be her, can it?”
“It can,” Rowan said, “and it is, and she can hear perfectly well, so you may as well aim your questions directly at her. Liza Smith, Isadora Pratt. Isadora, Liza.”
Duncan’s wife and mother eyed each other. Liza purpled as the older woman took in her cropped hair, the borrowed dress that didn’t quite fit, her rolls. When Sarah had showed up at her house and proposed a stakeout, she’d managed to forget, for a while, how old and fat she usually felt, but Isadora’s judgmental gaze brought all the usual feelings rushing right back. Rowan surreptitiously grabbed her hand and squeezed, as if she knew exactly how Liza felt. Well, Liza thought, maybe that meant she shouldn’t take it personally—maybe Isadora was this way with everyone.
But at last, her mother-in-law (her mother-in-law? Her mother-in-law who was supposed to be dead?) pursed her lips and said, “He spoke of your beauty” only to add, with a shrug, “Well, that’s love for you.”
Liza’s face felt hot with shame. No mistake about it, Rowan’s cheeks had turned bright red with rage.
“Now, look here!” she snapped. “Is that any way to talk to your own daughter-in-law? Good God, Isadora, if you were my mother-in-law—”
“You’d give me a piece of your mind, I’m sure,” Isadora said in a bored voice. “But sadly for both of us, I have no daughters. Not much danger of that now, is there?”
She turned and started walking away through the wet grass, then turned back and looked at Liza. “Well, come along. You may as well meet the rest of the family.”
Rowan’s grip tightened on Liza’s hand. She was chewing her tongue as if holding back the rest of an angry tirade, but Liza gently loosed herself. She couldn’t stop when she was so close to Duncan, just because his mother had turned out to be a horrible…
“I’ll be fine,” she whispered.
Rowan stood there clenching and unclenching her fists, but at last she shrugged and called after them, “Be back in time for supper, darling.”
Isadora chuckled to herself as they went along. It sounded like a dry branch breaking. “Hear that? She’s trying to rescue you from me already. You’re free to stay with her nights if you like. It’s immaterial to me.”
“Oh—thank you,” Liza said, and then thought: why am I thanking her? She just told me she doesn’t want me to stay with her.
A glass cabin came into view, further from the center of camp than any others—if you could call it a cabin. The rest had put Liza in mind of an early settlement in the New World, little one-room affairs with a window or two cut out and curtains inside to separate the parents’ bedrooms from the rest of it. This one was a mansion in comparison, with odd towers and turrets, balconies, a veranda glittering in the spare sun that fell through the stained-glass leaves above. People spilled from every door and window, women in long skirts, men with broad shoulders like Duncan’s, children tumbling over each other and playing at the feet of an old, old man who looked like Duncan might look if age ever caught up to him. He was sitting on the porch in a rocker with the children climbing all over him—keeping them busy while the others helped the fair folk—but he rose with a smile at the sight of Isadora.
Well, Liza thought, he must be all right if he could smile at the sight of her.
“Dora,” he called. -
Day 20: Book Man rewrites (2237 words)
Spoiler
“What’s this? Bringing an extra person home—God’s nightgown, I never thought I’d see the day. Sure, she looks in better shape than most our guests, eh? Lucky you escaped injury, lassie. Most of the fair folk weren’t so fortunate.”
“She’s not one of the fair folk,” Isadora said. “She’s our daughter-in-law.”
One of the children tugged on his trousers, but he didn’t notice. His broad brown face slackened in a way that suggested he couldn’t decide whether to smile or cry.
“Well,” he said, in an utterly changed voice—hoarse, with an emotion Liza couldn’t identify. “Well! Well. Our—are you now, lassie? And what’s your name?”
“Liza, sir.”
“Sir! Oh, no, lassie, call me Bartholomew. It’s kin we are—aye, never thought I’d say it of a southerner, but when you’re kin, you’re kin. I—”
He and Isadora exchanged a glance. She was as stiff and unwelcoming as ever, he helpless, but Liza didn’t care. She had only one question for them. Plenty of time to worry about their filial relations later.
“Where’s Duncan?”
Her husband’s parents shared a long, doleful look. Isadora’s face tightened again.
“Come inside,” she said at last.
Fear welled up in Liza as she followed them into the glass house. She barely noticed the colors and gleam, the people rushing back and forth with basins of water and armfuls of bandages, the army chopping vegetables in the cavernous glass kitchen, the wounded convalescing in the parlor. She didn’t notice at all the people who buffeted them as they made their way up a grand staircase to the quieter second story. Why “come inside”? Why not an answer? She recalled Christian saying that Duncan had been injured. Her blood ran cold. Had his injury become infected? Was he dying? Had she come this far only to see him laid out for a viewing?
Her breath came in short bursts. She clasped her hands together and ground her teeth, willing herself to stay calm until she knew the worst, and she wondered, distantly, if this was how Christian felt when he had a panic attack.
They stopped in a small upstairs sitting room. Bartholomew and Isadora dropped onto a worn loveseat together; Liza sat slowly in an armchair facing them. Her in-laws still wore expressions she couldn’t quite read, but Isadora’s disdainful mask had definitely cracked, and that more than anything frightened her. Her hands were shaking. She focused on the room in an attempt to stop panicking. It was cozy, more of an attic than a proper room, with the loveseat and two armchairs, all with bald patches in the upholstery and flattening cushions. The walls were glass that burned a deep, coppery red like fire. The floor was made of glass timbers that looked like blonde wood—whether it had been manufactured to look that way or somehow cut that way from the glass trees in the forest, she didn’t know. A rug as worn as the upholstery on the seating lay in the center of the room. A little light filtered in through the window at the far end of the room, but the primary source of light was a small iron lamppost stuck oddly, Liza thought, in a pot beside the loveseat. It grew in the shape of a small tree with an unnaturally straight trunk and intricately twined, delicate leaves, and the bulbs looked more like reddish, glowing fruit.
Or maybe they were fruit. Liza didn’t know anymore.
“Where’s Duncan?” she repeated at last.
Isadora pulled a basket of sewing toward her and started embroidering what appeared to be a horse’s halter.
“We don’t know, lassie,” Bartholomew said, patting his wife’s thigh gently. “Not here.”
Liza’s heart pounded. “Not—?”
“We’ve not seen him since the attack. He—”
Isadora sniffed, unexpectedly, but when Liza looked at her, her eyes were dry. Bartholomew gave her another pat.
“’S’all right, Dora,” he said. “He’s a good lad. He’ll be all right. No, lass. He was here with us for about a week—a week, it was, Dora, aye? Aye, yes. Had a bad bite off a night howler, he had, and the Blacks were kind enough to bring him home in their cart, let him sleep in it all week under an awning so we wouldn’t hurt him more by moving him, Maggie even looked after—”
His words came to Liza as if through deep water, dim and murky. She hardly understood what he was saying, simply because it was so unfair. Duncan had been here. Duncan had been here, injured, all week, and the whole time she’d believed the worst of him, that he’d run off with someone younger and prettier and more fun. Duncan had been here, injured, unable to come home to her even though he must have wanted to—wasn’t that what Christian had said?—and now, now, now that she was here… She’d come through hell and high water, she’d come all the way to another world to find her husband, a world where frightful non-beasts attacked and forests were all of glass and lampposts were kept in pots, and now that she had come all this way, he wasn’t here. He wasn’t here. His own parents didn’t know where he was.
She wrenched herself out of the swirl of panicked thoughts rising inside her. Bartholomew was still talking.
“—awful, he was just well enough to go back yesterday, and now—”
That started her all over. He’d gone back? He’d gone back to the park? Oh. Oh. Liza gripped her head in her hands, breathing harder than ever. Tears stung her eyes and spilled over and she just knew that Isadora would be looking down her nose in disgust when she looked up, but she didn’t care, she couldn’t help it—he’d been here, he’d gone back, he’d never made it back through the portal—he was still somewhere in the park, injured, maybe dead now, and she’d come all this way for nothing but rain and misery and a cold mother-in-law, and Sarah and Christian were missing now, too, and she had even less hope of ever seeing them again than she did her husband.
“Bartholomew,” she heard Isadora say sharply. The old woman’s voice was harsh, just managing to mask the way it shook. “That’s enough. Can’t you see you’ve upset her?”
Liza sobbed, loud and hard, and it hurt more than it had when Rowan had held her. She knew, now. She was never going to see Duncan again. He was gone. His own parents hadn’t seen him since before the attack. He hadn’t made it home—he was trapped there, with those fiery birds and werewolfish things and God knew what else. She wished Rowan was here to hold her now, but instead she leaned against the arm of her chair and sobbed so loudly she was sure the whole household would come thundering in to see who was making such a racket.
No one did, however. A hand touched her shoulder gently. She caught her breath and looked up, her vision blurry with tears. To her surprise, it was not Bartholomew but Isadora who had leaned forward to put hand on her shoulder and was gazing at her, a little uncomfortably.
“I know I’m not an easy woman,” her mother-in-law said stiffly. “Horses have always come more easily to me than people. But—”
She pursed her lips. Beside her, her husband looked at both women in something akin to shock, as if he’d never seen a woman cry before. Or perhaps he was just taken aback by the intensity of Liza’s outburst.
“He is my son,” Isadora said. Her be-ringed claws tightened on Liza’s shoulder, just for an instant, and then she withdrew and laid her hands in her lap. Bartholomew slumped in his seat, looking positively ancient.
“We shouldn’t have let him go back,” he said. “Maggie thought he ought to stay put until he was up to walking, but he was so bored. He yearned to get back.”
Isadora’s lips twitched as if she’d been thinking of smiling but couldn’t bring herself to do it. “He was driving her to distraction. Here.”
She dug a handkerchief from somewhere and handed it to Liza. She withdrew the moment it had left her fingers, sat back for a moment, motionless, and then, as if she couldn’t stand sitting still a second longer, went back to embroidering the halter. Her needle stabbed through the fabric so fiercely Liza was afraid she’d prick herself.
A young girl of maybe seven or eight slipped into the room, eyeing them all fearfully. She had pale skin and flaxen hair, and Liza wondered dully if she was somehow a relative or if she’d come with the refugees. Bartholomew was up in an instant, sitting forward again, a smile hitched on his face like he’d never lost it.
“What is it, lassie?”
She gave him a bleak look. “Tommy’s run off again, sir. Said not to tell you.”
“Oh, good—” Bartholomew began to swear, then looked at her tiny face and thought better of it. He smile had melted in a pool of exasperation. “You did right to tell us, Annie. Go on help Bridget in the kitchen. We’ll find him.”
“Yes, sir.” She shuffled off again, and Bartholomew fell back, looking weary.
“God’s nightgown,” he said, less vehemently than before. “That boy—I don’t know what we’re going to do with him, Dora, I’d better—”
“Portal’s not open now.” Isadora counted her stitches. “He can’t go anywhere.”
But her husband had already shot up from his seat and galloped out of the room. Liza sat dabbing her eyes with the handkerchief until her mother-in-law said, without looking up from her embroidery, “If you go to the kitchen and ask for Bridget, she can take you back to that woman’s tent.”
It took a moment before Liza realized she was talking about Rowan. She arose uncertainly, hardly believing she was being kicked out so unceremoniously, and after Isadora had shown her such kindness only a moment ago—but when she looked, she found the older woman’s head bowed and tears slipping down her embroidery thread. She knew that trick—she’d never fallen into the trap quite as harshly as Isadora, but she knew what it was to act unfeeling when your world was crumbling apart.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’m sorry he hasn’t been—I’m sorry we haven’t—I’m sorry.”
She wasn’t quite sure what she was apologizing for, but she knew, too, how it felt to be so far from someone you cared about—even if your relationship was difficult. Isadora didn’t look up, and Liza wasn’t even sure she’d heard. She left the handkerchief on the arm of her chair and headed for the door. She was nearly there when her mother-in-law finally spoke.
“You’re welcome any time.”
Liza didn’t quite believe it, but it was a nice gesture, anyway.
She was accosted by unknown relatives on her way to the kitchen. A cluster of young men and women with Duncan’s kind eyes and easy smile swarmed about her, barraging her with questions.
“Are you really his wife?”
“I can’t believe you’ve never come to visit!”
“He said you’re from London, is that right?”
“Why do you still live Outside? You could move in with us—”
“I can’t believe we’ve never met you!”
None of them seemed to notice that she’d been crying, or that she was exhausted and confused, or that she wasn’t answering their questions. They introduced themselves all on top of each other. She couldn’t begin to keep track of their names—only grew more and more miserable as she caught words like sister, brother, nieces, nephews. Duncan’s family. Duncan’s family, bigger than he’d ever described, and all of them knew about her but she hadn’t known about a single one of them. His parents had been dead, for God’s sake. She hadn’t even known he’d had brothers and sisters, all with children of their own. The letters she’d found in his desk drawer had done nothing to prepare her for this big, loud, welcoming family.
“Away, you lot, let her breathe a minute,” yet another strange woman said. She stood at the foot of the stairs with a ladle in her hand and pointed it at them all menacingly. The little girl with flaxen hair stood at her side, peering around her skirts at the gaggle of people. “So! Duncan’s wife, is that what I’m hearing?”
“Yes—” Liza hardly knew what to say. Her head was still swimming, her breathing ragged. She just kept repeating useless phrases as the woman (quieter than the rest) questioned her, interrupting herself only to give orders to the others in the kitchen. “Yes—thank you—I—”
“—his oldest sister, always held myself responsible for the lot of them, and I was wondering if you know where—”
“No,” Liza choked. “No, I’m sorry. No, I—”
Somehow, at last, she found herself out of the kitchen, out of the glass house, standing barefooted in the turquoise grass. Had she always been barefooted? She vaguely recalled having shoes before, her own shoes, the flats she’d worn out of the house yesterday—the day before—she wasn’t sure when—she had no memory of taking them off, but they were gone now. -
Day 21: Book Man rewrites (1583 words)
Spoiler
People were everywhere, everywhere, with the glass trees throwing their watery light and shadows. Liza couldn’t breathe. She choked back another sob and stumbled into the forest.
Sarah and Christian had long since lost sight of the pool, the sirens, and Narodnaya when they collapsed on the river bank to catch their breath. There was more grass and moss here, a nice carpeting of it, and lampposts sprinkled amongst the real trees rather than the other way around. They lay side by side on their stomachs and slurped down water to soothe their parched throats. Christian had forgotten that they were both naked—his heart pounding, his breath quick, his body still primed for flight. The way they were lying, he couldn’t see anything of Sarah but her face, arms, and shoulders anyway.
“Well,” she said at last. “There’s my exercise for the week.”
Christian laughed, a bit hysterically. “Maybe for life.”
Sarah propped her head on her fist and looked at him. “That must have been extra awkward for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Getting kissed by a man like that.”
Christian flinched. He was sure she didn’t mean it unkindly, but—Well, he was done hiding from people. Tired of getting to know someone, falling in love with them or thinking they were best friends, and then facing the rejection, disbelief, or disdain later. He’d just have to tell her.
“Actually—” he mumbled. He blushed deeply. Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—I’m sorry. I thought you were—I just assumed—I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were gay.”
Hmmm. Not bad to be apologized to for once. He could just let it go.
But he was tired of lying to people.
He cleared his throat. “Actually, I’m, um, well, I’m not exactly gay, either. I’m, um. I’m pansexual.”
She lowered her hand and stared at him with a faint frown he couldn’t interpret. He’d heard so many things about it by now, but he had no way of knowing which one of those things she’d say.
But when she spoke, it wasn’t any of them.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Oh,” he said. It had been apparent, before, that this was the case, but no one had ever quite put it that way. Usually it was something more along the lines of what the hell is that supposed to mean? “Oh. Well.”
There were many ways he could’ve explained it, but he chose his favorite. “One of my aunt’s coworkers, she works at the library in Edinburgh, she told me—I didn’t have a word for it, see, for the longest time. But she reads all sorts of feminist literature, gets involved in protests and stuff, and I’d always felt this connection to her, not romantic or anything, just like she was a safe person for me to be myself around, you know? Turns out she’s pansexual too. Or, well, panromantic. She’s not big on sex. Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have said that. Anyway. She likes to say it’s like, you know, we don’t really see someone’s gender – we’re attracted to people, not genders. Well, actually, she likes to say she’s attracted to souls, not bodies, but I’m—I mean,” he blushed again, suddenly remembering their state of nudity, “physical intimacy is—I’m definitely also attracted to people’s bodies. I guess I’m just not all that picky about what kind of body it is.”
Sarah tilted her head and gazed out at the river. He’d never quite explained it that way—he’d never told anyone about his aunt’s friend, not for any real reason, but when you were faced with a what the hell does that mean rather than a I don’t know what that means, you tended to spit out a good-enough meaning as quickly as possible.
“That’s really,” Sarah started finally, and he braced himself, but she finished with, “beautiful.”
“Oh—” Weird, but all right. He’d take it. “You think so?”
“Yeah. I mean—” She rolled over onto her back, apparently still forgetful of the fact that they were both naked. Christian averted his eyes and looked at the river instead. “I mean, you could basically fall in love with anyone. You see…okay, I know you don’t like to say ‘souls,’ but I like that bit about your aunt’s friend, it’s so, like, all right, it’s kind of new agey and weird, but it’s also just a beautiful way to think about love, isn’t it?”
She rolled over again and added, “I mean, it’s not for me. Men only, definitely, ladies need not apply and all that, but—”
“It’s not for me,” Christian mumbled. “It’s just how I am.”
“Of course, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—wow, I’m sorry, I’ve just, I’ve never actually had anyone tell me they were queer before, I don’t actually know what to say, and. Am I being completely shitty to you right now?”
“Actually,” Christian said, “that was almost the best thing anyone’s ever said about it.”
“What do people usually say?”
That his sexuality wasn’t real. That he was really gay, or really straight, or confused. That they couldn’t trust him not to cheat, since he was invariably attracted to everyone—never mind the fact that that wasn’t how he worked. Jude had said some combination of all three when they’d broken up.
“They always ask if I’m attracted to cookware.”
The leaves rustled behind him. Both of them shot up and looked around, afraid the sirens or some other, unknown danger had caught up to them. Instead, the marsh-witch drifted out of the trees with their clothing clutched in her bony hands. She dumped it in the grass.
Put your clothes on. You humans shiver so without them. It’s pathetic.
Sarah looked down at herself, then glanced at Christian, then whirled around so she couldn’t see him. “Oh, my God, I forgot about our clothes.”
“I didn’t,” Christian said. “I mean, I did for a bit there, but, um. It’s okay, I didn’t see anyth—thanks, Narodnaya.”
He heard a strange wheezing noise that he realized was her version of laughter, and a word that might have been a derisive humans. Maybe their embarrassment and modesty was funny to her, but he wasn’t about to stare at Sarah when they were both naked.
Their clothes were warm and dry from sitting on the shore, but once he had pulled them on he realized something was missing.
“You’ve forgotten our shoes.”
The marsh-witch eyed him coldly. I am sorry. I was too much preoccupied with saving your skins.
“He didn’t mean it,” Sarah said. “We appreciate it, you saving us back there. Really. We can probably get on without shoes now that there’s real ground to be had.”
“Yes, thank you,” Christian stammered. The marsh-witch drifted behind a tree. He had a feeling she was about to leave again, so he broke off his thanks and said hastily, “Don’t go.”
She peered at him from behind her tree. Why shouldn’t I?
Sarah’s face said she had the exact same question. He could practically hear her voice in his head as well: what the hell are you thinking? Asking a fearsome creature with sharp teeth and a sharper attitude to stay.
“We’d be glad of the company. You’ve been kind.”
Sarah blew air between her lips, looking like she was trying very hard to keep herself from interrupting to tell him they were absolutely not taking a marsh-witch on a journey with them, but to his relief she held her silence.
Narodnaya drifted out from behind her tree and studied him. He blushed under the intensity of her gaze but stood firm. She did look frightening, there was no changing that. But she’d given them walking sticks, pointed them in the right direction, saved them from the sirens and brought them their clothes (even if she had forgotten their shoes, he thought before he could stop himself).
“We don’t know our way,” he added. “We’d just get lost and end up in your lands again.”
She eyed him suspiciously. Why would you want me to show you the way? Do I not frighten you?
“Well—” He glanced at Sarah, who raised her eyebrows in a question. “I’d be lying if I said we weren’t frightened of you at all, but you’ve done so much for us already. I don’t think you’re really as bad as you seem to be.”
The marsh-witch’s gaze seemed less fearsome than before, unsure of itself. She turned to Sarah and asked, And what do you think of this?
Sarah looked taken aback at being addressed directly but shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re not my favorite person ever, and I doubt I’m yours, but—he’s right, I guess. You saved our hides back there. And our best hope of finding Liza is to get to Glasswood as quickly as possible and pray that she’s there.”
Narodnaya turned back to Christian with an odd expression on her gaunt face. You would really like me to travel with you?
“Yes,” Christian said, emboldened by Sarah’s words. “We really would.”
The marsh-witch ducked her head in a way that made it seem as if she was blushing now, though no color appeared in the gaunt, grey-green cheeks.
Then I would be happy to.
A stream cut through the glass forest, quick and loud and colored with fragments of stained glass leaves shed by the glass trees. -
Day 22: Book Man rewrites (522 words)
Spoiler
Liza saw Rowan sitting somewhere ahead on the banks of the stream. It cut through the forest, quick and loud and colored with fragments of stained glass leaves shed by the glass trees. She’d been following it since she fell from the Smiths’ front porch, because it seemed like the thing to do. She didn’t much want to run into Rowan right now—she didn’t want to run into anyone, she hardly knew what she was feeling, everything was a jumble of cascading fear and despair and anger—but it was easier to keep following the stream than to turn aside. She tried to swallow the tide of emotion as she neared the ringmaster, but she couldn’t.
“That was a monumental disaster,” she spat. “Anyone else you want to introduce me to?”
Rowan looked up at her in confusion, and that’s when she realized it wasn’t Rowan. It was a woman who looked incredibly like Rowan—nearly a clone—but she had a birth mark on her lip and a monocle in her right eye, and her clothes, otherwise identical to Rowan’s, were royal blue instead of violet.
Liza stopped several yards away from her.
“I’m—I’m so sorry,” she said, confused. “I thought you were—”
The woman gave a smile that looked like Rowan’s but was much quieter. “An easy mistake to make. We are identical twins.”
Liza must have looked as confused as she felt, because the woman added, “Rowan? I presume that’s who you thought I was.”
She returned her gaze to the river. She had a fishing pole in her hands and a young boy at her side. He had flaxen hair and looked not unlike the little girl in the Smiths’ house. Embarrassed and not sure what else to say—was there no end to surprise relatives? She hadn’t even known Rowan had had a sister—Liza sat beside her and nodded at the boy.
“His name isn’t Tommy, is it?”
The boy rested his chin on his knees. The woman looked at him and patted his shoulder. “It is, in fact. D’you know his folks?”
“I don’t know anyone.”
“Shame.” The woman pulled in her fishing line and rebaited the hook. She cast it back into the water, and then held a hand out to Liza. “No time like the present. The name’s Finn.”
“Liza.”
The boy sniffed. Finn and Liza looked at him, but he wiped his nose on his sleeve and looked out over the glittering water. Liza waited, expecting Finn to say something, but Rowan’s twin sat in comfortable silence as though unaware of how miserable her two companions were. Finally Liza couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Aren’t you going to ask?”
“Ask what, my dear?”
“Ask—” Liza fished for words. “Ask—if you were Rowan, and I came upon you thinking you were you, and I said what I said, she’d want to know what was wrong and why and who and how.”
Finn chuckled to herself. “I’m not Rowan. Oh! Look out, chums, it’s a big’un!”
The fishing line had gone taut.
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