I had thought all the stops on the Way would be in the crypts or basements, but our next step surprised me by depositing us in a woodland clearing. Crows lifted from the treetops and circled around us, cawing their alarm as we slipped into their domain in a cloud of falling leaves. The trees were at the crown of a hill. Between the trunks you could see miles of open countryside laid out below us. "Where are we now?"
"Near Hereford, I think. We need to head north from here."
The subtle change in her voice should have alerted me that something had changed but I wasn't ready for the shift in Blackbird's appearance. She had switched to the girl in Claire's conference room. The dappled sunlight filtering through the rust-tinted canopy showed me a young woman rather than an old lady. "What's with the change?"
Her hair still held the vivid corkscrew curls from the girl in Trafalgar Square, though the glamour and polish of that earlier persona had been replaced by a casual beauty. The short skirt from before was now a long flared cotton one in gypsy colours and her top was sleeveless, in bold blue. A pale blue woollen shawl wrapped around her shoulders and down around her arms. She twirled around amidst the drifting leaves. "What do you think?" She smiled as she completed her turn.
"It's fine, Blackbird, but I think I prefer the older you."
"Do you?" she challenged. "Or do you just feel safer? "
"You haven't answered my question, why the change?"
"I think a man your age travelling with a younger woman causes less comment, don't you? Anyway, I told you, I'm tired of hiding."
There was something about that little addition that rang differently in her voice. Not a lie, but it made me look at her more closely. She had acquired a freshness, a sparkle that had nothing to do with the autumn sunshine filtering through the trees.
"We'll rest here a moment," she turned away from my scrutiny to look around the clearing. "How are you holding up?"
"I feel great. Travelling down the Way is fantastic. "
"The Ways leave you elated and full of energy, but it will quickly wear off and leave you feeling tired and washed out. Too much of it and you can lose focus. "
"What happens then? "
"You don't want to get lost on the Way."
I didn't feel tired or lost. I was buzzing. I had so many questions.
"What are the sounds you can hear on the Way?"
"The low rushing sound is the Way, itself."
"No, I meant the other noises, the ones that sound like the echoes of voices."
"I don't hear those."
"You don't?"
"No."
"I'm sure I heard them."
She hesitated.
"Is something wrong?" I asked her.
"No, nothing's wrong. At least I don't think so. It's just that there are gaps in my knowledge, Rabbit. I know it must seem like I know all about the Feyre, but the truth is that I only know the ones I've met, or seen, or heard about. You present me with things I've never come across before. Tell me, what do you see when you travel down the Way?"
"There are flashes of things, flying past. Spirals, eddies that twist and turn, lights that streak past like shooting stars in a sea of blue so deep, it's just… It's hard to make sense of it."
"When I travel, I see a river of fire streaked from blue through to yellow and orange. It's like riding on an explosion of flame."
"Why is it different?"
"I am Fey'ree, a creature of fire and air. When I call to the Way, it answers me in kind, bearing me on a river of fire and air. When you call to it, it answers according to your nature."
"What is it then that I'm seeing and hearing?"
"The Feyre believe in five elements. Each of the Feyre expresses those elements in their own way, which is what makes us different from each other. The greyne are of water and air, the trollen of earth and water, each an expression of its essence."
"I thought there were supposed to be four elements. "
"Earth, air, fire, water, and the void. "
"What's the void?"
"It is the space between things; the emptiness dividing one from another. It is everywhere, between everything. Without it there would be no you or me or anything else. It would all merge into a single mass. The void is the element for the wraithkin. "
"Is that bad?"
"There is no good or bad in it, it just is. As I told you, I am a creature of fire and air and, as such, I can't be harmed with it. I could put my hand in a flame and it would be hot and it might hurt, but it wouldn't burn me."
"So what does it mean to be of the void?"
"I've no idea, I've never been in a position to ask anyone before."
I thought about that for a moment. How would she know? The wraithkin had taken themselves apart from the rest of the Feyre a long time ago and even in the best of times I got the impression that they were secretive. "It didn't look like nothingness. "
"Pardon? "
"The void. It didn't look like nothing."
"I didn't say it was nothing, I said it was between things. When we were in the conference room, back at the Courts of Justice, what made you choose the mirror?"
"Well, it was there on the wall, and you told me the wraithkin that came that night… you know?" A shadow crossed her eyes, but I pressed on. "Well, you said he spoke into the mirror, so I wondered if I could too. "
"And you did. "
"It worked quite well, didn't it?"
"That's why I have to be careful what I say to you. Before you called to the mirror I had no idea you could do that without touching it. Remember, the wraithkin on that night put his hand on the mirror? "
"Yes, but it felt like the same thing."
"And it was, but would you have tried if I had told you that you couldn't do it that way? "
"Probably not," I admitted.
"So by letting you follow your instinct, rather than filling you full of my preconceptions, you discovered something for yourself. Honestly, Rabbit, at the moment I am your worst enemy. "
"No, Blackbird. You're my best friend."
I had expected a smile for that, but instead her expression changed to something more guarded and neutral.
"You place too much trust in me. "
"Do I?"
"You know you do. You admitted as much when we were in the crypt." She avoided eye contact, wading slowly through the leaves around her ankles. "You've helped me enormously. You must know how grateful I am?"
There was a long pause. She was focused on the distant farms visible through the trees.
"I did not think you would survive last night."
"I know. You explained that at the underground station."
"It doesn't make a very good friend, though, does it?"
It was my turn to pause.
"You are meant to be here," I told her.
"Pardon?"
"I was tempted before to tell you before that you were in the vision, so you would come with me, but the truth is I didn't see you. "
"You can't lie to me like that, Rabbit."
"I know, and I didn't try, but I was tempted."
"So what makes you say I am meant to be here?"
"Because I knew the crypt from my vision as soon as I saw it, but if you hadn't been there I would never have known it existed. Why would I? I didn't know about the Way or where to find it, but you did. Therefore you had to be there with me." I gave her a hesitant smile. "Someone else could have told you."
"Who? No one else will speak to me after what happened with Fenlock, you said that much yourself. No, you may not have appeared in the vision, but you're meant to be here, I'm certain of that."
She turned away again, staring across the fields as the breeze rustled in the branches overhead.
I changed the subject. "How come we're not in a crypt or something?"
She paused, then waded back though the leaves towards me. "The Ways were here long before the churches were built. There used to be temples and shrines on some of the node points and when Christianity arrived, the sites became churches. What better way to ensure a set of followers than to incorporate the old religions into the new?"
"So was there something here, on this hill?"
"Who knows? Sometimes the nodes are just places, like any other. Sometimes they are the sites for grand structures. You never know."
"What happens if you crash into someone's funeral in a church or something?"
"I generally take the precaution of using glamour to divert attention away but you can't do that entirely. Sometimes you just have to keep going until you find somewhere empty. There a knack to it, like treading stepping stones, you just hop from one to another." She mimicked a hopping, jumping step across the clearing.
"If you appear and disappear in a moment, people don't believe what they've seen. They rationalise it as a reflection or a trick of the light. At worst, a place gets the reputation for being haunted. Are you ready to go again?"
I nodded my assent and she stepped over to where the line was. She glanced back at me and then the leaves whirled up around her and she was gone. One moment I was sure she was there, the next moment there were just a vortex of falling leaves in an echo of the vision I had received from Kareesh. Well, at least I knew I was still on the right path, even if it was a strange one. I stepped onto the line, feeling the echoes of her passage and felt the breeze spring up. There was a whirl of leaves and the glade was far away.
I followed, emerging into another darkened cellar, filled with dusty woodwork. Blackbird had her torch out and was opening the map. She folded and unfolded it until she had the place she wanted. "Once more, I think," she whispered.
She folded the map and tucked it into her bag and switched off the torch.
"Are you OK?"
"I'm fine."
"You'll sleep well tonight, I think."
"I was supposed to sleep well last night. Then look what happened."
She caught my hand and squeezed it in the dark.
"Ready?"
"Yes, I'm ready."
She was right about the ways. Once the adrenaline wore off you were left feeling slightly disconnected from the world and very, very weary. Or maybe that was being woken at four in the morning by somebody trying to eat you. Either way, I was reaching the end of my endurance.
I felt the air twist around me as she left. I stepped onto the line, forcing myself to focus on the sense of her passing.
The Way swept me up once more, the disembodied voices sounding strangely familiar. The words were just out of hearing, and I thought that if I listened more closely maybe I could make out what they were saying. I felt the void twist and bend around me and I realised with a sinking feeling that I had missed Blackbird's trail. I twisted around, causing the way to eddy and swirl around me. It condensed and cleared leaving me hanging suspended, with no frame of reference with which to orientate myself.
I bathed in the lightless depths of it. Pale fire crept onto my fingertips and streamed into the empty dark. I tried to focus on Blackbird, to force the way to take me to her. I felt it veer and eddy as I curled and spun aimlessly. The voices wailed distantly, and I began to fear they were the voices of past travellers who had lost their way in the void. Fear sharpened my senses and I pulled at the fabric of the emptiness, bending it to my will, calling to it, forcing it to take me to her.
The emptiness answered my summons. I lit up with a nimbus of ghostly fire. I was inside and outside myself, a reflection of myself as witness. It pulled at my hands and feet and wound around me like a tentacle, exploring me, tasting me. I think I shouted her name. The way tensed and bunched, compressing me while I accelerated madly. I screamed and shot forward.
I remember flying, the sensation of the air rushing past my ears. I thumped and bounced in a jarring impact and rolled along the ground. Finally I lay on my back, breathing hard. When I opened my eyes, Blackbird was leaning over me. "What did you do? "
"What? Sorry?"
She tucked her skirt underneath her and sat on the grass beside me while I got my breath back. A few feet away, an ancient gravestone started with "HERE LIES…" My heart was still thumping in my chest and memories of how the void had twisted around me distorted my grip on reality, making me faintly nauseous. "What did you do?" she repeated.
"I don't know. I got distracted by the voices and lost you. I thought I was stuck and I panicked."
She leaned over me, looking into my eyes, possibly for signs of concussion. The late slanted sunlight filtered through her curls and I was struck again by how beautiful she was. Her lips curved in a way that gave you a sense that she was always on the edge of a smile and her eyelashes were incredibly long. "What?" she whispered.
"Nothing, I was… nothing." I closed my eyes, but that was worse because it made my head thump. I swallowed and opened my eyes again.
"Are you OK?"
"I just need a minute."
"I thought I'd lost you." She looked down at me, concern gradually replaced by another expression I couldn't interpret.
"I thought I'd lost myself," I admitted. "I heard my name. You called for me."
"I got stuck, sort of."
"You called my name," she repeated.
"I was lost. I couldn't find you."
She paused, that strange expression in her eyes again. "Are you always this…" She faltered. "This what?"
She leaned across me, resting her hand on the grass on the other side of me and lowered her face and kissed me, pressing her warm soft lips to mine. Her eyes were open, watching my reaction. I was so surprised, I lay there numb for a moment, unable to react. The stone around my neck pulsed into warmth at her touch, reminding me of its presence. She lifted her lips slowly from mine and then brushed her nose against mine, watching me all the while. "Dense," she said. "Pardon? "
"Dense. Are you always this dense? "
"What do you mean? "
"You have no idea, do you? "
"About what? "
"See what I mean?"
She leaned down and kissed me again, fully this time, pressing herself down on me so the warmth of her weighed on me. The stone against my chest flared with heat, her body pressing it between us as instinct took over and I kissed her back. Her lips were soft and firm and she tasted of sunshine. My senses swam with the scent of her and I found my fingers brushing back her hair of their own volition.
She lifted herself, head on one side as if she was waiting for me to say something.
"What was that for?" I asked her.
She paused, considering the question.
"Dense," she said, nodding, "definitely dense."
She pushed herself back and lifted herself to her feet, brushing the threads of grass from her skirt. She squinted into the sunshine and then collected her bag and the map from the grass a short distance away. She wandered back over and dropped the items in an unceremonious heap.
"What was that about?" I asked, shading my eyes against the sun behind her.
"Well, I stepped off the line and waited for you and instead of following me, you didn't. I stood around for a while and was wondering whether I should travel back down the way and try to find you when I heard my name. You were calling for me but I couldn't see you anywhere. Then the air sort of bent around itself and you came hurtling out and crash-landed on the grass. "
"No, after that."
"After that? After that I wondered if you'd broken your neck, but it's OK because I think you landed on your head."
"After that."
"After that I kissed you."
She stepped across me using both hands to tuck her skirt between her knees and then knelt down, one knee either side of my stomach. The light was still behind her, but she leaned over me putting her hands on either side of my head so her shade sheltered my face. "Would you like me to do it again?"
Her voice was softer and had an edge of huskiness to it. She lowered her face so her hair fell around us and I could see those fabulous green eyes glinting at me. I was acutely conscious of her weight resting low across my stomach.
"Blackbird, I thought we were…" I stopped and started again. "I thought you were…"
She sat up, her weight suddenly heavy on my stomach, her arms folded. The sunlight was full on my face again, but I could see the spark of anger in her eyes. "What did you think, Niall? That I'm too old for you? What is it with you and age? I was born in 1642. Work it out if it matters so much to you."
"I thought we were friends."
She put her hand on my chest and pushed herself up, standing over me, looking down. I pushed myself back up onto my elbows. "Friends? Is that what we are? Really?"
She turned, collected her things from the ground and walked up the slope, shoulders square and head up. In a moment she had vanished around the corner of the low stone church. I shook my head, trying to clear it, wondering if the fall had knocked the wits out of me. None of this made any sense. I knew she was angry with me, but now I couldn't figure out what I'd done wrong. I pushed myself to my feet and brushed the dry grass stalks from my clothes, finding myself largely unscathed, despite the bad landing. I stood up and looked around. I was in a graveyard behind a church, the ground sloping steeply down to a little stream hidden in the thickets at the bottom. The church was surrounded by ancient yew trees and it took me a moment to orientate myself. I struggled up the slope between the graves and found the gravel path around the church. I caught sight of her sitting on the wooden bench in the lych-gate. She was sat in the long shadow of the surrounding trees as if nothing had happened. I shook my head again, wondering whether anything had happened or whether I was suffering the after-effects of a bump on the head.
I walked down the path and through the gates to stand in front of her.
She looked at me, head on one side in that characteristic pose. She took in the dishevelled appearance, the bits of grass still caught in my hair. Deprived of sleep, chased, threatened and almost killed several times, I wasn't sure I understood anything anymore. She got to her feet, shaking her head and chuckling to herself, and walked off down the lane. I trudged after her, more confused than ever. Had the fall addled my wits completely? Had she really kissed me or was I hallucinating? No, she had definitely kissed me. But then she stomped off in a huff and then laughed at me. She paused, waiting for me to catch up and then walked alongside me. I felt confused and resentful at being made fun of, but she didn't say anything and after a while I subsided into a circular thought pattern leaving me no wiser.
We walked down a twisted lane, sunken between hedges as the light faded into twilight. There were glimpses of farmhouses and outbuildings through the hedge and the occasional distant tractor. A single car passed us, slowing as it drew level and then accelerating away once it was past. We crossed a bridge over a brook and started the climb up the hill on the other side. Real blackbirds scolded their alarm at our passing and there were occasional rustlings from the hedge beside the road that might, I suppose, have been a rabbit. She didn't speak and I had no idea what to say, so I stayed silent, mulling over what had happened.
My relationships with women had always been fraught. Even my marriage to Katherine had been difficult. We had been brought together by friends who thought we were made for each other, and at first that had been true. We wined and dined, and went to the theatre and talked of culture and art and politics. We were affectionate and even passionate. We stayed up late and spoke about history and philosophy and our jobs and even our friends, but never about us. Our relationship was something we never discussed. I liked her a lot, but in the end it had been she who had seduced me. It was she who pushed our relationship from an intellectual exchange to a physical consummation.
Quite suddenly the relationship changed. I found the physical aspect of our relationship overwhelming. I was obsessed with her. I couldn't wait to see her and be with her. But she wanted something beyond the moment, beyond the enjoyment of each other.
We broke up on a Friday. I was looking forward to a weekend of Katherine. I thought everything was fine until she called me and told me it was over. When I asked her why, she told me she wanted more than just sex and when I said that I thought we had more than sex, she laughed and said that was the problem. I told her I didn't understand and she told me she thought that was true.
That was why I asked her to marry me. Not immediately, not then, but later. I found I couldn't bear the thought of living day to day without her. It wasn't until much later that I realised I couldn't live with her constant suspicion and innate mistrust. By then we had Alex, and everything had changed.
"You're quiet." Blackbird brought me back to the present.
"Hmmm?"
"We've walked about two miles and you haven't said a word."
"I was thinking."
"What about?"
"Nothing."
"Two miles of nothing?"
"Old stuff, stuff that's gone; things long passed."
"Want to talk about it?"
"No. It's history."
We walked on, rounding a bend and walking past a farmyard where a tractor was left running unattended, the driver presumably engaged in one of the buildings. "Blackbird, why aren't we friends?"
"Aren't we?" She looked sideways at me. "I thought we were."
"But you said-"
"Back there? I don't know if we were friends then, but we are now, if you want to be."
"Would you do something, for me?" I asked her. "What's that? "
"Stick with me, stay friends with me."
I waited while she considered my request. She didn't just say "OK", and I valued that. She treated my proposal seriously. Friendship wasn't something I offered lightly or trivially. It was a commitment to a way of being. It cheered me that she considered it carefully. She skipped forward and turned in front of me, leaving me no choice but to stop or step around her. I stopped and she rested her hands on my chest. "Do you know what you're asking?"
"Yes. No. Is it so terrible to be my friend? Does it mean something else to the Feyre?"
"No, it's not terrible and friendship amongst the Feyre has all the usual connotations. But do you know what it means when a guy says to a girl, let's just be friends? "
"Oh, I see. I didn't mean that. I meant be my friend as well, alongside anything else you can be, that you want to be."
"And what do you want, Niall?" Her eyes were sharp and focused.
"Honestly? Right now I want a good night's sleep somewhere where no one is trying to kill me and the comfort of knowing I have a friend in the world. Beyond that, I am prepared to see what tomorrow brings. "
"A true answer and a fair one." She turned and continued walking, leaving me once more to catch up. "So is that a yes, or a no?" I asked her.
She looked back over her shoulder. "It's not a no." I caught up with her and settled back into her gentle pace.
"It wasn't exactly a yes, either," I pointed out. "No, it wasn't, was it?"
And I had to settle for that. I figured that I had offended her earlier when she thought I was rejecting her attentions. Now she was more reserved. "As your friend, Niall… "
"Yes."
"Would you confide in me? Would you tell me your secrets?"
"As your friend, I might, assuming I had any secrets. "
"Hmm. So if you liked someone, would it be a secret? "
"Not a secret exactly, but it might be difficult to talk about. "
"Why would that be?"
"She might be very complicated. I might not know where I was with her, even if I did like her quite a lot actually."
"She might be older than you?"
"She might, but that wouldn't necessarily be a problem. "
"Then why would she be complicated?"
I sighed, wrestling with the theoretical realities. "Because she might have a lot of secrets of her own; because she might change in the wink of an eye and be someone different, someone I didn't know or someone else that I did, if I ever knew her at all. How would I know who she was?"
"How do any of us know? We only show the parts we want others to see. We might not be able to cloak it in magic or switch in a moment, but we can all be different people, if we choose."
"That's true I suppose, but it's hard to trust someone when you don't know who they are." And trust, as I had learned too late with Katherine, is where friendship and even love are founded.
There was a long pause while we walked along, side by side, in silence.
"You could get to know her," she suggested. "Yes," I agreed, "I might just try that."
We walked along and after a few more yards, her hand slipped into mine and we walked along companionably. We could have been out for an evening walk if it weren't for the dark box in Blackbird's bag. "Glamour has a kind of side effect," she said, apropos nothing in particular.
"It does? What kind of side effect?" I had visions of all my hair falling out or my teeth going green.
"It becomes second nature. "
"How is that a side effect?"
"You use it all the time and it becomes the norm. It becomes part of you."
"Why is that a problem?"
She stopped and I halted, waiting for her to carry on. Instead she looked pensive, worried even.
"What's the matter?"
"Niall, do you like the way I look?"
"Is it important? I mean you look lovely, but looks aren't everything."
"Do you? Because I can change it if you don't. "
"What would you change it to?"
"Anything. Anything at all. Blonde, brunette, buxom, boyish, fat, thin, pink, green."
"No, no. You don't need to change the way you look for me. You just need to look like yourself."
"That's the thing." She hesitated. "I don't know what I look like. I've had glamour since I was fifteen and I've looked however I've wanted ever since. You want me to look like I am, but I choose how I am. I don't know how not to choose."
"What happens if you just relax and let go?"
"Nothing happens. I stay like I am. I've been doing this for so long I can do it in my sleep, literally. "
"What do you want me to say?" I was bemused and rather at a loss for words.
"I just wanted you to know. It seemed important to you and I felt I should explain."
She walked along beside me again, but her hand didn't return to mine. I felt as if I should apologise again, but I wasn't sure what for. Because I had assumed that she looked like a retired lady and not a young woman or because she didn't know what she looked like any better than I did? It was hollow and I was sure if I said anything, it would sound it.
We walked down a gentle hill with a big brick farmhouse on our left. The hedges had recently been flail-cut and torn pieces of sticks and leaves were strewn across the roadway. It reminded me of my life.
As we walked down the hill things began to register with me. It was like a seeing a cloud that suddenly looks like a dragon or realising the vase you were looking at is really the silhouette of two faces.
I stopped and she came to a halt with me.
"Do you know where we are?" I asked her.
"We can't be too far away now. We must have walked a couple of miles and it's only about five to the village." She extracted the map from her bag and started unfolding it.
I walked past her a few paces, watching images come into line and visions fulfil themselves. "You don't need the map. It's here."
"We can't be at the village yet, it's another mile or so at least."
"Come and look."
She refolded the map and came and stood beside me, looking down a short access track at a pair of ornate iron gates attached to brick pillars with a large old brick farmhouse set out in a courtyard beyond them. The farm looked neat and well cared for. "Are you sure? "
"Look at the name."
The sign was for Forge Farm with a neat anvil depicted in the centre of the cast-iron oval sign. "There could be more than one. There were no end of forges and foundries in this area a hundred years ago. "
"Look at the roof."
Along the line of the roof were three iron doves, black and outlined against the darkening skyline. One was pecking while the other two were artfully engaged in each other. At the other end of the apex an iron cat stalked along the cap-tiles, ready to pounce on them. It was the cat from my vision. As soon as I had seen it from the road I had been certain.
"Sure?" I nodded.
"We'd better go and introduce ourselves then.
"Blackbird, before we do. I have another request, if you'll allow it?" I spoke gently, aware that the wrong word at this moment would lead to a rift between us, just when I thought we were getting closer.
"What?" Her answer was curt, but not harsh.
"Would you stay like you are now, just for a while, until I get used to it? I rather like you like that." She didn't say anything, but as we walked down the track towards the farm her hand curled into mine again. It was such a small thing, but it lifted my heart and I couldn't help the smile that came unbidden to my lips.