Having spoken to Garvin, I could try Blackbird. I placed my hand back on the mirror.
"Blackbird?"
It misted under my hand.
"Blackbird, are you there?"
A strange whistling sound came from the mirror, followed by a buzz and crackle that made it sound like a badly tuned old-fashioned radio set. The buzz grew into a whine until the mirror vibrated with it and I was forced to remove my hand or risk the mirror. The condensation on the surface slowly contracted around my vacant handprint until it vanished. Wherever she had gone, it was secure against eavesdropping, by me or anyone else. Was that good news or bad? I tried to look on the positive side. If I couldn't find her, then maybe Deefnir wouldn't be able to either.
I had exhausted my enquiries, though I would dearly like to have talked to Blackbird before I slept. I suspected that I would find myself dreaming of the glade again. This time I was going to have to deal with it properly. If I didn't, I was never going to have a restful night's sleep again.
With a sense of mounting trepidation, I showered and prepared for bed. It felt more like girding my loins than readying myself for sleep. I slid in under the covers and lay in the near dark. I was so tired that my eyes felt gritty and heavy, but sleep would not come. Part of me knew what would happen when it did, and so I rolled on one side and then the other, delaying the moment.
I thought about all the things I'd learned: about the boats and the harbour, the men who never made it back to port, the way the town was changing, the feeble attempt to become a tourist resort with a disorganised museum and an unsuitable cafe. I puzzled about Raffmir and the reason for his unsolicited generosity. I questioned whether Garvin's reasons for keeping me away from the courts were really as straightforward as they appeared, and I wondered whether Kayleigh was sleeping any easier.
There must have been a moment when I wasn't thinking about any of these before I found myself on the path in the forest, but if there was, I do not remember it.
The transition was seamless. It was as if I was expected. I was clothed again, in fine black silk. My fingers were adorned with silver rings and an intricate silver clasp belted my waist. My feet were bare, and I could feel the crush and prickle of the pine needles beneath me. The air was heavy with resin, though frosty cold. Undisturbed in the dry, freezing air, the pine scent clung to my clothes and swirled around me as I moved slowly forward.
Looking behind me, I saw that the path vanished into pine-boughs where the rough trunks pressed together. The only sound was the brush of the soft needles against my arms and the prickling tread of my feet.
The clearing was unoccupied yet the sense of expectation, of invitation, was palpable. There was no doubt in my mind that I was recognised and welcome here. It made what I was about to do feel like treachery. I walked forward, knowing without looking that where the path had been there would be only snags and thorns.
"You've brought me here again." The emptiness ate my words. There was no echo, no reverberation. It was soft and smothering, like an unwanted aunt's embrace. "I can't keep coming here. You can't make me. You'll have to find some other way."
The temperature fell, deepening the chill.
"You again?"
I recognised Debbie's voice immediately. When I turned she was behind me, naked.
"Stay away from me." She hugged her arms around her, hiding her breasts. "I know about your sort. You're crazy. You need help."
I turned my back and ignored her. "Send her back. I will not touch her."
"You're completely barking. Mental, that's what you are."
Even as she spoke, her voice faded. I was alone again.
Then a new voice. "I must be asleep."
I turned, recognising the tone, the memory of an insistent cry and a weary voice roused from sleep, giving me a name.
"Helen?"
"Do I know you?"
She held the baby in the crook of her arm as it nuzzled into her armpit, making little whimpers. The naked child was cold in the exposed air, though Helen herself was dressed in a cotton shift. She had a practical, straightforward look to her that I had not seen in the photo. She gathered the baby to her and looked about, a sense of growing panic in her eyes. She was searching for somewhere to run, and there was nowhere.
"What is this?"
I didn't answer her. Instead I spoke to the pinpricked sky. "You can send her back too. I will not touch her, or the babe."
"Who are you talking to?" she asked. "There's no one there."
The babe began to mewl as the cold seeped into them both.
"Send them back, now. I do not want them here."
"I said, there's no one there." She was starting to sound angry.
I stripped off the silk shirt, undoing the buttons and then pulling it over my head.
"What are you doing?" Her voice held the edge of panic.
I approached her slowly, offering the black cloth bundle. "Here, wrap the babe in this."
She took it from me, hesitantly, understanding dawning on her face. As she lifted the child on to her shoulder it started to wail, but then quieted as she wrapped the shirt around it and cuddled it close, using her warmth for comfort.
"Thanks," she murmured, but the disquiet was still in her eyes.
"I have a message for you."
"For me? How? I mean… do you?"
"And a question."
She shook her head. "This is strange…"
"Let me get this right. The message is that there's a young man who's desperate to hear from you and wants to do the right thing, not just because it's the right thing to do. He's waiting for you."
"How do you know this?" Hope had lifted her voice.
"And Greg, the vicar, would like to know whether it's a boy or a girl, though I think I already know the answer to that question."
She smiled for the first time. "He's called…"
"Shhhh! Do not name him here. He's too young and far too vulnerable." I turned to the glade. "Let her go now. She has what she came for. Release her."
"Release me from what?"
I ignored her. "Let them go."
"It's only a dream," she said. "It'll finish when I wake up."
"Release them. You'll get nothing else from me."
When I looked back, they'd gone.
"It doesn't matter who you bring. I'm not feeding from them and neither are you. Now send me back."
The only answer was the deepening silence.
"You can't force me to stay. Send me back where I came from."
A new voice. "Where did you come from? Kent, wasn't it?"
The voice from behind me startled me, partly because it was male. I turned and found a man, dressed in shirt, tie and trousers, watching me.
"Who are you?"
"You don't recognise me? That's weird, because I recognise you. How is it that my dreams don't know who I am?"
"Your dreams?"
He started walking slowly around the ring of thorns, speaking as he went. "Yeah. I'm dreaming. I must be. It's the only way I'd come up with this weird shit."
I turned, following his movement. I was beginning to think I did recognise him.
"We did meet, didn't we?"
"Course we did. You were with that weird woman at the hospital, the fake witch."
I remembered then. This was Claire's friend who had been at the hospital last year when the Queen's Remembrancer had been taken ill. He was the friend who'd been in charge of security, the one with connections.
"You still think she's a fake?" I asked.
"You're not trying to tell me you think she's for real? I mean, I know you're a dream, but try and stay a bit believable."
"Claire's friend. The secret squirrel. Sam Veldon." I had the name at last.
"Friend no longer. Your witchy woman saw to that. Claire rang me the other day, you know?"
"I know."
"Course you do." He continued walking.
"How did you know I come from Kent?" I asked. I was sure it hadn't been mentioned in our original encounter.
"It's in the file. When she mentioned your name, I looked you up. She said you needed my help. Bloody cheek if you ask me. Personally I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire, but I wanted to know why she was asking."
"And what did you discover?"
"Red flags. You're quite the celebrity these days, you know. Apprehend with caution, may be armed, possibly dangerous. You don't look dangerous."
"It says armed?"
"That's what it says on the file. I didn't write it." He completed his circuit around the glade, and continued without breaking step. "You were tagged amber after that policeman died last year. I didn't know you killed a policeman."
"I didn't. They didn't even charge me."
"Not what it says now. You've been hiked to red, possible murder, possible terrorist. Notify if seen."
"Will you tell them?"
"What, that you were in my dream? You think I'm nuts?"
"You're talking to me now," I pointed out.
"Got nothin' better to do. I'm asleep en't I?"
"Are you?"
"Course I am. Coulda done with prettier company than you, though. No offence, like."
"None taken. What else did the file say?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Well, me, since it's about me."
"Can't say. I've signed the official secrets." He tapped the side of his nose knowingly.
"Not even in your dream? I could be an extension of your subconscious, here to help you reach some hidden insight."
"You could be full of bollocks, sounds like." He laughed.
"Why do you think you're here then?"
"To puzzle it out, I s'pose."
"Puzzle what out?"
"The file references. They don't make sense."
"Which file references?"
"The one on your file and the one on hers."
"Who?"
"Alexandra, this daughter of yours. The one who's missing."
"She has a file too?"
"Course she does. Major incident, three dead at the scene. Sewer explosion. Biological contamination. It's all in there."
"Did it say where she is?"
"That's the thing. It's a B reference. So's yours."
"What's a B reference?"
"A reference starting with B. Other than that, no idea. Never come across one before. I asked one of the archive bunnies."
"You have bunnies?"
"The girls in Archives, or Knowledge Management, I think they call it now. Pity you're not like one of them. This could be a very different kinda dream."
"Think you're in with a chance, do you?"
"Nah, they're all married. Makes things difficult, doesn't it?"
"I wouldn't know."
"Yeah, right. Her indoors might look in her tea leaves and put the eye on you."
"Tell me about the archive bunnies."
"What, the blonde or the redhead?"
"No, about what they said."
"You're not much fun, are you?"
"You said they were B references."
"Yeah, I thought they were messing me about, y'know? B references? Load of bollocks, like a long stand, or a left-handed screwdriver."
"They like to wind you up, do they? I can see why."
"Turns out it's kosher. The file references are all centrally allocated. They usually go with who owns the case, or the suspect. I know the ones for criminal investigation, terror suspects, organised crime, military, drugs, counter-intelligence – all of that, but I'd never seen a B reference before"
"So what did they say?"
"They have this whole Mulder and Scully routine, you know? Alien spacecraft, ghost stories, spooky houses, telepathy? They reckon it's all in the files if you know where to look."
"And that's what's in Alex's file."
"They reckon all the B files are weird shit. They all have some unexplained thing, going way back."
"Way back where?"
"Into the stacks. Into the paper archives before they computerised everything. They have B files going back so far you have to go into a special room to see them. It's all temperature-controlled and humidified."
"So what's a B file?"
"Oh, they're into the full act now, aren't they? Rolling their eyes and telling me I don't have clearance, they'll have to kill me if they tell me."
"They wouldn't tell you, would they?"
"No. But I found out anyway."
"You did?"
"Sure. What do I look like? Cabbage?"
"So go on then, tell me."
"Why? I don't owe you anything. You've never given me anything but shit."
"I'm just a dream, though, aren't I?"
"Yeah, well, I don't owe a dream much either. Go screw yourself."
"No, Sam. It's you who's screwed."
"Yeah? You and whose army?"
"I don't need an army. You've forgotten where you are."
I moved to intercept him. He stopped, stepped back, balanced on the balls of his feet. I knew enough to know that he was ready to fight, even if it was a dream.
"You've got the wrong idea, Sam. I'm not going to punch you. I don't have to."
Standing facing him, out of range of fists or feet, I reached inwards and connected with the core of magic within me. It flared into life, dark shadows spilling outward. My skin went black and lightless, reflecting not even the dim light of the pinprick stars. Dappled moonlight swirled across the grass where no moon shone. Sam backed away, an expression of disbelief and distaste on his face. It was the wrong thing to do.
The briars behind him wound out and coiled around his legs, tugging at him. He tried to fend off the barbed strands with one hand, only to find it tangled and snagged. He yanked at the hand and it came away streaked and bloody.
"I'm not your dream, Sam. I'm your nightmare."
With an inhuman grunt, he fell sideways and dragged himself away from the briar, across the frozen grass, while the thorns tore his trousers and bit into the flesh of his legs.
"You're a freak!" he shouted. "A fucking freak!" With a wrench he freed himself and rolled away across the grass. He pushed himself up to his knees.
"There's nowhere to run, Sam, not here. And you're not leaving till I say you are."
He pushed himself up to his feet and dropped into a fighting stance, fists bunched and held tight against him. He dodged in, jabbing out fast.
I was in no mood to play games. I swatted the first punch away, stepped sideways and stamped my booted foot hard on the back of his calf. He collapsed and I hit him hard, once, with my elbow on the side of the head, making sure he went down. I hadn't trained for nine months to be sucker-punched by an amateur, and I wasn't fighting for style, I was fighting for effect.
He rolled on to the grass, curled up, groaning. I wasn't even out of breath. The violence felt good, a kind of release for the anger I had bottled up inside. He lay rubbing his temple with his hand. I could see he was watching me, though, waiting for an opportunity to lash out.
"You think that's grass you're lying on, do you?"
Taking its cue from my words, the grass began to lengthen into strands, weaving its way around him, knotting together and tying him down. Panicked into action, he tried to rise, only to find himself caught by the tangle. He fell back as the grass lengthened and wove around him.
"Agh, get it off, get it off!" He thrashed and struggled, but couldn't free himself.
It knotted around his throat and dragged him down into the fresh green sward.
"It's strangling me," he choked out.
I recalled the gallowfyre, feeling it withdraw back into the core of magic within me. The glade returned to pinpricked starlit grey. The sound of Sam's struggles faded as the shoots knotted together.
I looked down at him. "No. Once again, Sam Veldon, you do not understand. It doesn't want to kill you. It wants you alive so that you can be slowly absorbed into the ground and every ounce of you can be digested. You will be fertiliser, every last drop of you."
I walked away, hearing the struggles behind me diminish as he was wound tighter into the grass. Ahead of me the path opened up so I could leave.
"Wait. For God's sake, help me!" he croaked.
"Help you, Sam Veldon? Why should I do that? Wasn't that your phrase – you wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire?"
"It's getting in my skin! You can't leave me here. It's inhuman!"
I paused. For the first time since the moment I first discovered my fey heritage, I looked at myself and what I'd become. "What makes you think," I asked him, "that I regard that as a problem?"
There was a gargled, choking cough and then a spitting, strangled cry. "It's in my mouth. You have to help me. Please?" His voice tailed off.
Standing there, with my back turned, I could not walk away and leave him, not and live with myself. No matter how I tried to deny my own humanity – however I might like to be fey-hearted, I was not. I could not abandon him.
I walked slowly back across the glade. There was a mound of new grass, strangely like the fairy rings you sometimes see. As I got closer I found his form almost completely subsumed into the strands. They knotted and twisted, pinning him down like a grass-tied Gulliver tangled into a verdant Lilliput. His eyes darted sideways, wide with panic, but he was unable to move even his head.
"Are you beginning to understand now, Sam Veldon? I asked for your help and you told me where to go. Would you now ask for mine?"
His eyes widened, imploring me. A low mumbling sound came from beneath the grass.
"Very well. Perhaps you will consider my requests more seriously in future."
I stood back and addressed the glade. "Release him."
The briar tangles around me rustled and quivered, but Sam was not released. I had thrown it a lifeline, and granted a reprieve. With him tangled there it could survive for a very long time indeed. It would not release him easily.
"Release him and I will see to it that you are rewarded."
The words died in the still air. I could still hear Sam fruitlessly trying to struggle against the fibrous bonds.
I reached inside and released the power within me once again. Gallowfyre spilled out, dappling the glade in the moonlight. In the still air, the shifting, sliding glimmer was incongruous, as if made by the wrong kind of tree in the wrong place.
"I said, release him."
There was only further rustling. Sam remained trapped under the grass. The glade had refused the carrot. Now we would try the stick.
Blackbird told me that gallowfyre is an expression of my inner self, the core of magic that makes me fey. To me it was more like a creature that lived inside me, a creature with appetites. I opened myself to the power and my call was answered. Into the dappled light, wriggling tendrils of darkness emerged, sparking with deep violet at their unseen edges, hinting at writhing tentacles unseen.
They were shadows in shadow, barely visible. They threaded into the grass, seeking downwards into cracks in frost-hardened soil. Each was an exploring thread of power, a questing tongue. Whether as an extension of self or by some inner communication, I knew where they licked and what they tasted. I found Sam, cold and sweaty, streaked with green juices, red from weals and oozing from cuts. Beneath him was the ice-cold ground, and beneath that was a darker presence, hugging close to the warmth leaching into the soil. I drew back a tendril and then launched it, stinging the hidden presence, biting into it with cold, energy-leaching darkness of gallowfyre.
It recoiled from the touch, squirming downwards into the frozen loam, vanishing into the soil. The grass around Sam relaxed and parted. An arm came free and he tugged at the strands until he could push himself up with an elbow. He pulled grass from his hair and from across his face, then yanked at it where it tangled his legs until he was in a frenzy of wrenching and tugging, throwing shreds of grass in all directions. He rolled over on one side and then crawled away from the spot. He did not collapse back on to it, though, but knelt up, brushing the remnant shreds from the tatters of his clothes.
"Fucking grassy shit!" he spluttered.
I recalled the gallowfyre, returning the glade to its normal pallid grey, while I watched him pull every last strand away until there was not a scrap of it left. Finally he stood.
"I suppose I should thank you," he said.
"Don't put yourself out."
"Yeah. Well, thanks. I thought…" He shook his head, clearing it. "Fucking grass. I'm getting a lawn mower, a fucking big one. Better still, I'm getting me some gravel. Can't go wrong with gravel."
"You'd better leave. I'll be in touch, Sam Veldon. I want to know where my daughter is."
He stared at me for a moment, meeting my eyes. Then he looked away, and nodded.
"Go. Leave this place."
At my dismissal, he faded. I was alone in the glade.
I looked around me. The still air held no hint of presence. The frozen ground was undisturbed but for the one patch of new growth, now torn and trampled.
"It's time for me to leave." My words were thin in the cold air. "You cannot fight me. I am finished here. We're done."
There was no echo. My voice sounded flat and empty.
I walked around the glade. The thorns remained still where I passed and all was quiet. My feet on the crispcold grass made the only sound.
"If you try and hold me here, it will be worse for you." The threat sounded hollow with no one to witness it.
For the third time, I reached within me, releasing the gallowfyre and dappling the glade with shifting moonlight. The glade responded immediately. The thorns retracted, winding back down into the ground; the grass shrank until it was the barest hint of a sward. Within moments I was standing in an empty field, bordered by distant trees. Where there had been the barest minimum of presence before, now there was none.
I looked around. Everywhere was the same. The ground rose slightly so that I was on the crown of a low rise. At the edges, scraggy firs edged the forest, backed by larger trees fading into the dark beneath the evergreens.
"Hiding will not help you," I shouted. There was no reply.
I set off towards the trees. I walked smartly, showing my determination, making it clear that I would brook no dissent. After a few minutes, I stopped. The trees were no nearer. Nor were the ones behind me any further away. I broke into a jog and then into a full run. I pushed myself, racing for the trees. Eventually I staggered to a hoarse halt.
The trees remained at a distance.
I put my hands on my knees, breathing hard. It was time to stop messing about. I straightened myself and opened the core of magic within me. I released the tendrils of gallowfyre, sending them questing through the bald grass, into the cracks, exploring the crevices, searching for the taste of life, the sense of a presence. They found only dead soil. There was nothing living in it. Even the grass was dead.
"Show yourself! Come out and face me!" I shouted. My words evaporated in the thin cold air.
I resolved to wait, then. I sat down on the cold grass, feeling the chill from the ground through the thin silk of my trousers. I missed the shirt I had given Helen to wrap the baby in. I shook my head. No, poor scrap, he could have it.
In the stillness I found myself listening to the sound of my own breathing, the light draw and relax. I rubbed my hands together and heard the soft rasp of skin on skin. There was no other sound.
I shook myself. There was a wriggling, scurrying sound. I looked down. Where my hand pressed to the ground, the grass had grown around it, sending little shoots up between my fingers. As I watched, they withdrew, retreating back into the soil.
I jolted myself awake. What was I doing? I had let myself be lulled by the peace. I was tired and hungry. I had let my head fall forward and fallen asleep where I sat. I shot to my feet, suddenly realising the danger I was in.
If I fell asleep here, I would never wake up. The grass would pull me down and strangle me until I was immobile and unconscious, but not dead. No, it wouldn't want me dead. With Sam it could survive for a long time. If it kept him and hoarded him, he would feed the glade for as long as he lived, maybe for another forty years.
But me? I was fey.
If it could overcome me, it would have my full fey lifespan to feed on me. I could keep it alive for hundreds of years. I would be the meal that never ran out, the well that never ran dry.
All it had to do was wait, and it was very good at waiting.