“Alas, to trees, men are infernal. They fulminate and pollute and heat the world. They hack away whole forests. For this, why should trees see men as better than orc-kind?”
“You may think that a tragedy, as one of many you have seen, but is not the loss, once perceived, at least the affirmation that it was? What if it never existed at all?”
“Ansel, your mind is a wind-up toy, all whirrs and wheels but not sure where it’s going.”
“I’ll go with Ansel. Better than knowing and have no whirrs to get there!”
“You should listen to Tollers and Jack. They never stop testing the boundaries between the real and what you Victorians call the Realm of Faerie, the mind-state of imagined worlds. They would say there’s just one step, onto a road, perhaps through a hidden gate, and you’re there. Have I got that right?”
“Pretty much. There are indeed many worlds. This one is ours. But it’s all a tale and tales change backwards and forwards. Life is an interweaving of tales lived, thought, told, heard, scoffed, and believed. A summing up. Or a hiving off. Ah, but here’s the thing damnable and divine. It’s in the seams that the truth lies. That which intricately binds it all together in ways we can’t imagine how to imagine. That’s the wonder. That someone, something, somehow knows and tells our tales. We hope so, but we can’t be sure. So we have to tell them ourselves, all the time. Backward and forward and reassembled. Unravel a tale and much more may be lost and gained than just some quaint fiction. There is no end, and all tales are one, and people should never forget this.”
“Unless the worst of fates overtakes a tale.”
“And what might that be?”
“Erasure.”
“I suppose you’re right. Life comes and goes. Death is common to all, and our fate is to be stalwart before it. But elimination from the very Tree of Tales?”
“As if you never existed?”
“You’re right, that is a terrible fate for a story.”
“Tollers, you’re quiet for one who prides himself on retrieving stories.”
“Yes, well, I’ve seen forces that would inflict such a cruelty and seek, as you put it, to erase a tale and its heroine.”
“I thought you didn’t find many true heroines in your discovered mythology?”
“Aye, but there was one, and she may yet survive if my strategy works.”
“And what is that?”
“Let her, and her tale, hide for long awhile.” “But who will bear witness for her, if not you?” “That role was denied to me by forces I shall not speak of here. But you are right, nothing exists except by witness. And to a great tale we all bear witness, and the meter of truth is told in our hearts. Who then is the last and the first witness, between which all else bounces?”
“Bounce that extra pint over here.” “So are you going to complete your other writings?” “I doubt it. My major books are done. Even those would have been fated to oblivion had Stan Unwin, my editor — you’ve all met him — had not given his ten year old son the first manuscript. Raynor gave it a jolly good review. There’s a bit of seams and joinery for you. Anyway, there are other steps to take, perhaps the children for the father. Perhaps for others.” “But what about this mysterious cache of writings?” “My work on those documents of antiquity, delivered to me in the night long ago, has ceased. I long suspected their most recent history, that they were the very documents buried away by S.I.S. before the war. My doorstep was but one stop in the long, desperate journey of these fragments. Now they have traveled on. I’ve rid myself of them. They are across the sea, in America. They exist and they have a destiny, but not one in which I play a further role. They are the lost tale we just spoke of, whose heroine some would erase forever. And yet … by the valiant hand of some witness as yet unknown, that heroine may still survive. I hope so.”
Chapter 32
OCTOBER 30. 7:30 A.M
The next morning, Cadence was cruising the shelves at Orkney’s Grocery on West Fifty-fifth Street. Her hands moved briskly, selecting edibles for Osley. She planned to keep him fueled up and going strong to avoid any more fried circuits. She had resolved to quietly finish out the string of this trip. Tomorrow she would gather up (hopefully) the last of the translations and pack her bags and go. Nice and simple.
The “dinner party” exercise had been entertaining, and it let Osley blow off some steam, but the only real thing left to do was nurture him along until he tracked Ara’s destiny down to the end, if it even existed. The manuscripts might peter out, her story just another path lost in Mirkwood.
As she glided along the store shelves she even began to rationalize the confusing — her mind had already downgraded it from
If she were to imagine elemental monsters in the dark, they wouldn’t include a spider. Maybe Morlocks or bubble-headed Martian Invaders, or the veiny-headed mutant under-people from
But the spider?
And Ara, the wavering vision in the pool? She should have followed her instincts and done something right there. Now she would have to see where Ara’s written trail led. Most likely nowhere. Cadence felt again that need — beyond admiration, beyond role model — that need to connect with Ara. She felt their crossed destinies were already entwining.
She carried her basket up to the counter. Bacon and egg burritos and double-stuffed Oreos would keep Osley focused this morning, like a bloodhound on Ara’s trail. She left the store, turned the corner, and stopped.
In the midst of a flowing crowd, a man stood still and stared at her. His look was not the moon-eyed hunger for recognition typical of the don’t-make-eye-contact-with-them cast-offs of the city.
She stood still for maybe three seconds to confirm the gut-raw certainty that this was real. It was a man, but what she really saw was the unwavering focus of a wolf looking out from the eyeholes of a man-mask.
The look was exacting, the binocular stare of the predator that detects distance by the centimeter, that reads bearing, alertness, and fear like beloved poetry.
This particular rendition of a derelict human was different from the wild taxicab driver of her fist night in the city. This …
She turned and clambered aboard a waiting bus. Anything to get away, anywhere. The door whooshed shut, and the bus rumbled into traffic. She watched the large man dwindle on the street corner, turning to study the colored route map of the city bus system.
Cadence dug in her purse for Bossier Thornton’s card.
His phone rolled to voice mail. She paused then said, “… Uh, Bossier, this is Cadence Grande. From yesterday. Could you please give me a call? It’s … urgent.” She left her number and hung up.
After exiting the bus a dozen blocks from where she saw the strange man, Cadence walked directionless as a disturbed ant. She finally stopped looking over her shoulder and bumping into people. She sat, exhausted, in a space amidst a long row of lunch-eaters perched on the edge of a fountain. Through a high cleft in skyscrapers, sunshine shot down, creating a narrow hall of bright light. The light and the crowd made her feel safer.
She regulated her breathing and tried to assemble the jigsaw puzzle. The careful reasoning of a few moments ago was out the window now.
Her cell phone rang: 213 area code. L.A. Absolutely the last person she wanted to talk to. She listened until
