Wondrous Strange

The chill in the October air was nothing compared to the temperature of the pond. As she hit the water, Kelley thought for a brief, horrible moment that her heart would stop beating in shock. When she surfaced seconds later, she gasped painfully and faltered.

The horse whinnied again, sounding much weaker. Kelley pushed the needle-sharp cold from her thoughts and began swimming with strong, purposeful strokes. Six feet from the panicked creature, she treaded water, wary of the flailing, deadly hammers of its hooves.

“Shh, shhh.” Kelley tried to keep her teeth from chattering as she gentled it with her voice. “Nice horsie…good horse…easy there, fella.”

The animal bobbed its head wildly, its dark eyes rolling white at the edges and its nostrils flaring wide.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Kelley reached out a hand as she moved a little closer, treading water that was so cold it almost felt slushy. If she couldn’t succeed in helping the poor creature out of the Lake soon, Kelley knew that she would have to abandon the attempt. Her toes were already numb. “You’re okay. I’m here. I’ll help.”

She stretched her hand out farther, the tips of her fingers just barely touching the velvety skin of the horse’s muzzle.

Please don’t bite me, she thought desperately.

But instead, the animal pushed its nose into her hand, butting gently at her fingers and blowing out warm air.

“Okay. Good horsie. Okay.” Kelley swam closer, still careful to avoid the horse’s churning front legs. “Let’s get you out of here.”

She ran her hands along the animal’s flank below the waterline to see if she could determine what was wrong. The horse seemed uninjured, from the little she could tell, but its powerful hindquarters weren’t moving in the way they should to keep the creature afloat. She reached farther around under the surface of the water toward the horse’s rump, and for a second she thought that she could feel something cold and rough…almost slimy-like fish scales.

Kelley jerked her hand back.

You’re not a horse! she thought wildly.

Of course, that was ridiculous. The cold is affecting your brain, stupid. You’re imagining things.

She reached out again and, feeling with her hands, realized there was a tangled net of slippery lake weed that had become wound around the back end of the animal-what she must have mistaken for fishiness.

Kelley tugged at the strands of ropy vegetation, but the fibrous stuff was strong and she couldn’t get much of a grip. It kept slipping through her fingers, which were already stiff from the cold. Groaning in frustration, Kelley looked back to see that the horse wasn’t even struggling anymore. It just stared at her with one mournful eye. Its flaring nostrils were barely above the waterline.

It was going to drown.

Determination took hold. Kelley kicked herself back a little way from the horse’s flank to gather what strength she had left. She took three deep breaths, filling her lungs to capacity with biting cold air, and then dove beneath the surface of the water.

Swimming down as far as she could, she grasped at the massed strands of weedy vegetation where they were rooted into the mud of the lake bed. Kelley swung her legs underneath her, planted bare feet in the mud, and wrapped the strands around her hands. Then she hauled on them for all she was worth.

The slimy weeds went taut, but refused to break or uproot.

Pull…once more.

Pull, damn it. Lungs aching, she heaved again.

Pull!

As her strength began to fade, Kelley tugged weakly on the waterweeds one last time. Starbursts bloomed in front of her eyes as her brain began to starve for oxygen. Kelley shook her head. A cloud of bubbles escaped her mouth and nose-the last of her air. She heard music, faint and far off, and thought she could see a weird, glowing light dancing through the water, swirling and coalescing all around her. She felt warm. One very last, feeble try… and Kelley felt the ropy stems give just a bit. Suddenly a sharp tug on the weeds jerked her painfully forward, wrenching her arms and shoulders.

And then everything around her went completely black.

IV

“Sonny!”

He turned at the sound of his name to see a fellow Janus emerging from the trees.

“Maddox.” He held out a hand and they clasped forearms, smiling.

“How goes the day, Sonn?” Maddox asked, a slight warm lilt to his voice.

Sonny shrugged. “Does it feel different to you yet?”

“Nah.” Maddox shook his head. “Feels just like every other year. Calm, serene, peaceful…well. That’ll soon change. In less than an hour’s time, the cracks will start to show in the Gate. And every night after this one, for the next eight, there will be more cracks. Bigger ones. Until Samhain, when all hell breaks loose. Face it, Sonn.” Maddox lowered his voice, even though there was no one who could possibly overhear them. “Nine nights of the Gate opening wider and wider, and only a handful of Janus to guard it. There’s a lot of Folk-mostly the nastier ones-who are willing to take that risk.”

Sonny grimaced. He didn’t understand why any of the Fair Folk would want to live in this world. He certainly didn’t. The noise alone was almost enough to drive him mad.

“Do you ever get used to it, Maddox?” Sonny asked, a bit hesitantly. “This place, I mean.”

“I’m the wrong lad to ask,” Maddox grunted. “For one thing, I don’t think I’ve been here long enough. Even just the concept of electricity still gives me the willies.”

“After three years?” Sonny asked, surprised.

“Aye, well. We may have both been, you know…taken…when gaslight was still in vogue, Sonn, but I was old enough when I was-when it happened that I actually remember that world. That time. I just try not to think about it now.”

Sonny thought about that for a moment. He had been a baby when he’d been taken. The only life he’d ever known had been the one that the Fair Folk had given him. It must have been difficult for those like Maddox…to have known right from the start that the shining, glorious people who raised you were not your own. That you weren’t one of theirs. And worse, knowing that your own world was no longer-could never again be-yours…Sonny felt uncomfortable. It wasn’t something he had ever liked giving deep thought to, though he couldn’t have explained why.

They stopped near the park’s Bow Bridge, which spanned the Lake just west of Bethesda Terrace, linking the relative wilderness of the Ramble to the more formal, manicured gardens of Cherry Hill. The bridge struck Sonny as an apt metaphor for the Gate itself. They stood silently, gazing out over the water for a long moment.

“And after all”-Maddox shrugged off the suddenly somber mood and waved a hand at the beauty before them-“this place does have its charms.” He clapped Sonny on the back. “Come on, then. We don’t want to be late for the opening.”

All around Sonny and Maddox, the air thrummed with tense anticipation as they reached the summit of the Great Hill and were welcomed into a loose circle of their Janus brethren. There were thirteen of them, changelings all.

There was the Fennrys Wolf, legendary for his berserker-like rages and sullen temperament. According to Maddox, the cradle Fenn had been stolen from sometime in the ninth century had been that of a Viking prince. War craft was in his blood-or so he declared almost every time Sonny saw him.

Camina and Bellamy were twins, sister and brother. Slender, graceful, and quiet, they’d been Janus Guards since almost the beginning and were notoriously efficient.

There was Godwyn, genial, handsome…ruthless.

Bryan and Beni-one light, one dark, different as night and day. Insanely competitive, and utterly inseparable,