So she had decided to add manic-depressive tendencies to the family portfolio? Jo groped for a tree to lean against. She was going nuts. It had been months since she last smoked pot, ten years since that stupid mistake with acid. Nothing stronger today than coffee. She couldn't blame this scene on chemicals.
Dragons, she thought. Talking dragons.
She unwrapped one makeshift bandage and stared at the razor-thin lines of red. Fresh blood beaded up when she flexed her hand. Did hallucinations cut people?
But she could imagine the cuts, yes? Imagine the blood?
She shuddered. Find Maureen, that was the priority. Find the way out of this frigging nightmare. Ask her sister for a nice calming hit of Thorazine or whatever the latest chemical tranquility was called. Hey, Sis, know any good shrinks?
Back to "Find the Sister." She was somewhere up ahead, both the Genetic Resonance Imager and the dragon said so. The dragon also said the forest was dangerous. Jo had to catch up before something with less brain or more appetite decided this "Master" was far enough away to forget about his orders.
Jo heaved herself up from the tree and blinked, waiting for the world to stop spinning. She shook her head and blinked again, trying to snap out of the funk. Scared was one thing, paralyzed was another. She just had to keep her eyes moving, keep her feet moving. At least she had boots on, instead of sneakers. This wasn't a sidewalk.
Branches, brambles, tree-trunks, rocks--the forest poked and prodded at the trail, trying to reclaim it from the touch of man. Jo felt tension in it, felt an edge to either side of her, as if the trail was a wandering, wavering line through hostile territory and the bushes on either side were mined. The dragon might have left, but Jo could still feel eyes out there in the shadows. They weren't friendly.
Paranoia?
Just shut up and keep walking. How far was it, to this place the dragon called a keep? Her legs needed to firm up for swimsuit season, anyway. Or no-swimsuit season, if they rented the Long Lake cabin again this year. God, wouldn't having David at the lake be great: swimming nude, making love on the dock by moonlight . . . swatting mosquitoes by moonlight . . .
She grimaced. At least that was one menace Maureen's hallucinations seemed to have left back in the Great North Woods. Jo sure didn't miss the cloud of biters that could turn a Maine forest into the seventh circle of hell--black flies, mosquitoes, moose flies, no-see-ums . . .
Living in the middle of a lot of water had its downside.
Lakes. Creeks. Water. Jo's mouth felt dry--maybe it was fear. This place looked clean enough, but the New York tourists caught Giardia every year, thinking the pure mountain streams and lakes in Maine were clean enough to drink. Maureen had explained it: moose and bear and beaver don't use outhouses, see. Jo thought she was going to get a little thirsty if she didn't find Maureen and her man.
A flash of yellow gleamed up ahead. She bit her lip and wondered what was next--a golden dragon? Maybe the Sphinx, since she'd offered to play riddles? Whatever it was, it wasn't moving.
Maybe it was waiting. Waiting for lunch. Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. It was right on the trail.
Jo clenched her fists and forced herself to go on. The pain from her cut palms served as an anchor, a handhold on reality. She giggled, half-hysterically, at the unintended pun.
Just shut up and keep walking.
It was a coat. Maureen's stupid ski jacket, hanging on a branch stub. It proved Jo's psychic nose still worked. Maureen had come this way, got overheated just about as quickly, but didn't have an argument with the guard-dog.
She checked the pockets. Yep, Maureen's. There was the stupid gun, stupid speed-loader with five extra rounds.
And that was proof little Mo was happy here, walking off and leaving her gun behind. When a paranoid tells you there's no problem, you can fucking believe it.
Jo thought about guns, thought about dragons, and sphinxes, and griffins, and all the other dreamscape animals. She shuddered with a sudden chill. A lot of characters in fairy tales ended up as lunch.
The gun felt solidly comfortable in her hand. If she was going to pick up Maureen's delusions, maybe she should go for the whole package. Jo felt like she'd slipped through the Looking Glass, where Little Sister was sane and Cynthia Josephine Pierce was the whacko.
She tucked the gun into her waistband. Odds were, she'd need a smart bomb or guided missile to take out that dragon, but maybe some of the other nasties didn't come with homegrown armor plate. Some of the men in legends were mean sons-of-bitches, too.
Maybe she'd better take the jacket, too. There was no guarantee she was going to be sleeping under a roof tonight, and her sweat was starting to chill with fear.
The trail wound on through the woods, under low hanging branches that seemed to clutch at her, past the startled tree-faces formed by old branch scars. She passed through patches of sour foulness in the leaf-mold smell.
Probably animals.
Does a bear shit in the woods? She shuddered. She didn't want to even start to think about bears--this damned forest already had enough teeth and claws. Gnarled fingers of wood pointed back the way she came, roots twisted under her feet and stubbed her toes, the gentle breeze pushed against her face and seemed to whisper warnings into the summer leaves.
Maureen's trees were talking to her, the voices in her head that personified schizophrenia. "Go back," they said. "Flee, be afraid. This forest is not a place to be. Danger and death lurk here."
Maureen's whole package, indeed. Next thing, Jo would be afraid of men. She smiled at the thought and walked on, forcing the dragon and the outrageous impossibility of where she was out of her mind. After
