hugged her arms around her, scared as she always seemed to be. Occasionally, though, the little girl would wander over to Caitlin to check that her other self was all right.
The figure in the shadows at the back of their feeble shelter, the one who scared them all, had moved forward enough that Caitlin could just make out her shape against the deeper darkness. She was angular and predatory, her hair wild, and at times she resembled a giant bird more than a woman. Her influence was growing stronger. Sometimes she would call to Caitlin with an insidious whisper, luring, cajoling; at other times she would bellow with a terrifying rage, and on those occasions the others would back away to the very edge of the shelter where the glacial sheets encroached. Although she didn't know why, Caitlin dreaded what would happen when the woman finally emerged into the light.
Amy sat next to Caitlin and slipped an arm around her. 'There's a lot of upset ahead. But whatever happens, don't ever, ever give in to despair. It's easy to slip into that… and once you do, everything goes wrong.' Her voice had taken on a dark tone.
'Despair doesn't just come from the inside,' Brigid said. Her cackling had gone; her face was grave. 'Events conspire, people conspire. You've got to watch out for… anything that might drive you towards despair. Because that's what they want.'
'What who want?' Caitlin's nerves were prickling. This wasn't just part of the conversation; Brigid was imparting something important.
'All the forces lined up against life. The things that want to destroy anything that's good. And behind them all is one thing, one force.'
Caitlin moved away from Amy's comforting arm. She felt cold, colder than she ever had before. 'What do you know?'
'Things are falling into place. You have to be on your guard.' Brigid sighed. 'But it's not all down to you. Sometimes despair is like a spike and others drive it into your heart. They haven't decided yet… they're still thinking. Is the one too precious to them? That's what they think. It could go either way…'
'You're not making any sense!' Caitlin said desperately.
'In the end, it's all down to people,' Amy said sadly. 'Good people and bad people — and sometimes there's nothing you can do but pick up the pieces. If it goes wrong, it won't be your fault, Caitlin. Remember that. Just try… try not to let despair poison your heart.'
'It depends,' Brigid mused, 'on how they drive the spike. She might not have a choice.'
'So sad,' Amy said. 'So sad.'
Caitlin was overwhelmed with a desperate sense that things were falling away from her. 'Stop talking in riddles! If something bad's going to happen, tell me so I can stop it!'
Brigid shook her head. 'I can't tell you any more. I'm not allowed.'
'Not allowed by whom?' Caitlin demanded. There was a long pause while Brigid turned the question over. In the end, she simply said, 'Not allowed.'
She returned to her detached cackling and Amy got up and wandered away. Caitlin stared out to the bleak horizon where the black sky merged with the white Ice Field, terribly afraid of what lay ahead. An hour passed, two, and then they started to lose all sense of time. There was just the greenwood, dense and never-ending, like green static hissing at the back of their heads. Oak, ash, elder, hawthorn, rowan, thick banks of creeper, fern, nettle, gorse, long grass. Sometimes they would chop the path clear with Mahalia's rusted sword, only to see it mysteriously close up behind them. Yet it was hypnotic in its monotony, lulling them into a somnambulistic state.
Perhaps they even slept as they walked — none of them could be wholly sure — but it was a while before Caitlin's conscious mind accepted that it was seeing movement under the trees on either side. 'Did you see that?' she asked lazily.
No one responded; the only sound was the rhythmic plod of their feet.
She glanced back and forth, seeing nothing unusual, but when she looked ahead, the flickerings on the edge of her vision disturbed her once again. 'What is that?' she muttered with irritation, plucking at her eyelashes to see if dust was distorting her vision.
A breeze; her skin turned gooseflesh. Or was it wind, for despite the heat of the day it was cold and it was here and gone in a fraction of a second; it felt like a breath. As she continued to walk she became more receptive to movement, on both sides. At first it looked like the flashes of shadow and light that appear outside a fast-moving car on a summer's day, but the more she concentrated, the more they fell into relief. Shapes. Figures! Insubstantial, like mist forming the essence of a person. They moved quickly, flickering amongst the boles of the trees, some near, some far away.
Now she had realised what it was, the spectacle was mesmerising. She was in a dream, sitting on the lawn on a summer's eve as the curious moths came from all over to investigate the lamp.
In this half-detached state, it took her a while to realise that one of the shapes had stopped and was allowing itself — if that was the right way to consider it — to stand in full view. She looked directly at it and was surprised to see a man with long white hair and a pleasant, smiling face beckoning to her. Still insubstantial, he had a Regency look, wearing a frock coat and pantaloons, and his mood was one of cheery optimism, as if he had just spotted a long-lost friend.
Behind him, the other shapes continued to flit hypnotically amongst the trees, scores of them, perhaps hundreds.
Caitlin smiled and the ghost smiled back. He beckoned again. He had something he wanted to show her, or hospitality he wished to offer.
She wondered briefly why a man in Regency costume would be haunting a forest in the middle of another world, but the thought came and went as quickly as his brethren. She was fascinated: by him, by the way the light broke through the leaves, by the constant movement, but she barely considered the fact that all sound had disappeared from the world.
'Come,' he appeared to be saying in his silent way, 'we shall have such fun together.'
Something large thundered through the trees deeper into the wood; an enormous oak cracked and fell, jarring the ground so forcefully that she almost stumbled. Whatever had crashed into it continued on its way, but the disruption broke the spell. The ghost looked over his shoulder in shock and in an instant his appearance changed. Caitlin had a fleeting impression of something old and twisted, not human at all, and then it was gone into the trees, screaming silently.
Caitlin shook her head as if surfacing from the depths of a swimming pool. There was a pop and sound returned: the rustle of leaves and the creak of branches, bird calls high above the canopy, and somewhere far away, people calling her name.
She looked around. The others were nowhere to be seen. The path was gone. And all around the ghosts flitted like angry wasps, preparing to move closer.
Her heart pounded. How could she have been so stupid as to fall under such a spell? Why hadn't the others noticed? Now she had no idea which way the path lay, and the trees distorted the calls of her companions so that it was impossible to tell their origin.
Her first instinct was to fit an arrow and draw her bow, though she knew instinctively it would be of no use. Now that her head was clear she could sense the ghosts' predatory nature; she had the impression that they hated her, wanted not only to destroy her but to torment her in the process.
She caught a glimpse of another face, eyes too big and dark, mouth wide. Not human at all.
She ran, hoping she was heading towards the others. Branches tore at her face. And then she thundered straight into a long, low object that winded her. She was shocked to see it was a casket, standing on its own with no sign of why it would be there, in such a lonely, inhospitable place. It was constructed from gold and ivory, and the lid was made of a heavy, frosted glass. On the side was a legend: Here lies Jack Churchill, Brother of Dragons — His final battle fought. Before Caitlin could work out what it meant, the ghosts-that-were-something-more flitted all around, hurrying to close the circle. There was still an opening, but before she could break through it, she was knocked to the soft peat-mould. Though winded once more, she fought wildly until powerful hands clamped her down and a gentle voice said, 'Do not struggle, Fragile Creature. I am a friend of you and all your kind.'
She looked up into an incredibly beautiful face: golden skin, high cheekbones, almond eyes, long hair — everything about him was filled with a lustre. More than that, he exuded a tremendous power that invigorated and excited her.
