Fire licked within inches of them. The entire barn was in flames, there were strange people and guns and elves all over. None of it mattered—they were all together. Alice, Abbey, Cethlenn—and Anne. Alice and Abbey wiped tears from their eyes, and hugged her with illusory arms.
:Anne,: Alice said with real joy, :you came back, you really came back! You aren't bad, you're good, you were right, I was wrong, you're good and you're strong, and—:
Anne's lip quivered as she interrupted her sister. :H-h-h-he killed . . . Mommy.:
Abbey nodded solemnly and put her own arms around her sister, ignoring the flames that crept closer. :He said so. He was glad about it. We hate him. Are you going to feed him to your monsters?:
Anne shook her head slowly from side to side. :N-n-no more m-m-m-monsters. That was bad. Th-th-they hurt lots of people, and nobody deserved it. I'm s-s-sorry about the monsters.:
Alice crossed her snowy arms in front of her chest and pouted. :But Father is very, very bad. Bad people deserve to be eaten by monsters.:
Cethlenn rested her hand on Alice's shoulder. :I don't think Anne wants to be the one to feed people to the monsters anymore. She hurts inside from all the pain the monsters caused.:
Anne gave the witch a grateful look. :Yes,: she said simply.
The flames crackled and reached for the ceiling; horses screamed, including the strange elf-horses. That got their attention, and suddenly Abbey and Alice shrank against Cethlenn in fear. :Are we all going to die in the fire?: Abbey asked.
:No.: Anne looked at her sisters, and smiled. It was the first time any of them had seen her smile. :I'm w-w-with you . . . now. We're g-g-going to g-g-g-get better.:
Belinda backed away from the flames, but there was nowhere to escape. She was really trapped this time, with no place to run, no place to hide. She wasn't alone, but that was no comfort. Even with an escort to Valhalla like this one—Mac Lynn, Miss Teach Lianne, the little girl, her disgusting father, Mel-the-bastard, millions of dollars worth of horses—it was no comfort at all.
All of them trapped in a burning barn, and not one of them had a way out.
So much for noble intentions, Belinda thought, looking at the little girl; for some obscure reason, tears clouded her eyes. I would have saved you if I could have, kid. But now we're all going to die—because of that shitcan father of yours.
All of them—including the racecar driver. Nice to know, after all her hard work, that he was finally going to cross the Great Divide. Where the hell did he get the Spock ears, anyway? He looked like some Hollywood director's idea of an elf. How is he still alive after I put that bullet in his heart? And how did he pick up Mel and throw him like a baseball?
She was perversely glad that Mel Tanbridge was going to get what was coming to him. She just wished she didn't have to go with him.
The smoke thickened, wreathing around her and making her cough, and she knelt down, sucking for air. Maybe it would be easier to stand and inhale the thick, acrid smoke into her lungs. Get it over with quicker.
I just really don't want to die, she thought, as her eyes streamed tears and her skin started feeling as if she was getting a bad sunburn. Only this sunburn was going to be a real bitch. . . .
Mac stared helplessly at the sudden eruption of flames that penned them in. Lianne grabbed his arm and looked up at him, trusting him to do some wonderful trick to rescue them. But Maclyn had been too badly hurt—he didn't have enough energy left to work the simplest spell, much less create a Gate. When he'd been shot, the energy he'd been using to maintain the Gate in Lianne's apartment had snapped and drained off. That, as much as the bullet, had pushed him near death. Now he was fresh out of tricks.
Felouen, he knew, was no better off; she had drained herself to absolute exhaustion in order to heal the others, and had to borrow power from Rhellen to heal him. She told him with her eyes that she would be no help.
The old wood of the building burned like kindling.
Wait a moment—
There was a chance, Mac thought, looking frantically around, as his eyes lit on the terrified elvensteeds. The elvensteeds weren't immune to fire. But they might be able to transform, to take their riders out, shielded inside them. They probably wouldn't survive—but maybe humans and elves would. He grabbed Rhellen's mane and tried to communicate what he wanted to the terrified beast.
Amanda appeared at his side.
She put her hand on his, and he looked down at her, startled at the upwelling of power from the child. Her green eyes looked up into his. No more hate there, and no more fear. No insanity. He sensed that there were several people, still, inside her little head—but they were all together now, working as one.
"I know—the trick," she said. She pressed the green bead at her wrist between her fingers, her eyes closing in concentration—
In front of them, with a rush of energy, a Gate appeared.
The panicked elvensteeds dove into it. Lianne followed, with Felouen dragging Amanda's father, and Amanda holding back to maintain the Gate so that Maclyn and Belinda could escape as well. He reached for the child to pull her through.
Belinda suddenly shrieked "No!" and whirled to face them.
Mac froze. Belinda held a gun, leveled at him. "Let the kid go through, but you stay! You aren't getting away again," she shrieked, eyes glittering with madness. He opened his hands to reach for her; she was close enough—when a shape loomed out of the smoke and flames. It was the balding man they'd thrown, and he had a gun, too.
"Nobody move," he shouted. Mac and Belinda saw him aim the weapon at the child. "She's mine," he screamed. "You won't have her! Nobody gets her but me!"
Flames roared and circled them; Belinda's eyes flicked from Mac to that son-of-a-bitch Mel. Why isn't he dead? she wondered. He should have been. He was going to kill the rest of them—
Including the kid.
The kid didn't deserve it. The kid deserved to go live in fairyland after what had happened to her. Not to die in a goddamn fire.
She bit her lip. Sweat streamed down her face, and she squinted against the worsening smoke.
Dammit. One bullet—why did I leave everything in the car when I got ready to shoot Racer-Boy? One damned bullet—
She could shoot Mac. Or she could save the kid. She couldn't do both.
Belinda made her decision.
"Go!" she yelled to Mac, and the gun in her hands spit fire and bucked—and Mel staggered back, as a crimson dot appeared on his forehead.
:I couldn't hold the door anymore,: Anne said sadly, drooping with weariness. :I couldn't get the lady out. I tried, but I was too tired.:
Cethlenn looked around the charred remains of Elfhame Outremer, and said softly, :You did the best you could, Anne. We all know that. I think you've made up for what happened to the elves.:
Abbey hugged her, then Alice, trying to reassure her. :You're our sister,: Alice whispered. :We aren't mad at you anymore. You did the right things, and you tried to keep us safe. You saved all of us!:
:I'm really glad you came back,: Abbey added shyly. :We need you.:
Anne smiled slowly, as if trying out the feeling for the first time. :I need you, too.:
Maclyn shuddered and took in huge gasps of clean, cool air. Behind them, the crashes of falling timbers, the roar of flames, and the anguished screams of horses echoed, even after the Gate snapped shut.
He could hardly believe their narrow escape. And that all of it had been caused by—or for—one small girl . . . that was the least believable of all.
Belinda hadn't made it. Mac straightened and stood in the forest of Elfhame Outremer, his eyes fixed on the place where the Gate had been. On the other side of it, she was dying horribly. She had saved Amanda's life at the last minute, Mac realized after a moment, and spared his. He still had no idea why she'd wanted to kill him in the first place, and he certainly couldn't fathom why she had saved him in the end. Or had it really been Amanda she was saving? He wondered if it was the only selfless thing she'd ever done—or if once she had been someone who had been worth knowing.
He turned away, saddened by the waste of her life.
Andrew Kendrick figured that he was probably insane. He should have died—but a blond bimbo with special-effects ears and eyes had pulled him through a hole in the air. At first, he'd thought it was some kind of new firefighting technique, and then he'd thought it was an hallucination.
He blacked out, and came to surrounded by a crowd of strangers; he thought then that he might be able to get away—the only witnesses to what he'd done to Amanda were dead, except for Amanda herself, and who'd believe a kid? But all the strangers had those weird ears and eyes, and wherever he was, it wasn't North Carolina.
He was wrestled to his feet with no consideration for his injuries before he could say a thing and hustled off into captivity. Since then, he'd been kept in a tiny cell, given sparse food and brackish water at odd intervals, and otherwise ignored. He was in some bizarre tree-world, and his cell had been the inside of a tree. That was when he figured he had gone insane, and there was no point in worrying about things.
The tall blond people—Sidhe, elves, he'd been told, and he'd stared at the speaker with disbelief, then laughed at him—had avoided him entirely until several hours ago, when two of them came and told him he was to be tried. He'd laughed at that, too, at the absurdity of it. But they'd hauled him away, and gradually he had to admit that whether or not he was insane, someone had him in their power, and that same someone had plans for him that he probably wasn't going to like.
Now he sat in a high-arching hall whose ceiling had recently been blasted open to the elements. The walls were scarred and pitted and burned. He'd noted that with a sort of detached interest as he'd been led into the hall. He wondered why the place was such a dump. What could possibly have happened here? It looked like a war zone.
The audience wore pointed ears, the jury and judge wore pointed ears—in fact, everyone except his daughter and her damned teacher wore them. The sight of Lianne What's-Her-Name sitting there in the audience stunned him for a moment. Whatever in hell was happening here, she must have a hand in it. Was this the high school drama club's shindig, with the costumes and ears?
He began to think, coldly and with guile. The teacher had him stashed away somewhere. Eventually, he'd get away. Then he'd get her. . . .
As the trial ground on, he was told how this place the "elves" called Elfhame Outremer had come to be destroyed. He was told a litany of dead and injured that made him chuckle in disbelief. He also discovered that the elves maintained that sole responsibility for the damage and all the deaths fell to him.
Even given that these people were loonies, put up to this by Lianne Whatsis, Andrew Kendrick was having some difficulty with that. In the first place, he didn't believe that Amanda had done the things they said she had—if she had been able to make monsters out of thin air, and work "magic" like that, why hadn't she gone after him? Why hadn't she done something about their games?
The memory of what had happened to the pony barn intruded at that moment, but he pushed it resolutely away. Whatever had happened there, Amanda couldn't have been responsible. She was only one little girl, one stupid, sluttish little girl. It must have some rational cause—and surely, surely some adult enemy had done it. Not the brat. Children were helpless, as they should be; property of those who fathered them.
Still, these "elves" insisted that was the truth. It only proved that they were loonies. He didn't know how Lianne Whatever had found them, but she sure fit right in with them.
Even if Amanda had been the cause for the "elves' " injuries, he didn't see how he could be legally held responsible for her insane outbreak. He hadn't conjured monsters or whatever the hell they were saying she'd done. He couldn't have if he tried—they even admitted that. But they were saying he made Amanda do it—and he'd never heard of any charge as crazy as that, not even in the kangaroo courts of Iran and Iraq.
Nuts. They were nutcases, one and all. Maybe Lianne had dragged him off to a nuthouse somehow?
But even nuts responded to some kind of logic, and before he could think about getting away, getting back to Fayetteville, he'd have to convince them that he was innocent. Since Amanda was admittedly as crazy as they were, she must be lying, and he was innocent of whatever they thought he had done. All right, they were trying him as some kind of an accomplice, perhaps. Why should he even have to take the rap for that? The "elves" didn't have any hard evidence. The testimony of a kid the "elves" frankly admitted had serious psychological problems wouldn't have held water for a second back in Fayetteville.
He summoned his best judicial manner and stood up to speak his piece. But when he'd tried his rebuttal, he'd been firmly silenced and told that in Elfhame Outremer, he had no rights. No speech of any kind on his part would be permitted.
At that point, he was just about ready to explode. He kept his mouth shut only by reminding himself that there were other loonies on the "jury," and that even if they convicted him, he'd be able to get away at some point. And then he'd bring the authorities down on all of them. After silencing Amanda first, of course.
The "trial" took place over most of a day. At the end, he sat, chin erect, eyes firm, expression noble and convincingly innocent. He faced his accusers. Most of the people who had been in the burning barn were there. The blond "elf," who was also the local hero racecar driver Mac Lynn; his own daughter, Amanda—who looked at him from time to time and cried; Amanda's teacher, Miss McCormick; and the tall, skinny "elf" bimbo who had dragged him out of the barn. Felouen? What was that, Jamaican or something?
The kangaroo court prepared for the summing-up.
"Your actions were the direct cause of all of this," the bimbo said. She looked at him as if he were a particularly loathsome form of excrement she'd found on the bottom of her shoe. "Because of your abuse of this child, almost half of the people—innocent people—of Elfhame Outremer are lost to us. The city itself is as you see it now because of you—a ruin that will take hundreds of years to heal. Nothing will heal our many dead, nor the hearts of those who loved them and buried them. There is no punishment that we can give you which will mete out justice fully."
Andrew grinned at her. It was true. The worst they could do was kill him, and he'd been ready to do that himself. And if they didn't kill him, he'd get away, and then he'd come back with the law on his side and ready to deal with them all. Lunatics.
"However," the bimbo "Seleighe Court Lady" continued, "the one of our folk who discovered the true nature of your crimes also declared a fitting sentence for you before she died. In deference to her, and because her demand on the course of your life comes as close as possible to achieving justice, her sentence will be carried out."
Sentence? So they weren't going to kill him. Fine. He was smart, he knew things—he'd learned a lot from some of his less respectable clients. He doubted there was any place they could put him that he couldn't get out of, eventually. He discounted the fact that he hadn't been able to find a way out of the hollow tree they'd put him in at first. He just hadn't had time, that was all. He'd show them.
The bimbo kept right on with her pompous speech. God, how he hated women who got any authority at all, even granted by a pack of nutcases! They got so out of hand. . . .
"We know that you were abused as a child. We discovered this from the Oracular Pool—and we regret that we were not there to intervene for you." A flicker of distant pity passed over her face, and he noted it with resentment. How dared she pity him? "However, your adult life was the result of a long series of choices you made of your own free will—and your decision to abuse your own child was one such choice. You never displayed regret and never sought help. Therefore, there are no mitigating circumstances to soften your punishment."
The bimbo Felouen waved one hand, and a pocket of blackness appeared to her side. The other "elves" watched it with calm interest. Only now did he feel a chill of fear. What the hell was going on?
She turned back to him, with a face as cold as marble. "You are to be banished to a pocket of the Unformed Plane that has been prepared especially for you. It is unlikely that you will ever die in there—it is also unlikely that you will ever be released. In order to be released, you must truly, deeply, and completely come to regret what you inflicted on your daughter, take responsibility for it, and to feel guilt for it. In this pocket of the Unformed, your punishment will fit your crime. We regret this, Andrew Kendrick. But this is the justice you have earned."
Andrew found strong hands clasped over each arm, and although he struggled, suddenly frightened of the dark pool that hung in the air in front of him, he was shoved forward with implacable strength and speed.
"It's not my fault," he screamed. "She did it, the little bitch! She made me do it! Little girls are whores, and she was my daughter to do with as I pleased, damn it! It's not my fault! It's not my fault!"
He was thrown into that spinning vortex of tenebrous nothingness, and for a brief, disorienting moment, all detail and all sense of existence vanished.
Then he found himself on hands and knees, naked, in a room that glowed disconcertingly red. The room was hot, the light was dim, and a huge creature, as naked as he, stood at the far end. Beside the creature hung ropes, chains, horse tack and other implements that Andrew recognized. Only they were bigger, here, as if he were ten years old again. There was a narrow cot in one corner of the room. In fact, he recognized the room as a much larger version of the special "tack room" he'd kept for his use with Amanda.
The thing moved toward him, smiling. "Come here," it said in a voice so deep Andrew felt it before he heard it. "Come here. You want it. You know you do."
He looked at the monstrous thing's face. It shifted in the dim light, looking first like his father's face, then like Amanda's—and then his own.
"Come here, slut," it crooned. Then it seized him.
In the Oracular Pool, Andrew struggled in the bogan's grip; Amanda—Anne, Abbey, Alice, and Cethlenn together—shuddered and turned away, into Felouen's arms. The elven lady held her. Cethlenn felt Felouen rejoice that the child permitted herself to be held. Felouen banished the vision from the Pool, and led the little girl away, towards the tree-home of the driver Maclyn. He descended from his home to welcome them, with a smile for all of them. All four of them.
The moment that Cethlenn had sensed approaching came, although neither the elven lady nor the children knew it. They were about to become three, not four. It was time for Cethlenn to go.
:Children—: she said—and as usual, it was the sensitive Abbey who guessed what was about to happen.
:No!: the girl protested; the others understood in an instant and added their protests to hers.
:You c-c-can't leave,: Anne wailed. :Who's g-g-gonna teach me the m-m-magic?:
:The elves are better teachers than ever I'd be, little Anne,: she said, stroking Anne's hair. :You're a fast learner, and Felouen will gladly teach you.:
:But who will—will tell us what to do?: proper Alice asked, completely at a loss. :You have to stay! We have to know what's right and what's wrong!:
:Look to Maclyn for that, my dear one,: Cethlenn told her. :He's learned in a bitter hard school, and he lives what he's learned. He is a most honorable man and a noble elven lord.:
Abbey crept up beside her and nestled into her side. :Who will love us?: she asked piteously. :You made us see each other, but who is going to make us all better if you go?:
There her heart nearly broke, but the time was upon her, determined by a higher Power than she could fight. :Every elf Underhill will love you, my darlings,: she told them. :And you will heal yourselves and make yourself whole.:
They thought about that for a moment, and it was finally Alice who replied. :You've never lied to us,: she said. :How? How are we going to be better?:
The tugging on her soul became an insistent pull, and she had to fight against it to stay long enough to reply. :Look for Amanda,: she said at last, as the answer came to her from the same source as the tugging. :Look for the littlest of you all, the most frightened, the one in hiding. And when you find her, show her you love her—and show her she is loved. Raise her up. Teach her that there is an end to fear and pain. Then you will find your way home.:
The two elves with her sensed something going on. Cethlenn looked out of Amanda's eyes and into the eyes of Maclyn. He saw her there, and his lips formed a Word that he did not speak.
She nodded, gravely. "Blessings upon you, Fair One," she said in the most ancient Gaelic. "I give this one into your keeping. See that you deserve her."
Then, with a farewell caress to all three (and was there a hint of a fourth? A tiny, shy, frightened little child?) she spread her wings, and soared into the waiting Light.
Lianne and Maclyn stood in the kitchen beside the Gate he'd opened one last time. She'd spent a week healing in Elfhame Outremer, and working with the elves to replant trees and reconsecrate the Grove. But Maclyn assured her that she was going back to the same evening she'd left, that no time would have passed in Fayetteville since she ran through the Gate and out of the burning barn.
He was so handsome, she thought, as if she viewed him from far away. She had spent most of her waking hours with him; she had watched him suffering over his mother's death, she'd worked beside him, had seen the first few smiles he'd managed. She'd seen him with Amanda, who was healing under the tender care of the elves. She knew him now, much better than she had ever known anyone before.
It would be so easy to ignore their differences, to accept the life he offered her straddled between the world of magic and her own mundane existence. Rather, she thought, it would be so easy for a while.
Then it would become impossible. Especially under the carefully uncritical eye of Felouen. Felouen, who loved Mac so desperately. Felouen, who needed him more than she would ever admit.
Then it would become impossible.
"What will I say about Amanda?" she asked, feeling the awkward silence as they looked at each other.
He shrugged. "Nothing. No one knows you were out there. They'll find simulacra in the embers of the barn—burned bodies that look just like hers and her father's. They won't need any more answers. My only regret is that they'll never know what he was doing to her."
Lianne nodded, thinking about the social worker who would never have to make that investigation. Would he be relieved? Or would he spend the rest of his life wondering if he had failed—wondering if he could have saved Amanda's life, if only—if only—"What about her sister, Sharon?" she asked. "Her mother is no prize."
Mac considered the question for a moment. "We'll watch the mother, I think. This might be the shock she needed to start taking care of her daughter better. If not—we'll intervene."
They continued to look at each other, and another awkward silence developed.
"Are you sure you won't stay in Elfhame Outremer with me?" Mac asked, softly; the very question she had been dreading.
Lianne looked at the floor, and rolled her foot back and forth across a pencil that lay there. "I can't, Mac. My family is here, my work is here, my past and my future are here. People need me in this world, Mac. And Felouen is waiting for you, and hoping the two of you will have a chance together."
He sighed—but was it with regret or relief? As well as she knew him, she still couldn't tell. "I know. I thought that was going to be your answer, but I still hoped—"
"There are some things that really aren't meant to be." Lianne made a stab at a brave smile, and gave it up as useless.
He licked his lips and stared deeply into her eyes. "I understand, or I think I do. You're sure?"
She nodded, not trusting herself to speech. The lump in her throat cut her breath short, and her nose was stuffy from the tears that were waiting to fall. One more word was all it would take.
He rested both hands on her shoulders. "One last kiss, then," he said.
His eyes looked—odd. She pushed him away, tensing with sudden suspicion. "No, Mac," she whispered.
"Just one," he asked.
"I saw Superman," she croaked.
That seemed to stump him. "So did I," he said at last.
She spoke with stiff lips. "I hated the ending. I always thought that Lois Lane got cheated at the end of the movie." She clenched her hands into fists, to keep from wiping away the tears that slid down her cheeks. "He kissed her and took away her memory of him, of who he was and what he was—and supposedly after that everything was back to normal. But she earned her pain. She would have lived without him—she could have kept on going even if she knew the truth."
Was she speaking about a two-dimensional movie character, or herself? Maybe both. "She would have known how special she was, though, if he'd left her alone. She would have known that she had been special enough to be loved by someone like him—and if it couldn't last forever, well . . . so few things do." Her voice turned fierce. "But he stole that from her, stole a part of her life that she couldn't ever replace—all because he thought she wasn't tough enough to handle it."
Maclyn blinked in surprise at her vehemence. "I sort of thought he'd made things easier on her."
She shook her head, angrily, to keep from crying. "Do you think she'd have chosen that if he'd asked her first?"
He hesitated. "Well . . . no. I guess not."
She lowered her voice. "Do you think he couldn't trust her to keep his secret?"
Mac whispered, "No. I think she would have kept his secret."
Lianne lifted her chin and glared at him. "Do you think you can't trust me?"
It was his turn to shake his head violently. "It wasn't that at all. It's just that you've had so much pain—and I thought I could save you some of it. . . ." Mac's eyes widened as he realized she'd caught him.
"That was what you were planning." Lianne glared at him with a kind of triumph. "I saw it in your face. You had that same stupid 'pity that poor girl' expression on your face that Christopher Reeve had on his." She kicked the pencil across the kitchen. "Don't do me any favors, Maclyn. I'm smart, and I'll get over you in my own time and in my own way. But I fought as hard for this day as you did—so don't you dare try to take it from me!"
Maclyn nodded and bit his lower lip. He moved toward the Gate, then looked back at her. She saw her own pain reflected in his eyes. "I'll miss you, Lianne McCormick."
"And I'll miss you. Tell Amanda I wish her luck," she added.
He bowed a little, courtly and solemn, offering her the acknowledgement of her own kind of royalty. "I will. She'll find safe haven and healing in Elfhame Outremer. And training for the incredible power she commands."
They gazed at each other from across the distance of the kitchen—from across an abyss than neither could breach—from across the centuries.
"I love you," Mac said into the silence.
Her heart contracted. "I know. I love you, too. It doesn't change anything."
"No. It doesn't." He licked his lips again, and asked, plaintively, "I can still come and see you sometimes, can't I?"
Lianne took a deep breath. "No, Mac. I have to get on with my life—and you have to get on with yours. We can't do that with each other around."
He nodded, as if he had expected that answer, too. "You're right. But maybe . . . sometime . . . you could come out to the track and cheer me on. I could use that . . . all the help I can get. . . ." He leaned over and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek.
"Good-bye, fair one."
"Good-bye, Mac," she said for the last time, and left unsaid a million more things.