Hallowed Ground

Chapter Thirteen

Benjamin stood over Elizabeth's coffin and stared out through the stained glass windows far above into the dying rays of the sun. He was alone in the church. The funeral was scheduled for the morning, early, before dawn’s first light. It was hot near Saguaro on the best day – it would be an unpleasant ceremony if they allowed the sun to rise before they laid her to rest.

In the cool of the evening, the scent of the cut lilies and the wreaths and garlands of flowers stacked around the coffin permeated the air. A light breeze blew in the front door on its way through the rectory in back. In the morning, the pews would be full, and Amazing Grace would shake the rafters. Benjamin didn't plan to be there to hear it.

He had propped open the coffin so he could see her face. One last look. She was so still and quiet he could have believed she was carved of porcelain if he hadn't held her warm, supple body in his arms days before. She was smiling. Her expression spoke eloquently of serenity and peace. But how could she be at peace? How could there be any serenity now? There was no calm; there was only violence and its ghosts. The rest, the tranquility, the notion of peace, they were all lies, and above all else in the world, Benjamin despised lies.

A whisper of cotton broke the silence. Benjamin didn't look up from her lips. He knew what he would see, and he wasn't ready. What, not who, he thought, tracing a finger across her cold cheek. Soft footsteps padded across the wooden church floor. The lilies and wildflowers gave way to a darker scent. Moments later, a pair of very pale hands rested on the rim of the coffin. He still didn't look away from Elizabeth's face, he didn’t need to.

"You are sure that this will work?" Benjamin asked without turning.

"If you doubted," a soft, husky voice replied, "you would not be standing here, waiting. You would not take the chance of letting someone see us alone."

Benjamin said nothing. He had nothing to say.

"You have the money?" she asked.

Now he looked up.

"I have your money, witch. See that you earn it." There was no aggression in his voice, only a deep well of hurt, despite the harshness of his words.

The woman he knew as Jeanne Dubois gazed up at him with deep, unblinking brown eyes. He met her gaze, but found it unyielding as granite. After a few moments he looked away.

She turned, and started toward the front door of the church without another word. Benjamin gently lowered the lid of Elizabeth's coffin, rested his hand on the wooden surface for just a moment, and then followed the witch into the deepening twilight. As they stepped into the churchyard, he looked up and down the deserted road. There was no one moving at that hour, nor was there likely to be, but he still looked. And he listened, because what he could not see he might well hear. Sounds had a peculiar way of travelling in the dark.

Jeanne Dubois was not the kind of woman a respectable man should be seen alone with. The shame of it would be that much worse with his fiancé only two days dead and still not in the ground. The church rested up against the outer edge of Mission Ridge, one side overlooking the sloping valley that held the town, the other cresting a deep, narrow gorge. Jeanne turned away from the town and crossed the church yard toward the slope and the cliff beyond. Her feet crunched on the gravel, adding an earthy tone to her passage.

The rear of the church was a graveyard. Ancient, canted stone crosses and rough-hewn monuments sprouted like broken teeth. The graves were well tended, even those that had toppled or had their stones broken. Some bore fresh flowers. Jeanne walked through them without glancing right, or left. Benjamin was forced to hurry his steps to keep up. He did not dare look at the blooms in case they had withered at her nearness. He chided himself for being a fool – but he still did not look.

The climb down to the gorge was rough. Vines gripped at his ankles and branches whipped back across his face as he pushed through them. He cursed and stumbled forward. The ground loosened underfoot and he fell hard on his hip. He cried out and reached for a dangling branch. Just for a second he had it, felt its reassuring solidity and strength and then he his fingers slipped and it was gone. He panicked; pin-wheeled his arms, and tilted out over the brink.

Strong fingers clamped over his wrist and spun him back hard. He hit the ground. The breath wheezed from his lungs, bright splashes of light igniting before and behind his eyes. He groped wildly with his free hand, found the stump of a scrub pine and clung to it tightly. She never loosened her hold on his wrist.

"Get up," Jeanne Dubois said. "There isn't much time."

She was right; the night was gathering about them. The moon hung like a traitor in the sky, casting its silver like a smattering of coins across the land.

When he had his bearings, she let go. He rolled to his knees, pulled himself upright and followed her more carefully, taking every handhold the slope offered and keeping his gaze focused on the ground at his feet. The moon showed him the way. To his right, he heard the rushing water of the river, pounding its way through the gorge. Ahead the slippery, dangerous trail they followed disappeared into the side of a heavy forest.

‡‡‡

Benjamin had been in the forest, but only on horseback, and only then by the light of day. It was a different place at night. His mind whirled with the stories he'd heard ever since he was a boy, stories of Indians, demons, bears and spirits. As a man, he'd simply avoided the place, the boy’s fears still deeply rooted in his soul. His work as a banker called for little or no travel, and lessons learned young were by far the hardest to shake.

The woman was another thing altogether. It had been several months since word of her presence filtered through to the town. She lived in the forest. She never entered the town by day - most had never seen her enter at all. Certain of the older women in the town believed she could heal and went to her for infusions and herbal remedies.

"It is all here in the trees," she told them. "Everything you need, given freely by nature." Others believed she was a demon sent to tempt their souls, and would brook no contact with the 'hag of the trees'. A few of the men claimed to have spent time with her, swapping coin for a different kind of devotion, but there was no evidence to support the claims, and the men themselves were wont to lie on a number of subjects if they thought it made them look somehow more than they were.

When Elizabeth took ill, Benjamin had wanted to approach the witch immediately. In truth he would have done anything to save his fiancé, but when it came to Jeanne Dubois, Elizabeth's father, mayor of the town and a righteous man, forbade it. Righteous, in his parlance, meant superstitious. Jeanne Dubois might as well have had horns.

Benjamin had stayed with Elizabeth. He'd refused to leave her bedside and had listened to every word the doctor spat out of his foul old incompetent mouth. All the while, he'd sat and held Elizabeth's hand as he watched her slowly die. It was a bitter thing, to think that there might be something he could do, and yet be helpless to do it, so instead of praying he found himself saying her name, Jeanne Dubious, over and over barely above a breath, as though she might somehow hear him, the words carried by the intensity of his need, and come to him. She did not. Elizabeth was beautiful to the end, but in those last moments, so weak. So helpless.

"What would you give to have her back?" The question had come when he was at his lowest. He remembered the words, spoken so softly, so teasingly. The woman had leaned over his shoulder as he wept, drunk and alone, on the porch of his home. He hadn't seen or heard her, but she was there. He cried out, and she laughed, mocking his tears and his pain. Then, again, she asked her question.

And he gave his answer:

"Anything. Everything. I want her back. I want it to be last month, before she got sick. I want the future that should have been ours. I want, I want, I want, but I can’t have any of it."

"Perhaps," she'd said, "it is not too late. There are ways, for those willing to tread a dark path."

"What do you mean . . ?" he asked.

He didn't really need to be told what she meant, but he didn't want to believe her; to do so was terrifying. To believe she had command over life and death was as obscene as it was unnatural. There were limits in his world, things that he believed he understood, and that needed to be true. The veil between this world and the next could not simply be torn asunder without consequences. The dead did not return to the land of the living – they moved on to a blessed afterlife, or perpetual torment. That was how the mechanisms of his faith worked. Elizabeth was in a better place, free of the suffering that had killed her.

"There are ways," she said again, as though that explained everything he wanted to ask.

"But the price is high. Higher than most are prepared to pay. Would you truly give anything to buy her back?"

"Of course," he said.

"Then meet me in the old church grounds when the sunlight dies." She left him then, alone with a sudden and stupid hope that he might get his second chance at love. He knew he should have stayed at home. She was either a witch, corrupt to her withered heart, or more realistically judging by her words, a common liar. Perhaps, he thought, she had arranged an ambush in some secluded place and planned to make off with his riches. He laughed at that. His trousers were threadbare and his pockets filled with lint. If she wanted riches he was not the man for her schemes. She'd set her price, and he had it with him, but it wasn’t about money. It never was. She wanted something else, something that she knew he could offer. The question was, what would he get in return? Visions? Hallucinations? A dream of one last night with Elizabeth, banished with the sun? Or worse, nothing? Ridicule? Her question should have been how desperate was he, not what did he want.

He thought about her strength as she caught and held him from tumbling into the gorge, and he shivered. Had her hand been cold?

The twilight gave way to deeper darkness as they passed the first line of trees and disappeared into their shadows.

Benjamin picked up his pace slightly. His heart raced, beating hard against the ridge of bone in his chest. Every shadow seemed to his rattled mind to have eyes of its own. Twice he thought – imagined – he saw something, just out of sight, skittering away. The sounds of small animals and the susurrus of the breeze teasing the leaves overhead were magnified by the empty, vacant silence. His footsteps echoed loudly – the woman moved as though she were another of the shadows. Insubstantial, like a ghost, her passing made no sound.

That absence of sound placed a chill in his heart.

Ahead, the trees thinned, and a patch of brighter moonlight beckoned with its dabble of silver coins on the ground. Jeanne Dubois entered the clearing, and as he stepped from the trees, Benjamin saw that in the center of that open space, two trails crossed. He turned and glanced back the way they'd come, but could make out no landmarks. He tried to retrace his journey from the church in his mind, but could only place vague details, and found that he'd lost all sense of direction. The roads could lead to – or from – anywhere.

The wind, which had been nothing more than a soft breeze, stirred, gathering force and whipped the trailing branches of the trees violently. The temperature dropped. It wasn't a gradual chill. The snap and crackle of frost coated the bark, glittering white. That whiteness spread from the trailing tips of the branches, along the length of the thick limbs and chased down to the boles of the trees, transmogrifying the forest. It spread deep into the roots, freezing the earth beneath his feet.

Benjamin felt a snap of energy, an instant of bone-deep fear that simultaneously froze him in place and screamed at him to run and not look back. Don’t look back. Don’t ever look back.... In the center, where the roads crossed, the witch waited. She smiled and held out her hand. It was the first time he'd seen her smile, and it was beautiful, but the beauty was a thing of surfaces, there was no depth to it. He did not want to touch her because he knew then that she would feel every bit as cold as his dead Elizabeth.

He took a step, staggered, regained his balance and met her in the center of the road. If possible, the temperature dropped a few degrees further.

"Do you remember?" Jeanne asked. "Do you remember the words, Benjamin Jamieson?"

He didn't trust his dried, parched lips to form his answer. He nodded.

She raised her arm and gestured for him to approach. In that instant, he almost found the strength to run. He met her gaze, ignoring the wind and the cold and raised one foot from the road beneath him. He actually began to turn, but in the end, he couldn’t do it, not when a part of him believed this madness might truly be a chance for his Elizabeth to return to him. Instead, he stepped forward. In only a second, he stood so near to her that her breath, frosting in the frigid air, dampened his cheeks and her eyes became all that he could see.

The wind rose again, sending branches and leaves scurrying up and down the trails in all directions. The rime of frost coating the earth cracked brittle beneath their feet. Benjamin dared not move. Tiny crystals of ice swirled as the breeze agitated them, lifting up from the dirt as they twisted and gyrated, coming together like a small tornado localized around the clearing. Jeanne's hair, flecked white now, writhed like the reptilian locks of Gorgon Medusa, and her cold smile widened.

"State your name," she cried. The words caught on the wind and whirled about them so they seemed to come at Benjamin from every direction at once, embittered with the wrath of the mad wind.

"Benjamin Jamieson," he said, the words whipped away from his tongue. His throat was so dry it felt like he'd swallowed sand, but his words were clear. By some trick of the wind he heard them as if from a great distance.

"State your desire," Jeanne whispered - cried - screamed - laughed. She did all of these things, or maybe none of them. Her voice shifted from that of human to the elemental whispering of the wind itself, her words so forceful they were a scourge upon his soul.

"Elizabeth Stark's life; bring her back to me." he said softly.

The leaves rustled, accepting his demand.

"State your offer," Jeanne Dubois said. She reached out a long slender finger and poked her fingernail beneath his chin, lifting his eyes. He was momentarily disoriented because she lifted his gaze to hers, but surely he was the taller? Surely…

"Anything," he whispered.

Jeanne Dubois laughed again, the sound harsh and derisive. "Anything from the sweet boy," she said as she raised her hands above her head and turned her face to the moonlit sky. The silver light fused with the gilt frosting of the ice and the mad tangle of her hair. In that moment it went beyond beauty; she was radiant. She spoke a single word. Benjamin heard it, heard the rhythms of it, the curl of the sounds through the howl of the wind, but he could not decipher it. It was no mortal phrasing – at least none he had ever heard before that moment.

The wind wailed and swirled, the rustling of the leaves constant now. Everywhere around him the forest was alive, but it was a brutal life, one of unleashed fury. The storm grew, its anger fermenting. Weaker branches rotten through with woodworm and riddled with disease snapped and broke, snatched away by the powerful gusts. The howling of the wind reached a crescendo in a clap of thunder so loud he was not merely deafened, but the impact of the sound drove the air from his lungs and he buckled, falling to his knees. Benjamin closed his eyes and screamed, but that sound, like all of the others, was swallowed.

And then – it was silent. Not just quiet, silent; the entire world devoid of sound.

Very slowly, Benjamin drew his hands away from his eyes. Jeanne stood nearby, a look of absolute fascination splashed across her ethereal beauty. Benjamin looked up and saw that they were no longer alone. A man had joined them - at least, it seemed to be a man. The silence surrounding them was so complete it felt as though they'd been sucked into some other world…some other place, and that it was they who had joined the man, not the other way around.

The newcomer was tall and slender, uncomfortably so in both measures. He dressed like an undertaker or a puritanical man of God: dark hair, dark waxed moustache, and a dark suit, precise, neatly tailored, the cut of the cloth following his form perfectly. His shirt was starched so white it appeared to glow from beneath his jacket. Benjamin’s gaze shifted to a silver watch fob that dangled on a short chain from the man’s the breast pocket, and then down to the rolled parchment he held in his bony hand.

"Benjamin Jamieson," the man said. "Greetings and well met on this, ah, shall we call it an auspicious night? A night above all nights, I believe." He did not offer his hand, and the smile that split his too-handsome face, all sharp angles and shadows in the moonlight, held no hint of mirth or humor. "I hear you are looking to strike a bargain, to make a deal, to seal a compact?"

"I . . . I . . ." Benjamin stammered. He looked to Jeanne for guidance and he was struck not only by how beautiful she was here, in her element, but by the obviously familial similarity between her and the man she had summoned.

"Indeed, you…you. That is how most people who come seeking my help think. It is all about them. So tell me again, Benjamin Jamieson, what do you want, and what are you prepared to give me to make it happen? There must be consideration on both sides of a bargain, reward and risk, for it to be good and true."

"Elizabeth," Benjamin said, barely managing the one word.

The stranger inclined his head thoughtfully and ran a long bony finger along the ridge of his nose, intimating some sort of implicit understanding was passing between the two of them. Benjamin did not understand what it meant – no that was a lie, the worst sort, one told to himself. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t know what he had gotten himself into. He had come with the witch to a deserted crossroads in the heart of the forest, two roads crossing in a wood, roads that went nowhere and everywhere because they were pathways of the living and pathways of the dead, not roads at all. In this place where they crossed, where mortality was formed, she had summoned the man trapped beneath the cross. He didn’t for a moment imagine that the creature that had caused the sudden freeze was divine or benevolent. There were no wings, no halo, nothing remotely angelic. Indeed, it was altogether too human to be anything other than the worst aspects of mankind, greed, corruption, lust, avarice, wrath and all the things that showed just how far man had fallen from their Lord. If this creature of the crossroads wanted to deal it had its own reason, its own needs, and it was unlikely they would benefit any save it.

"Elizabeth," the stranger repeated, savouring the flavor of the name on his forked tongue. Benjamin shivered at the sibilance, the second syllable becoming saaaah as the man stretched it out. "And you would give anything to have her back, is that not so?"

"Anything," Benjamin repeated, knowing that his version of anything and the man’s were markedly different. Still, when it came down to it, he would give anything to have Elizabeth back. Anything. And that was a terrifying notion.

"Then it would seem that we are in a good place to begin our bargaining, wouldn’t you say?" He did not wait for Benjamin to answer; instead he rubbed his hands together briskly and stepped forward. For a moment, Benjamin thought the man was about to clap him on the shoulder like some long lost friend re-acquainted. He didn’t. Instead he tapped the side of the rolled parchment against his chin, the sharp angles of his face twisting as he feigned deep thought. "Now," he said after a moment’s musing, "what say we talk through the fine details? Strike that bargain and both leave here all the happier for our trade?"

Benjamin nodded. He had an inkling what was to come. He was no fool. "Name your price," he said, with a confidence he did not feel.

"Ah, a man after my own heart. Chase cut to, arrow driven into the heart of the matter. Wonderful. Quite wonderful. This is how a bargain should be struck, a deal between men who know their goal and are prepared to go the distance to achieve it. My price is always the same, boy. I am nothing if not predictable. A life for a life. You want your beloved Elizabeth returned to this life, some poor soul must take her place in that other place. And when I say some other, the only soul you have the right to trade is your own, so I name my price."

"And for that you will give me Elizabeth back?" Benjamin pressed. He couldn’t believe the business he was about, the trade in souls was as far from his ken as was imaginable.

"She will be returned to this life," the man said.

"No, no, not good enough," Benjamin said, sensing the trap inherent in the Devil’s words. "She must be whole, complete. She must be living and breathing, and most importantly herself, not some rot addled thing risen out of the ground. She has to be right. You have to bring her back to me."

"As is only proper. It would make a poor bargain to trade your immortal soul for a husk of a woman, would it not? You can trust me when I say she shall be exactly as she was."

"No," Benjamin said quickly.

"Ah, you are getting into the spirit of the dickering. Good, good."

"You are trying to hide the fact that you are lying to me."

"You do me wrong, young Benjamin. The one thing I won’t do is lie to you. I shall be as good as my word. That is to say precisely as good as my word. That is the art of the compact. Both should leave, shaking hands on the deal, and be aware of precisely what they have traded, what they have promised and what they shall receive in return."

"You say what I think I want to hear. That is how it works, isn’t it? If you return her to me exactly as she was then given time the same sickness will take her. I am no fool."

The devil smiled knowingly and shook his head sharply. "Ah, you see through the riddle of the game. I can see I will need to be alert when it comes to treating with you, Benjamin Jamieson. Indeed, she shall return to this life, healed and whole. I cannot say fairer than that, can I? Would you agree that I have met all of your demands? I have acquiesced to your desires and promised to sunder the veil between this world and the next so that Elizabeth, your one true love, can walk this world again, hale and hearty. And in return I want your soul. That is my price. I have been forthright with you in respect to my desires, have not tried to fool you with tricksy words or leave you befuddled and wishing you had a law man to decipher the confounding balderdash. Your immortal soul. That is my price. It is not so much weighed against all that you want from me, is it? The doors between worlds don't open easily. Have we a bargain, Benjamin, or have you wasted my time?"

Benjamin nodded. "Yes. Yes we do."

"Good," the devil said, flourishing the roll of parchment he clutched in his left hand. "There are formalities that must be adhered to, you understand, an inking of the agreement so that we are not faced with buyer’s remorse or some other distressing squabble down the line. Eternity is every bit as long as it sounds, and when you change your mind and seek to recant your trade I would have it in writing, bound in blood, so to speak, to prove that there is no wiggle room. So, please, read, absorb, ask any questions you might have, but most of all, sign here."

Before Benjamin could voice agreement, or dissent, there was an awful screech. The air above them exploded with sound, and a huge, decrepit looking raven dropped through the trees. Benjamin tried to flinch, but he was too slow. The bird landed on the stranger's shoulder with a solid thump. Without hesitation, the man reached up, grabbed a long black feather, and plucked it. The bird cried out and shuffled back and forth on its perch, but made no move to go.

"This will serve," the man said, and with a flourish he drew a shining blade from the pocket of his jacket. He barely flicked his wrist, but when he folded his knife and returned it whence it came, he held a perfectly trimmed quill. The man winked.

Benjamin's throat was so dry it burned. His eyes watered, and all his strength had left him. The stranger held out the pen with a flourish, and without thinking, Benjamin plucked it from the man's hand.

It was hot to the touch, and he would have dropped it, except he no longer had control of his hand. He gripped the quill so tightly he was sure it would snap, but it was flexible and strong, shivering in his grip.

"There is no ink," he said softly.

The moment the words left his lips, he regretted them. His memory of the past hour was vague, but something floated to the surface. Something the man had said.

"Signed in blood."

Jeanne stepped close. Benjamin turned at her approach, but too late to catch her intent. She lashed out with one long nail and it bit into the flesh of his wrist. Blood welled instantly. She gripped his forearm and scraped the nail across the cut, cupping several fat droplets on her fingertip and bringing them to her lips.

She did not release her grip on his wrist.

"The quill," she said. "Dip the quill, Benjamin."

The moment passed so slowly that the touch of the quill in the fresh cut on his wrist had passed, and the quill had pressed to the parchment before his gaze registered motion. By the time the long swirls of his signature were etched onto the page, penned in brilliant crimson and fading to corroded, rust brown, his mouth opened. As he completed the S and lifted the pen…he managed a whisper, just a tiny breath of sound that wheezed through dry lips and died short of sound.

"No," he said.

"Oh, I'm afraid it's much too late for that," the stranger chuckled. "Signed and sealed, you see. Very legal, very proper, and very final. You'll find it quite binding, in and out of court. I believe we have a deal, Benjamin."

Benjamin licked his lips. He needed to moisten them so he could speak. Something felt very wrong. He couldn't move his feet, and his balance was failing. The only thing keeping him upright was the iron hold of the witch, Jeanne Dubois, on his wrist. The same grip that had saved him from tumbling into the abyss earlier that night, only tighter.

He tried again to move. This time it was more than sluggishness. Something held him in place. He glanced down and cried out. The earth beneath him had crumbled. Pale, dead hands groped at his ankles and his calves. He struggled harder, but they held him easily, clawing their way up as if he was their ladder to the surface. A moment later, he realized with shock that they weren't climbing out…they were dragging him down.

"Wait!" he cried. "Wait! We have a deal."

The stranger stood watching, a slow smile curling his lip.

"I do believe you are correct, Benjamin," he said. "Have you forgotten your half so soon?"

"Elizabeth," Benjamin screamed. He fought with every ounce of his strength, but he could no more free his legs than he could tear his wrists from Jeanne Dubois' grip. She watched him, fascinated by his terror. He thought she licked her lips. He knew she smiled.

"Oh, never fear," the stranger chuckled. "Your Elizabeth is pulling the air back into her lungs at this very moment. Soon she'll be fully away, crawling out from under those flowers and heading into town. A bargain is a bargain, and I'm a man of my word."

"My legs," Benjamin groaned. The claw like fingers gripping his ankles and calves dug in, nails biting bone deep, and the groan rose to a scream.

"I wouldn't worry overmuch about the legs," the dark man said. He leaned in conspiratorially, keeping his voice low. "You don't really need them anymore. I mean, in one form or another, I suppose, but once we've moved on…"

"Moved on? What are you talking about?" Benjamin tried to focus, but the pain was excruciating. Despite the cold he was drenched in sweat.

"Of course moved on. Crossed the river, descended to the dark place, whatever you like to call it. You didn't think I was going to change my mind."

"You promised to bring Elizabeth back to me – I offered my soul."

"Son," the man's eyes darkened, and all traces of false humor left his features. "You should really learn to pay attention. Our bargain was her life for your soul. I don't recall telling you I was going to wait for payment. I'm not really in the business of happy endings…a banker like yourself should understand. Payment on delivery."

At that moment something burst through the soil at his feet. The hand, if it was a hand, was large enough to wrap around both his legs at once. The fingers curled tightly, crushing his knees together, and there was a sickening crunch as his bones gave way. With the last dying strength remaining to him, he stretched out his free hand and clutched at the witch's wrist. He held her, as she held him. He dug in his fingers.

"I paid you," he said.

She met his gaze. She turned, still smiling, and nodded to the stranger.

"The poor boy has a point," she said.

"And what, pray tell, would that be?" the man asked. "I'm afraid that if there's a point, I missed it."

"Well," Jeanne Dubois said, her voice a husky whisper, "I had a business deal with Benjamin that preceded yours, and I'm afraid I may have been more generous. I may have said she would come back…to him."

"That is unfortunate," the stranger said, nodding gravely. "I don't suppose you signed an agreement? A contract? A legal document binding to and beyond the grave?"

He held out the contract and unrolled it with a flourish.

"Such as this," he said. "The way businessmen do business – the mark of a gentleman."

"Well," Jeanne said, as if considering the man's words, "I see what you mean. I have no such scrap of dead tree to bind my bargain in blood. I come from an earlier time, a time of honor. In that day, a man – or woman – spoke their truth, and they stood behind it. The words were enough to bind. I thought you'd remember."

The stranger looked at Jeanne Dubois as if seeing her for the first time. After a moment, his empty smile returned, and he bowed.

Something yanked Benjamin downward with incredible force. He clung to the witch's wrist, unable to scream. He was buried to his waist in the packed dirt of the road and sinking. She held him fast.

"It has been a long time," the dark man said.

"It will be a long time again, I think," Jeanne replied. She did not smile.

In that instant, everything shifted. Jeanne yanked back on Benjamin's arm, and there was a wet, tearing sound. In that same instant, fast as a snake, she snatched at the contract in the dark stranger's hand. He moved – and he was fast – but she owned the grace and speed of moonlight.

He stepped into shadows. The raven took flight in a screaming cacophony of flapping wings and screeching, raucous caws. The contract tore. It was not a clean tear. It started at the edge of the page and ripped a jagged line at an angle downward, splitting the signature cleanly.

Benjamin saw none of this. He stared down at where his torso had once joined his legs. Bone and gristle, flesh and dripping blood trailed away toward the yawning hole where his legs had disappeared. He tried to scream but sucked blood and air into disassociated lungs.

Jeanne's image flickered, shifted, and again there was a sickening wrench as she drove her legs, now talons, into the soil and kicked into flight. Bright, silvery wings spread out to either side. She whirled in that instant, latched onto Benjamin's ruined form and soared. Within seconds she cleared the tops of the nearest trees and was gone.

The dark stranger stood at the crossroads, staring after her. The ground had drawn in and sealed itself. He stood still as a statue, and then, from deep inside his thin, powerful frame, laughter burst forth. It didn't start slowly and build, but rolled out like thunder. The frost, which had momentarily warmed and begun to melt, became a sheet of solid, crystal ice that coated ground and trees. The sound of his laughter cracked it, and everything near him shattered, falling away as so much frigid dust.

Carefully, he rolled the torn contract. He leaned and shot his hand into the earth with no more effort than that of a child sticking his hand into a snow drift. He pulled free a long, slender tube, and slid the document inside. When it was sealed, he tucked it under his jacket, turned, and walked away down one of the crossed trails. As he reached the edge of the shadows of the first great trees, he began to fade from sight. A few paces more, and he had disappeared completely. Only the dusting of frost, and a fallen quill, carved from a raven's feather, marked his passing.

‡‡‡

As if waking from a dream, Mariah became aware of the fire, still crackling in front of her. The day had passed. The shadow of the wagon had grown long and engulfed them, only to disappear as it neared the blaze. Balthazar sat beside her, hands steepled and an odd, contemplative expression masking his angular features. He'd fallen silent. Or…she shook her head, confused. Had he even spoken?

"That can't be all," she said. She found her throat dry again. Was it possible they'd sat there through the afternoon, and the early evening? Could it be night? She reached out and picked up her drink. It was still cold.

"No story is ever truly over," Balthazar said. He sat up straighter, unfolded his hands, and turned to gaze at her.

"Lives and stories are circular. Everything is a pattern. You are correct in guessing that this one is unfinished."

He held up the torn document again. Mariah's mouth dropped open as comprehension drowned coherent thought. The bottom third of the document was missing. It was torn directly through the signature. What remained, as well as she could make it out, was the name Benjamin.

Balthazar offered no further comment. He rolled the document, tucked it back into its tube, and stood.

"The night is upon us," he said. "You'll need to eat, and then, it will be time for rest. Battles are seldom won by the weak. There are things you need to know before we can proceed – and things you need to remember. I will … watch over you. There is a bed in the back of the wagon. It's not luxurious, by any means, but I believe you'll find it clean and comfortable."

"Who are you," she asked him again.

He stared at her, not a hint of emotion in evidence, and shook his head. "Everything you need to know, you already hold here," he patted his head, "or here," he touched his hand to his heart. "Don't ask me questions you'd rather not hear the answer to out loud…that is my advice to you. Eat, sleep, get your strength back, and be patient. All things come in their time."

Mariah opened her mouth, and then closed it. She stared off across the dancing flames of the fire, and Balthazar turned to his wagon. In the shadows at the perimeter of the camp, shapes materialized, flickered, and disappeared. They were tall, slender shapes. Mariah thought she recognized them, but their forms were insubstantial, and every time she tried too hard to concentrate on features, or a face, they blew apart in the wind and left her grasping at memories.

They were men, but not men. At times, great black wings spread out behind them, like those of huge dark-eyed ravens, or crows. Their faces were pale and draped in shadow, and if she watched long enough, and one turned, it seemed she could make out the long, sharp beak. They ringed the camp as though standing guard, and though she knew she should be frightened by such a thing, what she was was curious – and frustrated. Something itched at the back of her mind and tugged at her temper. She knew these – things – but she could not draw the memory to the surface.

At some point the scent of searing meat told her Balthazar was cooking again, and as hard as she tried to ignore him and concentrate on those others, her body betrayed her. She was ravenous. Her mouth prickled with it, and she licked her lips. Her stomach screamed to be filled, and she felt weak again.

The shadows melted into the night. When Balthazar handed her a plate, a slab of meat and some sort of vegetable he'd fried in the grease, she wolfed the food, unheeding of his warning to take things slowly. The plate was empty in moments, and she glanced up. Her first instinct was to ask for more, but then she suddenly realized she was no longer hungry.

Balthazar took her plate and stepped back.

"The bed is in back," he said again. Then he turned away.

Mariah was exhausted. She lifted herself from the chair, where she'd sat all that day, and her legs nearly betrayed her. She steadied herself on the arm of her chair, took a deep breath, and tottered to the wagon. She worked her way down the side, using it for balance. She wondered if Balthazar was watching. She thought he wasn't, but she didn't waste the strength to turn and check.

After what seemed like hours, she reached the rear of the wagon. There was a single step, and it was nearly at her waist level. Above the dark interior of the wagon waited. She laid her cheek against the side of the rear panel of the wagon. It was too far – too high. She felt as if she might fall, or just lean there, letting the wagon support her weight as she drifted off into oblivion.

From very far off, she heard a sound. It was very faint, and she thought maybe it came from behind her, but then it shifted. It came from the wagon…from the shadows. It was the voice of a child, a newborn, crying. It was the voice of regret, the voice of loneliness and pain. She gripped the wagon so tightly her fingers grew white from the strain and lifted her leg so that her knee found the first step. She saw this would not work, that the next step – the floor of the wagon – was too high, and with a groan of pain, she lifted her leg again and brought her foot up to the step, bending at the waist. The crying redoubled, and she cried out.

With a lunge that spent every bit of her remaining strength, she clawed her way up and over the lip of the wagon's rear door, spilling onto the floor. There was almost no light, but it was enough. Ahead, to her left, was a rough mattress, covered with dark blankets. She crawled to it, scraping her knees and her hands on the rough plank floor, dragged herself onto the bedding, and closed her eyes. The crying faded slowly, as if moving away from her. She dropped into fitful dreams, chasing the sound and yearning for her child.

Balthazar stood at the rear of the wagon, watched her just for a moment, silhouetted in the moonlight, and then gently closed the wagon door, cutting off the night.