“Is that what protects the flares while they’re inside? This power? Or maybe the ghosts?”
They exchange glances, then Magritte says, “Sort of. When everything changed, the Preserve got cut off, somehow. You can’t walk in or out, except through the portals. You try to walk out, you just end up somewhere back inside.”
Sounds familiar-Boone’s Gap had a similar if more sinister means of dissuading escape. “And the Storm can’t get in?”
“Not with Enid here.”
Enid again. I’m in awe. Enid’s a regular one-man show. “How do you do it?”
He gives me a weary smile. “Wish I knew.”
“So, how did Mary find this place? Does she have some sort of talent herself?”
Magritte glances at Enid and says, “We found the Preserve-me and Enid. We both saw it, but he made it open up. With his music.”
I’d be more surprised at that if I hadn’t felt the power of Enid’s music for myself. “The music opens the fold and draws in the sheep,” I murmur.
“If they hear it,” says Enid. “Some people got too much anger to hear it. It kind of picks who it wants to come in.” “It picked me,” I say.
Maggie treads air, turning to Enid. “He’s right. It did. It did pick him.”
He stops, sagging back against the trunk of a pine tree to look up at her, a crooked grimace on his dark face. “What- so now you’re thinkin’ he belongs here, or some cosmic shit like that?”
“I can’t stay-” I begin.
But Magritte cuts across me with, “Enid’s the only one who can open this place up.” Her eyes meet mine, making me dizzy. “Except now … there’s you.”
Enid looks up into the branches of the pine and says, “Dammit, Maggie.”
Well, this puts a new spin on things. “How do other people-”
“Enid has to open the portal for them. When we’re out on the road, no one else goes in or out. Scares poor Mary just about to death that something’s gonna happen to him out there.”
“There’s literally no one else that can do it?”
“We can,” says Magritte. “Fireflies, I mean. But without Enid we don’t dare go outside. We don’t dare.”
Enid shakes his head and the little bells woven into his dreadlocks sigh musically. “Dammit, girl, you got the biggest mouth on you. She’s right, though. Kevin Elk Sings can see the portals, but he can’t open ’em. It’s taken a month of Sundays to bring in the folks we got here.”
Catch-22. “So there’d be some benefit to me staying here.”
Both of them are looking at me with wary gazes, Magritte’s eyes going from azure to silver. She says, “I’d be lyin’ if I said no, but even if you did, there’s no way the Council’d let Enid go. Gettin’ in and out is one thing. Keepin’ the lid on this place is something else.”
“Are you sure you couldn’t train this Kevin Elk Sings to-”
“Tried it,” says Enid. “The kid’s got a ton of talent or power or whatever you want to call it, but it’s real raw. And me, I do this stuff; I don’t know how I do it. Makes it damn hard to teach someone else.” He shakes his head and gazes out over the parkland. “Hell, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
He looks like hell, I realize-gray beneath his chocolate skin, eyes weary.
“This must take a lot of energy.” I gesture at the bright golden haze on the meadow.
“More every day, seems,” Enid says, and adds, “So, your friend Cal’s a lawyer?”
Okay, we change direction. “Uh… yeah. Or he was, any-way-before things got interesting.”
“He know how to find loopholes in a contract?”
“I’m sure Cal can find loopholes with the best of ’em.”
“Think maybe he’d be willing to help find one in mine?” “Why? Any contract you had before would have to be void now.”
“You’d think so, huh? But you’d be wrong. Mine just sort of changed shape.”
I’m fascinated. I’ve seen many strange and terrifying twists and tweaks in our topsy-turvy world, but a twist of law is unique. “I thought this Howard what’s-his-name was the problem.”
Enid doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even seem to have heard the question. His eyes are closed, and his skin glistens with sudden dew.
Magritte touches his hand. “You go on back to the Lodge, Enid. Get some sleep. I’ll stay with Goldie.”
He starts to open his mouth, then just nods and levers himself away from the tree trunk. We watch him make his way back up the hill, walking like a man three times his age.
“Is he sick?” I ask.
Magritte is silent. When I look at her, her violet-blue aura is dancing with darker hues. “He… It takes a lot out of him, all he does.”
She seems about to say more when someone pops out of a nearby cabin and waves us down.
“You’re wanted up to the Lodge, Maggie,” she says. “Pronto.”
We go up, pronto, and I’m introduced to Kevin Elk Sings. This might have been a pleasant event, except that he brings chilling news from the West Virginia portaclass="underline" Cal, Colleen, and Doc are under attack.
EIGHT
COLLEEN
I’ve seen Goldman do some pretty surprising shit, but this took the biscuit. I had time to shout “Sonofabitch! Goldman!” (as if it helped) and make a grab at his coat. I grazed my knuckles on solid rock. The raw pain was enough to push me over the edge of a line I hadn’t even known I was hugging. I let out a roar and threw myself at the wall, beating my fists against it.
Cal broke into my raging, grabbing my shoulder and shaking me, hard. “Colleen! Come on. This isn’t accomplishing anything.”
“What d’you propose I do, Cal?” I asked sarcastically. “Say ‘Open sesame’?” I gave the wall a vicious kick. “Sure. Why not? Open-fucking-sesame! Oh, look-nothing happened. Now what? Now what, Cal? You’re the college grad. Got any bright ideas?”
Running off at the mouth, Mom called it. I did it whenever I got thrown for a loop. Whatever I was feeling went straight to my mouth without passing through my brain. Right now I was furious and scared and, dammit, I wanted Cal to be as furious and scared as I was. Now I bit my tongue-way too late.
Cal had closed his eyes. Counting to ten, no doubt. Now he opened them and asked, “Did the kick help?”
“No, damn it! It didn’t do shit! Stupid question.”
“Here is another: What has happened that you two are shouting at each other?” Doc had come over to hover outside the cave.
I straightened. “Oh, nothing much. Our friend Goldman just pulled the ultimate disappearing act, is all. He walked through that wall.” I pointed.
Doc shot me a sharp glance, then edged into the little space. Cal stepped outside and I followed him.
“Look,” I said. “I’m … I’m sorry I lost it. It’s just … I feel so helpless when stuff like this happens. I hate feeling helpless.”
He turned to look at me, his eyes already forgiving me for the ridiculous outburst. “No shit.”
I took a deep breath of the moist, chill air. Cleared my head a little. “So, what do we do now?”
Cal glanced back into the dark little doorway. “What goes in must come out. And when it does, we get in.”
“So we just sit out here and wait? What if he never comes out? What if there are a thousand ways into the Preserve, each as… picky about who gets in as this one?”
“And what if the sky falls, Chicken Little?” He was laughing at me, but gently-giving me the space to pull on a wry grin and turn my anger inside out.
“News flash, smartass-it already has.”
“That doorway could open again at any moment, Colleen. I think the best thing we can do is make sure we’re ready to go through when it does. Let’s saddle the horses and pack up.” He was digging around in his pockets.