“Not the way you mean. A pimp doesn’t kill his girls. At least not all at once. He just uses them up, bit by bit.”
Nausea swept me. I fought it down. “Maggie, can you hear the Storm now?”
Her eyes locked on mine, she shook her head. “Not right now. But I think some of the others do. I know Faun does. She’s not very strong.”
“And Enid? How strong is he?”
She stared at me from those bottomless eyes for an eternity. “I think he’s dying.”
I caught up with Mary in the caverns, walking into the middle of a scene that involved a trio of snarling grunters and a red blanket. The problem: one of them had it; the other two wanted it. They were in the process of ripping it apart when Mary stepped in and snatched it away from them. They turned on her in unison, showing fangs, reaching for the lost prize.
Adrenaline kicked in; I drew my sword and got in the way.
If the grunters were surprised, Mary was outraged. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Put that damned thing away!”
I stood my ground between her and the grunters. “They were about to jump you.”
“They were not. And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk over them as if they weren’t there. They’re people, dammit. Regardless of what they look like.”
I lowered my sword slightly and gave ground-a little. I glanced at the grunters. They dropped into defensive postures, eyes shuttling warily back and forth between the two of us.
Mary, meanwhile, swung a backpack down from her shoulder and pulled out more blankets. “This is a different sort of place than you’ve been before,” she told them. “There’s no treasure to be hoarded here. And there’s enough for everyone to have what he needs.”
They shuffled forward in unison, still snarling, eyes darting suspiciously. One reached his hand out for the red blanket. Mary smiled and gave it to him. He clutched it to his chest, grunted out something that sounded like “Thanks,” and headed off into the gloom. The other two dove for the backpack.
“Blue!” said one. “Want blue!”
“Mine!” said the other. “Blue mine!”
In another second they’d be fighting again.
I took a step forward. “Hey, fellas! Why are you here, huh?”
They both turned their milky eyes up to me and blinked.
“Didn’t you come here to find a more human life? Didn’t you come here because you didn’t want to end up alone, or wandering around with a pack of animals?”
Mary picked up the cue and grabbed a couple of blankets, which she held out, one to each grunter. “He’s right, boys. Try to remember what brought you here. You want to be better than what your friends outside have become? Well, being better starts here.”
“You’re a natural,” she commented as we made our way back to the surface after the incident.
Tweaked torchlight fluttered and ran across the rough walls, making and unmaking shadows. It was hard not to suspect them of harboring danger.
“A natural what?”
“Leader.”
“I was going to say the same of you.”
“Bullshit. If you’re so impressed with my leadership, why the hell did you run me over back there?”
“Run you over? Mary, I thought they were going to tear you to pieces. They can do that. I’ve seen them.”
“So have I. But you forget-the very fact of their having followed Enid in here shows that they’re different. You saw it yourself. They’re better than that.”
“I only hoped they were.”
She stopped in the middle of the room the tour signs called “Indian Council Chamber” and smiled up at me, her hands clasped in front of her like a schoolteacher … or a Buddha. Torchlight turned her graying hair to deep gold, burnished her face, and softened the lines there.
Breath caught in my lungs; she reminded me, sharply, of someone from a past I’d lost. I hadn’t thought of my mother for what seemed an eternity, and suddenly her ghost was standing an arm’s length away.
“Well,” she said, “it seems your hope was rewarded. Your cynicism didn’t get you anything but hollered at.” She turned and began walking, now raising a hand to greet one of her subterranean citizens-human and twist-now reaching out to touch the moistly glistening walls.
Neither of us spoke again until we came out at the top of the spiral stair. The sound of wind chimes was heavy in the air. Mary struck out across the campground.
“Magritte says Enid is dying,” I said.
Mary turned around so fast, I thought I heard static electricity. “Magritte isn’t a doctor. But she is young and emotionally needy. A desperate combination.”
“We brought you a doctor. You won’t let Enid see him.” She shook her head and began moving in the direction of the Lodge. “Enid is just very tired. I told you-”
I matched her stride. “What you’ve told me doesn’t tally with what I’ve seen. He can’t stay awake. Sometimes he can barely walk straight. From what Goldie says, sometimes he can barely stand. The flares can hear the Source whispering to them through Enid’s Veil. I know you’ve already lost one, and I know it was while Enid was here.”
She paled, stopped. “Who told you that?”
“The flares.”
She started walking again, anger in every line of her compact body.
I stuck to her. “Come on, Mary. You’re in denial. And there’s nothing to be gained by it. You’re going to lose Enid one way or another.”
“So better your way?” she asked bitterly. “The flares will be destroyed-”
“If you don’t move now to shore up the Veil,” I finished. “How?”
“As Magritte described it, the wind chimes are a focus for power-the flares’ and Enid’s. They provide a sort of sonic veil, but only if they’re kept in motion. Good so far?”
She nodded, slowing her pace slightly.
“Then what we need is a way to keep them moving.” She snorted. “Are you God now, Mr. Griffin? Can you make wind?”
“We don’t need to make wind, we just need-” I broke off and stopped walking, distracted by the sight of several sets of wind chimes sharing a clothesline with some laundry. As I watched, a woman with a baby on her hip and a basket at her feet pulled the laundry to her by rotating a pulley wheel mounted on a tree trunk. The chimes shrilled.
Goldie would have called it an epiphany. Whatever it was, it shot adrenaline into my veins.
“Need what?” Mary asked, her eyes on my face.
“That.” I pointed at the rig of pulleys, wheels, and line. “A system.”
She glanced at it and shrugged. “Yes, but driven by what?”
“Something that never stops moving.”
Her eyes came back to my face, the anger gone. “Water.” For a moment, at least, Mary McCrae and I were on the same page.
We gathered rope, string, twine-anything that could be strung on the odd assortment of wheels we collected. Since over a homemade map of the Preserve’s inhabited area, plotting the most strategic places to set up lines, calculating how they would be connected with the locus of the system, the waterwheel.
It was nearly complete, lacking only the integration of its internal gears and the mounting of its big wheel. Colleen cheerfully volunteered to aid in that effort, declaring that waterwheels were right up her alley. Maybe, but her mechanical know-how was unfortunately offset by her lack of people skills. The engineer heading the project, Greg Gustavson, was not keen on the idea of having a “little girl” tinkering with his machinery. I don’t know if that slowed the wheel’s completion. I only know it wasn’t ready when we needed it.
I was in the company of flares that day, or at least, of three of them-Magritte, Faun, and Javier. Of all the flares, it was Javier who reminded me most of Tina. Like Tina, he was intelligent and, like Tina, he had a way of seeming older than his years and a direct gaze that was sometimes disconcerting.
We were in the chapel again, a place I found as calming as the flares did. Maybe it was the warmth and light. Or maybe it was the smell of beeswax, wood, and incense. It felt as if time had stopped there, and the world seemed a normal and safe place.