So now, sitting in the thicket, in the midst of this fever-dream, with its voices and its faces and its stink, she repeated Ma Edie's mantra to herself, over and over: Everything's fine, everything's fine, everything's fine, waiting for it to turn out true.
Her head still throbbed from the white light that had wiped out the world before her abduction; and her stomach was certainly in need of filling, but she still had all her limbs, for which she was grateful, and a voice in her throat. So, once she'd calmed herself down, she started to talk to whatever it was that had come after her (and was still there, in the vicinity), her volume quiet but her tone insistent enough that she would not be mistaken for somebody who was afraid.
"I'd like to get back to the house now," she said to them, "so will one of you please escort me?" She scanned the bushes. They were watching her. She could see the glitter of their eyes, the gleam of their teeth. What were they? They didn't seem quite substantial; she had the feeling that their flesh was not as solid as hers, as real perhaps; yet they'd possessed enough strength to remove her from the vicinity of Zeffer's cage to this corner of nowhere, so they weren't to be disrespected.
"Do you understand me?" she'd said, keeping her tone even. "I need to go back to the house."
Off to her left she saw a motion in the thicket, and one of the creatures approached her, coming close enough that for the first time she had a proper view of one of the abductors. It was a female, no doubt of that, and vaguely related to a human being. The creature's naked body was scrawny, her ribs showing through flesh that seemed to be covered with light gray-silver hair. The front limbs were extremely delicate, and she surely had hands and fingers, not pads and claws. But the back legs were as crooked as a dog's, and rather too large for the rest of her anatomy, so that when she was squatting, her proportions were almost frog-like.
But the head: that was the worst of her. Her mouth was nearly human, as was her nose, but then the skull curved and suddenly flattened so that her eyes, which were devoid of whites, and set to either side of the skull, like the eyes of a sheep, stuck out, black and shiny and stupid.
She turned her head and stared at Tammy with her shiny eyes. Then, from those human lips came the scraps of a voice. "It's no use to beg," she told Tammy. "We eat you."
Tammy took this in her stride; or at least did all she could to give that impression. "I'm not begging you for anything," she said, very calmly. 'And you're not going to eat me."
"Oh?" said another voice, this time over to her right.
Tammy moved slowly, so as not to invite anything precipitous. She looked at the second speaker, who—like the female—had come closer to her. She guessed this was a male; one of the creatures who'd snatched her away from between the cages. He had a head of ungainly size and shape, his nose flattened out like the nose of a bat, his mouth wide and lipless. Only his eyes were human; and they were unexpectedly and exquisitely blue.
"What shall we do with you then?" he said to Tammy, the slits of his nostrils flattening as he inhaled her scent.
"Help me," she said. The male lowered his lumpen head, and stared at her from under the weight of his brow. "I need to get back to the house," Tammy said.
"You know the Lady?" said the female.
"What Lady?"
"In the house?"
A third voice now; a thin, reedy voice in the darkness behind the female. "Kat. Ee. A.," the voice said.
"Katya?" Tammy said.
"Yes," said the male. "Katya."
He had come closer to her, and was now sniffing around her hair. She didn't protect herself, even though flecks of his cold phlegm were hitting her neck and face. She just kept her focus, as best she could. Perhaps these freaks, for all their bizarrity, knew something about why Todd was here. If she was going to free him she had to know what she was freeing him from.
"What do you want with Katya?" Tammy said, keeping her options open as to whether she knew the woman or not.
At the mention of Katya's name a series of little convulsions had taken over the female. She threw back her head, showing a throat as lovely as Garbo's. After a moment, the convulsions subsided. Once they were governed, the woman gave Tammy her answer.
"She is the one who has the Hunt."
There wasn't much illumination to be had from this. But Tammy pursued the questioning, not hoping for much. "What hunt?" she asked, keeping her voice low and even.
"The Devil's Hunt," said the male, still close to her.
"You seen it?" the female said.
"No," Tammy replied.
"Liar."
"If I'd seen it I'd tell you I'd seen it. But I haven't."
"You been in the house?"
"No I haven't," Tammy said. "Why, is this hunt you're talking about in the house?"
"The Hunt's in the house."
This part was even more puzzling than the earlier stuff. Plainly her sources were not terribly reliable. Were they referring to some sort of game that Katya played?
"Have you ever been in the house?" she asked them.
"No," said the female.
"But you want to go?"
"Oh yes," she said. "I want to see how it is."
"Well . . ." Tammy said. "Perhaps I could help you get in . . . to the house."
The female regarded her warily, moving her head back and forth to assess Tammy with both eyes.
"It's not possible," she said.
"Why not?"
It was the male who answered, and the phrase he used was powerful but incomprehensible. "Death at the threshold," he said.
There were mutters and growls from others in the undergrowth at the mention of the threshold. She had no doubt that for all their apparent strength these creatures were deathly afraid of the house, and, no doubt, of its mistress.
"Has this woman Katya done you some harm?" she asked the female.
The creature shook its wretched head. "Kill her one day."
"You want to kill her?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
The woman just stared, her stare containing a profound distrust. Not just of Tammy, or indeed of Katya, or of the world, but of being alive. It was as though every breathing moment was conditional; an agony. And despite the brutal foulness of the thing's appearance, Tammy felt some measure of sympathy for it.
"Maybe I could get this Katya to come out," Tammy suggested.
The male growled, deep in his chest. "You'd do that?"
Tammy was ready to make any promise right now, to get out of her present predicament. She nodded.
There was a long moment, in which the freaks did not reply. Then, glancing around the company of her fellows, as if to check that she would not be challenged, the female caught hold of Tammy's wrist, and pulled her up out of the thicket.
"We're going?" Tammy said.
"Yes! Yes!" the female replied. "Quickly, though. Quickly."
She didn't get any argument from Tammy, who was happy to be on her way. Whatever dangers the house held they could hardly be worse than staying out here in the open. The day was quickly passing away. It would soon be dark. And judging by the repeated glances the woman gave the sky, she too was cognizant of the failing light. After the third or fourth glance Tammy couldn't help but ask her what she was so nervous about.