A Hidden Place

Bone dreamed.

In his dreams the Calling light glimmered and flashed, illuminating a horizon he could not see. There was a face he did not recognize—a woman’s face. Her mouth moved, framing a word. Bone. So close now.

He saw Deacon’s face, too, transformed and vulpine, jaws agape, slavering; and Bone was suffused with a contempt and a hatred so immense that his thinking mind closed against it. Pain and hatred merged, a single great conflagration, lightless but full of heat.

The train bent into a curve. Bone’s huge body shifted; agony flared. The cold had numbed him, but his wounds were deep. He turned on his side, breathing shallowly. His dreams were full of death.

The train slowed—an endless time later—and the Calling woke him.

He fell from the reefer car into blindness and pain.

The train sighed and groaned, slowing. It was dark here. He could not say how much time had passed. He blinked, motionless, the agony in his leg and chest beating at him. Dark here, by all human perception—but the Calling light was lustrous in the sky (so close) and cast an eerie illumination over the tall dry grass, the distant railway trestle.

Bone crept into a shallow depression where the prairie grass hid him.

Close now, Bone thought. So close. So close. He held his left hand closed across his chest wound. The blood in his blue Navy pea coat (torn now, ruined) had begun to crystallize. Weakness flooded him.

I’ll go, he thought. Not far. He stood erect. The stars watched him. The wind bit and probed.

Bone took a halting step forward, another… but the pain welled up again, irresistible now; and Bone toppled forward into the wild grass; the prairie swallowed him up,- Bone closed his eyes, and the stars went dark.

Chapter Fourteen

They kept a vigil through the night. A

By morning the crisis had passed. A wan daylight filtered through the wallboards. A

Nancy cleared her throat.

“A

“No,” the alien woman said. “Not quite.”

“He’s hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Still coming?”

“Still coming. Very close now.” “Is there anything we can do?” “Not for a time.”

Nancy stood up wearily. There were dark bruises of sleeplessness under her eyes. She stretched. “I’m going to the river to wash. Travis? You’ll be okay here?” He nodded slowly.

Sunlight washed inward as Nancy opened the door. She left it ajar, and Travis watched her descend the slope of the riverbank. In a moment she was out of sight.

He looked back at A

Now, he thought. If he ever hoped to sort this out, now was the time. While she was weak… too weak, perhaps, to lie.

“It’s all true, then? What you told Nancy, I mean, about another world and—all that?”

“Can you look at me and doubt it?”

She was no longer beautiful, Travis thought, but her voice retained its grace, its seductiveness. Maybe its deceit. “Nancy is sometimes credulous.”

“You were the one who told her I wasn’t human.”

“There is no question of that,” Travis said. “But there are other questions. Nancy believes you mean no harm. Maybe. But this Bone. There have been stories in the papers—”

“Bone is credulous, too. But not evil.”

“We only have your word for that.”

“I’m sorry. What else can I offer?”

She was motionless, not even blinking. Travis guessed she was conserving her strength. He said, “You didn’t mean to come here?”

“Not in this fashion. It was a mistake.”

“Nancy said you and, uh, Bone got separated—”

“The journey between worlds is arduous even for us. There are storms in the chaos between. A misstep in that labyrinth can be a disaster. Yes, we were separated.”

“How come—if that’s true—how come nobody came after you?”

She smiled faintly. “There are more worlds than mine and yours. We were lucky to arrive within the boundaries of a single continent. Bone searched. The time passed. That’s all. Together we can travel back.”

“Even if he’s hurt?”

She frowned, shrugged.

“I don’t understand,” Travis said. “If it’s so hard, so dangerous—why do any of this? Why come here?”

“Why would anyone travel between worlds? To learn. Do you understand that, Travis? To acquire …” “—knowledge?” “Wisdom.”

The sound of Nancy’s singing traveled up from the riverbank. The sun had warmed the air a little. Travis looked almost fearfully into A

“I am A

“But it’s false. A mask.”

She folded her hands in her lap. Her legs were crossed; she looked, Travis thought, like a frail Buddha. “I am not human. But I have a certain access to human minds. A

Travis had begun to sweat, he was not sure why. The air was still cold. “You weren’t a mirror for Creath Burack.”

“But I was! I had to be! How else to survive, to claim his protection?”

“A mirror—”

“Of his deepest needs. Unspoken. Unadmitted. Creath Burack is a deep well of desires and f ears—all buried, hidden.”

Travis said hoarsely, “You used him.” He was suddenly frightened again. The lines of her face were fluid, mobile; he was afraid of what he might see there.

She said defiantly, “I traded my body for his protection when I was helpless. Which of us used the other, Travis?”

Her voice had subtly changed; it was hauntingly familiar. He said, “That’s dirty—that’s—”

“An old, old bargain. I’m not the first to have made it. And I will not be blamed for it.”

Travis stood up.

He recognized the face now. The face and the voice. “Who’s talking?” he demanded, his own voice shrill and childish. “Who’s saying this? You—or my mother?”

“Both of us, I imagine,” A

Nancy returned, her hair wet, and pushed through the flimsy wooden door. She saw Travis sitting bolt upright, staring. A

“Travis?” she said. “Something wrong?”

“No,” he said. “No,” and went to the door. “I’ll be back.” Taking his own turn, she guessed, at the riverside.

Nancy settled down in the shadows, exhausted. “What happened?”

A

“He gave you the third degree?” She was quietly shocked—surely A

But the alien woman said, “He needed reassurance. I ca

“You told him about being a mirror?”

“Yes. Though I think he understood it, intuitively, long before this.”

Nancy closed her eyes. She needed sleep more than anything. Too much had happened. Weariness moved like a tide in her. “You’re that woman,” she heard herself saying, “the one you say he dreams about—”

“The pale woman. Travis sees her in me, yes. I give back that part of him—that fear, that desire.”

Nancy stifled a yawn. “And what about me? What do I see in you?”