She grunted a negative.
All of Green’s instincts told him to stop walking deeper into the dark woods. They needed light and warmth. He wanted to give her his coat. He wanted to stop and make a fire. He wanted to find a road and hitchhike back to a heated room. Again and again these urges slapped him across the face and he had to answer each one,It wouldn’t do any good.
He hated that answer.
He no longer feared the horned wolf. He no longer needed to wonder if the fawn was nearby. Catskill knew, so he knew. Yet, as hismentor fought for her life, he felt more naked and vulnerable than ever.
Valentina was the one who knew what she was doing. Now, she could barely stay upright.
He clutched his senseless acorn and, while he resented the impulse, he didn’t pull his hand away. Any comfort was a treasure in the dark woods. Maybe it was his original acorn. Maybe it was a practical joke from a mythic crow. Maybe it didn’t matter.
Valentina spoke like the creak of an old screen door.
“Can you communicate with Catskill? Any sign of the glass fawn?”
“Yeah. Not nearby.”
He didn’t have to think questions at the wolf and wait for an answer. The answers were just there, sitting on a shelf in plain view. A front porch had been added onto his consciousness and it was always a glance away.
“The fawn is near Hickory. There’s a covered bridge with a flag mural and…I see a grain elevator? I think? Tall cylinder thing with a conveyor belt.”
She nodded and brushed more ice from her eyelashes.
“I know the place. North of town.”
“Catskill is circling. Trying to keep the fawn from moving toward town. Trying to contain it without provoking it to blur away. I was thinking of asking him to come guard us, but…”
“But he is doing more good where he is. I agree.”
She coughed and stumbled, clutching at a splintered poplar stump before spilling into the leaves. Green gave her a hand back to her feet. Her skin was colder than a corpse.
As they walked, he noticed her pulling a hand from her pocket and stealing glances at her fingertips. It looked like she was afraid of what she might see, the dark crescents of oncoming frostbite.
He checked his phone. The sleek black rectangle was already beginning to feel unfamiliar in his hand. It was metamorphosizing into a totem of a bygone religion.
No service.
No texts.
Still no way to warn off Alf and Jerome.
I’m as much help to them as I am to Valentina.
If the cold was good for anything, perhaps it would keep Alf and his friends from visiting the Hole in Nothing tonight.
Yeah, right.
He hadn’t known Alf long, but he couldn’t picture him saying, “It’s a bit cold, bro, let’s just not go.” They were already planning to get drunk in a pitch-dark wilderness next to a tear in reality. What was a little chill in the air compared to that?
“When we get there…you’re going to use that poultice Clara suggested, right? Use willpower to shut it?”
Valentina coughed and shook her head.
“Yes, but I need you to prepare yourself for the other eventuality. Ultimately, Mr. Green, closing the hole from inside is our surest method. I have come to terms with that likelihood and you should too.”
Valentina pulled a wad of linked keys the size of an apple from her pocket and handed them to Green. They were cold as ice and heavy. Then she produced a folded paper and handed it over as well.
“Here. These were part of today’s preparations. All the keys to the camp, above and below ground. The paper has instructions and a written statement for you to broadcast should I not return, as well as several contacts who may be interested in taking you on as an apprentice.”
