Dana was standing on the sidewalk in front of her grandmother's house. She had no idea how she had got there or what she was doing.
A black sedan drew up to the curb. The door swung open. A whispery voice issued from the dark interior of the car.
"This time you will get in. Yes. You cannot resist."
Crowley wasn't lying. Though it was the last thing she wanted to do, Dana did as she was told. As soon as she sat in the passenger seat, the door shut and locked of its own accord. Now the seat belt slithered over her shoulder to bind her fast.
"You're mine!" he hissed triumphantly.
"Where-?" Dana's voice was small and strangled. She found it difficult to think or speak. "Where are we?" she tried again.
Creemore was gone. Outside her window was a bleak and blackened landscape. As far as the eye could see, everything was dead or dying, sered by fire. The earth was gashed and torn, and thrown aside in clots of dank mud. Swamp willows crawled from the roscid hollows. A polluted snye trickled like ink past a wood of withered larch and spruce. The sky was ashen.
"This is a dream," Dana told herself. "There's no reason to be afraid."
"To the contrary," he said with a cold laugh that made her shiver. "You have every reason to be afraid."
· · ·
While Dana's dream held her spellbound in Crowley's car, her real self was sleepwalking through her grandmother's house. With no knowledge of the fact, she had slipped out of bed and padded downstairs in her bare feet and pajamas. When she reached the kitchen, she searched through the bundle of keys that hung on a hook near the stove. Then she left the house.
Still trapped in her nightmare, Dana stepped across the damp grass to where the old Triumph Herald was parked. Not yet stored away for winter, the antique car stood in the driveway. She unlocked the door, slipped behind the wheel, and put the key in the ignition. Reversing the car onto the road, she drove into the silent streets, past the stately homes of Gran Gowan's neighbors, beyond the Creemore Public School and Recreational Center, out beyond the town's border and into the countryside.
· · ·
The wolf had journeyed far that night, leaving Toronto miles behind him. In short, steady bursts, he reached his peak speed of forty miles an hour. Tired of the pockets of nature he had found in the city, he was heading northward to the promise of mountains. Caledon. Albion. Once across the Nottawasaga River, he wandered in the Hockley Valley, through fields of baled hay, wild daisies, and goldenrod. Avoiding villages, hamlets, and farmsteads, he traveled uphill along the rim of the Niagara Escarpment. From there he could see the glimmer of Georgian Bay farther north. Would he go that far? He felt something tugging at him, though he didn't know what.
The star on his chest blazed white against the black hair that blended with the night. The great head tapered to a glossy nose and wide mouth. His nostrils quivered as he caught the scent of other wolves in the area. Preferring to run alone, he didn't answer their howls, but he was pleased to know they still roamed the region. Too many of his kin had been driven out by man and coyote. There were other animals abroad in the night and he detected them easily: red fox, porcupine, raccoon, deer, weasels and muskrats, hare and grouse. The sour scent of a black bear surprised and delighted him. How good it was to meet wildness again!
In wildness is the preservation of the world.
Joyously, effortlessly, he loped on with smooth strides.
Only when he had crossed the Boyne River into the Mulmur Hills did the wolf sense the other preternatural creature abroad in the night. His hackles rose. The guard hairs on his body stood on end. He growled low in his throat. The foul odor was unmistakable. His enemy was near; the monster that had tried to kill him in the city. Evidently it, too, was traveling that night. Was it hunting him? He hunkered down in the tall grasses at the side of the road, alert in the darkness.
The longer the wolf waited in the grass, the more confused he grew. He did not feel like prey, yet all his instincts urged him to flee.
He didn't.
For deep inside he had heard it. The blood call. The cry from kin. From where it came, or how, he couldn't be certain but this he knew: one of his own was about to die. Had he stopped to ponder, the wolf might have guessed that it was this very call that had caused him to wander that night. But he wasn't thinking. He was acting on instinct. Over hill and valley he raced, through the Mulmur forests, toward the Devil's Glen. On a height near a waterfall above the Mad River, he stood in the moonlight. Below, along the edge of the gorge, lurched the only traffic on that lonely strip of road.
· · ·
The old car was speeding, pushed to its limit as it headed northwest. The night was cool and clear, lit up by the moon. The land rolled gently, fields of hay bordered by stands of forest. Careering around the steep curve of the mill town of Glen Huron, the Triumph sped onto an isolated stretch of road. The ground grew marshy as it trailed the Mad River. Now the car bumped onto a gravel track. A warning sign said "Summer Road Only." August storms had already caused damage, leaving deep ruts and depressions. As the car struggled over them, going ever uphill, the wheels bumped and slid. Dense tracts of ash and maple crowded the verges. Lit up by the headlights, the red candles of the sumac glowed like blood.
Skirting the edge of the Bruce Trail, the Triumph traveled along the gorge that had been carved by the river as it flowed off the escarpment. The line of hills in the distance marked the boundary of the provincial park called the Devil's Glen.
Dana's foot pressed the accelerator to the floor. The engine screamed in protest. The car shuddered like an animal in pain. Its windows rattled like teeth. A new sign on the road-"Unopened Concession"-indicated worsening conditions ahead. The tires spat gravel as the car lurched in and out of the corduroy ridges.
"Nearly there," Crowley whispered to Dana in his car, in her dream.
"Nearly there," Dana's lips whispered as her hands gripped the steering wheel.
She was coming to a bend in the road. Beyond it fell a sheer drop of cliff. She did not turn the wheel.
Outside, the trees seemed to lean toward the car. Branches of pine tapped at the windows as if to waken her. But Dana's mind had been taken too far away. She didn't hear the trees. She didn't see the forest.
· · ·
Though the wolf usually steered clear of humans, he felt drawn to the Triumph Herald. His sense of alarm was acute. He could see the car nearing a bend, but the wheels weren't turning. It would plunge over the cliff. A suicide? His amber eyes glowed. Now he jerked back with surprise as he caught sight of the driver. Rigid at the wheel sat a young girl, staring blindly ahead of her.
There was no time to wonder or question. The wolf threw back his head and howled. Then-in a magnificent arc of poised muscle and bone-he leaped from the height and onto the road.
In Crowley's car, in her nightmare, Dana jolted upright. The call of the wolf echoed through the gloom of the burnt landscape. A wild cry of freedom that was life itself.
"NO!" screeched Crowley at the wheel of his car. He reached out to grab Dana.
Too late, she was gone.
In the Triumph Herald, Dana woke with a start. Though stunned, she immediately saw her peril. The car was speeding toward the edge of a cliff. On the road in front of her, lit up by the headlights, stood a great black wolf with a white star on its chest.
She didn't stop to think. She pulled at the steering wheel with all her might. Had the car been modern, lighter and faster, it would certainly have turned over and she could have been killed. Instead, the old Triumph, slowed by its weight, obligingly crashed into the nearest tree by the road. It didn't buckle; the solid chassis held, but Dana was catapulted forward with a painful wrench even as the windshield shattered. Her head struck the dashboard and she was showered with broken glass. Blood trickled down her face. She could taste it in her mouth. Overcome with shock and terror, she looked wildly around her.
What was she doing in her grandmother's car? On a dark road at night? In bare feet and pajamas?
Slowly she moved her arms and legs, instinctively checking for injuries. No bones broken. There were cuts and bruises, but she didn't feel any pain. She was reeling with incomprehension. The car was crushed against a tree, but it too had survived. The key still turned the ignition. If she could just stop shaking, she would be able to drive. She needed to get help. She needed to get home.
A dark shape appeared at the window.
Dana was about to scream when she heard a familiar voice.
"Ouvre la porte! Vite! Open the door!"
Her mind spun. What was this? How could that be Jean, the boy from her class? He was peering through the window. Pulling at the door. It was locked. What was he doing here? He kept looking around. His fear was contagious. She sensed the danger too. Whatever had brought her to that place was near.
A wave of hysteria overwhelmed her. Jean was her enemy! He had to be. The thought was followed by a stab of doubt. An image of her teacher flashed through her mind. A black car. A burnt landscape. Were they working together? How else would Jean be there?
"Calisse, girl! Open the door!" Jean shouted. "Qu'estce que tu fais? It's coming!"
A buzzing sound rang in her head. The air thickened with a sour, metallic stench. She recognized the signs.
"It's here!" she screamed back.
Like a missile plummeting downward, it arrived with a deafening screech. A horrible thud hit the roof of the car, as if a body had landed on it. The fetid odor was overwhelming; she almost fainted with the stench. The buzzing increased till her teeth began to chatter.
Dana scrambled to turn on the ignition and shoved the gears into reverse. With a great crunching noise, she backed the car full throttle away from the tree. Jean was thrown sideways. She could only hope that the thing had been thrown off too. Turning the wheel back the way she had come, she put her foot to the gas.
Despite the squeal of protest, the car took off like a bullet. Dana was shaking uncontrollably. Tears poured down her face. A quick glance in the mirror brought new horror.
Two figures struggled on the road behind her. One was the great black wolf that had blocked her path. It reared up on its hind legs as it fought with ferocity, tearing and biting, snapping and snarling. The other was a ragged and tentacled thing that glowed with the fluorescence of decaying matter.
Dana sped away, overcome by the truth. The monster on the road was the same as the one that had attacked her at the portal! It had followed her to the Earthworld and was still trying to kill her! She wanted to scream, she was so terrified. Instead, she fought for control. She was safe for now. She had managed to escape. Yet something felt wrong. What about Jean? Should she have left him there? Was she right to think he was allied with her enemy? But how did he get there? And what about the wolf? Should she have abandoned it? Didn't it save her? She was utterly lost, sick and distraught. Nothing made sense.
Despite the prickles of her conscience, Dana kept driving. Her instinct for self-preservation urged her on. All she could think of, all she wanted, was to get back to Creemore.
She was grateful that the Triumph was like her dad's old car, a standard with the steering wheel on the righthand side. Despite her state of shock, she was able to drive it. She had grown up watching Gabriel drive and once in a while, out in the countryside, he would let her behind the wheel. The car had taken a bashing. Cold air blew through the shattered windshield, chilling her to the bone. Only one headlight was functioning to show her the way. The shadows of the trees loomed over the dark road. The road itself was torn and broken. She had to slow down to traverse the ruts. Luckily there was no traffic at that hour of the morning. She wasn't about to trust anyone. Her enemy was out there. With a vague sense of the direction she had to take, she eventually reached a familiar signpost. Passing Glen Huron, she was on the last stretch home.
· · ·
Driving into Creemore, Dana nearly wept with relief. She was frozen from the cold night air and the shock of what had happened. Hardly able to think, she was acting automatically.
There on the front lawn of her grandmother's house stood a ragged little group lit up by the red flashing light of a police car. Dana's aunts huddled together, blankets wrapped around their skimpy nightwear. Without makeup, their faces looked pale and bleary. Gabriel stood beside them, dazed, holding Aradhana's hand. At the center of the gathering was Gran Gowan looking, for the first time since Dana had known her, very old and frail.
A policewoman was ushering them back into the house when the Triumph drove up. Everyone turned to take in the crushed car, broken windshield, and Dana behind the wheel, caked with blood.
Despite her state, Dana caught the look on her aunts' faces. Not even the antics of their own youth matched this. She drew up the car in front of the police cruiser and stepped out shakily. Gabriel was already running toward her. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. As her father's arms reached out to embrace her, she collapsed.
· · ·
The rest of the night was a blur. Kind hands bathed her and changed her pajamas. Radhi's soothing touch. The scent of jasmine. Then a soft quilt settled over her and hot water bottles were placed at her feet. People came in and out of her room, speaking in low voices. One was a doctor. No questions now. Shock. Mild concussion. Cuts and bruises. Nothing serious. Keep her warm. Watch her.
Hovering between sleep and waking, she could hear them in the hall.
"…the whole neighborhood," Gran Gowan said, querulously. "We are thoroughly disgraced!"
"Oh, come on, Mom." That was Deirdre. "It's nothing new. We used to terrorize the town. They haven't exactly forgotten. Old Nalty still glares at me every time I pass him."
"And that's not what you're worried about, Maisy, you can't fool us," Yvonne added gently. "She'll be okay. You'll see."
Then came the most painful sound Dana had heard that night. The defeated weeping of a little old lady.
Gradually the voices trailed away as everyone went to bed.
Dana's door opened again. A chair was placed beside her. Gabriel's voice trembled in the darkness.
"I know I've let you down, Dana. I haven't been a good father. But you've got to know that I'm trying to do what's best for you, for all of us. I love you, princess, no matter what has happened. That's all that's important, that you know I love you. Can you tell me what's going on? Will you let me try to help you?"
She kept her eyes shut. She didn't respond to his plea. How could she? He needed an explanation and she didn't have one. Even if she tried to tell him, he wouldn't be able to hear. He had forgotten the fairy side of her life and she didn't think he would want to remember. The other world had taken his first wife away, now it was trying to kill his daughter. Her throat ached with the things she couldn't say. She longed for someone who understood, who could help her through this nightmare. Why had Faerie forsaken her?
Never in her life had Dana felt so alone.
