Four and Twenty Blackbirds

"Hello?"



A match was struck.



In that brief flare I saw the sketch outlines of a face, but the face drew back as the flame caught a wick. Now there was a candle, and there was some light, but I still could not see my company. The face and its owner had retreated to a corner away from the candle, which seemed to have been lit for my benefit.



Against the wall leaned a man, tall and broad of shoulder, with his arms crossed and his head down. His skin was not as dark as Dave's but not as light as Lulu's or mine. His hair stood out in a curly halo that cast just enough shadow to obscure his face in the half-light, half-dark where we met.



I waited for him to speak, but he did not. Instead, he pointed at the candle—no, he pointed at the bottle beside the candle. I stood, and was glad to note I once more had the use of my legs. I picked up the bottle and read the label.



Drink me.



"But I already did," I said to the man in the corner.



"Yes, that's why you're here, baby." Every word was rich and low, and charged with energy. Each word, falling coolly into place in a resonant line of displeasure, made me more uncertain and more afraid.



"Where am I?" I didn't know what else to ask.



He did not move. I did not even see his jaw line rise or fall when he replied. "Here with me. You're not supposed to be. You're not who I thought you were."



"You expected Eliza?"



He nodded. "You're not supposed to be here, but here you are. May as well make the most of it. You're on your way to find me anyway. You're on your way home to me."



"Who . . . who are you?"



He shifted his weight and uncrossed his arms, then passed along the wall like a shadow until he stood before me. In his left hand he held the bottle. I'd not seen him pick it up, but when I looked over my shoulder at the candle, the medicine was missing. He held it out to me, label forward so I could read its command again.



"But—but that's how I got into this mess," I argued weakly. "I don't want to drink anything else unless I can readily identify it."



His right hand was on my throat.



Just like that. So quickly I didn't have time to start, or scream, or fight. I tried to push against him but his body was like flesh-painted steel. Even with my feet against his pelvis and my nails digging into his forearm, he took no notice. I could not help but think that he was not really there at all, not in any way that I could fight him. I was in his world, one way or another, and at his mercy—if he had any.



His wrist shifted, providing me with the two options of letting him crush my windpipe or leaning my head back. I leaned back. He slipped two of his massive long fingers up around the joints of my jaw the way you force a cat to take a pill, and he poured the liquid down my gullet.



The last thing I remembered before waking was that it was not like the first brew. It was almost sweet and not half so bad, which didn't make it good, but I didn't gag on it, either.



"What are you doing to me with this stuff?" I gurgled as the room started to fold in upon itself.



I'm getting you ready for it. I'm making you strong.



8



In Search of Lost Time



I awakened alone in my own car, in the passenger side. Brilliant lights were shining down into my face, though it was clearly nighttime. 9:03, according to the dashboard clock. I blinked a dozen times and wiped at my eyes, then opened them enough to realize that my car was parked beside a gas pump, and that I was beneath the neon and fluorescent advertisements of a large truck stop. The dense, sharp stink of gasoline crept up my nostrils and made me dizzier still than I already was.



Harry's face appeared at the driver's-side window. He juggled with a bag and my keys, opened the door, and climbed in beside me.



"Doughnut? Or chips? Soda? I thought you might be hungry when you woke up."



I stared stupidly at the bag, and at Harry. Food. Yum? "Give me a minute," I mumbled, adjusting the seat belt to wear a new and less painful groove into my shoulder. At least he'd thought to strap me in. "Where are . . . how long have . . . what . . . ?"



He removed a candy bar and set the brown paper bag with the extra food on the floor at my feet. After locating the drinkholders, he set his soft drink aside and put the key in the ignition. "Well, let's see. You've been asleep all day. I took your car because if I'd taken Eliza's she would have probably reported it stolen and then we'd really be screwed. I went back to your hotel, paid for another night so I could get some rest, then put you back in the car and started out about two hours ago."



"I slept through all that?"



"Yes, and all this while I've been toting you around like a sack of potatoes. Allow me to add that you're heavier than you look."



"Thanks. Lotsa muscle. Meat on my bones, or something." I squirmed in the seat and rolled my head and shoulders back and forth, trying to crack my neck. It didn't work. The stiffness remained, and so did my bewilderment. In the near distance I saw a stream of steady headlights that suggested an interstate. The presence of half a dozen other gas stations and fast-food stops supported that assessment, and furthermore hinted that we were at an exit. "Where are we?" I asked, hoping to learn something more specific about our location.



"Somewhere in south Georgia. I don't think we've hit Tifton, but we will soon."



"Why . . . why are we driving through Georgia?" I asked, though the obvious answer was "To get to Florida," because that's really the only reason anyone ever drives through south Georgia.



"Because it's rather hard to get to Florida without doing so," Harry confirmed. "Well, unless you're coming from the west. Or unless you want to go many hours out of your way. Or I suppose you could swim for it. But in the interest of efficiency, we're taking the direct route."



"Why are we . . . oh." Yes, the letter.



He cleared his throat and looked both ways before he pulled out towards the interstate and into the merging traffic. "I didn't have any better ideas, and you seemed pretty sure there was something important in Highlands Hammock. I thought it might be worth achance to see. Actually, I thought I'd head for St. Augustine first. There's a whole library full of reference materials at the church. Perhaps we can find a good starting point there. It's not that far out of the way, anyway. Just a few hours."



"Oh."



I couldn't complain. His plan was as good as anything I could have come up with, maybe better. I didn't tell him about the man in the dark room, for fear he'd assume it was a dream or my imagination. Instead, I rode beside him in silence for a time, trying to get my thoughts to line up in a row. It half worked. I had a half plan hatching, and a half idea of what might be going on farther down south than I'd ever been before.



Never before? Could that be right? No.



Even as I turned the thought over I sensed it couldn't be. I was born and bred in the Tennessee mountains, on the banks of the river that runs through the rocks, but I knew somehow about green-gray mud and stubby cypress knees. I knew the rotting stench of an alligator's hole and the way the dull, curly moss hung down from the tree limbs to trail lazily in the water. I knew . . . I knew many things I shouldn't have. Things I didn't learn from the Discovery Channel or from Hollywood.



And strangest of all, I thought I knew who was waiting for me.



I just didn't know what he wanted.



9



Unbearable Lightness



We arrived at St. Augustine around midnight, and the city was completely quiet.



I was tired of being asleep, and I was happy that we'd soon be out of the car. I don't like long trips unless I'm driving, and I wasn't feeling well enough to demand that Harry hand over the keys. My stomach lurched with every bump we took, and my eyeballs rocked about in my skull, settling on strange, small things, but refusing to focus on the road in front of us. It was better to let him act the chauffeur, especially considering that he knew where we were going and I didn't. And then I could continue to sleep off and on, with the seat leaned as far back as I could get it, and my head lolling every time I nodded off. It's a terrible way to doze, and it left me cranky and restless, itching to get free of the vehicle.



By the time we hit the city limits, I was desperate to stretch my legs, but Harry refused to pull over, even for a bathroom break. We were almost there, he insisted, but the church was down farther towards the old part of town near the fort. It was not terrifically far from the lion's bridge.



My groggy interest was ever-so-slightly piqued. Visions of shining armor and billowing flags filled my imagination. Knights and such. Or possibly pirates, and gold. "There's a fort? And lions on a bridge? Cool."



"The Castillo de San Marcos. The Spanish built it in the 1600s to protect the settlement from the British, and it worked, too. The town burned a few times, but the fort was only occupied by the English for about twenty years. Considering that Spain had it for a couple of centuries, it's a pretty good track record. The church is down the street a couple of blocks towards—towards the shrine. We'll be there in a minute."



"And there are . . . lions? I like lions." This sounded like the sort of place a Leo could make herself at home.



"Statues, dear. Not real lions."



"Oh." Disappointed but still determined to stay awake, I pressed on with the questions. "What shrine?"



He waggled his fingers towards the window and said something vague about Mary and milk. "There's a shrine, with a big metal cross. It marks the first place in the New World where Christian mass was ever held. But we're not going quite that far down the coast."



"Too bad. That sounds like it might be . . . uh, informative."



He tossed his shoulders in a quick shrug. "Yes, well, next time we're passing through I'll be sure and run you by the gift shop. You can get a mug, or a candle, and feel terrifically blessed, though unless you're Catholic, I'm not sure why you'd be interested."