Images began flickering on the TV again, these much clearer, less fuzzy than the last. A giant monster, tearing up a city, a strange jungle, a city of stone, another giant, this one cut in half and hanging in a cave, still alive, mountains, deserts ... a young man’s face, still in death.

  She knew the face.

  “Wait,” she said. “Go back. That’s Errol.”

  But the picture kept changing.

  “Is he dead?” she demanded. “Tell me! Is Errol dead?”

  “Not yet,” the old woman said. “But he dies.”

  “You mean he might die,” she said. “Like last time. But I can save him.”

  “No,” she said, as the images moved so quickly, they became a blur. “He dies.”

  “Liar!” Veronica screamed.

  Then something swallowed the old woman, the TV, everything. There was no mouth or teeth, nothing like that; more like the wall behind them became a hole and they fell into it.

  And then Veronica felt it pulling her.

  No! She screamed into the now lightless depths.

  And she swam, as the whole dark of the universe came after her. The Itch.

  But she was swift, and in time she outdistanced her enemy. She reviewed and ordered the images in her head, the things she had seen on the woman’s television. They didn’t tell her everything; but she knew for certain that she wasn’t done with Errol and the others yet.

  So she visited a friend, and she asked a favor. Then she went in search of the enemy.

  THREE

  HOMECOMING

  To Delia Fincher, the real world didn’t feel real anymore. It all seemed normal enough; the sun was its usual size, not a fading mote in an ever-darker heaven. The sky was blue; perfectly reasonable white clouds drifted lazily across it. Whatever end-of- the-world weirdness was happening in the High and Faraway, the so-called “Reign of the Departed” seemed untouched by it.

  Yet the colors seemed a little off, the sounds muffled. The breeze stank of papermill and diesel. The pines were green as always, but hardwoods clawed at the sky with leafless limbs. The atmosphere was chilly and damp. December, maybe, or February. The shoulder of winter. She had been gone a long time. But it was all as she remembered it. It just didn’t seem real.It was like staring at the department-store knock-off version of the Mona Lisa after just having seen the real thing.

  “I don’t like this place,” Billy said.

  “Maybe you should go back,” Aster said. “It may not be a good place for you.”

  Billy was a giant; Delia had seen him grow to hundreds of feet tall, but now he was of human height. His normally dark skin was paler than usual. People like Billy didn’t exist here; what if Billy couldn’t either?

  “No,” he said. “I’ll stay with you. I’ll be okay.”

  It had been a long trip home from Kostye’s castle. How far, Delia could not say for certain. The shrinking sun did not move to mark the days. The seasons differed from place to place but did not change in cycles. Aster had built a large hourglass and calibrated it with her heartbeat, and that gave them a rough count of time. According to that, the trip had lasted no more than a week, give or take a day, and she trusted Aster’s competence in these things. But it felt to her more like months or even a year they had sailed on the silver boat through all sorts of seas, until at last they reached the place Aster called the Pale, and from there they went on foot through forest and marsh, until the trees and plants resembled those she had grown up with, until pristine woodland gave way to beaten-up forest littered with rusting cans, barbed wire fence and pasture, and finally paved roads. High-flying jets left contrails across the sky.

  The “real” world.

  They emerged from a pine plantation onto an old, cracked, two-lane highway. She knew where they were—less than half a mile from little house she had once shared with her ex-husband. Home. She quickened her pace.

  “Hang on,” Errol said, putting his hand on her shoulder, pulling her back into the edge of the woods. “Car.”

  She heard it now, and for a moment was puzzled by Errol’s reaction. Then she got it.

  “Oh,” she said. “Right.” She looked at the others.

  Dusk and Errol had left their armor and swords on the ship, but even so, they were all dressed as if they had just come from a renaissance fair. Here in rural Okatibee County they would certainly be noticed, and at least three of them were wanted by the police.

  They withdrew into the woods and watched the car go by. The driver was a man with grey hair, another sign they were back in the realm of the normal. In the Kingdoms all of the adults were missing; transformed into beasts or stone or simply vanished. Some of the children left behind were now young adults, but none were old enough to have grey hair.

  When the vehicle had passed, they resumed walking. The road wasn’t a busy one; they only had to hide once more before reaching her house.

  The key was still where she had left it, in a little box in the rose bed. She stopped at the front door to read the notice there that the bank was repossessing the house in a matter of days. She hadn’t been able to make the payments from The Kingdoms.

  She opened the door and ushered the others in. There was no electricity—that bill was also unpaid—but it was still light outside, and the little house had plenty of windows. Once she pulled back the shades things were bright enough.

  To her relief, her car was still in the carport.

  She made them a meal of canned ham and beans, with saltine crackers for bread. The water was still on, so they had that to drink.

  Dusk looked dubiously at the food but began eating anyway.

  “Thank you for the meal,” she said. “It is good.”

  “It’s not,” Delia said. “But it’s the best I can do out of the pantry. I’m not a great cook, but I can do better than this.”

  “It’s great,” Errol said. “I practically grew up on stuff like this. Mom didn’t cook that much to begin with, and after dad died, I mostly had to fend for myself. I remember this one Thanksgiving ...”

  Delia studied Errol as he held forth. As his school counselor, she had tried to talk to him after his father died, but he’d been completely closed, unable to speak about his father at all. That was hardly a surprise; Southern boys weren’t taught to share their feelings; they were taught to suck it up and soldier on. Errol had soldiered on for about two years and then attempted suicide. Looking at him now, her old instincts were kicking in; she found herself trying to gauge the young man’s expression. But as he told the story of his lonely Thanksgiving meal of tinned corned beef and potato chips, he didn’t seem sad, or angry. He was just talking to his friends. He seemed ... okay.

  “I like it,” Billy said, when Errol finished.

  “You like everything,” Aster said.

  “Giants don’t eat,” Billy explained. “At least, not like this. It’s why we become little, sometimes. Every century or so. So we can taste food, feel heat and cold, and —uh, touch. Laugh.” He glanced at Aster, who blushed a little.

  “I once ate a half-rotten rat,” Dusk said.

  “That’s disgusting,” Errol said.

  She shrugged. “I was able to cook it. It had a quality like certain cheeses.”

  “This story is not getting better,” Errol said. “So when we’ve eaten what is thankfully not rotten rat cheese, what do we do next?”

  “We go to my house,” Aster said. “We get the astrarium, and from there—we figure it out.”

  “Your house is seven or eight miles from here,” Delia said. “We’ll need to take my car.”

  “I can drive,” Aster said. “If you don’t want to go.”

  “Thank you,” Delia said. “I think I will take you up on that. I have some thinking to do.”

  “Are you going to stay?” Errol asked. “After, I mean?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s part of what I have to think about. The police will have a lot of questions for me. I’ve been a missing person for some time now, and Kostye and David are still missing. And Aster, and even you for that matter, even though that happened after I was gone. There will be suspicions. But there’s no proof I did anything wrong, because I didn’t. I probably won’t get my job back, but I still have some savings.” She tried to smile. The fact was, she didn’t have the slightest inkling what she wanted to do now. Except be alone, in her little house, with her things. As soon as possible.

  She looked them over. They were still dressed like the cast of a Robin Hood film.

  “You’ll need to change,” she said. “Dusk, Aster, I think you can wear some of my old clothes.” She looked at the boys. “You two ...” she trailed off, then went to her closet. She found a denim dress for Aster and jeans and blouse that ought to fit Dusk. Then she reached up high and brought down a cardboard box.

  Scott had left a few things. She’d put them away, imagining she would take them to Goodwill, but had never gotten around to it. She selected a pair of overalls she’d bought him for the garden, but which he’d never worn, a pair of khakis, a couple of t-shirts, and a plaid, long-sleeved shirt. The khakis fit Billy pretty well. The overalls were a little big on Errol, but they would do.

  The stars on Aster’s and Dusk’s foreheads presented a bit of a problem. She remembered she had an old baseball cap someplace but wasn’t able to find it.

  But when she returned to the living room, everyone was changed, and neither girl had a visible birthmark.

  “How did you do that?” she asked, pointing at Aster’s forehead.

  “I can work really little glamours here,” Aster said. “It’s a weaker version of the spell my dad used to keep my star hidden all of those years.” She smiled thinly. “So I guess we’re ready. I’m sorry I got you dragged into all of this, Ms. Fincher.”

  She shrugged. It was hard to sort out her feelings on that. In fact, she was aware she had been avoiding doing so. She’d made a home visit to Aster’s house, because she suspected the girl’s father was either unwell or absent entirely. David Watkins, a teacher at the school, had come with her. When they arrived, they found Aster’s father, Kostye, raving drunk. Aster had magically conscripted Delia to look after him while she and her friends went off in search of an elixir to heal Kostye’s memory. But before they returned, Dusk had shown up and forced her to conspire in the pretense that she was Aster in order to get Kostye to return to the Kingdoms.

  Aster was to blame for everything that had happened since. But she had been working inside of a context that Delia mostly now understood.

  “You should have asked for my help instead of forcing it,” Delia said.

  “I know,” Aster admitted. But you wouldn’t have.”

  “We’ll never know, will we?” Delia said. “But it hardly matters now what decisions you made then. That’s all done and can’t be taken back. But you can make better decisions in the future.”

  “I can try,” Aster said. She glanced around at the others. “I owe Errol an apology as well.”

  “I wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t sucked me into all of this,” Errol said. “So I think I’m good.”

  “Anyway,” Delia said. “Be careful. Errol and Dusk are probably wanted for assault, given how you left here the last time.”

  “Yeah,” Errol said. “Probably.”

  “Wait,” Aster said. “I hate to ask for anything else. But do you have a clock, or a watch? A mechanical one, the kind you wind up? So when we go back to the Kingdoms, we’ll have a better way of keeping time.”

  “Yes,” Delia said. “There’s one in the sunroom. I never bother to wind it, because I got a digital clock a while back.”

  “May I have it?”

  Delia nodded. She went into the little room with its southern exposure. All of the potted plants were dead, which was a bit depressing. But the clock was there, a little alarm clock she’d gotten for Christmas when she was ten. She had asked for it specifically, picking it out of a Wishbook. It was gold, with a black face and hands and numbers coated in radium, so it glowed in the dark. She’d slept with it next to her pillow; the ticking lulled her to sleep.

  As she picked it up, she had second thoughts. As a girl she had loved this thing. Sure, she didn’t use it anymore. Maybe she had another timepiece, an old watch or something that would do.

  She sighed and decided it didn’t matter. It was just a thing. If it could be of some help to Aster and the others, why should she hold on to it?

  Aster brightened when she saw it.

  “This is perfect,” she said. “You don’t mind?”

  “No,” Delia said. “But take care of it. It keeps good time. Do you know how to wind a clock like that?”

  “Yes,” Aster said. “I do.”

  They stood there for a moment, and then hugged awkwardly. Their relationship had been strange enough when it had been that of school counselor and student, more so when it became that of captive and captor. Now she was—well, sort of Aster’s stepmother. She and Kostye had never married, but whatever their relationship had been, it was in that ballpark.

  And whatever it was, it was now over. Or would be soon.

  “Listen,” she said. “If for some reason you can’t bring the car back, don’t worry about it. This isn’t that big a community. Wherever you leave it, it’ll get back to me.”

  “We’ll bring it back,” Aster said, as she stepped back. “Who knows? You might decide to go back with us.”

  “I might,” Delia agreed.

  Aster nodded. “Okay,” she said to the others.

  They filed out the side door in the kitchen, and few moments later, she heard the car start up and roll down the driveway.

  She did the dishes in cold water, wondering if she should call someone. Jenny or Abby or John. She should let them know she was alright. But then they would come over, and the word would get around. Her mother and father would be all over her. The police would come and ask questions. She had last been seen leaving the school where she worked with David Watkins. They would want to know where he was, where she had been for months or years or however long it had been. The principal and school secretary had known they were going to Aster’s house. They would want to know about Aster—who had broken out of jail, and her father, and Errol, and the strange young woman who had assaulted and battered her way out of Laurel Grove.

  Delia didn’t have answers to any of those questions that the police would find acceptable. That was her problem, and she didn’t want to spread it around. Better to wait until Aster, Errol, and the others were gone again, returned to the Kingdoms, and beyond the reach of Sowashee law.

  She opened the back door, pushed open the screen, and walked down the red brick steps. Her garden was unkempt, but in better shape than she had feared. She found the hose and watered as the sun went down. Then she sat in the old metal sliding chair she’d picked up at a yard sale. Its familiar grating as she pushed the ground with her feet comforted her a little. Everything else seemed out of place.

  I should be happy to be home, she thought. But she wasn’t. She felt as she had left things unfinished; that Kostye would have wanted her to stay with Aster, help her end the curse. But what help could she be? She wasn’t a warrior or a witch. She was just plain, mundane Delia. She had nothing to contribute. She was a burden to the others, not a help.

  Over the metallic squeak of the sliding chair, she noticed a faint clicking whir, a little like a cicada, but deeper. She glanced around, wondering what it could be, but her yard was now crowded with shadows. Maybe the sound was coming from the Severs’ house, but that was a few hundred yards down the road. This sounded close.

  She got up to go into the house. A shadow stepped from beneath the pear tree.

  She ran. It felt involuntary, as if she wasn’t really in control of her body. She yanked the screen open, darted over the open threshold, then slammed the wooden door shut and locked it. She ran to the kitchen and pulled a knife from the block on the counter and backed up against the fridge.

  What had she seen? A man? Some kind of animal? She’d only had a glimpse of something dark and moving. Or maybe it was just an illusion, a trick of the fading light.

  She heard the screen door creak open. Then the doorknob on the back door tried to turn. She heard the chittering sound, muffled through the wood. Then nothing.

  Until something slammed into the door and wood splintered. She ran for the front door, still gripping the knife, as something hit the back door a second time and it flew open.

  A moment later she was sprinting down her driveway. She made it to the highway, but it was dark, with no cars in sight. No help to flag down.

  She turned back and saw it coming.

  Or him. It was a man with narrow shoulders and a receding hairline. Garret Wilcox, from down the road.

  “Garret,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  Garret slowed but didn’t stop.

  “Delia?” He said. “Is that you? I thought someone broke into your place.”

  “It’s just me,” she said. “I’m back.”

  “Okay,” he said. But he kept coming.

  “What were you doing around here anyway?” She asked.

  “Just checking in on the place,” he said. “I’ve had to run some vagabonds off. Where have you been?”

  “Could you stay there?” Delia said. “Don’t come any closer.”

  “Why?” he said. “I don’t mean you any harm.”

  “Stop!” She yelled, holding the knife out.

  “Okay!” he said. He was only a few yards away. “Just calm down. I’m sorry about the door.”

  Her breathing slowed a little.

  Headlights suddenly shown from behind her as a car came around the curve; it lit Garret fully. She saw his eyes, and knew it was not really Garrett.

  He lunged forward and she scrambled back, waving the knife, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Hey!” Someone yelled behind her.

  It was Errol.

  The thing that looked like Garret stopped. Then he spun around and ran.

  She turned and saw Errol running toward her. Dusk and Billy only a few feet behind.

  “Ms. Fincher,” Errol said. “Are you okay? Who was that?”

 

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