Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond(109)
Author: Kim Harrison

"You got a hot date or something?" Jenks asked, darting in and out of Lucy’s reach to make the little girl squeal. "You keep looking at your watch."

"Something like that." The boat wasn’t there, but it could be just around the spit of land, and they’d never see it until it was almost on them. "Let’s go." Fingers fumbling, he brought out a mountaineer pin. If it worked in friable cliff rock, it would work here. Kneeling, he hammered it into the floor, his strikes mixing with the blows to the outer door in a harsh discord.

"Trent," Ellie tried once more when Lucy, frightened at the rough motion and sound, began to cry again, but he ignored the older woman. It was clear Ellie wanted to hold her one last time, but he was afraid to let her. Here, at the literal brink, she might change her mind. No wonder Ellie hadn’t wanted him to touch Lucy. Something had shifted in him when he had. Without warning, he had become witness to something that stretched back through the eons, ties both elastic and enduring, surpassing death, surpassing life. She was his child. It was that simple and that complex.

Head down, he fastened the cord to lower himself to the pin, then the pulley on his harness. It looked too thin. His jaw tightened when Ellie came close, and then he looked up. The noise from the hall was furious, but words needed to be said.

"Thank you," he said simply, hoping she would understand. "If not for you, I would have had to . . ." His words faltered, and understanding broke over him. If Ellie hadn’t come in, he might have had to storm the hallway. He would have done what was needed, killing not just the men in the hall, but his last hope of being something he wanted. I think you saved me, he thought, but he couldn’t say it.

"You’re welcome," she whispered, tears slipping from her as she smiled. Ellie gave them a hug, her breath catching as Lucy squealed happily at the contact. "It would have been messier, perhaps," she said, glancing to the hallway, "but you would have done it."

She didn’t understand the narrowness of where he had been balanced, and he turned away, ashamed that he could have failed so easily. Perhaps he owed the Goddess a little more faith. "Thank you, Ellie. Knowing you accept this means more to me than you will ever know. Don’t let Ellasbeth silence you. That tradition dies tomorrow."

The older woman, nodded, her sad smile becoming more intense as Lucy grabbed her finger and tried to stick it in her mouth. "I’m still going to hold you to our nine-month agreement. You’d better go. That door isn’t going to last much longer." She leaned forward and gave Lucy a kiss on her forehead and disentangled her finger. "Bye, sweet pea. It was good to see you smile."

Jenks’s wings were a harsh clatter as he darted back in, his dust edged in red. "Ah, I hate to break this up, but they’ve got a blowtorch . . ."

Nodding, Trent turned away. Feeling protective of Ellie, he picked his way through the rubble to the edge. Still no boat. Checking his gloves, he winced at his bare feet, and started to descend.

"Be careful!" Ellie said, and he looked up, unable to wave back.

Then the wind hit them, and he looked down to pay attention to what he was doing.

It was shockingly cool, the wind coming up from the water cutting right through his tattered biking tights. The hiss of the specially designed rope was a steady shush-shush as he bounced away from the rock face and found it again. Practice kicked in, and muscle memory took over. Lucy protested at the wind and brighter light, looking as if she was considering crying again.

"Jenks?" Trent called, his legs and arms aching. "How far down is it?"

The pixy dove from somewhere, the cheerful sound of his wings drawing Lucy’s attention like a magnet and cutting her whimpering off. "You’re about a third of the way," he said, bobbing up and down, his wings making music as he struggled to stay in one spot in the stiff wind.

Trent’s brow furrowed. He had asked that the cord be made to the height of the cliff, but it did tend to shrink in the cold.

The sudden ping of shattered rock struck Trent, as he kept one hand on the wire, one on Lucy.

"They’re shooting at us!" Jenks shrilled indignantly, looking up and darting sideways as Trent pushed out again, making his swing more erratic.

Angry, Trent pulled Lucy’s blanket over her head, making the already fussy baby begin to wail. Faster now, he pushed the lowering mechanism to its limits, starting to shake as two more slugs shattered the rock where he had just been. If he fell, they would both be dead. Was Ellasbeth truly insane?

"Talk to me, Jenks!" he shouted, the cord beginning to hum in the wind. He knew it was because of the distance and how fast he was moving, but he couldn’t help but wonder if they might cut the cord. Again he pushed out from the wall, his jaw clenched and his knees flexing to absorb the impact. He looked down, blanching. Almost there, but still too high for his liking. The rocks were wet with spray. There was no beach here, just jagged corners and pounding waves.

"Jenks!" he shouted again, wondering if the pixy had gotten himself killed. Lucy cried and kicked, and he tried to calm himself. She is like a little barometer, he mused as he pulled her blanket back enough so she could see him, and her cries ebbed into angry fussing. She saw Jenks before he heard his wings, and relief spilled into him even as he pushed off and descended another few feet.

"I really like Mrs. Withon," Jenks said as he landed on top of the pulley, a silver dust falling from him as they pushed out and down again.

The rope seemed to give way, and Trent panicked, reaching for it as it spun through the pulley and Jenks darted off. But it had only been Jenks’s dust lubricating it, and he frowned when the pixy came back when they hit the wall again, having descended almost three times the usual amount. "How that nice woman ended up with a kid like Ellasbeth is beyond me," Jenks added as if nothing had happened.

"Yeah?" Trent panted, unable to make himself push off again.

Jenks grinned, his wings pinned to his back in the stiff wind. "She just threatened to throw the next man who shoots at you out the window. Megan is awake. She offered to help. God, Trent, what is it with you and women?"

Trent looked down again, smiling past Lucy. Her diaper had gone heavy against him. That drop had been scary. She hadn’t cried, though, and he gave her a comforting pat as he pushed away in a series of short hops to reach the end. A wave of something passed through him, chased by panic. Lucy trusted him? She trusted him to keep her safe? God help him, he could not fail her.

Swallowing the emotion back, Trent slowly descended the last few feet. The sound of the surf was loud, and the smell of dead things strong. He exhaled loudly as his bare feet finally touched the spray-wet rock. Knees trembling, he put a hand to the rock face. It was not over, though, and he looked out past the crashing waves. Still no boat.