“Okay.” She was silent a moment. “If I don’t come there, will you think about coming here?”
“To tell you the truth, Josie,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about it since the moment I left.”
Not that he would go to her, he reminded himself firmly. Because he couldn’t do that, not even though he was telling her the truth and badly wanted to. He had already determined what he must do. He must leave Hopewell, and leave quickly—with Little John and Nest and Harper in tow. Maybe he could come back when this business with the gypsy morph was over. Maybe he could stay forever then. Maybe he and Josie could have a chance at a life.
But maybe not.
He was reminded anew of what had happened several months earlier when he had returned to Wales and the Fairy Glen to speak with the Lady. He was reminded anew of how deceptive hope could be.
-=O=-***-=O=-
It was early October when the tatterdemalion came to him. He was still living in Cannon Beach with Mrs. Staples and working at the Cannon Beach Bookstore. Through help from Anson Robbington, he had discovered the cave in which the gypsy morph would appear, and had returned there many times to prepare for the event. He had memorized the cave’s layout and begun thinking of how he might trap the morph when it appeared. But he was still unable to conceive of a way in which to snare this elusive creature. He was hoping his dream of the Knight on the cross would come again and show him something new.
He was marking time.
The tatterdemalion appeared to him when he woke from a different dream, a particularly bad one, a dream in which he had witnessed another city’s demise and the slaughter of its inhabitants. He could not remember the city’s name, which troubled him considerably. He could not even remember which part of the country it was located in. There were people in the dream whose names and faces he knew, but on waking he could remember none of them. He had been fighting on a roadway leading out of the city, a group of women and children and old people under his protection and care. He had gotten them clear of the city, but they couldn’t travel fast enough to stay ahead of their pursuers. Finally, Ross had been forced to turn and fight. Once-men and demons quickly surrounded them, and there was nowhere to go. Ross was still engaged in a desperate attempt to break free when he awoke.
For a moment, he could not remember where he was. His head still swam with images from the dream, and the sounds of battle rang hi his ears. It was a warm, windless night, strayed somehow from the summer gone, and the windows to his bedroom were open to the air. The tatterdemalion stood by the window closest to the sea, pale and vaguely iridescent, a child of indeterminate sex, very young, with lost, haunted eyes that reflected bits and pieces of a human life best forgotten.
“Are you John Ross?” it asked in a soft, high voice.
Ross blinked and nodded, remembering his situation, the remnants of his dream beginning to fade. “Yes.”
“I have a message for you from the Lady. She would speak with you. She wishes you to come to her.”
“To the Fairy Glen?” he asked quickly, sitting up now.
The tatterdemalion shimmered faintly. “She wishes you to come at once.”
“To the Fairy Glen?” he repeated.
But the tatterdemalion was already fading, its luminescence failing, its lines erasing, its presence turning to memory. In seconds, it had disintegrated entirely, and Ross was alone once more.
He caught a flight out of Portland the next afternoon, flew east to New York, changed planes at Kennedy, and by midday of the following day, he was landing at Heathrow. From there, he took a train to Cardiff, then rented a car and drove north to Betwys-y-Coed. The trip cost him most of what he had earned that summer at the bookstore. He had barely managed to throw together the clothes he needed before going out the door. He was disorganized and exhausted on his arrival, and while his instincts were to go at once to the Fairy Glen, his body thought otherwise, and he collapsed in his bed and slept ten hours.