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Soheila nodded. “Nasty creatures. I still find sand in my closets sometimes.”
“Sources in Fairwick say that the town has been without power since midnight.”
I looked at the electric coffee machine and the TV. “How are these working?” I asked.
“Courtesy of Soheila,” Elizabeth said. “Didn’t I mention last night that she’s a wind spirit? She can conduct energy, too. Now shush a moment. I want to hear how far the ice goes.”
The screen now showed a map of upstate New York. Fairwick was surrounded by a blue blotch with ragged edges—some graphic artist’s attempt to represent ice, I supposed, although it looked more like a malevolent microbe to me—that enclosedall of the state park to the east and north, but didn’t quite reach West Thalia to the west or Bovine Corners to the south.
“Oh good,” Elizabeth said. “At least it’s only our little valley. I think we can manage if it’s contained. We’ll call Dory to organize a visiting committee to check on the elderly and infirm, to make sure that they have enough firewood—if they don’t have generators—and food.”
“Brock and Ike can head up the salt truck and plows,” Soheila said.
“Thank goodness most of the students have already gone home for the holiday. I’ll have Casper and Oliver check for stragglers in the dorms.”
“Mara Marinca didn’t go home,” I volunteered.
A worried look crossed the dean’s face. “No, she wouldn’t have. I’m sure she’s fine, though, and she’ll be here later for Thanksgiving dinner.”
“I’m not sure Phoenix will be up to cooking,” I said, remembering for the first time how many people I had invited over. “She was pretty wigged out by what happened last night.”
“I am worried about her,” Soheila admitted. “But I got her to bed by two this morning and cooking might take her mind off what happened.”
“Plus Dory Browne called to say she’d be by to help,” Elizabeth said. “Don’t worry about that. Here in Fairwick we all pitch in during an emergency. But there is something I need you to help me with right now. Would you mind taking a little walk with me?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. Make sure you wear sturdy nonskid boots. The footing will be rather treacherous where we’re going.”
Since the entire town was coated with a two-inch layer of ice I thought Elizabeth Book’s warning was unnecessary, but when I saw she was heading for the woods I wondered if any warningwas sufficient. Before the temperature had dropped the wind had knocked branches and even whole trees down; then the debris had been coated with so much ice that it had all melded together into a glittering, unmovable tangle. I couldn’t even see where the path was. While Elizabeth stood uncertainly at the edge of the woods staring at the wreckage, I turned back to look at my house. The shutters over my bedroom window had been completely torn off, and the rest of the shutters were missing slats and hanging crookedly from their hinges. The copper gutter had been wrested from the north eave where it hung limply, twisted like a chewed up swizzle straw. So many slate tiles were missing from the roof that it looked like a checkerboard.
“What a spoiled brat!” I cried. “That demon’s little temper tantrum is going to cost me thousands of dollars in repairs.”
Elizabeth Book turned around and looked at the back of my house. “Yes, that’s the problem with incubi—they’re all libido. And he can’t use being a demon as an excuse. Soheila’s a demon and look how evolved she is! Honestly, though, I’m surprised the damage isn’t worse. From the state of these woods I’d say the wind he summoned was moving at a hundred twenty-five miles per hour. If it had hit your house at that velocity it wouldn’t be standing. Something must have lessened the impact…” She switched her gaze from the house to me. “Almost as if you’d managed an aversion spell before the wind hit or…”
“I don’t know any spells,” I said somewhat petulantly, peeved that the dean wasn’t taking my house damage seriously enough. “Should I? You said before that you thought I had fairy blood, not that I was a witch…Is being a witch hereditary?” I asked, suddenly overcome with all the unknowns in this new world I’d stumbled into.
“There are witch families that have passed down their craft from generation to generation,” Dean Book said as she stepped over a downed pine bough, which the ice had turned into a festiveChristmas decoration. “I myself come from a long line of witches. No one is sure how much of being a witch is nature or nurture. Some believe that the original witches interbred with the fey, which is what gave them their power; but the more reactionary antifey witches believe that fey blood cancels out a witch’s power.”
“There are reactionary witches?” I asked, scrambling after her, grasping ice-slick branches to keep from slipping. It felt like we were walking through the ruins of a strange and foreign world. The ice rings of Saturn, perhaps, or the Jotunheim, the glacial home of the Norse ice giants. The violence that had caused the wreckage was frightening and yet the effect was oddly beautiful. Giant trees had been snapped in two, but pinecones, acorns, and even the delicate yellow flowers of witch hazel trees had been preserved in ice like sugared treats to put on top of a cake. It seemed an appropriate setting in which to learn about this other strange world that Dean Book was describing.
“I’m afraid so,” she told me with a pained look. “There are those who would have us renounce all ties to the fey. But if we did, then the last door to Faerie would close entirely. No one would ever be able to get out again…”
She paused as we reached the honeysuckle thicket. The ice-sheathed snarl of vines and branches looked as if it had been spun out of sugar. Jeweled shapes glimmered in the crooks of vine and branch like Christmas lights. Peering closer I made out the shapes of small birds, tiny mice, voles, and chipmunks—all the tiny creatures that had died in the thicket. Elizabeth cupped her gloved hand around a frozen chickadee. Nestled in her palm it looked like an exotic jewel.
“Why do so many creatures die here?” I asked.
“These are the Borderlands,” she said. “Small creatures lose their way. Even large creatures—very powerful creatures—lose their way between our world and Faerie. More and more get trapped between the worlds each year. The door is narrowingand opening for shorter periods. That’s why we were so excited when we realized you might be a doorkeeper.”
“I still don’t know what you mean by that. It sounds like some kind of doorman or janitor…”
“That’s what the Romans called their doorkeepers. They knew that thresholds were sacred and that certain gods were dedicated to crossing places. Janus, the two-faced god and Hecate, the three-faced goddess of the crossroads—both were doorkeepers. as you are, Cailleach.”
“You’re saying that I’m descended from gods and goddesses!” I was trying to make a joke of it. “That’s even harder to believe than being descended from fairies.”
“They’re one and the same, Callie. What we call fairies and demons are the last of the race of old gods. They’re all from the same ancient race—although the variety within them is great, especially as the old ones began interbreeding with humans…as you can see here…”
She held back a heavy vine studded with purple berries turned to amethyst by the ice, and looked up. I followed her gaze, seeing nothing except tangled ice thicket at first, but then, as the sun appeared and shone through the tangled branches, I began to make out shimmering shapes suspended in the air. It looked as though a giant spider web had been strung between the branches and then frozen—but the pattern in the web revealed faces in its intricate weave: the faces of men and women and animals, and some creatures that seemed to be neither human nor animal. Some had human faces with horns or pointed ears or reptilian skin; some had animal faces with human intelligence glittering in their eyes. All were contorted with pain.
