FSF, October-November 2009 Page 4

  Even if he hadn't lost his mind—even if this was somehow real, some crazed dream-bargain he'd made with his unconscious—he couldn't imagine leaving it all behind. How could he leave Emma and their shared childhood? Or the young dancers he'd taught and promised to see when he returned to the city; the city itself, and the little world that nested inside it, with its hierarchy of striving men and women, ballet masters and earnest intructors who might never take the stage again but still couldn't bring themselves to abandon it completely.

  If something opens up, you know we'll find a place for you.

  "This gift.” Philip glanced at Suru. “If I go back, will it—will I still have it?"

  The boy nodded, and Philip flexed his leg tentatively.

  He could go back. Even if he couldn't return to his old position, he could look for other work, a smaller company, some private school in the suburbs.

  Or he could stay here until he found something. Emma would love it, and Sam. He could see spring for the first time at Tuonela. Wild geese and swallows returning from their winter migration; a solitary swan plying blue water, dark ripples in its wake.

  He took a deep breath and turned to where Suru stood, waiting.

  "I'll go with you."

  Suru took his hand and drew him to his side, then led him, slowly, along the water's edge. Before them the thread of moonlight wove between stones and ice-skimmed pools, frozen cattails and snow-covered spruce and birch. Birds filled the sky, not just waterfowl but owls and ravens, gulls and hawks, great crested herons and tiny kinglets and scissor-winged swallows that soared and skimmed above the lake but never touched its surface.

  Pinwheels of snow spun in their wake, extinguished by the black waters of Tuonela. With every step that Suru took, more birds appeared. The air became a living whirlwind, wings and shrill chatter, whistles and croaks; over it all a solitary, heartrending song like a mockingbird's, that ended in a convulsive throb of grief or joy.

  Philip didn't know how long they walked. Hours, perhaps. The moon never seemed to move from where it shone above the far shore. Snow blew across the moonlit path, but no more fell from the sky. The birds no longer sang, though Philip still felt the rush of untold wings. He was neither tired nor chilled; whenever his hand brushed Suru's, cold fire flashed through his veins.

  The snow grew very deep, so powdery it was like swimming through drifts of cloud. Overhead, evergreen branches made a pattern like frost crystals against the stars. The trees grew taller, and Philip now saw that each had been slashed as with an ax, two deep grooves that formed a V. Suru touched one, withdrew a white finger glistening with sap and fragrant as balsam.

  "These mark the border,” he said. “We are within Tuonela now."

  They walked on. Gradually, the distant shore came into view. A long rock-strewn beach and towering pines, stands of birch larger than any Philip had ever seen. Behind the beach rose a sheer black cliff hundreds of feet tall, dappled silver where moonlight touched fissures and ragged outcroppings.

  Suru halted. He stared at the desolate trees and that impassable wall of stone, the onyx waves lapping at the beach. Above the cliff countless birds circled restlessly. The great pines bowed beneath the wind of their flight.

  "We are nearly there,” said Suru.

  He turned to Philip and smiled. The flesh melted from his face. Sparks flickered within empty eye sockets; his mouth opened onto a darkness deeper than the sky. He was neither boy nor swan but bone and flame.

  Yet he was not terrible, and he bowed as he took Philip's hand, indicating where a deep ravine split the ground a short distance from where they stood. A stream rushed through the channel, tumbling over rocks and bubbles of ice, before plunging in a shining waterfall that spilled into the lake. A fallen birch tree spanned the cleft. Ribbons of mottled bark peeled from its trunk, and there were jagged spurs where branches had broken or rotted away.

  "I will cross before you,” he said. “Wait until I have reached the other side. Do not look down."

  Philip shook his head. “I can't."

  His tongue seemed to freeze against the roof of his mouth as he stared into the ravine, those knife-edged rocks and roaring cataract. At its center a whirlpool spun, a dreadful mouth gaping at the moon overheard.

  Suru lifted a fleshless hand. “You must. All things make this crossing.” He pointed to where the birds wheeled against the sky. “That is their road. This is mine. No living thing has ever taken it with me. That is my second gift to you."

  Before Philip could reply, Suru turned. His arms stretched upward, all bones and light as he crouched, then leapt above the chasm. For an instant his skull merged with the moon, and a face gazed pityingly down upon the man who remained on the shore.

  Then moonlight splintered the cage of bone. Feathers unfurled in a glory of wings that rose and fell, slowly at first, then more and more swiftly, until the night sky fell back before them and light touched the clifftops. The great pines kindled red and gold as thousands upon thousands of birds dove toward the surface of the lake and landed, the cliffs ringing with their cries.

  "Come!"

  Philip looked up to see the great swan hovering above the far shore, its eyes no longer black but blazing argent. The terrifying joy he'd felt earlier returned. For a second he closed his eyes, trying to summon every memory of the world behind him.

  Then he walked to the tree, lifted one foot, and carefully stepped onto it.

  Icy spume lashed his face as dread jolted him along with bitter cold. He looked up, terrified, but was blinded by needles of ice; shaded his eyes and took a second, lurching step.

  Beneath him the great birch trembled like a live thing. Philip gasped, then edged forward. He could no longer see the other shore; could see nothing but a glittering arc of frozen spray as he inched across the fallen tree. When he was halfway across, he glanced down.

  At the edge of the waterfall a figure knelt, her skin white as birch, her head bowed so he could only see a cascade of long black hair tangled in the whirlpool. As Philip watched she grasped her hair with both hands and began to drag it back through the frigid water, as though it were a net, then hoisted it upon the frozen shore, so that he saw what she had captured: countless men and women, infants and children, their eyes wide and staring and hands plucking uselessly at the net that had ensnared them.

  With a cry Philip stumbled and nearly fell. The woman looked up, her eyes empty sockets in a barren skull, mouth bared in a rictus of hunger and rage. Philip righted himself, then lurched toward the other bank.

  Something coiled around his ankle, taut as a wire. He gave a muffled shout, looked up to see the great swan still hovering above the shore. The bank was yet a few yards off. Another strand of black hair snaked toward him, writhing as it sought to loop around his wrist.

  "Jump!” cried Suru.

  Philip raised his arms, felt his balance shift from shoulders to calves to the balls of his feet. Faint chiming sounded in his ears: cracking ice, the ballet mistress's bell when he was a boy; the tree beneath him splintering. Pain sheared his foot as he arched forward; and jumped.

  His face burned, his eyes. The chiming became a roar. Around him all was flame but it was not the air that was ablaze but Philip himself. His skin peeled away in petals of black and gold, embers blown like snow.

  But it was not snow but wings: Suru's and his own, beating against the air. Far below, the black waters erupted as wave after wave of birds rose to greet them, geese and hawks and swallows, cranes and swifts and tanagers, gulls with the eyes of women and child-faced doves: all swallowed by the sunrise as they mounted the sky above the cliffs, and two swans like falling stars disappeared into the horizon.

  * * * *

  It was several days before Joe Moody checked on the camp. The storm had brought down power lines, but he assumed that Emma's friend would be fine, what with the generator and four cords of firewood.

  He found the lodge deserted, and Philip's rental car buried under the snow. There were no fo
otprints leading to or from the lodge; no sign of forced entry or violence. Emma and her husband were notified in Key West and returned, heartsick, to aid the warden service and police in the search. Divers searched the frigid waters of Lake Tuonela, but no body was ever found.

  Only Emma ever noticed afterward, year after year, that a pair of swans appeared each spring—silent, inseparable—to make their slow passage across dark water before vanishing in the mist.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Department: BOOKS TO LOOK FOR by Charles de Lint

  * * * *

  Strange Angels, by Lili St. Crow, Razorbill, 2009, $9.99.

  I don't know much about the TV show Ghost Whisperer beyond the fact that it stars Jennifer Love Hewitt as a woman who can talk to ghosts. I keep meaning to watch an episode but I never seem to get around to it, so when this book arrived for review, I thought I'd meet the character in a prose format instead. I especially liked the idea that—from the back cover description of the character being a teenager—this appeared to be a prequel to the series.

  The more I read, the more I felt I should be watching the show, because the book's terrific. It has exactly the kind of characters and story I like to read, which made me think that the show is probably good, too. But somewhere along the line—as I came to realize the character's abilities didn't really match up with what I thought they were supposed to be on the TV show—I took a closer look at the outside of the book.

  Maybe you've already guessed it: there's no connection whatsoever between the two. And if I'd looked more carefully at the book before I started it I would have realized that “Ghost Whisperer” should have been plastered all over the cover. In my defense, the cover model has a bit of a similar look to Hewitt's.

  But while Strange Angels isn't based on a TV series, it sure would make a good one.

  We know right from the start that Dru Anderson doesn't live an ordinary life. She's heading off to school where she suffers the usual discomforts of being the new kid in school, but she doesn't care. She's more concerned about the safety of her dad, because he's out hunting monsters.

  The pair of them travels from town to town getting rid of various vampires, ghosts, werewolves and the occasional reanimated corpse. This time they're in the Midwest, in the middle of winter, settled in town long enough to rent a house and for Dru to go to school.

  On the day when the book opens, her father's not there when Dru gets home from school. He doesn't come home at all that night. And then, when he finally does come home, he's not himself anymore.

  We've seen variations on traveling monster hunters before, going back as far as the Van Helsings in Stoker's Dracula. But Strange Angels feels fresh because this time it's the kid with whom we're concerned, the one left standing after her monster-hunting father is gone and the monsters are still coming, but now they're coming for her.

  St. Crow does a terrific job with the material. Dru's a likable, believable teenager: capable but not perfect; a bit sulky, but so would any kid be if they were thrust into her life. The plot's fast-paced and inventive. And there are all sorts of nice touches, like the boy Graves who squats in a shopping mall, or the way Dru finally deals with a bullying teacher.

  Recommended.

  * * * *

  Spiral Hunt, by Margaret Ronald, Eos, 2009, $7.99.

  I like the little blurb on the back of this book: “Some people have the Sight. Genevieve Scelan has the Scent."

  Because, unlike the many characters we've run across in prose and film who can see into the otherworld, Scelan has a heightened sense of smell. You could say she smells into the otherworld. She can find anything, sifting through the overwhelming barrage of scents in Boston to hone in on the one thing she's looking for.

  It's a handy talent for the business she's set up, finding lost things for hire. She can track almost anything, from an object gone astray to a missing person. It's not a terrifically successful business, however, and she has to pay the rent as a bike messenger. But she's happy enough and gets by until a phone call from an ex-lover makes a mess of everything.

  Ronald plays with the supernatural as though it's a variation of the Irish hard men who ran mobs at the turn of the last century in places like Boston and New York City. The Irish mob had nothing like the Mafia's code of honor (which truth to tell, many believe to be a fiction, the blame for which we can lay at the feet of Mario Puzo). They had connections in many levels of city and state government and were rarely convicted for murder because they'd chop up the bodies into tiny pieces and scatter them (usually in the ocean) so that those pieces would never be found. No body meant no crime had been committed for which they could be convicted.

  The Bright Brotherhood in Spiral Hunt are like the Irish mob, only secret, their dangerousness cranked up about ten-fold. You don't want to get on their radar.

  Genevieve Scelan, known as the Hound (for obvious reasons: that magical sense of smell), has kept a low profile for years, staying hidden from the Bright Brotherhood since childhood. But all that changes when she sets out to help her friend. Soon, not only is she in danger, but so are her closest friends.

  Ronald has done a terrific job with the Celtic mystical matter here, blending folklore with things she's made up so that it all feels whole and complete. Strong characterization combines with a plot that's fast-paced and keeps the reader guessing, and what else do you need for an entertaining summer's read?

  This is one of the better books I've read based on Celtic matter and a lot of that has to do with how Ronald has tapped into the dark streak that runs as an undercurrent through much Irish folklore.

  * * * *

  Curse of the Were-Woman, by Jason M. Burns & Christopher Provencher, Devil's Due Publishing, 2009, $12.99.

  This satiric take on the whole business of werewolves has a lot going for it, even if the protagonist is unlikable. But then, he's supposed to be.

  Patrick Dalton is a successful businessman, at his physical peak, with a promotion expected soon. He's also an obsessive womanizer, dating, and usually bedding, a different woman every night.

  So all's going well—at least so far as he's concerned—until the night he dumps the wrong woman and she puts a curse on him: every night when the sun goes down he changes into a woman. As the witch he's made the misfortune of upsetting puts it: “The curse will only reverse itself when you truly respect and understand women. Until then, when the sky grows dark, you grow breasts."

  The story switches back and forth between Dalton as a man during the day and a woman at night, living separate lives that are both complicated by the existence of the other. Some of the situations are a bit stereotypical, but this is a satire, meant to be painted in broad strokes, and it works well in that context. I do have to admit, however, that I'm not entirely sure about the Hollywood-styled ending.

  Artist Christopher Provencher has a cartoony style that's well suited to the type of story Burns is telling here.

  I usually don't read books with unlikable protagonists. I don't care to spend time with that kind of person in real life, so why would I want to spend my reading time with them? But this illustrated format is a shorter read than a novel, and it was just long enough to have some meat to the story but not have me spend too much time in Dalton's company.

  * * * *

  The Dresden Files: Storm Front Vol. 1, The Gathering Storm, by Mark Powers & Ardian Syaf, Del Rey, 2009, $22.95.

  One of the best things about Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files series (beyond the fun conceit of there being a wizard with his own P.I.-type business working in a version of contemporary Chicago) is that Butcher gets the whole idea of how to use magic: it takes effort to use, and there's a price for every use. I'm surprised at how many writers don't seem to understand that.

  The other thing is that Butcher doesn't forget about the sense of wonder that magic should bring. Magical beings and the use of spells are not common, everyday occurrences, so their appearance in a story should have some impact beyond simply mo
ving the plot ahead.

  I also like how the character of Harry Dresden is a take-off on the traditional, down-and-out hard-boiled detective, except he's dealing with magical problems—sometimes brought to him by clients, and sometimes they arise through his being an advisor on things supernatural for the Chicago Police Department. The mundane aspects of his life give the magical elements an added zing.

  It's been a while since I read the prose version of Storm Front, so I can't tell you exactly how closely Mark Powers's adaptation to comic book format sticks to the original story. But it certainly seems to strike all the right chords of my memory.

  It opens with the Chicago police calling Dresden in to help with a particularly gruesome double murder. At the same time he's working a missing person case. Naturally, in the best P.I. tradition, the two cases end up colliding, and of course there are nasty people trying to keep him from investigating, but other than that, the book's a far cry from the usual mystery novel.

  For one thing, his “snitch” is a faery. For another, one of the people he has to interview in the course of his investigation is a vampire. And then there's the talking skull he keeps in an alchemist's lab in his basement.

  The comic adaptation doesn't cover the whole novel—it will continue in further volumes—but this particular book ends at a good spot for us to catch our breath. There's also a prose introduction by Jim Butcher, plus a prequel chapter featuring a younger Dresden adapted from Butcher's short story “Restoration."

  Adrian Syaf's art is very much in the tradition of contemporary comic art: a little slick, dramatic where it needs to be, with a good narrative flow.

  If you've already read all the books, and watched the TV series (available on DVD in case you missed it when it aired), here's a new format to enjoy until the next book is published. And if you don't have any familiarity with the character, this is as good a place as any to see what he's all about.