Chapter 114: The Bridge Again

It didn't breathe.

That was the first thing I noticed, lying on the warm black stone with Loki's lie over me like a blanket. Everything on Blackstack breathes. The rock breathes steam out of its cracks. The sea breathes against the ledge. Carol, beside me, was breathing very slowly and carefully through her nose, the way she does when she's so angry she's afraid of what her mouth will do.

The thing on the high ledge didn't breathe. It stood beside the Lockwarden's lamp in Loki's crooked coat with my sister's face, looking out to sea, and nothing in it moved at all. Not its chest. Not its hands. Not the dark hair on its shoulders, though the wind was blowing everyone else's.

It wasn't waiting the way a person waits. It was waiting the way a coat waits on a hook.

* * *

Caitlin was counting.

I couldn't see her face, only her hand, moving very slowly on the open blue book in the dark, making small marks by feel. Later she showed me the page. It said:

3 pieces. Naming (Meriel's, torn). Answering (Tessel's well). One I don't know.

Threads of Carol: 41. Threads of Garrick: 38. From the seams.

Rock remembering her: all of it.

Inside: nobody.

She'd underlined the last word twice. The second line went through the paper.

* * *

At a quarter to one, the sea below the ledge stopped moving.

Not calmed. Stopped. A round patch of black water about the size of a threshing floor went flat and still as glass, while the waves went on around it. And then it bulged upward, very slowly, like something taking a breath from underneath.

And they came up out of it.

Five of them. Tall, thin, gray, faceless, in coats that weren't theirs. Walking up out of the sea onto the ledge as if the water were a staircase. Water running off them. No sound at all.

And in the middle of them, with a gray hand on his shoulder, Ansel.

* * *

I nearly didn't know him.

He was bigger. Not taller; bigger, the way a man is bigger when he's standing in his own house. The brown coat was soaked through and clung to him, and it looked borrowed now, as if it belonged to someone smaller. His hands were fists. And the place at his side where the gold light had always been was dark.

He walked up the ledge with the Choir around him and didn't look at any of the stones that were us. He looked at the thing beside the lamp.

And the thing turned its head and looked at him.

* * *

"Othellos," said the hollow thing with its hand on his shoulder, in Corvel's horn-call, low and pleased. "Here she is."

The thing in Carol's face opened its mouth.

"Yes," it said.

In Carol's voice. Exactly. The voice I've heard every day of my life, through walls and across tables and through the middle. Saying yes to nothing. Because nobody had asked it anything.

Beside me, Carol made a very small sound. I felt it through the middle like a hand closing on a rope.

* * *

"Build her door," called the hollow thing. "From here. To the palace. She's very new. She can't cross water on her own."

Ansel stood in front of the thing that looked like my sister.

He looked at it for a long time. At the face. At the coat. At the empty place behind the eyes.

"What's your name?" he said.

The thing looked at him.

"Yes," it said.

"That isn't a name."

"Yes," it said.

Ansel's fists tightened. I saw his knuckles go white in the lamplight.

"She doesn't need a name," called the hollow thing, gently. "She has his. She'll stand beside him. That's all she's for." Its gray hand squeezed his shoulder. "Build."

* * *

And Ansel knelt down on the black rock, and put both his closed fists flat against it.

And began to build.

* * *

I felt it start. Everyone did. The whole rock felt it.

It was like hearing someone set a key in a lock on the far side of a wall. A long thin line of light drew itself up out of the stone in front of the lamp, straight and tall and pale, the height of a door. Then a second line beside it. Then a third across the top. Very fast. Very precise. A thousand years of practice in every inch of it.

And through the gap between the lines, as they drew, something else. A smell of warm stone and roses. A glimpse of golden walls. A long gray courtyard, very still, with a fountain in it that wasn't running.

And someone standing in the courtyard. Tall. With gold coming off him like heat off a road. With his back to us.

Turning around.

* * *

I was moving. I didn't decide to. I was halfway up off the rock with Loki's lie tearing off me like wet paper.

Carol's hand closed on my wrist.

"His road," she breathed. Not Seraphina. Carol. "Garrick. Look at his hands."

I looked.

Ansel's fists, on the rock, at the foot of the half-built door. Closed white. Shaking.

And on his right hand, the one he'd opened at the trough to knock on his own lamp, the forefinger had come loose. Just one finger. Sticking out straight from the fist, very slightly, like a man pointing at something he's afraid to name.

Pointing at the rock beside him. Where Iselle was lying, pretending to be stone.

* * *

"Iselle," said Ansel.

He said it quite loudly. Clearly. To the rock.

"May I?"

* * *

The five hollow things went very still.

And Iselle stood up.

She came up out of Loki's lie in one movement, the way you come up out of cold water, gasping. Small and thin, in her dark dress, with her hair coming down, and her hands open in front of her. Palms up. Shaking. Not making fists.

"Yes," she said. "You asked already. I said yes already." Her voice cracked. "Let go, Ansel."

And she put her open hands over his closed ones.

* * *

I've seen Iselle free things before. A harbor. A brass lamp. Ruan's frozen voice. It's quiet, when she does it. It looks like nothing. Like someone helping someone else take a coat off.

This was the same. Her small hands over his big ones, very gently. Not prying. Not pulling. Just resting there, open, the way you'd rest your hand on a door that you know is going to open if you wait.

And his fingers came open.

One by one. The way they'd closed at the trough. In reverse.

And the gold came back.

* * *

Not slowly, this time. All at once. It came up out of his side like a lamp being carried into a dark room, gold and warm and so bright the whole ledge went yellow and the hollow things threw up their long gray arms over their faceless faces.

And the half-built door in front of him didn't vanish.

It turned around.

* * *

I don't know how else to say it. Ansel had his hands open on the rock, and Iselle's hands on his, and the three lines of light hanging in the air in front of the lamp. And he did something with them. I felt it the way you feel a key turn in your own chest.

The door turned around. Like a man turning in a doorway to face the room he's just come out of. It had been a door from the rock to the palace. Now it was a door that opened from the inside. From the rock's side. Only from the rock's side. And only for someone who asked.

And then he closed it.

Very gently. The way you'd close a door on a room where someone's sleeping.

The golden courtyard went away. The roses went away. The tall gold figure, half-turned, with a face I never saw, went away. And the last thing that came through the narrowing gap, very faint, was a voice. Deep and quiet and astonished. Saying one word.

"Carol—"

And Carol stood up off the rock beside me, in the full gold light, and said, very clearly, to a door that was already shut:

"Carol Clara Grey. Who says no."

* * *

Everything happened at once after that.

* * *

Loki stood up on his ledge, and the lie came off all of us at the same instant, like a sheet pulled off furniture. And the rock under us said, very quietly, in a way I felt rather than heard, oh. Disappointed. Because we weren't stone, and we weren't keeping it company, and it had wanted that very much.

"Sorry," I said to it. "We'll come back. I promise."

The five hollow things turned and ran for the sea.

* * *

They didn't run like people. They ran like water running downhill, all at once, toward the edge of the ledge, toward that round flat patch of glass-still sea they'd come up out of. Their door. Their way home.

Halemar was up and after them with his canvas bag. Seraphina was up with the First Flame coming off her shoulders like a cloak. Caitlin was shouting numbers. Thor wasn't there to throw a hammer and I wished, for one wild second, that she were.

The first hollow thing reached the edge and went over it, into the still water, and was gone.

The second.

* * *

"Jörmungandr!" shouted Carol.

And the sea answered.

* * *

He'd been waiting off the north side of the rock, out in the dark, where we'd left him. I'd forgotten him. I think we all had. You do forget, with him; he's so large and so quiet that he stops being a creature and turns into a piece of the sea.

He came around Blackstack now like a tide coming in.

I felt it before I saw it. A long, long movement in the water, going around us, circling the rock, closing. Gray-green and patient and very fast. His back broke the surface in one long curve a hundred yards out, and then another, and another, all the way around, until there was a ring of him in the sea, all around the rock, coil on coil, like a wall.

Like a bridge laid in a circle, with no beginning and no end.

* * *

The third hollow thing went into the still water and came up again, choking, three yards out, in the middle of the ring. The water wasn't a door anymore. It was just water. Inside the coils of the world serpent, there's only one road, and it goes wherever he decides it goes.

But the ring wasn't closed. Not yet. There was a gap on the western side, where his head was coming around to meet his tail, maybe forty yards wide, and the third hollow thing saw it, and the fourth did too, and they went for it. Through the water, like eels.

I felt Jörmungandr straining. I felt how far he still had to go.

He wasn't going to make it.

* * *

"Borrow?" I said.

I said it to the sea. To the great gold eye coming around the western side of the rock, just above the water, forty yards from its own tail.

I didn't know if he'd understand. I'd never asked him before. I'd never borrowed from anything that big. Aurelia had told me never to reach. Seraphina had told me, ask, beside, not in a door. And I wasn't reaching. I was asking.

The gold eye closed slowly. And opened.

Take.

* * *

It was like putting my hands into the whole sea at once.

I won't try to describe it properly. I can't. There isn't a word for what it's like to be, for a moment, a road that goes all the way around the world. I felt him from the inside. How long he is. How old. How patient. How very, very tired he gets of everyone forgetting he's there.

And I felt the gap. Forty yards of open water between his jaw and his tail.

And I closed it.

Not with him. With me. I put myself in the gap. Not my body; my body was still on the rock with Seraphina's hand on my back. But something of me. Something gray, like dawn coming up over water. I laid it across the forty yards like a plank across a ditch, and held it there.

And the third hollow thing hit it, and stopped, and fell back.

And the fourth hollow thing hit it, and stopped, and fell back.

And Jörmungandr's jaw came around and closed, very gently, on the tip of his own tail.

And the ring was whole.

* * *

I gave it back. I gave it back at once. I said thank you and that's yours and let go of the whole sea, and it went out of me like a breath going out of a bellows, and I sat down on the rock very suddenly.

"That was stupid," said Seraphina, holding me up. "You asked. That was good. It was still stupid."

"Yes," I said.

"I'm proud of you."

"Yes," I said, and was sick on the rock, and the rock didn't mind. It had smelled worse.

* * *

Inside the ring, the third and fourth hollow things turned and turned in the water, looking for a door that wasn't there.

And then they did something I hadn't expected. They went down. Straight down. Under Jörmungandr's coils, deep, into the black. And I felt them go. Down and down and out, under him, where even the world serpent doesn't quite reach, because the sea under Blackstack goes down to fire.

They got away. Two of them, and the first two before them. Four.

But not the fifth.

* * *

The fifth hollow thing was still on the ledge.

It hadn't run. It was standing exactly where it had stood when Ansel knelt down to build. Tall and thin and gray, in its borrowed coat, with water still running off it. And it hadn't run because it couldn't.

Ansel was holding its hand.

* * *

Not gripping. Not a fist. He was still kneeling on the rock, with Iselle beside him and the gold coming off his side so bright it hurt to look at. And with his open right hand he was holding the hollow thing's long gray hand, palm to palm, the way you'd hold the hand of someone you were helping down from a cart.

"You put your hand on my shoulder," said Ansel to it, quite gently. "At the trough. When I stepped down into the water. I didn't shake it off. Do you remember?"

The hollow thing stood very still.

"I thought about it the whole way down," said Ansel. "In the dark, in the water. Your hand on my shoulder. I thought: somebody did this to you. Somebody tore you open along a seam and took out whatever you were and sent you out in a coat to carry things. And you were very gentle about it. Even so." He looked up at its faceless face. "You were gentle with me. All the way down."

The hollow thing didn't move.

"So I'm not going to let go," said Ansel. "Not yet. Not until somebody asks you your name."

* * *

The hollow thing made a sound.

Not Corvel's horn-call. Not any stolen voice. A small sound. Thin and hoarse and very far away, like something calling from the bottom of a well.

It didn't make a word. But it was its own.

Caitlin wrote it down. A sound. Its own. 1.

* * *

And Carol walked up the ledge to the thing that had her face.

* * *

It hadn't moved. Through all of it. The door, the gold, the Choir running, the ring closing. It stood beside the Lockwarden's lamp in Loki's crooked coat, perfectly still, looking at nothing. Waiting for someone to tell it what to do.

Carol stopped in front of it.

They were exactly the same height. I'd known that. It was still terrible to see. The same dark hair. The same chin. The same eyes. Except that Carol's were wet and blazing, and its were just eyes.

"What's your name?" said Carol.

The thing looked at her.

"Yes," it said. In her voice.

"No," said Carol. "That's not a name. That's an answer. I asked you your name."

The thing's mouth opened. And closed. And opened.

"Yes," it said.

* * *

"You haven't got one," said Carol.

Her voice was very steady now. Not angry. Not anything I'd expected. It was the voice she uses on the new moon, saying names in the chapel. Clear and slow and careful, so that nothing gets lost.

"You haven't got one, because there's nobody in there to have one. You're my shape. And some of my brother's hands. And three pieces somebody tore out of three gods who never said you could have them. And a rock that remembers me standing on it once, for one breath, a long time ago." She looked at it. "That's all. That's what you are. I'm sorry. I'm sorry it's not more. It isn't your fault."

The thing in her face looked back at her. Empty.

"And here's mine," said Carol.

She took a breath.

"My name is Carol Clara Grey. I'm a goddess. I'm a sister and a daughter and an aunt. I've said no to the god who holds half the world, twice, to his face and in a letter. And I'll say it again, as many times as he asks." She put her hand flat over her own heart. "Carol Clara Grey. Who says no."

* * *

And the thing in her face, very slowly, tilted its head.

The way you do when you've heard a word you don't know. In a language you never learned.

"No," it said.

Carefully. Trying it out. In her voice.

And then it stopped. And its face went slack. And its mouth stayed open on the shape of the word, as if it had found a door it had never been built to go through, and didn't know what to do on the other side.

* * *

"Iselle," said Carol, without turning around. "May I ask you something?"

"Yes," said Iselle.

"There are pieces in it. Three. They don't belong to it. They belong to Meriel and Tessel and somebody we don't know yet." Carol's voice shook, just once. "Would you let them go? Please. You can say no."

Iselle came up the ledge, with her hands open.

She didn't touch it. She stood in front of it, beside Carol, and held her open hands out toward its chest, palms up, the way you'd hold them out to warm them at a fire.

"You don't have to hold these," she said to it. Very gently. The way she'd said it to Selvane's harbor, the very first time. "They're not yours. You can let go."

* * *

And it did.

Three small lights came out of the front of Loki's crooked coat. One silver, like candlelight in a chapel when everyone's gone home. One clear and cold, like an echo coming up out of a well. And one very faint, a sort of dusty gold, that I didn't know at all.

They hung in the air for a moment. Then they drifted, slowly, down into Iselle's open hands. And she closed her hands around them, very gently, not into fists. Into a cup.

Halemar was there with the canvas bag. She put them in it, one by one, and he drew the string.

Pieces: 3, Caitlin wrote. Home.

* * *

And without the pieces, the thing in Carol's face was only a shape.

It didn't fall down. It didn't scream or crumble or turn to dust. It just stopped being Carol. The face went soft and blank and gray, like a sketch someone had rubbed out with their thumb. The dark hair went the color of stone. The hands went smooth. And it stood there by the lamp, a tall gray rounded shape the size of a woman, in a coat that was too big for it, like a figure carved by someone who'd only ever been told about people.

Loki walked up the ledge.

He stood in front of it for a long moment. Then he reached out and took his coat off it. Very carefully. The way you'd take a coat off a sleeping child.

"That's mine," he said quietly. "I'm sorry. I lent it to somebody once. I shouldn't have let anyone else pick it up off the floor." He put it on. It was too short in the arms, the way it had always been. "There."

* * *

The gray shape stood beside the lamp.

I knelt down on the rock in front of it. I put my hand flat on the stone, at its feet, the way Ansel had put his hand on the stone at the stream.

"Listen," I said to the rock. "I know you remember her. You remember her standing here, for one breath. That's all right. You can keep that. It's a good thing to remember." I swallowed. "But it isn't you. You don't have to be her. You're Blackstack. You're very young, and you're warm in the middle, and you'd like to be visited. That's enough. That's a whole thing to be."

The gray shape stood very still.

And then, very slowly, it sank. Down into the rock it was standing on, the way a footprint sinks into wet sand when the tide comes in. Until there was nothing on the ledge but the Lockwarden's lamp, burning, and the faint warm outline on the stone where something had stood.

"I'll come back," I said to the rock. "I promise. With bread."

The rock didn't say anything. But the steam coming out of its cracks went, for a moment, slightly warmer.

* * *

Jörmungandr took us home.

All of us. Carol and Iselle and Loki and Caitlin and Halemar, with the canvas bag in his arms like a baby. Seraphina and me. Ansel, with the gold so bright at his side that the serpent's scales shone where he sat. And the fifth hollow thing, sitting between Ansel and Iselle on the broad warm scales behind the great head, with Ansel still holding its hand.

It didn't try to get away. It sat with its faceless head bowed and its long gray hand in his, and once, halfway home, it made the small thin sound from the bottom of the well again. And Ansel said, "Yes. I know. Not yet. Soon."

* * *

We came up the river at dawn. The sky was gray, and then gray-gold, and then gold. The river opened ahead of us and closed behind, and Jörmungandr's head came up beside the quay steps at Greykeep, where the water was already over the top step and Helena's washing, which she'd hung out again, was soaked a second time.

Helena was on the quay. Of course she was. With the big brown teapot.

And Faelan was on the gatehouse stair, in his nightshirt and Roderic's blue scarf, where I suspect he'd been all night.

* * *

But Ansel didn't come up the quay steps.

He thanked Jörmungandr, with his forehead against the great gray-green scales. He gave the hollow thing's hand to Iselle, who took it without a word. And then he said, "Garrick. May I borrow you? One more time. There's somewhere I have to come back from."

I knew where.

"Yes," I said. "You can say no to me, you know. I'm very tired."

He laughed.

* * *

I folded us to the birches. I didn't have the strength for anything nearer. And Ansel walked down the slope in the gray-gold morning, in his wet brown coat, with his hands open at his sides and the gold at his side like the sun coming up.

My father was sitting on the low wall beside the trough. Exactly where he'd sat down. Under three lamps, all burning, in broad daylight.

He stood up when he saw Ansel coming.

Ansel stopped in front of him. Then he turned and knocked three times on the door of the empty hut. And waited.

"Come in," said my father.

And Ansel laughed again, a little wet. And my father put his big arms around him, wet coat and all. And held on.

* * *

Mary's book. That evening.

Night four, and the morning after.

Blackstack. Five came up out of the sea with Ansel. He knelt and began to build.

He asked Iselle. She had already said yes. His hands opened. The gold came back.

He turned the door around and closed it. Someone on the other side said Carol's name.

Carol: "Carol Clara Grey. Who says no."

Jörmungandr made a ring. Garrick asked to borrow him. He said take. Four got away under. One stayed. Ansel is holding its hand.

Carol asked the thing its name. It said yes. Then it tried no.

Iselle let three pieces go. Meriel's. Tessel's. One we don't know. Halemar carried them home.

Loki took his coat back.

Garrick told the rock it could be itself. He has promised it bread.

Uriah kept the lamps lit all night. Ansel knocked on the hut. Uriah said come in.

Helena's washing is wet again.

And under that, in a plain, careful, very upright hand, a little shaky, as if the person writing had been up all night and in the sea and still couldn't quite believe it:

Ansel. Came back up the road. Faelan, I'm writing it down.