Page 59 of Outside the Veil
“Handyman, lumberjack, tow truck slash snowplow driver. Typical for up there, to have one guy who can handle just about everything. You don’t even have to be there. Just leave the door open for him.”
“Leave the— Miriam, I can’t go out and leave your door unlocked.”
“It’s Canada, sweetie. No one locks their doors.”
Despite her reassurances, he stayed to wait for Jake. The realization that their predicament might not have a solution spurred him to finish his manuscript. If he died because of this little jaunt into the woods, he wanted the book to live after him, his gift to Finn.
He settled down at the computer and shivered as a spider-feet crawl of chill went up his back. With Finn piecing himself back together, he would have to face a night alone with the wendigo raging and howling around the house. Maybe more than one night if the process took longer than Finn anticipated, or more still if he slipped away in the Dreaming too far to be called back. Oh, yes, that was the last part.
Chapter 20—The Dreaming
Thistle decides one evening the white wall in the kitchen will make a good canvas. Imagine my surprise when I wander in to find an abstract study in green and yellow in progress. This conversation takes place while I clean crayon off the wall.
“You’re angry with me.”
No, not really.
“You are. Your voice is soft but your forehead has that crease in the center and you won’t look at me.”
Okay, maybe I’m a little annoyed. But I never said you couldn’t use the walls, so how would you know?
“I do wish humans could express themselves more clearly. A simple ‘yes, what you did hurt me’ would be much preferable to hidden grudges that lead to unpleasant things.”
I’m not planning something dark and terrible; I’m cleaning the wall.
“Your pardon. Perhaps I should not include you in such statements. You do channel your anger somewhat differently.”
Would you like to tell me what made you say it? Obviously someone hurt you.
“Yes, they did, and no, I’d rather not discuss it. I spent seven hundred years in the Dreaming trying to forget, and you want me to dredge it all up again?”
You’ve mentioned the Dreaming before. Is it like the Otherworld, the place across the Veil? Could you find your way back to the court that way?
Thistle laughs. “M’dear, you are so delightful in your ignorance at times.”
So enlighten me.
“You mistake a planar shift with a state of mind. To cross the Veil is to be somewhere else. A place that shares the same sun and moon as this one, and exists in tandem with it, but is separate all the same. The Dreaming is simply another sort of consciousness. There is waking and sleeping and the Dreaming.”
Oh. So you weren’t asleep for seven hundred years?
“Not precisely, no. I wasn’t awake either.”
And I’m the one who’s supposed to be unclear.
“Try to explain sleep to someone who has no inkling of what it is.”
Good point.
Thistle gnaws on a sparerib bone while he thinks. “The Dreaming is a state of refuge. You wrap the magic tight around you, a shield against prying eyes and minds. It gives one time to heal, to reweave oneself.”
It’s a place to hide.
“No!” Thistle pulls his feet up onto the chair and rests his chin on his knees. “Yes. In dire straits and heartbreak. I never claimed to be terribly brave.”
Jake turned out to be cheerful, practical and completely unperturbed by the passage of a half-acre wide windstorm.
“That’s spring weather for you, eh? We get some weird stuff out here. Small tornado, probably.” He shrugged and directed the two young men with him to get out the chainsaws. “Billy and Mick’ll take care of the tree, Mr. Sandoval, don’t you worry. And I’ll take care of the window. We’re gonna be making an awful lot of noise, though, y’know. So if you wanna clear out for a bit, couldn’t say I’d blame you.”
