Page 28 of Red
“Ammamma, please.” I slumped. Using the full, proper word usually got her attention. Like using my government name got mine.
“How long have you worked here? In this forest?” Jack asked—though he probably already knew, thanks to his frighteningly intelligent crow friends.
“Back and forth for two years now,” Amma said. “Never seen anyone else.”
“How did you find it?” I wondered.
“Friends in Ferry Vale,” she said cryptically.
I was about to ask for details when I realized, “Where are your grad students?”
She chuckled. “Come on. I’ll show you what I’m working on. By myself.”
We followed her into the ruins, which were just as disorienting from within as they had been from afar. Amma had no problem navigating them, though, moving like a woman on a mission. She brought us to a large stone floor with a strangely intact mosaic in the center of it. Tapped the mosaic with her toe. The earth seemed to shift beneath us as the mosaic lowered and slid to the side, leaving a large, circular hole where it had been. Sunlight extended a few pale fingers into the depths, revealing a large staircase.
Jack sniffed. “Old magic.”
“I have a theory it’s from the caretaker before you.” Amma started down the stairs.
“Before me?” Jack followed.
I hesitated, my sense of reality going slippery, impossible to grip. But inevitably, I started down the dark stairs after them anyhow. Not much point in playing it safe now, was there?
“There must’ve been someone. I haven’t found any bodies or clothes or that sort of thing, but there’s some cookware and what looks like a journal in the house above,” Amma said.
“What does the journal say?” Jack asked.
Amma sighed. “No idea. Can’t get the damn thing open.” Then she brushed her hand over a circular indentation in the stone wall and a fire blazed to life in it. The yellow light jumped and danced but illuminated the stairs, which were just too big to take two at a time comfortably. At the foot, there was another mosaic, but Amma stepped on it and nothing happened. She gestured to the small, circular room around us: stone walls, stone floors, the same magical torch indentations—
Suddenly, several large objects appeared, as if they’d been in a fog that burned off while we watched. One was a blackened antique mirror, another was a singularly ugly gargoyle statue, and a third was a gnarled wooden staff. They were all roughly the same height, though I wasn’t sure why I was noticing that, but I couldn’t immediately recognize anything else.
“Portals?” Jack asked.
I blinked. “Am I missing something?”
Jack flashed a hand before the blackened mirror. Its surface shimmered like water all of a sudden.
A shiver worked its way into me, as if I could feel the magic, and it was cold.
“I found all of these on this site, mostly down here, but some buried in other rooms. Someone was collecting them,” Amma said.
Jack waved his hand near the staff. It shimmered, as if with fairy lights, and then settled into its former shape again as he backed away. “This one isn’t synthetic.”
“No. Some of them are Darlington Synth, certainly. Others seem to be organic, like the hollow that leads to the Greenwood,” Amma said.
“Portals within portals.” Jack snorted. “Have you gone through?”
“Briefly. Didn’t want to take too many chances.”
“Smart,” Jack replied.
“Sorry; what is happening?” I finally interrupted.
They both turned to look at me like they’d forgotten I was there.
Amma chuckled. “They all lead to other magical realms, like this one. There are plenty of them in and around Ferry Vale, but other than that, this is the largest collection I’ve seen. And I’m sure there are more. Sometimes I can feel them in the walls or beneath the earth.”
Jack walked around the room, admiring each object in turn. For a moment, I admired him, the intent look on his face, the way the firelight danced in his wide eyes. How could he be so gentle with me and yet look the other way while a monster played in his beloved forest? Was it really all about the forest itself, the life that belonged to it, and nothing else mattered?
