Who'll take his soul to the world beyond?
I, said the pigeon,
The message I'll bind,
When the worlds are entwined.
—
"We interrupt this broadcast with news - " The reporter looked behind her. A wind blew through the mall setting. "An animal attack in Sherwood Mall. You see - " She paused. "We seem to have some broadcast issues - "
The wind was almost visible, it tore so hard at the walls behind her. There were no animals on the television screen. "Chuck, are you getting this?" the reporter said. "A flock of - of out of season birds - have made this a - " She screamed.
"They announce this over A Murder Is Announced?" Veronica's father muttered to her mother. "Goodness, I almost made a pun; pinch me while I'm still awake, dear. Will someone tell me why I watch these things?"
He looked around for his daughter. She'd already left the TV room. He shrugged, and got up to futilely hunt for his pipe.
"I'm coming to pick you up. Watch the news, Heather," Veronica said, and hung up the phone in her room. Like a spy from an action movie, her wheels screamed as she raced into Duke's driveway.
"They say birds but I couldn't see any birds on the TV screen," Heather Duke said. "Shouldn't we call Heather's grandma about this? She commanded us to stay at home out of trouble like good little girls."
"We should check it out ourselves," Veronica said. Duke watched Veronica's face; saw the small, conniving smile lurking behind her words. "Besides, Heather's grandma has an unlisted phone, doesn't she?"
"Fuck if I know. I never checked."
Sherwood Mall was almost deserted except for the news vehicle and the cops. It looked devastated. Plaster and even bricks torn out of the walls, goods and groceries scattered all over the parking lot, strings of ripped toilet paper spread out and fluttering like ribbons. Two Sherwood cops were hiding behind the back of their patrol car, their guns drawn. Veronica and Duke still couldn't see any birds.
"There's a back entrance around the rabbit-food joint," Duke said. "Heather made Anna's cousin who works here tell her about it so she could shoplift for kicks."
No one was around to see or stop them as they went in. Then they heard the rustling of feathers. People screamed. What had that reporter seen, seen something that her camera failed to transmit?
Veronica saw the birds for the first time. There was a flock of silver birds, each about the size of a man's head. Their feathers flowed as if they were made out of liquid metal. Their eyes were a molten gold, their claws and beaks the colour of dull iron. Veronica had once earned her birdwatching badge in Girl Scouts, but she couldn't have told what species they were - and neither, she thought, could anyone else in the normal world. She saw a broken video camera on the floor.
"Through here!" Duke had already grabbed a younger boy by the shoulder and thrust him toward the exit. The flock took off, hurtling down toward her like arrows to a target. Duke looked back in fright but kept going.
Veronica screamed, trying to draw them her way. The birds wheeled back around. She flicked open her cigarette lighter. The strange birds seemed to stare at the fire. She crumpled a piece of paper into a ball, applied the flame to it, and threw it in the air.
One of the birds snatched it out of the air and swallowed the burning paper whole. It fixed its yellow eye on Veronica and swooped down. She cried out. Its claws raked through and tangled her hair. She put a hand to her head and found it wet with blood, the strands of her hair clinging to each other.
Not at all, not at all normal birds.
Duke came back to her. The birds didn't seem to mind entry, only egress. An old woman stumbled toward them, clutching a worn-out handbag in one hand and a torn string bag with broken tomatoes in it in the other. Her hair was a grey-black tangle and her wrinkled flesh hung loosely on her.
"Heather?" she said. Veronica saw Duke visibly cringe.
"Uh, hi, Mrs. Dunnstock - " Duke said, and took a frightened step toward the old woman anyway.
Then the birds descended, as if to stop some transgression from happening. There was no time. Veronica pushed Duke to the ground and landed on top of her, the birds' iron claws scraping over her back. Veronica glanced up; someone had rescued Mrs. Dunnstock as well. A blonde girl in a cheerleader's uniform had pushed her down. The birds kept their distance from the girl, as if they sensed something off about her.
"Martha." Duke looked up at her accusingly. "What the hell do you know about this?"
"Too much," the girl in Heather McNamara's body said. She patted Mrs. Dunnstock's shoulder and settled her under the limited shelter of a storefront. The birds seemed careful to keep their distance from her, sweeping high above her head. "If you can bring the birds to touch me, I should be able to make them go away. I hope."
"Nice try. You'll need to tell us a shitload more about these things, Martha," Duke said. She threw out Martha's name aggressively, guilt about the past mixed with the desire to fight and intimidate. Veronica had expected a need to fight - expected the ghost to cling on to Heather McNamara's body and keep trying to hurt those who'd wronged her - but instead Martha looked uncertain and willing to help.
"I think they're called the Stymphalian Birds ... " Martha said tentatively. "I don't know what that means."
"My eighth-grade boyfriend was into mythology," Veronica said. "I do." And it wasn't exactly good. "Watch out for their droppings; they're probably poisonous."
The girls tried not to look at an area of the shelves spattered with a horrid, virulent green liquid. It seemed to be eating away at the wood.
"They normally fly around this swamp ... only it's not a real place, it doesn't exist in this world," Martha said. "I was taught their name by the Fire Woman, but all I remember she said was they eat ambrosia ... they didn't seem very important at the time ... "
"It's not like there's an Ambrosia R Us outlet in Sherwood Mall," Veronica said. "Would they be tempted by soda pop? White wine? Honey?"
Martha frowned. "They haven't been, I think. They might be hungry but they haven't found anything, and they've been looking. What they eat needs to burn. What they call ambrosia is a sort of molten gold, served from a glowing red ladle ... "
"We can solve that," Duke cut in. "Homewares, fourth on the left. Veronica, you take care of that - I'll find the honey."
The metal birds swooped above them. The few people still trapped in the mall watched the strange scene. Most of them seemed half asleep, out of their minds with terror. Veronica, who never cooked at home, plugged a portable stove into a mall outlet and turned on the hot plate. Duke poured honey into a saucepan. The top of the stove began to glow red, and the birds turned their golden eyes to the lambent flame.
Duke looked up nervously. The birds wanted the fire; they didn't want to go near Martha. Let the honey boil. Let the fake ambrosia become more and more tempting. The birds' wings flapped with excitement. They'd swoop down and devour what was there and let their wings and feathers cut into mortal flesh with ease in their bestial excitement. Duke waited for the last possible moment. The honey boiled over.
She and Veronica dropped to the ground, and Martha took over as barbecuer-in-chief. The birds flew toward her, toward the molten honey, unable to resist the offer of food so like their familiar ambrosia. And when they came close to Martha, they vanished. She lifted her arms, drawing them in. They went away to no place on earth. It was a chilling show of power. Duke and Veronica watched, at least one of them wondering if Martha would choose to turn that power on them.
They helped the rest of the people outside. The cops counted people off and pretended they'd played a role in the rescue.
"Those pigeons ... " they heard Mrs. Dunnstock faintly mutter. "I've never seen anything like it. Thank you for saving me, dear."
"Rabid pigeons," a middle-aged businessman echoed. "Never thought I'd see those birds go that crazy." They heard others following that story, trying to talk themselves into a normal, sane world where there was no such thing as ghosts or powers.
"You're doing it. You're showing people what they want to see," Duke accused. "Just like you fooled me into thinking I had power."
Martha didn't bother replying to that one. She helped Mrs. Dunnstock walk forward and squeezed her arm. "Thank you for being kind to me," she said. "Please, take care of yourself and never stop being kind. Don't stop loving ... " Martha stopped herself. She wiped a hand across her eye and tried to get her voice under control.
"Goodbye," Martha said simply. She turned away from her mother and buried her face in her forearms. When she looked up again, she wasn't crying any more.
"You two are coming with me," she said. "There is no time. Ash-and-Cinder is loose in your world, hell bent on all sorts of destruction, and I know now that it's because of me."
Veronica's car rattled across the road at Martha's direction.
"Ash-and-Cinder is the remnants of destruction," Martha said. "I believe it was a thing born and ever existing in the place-that-is-not-a-place, grown from people's dark desires and dreams. I saw it on the dry outskirts of the Red Copse while I studied with the Fire Woman. It came to this world. It sought Dean out, after he burnt his own son and left him near death. His power creates that which Ash-and-Cinder most seeks, and the two chose to join as one. They will grow stronger with each inferno they wreak.
"Their only wish is fire and destruction, and they will not care who gets in the way. Many innocents will perish at their hands."
"And it's your fault," Duke said. Veronica looked at Martha through the mirror and saw Heather McNamara's face crumble.
"I never meant for any of this to happen," Martha said. "Do you remember anything, Heather? Do you remember how we were friends?"
"I remember what you nearly did to me that night in the cemetery," Duke said. "Heather made me do what I did to you - so probably you should have just killed her when you had the chance - I don't know." She included Veronica in her glare. "Easy on the carriage-driving, Black Beauty. I don't want to end up as road pizza."
"O ye of little faith, my dear." Veronica executed a perfect lane change on the interstate highway, slipping between four lanes with barely three feet to spare between her and two other cars. And sped up all the more. She drew a cigarette and touched it to the car lighter, smoking with one hand and steering with the other.
"Was it only Heather's power, or would you have hurt me anyway?" Martha said. Duke didn't answer. She looked as if she was thinking carefully about that question, biting her lip like Veronica sometimes saw her do in calculus class, bent over her book with a small stain of ink stealing on to her rounded cheek.
"How did you make those birds disappear?" Duke said at last. "Which is definitely much more important to know right now."
"I made them disappear because I'm the gateway. This is all my fault," Martha repeated. Her guilt wasn't helping, Veronica thought. "I came out from the place-that-is-not-a-place, the place betwixt and between life and death. I sought revenge and looked for a way to possess a living body, and now I have one foot in this world and the other in that world beyond. While I'm here, I hold the gate open. The birds came because of me. Ash-and-Cinder came because of me. He threatened me but now I know he never would have harmed me, for I am the key. I can send him back - and I will have to send myself back, for others will come through too," Martha said.
She'd said goodbye to her mother, Veronica thought. She knew that she was bidding a final farewell when she did. Veronica hadn't known Martha well when she was alive, but she was set on sacrificing herself for everyone she'd accidentally endangered as a ghost. I would've liked to have known you, she thought.
"What about Heather?" Veronica said.
"She's trapped in the Betwixt-and-Between too. I think," Martha said. "I can't feel her inside me at all."
"Too bad. Where's Dean headed?" Duke asked.
"He seeks the next building he has been contracted to destroy. His human side still remembers the names and locations, but Ash-and-Cinder will insist he fires them without delay or speech or hesitation. People will die," Martha said. She pointed ahead. "We need to stop that car."
Veronica put pedal to the metal and surged ahead. It was a small zippy sports car with the construction company's logo on its sides, clearly designed to get from Point A to Point B in the fastest and most gas-guzzling way possible.
Veronica knew this route. She took the third lane, up on the bridge, then shot across the semi-legal shortcut like she was going to ram into the barrier. Heather Duke's face was white beside her. "Shit, Veronica, we're all going to die - " Heather pleaded.
Truth be told, Veronica hadn't driven the shortcut herself before, only seen her father do it. But she made the turn through the narrow spot, let the wheels screech as she revolved in a perfect U, rejoined the bottom lane from the roadside, and suddenly she was about five cars ahead of anywhere she had a right to be. She took a drag of her cigarette as if she'd been absolutely confident all along.
"Okay," Duke said. "If I ever rob a bank, you're getaway driver. Martha, climb over the seat and sit with me. You've got telekinetic powers, haven't you?"
They were barely behind Bud Deans' sports car now, but it sped up as if the entity inside knew exactly what was coming after him. Veronica hit the gas even harder.
"I've got healing powers, which you might need even more with what you're planning," Martha said. Duke frowned, not liking that.
"If you know what I'm planning, do you know if we win or not?" she said. "Is the future already set and everything we ever decide is just a round in someone else's stupid game of Snap?"
"It depends on your choices." Martha awkwardly clambered over the seats, perching in her old friend's lap. "You have a chance. Good luck, Heather."
"Veronica, your parents gave you a tank instead of a car, and I'm going to say sorry for everything cruel that Heather and Heather and me ever said about it, especially given what we're about to do to it," Duke said. She pointed ahead. "Overtake Dean now. Be the only car ahead of him. Then slam on your brakes."