Read Online Newford Stories by Charles De Lint - Free Book Online Page A

end in darkness?”
    Jilly shook her head. She refused to believe
it.
    “How can you deny it?” he asked.
    “It’s just…if there’s only supposed to be
darkness, then why were we given light?”
    For a long moment, he sat there, shoulders
drooped, staring down at his hands. When he finally looked up,
there was something in his eyes that Jilly couldn’t read.
    “Why indeed?” he said softly.
     
    - 4 -
     
    When Meran returned to the living room it
was to find Jilly slumped across the body of her patient, Professor
Dapple standing over the pair of them, hands fluttering nervously
in front of him.
    “What’s happened?” she said, quickly
crossing the room.
    “I don’t know. One moment she was talking to
me, then she leaned over and touched his cheek and she simply
collapsed.”
    He moved aside as Meran knelt down by the
sofa once more. Before she could study the problem more closely,
the roseharp began to play upstairs.
    The professor looked surprised, his gaze
lifting to the ceiling.
    “I thought Cerin had gone with Lucius,” he
said.
    “He did,” Meran told him. “That’s only his
harp playing.”
    The professor regarded her for a long, slow
moment.
    “Of course,” he finally said.
    Meran smiled. “It’s nothing to be nervous
about. Really. I’m more worried about what’s happened to
Jilly.”
    The sofa was wide enough that, with the
professor’s help, she was able to lay Jilly out beside the
stranger. Whatever had struck Jilly down was as much of a mystery
to Meran as the stranger’s original ailment. In her mind she began
to run through a list of other healers she could contact to ask for
help when there was a sudden commotion at the front door. A moment
later the crow girls trooped in with Cerin and Lucius following
behind them.
    “Jilly…?” Cerin began.
    Meran briefly explained what little she knew
of what had happened since they’d been gone.
    “We can’t help him,” Zia said before anyone
else could speak.
    “We tried,” Maida added, “but we weren’t so
very useful, were we?”
    Zia shook her head.
    “Not very useful at all,” Maida said.
    “But,” Zia offered, “we could maybe help
her.”
    Maida nodded and leaned closer to peer at
Jilly. “She’s very pretty, isn’t she? I think we know her.”
    “She’s Geordie’s friend,” Zia said.
    “Oh, yes.” Zia looked at Cerin. “But he
plays much nicer music.”
    “Ever so very much more.”
    “It’s for listening to, you see. Not for
making you do things.”
    “I’m sorry,” Cerin said. “But we needed to
get your attention.”
    “Well, we’re ever so very attentive now,”
Maida told him.
    Whereupon the pair of them went very still
and fixed Cerin with expectant gazes. He turned helplessly to his
wife.
    “How can you help Jilly?” she asked.
    “Jilly,” Maida repeated. “Is that her
name?”
    “Silly Jilly.”
    “Willy-nilly.”
    “Up down dilly.”
    “I’m sure making fun of her name’s helpful,”
Lucius said.
    “Oh, pooh,” Maida said. “Old Raven never
gets a joke.”
    “That’s the trouble with this raven, all
right,” Zia agreed.
    “We’ve seen jokes fly right out the window
when they see he’s in the room.”
    “About Jilly,” Meran tried again.
    “Well, you see,” Maida said, suddenly
serious. “The buffalo man is a piece of the Grace.”
    “And we can’t help the Grace—she has to help
herself.”
    Maida nodded. “But Jilly—”
    Zia giggled, then quickly put a hand over
her mouth.
    “—only needs to be shown the way back to her
being all of one piece again,” Maida finished.
    “You mean her spirit has gone somewhere?”
Cerin asked.
    “Duh.”
    “How can we bring her back?” Meran
asked.
    The crow girls looked at Cerin.
    “Well,” Zia said. “If you know her
calling-on song as well as you do ours, that would maybe work.”
    “I’ll get the roseharp,” Cerin said,
standing up.
    “Now he needs it in hand,” Lucius said.
    Cerin started to frame a reply, but