Julia

  Petawawa is deserted, its buildings half-buried in snow. The place seems so desolate that I can hardly look at it with relief, and yet…after three days trekking through the cold, I’m grateful to reach a destination.

  At the very least, it promises a distraction. I spent the better part of yesterday hanging back from the others, trying unsuccessfully to raise Lester; if he—or whatever echo of him haunted the chalk—still existed, he was in no mood to talk.

  The rest of the time was spent worrying about myself. Mr. Elsevier’s latest response had, in some ways, gotten even more deeply under my skin than when he’d just straight-up tortured me. Before, I’d been traumatized; now, I’m racked with self-doubt, which is vastly worse. Doubt can get you killed when you’re in a frozen wilderness, walking in the wrong direction.

  *

  I sidle up alongside Géraldine as the first houses come into view, my stomach growling. We haven’t had a bite of meat since that fish she caught two days ago, and I can tell that the spoils that I looted from busted vending machines back on campus aren’t going to sustain us much longer, no matter how we ration them. “I, uh—I don’t suppose that you left any food behind at your place,” I try to say conversationally.

  “Mm.” She shakes her head. “Took it all with me.”

  “Ah,” I sigh. “Well, maybe…we’d have more luck at one of these other houses.”

  “Wouldn’t count on it,” she says sympathetically. And then, she pauses to look around. “Strange seein’ it like this.”

  “The town you mean.”

  “Mm.”

  “Yes, it’s…honestly a bit unsettling,” I reply, and then give her a sympathetic look. “I assume that the regiment here was called up when the Gentry came.”

  “Called ’em all up,” she replies. “Even the Air Force after the planes stopped working. Hell of a lotta good it did.”

  “I…recall you telling me that Paul’s dad was a soldier,” I say carefully.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Géraldine shrugs. “How it goes sometimes.” She draws in the cold air with a sniff and shakes her head. “Never figured I’d end up back here.”

  “Are you two planning to dawdle after we’ve come all this way?” breaks in Mr. Elsevier from somewhere behind us. “Or shall we find your grandson?”

  Géraldine gives me a look. I try to smile encouragingly.

  “Alright,” she says. “Follow me.”

  *

  We come upon Géraldine’s house, which—like the other military homes—is a wide bungalow with off-white wooden siding. After a bit of fiddling with the lock, the front door swings inward, spraying powdery snow into her entryway.

  “My home is your home,” she announces.

  Mr. Elsevier and I follow her inside. Cold and gloomy as the house may be, I must still resist the urge to take off my boots; tracking snow over someone’s living-room rug just feels so…wrong.

  We follow Géraldine down a narrow hallway stemming off from the living room and into what I presume to be Paul’s bedroom.

  “I didn’t change nothing after he—” Her voice cracks slightly. “After he left.”

  I look around. Paul’s bedroom is a cluttered mess, as much a studio as a place to spend the night. There’s a single-sized bed in the corner, a small dresser, an acoustic guitar reposing next to a chair on the far side. But all of these are lost amidst the room’s dominant feature: art. There are dozens of paintings, drawings, printouts, and sketches on the walls; I count six sketchbooks piled up on his desk by the window, and, just offset from the room’s centre, an easel sits empty.

  “They’re all his, I assume.”

  “Most of ’em, yeah,” answers Géraldine. I discern a twinge of pride in her voice.

  “He’s actually pretty good.”

  I know little about art, but his work stands out nonetheless; by the looks of things, he’s yet to settle upon a distinct style—some of his works are photorealistic, others look inspired by comics or animé, others are in (what I assume to be) a traditional Cree style—but in almost every case, he makes vibrant use of colour.

  “His dad thought it was a waste of money,” says Géraldine ruefully. “But yeah, he’s damn good.”

  “A little too good, really,” says Elsevier, lifting a huge, coil-ringed book from the floor and holding it up for inspection. For the briefest of instants, some strange emotion seems to play across his face, but he buries it rapidly. “Tell me, Géraldine, was this, by some chance, your grandson’s last painting?”

  Géraldine studies it. “You know, I think it was on his easel just after it happened. I mean, the cops moved everything around when they were searchin’ the place. But yeah, I remember this one; it’s so different from his usual stuff.”

  She’s not wrong. The others are bold and colourful; this one—a simple watercolour of a foggy winterscape—looks drab and almost painfully muted. The colour is difficult to describe: not quite grey, nor purple, nor brown, nor yellow. The precise colour of sorrow, I think, and then it occurs to me a second later that I have absolutely no idea where this thought came from.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  It’s the only nature scene in Paul’s room. Indeed, the only indications of any human presence in the image are a trail of footprints in the snow and a lonely tower on a distant hillside, seeming practically part of the forest.

  “How did you know?” Géraldine asks Elsevier.

  He doesn’t respond right away but instead continues to study the painting. I try to discern the Fairy’s emotional state, but his face betrays nothing.

  “Mr. Elsevier—”

  He turns abruptly to face her. “So, I have good news and bad news. Which would you like first?”

  She blinks. “Uh—good, I guess?”

  “Very well. I know where you grandson went.”

  Géraldine gasps so sharply it becomes a laugh. “Ce—c’est fantastique! But how? And—and where? I mean—”

  Elsevier gestures at Paul’s last artwork with a pale finger. “This painting.”

  For a moment, my companion furrows her brow, and then, right as I’m about to demand that Elsevier tell us what he knows, she exclaims: “Oh!”

  “What—” I stop myself mid-question and look to Géraldine.

  “This ain’t no painting!” she exclaims. “Can’t you see? It’s real!”

  “I don’t underst—”

  “Here, look,” says Géraldine, moving excitedly toward me. “Keep lookin’ at the paintin’, yeah? Now…” She grabs my head and very subtly adjusts my perspective.

  I gasp in surprise. The effect is subtle—the landscape is sufficiently drab and uniform and most of its distinguishing features are far enough in the distance that it’s not obvious—but the perspective noticeably changes, just as if I were looking out a window.

  “Some kind of…holograph,” I suggest, though the explanation doesn’t sound convincing even as I say it. The painting is very obviously a painting, done by hand in watercolour. And yet, somehow, it encodes 3D information about the landscape it represents. “No. It’s—a wormhole. Or…or a bijection between points in different spacetimes—”

  “Or a magic painting,” quips Elsevier. “But please, don’t let me interrupt your floundering attempts to rationalize.”

  I feel a blush rise to my cheeks. “That’s…another thing you could call it.”

  “It’s a door!” exclaims Géraldine, too enraptured to care. “Then these footprints…belong to Paul, don’t they?” she says, reaching out her hand. “Oh, they look fresh! If we could just…”

  Her fingers brush up against the paper. Only paper.

  For a long a moment, her hand lingers there. And then, finally, Géraldine brings it down to her side, her whole body sagging like her muscles were made of lead.

  “…For what it’s worth, you were right,” says Elsevier, returning the book to the floor and laying a hand on her shoulder. “In fact, it was both a painting and the landscape itself—for a time. But magics of this type are notoriously unstable—hm—particularly when you use watercolours. The gateway is gone.”

  “I suppose that’s the bad news,” I remark, tamping down my distaste for the idea that spacetime geometry could depend upon paint.

  “Actually, the bad news is that Paul is almost certainly dead.”

  Géraldine suddenly stands bolt upright. “Quoi!?”

  “Votre petit-fils est mort presque certainement. I apologize if that was unclear.”

  Even after everything, I can scarcely believe Elsevier’s callousness. Géraldine balls her hands into fists. “That’s a lie!”

  “It is not,” retorts Elsevier. “And as you are grieving, I shall excuse your impugnment of my honour—once. But you will understand that I wish to be released from my contract—”

  “Paul’s not dead!”

  I watch in mute horror as the two face each other. I feel for Géraldine, but this could end very badly for her.

  Elsevier’s voice is level when he replies. “Oh no? This painting abuts onto True Sorrow; one of the most dangerous locales in all Faerie. Tell me, dear Géraldine: if I am afraid to go there…how do you suppose that a fifteen-year-old human boy would fare?”

  I search Géraldine’s features. I hate to admit it, but he makes a compelling argument.

  “In fact, come to think of it,” he goes on, “he disappeared before the cold set in, didn’t he? From out of a locked room? Tell me, Géraldine, did he habitually keep supplies for winter travel in here? Or even his boots? Or even his coat?” He pauses to let his point set in; Géraldine’s face remains stony. “Pray, what odds would you give his survival?” Elsevier demands.

  “A hundred percent,” Géraldine replies, not skipping.

  “An…interesting assessment.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “‘Cause my grandson’s not a fuckin’ idiot who’d just wander off in the snow in his socks.”

  “Not if he were in his right mind, maybe,” says Elsevier. “But True Sorrow is a place of despair, and a boy in his right mind wouldn’t have painted it in the first place. Something must have driven him to it, and—were I to guess—” he lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper—“I would say that it was probably you.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Oh, I’ve struck a nerve! Do tell! I’ve heard art always comes from a place of suffering. Did you make him suffer, Géraldine?”

  “I said shut the hell up!”

  “Look,” I say, interposing myself between them. “Elsevier: stop being such an ass! Géraldine…” I pause.

  “What?” she demands, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “W-well, we’ve been walking for hours,” I say after a moment. “We haven’t had a real meal in two days. I think that, before we leap into anything—”

  “I ain’t leapin’ into nothin’,” she says coldly. “Me and Elsevier, we have a deal. I took him to this portal and now he’s gonna fucking cough up on his end!”

  “I’m trying to do you a favour, you vainglorious human fool!” he exclaims.

  “Like fuck you are!”

  “Géraldine—” I plead.

  She glares at me.

  My words die on my tongue.

  “…Tiend with both of you,” Elsevier murmurs, breaking the silence. “Very well. You want True Sorrow? Follow me!”

  With that, he snatches the art book back up in his hand, turns on one foot, and walks out the door. Géraldine is hot on his heels before I can even process the situation: “Wait up, you bastard!”

  “What are you—we can’t leave now!” I protest, following them into the living room. “We’re exhausted; we’re almost out of food; we need a chance to rest and resupply—”

  Elsevier waves his hand and Géraldine’s front door explodes in a shower of splinters. Without even breaking his pace, he stalks off into the yard, Géraldine following.

  “…Or maybe not,” I murmur.

  We left our snowshoes and supply-laden toboggans resting at the foot of the front steps. Elsevier breezes contemptuously past them.

  “Elsevier, slow down!” shouts Géraldine.

  “Slow down?” he retorts. “But poor little Paul is in trouble! Surely every moment counts!”

  “Wait!” I exclaim. “You said the main gateway to Faerie was guarded! And there must be some way to reopen the painting—”

  But Elsevier is already powering along.

  Géraldine’s gaze follows him, her expression angrier and more determined than I have ever seen it. Before I can even find words to say, she’s already ploughing after him, not even taking the time to put on snowshoes.

  “Géraldine, this is insane!” I exclaim. “True Sorrow could be a thousand kilometres away, and we barely have rations for another day!"

  “Come or don’t,” she tells me. “But I ain’t losing sight of him!”

  No sooner has she said these words than she is off again.

  “…I’ll, uh—I’ll catch up with the supplies!” I shout.

  She acknowledges with a perfunctory wave. A moment later, the pair of them round a bend, leaving me alone with the toboggans.

  There might be enough food for one person to make it back to Ottawa, I think uncharitably. From a strictly rational standpoint, it’s the obvious choice. The odds were never good that I would actually secure an apprenticeship, and that was before I’d known that the knowledge that Elsevier had offered to share was potentially a threat to reality itself. I’d already probably killed Lester; now, my quest showed every sign of becoming a pointless suicide march. Carrying on would be a textbook example of the sunk-cost fallacy. With the food, I could make it back to the city. Maybe things have improved there; maybe I could live out the rest of my life—

  Ignorant of everything except the fact that I’d let my friend die in the forest.

  Shit.

  With that thought in my mind and a few bags of Hickory Sticks in my toboggan, I set off toward certain death.