Threshold. Part 18

GLOSSARY OF PALEONTOLOGICAL AND GEOLOGICAL TERMS.

(mya = million years ago) actinistian The coelocanths, one of the three major groups of lobe-finned fishes (or sarcopterygians), which first appeared in the Middle Devonian.

amphineuran Primitive mollusks including the extant chitons.

brachiopod Also known as "lamp sh.e.l.ls"; marine invertebrates with two unequal valves.

bryozoan Group of small, colonial, marine invertebrates, superficially resembling corals.

calcareous Containing calcium carbonate (CaCO3).

Carboniferous Fifth subdivision of the Paleozoic Era, following the Devonian Period and preceding the Permian Period; 360 to 286 mya; in North America, the Carboniferous is subdivided into the Mississippian (lower Carboniferous) and Pennsylvanian (upper Carboniferous).

crinoid Group of predominantly sessile echinoderms, common throughout the Paleozoic with some forms surviving to the present day. Crinoid stems are very common fossils and compose the bulk of many Carboniferous limestones.

Devonian Fourth subdivision of the Paleozoic Era, following the Silurian Period and preceding the Mississippian Period; 410 to 360 mya.

eocrinoid Among the earliest-known echinoderm groups, ranging from the Early Cambrian to the Silurian.

ferruginous Term used by geologists to describe rocks with a high iron content, such as the Red Mountain Formation.

formation In stratigraphy, the primary unit into which rocks are divided, based on distinctive features or combinations of distinctive lithic features (i.e., Pottsville Formation, Red Mountain Formation, etc.).

genal spine In trilobites, elongated, paired, posteriorly directed processes from each side of the head (or cephalon).

geology Science that studies the earth, including its history, physical composition, and the processes which have formed it.

hemat.i.te A mineral, Fe2O3, the primary ore for iron.

horn corals Solitary, conical corals (Subcla.s.s Rugosa) common during much of the Paleozoic.

Marsh pick Double-headed pickax, named for American paleontologist O. C. Marsh (1831-1899), and commonly used by vertebrate paleontologists.

microfossil Fossil remains of microscopic organisms, such as nannoplankton, forams, and pollen; the domain of micropaleontology, once crucial to the location of oil deposits.

Miraspidinae Subfamily of spiny, Devonian trilobites, including the aptly named Dicranurus monstrosus.

Ordovician Second subdivision of the Paleozoic Era, following the Cambrian Period and preceding the Silurian Period; 505 to 440 mya.

Paleontology Branch of biology that deals with the history of life through the study of fossils.

Paleozoic One of the eras of geologic time, occurring between the Precambrian and Mesozoic eras; 544 to 245 mya.

Pangea The Pangean supercontinent comprised all the world's landma.s.ses and formed during the Late Carboniferous, but began to break apart during the Early Mesozoic Era.

Pelmatozoa Subphylum of echinoderms, most possessing jointed stems, including crinoids and eocrinoids.

pleural spine In trilobites, paired processes of varied length arising from the body (thorax).

occipital ring In trilobites, a portion near the rear of the head (or cephalon).

radula Movable toothed or rasping structure found in the mouths of mollusks, used in feeding.

rhipidistian Extinct group of predatory, freshwater lobe-finned fishes, dominant during the Late Paleozoic.

scale trees Large members (some over thirty-five meters high) of the Lycophyta, the oldest extant group of vascular plants, forming a major component of Carboniferous forests.

siderite A mineral, FeCO3, which may also contain Mn and Mg; chalybite.

Silurian Third subdivision of the Paleozoic Era, following the Ordovician Period and preceding the Devonian Period; 440 to 410 mya.

spicule Small calcareous or siliceous structures, contained in the tissues of some invertebrates, including sponges.

temnospondyl Very diverse and successful group of early amphibians, including giant, predatory forms reaching lengths of ten-plus meters. Common during the late Paleozoic, a few species survived as late as the Cretaceous Period (146-65 mya).

tetrapod Literally, "four-footed." Sarcopterygian "fishes" possessing distinct digits at the ends of paired fins; fish-and amphibian-like vertebrates that first appear in the Late Devonian and eventually abandoned freshwater habitats for land, giving rise to amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

trilobite Diverse group of marine arthropods with segmented sh.e.l.ls and compound eyes, common worldwide throughout the Paleozoic. Divided into eight major orders, more than fifteen thousand species are currently known.

Daughter of Hounds Available now from Roc THE ghoul lady takes out her white linen handkerchief and uses one corner to dab at her watering left eye. It's an old wound, a relic of her spent and reckless youth, but it still bothers her sometimes, especially when the weather Above is wet. And today the weather Above is very wet, all of Providence caught up in the final, rainy death-rattle sighs of something that was a hurricane only a few days before. She sits on the wooden stool that's been provided for her and blinks and gazes down her long muzzle at the dozens of faces staring impatiently back at her from the candlelight and shadows trapped beneath the Old North Burial Ground. The restless a.s.sembly of her wards, ghoul pups and human changelings seated together on the damp earth, wriggle about and whisper among themselves. She clicks her teeth together once, a sound that might draw blood, and they grow a little quieter. She wishes again that she were back in the warmth of her own dry burrow, deep beneath the bas.e.m.e.nt of the old yellow house on Benefit Street, the familiar weight of College Hill pressing down around her, protecting her ancient, aching bones and her bad eye from this d.a.m.ned inclement weather.

"Myself, I would have postponed this outing," she says, and not for the first time that night, "but Master Shardlace feels most emphatically that schedules are made to be kept, so here we are, one and all."

Up front, one of the changelings sneezes.

"Likely as not," says Madam Terpsich.o.r.e, addressing the child directly, "we shall all catch our deaths this evening. But let us not falter an instant in our dedication. At least the program shall not be disrupted," and with that, she shifts her poppy-colored eyes towards the spot where Master Shardlace, lately of the Mystic and Stonington Village warrens, is crouched, half hidden by the dangling roots of a sycamore tree. He flinches at her glance, and that gives her some small measure of satisfaction. "Wipe your nose," she barks at the child who sneezed, and it does so.

"The question at hand," Madam Terpsich.o.r.e continues, "that most urgent matter of history and propriety and etiquette which has brought us forth from the succor and haven of our dens, which has brought-nay, dragged-us each and every one out into this tempest-" And she pauses here to spare another acid glance for Master Shardlace and his roots. He pretends not to notice. "The question," she says, "is, indeed, a grave thing."

A few of the students snicker at the pun while Madam Terpsich.o.r.e dabs at her eye again. One careless moment more than a century ago, but she still bears this scar, the ugly mark of a lost instant's indecision, an insult that she would have done well to let pa.s.s, and tonight her eye would not be throbbing and watering as though it envied the storm above.

"A wonder we are not all drowned," she says dramatically and shakes her head.

"The lesson," Master Shardlace growls softly from his hiding place, prompting her, risking another glare or something more substantial. "If we could only proceed, we would sooner find ourselves home and snug again."

"Oh, most a.s.suredly," Terpsich.o.r.e hisses between her long incisors and eyeteeth, and he looks quickly down at the ground between his splayed feet and retreats deeper into the tangled veil of sycamore roots. She wonders, for the hundredth or so time, exactly what he might have done to deserve his exile and, more importantly, whyever Master Danas chose to give him safe haven in Providence. And, more importantly still, what she must have done to so displease the dark G.o.ds that she deserves to be weighted with such an officious waste of hide and bone and sinew. Her bad eye weeps, and she wipes the tears away.

"Yes," she sighs. "The lesson at hand," and the ghoul draws a deep breath, filling her lungs with air that smells and tastes and knows of the subtle complexities of mere human death, the turning of great stone wheels upon the infinite axis of time, the sugar-sweet reek of loss and forgetfulness and regret, slow rot and embalming and scurrying black beetles. Above, the storm reminds her that summer has finally given way to autumn, the orange-browngolden season of harvest, of reaping, of closing doors and grinning pumpkins, and if her kind ever had a season in this world, it would be autumn. She makes a tight fist and squeezes until her claws draw claret droplets of blood, then Madam Terpsich.o.r.e opens her left hand and holds it out for all to see.

"We play so desperately at being fearsome things," she says, and her sooty lips curl back in an expression that is not nearly so kind as a smile, but still something more charitable than a snarl or a grimace. One of the changelings coughs then, the same girl who sneezed a few seconds before, a pretty ginger-haired girl who has chosen for herself the name of Sparrow Spooner, a name she borrowed from a tombstone as has always been the custom of the stolen ones, the Children of the Cuckoo.

"Take strength, child," Madam Terspisch.o.r.e tells Sparrow Spooner, and the ghul offers her bleeding hand to the girl. "Warm yourself against the cold and the wet and what's to come."

Sparrow Spooner hesitates, glancing anxiously from Madam Terpsich.o.r.e to the faces of the other students. She can see that some of them are jealous of her, and some are frightened for her, and some are hardly paying any mind at all. A pup named Consequence rolls his yellow eyes, and a boy who hasn't yet taken a name sticks out his tongue at her. She turns back to the ghoul, not pretending that she has a choice, and crawls on her hands and knees until she's kneeling in front of Madam Terpsich.o.r.e's stool.

"We need the world to think us monsters," the ghoul says to her, "and so monsters we become."

The girl leans forward and begins to lick at the blood oozing from her mistress's leathery, mottled palm.

"We must, all of us, keep apart the night from the day, the world Above from the world Below, the shadows from the sun, and we must keep them apart at any cost," Madam Terpsich.o.r.e says, watching the others as she gently strokes the child's head with her free hand, her razor claws teasing at Sparrow Spooner's matted ginger hair. "Even if we should find our death of cold in the effort."

"There has been a breach," Master Shardlace grumbles from the safety of his place among the sycamore's dangling, dirt-clod roots. "A trespa.s.s has occurred, and we are all-"

"I am coming to that," Madam Terpsich.o.r.e barks back at him, and he mutters to himself and grows silent again.

Sparrow Spooner stops cleaning her mistress' bleeding left hand and gazes up at Madam Terpsich.o.r.e. Her lips and chin and the tip of her nose are smeared with sticky crimson, and she absently wipes her mouth on the sleeve of her dingy dress.

"I know you, child. You've come a long, long way, through the Trial of Fire and the Trial of Blades. Next full Hunger Moon, you're up to face the Trial of Serpents and, if you survive, you'll win your Confirmation."

The changeling only nods her head, not so dull or frightened that she doesn't understand that the time for words has long since come and gone. The ghoul's blood is bitter and salty on her tongue and burns her throat going down to her belly. But it warms her, too, pushing back some of the chill that's worked its way into her soul.

"Do you know the story of Esmeribetheda and the three gray witches?" Madam Terpsich.o.r.e asks the changeling, and Sparrow Spooner nods her head again. Of course she knows the story, has known it since she was very young, one of the seventy-four "Parables of Division" recorded in the Red Book of Riyadh and taught to the Children of the Cuckoo before they are even old enough to read the words for themselves.

"Then you remember the crime of Esmeribetheda, don't you?" Madam Terpsich.o.r.e asks Sparrow Spooner.

"Yes ma'am," the girl replies and wipes her mouth again. The blood on her face has begun to dry, turning the color of rust.

"Then, will you tell us, please?" and she motions towards the other students. "Perhaps some of the others have forgotten." For a moment, the chamber beneath the cemetery comes alive with nervous chatter and t.i.ttering laughter at Sparrow's predicament. But Madam Terpsich.o.r.e silences them with a glare.

"She . . . Esmeribetheda became curious, and she wanted-"

"Stand up, please," Madam Terpsich.o.r.e says, interrupting her. "Stand up and face the cla.s.s, not me. I already know the story."

"So do they," the changeling replies and earns a scowl and another click of the teeth from her mistress. She apologizes for her impudence and gets to her feet, brushing some of the mud from her dress and bare legs, then turns to face the others.

"Esmeribetheda became curious, and she wanted to know how the children of men and women lived, what it was like to have a mother and father. She wanted to know what she'd lost when the Hounds of Cain had stolen her from her crib."

"And what did she do to learn these things?" Madam Terpsich.o.r.e asks.

"She was sought out by three human witches, Arabian necromancers determined to locate a route to the world Below that they might learn its secrets and gain greater power in their arts. In the desert, at an altar beneath a dead tree that had once served as a temple to the G.o.ddess Han-Uzzai, Al-Uzza, youngest daughter of Allah, she was met by a blue-eyed crow. In truth, though, the crow was one of the witches who had disguised herself, and it promised that Esmeribetheda would be reunited with her parents if she'd show the necromancers a doorway and lead them down to the Hall of-" and Sparrow Spooner stops talking and looks over her shoulder at Madam Terpsich.o.r.e.

"What's wrong, dear?" the ghouls asks her. "Have you forgotten what comes next?"

"No, ma'am," the girl replies. "But they know the story. They know all of it."

"Yes, but we never, ever suffer from hearing a good tale retold, do we? Especially when it's a story with so much to teach us, so much we should take pains to remember."

Sparrow Spooner licks at her dry lips, tasting the ghoul's blood again. The warmth it left in her stomach has already begun to fade, replaced with something hard and cold that twists and turns like a winding ball of pink worms, something much colder than the late November night.

"Continue, please," Madam Terpsich.o.r.e says.

"Well, Esmeribetheda was shown images of the life she might have lived. She saw herself in her mother's arms. She saw her brothers and sisters. She saw herself growing into a young woman and marrying a handsome man who gave her children of her own, children she could keep. The witches promised her she could have all this back, all that might have been, if she'd show them the road down to the hounds. She agreed that she would, and the crow flew away to tell the other witches."

"She agreed to show them the way?" Madam Terpsich.o.r.e asks. "Even though she knew perfectly well that it was forbidden of her to reveal those paths to mortal men?"

"Yes," Sparrow Spooner replies, promising herself that whatever's going to happen, she won't cry. She doesn't want the others to see her cry. "She was a very foolish and ungrateful girl. She'd never been able to accept the life she'd been given. On a moonless night, Esmeribetheda led the witches across the sands to a warren doorway. But the hounds knew, and they were waiting for her."

The nameless boy who'd stuck his tongue out at her earlier was now pretending to hang himself, tugging at an imaginary noose before his head lolled to one side in a pantomime of strangulation. The ghoul named Consequence snickered, but Madam Terpsich.o.r.e seemed not to notice them.

"And what happened next?" she asks Sparrow Spooner.

"The three witches were killed there on the spot and their corpses carried down into the tunnels. Esmeribetheda was led back through the dunes to the dead tree in the desert, and the ghouls hung her there, and then they set the tree on fire."

"Yes," Madam Terpsich.o.r.e says, speaking now so softly that only the changeling would hear. "They did. Would you call that justice, child?"

Sparrow glances over at the rootsy place where Master Shardlace is hiding, as though he might decide to help when she knows d.a.m.ned well that he won't, that she's been brought here tonight instead of some other, later night at his insistence.

"Was it justice?" Madam Terpsich.o.r.e asks again, and now she rises from her place on the stool, standing up straight so that she looms over the girl and her head almost sc.r.a.pes against the low roof of the chamber.

"Esmeribetheda just . . . she only wanted to go home. . . . She only wanted to get back the life that had been taken away from her."

"I know the story, child," the ghoul sighs, almost whispering, and presses her muzzle gently against Sparrow Spooner's cheek. "I have asked you a question."

"She wanted to go home," the changeling says. "That's all. She wanted to go home."

"Your life will be spared," Madam Terpsich.o.r.e says, not unkindly, her wet nose nuzzling the girl's face, her eyes on the other students. "But there must be a punishment, you understand that?"

"Yes, ma'am," the changeling girl says, her legs gone suddenly so weak that she's afraid she might fall. Her mistress's breath, hot as a summer day, smells of lifeless, broken things that have lain a long time beneath the soil.

"She should die," Master Shardlace growls.

"No, she will live," Madam Terpsich.o.r.e tells him, "but she will always remember this night and the folly of her actions. She will learn, tonight, that desire is only another demon that would happily see her strung from the branches of a burning tree."

"And what of the witch?" demands Master Shardlace.

"The witch will die, just as the three died in the story of poor, misguided Esmeribetheda." And Madame Terpsich.o.r.e grips Sparrow Spooner by the back of the head and forces the girl down onto her knees. From the shadows, there comes the rough sound of stone grating against stone, stone ground against metal, and then a sudden gust of fresh night air threatens to extinguish the candles. All the changelings and ghoul pups turn to see the open door leading up to the cemetery and the world Above and to behold the face of the one who has led Sparrow astray from the path set for her by the Cuckoo.

"You be strong, child," Madame Terpsich.o.r.e tells Sparrow Spooner, and the girl shuts her eyes.

The old hea.r.s.e, a 1948 Caddy slick and long and blacker than the stormy New England night, subtle as a f.u.c.king heart attack, rolls unchallenged through the wild Ma.s.sachusetts night. In the pa.s.senger seat, Soldier drifts between her uneasy dreams and the nagging edges of wakefulness, dozing and waking and dozing again to the metronome rhythm of the windshield wipers. The radio's set to a cla.s.sic rock station out of Boston, and she's already told that a.s.shole Sheldon that she'll break his G.o.dd.a.m.n fingers if he so much as touches the dial. He can listen to that college s.h.i.t on his own dime, not when she's trying to catch a couple hours shut-eye before a job.

After Providence and their brief meeting with the Bailiff and one of his boys at the Dunkin' Donuts on Thayer Street, the hea.r.s.e left the city and followed I-95 north all the way up to and across the New Hampshire state line, finally doubling back at Hampton Beach, because that's the way the Bailiff had told them to do it. Just like always, everything worked out ahead of time to the letter and in accordance with the Bailiff's precise instructions, the plans he'd cobbled together from star charts and newspaper astrologers and the obscure intersections of geometry and geography, nothing Soldier even pretended to understand. She listened when he talked and did what she was told.

Past the Hamptons, then on to Salisbury and Newburyport, US 1 traded for Route 1A, past sleeping houses and fishing boats tied up secure against the storm, across the bridge spanning the brackish confluence of the Merrimack River and Newburyport Bay. Other bridges over other lesser waters, over railroad tracks, Rowley to Ipswich, and when Sheldon jabs her in the arm and tells her to wake up, Soldier tells him to f.u.c.k off. But she opens her eyes, anyway, squinting out at the dark streetlights and the darker windows of the houses along High Street and the raindrops. .h.i.tting the windshield. Eric and the Animals are coming through the Caddy's speakers, "White Houses," and at least that's one thing about the night that's all right by her.

"We're there?" she croaks, her mouth dry as ashes, and reaches for the pint bottle she stashed beneath the seat before leaving Rhode Island. "Why the f.u.c.k is it so dark?"

"Not quite, but close enough," Sheldon replies. "Time to rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty."

"f.u.c.k you."

"Babe, if I thought there was time-"

"Why is it so dark?" she asks him again. "What's up with the streetlights?"

"Power's out. The storm, I expect."

"Jesus, I need a G.o.dd.a.m.n drink," Soldier says, interrupting the driver, and her hand only has to grope about for a moment before it closes around the neck of the pint of George d.i.c.kel.