Chapter 13

We spoke of trivialities for a while, as we sipped our tea, Spinner, the Woodwise and I. Spinner decided he liked the theme and slipped into the form of Captain Hook, a replica of the very over-the-top, foppish Hook from the ancient Dustin Hoffman version from the movie Hook. Trying to pull off a very British high tea with a hook for one hand appeared to be quite a challenge. No wonder the old pirate was so utterly mad.

"You are seldom one to act on impulse, Skye," Spinner said at last. "What brings you to my little house on the hill?"

"Spinner, I meant to come originally because I had questions about the life I envision ahead of me that I thought you and Woodwise might be able to answer, or hoped that you might at least point me in the direction of the answers. But recently I've fallen into another bog entirely that has me here with other worries."

Spinner leaned forward then, examining me through Hook's monocle. A watery blue eye with lush thick black eyelashes peering at me out of it. I felt the Dream World swirl around me as he did.

"You are no prophet like your Grandfather, and Fate has not dug her claws into you so completely as she has your father, but something works its way around you. Something familiar but not long seen, I think." Spinner said at last.

"Don't play that game with the girl," the Woodwise argued. "You know as well as I what that something is."

"Of course, dear Woodwise, of course. The question though is, how much of it does she know? How much has she guessed about what her path is?" Spinner's monocled eye was off me now and he raised an eyebrow at Woodwise as he asked this. The other eyebrow of course, else the monocle would fall out.

"Indeed," the Woodwise agreed with a sober nod. Well, as a sober a nod as someone who looks like Peter Pan can manage. Especially when he's hopping up into a Peter Pan stance, wide-legged stance with his hands on his hips, to throw a Peter Pan kind of challenge. "So tell us Skye, can you name yourself?"

The Dream World rippled around me again as he asked.

"I am a Walker," I answered standing myself and stepping back from the picnic table. My own appearance shifted, back into my own shape, but wrapped in something darker. Something ragged and fading into nothingness at the edges. "I am a Walker between Worlds."

"So it seems, young one," Spinner said, and shifted into something a little hard on the eyes. A swirl of color and space. A coil of nothing wrapped in void, dipped in thought and streaked with Light. The Woodwise too had shifted, becoming a coiled, writhing knot of vine and root dipped in silver and diamond.

"When they were children, your aunts, Jeni and Maia wrote their first song. It gets played at family gatherings even today, more to tease Maia than anything else. Do you remember it?" Spinner asked.

I began to sing it, and Spinner and the Woodwise smiled widely as I did.

Whether its day or whether its night
The Light is there to make things right.
Light is Life, Life is Light.

At work or play, awake or dreaming
The Light is there, constantly streaming.
Light is Life, Life is Light.

In the darkness, Light will guide you
Safe and warm, Light will keep you
Light is Life, Life is Light.

"A simple belief, isn't it?" the Woodwise asked.

"But they were children then. A simple view was expected," Spinner added.

"Simple beliefs are a soft trap to fall into though, and the children, even as their ancestors had, let themselves fall into it," The Woodwise said sadly. "And the Legion and the Guardians with them.

"But it is a comfortable trap, and one which allows for much good. Great purpose can exist within it," Spinner spun brightly.

"But there are more forces at work in building reality than the Light," Woodwise added harshly, "and the McKessons and the Guardians and those who follow them have thought lightly of them, even when they knew of them."

Spinner spun and giggled, "Pun! Pun, pun, pun!" then stopped spinning suddenly and gave me the raised eyebrow again. This time it was the monocled side and the glass fell off his face to hang by its cord. "Lots of forces involved, and that's not even mentioning some of what goes into building good bits of not-reality," Spinner swirled again as he finished.

"Though they understand that some of their gifts are not borne of the Light," They were ping-ponging me now with statements, alternating, one after the other.

"Having discovered and learned to control the Dream Stuff, even to knowing that it can pervade and change entire realities, they relegate it to a secondary position."

"Having been given a glimpse into the wellsprings of creativity and the keys to exploring the edges of real space by Rob Young, the Guardians choose to merely monitor the situation."