eBookFirst Edition (First Edition)
Related collections and offers
Overview
In Widdershins, fantasy author Charles de Lint has delivered one of his most accessible and moving works of his career.
Jilly Coppercorn and Geordie Riddell. Since they were introduced in the first Newford story, "Timeskip," back in 1989, their friends and readers alike have been waiting for them to realize what everybody else already knows: that they belong together. But they've been more clueless about how they feel for each other than the characters in When Harry Met Sally. Now in Widdershins, a stand-alone novel of fairy courts set in shopping malls and the Bohemian street scene of Newford's Crowsea area, Jilly and Geordie's story is finally being told.
Before it's over, we'll find ourselves plunged into the rancorous and sometimes violent conflict between the magical North American "animal people" and the more newly-arrived fairy folk. We'll watch as Jilly is held captive in a sinister world based on her own worst memories—and Geordie, attempting to help, is sent someplace even worse. And we'll be captivated by the power of love and determination to redeem ancient hatreds and heal old magics gone sour.
To walk "widdershins" is to walk counterclockwise or backwards around something. It's a classic pathway into the fairy realm. It's also the way people often back slowly into the relationships that matter, the real ones that make for a life.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429911344 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tor Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 03/26/2024 |
| Series: | Newford Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 568 |
| Sales rank: | 197,531 |
| File size: | 978 KB |
About the Author
Charles de Lint and his wife, the artist MaryAnn Harris, live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His evocative novels, including Moonheart, Forests of the Heart, and The Onion Girl, have earned him a devoted following and critical acclaim as a master of contemporary magical fiction in the manner of storytellers like John Crowley, Jonathan Carroll, Alice Hoffman, Ray Bradbury, and Isabel Allende.
Read an Excerpt
Widdershins
By Charles de Lint, Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Tom Doherty Associates
Copyright © 2006 Charles de LintAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-1134-4
CHAPTER 1
The Dispute at the Crossroads
Lizzie Mahone
March 2004
The crossroads at midnight. Or at least a crossroads, and while it was long past midnight, it still had the feel of the witching hour about it.
If Lizzie Mahone had been superstitious, she might have been more nervous about her car breaking down as it had, here where two county roads crossed in the middle of nowhere with nothing to mark the spot but an enormous old elm tree, half dead from a lightning strike. And the thought still crossed her mind as she got out of the car and popped the hood, her flashlight beam playing over the Chevy's V-6 engine. You couldn't be a musician and not know the story, how the old bluesman Robert Johnson once met the devil himself at the crossroads. But that had been in the Delta, deep south. This was just the dusty meeting place of a couple of dirt roads, surrounded by farmers' fields and bush. Nothing mysterious here, though that big old moon lent an eerie light to the elm tree and there was something in the wind....
Yes, Lizzie thought. Her imagination. Better it should concentrate instead on what was wrong with the car.
She jiggled the wires going to the distributor cap and battery, but that was about the extent of her mechanical knowledge when it came to cars, and she only tried it because it was something that others had done when the car broke down in the past. Sometimes it had even worked. She didn't really have a clue what she was doing, or what she should be looking for. Cars started when you turned the key, or they didn't. The world between the two was as mysterious as where the tunes she made up came from, though with the latter, at least, she had the faith that if she needed a piece of music, it would come. Maybe not right away. It could be late, sneaking up on her while she was in the shower, or down at the grocery store, walking down the aisles, hours or even days after she first started looking for the melody to go with a title or a feeling or the first couple of bars she already had. But it would come.
That wouldn't happen trying to figure out what was wrong with this confusing mess of wires, pipes, and engine parts. She didn't have faith, for one thing. And she certainly didn't have the mechanical background the way she had such an easy familiarity with her fiddle.
So a spontaneous solution to her problem was pretty much out of the question.
And, of course, she'd let her cell phone go dead when she could have easily had it charging while they were up on stage this evening. But she hadn't thought of that until she was in the parking lot after the show, getting into her car.
She looked up and down the dirt road she was standing on. There were no headlights visible in either direction. She hadn't seen another car or a farmhouse or pretty much anything since leaving Sweetwater and the bar where the band had played tonight. In retrospect, she should have stayed over as the others were doing. Right now they'd be hanging around in the bar, or in one of the rooms that the bar had provided for them upstairs, playing some tunes or just sharing a drink and some chat. But wishful thinking was always easier in retrospect, wasn't it? And if she had stayed, there probably would have been problems with Con, who couldn't seem to get it through that thick head of his that they weren't an item, never had been, never would be.
There was nothing really wrong with him. He was charming and good looking, easy to get along with, and while he might be just a touch too fond of the drink, he was a wonderful guitar player. She simply had her rules.
"What do you have against dating musicians?" he'd asked the last time the subject came up.
"Absolutely nothing — so long as I'm not playing in the same band as they are."
"But —"
"Oh, I know. What could be more perfect? Working and playing and loving together. Except, my somewhat drunk and certainly randy friend, when it all comes apart, then you're still stuck playing together. Or more likely, one of you has to leave, and I want neither to start a new band nor to break in yet another guitarist."
"It didn't take that long for me to come up to speed with your repertoire."
"Exactly. You're a great guitarist, so I don't want to lose you."
"Maybe this rejection will hurt so much that I'll have to leave."
She'd smiled. "And maybe when you sober up in the morning, you'll realize that this is a great gig you have with us and isn't it lucky you didn't let your libido screw it up."
That conversation had taken place last weekend when they were in Champion, north of Tyson and on the other side of the mountains. Sweetwater, being as close to home as it was — only an hour and a half if you went by the back roads as she'd been doing — made it much easier to come up with some excuse about having stuff to do in the city tomorrow morning and get in the car, rather than have to go through it all again with him.
Except now she was stuck in the middle of nowhere at — she checked her watch — three A.M. She'd probably have to sleep in the car, because there certainly didn't seem to be anybody else on the road, which might actually be a good thing, considering. But she'd be more nervous breaking down on her own in some parts of the city than she was here. Country folk could get as rambunctious and rowdy as their more cosmopolitan cousins — more so, if some of the gigs they played were any barometer — but they usually didn't have the meanness you could sometimes find in urban centers. She felt safer watching a bar fight from the relative safety of the stage in a country bar than walking alone at night down, say, any of the streets running off Palm back in the city.
And even if some cowboy got out of hand ... well, it never came to much. She knew how to take care of herself, as more than one big strapping lug who wouldn't hear the word no had found out. While she might look like "just a wee lass with too much hair," as Pappy liked to describe her — though still standing six-foot-six at eighty-two years of age, pretty much everybody was smaller than her grandfather — she was stronger than she looked. She could box and wrestle, not to mention fight as dirty as most men half again her size. It wasn't how big or small you were — Johnny, her sparring partner at the gym was forever saying — but what you did with what you had.
At least the night was balmy. There were still patches of snow to be seen in some of the fields and in the bottoms of the ditches, but the temperature was well above freezing. Typical spring weather for these parts, really: spring one day, the trees filled with the welcome calls of migratory songbirds, and the next it could snow again. But tonight was mild and the air smelled expectant, ready for spring.
She left the hood up so that if anybody did come by they'd know she was having car trouble and not just drive by while she was fast sleep in the backseat. She had a blanket, and a candle in case it got colder, though she doubted she'd need the latter. In the trunk there was also an umbrella, a collapsible shovel, a jug of water, a box of crackers, and a couple of chocolate bars. The other band members teased her sometimes about always being so prepared, though if she was really the Girl Scout they thought she was, she'd have at least charged her phone before leaving the bar.
Still, what was done, was done. She'd make her bed in the backseat and she'd get some sleep in it, too. Tomorrow morning was soon enough to worry about how she was going to get the car up and running again.
But first she had to have a pee.
She could have just gone beside the car — it wasn't as though there was any traffic, or even much chance of it — but she still felt better pushing through the old dead weeds in the ditch and going behind the elm tree.
It was when she was pulling her jeans up that she heard the voices.
She zipped up quickly, then hesitated about showing herself. There were too many voices, low and rumbling, joking and laughing. She made out four, maybe five different ones. Peeking around the elm, she looked either way down the road.
At first she didn't see anyone. Then she realized she was looking too high. Approaching from the direction she'd been heading in, before the car up and died on her, was a gang of boys, almost hidden from her sight by the weeds. She'd been looking for men, because the voices were men's voices.
As they drew nearer, she readjusted her thinking yet again. The bright moonlight showed a group of little men tramping down the road toward her. She was five-foot-six, but not one of them would come up to her shoulder. Their heads seemed large for their bodies, and they were dressed as though they were returning from some medieval reenactment — a Renaissance Faire, perhaps — with old-fashioned leather trousers and jerkins, and short swords or long knives sheathed at their belts. They all had quivers and carried bows, and three of them were carrying the bloodied remains of some kind of large animal. A deer, perhaps.
About the same time as she was able to make them out better, they became aware of her car, though why they hadn't noticed it sooner, she couldn't say. Probably they'd been too busy with joking and congratulating each other on a good hunt. But they had noticed it now.
They stopped, the two not carrying meat immediately nocking arrows to bowstrings as they all looked around.
Lizzie ducked back behind the elm.
"What's this?" she heard one of them say.
"Someone's bad luck."
That brought a round of laughter.
"Maybe good luck for us. Anything inside worth nicking?"
Oh, no, Lizzie thought. Her fiddle case was lying right there on the backseat.
"Anybody inside worth eating?" someone added to more laughter.
Lizzie had been about to step out from behind the tree and take the chance that they were more wind than bite, but at that last comment she stayed hidden, pressed herself tightly against the bark, and tried not to breathe.
"There's food in the boot," one of them said.
"Anything good?"
"Chokky bars and biscuits ... oh, and a jug."
"Lovely, lovely."
"'Cept it's just bloody water."
"Now who'd waste a good jug on carrying about water?"
Lizzie had left the trunk open while she went to have her pee. Maybe they'd be satisfied with what they found in it. Maybe they wouldn't look in the car itself.
But then she heard one of the car doors open.
"Looks to be our fool's a musician. There's a fiddle case just a-lying here."
"That can't be right. Where's the fiddler who doesn't drink?"
"Better question still, where's the fiddler?"
All of Lizzie's bravery had long since fled. There was something not right about these little men.
She'd thought they were midgets or dwarves.
She'd thought they'd come from some Faire.
She'd thought that she wasn't really in any danger.
But there were no Faires at this time of year — not around here. If there was, she'd know, because her band would probably be playing at it.
And these little men ... there was a nasty undercurrent to the jovial delivery of their conversation. She could sense it as clearly as she could on those nights when the band just couldn't connect with a crowd, when nothing you did up there on the stage was right.
"Hiding on us, do you suppose?"
"Unless some green-brees had him for a late-night snack."
"Don't even joke about that."
"Unless he's not a he."
"What've you got there?"
Lizzie already knew. Whoever was rummaging around in the back of the car must have found her little knapsack with its toiletry bag and change of clothing and underwear in it.
"Nice."
"I'd like a soiled pair better."
"Where do you think she's got to?"
"Prob'bly went looking for help."
"And left her fiddle behind? Not likely."
"She carries water around instead of poteen, so she's not much of a fiddler, is she?"
"I say she's hiding."
Lizzie heard a series of wet thumps and realized that they'd dropped their loads of meat in the trunk of the car.
"Let's have a look-see, shall we?"
Oh god, oh god, oh god.
"Hello, hello, wee fiddler," one of them called out in a loud voice. "Why don't you come out and play?"
"Whisht — not so loud."
"Why not? I want her to hear us."
Lizzie heard the whack of someone being slapped on the head.
"Ow. What'd you do that for?"
"If you're that loud, something else might hear us, hey?"
They all fell silent. Lizzie pressed her face against the elm, wishing she had something — anything — in her hand to defend herself with.
But she didn't.
She had only herself.
Best defense is offense, Johnny would say. If you know you're in trouble, don't try talk. Just come out swinging.
She swallowed, her throat and chest tight, and readied herself. She'd slip from behind the tree and charge them, take them by surprise. If she was lucky, maybe they'd run off. If she wasn't, she'd hurt as many of them as she could. She had good leather boots on and the toes were hard. She made fists with either hand.
But while the little men had been silent, they hadn't been still.
"What have we here?" a gruff voice asked.
And just like that, the element of surprise was taken from her. She'd never heard them moving through the dry weeds, but here they were, all five of the little men, arrows nocked in bowstrings and aimed in her direction. They stood around her in a half circle. With the elm at her back, there was no avenue of escape.
"Pretty thing," one of them said with a grin.
She caught only a glimpse, and it was hard to tell with no more than the moonlight behind him to see by, but it seemed that all his teeth had been sharpened to points.
"But big."
"Ah, they're all big, her kind."
They were lowering their bows, one by one, letting the strings go slack. Sure they had her. Sure of themselves.
"I like 'em big," the smallest of them said.
The others laughed. Perhaps it was the way he'd said it — as though he was trying to impress his companions, more than her. One of the others gave him a light cuff across the back of the head.
"You wouldn't know what to do with her," he said.
"Bit of a laugh that hair of hers."
She'd dyed her normally black hair a brilliant scarlet a month or so ago, but the black roots had grown out now.
Go ahead, she thought. Have a good look. Get all stupid and confident.
"Only hair I'll be looking at is down below."
"'Less she's the kind that shaves."
"Are you that kind, girl?" the one closest to her asked.
He moved toward her and she took her chance. Before any of them could react, she took a step forward. Using the momentum of her forward motion to add even more force to the blow, she drove the toe of her boot into his groin.
"How's that for between the legs?" she cried above his shriek of pain.
She didn't wait to see the result. Turning, she hit the one on her right square in the face with a cross blow. Felt his nose collapse. Turned again toward the next, right arm cocked, only to find herself staring straight at three arrowheads, bowstrings pulled taut behind them.
"Shouldn't have done that," the little man in the center said. "We were only going to play a little with you."
"Were," the one on the right said.
The one on the left nodded. "But now you're meat, girl."
"We're all meat, you little freaks," a new voice said.
Lizzie had no idea where he'd come from, a tall Native man in jeans and a checkered shirt, with long black hair and coppery skin. One moment she was alone with her attackers, the next he was standing behind the center one. But she didn't stop to work it out.
With the little men distracted, their bows lowering as they turned to the newcomer, she charged the one on her right and drove him to the ground, pounding him with her fist. She heard cries, the sound of punches. When she looked up from her own foe, the other two men were also down, the stranger standing above them. The one she'd kicked earlier was still lying in the dirt, moaning, legs pulled up, hands on his groin. The one whose nose she'd broken was pulling the long knife from his belt. Before he could get it free, the stranger stepped in and knocked him to the ground with a flurry of blows.
"The thing is," he said as his assailant dropped, "some meat fights back."
One of the men he'd knocked down earlier lifted himself from the ground by straightening his arms under himself. He spat on the ground, blood and a tooth, small eyes dark with fury.
"Eat my shite, you grand pluiker," he muttered.
And then he disappeared.
Lizzie's eyes widened, not sure she'd seen what she'd seen. But then the little man she was still sitting on vanished as well. She scrambled to her feet as though she'd had an electric shock. As she watched, the other three disappeared, one by one. [CH1
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Widdershins by Charles de Lint, Patrick Nielsen Hayden. Copyright © 2006 Charles de Lint. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Author's Note,The Dispute at the Crossroads,
Hand Me Down My Fiddle,
The Hard Road to Travel,
Far From Home,
Farewell and Remember Me,
Reading Group Guide
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Widdershins is about a shadow world—the otherworld, the realm of spirits—that exists, unseen, side by side with our own world. Lizzie stumbles into it one night when her car breaks down. How do the two worlds mirror one another? Does one seem better, or nobler? What elements of political and personal life occur in both realms, and how are they dealt with differently in each?
2. Many of the main human characters in Widdershins are Celtic musicians, and the author mentions that Celtic music "calls to fairy." Do you think that musicians— or any artists—live closer to the spirit world than other people? What kind of power does music have in the story, over humans, fairy, or cousins?
3. Names are mentioned frequently in the story as being a source of enormous power: to know a being's true name, the author says, is to have power over that being. What is it about naming that carries so much weight? Do you think that the association between names and power is ever real in our world? If you had a true name distinct from your everyday "speaking name," what do you think it would be?
4. For most of the book, Lizzie maintains a hard-and-fast rule against getting romantically involved with another member of her band. What do you think of this rule, and of the fact that she ultimately breaks it? What will come of her relationship with Con? Do you think that they would have come together at some point even if Lizzie hadn't been drawn into the fairy realm? What did she learn there that changed her mind about Con?
5. Jilly Coppercorn's story—both past and present—is about the separation between body and mind, and the final confrontation that she endures in Widdershins takes place when her physical self becomes trapped inside a pocket world created by her own mind. What is Jilly's final and most difficult task, in that world and in her life's story? How much power do our will, our beliefs, and our attitudes have over our physical health and wholeness? How much of a say do you think we have in our own healing, and what kinds of roles can forgiveness play in it?
6. The issue of violence and whether it is ever justified comes up repeatedly in Widdershins. Which characters struggle the most with issues of violence? The cerva forbid killing, believing that any death diminishes everyone. Do you believe that this is true? For Honey, violence provides the final resolution of her lifelong battle against her abusers. Are there uses of violence, or even killings, in Widdershins that seem justified?
7. The conflict between Native North American populations and the descendants of the Europeans who displaced them is a fundamental theme in Widdershins. What characterizes each group? What do they cherish, and how do their respective value systems work? Are they irreconcilably different? Do they learn from one another at any point in the story?
8. Many of the book's most ancient and powerful characters—Tatiana, Galfreya, the Crow Girls—take the form of teenagers or twenty-somethings, sometimes dressing like skateboarders or punk rockers. Why do you think these spirits prefer such forms? What advantages do they give, apart from beauty? The book stresses that fairy live not in the past or future but firmly in the present. Are adolescents and young adults better at this than the rest of us? Which, if any, human characters in Widdershins have mastered it?
9. Most of the characters in Widdershins proceed with hope and optimism, even in the face of desperate circumstances. The book stresses that fairy magic relies largely on one's strength of will. And though hobbled by injury and traumatized in childhood, Jilly has never despaired—until she sees Geordie killed. How do people like her maintain hope and optimism when everything in life seems to weigh against them? To what degree are we victims of our circumstances and experiences? How much of a say do we have in the direction our lives take? What kinds of trauma is it possible to overcome, and what kinds mark the soul forever?
10. Three levels of conflict intersect in Widdershins: conflict between two individuals, such as Grey and Odawa; tribal political conflict, in which the cerva seek a war with fairy based upon old grievances and sparked by a killing; and conflict within oneself, which we see most clearly in Jilly and her pocket world. Does one level seem to you more pressing than the others? Which is more deserving of a person's or a society's time and attention? How do these levels of conflict intersect in your own life?
11. Only one of their deaths finally makes Jilly and Geordie realize that they can't live without one another. What has kept them from this knowledge for so long? Have you ever been able to learn or realize something crucial only in a moment of crisis? What happened to that knowledge once the crisis abated?
12. How appealing is the spirit world portrayed in Widdershins? Would you want it to exist parallel to our own reality, and would you want to participate in it? What are its greatest dangers, and how do they differ from the perils humans face in our world? Do you think that fairy and humans are natural enemies, and if so, in what ways?
Related Subjects
Customer Reviews
Explore More Items
