Free Someplace to Be Flying by Charles De Lint Page B

It’s all so weird. What do you think the girl meant with that business about the cuckoo?”
    “Beats me,” Rory told her. “It sort of sounds like a folk song, but I don’t see the connection.” He paused for a moment, thinking he heard someone running down the hallway outside his apartment. “You know, the way you described those women they could almost be our crow girls.”
    “You mean those tomboys who live on your street?”
    Rory chuckled. “Sure, if they were older and feral instead of just mischievous kids. I think I heard one of them running down the outside hall a moment ago—Lord knows what she was up to.”
    “Why do you call them crow girls?”
    “I don’t. I think Annie started it and now she’s got me doing it, too. It’s got to do with the way they’re always messing around in the trees outside and getting into everything—like the crow girls in Jack’s stories.”
    Lily was quiet for a moment. “The girls that rescued us were like birds,” she said. “I mean, they had a birdish feel about them, and then a friend of Hank’s told him they must be the crow girls, the ones in Jack’s stories.”
    Rory could see where she was going.
    “They weren’t the twins, Kit,” he said. “How could they be? The twins are just kids.”
    “Of course it wouldn’t be them,” she replied. “It’s just odd.”
    Not a fraction as odd as her story had been, Rory thought, but he let it go.
    Instead, he got her talking about other things, sticking to more conventional topics until Lily finally said good-bye.
    “Thanks for listening,” she said. “And for not, you know, blowing me off.”
    “I’d never do that.”
    “But it’s a crazy story.”
    “Well, it sure stretches the way we think things are,” Rory said, being diplomatic.
    “I wish you could have been there.”
    “Me, too. You take care, Kit. Get some sleep.”
    “I’ll try. Thanks again.”
    He cradled the phone and sat back in his chair, staring at the contact sheets pinned to the corkboard above his computer. He’d circled the shots he liked the best with an orange grease pencil. It was terrific work, but then Lily’s photos usually were. She was so grounded. Had a little bit of trouble with self-esteem, it was true, but she dealt with it in the same matter-of-fact way she dealt with everything. It wasn’t that she couldn’t see the whimsical side of things. It was just that she’d always known the difference between what was real and what wasn’t.
    At least until now.
    Jack’s stories had started it—that much was obvious. But where was the jump from enjoying his stories to thinking you’d stepped into one? And where did Hank Walker come into all of this?
    Rory hadn’t lied to Lily. He did believe—not necessarily that it had happened the way she’d said it had, but that she believed it had happened that way. Only where did he go with it now? What did you do when one of your best friends turned the corner and stepped from fact into fiction?
    After awhile, he turned back to his computer and logged on. He had eight messages waiting for him, but it was the last one that caught his immediate attention.
Sender: dgavinStama.com
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 00:37:52 -0500
From: 'Donna Gavin'
Organization: Tamarack Publishing
To: [email protected]
Subject: Do we have a problem here?
Hi Rory
I hope you don't mind me contacting you like this--I
got your email address and phone number from Sass.
I tried phoning, but your line's been busy for
ages, so I'm sending you this instead.
It's about Lily.

I just got the strangest phone call from her and I
need to talk to somebody about it. I'm going to be
out of town at a conference until Tuesday, but if
you could email, and let me know the best time for
me to call you, I'd really appreciate it.

I don't want to worry you, but something _really_
weird is going on with Lily.

Donna
    No kidding, Rory thought.
    He hit “Reply,” composed a quick response to Donna’s