Faerie Misborn

by Samaire Provost

  “Come with me, you two,” the headmistress called.

  We all followed Chance and Renée up to the hospital wing.

  Once he was settled into a bed, and dosed with the first of two medicines, we gathered in a semicircle around the end of his bed, including the headmistress and several guards.

  “I can’t tell you how happy we were the Miss Page was able to return you,” the headmistress was saying.

  Liesl and I were each eating a bowl of porridge, because no matter how much we told the nurse, she insisted that we must be half starved and weak from hunger.

  The porridge was creamy and delicious. It also served to mildly glue our mouths shut while we ate, so we tucked in and stayed busy eating and listening.

  And the headmistress had some revelations that were astonishing.

  If I hadn’t been sat in a deeply cushioned chair already, I might’ve fallen out of it in surprise.

  “We are besieged once more,” the headmistress began. “This happened many years ago, and the history is taught beginning of second year, just after the autumn harvest holidays.”

  She looked over at Liesl and I. “You two won’t learn the full history until next fall. But I’ll teach you some of it now, out of necessity. “As I was saying, the Academy is beset. And I think they are watching us, as well. There is no other reason we can determine for the timing of this attack.”

  “Headmistress,” asked Liesl, “did you say we are under attack?”

  The elder woman raised her hand in a settling gesture. “Do not be alarmed. This is an attack with magic, not human weapons. As I said, you will learn the school’s history next fall. For now, you only need to know that, while we are weathering this, no students are to go off grounds, and that means the school grounds. Do not venture into the forest, nor anywhere near the edge of the wood.”

  I raised my hand tentatively, and she nodded for me to speak. “Please, ma’am, I was wondering,” I said. “Who is attacking us?”

  The headmistress blinked and her eyes went vague, then she seemed to focus again.

  “That is not important. Suffice to say, your professors, your fellow students, and all the school employees, are on your side. They are the people you’ve always known them to be. But if a strange gnome emerges from the forest and beckons to you, do not follow him.” The headmistress smiled at us all.

  This is ridiculous. I need more information.

  “Is there any reason the school is under attack?” I asked.

  The headmistress sighed, looking at me. “Holly, I cannot tell you that. It’s ...”

  “Wait,” I interrupted. “We need to know all the facts, so we can protect ourselves. I mean, really! We’re first-years. What if Renée hadn’t been with us?”

  “I understand, trust me. And I think, in time, more will be revealed. But for now ...”

  “I have a question,” said Liesl. “Why didn’t Renée go back to the school yesterday?”

  Renée spoke then, “Because Chance was unconscious. I couldn’t perform the spell and lift him at the same time.”

  Wait.

  “Then why not return to the school and bring back help?” I asked.

  Renée scowled at me.

  I stared back at her, astonished.

  Then I glanced at Chance in the hospital bed, and he was scowling too.

  What is going on?

  A mist began to rise up from under the hospital bed, and everything around me dissolved into nothing.

  I woke up with a start and sat up. It was night, and the campfire flames were a few inches high.

  “What is going on?” I said out loud.

  The others were asleep.

  How much time had passed?

  I looked around, utterly confused. My head spun. Could that have been a dream?

  I spotted the dead bugbear off to the side and stared at it as my brain oriented itself into day and night and time. I felt dazed.

  Aspen whined beside me, raising her head and looking at me questioningly.

  I took a deep breath and patted the wolf, and glanced at her sister on my other side.

  It must have been a dream.

  I lay back down, still feeling confused. I stared at the dying flames of the campfire for a long time before my eyes fell shut again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Faerie Ring

  “Holly. HOLLY! WAKE UP!” Liesl was shaking me awake. Violently. I opened my eyes, feeling so groggy it was as if a shroud lay over my mind.

  A shroud?

  I sat up “I’m awake. I’m awake.”

  “Holly, you wouldn’t wake up. We’ve been trying to get you up for fifteen minutes,” Liesl said.

  I looked around and saw it was well past dawn.

  Renée was packing everything and kicking dirt over the fire. Chance was standing up, his backpack on his back, staring at me. He still looked pale. I wondered how he was feeling.

  Why is he staring at me?

  “What?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I had a really weird dream.”

  Renée swung around, “Oh my God, me too. We were back at the school. I had performed some weird levitating spell ...”

  I jumped to my feet, stumbling in the process. “I had the same dream! How could we all have the same dream?”

  “I had it, too!” Liesl said. She turned to Renée. “Is there such a thing as a levitation spell?”

  Renée looked amused and shook her head. “No, not at all. There’s nothing like that. If there were, I’d have been back at the school the first hour we were lost.”

  “That’s what I thought! In the dream!” I said.

  “I remember,” Liesl said.

  “This smacks of dark magic,” Chance said. “If we all had the same dream, it’s likely it wasn’t a dream so much as a mass hallucination.”

  “What could work dark magic on us?” Liesl asked.

  “Unfortunately,” said Renée. “It’s not unknown magic, it’s just generally frowned upon.”

  I turned to her. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that the spells are not unknown, nor hard to perform. The school runs on an honor system, which is why the headmistress was so worried about the bullying against you, Holly.”

  “Do you think it’s your sister doing this?” Chance asked in a quiet tone.

  Renée looked worried. “I honestly don’t know. First-years wouldn’t know such magic, but the higher years would.”

  “Chance,” asked Liesl. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Still sick, but not dizzy anymore,” he replied.

  “So, what are we doing? Are we going to try to hike back?” I said. I was worried about the dark magic and had a burning desire to get back to safety. “I think we should.”

  “Yes, that’s probably a good idea,” said Renée. “Let’s try to get back to the school. But if there’s a spell on us, or on the forest, it may be tricky. It may be nearly impossible.”

  “I think we need to stick close together,” said Chance. “Verify all experiences. If you see something or hear or smell something: ask the rest of us if we do, too.”

  Liesl and I glanced at each other and took deep breaths.

  I nodded.

  “Okay, I have an idea,” I said. “My wolves were able to lead Liesl and me back to the school once before, when we were lost in the forest. I don’t know if any dark magic was at work, but there was the cemetery banshee after us.”

  “Not a bad idea, Holly,” said Renée. She glanced around camp. The fire had been put out and dirt tossed on it. All wrappers had been picked up. There was no trace of our having spent the night there. “Everyone ready to move out?”

  We all nodded.

  “Let’s go, then.”

  Aspen led the way, Tundra beside her.

  We followed the wolves in a line. I had to make sure my steps didn’t touch Tundra’s feet and trip her. That’s how close we followed.

  We hiked about an hour, nonstop.


  Then the wolves stopped. They had found something.

  “What is it, girl?” I murmured, walking up to Aspen’s head.

  She whined, then put her nose to the ground.

  I glanced up ahead and froze.

  On the ground was a thick, wide ring of mushrooms. They were all of different sizes and shapes, and different colors ranging from light brown to yellow, to moss.

  I felt an icy fear creep down my spine, and I slowly took a step back.

  “Hey!” Liesl protested behind me.

  “Shhh,” I said, pointing.

  They all crowded around me, staring.

  “What are we staring at?” whispered Renée.

  “It’s a faerie ring,” I murmured.

  “It sure is!” Renée said.

  “I was conceived in one of these, or so I was told by my Aunt Clare,” I whispered.

  “Okayyy,” said Renée. “That’s not unheard of in the fae world, Holly.”

  I took a deep breath.

  Then why was I so affected?

  I stared down at the ring of mushrooms, feeling less scared, beginning to feel mesmerized.

  “Holly,” said Chance. “There’s an old wives’ tale: that if you stand in the faerie ring and speak your troubles, that the woodland Oak King will give you aid.”

  “That’s for spring and summer,” said Renée. “It’s nearly October, so it’s fall.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” murmured Chance. “Okay then, it would be the Holly King that would answer your plea.”

  “An old wives’ tale?” I asked.

  “Old wives’ tales often have a basis in fact,” said Renée, smiling. “My grandmother would tell you a tale of the Oak King granting a request she made over fifty years ago. She’d swears up and down it’s the absolute truth.”

  “You’ve got a better chance of being heard than the rest of us, Holly. You’re from the royal line,” said Chance. “The royal line can trace it’s lineage all the way back to the first of the fae.”

  I glanced at him, smiling. “Do you really think I should?”

  He nodded. “I do.”

  I took a deep breath.

  I looked around the area. I could hear birdsong, and the trees rustled in the breeze. It was a sunny day, and the forest seemed friendly all of a sudden.

  “Do it,” whispered Liesl, nudging me.

  I took a step forward, then another.

  Then a few more.

  I was in.

  I slowly turned around, looking down at the mushrooms. They were really beautiful, if I thought about it. Sunshine dappled the ground, and the whole effect was very magical.

  As it should be.

  I closed my eyes.

  “Now, concentrate,” said Renée. “Think about your problem. Then say it out loud and ask for help.”

  I considered for a minute, then thought: We’re trapped here. We want to get back to the school.

  A feeling came over me, a buzzing sounded in my head. I thought of my mother.

  I murmured as I slowly turned,

  “Holly King, Holly King, hear my plea,

  Help me to be happy and free.

  Trapped here in this forest we roam,

  Help us to continue on home.”

  I felt a warmth in my heart, and my closed eyes saw light and dark glittering across the inside of my eyelids.

  I murmured my spur-of-the-moment poem twice more, then slowed and stopped turning in the faerie ring, and opened my eyes.

  I was facing my friends, who stood with their jaws open, staring at me.

  After a minute, Renée found her voice. “Okay, that really might work.”

  “Holly, light came down on you while you were turning and speaking,” Liesl said in a quiet, awed voice.

  Chance just looked stunned, then stepped forward and took my hand, and helped me step out of the mushroom circle.

  “Come on,” he whispered. “Let’s go.”

  We hiked for another hour, and I felt dazed and happy the whole time. It was as if the time spent in faerie ring had injected joy inside my mind.

  We didn’t want to stop for lunch, so we nibbled on what little food we had left and kept hiking.

  It was slow going, making our way through virgin forest.

  I began to feel worried. If the undergrowth was this undisturbed and overgrown, we were likely far from the school.

  And getting farther by the hour?

  It was only midday, but the forest suddenly grew much darker.

  I looked up but couldn’t see the sky clearly. It must’ve been overcast.

  As if on cue, it began to rain.

  Oh, that’s why.

  “Let’s shelter under this thick bush,” said Chance. “We can wait it out.”

  We crouched under a large bush; the rain still dripped through onto our heads, but we weren’t getting soaked the way we would have out in the open.

  As we squatted under the thickly growing leaves, a few drops came down on my face, dripping down my nose, but out from under the bush the rain fell harder, in a downpour.

  “Oh my God!” whispered Liesl.

  “What?” I said, turning to look.

  Renée and Chance stared at what Liesl had seen. I looked, trying to see past the heavy rain.

  Then I saw it.

  My God ...

  The man had green skin, and was clothed in ivy, which wrapped around his body from head to toe, and reached up to wind itself around his head like a crown.

  His beard and hair were a darker green, the same color of the moss covering much of his wooden walking stick.

  He walked slowly through the forest, ignoring the rain, and seemed to be looking for something.

  There were several deer beside him, and several more following behind.

  We could see him through the trees, he was maybe fifty feet away.

  I heard a whine and put my hand on the wolf lying beside me. I didn’t know which wolf it was, because I did not want to take my eyes off the man in the woods.

  The wolf I was touching crawled forward a few inches, then hopped up and ran to the man, her sister in hot pursuit.

  I didn’t call after them.

  It was like a spell that I didn’t want to disturb.

  My familiar wolves ran to the man we were watching.

  The fae creature? It was clear he was of the faefolk.

  The wolves sat before the man. I thought I saw a slight shake of his head, and his mouth utter a command.

  Then Aspen and Tundra turned and ran back to me, crawling under the large bush we were taking refuge beneath, turning around, and lying down on either side of me. They were back in the same position they’d been in before.

  We watched the fae man pause a moment, his silhouette facing us, and he seemed to be contemplating something. Then he lifted his walking stick and brought it down hard.

  I felt a tremor run through me, and swore I felt the trees shiver, and the ground dip. The man then nodded to himself and then walked off.

  I stretched my head to follow him, for as long as I could.

  My eyes stung from not blinking.

  A minute after he left, I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

  No one said a thing. It was as if the scene we’d just watched had been something so special and holy it would be sullied with the commonness of mere speech.

  Five minutes later, it stopped raining, and the forest became bright again.

  We crawled silently out from under the bush and stood up to brush ourselves off. A minute later, we were back on our way, hiking.

  I knew I would never forget the incredible experience we’d just had. It had been beyond belief. And yet, I’d seen it with my own eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Specter

  The deep, soaking rain had drenched the forest, and the undergrowth made a squelching sound as we hiked. As the sun warmed the cool woods, a thick mist rose from the bracken that had been wetted so thoroughly by the prolonged cloudb
urst.

  We were soon hiking in a thick fog.

  We’d been on the move for about an hour, with no school in sight, when the fog became too thick to walk through spread out. We stayed close to each other, walking single-file, each person’s hands on the school tunic of the person just ahead.

  Renée was in the lead, followed by Liesl, then me, then Chance.

  My attention was split between those in front of me and Chance behind me. He’d said he felt better, and indeed, he was not weaving as he walked, but he remained pale and warm. The pink flare of fever dotted his cheeks.

  If we’d been back at the school, I was sure he’d be in the infirmary.

  We walked through the forest in a single line, facing mostly down to make sure our feet did not get tripped up by the brambles underfoot.

  I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

  “Chance,” I whispered, glancing back.

  “What,” he whispered back.

  “That ... that man,” I said. “Who was he? Why didn’t we ask him for help? Where did he go? Why did my wolves obey him? Why ...”

  “Shhhh,” said Chance. “We don’t speak of such things.”

  I stopped and, in doing so, pulled on the back of Liesl’s top to stop her. She, in turn, stopped, pulling on the back of Renée’s tunic.

  We all stopped and faced one another, unconsciously drawing close together because of the fog.

  It had grown thicker and thicker, until it formed a white wall of mist all around us.

  Aspen whined at my side, unhappy at stopping.

  Tundra snuffled her sister’s fuzzy ear, then sneezed.

  I looked at the faces of my companions.

  “Well?” I asked in a hushed tone. It was that kind of afternoon.

  Chance just looked down and shook his head.

  Liesl shrugged.

  I huffed in frustration. I realized I was probably getting a reputation of impatience at my new school, but I wanted to know what was happening. What was happening everywhere.

  That was important if you wanted to survive growing up on the streets, and it was ingrained in me.

  I tapped my toe silently on the forest floor.