Poisoned Garden

by Tracy Korn

  "Uri will have our hides." He laughed again and shook his head as Leo walked into the wind. He pulled something out from behind the podium, then turned to face the crowd.

  "You might want to stand back," he said, waving away the Sylph mentor, who played along and exaggerated an eye roll. "OK, suit yourself." Leo shrugged and dropped his chin to put a red and black striped tie around his neck. As he did, his armored black wings expanded, stretching far beyond the edges of the pop-up stage in the sand. The Sylph mentor laughed as he was forced back down the steps in order to avoid being knocked off. When Leo looked up, he cinched the tie with glowing red eyes and smirked. "Salamander Fire Fae, welcome to house red."

  Everyone, not just the Salamander block, cheered again, and I was sure my ears would be ringing for the remainder of the week. I stared at Leo, marveling at the ridges and curves of his wings in the daylight. The breeze that had been blowing on him before kicked up again, blowing his hair in every direction until he looked straight up and started moving his wings. The familiar, low thrum of it reverberated in my chest from several rows away, and in seconds he was in the air. Everyone gasped, then shouted again as he blew a cloud of fire over our heads, which quickly snapped out with a loud crack.

  Everyone around me was going insane. One girl a few rows down got so excited she passed out and fell into the row ahead of her. Three of the others in the row quickly helped her to her feet, and by the time I looked back up at the stage, Leo had landed again.

  The Sylph mentor returned to the stage as well, his hand raised as he approached. Leo's wings quickly folded in as he turned, receiving the high five, and then took a seat again with the rest of the upperclassmen mentors.

  The aftershock of Leo's performance rippled through the stands until Uri, dressed in a white suit that almost seemed to glow in the sun, made his way behind the microphone. The commotion died down in under a minute in anticipation of what he was going to say.

  "Well, it will certainly be difficult to follow that!" He grinned, earning a roll of laughter from the crowd. "But in all seriousness, the masterful displays you just witnessed are only a sampling of the miraculous transformations you will come to learn how to control in your time here at Eden's Bluff. They are gifts of your Bright Natures—the bloodlines of Sylph, Salamander, Undine, and Gnomes, The Elemental Fae who were the original inhabitants of this beautiful world." Uri paused for a wave of applause.

  Sylvie approached the microphone dressed in a breezy green dress and brown sandals that laced in criss-crosses over her dark skin. She stopped at Uri's side and leaned closer to the podium to speak, the tinkling sound of the beads in her hair rapping against the lectern. A chill ran down my spine, but I wasn't sure why.

  "Dis week, my children, we begin da honing process," she said, her hypnotic, tropical accent rolling off her tongue like the waves breaking on the shore. "Several of de faces ya seen here today will be part of yer schooling. Some ya haven't met yet, but when yer ready, da career programs dat'll show ya how to make da world a better place will be waitin' fer ya. And togedda, my loves, we gonna fix every-ting."

  Chapter 18

  We were introduced to the teaching staff for the remainder of the presentation, but I couldn't focus on anything they said after Sylvie spoke. The clouds overhead had started to darken and roll in the distance, so I attributed my sense of unease to the looming storm.

  The air was still charged as we all made our way to the respective honing areas they told us to find. Mine was at the top of a stupidly high cliff, which I didn't quite understand with a storm brewing in the distance. But I didn't get paid to make these decisions. The surf was breaking hundreds of yards below, and I wondered if this was the cliff we were supposed to meet at tonight.

  I didn't notice anyone as we all walked, so when someone off my shoulder started talking to me, I jumped right out of my meandering thoughts.

  "Tried yer wings yet?" the Sylph mentor from the stage said, his Scottish accent warm and comforting. Now that he wasn't several yards away, I could see a smattering of freckles over his nose as well. His piercing blue eyes twinkled as he smiled widely at me

  "Ah, no—no test flights yet for me," I said without hesitation. "And from the look of that drop, I hope you're not taking us up here for a maiden voyage."

  He laughed and jogged a few steps to catch up to me. At my side, he was about the same height as Max, and his kind eyes only reminded me of him that much more. I had to get my queue to connect somehow.

  "Dinnae fash. All ye birdies are still too wee to be tossed outta the nest like that." He gave me an easy smile, then offered his hand. "Ma name's Ian."

  "I'm Halsey."

  "A pleasure," Ian said with a nod.

  "Can I ask you a question?"

  He winked conspiratorially, which made his clear blue eyes seem to sparkle even more. "Fire away."

  "Well, this is awkward maybe, but do you know why Leo Red-Cloud was my transition mentor even though I'm not a Salamander? I mean, shouldn't it have been a Sylph mentor if I'm supposed to be a Sylph?"

  Ian's ruddy brows drew together. "Reckon wires must've crossed somehow once ye hit the radar."

  His words were like an abrupt punch in the stomach, and I stopped walking. "Wait, what?"

  He looked at me, surprised. "Yer assignment—which bloodline ye belong to. Wires…"

  "No, I mean about the radar," I spluttered, remembering what the officer from The Grind, Eve somebody, had shouted to me as Max and I ran from Jen's exam room.

  "Oh…" Ian chuckled low in his throat. "That's somethin' tae do wi' us sensing our own kind," he said, pausing for a second to study my face. "Speakin' of—what's yer shift, if ye dinnae mind? Mine's that ridiculous pelican flying to breakfast ahead of the crowd each morning—well, one o'em anyway."

  "Oh, yeah…I saw you!" I managed, trying to get my bearings again. "My roommate said you're a bird of paradise?"

  "Guilty." Ian nodded to the ground and slipped his hands into his pockets. "And you then?"

  "Uri said my shift is an eagle."

  He nodded slowly. "Weel, I s'pose we'll get tae see soon enough."

  We started to approach the rest of the group, but another unsettling feeling came over me. Ian hadn't said he didn't believe me, but it was clear he didn't with the vibe between us cooling just like the breeze coming off the ocean.

  "You don't think I shift to an eagle?" I asked, hesitantly.

  Ian laughed out loud this time. "And why wouldn't I?" He smiled broadly at me, but it didn't reach his eyes this time. He didn't believe me, and he also didn't answer my questions. "Twas good tae meet ye, lass. I best get tae ma perch." He winked again, the sparkle in his eyes having changed to something knowing, something guarded, which I didn't understand.

  He crossed to stand next to a woman with cascading waves of blonde hair that were blowing all around behind her, along with her light blue, flowing sun dress. Her angular face and wide eyes were kind, almost maternal, though at the most, she couldn't have been more than ten years older than the rest of us. As I approached, she held my gaze a few seconds longer than a wordless greeting would have normally been, and again, I had the feeling that I was being evaluated somehow.

  The woman finally looked away and smiled kindly to the rest of the group as we all took seats on the rocks surrounding her.

  "Welcome, to your first honing session," she said, folding her hands in front of her. "My name is Midori, and with the help of your transition assistants," she added with a gesture behind her to the mixed group of upperclassmen sitting with Ian, "we'll begin."

  Midori went on to explain that before humans, the earth was populated by beings called The Elemental Fae: Sylphs, who governed the air, Salamanders who routed the sunshine and sparked the fires, Undines, who engineered the seas and rivers, and Gnomes, who tended everything on land. Uri had mentioned as much to me when I arrived, but Midori elaborated.

  The Undines were responsible for connecting and directing all the water in t
he world so that it flowed in a consistent cycle. The Sylphs brought the water into the sky and changed it into rain to support all the plants and animals, and the Salamanders were in charge of making sure the fire at the center of the earth and in the sky never went out.

  Midori went on to explain how this system evolved over thousands of years, and eventually, The Elementals became so efficient at helping each other, the Creator of All Things asked the Gnome Queen, Ghob, to grow a beautiful Garden.

  Save for a few giggles from the crowd at the queen's odd name, Midori explained how Ghob called up fruit bearing trees, vegetable vines, and flowers in every imaginable color. She asked her sister Necksa, the Queen of the Undines, to route streams and waterfalls through The Garden, and her sister was happy to help. Her other sisters, Paralda, the Sylph queen, made sure the water from the evaporated sea fell from the sky, and Djin, the Salamander queen made sure the sun shone and the weather was always warm.

  "And all was well when The Creator of All Things brought forth Adam and Eve from The Garden," Midori said in an inspired tone. At this, several people started whispering their surprise that the pair had actually existed. This made me roll my eyes. We'd just witnessed two people literally sprout wings and breathe fire, and Adam and Eve was hard concept to swallow? "The Creator of All Things adored the new humans," Midori added. "And because The Elemental Fae lived in such harmony, they were asked to help the humans—to teach them and protect them. But the Gnome queen quickly saw that all things began to revolve around the humans," she went on, her voice growing more ominous. "The Creator had given Adam and Eve permission to kill and eat the animals, which was unthinkable to Ghob. They cut down the trees she had made, burned the wood and cooked the flesh of the animals they'd killed with the fire the Salamander queen was ordered to provide."

  "Why didn't they just stop helping them?" a girl several yards from me asked.

  "That's exactly what Ghob asked Necksa, the queen of the Undines, to do. Dry up the streams and stop the waterfalls, Ghob had asked her sister. We are enslaved and must break our chains. Necksa agreed to stop delivering water to the Garden in solidarity with her sister, but when The Creator of All Things learned of their plotting, he banished Ghob and all the Gnomes from the Garden they'd created. He permanently returned the Undines to the sea, and worst of all, those who were still on land working to remove the remaining brooks and ponds from the Garden were stranded on two legs, never again to return to their lives under the ocean."

  Midori heaved a heavy sigh and finished the story by explaining that the Sylph queen and the Salamander queen were so heartbroken for their sisters that they sneaked Ghob back into the Garden after Adam dropped the forbidden fruit. She took it and created an exact replica of the Garden from the seed—the island we were standing on now.

  "Wait, so this is The Garden of Eden 2.0?" a silver-haired boy near me asked through a laugh. A few others also laughed, but everyone waited for the answer.

  Midori smiled gently and nodded. "Our school is named for this cliff—Eden's Bluff. The double meaning is ironic, no?"

  Everyone began to chatter, and I'd likely have done the same if there would have been anyone familiar nearby. This island was an exact copy of the actual Garden of Eden? But then a thought crossed my mind.

  "What happened to the original Garden?" I asked. The chatter died down immediately, and Midori met my eyes, and for the second time, the air seemed to chill between us.

  "Djin, the Salamander queen was ordered by The Creator to bring forth great gates from the molted iron deep in the earth, and an archangel with a flaming sword was posted as a sentinel. The humans, the Gnomes, and the Undines were forbidden ever to enter again." Midori didn't look away after answering my question, even though several others resorted to raising their hands to get her attention.

  Finally, another girl just spoke up. "So, where is the real Garden now?"

  At this, Midori finally looked away from me, a gentle smile blooming on her face as she found the source of the question. "It lies somewhere behind the veil—the divider between this plane and the next," she said, now looking around at everyone. "All Sylphs and Salamanders who were on this side of the veil when the Gnomes and the Undines were banished from The Garden were given something of a dual citizenship. They were allowed to pass between worlds—the physical and the ethereal. All other Elemental Fae were trapped behind the veil in their Bright Spirit form, as things can only be on the other side."

  "So we can't go to the other side?" I asked, trying to figure out why Leo and the others were so bent on finding the tear in the veil somewhere up here tonight.

  "The Blood has been diluted over the millennia…mixed with that of humans, and until the Red Fever catalyst, we weren't even able to access our physical shift forms or our Bright Spirits," Midori started, her gray gaze again filling me with a sense of vastness—of an emptiness that sent a shiver through me. "The influx of Elemental blood on this plane has torn parts of the veil all over the world. It is our hope that through training you at Eden's Bluff in the ways of your ancestors, you will become a new generation of Elemental Fae, capable of helping mankind heal this world." Midori's voice was melodic like someone reading a bedtime story, and I felt a sense of calm fall over everyone when she finished talking. That is, it fell over everyone except me because she hadn't actually answered my question about if we could pass through the veil to where the rest of the Elemental Fae apparently were, and from the way she just stared at me, unblinking, she seemed to know it too.

  Chapter 19

  I knew I wouldn't make it back to the dining hall in time for lunch because I didn't want to follow the rest of the Sylphs. It wasn't that there was anything nefarious about them, but the feeling that they didn't think I belonged with them was all too palpable.

  Instead, I sat near the edge of the cliff and watched the storm gathering over the ocean. I wondered if it were one of the hurricanes that was supposed to start hitting the islands soon, and if so, why no one had said anything about it yet. I hadn't even been here two full days, but I had the sense there weren't really any rules except a few absolute ones like don't eat anything that's not from the dining hall. I was really starting to hate that rule as I looked around at the strange, beautiful fruits hanging on nearly every tree in sight. Skinny, bean-like, purple fruits and bunches of shimmery, golden berries that looked like grapes were both within arm's reach, and my stomach had started to growl.

  I got to my feet before I was tempted beyond my willpower to try them, remembering what Alita had said about potentially being stranded out here as an eagle. Though I had to wonder if that would be so bad? I could always fly back to the main house, couldn't I? And there had to be some way to un-shift, at least partially, as I'd seen both Ian and Leo do this morning.

  I looked at the shimmering berries that cropped up in front of some of the larger rocks facing the horizon, but the visceral, drumming sound in the distance pulled my attention away. Something was flying in the distance, diving, then rising again in a huge, looping arc.

  My heart pounded in my ears, the same sense of panic flooding my bloodstream as when I saw the shadow of my own wings overhead—an imminent predator just waiting to snatch me up and swallow me whole.

  Tingles pricked my shoulder blades and ran down my arms to my fingertips. The same feeling made its way to my lips as I tried to focus on the ominous, dark mass getting closer to land with every pass. Almost immediately, my vision sharpened, and the creature closing in wasn't a freakishly large bird as I started to suspect. The huge, black wings raised and lowered slowly, effortlessly, carrying the creature whose neck was nearly as long as its tail, and I quickly made my way into the thick brush to my left.

  In what seemed like just a handful of seconds, a deafening whoosh rippled through the air, followed by a thunderous sound when the creature actually landed. The impact felt like a small earthquake under my feet, and I gripped the tree I was hiding behind so I wouldn't be thrown to the ground.

&
nbsp; The creature's scales shimmered in the sun, partially blinding me with every step. Whatever it was, it sounded like an enormous horse snorting and forcefully exhaling in short gusts that shook the branches all around me. Different kinds of fruit rained down on me from overhead, driving me out of my hiding place. I stumbled over the collection of them underfoot and landed in the clearing.

  Scrambling to my feet, I desperately tried to cover my eyes from the glare shooting in every direction in front of me, but I just wound up tripping and falling again over the fruit on the ground. The glare finally started to dissipate, and when I could finally open my eyes, Leo was crouched in front of me wearing nothing at all. His huge, black wings slowly began disappearing behind his back, and his horns carefully receded into his forehead. In seconds, there was no trace of his dragon at all.

  I gripped the grass and branches all around me, pulling myself to my feet only to stumble over yet more fruit on the ground. I didn't fall again, but only because a boulder just behind me was close enough to catch and then steady myself. I moved behind it, and Leo met my eyes.

  "Well, this is awkward," he said, quickly covering his more decorative parts as he flashed a genuine smile at me. Every muscle in his body tensed, keeping him fixed in his stance. "Could you throw me my pants?" He nodded to the boulder just to my right, a pile of clothes folded neatly on top of it.

  "Um, yes. Yes, I can do that," I said too quickly and tried not to trip again as I grabbed the stack of clothes and brought it over to him, keeping my eyes on the ground the whole way there and back to my boulder. After a second, I risked a glance to see if he was done getting dressed, but he'd only managed to put on underwear that looked like biking shorts. He'd turned around to face the horizon, and I watched the columns of muscle shift in his back and legs as he stepped into his dark cargo pants. After another few seconds, he turned back toward me and walked with such purpose, I had to fight the instinct to run. Heat pushed through my chest as he got closer, the hard curves of his stomach, his chest, and shoulders shifting and rolling with each step. He pulled an elastic from the pocket of his pants and raised his arms to tie his dark hair back, which made his biceps jump. I was frozen where I stood.