Poisoned Garden

by Tracy Korn

  "Halsey!" Alita shouted as she ran up to me. A rush of anger pushed through me upon seeing her, but before I could say a thing, she'd thrown her arms around my neck and started gushing apologies for being so epically thoughtless. I closed my eyes and tried to let my insta-rage slide over me.

  "It's all right," I said, maneuvering to step out of her shockingly strong vise grip. After the eighth time repeating it was really OK and I wasn't mad anymore, she finally let me go.

  I looked up at Rhea, who was watching the scene with Alita play out.

  "I didn't get to say thank you for helping me," I said. "For making me drink the water. I know you flew back and got it."

  She shrugged, but the corner of her mouth twitched upward for just a second. "Half-shift constipation sucks," she said without a second thought, and the ridiculousness of that phrase made me laugh without warning.

  Rhea didn't laugh at all, and instead, turned to Bryce. "All right, he's here, so are we ready now or what?" she asked.

  Bryce punched a few things into his tablet, which generated a 3-D layout of what looked like the immediate area. I could see the cliff edge, the ocean, and even the surrounding forest on either side of us all meticulously etched in glowing, green lines. All green except for the hazy red bubble a good way down the shoreline.

  Bryce turned to Leo. "That's where the tear is supposed to be, at least, that's where it was supposed to be an hour ago. If it moved since then, it can't be by much."

  "The veil, as in…the divider between planes?" I said, trying to play along with what I'd heard this morning. "They were talking about that today in my honing class."

  "In mine too," Alita said. "I can kind of see Ghob's point, though. I mean, going from having the run of a place to being servants?" she added.

  "Humans have been a disease here ever since," Bryce added, which was about the last thing I expected to hear.

  "You know, you're still human too, right?" I clipped, taking more than a little offense.

  Bryce blew his two-tone hair out of his eyes as he studied the 3-D hologram. "And tell you what, if I could choose one or the other, I'd take Gnome Immortal Fae any day."

  "You'd actually pick—" I started, then registered what he'd said. "Did you say immortal? Midori didn't say anything about being immortal."

  Bryce sighed and scrubbed his hand over the broad planes of his face, finally resigning to look at me. "OK, only the queens are immortal, but we might as well be too. Elementals live for centuries. Humans get one, if they're lucky. So yeah, getting sick was the best thing that ever happened to me."

  "You had Red Fever?" I asked hesitantly.

  "We all did," Rhea said, unbuttoning her shirt. "That was the catalyst. I thought you said you went to your honing today?"

  "I did, but—what are you doing?" I asked as she got close to the last few buttons.

  She looked at me like I'd just asked her to throw me off the cliff. "Did you forget what happened to your shirt when your wings came out?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Leo has to scout the tear, and someone has to watch his back to make sure he doesn't get sucked in or something. We don't know what will happen that close up."

  Everything was going too fast. There were answers here…and more questions, but I couldn't slow it all down enough to separate them. I just had to start where I was.

  "Why are we trying to find the tear in the veil?" I asked, hoping this would at least give me a starting point. Alec laughed like I'd missed the most obvious answer in the world. I glared at him. "What? Why is that funny?"

  He let his laughter dissipate and gave me a conciliatory look like I'd just spilled my ice cream onto the sidewalk.

  "Oh, these kids…" he said, shaking his head as he sighed. "To go through it, Halsey."

  Chapter 23

  "Then I'm going too," I said. "I'm going to see what's on the other side of the veil too."

  Rhea laughed so loud it echoed, and I glared at her. She opened her mouth to no doubt tell me how delusional I was since I had demonstrated exactly zero control over my wings thus far in our relationship, but that was a simple matter of cause and effect, which I was sure could be remedied. Instead of telling me this, though, she just held up her hands and shook her head at Leo.

  "You're up—this is your fault," she chuckled, a look of exhaustion on her face.

  Leo sighed and put his hands on his hips as he studied the ground again.

  "Halsey…" he said, meeting my eyes.

  "Is there a time limit before the tear disappears or something?" I asked. "Like in hour from now, it's gone?"

  Leo's expression shifted to surprise. "No, but—"

  "Then take me up right now. Show me what to do."

  "Halsey, it's not that simple," Leo answered. "You have an entire class dedicated to nothing but mastering how to fly. You're not going to learn how to do it in a night."

  Rhea, Alec, and Bryce all started to snicker, and even Alita hid her laughter behind a ridiculous throat clearing episode when I locked eyes with her. Anger rolled in my chest again, and I remembered my theory.

  Stop reacting, I thought. Stop reacting, and act.

  If this was a dream, then I was going to fly, damn it.

  I started running as fast as I could toward the edge of the cliff. Leo called after me, then Alita. After a few more seconds, the rest of their voices clanged together shouting all kinds of warnings in inevitabilities if I didn't stop.

  Stop reacting, and act.

  I saw the edge of the cliff approaching and the deep purple sky beyond. I saw the whitecap waves rolling and growing until they spilled onto the shore, powerful in their element. Air was my element, wasn't it? If I was an eagle, then I was meant to fly.

  I leapt from the edge and held out my arms, expecting the searing pain of the wings opening, but it didn't come. My wings didn't open. My hands were still hands, and I was falling not toward waves, but toward rocks—jagged and layered as if the cliff had teeth.

  I was wrong. This wasn't a dream world I'd created so I could control it. My theory was wrong, and now there was nothing left to test.

  I shut my eyes and instinctively tried to brace myself for the impact…like it would have made any difference on the terrain I was heading for.

  But I didn't hit those rocks. I hit something solid that knocked the wind out of me. I couldn't breathe, and for a fleeting second I was sure I'd hit the water. It had to be the water because what else could it be?

  I forced my eyes open, but couldn't see anything until a few seconds later when the wind and the pressure relaxed. Leo's arms were wrapped around my ribs and legs, and I would have given almost anything to rewind the last five minutes so I could make a different choice.

  "Have you lost your mind!?" Leo shouted. "Are you trying to get yourself killed!?"

  "I thought I could…" I started, but embarrassment crashed into me so hard the physical pain in my side—a tightening, followed by a relentless stabbing sensation—halted my words. "I thought…my wings would work," I managed, but the pain got so intense I started to feel lightheaded. My head was too heavy suddenly, and I let it fall against his shoulder.

  "But why would you—shit," Leo interrupted himself. "Hold on!" The wind picked up again, and the pressure on my stomach and chest made the sharp pain worse.

  "Leo!" Rhea yelled, and in the same second, everything was quiet. The wind had completely stopped, and the pressure on my chest was gone. The pain was still there though, and I was sure we'd stopped moving.

  "What happened?" I asked as Leo put me down, and pain ripped all the way up my side again. It was foggy and damp, and all the beautiful flowers and foliage, not to mention the ocean, were gone. "Where are we?" I said, clutching at the sharp stabs over the left side of my ribs.

  "I think we're inside the tear," Leo whispered, then turned to me. "Your head is bleeding," he said, then sighed. "It must have happened somehow when I caught you. Does your side hurt," he asked, glancing at the way I was holding my ribs.

&nb
sp; I nodded. "Feels like I swallowed a stick or something."

  "That's probably my fault too… When I caught you. The cut through your eyebrow is on the same side." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm sorry."

  I shook my head at him, which made me dizzy. "It's not your fault. You saved my life. I shouldn't have jumped, but I was just so sure," I added, marveling at how wrong I was. And that could only mean one thing… This really wasn't a coma dream. Leo angled his head toward a collection of large, jagged rocks. For a second, I thought they were the ones I saw from the top of the cliff, but none of this fog was surrounding them ten minutes ago. "You need to relax to heal, and then we'll try to find our way out of here," he said, moving to my injured side and putting his arm around me.

  "Where's Rhea?" I asked, remembering her calling to him.

  "She must not have made it through."

  "How did we make it through?" I turned toward him and immediately winced.

  "All right, just a few more steps," he said. "I think you have some broken ribs, but they shouldn't take too long to repair. Just try to relax."

  We moved into a little cove of rocks, jagged all around. They butted up against two flat pieces, the arrangement made the whole damp, dim place seem like a secret fort a kid might build.

  "These look like the rocks at the bottom of the cliff," I said. " But where's the water?"

  "Don't think about any of that right now," Leo said, then ran several fingers through my hair. "Just lie back for a few minutes so everything can heal."

  I lay on the flat rock and closed my eyes, listening to the absolute silence. How could anything be this quiet? Not a bird, not a frog, nothing.

  My heart jumped when I realized this was the same kind of complete and utter silence that happened in the eye of the forest back in The Grind. Was that spot another tear in the veil? Midori said there were several around the world. As I let myself wonder, the pain in my side started to dissipate, and I sat up.

  "Leo, I think—" I started, but he stopped my words with a finger raised to his lips. It was then that I heard the voices in the silence. Uri's voice, and another I didn't recognize, though the accent was similar to Sylvie's.

  "She ain't been seen in Jordan fer centuries," the woman said. "And dat Cave of Wonders dried up centuries before. Nah, angel. She on da mainland now. Lured Knox Ryder straight off ma' boat in Portland. Who ya got searchin' der?"

  My eyes flashed to Leo's, which were wide with surprise.

  "She's mortal, Ghob. She doesn't have the power to do that. Jordan is her last known record," Uri said. "I don't know what else to tell you."

  "What I say ta call me, angel?" The woman, apparently named Ghob, said, her voice slow and full of contempt.

  Ghob…was that…? No. It couldn't be, I thought.

  Uri sighed, exasperated." Luz… I'll have a trained team as soon as honing week is over and the new bloods aren't constantly in their shadows," he started.

  "Who ya got fer me den?" she asked. "Which of dem first-year babies all grown up now and ready ta bring me dat woman?"

  "Leo Red-Cloud is ready."

  "Dat de boy who killed yer hunter?" Ghob—er, Luz said, which made Leo's previously surprised expression harden into anger.

  "Yes, he's the one," Uri said. "Ian MacTavish is also strong enough now, but his Sylph nature gives me pause. He leans toward the humans' plight."

  "Den we need anodder Sylph. We gotta have one each of da four Elementals."

  "I have another Sylph in mind, but I need more time to see which way she leans," Uri added. "She's already the strongest in this wave."

  "See dat she gets schooled up in a hurry, den." Luz started laughing after several seconds. "All dem wild bloods can pick da low-hangin' fruit fer now. But we gonna have five continents needin' generals soon, and Eve has my fifth!" Luz barked, all traces of laughter gone from her voice as it reverberated all around us.

  Uri cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, his voice was steady and ominous. "I'll find Eve. She'll be sent back to the dust to join that prating Adam once and for all," he said, grinding the words through his teeth. "If she's hiding Knox Ryder, we'll find him."

  "Ya betta, angel," Luz said, the deep laugh returning to her voice. "Because if ya don't, my sista gonna cook ya in yer soulless skin when I tell her who got her snakes stripped of der eart'ly plumes… When I tell her who's ta blame fer dem bein' made to crawl on der bellies… When I tell her it was you, Uriel, who let Lucifer into my Garden."

  The silence returned, but the fog didn't lift. The searing, sharp pain I'd felt had finally subsided, though, and I started to get to my feet. Leo crossed to me shaking his head, then took a seat at my side as he stared past me into nothingness.

  "Stay here until we're sure they're really gone," he whispered, his normally tan complexion now seeming pale in the filtered light. I looked over his shoulder beyond the jagged rocks, but all I could see was dim glow through the dense fog.

  "Leo, are you all right?" I asked, wondering why he wasn't moving.

  "Uri called her Ghob at first," he said quietly. "The Gnome queen."

  "She's the one who turned on Adam and Eve, and was then kicked out of Eden with the Water Fae queen..."

  "Necksa." Leo nodded slowly until he pushed his hands back through his loose, black hair and took a deep breath, still not meeting my eyes.

  "Eden…wait," I said, remembering what Ghob had said. "Leo, she said Eve from The Garden of Eden was in Portland. And Uri is—"

  "I know—just give me a second, OK?" Leo interrupted me, his voice clipped and tight. After a few more seconds, he sprung to his feet. "We have to get out of here first. Wherever here is."

  "You are in the fold, fire child…" a low, male voice said, but there was no one else around. The beating of quick wings sounded somewhere above, but we couldn't see anything flying.

  "Who said that?" Leo asked the gray, opaque sky above, then he sucked in a gasp when a huge, black bird swooped into view from the fog. "You're Raven…" he whispered with what sounded like the last of his breath.

  "And you're in The Fold between the pages of this world and that," the raven said, soaring and diving in and out of the fog. "The neutral ground. The meeting sky…" it said, its voice now echoing in every direction.

  "Show us how to get back!" Leo shouted to the bird.

  "It's not the same now," it answered. "Not for you. Not for the moth in the flame—go between the empty places."

  "What was that? What did it mean?" I shouted, but Leo just shook his head.

  "He's a spirit guide to my people back home, but he'll only talk in riddles if you ask for clarification. The only thing you can do is listen. Or sometimes, tell him what you need, and he'll give you a message…a warning or a blessing."

  "And that was a warning?" I asked hesitantly.

  Leo nodded slowly as he searched the cloudy sky again, but the raven seemed to be gone now. "Yeah," he said with a sigh. "That was a warning."

  Chapter 24

  Leo and I walked through the fog in silence for what seemed like an eternity without going anywhere. We could only see about ten feet in front of us, above us, behind us, and wherever the light source was coming from, it had to be far away.

  Leo's shirt hung from his pocket as he walked with his thumbs hooked in his back belt loops. If I were to glance at him quickly, it almost looked as if he were being marshaled somewhere by a Sweeper droid.

  I had so many questions, but I didn't know if he was ready to give me any answers. I risked a glance at him and looked away quickly when he turned to me at the same time.

  "I didn't have a choice," he said after a few more seconds, surprising me. I knew he was talking about the hunter he'd apparently killed. I wanted to ask him more about it, but I also didn't want him to feel obligated to tell me.

  "Leo, you don't have to—"

  "I'd been gathering wood," he continued, ignoring my protest. "I had it packed in a few bundles on my back and just needed to c
ross through the woods to get to my village on the other side." Leo took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "As I got closer, I felt something out there. I couldn't hear it, but I knew it was watching me. Have you ever felt that…where you just knew someone was watching you even if you couldn't see who it was?"

  "Yeah, definitely," I said, knowing the feeling exactly from the eye in the woods back in The Grind.

  "Anyway, I grabbed one of the branches I'd broken up, just in case, but I still wasn't ready for as hard as it hit me. I thought maybe it was a bear, but it was something else. Half a bear, or maybe a wolf, and the other half was a man." He lifted the back of his hair and showed me several dark, shiny scars evenly spaced from each other at the base of his neck. "It tried to bite my head off," he added, laughing humorlessly. "I ran the stick through its chest, which was just stupid luck since I couldn't see anything, and we both fell to the ground. I got to my feet trying to see what the hell it was. But it was just…gone."

  "What? How?" I asked almost immediately.

  "I don't know. When I got back to my village, they sent a hunting party out for the bear they were sure it was based on the bite mark, but they came back the next morning with nothing."

  "Oh my god, Leo…"

  "I know I killed it though—whatever it was. I felt its life slip away. All the anger and hate it held," he said, then turned to me, his dark brows drawn together. "I felt it slip into me, Halsey." He looked away again and after a few more seconds, he cleared his throat. "My mother said I was asleep for three days, so the village elders sent for medicine men from three different tribes, and after trying everything they could to wake me up, they all said the same thing…that the lives of my ancestors had swallowed me. That the Red Cloud had come for me, and I would never be the same."

  "That sounds terrifying," I whispered.

  "The people in my village had mixed ideas about it. Some of the people who knew my father's family said it was a blessing. Others said it was a curse. All I knew after I woke up was that my blood felt like it was boiling, and if I didn't leave, I was going to hurt people. So I left."