by Holly Hook
"I came for you. Glad Grandma let me do that."
Maybe it was because Tate's family was the farthest thing from fairy tales ever. It could be the only reason I got to see him.
"I wonder what my parents are thinking right now," Tate said. "I've never gone this long without calling them. I wonder what it would say on the phone if it did go through?"
"I don't have that problem," I said. "I don't even know where my parents are. I never met them." Then I faced Tate. "Maybe they're here, and Grandma told me they were dead so I wouldn't wonder about them?" She had some explaining to do once I found her.
And Macon still hadn't come back. We'd been sitting up here almost an hour.
"I think we should go look for him," Tate said. "I have the flashlight app on my phone. It could just be that he can't see in the dark."
"Or he thinks he can, and he'll brag about it when he gets back," I said. "More like, he'll brag about how he knows these woods so well he could get through them blindfolded."
"I'll go down. I'll shine my phone down that little path and see if Macon's coming back. Deal?"
"Deal. That doesn't sound so bad."
Tate made to climb down the tree when we heard it.
Footsteps. Snapping twigs.
And a growl.
The wolves had come back.
I held my breath. Was it the same wolves? I dared to look over the branch, but the light from the moon wasn't enough tonight to let me see much.
Not two, but three wolves walked right underneath our tree. The black one stopped to sniff the trunk and Tate grabbed my arm. The wolf smelled for a long time while the other two watched, then moved on across the trail, sniffing the whole way. The russet one made a quiet growling noise and followed the wolf in the lead, a majestic graying one. They went over to the tree Tate and I originally was going to climb and then stopped there for a long time, circling it and investigating. We'd left our scent all over the place.
It was them. The same wolves who had warned me not to fall for the trap.
Maybe they wanted us on the trail after all so they could find us later. The wolves might even have been counting on Macon leaving us here. But they hadn't seemed threatening in the daytime.
Neither Tate nor I said a word. The wolves would figure out where we were soon enough. The only reason they might not have detected us up here was the fact that Macon's scent was also all over this tree and it might be helping to mask us.
And then the head wolf turned and headed back towards us. I scooted further on the branch. Would they sit there until we came down? Then they would pounce. And eat. And if Macon didn't get back here in time--
"Stop. I see you."
A voice like deep darkness washed over everything. All three wolves stopped in the middle of the trail and faced someone who was approaching.
I thought it must be Macon at first and he was finally back from taking that old woman home. But the air grew sharp and cold. Instead of the green-clad Macon, a man in a flowing black and red robe appeared. He stood in the middle of the road, fearless in the presence of three wolves. The man had a black hood with red trim pulled over his face, hiding it. He reminded me of the evil emperor from the original Star Wars movies.
The three wolves stood there and then backed away.
"To me," the man ordered.
The russet wolf growled and snapped at him. The black one fled, crashing into the trees. The gray one drew closer, and even from here I could see its eyes turning from black to red. The color of glowing blood. The wolf stopped in front of the man and the man stroked it on the head.
I wasn't even sure what I was watching, but I kept holding my breath. The guy was exerting some control over these wolves. Well, the gray one. The second one retreated. It whimpered like it was trying to get the attention of its friend, but gave up at last and turned away. Ran. The gray wolf growled again as the man ran his hand down its back, but it didn't attack him.
"He's controlling it," Tate whispered.
I flinched, but the man didn't turn his head to face us. Instead, he turned away and the wolf followed him down the trail like some evil pet. Tate was right. The man had done something to the wolf and it wasn't nice.
Was this what those two wolves in the forest earlier had feared?
They hadn't wanted to go to the man.
They hadn't wanted to turn evil.
The wolf and the man vanished, walking up the trail in the direction we needed to go in. A horrible thought struck me. This man might be taking the wolf to where my grandmother was waiting. They were going ahead to make sure my story and hers ended badly.
This man might even be Alric himself.
We waited up in the tree until the man's footsteps had vanished. Somewhere, the other two wolves began to howl, and I caught a huge deal of heartbreak and sorrow in their cries. They had lost their friend to the evil man on the road. I could almost feel their pain.
"What just happened?" Tate asked.
"I don't know," I said. "I don't know."
"I have to agree with you," Tate said. "If this guy can turn wolves into killing machines, what can he do to people?"
The horrible cold tingling feeling vanished from the air as the man got farther away. He had a lot of magic around him. It wasn't the same kind Stilt had, either. Stilt's magic felt light and warm and playful--at least while he was in the bright region. This man's power was cold and sharp and unforgiving.
He had to be Alric for sure.
Tate and I waited in silence for the man to come back, but he never did. The night wore on and I don't think I slept any. Once in a while, I'd start to drift off and lean against Tate, but his heart was beating so fast that I couldn't sleep. My boyfriend was scared out here. Nervous. He had never been outside his rich, sheltered life and I felt horrible for him. Tate hadn't volunteered for this. I hated that I had dragged him into this.
"I love you," I told Tate every time I let my head fall on him. "I'm sorry."
"I agreed to do this with you," he said every time. "Don't beat yourself up. I knew I was signing up for something bizarre when I saw your grandmother vanish into that flash of light. I knew this wasn't going to be normal. And you know what? I think it's cool going on an adventure. A real one, anyway."
I wasn't sure if he was being truthful or not. Tate's heart was still pounding. His adrenaline hadn't stopped pumping since we'd gotten here. I could almost smell his fear. It was coppery, like blood. I had never noticed that before.
"We need to find Macon in the morning," I said. "If that one wolf is all evil now and Alric is commanding it, we're going to need him. Unfortunately."
Chapter Eight
Morning came too slow. The wolves' sorrowful howling slowly faded in the distance. Maybe they had gone in search of their leader. Their friend.
No wonder they didn't want Alric to win. I'd seen what had happened to that wolf. How it had changed. It had turned from an ordinary wolf into some beast. I remembered the struggle I'd seen in the other wolves' eyes in the dark spot. The red, trying to creep in.
All creatures would turn like this if Alric won and the fairy tales fell.
Tate and I climbed down from the tree once we determined it was safe. When I was at the bottom, I scanned the forest but spotted only a hare hopping through the flowers, munching on some dandelions. Even Fable dealt with weeds.
"I think we're safe," I said. "We need to find Macon."
Dread crept up into my gut as soon as I spoke those words.
We would be going off the trail and wasting more time. My grandmother might even be eaten by now and sitting in the belly of that wolf that Alric had turned to his side last night. Terror squeezed at my heart. I wasn't supposed to do this if I was going to win. But I couldn't go to my grandmother without the huntsman, either.
We had to go down that path where the old woman had taken him.
And we had already wasted too much time hiding in the tree, but there was no way we could risk going through the wood
s at night.
I headed back to the spot on the trail where the old woman had been lying the night before, screaming for help. The clearing was still there, but it was different this morning. Right where the old woman had fallen, there was a new dark spot. It wasn't big--just a bit bigger than her body--but the grass had turned dark, and the few flowers growing there had turned black and red, as red as blood.
As red as my hoodie.
I had just noticed it. My hoodie had turned from dark green back to bright, bright red--and the Disney logo had vanished from the front.
"Tate!" I shouted.
"Huh?"
It took him a minute. Then his eyes grew big. "How did that happen?" he asked.
"I don't know." Stilt had said something about your story always following you. Maybe this was it. It was a way it was catching up with me. My hoodie must have reverted to its regular color overnight. The last thing I wanted to go through the woods wearing was bright red. I took the hoodie off and hung it over a tree branch. Then I thought better of it and slung it over my shoulder. We couldn't leave this out here in case Alric returned with that evil wolf. He'd know we went this way. It was best to blend in as much as we could.
The path was almost invisible, and it cut right through the new dark spot. Terrible sign. The woman might have done something to the land. What if we had to go into a more expansive dark area to find Macon?
"Let's go," Tate said.
I hesitated at the edge of the road.
"Red, we have to do this. I know you're scared." He kissed me on top of my head.
"I know I shouldn't be," I said. It was rising all over again: the fear of disobeying. Why shouldn't it? All it had ever done was get me in trouble.
But I had no choice now. Alric might have set this up so no matter what I did, I'd lose.
I took the first step off the path.
And then another.
"See?" Tate asked.
I felt like a little kid taking the first scary steps into a swimming pool. I took another stride, and then another.
And nothing jumped out at me.
"We're wasting time," I said.
"We need smarty pants," Tate said. "Without him in the story, the wolf wins."
I took two more steps. Nothing had happened. I had to swallow this terror and make the story end on my terms. Alric wanted us to continue without Macon. He also wanted us to get distracted. He had set this trap up well, and Macon hadn't listened. I wanted to clobber the guy for falling for the trap.
We walked past the small dark spot, giving it a wide berth. My skin itched a bit as I passed. What was with this annoying itching? I hoped the negative spot symptoms ended there.
We passed and the itching faded. The trail curved as we walked, going deeper into the trees. This path looked as if someone had walked up and down it many, many times. The old woman, maybe. I watched the trees, and my terror faded a bit. I could do this. I could go against the rules without dying--maybe. The fear was just my story trying to close in on me. I had to fight it as Tate said.
We walked for about half an hour. I saw no sign of any buildings or Macon, for that matter. My stomach rumbled. I was hungry, even though we had eaten before coming down from the tree. Why was I so hungry? It was sharpening my sense of smell. I could smell the dandelions we passed. The tree bark. Water gurgled somewhere. It all blended and drove me mad. Everything was vibrant here in Fable.
"I think I see something," Tate said at last.
He pointed up the trail. There was a small clearing up ahead, but at least it wasn't a dark spot.
And in the clearing was a random iron stove. It was a huge stove, too, enough to fit one of the wild boars Macon had claimed he had killed.
"That's...random," I said. "What's a stove doing out here?" It just sat there, not connected to anything.
"And weird," Tate said. "They had an old iron stove like this on that one field trip we went on to that old Civil War house."
"I wasn't allowed to go on that one," I said. "Grandma said she was afraid I'd trip on something and break my arm since there were all those trails you had to walk on."
"Oh," Tate said. He shrugged. "Maybe iron stoves had something to do with it."
We approached the stove. I reached up and knocked on it. It made a hollow metallic sound.
And then it shouted, "Hey!"
I jumped back. Tate did, too, and covered his ears. "Please say I didn't just hear the stove talk," he said.
"Can you get me out of here?"
I struggled to place the voice, but the metal muffled it.
I waited for it to come back, but it took a while. "Hello?" I asked.
"It's me. Macon."
"How did you get in there?" I asked. I leaned down to peer through the cage, but I saw nothing inside the stove. "You're seriously inside? I said you shouldn't have gone to that woman. She turned out to be a witch, didn't she?"
"She did," Macon said. I could hear the shame in his voice. "I can't find a way out."
"We can't even see you," Tate said. "I don't see anything when I look through the door." He went to pry it open, but it didn't give.
"You really shouldn't have gone to her," I said. So the wolves had been right after all, right to warn us to find another way around. Had Macon not pointed his bow at them, they could have had time to tell me about the witch. "We knew Alric would be setting up traps all around us, and you still chose not to listen to us."
"Here's the thing," Macon said. "There are hermits out here in these woods, and some of them are good and helpful. If we hadn't helped the woman, Alric would have had some other trap up the trail waiting for us. Not helping people out here in Fable always has consequences. Mary always tells us about the people who don't help the poor and try to screw over their family members. They always end up poor themselves, or even dead."
Tate and I grimaced at each other. Nothing was ever going to be Macon's fault. "Well, we need to get you out," I said. "Did the witch leave you any clues? We can't even see you in there." It wasn't going to be as simple as opening the door and finding Macon crouched in there. "At least she didn't try to cook you, or something."
"The witch must live nearby," Macon said. "When she said her words, she touched me with an iron knife. Before I could reach for my ax, I was inside this stove that wasn't even here before. You may have to find the knife. It must be the key to getting me out of here."
"That means finding the witch," Tate said.
"And she probably lives in a dark spot," I said. "Or close to the dark region." I searched around us. The clearing had another path going off from it, one leading into a darker part of the woods. It was the only logical way to go. There was even another small gloomy spot just off the path, one the size of a house. Black and red flowers grew around the trunk of a large, gnarled tree.
"Watch out," Macon said. "Do not linger in any dark spots for long, Red."
"Why are you only warning me?" I asked. "It's not healthy for any of us."
But Macon had no words, no monologue of wisdom to bestow on us. I shrugged and looked at Tate. He shrugged back. It wasn't like Macon at all.
And I wasn't looking forward to finding some witch's house out here. This whole thing said TRAP in huge letters. She must be working with Alric to derail our plan to save my grandmother.
"We'll be back as soon as we can," I said. It was possible Macon would be stuck in there until someone else came by, and that Tate and I would never come back from the witch's hut. Alric himself might even be waiting there.
We had to be careful. Just to be extra safe, I dumped my red hoodie in some underbrush. We didn't need to have any bright colors on us.
Tate and I entered the next trail. At least we had a path we could follow, and we wouldn't get lost. All the forest smells got stronger, almost overwhelming. How was Tate dealing with this all so well?
It only took us about twenty minutes to spot another clearing up ahead. It wasn't a big one, and it had a low, creepy, dilapidated hou
se right on the far side, one covered in vines with a roof made of dark shingles. A pair of enormous gnarled trees grew up on either side, and more of the black flowers lined the outside of the house, forming a creepy border. A bit of smoke rose from the chimney, proving that someone was probably home.
And worst of all--the house stood right in the middle of a large dark spot.
"I think this is where she is," I said. I picked up another strange smell. Something reeked of sewage and perfume mixed. I wrinkled my nose. "Something's disgusting here. Don't you smell that?"
Tate sniffed. "I smell smoke, but nothing else. Maybe my allergies are kicking in."
"Maybe you can't smell it because you're not a Legend." I crept a bit closer. My heart pounded, and all my muscles tightened, ready to jump and hide as soon as that door opened. But the windows to the cottage were small. Tiny, even, like prison windows.
"Well, the knife must be in the cottage," Tate said. "I'll go look for it, Red. You can stay here. Alric wants you to go to that cottage and search."
"You're not doing this by yourself." If something happened to Tate out here, I would never forgive myself.
"No, you're not." Tate's voice trembled.
"Yes, I am. We do this together. I'm not letting anything happen to you." What was I saying? There was no way I could protect Tate. What was I supposed to do? Tell the witch--or Alric--to be nice and leave my boyfriend alone?
We locked hands and forced ourselves to walk towards the darkness.
"Some hermit," Tate said, looking around.
I wondered how long Macon could survive locked up in that stove or if his essence had gotten trapped. The iron knife. It had to be here somewhere.
A door creaked open, and Tate and I ducked into the underbrush.
We were close to the border of the dark spot now. The green grass grew up almost in front of my face, and some gross bug that looked like a giant cockroach crossed with a moth perched right in front of my face. It gave off a gross, smoky smell like burning tires. I had never smelled burning tires, but this reeked how I imagined them.
