by Holly Hook
But I could see above the grass just a little.
It was the old woman in the shawl, all right, and she was moving great without her cane. The woman looked even more wrinkled now, so much that her face looked like clay. The sewage with perfume smell got even stronger. Was it her? And how on earth could Tate not notice the stench?
The witch walked around her house, picked up something that must be her cane, and hobbled away into the forest behind her home. Underbrush cracked as she walked. She must be going to set her trap for someone else in the woods.
"I think she left that place empty," I said. "And this looks like an even bigger trap."
"Then we'll need to be careful," Tate said.
We crept towards the house. I bolted across the expanse of the dark spot, and my skin started to itch in that annoying way again. All my senses sharpened. The impending danger must be doing something to my nervous system. I could hear every bird skittering around in the trees. Every buzzing insect. There weren't any of those hornet nests, thank goodness.
The door was unlocked. Of course. It was too easy. The heavy wooden door swung in, and the pale, gray light of the dark spot illuminated a tiny room with a crooked wooden table and another iron stove. I wondered if anyone inhabited that one.
"Better knock," Tate said.
I did. The stove was still warm. "Hello?"
A hollow noise rang through the stove, and I reached up and itched my back. No one said anything from inside. "Just a stove," I said at last. "Look around for the knife. I think we'll both be inside this thing if the witch comes back and we're still here."
There was a tiny bedroom attached to the room and a pantry with jars filled with gross things. I didn't linger there long. One of them contained eyes. Another had something that might be toes. I could smell brine leaking through them. The itch got worse over my whole body. What was wrong with me? I rolled up my sleeve to check if I was breaking out into a rash, but my skin hadn't changed.
"Red, are you okay?" Tate asked.
"Yes. This itch just keeps getting worse, though."
"That's not a good thing." He opened a cupboard next to my head. "There has to be something here."
The faint scent of metal invaded my nostrils, cutting over the brine. I sniffed, and it seemed to be coming from the bottom of the pantry. "I think it's in here somewhere." I leaned down and felt around until my hand sunk into a hole below the bottom shelf, one poked right into the wood. I reached in, fumbled around, and closed my hand around the dull blade of a knife. "Got it!" I said. "She thought she was going to hide this from us." I pulled out a crude iron knife with a dull blade and a handle that might be--oh, crap--bone. There were skulls carved on it along with eyeballs. Eyeballs must be this witch's calling card. "This must be what she used to imprison Macon. Let's get back to him and get on our way."
Tate stared at me with wide eyes. "How did you find that?" he asked. "It was way under there. Do you have radar vision or something? I would never have thought to look."
I knew my answer would sound weird, but this was Tate. I had trusted Tate with my grandmother's craziness. And we were standing in Fable. "I smelled the iron," I said. "Didn't you?"
I handed Tate the knife, and he sniffed it, careful to keep the blade from touching his skin. Who knew what purpose it served? “I can smell it just a little if I shove it right up to my face,” he said. He looked at me funny again. “Is something going on with you? If not, my nose is shutting down."
“No,” I said, resisting the urge to lean against a cabinet and scratch my back on it. Why wouldn’t this itch stop? I was going crazy. I wanted to tear my skin off. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t like Macon, but I think the guy’s right about me not wanting to stay in the dark spots for long. I don't feel right."
Tate and I moved through the tiny kitchen with the iron stove. Boards creaked as we neared the exit. I could smell the damp air outside. The despair.
And the awful sewage stench had returned.
Every muscle tightened, and I forgot all about the itch. “Our friend is back,” I said, grabbing Tate’s arm.
“What?” he asked.
I pulled him behind the cabinet, and we squashed against the wall just as the front door creaked open, and the odor grew so intense I had to hold down a gag. Tate held his breath, and we pushed together as tight as we could. Footfalls entered. A joint popped. The witch coughed. The old woman smelled like a huge bag of garbage that had been sitting in the sun since July. Tate breathed if the smell wasn’t even there.
The woman’s cane tapped against the floor as she moved past our hiding place and towards the other room. “Alric,” she said. “I have delightful news and a gift. I’ve trapped the huntsman for you. But I also have news.”
“News?” Alric asked. I recognized the voice. It was the same dark one from last night. It was the man in the black and red robe. The one who wanted to shroud all of Fable in darkness.
My heart about stopped. The second set of footsteps entered the house and another smell, one like a damp cave, invaded my nostrils. It was fitting.
“The girl has another companion, one who isn’t in her story. He must have come from the other world to Fable with her.”
“Interesting,” Alric said. These two were in league with each other. Great. The itch intensified all over my body. I struggled not to scratch the skin off my arms. And my back--I struggled not to think about that. I felt like porcupine quills were trying to grow out. I couldn't stay still much longer.
“What should we do about him?” the witch asked. "I am puzzled."
The two walked a bit further away. Once the two were in the other room, we could go to the door and make a run for it.
“I think I know, Mother,” Alric said. He headed away. The boards creaked as the sorcerer moved through the kitchen. “He's a new element here, and he might hold the key to us changing the ending to this tale. I say we should leave him alive for now. It will be a great way to test Red’s loyalty once we sway her.”
Sway me? I faced Tate, but it didn’t look like he knew any more than I did. I was supposed to die. Get eaten, and stay eaten. Simple as that. It was even there in the story.
The two of them moved further into the house, and their voices dimmed. Tate looked around the cabinet and then nodded to me.
All clear. It was time to go.
The two of us crept out, and I was glad the floor in this room was dirt. We tiptoed outside, and I breathed in the fresh air of freedom. Well, not quite. The woman’s horrible stench still lingered from where she had walked, and it was so pungent that I was sure I could follow the trail of it into the woods if I needed to.
A wave of dizziness hit me, and I stumbled away from the doorway. The world exploded into strange colors. Tate grabbed onto my arm and helped me steady myself. The dark spot was doing something to me.
"Red?" Tate asked. He sounded underwater.
"Um..." I managed. My head pounded and a migraine exploded on the right side of my head. What was going on? The itch hit a sickening peak, and we made it to the cover of the trail before I fell out of Tate's grasp and landed on the ground. The world spun. I could see where the dark spot ended just feet in front of us. I had to get out. Sounds exploded. Birds were chirping. Leaves rustling. Colors grew brighter and more vibrant.
"Red!" he hissed. "We have to get off the trail. What's wrong?" Tate stood there, shifting leg to leg.
"I..." My voice sounded thick. Deeper.
I couldn't get up. I couldn't rise from my hands and knees. I tried to crawl, but the world roared and tilted too much. A migraine pounded worse than ever and my skin burned. The dark spot was killing me.
And then Tate cried out and jumped back.
The entire world blurred and all the colors mashed together. The grays and the dark green and the blacks. Even the brighter colors of the rest of the forest. They turned against each other like some painting trying to throw up. Popping noises sounded throughout my body. Joints cracked. Pain
rippled. A blur that might have been Tate's leg rushed past me, and some underbrush crashed. Maybe this was some seizure and the dark region brought out hidden illnesses.
"Red," Tate managed.
The pain ebbed away. The throbbing in my skull abated, and the world snapped back into place.
I was alive.
I had survived the attack.
Tate stood there in the underbrush, and he slowly backed away like he wasn't trying to get my attention. I could make out every blade of grass in the woods around me. Every bug crawling between them. Each smell popped. Every sound. I could make out the distinctions in the bird chirps around us. They all had different voices now, different songs. A metallic, almost sweaty smell hit me. It was coming from Tate. He still held the iron knife, and his eyes were huge. I could make out the lines in his irises, and they formed rivers through the brown. Something shone there.
Fear.
I tried to get up again, but couldn't. The last of the dizziness faded, and I managed to take a step. Something didn't feel right. I didn't feel right.
And then I saw why.
Instead of hands on the ground, I had paws.
Large, reddish brown wolf paws.
And fur. And an elongated face.
Total panic seized me, and I turned in a circle, trying to see the rest of myself, but it was fruitless. Tate said something else, but I was too lost in my freak-out to hear him.
I had gone off the road. It was my story to be punished for it.
I hadn't thought it would be like this.
Mary had said something about fairytales not always being the way people thought they were.
"Red," Tate said again. I stopped and faced him. He had his hands up like he was scared I was going to attack him. I tried to shake my head to tell him that no, I wouldn't, but it didn't do any good. My boyfriend had just witnessed this. What was he going to think of me now? But I couldn't say a word to him. Something like a whimper escaped my throat.
It wasn't just Fable that Grandma had been keeping me from all my life.
It was also this.
Tate swallowed and seemed to get his wits back. He glanced in the direction of the house right when I heard the front door creak. A whiff of raw sewage along with an even stronger smell of deep, dark cave wafted out. Alric was emerging. He'd come this way.
"Run," Tate told me, ducking down in the tall weeds. "Get out of here before he finds you. Go!"
I remembered what he'd done to the wolf on the trail. How its eyes had changed.
Alric would try to turn me evil if I wasn't already. If that happened, I would fall. My story would end the wrong way, and every other living creature in this forest would fall, too.
I bolted into the weeds, in the opposite direction as Tate.
Grass slapped against my face, and I came out of the dark spot. All the colors turned bright and vibrant, and I could hear Alric's footsteps far behind me. He said something to his mother and walked faster.
He had detected me.
Keep running. I had to get away from the magician. I knew that even without encountering him that I had no chance. I'd freak out about my form later. I had left Tate crouching in the weeds behind me, and I had to lead Alric away from him.
I slowed my pace, trying to avoid every noisy twig that lay on the ground. The weeds and shrubs hid me from view. Alric slowed, and I knew he was searching.
"I know you are out there," Alric called. His voice was a dark wave washing over the woods. The cold, sharp magic invaded the air. The breeze blew, and I caught his cave scent riding on it. He was somewhere to my right and behind me. The man could move fast, and he was fearless. "Don't be afraid of me. I can show you how to return to your human form. You'll have great trouble without my help."
It was a lie. The sorcerer had zero interest in that. I crouched down as low as I could, and the grass smell masked his a bit. All my senses zoomed in on Alric. Nothing else mattered. A twig snapped. Then another. He was walking to the left a little bit, almost like he was trying to circle. He didn’t know where I was. He might be a magician, but at least he didn’t have the sharp senses I did.
Did he?
“Come out,” he ordered. He was a bit farther away, but his words were thicker somehow, pulling like dark syrup. They were tugging at me, beckoning every fiber of my being. I wanted to get up and walk to him. No. Alric was using some magic on me. I knew what would happen if I went to him. I’d fall under his spell and turn dark. He would win.
Or maybe he already had.
“Show yourself, and walk to me.”
The pull became overwhelming, and I knew what I had to do.
I lifted myself from the ground and bolted in the other direction.
“No!” Alric shouted, the pull of his voice gone. He broke into a run. "Get back here. You can't handle that power by yourself."
I kept running faster than I ever had. Underbrush and prickly weeds slapped at my face. I wished more than anything that I could get my head above it. Vegetation crashed behind me, and the cold magic reached a peak, crackling with energy. The world tilted for a moment, then stabilized as I pumped my legs faster to escape whatever power he was using. I left Alric further and further behind. The trees got a bit thinner, and I could run more freely. I weaved around them. At least I was giving Tate a chance to get away.
The sounds of his footfalls got fainter and fainter behind me. At last, I had run so far that I couldn't catch a whiff of his scent on the wind. The forest brightened around me, and I ran into another small clearing. The grass shortened here, and I stopped, panting for breath.
Literally.
Now that I was away from Alric, the full situation came crashing down.
Was this what Mary meant by consumed by the wolf?
She hadn't been talking about getting eaten at all.
She'd meant this.
Either Alric had done something to me, or I had gone most of my life as an undiagnosed werewolf.
And the dark spot had brought it out, the same way it brought out evil in the elves.
I took another step. I was getting used to this, but I couldn't help but look down again. No hands. Still paws. They remained reddish brown--almost the color of the wolf who had warned me about the trap.
Was I stuck like this for the rest of my life or could I return to my other form?
What was I supposed to do now?
I breathed slower, trying to hold my panic down. At least I'd gotten away from Alric for now. I had to focus on what was going right here, even if it wasn't much.
I froze as another twig snapped in the distance. The footstep wasn't as heavy. An animal. A hare hopped into the clearing, saw me, and fled right back into the woods, white tail bobbing up and down.
I had to find Tate again and hope that he wouldn't run from me.
An ache crept up in my chest. Tate had seen this. My boyfriend had seen this, and now there was no way he would stay my boyfriend. I couldn't blame him. But now he was out in the woods, all alone, and so was Macon, still trapped in that stove. Tate would get him out with that knife. Maybe.
Or the witch had found Tate, and they were torturing him.
I had to go back.
The wind snapped through the trees, bringing the perfume of flowers and the scent of bark along with it. I hadn't realized the variety of smells out here. I had missed a whole layer of the world until now. I caught an aroma that was almost like meat sizzling on the grill, but that was impossible out here.
My stomach rumbled.
I needed to find a way to return to normal, at least for now. I paced around the clearing, still on all fours and with sounds and colors at every angle. Nothing was changing. This fur wasn't going away. I willed myself to grow taller, to regain my human shape, but it was useless. Panic crept in, and I wasn't sure what to do. I couldn't continue the journey like this. I couldn't even talk to Tate if I found him again. Or Macon, if he didn't decide to freak out and shoot me.
The wind blew again,
and with it came the faint scent of the underground.
I stiffened. Alric was coming through the woods. He hadn't given up.
I had to move.
But I was also lost. Which way led back to Tate? All the trees looked the same. A bird flew into one and vanished into a hole.
The smell came from my right. Alric must be several hundred feet away, getting closer by the second. There was no way I could attack the guy. Not if he could make me stop with his words.
I crept back into the underbrush. It might be better if I didn't revert to human form right now. Alric couldn't see me as well as this and I could move faster. See better. I glanced back and spotted a dark, hooded shadow in the trees. He walked towards the clearing and hadn't detected me yet. Maybe I could circle back around and find Tate. All I had to do was head in Alric's direction.
I crouched down and stalked back through the grass, making a huge arc around Alric. I kept him in my sights, praying that his hood disrupted his side vision enough so I'd escape undetected. Alric entered the clearing and stood there, searching, and I took the opportunity to move a bit faster, ducking under some low branches that would have caught me had I been my regular height. I had to find Tate, and we needed to run.
I wasn't sure if Alric continued, but I was able to straighten up and at least get my face out of the grass. I broke into a run again. I was getting used to these new legs. The grass smells masked everything for a few moments until it thinned and I caught another smell on the air.
A metallic odor almost like sweat.
Tate's fear. That's what it was.
I could smell fear.
The tree trunks stood around me like the legs of wooden giants. I turned my head, taking in the air, trying to figure out his direction. I had to use it to get back. Otherwise, I might wander around here for days.
Tate was to my right.
I turned and walked through the trees, checking every once in a while to make sure the man in the black and red robe wasn't following.
And then I spotted it about half a mile ahead.
Another clearing.
This one had the large iron stove that imprisoned Macon. And standing next to it, waving his arms, was Tate.
