by Holly Hook
“Red—are you okay?” Tate asked.
I stood and brushed myself off. Tate grimaced. He’d saved my life. The wolf hadn’t had any interest in talking to me at all. It just wanted to tear out my throat. I couldn’t get the hatred in that creature's eyes out of my head.
“Here’s the thing,” Macon said. He was still shaking but going into his lecture mode all over again. “Light wolves and dark wolves don’t get along. A wolf that dark isn’t going to care what you are. It’s best not to approach them at all.”
I was so relieved that I couldn’t feel annoyed with Macon. But then a horrible thought hit me. “Where’s my grandmother?” I asked. “That wasn’t her—was it?”
My heart broke.
It could have been.
She’d been even closer to the dark region than this for days. She would have transformed by now and worse.
“I don’t know,” Macon said. “That wolf was so far gone that it seems it's hung around the dark region for some time. Once in a while, dark wolves wander into the border regions to hunt. Some of them are regular wolves turned dark. Others are werewolves who have forgotten that they even have a human form. Both are dangerous.”
“Point taken,” Tate said. “We should move before it comes back with friends.”
“What about the boar?” I asked. “It had to die. We shouldn’t let it go to waste.”
Tate faced me. “Since when did you get such a taste for meat?”
I shot him a look that wiped the smirk off his face, but I was glad for the joke.
Macon walked up and tapped the boar with his boot. It was no longer suffering. I was glad for that, at least. “Actually, it’s not a wise idea to eat this. It could potentially have werewolf saliva in it, which could have some adverse effects on Tate and me. We need to move on.”
My stomach rumbled, and I forced myself to look away from the body. Maybe the crows would come down and eat it. Or the wolves would come back and have an excuse to leave us alone. I checked the forest to see if Russet and Ebony were out there, but no luck. They must fear the dark region. If the place could wipe away their human memories, I didn’t blame them.
But I was going in.
And judging from this, we’d be there in a short time. The sky had darkened almost to thunderstorm gray.
Would Grandma know me when I got there?
Or would she try to tear out my throat? If I hadn’t seen her yet, that was?
* * * * *
Things didn’t get any better farther down the road.
The road itself grew bumpier, and now grass and weeds grew up from it. No one maintained it here. I didn’t think Fable had a road commission and if they did, there was no way they were visiting this place.
The sky got so dark above that I was sure a crack of thunder was going to sound, but it never did. Instead, an eerie silence fell, only broken by our footsteps and an occasional crow crying out in the distance. The hares and the foxes had vanished. They had no place here. More and more of the trees had vines crawling down them, which only darkened the forest more. Stagnant ponds of water got more and more common, and the whole place smelled like a swamp. There were still dark spots here and there, but it was getting harder and harder to tell them apart from the rest of the forest. We hadn't made it to the dark region yet. Macon was right that there was no line or sign.
And my skin itched just a little.
It was starting. Great. The itch wasn’t nearly as intense as it had been in the dark spots, but I knew that wouldn’t last.
“How much farther?” I asked.
Macon glanced back at me, and then at a giant, split log with some creepy white mushrooms growing out of it. The things spelled death. “Maybe twenty minutes. We’re almost there. Your grandmother’s cottage is set far back from the road in a clearing with some oak trees growing around it.”
I thought of her wanting to get away from the pack. “Was this area always so dark?”
“No. It used to be a light area. I’m sure your grandmother wouldn’t have hidden in a place like this if it was this gross at the time,” Macon said. “But Alric made her come back, now that he’s managed to turn the place darker.”
For once, he wasn't too annoying. A bit of sweat had formed on his brow even though it was cooling down without the sun. I couldn’t make it out in the sky anymore.
My grandmother had inhabited this cottage in her past lives. She had spent her life avoiding it. I imagined a low, sad building in disrepair even worse than the witch’s house. I had Tate hand me the basket.
It was almost time to see this story through and make it end the right way, whatever that was. We had to save Grandma and me from the grasp of turning dark. I could think of no other thing that would work here.
I checked inside the basket for the knife. Check. The wine. Also, check. There was one lone, crumbling biscuit left, but I had no desire to eat it. Mary had packed those as snacks.
But I was getting ravenous again. I’d had nothing except for deer meat since yesterday. I offered Tate the biscuit.
“No, thanks,” he said. “Maybe you should eat.”
My senses were beginning to sharpen again. I could make out the tiny inflections of Tate’s voice. I could smell the fear pumping through him. Tate was scared of me attacking him. I hated that thought, so I made him feel better by eating the biscuit. It was dry and tasteless now. “Buttery,” I joked.
Tate smiled. “When we get back to the other world, let’s go to the Universal Studios park instead of Disney World, okay?”
“Okay.” That sounded awesome. Never mind that I had no idea how we were going to get back. I couldn’t ask Alric if we could borrow his magic mirror.
But at least in the other world, I could suppress this whole wolf thing. Grandma and I had done it for years. It would take more kale and seaweed and vegan dinners. More avoiding Halloween and going out at night and fighting our migraines. I could forget all about it and so could Tate. He didn’t deserve to get dragged into something so weird.
A wave of sadness washed over me.
I’d be going back to that sheltered, tiny life.
And if I ever had kids, I’d have to inflict the same on them.
I’d have to become Grandma. If we even got back.
“Tate—are you okay with this?” I asked.
“With what?”
My heart pounded. “With me not being a normal person.”
Tate smiled. “You didn’t hear me saying we should make more trips? Of course, I’m okay with this. Well, with the times that you’re, you know, a person. During the times you're not, we’re going to have to take breaks. But just temporary ones.”
Relief coursed through me. “I plan to be a person as much as I can. Trust me.” But even as I said it, I thought of Russet and Ebony. They were such free spirits. Nobody told them what to do. They lived out in the wild, with no crazy rules or restrictions. They didn't worry about appearance all the time.
They'd been a breath of fresh air.
Macon walked ahead of us and then held up a hand to say stop.
We did. Tate and I stayed close together. The swamp smell grew stronger than ever, and Macon kept staring ahead.
I looked. My vision was sharpening, and I saw what had caught Macon's attention.
There was a smaller path veering off this one. A single, pale ray of sunshine illuminated the entrance as if trying to tell us where to go. I didn’t get where the sun could be coming from with the sky so dark. It was the weirdest illusion I’d ever seen.
“That’s the way to the cottage,” Macon said at last. “We should proceed with caution.”
“That way?” I asked. The trees were even thicker surrounding the path, and I couldn’t see where it led. Macon had said the house was far back from the road. Alric had taken my grandmother far from help. From anyone else. He would expect us to take the path of least resistance to the cottage. “You know what?" I asked. "We should take the hardest possible way to get there. Alric will e
xpect us to waltz down that path and into whatever trap he has set up.”
Macon whirled around and held up a finger. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “The path is the safest possible way to get there. There are poisonous things in these woods. Thorns grow through here all the time, and it’s tough to get through.”
“Shut up,” I said. "Enough with this 'here's the thing' crap. Your judgment has helped us make great progress so far. And I thought you were the master hunter. You've been in these woods, right? You've hunted here. If anyone knows a better way around that Alric won't expect, it'll be you, right?"
"I agree with Red," Tate added. "We need a different way around, and you're going to stay quiet about it. You're going to stay quiet, period."
Macon opened his mouth like he wanted to argue some more, then closed it. We were winning on one front, at least.
"We all need to work together," I said. "It's my grandmother in there. I'm going after her. This way."
I turned towards the woods, and the itching got a bit worse all over my body. The transformation was getting closer the longer I stayed in this border area, but it wasn't imminent. If I waited here too long, it would be, and I didn't want it to happen this close to the dark region.
I might hurt Tate and Macon.
But still, I walked towards the woods.
"Red," Macon said in a tone that said stop.
I didn't listen to him. It hadn't gotten us very far. Tate followed me as I stepped onto the moist, smelly ground.
I was getting over my fear.
There was a whole world out there, and I wanted off the narrow path.
It was like the ground in the dark spot I had walked through before. Just as rank. Just as swampy. Huge tree roots rose out of the earth and more of those white mushrooms grew out of rotting logs. We had entered a place of rot. Why would my grandmother have ever settled here in her past lives?
It might not have been so bad before. I had a feeling it wasn't.
Macon had shut up. We walked in silence along the path, and it wasn't fun. It was tempting to get on its raised, dry ground, but I knew better. We had to dodge around huge puddles of water and even a full pond, which took us five minutes to figure out how to do so without falling in. Macon was right about one thing. The path went far back from the road.
Or this forest could be going dark because it knew my story was about to end that way.
I shoved that thought out of my mind.
The minutes dragged out. The itching across my skin didn't get any worse, but it got no better. Or it was getting worse so slowly that I didn't notice and my transformation would creep up on me. This place wasn't entirely dark. I could still spot a few rays of sunlight here and there, and some of them had some gold left.
Maybe there was some hope for my grandmother.
Then I heard something.
Footsteps.
Human footsteps.
I grabbed Tate's arm. "Someone's coming down the path," I said.
He stared at me funny. Tate couldn't hear it yet.
"I believe you," he said, and the three of us ducked in some underbrush.
I could see through a small opening in the thorny bush, right past some raspberries that looked too red for comfort.
It was the Watchers, all parading right down the path towards the road. The man in the tan shirt and the security guard. Behind them walked the other four Watchers, including the man who'd been behind the hotel counter. They talked in low voices among themselves, and Grandma wasn't with them.
They had stashed her somewhere, in that case.
Or they didn't want to be around her right now.
"It's been hours," the man in the tan shirt said. I could barely hear him. "She has to show up sometime today."
And the guy in the tan shirt held a sword. The security guard, a bow. These people were armed and ready to deal with us.
"I'm not staying back there," the guard said. "I don't care what he says. We'll be dead if we do."
I looked right at Macon. If we'd taken the path, we would have run right into them. He just shrugged. I was sure he'd have some other excuse later. He always had to be right.
They vanished down the path and towards the main road.
Grandma was close. The Watchers were expecting us. I wondered how. Maybe Alric sent messages back and forth with his owl or something. Or he had some magic mirror that could communicate with them.
Once I didn't hear their footsteps anymore, I got up. "Come on," I said. The itching was still there all over me, and it might be a little worse, but it was nowhere near the level it had been outside the witch's hut. "They don't know we're taking this way."
Macon said nothing. The time for arguing was over.
We had to go around another pond, and while we were walking around it, I brushed up against a cluster of those white mushrooms that were growing on the trunk of a dying tree. They burned a bit when they touched my skin, and I moved past them quickly. I hoped nothing ever tried to eat those.
And then I spotted it.
A low house, with a yellow thatch roof and surrounded by ancient trees.
It was a bright, clean house in a clearing up ahead, right where the path ended. Flowers grew in clay pots in the windows, and they were gorgeous and happy. The trees around the house were greener than the ones around us, and the grass even appeared mowed. Red brick made up the home and showed no signs of erosion.
A sense of familiarity washed over me. Macon and Tate stopped, trying to see what I could. They must have because at last Macon said something.
"That's her house. I remember this from a few years ago. It was empty at the time, and the flowers weren't there. And it looked much older."
"Do light spots exist?" I asked. It was the closest thing I could imagine to one.
"I don't know," Macon said. "This might be a trick that Alric is pulling. When I was here, the windows were broken, for one thing, and the brick was almost brown. It's a glamour that Alric has cast. He wants you to go in there, relaxed."
"Then he's been here," I said, chest constricting.
"Possibly." Macon looked at me with a look of sympathy, his first ever. "However, it might have been before your grandmother got brought here. Alric was behind us much of the time during our journey."
"We have to keep some hope," Tate said.
What did we do if I walked in there and my grandmother was dark? I didn't want to see her as a wolf, even less a snarling one with red eyes. Macon might have to shoot at her. He might have to hurt her, and she might also try to attack me.
But still, I pressed on, steeled for whatever was to come. "Come on," I said. "Let's go in there before those Watchers come back."
Chapter Twelve
I looked everywhere before I dared step into the light of the cottage's yard.
It appeared mowed, all right, like that guy's lawn down the street from my grandmother who kept it perfect all year long. Even my grandmother had never maintained anything this perfect. Something was wrong here.
The grass sure felt real under my shoes. Smelled real. Whatever magic was at work here was light magic. I felt the air for any trace of that sharp power that Alric radiated, but there was none. A bluebird landed close to us, pecked the ground, and took off again. The cottage had tulips planted all around it along with lines of daisies, none of them with a hint of darkness. There wasn't even a single dandelion here.
And the door was closed and the curtains of the cottage drawn.
"Do we go in through the front door?" Tate asked. "I'm going in there right along with you."
Macon held his bow up. "I see no other or quieter way to enter. Do you?"
"Down the chimney?" Tate asked.
"That ends badly for a wolf in another story," Macon said. "The chimney is out, with Red here and all. I'm not sure if stories can cross with each other. Though I do think that stove back there was from another one."
"The front door, then," I said.
Tate handed me the bask
et. "You might need this," he said. "It could be important. Mary wouldn't have sent this if it wasn't."
I took the basket from him. It was heavy with the bottle inside. It had some importance.
And I walked towards the front door.
I didn't dare knock. No one would answer. No one I wanted to see, anyway. But the wooden door came right open.
I about dropped the basket.
The inside of the cottage wasn't what I expected at all. Instead of some rustic place, this was--
"Your house," Tate muttered.
He was right. Glass windows. White carpet. The lavender couch and even the television waited in the living room. I stepped out of the cottage and studied it from the outside, but it looked the same as it did when we approached. I peered back inside. It was the weirdest illusion I'd ever seen. All the glass windows seemed to look out on my yard back home, too. There was no dark forest surrounding this. Even the fridge hummed in the kitchen that shouldn't be.
"What is this?" Macon asked, trying to squeeze into the doorway. "I've never seen a building like this."
"We'll tell you later," Tate said.
For once, he didn't know everything. "This is a trap," I said, backing out. At the same time, I was tempted to go inside and check for Grandma. But Alric must have something to do with this. He'd cast a spell to make this appear familiar to me, to lure me in. Maybe he even wanted to make me think this was a way back to the other world.
"I agree," Macon said. "It is. You should let me go in there first." He held up his bow.
I swallowed. "I need to go in there first. It's the story. We don't want to mess with it."
"Alric already has," Macon said. He was as serious as ever. "We need something he doesn't expect. And that's me going in first."
"And getting yourself killed," Tate said. "You don't want that."
I glanced down the hall to where Grandma's bedroom was.
She was there.
Waiting.
I took a first bold step into the house. I wasn't sure what to do, so I held the basket close. I hoped I knew what to do when the time came.
