by Coralie Moss
Meribah let out a sharp laugh. “The sooner you separate your daughters from these worthless farm boys, the sooner we can complete our transaction.”
The Fae guards posing as workers at the far corners of the fields stiffened, shifting one by one to face Primèvere, Vadim, and the sisters.
Meribah pointed a long, silver-tipped finger at Néne, raised her other arm, and pointed at Silène. “You have one minute to leave this place before I collar you both and take what should have been promised to me and my clan.”
Her threat was not in the negotiations brokered between her and the girls’ parents.
I waited, wanting desperately to see one more clue, one more card, one more piece of this familial puzzle in order to fathom Meribah’s endgame.
“Sil? Néne?” asked Vadim, stepping within arm’s reach of both daughters. He acted the perturbed parent, his arms crossing his chest and his body language broadcasting the end of his patience. Shaking his head, pivoting on his heels, he yelled, “Go!”
As the command left his mouth, he finished spinning, facing Meribah. A length of thick chains hung from each hand, put there by the guardswomen who had materialized at his sides.
At his signal, Hyslop and Peasgood grabbed the sisters and tore away from the portal tree. In the field, the remaining Fae guard dropped their glamour. Half of them rushed toward Vadim and Primèvere. The other half surrounded the foursome, moving as one toward the underland.
“Oh, you have done it now, Calliope. Because who else would dare insinuate themselves into my negotiations.” Meribah turned toward me, and Adelaide faced Doug. “Roger,” Meribah yelled. “Time to show me what a son of mine should be capable of.”
Roger burst into being at his brother’s side, blades extended from eight fingers and curved claws glinting from his thumbs. Sectioned armor covered his chest, shoulders, thighs, and calves. While he eyed the approaching Fae, calculating where to strike, I left him to Vadim and the rest and focused solely on Meribah.
Bear wanted Meribah. The need to crush filled the thickening muscles of my arms and legs. Loss haunted my bones. Her love and anger coursed through my blood.
I will do what you need, Bear. Guide my feet, my hands, my eyes. But I will not kill.
Chapter 24
Bear roared. We charged Meribah.
The hem of her dress dropped, sheathing her entire legs in a silver substance much like her dress. Sleeves tumbled down her arms, section by section like a carapace, even as she darted sideways, away from the woods, in the direction of the underland.
Sounds of metal against metal ricocheted across the field. I ran like my life and my sons’ lives depended on getting to her before she got to the overgrown arbor. Muscles thickened as they rippled over my shoulders and down the sides of my neck. I scented Meribah’s glee, even as Bear and I closed in.
Risking it all, we leapt, pushing Meribah off her feet. I wrapped my arms around her legs as she kicked my ribs with the flexible metal armoring her heels and smacked my head with the side of her fist.
Bear grumbled, shook off the blows, and swiped a paw down Meribah’s front.
The black claws slicing through the zipper weren’t my claws, but it was me who felt the sections of cloth give way. It was me who flipped her over, grabbed her hair, raised one arm to the sky, and chuffed out decades of pain, sorrow, and loss as I struggled not to end her life.
“Noémi,” Meribah screamed. “Stop. Please, please stop.”
I couldn’t stop.
I lowered my snout to her arm, opened my jaw wide, and clamped down below the shoulder joint. My incisors and canines punctured her protective sleeves and lodged there, tasting metal and blood and reveling in the rush of the hunt.
Bear. Bear, we have to stop.
Bear growled, shook her head, ripping flesh and pressing a massive paw to the center of Meribah’s exposed upper back.
Justice. We will get justice. For you. For Noemi. For Genevieve.
All the tears I wanted to cry dried up.
I had tasted Meribah’s blood.
“Calli.”
I released Meribah’s arm, pawed away the ruined sleeve, and licked her torn flesh. I ignored the annoying voice coming from inside my head and the raging voice behind me and sniffed at Meribah’s hair.
“You took her from me,” Bear bellowed, her breath coming out rough and ragged as her grief shredded my vocal cords.
“I didn’t know what I was doing. Noémi, you have to believe me. I did not know.” Meribah swept her uninjured arm across the grass and planted her palm under the front of her shoulder. “Get off me. Let me up. Let me explain.”
“No.” Bear backed up, sat on her haunches, swayed side to side. “No.”
Meribah’s left arm was a bloody mess. She staggered to her feet, turned, and stumbled backwards. Blood scored the side of her dress, bright red against row upon row of reflective scales.
“We were still children,” she spat. “Thirteen-year-old girls who did not understand who they were or what they were doing. You had your bear and I had my masks, and we didn’t know. We did not know.”
Even with an arm out of commission, Meribah was able to get one blade then two then a third to extend from the fingers of her working hand. She swung that arm away from her side, while pressing her ravaged arm, elbow bent, against her chest. “Do you want me to end this now? Finish separating you from your damn bear so you can go in peace? Because I’ll do it. I’ll cut you and cut you until you’re just a pile of shredded memories, and then we will be done, Noémi. Done.”
Bear trembled. I felt her heart clench.
No, no, I thought. I need you. I need you, Auntie Noé.
A tangle of voices rose around me. “Calliope” from one side, “Calli” from another, and I looked past Meribah to Maritza. With both arms raised, a needle in one hand, she frantically stitched Noémi’s memories into the blanket even as they threatened to shred like the field grass underfoot.
A different wolf—silverly-white and purpose-filled—swiped my side, stopped in front of me and bared its teeth at Meribah. She laughed.
“Oh no, no you don’t. You have no part of this,” she said, and when the wolf lunged, nipping at the air, it forced Meribah backward, step by step, all the while pushing her closer to Maritza, her thread, and the gaping mouth of the underland.
Bear dropped all of her weight onto me. I heard the click of her claws as they met at my chest, felt the rough pads on her paws as she patted my face and shoulder and urged me to turn around.
As I did, with the silver wolf still worrying at Meribah’s legs, Bear manifested.
The towering Kodiak I had sensed her to be stood on her hind legs, massive shoulders rounding, and shook her head. Her muzzle pressed against my chest, snuffled the side of my neck, urging my arms to find comfort in her fur.
I know, I know. You loved me, and I know that now. You kept me alive. You kept me safe. I love you, Auntie Noé.
Bear poured one last, love-filled breath into my chest, and then she lumbered away, melding with the growing darkness.
And I was back in my body, my shirt sticking to my sweaty back, dirt in the cuts on my feet and between my fingers, the sour taste of Fae blood on my tongue. I spat out the remnants of Meribah and wiped my mouth.
“Turn around, Calliope.” Meribah’s blades rested on the silver wolf’s exposed belly. The other wolf howled from farther away.
“Let him go,” I said.
“I want safe passage out of here. Then I will send him back.”
The wolf’s displeasure rumbled low in its throat. Meribah poked, pulled, and drew a thin line of blood up the wolf’s belly. Behind her, too far away for her magic to make a difference, Maritza stood still, her arms no longer raised, the blanket of memories gone.
And off to my right, a familiar apple tree stalked across the short bit of field separating us.
“Jessamyne, now would be a very good time for you to redeem yourself,” I yelled, “or I’m going
after you when I finish with this bitch.”
I didn’t know I had it in me to lunge at Meribah barehanded, no weapons, no claws. Jack had Doug cornered, if the all too familiar voice was to be believed. Kaz and my sons were en route to the safety of House and the knowledge of my grandfather. And the Apple Witch’s branches were naked, not a single leaf or flower bud in sight.
The audacity of my actions caught Meribah off guard, and when the apple tree at her back wrapped a branch around her waist, hauled her off the ground, and flung her to the side, I laughed.
I ran to my ex-mother-in-law, kneeled on her legs, and pulled her arms up in the air.
Ivy bind. Knock yourself out.
Vines, forest green, punctuated with glistening black thorns, slithered across the dried grass and wound around Meribah’s wrists, drawing more blood. Jessamyne and the silver wolf were behind me. Maritza had disappeared. I stood, grabbed the loop an invasive had left at Meribah’s crossed wrists, and hauled her across what was left of the distance between me and the underland.
“I’m not exactly sure what this place does,” I said, “but we’re going in and only one of us is coming out.”
I dragged Meribah toward the arbor and veered to the left. The entrance was shrouded with long, wide strips of faded and assorted black fabrics. Maritza’s signature stitching held each seam together.
“Maritza?” I called. “You in there?”
I recognized the bright blue nail polish and the arm that followed.
“Come in,” she said, drawing aside one curtain, “and bring your friend.” She stuck her head out, spotted the silver wolf and the Apple Witch, and tapped me on the shoulder. “Those friends too. Someone wants to meet you.”
I hauled Meribah across the threshold of the underland. Small breaks in the impermeable arch of blackened grapevines allowed for patches of the starry sky to show. Light from a hidden source bathed Maritza and not much else beyond her.
“Don’t let her escape,” I said, handing Maritza the vine. “I’ll be right back.”
Tanner was bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath, and naked. Jessamyne had discarded the Apple Witch for her human form, complete with the cleavage-enhancing dress, and I was not in the mood. I walked over to where she was ogling Tanner while wiping blood off the side of his belly with the end of her sleeve.
“You. Jessamyne. I have something to say,” I said.
She kept her back to me.
Tanner’s eyes were transitioning from wolf to man—at least, that was my assumption. Because if the fiery glow had anything to do with Jessamyne’s proximity, he and I were done, our earlier encounter notwithstanding.
After yesterday’s activities, in my bed and in the bathtub, I felt like I could have any boyfriend in the Magical realm that I damn well desired.
Tanner pushed Jessamyne to the side. “Calliope?”
The only Magical I really wanted strode toward me, muscles flexing. He slid his fingers through my hair, lifted my mouth to his, and claimed me.
“What do you want?” I asked, when he finally let go of my mouth.
“We need to talk. But first, we have to face Ni’eve. C’mon.” He found my hand, interlaced his fingers through mine, and tried to bring me to the curtained entrance.
“Um, I need her too.” I tugged him toward Jessamyne, who was threatening to break into a run in the opposite direction. “No, you don’t,” I said, letting a bear-like growl underline my words as I grabbed the back of her dress. “You’re coming too.”
Tanner pulled aside the curtain, and I marched Jessamyne ahead of me, never loosening my grip. Entering the underland the second time, I expected the same murky interior, not the round table, draped in gold cloth and set for high tea, nor the ornate, oversized birdcage. Meribah was bound and gagged inside. Her restraints bore signs of Maritza’s touch.
A woman stepped forward from the darkness. Garbed in a simple, ankle-length robe, decorated with patches and whorls of gold and other metals, she could have been a model for Gustav Klimt. Her voluminous black hair was gathered up and away from her face. I had no idea of her age. She felt old, older than Crone, maybe even older than Dark Mother. Her unlined face said otherwise.
“Calli,” said Tanner, “I would like you to meet my teacher, Ni’eve du Blanc, Head of the Keepers and Clan du Blanc. Ni’eve, Calliope Jones.”
Ni’eve stepped forward. I switched my hold on Jessamyne’s dress and reached for the druidess’s offered hand.
“I am very glad to meet you,” I said, “and if you don’t do something about your daughter, I will.” I gave the ancient’s hand a gentle squeeze, stepped back, and shoved Jessamyne between us.
I could hear Tanner swallow. I didn’t care. Ni’eve’s forceful sigh, weighted by their mother and daughter interplay, brushed by Jessamyne, collapsing her at her feet. By the time the sigh reached me, it contained enough residual oomph to lift errant hairs away from my forehead.
Ni’eve set her jaw and lifted her chin. “Your friends, the caretakers of this orchard, are not well enough to make the trip here, to their home. I promise you they will be returned, with escorts, as soon as they have been deemed healed to the fullest extent of our capacities.”
Maritza stood, stepped away from the elegantly appointed table, and reached into the darkness behind her. Her arm disappeared then reappeared, her hand clasping the hand of yet another woman.
This one was shorter. A burnished metal crown of copper leaves and blood-colored stones circled a wild, blond mane that tumbled to the ground.
“You are Calliope Jones?” she asked, her full lips revealing neat, pale ivory teeth.
“I am. And you are…”
“Idunn,” she answered, stepping closer. “And I believe you have my apples.”
Chapter 25
Tanner slid calloused fingers under my chin and gave me a nudge, the only indication my mouth might be hanging open. Knowing me, I had been gawking at the Norse goddess for an impolite amount of time. I clenched my teeth.
“So?” Idunn’s uplifted gaze danced with delight as she extended her arm, palm up and fingers spread. “Let’s have it.”
I shook my head, stumbled into Tanner’s naked body, and mumbled something inane and undecipherable to Idunn.
“Well, then.” The leaves in the goddess’s crown wavered. “Tanner, perhaps you know the whereabouts of my apples?”
Was she giggling? I patted the air behind me, searching for Tanner’s hand and discovering no one had thought to hand him a pair of pants. Or even a spare cloth napkin. I shut my eyes and groaned.
Idunn’s laugh rolled up from her belly, and when I opened my eyes, the top of her head was at my nose.
“Where’s the pouch?” Tanner asked, whispering into my ear and positioning himself firmly behind me. I couldn’t blame him. The leaves on Idunn’s crown were pointy, and her laughter and whatever else was going on with her growth spurt had nudged her crown to a precarious angle.
“I left it at the house,” I said. “It’s safe.”
“Can you reach Christoph, have him bring it here?”
I tilted my head, leaned into Tanner’s chest, and tried to keep my voice low. “I can call him to me, but that’s it.”
“Then one of us is going to have to go get it.”
Maritza the merciful tapped a gold-plated spoon against a teacup.
“May I pour for anyone while we await the appearance of the missing objects?” Setting the cup on a saucer, she offered one chair to Idunn and one to Ni’eve.
“I must decline.” Ni’eve smoothed the front of her embroidered and embellished robe. “I have been remiss in my duties, and the sooner I have my daughter home, the sooner we can begin to repair the damage she has wrought.” The druidess, for all her titles and regal bearing, was also a mother. Sweeping her arm to encompass where Jessamyne lay unconscious, she asked, “Maritza? Could you assist me please?”
Maritza saw to pouring a cup of tea for Idunn then pulled her needle and t
hread out of the air. “May I have your shawl?”
The length of heavy, apple red silk gracing Ni’eve’s shoulders floated toward Maritza. As her audience watched, she began to stitch. I tiptoed backwards until I felt the doorway to the underland brush against my shoulders.
Slipping between the wide strips of cloth, I drank in the sharp bite of the night air and the stars overhead before noticing the field was empty. I reminded myself my sons were safe, the LaFleur Fae had proven themselves capable, and Meribah was in a cage soldered closed with Maritza’s magic. I would hear the story of what happened to everyone else once this next part was sorted.
The three feathers Christoph pulled from his wings were in my pocket. I had to clear my head to remember what he said about summoning him.
One feather means you need my help.
I tucked the end of one feather between my left thumb and the ring, brought the other ring to join its mate, and waited. Christoph had said I should bury the feather after the summoning, but he’d neglected to mention what would happen when skin, metal, and feather all touched in unison.
Because a handful of Magical beings had spoken to me inside my head, I pictured the object—Tanner’s pouch—and the destination—the underland—and my default favorite, a glowing pink light. Inside that light, the rings twinkled to match the stars, and my fingers and the feather glowed. I saw my bones and the inner structure of the feather. The glow deepened to a rosy red, the picture in my head snapped off, and the feather floated to the ground.
I shook out my tingling fingers, pressed the feather into the soil with my toes, and waited. Low voices in conversation reached me from behind the curtained door to the underland. Crickets and tree frogs raised their voices. Or maybe I was quiet enough on my insides I could appreciate them going about their evening routine.
Staring at the emptiness stretching in front of me brought me a measure of calm. Forest flowed in dense patches to my left and to my right. The closest burial mound rose in the deepening navy blue light, with the portal tree adding its inky black silhouette to the scene.
