Be strong. For them, the White Faerie urges.
“Are you okay Emily? You seem…strange,” Aidan says. They’re all staring at me.
Lying and hiding are necessary for survival, but I don’t like to lie to people I trust. In the whole world there are only three people I trust with my entire heart: my brothers and my sister. I trust them even more than I trust myself. I know they will never leave me.
Tell them the truth. Even if they don’t believe you, tell them, The White Faerie insists.
“I’m not okay,” I say. “I took one of Mom’s sedatives. I keep…I keep seeing things that aren’t really there.”
“Like what things,” Jacob says.
“Wings slicing through Mom’s back. A butterfly turning into a faerie. She said something evil is coming to take Mom’s wings. I think they want to kill her.”
“Not on my watch.” Jacob stands up. Behind him on the bed is the rune-covered box. He pulls out the souvenir shield, tossing it to Aidan. Claire snaps the beaded bracelet around her wrist, while Jacob slides the blade of the letter opener down the waistband of his slicky shorts. “I have a plan.”
“What plan?”
“You are going to take her wings.”
“WHAT?”
“You’re going to take them. It’s the only way to save her, Emily.”
So now he’s crazy too?
Claire takes my hand. Her bracelet morphs into Nissa’s gauntlet. Black leather wraps around her fingers and palm, encircling her forearm from elbow to wrist. The studs flare bright before fading to a subtle glow.
Now I understand. This is another dream. I won’t wake up and find out what really happened until after the Valium wears off.
Heavy footfalls pound the staircase.
Jacob takes charge. “Come on. They’re taking her down the front stairs. We’ll use the back. Claire, Emily is…impaired. Hold onto her so she doesn’t fall. And be quiet. Remember, the third stair from the top creaks. Step where I do, got it?”
In a bunch we sneak down the back staircase. I’m hot and itchy in my skin; the cool kitchen tiles soothe my bare feet. As we pass the refrigerator, sparks of weird color light up the depths of the family room, punctuated by hissing and snarls. Jacob’s shoulders go rigid. We freeze behind him.
The hiss isn’t human. It’s the screech of claws on sheet metal. I shrink against the freezer, moaning.
Claire squeezes my hand, hushing me with a finger to her lips.
My eyes lock on Jacob as he inches forward, easing his head past the corner of the wall that separates the kitchen from the family room. The glow from Claire’s gauntlet casts deep shadows between his brows. His features tighten in anger.
Seconds pass but he doesn’t move. I don’t know whether to cover my ears and eyes and pretend I’m dead or plow into him with my shoulder. “What is HAPPENING?” I scream silently in my head, like I do with Xander.
Jacob’s head whips around. Pointing to the laundry room he speaks into my thoughts. “Outside. Be absolutely quiet.”
I hold my breath until we reach the door leading to the backyard. I turn the deadbolt and we slip into the warm night.
Huddled next to the fence separating our lawn from the neighbors, I stare at Jacob, Aidan, and Claire; shocked. They stand tall and strong like superheroes. Is bravery some weird recessive gene that skips the first-born?
A struggle shakes my insides as Reason and Logic battle Drugs and Dreams. Drugs and Dreams are stronger. My body begs me to seek the void hovering at the perimeter of my consciousness, to pull it down around me and sink into oblivion, but a desperate need in my brain insists I choose the one right version of Reality right now.
What is real? Who can say that the stories living inside you aren’t real? Stay with us, Emily. We need you. FIGHT.
The White Faerie’s voice sparkles from Aidan’s lips.
I don’t know why, but it makes me angry—no, furious—that my fourteen year-old brother is speaking with a fake sparkle-voice that I’m hallucinating, telling me to fight something that doesn’t even exist.
“Fight with what?” I whisper-shout to the night. “Claire’s bracelet-thingy? Your Medieval Times shield? Jacob’s letter opener? We don’t know how to fight! And even if we did, what are we fighting, exactly? Hissing paramedics? Jacob won’t even tell us what he saw!”
“We’ll fight with these.” Jacob nods at Aidan, who places his thumbprint in the middle of the crude Algiz drawn on his wooden shield like he’s been doing it his whole life. No one gasps but me as it expands into a real-life leather-bound shield with a golden Algiz sigil emblazoned in inch long spikes at the center.
The ground slams into my butt. My teeth pierce my lower lip and I’m glad to be sitting down because the very next second Jacob pulls Nissa’s gleaming dagger from the sheath at his waist where the letter opener used to be tucked in his shorts. A quiet magnificent tone breaks the humid stillness of the night.
“FYI, it’s not a bracelet-thingy,” Claire says. “It’s a gauntlet. The weapons make us stronger, remember, Emma?”
“Okay, listen up,” Jacob commands. “We’ll be fighting crimbal. Two of them.”
Aidan shakes his head. “I smell three. The other one must have gone upstairs. Looking for us, I’d bet.”
“Well, the two I saw have Mom. She’s unconscious.”
Crimbal? Shit. How did crimbal get into the Second Realm?
“What are they doing with her?” I try to make my voice steady like theirs but fail. Miserably.
“Cutting the wings from her back, like you said. For their Master.”
A trickle of blood slides across the tip of my tongue. I swallow hard. Monsters from a bedtime story all those years ago are here now trying to kill my mother.
“Don’t worry, Emily,” Jacob says. “We’re going to help her. Are you ready, guys?”
Aidan and Claire both give solemn nods.
“Are you mental? Help her how?”
“Keep your voice down and trust us.” Jacob says. “We know what we’re doing.”
“We don’t have much time, Emma. You’ve got to stay calm and focus.” In her American Girl pajamas barefoot in the dark, Claire flexes her wrist. Metal claws extend from the leather between her knuckles. Aidan straps the enormous shield to his arm.
“All right,” Jacob says. “Let’s do this.”
I follow my warrior-siblings in a crouch-crawl across the lawn to the picture window. Sprinkler-damp blades of grass stick to my bare feet. We kneel in the dirt of the flowerbed and peak inside. I can just make out the back of the sectional in the lightless room.
More sparks of color go off, casting an eerie pallor over the cushions.
I gape in horror.
Two short, gnarled creatures stoop over Mom’s bent body. She’s sprawled face down on the couch.
Crimbal. Exactly how I imagined them.
The sparks vanish, plunging the room back into darkness.
Red and yellow zags of afterimage swim in front of my eyes. Another flare shoots up, revealing details. One of the creatures’ clawed feet digs into the leather armrest above Mom’s head. The other kneels on the small of her back, lacerating her skin with a vicious scalpel. Every time the tool brushes up against one of her wings more sparks go off.
The light fizzles again.
I’m dizzy. I’d probably fall face-first into the flowerbed if not for Aidan’s steadying hand on my shoulder.
Another flash forks the night. In the brief moment of brightness I spot Gabe hogtied on the floor in front of the fireplace. Aidan was right. A third crimbal bends over him.
“Emily.” Jacob shakes my shoulder. He says my name twice more before I’m able to tear my eyes away from the nightmare in front of me. “Emily. Time is running out. The cuts in Mom’s back are barely bleeding. She’s dying. Do you under
stand?”
My eyes won’t blink, but I nod.
“Okay. Claire, Aidan, and I are going to take care of the crimbal. As soon as we get them off her you’ve got to take her wings.”
This time I shake my head side to side. I don’t know how to do that!
“Absorb them, Emily. You know this. Maidens store their Blaze in their wings. If you absorb the Blaze, her wings shrivel and Mom will be useless to the crimbal and their Master.”
“Don’t worry, Emma.” Claire’s voice is reassuring. “No one can take them from you if you keep them inside. Hold them there as long as you can.”
“Emily. I need to hear you say you understand.” Jacob insists.
I can’t say anything at all. I can’t find any words.
“She understands, don’t you Emma?” Claire asks. “Just say ‘yes’.”
I mouth the word yes.
“Good.” Jacob puts his right hand in the middle of us. Aidan and Claire quickly cover it with theirs, then me. A jolt of energy races from the top of my head to my toenails. Immediately I’m stronger. I swear they just gave me a huge dose of Brave.
“On my mark,” Jacob says. “Ready? One. Two. THREE.”
They haul me up with them. Claire raises the gauntlet high above her head. A shrill vibration pierces the night, resonating in my chest.
The picture window shatters.
A thousands shards of glass hang suspended in the broken window frame, glittering crystalline teeth.
Claire rotates her arm toward the monsters. The glass pivots in the air, jagged tips aimed at the crimbal. She holds up three fingers. The hovering glass coalesces into three distinct spears. With a savage growl she jerks her arm down, fingers splayed wide.
Razor sharp shards fly straight at the crimbal, embedding in their skin. Thunk, thunk, THUNK.
The goblins thrash to the floor, writhing and wailing. But they’re not down long. “The children!” the big one barks. “Get them!”
Aidan takes Claire’s place at the window, shoving the big black shield around the frame, demolishing what’s left of the broken glass. Claire leaps onto the sill, extending her glowing wrist towards the floor. Glass tinkles as it scrapes and shivers across the hardwood, blown back by a strong blast of wind. When the floor is clear she jumps inside, her eyes fixed on Mom’s lifeless body.
“Aidan, hurry,” she shouts.
Aidan leaps over the sill, landing in the room next to Claire. The spiked shield strapped to his arm is almost as big as he is. The crimbal charge. Aidan snarls and flings himself forward, swinging the shield in a wide sweeping arc. The outer rim connects with the big one’s shoulder. A loud CRACK splits the night. The monster crashes back against the far wall, his arm ruined, his chest spattered with his own blood.
“Jacob, get in here now!” Aidan yells.
At the window, Claire holds her arm high above her head, bathing the room in glowing light.
Jacob steps inside. The gleaming dagger hums with energy, flaring white in the dim night.
The crimbal cower, shielding their eyes.
The air around Jacob ripples with menace. He speaks slowly and clearly, his words vibrating with power: “You will not touch my mother again.”
Against the far wall, the big one rises. Panting raggedly, it clutches its ruined arm against its chest, muttering a menacing chant under its breath. The other two mimic their leader. Chanting and muttering, all three creatures hunch low, knuckles dragging on the hardwood planks.
Aidan adjusts his stance. Claire and Jacob stand on either side of him shoulder to shoulder.
“Now, Emily,” Jacob says. “We need you now.”
Twelve
I can’t remember the last time I was this close to Mom, the last time her arms were around me. She doesn’t really like being touched.
I pick a cicada from her hair. Its legs twitch convulsively, abdomen swollen and glowing with fluorescent light.
Lying this way—foreheads pressed together—I’m struck how well we match…toe to toe we line-up: same height, same slender-limbed round-chested build. But my arms are golden-pink against hers, pale and gray. She is cold. Too much gravity holds her to the couch.
Shouts, snarls, crashes, thuds, and the clash of metal on bone rain down in the room behind me. Claire hurls insults and curses I’ve never heard at the crimbal, along with Mom’s collection of books and paperweights. Jacob and Aidan beat them back from the couch with their enchanted weapons.
But me. I’m inside a barrier of stillness on this couch with Mom. She smells anemic, like dried leaves. The smoothness of her cheek mesmerizes me. Each pore is tiny and perfect. She’s ageless, posed for a painting.
“Hurry Emily!” Aidan’s leg smacks into me, jarring me back to my task. I move Mom’s blood-stiff hair off her neck, lean forward and touch her lips with my own.
How to explain? She tastes buried. Unbreathing. The breath in her lungs is stagnant. When I inhale it comes at me in a rush, flooding my cells with her desperate need for circulation. I have to pay close attention so I won’t lose myself in the simple task of exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide, something asthma makes me not great at even when it’s just for me.
Jacob said to absorb her Blaze, but it’s not that simple. Have you ever tried to take the milk and leave the cream? It isn’t impossible. The cream separates. But you can’t just stick in a straw and suck.
I try to siphon only the Magic. I sip and pull. It races from her wings through her bloodstream before hitting me with a surge of cellular respiration. I choke, fighting back the urge to sever our connection.
Don’t take anything except the Blaze.
The White Faerie’s glittering voice helps me focus. She’s right. Mom has already lost so much blood.
That’s not what she means though. I’ll take Mom’s wings to save her life and I’ll hide them inside as long as I can so the monsters can’t get them. I don’t want anything else. Not her addiction, not her suffering, not whatever rationalizations she has for leaving us.
Anguished tears prick my eyes. I can’t do this.
Yes you can. The White Faerie’s words effervesce in my ear. You have everything you need inside you to do this hard thing. Trust yourself. Close your eyes and create a circle of calm in your middle.
I don’t know how to do that!
Listen to my voice. Imagine a single speck of light sparking within your chest. Concentrate only on that speck.
I do as she says. Where my ribs meet over my heart I see a single sphere hovering, emitting soft golden light, just like the Spark in the grocery store parking lot before it expanded and overwhelmed me.
My consciousness drifts down until I float weightless in my own chest. It is close and dark and full within. It is safe and quiet. The chaos around me recedes into the background.
The speck shimmers, daring me to come closer still, so I do and realize that it isn’t just one sphere. There are countless points of light…so many, so uniform, so evenly spaced and equidistant from one another that they appear as a smooth, solid, single surface.
Gravity holds me just outside the curving planetary wall. Moving all around it in awe, I’m unable to comprehend the perfection of what I’m seeing. Tentatively, I reach out with the fingers of my mind, brushing against the closest light.
An unseen force yanks me down…
… down …
...I’m falling …
…I’m shrinking …
… I’m on the other side of the wall of lights.
Whoa. What I thought was a wall was just the first layer. There are endless layers and I am at their center. Infinite light radiates from me in a way I have never—could have never—seen before. It isn’t seeing, really, it’s BEING, in all directions at once. No front, no back, no up, no down.
Only everywhere.
Brilliant light
streams from me. Light surrounds me. Light is me.
I am Light.
And suddenly, as if I just learned how to taste, I recognize the distinct flavor of my mother’s Blaze.
Bathed in light I begin to pull her Blaze into my own body.
It hurts.
No part of me is in control as terrifying energy saturates my cells, filling me up to overflowing. I can’t stop it. I don’t know where else it can go or how much more I can expand. A swelling everywhere increases until I know my blood vessels, my lungs, my skin will split and spill onto the family room floor.
You’re almost there, Emily, just a little more, the White Faerie encourages.
Needle-sharp blades strain against the skin of my back from inside me until it’s paper-thin. The force threatens to knock me backwards while merciless hooks anchor my lips to Mom’s. I am being riven.
The White Faerie starts to howl.
“She’s taking the wings!” A crimbal shrieks. “STOP HER! SMASH HER! HE’LL KILL US!”
Something hits the back of my skull with a thunderous crash. Claire screams. Crazed, I gulp the last of Mom’s Blaze and tear away from her. Propelling myself off the couch I trip and fall over what’s left of the ruined coffee table. Splinters and glass crunch beneath me, blood oozes through my tank top.
Jacob pins a crimbal by the kitchen, one knee on its chest, the other subduing its flailing arms. He twists the glowing dagger hilt-deep in its eye socket.
At the end of the sectional Claire kicks and screams at the crimbal on top of her, its pointed fangs gnash inches from her neck.
And Aidan. Aidan is next to her on the floor folded under his shield, the third crimbal draped over him. Neither of them is moving.
A new energy electrifies me. I pick myself up and run at the monster on top of Claire. My kick lands squarely in its ribs, sending it crashing into the piano.
Instantly, my murderous hands clench its throat. I slam it back against the wall, pinning it just above my head. I want nothing more than to make its eyeballs burst.
The thing grins at me, pulling at my fingers, kicking at my waist. “You stupid little bitch,” it hisses. “Don’t you know what you’ve done? Your mother is useless now. A husk. But you…look how pretty you are. See how you shine. And the little freckled one, too. What nice pets you’ll make for our Master. What lovely little playthings.” Spittle foams at its lips.
Riven: Young Adult Fantasy Novel (My Myth Trilogy Book 1) Page 8
