Northwoods Magic (Northwoods Fairy Tales Book 1)

by Desiree Lafawn

  Northwoods Magic

  Northwoods Fairy Tales Book 1

  Desiree Lafawn

  Desiree Lafawn Copyright © 2017

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover Design by Susan Owensby Garwood of Wicked Women Designs

  Stock Photo Purchased from Deposit Photo

  Edited by Summer at Red Pen Revolution

  Interior Design & Formatting by Irish Ink Graphics and Formatting

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  As a forest deity, it was the green man’s calling to maintain watch over the thriving life in the woods. In the two hundred years since he had taken control of this territory, he had not witnessed a magical evil such as this. Human evil, yes, his eyes had seen many an atrocity, but magical, no. There just weren’t that many full blooded fae left, and that was part of the reason he had migrated to America in the first place. The land had been trampled by the overpopulation of the human species and purged by the condemnation of the religions once practiced there. Having left his homeland of Scandinavia, the green man had come to the Northwoods of Minnesota looking for a new green place. He found the native Gods who used to be worshiped to the beat of the drum no longer existed due to lack of the faithful, and with no one left to care for the forest, it became a home for the restless and lawless.

  He had fought for and won the right to protect this land and the creatures that inhabited it, human and animal. He had earned his title of forest guardian by birthright and by accomplishment, so when the green man sensed the evil cloud of black energy, he came to attention immediately and trailed it through his forest, trying to gauge its mission. The dark mass was elusive as it slipped through the air and in between the branches of trees, playing hide and seek in the boughs. It smelled of decay and scorched things, and the green man knew that nothing good would come to the forest from a specter such as that.

  The destructive power fairly reeked of evil, and the green man knew not what it was doing here, in his forest, in the most northern part of Minnesota, often referred to as the Northwoods. The forest was a green place, full of the magic of nature and fertile earth. The black stain currently on the hunt in his woods reeked of old magic, older than the green man himself, and the type of power it wielded was only capable of taking. It was only capable of stealing vitality, stealing magic, and stealing life. It had no place in his territory, taking from those under his protection.

  He followed it through the blades of grass as it searched, shapeless limbs protruding from its shadowy form. He observed it through the eyes of the animals as they allowed him to occupy their bodies briefly to maintain his surveillance. He managed to keep up with the entity, but only just, and it wasn’t until the charcoal haze of bad energy stopped moving that the green man understood its game.

  That son of a bitch was here to feed.

  The shapeless black ball of energy that seemed to have no appendages, and yet many, was a familiar. An evil energy created from magic with neither thoughts, feelings, nor free will. It just existed to obey its master, dark magic indeed. That meant that the wielder of the corrupt magic was in another place, possibly miles away, and must have been weak and in need of power to be sending out a familiar to absorb sustenance for himself.

  The green man didn’t usually spend much time worrying about the lives of most humans that came in and out of his forest. He was fairly busy keeping up with the almost 700 square miles of what was now called Superior National Forest that he had claimed when he came here over two hundred years ago. Human lives were so fleeting compared to the fae, but they expanded their numbers like crazy. People took up more space than they needed to and were always pushing the magical community to find new places to exist. He did envy them their ease in procreation, though. There were hardly any like him left in these modern times. He had chosen this place as his territory, fought for it even, but that would be a story for another time.

  This time, his concerns were for those of the forest that was under his protection. If the phantom was hunting magic in his woods, then the little human girl sitting under the tree where the familiar had landed was definitely in need of guarding. He could sense it, too; the tiny flame of magic that burned in her core. She was a halfling, a human born of mixed magical ancestry. Maybe once upon a time he could have been able to tell what type she possessed just by sensing the spark, but there was an infinite number of combinations that could make up a halfling, and he could only see that there was indeed a kernel of power hidden in the middle of the child. Such a small thing for this familiar to be chasing. Was its master so weak that it would be looking to steal such a tiny morsel? The green man wondered if the assailant’s master was stronger, would the familiar have been searching out himself instead? The power of the green men was something of campfire stories; they were mythological guardians of all things green and growing, symbols of growth and rebirth. He was a green man, the only one in this forest, and he was strong enough to protect all in his territory, yet he couldn’t wrap his thoughts around why this parasite was coming for a human girl. Her flicker of power was so small that she might not have even noticed it herself, but such was the way of mixed blood humans. So many of them never even knew their potential.

  If he was going to be able to do anything of substance, he needed to be back in his body. He had powers to be sure, but when he was borrowing the eyes of his forest charges, he could only observe. He thanked the squirrel that had shared its body with him of its free will and transported back to his own, several miles away. He could move fast, but it would still take him precious minutes to get back to the place he had left.

  At a reasonable pace, the limbs of the trees would make way for him, the guardian deity of the forest, but now, when the time was of the utmost importance, they did not have the time it it would take to move out of his way. The boughs slapped at his face and arms as he hurtled through the forest, praying to any Gods or Goddesses still listening in this modern world that he would make it on time. He wasn’t interested in being a hero to the young human, but since she was in h
is territory, she fell under his protection. Not only that, but creatures that stole power from the essence of others were abominable. Killing to eat was one thing, but the consumption of power by evil beings was not a necessity in the circle of life. He could smell the evil intent of the master on this familiar, the sickly sweet smell of things gone to rot. If he allowed it to succeed in feeding now, it would continue to come back to hunt. If left unchecked, the familiar would keep hunting until its master was stronger, and there was no telling then what darkness might be born from that. He’d hurried as fast as his power would allow, but the mere moments it took him to cross the space in his physical body proved to be too many, and he stopped short upon a scene that made his insides boil with rage.

  The body of the young girl lay beneath a fallen branch of the bur oak tree, still and unmoving. The rough edges of the broken bough still left misty black trails of smoke from where it had been ripped from the trunk and thrown down upon the unsuspecting human. The corporeal dark cloud hovered over the body of the girl, no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, as if unsure of how to proceed. A large black raven hopped around on the ground next to the body, cawing and squawking and flapping his wings. In his agitation, the bird had slipped into the blood pooling around the girl's head and was flinging droplets of it around with every flap of his feathers and stomp of his feet on the ground, like some grim example of pointillism on the forest floor. The raven was aggravated, but for what reason, the green man didn’t know. He also didn’t know why the familiar hesitated from feeding. It should have been absorbing tiny little spark from the girl’s body right now. What was going on?

  As the air shifted, the green man felt the skin on the back of his neck tingling, causing the hairs of his beard to want to curl and uncurl, and he experienced some of the same agitation as the crow, still standing guard screaming like a psycho bodyguard next to his prone charge. What in the land of mist and magic was that feeling? The air was heavy and crackled with energy. Not bad energy like the oily feeling that the familiar emitted, but heaviness, like earth magic. It called to the green man’s power, and he felt the magic coursing through his veins rise to meet it, fairly pulling him from his standing position.

  Where was the source of this power? There was no one else here. There was only a familiar, himself, an “if not dead, then pretty close to it” body, and one incredibly pissed off crow. The green man couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but he for sure felt the magic pricking at his skin. It raced across his arms and legs and along every exposed part of him. It poked with curiosity at his eyes and nose and mouth, looking to get in and touch his power, but he would not allow it. He may have been a lonely old forest guardian, but he did not let random snatches of power come poking at his insides, no matter how clean and pure it felt. The air smelled like incoming rain, even though none had been forecasted to fall, and the electric power arced through everything, almost but not quite masking the ashen smell of the familiar.

  The vapor cloud of ill intentions hovered over the body of the girl, shrinking back a bit from the shrieking bird snapping its beak and clawing at the blood soaked ground with equally red stained toes. The green man could only stand to the side and watch as a golden ball of energy started swirling in the center of the girl's prone form. It rose from her as if pulled by an invisible string, swirling all gold and pink. It pulsed out in waves so strong, then pulled back in like the ocean tide. The power that pushed out and pulled in called to his power as well, and he felt his energy starting to leave his body as if someone had turned his fingers into spigots for his magic to flow freely.

  We will not be having any of that; he thought to himself as he clamped down and focused on keeping his energy from being drained away. If the magical power was coming out of the girl, and truly that was the only viable option at this point, then she most certainly was not dead. She was, however, quite unconscious and for certain had no control over the magical thievery she was attempting. The girl was a halfling; her magic more than likely had been dormant until her life was threatened, and it was protecting its host the only way it knew how.

  The familiar tried to back away from the rose gold ball of light as if instinctively knowing it should not touch. The light pulsed once more, and then power shot out like the rings of Saturn and ran clean through the dark minion, causing it to collapse on itself. The black cloud hung in the air briefly, churning and folding itself seemingly inside out and back the right way again before dispersing without a sound. One minute it was there, the next minute it was as if it had never been.

  The green man’s ears were ringing now, and the power radiating in waves from the girl was at complete odds with the crumpled body covered in blood on the ground. This was new magic, something he never had before experienced, and he could only watch the scene unfold in front of him. He didn’t know how to help the young girl in front of him, but it looked like she contained something inside of her that didn’t need him to intervene.

  Buffeted by the malevolent pressure surrounding him, the green man closed his eyes, summoning every measure of his concentration to keep his power from crawling out of his skin. The sound of cawing reached a deafening volume before being cut off abruptly, and all at once, the power drain that he had been fighting disappeared as well. The green man opened his eyes and almost fell over in shock, no small feat for someone who had lived as long and seen as much as he. The girl lay still on the forest floor, the puddle of blood soaked mostly into the ground and was now just a muddy stain in the dirt. The real surprise was the raven, or lack thereof. In the place where the small black bird used to be, cawing noisily and hopping around on the ground, there now knelt a naked young man. His tall, thin form shivered in the brisk early summer air. Dark brown eyes stared at where the green man stood, a look of surprise frozen on both of their faces. His very human feet were covered in spots of blood, just as his bird feet had been, and his arms hung at his sides as if he wasn’t sure quite yet how to use them. He rose shakily to his feet and took up a guarded stance in front of the girl’s prone body, lifting his chin in challenge at the old man in front of him. The boy knew who the green man was. Everyone in the forest knew, but he also knew that the green man didn’t normally mess with the needs of humans. The boy didn’t know what the green man would do, so he hovered over the body on the ground prepared to defend her, somehow.

  Even the green man could agree that this wasn’t just a simple human matter though, not after that golden flash of insane power that had risen out of the young woman. He wanted to know more about why that familiar had been hunting a human girl in his forest. What was that power that he had just experienced, and how had it been so hidden inside that young girl? He wanted to know how an ordinary raven could just turn into a boy right in front of him. He knew of shifters, but this boy was a completely different kind of animal. He had felt no magic coming from the raven, just as he felt nothing more than human energy coming from the young man. That girl had done something while she was unconscious and more than likely didn’t even know. The green man needed to think. This was an anomaly of great importance, and he needed to get a handle on the situation.

  The boy opened and closed his mouth like a fish, his throat working to make sounds that he wasn’t biologically equipped to make any more. He couldn’t communicate properly, and every muscle in his body was tightly compressed with the effort to make his thoughts known. Frustrated, with jaw clenched, he sank to his knees next to the body again, letting his hand run softly down the girl's arm as it lay flung across her back unnaturally. A groaning sound reached the green man's ears - so the body wasn’t just a body. The girl was still alive and needed serious medical attention, and that meant more human involvement.

  How unpleasant.

  The green man cleared his throat, the pipes rusty from disuse, and spoke the first words he had spoken outside of his head in months. “Boy.” The young man looked at him, eyes wide with panic as he tried to figure out how to move the girl with his new stronger,
yet foreign, body.

  “Boy. You are going to have to be the one to help this girl. I am not going to pretend to know what magic took place here, but clearly, there was a want and a wish granted.” The green man sniffed the air and continued, “Since I don’t smell a single drop of magic on you, and she smells like a spring rain, I can only assume that you asked and her magic answered. She must be something powerful to have wrought such a change without even being awake to witness.”

  The green man acknowledged that the girl was special, and the dark haired boy relaxed a tiny amount, his dark hair falling down over one thin shoulder. There was worry in his eyes as he looked at the girl still prostrate in the leaves and the dirt. The raven had just turned into a boy, so he had no idea what to do about it now.

  The green man sighed, “I can assist you, but you will need to carry her. I can show you the way to return her to her people.” The only place for miles around was Bernadine Olsen’s lodge, and the girl had likely walked from there to where she currently rested. He bet odds that her family was staying at the Happ House, and that would make things slightly easier since he and the lodge owner had an understanding of sorts. The problem was that he couldn’t have a naked boy covered in the victim’s blood come walking up with the unconscious body in his arms, without a story or a way to tell it since he didn’t quite know how to speak yet.

  The magical tug of war from earlier had left the green man exhausted, and he was going to use much of his extra energy for what he was about to do. He tugged a hair from his gnarled gray beard, then bent over to pluck a blade of grass from the ground. He twisted the hair and the grass together and blew on the thread it made. The thread of grass and hair spun and spread as the green man blew his magic into it, becoming a length of stone colored cloth. The material shaped into a soft shirt, and with another puff of air, it blinked out of existence. In the span of the next second, the shirt appeared on the boy as if he had tugged it from the air and placed it upon himself. A pair of jeans and thick soled boots came next and appeared on the boy in the same fashion. He stood there dumbstruck, but as the last piece of clothing graced his body, understanding dawned. The now suitably clothed boy bent and, with the strength of a man much larger than himself, lifted the young woman in his arms as if he was born to do it. In a sense he had been, having been born of magic mere minutes ago. The green man still had a difficult time trying to figure out what kind of magic could even cause such a transformation to occur, but instead, he focused on his handiwork and grunted, satisfied.