Love Croakies

by Sam Cheever

  She shrugged. “I was just telling her where the brownie stash was. In case.”

  “You old softie, you.”

  “Shut it,” she snarled.

  I chuckled.

  Archie set the book down on the ground and pulled a contraption out of his pocket. It looked like a sundial, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t. Holding the metal dial flat in one palm, he carefully turned the pointy part on top. A yellow glow emerged from the triangular metal piece at the top of the dial, bathing the ground in light.

  Archie stretched his arm out, and the dial floated away. It hovered over the ground, the light it emitted seeming to shift and lengthen as if searching for something. “There.” He shoved the sleeve of his robe back and glanced at his watch. “We should have a firm location in five minutes.” He glanced around, frowning slightly.

  “Are you expecting someone?” I asked. He’d been doing that since we’d arrived in the forest several minutes earlier.

  Skimming me a quick look, Archie slid his gaze back to the dial without responding.

  We watched the dial move a few feet farther away, painting the ground beneath it in an ever-widening arc of light. The golden glow on the ground stretched and spread, moving in a slow, counter-clockwise arc.

  The motion reminded me of the moon going rapidly through its phases ─ waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full, waning gibbous, last quarter, waning crescent. The cycle repeated itself several times as it moved slowly over the ground.

  The leaves on the trees behind us rustled as two people moved into the clearing.

  My eyes went wide, all the blood leaving my face. “You!”

  Archie threw me a guilty look. “Yes, well, Naida, I did tell you I knew of someone who could help.”

  I turned a glare on him. “A little warning would have been nice.”

  Archie busied himself making a minute adjustment to the dial.

  That left me to address the newcomers. I hadn’t expected to see them again. At least not so soon. I inclined my chin in greeting. “Narina. What a surprise.”

  My mother’s smile faded at my cool greeting. Really though, I didn’t know what she expected. I barely knew the woman. And that was entirely her fault.

  My gaze slid to the man with her. It was my brother. “Edric.” I slid a searching gaze over him. The last time I’d seen Ed, he’d looked weak and tired. He’d been kept prisoner for goddess knew how long, his jailer the very woman we were going to visit. Dacara had kept him inside a prison cell made of magical flame, sleeping on a platform like a male version of Sleeping Beauty. When we’d broken him out of the cell, he’d revived, but he’d looked like he’d run thirty miles with wraiths licking at his heels.

  Maybe he had.

  “You look better than last time,” I told him, smiling.

  His answering smile was like a knife in my chest, ripping loose a forgotten memory of a man long dead. Healed and hearty, Edric was the spitting image of our father. Though he had blond hair like Narina’s, his locks curled softly around his handsome face where hers was straight, and his eyes were the same deep blue as mine. Our father’s eyes. He’d been thin and pale the last time I’d seen him, with lines around his mouth and in the corners of his startling eyes. But he’d put on weight since then, and the lines were gone. He was no longer pale, and, even without the lines of strain on his face, he looked more mature than I remembered.

  Our mother, Narina, was a powerful wind sorceress. She was my height, around five-nine, with long, straight blonde hair and hazel eyes that I knew would glow with silver energy if she had to use her magic. I’d been told my eyes glowed silver when I was threatened too. Though I’d never, of course, seen it myself. I generally didn’t think about looking in a mirror when I was under attack. Pity. Having glowing eyes was pretty kick-butt, and I’d have enjoyed seeing it.

  Unlike the last time when she’d been dressed in soft, feminine clothes, Narina was wearing form-fitting black leather pants and ankle boots, with a white tee and a matching leather jacket over it.

  My mother caught me checking out her outfit and smiled. “Wraith resistant.” She jerked her head toward my own jeans, tee, and sneakers. My usual uniform. “They can claw right through that.”

  I grimaced, my experience with the wraiths’ deadly claws and acidic spit one I’d hoped never to repeat. “Good to know.”

  Next to me, Sebille eyed my erstwhile family with a grim expression. Though she and Narina had both been poisoned by the wraiths the last time we’d visited Dacara, the sprite didn’t seem inclined to indulge in small talk or niceties with the sorceress.

  I wondered what had her most-likely striped panties in a twist. However, with Sebille, being cranky was more the usual state of affairs than an oddity.

  “I believe that will do,” Archie announced. We turned to look at him.

  The dial had dropped to the ground and a solid circle of yellow light pulsed on the dusty ground around it.

  Archie picked up the book and tucked it under his arm, turning to us. “Ready?”

  No! I’d probably never be ready to face off with Dacara again. But Hobs would die if we didn’t get hold of that serum. So I nodded.

  Narina looped her arm through Eddie’s and moved toward Archie. I would have never anticipated the twist of real pain the sight caused in my chest. They were my family. Though I hadn’t known them for most of my life. And it hurt to feel like an outsider when I saw them together. Something must have shown on my face because Narina smiled at me. It was a genuine smile, her eyes warm with emotion, and I blinked back my tears of hurt and turned toward Archie, terrified of her rejection.

  Archie stepped into the sphere of light and disappeared.

  I jolted to a stop, eyeing the empty air where he’d been. “Um. Archie?”

  An arm slipped through mine. My gaze jerked toward Narina’s. She met my gaze with her own and gave my arm a squeeze. “It looks like we’re going on another adventure,” she said. “A family affair.”

  Sebille bumped into me on her way by. “Not if we don’t stop dawdling and get our butts in gear.” Sebille stepped into the yellow glow and popped out of sight.

  Narina lifted her brows over Sebille’s rudeness.

  I shrugged. “She got a gooey center. She just hides it well.”

  Eddie chuckled. “I kind of like her. She’s…feisty.”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling a little gooey in the center myself when Eddie took my other arm. “That she is.”

  A bony hand snaked out of thin air and grabbed my wrist, giving me a muscular yank.

  And the three of us stumbled into the great unknown together.

  18

  Goddess in a Wet Suit. It’s Going to be Chaos!

  At first, I thought we’d somehow missed the anomaly. Then I saw Archie and Sebille and realized we couldn’t have. I looked around at the clearing where we’d been, clearly seeing the trees, the sky, and the ground, minus the yellow glow. It looked the same. Though, if I turned my head, the view seemed slightly glossy in my peripheral vision. Like we were in a clear bubble. “Shouldn’t this be dark and black and…spongy?” I asked Archie.

  He had Osvald’s book in his hands and was reaching for the edge of the dark brown leather cover. “This isn’t a void, Naida,” he said in a distracted voice. “It’s an anomaly. Abnormal by its very nature.”

  Eddie and Narina dropped my arms, and I instantly felt the loss. I fidgeted, not knowing what to do with myself.

  Sebille was tapping the edge of the bubble with her fingertips, mumbling quietly.

  Archie opened the book and Osvald’s dark, ugly head rose into view. The professor spun slowly to fix his black gaze on each of us in turn. He raised his brows. “So many people willing to be sucked up into the twisting magic?”

  Sebille reached out and flicked him on the ear. “Shut it, Mr. Happy. Your gloom isn’t helpful.”

  Eddie cleared his throat, his lips twitching, and slid Sebille an assessing glance.

&
nbsp; The sprite gave him an innocent look.

  “Ow!” Osvald complained. His gaze spun to Archie. “I say, Pudsnecker if you can’t control the peanut gallery…”

  Archie shook his head. “Let’s focus on the job at hand, shall we? The girl is right. One of our friends is in danger. We need to do this as quickly as possible.”

  Osvald grimaced. “The hobgoblin? Nasty creatures. Not worth dying over,” he murmured.

  Sebille’s fingers came up, and he flinched sideways. “Bloody hellcat! There’s no need to be violent.”

  Archie lifted the book. “Osvald, if you please?”

  Sighing, the professor settled his attention on the pages below him and they started to flicker. Osvald’s black eyes were cast downward. His lips moved as he read the words printed on the quickly turning pages.

  Without warning, the ground beneath our feet jolted. I yelped softly, stretching my arms as if to brace myself, and was surprised to find a firm surface beneath my fingers.

  The anomaly rose laboriously into the air, seeming to struggle with our weight, and then wrenched so quickly into a spun that we were all thrown against the opalescent walls.

  Still spinning, the anomaly shot forward and we suddenly found ourselves high above the trees in The Enchanted Forest, flying at a dizzying speed.

  My stomach roiled at the unaccustomed movement and the height. I dropped to my knees as dizziness threatened to topple me, placing my palms against the bubble’s walls.

  Being a creature that spends a large portion of her time flying, Sebille was unaffected by the height, but I noticed with some satisfaction that she turned a little green when the orb occasionally kicked into a rapid rotation.

  After the fourth time it started to spin, I figured out that the nausea-inducing movement was caused by Osvald’s instruction to change direction.

  The trees flying past beneath our feet, I lifted my gaze toward the blue atmosphere high above. I imagined stretching a hand up to touch the fat, fluffy clouds floating through the gorgeous sky.

  A wide-eyed bird that had been perched in a dead tree startled skyward. Wings akimbo and feathers flying, the owl screamed a question in our direction as we rushed past.

  “Whoooo?”

  Something thick and muscular rose from the trunk of a particularly big tree and snapped at the anomaly. The snake looked to be upwards of thirty feet long, with jaws that spread wide enough to swallow a small human whole. I shuddered at the sight, sighing in relief as it missed us and slammed back into the tree.

  “Ooh,” Sebille said. “That had to hurt.”

  I giggled, my heart and head suddenly feeling light.

  Sebille and I shared a grin. “We’re flying!” I told her and she rolled her eyes.

  Osvald’s gaze swung my way. “Beware the euphoria,” he told us sternly. “It is the beginning of the end.”

  Sebille and I both snorted at his overly-dramatic warning.

  “Stop being such a putz,” Eddie said, surprising us both into turning in his direction.

  Eddie made a crabby face and Sebille devolved into helpless laughter.

  “What’s that up there?” Narina asked. She didn’t seem in danger of succumbing to excess euphoria. Her attractive face was serious as she pointed toward a black shape in the sky ahead of us.

  I squinted at it. “Some kind of big bird.”

  “It looks like a raven,” Sebille said, stressing the words.

  My gaze swiveled to hers and we both spoke at once.

  “Rasputin!”

  “Morty!” I yelled. “Bump the bird!”

  Osvald’s dark gaze narrowed on me. “Archie, I believe we have a problem.”

  Archie flapped his hand dismissively. “Let them have their fun. Don’t you remember the exhilaration of your first flight?”

  “I do remember it,” Osvald said, his tone dark, “and then I was banished into the pages of my tomes for all time. I’m telling you, this is not good.”

  Archie sighed. “The girls are right, Old Man. You’re about as much fun as a snake’s ankles.”

  Sebille and I slapped Archie five.

  We were gaining on Rasputin fast, but it looked as if we might miss him by a smidge. Sebille and I started throwing ourselves at the wall, trying to change our flight path so we’d bump him. After a moment, Eddie joined us.

  Watching us all play and giggle finally teased a smile from Narina.

  Osvald’s dark eyes were filled with worry, and I noticed he’d started reading faster.

  When we were five feet away from the big raven, Rasputin turned and looked over his wing, his entire body twitching when he saw what was riding up on him.

  The big raven’s feathers flared like the hair on the back of a cat, and he lost altitude for a beat before he managed to reorganize his plumage. His head on a constant swivel to keep an eye on us, Rasputin’s wings pounded the air harder and faster. He appeared to be trying to outrun us.

  A moment later, we were even with the wide-eyed bird, the bubble’s walls mere inches from his pounding wings.

  Sebille, Eddie, and I were sweaty and panting from trying to move the anomaly toward Rasputin. But we couldn’t move it even a fraction of an inch.

  “Ssssizzling sssnake ssspit!” Sebille complained, flinging Eddie and me into helpless hilarity.

  “Bump the bird,” we all started to chant. Only Narina and Osvald resisted joining.

  Finally, as we seemed in danger of passing the big raven without so much as touching his tail feathers, Narina gave in.

  “Okay, just a little bump,” she said, and she sent a gust of wind into the air around us. The anomaly shot sideways and banged into the bird. Rasputin’s eyes and beak flared wide, and his clawed feet grabbed at the air in desperation. But there was nothing to grab. He started to roll across the sky in a comedy of flailing wings and grappling claws.

  We laughed hysterically.

  Just as he began to right himself, the anomaly gave a little lurch. We screamed happily.

  The next lurch was harder, throwing us to the ground. Our laughter eased away.

  “Oh no!” Osvald yelled. “You’ve done it now.”

  The anomaly gave a violent jerk, flinging us around the space. We crashed into each other and fell in a tangle of limbs in the center.

  Osvald read frantically from the book. But it was too late. The anomaly gave one last, jerking hiccup, and then started to spin so hard and fast it pinned us to its sides and locked us there. Even our cheeks blew back from the resulting force.

  Osvald and his book slammed to a stop, hovering above the direct center of the rotational sphere. With a twisting, wrenching sensation, we all fell to the floor, and the incredible force started to drag us slowly but inexorably toward the magical book.

  With a jolt of pure horror, I realized we were all going to be joining Osvald in his book.

  Not one, but six heads floating above every page. Goddess in a wet suit. It would be chaos!

  Then I had a worse thought. Sebille and Osvald would kill each other.

  “Narina!” Archie screamed, his knuckles white from clawing at the ground.

  The circular vortex dragged me another inch closer to the perfectly still book at its center. Osvald hovered above the pages, his black eyes wide with panic as he watched the five of us being helplessly and unavoidably pulled in his direction.

  Against my will, my arms were pulled straight, fingers scrabbling uselessly against the smooth surface of the anomaly in an attempt to stop my forward progress.

  Beyond the bubble of the abnormal void, chunky flares of green, blue, and white flashed past, the colors of the sky and trees merging into one dizzying kaleidoscope that hurt the eyes and threatened to seduce me into a catatonic state if I stared at it for too long.

  “Narina!” Archie screamed again. “Counter vortex…now!”

  Beside me, the wind sorceress turned a confused hazel gaze to her brother-in-law, her brow furrowed. “I don’t understa…”

  A sh
rill scream tore through the heavy sound of the whirlwind. My head whipped around in time to see Sebille’s fingers, elongated beyond reality and twisting like fleshy pretzels before our very eyes. The whirlwind’s core had grabbed her, and it was trying to twist her into its grip.

  Panic tearing away any small semblance of calm I still retained, I turned to Narina and screamed, “Do it, mom! Whatever Archie’s talking about, do it now. Before this thing takes Sebille.”

  Narina’s beautiful face stilled for a beat, her eyes finding mine and softening, and then she nodded. Without hesitation, she lifted her hands, sending a silver wash of energy into the anomaly. Her body jerked forward and her eyes went wide. What little resistance she’d managed to create was gone, and whe was immediately sucked toward the core.

  Narina plunged into the core with both arms, the anomaly’s magic twisting her limbs in a tortuous and no-doubt excruciating grip. She threw back her head and screamed, the sound sending ice along my spine.

  Gritting my teeth, I jerked one hand from the ground and clamped it around her arm. On my other side, Archie was trying to hold onto Sebille the same way. I gritted my teeth against the whirlwind’s insistent pull, screaming in frustration as it continued to drag me closer.

  With the first dregs of true fear, I felt the core get hold of the tips of my fingers, a yanking, twisting, burning sensation that brought a scream immediately to my lips.

  A big, warm hand found my wrist and yanked, wrenching my fingertips free of the violently coiling magic. I looked into Eddie’s eyes. What I saw there made my mouth go dry and my pulse spike.

  His dark blue gaze was fractured, pixilated with roiling, animated shapes that reflected color and movement in a vertiginous medley of chaotic movements. Energy built in the chaos, power that swelled his skin, enlarging his form in short, dense effusions of power.

  “Calm down, son,” Archie warned in a gruff rumble of a voice. “It’s working, Eddie. You’ll only make things worse.”

  Working? I tore my gaze from my brother’s and glanced frantically around at the slightly slower flash of exterior shapes and color. The vortex was slowing. Sebille’s screaming had stopped, and she was slumped on the ground, Archie’s hand still pressing her skin white where he gripped it.