Mist & Whispers

by C. M. Lucas

  ‘Potentilla?’

  ‘Some kind of crazy Little-Shop-of-Horrors-style grass. It eats anything; animals, humans – sounds ghastly! You were lucky to survive! You all were by the sounds of it!’

  ‘But I thought grass and trees couldn’t grow here?’ The image of green hands clawing appeared and a tingle climbed her spine.

  ‘Theone said that when the Darkness came, it brought with it some evil things, set around the land like traps. The closer you get to Castle Lake, the scarier and more dangerous they get. He said that’s why the Potentilla can grow here. It feeds on death.’

  ‘Pleasant,’ Anya said wryly.

  ‘The Vampyre Leeches are another one of the Darkness’ bright ideas,’ Steph continued.

  Anya remembered the leeches Michael had found on his legs. ‘Did they get them off him? The leeches off Michael, I mean?’

  ‘Yeah, Grinling fed him something – dried-out pad or something like that. They fell off pretty damn quick. They put them in a jar over there, so they can’t hurt anyone else.’ She pointed over to a row of shelves on the farthest wall, filled with all sorts of strange looking things in jars and glass bottles.

  Anya felt even more confused than when she woke. Usually, fashion and reality TV aside, the only thing Steph knew that Anya didn’t was what the next week’s rota at Scott’s looked like. Now, there was so much new information, it was difficult to follow. ‘Who’s Grinling? And why didn’t they just kill the little blood suckers?’

  ‘Grinling is the doctor. And they can’t kill the leeches because they are undead, or, like, resonant.’

  ‘Revenant?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it. Kind of creepy if you ask me!’

  A FEW HOURS later, Grinling returned and gave Anya the all clear, so she and Steph made their way back to their hut where they found Michael and Tim sat outside waiting for them. As the girls approached them, Michael rose from his seat, pained and stiff, as if he’d gone three rounds in a bull riding arena. Anya flung her arms around him and, despite him wincing, he gave her a sincere smile.

  ‘I’m glad you’re ok,’ she said as he pulled her close to his chest. It had been so long since she had felt his embrace. ‘Friends?’

  He nodded, his smile widening across his beat-up face. ‘Friends,’ he agreed.

  They joined the soldiers for a humble meal of stewed honeysuckle roots and yellow capped mushrooms. Most of the soldiers had gone to bed by the time the King finally came to visit Anya. She was sitting by the fire with Michael, Steph and Tim.

  ‘Please accept my apologies for my son dragging you into his misguided adventures. He should never have put you in that kind of danger.’

  ‘No, it was my fault, really. I didn’t listen when he told me to come back to the camp.’

  ‘I appreciate your honesty, Anya, but he shouldn’t have been out in the forest beyond the safety of the camps enchantments. I trust you are feeling better now?’

  ‘Much, thank you, sir,’ she replied with a smile, though her body ached like she’d been through several spin cycles at a dry cleaner’s.

  Theone turned to Michael. ‘And how about you, my boy?’

  ‘I’m fine now, thank you. But I don’t think you’ll catch me in the forest again anytime soon.’ His old, charming simper appeared and in that moment Anya found herself staring at him. It was almost as if she was seeing someone else. He hadn’t smiled like that or engaged in light-hearted conversation with anyone since they’d split up.

  ‘I would like to arrange for you all to have some training. If the prophecy is to play out as it was foretold, then you will all benefit from knowing your way around a sword. I’ll assemble my best men, and Grinling can work with you so that you can learn how to take care of dangerous wounds should your quest leave you stranded.’ The Four all agreed and the King ordered Barlem to see that they had everything they needed to begin training – armour, weapons, boots and more suitable clothing.

  ‘So, this business of yours that brought you here, tell me how we can help you see that it is done? Barlem mentioned that when they found you in the woods you were looking for something?’

  The riddle! With everything that had happened, Anya hadn’t had a chance to even think about the Weaver and his riddle. Compared with what the Virtfirthians had faced for the last eighteen years and everything they had lost, her quest to find the books felt trivial.

  ‘Well, we are looking for...’ Steph began, but Anya cut her off.

  ‘It’s nothing you have to worry about Theone, honestly. Helping you is our main focus right now.’ She could feel the others looking at her, and she knew what they were thinking.

  Why not just tell him?

  When it came down to it, Scott’s was just a bookshop and just a job. Harrion had lost his mother. The King had lost his wife and unborn child, his brother and his sister. The soldiers had all lost wives, daughters, sisters and mothers, as well as their brothers and fathers in the fight to free their land. Those people were irreplaceable. Considering their own quest as important as the Virtfirthians’ would be selfish. They would still try to find the books and a way home, but from now on it would have to come second.

  She thought about the riddle. Despite her hazy head, she was sure the next part was about a peacock’s tail, but if all the animals of the land had turned to bone, how would they possibly find a peacock, let alone take a look at ones tail?

  ‘Theone, there is one thing,’ she called back to the King after he’d said goodnight.

  ‘Yes, child?’

  ‘You said the Darkness has turned all the animals to bone, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even the peacocks?’

  The King laughed heartily, which took Anya aback. It was a valid question, surely?

  ‘Peacocks, child? They are but myth. A bird that exists only in the minds of man,’ and he returned to his quarters, chuckling to himself all the way.

  The Four looked to each other in disbelief.

  ‘How far from home are we?’

  BACK IN THEIR hut, the Four discussed their situation. They’d been gone for nearly two days and wondered if anyone had noticed yet. Everyone agreed that Michael’s mother would probably be beside herself by morning, and it was her they worried about the most. His father had left when Michael was only a toddler, and as an only child, Michael was all his mother had.

  As they all talked about who would miss them, Anya learned that she had more in common with Tim than she first thought. He hadn’t known his real parents either, and had a hard time growing up, hopping from foster home to foster home without anyone wanting to adopt him. He blamed it on the “luck of the draw”, though Anya felt like he wasn’t being quite honest with them. He confessed that he’d thrown himself into his studies to distract from the constant rejection of his youth.

  ‘What about you, Steph?’ Anya thought she’d better ask, even though she knew what the answer would be. Steph was one of those popular sorts of girls, the kind who travelled in packs, adorned head to toe in the most uncomfortable looking ensembles, all hot pink, animal print and sparkles. Even her tanning spray would miss her.

  ‘I think it’ll be a while before my parents realise I’m gone. I don’t see them much since I moved in with Tim.’

  ‘What about your friends?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ she remembered, waving a hand dismissively. ‘They’ll all be like “where’s Steph, where’s she hiding?”... LOL!’ She actually said the word LOL.

  ‘Everyone loves Steph,’ Tim said, looking to her with the utmost admiration. ‘They’ll all be pulling out their hair extensions worrying where you are.’

  ‘Aw, Timmy-Button,’ she said, rubbing the end of her nose on his. ‘That’s sweet, but I’m sure they’ll all forget about me once the next episode of Essex Girls is on. Actually...’ Pausing, she turned her attention to her fingers. One by one she tapped them on her palm, appearing to count. ‘No!’ she cried, pouting. ‘I’m going to miss it! Now I’ll never kno
w if Mia stays with Ricky.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone will miss me,’ Anya said, barely audible. ‘The only people I ever talked to are either all here or...’ She thought of Iain and stopped herself. She couldn’t cry, not here. Here she needed to be strong.

  ‘Well, what do we do about this riddle now that we know there are no peacocks around here?’ Michael said, kindly changing the subject.

  ‘They don’t even think peacocks exist,’ Tim said, looking out at the camp from the windows. ‘These people must just be like those tribes in the rainforest, completely unaware of the real world.’

  ‘And since when did our real world have magical butterfly men and man-eating trees?’ Anya said. ‘Not to mention the rest of the insane things this place has lurking around.’

  ‘What are you saying; that you think somehow we’ve left our world and entered some sort of alternate reality?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying, or even what I think happened to us at Burrow Mump. One minute we were there, and the next...’ she sighed. ‘Look, all I know is something happened when the sun came up that day, and somehow we were transported here, whether it’s just another part of our world or a completely new one. Is it so far out there to believe there could be another world alongside ours? Think, how many stories have we read that have taken place in other worlds? Maybe they’re real? Maybe Weaver found out that this place existed and thought it would be the best place to hide his books?’

  ‘I don’t know, Anya,’ Michael said. ‘It does sound a little farfetched, doesn’t it? I mean, why did he even want to hide his books in the first place?’

  ‘Why don’t we get some sleep and talk about it tomorrow? We can’t leave this place without solving the riddle, and to search for the answers safely we need to get rid of the Darkness, which means we are stuck here for the time being anyway.’

  Steph and Tim agreed with Michael, but after they’d all turned in beneath their blankets, Anya couldn’t sleep. The events of the last two days plagued her, and as a bid to displace them from her mind, she went for a walk around the camp.

  She passed the Prince’s quarters. Two soldiers were guarding the door, and they didn’t look as if they were going to let anyone in, or out, anytime soon. She hadn’t seen Harrion since the Potentilla incident, but wanted to apologise for forcing him into taking her along. If it hadn’t been for her, Michael wouldn’t have followed them and none of it would have happened.

  As she walked around the camp, she also wondered what had happened to Lorcan. Steph said that he’d gone mad, screaming about getting to her, Anya, but how could he have known where she was, or that she was in danger? And why would he want to save her when he was a murderer?

  As soon as the word appeared in her thoughts, she felt torn. She believed the King’s story about the day he lost his wife, but something wasn’t right. Granted, she’d spent little time with the Dragon-Boy, but from the interactions they’d had, he’d come across quite gentle. A little haunted, perhaps, but certainly not your average genocidal maniac.

  Killer or not, there were questions she needed answering, so she made her way to his cell.

  The cell was so dark inside it appeared almost unoccupied.

  ‘They won’t like you talking to me, you know,’ Lorcan said. His tone was stolid and he made no attempt to move or look up at her.

  ‘I don’t think they’d have liked me being turned into tree sap much either. I’m sure they can allow me a moment to say thank you,’ she whispered.

  ‘Thank you? I’d almost forgot those words existed.’ He stood and moved into the light, glancing down at her body, an ashen expression on his scale-patched face. ‘I didn’t burn you, did I?’

  ‘Oh, no! At least, I don’t think so.’

  ‘I suppose they would have healed you anyway. I am sorry though, if I did hurt you – ’

  ‘Are you kidding? You saved my life!’ She smiled at him, but he didn’t notice. ‘I don’t understand though. How did you know?’

  He stepped closer so only the bars were between them. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never had anything like that happen to me before, even when I wasn’t...’ His eyes fell to the ground. ‘Well, when I wasn’t like this.’

  ‘You’ve not always been...’

  ‘A monster?’

  ‘That wasn’t the word I was going to use.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve been called far worse.’

  Despite his past, he was drawing on her sympathy. Being called names was a pain she’d endured the majority of her life.

  A memory about Katherine Adams surfaced from a place in her mind where her thoughts tried not to venture too often. She was a girl who’d spent a year at Piddling’s and shared a bedroom with Anya when she was eleven. For weeks, all sorts of things had been going missing from the other kid’s bedrooms. Phones, money, jewellery, make up – things that Anya had never cared for. One afternoon, a crying Katherine was accompanied to their bedroom by Freya, Simon’s assistant manager at the home. Anya was sitting on her bed reading when Katherine burst out sobbing.

  ‘Only she knew where I kept it, she must have it!’

  ‘What?’ Anya demanded, jumping up from her bed. ‘I don’t have anything of hers!’

  Freya didn’t listen though, and sure enough when they searched under Anya’s bed, there was Katherine’s diary, along with all the other missing things the other kids had reported stolen.

  ‘I swear I didn’t take any of that stuff!’ Anya pleaded as her punishment was carried out. All her books were confiscated for a month and she was moved to the damp attic room on her own. Later that night Katherine appeared in the doorway, arms folded and looking rather pleased with herself.

  ‘It’s soooo much better having that nice, big room all to myself. No freaks hanging around like a bad smell!’ Katherine taunted.

  ‘It was you! You took that stuff and made it look like me!’ Anya shouted, not that anyone else could hear from the attic.

  ‘Well, how else was I going to get you out of there?’

  The wicked laugh that followed Katherine out of the room made Anya’s anger resurface, snapping her out of her reverie and back to the camp.

  ‘You didn’t really kill those people, did you?’ The words fell from her mouth.

  ‘What?’ He looked up abruptly, shocked.

  ‘Did you?’ she asked again, searching his eyes for the truth.

  ‘What does it matter? They believed what they wanted to. I’m sure you will too,’ and he stepped back out of sight.

  ‘Look, I owe you. You didn’t have to save me but you did. If you really didn’t kill those people then you deserve to be free.’

  ‘Free?’ he griped. ‘I can never be free, even if they allow me to leave this cell.’

  ‘Tell me what really happened?’

  ‘What good will it do? They don’t listen. They never have and they never will. They see a monster on the outside and expect a monster on the inside. How could they see anything else? How could anyone see me as anything else?’ His words were filled with hatred, every bit directed at himself.

  ‘I don’t think you’re a monster,’ Anya said softly.

  ‘The only thing I’m guilty of was telling the Princess how beautiful she was. I was young, how was I to know she didn’t like compliments? She cursed me for my “wickedness”, saying I was just like Morcades – whoever that was. Then she said at least there was something she could do about me, and this is what I became. I couldn’t go back home to my parents looking like this; I’d have scared them and the entire village, so I went to live in the woods. There were so many times I wanted to go see them, just to tell them I was still alive, but the truth would have hurt them more than my disappearance. I would stand at the forest edge and just watch over the village, hoping I’d see my parents, and sometimes I did. That day, the day the Darkness came, when I got to the forest edge, the village was in flames. There were bodies everywhere, littered all over the ground. I ran to my parent’s
house, but I was too late. I carried them out of the house so that I could give them a proper burial. As I placed my mother’s body on the ground, I heard a cry. When I turned around I saw a baby, swaddled in blankets and just lying there in the dirt next to a burning cart. There was no one else around, no one alive anyway, so I quickly lifted him out of harm’s way, and that’s when it all hit me. Someone had come along and taken away everyone that I loved, and I felt as helpless as that tiny baby. I roared in anger, and the next thing I knew, the King and his soldiers were there. Then everything went dark.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Anya whispered.

  After a few slow breaths, Lorcan cleared his throat, as if to force his mind back into the present day. ‘Well, now you know the tale of the Dragon-Boy. Do I get to hear yours?’

  ‘What did you say?’ she said, her eyes flicking up the instant he said it.

  ‘When do I get to hear your story?’ he said, looking slightly puzzled.

  ‘Tale as in story – of course! I’m such an idiot! Lorcan, thank you. Listen, I promise I’m going to find out what happened that day and I’m going to get you out of here. I’ll come back again soon, but I have to go now.’

  She raced back to the hut where Michael, Steph and Tim were all fast asleep.

  ‘GUYS!’ she shouted, and each of them sat up, eyes half open and yawning out a medley of muffled responses.

  Anya took the riddle from her pocket and read aloud. ‘Once through, cast eyes on the peacock’s tale – we’re not looking for the tail of a peacock! We’re looking for a story about a peacock!’

  Michael rubbed his eyes and reached for his back pack. He threw two flasks and a notebook on to the floor, then pulled out the copy of the Weaver’s book that James George had left at Scott’s. ‘The Princess and the Peacock.’

  EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS ago, in a land known then as Fora, a Prince named Marcellus was born. His parents, the King and Queen of Fora, were good friends of the royal family of Cameera, two kingdoms over, and often joked with the King and Queen that they needed to hurry up and have a baby of their own; a princess for their son to marry when he came of age.