Chasing Rabbits

by ERIN BEDFORD

  “I won’t! I won’t. I promise. Just give it back.” His eyes pleaded with me to believe him.

  The forgiving part of me would have believed every word the little satyr said and would have urged me to give him a second chance. After all, he hadn’t actually done anything to me, not from the lack of trying. Romp, on the other hand, deserved every single thing he had gotten from me and more so. But the cynical part, the part that had grown more and more since entering the Underground, whispered to me. How do you know he didn’t already do this to countless others? If he was willing to do it once, he would most certainly do it again.

  “I want a blood oath,” my voice came out hard and unyielding. “I want you to blood oath you will never use this pipe for evil deeds on pain of death.”

  “What?” Piper’s eyes became wide. Not quite believing I would invoke such a thing. “But I–I won’t do it again. There’s no need to swear to that!”

  “Then you will have no problem swearing to it.” I tightened my grip on the pipes, the little cracking noise made my lips twitch. The sound of breaking wood quickly became one of my favorite sounds.

  “Yes!” Piper screamed, his eyes fixated on my hand.

  “Yes, what?” I held the pipes to my chest, his beady eyes followed.

  “I swear it!”

  “Say it.”

  “I swear on my blood, Piper’s blood, that I will never do an evil deed using the pipes again. If I do, let the Shadow’s reaper have me and send me to the never-ending darkness.” When he finished he held his hands out, tears brimming his eyes. “Now please, please let me have my pipes.”

  “All right.” I pulled the pipes away from my chest, but instead of handing them to him, I snapped the pipes at the seams, and then dropped it to the ground. My lips curled at the satisfying crunch it made under my boot as I smashed it into tiny wooden fragments.

  “No!” The small satyr cried out as he fell to his furred knees. “Why? Why?” He asked through choking sobs.

  I stepped back as he crawled across the ground toward the remains. My smile turned into a disturbed frown at the pathetic mess he had become as he cradled the splinters in his hands. I shook my head from side to side as I backed away from the crying satyr.

  I didn’t do this. I wasn’t capable of such cruelty. Even if they tried to rape me, I’d never–I’d never do something like this. I had to get out of here. I turned on the heel of those damn boots and fled through the archway.

  “But I swore! I swore.” The sounds of Piper’s cries and the owl’s hoots chased me down a path of despair.

  15

  The Seer

  I RAN UNTIL my chest burned and my feet ached. I ran until the hedges became nothing more than a green blur. I didn’t have a destination in mind. I just knew I needed to go. Get away from it all. Too bad I couldn’t run from myself.

  When I finally slowed down, I found myself surrounded by fungi. It was as if I had walked into mushroom city. The colors varied as any city would. From dull pale yellow to bright neon green, and it didn’t stop there.

  There were mushrooms the size of houses, with thick stalks and large looming tops. Mushrooms the size of Buicks and ones with short stumpy bases and tops so wide I feared they’d fall over. If the tallest were the buildings, then the smallest were the people and children. There were tall ones with skinny stalks and short ones that were so fat around the middle I wouldn’t have been able to fit my arms around it.

  Had I shrunk? I hadn’t drunk any bottles with the words ‘Drink me’ on it. Or maybe it was another misnomer from the original telling?

  I plopped down on a patch of cushy grass to catch my breath next to a deep maroon-colored mushroom with football-shaped black spots. My eyes were heavy and begged me to rest. But no matter how tired I was, I didn’t dare close them. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to close them again. The thought of it filled me with a paralyzing terror. Is this what PTSD is like?

  “What do you think?” I glanced up at my blue-eyed friend that had followed me from the maze and into the mushroom forest. “Do I need therapy?”

  The owl shuffled in place on top of a bright pink mushroom with a strange inner glow, cocking his head to the side as he hooted.

  “I’ll take that as a no.” I sighed, picking at the grass beneath my fingers. My head was beginning to hurt from the lack of sleep, and if that wasn’t enough, its friend residing in my abdomen decided to make its presence known.

  I placed a hand on my stomach, frowning at its emptiness. I hadn’t eaten since dinner. Though, I didn’t usually eat in the middle of the night, which it was bound to still be, I also didn’t usually do much physical activity, sleeping or not, if I could help it.

  “What do you think, Mr. Blue Eyes? Are the mushrooms edible?” I asked my feathered companion once more. The owl wrinkled his feathers in response. “I suppose not. With my luck they’re poisonous, or worse, hallucinogenic.”

  Or carnivorous.

  I felt a little weird about there being so many mushrooms. It was like they were watching me. I half expected them to talk like the flowers back at the beginning – with hushed voices as they kept tabs on the goings on around them.

  I pushed myself off the ground, my feet still aching in my boots. These boots were definitely not made for walking. I almost took them off to go barefoot, the cool grass would feel nice against my sore feet, but I was wary to be without a weapon. It was hard to be intimidating when you only had five feet and two inches to work with, not that the boots made me much taller, but at least I had a sharp pointy end that would make them think twice. Or at least a quarter more.

  I opened my mouth to ask my unhelpful shadow which way I should go when a sickly sweet smell floated through the air. First, a small strand of smoke floated by, and then a huge honking cloud smashed into my face. I sneezed as the strength of it hit my nose.

  Mr. Blue Eyes hooted and took flight in the direction the smoke came from. I frowned, and against my better judgment, followed suit. It couldn’t be much worse than what I’d already faced.

  My body gave an involuntary tremor at the thought of something worse than Piper and Romp. Thinking about them made a panic rise up. It made my eyes burn and my throat constrict. I wouldn’t cry. I knew if I started I wouldn’t be able to stop. I had to keep moving, or I’d fall apart where I stood.

  I made my way through the thick smoke, unable to see more than one foot in front of the other. I had to use the sound of Mr. Blue Eye’s flapping wings as my guide. After a few moments, the smoke began to wane. We came to a stop before a circle of dark navy mushrooms, reaching a foot above my head.

  They were clustered together, their edges lined up against their neighbor. Atop one of these mushrooms was a large, rather plump, fuzzy blue figure. The figure’s back was turned so I couldn’t see his face, but ringlets of smoke billowed up from where he was perched.

  “Excuse me.” I coughed, my voice hoarse from breathing in smoke. It shifted as if angling its head to listen. “I’m looking for the Seer. Have you seen him or, um, her?”

  My new plan was to kill them with kindness, and if that didn’t work, I could always throw my boot at them. I could be the boot ninja. I’d have a different pair of boots for every kind of weapon. Maybe even a blow torch feature. I wondered how much something like that would cost?

  “The Seer?” My attention locked onto the low sultry voice coming from the figure. It was an unusual sound coming from the big blue blob.

  “Yes. Have you seen him?”

  A slight chuckle shook the figure on the fungi; it paused to suck in a drag from its pipe. “Not today, but then again, I haven’t been up long enough to find a mirror.”

  I cocked my head at the new information. This was the Seer? Well, it kind of made sense. The hookah pipe and the blue fuzzy exterior had all the makings of the caterpillar, and he was supposed to be old and cranky. I didn’t expect to get much help from him if any at all.

  The seer gave a languid stretch, the fuzzy blu
e exterior falling to his waist to reveal a smaller figure. Large vibrant butterfly wings fluttered on his back as he stretched and turned in his seat.

  My jaw dropped. Mr. Caterpillar was not a mister at all, but a petite, albeit blue, miss. The bluish hue that spread across her skin fanned out into six pale white hands at the end of each of her six arms. Dark long lashes surrounded large eyes the color of obsidian. Full hypodermic blue lips curled into a secretive smile on a strong but delicate face. Her hair, a periwinkle blue, was cropped short in a stylish pixie cut. There was nothing in her form that screamed masculine. If her face wasn’t enough to determine her gender, than the slight curvature of her breasts hidden behind a dozen or so necklaces hanging down to the bottom of her ribs would have.

  Besides the necklaces, the only other clothing covering her form was a tattered multi-blue-hued skirt. The skirt spread out across her crossed legs as one foot hung off the edge of her mushroom perch. Next to her was a large hookah, almost as tall as her seated form. One of the six hands held onto the pipe attached to it and brought its tip to her mouth.

  Taking a large inhale from the pipe, her eyes surveyed my disheveled appearance. “Though, I have to say, dear. I can’t look anywhere as bad as you do.” Her lips formed a teasing smirk as she fondled the tip of the pipe with her lips. “You’re late by the way.”

  “Late?” I lifted an eyebrow at her, my eyes drawn to the pipe in her mouth. I admit it was an alluring sight. Unfortunately, my distaste of anyone that chose to smoke outweighed my intrigue.

  “Yes. Late.” She pointed the pipe at me as she annunciated each word. “I expected you hours ago, but who’d have foreseen you attacking the satyrs?” Amusement glittered in her eyes.

  Her mention of the satyrs made me cringe. I stared hard at the ground as my guilt and fear ate at me. I still hadn’t come to terms with what happened to me or what I did to them. Let alone what I was becoming.

  “Now, now don’t look at me like that. Those satyrs had it coming.” She tapped the pipe against her hand, crossing the other four arms over her abdomen. “If it wasn’t you it’d be someone else. Fae or human, it doesn’t matter to them, so long as they have some where to stick their cock.” She gave me a private grin as if we were best friends gossiping about boys. “But isn’t that the way with men? Always thinking with their little heads; it’s no wonder they have no room for much else in their noggins.”

  “I guess so.” An awkward silence followed.

  I was still a bit stunned that this chatty little thing was the Seer. She wasn’t anything like what I had read about. Wasn’t she supposed to be mean? And old? Though, as a Fae, old was measured by years, not the lines on their faces. I stared up into her blue face, trying to decipher how old she really was.

  “Do I have something on my face?” She pressed a hand up to touch her cheek.

  “No, no. Sorry. You’re not exactly what I expected. So, you’re the seer?” I gave a nervous laugh, tucking my hair behind my ear.

  Three of the hands waved me off. “Not the seer. Just Seer. And don’t worry about it. I get that all the time.” She held up one of her arms examining the smooth skin there. “This is my thirteenth metamorphosis. I’m still not used to this new body. The last one was some old mean coot. After the incident with her I said to myself, ‘Seer, you need to be more hip with the younger generation.’ I was counting down the days until I could cocoon myself again, but enough about me. What about you?” I could feel her eyes as they studied me. “I don’t always get the whole picture, so I can’t say for certain what I expected, but I hadn’t thought you would be so…” Her blue eyes lingered on my exposed flesh.

  “Slutty?” I offered up, crossing my arms over my midriff.

  “Enticing.” She finished, which wasn’t much better in my book. “And you seem to attract the most unusual company.” Her eyes lifted to my feathered friend, who only watched in silence. “Though, I am surprised you have tamed our feathered beast here. He’s not the nicest of Fae to be around. All those fleas to deal with.” She smiled at some inside joke I didn’t get, but Mr. Blue Eyes certainly did, and his hoot of irritation only made her smile more.

  “Oh.” I blinked, not quite sure what to think of her heated gaze. I’d never been hit on by a woman before.

  What is with these people? I’m hardly the most beautiful human. They have had to have seen better ones. Is it because they haven’t had any around in a while? I suppose if I wanted a double decant chocolate cake, but only had the choice of vanilla ice cream; I’d take what I could get. I thought it was just the males, but apparently female Fae were just as sex driven as the rest. I wanted to ask her, but it didn’t seem to be the time.

  Seer gave a good-natured chuckle at my discomfort before she jumped. Her wings caused her to float, rather than fall down from her mushroom bed. If I had tried that I would have twisted an ankle. Wings were a definite necessity when leaping from large fungi. I’d have to put an order in for a pair of my own.

  While she descended down to the wingless rabble, her skirt flared up, letting me know just how little she was wearing underneath it. I turned my head and blushed.

  Yikes.

  She reached out with one of her many hands, and I tried not to flinch as she caressed my face. “Don’t worry, my dear, you already belong to someone else and no matter how tempting, I don’t take what doesn’t belong to me, at least not without permission.”

  “Well, that’s nice.” I pretended to ignore the dark glint in her eyes saying she really wished I’d give her permission. I didn’t want to be anyone’s, but if it was going to keep her from touching me more, then I wasn’t going to say otherwise.

  “Come now, Lady. I know exactly what you want.” She took my hand in one of the dominant set of hands. My body gave an involuntary jerk when one of the lower hands pushed against the small of my back as she led me deeper into the mushroom forest. Mr. Blue Eyes followed in silence above our heads.

  I watched Seer from the corner of my eye. Not without permission, she said. I had to make sure I didn’t give her permission, however that may be. I gritted my teeth as the hand on my back inched down closer to my butt than was polite. The multiple hands were going to take some getting used to.

  She brought us to a stop in front of a large mushroom. It wasn’t much bigger than the others, but unlike the vibrant colors of the rest of the mushroom city, this one was black and charred. It emitted a dark hue around it that made my hairs stand on end. Weeds and vines crawled up its sides, droopy and browning where it touched the mushroom, but in the center of the decaying plants was a mirror.

  I didn’t like it. There was no reflection. No light gleaming on its surface, only a black emptiness. It was close to the darkness that surrounded Alice in the Hall of Mirrors, but this darkness was so much darker. If there was evil in the world – and I surely believed there was. Who else would invent decaf coffee – then this mirror was the window to that evil.

  I had the sudden urge to run back the way I came, but my eyes wouldn’t leave the mirror. The longer my eyes stayed on the mirror, the more it drew me in. Voices whispered underneath its surface, pushing to get free. They promised what no one else knew I wanted. Desires even I had never admitted to wanting.

  They could help me find my way home. If only I would let them out. I didn’t need Alice and her stupid key. I could do it on my own. I’d be back home and curled up in bed before I knew it. All I had to do was let them out.

  “Ow!” A sharp stinging pain pulled my eyes from the mirror to new crescent-shaped marks on my hand, blood welling up from each wound. I scowled at Seer. “What was that for?”

  “Look.” She gestured with her second set of hands as she licked the blood from beneath the nails on her fingers. I cringed at the sight but glanced around myself.

  My insides rolled. Seer had stopped us some ways back from the mirror, at least a couple of yards, but now I was only a few feet away from it. I backed up from the mirror, not daring to give it my back, but
kept my eyes on Seer. I didn’t even remember moving.

  “What happened?” I asked even though I was fairly certain I knew the answer. I could still hear them whispering in my head, urging me to look back at the mirror. I fought against the urge and stared hard at Seer’s nonchalant face. How was she so calm? The presence coming from the mirror alone was setting me on edge.

  My guide gave me a knowing look, as if she knew I knew the answer to the question, but shrugged and indulged me. “You want to save her, don’t you? To get the key?”

  “Well, yes.” I dared to peek at the mirror out of the corner of my eye. It felt like it was listening to our every word. “But I can’t go through there.”

  “Of course you can.”

  “Even if I was willing, which I’m not, I’m not Chess. I can’t just go through mirrors all willy-nilly.” I jerked a thumb in the direction of the mirror. I took another cautious step back. I couldn’t be farther away from it. Another planet was more preferable.

  “Ah, yes. Cheshire.” She smiled as if remembering a fond memory. With what I knew of Chess and his reputation with the other Fae, it was probably a perverted memory. I needed to ask him about that when he stopped shoving me through mirrors. “Why do you think he is able to use mirrors as portals and the rest of the Fae can’t?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged a little frustrated. Why couldn’t they just answer me straight out rather than make me figure it out? I didn’t have all night to play 20 questions. “Something to do with being the mediator?”

  “But why is he the mediator? What makes him so special? Well, besides the obvious.” She giggled a bit like a school girl with a crush. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one smitten with the feline.

  “He’s a half-breed.” I answered rather cross. “So, he’s allowed to pass between worlds.”

  “That’s right. The reason he can go between worlds so easily is because he doesn’t have to obey the same rules as the rest of the Underground.” She drew out a short smoking pipe from God knows where and teased the end of it with her lips.