Elfhame (Skeleton Key)

by Anthea Sharp

  “You’ll have to read us out the best ones,” Lily said.

  “Hmph,” their father said. “An impractical waste of money.”

  Mara’s mother did not agree, as she usually did. After all, she’d bought Mara a ring with the leftover market money. Despite her obvious disappointment that Mara had lost her position at the castle, it seemed she was happy to have her middle child home again.

  If only to marry her off. Mara banished that thought and ran her fingers over the green cloth binding of the book. Tonight she’d stay up late, reading by candlelight, and let the tales take her away from the drab future awaiting her.

  “Off to bed, the lot of you,” Mara’s mother said. “Morning comes early enough.”

  Pansy and Lily made noises of complaint and dragged their feet upstairs. Sean and Seanna followed them, displaying far less reluctance. Mara stayed in the faded armchair, her new book in her lap.

  “Happy birthday, love.” Mara’s mother kissed her cheek, then took up the oil lamp. “Don’t stay up too late, mind.”

  “Foolishness,” her father said with a glance at her book, but he set a fond hand on her head. “Bank the fire when you go to bed.”

  “I will. Goodnight.” A rush of warmth filled her as she watched her parents step down the hallway, a circle of lamplight surrounding them. They worked hard, and it couldn’t be easy raising five children, especially with all of them still at home.

  No wonder her mother was in favor of Mara taking up with Thom.

  But she wouldn’t let herself think of that—not now, not with the solitude of the night folding sweetly about her, and a new, tantalizing book of tales waiting for her to dive in.

  Mara lit a fat beeswax candle from the flames still dancing on the hearth, then settled in to celebrate her birthday.

  The cottage quieted as she devoured tales of dragons and magic and impossible quests. Although she wanted to read the entire book in one sitting, she made herself mark the halfway point and stop. She needed to have something to look forward to over the coming days.

  Quietly, she rose and banked the fire, smiling at the thought that she wouldn’t have to rise before dawn to stoke it up again. She picked up the candle, noting how the reflection of the flame danced in the night-darkened windows.

  Then she froze, eyes fixed outside. Carefully, she lifted her hand and shielded the candle flame, blocking its reflection.

  The bright spark flickering beyond the window did not disappear. Her breath trembling with excitement, Mara blew the candle out.

  At the edge of the Darkwood, a golden mote bobbed and beckoned. All around her, in the darkened cottage, Mara’s family slumbered.

  Now.

  She did not know if she breathed the word, or if the breeze rustled it through the distant trees. In the dimness, she set the extinguished candle down on the kitchen table. After a moment’s hesitation, she laid the book beside it.

  Moving quietly, she slipped on her boots and cloak, then grabbed a kitchen knife and slid it through her belt. It wouldn’t do much to protect her from the wild beasts of the wood, but she felt a little better taking some kind of weapon, no matter how small.

  The door creaked softly as she opened it. A cool breath of moist night air circled around her, carrying the scent of mint. Her heart thumped in her chest. Before she could question herself too closely, Mara stepped out and closed the door behind her.

  Overhead, the stars winked brightly. The moon had already set. It felt very late; the still, deep hours of the night, when the fussiest of babies quieted and even the village cats slept. Mara moved like a shadow down the lane, past the few other cottages that stood between her family’s home and the Darkwood.

  The light at the edge of the trees bobbed up and down, as if aware she was coming. A breath of cedar and hemlock issued from the forest. She quickened her step, but as she came closer to the forest, the spark receded, dancing back into the shadows.

  She stopped, and the light stopped, then bobbed again. Clearly it wanted her to follow.

  Mara glanced up at the tall trees, the peaks of the evergreens feathery against the starlit sky. What if she got lost in the Darkwood, or fell into a sinkhole, or was attacked by a wild beast? Her family would never know what had become of her.

  Ahead, a second light joined the first, darting and dancing around the hemlocks as if urging her to hurry.

  Standing just outside the forest, she knew she was on the edge of something momentous. This choice would never come again—return to the cottage and the safety of her familiar life, or go forward to meet the dancing sparks beneath the trees.

  Now, the forest breathed.

  Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the Darkwood.

  The two motes of light twirled up into a spiral, then parted and continued to float expectantly beneath the boughs.

  “I’m coming,” Mara said softly.

  Gathering up her skirts, she strode through the sparse underbrush. The forest floor was soft beneath her boots, and faint starlight filtered through the trees, giving her barely enough light to avoid tripping over downed logs and getting tangled in briar thickets.

  She glanced up from navigating around one such thicket to see that her guides had doubled in number. Now four sparks glimmered through the forest. They seemed a bit larger, too, as if she were closer to them.

  What could they possibly be? Not fireflies, as her parents had suggested. They did not pulse and glow as insects did, and their movements were far more purposeful than the random flittings of bugs.

  Increasing her stride, she made an effort to catch up to the motes of light as they wove in and out of the trees. The smell of moss and loam filled her nose. Around her, the wind stirred the trees and they sighed and whispered in the language of the forest. The sparks—now numbering five—glowed ahead, shedding a golden radiance through the Darkwood. But no matter how Mara quickened her pace, she couldn’t draw any closer.

  A sound came from behind her, a low, guttural growl filled with menace. Her heart leaped into her throat, and she cast a fearful glance over her shoulder. The forest revealed nothing; only tree trunks receding into shadow, with pure blackness behind.

  A sudden flare of light made her look up to see one of her elusive guides hovering just above her head. She sucked in her breath when she saw it was a small creature made entirely of light, its slim body borne aloft on butterflylike wings.

  Her temporary wonder was smothered by another growl, closer this time. The light-creature fluttered urgently. Mara grabbed up her skirts in her clenched fists and ran, as fast as she could.

  The bright flyer kept pace, lighting her way while the other sparks flew ahead, marking the path she must follow.

  A rank scent drifted in the air: matted fur and old meat. Lungs tight with panic, Mara leaped over branches and dodged around tangled underbrush. Whatever was following seemed to be gaining, the crash of its passage growing louder as she sped through the forest.

  Please. Just the one word, keeping time with her gasps for breath. Please.

  The lights winked out, and she lost her footing in the sudden dark. A roar sounded from behind her as she tumbled over the edge of a hidden precipice. Stones and roots scraped her hands as she tried to slow her fall. After a sickening eternity she landed, dazed and breathless, at the bottom. She scrambled into a crouch, heart pounding, and fumbled for her kitchen knife. At any moment the dreadful creature chasing her would leap down to devour her.

  Nothing happened.

  No wild beast crashed over the bank. No growls filled the air, not even the crackling rustle of the underbrush. Only the rasp of her own breathing. After a few moments where she was not, in fact, mauled to death, she forced herself to stand. The kitchen knife was still clenched in her right hand, though somehow she’d lost her cloak.

  The Darkwood was quiet about her. Stars peeked between the branches overhead. She pushed her sweat-dampened hair back from her face and tucked her blade away, then took a careful step forward, glad
to discover she was only a little bruised from her tumble.

  But where was she? She’d never be able to find her way home now.

  Her fall had deposited her at the edge of a clearing. Two standing stones rose from the mossy ground, positioned about a meter apart and taller than her head. Her glowing guides hovered above them. The stones emitted a soft silver light that mixed with the golden radiance of the winged sparks, until the clearing was illuminated with uncanny brightness.

  Mara pulled in a reverent breath. Clearly this was one of the deep secrets of the Darkwood.

  She stepped closer, to see mysterious runes carved into the stones. The sparks whirled into a flurry as she approached. One of them flew down, made a circle around her, and then darted into the space between the tall stones.

  It winked out. There one moment, gone the next.

  The hair on the back of her neck prickled. This was true magic.

  The night wind kicked up at her back, pushing her forward. Clearly the forest wanted her to step through.

  Mara set her hand to her knife, took a deep breath, and walked directly between the two standing stones.

  The air flickered. For a moment she glimpsed a land steeped in indigo shadows, a sky full of strange and brilliant stars. The sweet scent of unfamiliar flowers wafted on the warm air.

  And then it was gone, and she fetched up on the other side of the clearing, the stones behind her. The wind died to a quiet sigh. Slowly, Mara turned to look at the doorway she had almost stepped through.

  An owl hooted from a distance, the mournful cry giving voice to her disappointment. Whatever that place had been, it was full of a wild magic that stirred her senses.

  “It didn’t work,” she said.

  Perhaps this wasn’t to be her adventure after all. But why had she been led to these stones, if she was not meant to go through?

  One of the other sparks spiraled down, flying close to the right-hand stone. Bits of mica glinted in the rock as it passed. Halfway down, it hesitated, then flew into the stone. No, not into the solid granite. It had gone into a small hole in the rock.

  A keyhole.

  “Oh,” Mara said, more sigh than word.

  Slowly, she slipped her hand into the inner pocket of her dress. Her fingers brushed against something warm and solid. Holding her breath, she pulled it out.

  The skull-headed key grinned at her, shining whitely against the shadows.

  “You trickster,” she whispered. “You didn’t abandon me.”

  She felt as though her heart would take flight like the bright-winged sparks now darting ecstatically above the stones. This was the moment she’d been waiting for her entire life. Her body was a bell, reverberating in a single, sure peal.

  She took three steps forward, until she reached the stone. The golden light darted out of the keyhole, and slowly Mara inserted the glass key.

  It slipped in smooth as water. She turned it carefully to the right. A soft chime filled the clearing, and the air between the stones shimmered. They key fell out into her hand.

  She tucked it back into her pocket, lifted her head, and walked through the doorway between the worlds.

  A shower of sensation drenched Mara’s skin, as if she’d stepped through a curtain of warm water. She took a gasping breath of flower-scented air while her body realized it was not, in fact, drowning.

  She stood between two standing stones in a clearing, similar to the one she had just left. Similar, and yet the air held a wild tang, and an unseasonably warm breeze wafted against her cheek. The sky above her was violet-black and spangled with unfamiliar constellations, including a bright spiral of seven stars high overhead. Silver light illuminated the tall evergreen trees surrounding her, and beneath them grew strange flowers that glowed dark purple and scarlet.

  The trees, at least, were still hemlock and cedar, though they whispered to her in a language she could not understand.

  A flicker of light danced through the air, and Mara was glad to see that one of her guides had accompanied her. It flitted to the edge of the clearing, then bobbed impatiently up and down.

  “Very well,” Mara said. There was no reason to linger near the doorway when a magical new world awaited her.

  She patted her pocket to make sure the key was still there—not that she trusted it to remain—then checked the knife at her waist. Before stepping under the trees, she turned and studied the clearing. The stones stood tall against the night sky. She could see no distinguishing landmarks—no twisted bushes or ragged stumps to signal the way back.

  Well then. She’d just have to trust the winged sparks to guide her when it was time for her to return.

  But first, she was truly embarked on an adventure.

  The glowing creature lit a path into the evergreens, and Mara followed, her steps taking her through a deeper, richer version of the Darkwood. The scent of cedar and rich loam tickled her nose. The glowing flowers grew in clusters between the trunks, along with a soft moss that shed a faint emerald light. The trees were much taller than in her world, the trunks wider—some even as broad as a cottage. High overhead, the wind waved the branches in a hushing lullaby.

  The light grew stronger, until she stepped out of the woods into a meadow filled with tall, silvery grasses. The little golden glow she’d been following swooped back to circle three times around her head, then flew straight up into the sky.

  “Wait!” Mara cried.

  She stared up at the night until her eyes watered, but the mote had settled itself in among the stars. Now she was alone, and the wind suddenly blew cooler, bringing with it a dank whiff of something rotten.

  Where did she go, now that her guide had abandoned her? She turned a slow circle, wrinkling her nose at the stench. It seemed to be coming from her right. Moving quickly, she headed away from the smell and into the meadow. The grasses were almost as high as her chest, but parted easily as she passed.

  No matter how fast she went, though, she could not get away from nasty smell. In fact, it was growing stronger. There was a noise, too, a chittering sound that made the back of her neck prickle with fear.

  She broke into a run, pushing through the grasses. The sound grew louder. Breath coming fast, Mara risked a glanced over shoulder, then wished she had not.

  A hideous creature scuttled out of the forest. It looked like an enormous spider—if spiders had hard shells and pincer claws. It had at least six red eyes that swiveled to fix upon her. Quicker than she thought possible, it hurtled into the meadow, clicking and emitting a high-pitched screech.

  Mara dug her feet into the earth, praying she could outrun the monster. A noxious shadow passed over her, and then the creature landed ahead of her, pincers raised.

  A moan of fear curdled in her throat. Though it was hopeless, she drew the kitchen knife. It trembled in her hand. It seemed her adventure this night was going to be very short-lived, indeed.

  The monster opened its mouth, and the stench that emitted nearly brought her to her knees. Then it jumped again, directly for her.

  Mara dodged and went to her knees, slashing out blindly with her knife. Miraculously, it connected with one of the creature’s legs, sending out a spatter of green ichor that burned her arm. She let out a cry of pain and dropped the blade. Her forearm felt seared to the bone.

  The monster screeched and pivoted, raising its pincers, and despair washed over her. Goodbye, my family, she thought. I wish I’d had the chance to tell you all I love you.

  Then, from out of the blackness of the night, a new creature arrived. With a deep battle cry, it launched itself at the spider monster. Blinking away her tears of pain, Mara saw that it looked somewhat like a human man. His eyes were slitted like a cat’s and glowed with violet light, his bone-white features contorted in a fierce grimace.

  He wielded a long, curved sword in one hand. As she watched, stunned, he cleaved through one of the monster’s legs, nimbly dodging the acidic spray of green blood.

  “Vende!” he shouted, pointing at
her.

  Get away, she heard, echoing in her mind.

  Cradling her injured arm across her chest, she scrambled back, but could not take her eyes from the fight.

  The spider monster hissed, swiping at the man with its claws. He dodged the attack and raised his free hand. A ball of purple fire flew from his palm, hitting the creature in the head. The smell of scorched flesh joined the rank odor of the monster, and Mara swallowed back bile.

  With a shout, her rescuer leaped gracefully forward and plunged his sword into the creature’s body. It let out a screech that rasped the air, then collapsed, legs and pincers twitching. One claw rose feebly and he set it ablaze with another gout of fire. After a few seconds, the monster stopped moving altogether.

  “Rhanc na,” her rescuer said. It is dead.

  He pulled his blade from the carcass and wiped it clean on the silvery grasses. While he was thus occupied, Mara scanned the battle-trampled ground for her kitchen knife. It lay near the dead monster, nearly buried by the churned-up soil. She scrambled forward, gritting her teeth against the pain in her arm, and grabbed the blade. It was a poor weapon, but better than nothing.

  Gasping, she rose to her feet, knife awkwardly raised in her left hand.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “What are you?”

  “Nahtadh!” he exclaimed. You are hurt.

  With two quick strides he stood before her, ignoring the feeble waving of her knife. He was tall and lithe, and wore dark leather armor. Pointed ears poked up through the midnight-black hair framing his pale face. Even without the battle grimace his features were forbiddingly alien—the sharp planes of his cheeks too angular, the set of his mouth too harsh.

  Worst of all were his eyes, the irises contracting to thin slits as he studied her. She glanced away from the sight, trying to calm her galloping heartbeat.

  She was not sure if she was in any less danger from this manlike creature than from the spider monster. Although he had come to her rescue, he was nonetheless quite terrifying.

  With a shaky breath, she steeled herself and looked up into his glowing violet eyes.