Briar ignored her, shored Dax up around the waist, and headed for the basement. “You just wait there—just a minute, your royal heinie,” Matilda growled. Then she took a hearty gulp.
“Leave us alone,” Briar fumed.
“What did you just say to me?” Matilda asked. She moved to block Briar’s way. “You’re no stage diva. You’re nothing! And it will be a cold day in hell before I let you bring some renegade cast member from Brokeback Mountain to your bedroom. This is a goddamned Christian home.”
Briar stopped and glared at her for a moment. She pushed Dax aside and marched past Matilda into the kitchen.
“There goes our little money maker,” Matilda said. She had a lopsided grin. “Oh, pardon me. That’s not politically correct.” She pressed a shushing finger to her lips and slurped from her glass. “She’s our cash cow. Better?” Matilda asked. “Haven’t paid rent in ten years.” Then she yelled over her shoulder to the kitchen. “Cash cow! Moo!”
She lost her balance and her glass tumbled to the floor. “Ooh, how impolite,” she said. She went to fill another glass. “You’re a whiskey man, right?” she asked Dax.
Briar emerged from the kitchen with a mousetrap in her hand.
“What’s that?” Matilda asked, her upper lip curling. “What have you got…there?”
Briar held the trap out and snapped its spring-coiled mechanism in Matilda’s face.
She squealed and fell backward into the marshmallow koosh of her overstuffed armchair. She cowered, huddled into a heap of decorative pillows, and twitched her nose.
“That ought to take care of her for a while,” Briar said. She grabbed Dax by the hand and together they clomped down the decaying wooden steps to the basement, making sure to lock the door behind them.
She sat Dax on her bed, then ran to the closet door shouting, “Help!” But once she swiveled it open, rather than seeing the strange, endless, candlelit hallways, the white doors or the parlor, it was only her usual limp black outfits hanging there. She closed the door and ran to the basement window. She could see the birdhouse hanging from the apple tree, and she waved her arms frantically, hoping someone inside could see. But there was no dim flicker of light this time. “Myrtle! Poplar! Peeps— anyone!”
They were probably gone now, Briar realized. They had watched over her. But she turned them away and they probably left for good—wherever it was they were going.
Then Briar realized it was only days away from her sixteenth birthday. What had they called the thing people believed about her? Omens? Even if it still felt like a serious lapse in judgment for her to entertain these ideas, it was clear that other people—beings— whatever knew her, and wanted her—one way or another. Her vulnerability was complete—and it was all her fault. She knew nothing really of spells, werewolves or curses—just what little she had picked from dusty volumes in the used bookshop. And she really only read those to help develop a style-statement. Staying where she was, in her depressing-if-not-familiar world, meant that she was now hunted and completely defenseless.
A primal, gut-level panic began to spread through her whole body. It felt like she’d never catch a full breath again, and everything took on a spinning, dream-like quality. She ran back to Dax, grabbed him by the arms and dragged him toward the closet. “What are you doing?” he asked.
Briar let him go and then shouted to the air. “If you’re there— if you’re real—I need you now.” It felt like she was in quicksand. Her struggles just took her deeper.
Dax raised his voice. “Just stop it now. You’re acting crazy. We’ve had enough for one night.”
She turned to face the closet again. Ash told her that the key— the trinket—needed to touch her skin. It seemed so silly to do. But there was nothing left but to try the ridiculous. She clutched it in one hand and closed her eyes. “Please,” she whispered. “Someone help me.” She reached for the door, but before she could touch the knob it turned by itself. Then it slowly creaked open.
The world behind the door was there, but it was changed. The long candlelit halls were gone. All that she could see in the murk of darkness were giant nails, stuck through splintered wood walls. The place was deserted. “Hello?” she called out. She didn’t want to step into that place again for fear of not knowing how to return. But she had little choice. “Help! Someone please!” The only sound was some airy rustling.
She grabbed Dax by the arms. “Trust me. This is our only safety now.” He looked at her with his impassive chiseled face. Then he peered into the closet and saw the dank room extending behind it. “What—?” he asked. “How long has this empty old room been here?” His eyes widened and his face slackened in wonder.
She took him by the hands. “We have to keep moving, Dax.” He nodded and they entered the closet-passage. Once through, the door closed by itself, shutting them in complete darkness. Briar heard the airy rustling again, this time it sounded like it was a little bit closer. It took time for Briar to adjust her vision in the dark. But soon she could distinguish a few blacker shapes within the deep blackness.
“Hello?” She called out louder than before.
The strange noise started again; it sounded like great bees buzzing about her ears, or a swarm of humming birds trembling their wings, but just out of Briar’s reach. This time the sound came from a different spot in the room. Then it happened again somewhere else.
“Dax, where’s your phone?” He fished in his front pocket while Briar called out, “Who is that? Poplar? Myrtle? Ash?” He handed her the phone, then she fumbled with it, and turned the screen to light the way. The glow was enough to see perhaps a foot or two ahead. That’s when she saw something brown flicker in an instant from her view. It seemed to go up toward the ceiling. But when she pointed the phone’s light upward, nothing was there.
Dax took the phone, scrolled through the screen, turned on a flashlight app, and illuminated a bit more of the area with its small, mean glare. Briar felt something pull at her dress and she whirled around. Dax shone the light down and there, only as high as Briar’s waist, was Peeps’ chick. It looked at Briar tilting its head, then it preened the small new feathers on one of its wings. The chick suddenly burst into a storm of frantic wing beats and disappeared from view.
“Jesus—did you see that?” Dax threw the tiny beam of light around the room some more.
Then more wing beats started from another part of the room, and Briar remembered that Peeps had three eggs. Dax tried to shine the light toward the sound, but before he could do so, something sharp struck one of Briar’s ears. She doubled over, wincing, groaning, grabbing at the wound, feeling her fingers getting wet with blood. Dax dropped the phone to help her, but she never felt his touch. She couldn’t hear if any of the chicks were close by, as the ringing that now played in her ears deafened any other sound.
“Help!” she shouted again to the air.
She reached for Dax, but couldn’t feel his arms. He was right there, she thought. “Dax?” She picked up the phone, pointed the small beam around, and found the corner of the birdhouse where Peeps built her nest. There she saw two of the chicks, their curious black shining eyes watching something other than the light shining in their direction—which seemed odd to Briar.
Then she felt a great windy vortex. Feathers and straw filled the room and she had to cover her eyes to keep the airborne grit out.
“Help me,” she heard Dax say. His voice seemed far off and small.
She shone the light toward the pile of sticks and feathers again, only to find Peeps perched on the edge of her nest, holding Dax up by his shirt collar and dangling him above her babies. The chicks opened their beaks and began to cry sharply.
“Dax!” Briar shouted. Her ear felt singed and it amplified as she shouted. She grabbed at the pulpy mess and it suddenly occurred to her that Peeps might have clipped it off.
Peeps turned her head at an angle toward Briar, suddenly swinging Dax out of the nest.
“Peeps no!” Briar screamed. �
�Drop him.”
But Peeps didn’t seem to understand or perhaps she thought of Briar as one more morsel of food. Then Briar remembered how to stop the sparrow’s attacks.
“Hush little baby, don’t say a word…” Briar began to sing. Her voice cracked and the tune was thready, but she went on. “Momma’s gonna buy you a mocking bird.” By now Peeps seemed to forget her task. She turned her head, swinging Dax out of the nest again. “And if that mocking bird don’t sing—” Peeps dropped Dax and he slouched to the floor. “—Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.” Briar signaled to Dax to get away. He crawled as fast as he could on all fours away from the deadly nest.
Briar couldn’t remember any more of the song. The chicks started screeching again and this seemed to awaken Peeps from her trance-like fascination. She flitted down from the nest, scratching the floor as she bounced toward Briar, cheeping as shrilly as ever. Briar turned on the phone’s internet browser to quickly look up the lyrics, but Peeps charged forward. Soon she was upon Briar, and pinned her back against a wall with one of her sharp talons.
Chapter 13
Peeps opened her beak to snip across Briar’s throat when the door behind Briar opened, bathing Peep’s birdhouse with a glaring illumination. Briar fell backward onto the gleaming parlor floor planks, right between Poplar and Ash. In the commotion the enormous sparrow fluttered away. She landed on her brood and voiced an angry objection with a few sharp chirps.
Briar lay on the floor, covered in stray straw and loose down.
“I heard her sing that time,” Poplar said.
“I thought one of us gave her the gift of song,” Ash complained. “That was just awful.”
Myrtle spotted Dax on hands and knees at the far side of the birdhouse, and she clicked along in her sturdy heels to examine him. He knelt nearby, his face was pale green and his eyes were fixed like a melted doll. Myrtle held her glasses up to scrutinize the boy. “What in the Goose’s name is this about?”
“Oh dear!” Poplar scurried and fussed over Dax, helping him to stand.
Sherman was draped around Myrtle’s shoulders as always, and she petted him. He lifted his head and saw Briar. “Well, well, if it isn’t Miss Ingrate. Come scurrying back to shelter like one of the Three Piggies, have you? Well you’re too late,” the fox said. Then to Ash he said, “Make them go away. We have serious matters—and none of them concern her.” He jumped from Myrtle’s shoulders to an oversized wingback chair. He tucked his nose beneath his tail and ignored her by pretending to sleep.
Myrtle strode like a stork back into the parlor, stepping over Briar who was still sitting in stunned amazement. Myrtle posed against a locked bookcase, folded her arms across her chest and drew her ruby lipsticked lips tightly together. “So, you’ve brought…a friend.”
“It’s not like I had a choice,” Briar said. She stood up and brushed off loose feathers and straw. “He and I were attacked. I had to bring him with me for safety.”
“Attacked!” Poplar said. She was already walking with Dax tottering him toward the antique couch. Poplar already began fussing with his hair and wiping smudges from his face. “He needs a little of my special tea,” Poplar said.
“Chamomile, right?” Briar asked.
“Oh don’t be silly,” Poplar clucked. “This calls for the Wolfsbane, Poison Sumac, or maybe even Dragon’s Blood. Poor thing’s nearly out of his mind with fear. Oh—” Poplar stopped her rambling and thought for a moment. “Unless, of course, he’s just out of his mind in general. What’s his name dear?”
“Dax,” said Briar.
Poplar suddenly brightened. “I know what will help!” She suddenly slapped Dax’s face.
“How was that supposed to help him?” Briar asked.
“Oh don’t be silly,” Poplar said. “That was just for me.”
Dax blinked a few times and then began to rub his jaw where Poplar had smacked him.
Myrtle marched over to Briar with her librarian’s posture. “We haven’t a moment to lose.”
Briar erupted in a flurry of raw emotion now that there were no more immediate dangers. “I think—I think we’re too late.” She thought of Leon and realized that all of this was happening because of her. There was nowhere to hide her feelings, and she began to cry. “The attack—it was out of control.”
“What do you mean?” Myrtle asked, the lines beneath her eyes deepening.
“They got him. Whoever you thought was after me took a friend of mine. Someone changed him into a frog and vanished. Then two wolves—” She couldn’t finish. Leon was gone and there would be no getting him back.
Ash, now dressed as a Japanese geisha, with a white silk kimono and wooden sandals, rushed to Myrtle’s side. “The Lady Orpion’s work.” He straightened the chopsticks stuck in a V-formation in his black hair bun, which looked outrageous in contrast to his short-cropped beard.
Myrtle hesitated. “A worthy guess, Ash. But how can we be sure? You know as well as I that those who would profit from either success or failure of the child are legion.” Then she turned her attention back to Briar. “How was it done?”
It took Briar a moment to choke down the pain and return to the present moment. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Myrtle simmered, but contained it. “I mean how was the boy altered?”
“A cloaked woman—blue hair—tattoos on her face. She had this totally pimped-out hand mirror. She stuck him in the side— my friend Leon—and took his blood. And then he just— changed.”
Myrtle and Ash nodded to each other. Ash snapped open a small painted fan and whooshed himself with it.
“Indeed. The speculum. Blood magic.” Myrtle’s eyes slowly tracked back and forth. She turned tautly and paced. “This is quite serious. There are three days remaining before your sixteenth birthday, and our protections wane with the setting of each sun.” She reached out to trace the outline of Briar’s key. The key responded by glowing bright blue. Then it faded, like a burning fire poker doused with water. “And when the sun sets on the third day, nothing will stand between you and the Lady Orpion.”
“Who is this Lady Orpion? What the hell does she want from me? What did I ever do?” At the mere mention of Orpion’s name, Briar’s heart throbbed as though she were dangling from a cliff. Her breath became unsteady, and she had to consciously work to regain control.
“There are those who believe that you alone can champion the Realms,” Ash interjected, flashing his shadowed eyes at Myrtle. “The Lady Orpion sees you as a direct threat to her throne, to her power.”
“The Realms?”
“Our home,” Myrtle said. “Your true home, Briar.”
“Oh yes, dear,” Poplar sang. “Born in our cottage in the Squirrel’s Province, you were. We hid you ourselves here, among the commons, when you were just a day or two old. Do you remember how sweet she was?” she asked Myrtle, clucking. “Always putting that key in her mouth!”
Briar realized that once again she had put the key pendant in her mouth without thinking. She let it fall out.
“Lady Orpion vowed to find and destroy you, so we sealed off the gateways between the Realms and the commons ourselves,” Poplar continued. “That way no Realmsmen or common could ever cross between them.”
“…Nor find you.” Myrtle finished Poplar’s thought. “But sixteen years have almost passed. Our protections run thin. Interested parties have begun their own quests to fulfill one omen or another.”
“Omen?” Briar asked, looking alarmed.
“Many have waited for your return,” Poplar said, nodding assuredly.
Myrtle raised her hand above her head making a quick geometric shape with a finger. In turn, the bookcase behind her unlocked with a loud clink and the doors opened wide. “The thing of omens is that details change from one seer to the next.”
“Sister,” Poplar said. She took on a singsong voice like a school teacher instructing. “Circumstances change. Omens must change with circumstances.” Myrtle raised a single eyebro
w and sucked her lips together as though tasting a lemon. Then Poplar said, “Always had her doubts about old Rapunzel and her visions, she has.”
“Rapunzel?” Briar asked looking into the faces of Poplar, Myrtle, and Ash. “Wait a minute—you mean, like the fairytale character, Rapunzel?”
Sherman made his way to Myrtle from his sleeping place on the old plush wingback chair. He hopped to her shoulder and wrapped himself around. “Why do commons insist on calling dillywigs by that distasteful name?” he asked. “It’s absolutely degrading. And coming from Miss Ingrate, it’s even worse.”
Briar looked confused.
“We’re dillywigs. Not fawyries, you absurd pretender!” Sherman shouted.
Poplar snapped back. “Don’t you have a chicken coop to raid somewhere?”
Sherman just snuffed and looked the other way. “That, madam, is a stereotype that goes unappreciated by me.”
Myrtle looked down at the floor. The only sound in the room was the pop and crackle from a burning log in the fireplace.
“Well, tell the girl, sister,” Poplar insisted. “She must know what she must—”
“Enough of this dithering!” Sherman flashed his tiny white fangs. “Either you tell the girl this instant, or I will.” Briar searched the faces of Poplar, Myrtle and Ash. The three of them eyed one another, but remained silent. Then, without waiting for a response Sherman blurted it out. “Very well. You are Briar of the Black Woods, fated to the Tale of Briar Blackwood and the Grim Sleepdeath. There! Was that so difficult?”
“Sherman, so help me, I’ll have a herd of huntsmen with bugles and bloodhounds after you!” scolded Poplar.
Sherman curled up around Myrtle’s neck with a smile that showed his pointy front teeth. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I feel much better,” he said. Then he bit his own tail to form the usual fluffy loop around Myrtle’s shoulders.
“Grim Sleepdeath? What is he talking about?” Briar asked.
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