Behind us stands the dark forest. Before us lies the mendacious country that beckons us on with its deceiving sunniness to the Vampire Free Zone. The broad river cuts us off from the alluring land ahead, and I’m wary of its presence, unsure whether the magical land has separated us from a far worse place or protected the dazzling countryside beyond the water from the forest we’ve emerged from.
By now, the raft is almost complete, and after Nick cuts a few more logs and fastens them together with rope and wooden pins he’s made, we’re ready to go. In the middle of the raft is where I take my seat with Toto in my arms, figuring it’s the most stable spot, but when Werelion gets on, the raft tips, and I slide to the edge almost toppling into the fast-moving current. Ardie and Nick jump on the other end right before Toto and I fall into the water, and I scramble back to the center of the raft.
To push the raft through the rapids, Nick and Ardie hold makeshift quant poles fashioned from strong, thick branches, and we go into the big water attempting to ferry across. At first, we are moving along well enough, but when we reach the center channel of the river, the whitewater grows so deep the quant poles will not touch the bottom and the swift current thrusts us forward, sweeping the raft downstream. Powerless against the fast-moving chute, we move farther and farther away from the road.
“If we cannot get to the land, the water will carry us into the country of the Vampire Witch of the West where she will enchant us and make us her slaves,” Nick says.
“We must get to the City of Emeralds,” Ardie says, growling with determination as he thrusts his quant pole into the river’s floor. But we must be out of the channel because the water level here is lower and the pole sticks so fast and so deep into the mud at the bottom of the river that before he can pull it out or let go, the raft sweeps away on the hairy current and leaves Ardie to cling to the quant in the middle of the river.
“Ardie!” I cry out as we speed away from him. He clutches the pole sticking straight up from the water, his arms and legs curled around it, holding on tight.
“Don’t worry, Dorothy, I’ll be fine! Goodbye!” he calls after us, his voice fading fast with the increasing distance, and I burst into tears not knowing what to do as the breakneck torrent sends the raft a great distance downstream, leaving poor Ardie behind.
“I will swim to the shore and tow the raft after me. Hold fast to the tip of my tail.”
With lightning fast reflexes, Nick catches hold of Werelion’s tail right as he springs into the river. Through the efflux of the rough moving whitewater, Werelion swims, paddling his giant paws like oars, pulling us across the surging rapids with all his might.
I put Toto belly-down on the center of the raft before I grab the quant pole Nick drags through the water. With careful steps, I place myself on the stern and plunge the pole into the river’s floor. With each hard shove, I garner as much strength as I have in my body. Nick crouches on the bow and grips the raft with his free hand while holding Werelion’s tail in the other, and Werelion swims for all our lives.
It’s a great struggle, with growling grunts and roars and sputters, but he hauls us to shore, dragging us onto the bar of the riverbank.
Toto is the first to jump off the raft, hurrying onto the grass. Nick and I follow as Werelion tumbles over the bar and falls, spent and wet. Toto rushes to Werelion and licks his face, trying to thank him the only way he knows how. Nick and I assess our situation as Toto’s excessive kisses give Werelion the giggles.
The river has carried us miles downstream winding around bend after bend. We have long past the road that leads to the City of Emeralds, and we are so far downstream I can’t see the road in the distance.
“We have to get back to the road,” I say with a sigh, distraught over the loss of Ardie.
One second he was with us, the next he was gone, and the feeling is far too familiar. People sometimes get ripped from our lives and it’s devastating. It’s as though the hand of fate reaches inside your chest and clutches your heart in a vise grip. Senseless and savage acts seem to be her forte.
I’m tired of fate. Tired of hating her. She’s cruel to too many of us, she ignores most of us, and half the time she favors the unscrupulous. Where did all the good fates go? Did they ever exist? Or on the rare occasions fate shines on good people is it only a fluke? Maybe it was never fate that shined on them. Maybe they just slipped under her radar long enough to accomplish something significant without loss or grief or devastation. Or maybe there’s something out there stronger than fate. Too bad it’s frugal in choosing its battles with her.
“The best plan will be to walk along the riverbank until we come to the road again,” Werelion says, then stands and shakes out his wet fur.
We take a short moment to catch our breath before we start along the grassy bank to the road. However picturesque it is on this side of the river, I don’t enjoy it because I cannot stop thinking of Ardie. I can’t stop imagining his undead body beneath the river, his lungs filling with water, his zombie body being battered by the sharp rocks and relentless undercurrent. His undead nature forces him to live through the torture of drowning without the ability to sleep or lose consciousness—the only thing that might offer him a brief respite from the brutal rapids. I wonder how far down the river he is by now, or if he’s still clinging to the quant, stuck in the mud in these rough waters while the wild flowers and trees and sunshine on this side of the river taunt him.
“Look,” Nick says as we approach Ardie still clinging to the quant pole as the water level rises. Water bubbles up the pole as though it’s trying to suck him under, swelling in a convex boil below his feet. But it’s the look on Ardie’s face that kills me. He looks miserable and scared, something he would hide if he knew I was watching.
Throughout this trip, since we met, he’s been indomitable for me. His unassailable spirit has made me believe I might be okay even though it’s far more probable I won’t be. When he stepped into my life, he took on the role of my protector. If it weren’t for his company early on, I’d have crumbled a thousand times over by now. I can’t do this without him. I won’t leave him here, even if it means I have to stay on this riverbank for the rest of my damned life.
“What can we do?” I ask, my mind scrambling to think of ways to get him off that pole and onto this side of the riverbank, but nothing is coming to mind. Werelion and Nick both shake their heads, not seeing a solution either.
For the first time in a long time, I pray for something to go our way, something to help us, help him, and me. If I have to do this without him it’d be like climbing Mount Everest with a limb missing—not impossible but far more difficult.
Since these boots appeared on my feet, somehow my emotions have been dull. It seemed as though the magic attached to my footwear kept me calm through every brush with death, but I may have been shutting down my emotions, displacing them onto my almost relationship with Nick. A broken heart from a playboy is far easier to navigate than a fight for survival in a land of monsters where a new form of demise lies around every corner. So even though I somehow bankrupted my fear in crucial moments—maybe for the sake of survival—now I’m terrified.
Through every second of this journey, I’ve been suppressing terror. Aside from these boots on my feet, Ardie was what gave me some reassurance, some genuine security on this outrageous excursion, and I don’t want to do this without him. I cannot and will not leave him perched on a pole in the middle of a river. So, I ask fate, beg her, to please help.
A buzzing rumbles at the base of my spine and shoots up to my skull. In an instant, the foggy gray lens that has marred my vision of the world cracks and shatters and a metaphysical message downloads into my brain—fate is a lie, a trick. My parents did not die by the hand of fate. They died by the hand of a man who fell asleep at the wheel of his truck. A terrible mistake took my parents. A person took my parents. But it’s easier to hate an imaginary thing than a man who was also dead because of those mistakes.
In
my realm, in the real world, a world without real magic, there’s only action and chaos. Perhaps there’s some pattern so vast we can’t see it, like a giant universal machine we are all a part of, but actions are its fuel, actions steer it. God may exist. Angels might be real. Energies beyond the physical may take part in the actions of men, but nothing preordains to such a degree that we cannot determine our futures through the actions we do or don’t take.
Over the past four years I have been hiding from fate because I feared her. I didn’t let myself want anything more than color for fear it would shatter my hopes with tragedy. I didn’t let myself love too much for fear of fate ripping it away from me. My misconceptions grayed out my world, dulled it to dust and ash and fog, clouding my pain. Wrong thinking gave me the illusion of a chaotic world that made rational sense, when in reality, it is our thoughts and actions that make us, and ‘meant to be’ is a bandage made of make-believe.
Perhaps here, in this magical place, I have even more control over circumstance than I ever did back home. Perhaps here, the windows to the metaphysical are wide open, and someone or something can hear my prayers. So, I pray to whatever is out there, either God or fortune or angels or magic, whatever allows people like me access to its power on rare occasions, and I ask it to please, please, help us. Whether it’s by some epiphany that will show me the right action to take, or by something outside myself that gets Ardie onto this shore, help is what I need in any form I can get it. Please, with everything I am, I’m begging for help.
Like a warm, gossamer blanket that wraps around me, a sense of lightness and peace and a glimmer of something else altogether eases over me, through me, from the top of my head and down to my feet then into the magical ground below, and when I look out at the world before me, I see it, my prayer, in a shimmering haze of prismatic light that picks up with the wind and dissipates through the air in a breeze that overspreads the land before it dissolves to nothing.
I’m not sure what that was, or what it means, but a moment later, a great shifter bird flies overhead. When she spots us, she lands before us at the water’s edge. Large and beautiful, with white and black feathers, broad wings and a yellow beak, she has large talons for feet, thin bird legs from the knees down, with a torso, eyes, and a head like a woman. Her long platinum hair flies in the wind revealing her birdlike, graceful neck.
“Who are you?” asks the Shifter Bird with a curious tilt of her head.
“I am Dorothy,” I answer, “and these are my friends, Nick the Axeman, and Werelion. We are going to the City of Emeralds and—”
“This isn’t the road,” she says, appraising us in sharp quirks of her head, twisting her long neck.
“I know, but we’ve lost our friend, and are wondering how we’ll get him over here. Do you think perhaps you might help?”
“Where is this friend?”
“Over there in the river,” I answer.
“I can get him for you, but if I find he is too heavy to carry, I shall have to drop him.”
“What do you want in return?” Nick asks, wary of her, and she narrows her eyes.
“A proper thank you and an apology for your bad manners should suffice,” she says as I elbow him in his metal clad side.
“Sorry, he has trust issues,” I say with an embarrassed shake of my head.
“I understand. But I do what I can to help my fellow werebeasts,” she says turning to Werelion and nodding in respect. Werelion nods back in thanks.
With a deep bend at her birdlike knees, she takes off into the air and flies over the water until she comes to where Ardie perches upon his pole. Then, with her great claws, she grabs him by the collar of his shirt and carries him up into the air, back to the bank where we are sitting. She drops him at our feet without a word and continues to fly off.
As she flies away, I wave to her, calling out, “Thank you!”
She nods back before she soars in spirals up into the sky and out of sight. Ardie is so thrilled that he hugs us all, even Nick.
“Ardie, thank goodness,” I sigh as I hug him tight, and he hugs me, rubbing my back, comforting me as he has since I met him. I haven’t known him long, but already he means so much to me. I hate to leave him behind when I go. But if I don’t get to leave, for some terrible reason, if I have his friendship, I might be okay.
“How lucky that was! I thought I’d never see you all again,” Ardie says, beaming his positive outlook with a bright smile of relief as we go on our way along the riverbank toward the road.
“That wasn’t luck. That was magic,” Nick says.
“Magic?” Ardie says, his brows knitting in confusion while Werelion’s face reflects the same bewilderment.
“Yes, Dorothy used magic again.”
“Uh,” I say, surprised by his remark. “I did?”
“Yes, you did,” he says with incredulous eyes.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“When? How?” Werelion says as befuddled as I am.
“Magic flowed through her and over the land, caught in the wind, and carried the werebird here. Did you not see it? The rainbow mist?”
“That was you?” Ardie asks, looking as surprised as me.
“It was the boots.”
“The boots are silver, not rainbow.”
“So?” Ardie says.
“So, I saw her do it. It came from above, through her, into the land, and into the ether.”
“From above?” Ardie says, his brows knitting in consternation.
“Why is that weird? That it came from above.”
“The magic comes from the land,” Werelion says.
“So?”
“The air is part of the land,” Ardie says, his tone defensive.
“Perhaps,” Nick says.
“What were you doing when it happened?” Werelion asks.
“Praying.”
“Praying?” Nick says as though he doesn’t know the word.
“I was asking some unseen force for help, whatever was out there. I’m not sure what, but I asked, prayed, for help.”
“Magic,” Nick says.
“Maybe,” I shrug. “Or whatever answered my prayer used the magic of the land to help.”
“Perhaps that’s it,” Nick says.
“Are you tired again?” Ardie asks. I take stock and find I feel wonderful, grateful, better than I have in a long while.
“No. Not even a little,” I answer, and Ardie smiles.
“Thank you, Dorothy, for helping me. I was afraid I should have to stay in the river forever. Thanks to your prayer, the kind bird shifter saved me, and if I ever get a chance, I shall find that bird shifter again and do her some kindness in return.”
“I think that would be a lovely thing to do,” I say and smile at him, so happy to have him back on dry land.
“Thank Dorothy. It was her magic that brought the bird shifter and compelled her to land before us and ask if we needed help,” Nick says.
“He just did. Did I do something wrong? Is using magic a bad thing?”
“No, Dorothy, it is not a bad thing,” Ardie says.
“Are you sure? Because Nick seems to think it is.”
“I did not say it was a bad thing,” he says, throwing up his hands.
“Then why do I feel you are accusing me of something?”
“Accuse? No, that is not the right word. I am pointing out you have magic, that is all.”
“Doesn’t everyone here? Don’t you guys call this the magical realm?”
“It is the magical realm, but not everyone has access to its magic,” Werelion says. “Only wizards and witches can access the magic in the land to use for their purposes. There are magical creatures here, but even they don’t have magic that way.”
“Some do,” Nick says.
“Dorothy is not a sorceress. She is wearing the boots of a powerful witch. The magic was a gift to her because she killed the Vampire Witch of the East,” Ardie says.
“I think that’s clear,” I agree.
<
br /> “Perhaps you should use borrowed magic with discretion,” Nick says. “Magic can do wonders but it can also hurt if the one who wields it is inexperienced.”
“That is a good point,” Ardie agrees. “Using magic has consequences, as you saw when your energy depleted the first time.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I say.
“Those boots belonged to an evil Vampire Witch and using her magic could hurt you. So, perhaps don’t pry,” Nick suggests.
“It’s pray, and I don’t do it often,” I say with a snort. “But that was dire straits, literally.”
“True,” Werelion agrees.
“I am not trying to upset you,” Nick says, softening, “I am only saying you should be cautious. We cannot have you hurt, Dorothy. I cannot.”
“I get it. But you can let it go now.”
“Yes, Dorothy, I will. I am sorry if I upset you,” Nick says and offers a soft smile to me. A sigh escapes me, and I know he’s right, that I should be careful, but it wasn’t intentional, and it didn’t feel evil or bad when it happened. But I will avoid calling on magical things in this place. Because I don’t know what could happen. That is something I can’t deny, and to err on the safe side of magical things is the smart thing to do.
We make it back to the road where decaying corpses fill the treetops, some impaled by branches, some captured by a cluster of offshoots, their limbs broken, twisted, and dangling at odd angles. But all appear drained of their blood, sucked dry, lifeless and yellowed, marbled with black veins, with glazed over eyes frozen in horror.
The entire scene before me makes me ill. Decaying limbs ripped from bodies torn with sharp teeth lie strewn about at the sides of the road, their muscles torn away from their bones as if they were feasted on. Innumerable flies buzz about the ground and treetops devouring the rotting remains, and it’s so loud it makes my stomach churn.
The road looks as though blood has poured out over it in sheets, perhaps spread out by rain, because the yellow brick is tinted orange. This must be a part of the countryside where vampires and werebeasts both find their meals. But because the sun is high in the sky, there are no vampires, and perhaps because we have Werelion with us, no shifters are attacking.
Dorothy In the Land of Monsters Page 17
