by Laney McMann
“I am like them. I am.”
I kept my eyes cast downward, aware of the strain in her tone.
“This is my world. I belong here. I know every patch of forest, every waterfall, every blade of grass and mountain cliff. I am this world. Just like your mother and your aunt … and you. If you leave … if you do this, we could lose everything. You can’t fight them on your own. That isn’t how it works.”
“How does it work, then?” Anger rose in my chest. “I get to drag my friends and the love of my life to their deaths? Is that how? Because I can’t do that!” My head spun, as the reality of what that meant weighed on me. The ground beneath me swayed as if it was giving way, throwing me into an awkward sprawl toward the muddy ground.
Benny caught me again.
“How are you standing there so steady?” I jerked my arm away.
Without pause, she rose above the ground, not one toe touching the surface. “I’m a Fae.”
I glanced away. “I know that.”
“Do you?” In a burst of blinding yellow light, a fairy floated before my eyes. A fairy the size of a man’s shoe. Light and airy, immersed in a tiny white light, illuminating her round blue eyes, porcelain face, and wings of sunshine yellow twice the size of her body. She looked petite, fragile and afraid.
I gawked at her, wide-eyed, and speechless.
“This is my fight, Lay.” Her voice chimed like a bell. “Don’t you see? This is my world, and if you fail … I lose.” She shifted back and stood in front of me in solid, human form. “You can blink.” Her words dripped with sarcasm. “Go back. Please.”
“I can’t. I have to do this. Whatever this is … I have to do something. Try to stop it—figure it out. I don’t know. All I know is I won’t let Max die for me. Peace or no peace—I won’t hurt him—I won’t be forced to fight against him.”
“We can find a way. Don’t go.”
“What way, Ben?” I bowed my head. “I have to do this.”
“The Fomore want you to come. You’re making this easy for them. You won’t survive!”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.” I made my way toward the doorway.
“Your light keeps our world alive. You can’t leave!”
“One light replaces another.” I tried to smile. “My mother will hold the light.”
Encircled by a rush of warm wind, I walked over the threshold of the doorway, into the darkness of the Underworld, Max’s screams reverberating around me.
“Layla!”
25
The scent of rotting wood— cloying and old, very old—filled my nostrils. Darkness pressed in from all sides, blinding me as I hugged the earthen walls of the passageway. A slow steady drip echoed off the walls, the only sound besides my footsteps and pounding heart, reminding me of the cave Max and I escaped from.
Choosing my steps with care, I inched down the winding path, catching momentary glimpses of dim sunlight, only to lose them again. Shivers traveled down my spine, and I questioned my decision to come.
I glanced over my shoulder. Darkness.
Even if I made my way back, all that waited were more unanswered questions. More risk.
The only way to keep them all safe—to keep Max safe—was to keep moving.
I took another step, and my hands slid down wet walls, until the passage opened abruptly and shafts of hazy light cascaded down through crevasses in the forest floor above my head.
Root systems crawled along the soiled, dripping ceiling, threatening to collapse downward, and the scratching of what had to be tiny rodent feet played games with my head.
Surely the noise moved closer, but from which direction, I couldn’t tell.
Strange sounds continued, echoing and vibrating off the walls, creating disorientation, claustrophobia. Fear.
My eyes opened and closed, trying to adjust to the dim light. Blinks of images and shots of the underground flashed through the space before falling into blackness. I blinked furiously, planting my feet as something moved in the shadows, low to the ground as though dragging itself.
The scratching of feet quickened, like digging into dry earth. Choking, hacking breath accompanied the noise, and a shadow grew closer.
I stood my ground, unwilling, or unable, to move. I’d come to end the charade of riddles, whatever the outcome. Stiffening, I wondered if the moving shadow could see me, or if its senses had accustomed itself to the lack of light. Perhaps it was being led by smell alone in the dank black hole.
The whites of someone else’s eyes brightened two spots in the dark.
I swallowed a scream and threw myself against the wall. Hidden in shadows, and seeming to struggle for breath, it sniffed the air like a dog for food, and reached out. I didn’t dare move or blink.
It touched my face with cool callused hands.
I stiffened further.
The gentle touch suggested female. The whites of the unseeing eyes told of blindness. She lowered her hand and backed up a step into a hazed shaft of light, revealing herself as an elderly stooped woman, dressed in off-white robes, with bare feet, her face like worn brown leather.
“Teine has come to the Underground.” She rasped her words like she hadn’t spoken in centuries.
My stomach dropped, my heart fighting to get out of my chest, and I stared silently into her bright white, pupil-less eyes.
She smiled with yellowed teeth in a gentle way. “I thought you would come.” She turned and began a slow drag back toward the shadows.
I didn’t move or speak.
“You have questions, do you not?” She breathed heavily, as though the act of walking were a struggle. “You wish to save yourself and your beloved, do you not?”
I found my voice weak and a strangled, “Yes,” emerged.
“Then come. Out of the shadows. Eyes linger here. Eyes watch and report what they see.”
I glanced back in the direction of the doorway high above me.
“The Fire Born do not run.” Her hoarse tone enveloped the darkness as she made her way deeper into the cave.
My blood warmed at her negative assumption. “I’m not running.”
“Then look to where you are going, not to where you have been.”
I followed her with hesitance, keeping her in close range. Something in the way she moved reassured me. Something in her eyes, as white as they were, seemed familiar. She could see me, and I knew without reason, she could see no other.
The tunneling passageway sank beneath the depths of the Otherworld like a serpent burrowing in wait to attack an unsuspecting prey. The ground grew steep, with slopes of wet mud. The woman remained surefooted, no doubt having traveled the path many times. I followed her exact footsteps, my feet sinking into the sodden earth directly behind her own.
Ahead of me, she mumbled, barely audible.
“I didn’t hear you.” I gripped the cave wall, slipping on wet ground.
“You did that as a child, too.” She faded off as we continued the plummet downward.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“When you were a child.” Her voice grew. “The Underground tunnel frightened you. You followed my footsteps to the basin then, too.”
I halted, my brain swimming in the undercurrent of her words.
She continued the final steps to the bottom of the cave and turned to me, bright green flashing across her white eyes. “Do you remember now?”
Waves crashed against rock. The scent of salt air and wet sand overwhelmed the cloying odor. A clear burst of sunlight struck the darkened walls, illuminating the life crawling within the soil.
The pull of memories tugged my brain as I glanced down again at the woman standing on the path before me, waiting.
“Grandmother.”
“My kindred.” She smiled. “I knew you would come back.”
26
My grandmother shuffled ahead of me into the bedroom. The canopied bed I remembered from my youth sat under the window, its frame draped with dried daisies
and lavender woven into wilted running vines, their once rich, vibrant colors, faded to brittle alabaster.
Embedded into the side of a cliff, the Underground’s mouth opened over the sea. The stairs led down to the beach, crumbled and worn from centuries of use and waves breaking against the stone at high tide.
As a child, I’d cherished the Underground world my grandmother so carefully kept hidden, and it remained beautiful even in various states of ruin. Joy and laughter ran rampant in the recesses of my mind. The magic I’d known still surrounded the towering turrets that rose into the mist, and the salty ocean currents still carried in the sweetness of overgrown wildflower gardens.
“Rest easy. You will find peace and solace here. No one can follow you. You are safe in the Underground.” With a tentative touch, she squeezed my shoulders, and I turned and fell into her arms. “It will be all right.” She rubbed my back. “You are here now. That is all that matters.”
I nodded, the assurance in her voice settling my raw nerves, reminding me how safe she had always made me feel.
My mother said the security surrounding the Underground—the safeguards my grandmother had employed—were impermeable. I’d once heard her say the Royal Court could sooner be breached.
Anger at mother welled up. You lied to me. Hid me from all I knew. And everyone I loved.
I rested my head on my grandmother’s shoulder, catching my breath. “I’m so sorry I didn’t remember.”
She lifted my chin in her palms. “You have nothing to apologize for. Let this sorrow pass from your thoughts. No one blames you.”
My mother hated the place and even forbid me to visit as a child, afraid my grandmother was ‘filling my mind with stories of the old world’. Stories that made otherwise foreign worlds come alive in my imagination, making me wish I lived in those times, with those ancient relatives.
Like the Morrigan, my great-great-aunt, the goddess of three faces and war in ancient Eire.
Standing in the Underground, swathed in my grandmother’s arms, I remembered the story well. How the Morrigan, the last of my ancestors to inhabit the Raven, had attempted to wield its power, and bend it to her will. The stories fascinated me as a young child, intrigued me. Upon entering the forgotten world, those stories I’d thought were only imaginary, seemed fresh and sharp in my mind, and frightened me in a way I’d never known.
The death of my great-great-aunt was legend. Some said she was mad. Driven insane by the fury and rage that resided inside her. I had no idea if the Morrigan held fire. She must have. Certainly, she was one of the Ancient Fire Born who had been destroyed.
Or the last one. My breathing stopped.
Until she placed the curse. Until … now. My eyes closed of their own accord. Another truth weighing me down.
“Rest your mind.” My grandmother shuffled toward the door. “You need time.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, missing Max so much I could hardly breathe. Shaking the image of his face from my mind, the sound of him screaming my name, I allowed my head to touch the pillow, forced my eyes to close—the weight of exhaustion suddenly more than I could bear.
In their sockets, my eyes shifted erratically, moving but never opening, keeping me somewhere between sleep and awake.
Trapped watching, and listening, and waiting, in my garland wrapped canopy bed.
Restless and dreaming.
••
My aunt paces back and forth on the trail in front of the Royal Court, her long robes disturbing the leaves underfoot. Her voice echoes as though she’s on the other side of a mountain, yelling down to the valley floor. I try to make out her words, to force my eyes to open, to see her better, or wake myself up and end the vision, as her lips move without pause, speaking to someone outside the gates.
“MacKenzie? Is there something you wish to discuss with me?”
“Layla’s gone.” The pain in his voice, his words, destroys me.
“Yes. I am aware she has fled.”
“You know where she is.” His tone is harsh, bitter.
“I do.” My aunt inclines her head.
“Tell me.” He seems to release the grip on his composure. “Please.”
The Queen smiles as if she is assessing his plea. “She is safe.”
Max bows his head. “I want her kept out of danger. You can have me. I will fight for you, but not Layla. I’ll break the Tie to keep her safe.”
The Queen’s eyes narrow as she takes a step to the side. “You would abandon her? For her safety? Sacrifice yourself?”
“Yes.” He answers without hesitation, standing tall.
“I see.” The Queen chuckles. “The two of you interest me a great deal. I believe Teine attempted to break her Tie to you as well—afraid she was hurting you.” Her gaze roves over him before she seems lost in thought. “You do Teine no favors by releasing her. You will ache for one another beyond any pain that you can possibly imagine. You are Twin Souls. You cannot free one another. You may try to protect her—keep her from harm, but let me assure you, she will fight fiercely to protect you, too. It was only a matter of time before Teine accepted who she is, what she is, and began to take matters into her own hands.”
Max shifts his weight. “I need your word that she will remain hidden and protected.”
The Queen rises to her full height, lifting her chin. “You have my word. Where Teine has gone, no one can follow.”
Max gives a curt nod and turns.
“Mackenzie …”
He spins back.
“Know that I cannot keep Teine hostage. She will fight for you should it come to that.”
“I don’t want her to fight for me!” Anger overrides his measured composure. “I want her kept out of this!”
“She is a part of this. Holding her captive will not change anything. Know the only true pain that can be inflicted upon Teine is losing you. Be safe. There are many hidden dangers in this world. Many more in the realms that lie beyond.” Her eyes darken. “MacKenzie—the danger … do not go looking for it.”
• • •
I forced my eyes to open, to sit upright as the ocean gusts swirled through the bedroom window. Max. What are you doing?
Scanning the bedroom, drowsy intoxication pressed on me. Flowered scents encompass the space, filling my head with heaviness, my eyelids drooping. I willed them open, swaying where I sat. The cry of seagulls called across the open ocean. My eyes closed again, my head dropping like a ragdoll’s against the pillow laden bed.
••
“Raise the children together.” My father paces in front of a cave mouth, his warm brown hair in crazed disarray. “Raise MacKenzie as a Tuatha Dé Danaan. Hide him. He will never know the truth. It is the only way to protect Teine.” He hesitates. “The Fire Born aren’t meant to fight one another! This is a sick game the Ancients are playing!” He stops and glares toward the ocean. “We can change fate.” His voice cracks. “Teine and MacKenzie will never have to fight against one another. Let them share love for the other.” He turns to my grandmother. “It’s the only way.”
The creases around her her worn and wrinkled eyes holds understanding. “And if the Fomore find out what the boy is—who he is? Do not assume they are unaware of the Legend.”
My father’s posture loosens. “Then we lose two innocent children. We lose our world. We have to try.”
My aunt sits quietly, her arms folded in her lap, and turns to my grandmother. “Without the light that now resides in Teine, we die. The Fomore will hunt her as they have her parents.” She inclines her head to my father. “Should they learn she is also one of the Fire Born of Legend … the hunt will be more than we can shield.” She sighs. “The infant boy must be taken. Foe or Ally … an attack from her Twin Soul will kill her. Either of body or of heart. And then we will all lose.”
My father sinks down by the window, his shirt coming un-tucked and draping over his belt in places. “Mairsale?”
Ms. MacLarnon, ashen faced, rises to her feet, chin
held high against obvious fear. “I will raise the Fomore boy as my own. I will assume the position of his Bean Tighe.” She bows her head.
My father exhales. “Thank you. I am in your debt.”
“What of my daughter?” My grandmother’s raspy voice carries. “Does she hold to your beliefs?” Her eyebrow lifts.
My father’s shoulders fall. “She still wishes to flee.”
“Of course she does.”
• • •
Screams of fury filled my brain. I twisted and turned, trapped in my own head.
••
The man sits in silence, his chin resting against entwined fingers, breathing erratic as he stares into the center of an inferno. Flames lick the air, reaching for his beard, his silvered robes and gnarled hands.
“My King, we have confirmed the boy is your own.” A voice speaks, hidden by shadow. “The Legend is true. We will end our pursuit.” He bows.
The man in robes doesn’t flinch. “The Fire Born. Returned.” He nods. “What of his mother?” His tone is calm.
“She has been hidden and protected by the Tuatha Dé Danaan. She would not have been able to shield his energy on her own.”
“The boy has been raised by the Tuatha Dé Danaan. My own son raised to hate me.” He snickers and pushes to his feet. “Raised to fight against the Fomore. His own people!” His calm demeanor vanishes, leaving malice in its wake. “What of the girl?”
The servant bows. “The girl is a descendant of the Morrigan, as Legend says. Her power will be immense.”
“We cannot allow them to gain full strength. They are still young enough to control. Bring the boy to me. Do not harm him. He must be made to understand the ways of the Fomore. Leave the girl.”
“Yes, My King.” The informant bows low to the ground before vanishing.
The King paces in front of a massive stone fireplace, crudely built of tumbled grey rock. It stands well above his head, the hearth large enough for several grown men to stand upright inside it. Flames blaze outward, beads of sweat rolling off his brow.
