Swans and Silence

by Holly Hook

  Table of Contents

  SWANS AND SILENCE (BOOK #6)

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  The Abnormals Underground Series

  The Flamestone Trilogy

  The Barren Trilogy

  The Timeless Trilogy

  Chapter One

  There was a knock at the door.

  I took my hands out of the dishwater and wiped them off on the dirty rag that sat next to the sink. The low music of my brothers' video game floated out of the back room.

  I stood there, listening. The knocking got louder and louder. One of my six brothers crinkled a chip bag, oblivious to what was happening.

  Nobody was supposed to find us out here in the wilderness.

  Father had hidden us well. If it were him at the door, he would have rung the bell out front first.

  The rapping stopped, and then started up again. My heart rose into my throat. I wished we had a window, but Father had chosen us a cabin that didn't have many. He didn't want any intruders, from this world or ours, to see inside easily.

  But I wished he had given us a peephole.

  I ran from the kitchen, past the boys' bedrooms, and down the hall to the back room. The glow of the TV filled the space and my six younger brothers lay on the floor everywhere, making it impossible to walk. Ian and Irving were duking it out with some fighting game where a man turned into a tiger and tore out the throat of his opponent. It wasn't something I wanted to see right now.

  "Turn that off," I ordered. "Quiet. Now."

  Irving turned and knocked over a bowl of those snacks called cheese puffs. He turned off the TV and glared at me. "What?"

  And then the knocking floated into the room and six faces widened with fear.

  "That's not Father," I hissed.

  "But Ignacia, he's supposed to bring us more food," Isaac said.

  "Father has a key," I said, keeping my voice as low as I could.

  The person at the door knocked again and again and again, always in threes. A horrifying thought wormed its way up.

  Annie.

  Our stepmother, who was full of dark magic.

  She was supposed to be in Fable, in the other world. Fable was hard to get out of, and Father only managed to find ways to reach us with his enchanted ball of yarn. But if Annie had hurt him...if she had killed him and taken the throne of the Swan Kingdom...she could have gotten a hold of it and had it lead us here.

  I didn't say this to the boys. I had to be the big sister, the protector. Keeping them calm was all I could do. We had no way to protect ourselves out here other than hiding. My mind spun. If Annie broke in she'd look everywhere. The cabin wasn't tiny but it wasn't huge. We could flee out the back door, but only wilderness stretched out. No road led to or from this place. We were isolated in this world.

  Isiah cried silent tears. He was the youngest, at five.

  The knocking came again.

  Annie would destroy us and we all knew. It was the reason Father had sent us out here six months ago.

  The person started pounding and trying the door. They weren't giving up.

  "It could be a deer hunter," Irving whispered. He was trying to keep up a brave face. My oldest brother was fifteen, a year younger than me. "Maybe he got lost and he's asking for the way out of this forest." He picked at his T-shirt, the standard clothing of this world, and pretended to look unafraid. But I could see the fear glinting in his eyes.

  "Maybe," I said. I wasn't sure how dangerous the people of this world were. There wasn't much magic here. Not like in Fable, where it was everywhere.

  The knocking stopped.

  And stayed gone.

  It was terrifying.

  Ivan scooted away from the back window. He curled up into a ball and whimpered.

  "Close all the curtains," I ordered. "And stay away from the back door." That was glass with no way to cover it.

  I rushed over and pulled the back room curtains closed. Irving hesitated, then got up and rushed to the room he and Immanuel shared. The squeak of curtains closing followed and he rushed back out.

  We waited for what stretched out into an hour, staying silent, staring at each other. Every little sound from outside stuck out to me. Every chirp. Every rustle of the wind. No one cleaned up the cheese puffs off the floor. I wrapped my arm around Isiah, but his tears wouldn't stop.

  "I killed Mother," he said. "If I hadn't done that Father wouldn't have married Annie."

  I held him tighter. A five year old should not have these thoughts, that guilt. "You did not," I whisper, even though she had died giving birth to him. "Father didn't want to marry Annie. It's not your fault."

  But Isiah buried his face in his elbow. I gulped. I had to keep telling him that or he might try what Immanuel had the week after she died. But no matter how many times I did, his guilt remained like a bloodstain.

  "Do you think they're gone?" Ivan asked. He flicked his gaze to the closed curtains.

  "I don't know," I said. "I'll go and check." I forced a smile at them, but I was far from that. If I let them down, I would break my promise to them. Father would be heartbroken.

  It had been a month now and he hadn't brought us any more food from this world. Father had been visiting once every two or three weeks before.

  I crept closer and closer to the wooden front door, listening for any sound that might be on the other side. A bird chirped. The worst thing we'd ever heard out here was a bear getting into the garbage, but that was late at night and expected out here. The silence was much worse.

  I put my hand on the door handle.

  And opened it slowly, peeking out.

  No one stood on the small wooden porch.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, but I had to be vigilant. My brothers were counting on me. Father had implored me to watch over them until he could call for us again. I opened the door a little more and eyed the woods. There was no one. Nothing moved. Our tiny yard was overgrown with weeds as if this cabin wasn't inhabited.

  Now for the hard part.

  The back.

  I took a breath and locked the front door behind me. I walked down the porch, then circled the house, searching the tree line. The pines stood tall over my head, towering towards the sky and creaking in the wind. They grew far enough apart to betray the presence of anyone hiding. Emptiness, all except for a chipmunk climbing the trunk of one. Weeds slapped at my shoes as I passed the shed and our generator, which still hummed. I wanted to slap myself. Having it on betrayed our presence here, but we had nowhere to hide it.

  I checked behind the shed, stepping over a pretty red flower that was growing behind some tall weeds. All clear. I headed back inside and locked the door again behind me. Maybe Irving was right and it had been a deer hunter after all. Whoever it was had left.

  “They’re gone,” I announced, entering the cabin. "You can turn on your video games and play whatever it was."

  Sighs of relief filled the room. Isiah wiped his eyes. Irving turned the TV back on and started up whatever game system was on the floor. It looked like a black box that showed images on a screen like magic. I went to clean up the cheese puffs on the floor.

  I couldn’t wait until Father sent for us.

  I resumed doing the dishes and went to work throwing away the boys’ fizzy drink bottles that they had left everywhere. Mountain Dew. Pepsi. Mostly Mountain Dew. Half-drunken, with ants crawling around one a brother had left on the floor.

  I was their mot
her now. I had been since that night I'd found Immanuel by the river.

  The power went out, casting the house in darkness. The game turned off along with its strange music. The man in red overalls vanished and left darkness behind the glass of the TV.

  The generator had run out of gas. I should have expected it. We hadn't filled it up for almost two days now.

  "Great," Irving said.

  "We need to get more gas," I said. "Our food will spoil if we don't."

  "We don't have much left," Irving said. "Father's supposed to bring more."

  I thought about Annie again. Maybe that hadn't been her knocking, but Father had been gone a long time. We had never waited this long before.

  My head started to pound with the stress. I wished we had one of those devices that were like tiny TV's, but you could put in a series of numbers and talk to someone far away. This world had lots of things like that, but Father hadn't gotten those for us. He said he didn't have an ID here to start a bank account, whatever that was.

  And the sun was getting low and the light orange. After nightfall, it got so dark out there that you couldn't see a thing except for the stars overhead. None of us wanted to dare exit the cabin at night. If we didn't get the generator started again, we'd be in pure dark. This cabin had no candles or torches.

  "Okay," I said. "Irving, go get the gas. The rest of us will clean the cabin a little and then you can play your video games. I might even play them with you."

  Isaac grinned and started picking up the bottles. It was amazing. They were cleaning up after themselves. The boys scrambled around and picked up garbage, and I could actually see the tables and chairs again. Irving stepped outside to go to the shed.

  I opened a garbage bag and went from brother to brother, letting them throw in bottles and trash. The cabin started to look a lot better and I could breathe in here.

  But then Irving shouted.

  "Father! You're back!"

  It was like a stampede. All five of the remaining boys dropped whatever trash they held and they ran for the back door. Isaac pushed into the lead and the door opened, then all the boys ran across the deck in the direction of the shed.

  There was something wrong with Irving's voice.

  He almost sounded like he was screaming, not happy.

  I ran to the back door and peeked out after the boys, but it was too late.

  They were gathered around Irving.

  And Irving stood there by the shed with Annie’s knife very close to his throat.

  Annie stood where the red flower had been growing against the shed only seconds ago. She wore a long, red and black dress of the same shade and she held Irving’s arm with one hand. Irving tried to lift his legs, but they seemed glued to the ground.

  The red of her dress was the same shade as that flower.

  The flower. It had looked strange. Why hadn't I stepped on it?

  The six boys stood around her, not knowing what to do. I died inside. She had found us after all. Tricked us into thinking it was safe to go outside. I swore that, if I got the boys free again, I would never yell at them the way I had today.

  “Let him go!” Isaac shouted.

  Annie smiled. Irving breathed heavily and I expected to see blood dripping down his throat, but none came. She was holding the boys back with the threat of his life.

  I started to open the door, slowly so that I wouldn’t alert her, but Annie stared right at me.

  “Oh, so the six of you also have a sister!" she said. "Your father lied to me. I might have to talk to him about that. I've been wondering where he has gone off to so many times in the past several months."

  “How did you find us?” I asked. I should step out there and confront her. I was the oldest. But I couldn’t. My legs felt frozen, and not just from fear. I couldn’t pull my feet from the carpet of the living room and step onto the deck, no matter how hard I tried. Cold enveloped me.

  Annie was using dark magic.

  Father had always warned me that it felt cold and vile like this.

  Annie smiled again. She still held Irving’s arm and the knife. My stepmother nodded down to the ground and looked back at me again. All around her, the boys remained still. She was enchanting them, too.

  Something wooly and purple sat there in the tall grass next to her.

  It was Father’s magic ball of yarn. She had stolen it and used it to get to us.

  “Do you need more explanation?” she asked. “I can’t believe your father raised children like you. He hasn’t taught you anything.”

  “You forced my father to marry you,” I said. “You’re a witch and you told him you would do something awful to him if he didn’t.” She was here now. I couldn’t hold my tongue. The was no point. Annie wouldn't let us go free. She wanted Father all to herself and maybe even the entire kingdom.

  “I didn’t force your father to do anything,” Annie said, raising the knife a little higher on Irving’s throat. “Would you like to see your brother’s blood?”

  “No,” I said. My heart raced. I couldn’t watch Irving die even if he annoyed me most of the time. “Don’t hurt them. Take me instead.”

  Irving didn’t protest. His eyes darted back and forth like he was trying to find an escape. The other boys glanced back at me. Their expressions were pleading. Terrified. I was the only one who was going to speak here.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t accommodate you in my plans,” Annie said. "It would have been nice to know you existed a bit ahead of time." She didn’t take her gaze off me. Her dark brown hair blew in the breeze as if she were summoning some power. Her eyes looked very, very black. I thought about the dark wizard who was trying to take over all of Fable, Alric. If he were a girl, he might look like this. “I was only able to sew six of my creations before I found your father’s magic ball of yarn. I had to take the opportunity while he is off meeting with the other royals.”

  Meeting. Father wouldn’t have left Annie alone in the castle unless something important was going on in Fable.

  He might still be alive.

  "But don't think I won't take care of you."

  The boys remained frozen. We were all a bunch of statues. Annie lowered the knife, and I studied Irving's throat to see that it was unblemished. It was.

  Annie pocketed the knife. She reached for something else on the ground, a sack that I hadn't noticed before. Until now, the knife had taken up everything.

  Irving didn't move. He couldn't.

  "What are you going to do?" I asked. "We've never done a thing to you!"

  Annie glared at me, the sack in her hand. It drooped with something inside. White cloth, shimmering like a pond reflecting the moon. If it wasn't for Annie being here, it would be beautiful.

  "What are you going to do?" I repeated.

  "My children will rule the Swan Kingdom," Annie said. "I don't need the seven of you getting in the way of that. Welcome to the world of royalty."

  "You aren't even royalty," I said. If I distracted her enough and she lost focus of her magic, perhaps the boys could run. They could survive. As their protector, I needed to do anything I could to ensure that.

  But Isaac tried to peel his feet from the ground and he couldn't. Tears rimmed his eyes and he gave me another stare. We all might die today. Annie would make sure of that.

  Annie reached into the bag.

  And she pulled out the strangest shirt I had ever seen.

  It was fairly large, about Irving's size, and shimmering in the dying light. There was a strange pattern inside the fabric, almost like feathers had melted into the silk and become part of it. She glared at Irving and motioned him closer to her. Even though I could only see the side of his face from here, the glaze over his expression was obvious. He was now entranced, mind and body.

  "Irving!" I shouted, over and over, but he couldn't hear me.

  Annie waved him closer and handed him the shirt. He took slow, shambling step after step and reached out for the garment. The shirt hung limp in his grasp, b
ut continued to shimmer with some kind of power.

  She motioned to Ike next, my thirteen year old, imitate Irving brother. He, too, took a shirt from Annie, one that was just a little smaller and perfectly his size. Annie had taken time on these.

  "All of you!" I shouted. "Snap out of it! She's trying to kill you!"

  Ike stepped back, holding his strange prize. He waited.

  Immanuel went next, and then Isiah, Ivan and at last Isaac. Little Isaac, the only boy that didn't grate on my nerves, took the tiny shirt from Annie, a woman he swore he would never go near again and the woman he was afraid would appear in his closet and snatch him in the middle of the night.

  "Stop it!" I shouted. I yelled profanities at Annie. Terrible insults, but still the boys stood there, entranced. They were sinking and I couldn't save them. I wanted to die.

  I tried to pry my feet off the deck again, but the air around me stayed as cold as ever and Annie grinned at me. It was a mockery. I was helpless here.

  "And now," Annie said, stepping back from the boys. "Put on my gifts."

  "No!" I shouted. "Don't listen to her. She's trying to put some curse on you. Those shirts are dangerous." I imagined them wrapping around the boys and constricting them to death. I would have to watch. I couldn't. "Snap out of it. Please." I sucked in a breath and caught my composure. I opened my mouth to shout something else, but Annie stared at me and my jaw snapped shut. I couldn't speak. All I could do was make muffled sounds. She was freezing me here. I wondered if she could turn me into ice.

  I felt like ice.

  Cold and useless.

  And all at once, my brothers slid those shirts over their heads.

  The temperature dropped so much that my fingers went numb in a heartbeat. An explosion of white feathers burst around my brothers, blocking them from view, and when the feathers fell, large, white birds flew away from each other in a panic.

  Swans. They cried out in fear and feathers fell in all directions as a pair of them crashed into each other, went down to the ground, and took flight again. Annie watched them scramble around in terror. At last, the birds took off above the trees, flying away as fast as they could. I could do nothing but watch them vanish over the forest canopy, their cries getting fainter and fainter.