Swans and Silence

by Holly Hook

  And I still had the shirts to create.

  "Is this the front of the line?" someone asked next to us.

  It was Brie. I reached out and tapped her on the arm.

  "I guess that's a yes," she said. "Why are you hauling that sack of flowers?"

  "This girl needs them," Mica said. "Something's wrong and I have the feeling it's in the other world."

  I tapped him on the arm. Yes, I wanted to say. We hadn't had much time to talk. Not with Macon breathing down our backs. I wasn't sure how close he was behind us.

  Or how dangerous he was.

  Brie drew closer. "Do you have a curse?"

  I nodded, forgetting that she couldn't see me. So instead I tapped her arm again. Why was she so concerned? This girl didn't know me at all. We'd only met while hiding under that tree in the swamp.

  "We need a signal for no," Brie said. "How about a slap on the back?"

  "Good idea," Stilt said. I jumped. He moved so quietly. I hadn't realized he was walking beside us.

  I'd never been this close to an elf before. Father had spoken to a few who came to the castle to offer services one time, but Father preferred to pay his servants. Elves were strange and sometimes worked for free. At least, the light ones were.

  Brie went on to ask me if I really had come from the other world. I tapped her on the arm. Then she asked me if I'd been in Fable before. I tapped her on the arm again.

  "Really?" she asked. "So have I. But as far as we know, Alric's magic mirror is the only way back."

  I cringed, but she hadn't said that too loud. I didn't need these people thinking I was taking them to Alric's lair. Father's yarn had taken us to a magical pond. If ways to the other world were that rare, we might be in for a long walk.

  "Or is it?" Stilt asked. "In the last month of so, no one's seen him appearing in reflective things like we usually do. I'm surprised he didn't appear in that swamp water back there. Maybe something's happened to him or the mirror."

  "That would be nice," Mica said. "Maybe Macon can join him."

  Brie laughed a bit.

  "Did you ever get a chance to look at Mary's book?" Brie asked me.

  I slapped her on the back and stepped over a shrub, which grabbed at my skirt. The yarn was taking us through the forest the best it could, but in these woods, there wasn't much space at times.

  Somewhere distant, a wolf howled.

  My hair stood on end. Night was something you didn't normally walk around in. Not in Fable, anyway.

  "So you don't know what story you're in," she said. "I wish I could tell you. I've been asking Mary all day if she knows any stories about a girl who can't speak. She thinks there's one, but she can't remember what it was. I'm worried her memory is starting to fail her. But as soon as we get back to the other world, I'll find another book like the one she had. There are a lot of copies there."

  I wondered how this Brie had gotten to the other world and back. I just wished I could ask questions.

  And then I ran right into a tree trunk.

  I had to bite in a cry as I went headfirst into rough bark. I stumbled around the trunk, going down to my hands and knees.

  "Whoa!" Mica said. He was there, kneeling and taking my arms. He rubbed his thumbs up and down them like he was checking for wounds. I could barely see him in the pale moonlight. The crowd pushed up behind us, not caring that I'd fallen. I was glad it was dark, because heat was rushing to my cheeks. Mica was...touching me.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  I tapped him on the arm. He wasn't laughing at me, at least. I had to get things together and focus on my brothers. I didn't have time for a man right now.

  He helped me up. My leg brushed the side of the flower bag. They were still here. He was still hauling them for me.

  "You don't have to thank me," he said. "Come on. It looks like the yarn slopes downward up ahead. We might be headed into a valley."

  He was right. The purple line sloped down and out of sight.

  "What now?" a man asked.

  "We need to rest," Mary said. She'd drawn closer. "I need to sit. My hips are killing me. I might need your healing again, Rae."

  Henry and Rae must have been the ones with her. "I don't know how much more I can do," Rae said. "I'm getting tired. But I'll try."

  "Someone start a fire," Macon said. "We need to rest. We can't go on a death march like this." I could hear the anger in his voice.

  It might even be directed at me.

  Luggage dropped and someone threw what sounded like sticks down on the ground. The villagers had had enough. Mica shifted next to me and let go of my arms. "We need to stay quiet," he said, pleading more than anything. "If we light a fire any of Alric's forces could find us. It's clear he knows Mary is out here. We can rest, but no fire. It might even tell the wolves where we're at."

  "This is not your kingdom, boy," a man said. A spark flew. "If we cross into yours, it will be different. So remain silent."

  "No," Mica said. "You will not light a fire."

  "Yes, we are," Macon said.

  I had to help him. He didn't have much control here. Mica was my age and trying to order around people who were much older. I followed Mica towards the crowd, following his footsteps over dry leaves and dirt.

  A wolf howled again.

  And it wasn't that far away.

  My hair rose and I froze, tempted to let the man light the fire. Several of the women muttered with fear.

  Macon spoke up. "The fire will hold back any wolves. You never know how they're going to act."

  "We are in a crowd," Mica argued. "Wolves don't usually bother us unless they're in the dark region. You're a huntsman. You should know that. You're always going on about how good of one you are."

  "Those are dangerous wolves," Macon said with authority. "People with dark magic can affect them."

  Mica sucked in a breath. Right ahead, another spark went off, illuminating a pile of sticks and a pair of green trousers behind them. Macon was trying to light them.

  The sticks caught and the scent of smoke filled the air. Light flickered against tree trunks and skirts and legs. Something popped as a small fire burst to life.

  The wolves howled louder and closer as if excited they had figured out where we were. We'd been detected. Macon had done a great job.

  "Are you trying to get us killed?" Mica asked, storming towards the fire. "The wind is going away from the wolves. They wouldn't have smelled us. And now they can see us."

  "Oh my god," a woman said.

  "Get behind the fire."

  "Mary, over here."

  Panic was breaking out. Mica and Macon scuffled just outside the firelight, their dark forms twisting and turning. I rushed around Mica and kicked at the pile of sticks. Embers flew and the fire struggled, then went out when I stomped on it with my shoes. Darkness fell and I could see nothing. Macon and Mica stopped fighting.

  “Who did that?” Macon shouted.

  And then the wolves howled, much louder this time.

  They were getting close.

  “Huddle together!” Mica shouted. “Follow the yarn. They won’t attack a group.”

  “Leave me,” Mary said. She was close by. Bodies pushed against me as I stood over the sticks.

  “We’re not leaving you,” the elf said.

  “I insist. Leave me and go,” Mary shouted.

  A growl came from out of the underbrush, somwhere to my right. People pushed against me and ran, moving along the yarn. I was caught in a river all over again.

  This one was made of panic.

  “Go!” Mica shouted. Metal scraped leather as he unsheathed his sword. “Go, go, go!”

  Dread filled me as we ran. More howls came, but they got farther and farther apart as we made our way downhill. Mica ran next to me. Mary huffed behind us as someone pulled her along. Minutes stretched into what felt like an hour before we slowed.

  The howling had grown more distant again. I panted for breath. Mica drew closer to me and put his
sword back.

  "I think we got away from them," he said just as another distant howl filled the air. "Macon is such an idiot."

  I tapped his arm to agree.

  The yarn sloped down again and curved. It hadn’t curved much since the entire trip. We might be close to the portal. I hoped so. It would be midnight soon and we had to get there at the right time, or we would all be waiting for another full day out in the wilderness.

  “I think we left the wolves behind,” Brie said.

  “Brave Macon protected us,” said the elf. "He didn't even arm his bow."

  Mica tapped my shoulder and I jumped. “Do you think we’re getting close?”

  I did the same to him. Yes.

  “I think we’re getting close,” Mica shouted down the line. Dark forms walked along the yarn behind us. People muttered and picked up the pace.

  “I told you to leave me,” Mary said. She sounded very weak. “You should.”

  Her words hung heavy with despair. It was the kind that matched mine.

  The feeling of utter failure.

  "You're going to see home soon," Rae told her. "I'll heal you again once we get there and I can eat."

  But at least someone was making her come along. I couldn’t bear to leave an old woman behind, alone in the forest at night.

  And then I spotted it.

  A pale glow, poking through the trees. I swatted Mica again and pointed, even though it was no good in the dark. We were walking through a void with some occasional stars peeking through.

  “Is that it?” Mica asked. We stepped closer and the air got electric. “That’s it!”

  Next to me, the yarn rolled up. Mica and I broke into a run as the trees around us cleared. Another meadow, one that reminded me of the one by the camp, spread out. And in the center of this one was another perfectly round pond.

  It might even be the same one Father had ordered my brothers and I through. We might be closer to the Swan Kingdom than I thought. If Mary’s village had been in the Fox Kingdom or the Tree Kingdom, it just might be.

  I couldn’t help but search the open field for Father. There was no one but us as Mica and I crossed the meadow and crashed through tall grass. The water was glowing with a faint silver. I’d seen this before.

  I reached out and took Mica’s hand.

  “So this is what a portal to the other world looks like,” he said, amazed.

  I nodded. My brothers were on the other side of that. When I went through, I might see them again.

  The electric feeling got stronger and I drew closer to the water, heart pounding. I was almost sure this was the same one Father had sent us to and the same one he used when he came to visit us. He might have even gone to the other world already and found the cabin empty. He would be heartbroken right now.

  Maybe he wouldn’t even want to live anymore, especially with Annie.

  Or he could be dead already.

  No. Annie said she wanted to have children with him, children who would rule the Swan Kingdom. Annie wouldn’t kill him without an heir first.

  “Midnight, right?” Mica asked. “It must be close.”

  “Portals always open at midnight,” the elf said. “I’ve used them before. Many times.”

  “When taking me from world to world,” Brie said. “My first portal was a pumpkin patch.”

  The light was better out here. I could see the figures of everyone standing around me. The pond itself was giving it off, casting faces in a pale silver glow. Mica’s dark hair hung in his face and he brushed it away. His eyes were conflicted. Deep. He had a lot on his mind.

  “The other world might be dangerous,” Macon said, cutting over everyone. I swear you could hear the guy a mile away. “It’s not a good idea to go through this portal. We don’t know where we’re going to come out.”

  Mary staggered forward, her jaw dropping with longing. She stood on the very edge of the water. "I wonder what's happened in my world since I left," she said.

  An image began to form on the water, like an upside down reflection. Trees. Lots and lots of pine trees. It was the same area my brothers and I had jumped into six months ago. We'd come out in a forest and it would be day on the other side. This was the same portal Father had ordered us to. We would come out only a few leagues from the cabin and from the camp.

  And possibly, where Annie waited.

  I stepped away from Mica and eyed the dark tree line. Home was around here. If I wanted, I could order the yarn to show me the way. I could reach it in hours. I longed to sleep in my own bed, but Annie had probably destroyed all my things.

  “Ignacia?” Mica asked.

  I faced him.

  “Do you live around here?”

  I swore the guy could read my mind. I nodded and made the shape of a roof over my head.

  “Which kingdom?” he asked, pulling me closer to the water. The image was getting clearer on the other side of him, so much that there was no doubt that I was seeing things. We’d be able to go through in only a few minutes. I was certain. Macon kept arguing about how untrustworthy I was, that I had kicked out the fire, over and over to anyone who would listen. But right now it was just me and Macon. “Stone? Sun? Swan?”

  I nodded.

  “Swan,” he said. “There’s been some trouble there.”

  I nodded again, thinking of that spreading darkness that would have overtaken the castle. Father had to live in it now.

  “Did you have to flee home?”

  Yes. I nodded.

  Mica frowned and held his boot above the water, right above the image of a baby pine tree. The image still grew stronger. It wasn't quite time yet. “The new Queen is terrible. She treats the servants awfully and she’s hard to get along with. I think she’s dark, myself. Her castle is in a dark spot like the one we just left. I visited a couple of months ago, to try to seal some kind of diplomatic relation. It was right after my father died.”

  Mica’s grief went down through the pond and into the underworld.

  I wondered how it had happened. And what it was like to inherit a kingdom at such a young age. Father himself was thirty-two when he had taken the throne.

  Mica might be a little over half that.

  Macon stopped arguing and all around us, people pushed closer to the portal. The forest wavered a bit, then snapped back into full focus. It was almost there. Almost clear enough to jump through.

  Wolves howled again.

  And this time they were very close, as if they had sneaked up behind us.

  That explained it, then.

  “Not yet!” Stilt shouted. “Wait a few more seconds! If we ruin the reflection, it won’t work.”

  Someone shoved me forward from behind. Panic was breaking out. The wolves howled, louder this time. They had followed us. Normal wolves wouldn't have done that.

  “I see them!” a man shouted.

  I turned. We were all standing around the pond in a ring of terror. My heart raced and Macon yelled something over the shouts of the crowd, something that got lost. Mica grabbed my hand and squeezed. Next to me, Brie smiled like she was trying to make everything all right. Everyone was running to the other side of the pond, farthest away from the forest we had come from. But I turned and stood on my toes to see over the tall grass.

  Red eyes.

  That was my first thought, was that there were several pairs of red eyes floating towards us in the dark like disembodied spirits from the dark region. Wolves. These weren’t normal wolves like I sometimes saw in the forest around the castle, the ones that glanced at you and left you alone. These might be ones Alric had enslaved. Or ones unfortunate enough to linger in that dark spot for too long.

  I joined everyone else on the other side of the pond.

  “Almost,” the elf shouted. The forest got stronger. It was almost real enough to touch now. My hair stood on end and for a second, I was with my brothers again.

  And then light filled the open meadow, spilling out from the pond.

  “Now!” Mi
ca shouted.

  Hand in hand, we jumped. A whitish yellow glow surrounded us and we were falling through a void, through worlds and into the unknown. People screamed beside us. Wolves growled and snapped. I held onto Mica and closed my eyes. It was just us now.

  We had left the sack of flowers next to the pond.

  My brothers’ salvation behind.

  I let go of Mica and flailed through the void, trying to find them. He reached out for me but his arm was a blur in the light. I couldn’t leave without them.

  Something snapped and grabbed my pant leg.

  I bit in a scream and shook my foot. A wolf fell with me, hackles flying in the air. It pulled at my skirt and ripped the fabric with its canines. It came free and the wolf spiraled into the void.

  Trees snapped into my vision, I hit ground, and the world stilled.

  Chapter Eight

  “Ignacia. Get up.”

  Mica stood over me. I squinted in the daylight, eyes adjusting to the change in time. Behind him, people milled around, dazed as if they had no idea how they got here. Village women in black dresses talked quietly to each other and the men leaned on their pitchforks, surveying the tall pine trees and the hills around us.

  The other world.

  I’d made it back.

  But my brothers—

  “We’re okay,” Mica said. “Why did you let go of me?”

  I couldn’t answer. I stood up and we faced each other.

  “You could have been bitten by that wolf,” he said. “Some of them are shifters. If one of them bites you…you share their fate.”

  My heart leapt and I eyed my skirt where the wolf had grabbed on. I held the black fabric against my leg but no blood marked my flesh. The teeth had missed me. Shifter or no, a bite would have been bad news. Sicknesses could come from bites.

  “I was keeping you away from the wolves,” Mica said. “Some of them came through the portal with us. I waved my sword at them and the old man swung his pitchfork. They ran into the woods, but we need to be careful. I’m not sure that being in this world will rid them of their evil.”

  “Actually,” Macon said from behind me. “You can remove a curse with certain artifacts. There's a magic dagger out there that can do the trick. The last I knew, though, it was stolen and the owner hasn't been able to find it since.”