Winter’s Light

by M. J. Hearle

  As they made their way out of Trinity’s gates for the last time, Winter found herself looking for the two men she’d spied. There was every chance they were simply the older siblings of one of her classmates. Or maybe cousins, or boyfriends. She didn’t think they were locals though. Their clothes were far too stylish for Hagan’s Bluff, where jeans and a long-sleeved shirt might be considered overdressed.

  The more she thought about the two strangers, the stronger her intuition tingled with the vague threat of danger. Jumping at shadows, Lucy might call it, but Winter had learnt that there were some very good reasons to jump at shadows.

  Chapter 6

  By the time the sun passed behind Owl Mountain, leaving the sky a murky pink colour, Lighthouse Beach was heaving with laughing, drinking and dancing teenagers. An impressive bonfire had been started just down from the dunes, fuelled by driftwood, scrunched-up newspaper, cardboard boxes and gasoline. Winter sat on one of the crates watching the flames throw up golden sparks against the heavens. Any other night and the police would have been down here to put an end to the bonfire, not to mention the drinking, but this being graduation night the town at large tended to turn a blind eye.

  Jasmine was standing with some of the girls from her swimming team, talking to Michelle Underland, the topic of their conversation apparently Jules, who remained oblivious to the attention. He was hunched over a beaten-up acoustic guitar, strumming (poorly) a Jack Johnson song, rolling his eyes at his friends while they unpacked a variety of colourfully packaged fireworks.

  ‘Good evening, Winter,’ a thin, reedy voice said next to her. Winter turned and saw Harry Francis take a seat on one of the crates next to her.

  ‘Hi, Harry, how’s things?’

  ‘As well as can be expected,’ he said somewhat sullenly. ‘I spent three years building up the Trinity Times. Three years of sacrificing lunchbreaks, free periods and weekends crafting something special, something that went beyond your usual run-of-the-mill school newspaper. Something people actually wanted to read. And now . . .’ he trailed off staring at the leaping flames.

  ‘It’s finished?’ Winter offered when he seemed to sink deeper into his own morose thoughts. Seeing his watery, bloodshot eyes she guessed he was a little drunk.

  ‘Well and truly finished,’ he said, waving his hand dramatically. Yep, Harry Francis – Mr Straighty One-Eighty himself – was off his face.

  ‘I offered to stay on, you know. But Sorensen wouldn’t have me. She said Nick Fitzpatrick was going to be running the paper. That nerdy little kid – I betchya he doesn’t know the first thing about journalism.’

  Winter had to force herself not to smile at Harry’s sneering condemnation of Nick as being ‘nerdy’. Like Harry was the epitome of cool and popular.

  ‘Aren’t you going to college?’

  ‘Can’t afford it. Not next year anyway. Looks like I’ll be working at the bookstore with dad.’ The Book Kitchen, owned and operated by Harry’s father, was located around the corner from Maple Boulevard. It was a cute little establishment that traded in coffees, croissants, and second-hand books. Winter went there with Jasmine every now and again, and enjoyed drinking coffee surrounded by all those old books.

  ‘I should burn the school down. Let Sorensen deal with that.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Harry.’

  ‘I’m only joking,’ he mumbled. He lent closer to Winter, his rank breath making her wince. ‘Maybe old Sammy will swing through town again and do it for me? I heard they haven’t caught him yet.’

  A nerve twanged inside her as Harry accidentally poked a sensitive area. After the fire on Owl Mountain, Sam Bennet had disappeared. At the moment, he was considered a prime suspect not only in the arson but also in the murder of his father and brothers, as well as Blake and Claudette.

  ‘You know I never liked that guy. I had a feeling he was a psycho the first time I saw him. Dead eyes.’

  ‘Sam’s not a psycho.’ Winter flashed upon Sam’s tearful face as he looked up at her while cradling his father’s dead body in his hands. What do I do now? he’d asked her pathetically and Winter hadn’t had an answer for him then, nor would she have one for him now.

  ‘Really? I would have thought killing your brothers and a couple of other people qualified you for “psycho” status. Between you and me I think he was into some sick stuff. Satanic kind of stuff, you know? Abandoned church, dead bodies, fire – it all paints a pretty clear picture. His whole family was probably part of a sect or cult. Those two unidentified bodies were probably sacrifices.’ He grinned ghoulishly at Winter, barely able to restrain his glee. ‘Do you know I heard they found one of them with the head cut off! Can you believe it! Awesome, huh?’

  Winter was not enjoying this conversation. ‘Sam’s a psycho? You should get some help. Serious help.’

  Harry scoffed at her evaluation, his gaze drifting down to her chest. Not only was the creep making light of the worst experience in her entire life, now he was ogling her! It was all she could do to stop herself from slapping him.

  ‘Take a picture,’ she said through gritted teeth. Harry ignored her, his gaze fixated on the same spot. She suddenly felt a burning sensation against her skin, as if one of the stray embers from the fire had found its way down her top.

  ‘What is that?’ Harry said, his glasses reflecting a strange green light.

  Winter glanced down and saw the lodestone pulsing brightly through her white shirt. Astonished, but still self-aware enough to realise that whatever was happening should probably best occur in private, she stood up quickly, awkwardly covering the light with her hand.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said, stumbling backwards away from Harry and the bonfire. Her pulse raced even while Blake’s necklace was starting to really hurt her. What was happening? The lodestone had never done this before. She needed to get away from all these people to find out what was happening.

  Wincing as the lodestone burned even hotter, she made it a few steps down towards the water’s edge before the pain grew too much. Gasping in agony, Winter fell to her knees and tore the necklace from around her neck. Holding the glowing lodestone at arm’s length, her eyes widened as she watched its light intensify. A star hung from her hand. A burning, emerald star that reached out towards her with fingers of fire, drawing her in.

  Chapter 7

  Winter was standing in a circular chamber surrounded by hundreds of flickering candles. The beach was gone. The dark skies, the waves, the sounds of the party – all had vanished, replaced by shadowy stone walls, lit by the candles’ glow. Winter tried to raise her hand to her head and found she couldn’t. It wouldn’t respond. In fact, she couldn’t feel her body at all.

  Before she had time to dwell on this alarming development, her gaze dropped down, completely independent of her will, and she saw a pair of dirt-stained masculine hands holding the lodestone. No . . . it wasn’t her lodestone. Just as those hands were not her hands.

  Her thoughts struggled to accept what had happened. Somehow the power of the stone had transported her into the body of a stranger. She was seeing through another’s eyes. The scene in front of her lurched again, making Winter feel like a passenger trapped in a speeding car, and she was suddenly standing over a pool of dark water. The light of the candles shimmered along the surface, softly illuminating the pale reflection she saw there. If she had a mouth it would have fallen open in silent shock.

  The reflection in the water belonged to Blake!

  His hair had grown long, hanging down past his bare shoulders in twisted black strands; his face was painfully gaunt and there was dried blood on his lips – but it was Blake! Even in this wretched, emaciated aspect, the beauty of his features shone through.

  Now those features – features she’d held in her mind’s eye before drifting off to sleep every night since their first meeting – darkened into an expression of confusion. His gaze narrowed as he searched his own eyes in the reflection, finding Winter hiding there behind the shining emerald irises
.

  ‘Who are you?’ he rasped, sounding like a much older man than the one she knew.

  The question challenged the numb state of astonishment she’d slipped into, but it was his baffled, almost irritated expression that managed to shatter it completely. How could Blake not recognise her? Could the trauma she saw written across his body have damaged his mind? His eyes? It was his stone that had called her here. The stone he’d given to her as a gift.

  ‘Answer me,’ he commanded, but how could she with no mouth of her own? Somehow she had to make him understand, make him see her as he once had – with love in his eyes, not this awful mistrust that cut her to the core. Before she could try, Winter saw something shift in the pool’s reflection. Somebody was standing behind him!

  Blake sensed the movement too. His frown faded and his eyes widened in fear. Wheeling dizzyingly around, he turned just as the terrifying figure loomed out of the darkness. Its face was all but hidden in the shadows of a voluminous red hood. Winter caught a glimpse of a sharply pointed chin and a cruel mouth twisted in a snarl before Blake’s hoarse scream of ‘No!’ rang out through the chamber and her view spun again as he was struck.

  The scarlet monk, for that is what he looked like in his crimson hood and robe, loomed over Blake with an iron staff in his hand. He raised it above his head in preparation to bring it down again on Blake’s twitching body. All at once Winter felt a tingling sensation at the base of her skull and whatever was keeping her tied to Blake began to pull her backwards. Just as the monk brought the staff down, this awful image began to shrink, receding into darkness like it was falling away from her. No, she was the one falling. Falling down a bottomless hole. Green fire crept in at her periphery, illuminating the darkness of the hole. There was a sound of rushing wind, growing louder and then . . .

  Winter lurched upwards off the sand, sucking in a deep breath as though she’d just broken through the surface of water after nearly drowning. Startled by the quick movement, Harry Francis took a stumbling step backwards, nearly tripping in the sand.

  ‘Geez, Winter, are you okay?’ he asked, regaining his balance. ‘I saw you walk over here and pass out. I was about to do mouth-to-mouth,’ he added, unable to hide the faint trace of disappointment in his voice.

  Still struggling to find her breath, Winter could only stare at him blankly. Her thoughts were spinning madly, a jumble of confusion, excitement and fear. Something was digging into the palm of her left hand, hurting her. She opened her fist and saw the lodestone, now dull and lifeless, lying in her palm. A thin trickle of blood ran from the spot it had dug into her flesh.

  ‘Winter?’ Harry came closer so he could see her face more clearly. ‘What happened?’

  Even if she was ready to speak, Winter wouldn’t have been able to answer him. She didn’t know how the lodestone had transported her consciousness to that dark, candlelit chamber or how she’d returned to the beach. Even now her mind throbbed with trying to process everything that had happened, futilely trying to make sense of the impossible. Despite this, a single realisation managed to rise out of the chaos, seeding her heart with an unfamiliar emotion. Hope.

  ‘Where’s . . . Jasmine?’ she finally managed to say between breaths.

  ‘I don’t know. I think I saw her talking with Glen Conroy down near the trees,’ he said, helping her up when Winter’s legs proved too wobbly to manage the task by themselves. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to get you some water or something? You don’t look well.’

  She noticed his gaze flick to her chest and then to the bloody necklace grasped in her hand.

  Winter forced a smile. ‘I’m fine. Too much beer.’ She hadn’t drunk a single drop all night but was gambling on the fact that Harry didn’t know this. She moved away from him before he could ask more questions. ‘Thanks for looking after me, Harry.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said, still looking confused. She turned her back on him and went to find Jasmine.

  The light had all but faded from the sky so it took Winter a frustratingly long time to spot her passing a bottle to Glen down near where the sand met the first few scattered bushes of the bordering forest reserve. Winter had always been pretty sure Glen had a crush on Jasmine, most of the guys at school did, but Jasmine had never expressed interest in the tall, lanky basketball player so she didn’t feel guilty about jumping between them.

  ‘Jas, I need to talk to you.’

  Jasmine took a second too long to react.

  ‘Winnie!’ she said, her eyes a little unfocused. Great, Jasmine was drunk. ‘You know Glen, right?’

  Winter didn’t acknowledge Glen. ‘Jas, it’s important.’

  Jasmine raised her eyebrows. ‘Okay, okay – no need to get all dramatic on me.’ She smiled at Glen over Winter’s shoulder. ‘Back in a mo.’ Reluctantly she allowed Winter to drag her into the bushes.

  ‘So, what’s the big —’

  ‘Blake’s alive,’ Winter blurted out.

  Jasmine did a double-take, shaking her head slightly as if rejecting what she’d just heard. ‘What?’

  ‘I saw him. I mean – I was him. I mean . . .’ Everything she wanted to say was struggling to leap out of her mouth at once. ‘Somehow the lodestone . . .’

  ‘What are you talking about, Win?’

  Winter took a breath, trying to form complete sentences in her mind before allowing them to leave her mouth. ‘The lodestone started glowing and all of a sudden I was . . . somewhere else. The Dead Lands, maybe? And Blake’s alive! But he’s in trouble. There was this scary monk guy. And . . .’

  She saw with frustration that Jasmine had stopped listening. Instead her friend sighed deeply. ‘Winnie, you’ve gotta stop this.’ She reached out and rested her hand on Winter’s shoulder. The gesture was supposed to be compassionate but only served to infuriate Winter.

  ‘You’re not listening, Jas! He’s alive!’

  Jasmine frowned, her voice losing some of its gentle tone. ‘He’s dead, Win.’

  ‘No! I saw —’

  ‘Stop it, would you!’ Jasmine yelled, shocking Winter into silence. ‘I don’t want to hear it. Not tonight. Why do you always have to do this?’ She seemed to realise she’d been raising her voice, and made an effort to lower it. ‘Can’t you just let it go, for once?’

  Wounded, Winter stared at her friend a moment longer before turning and walking deeper into the reserve, leaving Jasmine and the party behind. She was more frustrated than upset, but realised there was no point continuing the conversation. Not with Jasmine in her current state.

  ‘Winnie!’ Jasmine called weakly after her, but she didn’t stop and Jasmine didn’t chase her. It was probably for the best. She needed to think – the beach seemed almost too constrictive for the enormous feelings swelling within. Her step quickened. If she started running now, she imagined she’d take flight and soar up to the moonlit clouds.

  Blake was alive!

  Chapter 8

  The sounds of the party faded behind Winter as the sand gave way to soil and the low bushes were joined by thickly clustered trees filtering the moonlight through their branches. If she kept walking, sooner or later she’d reach the road, but for now she was content to wander aimlessly and allow her thoughts to catch up with her dizzying emotions. Her love lived! Hope flourished inside her like a rare flower she had never expected to bloom again – but there were so many questions. Troubling questions she had no way of answering.

  Ahead of her in the middle of a clearing, Winter saw a large, twisted black shape. As she drew closer, the shape gained substance and detail – it was the bottom half of a fallen tree. She made her way towards it and sat down, looking up at the stars and moon.

  Her hand stole to her pocket where she’d hidden the lodestone from Harry’s eyes. She took it out and held it cradled in her palm. The stone was silent and dark. No brilliant emerald light pulsed within. For all appearances, it was a simple piece of jewellery.

  ‘Where are you?’ Winter said softly into the night, hop
ing the stone might reawaken and show her another glimpse of her love.

  The Skivers had killed Blake. They had harvested his soul and returned with it to the Dead Lands. Blake’s lifeless corpse had been crushed when the roof of the church had collapsed. Later his body had been charred to a cinder after Sam had set fire to Pilgrim’s Lament. Yet, the lodestone had shown him intact. Bloodied and wasted, but flesh and blood. It was impossible. It was true.

  But where was he now? The Dead Lands? Winter frowned, trying to recall the lodestone’s vision in more detail. There was no doubt in her mind that he was a prisoner of some kind. The stone chamber she’d seen was a cell, the terrifying scarlet-robed monk his warden. Thinking about that shadowed hood looming out of the darkness, Winter shuddered. What was it? A Malfaerie? A hooded Skiver? Some other terrible thing?

  While she despaired over this a voice whispered in the back of her mind, He didn’t know you. Recalling Blake’s look of confusion, Winter’s despair deepened. Maybe whatever power had restored Blake’s body had also affected his memory. Scrubbed free of all trace of Winter and his feelings for her. Considering this awful possibility didn’t affect her resolve to save him. She could live with the pain of being a stranger to him if she knew he was alive and safe. It was a price worth paying.

  ‘Mind if we join you?’ A cultivated English-accented voice said, making Winter jump. Twisting around, Winter was unnerved to see the two strangers from the graduation ceremony. What were they doing here in the middle of the forest?

  ‘Um . . . actually I —’ Winter stood to greet the men, but her words faltered. The dark silhouetted their tall, angular forms, making them look like living shadows. The sunglasses were gone, and their eyes shone unnaturally against the night sky. Emerald green.

  Quickly, Winter summoned the Sight, something about these two men triggering an alarm bell. Twin pairs of Occuluma ignited like match heads in the depths of their pupils, the flames an unearthly green shade. Winter recognised the colour. Blake had shared it. It was the colour of the immortals. Of the Dark Travellers – the Demori. As astonishing as this revelation was, Winter had no time to dwell on it as another certainty chased on its heels.