by Tasha Black
The brown bear climbed the mountain easily, though Derek could feel him tiring.
When they reached the top of the ridge, the smells of the abandoned town below rose to meet them.
The bear paused, confused. His body was exhausted, he was hungry.
Derek reached out tentatively, trying to make a mental connection.
I’ll handle it, you rest. You can have another turn soon.
The bear turned the offer over in their mind. Then the big body sighed.
But it wasn’t a sigh.
Derek was suddenly standing on the hillside in his own naked body.
The wind buffeted him and his own belly growled.
Hurriedly, he scrambled down the mountain, afraid he would lose his tenuous idea of where Hedda was.
At first it was easy to know where to go because he could see down the mountain from above. But by the time he was back into the trees, it was harder. He tried to head in the same direction, straight downward. But as he dodged around fallen trees and ditches he began to lose his sense of direction and could only hold onto the idea of moving downhill.
The bear snored in his head, for the first time unable to help him with a scrap of enhanced sound or scent.
Derek fought back panic.
Just breathe.
Darcy’s voice in his head.
He’d heard his foster sister like that before, a long time ago.
The scent of pine in the forest and his own disorientation tumbled him back into the memory.
Derek had always loved playing in between the apple trees on the Harkness Farms. They were short and gnarled little things, perfect for growing apples to eat.
In spite of their twists and hulk-like shapes, the apple trees were planted in perfect rows. You could go far, far from the farmhouse, pretending you were the captain of the ogre army - your monsters lined up to attack the enemy at your command. Or you could pull a comic book out of your jacket and curl up under a tree to read. Either of these activities could give you privacy from the kids and the animals on the farm.
But when you were lonely, or Mom rang the old dinner bell, you could easily find your way home again by following the row.
The only problem was harvest time.
Every fall, the families of Tarker’s Hollow came. They filled the parking lot with their station wagons, and then had to move on to park in the gravel lot, and then the dirt lot. And when those lots were filled, they pulled onto the grass by the orchard and parked there, too.
It was an exciting time. Derek and the other kids got to help Mom set up the Halloween decorations, and put all the signs on the pumpkins so the visitors knew what they were: Fairytale pumpkins, Heritage pumpkins, Rock Stars, Wee-be-littles, and on and on. The endless varieties delighted them. And it was the one time all the kids in school were mad with jealousy that the Harkness kids lived on the farm.
But too soon it became exhausting, and the apple orchard was filled with families picking.
Derek had always been a bit reserved, and he felt the loss of his hiding place.
One fall day when he was seven, he trudged out to the farthest row of trees, hoping to catch a few minutes of quiet playtime, when he heard the sounds of a family invading.
In frustration, he marched back to the farm, past the silo, past the enclosures for farm animals and deer and the duck pond, to the very edge of the cow pasture.
And that was when he saw it.
A hillside covered in pine trees - the farm’s choose-your-own Christmas tree forest.
None of the children ever played there. It was on the other side of the far pasture fence. And it seemed somehow remote and wild. The Christmas trees weren’t planted in perfect rows like the fruit trees.
Derek’s heart beat faster, and he thought back to the rules. Though they never had played in the Christmas trees, he could not remember ever being told they couldn’t play there.
He wondered if he would be able to hear the dinner bell from so far away.
Before he could sort it out, there was a huge commotion behind him, as yet another station wagon pulled into the rear lot and beeped at a school group that was exiting a big yellow bus and slowly crossing over to the deer enclosure.
Forget it, he thought to himself. I’m outta here.
He jumped the fence at the back of the pasture and soon found himself in the baby pines.
But he could still hear the sounds of cars, so he ran deeper into the trees. He ran as fast and as far as he could, until the trees were taller, and he couldn’t hear the cars anymore.
These trees had been planted years ago, and they were now the size to be harvested for the high-ceilinged Victorians in Tarker’s Hollow. Some were maybe even big enough for the buildings on the college campus or the behemoth new construction houses Mom called “monstrosities” that were a bit farther west into Middleton, on the land that had belonged to another farm, before the developers came.
Derek played under the trees. He pretended they were all his and that they were covered in lights. He pretended they were ladies in big dresses and one of them was his real mother. He pretended he was a lumber jack, getting ready to chop them down and float them down the river.
The one thing he did not pretend was that he was a bear living in a forest.
Being a bear was the reason his real mother and father didn’t want him.
Derek thought of the unimaginably good feeling of Mom wrapping her arms around him for a warm hug, and he shuddered at the idea of how good it would feel to get a hug from his real mother and father.
So when his nose went all sensitive and his skin prickled a little in the excitement of being in what felt like the real woods, he shook himself like a puppy getting out of a pond and counted by fives to one hundred to stop himself from feeling like a bear.
All afternoon Derek played and explored, but when his belly began to rumble, he decided to head on home.
He looked around for the trees to be getting smaller. But to his dismay, he saw instead that all the trees were large, as far as he could see.
As a matter of fact, the ones he was playing in now looked like regular trees and not Christmas trees at all. There were some pines, but also maples and oaks.
Frightened, he ran in one direction. No Christmas trees.
Then he ran in another direction. No Christmas trees.
His heart pounded and he fought back tears. It was getting dark now.
He felt the bear inside him nose at the air, and he screamed and wrapped his fingers around his nose to stop it.
The tears flew from his eyes and he sobbed uncontrollably.
The thing inside him stirred again, trying to overpower him and take over. It knew he was weak. It would probably turn him into a bear and run into the woods forever with Derek as its prisoner. He would never see Mom again or Johnny or Chance or Darcy or the others.
“No, no, no,” he moaned, throwing himself on the ground and wrapping his arms around a tree trunk to stop himself from running away.
Just then, there was a sound in the trees.
“Derek?” Darcy’s voice was breathless.
He couldn’t answer, but he was pretty sure she could hear him crying. He wanted to be embarrassed, but he was too glad to hear her voice.
His heart still pounded mercilessly though, and the creature in his chest clawed to get out.
“Hey, Derek,” Darcy said in her clear, high voice, “We thought you were lost.”
He couldn’t even nod.
“Is your bear trying to come out?” she asked.
He made a sound of agreement.
“Why didn’t you let him talk to you?” she asked, like it was the simplest thing in the world. “He would know just how to get home. He would use his nose. That’s what my wolf does. That’s how we found you.”
Easy enough for Darcy to say. For some reason, five year old Darcy was in touch with her wolf like none of the others, and she loved it even. While the rest of the kids were sobered by their stat
us as unwanted early shifters, Darcy refused to push back her wolf. She used her heightened senses all the time, hiding them only from Mom, the one person she did want to please.
Seeing that he was still curled up around a tree, Darcy wrapped her chubby little arm around his shoulder and snuggled into him like she always did.
“Just breathe,” she whispered to him in her sing-song voice.
The solid feel of her body against his and the soothing sound of her small voice warmed him from the inside out, as if he had taken a big sip of hot chocolate.
Instantly, the fear was gone and the bear relaxed inside of him, no longer trying to get out.
No sooner had he calmed when there was another sound in the trees.
“Who’s there?” a pinched, female voice demanded.
Definitely not Mom.
“Oh, brother,” Darcy muttered.
“Hello?” the voice shouted.
“It’s okay, Mrs. Hopkins,” Darcy shouted back, her clear voice bouncing off the trees. “It’s just me and my brother.”
“Is that one of those Harkness kids?” The voice was closer now.
There was a tromping of boots, and then a woman appeared before them. Mrs. Hopkins, the neighbor. She owned the woods behind Harkness Farms.
“I knew this would happen one day, I knew it. We’re going to see Kate. Now March,” she ordered, taking a step toward Derek.
A low growl issued from deep in Darcy’s throat. Mrs. Hopkins either didn’t hear it, or pretended not to notice.
Derek picked himself up and they all began to walk through the trees. At last, they reached the grove of Christmas trees Derek had misplaced.
But Mrs. Hopkins didn’t leave them there.
In silence, they marched through the gate in the cow pasture, past the enclosures, the rear parking, the silo, and right up to the door of the farmhouse. Some of the tourists stopped long enough to stare at the oddly purposeful parade.
Although the front door was never locked, and the kids poured in and out all day, Mrs. Hopkins knocked soundly on it.
Johnny and Chance, who had been playing with cars at the front door, perked up and started paying attention.
“Agnes, come on in,” Mom said when she opened the door. She seemed to be happy to see the lady but Derek’s bear whispered that she was only pretending.
“No, thank you,” Mrs. Hopkins said. “These two troublemakers were trespassing on my property today.”
She indicated Derek and Darcy.
Derek cringed. Darcy stood up straight and tall.
“Derek was lost,” Darcy told Mom. “I went to get him, and we were leaving when she found us.”
Mrs. Hopkins did not acknowledge Darcy in any way. Instead she leaned in to Mom.
“These unwanted kids are only too lucky to have you providing room and board, Kate,” she declared. “I honestly don’t know why you do it. But don’t for one minute think I’ll coddle them the way you do. The next time I find one on my property I’m calling the police.”
Derek studied the ground in shame, but Darcy elbowed him so hard he almost fell over, and he looked up where she was looking.
Mom’s friendly expression had disappeared like a thunderstorm wiping out a sunny day.
“Agnes Hopkins, how dare you speak about my children that way? These kids are not unwanted,” she said, her tone calm but firm. “I’m very proud of every one of them, and without the comfort of their company, I would be a helpless old widow with nothing better to do all day than to bully innocent children.”
Mom’s face went as red as a tomato. Her flour covered hands planted square on her big round hips.
Mrs. Hopkins stared, speechless, for once.
“Get off my property this instant,” Mom commanded. “And if I find you here again, I’m calling the police.”
Derek had never seen anyone so beautiful in all his life.
The faceless birth parents of his imagination slipped into nothingness as he realized that Kate Harkness was, and always would be, his real mother.
21
The bird had disappeared against the darkness of the sky by the time Hedda made it to the base of the mountain.
She strained her eyes to see its wings flash in the moonlight here and there, but the knot in her stomach already knew where they were headed. The bird was following the curve of the creek, past the little houses.
The air prickled with anticipation, as if the dark storm clouds were a just-spoken threat hanging in the air - and the water inside them was about to dash to the ground in terror.
Hedda ran steadily. She knew she should be tired, but mostly she was happy not to feel cold for a moment, happy the stretch of her muscles could distract from the panic in her heart.
They had reached the little town. The buildings loomed over the street.
For weeks after the population had left, the back-up battery on the security lights had glowed in the police station. But now even the station was dark as the tomb.
Please stop here. Stop in one of these terrible dark buildings, she begged inwardly.
But the bird’s wings shimmered above, moving onward, past the station, past the library, past the drugstore.
When they finally reached the gravel drive and the chain link fence, Hedda began to feel almost relieved. The worst was happening. She might as well face it. Lane women didn’t back down.
A hastily hand painted sign on the fence read:
MINE CLOSED
FOR YOUR SAFETY
DO NOT ENTER
A heavy padlock secured the gate.
She looked around, knowing she was being ridiculous. Of course no one was there.
Then she exhaled and stroked the padlock once, gently.
It opened in her hand.
A shame, it was one more portion of magic wasted when she might be fighting for her life in a moment. But there was no time to try to find another way in. The bird was already disappearing in the darkness of the night.
Hedda slipped inside and fought back the urge to wrap her arms around herself. It wasn’t the cold. It was the memory of what had happened here.
Steeling herself from this weakness, she strode around through the lot to where the foreman’s trailer sat empty.
Out of the corner of her eye, a shadow slipped off to the right, away from the entrance to the mine. It must be the bird.
That wasn’t right, was it?
But there was no time to think.
Hedda took off as fast as she could after it. There was no point in trying to stay quiet. Her feet pounded the ground, kicking up clouds of dust and raining gravel in her wake.
She lost sight of the bird quickly, but she closed her eyes and tried to catch its shimmering trail. It glimmered ahead of her in her mind’s eye, and she opened her physical eyes again to give chase, faster, more desperately.
At last, she sensed it slowing. She had chased it a quarter of a mile.
They were very close to the mine vent.
Every working mine must be ventilated, to flush out the dust and the toxic fumes, and also to bring in oxygen for the miners. The Copper Creek Mine vent and its fans and equipment were the subject of constant supervision and maintenance when the mine had been active. At the entrance to the mine, the big fans sent clean air into the shaft, where it was pulled across the working areas and at last back up here, at the exit vent, to be released.
Or, that was the way it used to work, at least. Now the fire that burned in the depths used the vent as a source of oxygen.
Hedda stared at the huge grate over the concrete tunnel leading underground.
Just above it, the possessed bird danced and quivered, its silken wings trailing outward and flashing oddly where the moonlight touched them.
Though she could not have said why, Hedda was physically repulsed. Her stomach knotted and cramped and she felt a thin film of cold sweat form at her brow.
She had to extinguish it. The creature could not be allowed to exist.
Al
most without a thought, her hands filled with a ball of pulsating blue light, stretching and swelling toward the demon bird, awaiting her inevitable command.
Hedda felt the wild exhilaration building in her chest. Releasing the magic fully in this way brought pleasure unimaginable to anyone who hadn’t experienced it.
When she was wound up so tightly she could hardly breathe and the blue light in her hands radiated so strongly it was nearly white, Hedda aimed.
The little bird itself, however, neither fled nor cowered. It danced and cavorted before her, unafraid.
And that was what saved her.
The truth hit Hedda in the very last instant.
It wasn’t a demon possessing a bird.
It was a shadow demon shaping itself like a bird.
Which meant that she could not blast it. It could move out of the reach of her magic with a thought, unhampered by a physical body.
And it was hovering directly over a huge channel leading beneath the ground. She and her sisters had gone to great lengths to be sure all of the portals into the mine were sealed after the fact with as much magic as they could muster. Blasting the vent in like this would wipe all of that protection clean away.
The shadow demon was trying to trick her into helping it free the moroi below.
Which was good, in a way. It meant the protections were still in place. But then what had drawn the demon here in the first place?
With a Herculean effort, Hedda sucked the magic back inside herself.
The shadow melted out of its bird shape and jumped up and down in imp-like fury.
Then it dove for her.
22
“Protegat,” she cried, thrusting her hand forward and rolling backward over her shoulder.
A thin bubble shimmered around her. It had the delicate iridescence of dish soap and about the same surface tension. It wouldn’t hold long.
Sure enough, before she got to her feet, it popped into nothing.
The demon dove for her again. It was as thin as a strand of yarn and coiled back. She could feel its intention, how easy it would be to dive into her nostril and consume her with its own desires.
