by Brian Harmon
“Let’s stick close together,” he said. “I don’t want a repeat of last time.”
“I told you not to make me wait by the car.”
“I know you did.”
“But I swear I didn’t know she was going to hit you with a baseball bat.”
“I know that, too. Any idea where we should start looking?”
He expected a simple no, but Holly turned and scanned the paths leading away from the parking lot and considered it carefully. “I should be able to find her.”
“You think so?”
“If we need to, we can sense each other’s locations. But if the magic man’s near, he might be able to use it to find us.”
“Then we’d better hope he’s not here, I guess.”
“Like all of us did, she came out here to hide, so she probably won’t be anywhere near here.”
The parking lot did seem like a pretty lousy hiding spot. But far out into the park, away from the hiking paths and the picnic areas, he could see how it would be an ideal place to hide. And yet, if the magic man had found her way out here, what could she have done? Where would she have gone?
And if he or his monsters showed up now, where would any of them go?
As they made their way down the dark path, Eric’s cell phone rang. It was Karen.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” he asked her.
“It’s not a school night, Dad.”
“You should get some sleep.”
“I’ll just toss and turn all night without you here. You know that.”
He did. She never slept well when he wasn’t there. “It won’t be night much longer. You should at least try.”
“Where are you now?”
“Scary hiking path in the woods.”
“What, the abandoned amusement park and spooky castle were too far away?”
“Something like that.”
“You have your little stripper friend with you again?”
Eric shook his head. “Don’t you think you’re being just a trifle judgmental?”
“So that’s a yes, then?”
“You really need to learn to let things go.”
“Letting things go isn’t really my thing. I prefer to drag them out as long as possible and keep throwing them in your face.”
“You know, that’s really not one of your more charming personality traits.”
“And taking romantic, moonlit strolls through the woods with strippers isn’t one of yours,” she returned.
“Wow, this night looks a lot different from inside your head than it does from mine, doesn’t it?” There was nothing romantic about these woods. It was dark and creepy and he was growing more uncertain with every step.
“Probably. You’re not the most perceptive person I know.”
“Now you’re just being hurtful.”
“So what are you doing on a hiking path at this hour anyway?” she asked.
“We’re on a witch hunt. Of sorts.”
“Hey! I’ve been thinking of going on one of those all day.”
“Be nice.”
“I don’t do nice. Not when my husband runs off with a bunch of beautiful women instead of staying home and planning our anniversary getaway with me.”
Eric shook his head. She was impossible when she was like this. “We’re looking for the next girl. Holly says she’s a nature witch of some sort. She’s hiding in a state park.”
“That doesn’t sound anything at all like a needle in a haystack.”
“I know, right? But Holly thinks she can home in on her if we get closer to her.”
“Well, isn’t she the talented one?”
“Yes, she is.”
“You be careful.”
“I will. Don’t worry. Delphinium sent me armed this time.”
“With what?”
Eric looked down at the weapon. “Some kind of enchanted dagger.”
“That’s just great. You’re going to put your eye out.”
“You know, it wouldn’t hurt for you to have a little faith in me. I have done this sort of thing before. Twice.”
“And you came home both times cut all to pieces. And now these witches are just giving you sharp objects?”
“Okay, I’m hanging up now so you can go to bed. You’re mean when you don’t get your sleep.”
“Fine. But be careful out there.”
“I will.”
Eric disconnected the call and then looked down at the glowing screen. “What have you been telling her, anyway?”
DON’T LOOK AT ME, replied Isabelle. YOU’RE THE ONE WHO THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO SEND HER A PICTURE OF THEM BEING ALL WITCHY
“Point taken.” In hindsight, that probably wasn’t the brightest idea he’d had. “Well, maybe you should tell her that one of them clubbed me with a baseball bat. That might cheer her up.”
IT MIGHT, she agreed.
As the trees became denser around them, the moonlight dwindled, making the path harder and harder to see until it had almost vanished into the crowding shadows. Even using the cell phone screen to light the way didn’t help.
Holly slipped her arm around his. “Okay, this is spooky.”
Great. Now they were arm-in-arm. If Karen could see him now…
Not a word about this, he thought at Isabelle.
ZIPPED
It wasn’t fair. None of this was his fault. He didn’t ask to come here. He didn’t want to be walking in the scary, dark woods with a beautiful, redheaded stripper clinging to him.
“She’s definitely here,” Holly informed him. “I can feel her.”
“Can you feel anything else?”
“I don’t think so…”
Turning the phone so he could read it, he asked, “What about you?”
NOTHING YET
He didn’t like this at all. He felt vulnerable out here. He couldn’t help but worry that they were walking into a trap.
“This way,” Holly said and began pulling him faster through the trees.
“Are we still on the path?”
“I’m not sure. But we’re getting closer to Alicia.”
Eric swung the cell phone from side to side, trying to see through the gloom. It was impossible. He could see nothing but tree branches in every direction.
Holly tripped and would have gone sprawling into the leaves if she hadn’t been clinging so tightly to his arm. “Sorry,” she said. “I can’t really see.”
“Nobody could see anything in these woods.”
“Alicia can. She can see in the dark.”
He looked at her, surprised. “You’re kidding. Like…really see in the dark?”
“Mm hm. ‘Heightened visibility,’ she calls it. Poppy calls it ‘cat vision.’ It’s a spell Grandpa taught her. He said if she was going to be wandering around the woods at night, she should at least be able to see what’s out there.”
Eric shook his head. “Crazy.”
“We’re not your typical family.”
“Obviously.”
At least twenty minutes passed. Nothing but ghostly branches drifted in and out of his vision. The path seemed to have been completely lost. They slid down a steep hillside, barely keeping their footing, and splashed across a narrow stream. Soon after, they broke into a small clearing, where the light of the half-moon illuminated a wide, flat field in an eerie glow. They crossed quickly to the other side and slipped back into the trees again.
Roots and stones, briars and fallen branches made it too treacherous to run, but she pulled him along at a panicked pace so that each of them stumbled several more times in the darkness.
Eric was just beginning to wonder if they would end up lost out here when Holly abruptly stopped.
“Wait…”
Eric lifted the dagger. “What is it?”
“Something’s not right.”
“Did you lose her?”
“No… Just the opposite… For just a second there, it felt like there was two of her.”
Eric frown
ed into the darkness. “What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
The cell phone chimed at him. Eric turned it toward him and squinted into the bright screen.
HE’S THERE!
“Aw crap…”
Holly turned and looked at the screen. “Oh no…” She let go of Eric’s hand and turned in a circle, scanning the black woods around them, trying in vain to see through the murky darkness.
This wasn’t good. It was almost pitch black out here. And he couldn’t fight what he couldn’t see. In fact, he was probably making a target out of them with his brightly glowing cell phone. He switched it off and stuffed it into his pocket, deciding it would be safer to continue by moonlight alone. “We’d better find her quick,” he said.
Holly nodded. “Okay.” She took his hand and hurried onward, practically dragging him through the forest.
Eric kept the dagger raised, ready to strike out at anything that appeared from the dense shadows. But he also kept it aimed carefully away from him. He was not eager to put Delphinium’s warning about cutting himself to the test.
“Can you tell how far away she is?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “It’s hard to tell.”
This wasn’t good. When he found Holly, Poppy and Cierra, trouble didn’t appear until after he’d found who he was looking for. The only time something was waiting for him when he arrived was at the motel…
Holly clearly had realized this, too, because she was pulling him through the woods at a dangerous pace. “I hope we’re not too late!”
Eric hoped so, too. He couldn’t stand the thought of failing again. He still couldn’t get the image of Sylvia’s burning body out of his head.
Holly stopped again and looked back and forth, her ponytail swishing with each sharp turn of her head.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure. There were two of them again.”
“The magic man,” guessed Eric.
She nodded. “He’s doing something to confuse me.”
“Careful.”
“It doesn’t make sense. How can she be in two places at once?”
Eric’s awful imagination offered a simple answer to this question: the memory of the ogre grasping both of his legs and pulling him apart like a man-sized wishbone. But he didn’t share this disturbing thought with her. In fact, he refused to acknowledge the gruesome possibility at all.
“I think it’s this way,” she decided.
“You think?”
“Come on.”
She pulled him to the left, into a second clearing. The moonlight shined down on them again, illuminating everything around them. It should have been a relief to be able to see again, but all Eric could think was that they were now completely exposed to anything lurking in the surrounding trees.
But still nothing attacked them. The forest remained eerily calm.
They passed back into the gloom of the trees and continued on.
Several more minutes passed.
Then Holly stopped again. This time she looked back the way they’d come.
“Don’t tell me we’re going the wrong way.”
“No. We’re just… Something’s all wrong.”
Eric resisted the urge to curse. He hated when things were wrong. “Just try to relax.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
But before either of them could even begin to relax, something stirred in the trees directly in front of them.
“What was that?” Holly whispered.
“Maybe nothing,” Eric replied. “Lots of wildlife in a place like this.” But he stepped between her and the sound and lifted the dagger in his clenched fist. Now he stood there, squinting into the dark, listening for the slightest noise, ready to swing the blade at anything that moved.
The forest was quiet around them. In fact, it was utterly silent. Unnaturally silent. No frogs or birds or insects were singing.
Something was here.
He could feel it.
Holly gripped his elbow.
He stood his ground, listening, as the minutes passed by.
“Do you see anything?” he whispered.
“Nothing.”
He nodded. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Do you think it’s gone?”
Then the silence was shattered by a deafening crack and a large pine tree came crashing down through the canopy.
Chapter Twenty-One
Eric grabbed Holly and shoved her out of the way.
It was chillingly close. He felt the tips of the branches scrape down his back as he dove for the ground. A great gust of wind blew over him. The noise was deafening. He didn’t need to see to know that they’d barely escaped being crushed to death.
The whole experience was eerily familiar. This wasn’t the first time he narrowly avoided being killed by an uprooted tree.
He seemed to be reliving a lot of his more unpleasant experiences tonight, now that he thought about it.
And now, to make matters worse, he found himself sprawled on the forest floor with his arms around Holly, their bodies pressed together, face to face as pine needles and leaves rained down around them in the mottled moonlight.
This magic man had no idea how terribly wrong he was going about this. All he really needed was a photograph of the two of them at this exact moment and he was convinced that Karen would murder them both and save him the trouble.
Half expecting a second tree to come crashing down on top of them, he lifted his head just a little and listened. Something was moving. He could hear it over the sound of the settling foliage. Big, heavy steps in the underbrush, snapping sizeable branches and stirring the limbs far above the reach of the ogre that attacked them at the fraternity house.
This was something bigger. Much bigger.
If an ogre could pick him up like nothing and almost rip him in half, what chance did he stand against something big enough to uproot a tree this size?
With a sick lump in his throat, he remembered Delphinium mentioning dragons. Could that be what this was? They were typically pretty big, weren’t they?
He really wanted to go home.
The sound of snapping branches began to grow fainter. Whatever the thing was, it was moving away. Soon, an eerie silence had settled over them.
“Is it gone?” whispered Holly. He could feel her breath against his cheek.
“I think so…”
Cautiously, they untangled themselves and rose shakily to their feet, but she refused to let go of his arm.
“What was that thing?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an imp or an ogre.”
“No. It sounded huge.”
“It did.”
Holly squinted into the darkness. “I’m worried about Alicia. Do you think anything could’ve found her yet?”
“I don’t know,” Eric confessed. But he’d begun to worry. “Do you still feel her?”
“I do. But I can’t tell where she’s at anymore. It’s like she keeps jumping from place to place. I don’t understand it.”
“Keep trying. You’ll figure it out.” He hoped…
She nodded, but didn’t let go of his elbow. He could feel her fingernails digging into his skin. She turned and scanned the trees around them. “I think she’s this way,” she decided, tugging him to the right.
Eric let her lead the way, but within seconds, she paused again.
“Wrong way?”
She shushed him.
Eric snapped his mouth shut obediently.
“I heard something moving out there.”
“Where?”
She gestured at the area ahead of them, but of course, there was nothing to see but shadows.
“Can we go around?”
“I don’t know.”
“We can’t stay here.”
“You’re right. Come on.” She turned right again and slipped through the trees.
Eric was feeling worse and worse abo
ut this rescue mission by the second. Something enormous and immensely dangerous was prowling these woods. And if Isabelle was right, which she almost always was, the magic man himself was even lurking out here, probably determined to put an end to their meddling once and for all.
He had no idea how they were going to find Alicia in this wilderness, much less escape with their lives.
A sound, like a large branch snapping in two, came from somewhere to their left.
“This way!” whispered Holly. “Hurry.”
But then she stopped short. “Wait… Maybe that way…”
“This isn’t a good time to be indecisive,” Eric told her.
She turned and looked back the way they’d come again. “It’s so confusing.”
“Just relax. You can do this. I know you can.”
Holly nodded. “Right. I can do this. Let’s see…” She turned in a circle, trying to get her bearings. “I think… This way? Maybe?”
Eric glanced behind him, making sure nothing was sneaking up on him. His heart was hammering. He had a very bad feeling about this.
When he looked forward again, a large shape was reaching out from the shadowy trees. A meaty hand was about to seize Holly’s ponytail. He let out a startled cry and slashed at the arm with the dagger.
The ogre let out a fearsome howl and snatched its arm back as Holly screamed and tripped herself trying to get away from the sneaky creature.
But the monster turned its attention on Eric instead, lurching out of the shadows.
Eric thrust the dagger forward, plunging the blade deep into its flabby belly.
Again, the thing howled. Making this much noise, it was sure to attract the giant that uprooted the pine tree, and anything else that might be lurking out there, but he didn’t have time to worry about that. The ogre thrust its massive fist into his chest and knocked him backward. His feet came off the ground and he sailed at least ten feet before slamming into the hard trunk of a large maple and then dropping to his hands and knees.
That wasn’t what was supposed to happen… Dazed, in pain and gasping for breath, he lifted the dagger that he was miraculously still clutching in his fist and looked at it. Delphinium told him it was enchanted, but it didn’t appear to be any more effective than Holly’s spells. He only seemed to have pissed the ogre off.
