“Oh, I likes you.” He held up the cork and admired it before giving it a cautious lick. “I likes Otherworld creatures, and Otherworld things.” He stared up at Elric with those luminous eyes. “I think I’ll keep you, yes.”
“We don’t need all that,” Elric said as he lifted the sack. Being “kept” by a bouncy and twitchy little creature was not on his list of things to do. Elric hastily shoved the spoon in the sack, when he noticed something missing.
“Mildred?” He glanced around but did not see the hen within the clearing. “Millie-lee-lee-lee!” he called.
Hob laughed again, a strange little cackle. “Do you call the Otherworld girl, or the feathered one? If you want the one with the beak, she will not leave the Otherworld child’s side.”
“Wynn?” Elric’s heart threatened to pound out of his chest. “Where is she?”
“She fell over there.” He pointed toward some dark trees climbing up the hill to his right. “Near the edge of the Darkling Woods. Strange creatures live there.” He smiled, and the sharp points of his teeth gleamed. “Some are not so nice.” His voice took on a growling purr that gave it a sinister edge.
Elric grabbed his knife and ran down the hill toward the dark woods beyond the veil of shimmering light.
“Wynn!” He skidded to a halt, afraid to pass through the veil. The woods on the other side were bathed in shadow. The spaces between the trees seemed to move with unseen creatures. He imagined the glint of wary eyes catching the light of the shimmering dome that stood between him and the wood. There were holes in the shield above him. There must be holes near the ground as well, spaces where the dark creatures of the woods could creep through the fractured light. “Wynn! Where are you?” he called.
“Elric!” Wynn ran toward him up the hill. She limped, then stumbled, falling to her knees. Mildred stopped and waited for her to get to her feet. Elric did not wait. He ran for his sister and wrapped her in a tight hug. He was so glad to see her alive, so very glad she was with him.
“We did it,” Wynn said against his shoulder.
“Yeah.” He pushed her back just enough that he could see her face. He pushed her chopped-off hair away from her cheek. “We did it.”
Her bright blue eyes looked up at him with a deep understanding shining in them. “You saved me from the snow,” she said.
“No.” He took her hand and pulled them both to their feet. “You did. You were right. I should have listened to you. I never would have found the gate if it had not been for you.” Mildred hopped up and down beside them, flapping her wings as she let out a chorus of clucks. “Or you, Millie.” He lifted the hen onto his shoulder, only to notice another bouncing creature at his side.
“And me!” Hob exclaimed, still clinging to his cork. “I am a great help.”
Elric scowled at him. “I only just met you.”
“Hello.” Wynn turned and greeted the fairy creature. “What is your name?”
“I am Hob,” he greeted with a toothy smile.
“I am Wynnfrith,” Wynn said, her words slow and practiced. “Do you know the Fairy Queen?”
Hob immediately dropped to the ground and did not bounce up again. His fox-like ears folded down over the back of his head. His amber eyes shifted as he fiddled with his cork. “The queen lives in the great palace at the heart of this place. She is very ill. Her magic is breaking.”
“Can you take us to her?” Elric asked.
Hob’s eyes shifted over to the dark woods, then back to his cork. His whiplike tail thrashed behind him. “It is a long way.”
Wynn touched the creature on the shoulder and his tail immediately fell still. “Please?” she said.
Hob looked up at her, one ear twitching back and forth. “I can’t,” he said, slowly turning the cork over in his hands. Thunder rumbled in the distance like an angry growl. Hob ducked down as if afraid of something, then glanced warily from side to side. “I can show you the way. Hurry. He is coming.” He beckoned with his bony fingers, then hopped away from the woods toward a deep rolling valley in a patchwork of gold and emerald hills.
“Who is coming?” Elric asked, looking behind him. The dark clouds had rolled over the forest and were beginning to touch the edges of the swirling dome above them.
“He!” Hob shouted. “You must hide.”
Wynn looked up at the clouds. “The Grendel.”
Hob squeaked, and cowered behind her.
Suddenly the sound of thundering hooves echoed off the hills. Wynn tucked herself close to Elric’s side. Two pure-white stags appeared out of thin air, galloping toward them. Elric threw himself in front of Wynn to shield her from the charging beasts. They stopped short, holding their silver antlers low so that Elric could see the colored lights from above reflected in the mirrorlike surface of the sharpened points.
Hob let out a wild sort of howl and sped off through the grasses toward the dark woods behind them. One of the stags raised his head, then leaped after Hob. He gave chase until the little creature slipped through a hole in the veil of light and disappeared into the dark woods beyond.
Elric had turned to watch the stag chase Hob. When he turned back around, a tall man with white robes and a silver trident stood where the stag had been. His glowing red eyes flashed. “Who are you? Where did you come from? And what business did you have with a darkling creature?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Wynn
WYNN PEEKED OUT FROM BEHIND Elric. This man was a fairy. He could change into a stag. This was amazing! She stepped around Elric. “I am Wynnfrith,” she announced.
“Wynn, no,” Elric said in a hushed voice, grabbing her by the arm. She didn’t let him pull her back.
“We came through the Silver Gate. We want to see the Fairy Queen.” Wynn smiled at the man, knowing he would take her to the castle.
“Wynnfrith of the Otherworld?” The tall man took a step back and bowed. His eyes changed from red to a bright green. “The queen has been expecting you for a long time.” He pointed his trident toward the center of the valley where a great tree grew, with spires of glittering stone surrounding it. It looked like a castle. “Come, we must hurry before the Grendel reaches us.”
In a flash of light, the man became a stag once more and charged forward along a path that wound through the hills. Wynn followed him, and Elric fell into step behind her. He carried Mildred, who clucked in amazement as she cocked her head to look around.
It was very colorful here. Even the grass seemed brighter than it ever did in the woods at home. The sky was filled with colors that swirled and shifted above them. She could see clouds through patches in the light. Flowers grew through the grasses, creating blankets of pink, white, yellow, and lavender across the land. The forests bloomed with flowers even though the leaves burned bright with the gold and red of fall. Wynn couldn’t see a shadow anywhere. Except the clouds were coming closer. She didn’t want the Grendel to catch her. So she ran.
Animals of all sorts flew or crawled out from the woods and grasses heading for the great tree. They were probably people too, just like the stag, and they were afraid. The queen would protect them; Wynn knew she would. She still had magic.
Elric stepped closer to her and looked back over his shoulder at the storm. “Wynn, I want you to let me talk to these people when we reach the palace. We have to be careful.”
Wynn straightened and stood as tall as she could. “I said things to the stag. He’s taking us to the queen.”
“Yes, but we have brought trouble in our wake, and if you say the wrong—”
“I won’t hide.” Wynn stopped. She wasn’t afraid of the coming storm. “I hid with Mother. I won’t hide.”
The stag bellowed at them. Elric nodded to her, then turned to jog forward. “Be careful,” he said.
Wynn’s chest felt full of warmth as she ran past him. “I will.”
He stayed at her back, but didn’t say anything else.
Finally they reached the great tree. Wynn wasn’t sure sh
e should call it a tree. It towered above them, taller than a giant. Its great branches scraped the sky as the pillars of rock soared to the clouds. They formed a perfect circle, ringing the tree. Wynn thought she could see people walking along the branches above, but it was so far away, and the light of the sky was so bright here, she couldn’t trust her eyes.
They passed between two of the stone pillars, and entered a courtyard. Great rocks were carved with symbols that glowed blue, forming rings to their right and left. Wynn could feel a charged energy in the air. The storm was gathering, held at bay by the light surrounding them.
A gap in the great tree’s roots created an arched doorway. Gold wove through the ropelike fibers of the wood, framing the open door. The stag changed into a man again, who greeted two guards at the door with a sharp nod.
Their eyes flared red as they looked at her, but Wynn held Mildred close and didn’t tuck her chin or move behind Elric this time. They entered the biggest room Wynn had ever seen. Light streamed down from somewhere above them. It was like there was no ceiling, but there was no sky, either. The space felt too big for her, and at the same time, safely cocooned. Wynn crossed the circles etched into the smooth stone floor in the pattern of a flower with three petals and approached a bed on a platform in the center of the room. Behind it, a large, clear crystal floated in the air like an enormous shard of ice. An ugly crack cut through the heart of it, nearly severing it in two. Beneath the crystal was the silver bed. It looked as if it were made of ice, and softly falling snow swirled around it.
Everyone in the room fell still.
Mildred let out an uneasy cluck, and Wynn stroked her head to comfort her.
A woman sat up on the bed and looked toward them.
She was just as Elric had said. Her skin was dark brown, like the richest earth in the garden. Her snow-white hair floated around her face like a soft cloud. A crown of ice and burning flame adorned her brow, and she wore a dress spun of frozen dew on spiderwebs. Her eyes glowed blue, then the brightest of sunny yellow as she looked at them both.
“Wynnfrith, dear child.” Her voice echoed through the chamber. “You found the way.” She rose from her bed, and the guards in the room hissed in a sharp breath. She opened her arms and smiled.
Wynn placed Mildred on the ground and ran forward. She threw herself into the arms of the Fairy Queen. They closed around her in a warm embrace, and for the first time since her mother’s death, Wynn felt safe. A bright white light surrounded them. It shone through her as it reached up toward the broken crystal. Wynn closed her eyes. “I am home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Elric
ELRIC HAD TO SHIELD HIS eyes as a burst of bright white light emanated from the center of the crystal and flooded the large chamber. It shot skyward through the branches of the tree like a bolt of fiery lightning, and the energy of it made his hair stand on end. A cry of shock and elation rose up. Elric blinked as he looked around. The formerly empty chamber was now filled with people. Elric had never seen anything like them, their clothes, hair, faces. He had never seen so much color, and light played all around him as the tree itself glowed soft blue.
“She’s well again. Her magic has returned,” a woman with short bright-green hair said next to him. Her eyes glowed lavender as she spoke, her golden skin flushed with excitement. “We’re safe once more.”
Elric pushed through the sudden crowd and approached his sister. The Fairy Queen knelt down and smoothed Wynn’s hair out of her face.
“I don’t understand,” he said. His thoughts were muddled and confused. It was as if visions from deep in his imagination had come to life. “I know you. I’ve seen you before.”
The queen rose and faced him. “You did, many years ago.” She walked toward Elric, still holding Wynn’s hand. Mildred stepped out from behind him. The hen immediately bowed low, her beak touching the stone, and her wings spread out. Elric bowed as well. The queen reached out and touched his chin, lifting him back out of it. “You were only a baby yourself, still hiding behind your mother’s skirts.”
Elric desperately tried to remember what happened, certain that such a strange encounter would have imprinted itself on his memory forever. “There was snow.”
“Yes.” The queen drew her hand up in an elegant arc, and snow began to fall in thick, heavy flakes from somewhere high above them. The crowd pushed back toward the walls of the chamber, but Elric remained in the center of the room with the queen. “It was a cold night, and the snow fell that night because I had lost something precious to me. That’s when I found her, a perfect baby in the snow.”
“So you did take my sister. My real sister.” Elric needed to understand.
“I stole no child,” the queen said, her eyes flashing bright orange. The mist and ghostly snowflakes swirled around her in a sudden gust of wind.
“That can’t be right. Wynn was born imperf—”
“Wynn was born as all in your world are born.” The queen’s words echoed in the chamber. “She is as she ever was, as she should be.”
If what the queen said was true, that meant Wynn really was his sister. Mother was right to protect her, and so was he. For as much as that thought strengthened him, he was tormented by a hundred other questions still unanswered.
“But why is she different?” he asked.
“That is a question that does not need an answer. What can it change?” The queen took Wynn’s hand and smiled down at her.
Nothing. It would change nothing.
Wynn smiled back, her expression wide open and adoring. She let go of the queen’s hand and returned to him.
“I told you you’re my brother.” She bent and scooped up Mildred, who was lingering near his heel.
Elric turned to address the queen. “Then what happened that night? The night I saw you in the snow.”
With a wave of her hand, the room grew dark and filled with swirling snow. The flakes of snow glowed with a ghostly light but did not feel cold as they landed on his cheeks. “As I said, I found a perfect baby in the snow.” The queen’s eyes changed to the pale and lonely color of ice. Just then a tiny cry floated through the chamber. It sounded distant, but there was no mistaking the baby’s desperation. The queen looked down at the floor. The image of a baby appeared, created from soft light, mist, and the swirling snow. “She was not the first baby I have ever found abandoned. For many years I have taken in those children lost or left to die in the woods because they have been cast off by your unforgiving society, and I raised them here as my own. But Otherworld children do not change what they are, even here. They grow, they seek knowledge and answers, they do not remain children forever.” She bowed her head and closed her eyes for the briefest of moments, as if she felt a sudden pain she wanted to hide. “This land is more eternal. Things do not change so easily here.”
The queen bent down and lifted the squirming baby formed of snow and mist and cradled her in her arms. “I took the child I found in my arms. I looked into her eyes and kissed her fluffy dark hair. She had already nearly been covered in snow.” The queen cradled the ghostly baby as if it were her own. The baby reached for her face. “I warmed her, I comforted her, and I sang to her.”
Wynn let out a little gasp and clapped her hands over her mouth. Her eyes went wide.
The queen’s changing eyes met his. “I loved her as if she were my own child in that moment, and that bond is not easily broken.”
Elric’s heart pounded so hard in his chest he thought he could feel it in his throat. His eyes stung as he watched the queen in the swirling magical snow. He understood.
The queen turned and waved her hand again, the ghostly baby still cradled in her arm. “I was about to leave the Otherworld, and take dear Wynn with me. But then I heard it.”
Suddenly the room was filled with the wailing scream of a woman.
“No! Please, I beg you!”
The crowd circling them let out a cry of surprise and fear. Suddenly a woman, formed of mist and snow, ran f
orward toward the queen. She carried a toddler boy, her hair in a long braid, and her face painfully familiar.
“Mother!” Wynn called, and took a quick step toward the illusion. Elric threw out his arm and blocked her from moving forward. He needed to see this.
The ghostly woman had luminous tears streaking down her face. Slowly she put the toddler boy, him, on the snowy ground and held out her arms to the queen. “Please, she is my daughter. Don’t take her from me.”
The queen tucked the translucent blanket around the ghostly baby. “I told her I found the child abandoned. It was my right to claim what is left alone in the woods.”
Mother shook her head as the ghost of Elric as a tiny child clung to her skirt. “Her father brought her here. He stole her from her basket. But she is mine. I love her, and I will protect her. Please don’t take her from me. She is my heart.”
The queen stepped close to the ghost of their mother and tipped her head to the side, as if lost in her own memory. “I still remember the look in her eyes. I knew how she felt. I too had a child stolen from me. Though a magic thread had already formed between me and this baby—Wynnfrith—I knew I could not allow another mother to suffer the pain that I had known.” The queen held out the child and returned the baby Wynn to their mother’s arms. The ghostly little boy stumbled forward in the snow and waved to the Fairy Queen. The queen gave the little boy a smile, then the spell was broken.
Light flooded the chamber, and Elric felt as if he had woken from a dream.
“But the decision to show mercy cost me greatly. My power has weakened in all the years since. Until now.” The queen stood tall as a silence fell over the room. “Your mother promised me she would protect Wynn at all costs. And she did, until her last breath. She kept her promise to me. But that thread of magic between Wynnfrith and me was never broken, and I missed the child that should have been my own.” She walked over to Wynn and conjured a perfect white rose, then handed it to her. “I have watched over you all this time.”
The Silver Gate Page 18
