by Suzi Davis
It was noisy there, the sounds of the rushing current drowning out all else. It made me feel increasingly nervous, as if anyone could sneak up on me at any moment and I’d never notice. I filled up our water bottles quickly, frequently checking over my shoulder and glancing back to the faint sparkle of embers drifting up between the trees where I’d set up camp. I forced myself to calm down, taking a few quick minutes to wash the sweat and grime off my body that had collected throughout the day. I had gotten used to being outdoors and being dirty, scared and tired. But I tried to wash myself at every opportunity. My long, wavy hair had quickly become a problem and so two weeks ago now I had taken Sebastian’s sharp pocket knife and sawed off the length of my ponytail, leaving just enough hair to pull it back from my face with an elastic band. It had felt surprisingly liberating, the weight and heat of my thick hair so easily cut away and thrown aside. I had no idea how I looked without the trademark locks I’d proudly worn all my life and surprisingly, I didn’t really care.
The cold river water felt so refreshing against my hot, sweaty skin that I was tempted to throw myself into the river, clothes and all. My body twitched and my muscles trembled from the sudden strong desire. The water seemed to beckon to me, flashes of silver sparkling just below the surface, enticing me to jump in. The shadows were rapidly lengthening and it was hard to tell how deep or how strong the current was away from the river’s edge. I reluctantly decided to wait until morning when perhaps Sebastian and I would have time to take a morning swim together. I doubted it though.
I watched curiously as the flickers of silver that I’d seen began to grow in both brightness and multitude. My eyes opened wider in amazement as a school of fresh river trout rapidly swam for the surface, leaping into the air in perfect synchronization so that their silvery scales flashed under the sun’s last weak beams before disappearing again into the river’s rushing waters. I doubted I’d ever grow used to the strange anomalies that occurred when Sebastian was nearby. I watched the river in wonder for several more seconds, waiting to see if any other fish would perform for me but the waters flowed steady and straight without the slightest sparkle of even one trout’s metallic scales.
I sighed as I ran my now cold, wet fingers through my hair, drying my hands and dampening the short, tangled locks that barely brushed my shoulders. Lifting the heavy water bottles, I wearily stood, carefully making my way back to the river’s bank and scrabbling up and into the woods. The exertion made me start to sweat again, the clean, refreshed sensation the river had blessed me with quickly becoming a distant memory, just like everything else.
I hurried back through the trees, guided by the light of the fire. I hadn’t been gone for long and only had to add a few more sticks and stoke it slightly upon my return. I set to work boiling the river water in Sebastian’s collapsible camping pot and then, still not wanting to sit still, I searched the shadows for more dry firewood for the evening.
“Hard at work?” The sudden sound of Sebastian’s voice from behind me made me jump. My heart leaped into my throat, my pulse pounded in my ears. I spun around, my hand automatically grasping my necklace for comfort and reassurance.
“Sebastian!” I scolded, my voice still shaking slightly.
He laughed softly. “I’m sorry, Gracelynn. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Well, you did.”
He grinned, unable to deny it. Even without the sounds of the crackling fire and nearby rushing river, and with the rapidly fading light, he could still be practically invisible when he chose. When he wanted to be quiet, he was dead silent. I supposed it was why he was such a good hunter. I never helped him hunt. The fact that he could kill a handful of small animals with just a knife in a few short minutes was information enough for me to imagine the process. It was something I definitely didn’t need or want to see. Besides, I wasn’t silent even when I wanted to be, as Sebastian enjoyed pointing out, and I would scare away the game if I accompanied him. My help would have been more of a hindrance. At least, that was the reason we had agreed upon.
“Rabbit tonight,” he announced with another smile. He held out a handful of long, thin sticks to me, the rabbit meat already skinned, chopped and skewered onto the sticks between small chunks of wild mushrooms and some other dark green vegetable. The first night he had hunted, he had brought a whole pheasant back to our campsite, plucking and beheading it in front of me without realizing something was wrong until I darted into the bushes and began throwing up. Since then, I would never recognize the animals he brought back from his little expeditions if he didn’t tell me what they were. Our meals were as innocent and unassuming as the meat found at a local grocery store – not that I had ever shopped for meat myself. Eliza, our cook, had handled all our household groceries and meals. How different my life was now from just a few short months ago, I mused to myself. Though to be honest, my life had changed the moment I had first met Sebastian, almost nine months ago now.
We cooked our meal quietly, working together quickly and efficiently. Sebastian occasionally spoke, complimenting me on how well I had set up the camp or thanking me for refilling our water supply but his attempts at conversation quickly melted into silence. The tension between us grew while the rabbit meat sizzled and browned, its appetizing scent woven through the smoke in the air.
“Are you going to tell me?” I eventually asked, not able to stand the silence between us for even a moment longer. I sat up straighter, crossing my legs as I stared across the fire at Sebastian impatiently.
“Tell you what?” he asked innocently. I almost rolled my eyes; Sebastian was many things but he certainly wasn’t innocent. He was giving himself away. I fixed him with a hard, unwavering look and waited. He was, at times, just as stubborn as I and he refused to look away or speak, keeping his expression carefully blank and deceivingly calm.
I tapped my fingers impatiently against my knee, realizing I would have to be the first to bend. “The Others have found a fifth,” I stated.
He cocked his head to one side. “Why would you think that?”
“I don’t think that, I know that.”
“And why do you think you know that?” he quizzed, his expression still calm as he slowly reached forward to rotate the sticks of meat balanced over the fire.
“Well, I’m not sure exactly… Maybe I just wanted to know and so I do,” I suggested with a small shrug. I felt certain I was right about the Others.
His dark eyes briefly met mine, the orange flames of the fire reflected in them. Something in my stomach tightened before he dropped his gaze.
“It doesn’t work that way,” he muttered but I wondered if we were both thinking the same thing. “But you’re partially right. The Others have found a fifth but I think they knew where the fifth was all along and now they’re leading us right to him – or her, somewhere in southern Ontario, maybe even Quebec…” His voice trailed off as he squinted into the campfire flames. I could tell he was straining to ‘sense’ the Others.
The rabbit meat was starting to blacken on the edges now, the vegetables shriveling away from the fire’s heat. Since Sebastian’s attention appeared to be far away, I took over the task of rescuing our dinner, balancing the steaming hot kebabs over some nearby rocks to cool. Sebastian was silent the whole while, staring in a trancelike daze at the fire’s dancing flames.
“Sebastian?”
No response, he didn’t even blink. The sense of dread weighed down on me heavily, like a rock dropping in my stomach. I swallowed back my sudden nausea.
“Sebastian?” I repeated, speaking slightly louder. I might as well have been trying to get the attention of the twilight sky. I was about to stand up to walk around the fire and shake him (which had worked before when he had fallen into one of these unbreakable trances) when a thought suddenly occurred to me. I took a slow, hesitant breath and then quietly called out, “Seamus?”
Sebastian’s eyes snapped to my face, his attention sharp and focused like the point of a dagger at my th
roat. “Yes?” he answered mildly, obviously unaware that anything had been wrong.
“You… umm… Well, how do you sense the Others? Shouldn’t it not ‘work that way’?” I decided not to upset him by mentioning what had just happened – what good would it do anyway?
He gave me a strange look before answering, his eyes flickering briefly to where I had moved the sticks of meat from the fire to the rocks. He shook his head slightly as if to clear it before frowning at the fire once more.
“I think that I’m able to sense the Others, not because I want to but because… I can. I just do.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I pointed out, almost a little peevishly. His lips curved up into a patient smile.
“I know,” he agreed. “But how else can I explain it?” He paused, deliberating. “I think that I can sense the Others because their abilities are all connected to mine, because I gave them their abilities. I think it’s something I probably could have always done – if I’d remembered them. The more I become aware of them, the clearer the sensation becomes. And the closer they are, the easier it is to sense them.”
“Do you think that they can sense you too then?” I asked, my mind jumping to the next logical conclusion.
Sebastian didn’t answer, he didn’t have to. His silence said it all.
How would we ever escape them? I didn’t speak the question out loud for I knew I wouldn’t like the answer. I pushed it aside and asked another question instead.
“If we’re getting so close to the fifth, why don’t they just go ahead of us and join together now? Why did they bother chasing us if they’ve known where a fifth was all along?”
Sebastian sighed. He reached over to the cooled kebabs and politely handed me a stick. I didn’t take a bite yet, even after our long day of hiking through the woods I was still too close to losing my appetite.
“It’s a game, Gracelynn, it’s all a game. I remember doing similar things to… others; testing them, observing their reactions, pushing them to see how far they’d go. I fear this is more about you than me,” he reluctantly admitted.
My nausea rose up in my throat once more. I had to work hard to swallow it back down. “Why?” I asked, my voice sounding weaker than it should have.
“I’m not exactly sure, I can only guess.”
“Please, feel free to speculate.”
He smiled but his expression was tight, making his handsome face appear unfamiliar in the flickering firelight.
“They remember me, and they think they know me but they don’t know anything about you other than what I had told them of Caoilinn so long ago. I think they want to test your loyalty to me, test the strength of the bond between us, and to test your determination, your strength and the true extent of your ability. They want to know what they’re dealing with before they make their final move.”
My breath caught in my throat. For several long seconds, I couldn’t respond. We just stared into each others’ eyes, reading the emotions within them.
“It’s hopeless then, isn’t it?” I whispered. Without thinking, I took a tiny bite of the juicy rabbit meat – it tasted delicious, like warm, smokey chicken. Despite my mind’s objections to eating, my stomach growled hungrily in response.
“There’s always hope, there’s always an answer,” Sebastian wisely reassured me, his expression calm and patient once more. I searched his eyes for further hidden truths but all I saw was his open, honest love - and the wispy smoke that stung my eyes. “Let’s eat, we’ll need our strength for tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes, it comes right after tonight.”
“Ha ha,” I replied sarcastically. “What’s happening tomorrow that we’ll need our strength for?” I restated.
“The sun will rise, I think they day will probably be quite warm and you and I – we’ll run. Now that a fifth is definitely ahead of us, I think the Others might finally let us put some distance between ourselves and them.”
“But we’ll be running straight for the fifth,” I objected in confusion.
Sebastian grinned. “That’s exactly what they’ll think.”
I opened my mouth to ask another question but he just shook his head slightly, gesturing to the stick in my hands. “Please, Gracelynn. Try to relax, try to rest, and please eat. I will tell you more tomorrow but for tonight… just trust me,” he gently encouraged. The silent plea in his eyes was enough to bring the meat back to my lips. I took a big bite and chewed, digging into my meal in silence though this time it was more peaceful and companionable than the tense quiet of before.
We each ate three of the kebabs, saving four for the following day. I was still hungry after our meal and had to fill my stomach with berries and water before it would stop gnawing on itself. I was hungry all the time now and ate so much more than I was used to. I was definitely burning more calories with all the exertion I pushed my body through each day. My body was also bigger and stronger than before our journey. Gone was the skinny, mildly toned, teenaged-girl from Craigflower Academy. I was still lean but definitely muscled now, my arms and legs strong, my body toned and more powerful than before. It was a satisfying feeling to know that I could propel myself through the woods and over rough terrain day-after-day, to run when I had to and to sleep on the hard-ground at night with only mild discomfort. And to know that I was stronger than most girls my age, that I was in better shape. I had no idea how to fight but I felt like now, if it ever came to that, I could probably handle myself or outrun my pursuer at the very least. Of course, none of that mattered when you were being chased by people who had to merely want you to be dead and you would be.
I sighed.
“Are you tired?” Sebastian asked, his voice tinged with concern. I shook my head, forcing a smile onto my lips.
“Not really. The sun’s only just gone down and we have enough firewood to stay up for a while longer - if you’d like,” I added. Sebastian smiled in response.
“It is nice to sit by the fire,” he agreed. He unfolded his legs and stood up, moving around the fire to my side. I shifted my weight so that I could lean against him as he sat down, my head resting lightly against his shoulder, my muscles relaxing from his proximity while my heart began slowly and steadily picking up in pace.
I closed my eyes and let myself absorb all the sensations the moment had to offer. Sebastian’s body radiated warmth and comfort beside me, along with a tantalizing electric energy that tickled through the warm night air. The fire popped and crackled, the quiet sounds of the nocturnal forest creatures slowly awakening reached my ears, alongside the other species who were just settling down. It all blended together with the sound of the river’s steady current in the background of my thoughts, its comforting white noise slowly washing away my worries and easing my fears. I took a deep breath in through my nose, trying to inhale all the vivid details of life around me. The air smelt like pine, dirt and smoke, and I could faintly smell our leftover dinner. The light perfume of sweat combined with the appetizing scent that always clung to Sebastian’s skin, which made me think of ice and snow and summer rains, drifted to me through the warm air. I breathed it all in and tried to rejoice in the fact that I was alive and I was with Sebastian, and no matter how afraid I should have been, I felt strangely safe and at peace with the world. Though maybe that’s how everyone feels right before they die.
“I’m sorry about what I did today,” I said quietly as I reopened my eyes. “It’s starting to really sink in just how impossible… how inhuman… I’m afraid of what I might be capable of.”
He slid his arm around my shoulders and pulled me protectively against his chest. “Don’t be afraid. The magic doesn’t control you – you control it. You’re bound to make mistakes as you try to remember how to focus your ability. I only wish I could remember something useful, something that might help you but Caoilinn’s magic was always so different than mine. I never thought to learn about her powers, only my own.”
“Why must you alway
s put the blame for everything on yourself?” I pulled back from him slightly as I spoke, my tone colored by affectionate exasperation.
His warm laugh in response made my body glow with pleasure from head to toe. “I apologize. It’s an incredibly irritating quality that I must have picked up from someone who I spend far too much time with as it is.”
I fought the smile twitching at my lips. “You should be more careful about who you associate yourself with then. I hear it’s gotten you into trouble in the past.”
For a second I feared I had gone too far. Sebastian blinked in surprise, his expression momentarily freezing in place before he suddenly tipped back his head and laughed. The sound was loud and unexpected, echoing throughout the trees and shadows around us. I initially flinched before becoming caught up in his contagious laughter. His joy was irresistible. These days there weren’t enough reasons to laugh.
As our laughter died down and faded away to shared grins, Sebastian met my eye with a powerful fire in his own. “Oh, Gracelynn. What would I ever do without you?” he murmured as he tenderly reached out to remove a small piece of forest debris that had become entangled in my hair.
“You’d forget me soon enough,” I teased.
“No. Never again,” he denied, his smile fading while the passion in his eyes burned brighter. He slowly reached out to brush my messy hair back from my face, his fingertips lightly grazing my temple as he did so. I automatically flinched back, my whole body tensing suspiciously, my breath catching in my chest as the memory of him once trying to erase my memory flashed behind my eyes.
Sebastian froze. The hurt my involuntary action had caused him briefly flickered in the depths of his eyes before he forced a smile onto his face.
“You won’t ever forgive me for trying to make you forget, will you?” There was no hurt or accusation in his voice as he spoke, only a sad kind of curiosity.
