by Viv Daniels
“Oh, no you don’t.” He stepped in front of her, blocking her path to the door.
From far across the room, she heard a rumble. Trapper pushed himself up on his paws and growled.
“Deacon,” she said, “I believe your dog has missed you.” Then she darted around him and headed out into the sunlight.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Across the street, there were men clustered around the barrier at the place Archer had broken through.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Ivy said, as she approached the crowd. Everyone was talking at once, a frantic flurry of fear.
“Several yards of the lattice is missing—”
“—Whatever came through here burnt these wires to a crisp.”
“Ask Beemer. We need to get this prepared by tonight or it’ll do us no good—”
Ivy pushed her way through to the gap in the barrier, mentally reviewing her map of the forest. It would take about half an hour to reach the village, provided it was in the same place as it had been when Ivy was a teen. Up close, she could see there was indeed a huge gap in the barrier, a hole nearly as wide as a truck, as if a fireball had barreled through the lattice, singeing the metal and bells along the edges.
She swallowed. This hadn’t been how Archer had first come through — after breaking the enchantments, there had been a tiny tear in the lattice, barely enough for his body.
“There she is,” Ernest Beemer was saying, turning her way. “Miss Potter, has the deacon spoken to you about what is required?”
All eyes were on her now. And though she’d been brave enough when arguing with the deacon, the thought of announcing her intentions to this mob made her blood run cold. Still, her decision had been made. There was no point in keeping it a secret.
“I will not help you raise the barrier,” she said, standing straight. “It is damaging to both the forest and to my neighbors on either side. The last time the barrier went up, we all suffered horrible headaches, and the side effects for the forest folk was doubtless doubly bad.”
“How do you know?” someone called.
“I knew it,” said Shawn. “She’s in collusion with them.”
Ivy held up a hand. “The only remedy was the redbell tea, but my redbell crop has been destroyed. We cannot raise the barrier or I and all of my customers—townsfolk just like you—will suffer. Now, excuse me. I’m going into the forest.”
A wall of men materialized before her.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Beemer said. “This entire town is in danger because of that damn forest, and you’re whining about a couple of headaches?”
Ivy cast her eyes around the crowd, hoping to find the face of at least one of her customers. Where was Jeb this morning? Where was Sallie?
“Please let me go.” Was that a note of begging in her voice? That would never do.
“Hell, no,” said Shawn. He grabbed her arm. “We have no idea what you’re going into the forest to do.”
She tried to wrench her arm away but Shawn’s grip was tight. “At the very least, I’m going to warn the forest folk—what’s left of them—that you plan to raise the barrier again. This time, I intend to give them a chance to escape.”
“Into our town?” Beemer exploded. “Are you crazy? That’s exactly the kind of element we don’t need. Magic-wielding forest folk? How is that supposed to keep us safe?”
She turned on him. “How is shutting people in a forest you claim is overrun with dark magic supposed to keep anyone safe?” She pointed with her free hand into the woods. “There are children dying in there, Mr. Beemer. Dying because of the bells.”
There was a murmur in the crowd and she looked around at the brothers, husbands, fathers standing there, looking skeptical.
“Stop her!” came a shout. “Stop Ivy Potter before she gets into the forest!” The deacon was running up from Petal & Leaf.
“Don’t worry, deacon,” Shawn drawled. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“Ivy,” Deacon Ryder panted. “I’m sorry, child, but we have no choice.” He looked at Shawn. “Put her in the van.”
Shawn nodded and pulled her out of the crowd, jerking roughly on her arm. Ivy dug her heels in as he yanked her down the street to a waiting van. He opened the rear door and shoved her inside, unceremoniously slamming it behind her.
Ivy pushed herself to her feet, blinking in the dim light. There were several other people inside, sitting listlessly around the floor of the van. Every one was a customer of Petal & Leaf.
“Good morning, Ivy,” said Jeb.
Sallie waved. “Did you bring any food?”
***
Hours passed in the dark, chilly van, and despite shifting positions multiple times, Ivy’s butt began to hurt from the cold, metal floors. She’d long ago split her water and trail mix with the other prisoners, and they’d tried, and failed, to use her hunting knife to pry open the doors or the grill that separated them from the driver’s seat.
Jeb had asked her about the pack, first thing, and Ivy didn’t see much reason to hide the truth from any of them. She told them about Archer breaking the enchantment on the bells, and how he’d used dark magic to do it. She told them how he’d come to her for help with the redbell medicine, and how he wasn’t particularly good at controlling the evil he conjured.
She kept the more salacious details to herself.
“Dark magic’s a pernicious beast,” Jeb observed. “And Archer doesn’t seem like he has the spirit for it.”
“Archer’s plenty spirited!” argued Sallie. She winked at Ivy. “You know.”
But Jeb was not deterred. “He’s not a ranger, not a warrior. Of that world but in love with another. Like your father, Ivy, only the other way ‘round.”
“You wouldn’t know it to see him now,” Ivy said, as a shiver stole across her skin. There were three other forest-blooded people in the van — Bette and her two grandchildren, Rowan and Rose. Their father worked in the lumberyards a hundred miles south, and must be on duty this weekend. The twins were sleeping on their grandmother’s legs, and she was casting fearful looks at Ivy and the others while pretending to knit.
How nice of their captors to let them bring knitting.
“Dark magic does something to a body,” Jeb went on. “You’re never quite the same after.”
Ivy hugged her knees to her chest. Her father certainly had never been the same once he’d helped cast the enchantments on the barrier bells. And Archer was infinitely more powerful, and had done far worse. Perhaps she was naive to think there was any hope of getting to him at all.
“What are we going to do?” Bette asked. “They’re going to put those bells up again? My son will surely make us move away now.”
“We might all have to move away,” said Sallie. “Ivy says her crop of redbell’s gone. When those forsaken bells start to ring, we’re all in trouble.”
“They won’t be able to raise the barrier again.” Ivy’s voice was firm. “It requires enchantments they don’t possess.”
“What do you mean?” Jeb asked.
Ivy took a deep breath. “My father… he helped them with the barrier spell all those years ago.”
“No! Ivy…” Sallie looked disapproving, as if Ivy were a child telling falsehoods. She only wished it were so easy.
“Yes.” She had to get it out. “He helped Beemer and Ryder cast the spell, though that’s not what either of them call it. The deacon calls it a miracle. Archer says it’s dark magic.”
“Ought to be,” murmured Jeb darkly, “if it took three.”
“But my father’s gone,” she pointed out. “So they can’t get the bells going again.”
“Then why do they have us in here?” Sallie asked.
Ivy looked at her. “Well, I was trying to go into the forest. Weren’t you?”
Sallie chuckled. “No, child. I was tearing the lattice off every tree limb.”
“The children were pulling down the silent bells,” Bette volunteered.
“I w
as already in the forest, trying to salvage some of the dead trees,” admitted Jeb.
The driver’s side door opened, and Shawn climbed into the seat.
“You let us out of here, Shawn Cooper,” Sallie cried.
Shawn put on his seatbelt and faced front. “Quiet down back there. I don’t want this to get ugly.”
“It already is ugly!” Jeb banged on the grate keeping them separated. “You can’t keep us prisoner here!”
“You’re disrupting the peace and breaking town ordinances about going into the forest,” Shawn replied.
“So call the cops,” Jeb snapped.
Shawn said nothing, just shifted the van into gear and began to drive.
They drove straight along the forest’s edge for quite some time, and Jeb peppered Shawn with questions the younger man refused to answer.
“Where are you taking us? Do you know what the punishment is for kidnapping? For kidnapping children? I’ll have you arrested for this, Shawn, I swear I will!”
But Ivy doubted that. All five cops on the force were dyed-in-the-wool townsfolk, completely in support of the bells.
After a bit, Shawn veered left, and the wheels went from old asphalt to gravel.
“We’re at the quarry,” Bette said, as the children blinked awake.
The quarry cut into the giant cliff that marked the edge of town and the edge of the forest. Here the bell lattice was driven deep into the rock, affixed with gigantic metal bolts and springs, like something you might see at a power station.
“If I had magic like my pa did,” Jeb mumbled, “we’d be fine.”
But none of them had any magic. Ivy nodded mutely. They were trapped—trapped like the forest folk, by the bigots in this town. Looking at Jeb, the way his hands lay fisted on the metal floor, she could understand why even someone as gentle and lighthearted as Archer might have turned to dark magic. It was a terrible feeling, to be trapped.
At last Shawn shut off the engine and got out, leaving them there again.
“Nana?” asked Rose. “I need to go potty.”
“There, there, child,” Bette stroked the little girl’s head. “Soon.”
Ivy took in a breath and let it out. They’d have to release them eventually…right?
She didn’t want to think about why they’d been driven all the way to the quarry. A few more minutes passed in silence and then they started to hear voices and footsteps shuffling in the gravel outside.
“What are they saying?” Sallie asked.
But none of them had forest ears, so they couldn’t tell.
At last, the door to the van opened, revealing an overcast sky, and the beginnings of twilight.
“Ivy Potter,” said the voice of Deacon Ryder. “Get out.”
She unfolded her cramped legs and slid to the ground. As she straightened, she saw a crowd of townsfolk looking on her with nervous eyes, and remembered the meetings in the square, the whispers of “forest-lover” and the suspicious glares.
“We’re here to raise the barrier again tonight, and your town needs your help. A terrible evil will overtake us if we don’t divide ourselves from the forest. You must agree.”
She shook her head. “I don’t. And you can lock me up in this van all night and day and I’ll still never agree with you. The barrier made me sick. It made a lot of people in this town sick. And it hurt and killed the forest, and the folk inside. I don’t know what it is you think you’re protecting us from, but it’s not worth the price we pay.”
As she heard Archer’s words fall from her lips, Ivy felt a sob rise in her throat. How long had she just obeyed the status quo? Her father had helped raise the barrier, so she tolerated it, let it make her and her friends sick, listened to its incessant jangling, built her whole life around managing the side effects, instead of fighting for the real cure. Archer may have turned to darkness, but he destroyed the bells. She should have done the same.
“Don’t listen to her,” cried a voice in the crowd. “She’s half forest-folk anyway.”
“Witch,” cried another. Some held flashlights or lanterns up against the growing darkness. She couldn’t see their faces, though their voices sounded familiar.
Perhaps Jeb had been right. She’d never been a townie at all.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the Deacon, and indeed, he sounded devastated.
Oh well, she wanted to snap back at him. Guess my soul is lost for all eternity. Strange, though. It felt like the opposite. She felt as though she could fly.
“What should we do?” Beemer was asking Ryder. “You’re the spirit, and I’m the body…”
“But the miracle won’t work without the heart.”
“So that’s the spell,” she spat at him. “Spirit, body, heart? And blood to bind it all? Be honest with yourself, Deacon. You’re doing dark magic.” She raised her voice. “Do you know that? This barrier which you think protects the town from magic is stronger than most of the enchantments in the forest!”
Stronger than any she’d seen, in fact, except Archer’s. He’d been even stronger, to be able to break it.
There was a rumble through the crowd, and Beemer hissed and shook his head. “Enough of this. I’m not going to lose any more time or money to these backwards customs. Grab her.”
Hands clamped down on her arms and shoulders and Shawn jerked her hand out toward Beemer, who approached with a cup and something flashing silver in the lantern light. A knife.
“Let go!” she screamed, wide-eyed, looking to the crowd around her. Why was everyone just standing there while she was being attacked? “Help me!”
Nothing.
Deacon Ryder hovered behind, wringing his hands. “This isn’t ideal. It’s supposed to be of one’s own free will.”
“Superstitions,” Beemer grumbled. “Blood is blood.” And then he sliced into Ivy’s hand.
She gasped, but the pain wasn’t really so bad. She’d cut herself worse on shears in the greenhouse. It was the shock, the utter violation, and the fact that there were all these people standing around, waiting for it to happen. This was supposed to be her town.
Beemer caught some blood in the cup, then stood back. “That should do it. Let’s get a move on.”
Ivy whimpered as her blood dripped onto the gravel. Shawn still held her firmly as Mr. Beemer and Deacon Ryder headed over to one of the large, metal-grid elevators that ran up the side of the cliff and ascended.
As soon as they were gone, Shawn dropped her to the ground, and Ivy cradled her hand to her chest.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” she shouted at him.
“Why can’t you just do as you’re told?” he shot back. He turned toward the back of the van. “Out, all of you.”
Jeb, Sallie, Bette, and the children wasted no time scrambling out of the back of the vehicle. Jeb carried Ivy’s pack.
“You can’t cause any more problems now,” Shawn said.
“You’re a monster,” Bette said.
“You forest people would know,” he snapped.
Jeb rushed over to Ivy. “Let me look at your hand.”
“There’s a First Aid kit in my pack.” As Jeb cleaned the wound on her palm and wrapped her hand in a bandage, Ivy looked up at the elevator, high at the top of the cliff. “What are they doing up there?”
“Black magic,” he said. “Blood magic.”
“I don’t know much about that.”
“Good girl.”
No, it wasn’t good. If she knew dark magic, maybe she’d know how to stop it. If she knew what held this town and Archer in its grip, she’d be able to fight it.
Jeb finished up with the bandages then straightened to look at the crowd. “This whole town is cursed tonight. You made a mistake once, three years ago, out of fear and ignorance. But tonight you have assaulted your neighbors. You have kidnapped children!”
Some of the people looked guilty at that accusation, but one of the townies called out, “You hate it here so much, you should just leave. Go b
ack to the forest.”
“That’s how I found myself in the back of this fine gentleman’s van.”
Ivy shook her head. What was the use? The bells would start to ring again and this time, they didn’t even have redbell. She shut her eyes and sighed. This was what Archer had said would happen, wasn’t it? That’s why he wanted to take the redbell and escape back into the forest with it. He knew that no one in the town would listen long enough to realize they had nothing to fear.
A twang traveled down the length of the lattice, shivering all the thousands of tiny, silver bells like the first lance of a migraine.
Sallie, Jeb, and Ivy put their hands over their ears, but after that one little clang, they stopped again. Ivy looked around. Bette, wisely, seem to have disappeared with the children. Thank goodness. No one needed to be here to see this abomination. If she were Bette, she’d be running with the kids out of town.
“I can’t go to the forest,” Sallie was saying, a sob catching her throat. “I don’t know anyone there. My pa’s long dead, and I was never close to my forest side.” She looked up at the lattice, her eyes wide. “But I can’t take those bells. Not without the tea. I can’t take it.”
Jeb put his arm around her. “We’ll figure something out.”
Ivy didn’t know what. Perhaps they’d leave town entirely, start somewhere new. Maybe this was the perfect solution for the townsfolk, not only to divide themselves from the forest, but to cast out any remaining citizens with links to the land. Ivy tried to imagine going back to her old life, and couldn’t. She tried to imagine leaving, like her fantasy of escape the night the bells stopped, but found she couldn’t picture that either. There was no life for her out in the world, in desert or city or tropical island. She peered into the endless forest. Archer was in there. Her Archer. And he needed her.
Over the winter wind, she thought she heard the sound of music. Something pale flashed between the trees.
Around her, the people seemed to notice it, too. Some turned their flashlights on the woods, as the night turned lavender and blue and black. The noise got louder—not the clanging din of silver bells, but soft, sweet melodies. Songs Ivy remembered from summers in the trees.
