Emma spun around the pregnant girl’s yellow dress and took a couple steps off to the side. This is not right. They’re fighting over who takes me home. People don’t act like this. “I don’t want to be a bother to any of you. I’ve plenty of food with me already, and I shan’t impose on you for a place to sleep.” She edged backward, freezing once she realized she headed deeper into the village. “I need to be going.”
“Nonsense, girl.” Fenton blurred into a smear of color, and reappeared in front of her. “You are in Brynshire now. This is your home. You’re welcome to stay here… forever.”
“Like us,” said Margaret in a lifeless tone while rubbing her hands over her gravid belly.
“New friend,” said a little girl behind her, about Kimber’s age. “Come and play with us.”
Three boys blurred into existence next to the girl, each a bit taller than Emma. They smiled all at the same time.
“I have to go,” said Emma, a hint of nervous timbre in her voice.
The villagers faded semi-transparent and the odd shimmery light around them intensified. Their friendly faces drew intense… hungry. Looming closer, all of them stared at her as if they needed her.
“You cannot go,” said the old man. “You are here now, poor child. You must eat.”
“Eat,” said Fenton.
The other villagers all repeated “eat” one after the next.
“A child your age can’t be alone,” said the pregnant girl.
“Alone,” muttered a man.
“Not alone,” said the little girl. “You need a mommy and daddy.”
A fortyish man with white hair smiled, reaching for her. “We can take her in. Alice has always wanted a daughter.”
“You’ll be happy here,” said the heavyset woman.
Neema slapped into the side of Emma’s head and clung. “Eat their don’t food! Cursed it is.”
“Such a pretty little girl.” Margaret reached for her. “I would love another child, and my home has plenty of space.”
Uh oh. “Sorry!” yelled Emma. She ducked the woman’s hand. Too many of them stood blocking her path back to Mawr, so she ran for a gap between two huts. Grass whipped at her toes as soon as she left the dirt road, startling her into a stumble. She’d been walking on soft, unidentifiable plant matter since she’d arrived in the faerie realm―normal grass seemed out of place.
She caught herself against the wall of a small shack to avoid falling. A quick glance back over her shoulder made her shriek. The villagers rushed after her, all glowing like ghosts, their skeletons obvious as dark shapes within their bodies. Though they appeared to be moving at a slow walk, their figures rushed toward her with an unnatural speed, the adults all imploring her to eat, while the children invited her to play.
“Mawr!” shouted Emma as she darted around the back of the little house.
Emma circled the building, hoping to get back to the road and run for the forest while the villagers followed her. A boy Tam’s age leapt up from the grass on the other side of the house and tried to hug her. His expression and grin appeared innocent, but she screamed at the sight of a dark shadowy skull floating behind the child’s face.
She backpedaled as he leapt to hug her, and scrambled around to the left. A glowing farmer came out of nowhere and blocked her path.
“Poor little thing. C’mere, girl. Need ta get some food in ya.”
Emma stared up at the man reaching for her hand, paralyzed in fear. His expression looked calm, pleasant even… but a sinister and dark feeling pervaded everything about this place.
Neema zipped left and right, trying to interfere, but the villagers walked through her like ghosts. The faerie squealed like she’d been dipped in freezing water and darted up out of their reach.
“I’m not hungry.” Emma backed up and ran again as the larger crowd of villagers caught up, all telling her to come home with them and eat.
She raced past three wooden buildings and cut to the right, following a walkway around a fourth house. A boy almost old enough to shave caught her with an arm across the chest, halting her. His skin had a strong chill, making her shiver. Unlike the rest, he didn’t seem eerily friendly, more like a normal person. Thick eyebrows drifted together over serious eyes.
“Flee this place, little girl. You must run. I… won’t let them have you.”
Emma gulped, staring at him. “Thank…” Her attention shifted to a thin strand of white energy trailing out from the back of his head.
The crowd swarmed into the alley behind her, filing the gap between houses.
“James,” said the old man. “The girl is my responsibility.”
“No.” The teen pushed Emma behind him. “She does not belong here. You will not damn her as we are damned.”
Hands on her belly, the pregnant young woman stared at Emma with sadness in her gaze. “I would love another daughter.”
“Stand aside, boy,” yelled Fenton.
Emma backed away. As the villagers drew closer, glowing threads became apparent with the onset of night. From each person, a thin white cord stretched off from their head into the sky. She looked up, following the glowing trails with her eyes. A cobweb of strands arched up and came down, converging at the center of town where they plunged into the well.
Mawr shouted, “Emma!”
The crowd didn’t react to what had to have been a loud roar to their ears. They pressed forward, scuffling with James, who they easily shoved aside.
Before he disappeared into the sea of bodies, the teen shouted, “Run!”
Emma peeled her terrified gaze from the spectral townsfolk and darted into the village circle, heading for the well. She sprinted so fast she couldn’t stop, and crashed headlong into the side, clinging to the well stones to keep from falling over. After a momentary daze, she stood up on tiptoe and peered over the edge at water a long way down, dark and black. Merely looking at it made her shiver from an unnatural coldness. A great bundle of white energy threads spiraled deeper into the murk, the light visible for several feet beneath the surface. Whatever they connected to had to be at the bottom, too far down to see.
Maybe Nymira can help them.
She pushed away from the well, spinning with the intention of running toward Mawr, but a wall of semi-transparent bodies blocked her off. Emma let out a clipped yelp of surprise and sprinted left, heading around the side of a thatch hut… and into the arms of a huge man in overalls with only two teeth left. He swept her up off her feet, cradling her like a baby.
“Pa!” yelled the man. “Ah got me a new li’l sis.”
“No!” shouted Emma. She kicked into a backward roll, tumbling out of his arms, and landed on all fours.
He grabbed her under the arms and pulled her up off her feet again. “Easy, child. Ya don’t gotta be ’feared o’ nothin’. You been ’lone for while. Ya gots a family now. We tek good care yas.”
“I have a family.” Emma grabbed his icy finger and tried to peel his hands off her.
“Pa! Git on out here. This one’s still wild. Been ’lone too long. Where’s Maw?”
An old man emerged from the thatch hut, shirtless in overalls, wrinkled skin covered in dirt and bits of hay. “What you yammerin’ ’bout boy? I’s sleepin’.”
The huge villager turned left, holding Emma up like a doll, his hands under her armpits. “Lookie.”
“Put me down!” Emma kicked and flailed.
“We saw her first, Emmet,” bellowed a heavyset woman, who ran over and grabbed Emma’s arms.
Another man and a woman appeared, each grabbing one of Emma’s ankles. She screamed, hands clamped around both her wrists, both ankles, and her chest. People pulled her in different directions like bratty children fighting over a doll until Mawr bounded around the side of the hut and let off an angry roar that blew the huge villager’s hat off.
Amid the wave of panic that followed, Emma wriggled free and fell flat on her back. She evaded a few grabbing hands while scrambling to her feet and scurried
back to the village circle, but another six adults blocked her in. Emma turned right, and stalled at a group of children, all reaching for her.
“Come play with us,” said a little brown-haired girl.
“You kin ’ave ’alf me apple.” A boy her height held up a transparent fruit.
“It’s been long time since I hadda new friend.” A black-haired girl Tam’s age leapt at her. “My dollies wanna meet you!”
Four other children behind the first three also invited her to play.
Emma let out a squeak of surprise and dove to the left, avoiding the little girl’s lunge to hug her. Rather than flop to the ground, the ghostly child blurred back to standing and whirled about, ready to pounce again.
The only exit from the approaching specters sent her into the village circle again, chased by a swarming throng of see-through people. Bodies blurred and reappeared around her. She yelped and ducked past a fat man’s attempt to scoop her up―and smacked into the well.
Emma rolled around, pressing her back against the cold stones. “Please… I have to go. I already have a home. I don’t want to stay here.”
The crowd, which had grown to at least sixty or more, surrounded her. It seemed the only reason none had grabbed her is that they continued to bicker among themselves who got to take in ‘the poor orphan.’ Mawr squared off against a handful of men with pitchforks, swatting at their weapons as if trying not to hurt the people.
“I’m not an orphan!” yelled Emma. “I have a family!”
None but James reacted to her, though his effort to fight his way past the crowd didn’t go far.
Trapped against the well, Emma shivered, her toes digging into the dirt. She looked around, but so many bodies packed so close together, she had nowhere to go but…
Down the well.
She looked up at the energy threads. Every villager had one―and they all seemed to connect to something in the water. Mawr ducked his head and bowled over the line of farmers. He bounded up to the group surrounding her, rearing back with his great claws.
“Wait, Mawr!” Emma held a hand up. “I don’t know what will happen if you try to kill them. You might get cursed too.”
The bear hesitated. “I will not let them harm you.”
“Neema!” shouted Emma as she pushed herself up to sit on the edge of the well.
“Here!” The faerie’s shout, from inches behind her head, made Emma scream from surprise.
“Where were you?”
“Behind you.” Neema smiled.
Emma pointed at the winch handle and stretched out one leg, putting her foot in the wet bucket. “Lower me down. There’s something in the water.” She put her other foot in and balanced in the hanging bucket, swaying back and forth while clinging to the rope. Is this stupid or foolish?
“Sure are you?” Neema grabbed the handle.
“No, but if there’s nothing there, you can make me light and pull me up. Maybe if I hide down here, the ghosts will forget about me.”
“Try will!” Neema adjusted her grip on the handle, and shot a tiny bolt of magic at the latch that kept it from rotating.
The faerie screamed and spun into a blur of white light as the handle whipped her around and around. Emma plummeted straight down, also screaming. Her lungs about emptied when the bucket struck the surface of the water. She went under for a few seconds, paralyzed by the sudden jolt of freezing cold.
Air!
She swam up, gulping breaths once her head broke the surface, then shrieked at the cold. For a few seconds, she clung on the coarse rope as thick as her wrist, shivering and trying to breathe without choking. The thick mass of energy threads gave off enough light for her to see glistening grey stones, moss, and some tiny bugs crawling on the walls. Her teeth chattered.
This is colder than the creek. It should be ice!
“Sorry Neema!” yelled the faerie. “Dizzy Neema.”
Emma treaded water, the bucket too deep for her to stand in without being submerged. She peered into the darkness below, but the energy threads didn’t glow with enough strength to illuminate the bottom.
“M-M-Mythandriel, p-please lend me your light.” Emma concentrated on the little glowing ball Nan had taught her.
Mythandriel’s light manifested hovering around her head, many times stronger than the faint threads. The peach-sized sphere of white flames sadly didn’t give off any warmth, though the tiny emerald faerie silhouette inside it made her smile. Even without sending the orb downward, the well bottom became visible. The orb’s intense radiance blotted out the strands, but revealed a wooden talisman in the vague shape of a man laying upon the dirt about fifteen feet below. It reminded her of the enchanted figurines Nan had asked her to put in the trees around the emerald creepers’ nest.
Emma stared at it. It’s a magic talisman. While Nan’s had felt strange, arcane, and powerful, this one gave off a much darker essence. Whoever made it must have had malice in their heart. Nan said the spiders would be protected unless something broke the focus.
Neema glided down the well. “Hurt are you?” When the light orb floated past, she stared at it. “Oooh. Pretty!”
“My foot is a little sore, and I think I banged my elbow, but I’m not really hurt.” Emma poked the faerie in the stomach with one finger. “I know what I have to do. Wait here.”
Neema nodded, still staring at the orb of light.
After a deep breath, Emma dove under and swam down. Pressure squeezed in on her, as if the talisman could sense her intent to destroy it. Emma ignored the feeling of drowning, knowing she hadn’t been holding her breath long enough to be scared. She pulled herself farther and farther down, until her reaching hand grasped the lump of old rotting wood from the mud at the bottom of the well. Pain spread into her fingers, as if she’d thrust her hands into a fire ant nest. When she stopped swimming downward, her hair billowed out around her in an inky cloud.
Eep! As fast as yanking her hand away from a hot pan, Emma brought her leg up and rammed the talisman down over her knee, trying to break it―but it held fast. Ow! The burn in her hands intensified. She growled in her head, getting angry. Furious, she raised the talisman over her head and brought it down hard while driving her knee upward. That time, the ancient wood snapped in half over her leg with a crack that resonated in the water, loud enough for her to feel in her bones.
Pain stopped; the talisman pieces shuddered and released a black ichor.
Mythandriel, if you can hear me, please let your light chase away this dark!
The orb raced down to hover at her side and grew a little brighter.
With a great bang, all the water vanished.
Emma fell a few feet onto dry dirt, holding her ears. She continued shivering from cold, but not a droplet remained, not even in her hair. The oddity of going from water to air in an instant kept her staring for a few seconds at her pale feet burrowed in loose, dark soil. After collecting her thoughts, she looked up and gasped―even the stone walls had vanished. She stood on the floor of a narrow pit, peering past three stories of dirt at a tiny disc of sky.
Mythandriel’s light continued to glide around her, casting great creeping shadows from all the tiny roots sticking out of the earth. Neema’s faint whimper came from above. A little dirt fell on Emma’s face, making her flinch and cringe away. After brushing her face off, she guarded her eyes with her arm and peered up again.
The faerie popped halfway out from the wall near the top of the former well, and spat a few times.
Emma shied away from the rain of soil. “Neema? What happened?”
“Magic boom.” She pulled herself free and glided straight down to hover at Emma’s eye level. “Where water put did you?”
“I don’t know.” She stared up again and yelled, “Hello?”
“Expecting what you were?” Neema tilted her head.
“I dunno.” Emma ground her big toe into the dirt and tried to rub the shivering cold out of her arms. “But not this.”
mma turne
d in place, studying the sides of the pit the well had become. Small swaths of earth fell in here and there whenever she leaned away from the wall, giving her the sense this hole objected to her being there. The section behind her rippled, appearing likely to cave in any second. She grabbed at the dirt and tried to climb, but pulled away handfuls of loose soil and dry roots. More crumbled down, covering her to the shins as the spot she attempted to take hold of fell inward.
“Care have!” shouted Neema. “Collapse careless and bury if.”
Mawr’s face blocked out the sky in the tiny hole far above. “Emma, it is good to see you are unhurt.”
Emma stood as close to the center of the well as she could, feet together, arms clutched to her chest, too scared to touch the walls lest they collapse on top of her. “Are the villagers still acting strange?”
“No,” said Mawr. “The villagers are gone.”
“What?” Emma blinked.
“So is the village.” Mawr’s head swung to the right, exposing sky. A second later, he peered down again. “There is forest. No humans. No village.”
Neema landed on Emma’s back, arms and legs around her neck. A magical tingle spread over her body a second later. “Nothing weigh. Climbing now. Cave-in before go.”
Emma crouched and jumped up, floating about twice her height off the ground before she hung in midair like a dandelion puff. She wiggled her toes, momentarily enamored with the almost-ability to fly.
“Up go!” yelled Neema. The faerie grunted, straining to pull her into the air.
Awe at weighing nothing shifted to terror at the thought of being buried alive. Emma grabbed at the roots along the wall, pulling herself upward with ease. The pit walls crumbled inward below her, the filling dirt causing the bottom to rise beneath her as she climbed, nipping at her feet, threatening to bury her any second. An uneasy, continuous wail leaked from her nose, fear driving her to pull faster and faster. Yet no matter how frantically she hauled herself toward the opening above, the racing collapse below her feet remained only inches away. She screamed when her hand slipped free, expecting to fall, but the rising ground didn’t swallow her. Stunned, she gawked down at her half-buried foot standing solid.
Emma and the Silverbell Faeries Page 13
