by Tara Maya, Elle Casey, J L Bryan, Anthea Sharp, Jenna Elizabeth Johnson, Alexia Purdy (epub)
I didn’t say it out loud of course. No, I didn’t have the guts to, and Tully and Robyn wouldn’t believe me anyway. But thinking about Cade made me suddenly miserable and embarrassed at the same time. He must think I’m a huge threat and a complete waste of time. My cheeks started to warm as I recalled how foolish I had acted around him.
Robyn smacked me in the back and laughed, “I knew it!”
“Robyn!” Tully growled, “Can’t you see she’s depressed?”
I blinked up at them, confused. My internal tirade had sapped my attention for the last minute or two. Then I remembered what Robyn had asked me before and my blush deepened. They wanted to know about Cade.
“Oh, sorry,” Robyn said. She crumpled her can and chucked it into the nearest recycling bin. “Wanna talk about it?”
I gave her a glare and shook my head. That was Robyn’s way of saying, ‘Please give me the details!’
“Oh, come on, it will make you feel better,” she insisted, patting me this time instead of smacking me.
“No, really, it isn’t what you think,” I blurted. Liar. It was exactly what she thought. Sort of. I was miserable because I liked a boy and he didn’t like me back. Ugh, that was a lie too. If only it were that simple.
“Is it someone who goes to school here?” Robyn grimaced as she said it, knowing how we both felt about the boys at our high school.
“Robyn, she doesn’t want to talk. Remember what happened the last time we bugged her about one of her crushes?”
Despite my focus on the downward spiral my life had become, I cringed at the memory. It had been in junior high and the boy of my dreams had been inconveniently walking by when I blurted his name out as my secret crush to my pestering friends. I tried to fake illness for the rest of the week, but Mom would have nothing of it. The weeks that followed had been some of the worst of my life. I had a bad feeling that one of these days I would end up looking back and laughing at how insignificant they were, but I had an even nastier feeling that worse situations loomed ahead. The bell announcing the end of lunch rang and I was brought back to the present.
“Oh, fine!” Robyn complained. “But you’re going to have to spill the beans eventually. Oh! Maybe at our Beltaine festival in a few weeks! It will be the perfect time to divulge anything to do with romance.” She winked and skipped off in the direction of her next class.
“Beltaine?” Tully asked, looking confused.
“May first. It’s a Celtic festival that celebrates the beginning of the light half of the year, or the start of spring,” I said.
Tully stopped and looked at me in surprise. “How do you know that?”
I paused outside the door to our math class. I had forgotten that, for the past several months, I had kept my research of the Celtic world a secret from my friends. Because, let’s face it, they would wonder at my sudden interest in the myths and legends of the ancient people of Ireland. I cursed myself. How could I be so careless? Oh yeah, duh. Gloom and doom headed my way soon, and the stupid side effects that resulted from pining after a guy.
“Um, well, Robyn went off on a tangent the other day after she dropped you off after school.”
I smiled, but the look Tully gave me told me she wasn’t convinced. The tardy bell rang and as Mr. Skaring glared at us as we took our seats, I was grateful. It meant Tully couldn’t question me further and I was certain that the oh-so fascinating world of pre-calculus would bludgeon any memories of the past hour out of her mind.
* * *
I didn’t see Cade for the rest of the week or for the rest of the next week either. I was partly relieved, for the distance from him gave me time to sort through my turbulent feelings. He had said he only thought I might be half Fomorian and half Tuatha De. Maybe he had been wrong and maybe this whole thing was a huge misunderstanding and an overreaction on his part and on mine as well. Perhaps he had figured out his error and was now talking with the Faelorehn being who kept sending ravens and demons after me.
Even if all that were true and I didn’t have to worry about the threat of impending death, that didn’t help with the way I felt about Cade. I tried, for the umpteenth time, to convince myself that it was just a silly crush I had on him and that it would soon pass. He was too old for me anyway, and I’d be going off to college in a year. Then I remembered that I probably wouldn’t be going off to college, since I wasn’t human, and that I would most likely be going to the Otherworld instead. That is, if I could prove I really wasn’t a threat to their society. That got the emotional rollercoaster going all over again.
Robyn’s Beltaine party didn’t help matters. She decided, since her family was extremely religious, and since she really didn’t have a backyard and the swamp behind my house wouldn’t do (thank goodness; it held too many memories for me at the moment), that our little pagan celebration was to take place at a local park in town. We each had to bring a selection of flowers, ‘plucked from a wild field or growing naturally in our yard’. I think the ones I brought were technically weeds. After the initial prayers and thanks she gave to the gods and goddesses (all names I now recognized), we sat around in a circle and recited some sort of chant. When parents started dragging their curious children away, muttering something about ‘freaks’ and ‘rotten teenagers’, I knew the festivities had just begun. Well, at least the weather was finally nice again.
When Michaela, Veronica and half the cheerleading squad arrived to practice, I wondered if I could conjure up flying pinecones again. Of course, there wasn’t a single pinecone in sight. Luckily, the strange droning of our voices blocked out most of the horrible girls’ shrill laughter and crude remarks. After a while they got bored and moved on to a different part of the park to commence with their practice.
The one good thing that did come out of visiting the park was that, once we were through with the ‘ceremony’, we left the grassy lawn behind and climbed down into the area where the creek was located. The trees provided ample shade and for some reason or another, my nerves felt more at peace there. Perhaps it was the presence of the soothing stream, or the quiet of the shady trees. Will and Thomas wandered off to explore the creek while Robyn, Tully and I picked a low hanging sycamore limb to relax on.
“So, spill,” Robyn said as she tossed the remains of her flower garland into the lazy water below.
I blinked at her, not knowing what she was talking about.
“The boy you’ve been mooning over! I know he doesn’t go to our school, because, let’s face it, all the boys there are cretins. And I’ve been watching you for the past two weeks. You haven’t been making eyes at anyone. So it must be an outsider.”
“Robyn! Thomas and Will are cretins?” Tully scoffed, folding her arms across her chest.
Robyn snorted, picking a leaf off of her old tattered jeans. “No, but Meghan isn’t pining after one of them.” She gave me a quick glance. “Or are you?”
I thrust my arms down against the tree trunk, nearly falling off. “No! Thomas and Will are like my cousins.”
“Then who is it? Have we seen him before?”
I sighed. She would never let this go until I provided her with some information. I really didn’t want to think about Cade for the time being, but perhaps I could twist the truth just enough to get Robyn off my back. Besides, it’s not like they’d believe me if I told them the truth . . .
“Ugh, fine!” I hissed. “His name’s C-Clay.”
Uh, Clay? That was the best name I could come up with? I gave a mental groan.
“Oh, do go on. What does he look like? Where did you meet him?”
To my utter disbelief (and relief) Robyn, and Tully even, bought it.
I proceeded to tell them everything about ‘Clay’, his blond hair and brown eyes, how shy he was and how I was taller than him. The exact opposite of Cade. Paranoid person that I was, I didn’t want to risk my friends catching a glimpse of Cade and recognizing him as Clay. That would be disastrous on so many levels. So far I had managed to keep all of the ch
aos of my Otherworldly self separate from my normal, human self. Okay, maybe not so normal, but still. Whatever being Otherworldly meant for me in the long run, I didn’t want my friends mixed up in it, especially after Cade’s insinuation that I could be leading a very dangerous existence.
“ . . . well, I think most boys our age are shorter than you, Meg. Don’t listen to Robyn.”
I caught the tail end of what Tully had been saying, but it didn’t matter. They had believed my ridiculous story and now that their curiosity was satisfied, they might actually leave me alone for a while.
We stayed in the park until sunset, and then we all piled into Thomas’s minivan and headed back home. Tully and I were the last ones dropped off and as we waved goodbye to Thomas, I caught a glimpse of something lurking in the bushes. My stomach clenched and I looked over at Tully. She hadn’t seen it. Of course not. Was it happening already? The threat Cade had warned me about? Was an army of faelah going to pour out of the trees at any second and tear me to shreds right there in the middle of the street? I was suddenly petrified, but I couldn’t let anything happen to Tully. She was my best friend. I had to be the brave one.
“Well, I had better get home,” I said through a nervous cough. “Still have homework to finish.”
I darted my eyes towards the bushes again, but the thing was gone. It didn’t make me feel any easier though.
“K, bye,” Tully said. As she walked up to her front door, she looked back at me once more. “I hope things work out with you and Clay,” she said with a smile. “Maybe we should all go to a movie or something?”
I was too distracted by my sudden fear, so I didn’t quite hear her. “Sure, maybe. We’ll see,” I babbled as I waved goodbye.
I started up the street at a fast pace and kept my eye on the landscape behind me. Ugh, if only we hadn’t stayed out so late. Twilight was creeping in and the grey shadows of the trees provided lots of hiding places for anything with malicious intent.
I was sure Tully gave me one of her looks before disappearing inside her house, but I was too distracted to notice. Once I was sure she was safely inside, I started running. I moved as fast as possible, my ears prickling to catch the sound of pursuit. I was three doors down from my own house when I heard the loud padding of feet and the panting of a large animal just behind me. My heart rate went up, making it hard to breathe and move my legs. And then, for some strange reason, I looked behind me. Hadn’t I always been the one, while watching horror movies with my friends, who screamed at the main character not to slow down or look behind them? Hadn’t I told them how stupid they were, that if they had just kept going they would have made it inside the house in time to lock out the machete-wielding villain?
Well, turns out I was well ahead of my pursuer. I would have made it, except the shock of seeing it turned my legs to jelly. It wasn’t one of the Cumorrig, nor was it a pack of those demonic gnomes or that vile squirrel I had seen chatting with the raven. This thing was far bigger, about the size of a bull, but it looked like some horrible mutation of a human and a goat.
It walked upright and its eyes were huge and milky white. Rotting teeth that came to a point filled its mouth. Thick mats of black and gray fur hung from its neck and head. Its torso was that of a man, but from the waist down it looked like some monstrous, skinny goat, cloven hooves and all. Three long, spiraled horns protruded from its head and when it screamed, a fetid smell filled the air. I couldn’t keep a sob of fear from escaping my mouth.
It snarled at me, snapping as it approached slowly, its pitch-black hooves clacking against the ground as if they were made of iron. I couldn’t move; I was frozen in fear. It lurched towards me and I ducked to the ground, covering my head. I was certain that at some point I screamed.
Nothing happened, but I could hear the creature growling in anger. I risked a glance. It was pacing again, and then it lunged for a third time, faster than anything I had ever seen. I didn’t have time to cover my head this time, but before my brain could force my lungs to produce another scream, the animal sidled back. I was dumbfounded and confused. It tried to get at me once again and was once again thwarted. It was as if some invisible force field had established itself around my body. The nightmarish animal was angry, but no matter how hard it tried to tear at me with its claws, it couldn’t get to me.
I was so wrapped up in my own terror and fascination that I didn’t at first hear the barking. I saw Fergus before I really heard him, leaping like a white blur onto the fetid, black haired back of my attacker. My relief hit me like a tidal wave. The demonic creature screamed in pain and anger, and before I knew it, Fergus was chasing it back into the trees that led down into the swamp. I hoped he nipped its heels all the way back to where it had come from. Some hellish part of the Otherworld, probably.
“Meghan? Meghan! Goodness girl, are you alright?”
I blinked up to find my neighbor, Mrs. Dollard, hovering over me, her gardening sheers hanging loose in her gloved hands. I choked back a sob. Dear lord, did she see that thing? She was such a kind old woman, I hoped with all my heart that Fergus had chased it off before she rushed out here to see what all the commotion was about.
She blinked at me over her thick glasses. She looked utterly confused, but although she was well over seventy she was renowned for her sharp mind. It wasn’t like she would have been oblivious to what had just happened. Then it hit me. Of course she didn’t see what had happened. She was human and these horrible apparitions were only revealing themselves to me.
“Uhm,” I looked at her skirt, grass stains where the knees should be. “Bee,” I blurted.
She made an effort to stand up straight and push her glasses back onto her nose. She pursed her wrinkled lips and adjusted herself so that she stood, elbows akimbo, and glared down at me.
“Well, of all the silly nonsense. Really girl, a bee? You do know they are extremely beneficial insects, pollinating our flowers for us and making honey . . .” she mumbled as she shuffled her way back to her house.
I cringed. I liked bees, really I did, but how else could I have explained my strange behavior? Had she seen me running and then diving for the ground? Screaming as I covered my head? Maybe not. It was getting dark after all.
Reluctantly, I stood up and brushed the gravel from my jeans. The heels of my hands were scraped, but not too badly. I cast a nervous glance down the road, towards my house and in the direction of where that nightmare had disappeared to. Was it still out there? Would it come back? Was Fergus alright? Had Cade come with him?
Before thinking much longer about it, I began to walk briskly towards home. Once there, I waved a quick hello to my mother and brothers, mumbled something about laundry and homework, and went down to my room. I double checked to make sure my sliding glass door was locked, recovered the mistletoe charm Cade had given me months before from among the necklaces hanging from my bed post, and curled up in bed with a pen and some paper.
Cade,
I lifted my pen and thought about what I should say. I knew he was preoccupied; busy with whatever he was busy with in the Otherworld. But it couldn’t hurt to try. Eventually, I got back to work.
Cade,
I know it has been a long time since I’ve seen you, and I know you are concerned about my heritage and what trouble it might cause, but I need to talk with you. I was attacked by something Otherworldly today. Not the raven or the Cumorrig or even the gnomes, but something much worse.
I thought about describing it and telling him about its strange behavior (how it couldn’t really attack me) but my hand was shaking too much and I needed to write something that would entice him to come and see me.
Please send Fergus to my door when you are ready to meet. I would feel safer if he were there to escort me.
Sincerely,
Meghan
Okay, that wasn’t all that enticing, but perhaps he would come anyway. I glanced out my door, debating whether or not I should place the note in the knothole tonight. When a flash of crim
son eyes glared back at me through the growing dusk from the trees in the distance, I quickly checked the lock on my door one more time and drew the blinds.
My heart pounding in my throat, I dug through my closet, tossing my empty suitcase and several boxes of old photographs out of the way. When all of the clutter was cleared out, I scooped up the bow and quiver of arrows Cade had given to me. I didn’t care if my mom or my brothers stumbled upon it in the night. There was no way I was going to sleep without some form of protection within reach. And honestly, I didn’t think I was going to sleep at all.
-Seventeen-
Betrayed
Just as I had predicted, I spent the night tossing and turning, waiting for that grotesque goat-man to break through my sliding glass door and maul me in my sleep. When my alarm went off at six, I merely groaned and got up. I really didn’t feel like going to school, but I knew it would be safer than staying at home all day, waiting for that monster to make its move. I figured being surrounded by hundreds of other students would work in my favor.
The one good thing that came out of my terrifying ordeal from the day before was that I wasn’t thinking too much about Cade. Well, at least I hadn’t been thinking too much about Cade . . . Of course, I had to somehow get that letter into the knothole in the oak tree, but I wasn’t going a hundred yards near the swamp until it was full light out. Right after school would be a good time.
I spent the day in near silence, and Robyn and Tully thought I was still moping after Clay. Good. It meant they would leave me alone. Not that I didn’t want the company of my friends. More like I might burst into tears or snap at them because of all the stress I was under. I didn’t need to ostracize myself even more.
Tully drove me home that afternoon, and I was glad that she took me all the way to the end of the road.
