Runes and Roller Skates

by Amanda A. Allen

  Druids didn’t plant trees they didn’t plan on associating with. Scarlett pulled out her phone and called Henna.

  “Did we plant the trees at the bird sanctuary?”

  “Hmmm. No. Of course, we didn’t. We wouldn’t have, it doesn’t connect to our grove, and there are not enough of us to maintain our grove, the other mini-groves throughout town, and the sanctuary too.”

  Scarlett opened her car door and followed the line of awareness through the trees. She pressed on them her ideas of Maeve and got a glimmer of something. But it wasn’t quite right. Scarlett left her SUV and followed the walk along the edge of the bird sanctuary.

  “Why?” Henna’s voice filtered through the darkness as Scarlett found a trail of awake trees.

  It was so weird.

  “I found awake trees, but they don’t know Maeve.”

  “What about Bridget?”

  Oh goodness, Scarlett thought. How could she be so stupid? She felt in her mind for the image of Bridget dead and then bypassed it for the glimmer of Bridget alive when Scarlett had seen her at the Day Dealership.

  Oh. Hunger for their Bridget filled Scarlett. It hurt her to share that Bridget was gone. And when she did, they mourned inside of Scarlett’s mind for Bridget. They couldn’t weep like Scarlett could, but their feelings had her weeping for them.

  “Goodness,” Scarlett moaned into the phone and heard Henna as she asked if Scarlett were all right. But she just couldn’t answer. The wave of the trees’s feelings for Bridget were flooding Scarlett to the point where it hurt to even breathe. They were so lonely. So needy. They needed their Bridget. She was their song. Their sun. She seemed to appear before Scarlett, almost a ghost but made of magic and memories. A wavering image of her biking along these trees. Backpack on. Singing or talking as she went. Most of the vividness came from the aura and energies, but it formed into a person that Scarlett was sure she could have recognized again.

  “It’ll be ok,” Scarlett told them. She uncurled from her knees and walked along the path, weaving her magic into them, helping them with a sharpness of ability that was unlike anything Bridget could have done. She’d woken these trees too far. She’d given them too much. Scarlett calmed them as she moved, she helped them to find their roots and the nutrients in the soil. She helped them weave together, tighter, and as she did, she plucked what she could from them about Bridget.

  “Scarlett are you all right?” Henna’s voice was near frantic and Scarlett had actually forgotten she was talking to her friend when she interacted with the trees. But they’d pulled her so far into the magic and their hunger for contact that she stumbled as she pulled free

  “I’m…” Scarlett coughed and looked up. She’d been walking for a while, humming a song that Bridget had sung while she rode her bike along this route. Scarlett followed it as the moon rose high and her feet almost pulled her along. The trees were…calling, calling. They needed her more and more as she passed. More and more, she realized that Bridget had spent quite a bit of time in the reserve.

  “We sent Gus to help. Just stay still. He’ll come for you. It’ll be ok.”

  “No,” Scarlett said. She couldn’t leave the trees like this. This was druid magic gone awry, and it had to be fixed. “I can’t.”

  “Scarlett, yes you can. You stop that. Sinking into hungry trees is dangerous.”

  “No,” Scarlett said.

  Gram’s voice came on the phone next. She’d probably snatch the phone right out of Henna’s hand. “You don’t have the training, fool.”

  “Yes, Gram,” Scarlett said clearly. “I do.”

  Gram didn’t say a thing and then she said. “Well aren’t you full of evasions and lies.”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “Not speaking up when you knew…”

  “I knew you’d be hurt. I knew that things were getting better. Especially between Mom and me, and I wasn’t ready to righteously piss you off and put Mom between us. YET again.”

  Gram snorted a nasty snort that told Scarlett that she hadn’t been wrong.

  Scarlett shoved her hair back and then said, “This has to be done. If these trees were around someone like Luna or…goodness, possibly Maeve. Those untrained of our kind would be in trouble.”

  Gram sniffed and then hung up.

  Scarlett shook her head, hating that it had come to this again. Gram had been all ready to teach Scarlett when she’d graduated high school. Henna had offered Scarlett a full-time job. Everything had seemed so perfect. But Scarlett had fallen in love with a tourist and taken off and left all of that behind. Everyone had then just assumed she’d put her druid life on hold. But she hadn’t. Not at all. She and Grant had traveled a lot before they’d had children, and Scarlett had learned from druid master after druid master. Everyone who she could talk into teaching her except the one person who had expected to teach her.

  Goodness, Scarlett thought, hating that she’d hurt Gram like that even though Scarlett didn’t regret the life she’d lived beyond those things.

  Scarlett knelt in the dirt on the edge of the road, closed her eyes and called on the wind. It swirled around her, and she cast her abilities into the ground. She hummed the song Bridget had sung, and Scarlett connected with the trees along the path all the way to the road behind the grade school that connected on path after path to the bird sanctuary. It was miles of trees that had been awakened. She didn’t understand how no one had seen, but the pathway—if it went the way she thought it did—was pretty remote.

  And who but a druid—and one who was paying attention—would have even guessed what had happened? Would Scarlett have seen? She doubted it. Not if she were in her car, rushing her daughters to piano lessons or from soccer. Not if she had the back of the SUV loaded up with flour, sugar, and butter, and she was running back to the bakery to refill the cabinets and prep for the following day’s work.

  A car squealed to a stop next to her and Gus came striding out. She was wrist deep into the earth and recognized his magic and aura more even though she didn't open her eyes. He knelt next to her without a word. He knew her and druids well enough to know she was fine, and instead of asking questions, he placed his hand on the base of her spine where she was bent over her knees and pulled his own abilities.

  Vampire magic was based out of blood and death, but their magic had melded together so often that wielding both was nearly as easy as doing a casting with just her own.

  “Thank you,” she finally said as the trees settled back into a healthier state. There was no returning them to the entirely unaware trees of the past, but they were no longer ravenous and aching for what Bridget had given them unknowingly.

  “What happened here?” Gus asked as they stood.

  “I don’t know,” Scarlett said. “Bridget was…she was so alive that her passing, her emotions, the rolling out of her untrained abilities…it was just unlike anything I’ve seen.”

  “Do you think Harper ever did anything like this?” Gus walked towards the trees probably not sensing anything that Scarlett had even though he knew her well enough to know she was disturbed and worried.

  “I have no idea,” Scarlett said, wishing she could say no.

  He walked with her, as she followed the path, trying to get a feel for what had happened. Was this because Bridget was a powerful druid? No, Scarlett thought. That was unlikely. It was probably because she was under such a huge emotional burden. But Bridget had been alone.

  In some ways, Scarlett identified with her. Sometimes it seemed she was drowning in her life as it was now. But, the difference was. She wasn’t alone. She had her family. Her friends. Gus.

  “Scarlett,” Gus said. His voice had changed a bit, and then he took a deep breath before he said, “Listen…would you have dinner with me?”

  Scarlett flinched, but she hoped she was able to hide it. “Like a date?”

  He nodded. The way his gaze fixed on her face and the tension in the air told her that he had caught her flinch. But of course he ha
d. He was a vampire, and he was utterly aware of her.

  She paused and then said, “I’m a little bit afraid…ok, a LOT afraid, that dating will effect our friendship. You’re important to me, Gus.”

  “You don’t have to feel obliged to date me, Scarlett. I think we deserve a chance at something more.”

  Scarlett looked over at him, and then—almost of its own accord—her hand rose to his cheek. She cupped his jaw and said, “I feel a bit too damaged to fall in love again, Gus. What if I do fall in love with you? What if it hurts again?”

  Gus leaned forward until his forehead was pressed against her own and he said softly, “What if you never love again?”

  Scarlett’s eyes closed against the thought of that future and the bleakness of it had her saying something she wasn’t sure she wanted to say, as she said, “I’m a vegetarian. So I’ll want a steak.”

  “That makes perfect sense to me.” And it did. Because he was Gus, and she was Scarlett, and he’d always, always, understood her.

  “That is one of the many reasons you’re important to me,” Scarlett said, leaning back and adding, “Gram will pay a witch or warlock to hex you and me if I take too long showing up at the Grove.”

  “Friday?”

  Scarlett nodded, took a deep breath, and tried not to think about the path grandmother had seen which had included Scarlett face planting into love, babies, and a totally different future than the one that felt likely at that moment.

  Chapter 8

  “It’s me,” Harper said. “I think I’ve got a track on Maeve. She’s a clever little thing.”

  Scarlett and Gus had been walking the path that Bridget had taken so many times, ensuring the trees were calm, and trying to find out where she had been. For a girl who worked so much, what could she have been doing in the bird reserve?

  “Um,” Scarlett said, glancing around. She was on foot in the woods near the ocean but weaving back towards Mystic Cove. She glanced up at Gus and then said, “It’ll take me a while to get to you.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I have no idea. Do you know where we are?” Scarlett asked Gus who shrugged.

  “Who are you with?”

  “Gus,” Scarlett said, stumbling over a root on the path.

  “Oooooh,” Harper replied and then dropping the teasing tone as she said flatly, “Hurry up, or I’m doing this without you.”

  “Where are you?” Scarlett asked. She bet that Gus had heard Harper, but he didn’t react in anyway. Did he sense the immediate flash of panic? She hoped not. But, she wouldn’t be surprised given how quiet it was. It was the middle of the night with the moon and stars high in the sky and the sounds of frogs and nightlife. If they weren’t tracing the path of a dead girl, it could have easily been romantic. Especially since, other than animals, they were entirely alone.

  “I’m not far from the bakery when you get off Lover’s Lane, call me. I’m gonna keep tracking.”

  “You’re evil,” Scarlett said as she hung up the phone.

  “I’ll go back for one of our cars,” Gus said, “And you follow it to the end so we know where we are? We can’t possibly be that far from a road where I could pick you up?”

  Scarlett nodded and Gus went running back towards the cars. In about 2-3 minutes more of walking, Scarlett found herself poured out onto the main highway that ran through Mystic Cove. Mac’s Chowder Shack, several fruit stands, a flea market, and the new Day Dealership were up the road a ways to the right and to the left was the town. Scarlett texted Gus and started walking.

  It didn’t take Gus long which told Scarlett that he’d used some of his magic to get back to the car quickly and then sped through town to reach Scarlett.

  “Are you all right?” He sounded worried even though she was clearly fine. The path of trees that had been wakened had faded into nothing. Bridget must have only felt comfortable to do whatever she had done to wake the trees when she was alone.

  “I think you better take me to the bakery,” Scarlett said. “I’ll go back for my SUV later. I need to help Harper if she really thinks she’s got a track on Maeve. Do you feel the hunt?”

  “Yes,” Gus said simply. She glanced over and saw his fangs were out. She had never seen them before. He hadn’t had his fangs before she left Mystic Cove, and most of the time, they were retracted.

  “I didn’t realize…”

  “It’s not your fault. Hunting brings it out in us.”

  “We’re all predators,” Scarlett said. “Even I feel something.”

  “You feel nature and the life cycle. You’re a druid. You guys barely even eat animals,” Gus replied. “What I feel is different.”

  “You don’t have to hide from me, Gus,” Scarlett said, taking his hand as he sped them through Mystic Cove with little regard for traffic laws. She was sure that if any of the town’s busybodies saw them and identified his car, he’d be getting scolding phone calls in the morning.

  “It might be better, however, if I’m not around the little girl,” he said. “Fangs out, oversized man. I’m not a good fit. If she’s aware of any of her senses then she knows she’s being hunted.

  “You don’t feel the need to protect us?” Scarlett was genuinely curious.

  “Yes,” he said. “But you and Harper don’t need me to, and that child needs you guys. Not me.”

  * * * * *

  “So where is she?” Scarlett asked as she walked down Arbor Avenue, talking to her sister on the phone. It was at least 3:00 am, and she was so tired it hurt. It didn’t matter of course. There was a little girl lost in Mystic Cove, and the hunt was on.

  “I think she’s in Central Grove.”

  “But someone would have seen her.”

  “She's smart, and it hasn't been that long since the kid ran. We just found Bridget earlier today. It’s been what? Two days since Bridget died and the kid took off? Less?”

  It had felt like it had been a century, but Harper was right. Not that much time had passed. If Maeve had been careful. Scarlett made her way into the grove where Harper was standing with Lex.

  “Oh,” Scarlett said.

  Lex shrugged his charming shrug and then said, “Turns out I’m the fuzz now.”

  “So Harper called you?”

  “We were both tracking the kid’s energy. We both ended up here. We just can’t find her.”

  “I figured,” Harper said, “That if anyone could get the kid to appear, it would be you.”

  “Or Jay,” Scarlett suggested.

  “Tried that,” Lex said. “Right at dusk. Made him walk through the grove calling Maeve’s name. Nothing.”

  Scarlett looked at the two of them wondering why they were so sure that she could get the child to appear. If it were Ella, Scarlett would start threatening her with less iPad time. If it were Luna, Scarlett would offer a popsicle. Maeve wasn't going to come out for a popsicle. She was older and smarter and didn't trust Scarlett. Add to that being traumatized—there was just no way she could mom Maeve and get her to come out of hiding.

  “You’re just so mom-like,” Harper said, hands on her hips. She glanced Scarlett up and down and then turned to Lex waiting for him to agree.

  “I’d come out of hiding for her,” Lex said, but his tone had a distinct lascivious edge despite the worry in his expression. “We can’t leave here without her.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Harper said with a look at Lex that said he was an idiot.

  “Woah,” Scarlett said. She ran her thumb over her fingers as she considered and then she said, “Let’s go to the center of the grove.”

  She led the way with Harper and Lex behind her. They were all stressed by the death and the search for the child. They were exhausted, but somehow Harper and Lex were still able to banter. Scarlett tuned them out as if they were her daughters. Walking to the center of the grove, she turned to Harper and shrugged.

  “Come on, now. Try,” Harper said. “Lex and I have tried everything we could think of.”

&
nbsp; It was dark, it was a grove. The child had every ability to hide from them. If they didn’t find her first, and she slipped away, someone else might beat them to her. But why would she have a reason to trust them?

  “Hello,” Scarlett called. Thinking not about her girls or even Maeve. But about Harper. “I bet you’ve seen some things that have made you wonder what’s going on around here. I know you’re afraid.”

  “This isn’t going to work,” Lex said, but Scarlett and Harper’s mother, Maye, had once said this to Harper. And Harper shushed him.

  “I know you’re so afraid, and you don’t have any reason to trust us. But, we’d like to help you. We’d like you to be part of our family.”

  Scarlett rubbed her hand over her head and then spoke from her heart, her own words. “We’re sorry we were too late for your sister.”

  There was a sob. It didn’t come from any one place but all around them as if the trees themselves were crying for Bridget and for Maeve.

  “That’s on us. We should have found you before this.”

  The sound of sobbing rustled in the leaves even louder, and Scarlett joined in.

  “My name is Scarlett, and I have two little girls. I have a sister just like you. She didn’t know what she was. But I bet you’re starting to wonder what you are. I bet you’re starting to wonder what’s happening and why these strange things are going on. Maybe you’ve heard something. Maybe Jay said something. Maybe your own heart is whispering to you.”

  Scarlett dropped to her knees, thrust her hands into the earth and made the flowers in the center of the grove bloom. She called the light to her, and it filled the center of the grove in a wave of moonlight as the flowers burst into life, and then the wind began moaning the song that Bridget sang to wake the trees.

  Scarlett was betting that Maeve would know the song, then she bet that Maeve recognized it for the sobbing in the leaves stopped. But the rustling changed to a thousand whispers all at once. Confusion and worry conveyed through the sound of wind and leaves.

  “I know you don’t trust me. But, I bet you are smart. And you can see that Lex is wearing a uniform. And if you saw who took your sister from you, you can be sure that we’re not that person.”