“I was trying to do just that, but in my panic, I ended up taking us to a different world rather than a different location,” Hector explained in his signature lecturing tone, grating on Penny’s nerves.
They continued through the solitude of the woods until nightfall and made camp again. Penny started casting nervous glances at the dark thickets; something about the oppressive hush of the whispering shower of leaves discomfited her. It wasn’t at all alleviated by the fact that the nearby white-barked trees grew in such a way that they created the illusion of having eyes. She circled their camp and kicked at the dead leaves, trying to understand what was making her chest feel so tight.
Seeing the tangles and tendrils made her neck prickle and Penny tried to remember the words to a poem she’d read a long time ago. Standing for a while with the withered leaves around her ankles, the words sprang to her lips like a chant, “Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild…with Faery hand in hand…for the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”
Hector stopped what he was doing and looked over at Penny, smiling with a liveliness and earnest emotion that was rare. “That’s―The Stolen Child. Yeats, if I’m not mistaken?” His eyes were bright.
Penny smiled a little and nodded. “I guess. I forgot the title,” she shrugged.
“It’s a lovely poem. The people of Earth truly have a way with words,” Hector said, then paused as if deciding whether or not to say something. He cleared his throat. “I—I’ve always wanted to say…you impress me. You were always quiet in class, but the papers you wrote―they were quite insightful,” he complimented.
Penny blushed and turned her face toward the ground so he wouldn’t see. “Thanks for saying so.” She couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “I’m nothing special, though. People are always telling me I’m smart, but really my only real talent is following directions well. That and having no distractions―and by that I mean no friends.” She shrugged and sat down across from him. “I shouldn’t say that. I’ve got Maddie.”
“Madeline Price? You mean that loquacious young lady who’s constantly typing on her phone throughout my lectures?” Hector raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, that’s her.” Penny smirked a little. “She’s…not exactly the studious type,” she offered as a half-excuse.
“So I’ve gleaned. It seems she’s deliberately failed to complete several important assignments,” Hector said with disdain.
“Maybe it’s because you expect way too much from us,” Penny combated. “Every other day it’s another paper or six million pages to read. I can barely complete the work!”
Hector looked ruffled and smoothed his vest. “Oh, come now. That is the customary amount of work in Nelvirnee academies, I don’t’ see why the citizens of Twin Rivers should be given special treatment,” he rebutted with self-conscious affront.
“Well, maybe on planet Arlington you can get away with that sort of slave-driving, but on Earth it’s a different story,” Penny admonished, still feeling defensive of her friend. “People can’t deal with all that busy work. It’s why half the class hates you―” she stopped and slapped her hand over her mouth, mortified. “Ah, I didn’t mean that! I meant to say―”
It was too late. Hector’s face grew stony and he stared into the flames with his fingers laced together. She could tell she had touched a nerve.
“Hector, I’m sorry,” she tried, “I―”
“You don’t have to apologize, Miss Fairfax.” His face remained expressionless. “I’m well aware of the opinions my pupils have of me. It’s always been the same, regardless of whether I was home, or on Earth. I never seemed to acclimate well to the world of education―or to any other world, for that matter,” he added.
Penny sat very still, trying to think of something to say. In the moments that followed, a strange emotion began to invade her mood. “If it means anything,” she murmured in earnest, “I think you’re a great teacher, despite all that.”
She saw his eyelids flutter in her direction for a quick moment, then flit back down again. The majority of dinner passed in heavy silence and bedtime came quick. The emotion that Penny noticed earlier stayed with her deep into the night. Hours later, after Hector had fallen into a shallow slumber, she gazed over at him with worry swimming in her chest.
He always had seemed out of place to her, like a traveler without a road to follow, or an empty bottle lost at sea. Penny found herself wondering what sort of life he must have led up until now, but felt as if she were intruding on his privacy by her mere speculation alone. Rolling over onto her back and trying to get comfortable enough to relax, she realized the powerful emotion that had overtaken her. She felt sorry for him.
HECTOR REGAINED HIS brisk disposition by morning. Humphrey kept stopping to sniff the dried leaves and Penny and Hector had to strain together to get him to keep moving. Soon the path through the woods became obscured and they were faced with traipsing through heavy underbrush. Penny was sure they were lost, but Hector dismissed the idea every time she brought it up. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon a deafening crash of thunder split the air. Penny jumped and shrieked.
Hector looked back in shock. “What’s the matter?” he asked, concerned.
“N-nothing! Come on, daylight’s wasting,” Penny grumbled as she pushed past Hector. Minutes later it began to drizzle and soon the air around the forest was sparkling with rain. Creatures could be seen scampering around trying to find shelter. Small furry rodents with bat-like ears and huge almond-shaped eyes hopped about in the lofty treetops, and Humphrey snapped at their bushy tails as they flitted about.
With every booming peal of thunder, Penny’s body reacted with an uncontrollable tremor of surprise. After several hours of enduring the sudden flashes of light and sound that sent spikes of fear into her heart, she was trembling all over. She did not want Hector to know she was frightened of the thunder, though she was certain he had already noticed.
By evening, Penny was soaked and miserable. She shivered from the biting air and waves of acute nervousness. Her throat itched and burned as she sat down on a wet tree stump.
“Brace yourself, please,” Hector said.
Penny felt an alarming amount of strength leave her body in a rush, and stars burst in her eyes as she almost fainted. Hector’s hand appeared on her back, prompting her to sit up.
“Sorry! It took a little more magic than I expected,” Hector apologized.
Blinking herself back into consciousness, Penny realized that the rain had stopped falling on them. Hector had created a huge invisible umbrella several feet above them. Rippling walls of water flowed down like curtains of silk.
Penny was delighted. “Now we won’t have to sleep in the rain!”
Hector grinned and set about lighting a fire. In no time their tiny camp was drier, and they enjoyed a humble meal of grilled mushrooms and bread. After dinner, Hector resumed studying the map. Penny lay on her back and marveled at the glassy dome above, thinking once again of how much it would please her mother to see real magic.
“I can’t wait to get home and tell Mom all about this,” Penny sighed. “I’ll bet you’re also ready to go back home to Nel-whatsa, or whatever it’s called.”
“To Nelvirna? Not particularly, no. And even if I could go back, there’s nothing there anymore,” he muttered.
“What?” Penny sat up in surprise. “Nothing there?”
Hector looked at her through the darkness, his face orange from the glow of the fire. Penny noticed for the first time that his eyes were a beautiful shade of hazel and looked away.
“The day I left my world,” he said, struggling as if trying to think of the best way to start, “was the day Nelvirna was destroyed. It was something like a divine cataclysm.”
“What happened?” Penny gasped. Hector shrugged a little and his expression turned muddled. He looked almost guilty as he considered his words.
“Well…It’s all very foggy…I-I can’t clearly recall m
uch of what happened. The sky changed―as if great sections of it had been stained black with ink, and there were these…awful flashes of light. They burned away everything. All at once, everything came crumbling to the ground in whirlwinds of fire and smoke. I still don’t know why it happened―all I know is that I escaped at precisely the right moment…quite like how it happened for us when we came to this world. One moment I was standing in my home watching the buildings and towers turning to dust, and I somehow slipped through that void and onto Earth.” Hector waved off his serious mood. “Anyway, it’s not important now. Even if I found a way to return to Nelvirna, I’m sure all I would find there are ruins.”
“So your home is―it’s gone? Along with everyone you knew?” Penny breathed, though she already had heard the answer. Hector flinched, then nodded, looking hollow. She couldn’t think of any words of comfort that would help ease that sort of pain.
“It’s all in the past. I’ve lived on Earth for four years now. Teaching there isn’t much different than teaching in Nelvirna. It’s a mite easier, in fact.” His smile was almost imperceptible.
Penny remembered something. “Hey, that reminds me. Just how did you become a teacher on Earth, anyway? You couldn’t have possibly gone to any college or gotten the credentials, in addition to a job, in such a short time, much less know the material well enough to teach it.”
Hector smirked and cleared his throat. “It is surprising how efficient the application of a little practical magic can be. I can produce any legal paper or certification anyone might ever ask for with the careful use of mimicking enchantments. That, coupled with a considerable amount of reading, and you become one convincing imposter. I had to read the contents of several libraries and enchant my way into a few computer systems, but in the end I’d say I was successful.” Hector looked proud of himself and Penny’s jaw dropped.
“You’re a fake?!”
“Not exactly. I was a certified magical theory instructor back in Nelvirna and I have had proper training, but if you want to get into technicalities, I’m not quite as qualified as my diplomas might claim that I am. However, as you probably know literature is a―a very free-form subject, and that is precisely why I chose it. Surprised?” He raised a brow.
“I have to say I am! I feel a lit―”
A blinding flash illuminated the night and the roar of thunder exploded out. Penny screamed and leapt to her feet, her heart pounding so fast she heard a rushing in her ears.
Hector opened his mouth to speak but Penny anticipated him. “I’m fine!” she lied. She felt anything but fine, but she had no desire to discuss it.
Hector eyed her with confusion. “Look here, if it’s frightening you, I can ju―”
“I said I’m fine,” Penny snapped, and then regretted her outburst. Hector clicked his tongue and defeated shrugged in defeat.
“Have it your way,” he conceded and moved over to his makeshift bed. Penny sat stewing in her anxiety for a while, then decided she had better do the same. For hours she stayed awake, shutting her eyes and whimpering as each crash of thunder and lightning pierced the woods. Nightmarish images from her past tried to flare up, but Penny held them at a distance with enormous effort.
It won’t happen, again…It won’t happen again…You’re fine…it’s only a sound…It’s not going to happen again… Penny still wanted to cry, but once more she banished her tears and told herself to be brave. Feeling vulnerable, she reached over and found the cooking knife that Hector had bought at the market and brought it close. Somehow laying there with it clutched to her chest was enough to make her relax.
Defeated by her exhaustion, Penny fell into a troubled sleep. The haunting memories from her early childhood, resurrected by the voice of thunderclaps, seeped their malicious way into her dreams…
Penny lay snug in her blankets. The night was a warm one, and the rain that fell was humid, creating a humming static. Penny had heard thunder before and always been enthralled by it. Through that entire stormy day, she scampered to the window every time the lightning flashed and breathlessly counted the seconds with her mother close by. When night fell, however, something about the thunder changed. It had been a deafening peal that roused Penny from her slumber that night. She teetered between the thin boundary of sleep and the waking world for some time until a sharp instinct shook sleepiness clean away. She sensed that she was no longer alone.
Penny sat up in bed, her breath uneven. She looked about her room for the intruder, but the darkness was too thick. She wanted so much to call out for her mother, but even with her child’s mind she knew that whatever dark thing sidled among the shadows would get her anyway.
“W-who’s there?” Her voice was difficult to hear over the sound of the rain pounding on the roof. Then came the flash, and with it the face she would never forget.
She saw him for an instant: sublime, tall, and with a striking face that was so inhumanly beautiful it drove terror into her heart. His hair was white and draped down the sides of his body like waterfalls of diamond filament. Then the darkness came again.
Penny scrambled backward until her shoulders collided with the wall. She tried to scream, but could not manage to make a sound. He was coming closer.
“N-no!” she choked in a strangled plea. The thunder crashed, reverberating about the room and rumbling in her chest. Penny felt his fingers wrapping around her shoulders and pulling her forward. The lightning came again.
The face, so abominable in its exquisiteness, was mere inches from hers. His eyes were like two great white moons stained with small beads of black that pierced straight through her. As his hand scooped her away, the last thing she saw was a flurry of feathers. Then there was only darkness.
Penny jerked awake with a gasp, then sunk her face into her hands and gave a great sigh, trying to rid her body of the last vapors of the nightmare. The memory of the most terrifying night of her childhood was still too fresh in her mind, though it had happened over a decade ago. The rain had stopped falling while she slept and left the forest glittering with crystalline beads of moisture.
Penny glanced over at Hector to see that he was still curled up in blissful sleep. Penny was about to lay her head back down when something moving about in the trees caught her eye. In a surreal moment, a soft glow fluttered out of the ferns and branches, and a human figured emerged into the clearing, radiating an unearthly light. Penny recognized the face of the person and clapped her hands over her mouth.
“Mom?” Penny gasped, springing to her feet. Several feet away stood Paulina Fairfax, pale gray in the light of the moon. She was wearing the same set of clothes Penny had last seen her in. Penny began to rush toward her and stopped, digging her heels into the rain-softened soil. Something was not right.
A look of supreme fright crossed her mother’s face, and Paulina turned and fled into the forest. Still holding the knife, Penny gritted her teeth. She couldn’t let this chance go by.
She dove into the brush and pursued her mother, calling for her to stop. Penny sensed the danger, but she could not let her mother disappear without at least speaking to her. Deeper and deeper into the trees she went until she burst out of the overgrowth into a small clearing with just enough space between the trunks to move about.
There, in the center of the clearing, stood an expectant Paulina smiling at Penny. Stepping forward, Penny observed it wasn’t just the moonlight that had blanched her mother’s skin and hair. Paulina’s body had taken on a lustrous white coloring. Penny’s stance turned defensive, her stomach feeling like she’d missed a step on the way down a flight of stairs.
“Mom! Answer me! How did you get here? Why do you look so…weird?” Penny whispered.
Paulina smiled again and held her arms open to Penny.
They stood frozen in their respective places, Penny not daring to break the eerie gaze her mother beamed in her direction. The look was enough to convince her that the specter was not her mother.
Turning to flee, Penny discovered with
heart-wrenching terror that her foot was stuck fast to the ground. She cried out, realizing that a writhing bundle of snake-like vines had wrapped their way around her ankles. Sharp thorns dug into her legs.
Penny struggled and the vines squeezed tighter, traveling up her legs until they bound them together. Like dispersing mist, the shade of her mother melted into a ball of light that she now realized was attached to the vine that gripped her. The vine had been laced through the tree tops the whole time. Her eyes followed the tendrils in a blind panic and with a sick realization she saw it connected to a massive rose rooted some fifteen feet beyond the clearing, with acid pink petals and several long, needle-like protrusions emerging from the leaves below the bloom.
The vines that held to her legs yanked her to the ground, throwing her turbulently side to side as Penny wielded the knife, aiming for the tendrils. In a sudden surge, one of the thorns shot out from the bloom and pierced into Penny’s shoulder. A blinding flash of pain ripped through her and Penny howled, the knife slipping from her fingers in her moment of weakness.
The thorns tore into her legs, leaving trails of blood that shone black in the murky light. Something hot burned deep inside her shoulder, seeping outward from the thorn. Summoning all her courage, Penny wrenched the thorn out from her shoulder and tossed it away with a shout. The vines were now halfway around her midsection.
I won’t die here! Not like this! she told herself, fighting back the urge to give into her fear. With one final burst of energy, Penny flung her body backward and grasped at the knife that lay just a few feet away in the grass. Her fingers grazed the blade and she managed to take hold of it, feeling a surge of hope.
Penny slashed through vine after vine in a desperate frenzy. She cut into her legs several times in her violent movements, but her terror eclipsed the pain. Another thorn shot out from the plant and landed with a thud in the grass, just missing her abdomen. Struggling back to her feet Penny fled, urging her feet to move faster as she heard the sounds of slithering vines following.
The Angel of Elydria (The Dawn Mirror Chronicles Book 1) Page 7
