by Tom Mohan
Liza walked down the mound until the fog covered her bare feet and ankles. She was surprised at the familiarity of the feeling of damp grass beneath her feet. As she stepped onto level ground, the scent of flowers grew stronger, and she saw that the floor of the clearing beneath the mist was covered in blue-tinted flowers. Her leg brushed against one, and a searing pain shot through her as the flower’s touch burned like acid.
She jumped back to the safety of the mound and inspected the wound. It was already blistered, like a burn, but that appeared to be all. The ground was covered with the flowers in all directions. How was she to follow the fae creature if she was trapped?
She walked the edge of the mound until she came to a narrow path through the flowers, just visible beneath the mist. The path wound in the opposite direction of the creature that wished her to follow it.
As Liza stepped onto the path, a shadow rose from the flowers to her left. The fae creature was slight and stood about as high as Liza’s shoulders. It had skin the hue of the flowers and dark hair that disappeared into the mist around its legs. It wore a dark shift that hung loose over its body. The face was that of a pretty young woman with almond-shaped eyes that shone in the illumination of the mist. Like the flying creature, she pointed away from the path.
“I cannot go that way,” Liza said. “The flowers hurt me.”
Still the fae creature pointed in the other direction. It did not speak, but its face clearly displayed its displeasure with her words. Liza took another step along the path. The fae matched her pace but stayed in the flowers, never entering the path. Another of the creatures, identical to the first as far as she could tell, appeared on the other side of the path several yards away. It, too, pointed in the opposite direction. Liza turned to look back upon the safety of the mound and saw two more of the fae behind her, both in the flowers away from the path. All four of the creatures looked unhappy with her actions.
“I can’t walk through the flowers,” Liza said. “I have to stay on the path.” The tremor in her voice betrayed the fear and uncertainty she felt at being surrounded by them. That part of her mind that had opened to Tír na nÓg tickled with a memory, but she could not bring it up enough for it to be of help. There was something important here—she simply did not know what it was.
She continued forward, following the path toward the trees. More of the creatures surrounded her, all still as statues and pointing the other way. Liza’s anxiety heightened as she neared the edge of the forest. Nothing felt right, not the path nor the field of flowers. Both ways felt wrong to her. She did not see any other options.
I can’t walk in the flowers. They can’t walk the path.
There was meaning in that. Something important. Liza took the pendant in her hand and felt its warmth spread through her.
What am I missing?
Movement in front of her drew Liza’s attention. She looked up to see someone step out of the forest onto the path before her.
Not someone. Herself.
Liza stared at the figure who stood only a few paces away. It looked just like her, wore the same robe, even had the burn scar on its right leg and the scratch on its left. It was like looking into a mirror.
“Who are you?”
“Who do you think I am?” The woman’s voice sounded like Liza’s own.
“You look like me.”
“I am you.”
Liza shook her head. “No, you can’t be me. There is only one of me.”
The other Liza smiled. “Really? Why?”
“It’s the way things are. Reality.”
The woman took a step closer. “That would depend on whose reality you are speaking of, wouldn’t it? I have waited a long time for you to come, Kiari. Longer than you could know.”
“Who are you?” Liza asked again.
The woman took another step closer, standing only a few feet away now. “I am you. You are me. We are one.”
Liza wanted to turn and run, but she could not take her eyes from the other her. The feeling that something important was about to happen grew stronger. She knew she could not run from it.
The other Liza stepped up to her and wrapped her in a gentle embrace. Liza felt the warm breath on her neck. Then the woman pulled away enough to look into Liza’s face before giving her a light kiss on the lips. In that brief moment, there was a connection between them, and everything became clear.
Liza knew who she was and the knowledge filled her with dread.
Fallon could not believe how the world outside had changed in such a short time. Before leaving City Hall, they went in the back to check on Kerry and see if they might find anything that could be of use in their plan. Marcas had considered taking a gun, but they were locked up and trying to get the key from Kerry would have been more trouble than any of them felt like dealing with. They did find a couple flashlights. Fallon also helped herself to a police jacket that would have fit three of her. When they returned to the front of the building, everything beyond the windows was completely obscured by a gray fog.
“Ever see anything like that before?” Marcas asked.
“It could just be fog, couldn’t it?” Fallon asked. The fog gave the impression of heavy drapes hung behind the windows. Fallon was almost as blind inside the building as she knew she would be out there.
“Could be,” Nidawi said. “But in all my years—and that’s a lot—I don’t think I’ve ever seen it that thick in these parts. Especially not this time of year.”
Fallon gazed at what might as well have been a solid wall before them.
Nidawi shrugged. “I don’t see how this changes anything. We’ve still got to get to the mill. At least now we will be invisible.”
“Yeah, so will everything else,” Fallon said. A marching band was pounding through her head, and her entire body ached. She had always felt like the least of her family, hardly a Finn at all, and now she was one of the few left. She wasn’t sure she had the strength of will to see this through.
Fallon felt an arm wrap around her, hugging her close. “You are stronger than you know, Fallon,” Nidawi said, as though reading her mind. “The love of life and humanity that flows so naturally through you might very well be what is needed this night.”
Fallon’s eyes stung with tears at the ancient woman’s words. She nodded in response.
Nidawi moved to the front door. “If we’re going to do this, no sense putting it off. Stay close to one another. It won’t take much to get lost out there. I also recommend keeping as quiet as possible. As Fallon pointed out, the fog will hide anything else that might be out there, and we want to attract as little attention as possible.”
Without waiting for an answer, she pushed the door open and stepped out. Only a vague shadow of her outline could be seen. Marcas indicated Fallon to go next. The mist felt like a damp blanket wrapping around her. She shivered and took hold of Nidawi’s jacket. She was taking no chances of getting lost in this. As it was, she was not even sure they would be able to find the old mill. She felt Marcas’s hand on her shoulder, and then they were moving through the fog. Nidawi’s movements seemed certain, if slow and cautious.
In no time at all, Fallon was completely disorientated. The tiny town was as strange and alien as if she had arrived on some distant planet. She shivered in the cold and shrugged deeper into the borrowed jacket. The fog was eerily silent, like cotton balls were crammed in her ears.
Nidawi brought them to a sudden halt and pulled them against a wall that Fallon had not even known was there. The Mathair leaned in close to her and Marcas. “Keep silent,” she whispered.
Fallon stood frozen in place, her back pressed against the cold brick. Her eyes darted back and forth in an attempt to distinguish anything through the fog.
She felt it first.
A feeling of such hopelessness and despair that she almost cried out. She covered her mouth with one hand to stifle any sound. Marcas’s hand on her shoulder tightened, and she heard his breath hiss.
Something drew near, s
omething hidden and terrible. None of them moved as it approached. Fallon thought she saw a shadow flit through the fog. The despair that filled her became almost too much to bear.
“Be strong,” came Nidawi’s almost imperceptible whisper in her ear.
Fallon closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing, forcing all other thoughts from her mind. She focused her mind deeper into herself and closed out the world around her. The hopelessness and despair faded, and she knew then that those feelings were intended to betray her to the fae being that lurked in the fog. It radiated those emotions with the purpose of feeling them returned by its prey.
“It has passed. Come.” Nidawi’s whisper pulled Fallon’s mind back, and she realized that the dreadful feelings indeed had faded. Once again, Nidawi moved forward.
Fallon had lost all track of time when they stepped out of the fog as though having passed through a curtain. One moment she was completely blind, the next the night was clear and warm.
“Either we have passed beyond the leakage of Tír na nÓg or the mill itself is keeping the influence at bay,” Nidawi said. “I’m hoping the latter is true. That would give me more confidence in our theory.”
They stood before a wall of trees, a narrow dirt path the only break in the forest. They were just outside of town, and yet the mill had always seemed far away, a world of its own. Few ever followed this path the short distance to the mill, yet the path never faded, never grew over like everything around it. Like the mill itself, it was always there, waiting.
They walked single file, Nidawi in front and Fallon and Marcas bringing up the rear. Even without the fog, the trail was dark, hidden as it was beneath the canopy of trees. Bicycle tracks marked the path where some adventurous kids had ridden to the mill on dares. The trail snaked through the trees for about a hundred yards before opening up to a large clearing long overgrown with grass and thornbushes.
As they moved from the cover of trees, Fallon heard the steady flow of the Chariton River. It had been a rainy spring and early summer, and the river was swollen and high.
The path ended a few yards into the clearing. Few ventured farther. The air held no birdsong, nor did the high grass show any sign of the animal paths that would normally be seen in such a setting.
Nidawi traipsed through the tall grass toward the old mill at the edge of the river. The Chariton River was only forty feet wide where it passed by Halden’s Mill. The mill sat on the bank, as it had for hundreds of years. Unlike the picturesque sawmills seen in rural magazines, this was a large ugly building of stone and rotting wood. The wheel was long gone, as was the log-cabin-like building that had housed it.
Fallon shivered. The place looked cold and uninviting.
Nidawi continued until they stood outside the large opening at the end of the building where the trees used to be brought in to be cut into usable boards. The wooden door that once rolled along the rusted track above the opening had long ago rotted away. The inside held a faint odor that hinted its original use, but the scent of damp rot and neglect also wafted from it.
“Well, we’re here,” Marcas said. “Now what?”
The three of them stared into the darkness of the mill.
“I don’t know,” Nidawi said finally. She took a couple steps inside.
They moved deeper into the building. Marcas’s flashlight illuminated the few items that remained inside. The rumble of thunder reminded Fallon of the storm that lurked to the south. Funny how the fog had masked any sign of it.
Movement from the back of the building caused Marcas to swing the light that way. Two figures stepped out from behind a huge, rusted gear.
“Eoin? Liam? What on earth are you doing here?” Nidawi said.
“Same as you, I’m guessing,” Dadai Eoin said.
He and Dadai Liam both looked like they had been through quite an ordeal. Their clothes were torn and dirty, and cuts and bruises covered most of their exposed skin. One of Liam’s eyes was swollen shut, and Eoin looked as though a handful of hair had been torn from his head.
“Praise be, it’s you,” Liam said. “We thought the fae had found us out when we heard you three out there.”
“What happened to the two of you?” Nidawi looked them over. “You have to fight your way here?”
“That and then some,” Eoin answered. “Liam showed up at my house around dusk, saying he could feel the veil between worlds slipping. I’d felt it myself. We were at a loss of what to do.”
“That’s when the fog started rolling in.” Liam took up the story. “We both knew there was nothing natural about it. It was too cold for one thing, and we could feel the fae as close as can be.”
“Thought about just taking off and hightailing it out of here,” Eoin said.
“Cowards we’re not, though.” The back-and-forth of the two brothers had always fascinated Fallon. They were even closer than Marcas and Conall.
“We both felt something calling us here,” Eoin continued. “Something we had not heard in so long it was almost like trying to catch a dream.”
“It was him, the Prince,” Liam said.
“Conall spoke of a prince,” Fallon said. “And a princess.”
“There be but one Princess,” Liam said. “But two Princes. The fae Prince is an imposter. We were given our charge by the true Prince ages ago, as were your ancestors.”
Fallon was familiar with the legends. The two Princes, one of the light and the other of the dark. Cliché almost, until one realized that these creatures of light and dark were the source of the hundreds of stories that had come since.
And one Princess. She who would make everything right, one way or the other. Nothing in the legends told of the destruction that was happening now, though it made a sort of sense. Whatever happened, the old ways would no longer exist.
“The true Prince, we both heard him we did, told us to come here, to the mill. We had to cut through the woods to do it. Had a run-in with a bunch a’ hobmen.” Eoin’s face was haggard.
“Didn’t think we’d make it,” Liam finished for him.
“Well, you did,” Nidawi said. “We all did. Now we have to figure out why we’re here. I don’t hear your Prince the way you do. I need the earth to give me guidance.” She looked around the building. “I can’t think in here. Need to be outside.” She started for the door.
“You shouldn’t be out there alone,” Marcas said.
“Don’t you worry about me. I’m not going far.” With that, she slipped out of the building.
Marcas handed the flashlight to Fallon and wandered off to a corner of the building, lost in his own thoughts. Eoin and Liam had always been her favorites of the Old Ones. They had doted on her like uncles for as long as she could remember. It broke her heart to see them so bedraggled and confused.
Fallon turned the light off and allowed her mind to drift. One of her gifts was the ability to find good in any situation, to feel the natural love that flowed from the creator. She felt nothing but darkness and dread. She also felt very much alone. She turned to where Nidawi had disappeared into the night.
“Um, guys.” She heard the Dadais’ voices continue their talk. “Guys! Look!”
The world outside the mill was smothered in a thick fog.
“Lordy be, they’ve found us,” Liam said. The three of them stood silent as the wall of mist drifted toward the mill. Inside it, shadows could be seen moving about, shadows that could only be living things. A strobe of light illuminated the fog, followed almost immediately by the crash of thunder. The storm was upon them.
After the thunder came a moment of almost total silence, and then the sound of rain pummeling the old roof drowned out everything else.
Fallon didn’t think she had ever heard rain come down so hard. At the edge of the door, golf-ball-sized hail bounced as it slammed into the ground. There was another flash of light and crash of thunder.
The rain and hail did not appear to affect the fog or those that moved within it. Wispy tongues of mist prob
ed the mill entrance. Fallon gasped as a hand with long, gnarled fingers reached out of the mist before pulling back in.
“It’s the fae,” Eoin said, his voice nearly drowned out by the sound of the storm.
“There’s a back way out,” Marcas said.
“What good will it do, lad?” Liam shook his head. “They’re all around us. Can’t you feel them?”
Marcas didn’t answer, but Fallon could feel them. The fear that had been so unknown to her until recently grew more real with each moment.
“The fear,” she yelled above the din of rain and hail. “You mean the fear.”
“Some of the fae have that ability, to make their victims so scared they just give up,” Liam said. The four of them had grouped together at the back of the room. At the other end, the fog pressed deeper inside.
“Oh my god,” Fallon said. “Nidawi’s out there.”
“Nothing we can do about that, lass.” Eoin tightened his jaw. “Nidawi can take care of herself.”
Around them, water streamed from the old roof as the storm battered it. Fallon didn’t think she’d ever seen hail fall this hard for this long. It crashed over the mill in a constant torrent until she wanted to cover her ears with her hands.
She looked back to the doorway. The fog was moving further into the building. It glowed with a blue light. Shadowed figures moved in the mist. The temperature in the mill dropped as the fog invaded the space.
“This isn’t good,” one of the brothers said. She wasn’t sure which.
Fallon agreed. Not good at all.
“Everyone, get to the back of the mill,” Marcas said. They were all moving in that direction, anyway.
“You feel them?” Liam said. “You feel the fae?”
Marcas nodded. “I’m familiar with the feeling.”
“Oh, right, I guess you would be. Any idea what we do about it?”
“No. If Conall were here, maybe…” He sighed. “No.”
The fog pressed on. Fallon stumbled back as a monstrous, clawed hand swiped out before disappearing back into the mist. “What the hell was that?”
“Nothing we want to fight,” Liam said. They were forced farther back as the fae-filled mist moved closer. “Any ideas, now would be a good time.”
