by Lindsey Duga
I looked down at the glowing shell, tracing my fingers along the jagged edges, and then passed it to Alder.
For a moment he just held the shell, but then blue mana bled out of his fingers. The astral energy spread like blue arteries, pumping life and Alder’s own unique mana into the water gate’s key.
When the entire shell was encased in a blue glow, it flashed with light and shrunk to the size and composition of a small pearly-pink stone. Sweeping his thumb across the surface, Alder dropped the stone into my hand.
“Why don’t you do the honors?”
“Can I?” I asked Raysh.
“It does not matter who infuses the key into its element, just as long as it has his mana.”
A small thrill went through me as I moved my wrist back in a whip-like motion and chucked the stone. It skipped across the surface of the lake, hitting it three times before sinking into the water.
Alder shielded his eyes from the sun and gave a low whistle. “Three skips. Pretty impressive.”
“Thanks, I’m hoping to bring back the gold.” I grinned. I never remembered learning how to skip rocks, but I must’ve at some point. “Did you teach me how to do that?”
Alder smirked, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I might’ve.”
A second later, the entire lake rippled.
I grabbed Alder’s arm, a sudden alarming thought coming to me. “Do you think—do you think it’s going to flood?” I asked, my voice hitching in fear.
Before Alder could answer, the bottom fell out of the sky.
Torrents of rain crashed down upon us and I gasped, water flying into my mouth as it hit my face and cheeks and covered me and everything around me in mere seconds.
Of course. The water in the Smokies didn’t just come from the lakes and rivers and brooks.
It came from its storms. They were wild and unpredictable.
Like a spirit itself.
The translucent fox didn’t mind it one bit. The emissary just turned and walked away, his glowing form disappearing into the dark downpour. “Until tomorrow.”
Alder’s hand grabbed mine, tugging me forward. “This way!” he called over the pounding rain.
I followed him while trying to keep the water out of my eyes. I expected to never be dry again.
We didn’t have to run very far. Through the driving showers, I could make out a structure—an old abandoned home. It was small with red paint peeling off the sides, revealing white worn wood, consumed by time and the elements. Alder tugged me onto the decaying porch and through the rotting door, our footsteps squeaking and creaking across the splintering floorboards.
The rain sounded like it was going to tear through the roof. Pushing back my wet mane of hair from sticking to my cheeks, I eyed the ceiling warily. “How long do you think it’ll last?”
Alder hovered in the doorway, looking straight up into the sky. “You can never tell with these storms.”
Wild. Unpredictable.
Unable to resist, I took in the navy shirt plastered to his skin, outlining the muscles in his back and shoulders. Everything about him was powerful—wild, mystical, entrancing, a storm in his own right.
Yet he was wonderfully gentle, too. Petting the otter spirits, carrying me, drawing out the poisonous mana from my skin.
Maybe he was more like heat lightning. A storm off in the distance, where the thunder was too far to hear and the summer lightning would flash against high clouds on the horizon, illuminating the sky. He had all the mystery and wonder of a storm, but none of its destruction.
“I don’t get what?”
Alder turned away from watching the rain and raised an eyebrow in confusion. “What?”
“Back before the water gate, you said I don’t get it. What don’t I get?”
“Oh.” He paled just slightly, his back-to-blond hair still dripping water down his jaw and neck. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Nope, definitely worrying about it.”
Alder hesitated, his arms crossing his chest. “I’m not sure how you’ll handle it.”
I placed my hands on my hips. “Well, you’ll just have to risk it. Tell me.”
He let out a puff of air that sounded a bit like a laugh, then glanced around the old house. Well, really, it was more like a shack.
“Briony, you…” He stared at me for a long moment. Like a gentleman, his gaze was locked on my face, but I was keenly aware of my own wet clothes and highly thankful that I’d chosen to wear an olive green shirt today.
“Spit it out, Alder.”
“I’m the conduit for all three planes.”
“Yeah, and?”
“Even though I go to the ethereal world, I’m not supposed to stay there. I can talk to spirits there, I can even befriend some, but I can’t have conversations with them. I can’t really argue about something worthwhile, or play Clue, or just relax and eat blackberry pie. You were my first friend, Briony. You were the person who reached out to me.
“I’ve talked to the other folks in the valley once or twice. And they’re nice. But they look at me strangely on the rare occasions that I pretend to be a hiker, just passing through. It’s like they know, on some level, that I’m not really, fully human. And besides, ever since I’d realized what I’d done to you, I never got close to anyone else.”
He ran both hands through his wet hair, eyes glassy, jaw clenched, and body coiled tight, reminding me of the kingsnake on the rocks.
Guarding itself.
“It’s…I’m…” He swallowed.
“Lonely,” I filled in for him.
Without realizing it, I’d moved closer to him. Very subtly, he nodded, as if he couldn’t stand to admit it. To say it out loud.
I couldn’t blame him. Much of my days following the fire had been lonely. I hadn’t known my father very well at that point. The amnesia was fresh. And after this woman, who was supposedly my mother, left us, I was constantly asking myself if she had left because of me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“That’s not why I told you.” He dropped his hand and sighed, still actively avoiding my gaze. “I just want you to understand why I can’t lose you again. Not to a fire, not to a guardian. Not to a force of nature. Not to anyone or anything. Never again.”
While I remained speechless, he turned away to continue watching the storm.
Unable to resist the confession that hit me like a gale strength wind, tossed me around like white water rapids, and crushed me like a landslide…I slid my hands around his chest and hugged him from behind, pressing my cheek against his back, right in the spot in between his shoulder blades.
He was frozen under my hold, his body incredibly stiff. It was like hugging a tree. But I only tightened my hold, the gap inside my chest trembling and aching.
“I wish I hadn’t lost you,” I murmured.
The pounding of rain filled the pause that followed, an unrelenting, mindless sound that was almost a relief. A relief that there was something to fill the emptiness following my admission.
I don’t think I’d ever said something quite so vulnerable in my life, and the awkwardness of it made me draw away. But before I could step back and place more distance between us, Alder twisted back around, catching hold of my arms.
He intertwined our fingers, and the hint of his mana nudged against my skin. I knew he was holding it back, but I wished he wouldn’t. Part of me wanted his mana to fill the reservoir I’d practically emptied at the water gate, but most of me just wanted to feel his skin. The warmth and the calluses of his fingers, the smoothness of his palms, and the intimate touch of the inside of his wrist.
“You’re holding back,” I noted.
His fingers tightened against mine. “For good reason. My mana is what got you into this mess.”
I sighed. “You worry too much.�
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“Also for good reason.” He stepped into my space and leaned his head down to rest on my shoulder. His autumn breath chilled my collarbone, goose bumps washing over my skin, even though I’d never felt so warm in my life.
“I really missed you.” His lips brushed my skin. I wanted to feel them, too.
Letting go of his hands, I ran mine over his shoulders and upward into his short hair on the nape of his neck. Still, he held back his mana and the real, human touch of him. Human, or spirit, he was cutting himself off from me.
But truthfully, I didn’t much care about the mana in that moment. I wanted to feel him.
Skating my hands from the back of his neck, I cupped his jaw, and he followed my direction, lifting his face closer to mine.
His mana flared under my touch and in that quick impulse, the Smokies rushed through me like rapids. But I ignored the mountain senses. It was his warm, damp skin that I’d been after. I wanted more of him. Wanted to breathe him in like the air my lungs had been craving for all those years away from this valley.
A thunderclap shook the skies and the shack around us.
It ripped me back to my senses, crashing to reality like the lightning striking a few miles away.
Alder stepped back so quick and fast that the absence of him was what I imagined missing a limb to be like. Turning to the side, I tried to calm my breathing—it was too shallow, too unnatural to pretend that moment hadn’t just shaken me to my core.
We stayed apart and didn’t say a word for the next half hour while the rain continued its dance across the forests, hitting every surface of leaf and tree, and flower, and stone, and creating an endless, haunting echo throughout the mountains.
Chapter Eighteen
I made it back to Gran’s just a few hours before dinner and found the house completely empty and Izzie’s CRV gone. Alder had left me outside the garden, so now here I was, standing on the welcome rug, alone, still soaking wet and dripping all over the embroidered sunflowers.
Were they still at Bridge Club?
I took a long, hot shower and changed into capris and a razor-back tank, choosing sandals this time, since my sneakers were practically ruined after traipsing all over the mountains and the ethereal plane. While snacking on some strawberries from the fridge, I took a look around the house. Izzie had done a lot of work, and the guilt of having my best friend take care of my grandmother and clean my grandmother’s house made the usually sweet fruit taste bitter. So I shoved them back in the fridge and moved through the house, hoping to find something to clean or something to do that wouldn’t make me feel quite so crappy.
There were little things, like that morning’s breakfast dishes and taking in the laundry from the clothesline outside. While my grandmother had invested in a washer, she had not, apparently, bothered with a dryer. It was just lucky that the storm from the water gate had been isolated by the lake and hadn’t soaked Gran’s drying laundry. Unclipping some of my grandmother’s long skirts, I folded them neatly and put them into a wicker basket. I took a moment to smooth my fingers over the woven fibers, feeling a distant memory try to rise to the surface.
But there was nothing.
Sighing, wishing more than anything I could get just a sliver, like the memory of the fairy figurine and the broken wing, I turned back to the clotheslines.
Izzie had even washed sheets. They were white with small blue flowers printed on the edges. A breeze sent waves of white fabric rippling in the wind.
And that’s when it came.
A very small memory, but precious.
I was a child, weaving in and out of the sheets blowing with the summer breeze. I was running from someone, maybe hiding. I was trying not to laugh. A tan hand jerked back the white sheet, fingers wrinkling the intricate blue flowers. I dodged away from the blond boy, my seeker, and ducked under another sheet that hung on the opposite clothesline. Giggling. The boy followed, hoisting up the sheets and calling my name.
“Brye, I found you! You’re it!”
The sound of my laughter came back to me, sweet and bitter, like the strawberries I’d had, and echoing in the hole inside my chest.
Blinking, I stood there, clutching the clean, dry sheet to my chest and trying to hold onto the memory, to burn every single detail in my brain.
Alder.
We really had been friends. I knew I wouldn’t get all my memories back, but this was why I’d been so determined to come and stay here. Answers. Pieces of myself.
Knowing he’d been dear to me was one thing. Actually seeing it, felt like my heart was ripping itself in two.
With shaky hands, I stuffed the sheets into the basket and brought them inside to Gran’s room to make her bed. I tugged the fitted sheets tight around the edges and then fluffed the main sheet. As it whipped up, the sheet knocked over a glass on Gran’s nightstand.
Cursing under my breath, I moved around the bed and let loose a sigh of relief. The cup hadn’t broken because it was plastic, but it still had been half filled. Most of the water had gotten on the floor, but some of it had dripped into the drawer of her nightstand.
After grabbing a rag from the kitchen, I mopped up the water on the floor and opened the drawer. Luckily, there wasn’t much in it. Gran’s reader glasses, a few pill bottles, some pens, and a paperback romance novel with a vampire guy on the cover with his nipple showing. Fangs of Desire.
“Good for you, Gran,” I muttered, wiping off a few water droplets from the cover and placing it back in the drawer. The one thing that had not gotten wet, thankfully, was a loose sheet of paper.
I meant to shove it back inside the drawer, not wanting to snoop—when the name on it stopped me dead.
This was a letter. Signed by Heather.
Heather as in…my mother.
I devoured it.
Dear Mom,
You’ll be angry at me for this. For years and years, probably. But you’re also a mother, so I know you will understand on some level. And I know you’ll never stop loving me, no matter how angry this makes you.
I have to go. You know I do. Jimmy thinks it’s superstitious nonsense, but you and I both know it’s not. He’ll come for her again and try to take her away from me. I can’t let that happen. I will take her place and hopefully that will satisfy him. I pray that it will be enough, but if not, please, keep her away from this valley. I’m sorry to take you away from your only granddaughter, but you know what’s at stake.
Please don’t tell Jimmy and Briony. Especially Briony. I don’t want this to hang over her all her life. They’ve already taken her past—I won’t let them take her future. She deserves happiness, even if I am not a part of her life. Don’t tell Jimmy. I don’t want him to worry about me and what I’ve done. Besides, he will take care of our daughter. He’ll move her away and it will be for the best.
I love you to the tops of the mountains, around the moon, and down the slopes of the valley.
Love,
Your Heather
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, reading the letter. Rereading it. And reading it again. I read it so many times that I’d memorized most of it.
Mom hadn’t just left one night because she couldn’t handle a daughter with no memory of her with a husband that argued with her all the time. She hadn’t just left because she no longer loved me or Dad.
There had been no rabbit hole.
She had gone to the spirit world because of me.
To take my place. For what, I couldn’t even guess.
I felt like throwing up. My stomach heaving, I rushed into Gran’s bathroom and splashed water on my face to help get rid of the terrible nausea.
Alder had said it was his fault that all this was happening, and I’d tried to tell him that he’d just been a kid, so he couldn’t be blamed for that.
But I realized that nothing I said could stop that
guilt. That terrible, sickening feeling that you had caused someone so much pain.
Because now I felt it, too. Mom had loved me, and it was my fault that she was locked in the spirit world in the first place. This whole time I’d thought maybe she’d somehow stumbled into it. Or the same spirit that had gone after me might have just taken her, too. Because that’s what this spirit did. Took people.
But it was so much worse than that. She had left to ensure my safety. She had…sacrificed herself for me.
Looking up from the sink, I saw my reflection in Gran’s mirror. Saw how the water dripped off my face and ran down my throat and passed over my lips.
I wasn’t sure how much of that was water from the sink, or my own tears.
…
Pacing the living room, I got more and more antsy. Gran and Izzie still weren’t back yet. Not that it was a cause for concern, but I was desperate to talk to Gran about the letter. To ask her what she’d known.
At last it made sense. This letter was why Gran had never contacted me for six years, and why the minute I’d shown up on her doorstep she wanted to turn me away. Because even though Mom might have sacrificed herself to this spirit, there was no telling if the spirit might want me again if I ever returned.
She’d also never told Dad why she left because she knew he didn’t believe in nature spirits. Jimmy thinks it’s superstitious nonsense.
Finally, I got fed up with waiting and decided to take Gran’s truck and go see them at bridge. From my short stay here between the fire and when Dad moved us to Knoxville, I remembered the local town was tiny. Just a cluster of houses and local shops off the well-beaten path of one of Tennessee’s many highways. I should be able to find it even without Google Maps.
I couldn’t stay in that house alone for one more second. In the back of my mind, I considered going to Alder to tell him what I’d found, but the letter felt fiercely private, and I didn’t want to pull him into my guilt spiral as well. I was almost certain he’d blame himself for this, too, even more than he already did.
No, I felt as if this was my burden to bear alone.
Plus, it didn’t help that seeing him after that almost-kiss was going to be incredibly awkward.
