by Lindsey Duga
And she just did it.
She’d believed in that old legend. Knew there were spirits in the mountains and believed some kind of god had come to steal her daughter away. So she went to take my place.
Pushing back my tears and steadying my voice, I said softly, “I never knew that before.”
“Yes, well, I imagine Jim doesn’t talk about your mother much.”
My non-response was answer enough.
“She loved you, you know,” Gran whispered in the silence of the cab. “I know you may not believe that…after, well, her leaving. But…”
“No, Gran, I do. I know.”
She reached over and patted my thigh. “You’re a good girl, Briony.”
Was I, though? I’d been lying to her most of the weekend. But now that I knew the truth, it made it so much harder.
“Gran…” It was now or never. I could ask her about the letter, whether Mom had ever mentioned what kind of spirit had come to our house within the flames that day.
But her sniffling stopped me.
I glanced over and she was dabbing her eyes with a tissue, weeping as quietly as she could. “Gran? Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she replied, her voice thick with tears as she tried to pull them back. “I don’t mean to blubber. I just…sometimes I wonder if there was something I could’ve done to stop your mother from leaving. I believe she had a good reason, but I wish she would’ve confided in me more. Maybe there was something we could’ve done together. But then, I think if I were her…” She sighed and shook her head. “Never mind. It’s all in the past. Nothing to be done about it now.”
Her words, while painful, accomplished one thing. They told me Gran knew as little as I did. I stayed quiet the rest of the way home. There was no point in making her cry a second time.
Chapter Nineteen
“Iz, I’m not talking about this anymore.”
“Oh, c’mon! His bride—his bride!” Izzie flicked her wet hands at me, spraying me with soapy droplets.
We were washing dishes after I had made dinner. Pork cutlets with balsamic glaze and wild rice pilaf. I’d be lying if I said Gran’s praise that my cooking skills could win Chopped didn’t make me feel like I’d actually won the real thing. Izzie had then said I could finally upgrade my food truck to a brick-and-mortar restaurant and then cure cancer with my ten thousand dollars. I balled up my napkin and threw it at her.
“I’m telling you,” I said, taking a plate from her and wiping it dry with my towel, “he’s not trying to steal me away or make me his bride. I mean, he barely touches me unless he has to.”
All the times he held my hand in the ethereal plane, made sure to keep me close, and brushed my cheeks to make sure I was all right didn’t count. I didn’t feel him at all. So how could he have felt me, too? Besides, most of our intimate moments I had initiated.
Izzie gaped at me. “Do you want him to?”
“No!”
“You’re such a bad liar. Luckily, you have me to cover your ass.”
I frowned, placing the plate on the shelf with the rest of the set. “You’re missing the point entirely. I’m just saying, it’s not Alder. It has to be some other spirit that was after me. Some other spirit that took Mom.”
“Uh-huh, and who told you that?”
“Alder. But—”
“He also told you that when spirits enter the physical plane they turn into fire, right? And that’s supposed to explain your house. Well, what about that fox spirit you mentioned? How come he’s able to cross into the physical plane and not burst into flames?”
“Because he’s an emissary.”
“Well, that’s convenient.”
“Izzie.”
“Briony.” She turned off the hot water and stared at me.
“What?” I asked, growing uncomfortable under her long stare.
“I’ve never seen you this way before.”
“What way before?”
“Trusting.”
Was that what I was doing? Trusting Alder? I mean, in a way, I supposed I did. I believed him. But also, it didn’t make sense otherwise. If he truly wanted to take me away, he could’ve done so already many times. Instead he tried to drive me away from the valley. He tried to convince me not to go after the spirit gates and let him go instead. If his actual plans were to steal me away, he simply didn’t have to bring me back to the physical world.
Also, there was an inherent wrongness to the idea.
I felt it in my chest, in my gut, and every bone, muscle, vein…
I shrugged, hanging the dish towel on the oven handle. “It’s not about trust, it’s about what makes sense. I mean, if he wanted me as his bride—which sounds ridiculous by the way—he could’ve kidnapped me a while ago.”
“Look, girl, it’s not that I think he’s a bad guy. In fact, I kinda like him. He actually does seem to care about you. But this whole local legend and that mystery spirit has me really worried about you. I know you’ve gotta rescue your mom, and I get that, but I wish you’d let me help you somehow.”
In that moment, the TV blared with the sound of police sirens. Gran was watching Dateline again. I glanced in the direction of the den and crossed my arms, leaning my hip against the counter and thinking back to the way she patted my knee in the truck. “You are helping me. You’re watching Gran for me, and I need that more than you know.”
Izzie shrugged. “You’re going through a lot. I want to help wherever I can.”
“No, really, you’re amazing for doing this.” I remembered early this evening when I had wandered through the house looking for things to do while Izzie had already done so much. “Not just any friend would be willing to do what you’ve done.”
Her smile faded slightly, then her gaze moved to stare out the window at the fireflies in the garden. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Brye, but as long as I’ve known you, I’ve always felt like you were…pretending somehow.”
Her statement threw me off guard and unwillingly, my heart stung, enough to make me wince.
“Not like you were lying or deceiving anyone,” Izzie said hurriedly, “but more like you were pretending to…be yourself. Like you didn’t necessarily know who you were or what you liked. One time it took you ten minutes to decide on a flavor of ice cream, and when other girls complained you took too long, you started making snap decisions. As if to pretend you knew what you wanted all along.”
I listened to her every word, hanging on each one. I never knew Izzie had seen through me so easily.
“So when you called me that night to tell me you were going to your gran’s, I just…I heard it in your voice. I don’t know what it was exactly. But I knew I wanted to be there for you.”
Our conversation came back to me from the phone that night. “You’ll still be you,” she’d said.
So that’s what she’d meant.
I hugged my best friend tightly. “You are getting, like, seven new friendship bracelets.”
…
It was so early in the morning that it was still dark out when I dropped from the trellis into Gran’s garden. With one day until the solstice, I was now officially panicking. I just had to pray that this next gate was relatively easy to open.
As I stepped through bluebells and the climbing star-shaped clematis, I scanned the tree line of the forest, looking for any sign of Alder.
The few wisps out in the gardens and woods seemed to wake up when they sensed my mana. I imagined them without their misty glowing aura—as regular fireflies pulsing with soft flashes of yellow light—but the image didn’t come to mind easily. These spirits had been a part of my world, and even though I couldn’t remember the details, I felt their presence like I felt my toes—there, but not always conscious of them.
One floated by my elbow, and I watched, entranced, as it landed on a black-
eyed Susan and the glow took on a green hint. As the wisp sank into the flower, four more black-eyed Susans sprouted before my very eyes.
It was as if the wisp had taken on the element of the physical matter it touched…and enhanced it. It fed energy through it, and the flowers responded, like my own body had when touching the ethereal poison ivy. I’d been infused with mana, bursting with it.
“Briony!” a whisper called across the garden and through the trees. Alder stepped from between the trees, his silver hair radiant in the light of the wisps that hovered around him.
Making sure to step as lightly as I could, I hurried to the edge of the garden, and Alder fell into step beside me.
We moved through the forest, the crunch of growth under my sneakers echoing in the early morning. Several birds called from the trees, and through the leaves I could just barely make out the hints of sunrise as it crested the mountains. The signature mist of the Smokies was sure to be settling and hanging low on the ridges. I somewhat regretted not being able to see it, since the morning was always the perfect time to see what made the Blue Ridges…blue.
“So,” Alder said after a while, reminding me how we really hadn’t said all that much since the moment in the abandoned house during the storm, “you’re up early.”
“I’m antsy,” I admitted, thinking about the letter and the very tight deadline. We had so little time to open two more gates before the solstice.
Alder nodded. He seemed a little on edge, too. He was usually tense, but the mana around him felt electric this morning, as if it was taking on Alder’s nervous, anxious emotions.
Again, I wondered if I should tell him about the letter, but I didn’t think it would change anything. Alder knew there was a spirit that tried to take me to the ethereal plane as a child. What he hadn’t mentioned was anything about the local legend of some strange bride sacrifice.
He’d even said multiple times that he knew very little about the spirit world himself. He was a spirit, but with a human body. While Raysh was ancient, Alder was no more than eighteen. How much could you know as an eighteen-year-old about a world as old as time, especially when most of these spirits didn’t seem very forthcoming about its history or rules?
So maybe there was another powerful spirit…or god…that actually did mark girls and spirit them away to be their brides. It was worth asking.
“Hey.”
“Hm?” Alder glanced over his shoulder, parting branches for me, and I ducked under them. I paused and his brow furrowed, reading the stress on my face. “What is it?”
“Are there…gods in the spirit world, too?”
Alder’s hand gripped the spot above my elbow. I glanced up at him in surprise. His gold eyes glowed, and his whole body seemed charged and electric, as if a lightning bolt just hit him. “Why do you ask?”
I hadn’t quite been expecting that reaction. “Some of the women Gran plays bridge with mentioned a local legend. Something about a god taking a girl away to be his bride.”
Alder paled but said nothing. He dropped my arm.
I hadn’t been expecting that, either. I thought he would’ve just brushed it off. With a laugh and a shake of his head and say, “Are you listening to all that nonsense?”
“What? Is it actually true?” I said, a nervous chuckle escaping me.
“I…” He took a deep breath, rubbing his hand over his eyes. “No, it’s not true.”
He hesitated.
Instantly, alarm bells went off in my head. He was lying. How could I trust him if he lied?
But as I studied him, I noticed his expression. He was pained—conflicted, the muscles in his neck tight and his eyes pleading. Something was wrong. He’d been genuine and truthful up to this point. There had to be a good reason.
Closing the distance between us, I tugged his arm lower so I could look him in the eyes. “Alder, please tell me what you know.”
I thought about my mother going into the spirit world on my behalf. To take my place. This wasn’t just about me finding out about my past anymore, this was about saving an innocent woman who’d loved me.
Grazing my hand up his arm and around his wrist, I wound my fingers into his. “You can tell me anything.”
He looked down at our fingers intertwined, then swallowed and said, “It’s probably me they’re talking about,” he confessed, his eyes searching my face, gauging my reaction.
“What do you mean?”
“There were other conduits before me, Brye. It’s not like I had parents or anything like that, but there were other human spirits in this valley before me. What if my predecessors did kidnap other humans away to the spirit world? Maybe because they were lonely. Just like…”
“No, not like you,” I said forcefully.
“But there were so many times I just wanted someone to be there.” Alder’s voice was strangled now, yet still quiet, like he couldn’t stand to say it too loud. To admit the depth of his longing for companionship.
I took a step closer, pressing my other hand against his chest, right over his heart. “Who cares what your predecessors did? You haven’t taken anyone away from their friends and family. Alder, you tried to send me away when I got here because you were worried for me.”
Alder moved his hands to my wrists. His thumbs swept across the back of my hands while his strong fingers rested on the inside of my pulse. I worried he could feel its incessant, wild pounding. I tried to calm it, but that only made it worse, and before I knew what I was doing, I was opening my big fat mouth. “The Firefly Festival.”
His brow furrowed in confusion. “The festival in the town?”
My cheeks burned as I kept my gaze locked with his. “Yes, so you know it?”
“Of course, it happens every solstice. It’s to celebrate the firefly synchronization in the Smokies—I mean, they think it’s fireflies.”
“Alder—”
“But it’s actually the mana of the wisps aligning during the solstice when the barriers weaken—”
“Alder, I’m trying to ask if you want to go with me,” I said, louder than I meant to. But I was so flustered that it came out a few decibels too loud.
Alder blinked, staring down at me with raised eyebrows and parted lips.
And so I started to blabber. “I mean, of course, that’s if we get Mom back and everything goes smoothly. But if we can’t make the festival, then I think that—”
A rustling to our left cut me off, and I was actually grateful to see Raysh jump through the bushes and land gracefully in front of us, his tail flicking irritably.
“Finally found you two. Come now, we haven’t a moment to waste.”
My gut churned uncomfortably. Raysh was right. What was I doing talking to Alder about going to festivals when we had only a day before the solstice?
Argh! Darn him and his puppy-dog eyes.
“Something wrong?” Raysh asked, looking from me to Alder.
I shook my head vigorously. “Nope. Absolutely not. Let’s go.”
Alder said nothing, but his hand was hot as he held mine, and we stepped into the ethereal plane.
…
We arrived in a grove of mountain maple and ash trees. I knew them to grow only in the highest elevations of the Smokies, so we had to be farther up in the mountains than we’d been before. Even in the spirit world, my chest was a little tight from the elevation, making it slightly harder to breathe. Through the trees, I could see the valley stretch out before us in emerald slopes and a crystalline blue river running through.
Raysh’s red-orange fur glowed bright in the light of the rising sun. The entire grove was illuminated in a rustic gold hue, with the shadows of the trees stretching the length of the clearing.
We’d barely taken two steps before a voice pierced the quiet of the grove. “I’ve foounnnd her,” it sang.
Alder tugged me behind him j
ust as a mountain lion appeared around the bend of the trees.
Terror ran through me as its mouth rippled back into a snarl, showing sharp white fangs. “The human.” Its voice had a gleeful, creepy note to it.
“Oh, look what the cat dragged in and hacked up,” Raysh sneered, his own lips curling back to bare his fangs, too.
The mountain lion, technically an eastern cougar, swung its head to glare at Raysh. Its yellow eyes gleamed in the faint, early light of the grove. “Run along, Raysh, if you don’t want to see me slice up your little human.”
Raysh took two steps forward, positioning his slender body in front of me. “She’s not to be touched.”
“Who are you to tell me that? I’m actually surprised you’re not on my side.” The cougar jumped onto a rock that jutted out of the ground in the middle of the grove, its claws scraping over the stone and tearing at my nerves like nails on a chalkboard.
Alder flexed his wrist at his side as if he were preparing to throw a wind-up pitch. “Back off, Ashka.”
The cougar called Ashka swung her head toward Alder and let out a hiss. “Don’t tell me what to do. Spirit or not, you smell like a human and you brought her here. Which might make you the worst of them all.” Her eyes flashed and she crouched low, shoulders hunching and claws curling in, preparing to pounce.
“We don’t need to fight,” Alder said.
“We do.” The next second, Ashka lunged, her claws directed right at my very exposed neck. But Alder was too fast—or just fast enough. Throwing out his arm, shots of green mana hit two mountain maple trees and large branches grew at lightning speed, catching the cougar in a web of wood and leaves.
Ashka snarled and snapped, twisting in between the branches, scratching at the wood, large shavings falling to the ground in clean peels. Under hissing and growls, I could just barely make out her threats. “You’ll regret this, boy. I’ll have this girl’s heart in my jaws before she can do any more damage.”
It might have been all the snarling, but the cougar spirit’s words prickled the hair on the back of my neck. Alder pressed a gentle hand on my lower back and guided me out of the grove, his other hand glowing green while more branches wound themselves into a sort of makeshift cage for the angry cat.
