by Lindsey Duga
After we got a bit away, I glanced up at Alder. “What did she mean by that? What damage have I done?”
“Nothing. Ashka just doesn’t like humans.”
I could understand that, given that most of the cougar population in the Smokies had been wiped out, thanks to hunters in the early 1920s—which happened to be the case with most wildlife before the formation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
But something didn’t sit right with me. No spirits had sought me out before I started opening the gates, but now that I’d opened two, I had a cougar spirit coming after me? Raysh had made it seem like opening the gates wasn’t that big of a deal, but was it a bigger deal to some spirits more than others?
“What are you two doing back there?” Raysh called from way up ahead. I could just make out the fox’s silhouette against the backdrop of the sunrise peeking over the uphill path.
“We’re coming!” I called.
“For fox sake!” Alder added.
I raised my hand, and he high fived it.
As if we’d done it a thousand times.
Even after our heavy conversation, it was comfortable walking alongside him…or it would’ve been if the cougar’s growls and snarls hadn’t kept echoing through my mind. She’d been so angered by my existence in the ethereal plane, which made me wonder, just how mad at me were the guardians for stealing their keys?
And I was about to steal another.
Chapter Twenty
The air gate, naturally, was at the very peak of the mountain.
The pressure in my ears and chest was immense, but nothing compared to the immense beauty of the ethereal plane.
It unfurled below me, a moving patchwork quilt of colored mist. All shades of green, from peridot, to lime, to emerald, to a deep olive. Variations of blue, from sky blue, to periwinkle, to sapphire, to violet. Golds, oranges, pinks, and reds rippled through the valley as the sun’s rays touched each layer of mist, illuminating and saturating the mana in a broad spectrum of vibrant hues.
It was like a Van Gogh painting. And for a moment, I admired the painter’s unique ability to see beyond the physical and look at the world through the lenses of energy. Of seeing the life in every single color. In the starry sky, he saw a thousand shades and brushstrokes, instead of one dark canvas. And that’s how life was—mixing, merging, swirling, beautiful strokes of energy.
“How are you holding up?” Alder asked, shooting me a concerned glance as we got to the top, clearing the copse of mountain ash trees and entering a rocky outcrop of boulders and red spruces and Fraser firs. Dark green mana swirled around the branches and sticky needles of the fir trees, mixing with the silver mana from strong wind gusts that struck the mountain tops.
This time, Alder’s concern was warranted. I didn’t feel very good—probably didn’t look very good, either.
But I couldn’t let him think I wasn’t able to handle this. We needed that key. “I’m fine,” I said quickly, straightening even though the pressure in my spine and chest felt like someone was driving their knuckles into my lower back and collarbone.
“Any idea where the guardian is?” I asked, scanning the skies.
Based off the other two guardians, it wasn’t hard to guess that the air gate was an animal connected to its element. In this case, a bird of some sort.
“He’s out there. Be careful.” In my peripheral, I noticed Raysh curl up under a large spruce, his green eyes flicking about warily from one corner of the sky to the other.
It was the first time I’d seen him look a little nervous.
It made me more nervous.
Meanwhile, Alder glowed silver. All around the outline of his body was a fine layer of silver mist, luminous and curling around his arms, legs, and fingers.
“Heads up.” Alder nodded toward the sky.
Soft blue-silvery clouds descended upon the mountain, touching the ridges around us. High above, through the clouds of heavy fog, a piercing cry split the air.
My heart thundered in my chest.
This is it.
“Are you ready?” Alder asked, the fingers on his right hand glowing green as his earth mana rose to the surface of his skin.
Nodding, I flattened my back against a big and sturdy spruce fir. Alder reached down and pressed his hand against the earth right at my feet. From the spot he touched, vines broke through the ground, wrapping around the tree and giving me handles to hold during the oncoming gales. He’d warned me that any blast of wind he threw at the guardian could knock me off the mountaintop just as easily, so when he offered a solution of a nature harness of some sort, I was all for it.
I couldn’t remember a time when I’d taken someone else’s suggestion so easily and readily. But unlike the water gate, I wasn’t going into this blind. Yes, Alder had powers, but now that I kinda had them, too, it wasn’t just about using him to help me get the key. It was also because…I wanted him there with me this time.
Alder helped wrap the vines around me and I could tell in the way he moved—short, staccato movements—that he was terrified for me. But he didn’t try to push me away. He knew I had to do this, just as I knew I needed him to open this gate with me.
“Remember, if you use your mana,” he said, as he tightened the last vine, “you need to hold back. If you try and just let it loose, it can backfire. It’ll lose control.”
I nodded even though I didn’t quite agree. If I had to use my mana, it would be however I needed. As much as I needed.
As Alder stood, his gaze locked with mine. “Please, be careful.”
I gave him a tiny, hopefully courageous, smile. “Right back at ya.”
As Alder opened his mouth to reply, a blast of wind moved the heavy fog before us, layering itself over our mountaintop in a thick blanket of mist—producing the signature “blue smoke” as the Cherokee had dubbed it so long ago.
My science teacher from ninth grade would have told us that the “smoke” of the Smoky Mountains was actually a fog created by the “volatile organic compounds” released by the millions of trees, bushes, and wildflowers in their photosynthesis stage. The fog’s blue hue came from the scattering of light particles from the blue sky.
But the ethereal plane told a different story.
The guardian of the air gate shot through the blanket of mist like a rocket, its great, powerful wings folded close to its body. It was a hawk—a red-tailed hawk with stunning bronze feathers. The tips of the hawk feathers were made of clouds.
I gaped at the creature as it stopped its nose dive, pulling out its wings and gliding through the blue haze. The feathers’ tips, instead of being dark and smooth like satin, were wisps of ice particles, water droplets, and dry air—the properties of a cloud. They left a trail of light blue jet stream in their wake…which merged with the fog hanging just above us.
The air guardian created the “smoke” of the Smokies with its wings.
Raysh had told us the key was a feather, but I hadn’t been expecting a feather half made of the air itself.
Alder stood below, away from the copse of spruce firs, following the hawk with his gaze. The guardian let out another cry, and I flinched against the shrill sound. It sounded like the wind was screaming in my ears.
Alder wound back his right arm and shoved his fist forward, as if he was punching the air. With his attack, the air around me grew thinner. Alder had summoned a blast of wind against the hawk spirit and I held on to the vines as my clothes beat against my skin and my ponytail whipped my cheeks.
Caught in the force of the gale, the giant bird was thrown back, disappearing into its blue fog canopy and leaving behind a hole within the clouds. Feathers fluttered down and I let go of my nature harnesses, rushing forward to grab one before they fell where I couldn’t follow. Breathing hard, Alder flicked his finger and the feather carried itself on a small breeze directed righ
t for me.
I caught it easily, my fingers closing around the soft feather and the moist tuft of cloud at its tip. Cupping the treasure in my hands, I studied the key. The feather was bronze—almost like real metal—with thin stripes in varying shades going down its stem, ending in smoky blue mist.
A shriek echoed over the mountain top—angry and shrill. The blue fog increased in density as the flapping of the guardian’s wings could be heard over the winds battling against one another.
Crap, it’s pissed. I gripped the feather tight in my fist and sprinted back to the vines.
The hawk broke through the blue smoke. It clipped its hooked beak, letting out another screech, and tipped its head to the side to scan the mountaintop with a vibrant bronze eye.
Spotting me, it dove, pulling up with its silver talons extended like it was about to pick up a rodent or a snake—its prey. Me.
Alder sent another blast at the air guardian, but it met the wind strike with a squall of its own. Blue mist and silver mana gusted toward Alder, knocking him backward and sending him flying.
I swallowed my scream as Alder thrust back his hand, summoning a mound of earth to stop his fall. Backing up against the dirt, he shook his head, eyes dazed and unfocused, and shoulders visibly shaking from his overuse of mana.
But I still had mana. It rose up inside me at my call, and my fingers and palms and wrists glowed with the heat of it. As if it begged me to summon it.
If I could just send the hawk above the mist again, then maybe we’d have enough time to get away.
An idea began to form, and I disliked it almost immediately.
So Alder was sure to despise it.
Stuffing the key into my jean shorts pocket, I lifted my hand, now glowing silver with the air mana rising and manifesting on my fingertips.
The hawk turned its attention back to me, flapping its wings and sending ripples of blue fog flying from the tips of its feathers. It came for me a second time, talons out and exposed.
Sucking in a breath, I began moving my arm in a circle. The air around me responded immediately, influenced by the astral energy flying off my hand in a corkscrew motion. I moved faster, and the small wind tunnel expanded.
Soon a whole mini tornado grew outward, with my arm at the center of it. My hair and clothes batted around as the air fed this wind vortex. Seeing my trap, the hawk tried to stop its trajectory, but the tempest caught its wings and it got sucked into the tornado, spinning around it like a fish caught in a whirlpool—unable to escape.
I gasped, feeling the mana flow out of me in torrents. Now I couldn’t seem to stop it. Alder was right. I’d let out too much and now it was uncontrollable. A dam that I had broken and couldn’t close back up.
Staggering, I fell to my knees and watched in horror as the massive wingspan of the hawk got closer and closer and then hit me in the arm.
The force of it knocked me backward, sending me flying and stumbling over the peak and the rocks and boulders. Alder screamed my name over the windstorm, and I scrambled to find purchase—on the rocks, the trees—on anything. But too late, I was going over the edge, down, down into the valley of mist below.
Chapter Twenty-one
My fall was epic. Just like before, but this time I was vertical instead of horizontal. My fingers and the toes of my sneakers raked down the cliff face as I slid down the mountainside. Every part of me groaned in agony. My arm felt like it was broken where the air guardian had smacked against it, and every other body part ached and stung.
I was falling, sliding, and I couldn’t stop it. The wind shouted in my ears, and I wanted to call for Alder, but I could barely breathe, let alone yell.
As the cliff jutted out, my sneakers found nothing but air, and my sore, bloody fingers gripped the side of the cliff right before I fell for the third time.
I didn’t have the strength to look down into what I was sure was an abyss.
And I didn’t have the strength to climb back up.
My shoulders and arms trembled with exertion. Exhaustion, pain, and the depletion of mana threatened to pull me under, and I was inclined to let it.
I couldn’t think.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t hold on.
As a roar shook the cliff I was gripping, and the vibrations of it rippled through my body, I let go.
And everything went black.
…
Warmth. Fuzziness. Not just in my head and my limbs, but underneath me. Was it some kind of cloud?
Had I died?
But I was in the ethereal plane, and I knew better. Falling through mist didn’t mean you’d end up hitting solid earth. Sometimes, if you were lucky, you ended up in a meadow with a mother you thought had abandoned you.
I groaned, shifting against the soft, warm fur beneath me. Fur?
Ignoring my pounding headache and the soreness everywhere, I opened my eyes and blinked. Only colored shapes came to me, nothing concrete and certainly nothing that made sense. I closed them again and reached out with my other senses.
The thick scent in the air was comprised of blackberries and pine, but a little musty. I heard only deep, steady breathing and the pounding of heavy footsteps against the forest floor. The warm fur below me shifted with the movement of powerful muscles.
Clearly, I was on top of some sort of creature. Being carried?
It took everything in me not to panic. I opened my eyes again and moved my face against the black fur, the smell of pine and blackberries flooding me.
Black fur.
I pushed myself up onto my elbows and gasped.
I was on the back of a massive black bear. Roughly the size of an elephant if I was to take a guess.
It lumbered along at a slow, easy pace, its light brown snout lifting into the air to sniff occasionally. One long pink tongue darted out and licked its nose and then it yawned, without breaking its huge stride.
“Um,” I squeaked, then cleared my throat. “Excuse me, uh, Mr. Bear?”
The bear continued on as if it hadn’t heard or understood a thing I’d said.
Frowning, I scanned the black fur and the rest of its enormous body. Around his tail, ears, and paws were some tangled brambles with blackberries literally growing on them.
A very large sprite? Or an actual spirit?
I had no way of knowing, but I guess it couldn’t hurt to continue trying to communicate with it.
“Mr. Bear, I’d like to get down now, please.”
Nothing, just a pause in its pace to scratch at the earth and pull up some roots with his big teeth. Chomping on the roots like a beef jerky snack, it continued onward.
“Do you know Alder? You know, looks like a human, smells like a bottle of Old Spice?”
The black bear sneezed but didn’t even break its strangely graceful but heavy gait.
Scooting closer to the edge of its broad back, I eyed the ground. It wasn’t that far down, and even though I felt like crap, I was fairly positive nothing was broken. I should be able to get down, no problem.
Swinging my legs around, I braced myself to jump off, but the black bear swung its head around and snarled at me, snapping at my ankles.
I let out a little squeal and pulled my legs back up, hugging my knees.
Seemingly satisfied I wasn’t going anywhere, the bear moved its head back to face forward, continuing on its leisurely stroll.
“That’s cool. Just keep walking. I’m good,” I grumbled.
I rode on the bear’s back for what had to be at least an hour. Sometimes, I just talked to it, knowing it couldn’t talk back, to get things off my chest. I had nothing else to do. Every time I tried to get off, the bear would growl at me in warning.
So, we had a very one-sided conversation.
“I mean, he’s cute, sure,” I said, lounging in the black fur and
threading my fingers through it. “But there are other cute guys, you know? Wes Havers is cute. I mean, really cute. And he asked me out, but it didn’t feel right. We could talk okay—we’re both on the swim team and we both like fantasy novels, so it wasn’t like we didn’t get along. But Alder… Geez, I don’t know. I’m comfortable and nervous around him. Gah! What was I thinking asking him out like that? I’ve never done that before. Obviously, I’m attracted to him—but what can happen?”
I scooted over to the black bear’s head and leaned over, my own head upside down to look the bear in the eye. “No, I mean, seriously. What can happen? He’s a nature spirit. Our relationship wouldn’t exactly be normal.”
The black bear huffed.
I flopped back onto its neck. “No, you’re right. I know I’m not talking about marrying the guy. But…”
What if I fell in love with him? Head over heels, high-school sweethearts, romantic comedy, together-forever love? Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy-type love?
Something told me, if I let myself get too close, I’d never be able to leave.
I wasn’t my mom. I doubted I was selfless enough to be able to walk away from someone I loved so much.
The forest stopped moving past me. Blinking, I sat up, eager to see the black bear’s final destination.
It was at the mouth of a large cave. Was this its home?
Oh no, had it been bringing me back to its den to eat me? From what I knew of black bears, they didn’t feast on humans. But who knew about gigantic nature spirit black bears?
Then it started moving again, lumbering into the shallow cave and dropping itself down on its round belly.
Taking that as a clear sign I was allowed to get down now, I climbed off its back and patted its great side affectionately. “Thanks for the ride, bud. Even though I technically didn’t ask for it.”
I was about to walk out of the cave to try to find Alder, when something out of the corner of my eye stopped me.
