by Chloe Jacobs
Wyatt turned his back on her to say something to the boys in a low voice. A few of them shot quick looks at her over his shoulder, but most were nodding.
Finally, he turned back around. “We think you should come with us,” he said. “It seems there’s a lot we can learn from each other.”
…
As Greta followed Wyatt and the others through the woods, she quickly learned why none of them had turned up on her radar before.
They were all freaking ninjas.
The way they moved through the trees—without any sound, blending into the scenery and leaving as little imprint as possible, even when the world was covered in white. It was simply amazing.
Wyatt had Jacob perched on his shoulders. The boy wrapped little arms around his neck and laid his cheek on top of Wyatt’s head as if he could easily fall asleep like that.
The other boys fell into step behind, all of them watchful, careful. Ray took the rear with Greta. As they ghosted over rocky patches and between trees, they effectively formed a train, with the two oldest on the ends and the younger boys protected between.
After about twenty minutes, as they passed a section of forest she knew they’d already come through, Greta guessed what was going on. “Are you hoping I’ll get dizzy from all these twists and turns, enough not to remember how to find you again? Maybe you’re worried I’ll rat you out and lead the hordes of other hunters to your door?”
Wyatt stopped and turned around. Jacob had indeed fallen asleep. Those little baby eyelids fluttered open once at the sound of her voice, and then closed again.
He smiled without apology. “We’ve got to protect the only home we have. Everyone knows never to approach camp without making absolutely certain he hasn’t been followed.”
Camp.
“That’s very…Boy Scouts of America of you.”
He held two fingers to his forehead in a mock salute. “Be prepared.”
Greta found herself smiling. “I guess I can’t argue with that.” The pithy motto wasn’t only a popular human one, it had been Luke’s favorite saying as well. “Please.” She swallowed hard and gestured him forward as she fought the renewed surge of sorrow. “Go ahead and lead us all in another circle. I promise not to pay any attention to where we’re going.”
He bent his head to her in a gracious nod before glancing at Ray. The two of them had a silent communication thing going on, like parents who’d learned to have entire conversations over the heads of their children without ever voicing a word aloud.
Just what was their story? After four years, many of her memories had gone fuzzy, but some of them were still clear. Sharp. Deep. Painful. Like those of little Drew running ahead of her as they walked through the forest—the Black Forest. Greta hadn’t wanted to go on the ridiculous trip to visit a grandfather she barely knew, especially when it had meant three whole weeks away from her friends during the heart of summer vacation.
Greta, hurry. Come here. It smells so yummy. He’d been standing before the mouth of a cave. He took a deep sniff and giggled, his little-boy laugh echoing as he stepped forward. It smells like… Mmm. Oh, like candy, and mama’s cookies baking in the oven!
She was still too far away to grab him when he disappeared inside, swallowed up by the shadows. Greta called out for the little bugger to stop. He was going to be in trouble if he fell in the dark and put holes in the knees of his new pants.
Only a few feet away, the witch’s terrible cackle came to her from deep inside the cave. She remembered shouting Drew’s name frantically, fear choking her as she started to run.
The scent of gingerbread had clogged her nostrils and clouded her senses. Now, anything even remotely resembling the smell of spicy cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg made her sick to her stomach. But not then. Then it had made her feel kind of high and breathless, excited.
She’d raced into the cave, wondering how Drew could have gotten so far ahead of her in such a short time and feeling a deep certainty that she was going to be too late.
And then there had been her brother’s terrified scream.
“We’re here. This is it.”
With a shake of her head, she stopped behind Ray and watched as the boys disappeared one after the other through a practically invisible break in an especially dense section of bush.
“After you.” He gestured for her to precede him, but she got the distinct impression he didn’t offer out of simple politeness. After all, in front of him, she was less likely to stab him in the back…he could stab her instead.
They watched each other carefully. Finally, her lips twitched, and she ducked to slip through the opening.
Straightening on the other side, she found herself standing at the entrance to a large sheltered area with several small, tent-like structures arranged in a regimented circle around a cold fire pit.
“My God.” She looked around in amazement. “I had no idea this was here. It’s off the beaten track a bit, but I’m sure I must have walked right past it a hundred times and not even seen it. How did you find this? How have you kept everyone else from finding it?”
Wyatt lifted the sleeping Jacob from his shoulders, handing the little one off with care to one of the older boys—she thought his name was Sloane—who headed in the direction of a large tent, while the others went over to a large bucket of water and washed up.
Greta followed Wyatt as he and Ray showed her around. She asked where they got the water, since the sight of the bucket had started her skin itching and she remembered it had been days since she’d been able to take a bath.
“We have to stay a safe distance away from the river or risk being discovered, but every morning a couple of us head out to bring back the day’s supply.” Wyatt looked her up and down. “You’re welcome to use the ‘bath house’ if you want to.”
Scratching self-consciously at a disgustingly crusty patch on her neck, she nodded. “That would be great, thanks.”
She met three more boys—no girls—who’d stayed behind as sentries while the rest had gone hunting. Neither Carter, Leo, or Niall could have been older than eleven or twelve, but like the rest of the kids, their eyes watched her with careful curiosity. It didn’t matter how young they were, it was clear they’d seen too much, learned too much, suffered too much.
“We call it the Dugout,” Wyatt was saying as they continued to the middle of the camp. “Of course, it wasn’t always this sheltered. When we found it, the glade was naturally protected from sight, but we worked hard to make sure it was virtually invisible to anyone and anything outside of our ‘walls’.”
Ray nodded. “But we still don’t light the fire unless it’s full dark. In clear daylight, the line of smoke rising through the canopy would be a flashing beacon announcing our location to every hungry ogre and eager hunter in Mylena.”
Greta paused. She wasn’t imagining it. His voice turned brittle and angry every time he mentioned hunters. “What happened between you and the other hunter, Ray?”
His glare was full of brilliant blue ice shards, and she wasn’t really surprised when he turned from her without a word and walked away, shoving back the flap of a nearby tent and disappearing inside it.
“I’m sorry about that,” Wyatt said.
Greta shook her head. Ray was defensive, hurt, angry, and there was no doubt in her mind that this place was the cause of it. She couldn’t very well hold a grudge against someone who reminded her so much of herself.
“You know, I heard a story recently about two humans being hunted down on the gnome king’s orders not too long ago. One of them died in the forest, and it was assumed the other one was captured and dealt with, but I’m thinking now the second human got away, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he got away,” Wyatt murmured. “But like you said, his brother didn’t.”
…
For the first time in days, Greta was clean and warm, and it felt great. She sat cross-legged inside a small tent on top of a pallet covered with a warm fur blanket. She’d have to tha
nk whoever donated it, because this was definitely more comfortable than planting her butt in the snow and sleeping against a tree trunk.
Examining the shelter more closely, she noticed the tent had been made by stretching stitched-together, cured animal hides over sturdy branches framed with crude twine that looked like it had been stiffened into place with wax. It was impressive work for a bunch of kids left to fend for themselves.
In fact, as tough as she believed herself to be, she never would have managed half the stuff Wyatt and the boys had put together to keep themselves alive. If not for Luke…
She dropped her chin to her chest and closed her eyes, taking several deep breaths.
God, she was tired. More than that. Exhausted. Pure mechanical survival instinct was the only thing keeping her going now. Without any real food in the last two days, no uninterrupted sleep in about as long, and enough shocks to keep her nerves wound tight as a spring, it was no wonder she was running on empty.
Or at least, that’s what she was blaming the sudden rush of tears on.
A twitch throbbed in her cheek just beneath her eye, and her hands shook. The strain was starting to show in a big way. Wyatt hadn’t even pressed her for information after showing her around the camp, just said there was time for her to rest before they needed to talk.
Part of her had wanted to warn these kids about the coming eclipse and move along. The idea of staying and taking on even a shred of responsibility for them sucked the air from her lungs and gave her the shakes. Trouble was, she hadn’t been able to look at little Jacob without imagining the rabid beasts that would be hunting him down in a matter of days. In the end, she’d reluctantly agreed to stay just for the night. Long enough to explain about the eclipse and offer a few suggestions.
She shrugged out of her coat and pulled off her thick wool sweater, leaving only a thinner undershirt. She opened her bag and dug around inside until she grasped the handle of her comb. There was a sharp rap on the outside of the tent flap as she lifted her arms to unbraid her hair.
“Come in.”
Wyatt poked his head in just as Greta winced at the stab of pain shooting down her arm. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“It’s nothing.” She grimaced. “I got clawed and spat on by a ghoul a few days ago, and it’s taking longer than I’d like to heal.”
He stepped inside the tent, crouching so his head wouldn’t hit the roof. He’d removed his winter gear, and yet his presence overwhelmed the space, making the snug enclosure feel too small for the two of them to occupy together.
Her grip on the handle of the comb tightened when Wyatt moved to sit in a matching cross-legged position in front of her. She noticed then that his brown hair had silky blond streaks. It curled over his ears and at the nape of his neck.
His knees knocked hers and she shifted. There were dimples in his cheeks as he looked back at her. She forced a small cough and dropped her gaze, but there was a sudden roaring in her ears.
“…help with that?”
She cleared her throat. “Sorry, what?” she asked, feeling the flush rise in her face.
“Do you want me to help you brush out your hair?”
“My hair? Oh, no of course not. No, that’s okay. I can do it. You don’t have to—”
“I don’t mind.” He motioned for her to turn around. “It’s been a long time since I’ve brushed out a girl’s hair.”
“So you’ve done this before?”
“I used to brush my kid sister’s hair for her because our mother left early in the morning for work. It was my job to get the two of us up and ready for school.”
She hesitated.
“Come on, I know you’re tired.” He gestured for her to turn around.
She thought about refusing—for maybe half a second. But the temptation to have someone else do the chore and save her shoulder the aching strain swayed her. She repositioned herself so her back was to him. She felt him move closer and tensed. He took the beginning of her braid at the base of her head and ran the length of it through his closed fist gently, as if testing its thickness.
“Uh, so…you have a sister?”
“Her name’s Danicka. She was my parents’ mid-life crisis, coming along when I considered myself much too old for a new sister. I thought I was too good to babysit and play Barbie, or for brushing little girls’ hair.”
“But you did it anyway.”
“Yeah.” He untied the strip of cloth holding her hair, and pushed his fingers into the braid to pull it apart. “She would be seven now, I guess.”
She half-turned to look back at him. “Where did you live in North Dakota?”
“What does it matter?” He shrugged. “A place called Corbin. It was small. Just a crossroads in the middle of nowhere. There was a bar on one side of the street and a gas station on the other. Our school was beside the church at the next intersection, with a bunch of old houses in between. Most of the kids were bused in from farms and rural villages, but there were probably less than two hundred students any given year.”
“You miss it,” she said, turning back around.
“I bet it’s already been swallowed up to make way for a new highway or something. The school is probably a shopping mall now.” Wyatt actually sounded as if he’d accepted his fate.
“You must miss your family.”
“Yeah.”
Finally, he stretched his arm around her and opened his hand for her comb. She gave it to him. “I still remember the last time I spoke to her,” he said. “It was the weekend of her fifth birthday and she was upset because I was going away with my Scouts troop.”
“Be prepared?”
He chuckled. “You got it.”
“So, what happened?”
“I went with the group on an overnight hiking trip. We left after school on Friday and headed to the nature reserve. By the time we backpacked in and got set up at the site, it was almost dark.”
He paused. “The campfire was crackling nicely and the sun had started to go down when I noticed one of the boys—Jason—was missing. I was the oldest in the group, but I still never should have left the supervisors. I thought he’d be just outside camp looking at toadstools or something, so I started walking a perimeter, circling farther and farther outward, trying to find him. I didn’t realize how far I’d gone looking for him until I blinked and it was almost full dark.”
Behind her, Wyatt dragged the comb through her hair. One careful pass, stopping about halfway down to pick at a knot, then continuing to the bottom. He followed this with the weight of his palm on her head, smoothing all the way to the ends. And then the process was repeated. It felt so good, so relaxing, she could have fallen right to sleep.
“Why did he take off?” she asked, thinking of Drew and the way he’d stubbornly dashed ahead of her that day, as if something had been calling him. As if he’d fallen under a spell.
“At first I didn’t understand what could have gotten into him,” he said. “Kid was decent. I wouldn’t have pegged him as the type to up and leave the group like that. But then I caught this scent. It was amazing, like my mom had just pulled one of her blueberry pies from the oven and put it out on a windowsill somewhere so the breeze could take the smell right to me.”
She winced and closed her eyes. “For me it was gingerbread,” she whispered. “The gooey, spicy, warm smell of fresh gingerbread used to be my most favorite thing in the world.”
“That’s how she lures them,” Wyatt said. “With something they won’t be able to resist.” He took a shuddering breath. “And once the scent was in my system, before I knew it I was heading straight for a break in the cliff face that I hadn’t even noticed before.”
“Was Jason there?” Greta knew what the answer would be. She could see the scene vividly in her mind already. The fire. The cage.
“Yes, she’d lured him in just as she was luring me. Locked him in a cage sitting against the wall of the cave. I was so surprised, before I understood what was happening she
had me locked up in the thing, too.”
“What did you do?”
“Waited. Once she was done preparing her spell, she came back and tried to pull Jason out of the cage, but I rushed her.”
“You stopped her?”
He shook his head. “God, I tried. But I wasn’t fast enough or strong enough. She threw Jason in the fire and I remember shouting. I jumped forward, trying to catch him. He was screaming. Instead of closing my hands around hot, burning flesh, I got…nothing. The screams just stopped, and he was gone.”
Gone.
Greta swallowed as her own memories cascaded hard and fast over her vision, a horror movie on a loop—playing again and again.
“She pushed you in, too?”
He nodded. “Before I could turn around.”
At least Greta had saved Drew. At least the witch hadn’t gotten her brother.
Wyatt pulled at another knot before digging his fingers into her hair, and finally fanning the length over her shoulders.
His voice sounded thicker, as if it was hard for him to get the words out. “It happened so damn fast. I could see the flames licking all around me, but they didn’t burn. For a long minute, it was as if everything but me had been engulfed by the blaze. Like I was cocooned in a bubble while the whole world burned.”
He reached around her waist to return her comb. She took it and drew her knees around so she could turn to face him again.
“When I came to, I was here.” His face twisted into a wry mask. “Well, not right here, but in Mylena.”
“What about the Lamia?” she asked. Greta was close. After all these years, she was closing in on the elusive creature. One break. That’s all she needed was one freaking break.
“Nowhere. I never saw the witch again.”
Crap.
“But I know she isn’t the only one. There are others.”
“How do you know? Where are they?”
