Those Who Fall

by Rachael Arsenault

  I looked over my shoulder in time to see Emily hauling Tara by the wrist so that they were even farther behind Farida and me. I worried, for a moment, that she was distancing herself so she could harass Tara undisturbed, but all she did was flash me a smile and a thumbs up.

  So I was left walking side-by-side with Farida, who looked equal parts shy and curious at the prospect of me explaining my degree.

  “Okay,” I started, uncertain. “Um… Well, I guess sociology is like… Like a map for understanding why society is the way it is.”

  “So it’s a history course?”

  “Not exactly — history is part of it, but you look at the human element of things more directly. It’s, um…” I sighed. I felt tongue-tied and frustrated — this shouldn’t have been so hard to explain. “Well, there’s a lot of different schools within sociology that approach things differently. Like, for example, there’s the historical materialist method, which looks at how moments in history led to this particular historical moment — or whatever historical moment you’re analyzing — and approaches understanding it by asking who benefits from the systems in power.” I glanced over at her, noting her brow was still furrowed and her lips were still pulled into a thoughtful frown. “Does that make sense?”

  She hummed a little, head tilting to the side. “I think so. What about the other one — anthropology, was it?”

  “Yeah. Cultural anthropology, specifically.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Well, physical anthropology is—”

  A shriek erupted behind us. I whirled around to see Emily on the ground, scrambling to drag herself forward with her good arm while thorny vines tangled around her legs, her face contorted in pain. Tara stood frozen, eyes wide, before she dove for Emily, grabbing her wrist with both hands and digging her heels in, fighting against the powerful pull of the plants.

  Flames ignited in Farida’s palms as she took a step back, glancing around wildly for some sign of our attacker. But then her knees buckled, flames sputtering, and I had to reach out and grab her by the elbow to keep her from falling.

  “You’re looking pretty rough there, cuz.”

  If Farida hadn’t already been pale from exertion, she definitely was now. She stared out at the trees with wide, disbelieving eyes, voice trembling as she murmured, “Imani?”

  “A little help here!” Tara grunted.

  I rushed over, trying to look for some sign of Imani or the plant kid even as I struggled to center myself and call out my poison. The black mist burst from my palms erratically when I reached Emily and Tara, withering the vines but also choking my friends.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” I cried, immediately reining in my magic.

  Still coughing, Tara gasped, “What do we do?”

  I was grabbing Emily, ignoring her cries of pain as I hauled her to her feet, searching for an exit, turning back toward Farida just as the earth heaved under her, slamming her into the trunk of a tree. She collapsed to the ground, blood already streaming from her forehead.

  “No!”

  The earth ruptured again, jutting up into a loose, crumbling wall of dirt. I couldn’t see Farida anymore. Farida couldn’t fight. Farida was injured. Farida might not even be conscious anymore. I scrambled up the newly made hill, the dirt falling away under my feet like the shifting sands I had grown up playing in. Then there was a silhouette on top of the mound making a sharp, downward hand gesture. A gust of wind buffeted against me, throwing dirt and debris in my eyes and making me lose my footing. I slid back down the embankment.

  “Farida!” I yelled.

  Behind me, voice hoarse from coughing, Emily croaked, “Amber! Look out!”

  Before I could react, something was slamming into my side, throwing me against a tree. My head throbbed, spots dancing across my vision as, dazedly, I watched the bark of another tree shift and morph, a tumorous growth emerging from it before separating entirely, becoming hands and feet and torso. The tree-person continued to transform, changing from rough, bark-skin to soft, pale flesh as short black hair emerged from their scalp. They stepped closer, dark eyes determined, and I recognized them immediately.

  Eden.

  Then that same tree lifted its branches like a boxer readying themselves for another swing. I had just enough sense of mind to flatten myself to the ground; the walloping branch narrowly missed me.

  “The stones!” Farida cried from the other side of the earthen mound. “She’s trying to take the stones!”

  There was a soft thump as a pair of feet landed in my line of sight. “I don’t know who you are,” Imani’s male companion called out to Eden, “but thanks for the help.” Then he was crouching, shoving me onto my back, hands roaming over me roughly, searching. “Where is it? Where do you keep the stone?”

  “Do something!” Emily was screaming.

  A second later, Tara was slamming into the man, knocking him to the ground; at the same instant, the tree behind me wrapped a branch around my arm, hauling me up and then trapping me in a bear hug of branches and roots and vines.

  No, no, NO!

  “Farida! Help Farida!” I yelled, squeezing my eyes shut. I focused on all the blackness at my core, channeled my rage and fear into it, and called it out in a torrent. My every pore burned as though hot vapor seeped from them; when I opened my eyes, I was enveloped in black mist, the tree holding me crippled and dying under its poisonous effects. I broke free from the brittle branches with ease, surged past the man choking and gasping on the ground, and charged over the hill. I crested the top just in time to see Tara leaping onto Imani’s back, pulling at her hair and sinking her teeth into her shoulder. Imani cried out, whole body spasming in shock and pain. Farida was on the ground, her body curled protectively around the little blue backpack.

  “Tara!”

  She looked over at me. Eyes widening, she leapt from Imani’s back and grabbed Farida. I slid carefully down to their side of the embankment, then, once on solid ground, strode closer as Tara helped Farida half-walk, half-crawl to safety. Imani, meanwhile, was watching me approach with a look of curiosity and amusement.

  “This should be interesting.” Her cocky smirk was interrupted as she spasmed violently, gasping and clutching at her shoulder. Blood was rapidly soaking through her sweatshirt.

  “You’re looking rough,” I growled.

  Her lips curled into a snarl. “You still don’t stand a chance against me.”

  I kept walking closer, refusing to dignify her with a response, letting the withering trees and underbrush speak for me as they crunched under my determined footfalls. I was grimly pleased to see her take a step back, eyes widening with the beginnings of fear. Then her hand was shifting, the dappled light shining through the trees glinting off a yellow-green stone set in her ring—

  I pressed a hand to the stone in my pocket, a wave of knee-buckling dizziness washing over me as a Ddraig appeared in a burst of light. There was no space for him in the dense woods, so he crashed into existence, destroying trees with an irritated roar.

  “Sorry!” I yelled as I rushed to him, leaping for his back. I let my poison fall away. A glance in Imani’s direction confirmed that Ddraig’s sudden appearance had literally knocked her on her ass, buying me precious time. “Let’s go!”

  He sensed what I needed and obeyed immediately, moving forward and crushing the hill of earth with a clawed foot. He paused long enough for Farida and Tara to scrambled on. I helped them up, but I was more focused on scanning the trees for Emily. Stupid, stupid, stupid — I shouldn’t have left her by herself in all this!

  The forest was coming alive around us, lashing at Ddraig, winding around his legs in an effort to stop him, but he was undeterred, huffing his withering, poisonous breath at anything that posed more than a minor inconvenience.

  “Emily!” I cried. “Emily, where are you?”

  “I’m over here!”

  Ddraig turned in the direction of the voice. To our left, there was a flare of light — the ea
gle-like creature with the hindlegs of a lion had appeared in the air, beating its wings to stay aloft. With a shriek, it dove at Ddraig, beak aimed for his eyes. My dragon’s head reared back with a heart-wrenching roar, his dark blood spraying out across the trees.

  “Ddraig!”

  A torrent of poison burst from my palm in the same instant that a flash of light appeared near the lion-bird. It was blasted with poison just as Dracaena emerged in midair to immediately coil herself around the other creature, constricting tighter and tighter and tighter like the snake that she was. Wings pressed to its sides, the man’s creature could no longer fly; the bird and the snake plummeted the short distance to the ground.

  “Hey,” Emily’s voice called, much closer than before. I twisted around to look down the other side of Ddraig. She was leaning against his back leg, panting heavily, her jeans torn in several places and arms covered in scrapes and gashes. “A little help up please?”

  She barely complained when Tara and I hauled her up by both arms — at least not until there was a familiar, sickening pop. She screamed in pain as she collapsed onto Ddraig’s back.

  “Go!” Farida yelled.

  I don’t know if the dragon understood her or was responding to my own urgency, but he charged forward and leapt into the air, wings unfurling. It wasn’t until I heard another roar that I remembered we still had Imani to deal with.

  The white dragon had appeared behind us. Imani was perched on its back, her dark, tangled hair streaming out behind her and expression twisted with rage. We burst out above the trees together, her dragon’s white scales gleaming in the sunlight. There could be no doubt that the traffic on the highway a short distance away saw us, not to mention heard us. The creature opened its mouth in another roar, a red glow forming in the back of its throat—

  I swung one leg around so I was perched in a precarious side-saddle position, shoving both hands palm-out toward the other dragon. Poison burst forth again, much weaker this time, but caught up in the draft of our momentum so that it was thrown directly into the face of the dragon. The black mist hit it just as it spewed its first jet of flames. Ddraig, knowing what I saw, swerved suddenly to avoid it, managing to get singed only on his tail. I flailed at the sudden shift in balance — Tara caught my sleeve to keep me from falling.

  And then the forest was alive below us, reaching, grasping, the canopy extending upward like dozens of fingers. Ddraig pulled higher into the sky. The other dragon, meanwhile, was still gasping and choking, losing altitude. The trees caught it first, pulling it down. The enormous wings beat and struggled to climb upward again, but the branches and vines entangling it were rapidly multiplying, pulling it down, down, down until it disappeared among the trees.

  A second later, the woods burst into flames.

  We had gained a healthy distance from the scene by this point, but I still couldn’t tear my eyes away. Not just because I wanted to be prepared for if the dragon re-emerged and started chasing us again. The forest was on fire. So many of the trees were leafless, drying out as fall took hold, and the flames were rapidly devouring them, spreading without mercy.

  “Oh, god. Okay. Oh, god.” Farida was clinging to Emily, which seemed to be as much about keeping Emily from falling off as it was about her own wide-eyed, pale-faced terror. “We are flying. We… are flying.”

  My head was spinning and throbbing to the rapid beat of my heart. That, combined with the grey spots dancing along the edges of my vision, told me that I wouldn’t be able to keep Ddraig out for long. “It’s just for a few minutes,” I told Farida. “Is everyone okay?”

  “No,” Emily groaned.

  “They were following us,” Tara said. “What do we do?”

  “That’s real rich coming from you,” Emily said, glaring at Tara.

  “I saved your ass!”

  “You’ve probably been telling them how to find us!”

  “Stop it!” I yelled. Everyone jumped a little; the outburst made my head throb even worse and for one, woozy second I worried I was gonna pass out. But I pulled myself together and, more calmly, said, “Tara saved each and every one of us. She protected the stones. She’s on our side, and she proved that now more than ever.”

  Everyone was quiet for a second. Below, sirens had begun screaming their way toward the forest fire. Ddraig growled low and long as a sudden, sympathetic pain stabbed through my left eye. Grimacing, I said, “That bird thing got Ddraig pretty bad. How do I heal him?”

  “He’ll have to return to his stone,” Farida said.

  “That’s it?”

  “Well, it’s not instant. The longer he’s in the stone, the faster he’ll heal, but… This will probably take a while.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us they were following us?” Emily asked, pulling us back into the previous subject as she glared at Tara. “I thought you were scrying to keep us safe.”

  “You know I can’t see Imani.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Imani.”

  “I couldn’t see Eden.”

  “Bullshit. You know their name, you can—”

  “No, I mean I couldn’t see them. It was all darkness, remember? I assumed they were asleep.” She shrugged, shaking her head and looking angry — at herself or Emily, I wasn’t sure. “Obviously they weren’t, but I had no way of knowing that.”

  I was struck by the memory of their form emerging from a tree. “I — I think I might know why you couldn’t see them. And how they followed us.” I explained to everyone what I had seen.

  Tara somehow managed to looked even more shocked and pale at this revelation. “Well, we might not have to worry about them following us to PEI after all. They can’t see us through the trees if we’re in the sky.”

  Emily, who had been silently studying Tara through this discussion, said in a low voice, “You really couldn’t see them?”

  “For the last time, no!”

  “How much farther?” Farida asked. She was ashen and queasy looking. I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t feeling so great myself.

  “Not much longer,” I said. “As soon as we see the shores, we’re landing. Then… Then we’ll figure something out.”

  We flew on silently, all of us too beaten and exhausted to muster any more conversation.

  Chapter Twenty

  There are some memories that stick in your mind forever. The parts that stand out in the moment and parts that stand out in the memory can be incongruous. In the moment, all I could focus on was my pain: my head throbbing from getting slammed against that tree and from the exertion of using so much magic, my limbs aching and twitching, the burns on my chest feeling newly raw. We were only in the sky for fifteen minutes, maybe, but the flight felt longer than the near three-hour car ride from Fredericton to PEI ever did.

  But what stood out in my memory were the red cliffs of my island nestled in the glittering, grey-blue waves of the sea. A patchwork of gold and red-brown farms alongside forests of evergreens and fall leaves spread out like a quilt below us, ready for us to tuck ourselves into the warmth and comfort of home. I barely remembered the pain. I barely remembered the bite of the cold wind against my cheeks and clinging hands.

  It wasn’t until I saw the island that I really realized how much I missed home, and the tears spilled down my cheeks.

  I directed Ddraig to land at a section of the coast where high cliffsides would hide us from sight. We weren’t quite at the Singing Sands beach near my grandparent’s place, but the walk would be manageable.

  We slid off Ddraig’s back. My legs were wobbly but, despite that and all my other pain, I wanted to run. I wanted to burst into my grandparents’ house and hug my family with all my might.

  “Ten seconds back on the Island and I’ve already got red mud-stains on my pants,” Emily grumbled after Tara and I helped her down off of Ddraig. I didn’t think it wise to point out that her jeans were already well-stained with blood and grass.

  Farida slid down from Ddraig at about the same time, latching onto my
arm and sagging against me for support. “Oh. Oh, god. I do not like flying, Amber.”

  “Uh…” Unsure what to do with myself, I patted her shoulder awkwardly, my cheeks burning. I was barely aware of Ddraig dissolving into light as he returned to my stone.

  Farida laughed, which somehow made my face get even hotter.

  “Alright, break it up you two,” Emily said.

  I stepped back from Farida to look at my best friend; her arm was hanging limply at her side, and her too-pale skin had a sickly sheen to it. She was in rough shape but — as always — she was trying to tough it out and save face.

  “We should rest.”

  “No way,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, putting on the firm and commanding tone I had been learning to use throughout this nightmare week. “All of us are injured and exhausted. We don’t have to rest long, but we should at least sit for a few minutes. We have a long walk ahead of us.”

  “We still have no way of knowing how close Imani will be,” Tara said.

  “She’s using two stones and she was fighting with Eden. I don’t know if she’s in any shape to follow us.” I glanced at Farida.

  She noticed my look and smiled tiredly, saying, “Amber’s right. Imani’s going to need to recuperate, too. We can take fifteen minutes to sit and catch our breath.” She paused then, eyes drifting toward the lapping waves with a hesitant expression.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I just… need to do something. It’ll only take a second.”

  Then she marched off across the beach, heading toward the water.

  “Don’t go far,” I called. I stood, watching her, not sure what I was afraid of — that a sea monster would rise up and drag her into the watery depths? She wasn’t any more in danger ten meters from me than she was right beside me. Still, after all we had been through recently, it felt wrong to let her leave my side, and I couldn’t bear to let her leave my sight. So I watched.

  Silhouetted against the familiar ocean of my home, Farida slid the blue backpack from her shoulder and rummaged through it. When she pulled out a small, dusty jar, I suddenly understood.