by A. L. Knorr
I realized with a start that it was a good call. The forest had grown dim. Reaching into the pocket of my jacket, I pulled out a flashlight and the headlamp I’d been given. Fixing the headlamp in place on my forehead, I flicked the on switch. A bright white beam of light illuminated the underbrush ahead of me. Depressing the switch on the torch in my hand added a second beam of bright light. Beyond me to the right, Jasher’s beams came on in the distance—little glowing streams broken up by branches. To my left, Lachlan’s two beams swung and bobbed behind the trees.
Forget the drums, I told myself. Don’t let your team down, let alone Evelyn. But the thought of Evelyn redoubled my concern. What if Evelyn had heard the drums, too? There was something compelling about them. Distant music was a draw in any scenario, walking the old cobblestone streets of a medieval town, or just crossing a park in Saltford during a music festival. Music was magnetic, but this music was more than magnetic. It was beginning to demand that I find its source. Was it my own curiosity so urgently asking me to follow those drums, or was it something bigger, compelling me?
The more I thought about it as I followed the bobbing beam from my headlamp, the more certain I became that the drums had something to do with Evelyn’s disappearance. It was too strange otherwise. Why would she leave her car, her house with its door ajar, even her shoes and jackets? True, I didn’t know for certain she’d left her house without footwear or outdoor clothing; she might have taken something from her bedroom rather than her hall entrance. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something supernatural going on here, and the drums had something to do with it.
“Hello, there.”
I gave a startled scream and nearly tripped over a tussock. My headlamp slid down my forehead to cover one eye, and I dropped the torch. My heart was throbbing like I’d sprinted up a hill. Scrabbling at my face, I yanked the headlamp off my brow and directed its beam in the direction of the voice.
“Easy,” said the slender man standing near a fat oak, his hand raised to ward off the light.
I directed the glare over his shoulder, so I could make out his features without blinding him. As I took him in, I lost all my words.
He was tall and possessed slightly too-large eyes and pointed features. Bushy, wild hair gleamed in the artificial light like burnished copper. Little ears poked from the mane of rough-chopped curls, too sharp at the tips to be normal.
A wheeze issued from my throat as I took in his ears and his upturned eyes, bright and mischievous. His face was boyish, charming, and devilishly handsome, but his body was all man. Broad at the shoulder and narrow at the waist. Thick, well-muscled legs filled out what appeared to be leather pants that ended just below the knee. He was barefoot and bare-chested; not even a vest encased his upper body. He didn’t even appear to be cold. He stood with a lithe, natural grace and gave the impression of being lighter than he looked, like he had anti-gravity powers. I didn’t miss the knife hanging in a scabbard from his waist.
He gazed at me calmly, patiently, as though waiting for my shock to pass before introducing himself.
“Did I startle you?” he asked with a strange accent. It was lyrical like a Scottish brogue, but much softer on the t’s. A smile crept across his face, revealing straight white teeth and lines bracketing his mouth, which led me to believe he wasn’t as young as I’d first thought.
“I hope so,” he admitted. “You were so intent on your own thoughts, it was too tempting to let you wander by.”
Staring at him as I was, barely blinking, I found my mind grasping to categorize this being. I’d seen faery creatures before, but they’d manifested as small bright lights with tiny, humanoid, near-transparent bodies. But this man was taller than me, without wings, and had a distinctly dangerous air about him.
The music. I took in a sharp breath. The music was louder now and clearly coming from behind me and to the east, in the direction of home.
“Who…” I shifted my stance, straightened, and cleared my voice. “Who are you?”
“Laec.” He made a small mocking bow and held his hands out to the sides. His hair fell over his shoulders and I got a good view of the slightly too-pointed eye-teeth as he grinned. He straightened, eyeing me with that same calm, mildly amused look. He took a few steps toward me.
“Don’t come any closer,” I said, holding out my palm. “I have friends nearby.”
He cocked his head, lifting one pointed ear, catlike. “What friends?”
I swept my gaze to the left and right, where I’d seen the light from my friends’ torches only moments before. All was quiet. All was dark. I called casually to Lachlan and Jasher. No response. I began to sweat despite the cold.
Laec gave a smirk that brought a flush to my cheeks.
“We’re alone.” He took another step closer.
I stepped back and slipped on the slick earth. Righting myself, I held out a finger. I vaguely registered that the air felt warm, or was it just me? I had begun to sweat under my rain gear. “That’s close enough. Who are you?”
“I told you.”
“What are you doing out here?” I could hear my heart pounding in my ears.
“I live here,” he replied softly. “I should be asking what you are doing here.”
While my rational mind was working to convince me that this was just a human, a weird human, dressed up and occupying his own make-believe world out here in the queen’s forest, my heart knew otherwise. This man was fae.
My pulse began to slow, my breathing began to regulate. I was a Wise. I belonged in the realm of fairytales, just like this Laec did…if this wasn’t some sick joke. My muscles refused to relax, though.
“Why so nervous?” Laec’s voice was low and gentle. “You’re at home too. Aren’t you?”
“I…I’m wondering where you came from, and why I can’t see my friends,” I said, my lips feeling numb.
“Ah.” A look of understanding crossed his face. “You were born ‘without.’ I should have guessed based on your ugly clothes.” He swept a hand toward my rain jacket and down to my boots. “Explains why I’ve never seen you before. I know everyone.” His brows stitched together over his dark eyes.
“I’m looking for a friend of mine who’s gone missing,” I explained, sounding a bit more like myself. I could appear as though I was under control, but if he took any more steps closer to me or went for that knife, I’d have the earth swallow him up so fast he wouldn’t know what hit him.
His fine brows arched high over tilted eyes. “There, was that so difficult? What’s your friend’s name?”
“Evelyn Munro.”
“Ah, well. You won’t find her here.” He gestured to my gear and outfit. “Not like this.”
“Excuse me?”
He let out an almost impatient sigh, like I was stupid and he was growing bored. “You have the power to find her, little Wise. What are you waiting for?”
I took a step back as though he’d hit me in the gut. The hair on my legs and arms spindled to standing.
“It never occurred to you to look where she was last seen?” He said this in such a patronizing way that it sliced through the shock of him addressing me as ‘little Wise.’
“Of course it occurred to me,” I snapped. “But I don’t know where to start and her yard is nothing but pavement.” My mind reeled. Why was I standing here debating with this person? And how did he know what I was? Only my best friends knew what I was. I looked no different than any other human on the outside.
Laec laughed with genuine humor and surprise. “You are so ignorant?”
Stung, my mouth dropped open.
My expression seemed to make him realize that my distress was genuine. He put his hands on his hips and rolled his eyes. “Use bentonite clay. Failing the presence of clay, asphalatus will do.”
“Asphalatus?” I parroted weakly.
“Before you draw the residual,” he said impatiently. “Honestly, you without are like lost souls.”
“Without?
”
He waved a hand through the air. Someone grabbed me by the shoulders and whirled me around to face the direction which I’d come, only there was no one there, no one holding me, even though I could feel fingers pressing into the flesh of my shoulders.
“Go on then,” Laec said, and the invisible hands shoved me forward, though I knew he was not close enough to touch me. “I tire of this game.”
I staggered forward, arrested myself and turned, fury rising in my chest. How dare he shove me around like that?
But he was gone.
Chapter 12
Beams of white light bounced and flashed through the trees in the darkness beyond where I stood. Neither Jasher nor Lachlan had noticed my interaction with Laec.
I put my palm over my heart, feeling its frantic pace. Closing my eyes, I took a few deep breaths. There might be a logical, rational explanation for Laec’s sudden appearance, and the Georjie of a year ago would accept nothing less, but the Georjie of today…she’d seen tiny fae birthing from little transparent cocoons, she’d been covered by them, named by them. She’d seen a wraith suck the life from a man, a wraith who’d once been a Wise herself. Mysteries abounded in my new reality, but the realm of possibility was much broader than it had ever been.
My fingers grazed the edge of a hawthorn tree and the uses and powers of it tingled in my blood and strengthened my heart. If I could draw the healing power of plants in only a touch, then I could believe there might be fae beyond the tiny, ethereal creatures I’d already seen.
I picked up my flashlight and walked on, keeping the fact that I’d met Laec to myself for now, and scanning the darkness with my lights for Evelyn or signs of her. We emerged on the road well after dark where we were met by a constable and returned to Blackmouth. Another shift of searchers was to begin as we retired.
When Lachlan said goodnight to me, I found a smile for him, but was secretly thankful I would now have some time on my own. During the remainder of the sweep through the queen’s land, I had stewed over what Laec had said. If he was right––and surely this would prove his authenticity more than anything else could––then either bentonite clay or asphalatus would help me to see Evelyn’s residual, even through pavement.
So, when the castle took on the restful silence of sleeping inhabitants, I slipped out the back door and walked the down the hill and into town. Making my way to Evelyn’s road, I stopped on the pavement near a small patch of grass. Kicking off my shoes and tucking my socks inside them, I stepped on the tiny piece of bare land and tuned in.
I couldn’t find any nearby bentonite, but through the whispering of countless other species, asphalatus answered my call. Growing beyond the park in a thin strip of brush, its nature echoed through my bones and made my feet and legs tingle. Drawing the plant’s essence in my body, my frame grew warm, my eyes and ears tingled, and my hands flexed with a new, raw energy. I bent and dug my fingers into the earth, retrieving a lump of it.
Opening my eyes, I walked toward Evelyn’s house––now closed up tight and locked, her curtains drawn and the house giving off an abandoned feel––my feet bare and cold against the bitumin. I gasped as I saw the residual was already there, waiting for me.
Evelyn stood in the doorway of her cottage. Her feet were bare on the carpet runner and her ghostly white nightgown fluttered against her knees. A shawl was draped over her shoulders. Her eyes were wide, vacant, and unblinking. Her curly hair drifted around her face as she stared forward. One pale hand rested on her door handle as she stood there, gazing down her front walk and out onto the street beyond.
At first, I thought she was really there, so clear was her image. Any residuals I’d seen up until this point had been grainy, like old silent films. But Evelyn was as clear as if she was right in front of me, only colorless. In the dim nighttime light, she might have appeared colorless anyway, but then she stepped forward and I knew. This was the Evelyn of the past. Under the light of the lamp over her doorway, her hair did not glimmer brown, but in tones of black and gray.
In my periphery, something moved. Something dark and flickering.
Turning to look, I gave another gasp and nearly lost my footing.
The eldritch thing danced at the end of her walkway, just beyond her gate. Bent and curved, its flickering fingertips beckoned to Evelyn. Its long head wavered back and forth in a serpentine sway, and its hands curled and called.
Evelyn stepped forward, her eyes fixed on the shadow.
My mouth went dry as I watched this scene unfold. The thing had been there when I’d seen the body buried in the wall, over three hundred years ago. It was here now. So it was an immortal thing.
What did it want with Evelyn?
I swallowed hard and resisted the urge to call out to Evelyn to ignore the dancing shape. Evelyn strode forward slowly. She momentarily gripped the door handle and then released it. Her door swung nearly shut, stopping only and inch from the frame…the way it had been when I’d visited her house.
Evelyn strolled down her walkway, her stride slow and smooth, her face expressionless. Her eyes were dark and shadowed, focused on the too-thin-to-be-human dancing shape as it beckoned her.
The cold earth held fast in my hand, I waited until the eldritch thing passed me, thankful it seemed unaware of me this time. Then Evelyn wandered by, a sad sight, thin and pale in her nightdress, her hair mussed and with dark circles under her eyes. She looked like an orphaned child sleepwalking in the streets.
When her back was to me, I followed the residual Evelyn as she wandered after the luring creature. My heart ached with sorrow, feeling that this could not possibly have a happy ending, but my blood also surged with energy, as I felt on the verge of the answer to where our missing friend had ended up. If the creature murdered her, tricked her into some awful demise…I choked back a little sob as I strolled down the middle of the empty street, my eyes on the scene before me.
Fighting back panic by telling myself to be patient, I realized that the eldritch thing was now swinging toward a copse of trees. On the other side of the little grove was the graveyard. My skin swept with a chill. Was that where we were headed?
Evelyn slipped into the trees, her white nightdress giving its own near-otherworldly glow. The eldritch thing nearly disappeared in the woods, a shadow among shadows, a vacuum within the dense underbrush. As the eldritch thing emerged and ascended the little hill leading up to the front gate of the graveyard, Evelyn’s back flickered and fuzzed out for a moment, before refocusing.
I was losing the asphalatus in my system, but at least now, Evelyn was on the soil again. The herb had done its trick. I dropped the soil in my hand and the residual blinked out. Scraping together a new lump of earth, I straightened.
Evelyn reappeared with the graininess of former residuals, dim and in poor quality. Evelyn followed the dancing shadow through the narrow archway and toward the dark hills dotted with headstones. Picking up the pace, I narrowed the gap between us and fell into step with Evelyn. Peering at her face, I saw that nothing had changed. She was still open-eyed and unfocused.
The dancing shadow stopped and my hand flew to cover my mouth when I realized where the dark flaming thing had taken her.
To a freshly dug grave.
The ground yawned with a rectangular hole. A pile of dirt sat on a nearby tarp. No headstone had been erected and the grave was in an empty, distant part of the graveyard. I fought the urge to scream as the eldritch shape beckoned to Evelyn with its curling, flickering fingers.
Evelyn stepped forward to the edge of the hole. Her hands came slowly up to the shawl draped over her shoulders. Taking it off, she held the shawl out in front of her.
The eldritch thing lifted its own long hands and with a swirling motion, the shawl was lifted into the air on a ghostly wind. It wound its way around Evelyn, at first with a soft swirl, and then tighter and tighter - now so tight I could see the shape of her body through the fabric. It seemed to expand as it wrapped over her face and head, covering h
er completely from head to toe.
“Oh, Evelyn,” I moaned, choking on another sob. Tears poured down my face and blurred my vision. I swiped them away with my clean hand.
With a flick of its wrist, the shadow gave Evelyn one last instruction. She stepped forward, and fell into the grave.
A scream tore from my throat and I threw down the soil. Sprinting to the edge of the grave, I skidded to a halt at its edge and looked down. There she was––a shape wrapped in a white shawl, laying completely still.
“Oh, please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead,” I murmured over and over as I knelt down and dropped into the grave beside her. My skin crawling with fear and my hands shaking, I found the hole in the fabric at the top of her head. Hooking my fingers into it, I pulled the shawl away from Evelyn’s face. Jamming my fingers under her chin, I closed my eyes and held my breath. I let out a big breath of air when I felt the weak pulse under my fingertips. She was alive!
“Evelyn?” I took her by the shoulders. “Evie, honey. Wake up! Please wake up!”
Planting the soles of my feet against the dirt on either side of her shoulders, I stood over her with my hands on her face. Closing my eyes, I drew every good and strengthening thing the earth had to offer and poured it into Evelyn. My limbs and torso buzzed with life and vitality as I let the magic of the flora around me run through me and into her.
Evelyn’s body warmed, her cheeks flushed, her breathing steadied and her heartbeat gave a powerful throb. I opened my eyes, my own heart fluttering with hope and excitement.
“Evelyn?”
She did not open her eyes.
Swearing silently, I got my feet to one side of her and bent over her awkwardly, trying not to fall on her in the small space. I got one arm under her neck and shoulders and the other under her knees.
Drawing fortifying power into myself from the soil, I gave a grunt and lifted Evelyn’s body up. Taking a break for a moment to breathe, I stood there, the top of my head level with the grass. I’d never have the strength to lift Evelyn’s dead weight up on to the lawn without my elemental powers. Calling to the nearest tree, I bade it bend.
