by A. L. Knorr
It only lifted its arms as if to sweep me into a hug.
With a flick of my wrists, a gorse bush––dense with three-inch thorns––swallowed up the creature in the blink of an eye. All I could see of the ithe now was the flickering top of its head.
Stepping around the gorse, I began to run, leaping over tussocks and nearly turning my ankles on the uneven ground. Another ten seconds of sprinting and I’d be at the car. I could see Lachlan’s face peering from the open window. He revved the engine. His expression was alight with joy to see me coming. He’d already turned the car around and was ready to hit the gas. Jasher cradled Evelyn in the back seat. Lachlan reached across the seat and opened the door.
“Come on!” His eyes were wide open and brows arched high. Then his pupils focused on something behind me and his brows pinched together. “No.”
The ithe flickered into life in front of me. I had to slide in the wet grass to keep from running into it. It spread its arms wide again, as if to catch me in a hug of death. My bare feet slipped in the mud and I landed hard on my hip and elbow. Skidding another two feet, I came to a stop at the flickering feet of my enemy. My heart lurched into my throat as Daracha appeared in my periphery, the fabric of her dress flowing around her on a wind I couldn’t feel.
The sound of a car door opening preceded heavy footsteps on the gravel as Lachlan came around the idling vehicle.
Daracha looked at Lachlan. “What a good friend you are. Look at you. You don’t even know the danger you’re in, do you?”
Lachlan didn’t answer her and didn’t stop walking until he was at my side, close enough to the ithe to have reached out and touched it. A strong hand curled under my armpit and lifted me back to my feet.
“We’re leaving. Go back to whatever hell you came from,” Lachlan snarled, and my heart gave a grateful pulse.
Lachlan curled an arm around my waist and turned toward the car, heading around the eldritch thing.
“I don’t think so,” replied Daracha, smoothly.
The ithe reached out a flickering hand and lay it on the top of Lachlan’s head. His body stiffened.
I screamed and the ithe actually flinched at the sound.
Lachlan bent over and his breathing sounded heavy. “I’m okay.”
“Are you?” Daracha asked.
“Shut up,” I hissed and bent to look into Lachlan’s face. Looking into his eyes was a blade in my heart. They were blank, no pupils, no irises.
“I can’t see.” Lachlan’s voice was so calm and, in that moment, I thought I couldn’t possibly love him more.
Rage filled me and I swung toward Daracha, my hands lifting, drawing the power that had gathered for me. Thorns shot from around her, wrapping around her dress, ripping the fabric, wrapping, entwining.
Purple lightning snapped between Daracha’s fingers with a crackling sound and the rising gorse drew back like it had been burned, the tips of its thorns smoking.
“Just you, that’s all I want,” the witch said as my gorse sizzled and withdrew.
“Give him his sight back,” I snarled, “and let them go.”
“No.” I felt Lachlan grope for me. His hand found my lower back and he pulled me against him. I put my hand on his arm and squeezed.
Daracha ignored Lachlan. “You’ll stay?”
“I’ll stay.”
I faced Lachlan and saw as he straightened that the gray was already fading from his eyes. But even as vision returned to his eyes, they filled with grief.
“Don’t do this,” he whispered.
I took his face in my hands. “Trust me, please?”
He shook his head and the quiver in his chin nearly undid me. Closing my eyes and drawing light from my connection to the earth, I pulled his lips to mine. Letting the earth’s life run through my body and into him, I sent a message through the kiss.
She cannot hold me. Get them out of here. I’ll follow as soon as I can.
I didn’t know how much of my message he picked up. I wasn’t telepathic like Petra, and I couldn’t command anyone to do what I wanted with the power of my voice, like Targa, but maybe I could share what I wanted.
Lachlan’s arms tightened around me and he kissed me back. I felt moisture on my face and knew he was crying. That was good; it meant he’d go.
Take them to safety, get Evelyn back to the hospital, I thought, letting the stream of white light continue to pour through me and into him, strengthening him, begging him to understand. I sent him one last thought before breaking the kiss. I’ll see you soon.
He pulled back and looked down at me, eyelashes wet, but he gave me the smallest nod. Releasing me, he turned and made his way toward the car. The ithe watched him go, its invisible face turning on its neck.
“Hurry up,” Jasher suddenly called, his voice rising with panic. “Evelyn… she’s shrinking again!”
With a glance at Daracha and the satisfied look on her face, it hit me that this witch could not be trusted to uphold any part of a bargain.
“You’re all out of medicine.” Daracha’s arms crossed casually over her stomach. “The goodbye kiss was sweet, but I don’t have all night.”
Lachlan ran toward the car and with a last desperate look in my direction, slid into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. The car pulled away and was shortly nothing but taillights in the night and the sound of an engine growing distant.
“What do you want?” I faced her, hands at my sides and bare feet braced against the wet soil. Somewhere deep in my mind, a lot of lights were coming on, turning green. My body began to hum.
“You’re precious, little Wise. You don’t know just how precious you are.” Daracha took a few steps toward me, and in her eyes, I saw red firelight flickering.
“You’ll never leave my friends alone.” She couldn’t be trusted, and she had the power to blind or kill. She knew who my friends were now, what they looked like, even if she didn’t know their names.
“Sure I will.” Daracha took another step toward me. “When I’m done with you, I’ll have no more need of them.” She cocked her head and practically cooed the next words, like she was trying to comfort a baby. “It’ll only hurt for a little while.” A cold smile spread across her face. “Well, maybe for longer than a little while.”
I had to destroy her. The realization swept through me like lightning. I actually had to kill this creature, not only to keep her from doing whatever awful thing to me that she had planned, but to protect my friends. I knew this as surely as I could feel the mud squeezing up between my toes. She would never stop.
I felt the presence of the ithe as it moved behind me, but I ignored it and closed my eyes, going inward and down. My spirit roots came easily and naturally, shooting out of the bottoms of my feet and deep into the ground. Power filled me, the earth’s energies lifting me. I opened my eyes. Already, Daracha and the ithe were small figures at my feet and shrinking as my view changed to one from a great height. I could see my own small form far below, blond hair flying.
With a sound like thunder, the ground ripped open in front of Daracha. She stumbled back, purple sparks and electricity crackling at her fingertips. The ithe had vanished, perhaps he’d abandoned her? I felt a smile drift onto my face, slow and wide, as the Wise in me brought the power of the mighty trees to life.
Purple lightning shot from Daracha’s fingers toward the place where I was rooted to the earth, but my connection to the earth was growing stronger and thicker with every moment that passed. Hot cinders of power stung my body but were little more than mosquito bites.
I swung an arm, sweeping it from the heavens toward the witch and hitting her body like she was a golf ball. Daracha flew through the air, her red dress fluttering in the wind. She twisted and spiraled, using the momentum, before landing on her feet in a crouch and then tumbling over and over with a cry. In a flash, she was up on her feet and running, skirts flying.
The split in the earth chased her. Rocks and rotting logs fell into the gaping gorge as it
zigzagged through the terrain. Daracha looked back over her shoulder and redoubled her efforts, leaping over the obstacles in the field like a gazelle. So fleet, so powerful and strong she was. She was fast, she was strong, but she couldn’t outrun me.
With a sound like a thunderclap that shuddered the earth, the split raced toward Daracha, beneath her running feet. She lost her footing and slipped into the crevice, gripping at roots and scrambling to climb back onto the surface.
I caught a glimpse of her face and realized she was smiling—not just smiling, but laughing. She had to be insane.
With a flick of my hand, the earth she clung to shuddered like a horse’s skin flicking off a biting insect. The roots slipped through her fingers.
For a moment I saw her splayed out and laughing as she fell, then I closed the crack in the earth over her with a thud and her the wild laughter that had issued from her throat was cut off abruptly.
With a snap, I returned to my body, the wind still fluttering my hair and tugging my clothes.
A silence descended over the field so complete it was like the land had been covered with a swathe of velvet. Barefoot and filthy, I stood in the wet grass, listening. The ithe was nowhere to be seen.
I closed the earth so well and knitted its roots and rocks and layers back together so neatly, it was like nothing had ever happened. Scanning the dark line of trees, I found nothing out of place or unusual. An owl hooted, followed by the chirrups of insects. It was a peacefulness so surreal I might have been convinced that I’d imagined the whole battle.
I was crossing the field, heading for the road where Lachlan’s car had been parked, when I tripped over something. Picking it up, I realized it was one of my boots, the sock still stuffed into the toe. With a little burst of power running out the end of my toes and across the length of my sole, I caused the mud and dirt stuck to me to fall to the ground. Pulling on my boot, I scanned the shadows until I found the other. I cleaned my other foot and pulled on my other boot. It was looking like a long walk home, or possibly a hitchhike, if there happened to be any travelers on the quiet country roads at this time of night.
With a shiver, I zipped my jacket up to my chin, pulled my hood over my head, and began a slow journey back to Blackmouth. My breath clouded in front of my face and I wished for mittens.
A little over an hour’s hike in the darkest part of night and I arrived at the narrow paved road Lachlan had turned off. Drawing some energy from the earth, I turned and continued on down the shoulder.
A soft plum color was leeching into the horizon when a pair of headlights appeared in the distance. I watched them disappear into the dips and gullies and reappear over the gentle roll of the terrain, growing ever larger. When it was a hundred yards away I smiled, recognizing the shape of the lights. It was Lachlan.
The car slowed and he pulled alongside the shoulder, spraying loose rock into the ditch. Leaving the car to idle, Lachlan got out of the driver’s side and came around to where I’d stopped in the ditch. I took a few steps to close the gap between us, but he covered the ground so fast that his hug took my breath away. He swept me into his arms and pulled me tight against his body. I could hear the relief in his voice.
“I came back as soon as I could,” he whispered into my hair. “Leaving you there was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.” He planted several kisses on my face, my cheeks, my forehead, my lips. “What happened?”
I gripped his hands with my own, feeling the tears that wanted to well up and spill over my cheeks. I was safe, they were safe. Now I could fall apart if I wanted to. Lachlan was here to take care of me. But I found that I didn’t want to fall apart. I felt a serene kind of sadness about what had happened, and a deep consolation that it was over.
“We won’t have to worry about Daracha anymore.” I gave him a brief explanation of what had happened after they’d left. “Where are Evelyn and Jasher?”
“Both of them are at the hospital, both have been given an IV. The police hadn’t arrived before I turned around and left again, but I’m sure they’re there by now.”
“What’s our story?”
“Well, neither of them is in any shape to talk. They’re both exhausted, though it’s amazing to see Evelyn actually conscious again. The clinic staff didn’t know how to react when we walked in with her. You should have seen their faces.” He put an arm around my waist and walked me to the passenger side door. When he opened it for me, I slid in, thankful for the heating.
Lachlan went around and got into the driver’s seat. He turned the car around and began to drive home.
“Let me talk to my dad about it,” Lachlan said after a few thoughtful moments of silence. “I’ll handle him.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“A version of the truth, one that he can live with.” He glanced over at me and took my hand. “I know my dad. He won’t like the supernatural explanation, but the evidence will show that Evelyn is in much better condition than she was before we took her.”
“Jasher isn’t.”
“No, but Jasher has his own story, his own reasons for not feeling his best.”
“To do with drinking a little too much over the last few months?” I guessed.
“Something like that.” With another glance, he released my hand and put both of his on the wheel. “I’ll take you home. You must be exhausted.”
“Can I…” I trailed off, losing my nerve.
“What?” Lachlan pulled to a stop at a crossroad and turned left onto a larger highway. “Tell me.”
“Do you mind if I crash in your spare bedroom tonight?”
“Georjie, if you asked me to make you a crown out of wire and dew drops, I would do my best. Of course you can.”
“Thanks. I just don’t feel like being alone tonight.”
“You feel alone at the castle?”
“With Jasher not in his room, and everyone else so far away and on different floors? Yeah, it does feel a bit lonely.”
“Georjie, you’re welcome to my spare bed for as long as you want it.”
I thanked him and settled back into the seat, letting my thoughts roll over me as my eyelids drifted and the movement of the car lulled me.
By the time we arrived at Lachlan’s cottage, I could barely stand because I was so tired. Lachlan showed me to his spare room and gave me a pair of cotton pajama bottoms and a t-shirt to wear to bed. I’d just crawled beneath the quilt and lay my head on the pillow when I heard a knock on the front door.
Lachlan answered and the rumbles of a low conversation between two men drifted to me under the door. I tried to listen, but my grip on the real world was too weak, and I slipped into the deep sleep of the overwrought.
Chapter 26
I awoke to the feeling of my bed shifting under someone’s weight. The frame creaked. Thinking it was Lachlan, perhaps coming to check on me in the night, I mumbled his name and rolled over. My eyes felt glued shut, but when he didn’t answer, I rubbed them and sat up. My vision was blurry and I realized he was half naked, which sent my blood rocketing through my veins and startled me fully awake. But it wasn’t Lachlan sitting on the end of my bed half naked.
“Laec!”
The fae was actually perched cross-legged on the edge of the footboard, like he weighed a pound, never mind that he appeared to weigh about two hundred pounds. His face caught a beam of light from the window and the lines and hollows of his face appeared deep and drawn. He looked serious.
I pushed myself up into sitting, pulling the coverlet against my chest. The fire of indignation swelled as I recalled what had happened the last time I’d seen him.
“I should string you up for abandoning me,” I hissed. “Why do you keep showing up when it’s clearly Fyfa who comes through when—”
“What have you done?” He interrupted me, and his look was so dark that it gave me pause.
“I killed the witch who was hurting Evelyn, no thanks to you,” I replied. It was the first time I’d ever taken a l
ife and I hoped it would be the last.
Laec dropped his face and let out a long-suffering breath before rubbing his eyes with both hands. I felt like a stupid child he was trying to teach a lesson to. Anger joined the irritation in my belly.
“Get out of here.” My words were bitter. “I don’t trust you. Tell Fyfa I’m coming to find her. I need answers.” I glared at Laec. “From her, not from you. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.”
“Elphame save me from stupid little Wise who don’t know how to use their own gifts,” Laec muttered under his breath.
“Excuse me?”
His hand came toward my face, palm out, fingers crooked and tense. “Try again, hollowhead,” Laec intoned, “and this time…listen.”
What felt like a shower of hot sparks hit my forehead. I opened my mouth to reply, but was already falling back onto my pillow, eyes rolling up into my head.
My stomach lurched with the sensation of falling. I thought I was going to vomit when I landed on my feet in the clearing where Jasher had been building the cottage. Only there was no cottage—there was only the foundation with the beginnings of the original stone wall. The forest around me was thick and lush and full of the shadows of night.
“Laec?” My voice echoed around me like I was standing in a cave. Laec…aec…aec…ec…ec.
The sound of voices and the squeak of rusty metal came to my ears. Someone was coming; in fact, they were nearly upon me. The urge to run and hide was overpowering and I bolted toward the trees. Before I got there, the couple emerged from the thicket, the man pushing the wheelbarrow and its only wheel squeaking with each rotation. I was caught out in the open, but they didn’t notice me. I was seeing the same residual I’d seen when I was with Jasher, only this time…I could hear.
My gaze fell to the body in the wheelbarrow, her limbs and the fabric of her dirty dress spilling over the side. Daracha’s skin was pale in the moonlight, her lips full and dark, her cheeks full with the vitality of youth. Luscious hair tumbled from beneath her bonnet. My heart skipped a beat to see the witch again. How wrong I’d been to assume she was an innocent victim.
