Beyond the Wild Wood

by E. M. Fitch

  Cassie smiled, grabbing for Ryan’s hands. He squeezed her fingers lovingly. “He’s coming,” she confirmed, “but we can’t run. He’ll come here, to the center of this madness, and we have to stop him, or else—”

  “Everyone here will be wiped out,” Samantha supplied, wiping her eyes. Tears cleaned the soot from her face and then smeared the dirt in the wake of her hand. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

  Cassie nodded.

  “And he’ll come here?” Ryan asked, turning to survey the scene. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, positive.”

  “The ambulances are being forced around; they can’t get by this trailer,” Samantha said, a business-like tone taking over. “They’re sending them down the back route so they can get to the tennis courts. I can hear the sirens of firetrucks and more help, but they’re not getting any closer now, are they?”

  Cassie stilled and listened; Samantha was right. She could hear the faint whine of siren, but they didn’t seem to be drawing nearer. “I bet they’re stuck somewhere,” Cassie murmured. “Maybe some of the roads were made impassable.”

  “Well, they need to get here soon and put that out,” Ryan said, looking over his shoulder to the black-smudged sky. “It’s spreading fast.”

  “I agree. Look,” Cassie said, letting go of Ryan’s hand to point. “See the birds?”

  “They’re spreading it,” Ryan said, awe and anger mingling in his tone. Cassie nodded.

  “But we can’t do anything about that now. The firemen will have to see to it, hopefully soon—”

  An explosion and a woof of hot air interrupted Cassie’s words. Everyone under that single, swaying stoplight turned to look toward the library, where another explosion rocked the forest, uprooted trees, and sent a second billowing column of smoke into the sky.

  “The town hall,” Samantha said, pushing her dirty blond hair out of her face. “The fire must have taken out another fuel tank.”

  Anna and Gibbons jogged up the hill and stopped at their side. Gibbons still had his mask on; his mouth pulled at the wet fabric with each labored breath. Ryan and Samantha had their hospital masks hanging around their necks, and with sudden certainty, Cassie told them to put them in place.

  “What’s with the masks?” Anna huffed, looking over the group and then to the fire. “Holy shit, you know?” she murmured. The rest nodded.

  “He’s coming,” Cassie hissed, never more sure of his presence before in her life.

  The past year had forced change. Cassie now knew what fear was and how to live despite it; she knew the importance of honesty with people who deserved it. But beyond all that, she had learned to trust her instincts. Every fiber of her being was screaming that Aidan was near. If forced to break it down to a particular sign, she couldn’t. She knew the hair on her arms stood straight and that her skin tingled with awareness. She knew the back of her neck prickled and the muscles in her gut clenched. But beyond all physical feelings, she knew a restless anxiety had taken residence in her chest, and she knew this feeling wasn’t hers. She knew because woven into that buzz of restless energy, anger lived. And Cassie didn’t feel angry herself, even with everything that happened. She wasn’t angry; she was determined. That anger spinning in her chest didn’t belong to her. And if it didn’t belong to her, it must belong to him; and if that were true, then he was here. He was moving closer.

  “It’s happening now,” Cassie said, turning to the people who grouped around her. “You can stay or you can go; I won’t hold it against any of you, no matter what you choose.”

  “Who’s coming?” Anna asked nervously. She shifted from foot to foot, a newcomer to their group, but not to the tragedy they had battled. She had fought this fight as well. She was immersed the second her little sister took Jude’s hand in the forest. Some things just happened like that; the choices of others threw your life onto unexpected paths that you then had to travel. You could, however, choose how to travel them—blindly or with your eyes wide open.

  There was no time for long explanations, no time to describe the creatures or what they could do. And she didn’t think she’d need to. Anna either knew or she didn’t. Cassie looked to the older girl. Anna’s brow wrinkled, and she nodded.

  “They’re coming,” Anna murmured, more a statement than a question. She took a deep breath and pushed her hair out of her eye. “Okay. I’m ready.”

  “Not yet you’re not,” Ryan murmured. He bent to a bag Cassie hadn’t even noticed, tugging the zipper and pull out a long, ancient golf club. He handed it to Anna. “Now you are.”

  They stood in a line with Cassie at the center. Ryan and Samantha flanked her left, Officer Gibbons and Anna (her face also encased in a wet cloth, courtesy of Samantha) her right. They faced the accident scene, a mess of sticky syrup and—Cassie could just see it—a trickle of blood that leaked from the truck cabin and stained the warm pavement beneath. Caustic air wafted over them from the burning town center. The library was gone for sure, the town hall right behind it, the collapsed gazebo and soccer fields and baseball diamonds all lost to the sweep and rush of flame that crows swept in to continue spreading. To their left, a graveyard lay silently, almost a taunt … or a threat. Beyond the graveyard, down a hill and past the now-abandoned green—the raised flag still snapping in the smoky breeze—a group of restless men, women, and children milled enclosed in a tennis court, confused and scared.

  “He’s here,” Cassie murmured. Her fist tightened on the iron club Ryan had handed her moments ago. She couldn’t see Aidan yet, but she could feel him. That agitation that coiled in her chest was laced with smug satisfaction, and Cassie’s lips curled in disgust. She kept her eyes to the wreck on the road. He would come from that direction, she was sure of it. The woods stretched from the library to the hiking trails to the Gray Lady Cemetery. He’d come from that direction, because he’d want to see the trail of destruction for himself.

  Aidan’s laugh preceded him. Everyone in the group heard it; every one of them tensed and tightened their grip on their weapons. Aidan rounded the corner of the wreck, stepping carefully through the blood and syrup with a sadistic smile lingering on his face.

  “Oh, what a mess we’ve made, my love,” he hissed, looking up at Cassie. His thumb rose and rubbed over his lower lip, his blue eyes locked on Cassie, twinkling in merriment. “You don’t look as well as you did this morning. Trying afternoon?”

  Cassie’s stomach rolled as she remembered the feeling of those warm, aggressive lips on hers. Her skin crawled at the memory of his hands exploring. She brought the golf club up, like a softball bat, and stepped forward. Aidan didn’t flinch, he moved forward, and from behind the wreck, the rest of the Fae joined him.

  Cassie remembered a few of these faces from that day in the park. The day the hiking trails in the area had welcomed Cassie and had led her to her best friend. There had been a pond there, and beyond that surface, a line of Fae waiting amongst the trees. When Laney and Corey joined the ranks of their family and stared across that pond, looking at Cassie, she had recognized several of the creatures. Laney and Corey, of course, and then a stately redheaded woman that Cassie had seen watching her in a coffee shop, and a beautiful brunette girl, and Jude.

  Now, however, there were some noticeably missing. Corey was gone; the stately redhead was nowhere to be seen. Jude and the brunette girl he enjoyed hanging around were also missing, and so was Laney, of course. A thrill of fear coursed through Cassie at the thought of her best friend facing Jude and the brunette faery, but she dismissed it. There was nothing she could do about that. Aidan was in front of her; Aidan she could handle.

  From her left and right, ragged breaths were drawn safely through tattered masks. Her friends saw, her friends were ready, her friends were armed with iron. They were outnumbered two to one, with a line of Fae stretching far beyond the end of their own modest defense.

  “There is no one left to help you,” Aidan hissed. “And once you are bur
ied under the soil, roots seeking solace in your veins and settling in your cold, traitorous heart, I will end this town. No human will live in this place, not for a thousand years.”

  Cassie started forward with a growl, no room for fear in her heart, her fingers moist with sweat and firm with determination as they gripped her club.

  She stopped as the sound of a roaring engine filled the air. A busted front grill followed by a faded black pickup truck roared up the street at fifty miles per hour, and Cassie skidded to a halt, unable to looked away.

  The front of the truck smashed into Aidan, propelling him forward. In a bizarre flash, one in which time seemed to slow down, Cassie watched as his toes dragged behind him on the pavement, as his head snapped back against the dented hood. His arms pinwheeled out, one wrist smashing a headlight. And then he was thrown three feet forward, his chin connecting with the pavement and bouncing obscenely. Lips that had caressed her only hours ago were mashed against his teeth with a bloody spray. He rolled forward and then was lost as the truck didn’t stop, just continued forward—thump, bump—over his body.

  The driver spun the truck around, teetering precariously on two wheels and offering the line of defenders an unobstructed view of Aidan’s bloody body and the trail of red tire tracks, before it settled back on four wheels, the engine cut, and the window rolled down.

  “Holy shit,” the driver breathed, looking at Cassie. Jon, returned to them and nearing shock, was unable to take his hands off the wheel. His entire body shook. “Holy effing shit.”

  “It’s over for you,” Laney said softly. Her new friend, the mountain lion, growled in agreement, but Gaia and Jude only leered.

  “I don’t think so,” Jude hissed, shaking his head back and forth. “It’s only just beginning. This town might be lost, your stupid friend might be dead, but we’ll move on.”

  “New town, new faces, new haunts,” Gaia said in a sing-song voice, “but the same old forest. It is ours, and we will take what we want.”

  “No,” Laney disagreed. A smile graced her lips. As she tilted her head in consideration of these two wayward faeries, she saw in their eyes the momentary confusion and then the subtle knowing. But both shook it off, as they would a troublesome fly, and determination set their jaws.

  Determination, or stubbornness? Laney didn’t know, and she decided she didn’t need to figure it out now. That could come later. She reached out and tangled her fingers in the coarse, warm hair of the mountain lion. The beast hadn’t yet left her side. She had never really considered herself a cat person, but she felt she could get used to this particular companion. In fact, she rather liked the warm creature purring at her hip.

  “It won’t be here,” Laney continued, watching both carefully. They teetered on the balls of their feet, ready to spring forward but not quite daring. It is the knowing that’s stopping them. Laney felt it in her gut. They were fighting themselves, not her. “Not this forest, not even this country, but we can start again, start new.”

  “Tír na n-Óg?” Jude rasped in disbelief. “Is that what you mean? You’re as stupid as the old one.”

  “Sleep for a thousand years? Laney, come now,” Gaia whispered, almost pleading. “You can’t possibly want that.”

  “I want a lot of things I can no longer have. Mortality, for one,” Laney admitted. Both Gaia and Jude scoffed and laughed. “And my son,” Laney continued, not acknowledging their response. “I want him more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my entire existence. But there are things I can have, and I intend to have them. Peace, prosperity, connection of soul. These all exist, and we’ll find them in Tír na n-Óg. I know this to be true.”

  The words she spoke felt both foreign and inherent. They came from someplace deeper, and she spoke them with conviction because they were the truth.

  “Corra … ” Gaia whispered, the word both a fear and a confession. Laney nodded her understanding.

  “Will be there in time. As will Corey, and our other lost souls. All souls will find their way to us, and life will cease, except in the eternal.”

  Gaia struggled. Laney could see it in her expression, both doubt and fear. She didn’t want to let go, and this Laney understood. She wanted to reach for her, to explain how she understood. In a swirl and a rush, she could feel the faery girl’s emotions, the conflicted confusion. It invaded Laney’s senses as easily as a breeze scented by wildflowers, or the heat of a fire. Laney could recognize that they weren’t her own emotions, knew they were coming from the girl who chewed her bottom lip and pleaded with her eyes for Laney to not force this choice upon her, but it felt as though this nagging guilt was her own. It swirled through her chest and settled in her gut, just as it would if Laney herself had been feeling this. And days from now, when she looked back to this moment, she would blame that for not seeing Jude. Because Laney didn’t see his eyes narrow, didn’t see his fists clench, and certainly didn’t see the tree that bowed behind her, mighty limbs preparing for a blow.

  The tree branch whipped forward, catching Laney firmly in the back. The air whooshed from her lungs in one painful gasp as her body was propelled forward. She careened toward Gaia and Jude, no longer in control of herself. Her toes scraped the forest floor, her arms reaching for something to grasp in the open air of the forest. Pain lanced her chest, lack of oxygen caused spots to form in her vision, and before she could regain her ability to drag a rasping breath past her lips, Jude’s meaty fist closed over her throat.

  “You have brought nothing but pain,” he hissed in her ear, drawing her face closer to his own. Roots sprang from the soil at Laney’s feet and slinked up her legs, caressing at first and then beginning to squeeze. “Pain and loss, and now you want to take more from us. We won’t have it.”

  The mountain lion, her new guard, sprang forward as Laney’s vision blackened even further. She saw his sleek, yellow coat streak past as he leaped at Gaia. The faery screamed and threw her hands up. Laney lost sight of her as Jude’s fingers tightened, as the pinch in her chest grew to a roar of agony. The roots snaked up her waist, twisting tighter, holding her steady, as Jude’s other hand joined his first.

  Laney reached forward with her own stunned limbs, scrambling at Jude’s hold. It was no use; he was much stronger. She let her hands drop.

  But Laney’s strength didn’t lie in her hands. Strength for her would come from the truth. She had no breath to speak, so she wouldn’t be able to whisper the secret as she had to the stags; she would have to use the faery magic she hadn’t yet fully mastered, call for it now, and hope to the heavens that it answered. There, in the forest, in Jude’s mighty grip, with her guard wrestling a faery of his own, her soul whispered to the trees. Come help me now.

  If she had doubted before that magic truly existed, she would never doubt again. Every tree twisted as her vision completely blackened. Her skin mottled purple, and she could no longer feel the awful pinching in her chest. Her head pounded, and she longed for air, and just at the precipice of unconsciousness, she felt the forest floor move beneath her feet.

  The roots that bound her fell off and slithered back. The trees that surrounded her moved as though bidden, wrapping Jude and prying him away with tiny branches that disentangled his fingers from her throat, touching her skin as gently as a lover’s caress. He screamed as he was wrenched back, and Laney fell to her knees and then forward. The forest floor rose to meet her, heaving and sighing as though she were now resting on a loving giant’s bosom, rising with its breath. The action reminded Laney’s wretched body to draw breath again, sucking the air down through a throat that felt too tight into lungs that burned with loss. The world came back a sensation at a time, first the clear scent of resin, and decay, and fresh, green growth; and then warmth, the feeling of moss beneath her cheek, the thumping at her temples and the throbbing circle of pain that she wore like a necklace around her neck; and then the bright, bright day. The sun shone through a hole in the trees, as though the forest was spotlighting her
, introducing her to the world as the newest and brightest of its stars. She couldn’t accept the honor on her feet, she couldn’t bow or smile or wave. She could only lay meekly, rasping breath, and agreeing in silence.

  Yes, I’m here. I’m yours.

  “Laney?” Gaia whispered. She scooted forward, the mountain lion now at her side. A warm, wet tongue ran the length of her cheek, and Laney laughed. It sounded wrong, far too harsh. “Laney, I didn’t know … ” she paused, seeming to consider her words with a toss of her hair. Instead of trying to excuse herself, she simply asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Laney murmured. Again, the words sounded funny. She pushed herself up with shaking arms, grateful for the faery girl who wound an arm under her for support even though her new pet growled at the intimacy. A circle of tiny white flowers bloomed around them as Laney regained her feet. She looked up to Gaia, who suddenly seemed meeker than Laney could ever remember. The girl dropped her gaze to Laney’s feet and went to back away, but Laney grabbed for her forearm. It wasn’t only because she forgave the girl who was just so intent on murdering her, though she did forgive her; Laney needed her close by for support. With Gaia on one arm, and her mountain lion on the other, she looked up to Jude.

  Jude hung in the trees with his legs together and both arms extended. He struggled and heaved against his bindings, but they did not relinquish him. They wouldn’t, unless Laney told them to.

  “I won’t follow you,” he hissed. “Not now, not ever. I don’t care if—”

  “Jude, shut up,” Gaia said. She sounded tired and sad. And then after a moment, her words soft and wondering, she added, “Maybe it’s time.”

  Before he could retort, all three faeries stiffened. The trees keened in agony, and the wind sent ruffles of pain over their skin. Just as Laney could feel Gaia’s emotions minutes before, she now felt Aidan’s. Pain, acute and sharp, covered his body. Jude struggled in the trees.