The Druid's Guise: The Complete Trilogy (The Druid's Guise Trilogy)

by Michael J Sanford

  He stared defiantly ahead, but could not shake the uncomfortable feeling that sat in his gut. He shifted uneasily in the hard plastic chair. Mrs. Heclar scribbled for another moment, jotting down some final remnant from his tirade and let silence fall for a moment. She was studying him, he could feel, trying to decide how best to continue.

  “How did the dream make you feel?” she said at last, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “It wasn’t a-” he wanted to say dream, but something in his mind held his tongue. “Uh, sad?” he said instead.

  “Sad?” she repeated back. “OK, have you had this dream before?”

  It’s not a dream, his mind shouted, but his mouth said, “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Who’s Rozen, Wyatt? Is she important to you?”

  Wyatt didn’t answer. His eyes were locked on a small potted tree, pressed into the corner of the room, atop a short filing cabinet. Its leaves were pointed ovals, solid green, and the four narrow trunks twisted around each other. A single leaf shuddered though the window was closed. Then the small canopy leaned an inch to the side. It seemed to be watching him.

  “What’s that little tree there?” he said, nodding at the red pot.

  She turned and looked at it a moment then spun back to face him. “It’s called a money tree. Can we talk about Rozen and your dream some more?”

  “Money tree? Thought money didn’t grow on trees,” he said with a wicked smile.

  “Wyatt,” she began to say, but he interrupted her, his garish voice overpowering her diminutive whisper.

  “You shouldn’t keep it in a pot, or any of them in pots,” he said gesturing wildly around the office. “What if they want to get up and walk around? You know, stretch their roots and move a bit.”

  “Wyatt, plants can’t move on their own.”

  “Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,” Wyatt all but shouted. “They can move and do as they please. Because the world is alive. Well, maybe not this world, but the real world is alive.”

  “What world?” Mrs. Heclar interjected, her voice nearly reaching an average volume. “This is the real world, Wyatt and it is alive. The plants, trees, you, and me, all are alive.”

  “Is it, Mrs. Heclar? Is it?” He was shouting now. “How dare you put all these plants in little pots and stupid vases?”

  Mrs. Heclar look flabbergasted, her mouth hanging slightly open as she tried to form a coherent sentence. Clearly, she couldn’t find the words for after a moment her mouth shut and she turned to her notepad, but wrote nothing.

  “Hey, what time is it?” Wyatt blurted, suddenly very anxious, the passing anger gone.

  Mrs. Heclar eyed him a moment, her brown eyes searching for a thread of rationale to his behavior. He knew she wouldn’t find it. I’m a Druid, he thought. What are you?

  “Eleven twenty-seven,” she said, glancing at the slim silver watch around her wrist.

  “Eleven twenty-seven!” Wyatt shouted and leapt to his feet, sending the chair skidding away. “We gotta go, it’s almost lunch time.”

  “It’s OK, Wyatt. You won’t miss lunch, you can eat when we’re done. We have another fifteen minutes scheduled.”

  “Nope, gotta go now,” he said reaching for the doorknob. Tuesday at eleven thirty.

  Before Mrs. Heclar could respond, Wyatt was running. She likely called after him, but even shouting, her voice was not near to the level needed to pierce Wyatt’s current thoughts. It’s been a week, exactly a week. He blasted through the front door of the dorm and fled across campus as fast as his untied sneakers would allow. There was sure to be consequences for his fleeing. No resident was allowed to break supervision, but that was far from his mind as he ran, destined for his dark angel.

  * * *

  Wyatt crashed into the cafeteria door at eleven thirty-one. A clock peered at him through the narrow window, mocking his tardiness. The door, like all doors at the Shepherd’s Crook, was locked and he had to pound against it for another two minutes before a frowning lunch monitor opened it. The pudgy man said something as Wyatt brushed past, but he couldn’t be certain of what it was. Surely, it was not nearly as important as his current mission.

  He slid into the lunch line which was swollen to capacity and snaked around the outskirts of the cafeteria. He couldn’t restrain his motions, anxiously bouncing up and down, surveying the proceeding line of students. It took only three hops before he saw her. Her vibrant red hair stuck out like a wonderfully glorious flower in a field of weeds. He fixated on the braids that were tied tight to her scalp and wondered how they smelled. He felt drawn to her and anxiously inched forward, striving to get closer. A skinny boy in front whirled on him as his sneaker caught the boy’s heel. Wyatt shrugged and smirked, offering a quick apology. He nudged his glasses higher on his nose, but never lost sight of Athena as she skated through the line, more graceful than a floating butterfly.

  Wyatt rushed through the line, incognizant of what he was doing. He bumped into near everyone within ten feet and was wholly unaware of what was ladled onto his tray. His eyes were busy with Athena and his mind was busy with Rozen. As soon as the food hit his tray Wyatt spun and hastily pushed through the masses to his table; to their table. Athena didn’t look up as he sat down across from her with a wide and goofy smile plastered haphazardly across his face. She held a slice of pizza in her right hand and a pen in her left.

  “What ya writin’?” he said, leaning over the table to get a look at her notebook.

  “Nothing,” she responded around a mouthful of pizza.

  She made no effort to hide her scribbling, but Wyatt found it difficult to read the scrawling script upside down. The handwriting was beautiful and out of place, but he recognized the format of her words. She was writing poetry. He squinted at the words and adjusted his glasses, but could not decipher the words.

  “It’s very sad,” he said, but wasn’t entirely sure why.

  She looked up, her eyes wide and flashing vibrant blue. She had changed her contacts. “You can read it?”

  Wyatt shrugged and smiled coyly. “Not really, but I know it’s sad.”

  She stared a moment longer, as if trying to decipher words scrawled over his face, then went back to double fisting her pizza and pen. Wyatt watched her work, having forgotten his own lunch. His stomach grumbled, but he paid no heed, completely entranced by the dark young woman in front of him, with the red cornrows and now blue eyes.

  “I’m gonna escape,” she said very softly and matter-of-factly. She caught his gaze for a moment and took a long draw of water.

  “From here?”

  She rolled her eyes, sighed and hunched over her work. “Yes, from here.”

  “Oh, but you can’t.”

  “No? Why not?”

  Wyatt thought for a moment. “Because you can’t.”

  “Yeah, you said that. Can’t repeat yourself and think to make a better point. I’m leavin’, whether you think I can or not. But… I need your help.” She had dropped her eyes as she made the request, but flicked them back up to await his response.

  He stared back and wrinkled his brow. “What do you mean? Can’t you just run away?”

  She rolled her eyes again. Wyatt wanted to warn her that her contacts may get stuck if she rolled her eyes too much. “If I just cut and run, they’ll see,” she said, whispering now. “I don’t want no one knowin’ I left ‘til I’m good and gone. Otherwise, they’ll just follow me and call the cops. I wanna disappear. It’s gotta be at night, when they ain’t always watchin’.”

  “So, leave at night,” Wyatt said, shrugging.

  “Can’t. The staff sit at the only doors. Besides, the door don’t lock from the inside, but there’s an alarm that goes off if you open it without an I.D. badge. I need your help gettin’ past the bitches and the outside doors without trippin’ the alarm.”

  Wyatt didn’t smile, but he wanted to. Girls’ Dorm was more modern than his, complete with alarm rigged entry doors and sequestered bedrooms on the second
floor, behind two more sets of doors. Escaping Dorm B would be fairly easy, but leaving Girls’ Dorm without raising half the campus would be impossible. He knew she could never do it, not the way she wanted to, anyway.

  “What you smirkin’ for?”

  I don’t want you to leave, he thought as he shrugged.

  “You gonna help me or what?” she said, her whisper coming at a hiss.

  “What do you want me to do?” And why me?

  “I dunno, but you’re the genius, can’t you think of somethin’, Wy the Mighty?”

  He grinned at that and found her smiling back, her teeth perfect ivory squares. No sooner had the mirth filled his body than it receded and allowed doubt to creep in like the silent tide, washing the smile from his face.

  “I, uh, I’m not a Druid here,” he said hesitantly. “I only have powers there.” Casting doubt on his own abilities felt strange, but he had no intention of helping Athena flee from him. The fact that what he said was true was irrelevant.

  Athena pointed her pen at him, an array of rubber bracelets and charms flashing around her slender wrist. “You will help me,” she said sternly. When Wyatt didn’t respond she sweetened her tone. “Look, get me outta here and you can… come with me.” She grimaced as if the words burned.

  Wyatt’s eyes went wide and he jerked upright. Athena held up a hand to settle him. “Chill, I’ll take you with me outta here, to where you wanna go, but not with me with me. I ain’t your girl.”

  Wyatt stroked his chin thoughtfully, as if he had a long wispy beard. Did she mean it? Would she take me with her? I could escape and be with her. The idea intrigued him to no end. But, did he trust her? Could she be using him? The questions circled through his mind, but he found no answer to any of them.

  He looked up from his trance and found Athena’s blue eyes examining him. He couldn’t decipher the emotion behind them. She must trust him, but Wyatt wasn’t sure why. Could he help her? Save her? He smiled wickedly. Of course, he could. He was Wyatt the Mighty after all, whether here or there made no difference.

  “I can save you,” he said, much louder than he had intended.

  Athena waved a hand to silence him and looked anxiously around. The lunchroom convulsed with a thousand conversations. No one paid theirs any attention. She turned back with a smile.

  “You got a plan?”

  “Of course,” he lied with a grin. “Druids always have a plan.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You are one crazy bastard, you know that? When we gonna spring?”

  “Uh, well,” he clamored. “I need a couple days to get the plan together.”

  “Thought you had a plan,” she said, raising the other eyebrow.

  “I do, but I need some time to iron out the details. Don’t worry, I’ll save you and break you out. I am a genius after all. Don’t you trust me?”

  Athena looked straight into his eyes and without flinching said, “Yes.”

  * * *

  Word of Wyatt’s therapy session breach reached the dorm staff just as he knew it would and he found himself confined to his room for the evening. He wanted to argue the charge, but only out of habit. Being limited to his bedroom was no punishment. Having to suffer through a dozen other residents who were clearly far less intelligent than Wyatt was the real punishment. Besides, he had a breakout to plan.

  He opened his notebook and scribbled out a crude map of the campus. Having never seen an actual map of the area, Wyatt had to rely on his own view from the ground. It was a small campus and he knew there to be only ten separate buildings. He had counted them his first day as the intake staff gave him a tour. He had made mental notes of their shapes and relative positions and was even able to recall the door locations and number of floors. Had his brain been outside his body he would have given it a reassuring and appreciative pat, just as you would a dog that successfully rolled over on command. Good brain, yes you are, good brain.

  It took little time before he had a rough rendering of the Shepherd’s Crook across lined paper, complete with color coded labels. He marked an ‘X’ in bright red for his own position in Dorm B and another for Athena in Girls’ Dorm. He stared at her mark, wondering if she were doing the same, planning their escape, or at least daydreaming of her rescuing Druid. He’d have to find out what room she was in and an approximate layout of her dorm, but boys were not allowed past the threshold. He had tried to get in during his tour and was stiffly scolded. He could attest to the alarms on the doors however, blaring screeches that could only be silenced by a swipe of a staff I.D. badge across the keypad. He had been awoken twice in the past week by the alarms.

  He thought on a plausible escape route for a few moments, but found his mind wandering as it often did. His hands found a new piece of paper and began to aimlessly scribble as his mind imagined what his life would be like if he could wield his Druid’s power on Earth. The thought thrilled him.

  He would scale the outside of Athena’s dorm on a snake of growing roots and lift her to freedom. She would smile and laugh and fawn at his might. He would craft a mansion, no, a castle, made of stone, wood, and earth, far from prying eyes, and somewhere they would never be found or disturbed.

  Visions of curving staircases and open halls filled his mind and he continued to furiously scribble, blind to the motion. Their bedroom would be a cove of tranquility and respite, crowded with snaking vines, vibrant flowers and a flowing spring, waters cool and cleansing. He would conjure a grove of exotic fruits, spawning them from every surface, so they might wander without needing to stop for sustenance.

  Hand in hand they walked in his mind, through ornate gardens and pools of steaming water, under arches of a million roses and across bridges of ebony wood and carved stone. Large balconies of polished marble would sprout from every side of their towering sanctuary, allowing them to never miss a sunset or sunrise.

  He would bend the wind and weather to their will, commanding the seasons to come and go at whim. He could see them laugh and shout, trundling through deep snow drifts, pelting each other with snowballs and collapsing at one another’s side. He could feel the warm summer sun beat against their faces as they counted the clouds and named their favorite flowers. They would feed each other from the vines that twisted at their feet and the towering trees that crowded around them.

  Night would descend and find Athena in his arms as they watched the stars creep across the dark sky, abed a mattress of thick moss. They would rule as one over their castle, over the land, and over the sky, bending the world to shelter and serve them. And they would love one another until the very world crumbled beneath their feet.

  Wyatt nearly fell out of his seat when Mr. Alec bellowed down the hallway for him. He couldn’t be sure of what he said, but Wyatt responded with a curt, “No.” He shook his head and stared out the clouded window for a long moment, watching the day’s sun fade behind brick buildings and stunted trees. The vision had been so vibrant, so encompassing, he had thought it real. What he saw now had to be a mirage, but as he pinched himself, he realized it was all too real. With a deep sigh, he turned back to his desk and let his eyes fall to the picture he had drawn.

  He held it up and tilted his head. A dark shadow plagued the vast majority of the page, smudged in black and gray. Thinner shapes emerged from the side, what Wyatt thought could be splayed limbs, or perhaps tentacles. The shape was dark and foreboding, a secretive shade, a whisper of darkness. The only color was a heavy streak of red at the bottom of the page, underneath the shadowed form. His red colored pencil was broken, clutched in his hand. He shuddered as his eyes met the vibrant color.

  He stared at it a moment, then whirled on the room, eyeing each corner and crevice. The shadowy things, were they in his mind now? He turned back to the paper and grabbed at it. He commanded his hands to tear the paper, to destroy it, but they wouldn’t obey. With a grunt, he relented and let it fall back to the desk. He stared at it a bit longer, daring the haunting shade to rise from the page. It remained unchanged,
but Wyatt could feel it taunting him, whispering in his ear all the things he kept hidden. All of his secrets, known and unknown. He tried to hold back his tears but failed at that as well.

  It knew him. Somehow the thing he had drawn knew him better than anyone had the right to. And the more Wyatt stared at the smudge of black and smear of red he realized something more. Something he didn’t want to admit. Something so terrible that he didn’t want to believe it.

  The shadows…

  He knew them too.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  CLOUDS BLANKETED THE sky, wrapping the campus in a gray shroud. The air was warm, damp, and the wind swept in an array of spasmodic directions, swirling, ebbing, and flowing. Wyatt repeatedly tossed handfuls of grass toward the sky and frowned disappointedly as each was swept quickly in a new direction.

  Shouts and raucous laughter swirled with the wind from the distant kickball game, but he had larger issues to deal with. He was trapped atop his castle tower, surrounded by an army of Fallen, all chanting for his death. The sapling branch in his hand made a passable wand and crackled with energy as he unleashed fireballs and bolts of lightning at his foes. One of the rotted creatures made it up the side, its head poking over the crenellations for just a moment before Wyatt sent it flying with a stout kick.

  The Fallen hit the ground with a sickening crunch and dissolved to dust just as a shadow cut across the scene. Wyatt was breathing heavily, exhausted from the plethora of valiant spells he had cast, so he did little but gasp a greeting and a weak smile. Athena raised a dark eyebrow, surveying his diminutive fortress and the pliable wand clasped in his pudgy hand. A female staff member stood a few yards behind and was trying to suppress a smile.

  “Whatcha doin’ up there, Wy? Waitin’ for a knight to rescue ya?” Her eyes were a deep emerald green and her hair was tied back in a short braid.

  “Where’s the rest of your dorm?” Wyatt asked, pushing at his glasses. They immediately slid back down his sweat slicked nose.