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

by Michael J Sanford

  “Wait. Quietly,” Ms. Abagail said.

  Behind him, Wyatt could hear Julia wandering around the room whispering Lucy’s name. He didn’t hold much hope that she would be any help anytime soon.

  “And what else?” he asked.

  Ms. Abagail looked into her lap without responding. She was fidgeting with something.

  Wyatt leaned forward to get a better look, but couldn’t see what she had. “What’s that?” he asked cautiously. Everything about their situation seemed volatile, fit to explode at any moment.

  “It’s a picture of my dad,” she said. “The only one my mom didn’t destroy. I found it in the attic, and he’s just a kid in it, but I would stare at it for hours, wishing I was someplace else.”

  Wyatt didn’t see how that could help them escape, but he didn’t say anything. If it kept Ms. Abagail lucid, it was enough.

  Ms. Abagail looked up and made an obvious attempt at gathering herself. “Sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t be talking to you about it. It’s not right.”

  “You’re not really my staff anymore,” he said. “But I won’t ask you. I was just hoping you would have an idea of how to get us out of here.”

  “It just feels weird.”

  “What does?” Wyatt asked.

  “All of this. Everything. I know this isn’t real, not really, but I can’t help but feel like I did then. All I want to do is curl up and wish he had taken me with him.”

  “Your dad?”

  Ms. Abagail nodded. “I wish I could just will it all away. Then and now. Why is this happening?”

  “I don’t know. It’s the Realms. It’s like the world wants us to remember stuff we’d rather forget...” He glanced at Julia. “…or can’t remember.”

  “But I do remember,” Ms. Abagail said. “This is just cruel. I knew it was a mistake to come with you. This is crazy.” She surged off the bed and went to the door.

  “Unless you know a trick—”

  “Let us out!” Ms. Abagail screamed. She pounded on the door. Then she kicked it. And then she went at it with a panicked fervor.

  When she finally stopped, the door remained as it was, but Ms. Abagail was panting. Her hands were red and shaking.

  Something rattled on the other side of the door, followed by the sound of a padlock popping open.

  “Hey, you did it,” Wyatt said, popping up off the bed.

  The door blew open, knocking Ms. Abagail backward, where she collided with Wyatt. They both fell to the floor.

  Ms. Abagail’s mother loomed in the doorway, eyes black and unseeing, hair drifting around a head that looked like a corpse’s. She took a single step into the room and jabbed a finger at them, the nail hooked and sharpened to a fine point. Wyatt could see it growing.

  “Just who do you think you are?” she bellowed, her voice rising to an inhuman volume, enough to be felt. She looked more creature than woman. “You filthy whore. Jezebel. You did it. It was your fault.”

  Ms. Abagail shuddered against Wyatt, neither having found the courage to move.

  “Vei culege ce ai semănat.”

  Not being able to understand the words she was speaking, Wyatt found life in his limbs and leapt to his feet. “You can’t hurt her,” he said, moving between Ms. Abagail and her mother.

  The twisted visage of a woman leered and flicked her wrist to the side. An invisible force flung Wyatt across the room to collide with the wall. He fell amid a thin cloud of plaster dust. He shook his head, trying to get the room to cease spinning.

  “Don’t,” Ms. Abagail said, coming shakily to her feet.

  The woman cocked her head to the side in a way Wyatt had seen before. Oh no.

  “You dare talk back to me, foul beast?” the woman snarled.

  “Hey,” Julia shouted, having found her way atop the bed. Wyatt cursed himself, having momentarily lost track of her despite the tight quarters. She was still his sister. Even if she didn’t know it at the moment.

  The woman-creature turned to face Julia. “You shouldn’t be here, small one,” it hissed, spitting black vapor.

  “I know you,” Julia challenged.

  “Leave her alone,” Ms. Abagail said, her voice fuller than before.

  The creature held up a hand toward Ms. Abagail without turning from the bed. “Oh, do you?”

  Julia nodded. “You’re the Bad Man. You’re making Ms. Abagail remember scary things. Lucy told me all about you.”

  Wyatt stepped forward. “Yeah, we know what you are.”

  The thing whirled on Wyatt, but addressed Ms. Abagail with a wag of its finger. “You little slut. How dare you bring these things into my house.” It turned its head toward Ms. Abagail. It no longer looked human, limbs elongating, bones snapping like kindling.

  Without warning, Julia flung herself from the bed and landed atop the creature’s back. Both snarled, and Wyatt couldn’t separate their voices. The creature jerked, snared Julia with its impossibly long fingers, and tossed her aside as if she were a doll. Wyatt attempted to catch her, but ended up falling under the weight.

  “You should not be here,” the thing said, raising a clawed hand.

  Wyatt pulled Julia to his chest and braced for the next attack. They would have no chance of avoiding the strike. Not sprawled on the floor as they were and in such tight confines.

  “Don’t you fucking touch them.”

  The creature froze and slowly twisted around. Ms. Abagail loomed in the middle of the room, her hands still shaking at her side, but now they were clenched into fists and her eyes shone with tears beneath a furrowed brow.

  “You watch your tongue, whore.” With a series of sickening cracks, the creature’s arms reduced to their original size.

  “I won’t let you hurt them,” Ms. Abagail said.

  The creature shuddered and became as it had been before—a slight woman with a sinewy frame and hard eyes. “Need I remind you who you are speaking to?”

  Ms. Abagail faltered a moment, but remained in place. “I’m not scared of you, Mom. You can’t hurt—”

  With a quick twitch, Ms. Abagail’s mother backhanded her across the face, sending her sprawling onto the bed. “The hell I can’t. It’s bad enough for you to throw yourself at every boy—or girl—that you see, but to stand here and talk back? I will not have it in my house. I will not stand for it!”

  Wyatt extricated himself from Julia and started to rise, but stopped when Ms. Abagail held up a hand toward him as she pushed herself off the bed. He wanted to intervene. He wanted to save her.

  “This is her fight,” Julia whispered, grabbing his arm to further hold him in place.

  He glanced at her and saw a hard expression staring back. “Lucy?” he asked.

  She gave the smallest of nods.

  “This isn’t your house,” Ms. Abagail said, wiping blood from her lip. “It’s Dad’s.”

  “Like hell,” her mother said. “He left—”

  “He left because of you!” Ms. Abagail shouted.

  Her mother raised a hand, poised to strike again, but Ms. Abagail didn’t cower. Instead, she stepped closer. “Go on,” Ms. Abagail said. “Do it. Hit me. You can hit me all you want, but I will never fear you. Never again. And I won’t let you blame Dad leaving on me anymore. It was your fault.” Ms. Abagail jabbed a finger at her mother, nearly hitting the woman’s nose. “You’re nothing but a drunk and a monster. He left me because of what you did. You!”

  Wyatt thought for a moment that Ms. Abagail’s mother was going to fall back or flee entirely. But she didn’t. She struck, cuffing Ms. Abagail’s ear. The sound of the strike echoed, but Ms. Abagail remained stalwart.

  “That all you got, Mom?” she asked.

  The woman visibly bristled and punched Ms. Abagail in the stomach, curling her over. Before Ms. Abagail could gather herself, her mother hit her again, this time in the back of the head. Ms. Abagail fell to her knees.

  Wyatt made to move again, but Ms. Abagail looked up and caught his eye. “Take your sister
and get out of here,” she said firmly, pointing at the open door as she stood once more.

  Wyatt shook his head as Ms. Abagail’s mother backhanded her in the jaw.

  “Go!” Ms. Abagail said, spitting blood.

  “We’re not leaving you,” Wyatt said.

  Lucy pulled at his hand, leading him toward the door. “This isn’t our memory,” she said.

  “I will teach you to respect me if I have to work at it until hell freezes over,” Ms. Abagail’s mother shouted, oblivious to Wyatt and Lucy as she continued to lay into Ms. Abagail.

  “That all you got, bitch?” Ms. Abagail said. Her mother was breathing hard and didn’t respond. “Good. My turn.”

  Ms. Abagail stood and punched her mother square in the face. At the same moment, the bedroom door slammed shut, cutting off their escape and nearly taking off Lucy’s nose. Lucy fell back into Wyatt, and together, they retreated from the embattled women.

  Ms. Abagail’s mother was bleeding from her nose and lip. Ms. Abagail’s entire face was a wash of blood. She struck again, punching her mother in the jaw. The window exploded outward, sucking out the air in the room and sending fractured glass out into the sunlight like a hundred diamonds. Ms. Abagail seemed not to notice and punched again, this time hitting her mother in the stomach. The entire room dropped a foot, forcing Wyatt to lean against Lucy to stay upright. She pushed him off her with a derisive grunt.

  “How does it feel, Mom?” Ms. Abagail shouted.

  “How dare—”

  “What, Mom?” Ms. Abagail interrupted, grabbing a fistful of the woman’s stringy hair. She yanked her mother upward and forced their noses to nearly touch.

  “I’m not scared of you,” Ms. Abagail said slowly. “You can call me whatever names you like: whore, slut, Jezebel—your favorite. But you can’t hurt me anymore. So, save your breath, save your hate, and save your blame. I’m not a scared kid anymore. And I’m not afraid. And it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t…my…fault…”

  The vehemence that had been chiseled into Ms. Abagail’s face broke into sorrow. She released her mother’s hair and fell onto the bed. As she did, her mother fell back and crumbled into a pile of dust that was quickly carried out the broken window on an invisible wind.

  Silence filled the room, marred only by Ms. Abagail’s muffled sobbing. Wyatt stared, wide-eyed, at the place Ms. Abagail’s mother had been and then at the shattered window where she had drifted off.

  Lucy left Wyatt’s side and sat on the bed next to Ms. Abagail. Wyatt did the same, and they both wrapped arms around the crying young woman.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Ms. Abagail whispered to herself. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  Chapter Seven

  MS. ABAGAIL CLEARED her throat, coughed, and began laughing. She braced her elbows against her knees as she sat on the edge of the bed, flanked by Wyatt and Lucy, and laughed into the floor with such vigor that Wyatt could see snot and saliva dot the carpet. Wyatt looked at Lucy. Lucy scowled back and patted Ms. Abagail on the back.

  “You okay, Ms. Abagail?” Wyatt asked. “What’s so funny?”

  Ms. Abagail stood up and gestured about wildly as she spun a tight circle. “This, that. Everything. This is…”

  She stopped spinning and walked to the door. She ran an open hand against the worn wood. “It feels…real.”

  “It is,” Wyatt said. “Well, I think it is. Just exactly what did you do, Lucy?”

  Lucy ignored Wyatt and joined Ms. Abagail at the door. She slipped her small hand into Ms. Abagail and turned her toward the middle of the room. “You did,” Lucy said. “You defeated what the Bad Man made you see.”

  “Uh, we all saw it,” Wyatt said.

  Again, Lucy ignored him, as did Ms. Abagail. Ms. Abagail looked at the knuckles of her left hand, saw the caked blood, and clasped her right hand over her mouth. Her nose and lip were even more bloodied, and it looked as if one eye was beginning to swell. She looked at the spot in the room where the visage of her mother had stood and dropped the hand covering her mouth. She was smiling.

  “God, that felt good,” Ms. Abagail said. “If I could have just done that back then…”

  Her eyes glazed over, still staring at the floor, Lucy pressed tightly against her side.

  Wyatt cleared his throat. “Well…” he said.

  Lucy glared at him. “Don’t be rude,” she scolded.

  “Hey,” he protested, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m sorry about what I said…before. It’s just…that dream with Athena was really messed up and weird. And this…” He shuddered. Suddenly he felt cold, frigid, even.

  He looked at the broken window as a gust of frozen wind split the room. “Oh!” he exclaimed, leaping from the bed and walking to the portal.

  It had been a sunny summer day when they’d first arrived in Ms. Abagail’s memory—as that seemed to be what it was, much to Wyatt’s disbelief. But all Wyatt could see beyond the glassless window was—

  “Snow!” Lucy shouted from behind Wyatt, causing him to jump.

  Ms. Abagail circled around him and leaned out the window. “I thought this was like…my memory, or whatever.”

  “It is,” Wyatt said, glancing back to make sure they were still in the same room. He was beginning to lose track of the transitions between worlds—and now memories. It was unnerving to lack both the knowledge and control over what he was experiencing. If only he hadn’t given up his power.

  “No, can’t be,” Ms. Abagail said.

  “I love snow!” Lucy shouted. Before Wyatt could stop her, she dove out the window and vanished into the sea of white. She popped up a second later with a squeal of delight.

  “Why not?” Wyatt asked, keeping an eye on Lucy, but not daring to chase after her, knowing she didn’t want him near her now.

  “It never snowed here,” Ms. Abagail said. “If this is my house…from when I was a kid, then it shouldn’t be snowing. Definitely not like this. We lived in Arizona. I never saw snow until we moved to New York after I got...never mind.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m not making it up, Wyatt.”

  Wyatt watched as Lucy jumped and rolled through the growing drifts of snow. She was moving further and further away from the house, but still all Wyatt could do was watch. She was happy. More so than he’d seen her. Sure, Julia was happy, almost eternally, but that wasn’t the same thing. And after what he’d said to her in Sanctuary, he didn’t want to squash her joy.

  “Wyatt?” Ms. Abagail asked, snapping him from his thoughts with a hard elbow to the shoulder. “Where are we?”

  Wyatt jumped. “Oh. I don’t know. The snow makes me think we made it back to Sanctuary. Maybe after you faced your…memories or fears or whatever…”

  “Oh,” Ms. Abagail said thoughtfully. “So, like this window is the line between worlds. Or memories. Or whatever.” She laughed nervously. “Like a magic door.” She stared at him a moment, then reached under the bed and pulled out a pair of worn sneakers. She slid her bare feet into them and began lacing.

  Wyatt frowned and studied the window in order to buy a few seconds to think. He had jumped between worlds numerous times, but it was more abrupt. Or at least it had been. Before he gave the Bad Man his amulet. He still had no idea what the creature was or what it could do with it.

  “I guess…” Wyatt said. “Things are a little messed up, I think. It was never like this. And I never found my way into anyone’s memories. That’s obviously Lucy’s trick.”

  “Great, so you don’t even know what’s going on?”

  He shrugged. There was something nagging at him. Something scratching at the back of his mind, buried in shadows.

  Wyatt wrinkled his nose. “Do you smell gas?”

  “Gas?” Ms. Abagail asked.

  From out in the snow-plagued world, Lucy screamed. Wyatt looked up, having only looked away from a moment. Something flashed in the distance—a light of some sort—but he couldn’t see Lucy.

  “Oh shit, she�
��s gone,” Ms. Abagail said, already vaulting over the windowsill.

  Wyatt stumbled after her, ignoring the wet chill that embraced him as he plowed through the thigh-high drifts, chasing after Ms. Abagail.

  “Lucy!” Ms. Abagail yelled.

  Something flashed at the crest of the hill straight ahead. It pulsed twice and then glowed with a muted amber aura, hovering just above the snow, looking like a lone wisp separated from the others of the Shadow Forest in Hagion. Longing seized Wyatt. Whether driven by the thought of the dark forest or for his sister, he couldn’t tell, but he surged ahead, drawing even with Ms. Abagail and pointing at the light.

  “There!” he shouted.

  “You see her?” Ms. Abagail asked.

  He shook his head without answering. Whether wisp or not, the light was urging him onward, drawing him to its dull glow.

  They reached it together. It wasn’t a wisp at all, but a steel streetlight. It hummed with electricity.

  “What’s a lamppost doing in the middle of nowhere?” Ms. Abagail asked, running her hand along the cold steel.

  Wyatt leaned against it and caught his breath. With a flicker, the light above winked out, and with it, the sky darkened, black clouds rolling in at impossible speeds. The wind intensified and nearly bowled Wyatt over. Only his grip on the steel pole kept him from sliding down the steep embankment beyond.

  From the growing shadows at the bottom of what was a small cliff came a muffled call for help.

  “There!” Wyatt shouted, pointing at the small dot of movement hundreds of feet below, ignoring the gathering storm.

  “Oh God,” Ms. Abagail gasped, moving toward the edge. “She must have fallen and slid all the way down.”

  “Well, we got to get down there,” Wyatt said.

  He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled to the place where the ground seemed to simply fall away. It brought back a vibrant flash of doing the same at the border between Hagion and Gazaria. A dizzy spell came and went like the tearing wind.

  “Lucy!” he shouted.

  “Come on,” Ms. Abagail said. She sat in the snow and inched toward the precipice.