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

by Michael J Sanford

  “Young boy, maybe a teenager, but small, messy blond hair, lots of freckles.”

  The woman thought for a moment but shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t know any children by that name.”

  “If his last name was Miller, would that help?”

  The woman shook her head. “Sorry.”

  “Didn’t think so.” Wyatt wanted answers from the boy—or whatever he was—but didn’t think he had time to wander around the entire city looking for him. He still had no idea of how large Sanctuary truly was, buried in a mountain as it was. “Well, how about my friends? Athena and Maia.” Wyatt thought there was a chance that they might know where Henrick had gone, and if not, he thought he ought to see Athena and try to explain everything.

  “Oh, the girl and spriteling are in the Observatory with the Council.” The woman smiled, seemingly pleased to give Wyatt an answer he desired.

  Wyatt was less pleased. What were they doing with the Council? It was bad enough that Athena had taken over his quest to defeat the Regents when she had called the elves to her side and left the Pines, but to be speaking with the local authority…what was there to discuss, anyway? Benjamin had seemed content to believe the problem with the Regents solved, even though Wyatt knew it was not so simple.

  “Are you all right, sir?” the woman asked.

  Wyatt snapped his eyes to hers, realized he had been scowling and grinding his teeth, and fought to relax his expression. “I’m fine. Thanks for the help,” he said as he took the stairs, headed downward.

  “You’re going the wrong way,” the woman called after him.

  “No, I’m not,” he said without turning around or slowing his descent.

  Still groggy from sleeping so long, Wyatt wandered aimlessly, hoping to feel some supernatural pull in the direction he needed to go in order to save his sister. But he felt nothing but a deep ache, and eventually found himself in a small library or study. A large, arching window made up the wall behind a lacquered desk. Wyatt crossed the empty room and pressed his face to the glass.

  He was still facing the empty valley of snow and mud. If he squinted, he thought he could see darker patches that marked the prison pits, though he knew the distance was too great to actually see such detail. And the one he had last seen Lucy in was even farther away, if what Maia had told him was true. But how far? A few miles? A hundred?

  “What if she’s still there?” Wyatt asked, his breath fogging the glass and stealing his view.

  It was the fear he had yet to give voice to. He hadn’t even dared think it, but seeing the barren valley again brought it up from the dark depths of his mind. As far as Wyatt could tell, Lucy hadn’t actually traveled with them to the memory of Greenwood—it had been the Bad Man masquerading as her. Had Lucy opened the doorway to her memory but stayed behind? Was she still injured and sick in a hole in the ground in the middle of a frozen wasteland? Wyatt shuddered and sat on a wooden bench flanking a short bookshelf.

  He leaned forward and rested his face in his palms. When had everything become so complicated? All he had wanted to do was escape.

  “I should never have brought anyone here,” he said to his hands.

  “Do you think that would have changed things?” asked a voice from the corner of the small room.

  Wyatt nearly fell off the bench at the start. He had thought he was alone, but then again, he was finding it hard to truly focus on anything beyond his own thoughts.

  He looked over to see Henrick sitting on the floor, wedged between two bookshelves, an open tome on his lap. Wyatt just stared dumbly at the boy.

  Henrick was running a finger along the open page before him and didn’t look up. “Not that I’m saying you don’t have a choice,” the strange boy continued. “We all have choice. But sometimes every choice can bring you to the same moment. You could call it destiny, but it’s truly just a measure of perspective.”

  Wyatt continued to stare, not knowing what to say, and not having understood a word of what was just said.

  Henrick looked up. “It’s all right here,” he said, gesturing at the page. “Not that I understand much more than you do, I don’t think. Just thought it would help.”

  “Are you Ms. Abagail’s dad?” Wyatt blurted.

  “Not sure I even know who that is. But I would like to have children someday. Wouldn’t you?”

  “How is that important?” Wyatt asked. “Who are you?”

  “Henrick.”

  “What are you?”

  Henrick wrinkled his brow. “Human, same as you, I think.”

  Wyatt shook his head and stood. “How do you travel like you do? No one can hop around the Realms as quickly as you do.”

  Henrick shrugged, shut the book, and stood. “Mother always said I was light on my feet.”

  Wyatt didn’t even balk at the ridiculous answer. His mind had raced on without him. “Why are you helping me? Why have you been following me since Ouranos?”

  “I like being helpful. It’s just how I am.”

  “Fine, whatever,” Wyatt said, waving off the mystery with a swipe of his hand at the boy. “I guess it doesn’t really matter. What does matter, though, is that you take me back to Lucy. Help me rescue her.”

  “Can’t do that,” Henrick said.

  “But you found us in her memory at Greenwood and took us back to Sanctuary through an elevator! I don’t care how you do it, I just need you to do it again.”

  Henrick looked up at Wyatt, seeming to think over the words, but then shook his head again. “No can do. Sorry, Master.”

  Henrick started walking toward the door as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “Where are you going?” Wyatt demanded.

  “I’m hungry,” Henrick said plainly.

  “You can’t just run off again. I need your help. Why stop now? Why save all of us except Lucy? What am I supposed to do?!” Wyatt was yelling now and could feel tears lance his cheeks like molten iron.

  Henrick stopped, turned, and handed Wyatt the book he had been reading. “Mother always said reading can take one to other places. Perhaps you could do the same.”

  Wyatt took the leather-bound book and reined in his emotions long enough to ask, “Is that how you do it? Magic books or something?”

  “Magic?” Henrick said, turning once again to leave the study. “Magic’s not real.”

  Before Wyatt could respond or move, Henrick slammed the sturdy door shut with enough force to send books tumbling from the nearest shelves. Wyatt jumped at the impact, but the shock was quickly replaced by anger. He hurled the book Henrick had given him at the door and kicked several more from the shelf at his side.

  “What do I need to do?!” he yelled at the ceiling. “How do I find her?!”

  He looked to the desk for something else to throw, kick, or destroy. His hands were shaking, begging for an outlet to the rage sending shivers up and down his spine. He found a letter opener and spun around to hurl it at the door, but stopped.

  A mosaic of bright colors amid the weathered parchment scattered on the floor caught his eye. Even without fully uncovering it, Wyatt recognized the battered comic book immediately. He let the letter opener fall from his hand as he went to his knees and picked it up.

  “It can’t be,” he said out of habit.

  But it was.

  The Mystical Adventures of Grenleck the Wizard.

  Chapter Seventeen

  WYATT FLIPPED THROUGH the dog-eared comic book, dumbfounded. How many times had he read it? A hundred? A thousand? There was no way to know, but Wyatt hadn’t even thought about it since…since he named the bog imp by the moniker of the comic’s hero—Grenleck. Somehow, the vibrant fiction of the comic paled in comparison to the richness of the Realms, and it had left his mind shortly thereafter. But how could it have? There was nothing more important from his childhood than the story laid out in colored panels, among dialogue bubbles and bold zips, hisses, and bangs.

  “Wyatt, why the hell haven’t you cleaned this room?” />
  The voice shook the comic from Wyatt’s hands and he bolted upright to find himself looking into the reproachful eyes of his grandmother. Grandma? he wanted to ask, but his lips wouldn’t obey his mind. Instead they said, “I’ll clean it when I’m done. Grenleck is just about to slay the—”

  “Dammit, Wyatt,” his grandmother shouted, gesturing about at the horrid disarray of his bedroom.

  How did I get here? And how is she…

  “I’ll do it when I’m done,” Wyatt shouted back.

  What? No, I didn’t mean that, Grandma. I don’t know why I said that.

  “Fine,” his grandmother said. “Clean or don’t. But you’re not getting a lick of food until this room is clean enough to eat your dinner off of.”

  Wyatt tried to stand up from the frameless mattress he was sitting on. He tried to run to her, to say he was sorry, and to hug her as fiercely as he could muster. But his body wouldn’t move. His mind raced, but Wyatt couldn’t get it to affect his limbs or lips.

  “I’d rather starve than eat more burned crap,” he shouted as his grandmother slammed his door shut, causing a framed photo to jump off his half-buried dresser.

  Wyatt moved at that, sliding across the carpet to scoop up the item. The glass had broken, but the photo within remained intact. It showed a smiling Wyatt, holding an equally joyous Lucy, both surrounded by clearly proud parents.

  Mom… Dad… Lucy…

  It’s a memory, he realized. It’s my memory.

  Wyatt touched each figure in the photo with his finger and sat back on his heels, studying the portrait. “I’m going to find you,” he whispered. “Whoever you are you, I’ll find you, and we’ll be a family.”

  I’ve already forgotten them, Wyatt realized.

  Longing pulled at his chest, reaching deep inside and twisting his soul into a knot. His body shuddered under sudden tears.

  How did I forget this?

  The room shuddered. His body didn’t seem to take notice, but his mind did, painfully aware of what a tremor usually meant. Though even if he had the control to stop the transition, he wouldn’t have. If he was reliving a memory like this…then it could only mean one thing. Lucy was alive. Alive and dreaming. He forced his mind to relax, hoping to allow his lost sister to guide him back to her. Just as a younger version of Wyatt had promised a photo, so too, did he promise once more to the world. I’ll find you, Lucy. We’ll be a family.

  His childhood bedroom shook one more time and then fell silent. Nothing looked or felt differently than before. The room was still a disaster. And Wyatt was still a powerless onlooker to his forgotten memory.

  He stood and stretched, yawning loudly and looking toward the single window in the room. Morning light streamed in despite quickly thickening storm clouds. Wyatt approached the open window, breathed in the promise of rain, and shut the window, snapping off the chill breeze.

  Wyatt stared a moment longer at the barren city street beyond the glass portal and picked a shirt off his mattress. He gave it a sniff, found it only marginally malodorous, and pulled it over his head.

  It’s a new day, but I’m still in the same place, his mind worked out. It seemed familiar, as he knew it should, but every subsequent action was shrouded in shadow until the moment it occurred, leaving Wyatt to wonder how he had forgotten it.

  His stomach groaned and gurgled, and his bladder called for attention as well. Wyatt moved for the door, swung it open, and called out into the empty hallway, “I’m up, Grandma. Eggs and toast. Scrambled. And bacon. Not burned.”

  Wherever his grandmother was, she didn’t respond, and Wyatt felt a flare of anger pass over him at not smelling his breakfast already being prepared. He shuffled to the next door in the hallway—a bathroom—and relieved the pressure in his bladder.

  Leaving the bathroom, he called out for his grandmother again, this time more impatiently.

  This can’t be who I was, Wyatt thought. This can’t be real. I sound like a monster.

  But the churning in his stomach told him it was accurate, every passing moment a blossoming seed in his mind, flowering into recognition. His stomach folded over onto itself again, but it was his physical stomach this time, calling for food.

  Wyatt crossed into the kitchen and found it empty. Dishes were piled up in the sink, and the floor hadn’t been swept.

  “I’m hungry!” he growled, projecting his voice off the smoke-stained wallpaper, sending it echoing through the small house.

  He groaned and stomped toward the living room, bitterness rising like the tide.

  A fragment of a memory flickered in his mind before his eyes found it. It made him dizzy, but his body persisted, taking him on a journey he now knew he didn’t want to be a part of.

  No, he shouted to no one, for there was no one to hear his cries. Lucy, I don’t want to be here anymore. Where are you? Lucy?

  “Grandma,” Wyatt said as he entered the dimly lit living room. “Did you oversleep again?”

  Wyatt tried to turn. When that didn’t work, he tried to thrash against his own body. Against his own memory. The shadows in his mind were evaporating with hisses, like water thrown on a hot griddle.

  Lucy! he bellowed into the void. Take me away from here! Don’t make me remember this!

  But it was too late. The memory surfaced like a wave amid a violent storm, cresting at an impossible height, only to crash down atop him.

  “Grandma?” Wyatt said, his voice betraying a sick realization.

  Wyatt’s grandmother was slouched in her favorite armchair, wearing the same clothing she had donned the night before. The TV was on, casting flickering images off her glasses as they perched precariously on the tip of her nose.

  He grabbed her arm and her whole body leaned to the side. Her face was frozen, void of expression, but telling a dark tale. Wyatt grabbed her other arm and tried to tug her upright.

  “Grandma?” he asked again, knowing he’d never get a response.

  His eyes flitted to a pair of prescription bottles next to her chair, on their sides, empty. He touched a finger to one in disbelief. It rolled slowly away to clink off a half-empty liquor bottle. Wyatt fell to the floor. He couldn’t breathe. He coughed, heaved, and coughed again. Had he swallowed an ocean, the pressure would not have been as great. If the sky fell upon him, the pain would have been nothing in comparison.

  Wyatt clawed at the carpet, fighting to regain his sight. His fingers found a square of paper and wrapped around it like a claw. He wiped away the tears and uncurled his fist.

  “A note?” he asked. A wash of anger rippled through him at the sight of the thing.

  It wasn’t a suicide note, not really. It gave no explanation or apology. It gave no closure and asked for nothing in return. Five words had been scrawled with a shaky hand to be nearly illegible. Wyatt remembered them immediately, but they struck him anew as though he were reading them for the first time.

  Make your own damn dinner.

  * * *

  Wyatt wanted to yell. He wanted to shriek with fury at himself, not just the younger version he now remembered, but the whole of his being. Why had he said those things? He remembered them now, not just as a memory of a memory, but as they truly were. He had been so filled with such anger and malice that it made him sick.

  Why did I make her do this? he wondered as he knelt beside the worn armchair, eyes locked on his grandmother, wishing her to move. He was still locked in his own memory, a prisoner in his body, forced to relive every painful moment with gut-wrenching clarity.

  No, he said to himself, trying to shake his head, but failing. She was always in terrible pain. It wasn’t because of me, no matter how despicable my words were. But then his eyes dragged back to the square of paper between his fingers. The simple words condemned him. Whether the root cause or not, Wyatt had been the trigger. And there was nothing he could do about it.

  He twisted and squirmed against his body, against the memory, trying to seize some control. Wishing to flee. Lucy! he bellowed
. Why did you send me here? Where are you? He tried to search his own periphery for the slight girl with dirty-blonde curls and terrible power.

  Pounding came from the front door of the house, rooted in the corner of the living room, not ten feet from where Wyatt knelt. It sounded like an explosion in the silence, shattering it like glass, and blinding Wyatt with a pain that flashed white-hot across his eyes. He spun toward the door, at once realizing that what he was now witnessing had never happened. Not in the memory of his grandmother dying.

  The pounding sounded again, ripping at the fabric of the memory and shaking the small house. Wyatt took a step backward, his eyes still locked on the portal. I can move, he realized. He flexed his fingers and took a deep breath. The relief of having regained control of his body was short-lived as the door shuddered at a third heavy impact. A deep crack ran down the center of the door. Smoke, dark as pitch, bled through the fissure.

  Wyatt glanced at the armchair, found it empty, and snapped back to the door. His heart was hammering in his chest, and instinct told him that whatever was trying to come through the door was steeped in evil. Wyatt had thought the memory had been haunting, not having any control or ability to avoid what he now remembered so clearly…but this—whatever this was sent a chill throughout his body.

  A fourth impact rang louder than the rest and the door caved in, admitting a pillar of black fog. Wyatt didn’t wait to see what would step from the shadows. He ran for his childhood bedroom. He slid through the kitchen as something smashed into the living-room wall, the echo rippling past him. He shouldered into his bedroom door, spun inside, slammed the door shut, and bolted for the only safe place he knew.

  His closet was little more than a large cupboard, but Wyatt wedged himself into the tight confines, shutting the door as he settled onto the floor. His knees were pressed to his chest, arms wrapped tightly around his shins. The closet was hardly larger than the wall locker in the corner room of Dorm B on the campus of The Shepherd’s Crook, but it always provided what he needed: sanctuary.

  Wyatt tried to silence his ragged breathing and focus on the sounds of the house. Whatever was out there, beyond his hiding place, meant him harm. How he knew, he couldn’t say. It wasn’t a memory any longer, at least not his.