Always a Wanderer

by Danica Winters

  The phantom spoke again, but she couldn’t make out any words, only an array of sounds that made the hairs rise on her arms.

  As the Dullahan spoke, she looked down at Da. A black, inky, oil-like substance spilled from his body and his soul oozed over the floor. The phantom opened the door of the coach with a sickening motion of his skeletal fingers, and the black liquid moved inside.

  “No,” she said. “You can’t have him. I need him. He’s got to stay here!”

  The Dullahan looked over at her and repeated the noises that had released her father’s soul from his body. There was a pull as the words moved over her, like the sounds were trying to draw out her soul. Before anything could be pulled away, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the energy that pulsed through her and moved up from the earth. As she grounded herself, she felt the pull of the phantom’s words lessen, and finally disappear.

  The phantom hissed in dismay. “You...you will be mine. No one’s soul can escape me.”

  “I’m not just anyone. I control my soul.” She pointed at the coach. “Give me my father back. He ain’t supposed to die.”

  The phantom laughed, the sound high and maniacal. “You may think you are powerful, but you have no power over death. Didn’t you learn with Neill? When the Fates have a plan, you have no right to alter its course.”

  “So the Fates killed Neill?”

  The phantom laughed again. “You silly woman. Men kill. Not the Fates.” He lifted the whip beside him and cracked it against the bones of the horses’ rumps. The horses jerked forward, not wanting to be hit again. They started to pull the coach away, but the phantom turned back once more. “I will see you again. And soon, my love. Next time, you may not be so lucky. The Fates may have a plan for you.”

  The coach pulled away, and as she watched it fade into the mist, she could make out the skulls on its sides, each holding a burning candle. At the back of the coach was a line of femurs; as they banged against each other, they made the hollow, wooden sound, and she wished for a moment she had been right in assuming the sound had come from bells.

  The Dullahan disappeared, and the gray mist pulled in tighter around her until there was only her and Da’s body. She tried to move; the glue that had seemed to hold her in place loosened, and she moved toward Da.

  Kneeling beside him, she ran her hand over his cool forehead and closed his eyes. Da was gone.

  She collapsed onto his chest and her body was overtaken by dry, heavy sobs as her heart finished breaking. It was a wonder the Dullahan hadn’t taken her; it felt like this kind of pain would be the death of her.

  “I’m so sorry, Da.” Even as she spoke, she knew the pointlessness of it. She was talking to the body of a man who had once been living. He couldn’t hear her.

  A fresh wave of tears coursed down her cheeks as she dissolved into sobs again.

  “Little woman, don’t cry.” The voice was small and tinny, like that of a child trying to talk through a can.

  She didn’t recognize the voice. If it belonged to one of the Dullahan’s minions, this time she would let them take her. She couldn’t handle any more pain.

  She couldn’t bring herself to raise her head from Da’s motionless chest; rather, she moved just enough to look in the direction of the strange voice.

  Standing beside Da’s head, his little brown shoes covered in her da’s drying and sticky blood, was a small green man. But he wasn’t a man. His face was too tight and too tiny to be that of a man, or even a child. The little thing was perhaps only a foot tall, and his fingers were smaller than those of a newborn babe.

  The man-thing looked at her and smiled. His teeth were black from neglect, but it didn’t stop him from smiling wider. “It’s okay, lass.” He reached out slowly, like she was a wild animal that would bolt in fear at any sudden movements. “I’m not here to hurt you. Or your da. I pro-mise, lass.” His accent was thick with some ancient dialect.

  “Who—”

  “Am I?” he finished. He looked in the direction of where the Dullahan had faded into the mist of Helena’s vision.

  “Are ya—”

  “With him?” Again, he finished her question.

  Could the little man read her mind, or was he just the kind of man who couldn’t wait for others?

  “The name’s Green Thorn. And no, I’m not of his kind. I’m not of his world. In fact, I despise his world. There’s nothing I fear more.” He shuddered as he spoke, and she could have sworn his green-hued skin turned even greener.

  “Ya fear the—”

  “Don’t say his name. It will call his attention to you. And no, I don’t fear him. I fear death.”

  She could understand his fear. Though, in this moment, she could see death’s allure.

  “My kind, we don’t die. Not in the way your kind does.”

  “Your kind?”

  “You are full of questions, lass. Has anyone ever told you that it is rude to interrupt?”

  She sat up from Da’s chest and wiped the tears from her cheeks. She was hardly being the rude one, but she held her tongue out of the fear of being reprimanded once again.

  He waved her off. “I’m a goblin. We’re of the world of the two-spirited.”

  Her thoughts went to Da’s story...the one he’d told them when they’d been children and putting off going to sleep.

  “Aye, lass.”

  “So ya can read—”

  “Your mind? Yes.” He gave her a smug grin. “It’s how I found your father the first time we met. He was always so thoughtful and imaginative. He was so young then. I thought it quite funny he had gotten lost in the mist. There he was, a young Traveller boy—how he ever managed to get himself lost is a mystery. All he had to do was listen to the voice in his heart. Your kind, the Pavee, it’s that voice that drives you. But then again, the boy was young and naive.”

  She opened her mouth to speak.

  “Yes, it’s why you’re having a hard time in the land of the settled. But sometimes you can listen to that voice. What it tells you will not be the direction in which you are to move your feet, but rather the direction in which you need to move your heart. The voice will never steer your wrong—even if your mind does.”

  “What am I supposed to do when the voice ain’t talkin’ to me?”

  “Oh, the voice is talking to you, lass. It’s just your fear is talking louder. You will find that, throughout life, that will normally be the case. In order to find out what you should do, you must quiet those fears—then the truth will be revealed.”

  The man walked around to Da’s ear and plopped down with his legs crossed. He ran his tiny, bean-sized fingers down Da’s face. “It’s so sad to lose a man this good. He may have sinned, but he never acted in a way that went against his love of the people he cherished the most.”

  He ran his finger over Da’s eyelashes and pressed at the corners of his eyes.

  “What are ya doing?”

  Green Thorn sighed. “Your father, he is of the two-spirits. Don’t you remember his stories?”

  She remembered them, but she’d never thought the fairy tales and the story about the goblin had been true. Even living in a world of supernatural beings, it was hard to believe that the thing sitting beside her da was real.

  Reaching out, she poked the goblin’s knee with her finger.

  “Ouch. Aye, you may be having a vision, but I’m as real as your Dullahan,” he said, reaching down and rubbing the place she’d jabbed him. “You didn’t have to press so hard. You don’t know your own strength.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I just—”

  He waved her off. “I would’ve thought a lass like you woulda trusted what she was. With gifts like yours, I would’ve thought you’d been seeing things far more interesting than an old goblin like me.”

  “Are ya the one who bit my father?”

  “Aye,” he said with a proud nod.

  “Are ya the reason I got the powers I do?”

  He shrugged. “Not even I know e
xactly how one gets your type of powers. I’m sure it didn’t hurt that you’re of the clutch—the supernatural lineage—but it is the life givers and gods who pick and choose who is gifted. They must have thought you worthy. You should consider yourself lucky, lass. Not many are endowed with gifts as powerful as yours.”

  She hardly felt powerful. She had failed to save Da, and although she’d healed Neill, the effort had been for naught.

  “Your father was well past saving, lass. His heart had quit beating long before he collapsed at your feet. Thanks partly to his powers, he pushed his body past death to see you one more time. His love for you kept him in this world long enough for him to say goodbye. If that doesn’t prove the power of love...”

  She glanced down at Da and at the bloody hole above his heart. “What—”

  “Killed him? Well, that’s arguable. One could say it was his own hubris that got him into this mess—or selflessness, or even a quest for justice.”

  “But who?”

  He raised his hands. “I will not interfere with your fate.”

  “How is tellin’ me who was behind my da’s death interferin’ with my fate? If anything—”

  “Lass, if we are given the thing we want most at the moment we want it, the thing is cheapened and devalued. You must struggle in order to experience the feeling of justice that you truly desire.”

  She was tired of his stupid riddles.

  “That was uncalled for. I’m doing nothing more than trying to help you understand your father.” The goblin had a hurt look on his face, reminding her of his ability to read minds.

  “I’m sorry.” She wondered for a moment if everyone who interacted with goblins spent their time constantly apologizing.

  “It’s why we don’t enter your world often. For those not used to our ways, it can be frustrating—and for us as well. We like the fog and privacy. When we are amongst our own kind, we know how to control our thoughts—though I’m not sure such a gift wouldn’t better serve your human brethren.” He looked at her with a judgmental quirk of his brow.

  Reaching down, he put his hands on each side of Da’s face, closed his eyes, and whispered something she couldn’t hear. Da’s body brightened as if it were filled with light.

  When she touched others and felt the energy, was that the light that filled her?

  The goblin looked up and nodded. “It’s the essence of our beings. This is your father’s soul.” He motioned to the light.

  “But the Dullahan,” she said, pointing into the gray mist.

  “Yes, he took one, but thanks to me, your father was of both that world and mine. He was a two-spirit. Part of him will never die. He will be immortal.”

  Her heart lifted. “He’s not dead?” A fresh tear slipped down her cheek.

  “Wait, no. His body...this body,” the goblin said, motioning toward the shell that lay between them. “It’s dead. This is only a vessel. His vessel will be no longer, lass.”

  A sob escaped her throat as the pain of her loss returned.

  “Don’t, lass. No tears. Our vessel doesn’t make us who we are; it is our soul’s journey that is important. Your father, his soul, it will come with me. I will train him, and he will return.”

  “As what—a goblin?”

  Green Thorn laughed. “One is not reincarnated as a goblin—one must be born of our kind. Your father’s spirit will roam this plane until he chooses to leave, or he may stay. It’s up to him. I’ve given your father the gift of free will—and eternity.”

  She took Da’s cold hand and stared at his nails. They were turning white from lack of circulation. It felt odd holding death in her hands; this vessel wasn’t her father, yet it had once been. “So he’s a ghost?”

  Green Thorn stood up. He took a bottle out of his pocket, uncorked it, and pressed it to Da’s lips. The light that had risen from his body poured into the bottle. As the light twisted out of his body, his limbs became mottled and gray. The hand Helena held turned hard; she let it go, and the stony limb fell to the floor.

  Green Thorn capped the bottle and slipped it back into his pocket. “He won’t be a ghost, lass. He won’t be haunting attics and the dreams of the living. He’ll be far more special than that, once I have him trained.”

  “Will I be able to see him again?” Helena asked, staring down at the stony vessel that no longer looked anything like the man she had known.

  “You are of the clutch. As such, he may choose to reveal himself to you when he feels the time is right. Or he may not.” Green Thorn sighed. “You would be best served by letting your father go and saying your goodbyes. He may not want to interfere with your life. He may choose to watch from afar, or he may choose not to watch at all—it’s a personal choice.”

  “Why would he make the choice to be truly dead to his family?”

  Green Thorn ran his bean-like fingers down his legs and cringed as he looked at the blood that covered his greenish skin. “Living for eternity is not for the faint of heart. It is a painful thing to not only lose your family once—at the time of your vessel’s demise—but again when they leave the land of the living. To step back and stay away, it’s an act of self-preservation for some. Too much loss can break the soul. And a soul broken—that is a dangerous thing.”

  A soul broken...

  Between all the losses she’d been forced to face over the last year, she could understand Green Thorn’s warning. There was nothing more dangerous than a soul that wanted to find those who had wielded the axes of destruction and make them pay.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE GRAY CLOUDS HAD turned into total blackness, enveloping her. It was so dark that the weight of it pressed against her chest, making it nearly impossible to breathe, and each movement took all of Helena’s strength.

  There was nothing. No time. No sound. No light. Only the pain of breathing and the piercing needles of fear.

  Was this feeling what Da had gone through? Was this what it felt like to die?

  It was okay. She was going to be okay. She was just stuck in her vision. In an attempt to collect herself, she concentrated on her breathing, pulling in a slow, agonizing breath and forcing it out at the same rate. This must just be a panic attack.

  Or maybe it wasn’t. The thought made her breath quicken, and she forced it back.

  Panic wouldn’t help.

  At her tenth breath, a light arose in the distance, red and orange, flickering as it magically grew nearer.

  The smell of oily smoke filled her senses, and she could make out the distinct ripple of flames dancing in the darkness, climbing up the side of a stone building. Growing nearer, she saw the small sign at the front of the hospital. The sign’s edges were melting, dripping toward the windows of the ancient fortress where flames were licking up in search of fresh oxygen.

  Graham ran past, not seeing her as he rushed to the building. “Helena!” he yelled through the open front door, his voice high and flecked with desperation. The doorframe was charred and black. He stopped for a moment and looked at the flames that obscured the door. “Helena!” His eyes were filled with terror.

  There was no answer, only the roar of the ravenous fire.

  He stepped forward, into the doorway.

  “Graham, no!” Helena cried, but her voice couldn’t break through the vision. She sprinted toward him. But before she could reach him, he ran into the flames and disappeared.

  She stopped as she felt the intensity of the heat. He would never survive. “Graham!” she screamed. “Come back, Graham!”

  An explosion ripped through the building. The blast rippled through the air, so powerful that it threw her backward, but she felt no pain.

  At the edge of her vision stood a man. His bald head reflected the wicked light of the flames. It was the man from the stables. Beside him was a man with a hooked nose and icy blue eyes. He turned toward her, and she saw that on his arm was a brand—the same as Neill’s—and that there was a long, crooked scar across the other side of his face.
r />   The HG had come for them.

  She watched in horror as the entrance collapsed in on itself. The stone parapets at the top of the building crumbled and fell to the ground in the chaos. Dust and debris shot out of the door, littering the path with the charred remnants of what had been her and Graham’s dream.

  There was no way Graham could still be alive.

  She fell to the ground, numb.

  No. No. No.

  This was just a vision. This wasn’t reality. Graham wasn’t going to die.

  She couldn’t stand losing another person she loved.

  *.*.*

  Graham laid Helena down in her bed in the cottage. Everyone was there: Ayre, Angel, Danny, and Rose.

  Angel’s eyes were red and swollen with spent tears, but she had pulled herself together after the news of her father’s death. Thankfully, Graham’s mother had fielded most of her questions and filled her in on exactly what she knew—which didn’t include the possible theories about the HG that kept sweeping through his mind.

  Angel didn’t need to know everything, not yet. Not when Helena required their full attention.

  Helena’s hair had fallen over her face, making her look as though she had been in a windstorm, and he reached down and pushed the wayward strands from her tanned skin. As he touched her warm face, he felt pulled to her, like she was calling to him from the other side.

  “Helena?” he asked.

  Her aura was gray—the color it turned when she was deep in a vision—but as he spoke her name he saw a splash of rainbow, as though the sound of his voice had somehow broken through the barriers of her mind.

  “Helena?” He tried again, but this time the rainbow didn’t appear.

  “Is she there?” Ayre asked, coming over and putting her hand on Helena’s forehead.

  Graham shook his head. “I don’t know. I thought I saw something, but now it’s gone.”

  Ayre sighed, the sound coming from deep in her core. For the first time, he noticed the deep lines on her forehead and the way her eyes seemed dark and troubled.

  Did she know something that he didn’t?