Where was the superhero burst of strength? I was pretty sure I couldn’t leap tall buildings at a single bound or shoot indestructible webs from my wrists or do any of the extremely cool things movie magicks were able to do. I also couldn’t fly over the snow-covered landscape of Sugar Maple like my baby cousin Laria managed so effortlessly.
Mostly I was the same Wendy Aubry Lattimer I had been before Chloe summoned up her Book of Spells and performed a literal smoke-and-mirrors routine meant to bring me up to speed for the duration. The Book was invisible to me but the disruption in the air around me was tangible. I was impressed and maybe just a little bit terrified as I felt a burst of energy vibrate against my skin.
“It’s a protective shield,” Chloe said as the glittering dust and smoke settled then disappeared. “Physical harm can’t touch you.”
“What about magickal harm?”
“You’ll be protected from the elements. You won’t feel the cold.”
“So I can ditch the Sasquatch jacket and hat?”
“You’re still only human,” Chloe said. “Better safe than sorry.”
“What about magickal harm?” I asked for the second time. “You didn’t answer the question.”
“You’ll be safe from all forms of magick within my range. Gavan will see to the rest.”
She might as well have been talking to one of the cats for all that was getting through my rising fear.
Gavan took my hand and before I could register his touch, we were sucked into a swirling vortex of light and sound that made me feel like I was about to fly apart into a thousand pieces. It wasn’t pain, not exactly, but it wasn’t a ride on the spinning teacups either and when it was over I didn’t know whether to laugh with relief or throw up on my snow shoes.
“I should have warned you,” Gavan said, still holding my hand.
The world snapped back into place and I realized we were standing at the edge of the woods.
I couldn’t say anything. I was shaking too hard.
“You’re cold,” he said.
I shook my head. Dizzy. Shocked. Disoriented. Terrified. But not cold. At least one part of the protective charm was working.
Sugar Maple was a small town, but the surrounding woods seemed like a vast and hostile place. The landscape was unforgiving and the thought of Mallory and her little girl possibly out there and in trouble was strong motivation.
Gavan moved easily across the snow like a hovercraft over a lake. I stepped forward, expecting to sink up to my knees, then gasped as I glided effortlessly toward him. He glanced over his shoulder at me and I saw the sparkle in his eyes when I caught up with him.
“Chloe didn’t tell me about this!”
“She does not know of it,” he said. “That is my gift to you.”
Something passed between us. A moment of understanding or maybe one of sheer joy, as fragile as a soap bubble but every bit as beautiful. I hoped it would be waiting for us after we found Mallory and Ava.
The woods fanned out on either side of the narrow road that took you to the feeder road that ultimately led to the highway some twenty miles away. The silence was unnerving. The only sounds were the relentless howl of the wind and the occasional crack of a limb as it broke free of a snow-heavy tree.
The thought of being alone out there scared hell out of me. I wanted to turn and run back to Chloe’s cottage and lock the door behind me. I wanted to cling to Gavan like a barnacle. The one thing I didn’t want to do was strike out into the woods on my own.
Gavan went over the game plan once more. He had committed the annotated map to memory. I had a copy stashed in the pocket of Chloe’s puffy coat. The plan was simple enough. He would walk to the northwest. I would walk to the northeast. If luck and magick were with us, we would find mother and daughter long before we reached the feeder road that led to the highway.
To be honest, I didn’t believe they were in the woods. I would bet my yarn stash that they were sitting in an endless line of cars on the highway waiting for the plows and the sand trucks to make the road passable, but night was falling and we had to do something.
My cell phone vibrated against my hip in an eruption of snaps, crackles, and pops. I glided a fair distance from Gavan and answered Chloe’s call.
“No news yet,” I said. “We’re just outside of town.”
“Is Gavan still there?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I had to put a little distance between us to answer the call. We’re about to split up and start the search.”
“Call me,” she said, sounding more than a little frantic. “If you see something or you have questions, call me. Mallory’s in-laws will be getting back to me any minute, and I need to be able to tell them we’re making progress.”
“You do know the odds are that Mallory and Ava are safe and sound on the highway, waiting for the plows to come through.”
“So I keep hearing,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind a little proof.”
“Trust me, there is no way a car could drive through these trees.” What path existed was barely wide enough for your average human.
“The old logging trails are wide enough for a minivan,” she said, while Gavan waited. “You’ll see them when you get closer to the feeder road.”
I didn’t bother asking why any sane driver would choose to leave the feeder road and plunge into the woods.
Instead, I promised to keep her up to date then ended the call.
“She’s worried,” I said to Gavan as I walked back toward him.
“She has reason to be,” he said. “Laria’s senses tell her that the child Ava is in trouble and that she is nearby. That is the reason for the drawings and the tears. It would be unwise to doubt her.”
“She’s ten months old. That’s one reason.”
“A short time in your world,” he said, with a quick smile, “but long enough in mine.”
“Do you think we’ll find them here?” I asked.
“Laria believes it.”
He didn’t say “case closed” but I heard it in his words.
It unnerved me that a grown man would place so much trust in a baby’s intuition, even though said baby was blessed with magickal powers I couldn’t begin to understand. When I tried to envision Mallory and Ava, I saw them tucked away in their minivan, munching cookies and cheese and fruit from the goodie bags Chloe had provided and waiting in a long line of vehicles for the snow to stop. The situation would be tedious. Uncomfortable. Definitely boring. But dangerous? I didn’t think so and I fully expected to be proven right before the night was over.
“How will I let you know if I find them?” I asked as we prepared to part. “Smoke signals?”
The reference was lost on him and I was reminded once again of the vast gulf that divided us.
He moved his left hand in a sweeping gesture and a glittering braided cord appeared in the space between us. One end was wrapped around his right wrist. To my surprise, the other end was looped around mine.
“We will separate but we will not be separated,” he said. “This infinite chain will keep us connected.”
The words were deeply romantic, although they weren’t meant to be. I pushed my fantasies into the darker corners of my mind and concentrated on what he was telling me.
It all sounded good in theory. Once we parted, the chain would be invisible. The weight was undetectable. Without any help from me, it would adjust to the distance between us, however far, and yet it took just one sharp tug on the chain to bring us together again.
I guess my skepticism was showing because Gavan lifted my chin with his index finger and met my eyes.
“Trust in the magick, Wendy,” he said in that molten honey voice I heard in my dreams. “Tonight you must give over to all you don’t understand.”
Easier said than done, I thought. I was a product of the human world, a place where magick existed only in fairy tales and the Hallmark Channel.
“You’re asking a lot of me,” I said, as a shiver ran up my
spine. “I’m much better at trusting myself.”
Somewhere in the distance we heard a loud crack as a tree limb broke off and hit the ground.
He said nothing. The moment stretched like the cord binding us together.
“It’s getting dark,” I said. “We’d better get started.”
I pulled a Mag Lite from my pocket and switched it on. The light cut a path deep into the snow-shrouded woods. I’m not sure how he did it, but apparently Gavan had a light source all his own.
It took me a moment to accept the fact that I was walking on top of the snow and not through it. Gavan lingered in the background until I got the hang of it. When I turned to give him the okay sign, he was already gone.
Although I grew up in Maine, I wasn’t what you would call an outdoorsy kind of girl. Bailey’s Harbor is a small town with a lot of undeveloped forests and farmland, a popular spot for hikers and campers, but the only hiking I’d done up until now was from yarn shop to yarn shop in search of new indie dyers. My camping experience was limited to making S’mores at the kitchen stove. I’m not crazy about bugs. I don’t like knowing a bear might be measuring me for his dinner plate. The closest I want to get to sleeping in a tent is watching Survivor.
But there I was, in the middle of a blizzard, striding off into the woods like I actually knew what I was doing.
What on earth was wrong with me? Why didn’t I say no when Chloe asked me to help? She had magick coming out of her ears. Even better, she had lived in Sugar Maple her entire life. These woods didn’t hold any surprises for her. I should have volunteered to stay with the baby and let my sorceress cousin lead the search.
I knew it was fear talking. I’m not a fan of horror movies. I’m not the girl who goes down to the basement to check out the scary noise in the middle of the night. The deeper into the woods I glided, the faster my heart pounded.
Was this how Mallory and Ava were feeling? I wanted to believe they were safe and snug in their minivan, but with every second that passed, I grew more uncertain.
An owl hooted in the distance, followed by the cracking sound of yet another tree limb falling to the ground. I pressed on, methodically checking left and right as I went, searching for any sign of the missing mother and daughter, but so far, there was nothing
The protective charm Chloe had conjured up made me impervious to the cold and wind. Gavan’s gift of magick had me moving swiftly and effortlessly across the deep snow. I had no sense of how much time had passed since we’d separated to begin the search, but I had the feeling I was now closer to the feeder road than I was to our starting point, still without any sign of progress.
Then it occurred to me that the first sign of progress might be stumbling onto Mallory’s car with both Mallory and Ava safely tucked inside. Logic reasoned they would be moving toward Sugar Maple, not away from it as I was, so there would be no tire tracks in the snow to follow.
I jolted forward, unsure how to ramp up my speed without losing my balance. It took a few seconds of wobbling like a baby duck, but I found the groove and held it. Searching the woods had seemed an impossible task at first, but suddenly I felt like I could search the Black Forest and still have time to take a nap.
Not that I needed a nap. Adrenaline flooded my body with energy and purpose. I kept moving, stopping only to examine a depression in the snow or a slash mark on the trunk of a mature sugar maple tree. The air smelled cold and clear. No whisper of car exhaust or, God forbid, fire.
A bone, denuded and shiny, poked through a knee-high drift to my right. It was too large to belong to a rabbit or squirrel but not large enough for a bear. Definitely not human, thank God. I tried very hard not to dwell on where or what it came from. Did the four-legged creatures of Sugar Maple have magick too? I had never stopped to think about it before now. Clearly this particular one hadn’t. Then again maybe he had gone up against a creature whose magick was stronger.
Survival of the fittest apparently trumped even the strongest magick.
Somehow that didn’t make me feel very confident.
I’m not proud of this but for a moment I thought about turning back. I was so far out of my comfort zone that I would need a new unit of measure to calculate the distance. I had never been alone like this before. Alone in a crowd? Many times. Alone as in the only living, breathing human being for miles? This was a first.
Except I couldn’t turn back. I’d made a promise to Chloe that I would do this for her and, like it or not, I would see it through.
Besides, when you glided above the snow, you left no tracks behind. I couldn’t find my way back if I wanted to.
Something howled in the not-far-enough distance and every hair on my head stood straight up. Hair-wise, I was in full Einstein mode. Too bad I wasn’t half as smart as Einstein. A few extra grey cells would have come in handy right about now.
Did they have wolves in Vermont? The real kind, not the were-kind like Paul Griggs and his family. I probably should have asked before we started out. Not that it would have stopped me, but it might have been good to know what I was up against.
Magick kept me moving swiftly through the woods but I wasn’t convinced I was moving in the right direction. I stopped once to take another look at the map but it didn’t help. Everyone else saw signs and symbols in Laria’s scribbling. Even Luke, a career cop, took it seriously enough to add his own annotations and sanction a search party.
I had tried to convince myself that I saw what everyone else saw but it was a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes. I didn’t see anything beyond a baby’s attempt to wield a crayon.
I pushed forward once again, checking my direction against my cell phone. I was on track, heading northeast just as I’d been advised.
At least that was the plan.
Looking back, I’m not sure what caught my attention first: the realization that the snow had finally stopped or the owl hooting softly from somewhere to the east.
But was it an owl? Suddenly I wasn’t so sure. The sound was too gritty, too – well, too human. There was emotion in the sound that resonated with me in a way I couldn’t explain.
I stood still, holding my breath, listening hard.
I wasn’t exactly an ornithologist. I had a tough time telling the call of a crow from that of a robin. For all I knew, one of the Sugar Maples had been following me and was about to spring some kind of magickal prank on the poor, unsuspecting human. Or, even worse, one of Gavan’s clan had decided to take matters into his or her own hands and put a stop to our friendship.
I heard it again, low and urgent, coming from my right. Turning sharply, I headed in the direction of the sound, moving quickly between the trees. The sound grew louder as I came closer.
I was scared but it didn’t stop me. The low, keening cry drew me like a magnet. I had to see this through.
A white minivan rested at the edge of the clearing, its front end jammed against a towering pine tree. The faintest smell of smoke lingered in the icy air. For a second I wondered what my car was doing there but this one didn’t boast advertising scrawled across the doors. Did Mallory drive a minivan? I couldn’t remember. But, let’s face it, what were the odds it belonged to anybody else.
“Mallory!” My voice sounded shaky and timid. “Ava!”
No response.
The doors on the passenger side were closed tight. The windshield was cracked but intact. The front end was crumpled. The airbags had deployed. They lay like punctured balloons on the floor of the minivan. Empty goodie bags from the workshop were on the back seat, along with a half-finished bottle of water. Mallory’s purse was on the floor, the top flap open.
Heart pounding, I rounded the minivan so I could check out the driver’s side. Blood spatter stained the dashboard and windshield. My gut twisted as I noted pinkish streaks in the snow heading off to the left of the abandoned vehicle.
“Mallory!” I called again. “This is Wendy from Sticks and Strings.”
I heard nothing but silence. I told myself t
hey couldn’t have gone far, not with that amount of blood loss. The thought wasn’t as comforting as I would have liked. Cautiously I slid onto the back seat, wiggling my way around the booster seat. No way was I going to leave Mallory’s purse and wallet here. Besides, there was always the chance I’d find a clue to her whereabouts. If I got really lucky, maybe I’d find a note.
The contents had spilled all over the rubber mats, and rolled under the front seat. I maneuvered myself onto the floor and started gathering up two key rings, one notepad, a fistful of promotional pens, one lip gloss, and a very well-worn copy of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Workshop. I was shoving everything back into the depths of her tote when I heard the unmistakable chirp of an automatic door lock being set.
I scrambled up from the floor. I had left the door to the driver’s side back seat open, but it was definitely closed now. I knew I wasn’t the one who had slid it shut but there was no doubt that somebody had done the job for me.
Heart pounding, I tried to open it but the door didn’t budge.
“Okay,” I muttered. “Not funny. Open up!”
Maybe I needed some kind of remote control device to make it work. I pressed every button on every key fob Mallory had, but still no luck. I thought about my friends back in Bailey’s Harbor. Most of them had young kids and went to great lengths to keep those kids from danger. Car doors, in particular, came under a lot of scrutiny and I remembered a conversation about locks that were operated by the driver, not the passenger. “Great news for a kidnapper,” I had said to absolutely no laughter at all.
It wasn’t easy propelling myself into the front seat. Chloe’s puffy coat caught on one of the seat belt latches and the sound of fabric tearing filled the cabin. This minivan might have looked like mine from the outside, but that was where the similarity ended. My vehicle was bare bones. This one had all the bells and whistles. I wasn’t sure what half of the levers and buttons did but I pushed and pressed and smacked with increasing frustration.
This couldn’t be happening. I mean, people get locked out of cars every day of the week, but how many get locked inside them?
Entangled- The Homecoming Page 9