by S A McClure
Emma gulped. She didn’t want to think about how Grandmother Rel would obtain the information she desired. She already knew the witch would employ any means necessary to get what she wanted. All Emma could do was hope she and Iris didn’t end up in one of her schemes.
“Don’t look so worried, Emmaleigh. I promise I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Emma didn’t want to say anything, but that was exactly what she was worried about.
Chapter Fifteen
Iris
Iris snuggled deeper beneath this warm, thick blanket laid atop her. It was possibly the softest blanket she had ever used. It smelled of the mountain air on a cool, spring day when the flowers had just begun to blossom. Pressing her nose against the fabric, she breathed in deeply.
She cracked her eyes. A fire crackled and popped nearby. Stone walls were covered in ornate tapestries. A blonde girl sat in a wooden chair. She didn’t recognize this place or the girl.
“You’re awake!” the girl squeaked.
She blinked rapidly, trying to capture the memories of what had transpired over the past few days. Everything was blurry.
A warm hand clasped her own. The girl’s name blossomed to life within her.
“Emma,” she whispered.
Emma nodded, a smile stretching across her freckled face. “I was so worried!” she said.
Iris smiled weakly up at her sister.
“What happened? Where are we?” she asked, her throat a dry, bruised mess.
“Well, you finally developed some gall, stood up to Grandmother Rel, and then got us both booted from the cabin.”
Iris laughed nervously. She didn’t remember doing that at all and she doubted her sister was remembering the chain of events properly. Making Grandmother royally angry was something Emma did. Not her. It couldn’t have been.
“And then you were getting attacked by wolves. By the time I found you, your leg had already been half eaten.”
Iris rolled on her back, unwrapping herself from the thick blanket. Her leg wasn’t bandaged, but there was a mass of pink, puckered scars stretching from her mid-thigh all the way down to her ankle.
She gulped loudly.
Emma laid a sweaty, too-warm hand on her shoulder.
“Yeah, I know it looks bad now, but you should have seen it before Grandmother Rel worked her magic on you.”
Iris sucked in a breath. “I can’t believe Grandmother dropped me in the woods to die.”
“Well...yeah, she did. But—”
“But nothing, Emma. She betrayed us. I don’t care how much I smarted off to her. There’s no excuse for letting her anger get the best of her. She knows the nightmares we face because of what our parents did to us. I almost died.”
She emphasized the word died, stretching out the ‘i’ sound. Emma, to her surprise, just shrugged.
“Since when do you defend her, Emma? Since when do you back her up over me?”
“Since I thought you were going to die and she saved your life, okay,” Emma said.
She stood and tapped her fingers on her thigh as she studied Iris’s face. The movement spiked Iris’s annoyance past her breaking point.
“Seriously, Emma, if you can’t recognize what’s going on here, then there really isn’t any hope for you.
“Why are you being like this?”
“Don’t be stupid!” Iris shot back. “We can’t trust her. You know that!”
They glared at each other.
The fear or the anxiety or just the sheer exhaustion of everything she’d been through over the past several days hung over Iris. She breathed in deeply, her nostrils flaring as she considered how she could convince Emma that they couldn’t go along with whatever Grandmother had planned.
They just couldn’t.
“It’s so good that you’re awake.”
The sound of Grandmother’s voice made Iris jump. A twinge of pain shot through her leg.
She glanced at Grandmother, her brows knitting together as she contemplated what she should say to her.
To her surprise, Grandmother hobbled over to the bed, sat down right beside her, and clutched her hand in her own.
“I’m so sorry I sent you away,” she said. “That was wrong of me. I see that now.”
Iris sputtered. Grandmother rarely apologized. The shock must have shown on her face because Grandmother clucked her tongue and pressed Iris’s hand to her cheek.
“It’s just so hard knowing your potential but not being able to help train you.” Grandmother sighed.
Iris didn’t know what to say; didn’t know if she should say anything at all. She glanced at Emma, who sat there, stone faced and quiet. How she longed for her sister’s fire to blossom into life once more.
She released a breath through her clenched teeth before responding.
“I understand,” she said. She didn’t. Despite Grandmother’s multiple attempts, she’d never been able to stamp out that piece of Iris that was essentially her. Iris wanted everyone to be included and cared for. She wanted to save everyone she could.
Not harm them.
And Grandmother, well, she was a different sort of person all together.
Still, she either believed Iris’s lie or accepted it. In the end, it didn’t matter. She smiled broadly at Iris and said in a sweet, matronly voice, “If you would just tell me about the dreams, then maybe I could help you process their meaning.”
Iris bit back her retort.
“Okay,” she said. She wanted answers and to understand her abilities. Besides, she didn’t have to tell Grandmother everything.
Grandmother leaned in close—so close that Iris could smell the onion Grandmother had eaten earlier in the day.
“Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we?” she hissed in Iris’s ear.
Iris pulled back, her heart hammering in her chest. The tone in Grandmother’s voice was venomous. What little trust she had been willing to relinquish to her quickly dissipated.
“She just woke up,” Emma protested. She placed herself between Iris and Grandmother. She curled her fingers around Iris’s hand and winked at her before turning her attention back to Grandmother.
“Honestly, Grandmother, can’t you see that she still needs time to recover?”
“I think she’s had quite enough time to recover,” Grandmother hissed.
Emma held up her free hand in front of Grandmother’s chest. Iris sucked in a breath. If her sister touched Grandmother in this moment, it would be detrimental to them both. Emma seemed to sense this as well and yanked her hand back.
“I think,” Grandmother said, her voice low and cold, “that you should go tend to that wolf Balkeen ordered to follow you. He came back so covered in bites and cuts that I'm not sure how he survived.”
“He’s back?” Emma asked, her eyes wide with surprise.
“Arrived this morning. Balkeen sent him to one of the dens to recover.”
Iris watched as her sister’s face flushed. She felt the slight tremor in her sister’s hand and knew that she was considering—that she was torn between her devotion to her and to the wolf that had saved her life.
Saved her life twice now, it seemed.
“Go,” she found herself whispering.
Emma turned towards her. Her eyes glistened with silver. She bit her bottom lip in that way Iris knew meant she was still torn.
“Please, Emma. Just go.”
Her sister’s face fell. Iris couldn’t think about that now. If she had learned anything over the past few days it was that her sister wouldn’t always be there to save her. She needed to be able to save herself.
And, sometimes, she wanted to be the one to save her sister.
Emma continued to clutch her hand. She knew her sister was searching her face for any sign that she should stay.
She would not give Emma any reason to stay.
“I told you to go,” Iris snapped. “Why aren’t you? Can’t you see that I don’t need you here, Emmaleigh?”
Alth
ough her heart cracked at the pain etched across her sister’s face, she wrenched her fingers free from Emma’s grasp and turned away from her.
“Just go!” she shouted.
“You want me to go and leave you to the devices of the hag?”
“Hag?” Grandmother asked, tapping her nails on her chin. They grew into talons.
“She didn’t mean that,” Iris said. She glared at Emma.
Her sister rolled her eyes and sighed, “Fine. But when she screws you over, don’t come crying to me.”
Iris waited until the sound of Emma’s footsteps had faded into nothing before turning back to face Grandmother. Her golden eyes blazed with a kind of crazy intensity that instantly made Iris wish she had kept Emma by her side.
“I am so proud of you, Iris,” Grandmother said as she folded Iris’s hand into her own. “So very, very proud.”
Great. That’s just simply great. The ruthless witch who raised me is proud of the way I broke my sister’s heart. Stupendous.
“Shall we begin?” Grandmother asked as she led Iris over to a pair of plush chairs sitting in front of a blazing fire.
“Let’s get this over with,” Iris responded, even though she didn’t feel like doing anything with Grandmother. Nothing at all.
Chapter Sixteen
Iris
“Close your eyes,” Grandmother said as she placed her fingertips on Iris’s temples.
Her skin was blazing hot. Iris fought the urge to jerk away from her touch, but forced herself to grit her teeth and follow Grandmother’s command.
“Breath in deeply.”
Iris complied. A gentle pressure filled her belly as she drew in more and more and more air. Her chest puffed out. The air pressed against her chest, begging for release.
“And exhale.”
She released the pent-up air in a steady stream. Her mind cleared. She was acutely aware of Grandmother’s putrid breath puffing on her cheeks, of her paper-thin skin pressing into her temples.
Of her own body. How it felt to be sitting there, in the plush chair with her fingers digging into the armrests.
“Inhale.”
An image of Liam’s face blossomed within her mind. At first it was just the shape of him. His broad shoulders and narrow waist. With the shadows fanning out behind him, his outstretched arms looked more like wings than anything else.
“Exhale.”
Iris wasn’t sure how she still heard Grandmother’s voice. It was as if she were stepping outside of her body and watching as Grandmother dived into her memories—her dreams.
She didn’t know how long they stayed like that. It seemed liked they’d spent hours delving into the dreams she’d shared with Liam. But, when she opened her eyes again, the fire was still blazing as brightly as it had been when they’d first started. It was as if no time had passed at all.
Grandmother panted as she withdrew her fingers from Iris’s temples. Age spots covered her cheeks and forehead and her golden eyes had lost their glisten.
“I always knew I couldn’t haven’t been drawn to you for nothing,” she said.
Iris blinked, her lips falling ajar.
“Oh, don’t look so surprised. Did you really think I took you and your wretched sister in for nothing?” she cackled slightly as she leaned back into the cushioned chair. “Of course not! I knew one of you was powerful. I could feel it calling to me that night I found you. As you grew older, I always knew it was you.”
“But, I—”
“Oh, I know. You never exhibited any sign of magic before now. Well, let me tell you, little girl, what your abilities have manifested into is quite rare.” She smiled to herself. “Quite rare, indeed.”
Iris sat up a little straighter in her chair. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Please clarify.”
“You’re what we call a Dreamwalker. You can see the true form of things. In time, you will be able to see the past, present, and future, as well.”
“But then—” She paused. “Liam’s real?”
Grandmother laughed. “Of course he’s real. And he’s still alive, though I’d bet my sixth toe that getting entangled with him is the absolute last thing you need to be doing.”
“Do you know—” She paused again. She knew what she wanted to say but she just wasn’t sure how to vocalize her thoughts.
“Enough. There’s no reason to worry about him, Iris. You’ll have many more dreams that are as vivid as he was. I promise you. He is nothing.”
He didn’t feel like nothing to Iris.
“He must have found me for a reason. It can’t just be by chance that I found him.”
Grandmother thread her fingers together and closed her eyes. Her skin had turned a sour grey color and her slim shoulders shuddered with each breath she drew. Iris wasn’t sure how old Grandmother was, but it was during these times, the moments just after she’d expended a great amount of magic, that she seemed to reveal her true age.
“You found him because your powers are unchanneled,” Grandmother said at length. “Once you learn control you won’t wander into the dreams of the lost.”
Lost.
The word resonated through Iris’s bones. He had seemed lost. He’d barely remembered his own name. But, somehow, that didn’t seem to matter to her. Not when she could still feel the tender, gentle way he’d caressed her face or the heat she’d felt when his lips met hers.
He meant something to her.
And she couldn’t just give up on him because Grandmother wanted her to.
“I understand,” she whispered. “You’re right. He doesn’t mean anything to me.”
She hated the way the words felt as they passed over her lips. But she knew this was the only way she would ever convince Grandmother to train her.
“All that matters is learning how to use and control my abilities,” Iris added.
Grandmother lifted her head and stared at Iris. Her golden eyes flashed with a blazing light. Drool dripped down her chin as her lips parted.
“I don’t believe you,” Grandmother wheezed, her voice crackling with phlegm.
Iris shrugged. Whether Grandmother believed her or not made little difference. As long as she was still willing to teach her how to use her abilities, she would be able to find him. Now that she knew he was real, she knew she would never stop searching for him.
Never.
“Will you teach me?” she pressed.
For a moment, Iris thought Grandmother would refuse. Her eyes narrowed and she seemed ready to deny her the one thing she most desired at that moment: control.
But then, as if being drained of all will to resist, she wheezed out, “Yes.”
Iris clapped her hands, her face beaming. She rushed forward and kissed Grandmother on the cheek.
“Calm down, girl,” Grandmother hissed.
They never touched one another. Not like that, at least. She could tell from the faint color in Grandmother’s cheeks and the angry gleam in her eye that she should not have succumbed to her excitement.
“Sorry,” she murmured, dropping her hands to her sides and sinking to her knees before her.
Grandmother released an exasperated sigh. “There’s no reason for all that. Help me to the bed and I’ll give you your first lesson.”
Iris’s heart fluttered. She knew the witch was like a cat. One moment she could kind and—almost—loving. The next, she could turn on you without a second thought. Grandmother was a sly yet wise old cronewho had lived for so long that she barely seemed to exist in the same plane as Iris and her sister.
As long as she was willing to give Iris what she wanted, she would accept the tumultuous aspects of her guardian.
She wrapped her arm around Grandmother’s slim, shaking shoulders and heaved her into a sitting position. Together, they crossed the short distance to the bed. Iris moved just as slowly as Grandmother did, the wound on her leg aching with each step.
Her pain was just one more thing to add to the long list of sorrows she’d experienced b
ecause of Grandmother Rel.
Even as Grandmother began explaining how to use breathing exercises to focus her mind, Iris vowed that one day she would avenge herself.
One day, she would make the crone pay.
Chapter Seventeen
Emmaleigh
“How could she be so stupid?” Emmaleigh fumed as she marched through the cave tunnels.
It had been the witch who’d thrown them into the woods with no more than the clothes on their backs. It had been the witch who’d separated them. It had been the witch who’d made their lives the epitome of darkness, day-after-day, for their entire lives.
She kicked a rock ahead of her. All she wanted to do was hit something. Break it into a million, tiny pieces.
She pounded her fist into the cold, stone wall—and then regretted it.
Her skin split on the knuckles and blood seeped from the scrapes. Releasing a terrible cry of frustration, Emma sank to her knees and then began to cry.
She hated herself for the reaction. She never gave into her emotions like that. But, now that the cascade of tears had started, she didn’t think she could stop. Her sobs were so loud, they filled the corridors with their sound.
Good, she thought. I hope Iris hears them and regrets her decision. She should have let me stay.
Being angry with her sister didn’t provide a single drop of relief. If anything, it made her even angrier with herself. A small voice in the back of her mind reminded her that Iris had told her to leave so she could find Mr. Wolf.
It didn’t remove Emma’s desire to protect her sister. She doubted anything ever would.
The sound of a grinding rumble tore Emma from her thoughts. Although the tunnel was well lit with torches lining the passageway, the ones at the farthest end of the hall winked out in a single breath.
Emma stilled. Was it just her or did the air suddenly become cooler than it had been before? She glanced back towards the room from whence she’d come. All the torches were still lit. Nothing seemed amiss. She turned her gaze back to the dark corridor before her.
She couldn’t be certain, but she thought she saw a shadow prowling in the darkness. She inhaled deeply, trying to get her mind to cooperate with her. She didn’t have any weapons. She was far enough from the room with Iris and Grandmother Rel that they might not hear her if she screamed. She weighed her options.