She grumbled and pulled herself forward to lie down on Earnest’s feathers. She’d lived for those calls.
Thanks, mom, she thought. I can’t even get away from you in fairy land.
Her daydream was cut short by a roll of thunder, and both their eyes shot up. A smattering of thick raindrops began to fall, as a line of black clouds darkened the sky overhead, flashing with hidden bursts of lightning like explosions in smoke.
“We should go back,” Maddie said.
Kidhe’s eyes scanned the clouds, and he shook his head. As he flicked the reins, Earnest took to the sky.
“We’d never make it in time,” he said. “We’ll have to try to get under it.”
“Under it? You mean on the ground?”
Earnest dipped below the trees and began threading through the trunks.
“No,” Kidhe answered. “Deeper.”
He shut his eyes. A crack of thunder shattered the sky, and all around them, the forest began to change.
Concerning Flight
Maddie did her best not to develop a fear of flying, but even under the shelter of the trees, the wind, rain, and thunder introduced her to a whole new variety of terror. She couldn’t even keep her eyes closed as she clung to Earnest’s harness. When she did, flashes of lightning and the roar of thunder came through all the more clearly, and the swirling wind made her feel like she was falling. So she hung on, eyes open to the stinging rain, staring in wide-eyed horror at the storm.
Kidhe still had his eyes shut as they streaked through the trees. Earnest was steering himself. The forest rose higher into the angry green clouds as they plunged through the layers of the Veil. Smaller trees vanished, disbursing like fog as their huge cousins replaced them. Below, the underbrush crept up, scaling the trunks, a jungle of emergent growth.
An oak tree the size of a water tower sprang into view directly in front of them. Earnest squawked, turning sharply, and Maddie held on to the harness with all her strength, shoving her arm under the ropes in a desperate attempt to steady herself. Her foot slipped out of its stirrup and swung into the air.
“Shit!” she shouted.
Kidhe’s hand shot out and grabbed her ankle, pulling her back down as Earnest dove, sweeping into the undergrowth to get out of the rain.
Maddie’s skin crawled as a familiar feeling of magic began to fill the air. It raced across her skin like electrified water, prickling in her hair and behind her eyes. She could taste it, bittersweet, like a battery on her tongue. The sensations were so intense, she didn’t even notice the storm beginning to die down as they tucked and turned through the brush. Kidhe’s hand touched her shoulder and she jumped.
“It’s over,” he said.
It was still raining, but the thunder and lightning were gone, replaced by the low white noise of a soft and heavy wind.
“What happened?” she asked.
Kidhe loosened his grip on the reins. “We got under it. The storm is above us in the Veil.”
Maddie allowed herself to breathe as her eyes took in shimmering wet leaves and sparse light seeping down from the canopy. Waterfalls of emerald vines hung from the branches, shifting gently in the breeze. Boulders the size of houses littered the ground, and between them, huge wildflowers burst in flashes of vibrant color like splats of neon paint.
Earnest swooped down into a narrow ravine. The wind whistled along the passage, and Maddie shivered.
“I’m sorry about this,” Kidhe said. “I should have checked the weather report before we left.”
“It’s alright,” Maddie said through chattering teeth. “I’m sure I’ll forgive you eventually.”
Kidhe steered Earnest to the bottom of the ravine, and they came to rest on a sheltered ledge at the mouth of a cave. Storm runoff broke over smooth stone a few feet below, casting white foam up into the air to wet their shoes.
“We’re here,” Kidhe said, undoing Maddie’s safety rope.
He threw the rope down, and Earnest settled onto the stone floor of the ledge. Maddie kicked her foot over the harness. Her muscles stretched like old rubber bands as she made her way to the ground.
“Where is here?” she asked.
Kidhe jumped down. “My place.” He undid a few knots and pulled the harness off Earnest, who fluffed out his feathers and shook, spritzing them with water. Kidhe stroked the bird’s neck.
“Thanks for getting us through that, buddy,” he said. Earnest chortled.
Maddie shivered again and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “You live in a cave?”
Kidhe hung up the harness on a row of pegs driven into the cave wall. “Not exactly,” he said. “Come on. It’s this way.”
He led her towards the back of the cave. The smell of musty pine needles and dirt followed them as they passed into a low tunnel. Behind them, the forest slipped away into darkness.
A warm wind emerged from the shadows ahead, where a tiny spec of light came into view. Maddie kept her eyes it as she followed Kidhe forward. They left the damp tunnel behind and emerged onto a gentle slope at the edge of an open field.
“This is impossible,” Maddie said.
Tall grass carpeted the ground, reaching her knees, broken only by patches of red and white mushrooms and prairie flowers the color of polished silver. The moon shone bright above their heads, filling the sky with sheets of white light that fell like blankets in the wind. Specks of multicolored pollen drifted on the breeze.
Kidhe glanced back over his shoulder. “Not bad, eh?”
“But we were underground,” Maddie said, reaching out to catch a mote of pollen in her palm. “And it was daytime. How can this be?”
“Magic, of course,” Kidhe replied as he took her hand and led her down the slope and across the field. “Practitioners call places like these ‘delves.’”
“Delves?”
They came to stand on a hump of earth overlooking the landscape.
“Think of it like a pocket,” Kidhe said. “Moving deeper into the Veil is all about your state of mind. Most people these days can’t get very far. We’ve gotten too used to the ordinary world, but a delve is connected to the shallow parts of the Veil. If you know where the entrance is, you can walk right in.”
“The cave,” Maddie said.
He nodded. “No one knows how they form, but they’re very rare and filled with powerful magic.” He pointed to a cluster of trees at the bottom of the slope. “That’s where we’re going.”
Maddie pulled back. “What about the curtain? Won’t we lose our memories?”
“Don’t worry. Delves are protected from the mist by a layer of magic. It usually manifests as some kind of physical barrier. See those mountains?” He pointed back up the slope. In the distance, it rose up into a barrier of steep, gray peaks. “We’re safe,” he said, reaching out to her.
Maddie leaned on Kidhe’s shoulder as their path broke into a clearing. She found herself staring at an enormous tree stump. Moss grew up the sides in thick patches around little wooden windows set deep into the wood. Clear glass made up the front entrance, which looked like a cross between a greenhouse and a street lamp, glued to the stump with hard-packed clay.
“Home sweet home?” Maddie asked.
The glass door creaked as Kidhe swung it open.
“It’s where the heart is,” he said. “Good a place as any to get in touch with yours.”
Delve
Maddie stepped into the room, and her footsteps echoed with a hollow thump against the floorboards. Moonlight streamed through the windows, washing the furniture with tomb-like calm.
A clay fireplace sat in the corner, fixed with an iron rack and spit. A low, ramshackle couch lay in front of it. In the kitchen, a manual water pump protruded from the floor, dripping into a steel washtub.
Half-finished projects lay out on every surface: a torn harness here, a broken buckle there… There were dirty clothes on the floor and a week’s worth of dishes piled in the sink. A smile crept onto Maddie’s face as Kidhe buzzed
around the room, hastily tidying up.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said, heaping the clothes up into his arms. “I’m not actually ready for company.” He tossed the pile into the next room.
“It’s alright,” Maddie said, peeking through the door. It was a bedroom. “It’s nice. Very homey.”
He blushed and hustled to the fireplace. “You’re the first person I’ve ever brought here,” he said, lighting it with a long match. “I’ve got some dry clothes in the closet. We can hang the rest up on the mantle. They’ll smell like smoke, but at least they’ll be dry. I’ll make us some tea while you get changed.”
The fire crackled, hissing as the flames took hold. Kidhe took her through to the bedroom and went to a wardrobe against the wall, returning with a bundle of clothes.
“Here you go,” he said, showing himself out.
Maddie thanked him and shut the door before surveying the room: dresser, wastebasket, wardrobe. Her eyes settled on the bed, a heap of mismatched cushions and furs arranged in a fuzzy mound. She shivered as she peeled off her clothes, slipped out of her shoes, and got changed. The dry clothes were leather and lined with rabbit fur. She tied her hair up, headed back to the couch, and all but stuffed her feet into the fire.
Kidhe was in the kitchen. He’d ditched his shirt, which was now hanging over the fire. Maddie watched him work, pumping water into an iron kettle. There was something pleasing about the image. Maddie found herself staring for just a moment. It was a childish reaction, she knew, but she was in a tree trunk in the deep Veil with the faerie version of Davy Crockett, so she gave herself a pass. Besides, she didn’t even know she liked tattoos.
Ink flowed down from his shoulders and across his chest in a pattern of tangled vines and thin red flowers. Maybe it was the twilight outside or the glow from the hearth, but Maddie’s eyes locked on for a full 30 seconds as he hung the kettle over the fire and went to change.
The water was boiling when he came back. He fetched a pair of wooden cups from the kitchen, poured out the tea, and sat beside Maddie.
She looked down into the cup. The liquid was cloudy and had a musty smell.
“What is it?” she said.
“Pine needle and herbs,” Kidhe answered.
Maddie took a drink. The tea tasted like summertime and sage, with a hint of citrus that was bitter and refreshing. It soothed her throat and warmed her from the inside out as she laid her head against the couch and sighed. They sat in silence as they drank the tea and let the fire slowly bake them dry.
“What do I do now?” Maddie asked.
Kidhe lifted his head off the couch and opened his eyes. “Hmm?”
“You’re supposed to be my guide, right? What’s next?”
“That’s up to you,” he said, groaning as he sat up and refilled his tea. “I’m not a witch. I don’t know how it works.”
“You’re not very helpful.”
“Hey, I made the tea.”
Maddie glanced at the kettle. “The tea was great,” she said. “But I’m supposed to be figuring out why I can’t do magic, remember?”
He stood and pulled her up. “Maybe it’s good that we ended up here,” he said. “It’s probably the most magical place for hundreds of miles. Why don’t you go outside and poke around? Get in touch with your roots.”
“Just… poke around?” Maddie said, looking out the window. “By myself?”
“It’s completely safe. No one but me even knows this place exists.”
“What if there are wild animals or something? What if I get lost?”
“Maybe getting lost is the point. You’re trying to discover something new inside yourself. It makes sense you’d have to get away from what you know to find it.”
“And how will I get back?”
Kidhe went to a workbench and rooted around in the clutter before returning with a wooden object. “Take this,” he said, dropping it in her hands. “The sound carries for miles. Just blow on it when you’re ready, and I’ll come get you.” It was a whistle, hand-carved from an old, worn branch.
Maddie ran her fingers across its pitted surface. “Are you sure this is going to work?” she asked.
He grinned and walked her to the door. The moonlight poured in through the glass as he opened it and said, “Have a little faith.”
Natural Inclination
It’s not the worst idea in the world, Maddie thought as she marched into the woods. There was a kind of simple logic to Kidhe’s plan that she could appreciate. If you think too much, find a place where there’s nothing to do but feel.
She was no good at feeling. Years of public education had trained it out of her.
The branches parted on their own as she walked, revealing thick, velvety grass, stained by the moonlight. Maddie wished she’d brought her running shoes. She’d never been in a forest so cooperative.
Think about what makes you happy. One of them is bound to be why becoming a witch feels right. She recalled Kidhe’s words pointedly and knelt down to brush the earth. The grass was soft, and the stones were smooth beneath her fingers.
Why not? she thought.
She stretched for a minute and ran, dashing barefoot through the trees. The brush rolled back like a retreating tide, leaving only cushioned earth bathed in silver light. The air flowed into her lungs like cool water, washing away her fears until the only feeling that remained was the burn of exertion growing in her legs and the wind pushing against her back. She forgot about time and school and how she still needed to figure out the answer to Maeve’s question. It was just her and the trail, like it was back in high school, lost in her own little piece of the world.
She emerged on the other side of the woods and ran out into the fields, feeling the grass brush against her skin. The ground yielded to the pounding of her feet, and for a moment it was as though she could feel the beating of her own steps against her chest. The sense of the ground bled into her thoughts as she shut her eyes and carried on, losing herself in the sensation. Grass. Chest. Ground. Light.
It wasn’t until her foot splashed into cold water that she opened her eyes and looked around. The woods lay like a smudge against the landscape, a tuft of shadow far behind her. At her feet, a clear, narrow brook wound its way slowly downhill. The sound of the stream lapping against smooth stones played in her ears like music, joined in harmony by the soothing breath of the wind.
Maddie followed the water, drawn along the dreamlike path, strange and yet familiar. Sometime, somehow, she was sure that she had been this way before. Her eyes flicked out ahead, pursuing an elusive impulse around each new corner. Down and down, away from the woods and the hill she tracked the current, quickening her pace until the grass fell away and she came upon a pool. The sight of it stunned her in her tracks.
It can’t be, she thought, turning in a circle as she examined her surroundings. It was the pool from the forest preserve. Her body suddenly rippled with tingling sensation as the magic in the air gathered around her and beaded on her skin like morning dew.
It was impossible, but it was true. This was the Veil, after all, a magical reflection of the so-called real world. As she stood beside the crisp, clear water, staring down at the silver slice of the moon on its surface, she knew that not two months earlier, on the other side of the looking glass, she had been standing on this very spot.
She knelt down, dipping her hand into the crystal surface to bring the water to her mouth. It tasted like water. Perfectly ordinary water.
And nothing happened.
Maddie flopped down and let her head fall back, staring up at the sky as she laughed. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. A vision? Another trance? Or perhaps some magical creature that would tell her what to do next? But there was no answer; only a pool at the bottom of a hill. Lesson learned.
“This is stupid,” she said aloud. “I give up. Maeve can find someone else to be her apprentice.”
But even as she spoke the words, she knew she didn’t believe them. She wou
ld never let herself do something like that. Finn said she liked to feel like the smartest person in the room. Maybe he was right. She’d spent her entire life trying to live up to her potential, and now here she was, standing on the threshold of infinite possibility. All she had to do was reach out and take it. And she did want to.
Maddie got on all fours and crawled back to the pool to look at her reflection. She had her father’s eyes, but the rest came from her mother. Maddie could see her genes in the lines of her cheekbones and the way her hair fell around her shoulders.
Her mother liked knowing she could look after so many people. Maddie wondered, how much of the world could she look after as the Foxglove? The whole thing, probably. The truth was that she didn’t want to live out her life in a library, or leave the world behind and hide in the woods, or even heal one poor kid’s leg. She wanted to be responsible for more. She wanted to look after people: hundreds, or thousands, or all of them, if she could. Because if not her, who?
Okay, maybe I am a little egocentric, she thought, swishing her hand through the water as she got to her feet. I guess it runs in the family.
There wouldn’t be a phone call this time around, but somehow, Maddie believed her mother would know that she was doing the most she could.
Big people needed big dreams, after all.
Resolve
It was late by the time they got back to the city tree, and Maddie went straight to Maeve’s. She found the witch sitting in a chair by the fireplace, perusing the pages of Rose’s old, weathered book. Maddie looked at the woman with newfound respect as she stepped forward, summoning as much confidence as she could muster.
“You’re back,” Maeve said, not looking up.
Maddie stood in front of her. “I am.”
Maeve set the book aside. “And have you found your purpose?”
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