Shadow Forest- The Complete Series

by Eliza Grace

  I wonder what to say for a moment. I wonder what to do. Honesty. I needed to be honest.

  I bypass Hoyt, who quirks an eyebrow at me. I focus on Jon, the vampire boy who’s been trapped for so long and who just lost a woman who, for a short time, showed him what a mother was. “Jon,” I begin, biting my lip and thinking through each word I want to say, “I really like you. You’re unlike any person I’ve ever met.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Hoyt stiffen and I see hurt wave across his face before he neutralizes his expression. “You saved me in the forest. That werewolf,” I shudder, “I would have died. I know that. And you meant something to my mother. But,” I reach out for Hoyt’s hand; he looks at it, and for a moment I wonder if he’s going to leave me hanging. After the short pause though, he reaches out and grips my fingers tightly. “I love Hoyt.” As soon as I say it, I feel a twinge in my heart. I do love Hoyt, honestly, but I cannot deny that the ‘like’ I hold for Jon is more than I give it credit.

  Jon looks away from me and I can see dampness in his eyes.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I continue.

  “You can’t hurt me. I’m a damn vampire,” Jon says and pushes past us towards the back of the house. I try to follow him, but Hoyt doesn’t let go of my hand.

  “Let him be alone, Tilda.” Hoyt’s voice is deep and warm and like he is having trouble speaking. I look up at him and his face is softened by a sweet, small smile. “I love you too, you know.”

  “I know. You tried to follow me, Hoyt. You went into that place… that Neverwhere. You’re the kindest person in the entire world, but I don’t think you’d risk your life that way for just anybody.”

  Hoyt moves in front of the wheelchair and leans his body down, which takes a great deal of effort because he is so very tall and I am sitting down. He keeps his eyes open as his face nears mine. My eyes close, realizing what is coming.

  The kiss is slow and gentle. It lasts only moments, but it feels like forever.

  I want to kiss him again immediately when we stop, but a voice breaks us apart.

  Jen is stood in the doorway to her studio. The front of her clothes are soaked in paint. “What is wrong with me?” she sobs out, and falls to her knees.

  Nightmare City

  “I’m still so confused,” Jen breathes out, clutching to the warm mug of tea like it is a life preserver. I pat her gently on the shoulder. “I’m a… and my sister was a… and you are?” She can’t bring herself to say the word ‘witch’. She hasn’t said it once, even though I’ve said it many times. I’ve told her absolutely everything.

  “It’s true. I think you’ve always had your power, but you didn’t know what it was. Your paintings mean something.”

  “I mean, every artist wants to believe their art means something. That it’ll change the world and hang in prestigious museums, but…” Jen’s voice trails off. “I just can’t be a… that thing.”

  We’d been having this conversation off-and-on for hours. The only reprieve had been when we’d all passed out in the early morning hours. The shadow beasts had come back, trying their luck against the fairies—who are still in the house and settling in for the long haul it seems. I’d seen one of them using slices of wheat bread to build up a tiny cushioned home in an upper cabinet.

  Now it is morning, and we’ve all come to the conclusion that we have to see what is happening in town. Arianna assures us that the shadows can’t fight through the daylight. They’ll stick to dark places until night fall. Unfortunately, they’re really the only big baddies who are sun shy. Some of the vampires will be daywalkers, about half the population is according to Jon. The werewolves will be in human form, but still supernaturally strong. The odds are that we’ll run into something dangerous if we go into town. We have to risk it though.

  “Is the coast clear?” Hoyt and Jon are both staring out the windows.

  “This is a stupid plan,” Jon mutters.

  “And I told you to put up or shut up. You got a better idea, we’re all ears,” Hoyt fires back.

  I was really, really getting tired of the bicker boys.

  “Maybe you guys stay here and Tilda and I go into town,” Jen says the words calmly, though I can see how her hands thrum nervously against the table making the liquid in her mug ripple.

  “No!” Both Hoyt and Jon shout, looking alarmed.

  “Well,” Jen took a deep breath, “If we’re all going, then you two need to find a way to get along, because I’ve got a headache and I can’t deal with anymore of this,” she waves a hand noncommittally, making sure both boys knew they were sharing the blame for being annoying and ridiculous, “testosterone war.”

  Hoyt blushes, and I think Jon would have too if he wasn’t already so pale and… you know, not alive. “Sorry, Jen,” Hoyt mutters.

  Jon grunts something unintelligible.

  “Okay then,” I take a deep breath, “let’s go.”

  “We need a better plan. Where to meet if we get separated. What to do if we run into something dangerous.” Hoyt ticks off suggestions on how we can be better prepared for going into town. Jon rolls his eyes, but to his credit he doesn’t say something jerky.

  “If we sit here planning forever, it’s going to be nightfall again and we’ll be right back where we started,” I complain. “Look,” I say, now that all eyes are on me, “I’m ready to go. I’m mentally prepared to go. I’m physically… well, that leaves something to be desired. But if we don’t go now, right now, then I’m going to lose my ever-loving mind here. We’ve got to do something. This is all my fault. And I have to do something,” I plead with them all to understand that I’ve got more skin in the game here. The weight of anyone who’s dying in town is on me, not on them.

  “This isn’t your fault, Tilda,” Jen walks over and squeezes my hand.

  “Yes, it is. I burned down my family’s house. I listened to the witchfinder and got trapped in the woods and lost my magic. Magic he used to hurt Jen. Magic he used to hurt Hoyt. And then I watched my mom die again saving Hoyt. If it’s not my fault, then whose is it?” I realize my voice is rising, my pitch growing sharper. I clap my mouth shut to keep from becoming hysterical. I’m teetering on the edge, ready to fall. And then we really won’t be able to go into town and try to figure out how to rectify all my mistakes

  I’m in the wheelchair already, so I roll away from the table and start heading for the door.

  Hoyt and Jon scramble to catch up. Hoyt grabs his keys. Jon looks like he wants to be of use, but has no idea how he can help in this moment. Jen doesn’t stand up immediately. She takes another long draught of cold coffee and then she seems to steel herself. “My power, if it’s actually a power,” she says, still trying not to believe the truth, “is pretty useless.” I turn the chair just enough that I can see her walk out of the kitchen and into her studio. She returns with a sketch pad and her black roll of pencils.

  “Planning to draw the scenery?” Jon crosses his arms, quirking an eyebrow.

  “If my power is drawing… what’s happened or what’s going to happen. I mean, it could be helpful.” Jen bites her lips and looks embarrassed. “I guess it’s dumb.”

  “It is not dumb, Jen,” I say coldly, staring at Jon. “It could be really helpful. Good thinking.”

  She nods, setting the items down and then pulling a hairband off her wrist. She gathers her hair into the world’s messiest bun and then secures the haphazard pile at the top of her head. It’s so comforting, to see her standing there. Paint-splattered clothes. Stack of hair elastics around her wrist. Hair in one of her signature styles. I am so glad, so very glad, she is alive.

  “Love you, Jen.”

  “I love you too, kid.”

  We all piled into Jen’s boat of a car. I could tell Hoyt would have rather driven his jeep. His eyes stay on the orange vehicle as we pull past it. I’m in the front seat, Jen behind the wheel. The wheelchair is stuffed into the oversized trunk. Jon and Hoyt are both pressed against their respective passenger doors, t
rying to keep as much distance between them as possible.

  No one talks as we move down the street towards town. Even in this more remote area, we find two abandoned cars, a pair of sneakers in the middle of the road, a cream purse that’s stained with suspicious dark-red-turning-brown spots.

  There were no bodies though. No victims half-hidden by tall grass and bushes. That kept the fear from roiling and making me feel ill.

  The closer we got to town, the worse it got. One truck had punched into a thick light pole. Its front end was proper smashed, smoke still billowing from its hood. The coffee shop was only half-standing. The police station looks like it is on lockdown. There are no lights shining from the interior, though with the tinted glass it’s hard to tell, even on a day when monsters haven’t taken over.

  “Oh, Archie,” Jen says and I can feel the terror in her voice as if it is sandpaper against my senses.

  “Archie?” I question. “Do you mean Officer Wheaton?” Even in this time of unbelievable danger and dark fantasy, I feel a little twinge in my chest. Jen deserves something good.

  She blushes, her hands tightening on the steering wheel. “He helped me when you went missing.” She points out the windshield and my gaze follows her index finger. My face is splashed across the glass and benches and buildings, a new meaning to painting the town. “He asked me out. I’m terrible and I said yes. I’m sorry for that now. I shouldn’t have been thinking about dating, not with you gone.”

  I reach out and touch her shoulder. “Jen, you deserve to be happy.”

  “Not while my niece is missing and possibly dead,” she sighs. “I hope he’s okay.”

  “Go back and park,” I give her upper arm one more squeeze and then let go. “We have to get out somewhere. Let’s check at the station first.”

  “But what if he’s…” her voice trails off.

  “Dead?” I complete for her, because I can tell she can’t say the word. It is another ‘witch’ and she’s incapable of facing the possibility. “He’s not,” I say resolutely.

  “Promises, promises,” Jon mutters from the back seat. My gaze flashes over my shoulder, just in time to see Hoyt’s fist fly sideways and hit Jon in the arm. “What the hell!” Jon rubs at the place he’s been hit and scowls. “Just because I’m the only one willing to call a spade a spade doesn’t mean you have the right to abuse me.”

  “That was not abuse,” Hoyt volleys back. “You want to see abuse?”

  Once again, it’s Jen who calls the boys on their crap. “Stop it, now. I swear to god if I have to act like a referee one more time between you two, then I’m going to kick you out of the car and you can walk back to my house. That is, if you can survive a bunch of werewolves and demons and whatever else is lying in wait.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hoyt crosses his arms and leans against the door.

  Jon just nods and stares out the window.

  We park moments later. Jen lets the car idle as we all stare at the police station and wonder what waits for us inside the walls, beyond the windows. Is it carnage? Is it empty? I hope for the latter.

  Jon is the first to open his door and get out. Hoyt follows, maybe not wanting to look like he’s less brave than the vampire boy. Though, he should be less brave. It would be much easier to kill a human than a boy who’d had to be buried in an iron-changed white oak coffin to keep him beneath the soil.

  Whilst Jon heads straight for the building we’re parked in front of, Hoyt retrieves my wheelchair and brings it to my side of the car. That’s the biggest difference between the two boys. I like Jon. I can admit I might like-like Jon. But he is too stubborn, too wrapped up in his own dark convictions. He walks away from a need without a backwards glance. Hoyt, though sometimes I wish he was more a… well, a bad boy… I cannot deny that his kindness and care win me over every time.

  They are lightness and darkness incarnate. Two sides of a same coin. Hoyt is human, tall, broad-shouldered, and carries the weight of the world in his eyes. Jon is a vampire, slim-built, scarred by decades of pain, and he cares only for his own devices.

  I struggle out of the car on my own, breathing heavily by the time I am re-seated. But it’s good that I’m forcing myself to confront my disability. I made the mistake of pursuing an easy fix to my reality. I won’t ever make that mistake again. Jen hasn’t exited the car, possibly paralyzed by the fear of what might have happened to the police officers who, undoubtedly, responded to a slew of unbelievable, dangerous calls last night.

  Would they have written the first few off as pranks? Would they have answered the screams on the other end of the lines as werewolves broke into dining rooms and bypassed the stew dinners for human flesh?

  It must have been so strange, to be shocked into the truth that supernatural things did exist. I’d faced that myself, but at least I had my mother’s stories and her warnings. At least, in the deepest part of my soul, I’d already believed in magic.

  These people hadn’t stood a chance.

  “Jen, are you okay?” I can see her fully, my car door still opened. Her knuckles are pasty-white, still gripping the steering wheel tightly. Her body is vibrating, tremors running the length of her from scalp to toes. “Jen, you need to breathe. It’s okay. Whatever has happened, we’ll find a way to make it okay.”

  She tries to nod, but can’t seem to move her head enough. It jerks up and down just the barest fraction. “I’m coming,” she says, still not moving. “I’m coming,” she repeats, taking a deep shuddering breath. And she finally does, releasing the wheel and shaking her hands a little as the blood rushes back in. She takes her time, moving slowly, once again strengthening her resolve against whatever is coming.

  I don’t roll away and close my door until she’s shut her own door and is walking around the car. “It’s going to be okay, Jen.”

  I’m grateful Jon is too far away to hear me make this promise. I’m sure he’d say something to counter my thin optimism. I push the wheels forward. Hoyt doesn’t try and help me, again somehow knowing I need to do it for myself. But I don’t protest when Jen appears at my back and takes the handles to steer me forward. Because I can recognize her need too, and she needs something to distract her as she moves towards the station.

  Jon is trying to peer through the windows. Again though, with the heavy tinting he can’t see much inside. “I don’t see any movement. This front room is empty. Can’t see anything past the water dispensing contraptions.”

  “You can see in there?” Hoyt walks forward to join Jon at the window. He puts his hand over his eyes to shade them and leans forward. “Bull. It’s all blurry through this dark glass.”

  “Maybe to your weak human eyes.” Jon turns to glance at Hoyt triumphantly, as if he’s won at something and beaten Hoyt.

  “So you can see better than me. Good job there, Mr. Vamp.” Hoyt is so dismissive that some of Jon’s bravado sloughs off and he looks slightly stricken.

  “Walking home, it seems,” Jen says from behind me and both boys turn away from each other with a grunt. “That’s what I thought,” she continues coolly. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to see if anyone’s alive in there.”

  I am glad to hear some semblance of confidence in Jen’s voice. She is so much stronger than she gives herself credit for.

  Hoyt goes to the entrance first. He pushes the double doors inward and the give easily, swinging open. “I’m going to say that’s probably not a good sign.”

  “It could be,” I say weakly. “These doors are almost always unlocked to the public during the day.”

  “Not a good sign,” Jon breathes out when he enters the actual building first, because Hoyt is holding open one side of the door for me.

  “I can’t see anything wrong,” Hoyt argues.

  “That’s because, much like your eyesight, your weak human nose can’t smell blood from a mile away.” The vampire boy moves further into the building. Jen pushes me slowly over the threshold.

  “I want Archie to be okay,” my aunt�
��s voice is a whisper. “I really like him. I wanted to go on that date, even if it made me a bad person. And I want him to be okay.”

  “He’s okay, Jen,” I say, hoping it’s not a lie.

  “Back here.” Jon is no longer in view, but his voice calls out to us from the belly of the building. We move slowly towards the sound of his voice. He’s past the interrogation rooms, the officer’s lounge, and the training rooms. He’s back in holding.

  I realize I’m holding my breath and I exhale shakily.

  Holding is dark, which changes when Hoyt flicks a switch on the wall.

  The scene that comes to brightness is a nightmare.

  Two men are sleeping in one of the cells. Their bodies are hairy and one is bleeding from a wound to the calf. In another cell is a creature so big that it takes up half of its own containing space. It is not human, not even humanoid. It is double the height of a man and it’s not just hairy. It is hair… a walking freaking carpet. Despite the heavy fur, I can see the outline of thick, powerful muscles.

  “Barry. I have to say I’m not surprised you got yourself caught.” Jon is a few feet from the cage, talking to the giant cousin IT want to be. “I mean, I get them,” he cocks a thumb at the sleeping men, “some werewolves are so inbred that they’re dumb as rocks. But you? Your kind has evaded human capture for centuries. Oh, how the mighty bigfoot has fallen.”

  The great beast growls and thrums, sounding like Chewie from my dad’s favorite space franchise.

  “Hey, it’s not my fault you let a human catch you. Watch the language.”

  “Um…” I have to think for a minute. There are so many reactions rolling around my brain. But the most important thing came out of my mouth first. “Bigfoot’s name is… Barry?”

  Jon looks at me. “This bigfoot’s name is Barry. Hell if I know what the rest of the population goes by.”