by Eliza Grace
“He’s a lot shorter than your dad,” Jen says, but she puts a pair of faded, torn jeans in the maybe pile. “There, something in here might work.” She picks up the wrinkled clothes, looks at me, and then sits down on her bed, holding the items like a security blanket between us. “Okay, kid. Spill. What in the world are you thinking?”
Not sure at first what she means, I give her what must be a really stupid expression. “Um… what?”
“Vampire boy. You don’t think it’s ridiculously obvious that you like him? Like… like-like him. I mean, poor Hoyt. Do you still like Hoyt?”
“Yes. Of course I like Hoyt. I really like him. More than I thought I did.”
“Then what the hell is this vibe I’m picking up between you and Mr. Bad Attitude? I mean, Tilda, come on, he’s a walking hurricane. Not even a hurricane, because there’s no eye in the middle to give you a break from the storm.” Jen looks exasperated. When I don’t respond, she tosses herself back on her bed, letting the clothes pile up on her stomach as she moans. “I am so not cut out to be the parental figure of a teenager. You guys make zero sense.”
“We are not that bad. I mean, as a species, we’re no worse than those animals that throw their young at predators so they can escape.” I shrug and then we both laugh.
Jen sits up. “Okay, just one more time. Make me understand what this thing is with Jon the grumpy vampire.”
“In the woods, I got mad at Mom,” I feel ashamed to say it now. I hate how I squandered time with her I should have cherished. “I got mad and I ran off. I got lost in that stupid forest. And I met him. He saved me, and not just from a werewolf. And, Jen, he loved mom too. I feel like… taking care of him is something I can still do for her, now that she’s gone.” As I say the words, I realize I’m helping even myself understand what Jon is to me. Clarifying it makes my heart and brain feel less foggy.
“And that’s all this is? He saved you and he cared about your mom. He’s what? A friend?”
“He’s a friend. And he’s a connection to her I guess.”
“Fine,” she finally gives in. “If that’s all it is, then I suggest you stop making it look like you’d die for the bat boy. You’re going to push Hoyt away without meaning to.” She holds up a hand, sighing. “Not that I should be condoning a relationship with an older guy who is in a position of power over you.”
“Hoyt’s not like that—”
She interrupts me. “Tilda, if I had any tiny suspicion that he was like that, he wouldn’t be in this house.” She gathers the clothes into a pile once more and gets up. “Come on. We’ve not heard any fighting, but let’s not push our luck.” She winks at me and I smile at her.
As far as Aunts went, I’d gotten the motherlode.
Unbroken Once More
“I’ve heard all your reasons, Jen. I’m still convinced that doing what he says is the only way to change what’s happened.” I take a bite of toast. It’s the only thing I feel like I can stomach right now. Despite all my sureness and bravado, I’m scared as heck to go back into the woods.
“Fine, here’s my last point. You can’t walk this time, right? A wheelchair isn’t going to fare well in the forest. How do you plan to solve that?” Jen closes her notebook, all of her points exhausted.
Jon steps in then, wearing my father’s old clothes and looking somehow perfect in them, though they are two sizes too large at the very least. “I can carry her. It wouldn’t be hard.”
I smile, but shake my head and turn my attention to Jen. “Funny you should ask,” I look up at the ceiling, not immediately seeing what I’m looking for. Or, who, rather. “Arianna?” I call out, hoping she’s still in the house. Her other friends certainly are. The one that’s made the home of bread has eaten most of the raisins and sliced open several tea bags. Dark green leaves now litter the counter near the teapot.
“Who’s Arianna?” A groggy Archie appears in the kitchen, rubbing his back and looking around the kitchen like it’s an alien world. “How long did I sleep?”
Jen smiles and gets up. “A long time. You needed it. Want some aspirin? Coffee?”
Just then, as a still-sleepy Archie walks into the kitchen, smiling and ready to drink a cup of joe and get back to ‘normal-hood’, Arianna and her fairy compadres burst into glowing light against the ceiling.
Archie staggers back, eyes wide. “What in the...”
“Tilda called. Tilda called.” The fairies dance around singing. “Pray tell, pray tell, pray tell.” Their voices are a tiny choir, reminiscent of wind chimes.
“Um, Archie. Why don’t you sit down?” Jen walks over and takes Archie gently by the elbow, guiding him towards the table. “I’m sure this is pretty shocking.”
He shakes his head after he’s sat down. “They seem… more cheerful than the ankle biters I fought at least.” His voice is heady with disbelief.
“Rock trolls are the absolute worst,” Jon agrees. “They’ve got this… Napoleon complex meets ultimate cage fighter thing going on.”
“You know, for a kid who’s been trapped in a forest, like forever, you seem to have a decent grasp of current culture stuff,” Jen says, handing Archie a cup of coffee and the half-and-half.
Jon smiles sadly and it makes my heart twinge, because I have a feeling I know who has schooled him on things that have happened in the outside world whilst he’s been incarcerated. “I owe thanks to your sister for that. If I was bored, I’d hang out with her. Or if we were hiding from the shadow beasts. She’d tell me about history and things that were popular. She’d tell me about her kids.” Jon tosses me a meaningful glance.
No one says anything. The instant grief in the air is thick and impassable. It takes a while for the air to clear, and when it does, it is the fairies, who have continued to flit about the ceiling, who break the quietude. “Leave we will. Leave we must. Leave unless you need us.” They sing-song, fireflies against the aged paint above.
“I do need you. Wait,” I feel like I need to turn in circles so that I can see them all, but when I do I feel ridiculous. So instead, I focus only on Arianna. “Do you remember how you were able to change my face back?”
“Not change, not change,” Arianna seems flustered when she contradicts me. “Glamour only. Shine on the face. Hide the gray.” She bounces up and down jerkily, losing the flow of the other fairies who still dance like prima ballerinas through the air.
My hope sinks like an anchor. “But it looked and felt so real.”
“Real enough, real enough.” Arianna’s tiny head bobs.
“But you can’t… you can’t make me walk then, can you?”
Now, the tiny magical creature frowns. “No, no, no.” I’ve never heard sad wind chimes before; now I have.
“Okay. Thank you anyway.” The words were automatic and empty.
Needing some space, I rolled out of the kitchen and towards the living room. It had never dawned on me before how oddly the house was set up. The long hallway went past the bedrooms from the kitchen and terminated in the living room. Now it did, as I rolled over the hardwood floors feeling lost, in every single way possible.
Three voices hummed behind me. They’d probably continue to debate the intelligence of my crazy plan whilst I was gone. Or they’d bring Archie completely up to date. Aside from rock trolls and fairies, he probably didn’t know much. The sofa pillows are tossed on the floor and a sleeping bag is open across the seat cushions. I wheel around the couch, pick it up, and drop it back down. The smell of campfire wafts up into my face. My nose wrinkles. There’s an open duffel bag on the floor, unzipped and pulled slightly open to reveal deodorant and an orange shirt. All of this stuff must be Hoyt’s, I realize. He slept here. He was worried about me. Of course he was.
I smile, but then frown. I wish I could walk for him. Be ‘normal’. Be able to walk and dance and go out on dates with Hoyt. He deserves a typical relationship.
Why do you ask the most useless of us when you have power at your disposal? The witchfinder wakes up in my head.
And you, little witch, have been… indisposed.
Oh… I can feel my cheeks getting red, though I’m absolutely relieved that he’s not been spying on me in delicate moments. Where do you go when you disappear? Do you just, erhm, turn around in there to give me privacy?
I’m not sure. For the first time, he does not sound sure of himself. In fact, he almost sounds scared. I wish to not see or hear you, and I do not see or hear you. I come back when I feel a pull to return. I assume that’s you.
I don’t want you to return. I protest. But, of course that’s a lie. Even whilst I was talking to Arianna and finding out she doesn’t have the power to help me, my thoughts had turned to the witchfinder. Because he had returned my legs to me once already. He must know how to do it again. And with him in my head, shouldn’t I have that knowledge also?
The witchfinder hasn’t replied to me, and I believe it is because he knows that I already know that I’m full of crap. All right, fine. Can you tell me how you did it? How did you make my legs work again?
See. You wanted me to return.
Just shut up.
If that’s what you really want. He taunts.
No, god! Just tell me what I need to do.
It won’t be permanent. He warns. Are you quite sure you want to taste the freedom of unbrokenness again? You will only be more fractured when you return to your reality.
Yeah? So what’s new?
Do you have your mother’s journal? I taught her many things before she turned against me. It will help us, until we get to my writings in the woods.
It’s the first time in quite a while that I’ve thought of my mother’s diary. It takes me back to when I first found it hidden in my room. The elation I’d felt when I’d seen the confident lines of her Ls and the delicate swoops of her As. How my world had shifted when I’d seen the glowing and felt the spark inside. The voice in the woods, now the voice in my head.
What had I thought before?
Time is a changeling.
So, I could walk—possibly—if I found the diary. What had happened to it after I’d pushed it through the barrier to Hoyt?
“You okay in here?” As if I’ve summoned him by thinking of him, just as I apparently can summon the witchfinder in my head, Hoyt has entered the living room. “Here, have some water.” He walks around me and sits on the sofa. The fire smell fills the air again and then resettles on the well-used sleeping bag. “Sorry,” Hoyt apologizes and smooths down the fabric. “This thing really needs to be washed.”
“It’s okay.” I take the water gratefully. I distract myself taking a sip, waiting for the witchfinder to speak again. He doesn’t though. “Hoyt, do you remember the journal? The one I pushed through from my side of the forest after I disappeared?”
He nods slowly, readjusting against the cushions. “Yeah, I do. Why?”
“We need it. If we have it, then I can walk again.”
Hoyt leans forward. “How? Really?” He pauses, thinking hard. “Will it be permanent?”
I sigh. “No. It won’t be. But I need to walk long enough to fix everything.”
“Okay.” He’s thinking again. I watch as a range of emotions cross his face. “I had it in the Neverwhere. Elisabeth,” he touches his chest, his eyes tightening as if he’s recalling something painful, “pressed it into my chest when she sent me back. I don’t remember seeing it again.”
I close my eyes against the possibility that the diary is gone forever. It can’t be. We need it.
“I’ll check outside. It’s got to be there.” Hoyt gets up quickly.
“You can’t,” I protest. “Look outside.” I point at the front windows, at the sun lower in the sky. “It’s going to be night soon, Hoyt.”
“I’ll be fast.”
“Don’t go alone, Hoyt,” I call at his back as he leaves. I don’t know if he hears me, or if he’ll do what I ask.
I’m slow getting away from the couch and turning around to head down the hall to the kitchen after him. I can hear the crunch and squeak of the busted back door being opened. “Don’t go alone,” I repeat loudly, hoping he hears, hoping he listens.
The back door is closed again by the time I enter the kitchen. I count the heads. Jen. Archie. Jen and Archie. “Don’t worry. Jon went with him,” Jen’s voice isn’t exactly buoyant. “Hoyt asked him to go and Jon was only slightly jerky about it.”
Feeling relieved, I push past Jen. “Archie, could you move over?” He’s at the chair closest to the window. He gets up and takes the chair with him, leaving me a clear path. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
I roll to the window, getting as close as I can. Though it’s still bright enough not to need flashlights, I can see two dim lights roving around the meadow. I’m glad for that; I can tell where they are. I can tell that they’re safe right now.
“What are they looking for? They didn’t say.” Archie is moving about the kitchen as if he’s been here many times, pulling out sandwich supplies. “Want a PB and J?”
“No, I’m okay.” I lose sight of the second flashlight and my heart skips a beat. One of them must have just turned around though, because the second beam reappears seconds later.
“You, Jen?” Archie is spreading crunchy peanut butter onto wheat bread now.
“Yeah, thanks.” Jen comes up behind me and puts her hands on my shoulders. We watch together. “So what are they trying to find, sweetheart?”
“Mom’s journal,” I say, realizing that I don’t think I ever told her about it or showed it to her. Did I? I can’t remember now…
“I remember her keeping one. But why is it important?” She leans forward more, her hair brushing my cheek.
“Because he… the witchfinder… I wasn’t the first witch from our family he tried to seduce. I was just the one he was successful with. Mom learned things from him and wrote them down. If I’m going to walk again, if I’m going to fix this, we need the book.”
Outside, the sky is fading to a deeper shade of blue and tendrils of sunset colors are beginning to spread. The flashlights are still moving their falling-star path across the meadow. The two lights come together for a moment and I see a flash of gold. At first, I think it’s just a trick of the light beams. But no. I know that shimmering. I can feel the pulse of power moving to me across the meadow.
They’ve found the journal. I think triumphantly. But then I see it. Not tendrils of sunset. No. Tendrils of black. Shadow arms. The others are back.
Memory Sacrifice
“Oh my god. Run. Run!” I scream like Hoyt and Jon can hear me. Actually, maybe Jon does. Because I see one of the lights moving faster, more than humanly fast. It races forward, then back again. Then both lights are moving at superhero speed across the ever-darkening field.
“What’s wrong?” Jen frantically searches, trying to see what has alarmed me.
“The shadow beasts are back,” I say, my voice shaking. I point at the telltale darkness reaching out. Though the sun has nearly set, the tentacle extensions of the others are clear as daylight. They seem so close to the two lights bouncing in the darkness. My stomach hurts as I watch and pray for those lights to get back home.
I see the outline of two figures, still moving more than humanly fast, but not as vamp fast as Jon had in town. They come closer, and soon are bathed in the dim single bulb on the back porch. Only a few feet more.
But the shadows are reaching.
Breathing in the night.
Trying to latch onto their mark.
“Get the door open!” I yell as I push back from the window. I can’t get to it as fast as Jen and Archie. They manhandle the door that’s seen better days in time for Jon to drag Hoyt through the opening. Hoyt is heaving, his face pale. In his hands is my mother’s journal; it is still glowing just the slightest bit. Jon looks no worse for the wear. But then again, they probably weren’t even running fast for him.
Before Archie and Jen can get t
he door closed again, the shadow beasts slam into the house, reaching four thick wisps of smoke through the doorway. Each goes in its own direction, reaching for me and Jen and Hoyt and Archie. Only Jon it avoids. I don’t know why.
Archie is lifted up into the air, his now-dangling shoes scraping against the floor as he is forced towards the outside. They want us away from the house where the protection spell affects them, even though it seems weaker than it was originally. Because… otherwise how could they have pushed into the house this night?
The tendril after Jen has caught her around the neck. Her eyes are wide and her fingers claw at the slate-dark fog. It should not have the firmness to choke a person. It is against the laws of physics. Against reality.
Hoyt is heavy and formidable. The tendrils cannot seem to control him as well as the others.
And then the one that targets me finds purchase. It wraps around my right ankle, giving little yanks that begin to turn the wheels and move me towards the doorframe. I don’t know what to do; I freeze. I am closer to the threshold than everyone else in seconds. Do something. Fight! I grab the wheels, wincing as the pressure causes instant ‘rug burn’. I will be out beneath the moon the soonest, out where it can do its worst. I have to delay the inevitable.
Jon is trying to help Jen. Trying to keep the shadow beasts from killing her. His eyes dart to me, fear on his face. I shake my head. I want him to help my aunt. She is so important to me. And I am not already facing death; Jen is.
“Arianna!” I look frantically towards the ceiling and cabinets for the little fairy and for her cohort who saved us from the shadow beasts the first time. “Arianna!”
They appear yet again as numerous dancing stars across the ceiling. I am inches from the door. Inches. I let go of the wheels and instead grip the nearly-shattered door. I need to hold on long enough for the fairies to call their magics.
And it seems that they’ve multiplied, those supernatural tiny creatures. This house has become the resting place for wayward winged things.