Lichgates

by S. M. Boyce

  “It’s Ourea,” Kara muttered. Her voice pulled him from his thoughts and back into the cold little cave with the long scratch on its wall. “There are dragons and monsters. Of course this thing can take us through walls.” Her voice was so low that neither muse acknowledged she’d said anything at all.

  Braeden grinned. At least this new vagabond was fun.

  “If you ever need Rowthe, simply whistle for him. He will come to you,” Adele said.

  The flaer crept up to Kara and lowered its nose into her hand. She was calm, breathing steadily once more, and scratched its ears in a withdrawn welcome. Rowthe stood still as she used a boulder to climb onto its back, but it pranced and pinned its ears against its head when Braeden tried to do the same.

  “Be kind, Rowthe,” Adele muttered.

  The flaer flicked an ear toward her as she spoke and rooted itself in place at her command. It craned its neck toward Braeden as he walked around to hoist himself onto its back. It stomped as he mounted.

  “Go directly to Hillside and don’t stop,” Adele commanded. “Once my trust is broken, prince, you will never get it back.”

  He nodded from his perch behind Kara, avoiding eye contact to quell the rising tide of sarcastic rebuttal. He turned to wish Adele the best, despite their cold welcome, but she and Garrett were gone. The cave was quiet, empty and still, and Kara nudged his side.

  “Which way, Braeden?”

  He paused. She was still pale, her eyes downcast and conflicted. Adele had told him not to break the muses’ trust, but he didn’t care about them. If he wanted anyone’s loyalty, it was Kara’s.

  “Do you want to see your father?” he asked.

  She twisted around and scanned his face. “Are you testing me right now?”

  “You made me relive losing Mother. I would give anything to have spoken to her once more, to tell her that I would find my own way. You have that chance.”

  “I don’t want to get him killed, Braeden.”

  “Then we need to hurry. We can take him with us to Hillside before anyone finds him. He will be safe there. You, however, need to be prepared with a quick explanation of what’s going on so that he comes with us. We will not have much time to explain.”

  Her hands tightened into fists as she weighed the consequences of this new option. Her gaze flitted around the room, no doubt waiting for the muses to appear again, but it was calm.

  “My Camry is in a parking lot on Salish Mountain in the Montana Rockies,” she said.

  Rowthe’s ears pricked backward, as their destination must have flashed across Kara’s mind. The creature took a few short steps and bolted through the wall. A sharp kick twitched in Braeden’s stomach as they passed through the rock, and before he could blink, they were racing through an underground cavern somewhere in the mountain’s depths. Their sprint left him no choice but to wrap his arms around Kara in an attempt to grab the beast’s mane, but she hardly seemed to care that he’d touched her. Her eyes shifted out of focus.

  Doubt panged in his gut. He hoped this wasn’t a mistake.

  Home

  Kara could barely see in the dark tunnels and caverns through which Rowthe ran. The walls blurred by, passing too quickly to appreciate. Guilt and panic wrestled in her stomach when she thought about seeing her father. But, despite the nerves, the adrenaline keeping her awake began to fade. The sleep in the lumbering cage was, apparently, not enough to sustain the constant rush of excitement Ourea offered. Her eyelids drooped, only snapping open with each kick to her stomach that came from passing through yet another wall.

  Eventually, her eyes glazed over and the deep exhaustion won. Her last thought as she fell into a deep sleep involved the hope that Braeden would keep her from falling.

  Kara awoke to a sudden, cold breeze. They were in a parking lot staring at her borrowed multi-colored Camry as the calm night chirped around them. Leaves rustled in the wind. A sprinkling of stars dotted the dark blue sky above. Braeden dismounted, and she slid off as well. She didn’t notice he’d offered her a hand until she landed on her feet.

  She studied the night sky. “Wasn’t there daylight when we left Ourea? How long was I out?”

  He shrugged. “Lichgates take you to a pocket of the earth, so that was a different place, in a different—well, I guess you could call it time zone. I would say only about six hours have passed since Deirdre threw you in that cage with me.”

  She walked toward the car and shook her head, restraining a sarcastic comment about where Ourea could stick its time zones and monsters.

  The Camry wasn’t actually hers. She rented it from a local couple each summer for next to nothing. It was their extra car, rusty and dented, which she assumed had long ago been paid-off and kept only out of convenience. It had only one headlight. Though mostly green, it did have a blue hood and a yellow passenger’s side door. Oh, it was a thing of beauty. It was also the only car in the lot. It wouldn’t jump alive any second. It might not start, but that had nothing to do with magic. It was just old.

  She shoved her hands into her jean pockets and looked out over the poorly lit gravel lot. The hikers who came here every day had normal lives that came and went. They didn’t know a thing about Ourea or the lichgate on the secret trail.

  Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe she was about to wake up in the gazebo, or even better, in her car, never to see Ourea again. Then, she could get back to her life.

  “Kara?”

  Her eyes sprang back into focus. She was leaning on the car, looking out over the parking lot. Braeden stood by the passenger’s side door, one hand resting on the hilt of his broadsword. She laughed and simultaneously stifled the urge to cry.

  “Are you all right?”

  She nodded and reached for her keys, the metal rattling as she pulled them out of her pocket. A dawning realization made her pause with one hand on the door handle.

  “Of all the—my keys survived those roots, but my seven hundred dollar phone didn’t? Are you kidding me?”

  “What about roots, now?”

  “Nothing.” She sighed and unlocked her door.

  She had to fiddle with the cracked handle until it opened, and when it finally did, she slipped into the driver’s seat. The cloth chair rubbed her bruised back through the tears in her shirt. She reached across the passenger seat to unlock the other door, but paused halfway. She could probably leave Braeden. Nothing was stopping her from driving off and pretending that this had never happened. Her fingers hovered on the handle, but she ultimately reached across the final inch of space and opened the door with another sigh. He unbuckled his scabbard and held it as he climbed in.

  Kara glanced through the rear-view mirror as Rowthe slunk into the forest with a swish of his shadowy tail. She said a little prayer to the engine, held her breath, turned the key, and breathed again only once the car started. Braeden’s sword hilt rattled against the window, and the prince in her passenger’s seat fidgeted with his seatbelt.

  “That doesn’t work. Just hold it if we pass a cop.”

  He laughed. “Fantastic. I can survive isen, but I’m not certain I could survive a crash in this archaic box.”

  “Something tells me you can’t exactly be a car guru.”

  “I told you that I travel out to the human world all of the time, remember? I usually find my way out here on isen hunts. I spent half of my adult life out here.”

  Kara took a deep breath and gripped the wheel tighter.

  Just go with it.

  “Right. So how do you find the isen?” she asked.

  She shifted gears, toying with the fantasy of driving her borrowed car along the old, hidden trail and straight into the lichgate. In her daydream, the gazebo exploded in what she considered to be just revenge. Lots of fire was involved.

  “We get reports of missing yakona, usually,” he said, answering the question she’d already forgotten she’d asked. “Whenever there are rumors of even one isen, I have to investigate. When Richard taught me to hunt them, it was
the only thing I could do better than anyone else. Since Hillside is the closest thing I have to a home, this is how I repay them.”

  “I can’t tell which you hate more, isen or Carden.”

  He scowled and looked out the window as she turned onto the main road. She should’ve kept her stupid mouth shut.

  “Isen enslave souls. It’s hard not to hate something like that,” he said.

  It took roughly fifteen minutes to get to the rental house, which had light streaming from every window. The car bounced as it pulled into the driveway and sputtered as she threw it into park. She unbuckled her seatbelt and took a deep breath before she could bring herself to slide out of the car.

  “Stay here, Braeden.”

  “Do you think he’ll like it if he sees me when he looks out the window? I should come in.”

  She leaned on the Camry and examined the prince. His smudged green tunic and black pants matched the thick broadsword resting against the window. Its silver hilt peeked from the green leather scabbard and glinted in the street light. She cocked an eyebrow.

  “You look like something out of a trashy romance novel.”

  “I promise it’ll be worse if I stay out here.”

  “You don’t know my—whatever. Suit yourself.”

  She slammed the door and headed inside, avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk on her way. A row of bushes lined the path and Molly, her father’s limestone gargoyle, peered out from under one of them. Molly was about the size of a cat and bared its stone teeth from behind the sharp leaves, serving its purpose as the guardian of spare keys.

  Kara twisted the front doorknob without trying the lock, and the door opened with a loud creak. The tiny hallway was warmer than the cool summer night outside, but she left the door ajar for the yakona behind her. She doubted her dad would care about the electric bill much longer.

  There were several doorways along the hall, each leading to the various rooms of the first floor. Stairs hugged the wall to the right, and a china cabinet filled with photos rested against the wall across from them. Her dad had packed every photo they owned this year and set them up in their rental home as soon as they’d walked in. That way, he’d reasoned, her mom could be there with them on this lonely summer trip.

  Kara swallowed the uncomfortable tightness in her throat and looked over the shelves. Her well-documented childhood sat on the wooden planks in frames and poorly made macaroni art.

  A sharp thud and a muffled curse came from behind her. She turned to see Braeden rubbing his head, and on his second try, he took much better care to duck through the entry. He loomed in the hallway once he was through, the hardwood floors creaking as he walked, and his loud bang was answered by a flush upstairs.

  “Lovely, Dad,” Kara muttered.

  “Your mother was a beautiful woman,” Braeden said, nodding to a family portrait framed in the cabinet.

  She wanted to say, ‘so was yours,’ but she never got the chance.

  Bathroom light flooded the upstairs hallway. Her dad barreled around the corner and down the stairs, only stopping when he saw her standing in the foyer. He crumpled his newspaper and took the last four steps in a single leap before he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into the tightest hug of her life.

  “Are you okay? Who is that? Where were you? Why didn’t you—”

  “Dad, I’m fine, but we don’t have much time. You need to sit.”

  She pushed him into the dining room and into one of its antique chairs, but she didn’t know what to say once he sat down. Her dad’s eyes flitted between her and Braeden, no doubt trying to figure out what was going on using the few clues he had.

  “You’ll never guess what I found today, Dad.”

  “You are in so much trouble, kid. I don’t care if you’re ‘just taking a break’ from college. If you live in my house you need to be in touch with me! I was scared out of my mind, Kara! Your phone went to voicemail, you—”

  “I know, Dad. I know. I’m sorry. Some roots ate my phone. Well, no, that’s part of the story. I should start at the beginning.”

  “Look at those scratches! Your shirt—did you fall again? Are you okay?” He reached out to check her arms for bruises.

  “What? No. Well, kind of. But Dad, just listen!”

  Kara took off the clover pendant and set it in front of him. He glanced at the necklace, but quickly glared at her again.

  “Girl, you have two seconds to give me answers.”

  “I found a secret path while I was on Salish. It took me to this gorgeous overlook with a little gazebo. Well, it wasn’t a gazebo. It was a lichgate—no, I’ll explain that part in a minute—I walked through it and I took this second little trail down a cliff. There was this door—no, Dad, listen!—a door in the mountain. I’m serious!” She cut off his very reasonable argument that people don’t build doors in mountains.

  “It started raining so I opened the door and it kind of, well, roots grabbed me and ate my phone and I left my pack in the lichgate. I fell into this library and found a book and there was whispering, and then—” She groaned. “This isn’t working.”

  She rubbed her face in frustration as Braeden desperately tried to stifle his laughter behind one of his massive hands. Her dad pointed a firm finger at him.

  “You rufied my daughter, didn’t you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’m getting my shotgun”—he pointed again to the prince—“you better be gone when I come back. And young lady, you’d better not move.”

  He glared at Kara and thundered from the room.

  “Dad!”

  Braeden shrugged. “You tried, Kara. I’ll grab him and we can explain later.”

  She tapped the necklace. “Grimoire, what do I have to do to make you come back? Book, come on!”

  Her dad returned with his shotgun in time to see glittering specks of dust jump and spark out of the necklace. They gleamed and congealed until they formed the glimmering blue outline of a book. As they all watched in the heavy silence, the Grimoire solidified. The stone in the pendant was clear once more.

  The Grimoire’s thick red cover and aged pages were as heavy and real as they had been in the library. Kara sighed with relief and rubbed the binding.

  Her dad sat down and stared at the book, the gun forgotten in his hand. He reached out to touch the leather as if it would bite him and flinched when his fingers grazed the spine. He jumped up from the table, rubbed his neck until it was red, and looked back at Kara. He didn’t even blink.

  “What was that?”

  “That’s called magic, old man,” a woman said from the doorway. “And tonight, your baby girl became one of the most coveted magical artifacts on the planet.”

  Kara recognized that voice. Panic raced through her body. She slipped the clover necklace over her neck and pushed her chair back, its wooden legs scraping against the hardwood floor. A familiar brunette strode into the dining room.

  Braeden drew his sword, and her dad did a double-take at the outdated weapon when he raised his shotgun.

  Deirdre clicked her tongue at the Stelian prince and grinned. “Haven’t you learned your lesson, boy? I always win.”

  He wrung his hands on the sword hilt. “Not this time. Kara, you need to go.”

  “Hold on there, Prince Charming. I just want to have a little chat. Girls only.” Deirdre said. She looked at her reflection in a mirror on the wall and patted her hair as she spoke.

  “Kara, why can’t you have any normal friends?” Her dad ran his hand over his receding hairline and licked his lips. His hand shook as he hovered over the trigger, his eyes shifting from the isen to the yakona without knowing what either of them truly was. He pointed the shotgun at Deirdre.

  “Oh, how scary.” She snickered.

  “That’s enough! You and the boy need to get out of here. Now!”

  Deirdre glanced toward the Grimoire sitting on the table and walked toward it. Kara grabbed it and held it to her chest, backing away without knowing what
else to do. Deidre shifted her gaze and walked with her, matching her pace.

  “You can’t run from me, little one,” she said.

  Kara held her breath and wished that the Grimoire was hidden like it had been before. She thought over the library, trying to figure out how she’d made it disappear the first time.

  The book glowed in her hands as if it had read her thoughts, casting blue light on everyone in the room. It imploded, leaving a cluster of dust suspended in the air. Kara coughed. The stone in the pendant glowed blue. Deirdre continued forward, only a dozen feet away, now, but Kara stopped when her back hit the wall.