by Sarina Dorie
“Credit?” Clarence raised an eyebrow.
Khaba nodded. “I’ll be back later to pay my debts.” He glanced at Josie and me. “When I’m alone.”
Khaba handed four of his six paper bags to Josie, who made no complaint about carrying the majority of his groceries as we headed out.
Khaba peeked in my paper bag. “Honey, did he bewitch you into buying granola?”
Bewitch me? No, I’d bought it of my own free will, hadn’t I? I considered the way it had sparkled enticingly. “Whoa. He tricked me, didn’t he? Is that legal?”
Khaba shrugged. I hadn’t even realized someone had cast a spell over me. I would need to be careful in this realm.
Josie smirked. “Did he tell you it would cleanse your aura?”
“Um, yeah. Won’t it?” I asked.
Khaba waved at the bag. “More like cleanse your colon.”
“Did he try to sell you the ‘special’ granola, the stuff with weed slipped into it?” Josie asked.
My eyes went wide. “No.”
Khaba smiled. “Good thing or I’d have to confiscate it from you.”
They both laughed harder. I guessed the border of the Unseen Realm was a lot like Oregon and Washington with legalized marijuana if they could slip it into granola.
I filled the rest of my evening with studying and meditation from the dreaming book, and I even squeezed in a thirty-minute jog. The landscaping was beautiful, with beds of flowers along the paths in front of the school and benches placed under shady trees. Hedge sculptures lined one section of the path. A shrub pruned to look like a unicorn was raised up on its back legs. It turned its head and watched as I jogged past. I stared at him in surprise. A topiary merman raised his trident, barring my way.
“You shall not go into the forest,” he said sternly.
“Um… .” Maybe talking shrubs were normal here. “I wasn’t going to,” I said. “I was just going to jog around the school.”
“Sure, she is,” the unicorn shrub said to the merman. “That’s what all the students say.”
“I’m not a student. I’m a teacher.” It was bad enough humans and Witchkin thought I looked young, but did the hedge animals have to mistake me for being a kid too?
The merman snorted. “Do you have your teacher identification?”
“No.” No one had said anything about having a name tag or getting a card printed. This was just one more thing to add to my to-do list.
The merman didn’t remove his trident from my path. I jogged back the way I’d come. I now noticed the blackberries barring the way into the forest along the edges. Some of the paths that led into the woods were guarded by stone statues reminiscent of classical Greek art. If I really had wanted to go jogging in the woods—which I didn’t want to after my encounters with the Raven Court—I could have used the unguarded path Josie, Khaba, and I had taken earlier around the back of the school. Instead of taking the fork that led to the front of the school toward the Morty Realm, I headed along the path around the back of the school that led toward Lachlan Falls.
I stopped and stretched in the long shadows at the rear. At the end of a long arm of hallway, one of the brick towers was crumbled and in disrepair. This had to be the section of the building chapter thirty-two had mentioned. The place my biological mother had destroyed.
The sun sank lower, an orange circle visible through the tree line. Shadows stretched from the school, the jagged edges of the broken tower resembling claws. I glanced over my shoulder, saw no one in sight, and left the path to jog closer to the ruins. Blackened wood was scattered in with the debris. It didn’t look like anything special. I wondered what my biological mother had been trying to do. Had she succeeding in solving the Fae Fertility Paradox? Was that how she’d had me? Was it how she’d died? Something about that must have made Thatch nervous.
I climbed to the top of a heap of rubble, scanning the wreckage, waiting for my mother’s mysteries to be revealed. No ghosts appeared. No secrets unfolded before me. Disappointment weighed me down. I wasn’t sure what I expected. It was growing too dark to see much in the debris anyway.
My shirt clung to my back with sweat, and I shook it away from my torso as I gazed down at the topiary animals and statues across the grounds. Greenhouses were situated farther behind the school, and a stable lay beyond that.
It seemed like it was time to call it quits for the day and go shower. I didn’t know how the school managed to heat water in my Victorian-looking wing with their limitations in technology, but I wasn’t about to question a good thing.
As I started climbing down the rubble, movement at the edge of the woods caught my eye. Someone walked along the path toward the trees. I scrambled down the heap of rocks, not wanting to draw attention to myself and for someone to accuse me of being too inquisitive about my mother or summoning dark magic. By the time I reached the bottom and jogged back along the path, I could see the figure’s gray suit and black hair.
Thatch.
He carried an armful of books. Another immense stack floated behind him. He glanced over his shoulder in a sneaky sort of way that told me he didn’t want to be followed. I dodged behind the rubble, spying on him from the shadows.
Those must have been more of the textbooks he didn’t want me reading. All I needed was one. I stuck to the shadows closest to the building, heading in his direction. He took the path toward Lachlan Falls.
Nothing guarded the forest. I didn’t understand how the school protected children from leaving. I had seen the boundary of the school grounds outside the woods on the way to Lachlan Falls. Fae could just as easily snatch students after dark if they left on this forest path.
I jogged up to the trees. In the distance I saw a flicker of movement as he walked through the woods. Was it really worth entering the forest and risk accidentally crossing that boundary just for a book? I considered the way Thatch had sneakily looked over his shoulder. He was up to something.
For better or worse, I intended to find out.
The moment I crossed into the gloomy shadows of the path under the immense oak, something snapped at my arm like a rubber band. A long wooden switch lashed out at the back of my legs, hard enough to make my knees buckle.
Now I knew why this path wasn’t guarded with statues or hedge animals. The trees stood watch.
I flinched back from another whipping switch.
“Stop it! I’m a teacher!” I shouted.
The trees creaked and groaned like laughter. Their leaves rustled in a shush of whispers, but I didn’t speak tree. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I pushed myself up, ready to go back, but a long wooden vine circled around my legs, binding them together. I struggled against the coils and tried to yank myself back toward the school.
“Let me go! I’m not a student.” When that tactic didn’t work, I tried, “I’m going back to the school now. I promise.”
I pointed to the mismatched architecture behind me. Another switch lashed out at my wrist, smarting the skin. Wooden vines coiled around my arms and pinned them to my sides.
A raven circled overhead in the darkening sky. Not a good sign. My heart thundered in my rib cage. The Raven Court wasn’t supposed to be able to cross onto school grounds. This part of the forest was still under Womby’s protection. Had Thatch called the bird? Maybe he knew I’d followed. What if this had been a trap?
The vines were rough against the bare flesh of my legs and arms. The cords yanked me upward, tipping me upside down. I swayed, suspended in the air about ten feet above the ground. A tree poked at me with a twiggy limb, making me rock back and forth.
It was hard to tell from upside down, but the grooves in the bark of the tree near me reminded me of a face, with deep cracks for eyes and a gaping hole for a mouth. It lifted me closer. The hole stretched wider.
I hoped the trees here weren’t carnivorous. The raven cawed, the sound echoing through the silent woods.
I tried the one s
pell I’d been able to do in the past. “Abra-cadaver! Abra-cadaver!”
Nothing happened. When magic failed, all that remained was the one tactic I had left.
I screamed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
This Is Why Treebeard and All the Other Ents Lack Wives
My heart pounded so loud it drowned out the creaking laughter of the trees. The raven cawed loudly, and I was certain it was trying to summon emissaries of the Raven Court. My blood rushed to my head, pounding fiercely. Within thirty seconds, I had a headache. It was hard to think of anything else to do, so I kept screaming. Maybe someone would hear.
The tree pushed me away. Or I thought it pushed me away. Then I realized the tree on the other side of the path had yanked me closer. It brought me toward its mouth. The trees played tug of war with me, first one tree trying to eat me and then the other.
I screamed louder.
“Hey, what are you doing?” a man with a Transylvanian accent shouted.
The trees thrust me into their canopy, farther from the school grounds, trying to hide me. Twigs snapped against my face. Their leaves rustled and whispered, sounding like words.
“Help! I’m up here! Help!” I said.
“What have I said about scaring people? Not cool,” the man said, his voice familiar. “Put her down. Gently.”
The trees spoke again. I tried to make sense of their sounds, but it was too exotic to understand.
“She was telling the truth. She’s not a student. This is Miss Lawrence, our new art teacher. That’s not a polite way to introduce yourself to a new staff member, now is it?” His accent came out thicker as he raised his voice.
I spotted a pair of shaggy legs and cloven feet. “Sam?” I asked.
“The one and the same. Twiggy, Oaky, are you going to follow directions the first time I ask you? Or am I going to have to rename you Lumber and Firewood?”
The trees thrust me out from the shadows and dropped me on the ground, not at all gently, but at least not on my head. Scratches covered my arms and legs.
Sam stood over me, a silhouette against the blooming orange and crimson of the sky. He extended a hand and helped me up. “What were you doing in the woods? It’s getting dark.” Just as the first time I’d met him, he wore no clothes, his ripped abs obvious despite the hairiness of his chest. The fur growing over the lower half of his body was thick enough to resemble pants.
“I was jogging. I wasn’t going to go into the woods. I just wanted to … have a look.” I didn’t know if I should mention Thatch going into the forest.
The raven swooped lower, landing on a branch.
I leapt back and pointed. “Look, it’s the Raven Court. They’re here for me. We need to get help.”
A gap showed between Sam’s front teeth, and his thick black hair flopped back as he laughed. The trees laughed with him, shaking and creaking. “No, that’s just Professor Thatch’s pet. She’s how I knew something was going on over here. I saw her circling, and then I heard you scream. She tends to do that—the circling—before swooping down to peck some little creature’s eyes out.”
Cheery.
“Not that I think she would have done that to you. Probably not, anyway.” Sam waved his arms at the bird. “Get out of here, you little vulture. No eyes for you today.”
The oak tree nudged the bird off its limb, and she took off.
“Thatch has a raven as a pet?” I asked. “Isn’t that a little odd? Aren’t they the Raven Queen’s servants or something?”
“That isn’t a raven. It’s a crow.” Sam trampled deeper into the forest and bent down to snap a leaf off a low shrub. His hooves clomped over the hard dirt.
“Let’s see the battle wounds,” he said, holding out a palm.
I lifted my hands, examining the scratches on my arms. Sam squeezed a comfrey leaf. A drop of milky fluid oozed from the vein in the center. He spread the plant ointment over a red line on my wrist. He tore the leaf and applied more plant goo onto my face. He was a handy guy to have as a friend. Not only did he excel at healing, but he also commanded the respect of the trees.
Sam examined a scratch on my cheek. He smelled green and musky, like earth and plants. His hand was warm on the back of my knee as he applied comfrey leaf to my legs. I was suddenly aware of how close he crouched, the fur of his legs brushing against my calves. A flutter of excitement tickled my core. He stared up at me, a question in his expression. His fingers lingered on my leg. His brow furrowed, and his lips parted.
The scratches he caressed with milky plant fluid were already diminishing. A strange green sensation washed over me, like a thousand flowers blossoming inside me. I had never known healing magic using plants could be this sexy.
“Are you casting a spell over me?” he asked.
“What? No.” I was not aroused by a satyr. I wrenched myself backward, nearly stumbling over a tree root. The absence of his touch left me cold and shivering. My stomach ached. Maybe I was aroused a little. It wasn’t bestiality if he was half human, right?
He shook himself and stood. “You remind me of someone. What’s your affinity?”
“I don’t know.” Everyone was big on affinities here. It sounded like I was going to have to add that to my to-do list. It was getting pretty long. “I’m still learning about my magic. I was raised in the Morty Realm.”
“You’re not a tree affinity, but there’s something earthy about you. Fertility magic? No, that’s not quite right. It reminds me of someone else… .” The longer Sam scrutinized me, the more I worried he would figure out who my biological mother was and let the trees eat me.
I cleared my throat, wanting to change the subject. “Thanks for the intervention with the trees,” I said.
“No problemo.” He coughed. “Twiggy and Oaky here apologize. Don’t you?” He pointed a finger of warning at them.
From the way they creaked and groaned they sounded more like they were laughing than apologizing.
“Try not to be too hard on them,” he said to me. “They’re probably teenagers in tree years.”
One of the trees whispered something. Sam held up a finger in stern warning. “Hey! Be polite. There’s no need to imply something nasty like that.” The apology in Sam’s eyes melted as he looked at me again. His expression reflected fear and then horror.
Craptacular. He’d figured it out. Or perhaps the trees had told him.
“You’re her daughter, aren’t you? Shit!” He backed away. “Get out of my woods.”
Just what I needed, another enemy.
The moment I turned away to trudge back to the school, one of the trees snapped at me with a twig, making me jump. Sam didn’t tell them to behave this time.
I had a feeling I wouldn’t be able to escape the school if I wanted to. Not that I had any reason to leave, but nonetheless, the thought unsettled me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Friendship Is Magic, and Other Things My Little Ponies Taught Me
After my shower and reading in my classroom, I headed for my room at nine. I found my dorm occupied by my new roomie. Vega paced the room, filling the entirety of the space like she owned it. She ranted about the brownies leaving her dirty clothes for her to wash herself. “Of all the nerve, having to clean my own clothes!”
Yep, a real hardship.
“Those ungrateful little hobgoblins!” A string of swear words followed. She kicked at her guillotine, which didn’t seem like the smartest move. “I’ll skin those little fuckers alive.”
I peeled back the covers to my bed, yawning. “What do you mean? Why are they ungrateful?”
“I left the obligatory gratitude present.” Vega waved a hand at the desk. “They were supposed to do my fucking laundry and clean the room while I was setting up my classroom, but the impy bastards just took the food and left. I even apologized for not bringing something earlier.” She swore and continued to rant.
Realization washed over me.
“
Oh. So that food on the desk was … payment? Is this like a laundry service?” I had wondered how the essentials here worked. My mom hadn’t fully prepared me for this world. It had been too long since she’d lived here.
Vega huffed. “Don’t call it that. Those fucktards will leave the school if you try to ‘pay’ them. And most will leave if you thank them. All you can do is apologize or leave presents.” She plopped onto her bed and dramatically draped an arm across her forehead. “Good servants are hard to find these days.”
I considered setting out some high-fiber granola for the brownies to make up for what I had eaten. I edged closer to my wardrobe where I’d stashed some.
Vega continued to complain. “Fae can be so temperamental. They’re all about the rules.”
“I don’t understand. What rules?” I asked.
“Don’t you know anything?”
“Nope.”
She huffed dramatically. “Never thank a Fae or else you’ll owe him a favor. It’s like selling your fucking soul to the devil. I’ve had more than enough experience with that.” She sat up abruptly.
I shrank back, afraid my face was painted with guilt and she knew I was the one who had eaten the food intended for the brownies.
“I know what will make me feel better. Aside from a room to myself.” Vega stalked over to the bird cage, flung the door open, and snatched up a bird.
“No! Please! No!” the bird sang.
I watched in horror as she held the songbird up to her overgrown plant. The hinged jaw of the large Venus flytrap opened.
“You aren’t going to—” I started.
Vega let the bird go, and the plant snapped it up whole. The bird struggled, one wing flopping violently from the side of the plant’s mouth. My heart dropped down to my stomach as I watched the plant consume the little bird.
And people were afraid I was evil?
I glanced around the room at the other evidence of my roommate’s nefarious intentions. Her bottles of potions lined my wardrobe. The crystal ball was on there again. And that room hog had filled my shelves with her books. Evil.