by Suzi Davis
Bridgette sat up, her eyes looking bright and focused now that she had blinked the sleep from them.
“It’s ok,” she murmured but she didn’t sound like she entirely meant it. I was almost glad she hadn’t instantly forgiven me, it showed she had some backbone. I was ready and willing to have to work to regain her trust.
“What you said was wrong. Finding Sebastian is not the only thing that I care about: I care about you. You’re my friend. You were once like a sister to me and I would love for it to be that way again. Will you give me another chance?”
She shrugged, attempting nonchalance.
“Sure, whatever,” she dismissed but when I smiled at her, she slowly smiled back. “You seem… better,” she commented cautiously. “Not happier but… determined?” Once again, I had forgotten how intuitive she could be.
“Mags’ spirit came to me in my dreams last night,” I told her. Bridgette’s eyes lit up, her lips parting in surprise. “She told me that we could still save Sebastian, that we might still be able to bring him back from death.”
“Is that really possible? You don’t seem very hopeful.” Her eyes were too knowing, bright with the intelligence that she often tried to hide.
“I have no false hopes. I know he’s probably gone from me forever, at least in this life time. The spirits are playing games, trying to force me to go after the others, the ‘dark ones’. They’re pushing me to stop their rebellion and to put an end to the threat that they pose. For now I will go along with their plan. I will hunt them down and find vengeance in their deaths.”
Bridgette stared at me, wide-eyed and pale. She slowly nodded.
“Ok. I’ll go with you. Mags told me to trust you, that you would lead me along the right path and if this is it, well… then this is what I must do.”
I wasn’t sure that Bridgette was really ready for this or how much help she could really be but I decided to put some trust in her. She deserved to make the choice for herself and I would not turn her help away.
“Thank you,” I told her quietly, my voice still harder than usual. “Mags asked me to tell you that she’s still with you,” I added. “She’s here still, she’s watching. You’re never truly alone.” Bridgette’s eyes rapidly filled with tears.
“I know, but it’s still nice to hear it.” She brushed away her tears with the back of her hand. “She hasn’t visited my dreams since the night she told me to find you… I wish she would but… never mind. Should we awaken the others? It’ll soon be dawn.”
“Yes, I’ll gather them and let them know that I’m going after Jeremy and the others still, and that anyone who wants to fight can join me. Mags warned me that this is going to be very dangerous and not all of us are going to make it. Are you sure you want to come with me?” I warned.
“I’ll come. The others will want to too. We all know this is what we’re meant to be doing, whether it’s what we pictured for ourselves or not. This is important. Jeremy and the others must be stopped. This dark side to the Lost Magic that they’ve discovered threatens us all. The others will see that too.”
“I hope so.” I rose and began pulling clothes out of my bag to dress in, keeping Sebastian’s old shirt on underneath a thick, hooded sweatshirt. “Let’s all meet downstairs in fifteen minutes. I’ll tell the others.”
I barely waited for Bridgette’s nod before I strode out of the room.
Bridgette turned out to be right. Even after my warnings, the others all wanted to go with me still. Some were more enthusiastic than others. Red could hardly wait. Sylvia and Ella were both determined not to be left behind. Nathaniel immediately volunteered, as soon as Bridgette announced she would be accompanying me. Jai reluctantly conceded that it was our obligation to stop the others and put an end to the threat that they posed not just us, but potentially the world.
“We shall always follow you, Grace,” Jai announced in his soft, accented tones. “We want to learn from you and we want to help you. Even after all this is said and done. You are our leader.”
The others nodded their agreement. Bridgette offered me a smile of encouragement. David remained silent the whole while.
“And you?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t act like I have a choice.”
“You swore only to help me find Sebastian. Sebastian is… gone. This is no longer about finding him, it’s about stopping the people who took him from harming anyone else. I won’t make you come with us, David. I’d like you to choose your own path.”
He stared at me for several long seconds, his face totally expressionless.
“Come,” he instructed, reaching for my arm and pulling me away from the others. They watched curiously as he led me across the lobby. He stepped so his back was to them, blocking me from their view.
“This is dangerous, Grace. It’s suicide and you know it. This isn’t about stopping Jeremy and the others from causing any more harm, this is about getting your revenge. I can see it in your eyes,” he hissed. He stood close to me, his black eyes flashing with anger.
“My motivation doesn’t matter, only my course of action. Will you help me or not?”
He stared at me a moment longer, his gaze heated, his chest heaving with emotion.
“Grace, you’re being reckless; you’re going to get hurt! Don’t do this. You don’t have to go after them. You can run away, forget about the Lost Magic and all of this—everything that’s ever happened. We could help each other forget,” he added, speaking with a sudden quiet intensity. My breath caught in my throat. “I will go wherever you lead me,” he promised solemnly. I could see the passion building in his eyes and again, I thought I caught a glimpse of the true David Turner, for just a split second. But it didn’t change anything.
“I can’t,” I whispered. My throat and lips were dry, my heart was hammering in my chest. The gaping wound that Sebastian’s death had ripped open within me continued to bleed with fear and pain and rage. I could never forget. I could never just walk away.
His eyes hardened. He abruptly turned away.
“Fine. You’ll need me to drive the boat then,” he announced over his shoulder, his voice and expression both cold, his demeanor instantly changing.
“David, I’m sorry. I…”
“We should head out as soon as we can. The gear’s all packed in the van and the boat will be waiting for us. The island they took Sebastian to will take us a good hour or more to reach. I’d like to be out on the water before seven when the tides begin to change.”
I sighed. The cold, bossy, arrogant David was back. I wondered if I’d ever see the other side of him again.
“Ok.”
“Good. Let’s go.” He turned away as he spoke, marching back towards the others. I had no choice but to follow.
The only traces of the storm from the day before were the thick clouds and the chill breeze that still whistled through the air. It turned out to be a good thing that David had decided to come with us; he was the only one who had any experience operating a boat and navigating the ocean. He snapped out orders, treating us all as his incredibly inefficient and moronic crew. We did our best to stay out of his way and be helpful wherever we could but the voyage still took over twice as long as he’d expected. His foul mood increased the longer we were out on the water, his expression thunderous, his voice harsh. He glared out over the gray waves, his eyes fixed on the small sliver of land on the distant horizon.
“Sunama Island,” he announced. He turned to me with hard eyes. “Last chance to turn back.”
“There’s no turning back,” I answered quietly. He didn’t even acknowledge my response. “Where will we anchor?”
“The map shows a small bay that we can anchor in. We’ll have to take the dingy, four at a time, to the dock and split up the gear. From that point onwards, it’s your show—we’re all just along for the ride. The island’s quite large and the trails might not be clear, it could take us days to find them. I hope you have a plan.”
“Of course I do,” I lied.
I stood beside David at the helm, both of us gazing out to the large island we were approaching. It rose up from the foggy, gray waters, a mass of low cliffs, rocky beaches and tall, thick pine and fir trees. We approached it slowly and steadily, moving along the island’s massive coast. David steered the boat with a practiced ease, slowly navigating past the large rocks that occasionally jutted out of the water. Though the waters were fairly calm near the shore, the boat suddenly lurched and I lost my balance. For a moment I felt David’s hands grab me, his strong arms supporting my weight and steadying me. Then just as suddenly, he let go. I crashed to the floor with a muttered curse of my own.
“What the hell, David?” I snapped, struggling to my feet.
He barely glanced my way.
“It’s not my job to catch you when you fall.”
His comment stung. It fueled the angry fire burning within me. I straightened my shoulders and stood tall, planting my feet firmly on the deck.
“I can take care of myself anyway,” I announced in a cold, haughty voice of my own.
“I should hope so.”
The silence swirled around us with the wind. The distant voices of the spirits whispered in the air but I pushed them away. I did not want to hear what they had to say, not now. Now, I needed to come up with a plan. And I thought I might know what to do.
“Are we going to park the ship in here?” Bridgette called, gesturing to the small opening to the bay ahead. David let out a low, growl-like sound.
“We’ll anchor in the bay,” I confirmed as patiently as possible. “Let’s get the dingy ready. Is that alright, Captain?”
“Try not to fall in,” David drawled, again without meeting my eye. I wanted to growl myself but instead I just walked away.
It was an hour later when we had all finally reached the island. David was amongst the last group to come over on the dingy. He leapt from the small craft to the dock with ease and quickly secured the little boat using a thick rope and a series of complex looking knots. The Sea Spite was nowhere in site. I wondered what they had done with it?
We all looked around. The air on the island was eerily still, mist hanging in the air, birds distantly calling, the cold damp of the forest and earth reaching out to us. There were no physical traces that Jeremy, Sebastian and the others had ever been here but they had, and I knew they were here still, somewhere.
“I can sense them,” I announced quietly.
Jai pointed to the eastern side of the island.
“It’s coming from over there.”
“It’s faint, but it’s definitely there,” Nathaniel agreed.
I turned to David, who reluctantly nodded.
“They’re here.”
“I don’t sense anything,” Ella commented. She was frowning in concentration. Red wore a similar expression as he strained to sense the traces of magic hanging in the air.
“How do you know?” Red demanded, his frustration evident.
“It’s a vibration in the air,” I struggled to explain. “There’s an energy, a specific current that flows in that direction. Once you’re more attuned to the Lost Magic, you’ll be able to recognize it too. We’ve had more experience with it and so it’s familiar to us. I’m blocking the ‘frequency’ we’re putting out so that they won’t know that we’re here.”
I noticed Bridgette was the only one who wasn’t frowning, who didn’t seem bothered that she couldn’t feel the pull of the magic in the air. She was looking at the wilderness around her in wide-eyed disgust.
“It’s so creepy here,” she announced, shivering delicately. “Please tell me we can sleep on the boat tonight?”
“We’ll be lucky if we’re all still alive tonight,” I answered flatly. All eyes turned to me. “We’ve got some hiking to do. Let’s go.”
And so we set out.
We had divided the gear between us with the strongest carrying the heaviest loads. We each had a large pack with various additional items tied onto it: sleeping bags, tarps, water bottles and food. Red and David bore the heaviest packs, Bridgette the lightest. My load fell somewhere in the middle. I forged ahead and set the pace for the group, a grueling march through the damp brush and overgrown deer trails that led us along the eastern shore and deeper into the center of the island. No one complained or even spoke. I had already threatened to silence Red with magic. He seemed like such a kind guy, and it may have been overly harsh but the way I was feeling, I meant it. Surprisingly, Bridgette never complained once and kept pace in the middle of the group with ease.
The island was much larger than it had originally appeared and with the rough terrain and heavy loads we were carrying, it soon became obvious that we wouldn’t reach Jeremy and the others that day. Around mid-afternoon, just as the sun was starting to fade and a dim gray darkness was sinking in around the trees, we decided to set up camp for the night. It was David who found a small clearing in the woods, just off the trail with mostly level ground.
“Is it safe to light a fire?” Ella asked me as I finished helping string up the tarps to form make-shift lean-tos for the night. She stood in the center of our camp, a freshly dug fire pit at her feet, dug a foot deep into the ground and lined with large stones.
I nodded.
“We’re still far enough away that they’re not likely to see or smell the smoke, especially if we don’t want them to. And we’ll freeze tonight without a fire.”
“Great,” Sylvia grinned at me as she pulled a large knife from her belt with a quick flick of her wrist. “I’ll round up some firewood.”
“That won’t be necessary,” David announced. He appeared from the growing shadows with his arms full of thick branches. He tossed them down at the ring of stones at our feet, and snapped his fingers. The branches instantly erupted in flame, the fire flaring up so brightly it momentarily blinded me.
“How did you do that?” Nathaniel asked in the silence that followed. Everyone was staring at David nervously. I felt slightly apprehensive myself.
David shrugged.
“It’s goddamn cold. It’s all about motivation. Right, Caoilinn?”
I regarded him coldly. He spoke the name “Caoilinn” as if it were an insult.
“Yes, it is about motivation,” I agreed slowly. I wanted the others’ attention, I needed to remind them who was in charge here. I squeezed my necklace in my hand, focusing my magic on the crackling flames before me. I fed my anger and my pain into it, the raging emotions within me building the flames up higher and brighter as the fire stretched upwards into a crackling bonfire. Abruptly, I let go. The flames flickered and in an instant, they were back to normal. All eyes were now on me.
“Come, sit,” I gestured to the logs that Jai and Nathaniel had dragged around the fire pit to use as benches. Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and moved in close. Everyone except for David who was looking through one of the packs.
“Ella, will you help David start our meal, please?” I asked. “You can both listen while you cook. This is important.”
I didn’t take a seat myself, instead I moved around the fire, out of the path of the stinging smoke. I didn’t look at the others as I spoke, instead I gazed into the flames.
“We will fight tomorrow,” I announced quietly. “We will be up against others with magic like our own but they are not bound by the same rules that we are.”
“What do ya mean?” Red demanded.
“They’ll fight dirty. The spirits have warned us: there is a dark power behind their magic that is dangerous and must be destroyed, whoever or whatever that is. None of them can be permitted to leave this island alive, they pose too much of a threat to the rest of the world.”
Bridgette opened her mouth as if to speak but then closed it again when she saw me looking at her.
“How will we fight them?” Jai asked. He tilted his head to one side. “We have not been taught how to fight with magic, let alone against it.”
“You must know
that you might die tomorrow, you must believe that this battle is life and death, as it is. Death is the strongest motivation possible. Focus on your fear and your anger, and you will find with it the strength to access the Lost Magic and the power to control it. It will come to you much more easily than in the tamer exercises that we practiced,” I assured them. “You will know how to defend yourself when the time comes, of this I have no doubt. But to attack, you must really and truly want to attack. You must find the strength within yourself to fight back, and the courage to fully accept the magic within you and to use it. If you cannot do this, you will die.”
“Great,” Ella muttered.
David snickered.
“Well, that was quite the motivating speech. I’m sure we will all rest easy tonight,” David drawled as he began handing out chunks of dried meat and fruit to the group.
“It’s not too late for you to leave,” I reminded them all, meeting each of their eyes individually. When David’s eyes locked with mine, my heart again skipped a beat. I quickly looked away. “Anyone who doesn’t want to fight tomorrow can head back to the boat and wait there.”
“And hope that I survive to take you back home,” David smirked.
I hesitated. I hadn’t even considered that David might not survive the battle against Jeremy and the others. My gut twisted uncomfortably at the idea.
“If any of you want to turn back, believe me when I say you have the choice. I won’t hold it against you.”
There was silence and then Bridgette spoke.
“I’m not sure if I can do this, Grace. I’m not strong, or brave, and I barely have any ability to use the Lost Magic as it is. I’m not like you. Maybe… maybe I should go back.”
My heart sank in disappointment. I should have felt relieved that Bridgette was removing herself from danger but I couldn’t help but feel a flicker of contempt at her cowardice. Apparently, I had lied when I said I wouldn’t hold it against anyone. I barely acknowledged she had spoken; I couldn’t look at her just yet.