Portents

by Kelley Armstrong

  “Do you think that’s what happened here?”

  “I hope not. For everyone’s sake.”

  We couldn’t follow up on Maggie’s disappearance until morning, so we pursued the only lead we could—the cries Ricky had heard at the swimming hole. I texted Gabriel before we left, asking if he’d found any evidence of actual fae baby snatching. He didn’t respond right away, so we climbed on the bike and headed up the highway.

  When we reached the trailhead, I had a text from Gabriel, who said Patrick swore fae didn’t kidnap babies. Well, not beyond the changeling switcheroo that we already knew about. I texted back asking if it was possible they’d take a child with fae blood if they thought the parents weren’t suitable and there was no way to switch in such a small community.

  He didn’t respond. That was just Gabriel being efficient—silence meaning “I’m on it.” We were nearing the swimming hole when he texted saying he was talking to Patrick, and it would be easier to speak directly—he had a few things to discuss.

  I tried to call, but I was out of the service area. Ricky and I walked back about a quarter mile, and I could see the signal blinking in and out, but my calls weren’t going through. A follow-up text stayed in my thread, unsent.

  “Maybe I should tell him to just talk to Rose,” I said to Ricky as we walked.

  “Rose’s area of expertise is folklore. You need Patrick for the real stuff. Which you know. The problem is that you don’t like Gabriel dealing with Patrick when you’re not there to protect him.”

  “It’s not—”

  “You aren’t trying to protect Gabriel from the possibility Patrick would harm him—he never would. You’re not even trying to protect him from finding out Patrick is his father. I honestly think Gabriel won’t give a shit, but that’s not the point. You don’t like Patrick forging a relationship with Gabriel. You don’t think he has the right.”

  “Which is none of my business.”

  “I never said that. Patrick fucked up. Big time. He’s like the deadbeat dad who swans back in after his son’s grown and can’t expect anything. It’s a shitty thing to do. That’s what you’re protecting Gabriel from.”

  “I would tell him who Patrick really is. But after the Gwynn thing . . .”

  “I don’t blame you. Like I said, I don’t think Gabriel will care, so for now, let it ride. Patrick might want a relationship; Gabriel wants a resource. He’ll take what he needs and nothing more.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Love hearing those words.” He looked around the forest. “And I’d better get them from you now because I have a feeling this excursion will end with the opposite conclusion, at least when it comes to babies in the forest. The more I think about it—”

  “Don’t second-guess. I know you aren’t sure what you heard. You may have heard a baby, in a spot where we definitely encountered fae, and the baby was snatched in classic fairy-napping style. We can’t ignore that.”

  I listened to the forest. A few minutes ago, there’d been critters scurrying across the ground and the hesitant hoot of an owl, still considering whether it was too early to come out. Now I heard only the creak of boughs and the rustle of leaves. Beyond the forest, twilight had barely begun to fall. In here, it was dark with shadow, the sun’s last rays barely penetrating the thick canopy. We’d left the trail, following our own tracks from earlier.

  When we reached the swimming hole, we headed up the incline to where I’d stripped on the rock.

  He planted himself in his former spot and pointed left. “It came from over there.”

  “I remember you looking that way,” I said. “I thought I really needed to step up my game if your attention wandered while I was stripping.”

  “Nah, my attention wandered because you were stripping. A baby suggested we weren’t alone.”

  “But that’s all you heard.”

  “It only lasted a couple of seconds. One of those sounds where at first you’re sure what you heard, but when you don’t hear it again, you start coming up with alternative explanations. I figured it must have been a bird or an animal.”

  “Stay there and close your eyes.”

  “You aren’t going to strip and jump off the rocks again, are you?”

  “Later. For now, we’re working on auditory-recollection cues.”

  He shut his eyes. I scampered behind a bush ten feet to his left and said, “Wa-wa-wa.”

  “Is that supposed to be a baby? Or Charlie Brown adults?”

  “Work with me.”

  “Do it again.”

  I did, and he said, “It was farther away.”

  I took up position under a tree and tried again.

  “Better,” he said. “But head left.”

  I followed his directions. As I backed up, I was making my baby noises when I tripped and crashed ass-first into a thicket. Twisting to rise, I saw that the grass had been flattened, as if a fawn had lain here.

  “You okay?” Ricky called.

  “Just clumsy.”

  “Well, the direction sounds right.”

  I looked at the thicket again and thought of a whole other kind of baby animal nestled in it. I took out my penlight to shine over the inside of the thicket. There, caught on a bramble, I found threads. Pale yellow ones. Like the kind that might be used for a baby blanket.

  I called Ricky over and told him what I’d found. He crouched outside the thicket. When I saw he was looking at the ground, I shone my penlight there to see a footprint. A bare humanoid footprint.

  I took the yellow threads and folded them into a piece of notepaper. As I was doing that, Ricky’s gaze swung toward the rock over the swimming hole.

  “Hear something?” I whispered.

  His lips compressed. I knew the look. He hadn’t necessarily seen or heard anything, but detected it with another sense, one that made him far less comfortable saying yes.

  “Trust it,” I murmured.

  He leaned toward me. “Keep talking,” he said, and then he cut through the thicket, crouched over as he moved.

  “Okay,” I said. “So we’re not finding anything, and like you said, you aren’t sure what you heard. We could go back into the water, but it’s going to be freezing cold, and as much fun as that last encounter was, I’m not sure you’d enjoy an ice-water replay nearly as much.” I paused. Silence, as I’d expect—Ricky moves like a Huntsman, dead quiet in the woods.

  I kept talking. “Although, on second thought, that might be an interesting experience. Cold water. Warm mouth. Tell you what, I say we just forget this whole thing and go for a swim. I can use more practice giving underwater—”

  A yelp. High-pitched, almost animal-like. Then a hiss that I knew came from Ricky. I rocketed from the thicket, racing in the direction of his hiss. I saw him falling back. By the time I drew close, though, he was running. Up ahead was a figure the size of a small woman, blond hair flowing behind her as she ran for the water.

  Ricky tore after her with me in pursuit. A splash. I came around a tree just in time to see her feet disappear as she dove. Ricky stood on the edge, cursing.

  “Follow?” I said. “Yes, I know, following a water fae into her lair is not the wisest idea.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Or the safest.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So . . .?”

  He yanked off his shirt. We both stripped down and dove in.

  Ricky

  Liv had said the water would be cold. It should have been. Night was falling fast. So when they dove, Ricky braced for an icy blast. Instead, the water was the same temperature as before. Like an indoor swimming pool. That didn’t make sense. Not only was the sun setting, but its rays would hardly have touched the surface of the swimming hole during the daytime. The water shouldn’t have been this warm. Moreover, Laurel had mentioned the theory that the hole was glacial in nature. The deeper the body of liquid, the colder it should be.

  He swam close enough to Liv to be sure the woman beside him is definitely
her and not the fae. He could tell the difference now, even with the dark water. The fae’s skin was paler, her hair lighter and longer.

  As for the fae herself, Ricky could just barely make her out under the water, a light blur against the darkness. She’d gotten a serious head start on them, and they had to swim fast underwater just to keep her in view. Then they hit a snag with their pursuit—unlike the fae, they needed a little thing called oxygen.

  Liv would never be the first to give in. If he went up, though, she’d follow, and she did. A quick gasp of air and back down . . . to discover they’d lost the fae.

  Ricky swore Liv’s growl of frustration vibrated through the water as she whipped around, looking in every direction. When he swam past her, his hand scraped rock. When they’d surfaced, they’d been under the rocky overhang, and Liv had found the cavern by jumping from that spot. Presumably, it was nearby. Also presumably, that’s where the fae would go to hide.

  As he felt his way along the rock, Liv got the idea and did the same, staying within sight. It was Ricky’s foot that found the opening first, right when he’d been about to go up for air. He dove down and found that, yes, this was a passage leading into a cavern. He was about to suggest they take turns getting air first, but Liv shot past him through the cavern passage. He followed, and they surfaced, their gasps echoing in the chamber.

  When Ricky caught his breath, he said, “I heard what you were saying up top. Cold air? Warm mouth?”

  “Are you proving it’s really you?” she said. That was a trick they used if they thought she might have passed into a vision.

  “That works, too,” he said. “But I was just pointing out that I did hear your offer, and I plan to take you up on it. You are forewarned.”

  “I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t mean it. Rain check?”

  He chuckled. “I wasn’t going to take you up on it right now. You have a mystery to solve. I’ll wait until I can get your undivided attention.” He looked around. “So, now we need to find a second passage, right?”

  “Correct.”

  They found that and went through. When they emerged, Ricky looked around and said, “So we have another spooky, dark cavern. Any idea where . . . ?” He turned to see a faint glow behind him. “That way to the castle?”

  “I believe so.”

  They swam until they reached a rocky ledge. Liv hauled herself out, and he paused to watch. She reminded him of the selkies in his gran’s fae books. There was one picture he’d been particularly fond of as a boy: a selkie pulling herself onto a rock, transforming as she went, her back end still in seal form, the naked human half, coming out of the water. Unlike in most such pictures, the selkie’s hair had not been modestly arranged to cover her breasts. That’s exactly what Liv looked like, arching up from the water, hair flowing back, water streaming down. Just a split-second image, but enough for a mental snapshot he’d enjoy later. And possibly convince her to recreate. Which never required much “convincing” with Liv.

  Liv climbed onto the rocks, allowing Ricky to enjoy the scene from the rear view before he climbed out.

  As he heaved himself onto the ledge, he heard the bells. Liv had described them as tinkling, like wind chimes. That wasn’t quite what he heard, but they were definitely bells, light and airy, and as soon as he heard them, he spotted something deep in the cavern, the glow beginning to take form.

  A castle? He could say that the basic shape matched—tall and rectangular—but he fought to keep that image out of his head. What he saw was just a glowing shape in the distance. Unreasonably far in the distance, given that they were under a mountain.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Liv, on all fours as she moved into the cavern. “Not necessarily a castle this time. Something glowing. It’s indistinct. Almost . . . shrouded? That’s the word that comes to mind.”

  She was right. It was like seeing the glowing object through fog, wispy gauze throwing the light out of focus. Ricky crawled up alongside Liv. Ahead, that glow continued to waver as the bells continued to ring and—

  “It’s not fae,” he said.

  “What?” She looked over her shoulder at him.

  “I—”

  I don’t know why I said that. Which wasn’t true. Not really. It only took a moment’s reflection to realize where the words came from. If it’s weird shit, it must be Arawn.

  Ricky peered at the distant glow and listened to the bells, and then he closed his eyes to focus on the image and the sound.

  What am I seeing? I feel like it’s not fae. Yet it is. It is, and it isn’t. Explain.

  Arawn remained silent.

  Ricky grumbled under his breath and opened his eyes. As he did, he caught movement in the shadows. He turned fast to follow it.

  The shadows . . .

  What was wrong with the shadows?

  Nothing’s wrong with them. It’s you. You’re looking at them the wrong way.

  Ah, there was the Lord of the Otherworld, piping up with riddles instead of useful information.

  You don't want answers. You want mysteries and adventure. You want to figure it out for yourself. Be a clever boy.

  Ricky shot Arawn a mental middle finger, and he swore he heard a chuckle, like from an indulgent grandparent. Which was weird, all things considered, but Ricky had already decided he wasn’t going to fuss with considering all things, working out the exact logistics and implications and complications of his relationship to Arawn. Ricky was Arawn, and yet he was not. He acknowledged the connection, as much as he might prefer not to be connected to the arrogant son of a bitch who’d wanted Matilda so badly he had let her die rather than be with the man she chose.

  That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?

  Nope, not at all. Now since you can’t say something useful? Shut the fuck up.

  “Ricky?”

  “Sorry. Bickering with Arawn.”

  She let out a choked laugh. “Is he being helpful?”

  “Of course not. That’s why we’re arguing.” Ricky hunkered back on his haunches and looked around. “There’s something about the shadows.”

  “The shadows?” She frowned as she studied them.

  “See it?” he asked.

  “No . . .”

  “What do you see?”

  “Just shadows. Cast by . . .” She waggled her fingers, throwing a shadow of her own on the rocky wall. “Yep, definitely cast by the freaky glowing light.”

  “And they’re stationary?”

  “They aren’t for you?”

  No, they were not. They moved, like the fog shrouding that distant light. Shifting shadows. Ricky moved toward a shadow hugging a crevice. When he drew near, it pulled back.

  “Okay, that I saw.” Liv crawled toward a wall and reached out. Ricky jumped, his hand wrapping around her ankle.

  “Don’t.”

  “Bad vibes?”

  He analyzed before answering. “Not bad. Just . . .” He moved up alongside her. “Stay close and don’t . . .”

  “Reach into the weird shadows?”

  “Yes, please.”

  The shadows continued to shift, seeming to move faster when he turned away, a blur caught out of the corner of his eye.

  Moving around them. Encircling them.

  “Liv?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” She was inching toward the wall, her gaze caught on something.

  “Stop.”

  She did, even before he could add a please. His heart pounded, breath coming harsh enough to echo in the small space. He caught a motion out of the corner of his eye and looked to see a tendril of shadow creeping toward Liv’s leg. Before he could react, it wound around it. He yanked her away, saying, “No!” and then, “I’m sorry. Just don’t . . .” He inhaled.

  “I didn’t mean to,” she said. “Whatever I did.”

  “Not you. I meant—” A sharp shake of his head. “Never mind.”

  Liv moved up against him. “No, tell me.”

  “I
was apologizing . . . to the shadows apparently.”

  She sat back, considering, as if there were nothing the least bit odd in that statement. She studied the shadows again.

  “They touched you,” he said.

  “I felt it,” she said. “Like the proverbial fingers down my spine.”

  Another tendril snaked toward her back. Ricky pulled her almost onto his lap, his arms going around her. The tendril slid back, rising along the wall, and as he watched it, he saw not fog but smoke.

  Saw smoke. Smelled it. A flash of memory. Fire, a blaze of it so sudden and bright that his horse reared up, and Matilda running straight for that fire, and him shouting, leaping off his horse, running to her, hearing Gwynn yelling.

  Ricky jerked out of Arawn’s memory, but he could see it, smell it, and most of all, feel it, heart pounding, guts ablaze, seeing Matilda running as he shouted, knowing he could never reach her in time and thinking, What have I done?

  Screaming it in his head.

  What have I done?

  Ricky shook his head harder, but the shadows kept coming, oozing from the walls, slinking toward them.

  Get her out. She’s not theirs.

  She will not be theirs again.

  “Ricky?”

  He shoved back his hair and squeezed his eyes shut.

  “What’s Arawn saying?” she murmured.

  He shook his head. “It makes no sense. Something about the fire. Matilda and the fire and losing her. Freaking out about losing her to the shadows and . . .” He exhaled. “Can we leave? I know it sounds crazy, and we came to investigate but—”

  “Trust your instincts. Always.”

  She started toward the ledge. He caught her ankle and moved up beside her, murmuring another apology, which she brushed off. He was freaked, so she’d stay close, no questions asked.

  They were almost to the water when Liv slowed, her attention caught by the shadows creeping along the edge, keeping pace with them but making no move to come closer.

  “Do you hear that?” she said.

  “I hear bells.”

  “That’s what I thought it was. Bells. But now it sounds like . . .” She squinted over her shoulder at the distant glow behind them.