She saw a blur of motion to her right as Draper moved toward them, and the wizard was suddenly spouting a string of cryptic words into the clearing with practiced vehemence. A spell. Thank the gods, thought Meagan frantically. She was an idiot for not casting something sooner herself.
Nathan shot toward the wizard with vampire speed.
Meagan tensed, preparing for Draper’s spell. She had no idea what was going to happen, but she hoped the wizard knew enough to try to keep from catching her and Katelyn in whatever he unleashed.
It happened so fast, time slowed down.
Shawn’s tall frame recoiled as if he had been slammed in the stomach with a baseball bat made of rebar. The leaves in the field all picked up at once, filling the air with a whirling yellow and orange tornado, and the roar of a massive wind whipped through the clearing.
Shawn’s body lifted, was airborne for a split heartbeat, and then disappeared into the leaf-strewn hurricane. Nathan went spinning into the debris after him; Meagan caught the blur of him as he shot past, following Shawn into the unknown.
“Run!” Katelyn yelled, pulling on Meagan’s arm and shouting to be heard over the magical gale.
For a fraction of an instant, Meagan felt torn. She had no clue where the boys had gone or what Draper had done with them, and they were the only ones who knew where Mr. Lehrer was. Did they survive? If they did, would they kill Lehrer now?
She spun around, choosing to follow her friend’s lead.
Draper lowered his hands, which were still crackling and rippling with yellow-orange light.
“Run!” Meagan instructed, grabbing his elbow as she raced past him.
“Right!” he replied before he did the same and the three of them sped through the apple orchard for everything they were worth.
Chapter Eleven
Logan had never felt more out of touch with reality.
She was a stranger in a strange world. Somewhere, in another dimension, her brother was probably beating up on someone. Holes were being punched in walls. Her mother was drinking.
Alec Sheffield was dead.
But here, in the rabbit hole, Logan stood before a tall, ornate mirror and gazed at a beauty she barely recognized.
Dominic Maldovan was possessed by the Lord of the Dead. Samhain wanted her soul. She didn’t know where she was, or where the man who had brought her here was.
But midnight hues shimmered with stardust in that looking glass. And Logan had never felt more like letting go of everything she’d once known.
“Well, I think we can settle this once and for all then,” said Mabel breathlessly from where she stood behind Logan, also staring into the mirror. “Men know nothing. Not buxom enough, indeed.” Mabel’s small hands were clasped before her, her old gray cheeks flushed with pink dots of warm excitement.
The gown seemed to have been threaded together using pieces of night. Deep sapphire blue sleeves gave way to an ametrine twilight corset, which melted into the velvet black skirts of a starry sky, complete with miniscule shimmering sparkles that caught the light and reflected the heavens.
Every portion of Logan’s figure was hugged, silhouetted, and flattered. Bare skin on her shoulders peeked temptingly through ribbons of satin blues that crisscrossed down her arms, the contrast of dark and fair bewilderingly attractive.
Logan had never felt so beautiful.
She had never felt so confused, or frightened. But she had also never felt so beautiful.
“And now for the finishing touch.” Mabel turned around, took the matching mask from the bedside table, and held it out to Logan. “No one attends the masquerade without something to hide behind.”
It was a small strip of a mask composed of blue satin. Along either far edge, it was encrusted with dark blue and black gems in the shapes of roses and thorns. The craftsmanship was beyond anything that anyone in the mortal realm had ever created.
Logan reverently took the small piece of shimmering material from Mabel’s fingers and lifted the long satin ribbons around her head. Mabel stepped forward to help her tie it in place. Waves and curls of golden blonde cascaded over her shoulders and down her back and framed her hidden face, presenting a picture of alluring mystique.
Logan realized, suddenly, that the bite marks Sam had left in the side of her throat had completely disappeared. She frowned and touched her neck.
“What’s wrong dear?” Mabel asked.
“Uh… nothing. It’s just, there was a bite on my neck earlier,” she explained, figuring that the old woman would most likely attribute “bite” to a mosquito or spider. “But it’s disappeared.”
“Oh well, that’s no surprise,” said Mabel dismissively as she continued to tie the mask in place, curling the ends of the ribbon around her bony fingers. “All wounds heal eventually in October Land.”
Logan blinked. “They do?”
“Of course! This is the realm of renewal. October marks the beginning of the new year! All things are fresh here, all things are healed. Here, we can start anew.”
Logan stared at her reflection and got lost in her own gaze as Mabel’s words moved through her. There was quite a lot to like about October Land.
Since Mabel and her husband had taken her into their home, she’d been ushered into and out of the kitchen, her jacket had been hung up, and she’d been stuffed with pastries and cocoa as the couple chatted about bards and how nice it was to have a visitor. There had been little time for questions, but what time there had been, Logan used.
She’d asked where she was, but all they’d told her was that she was in “The Village.” Apparently there was only one in all of October Land. The Village was where the “Harvesters” lived. Mabel and Henry were Harvesters, people who had been born and raised in October Land in a never-ending string of generations of Harvesters. The couple had had children, but according to Mabel, that was “so very long ago.” Logan had no real idea of how long it had actually been, but from the tone of Mabel’s voice, she would wager on centuries rather than decades.
Logan asked why it was light in the forest but then suddenly dark when she approached the town. They’d explained that it was always night in The Village. When Harvesters grew tired of the darkness, they simply left and visited another of October’s lands. There were six. Another thing Logan had learned.
Most importantly, she’d worked up the courage to ask how a mortal could leave October Land once they’d entered.
Immediately upon asking the question, she’d known it was a mistake. She’d been avoiding any talk about Samhain. It felt as if the subject might somehow prove volatile. She had no evidence to this effect – it was just a feeling, a hunch.
But with this question, they were confused. They had asked her why she needed to know. Surely the magic user she’d entered the realm with could get them back out again? And then Logan had been forced to shrug it off: “Oh, right.”
Now she felt like she was right back where she started, in a foreign, magical place without any means of escaping it. She wondered where her friends were…. She wondered whether the tiny note she’d left scrawled into the tree had done any good. Had it had even been noticed? Probably not.
It was going to be up to her to find a way out of October Land.
If that’s really what you want to do….
“Now then,” said Mabel, pulling Logan from her thoughts, “The Masquerade is set to begin. You’re fine to attend alone if you wish. I’ve got to dress, yet.” She moved back, her job finished, and took a deep breath of completion.
“Where do I go?” asked Logan. The idea of attending a party just then seemed ludicrous to her. But then again, in a crowd full of people who’d lived here their whole lives, it was possible she could find the answers she was looking for while still maintaining her anonymity. There was a lot to be said for a mask.
“Just follow the lights,” Mabel replied. She turned away from Logan and gestured toward the door to the bedroom. Logan took the hint and followed her out, lifting the sk
irts of her gown as she walked. The movement seemed natural to her, almost instinctive. I was made to wear this dress.
They entered the dining room where Henry sat hunched over the table. An oil lantern rested nearby on its surface, shedding light upon something that Henry seemed busily working on. Little tiny pieces of wood were flying out from whatever it was he was busy with, and Logan guessed he was whittling.
At the sounds of their footsteps, Henry turned in his chair, and Logan could see that he was in fact whittling. A nearly completed masquerade mask rested in his left hand, a small sharp knife in his right.
Henry’s strange glowing gaze landed on Logan, and the old man froze for a moment in his chair. Then he slowly stood, his rickety body at once seeming older than it had before – as if he were stunned.
“I take back me word,” he whispered. “The Dearg she may well be.”
“Would serve you right,” Mabel harrumphed. “Such rudeness directed at a visitor.” She tsked him and shook her head. But Henry seemed to barely notice. He was humbler now, standing there, beholding her. He seemed smaller.
Logan had never felt more conspicuous. A deep, hard blush crept up her neck, flushing her cheeks. But just as she’d felt beautiful for the first time in her life standing before Mabel’s mirror, she now felt something else for the first time as well.
Power.
The Dearg, or Dearg Due, she’d been told, was a seductress – a vampiress. As Henry told it, she had been a very beautiful woman in life who had fallen in love with a poor farm boy. Her father insisted she instead marry a rich man, who treated her terribly. The woman took her own life, and then rose from her grave as the Dearg Due, a vampiress who hunts the realms for handsome young men to drain, as she was drained in life.
Logan was fairly sure she was no vampire, but to be compared to something as charming and potent was empowering. And the irony of the comparison struck deep. Henry may think she looked lovely in that blue dress that had once been worn by his wife. But if the old Harvester had possessed any clue that Logan had in fact inadvertently created several vampires with her “bard” words, he never would have invited her into his home.
“Get the door, Henry,” instructed Mabel.
But Henry had already been on his way to the front door, shooting glances of awe at Logan from over his shoulder as he went. He opened the door, turned around, and stepped to the side.
Mabel gently nudged Logan toward it. “Off with you now,” she said softly with a smile. “You’ll be the heart of the masquerade tonight, I fear.” But she looked as though there was little to no fear involved. Instead, she looked very pleased with herself.
She gave Logan another gentle nudge, and Logan stepped out the front door and into the street of The Village.
The door began closing behind her, and Logan caught a few final words from her hosts.
“I hope ye’re happy, woman. Ye’ve meddled, and there’s sure to be trouble over that one’s attentions.”
“You forget that dress was mine once. I survived, did I not? And I told you that you would not finish that mask in time. Just wear your other one and finish it tomorrow –”
The door closed tight, and Logan was alone.
Chapter Twelve
Logan turned away from the door to face the street of The Village. She was alone, but the street had changed since she’d traversed it earlier that night. Lanterns exactly like the one on Henry’s table lined the street on either side, giving off a warm and welcoming glow. They reminded Logan of runway lights, pointing the way down the cobbled stones to the opposite end of town, where Logan had not yet traveled.
Mabel’s feet had been much smaller than Logan’s, so Logan still wore her own leather soled boots under her gorgeous gown, and they made a clear, hollow sound as she descended the steps of the cottage and walked out into the street.
Now that everything was more or less lit up, Logan could see the fountain at the center of the town, and beyond that, the cobbled stones continued to stretch, dividing two rows of houses and cottages like Mabel’s and Henry’s.
Logan made her way toward the fountain, and as she did, she grew more and more excited. Finally, she stood before it and looked up. It was a massive alabaster structure carved in the shape of a very large, very old, ornately constructed tree. Hanging from each overhanging branch of this mighty oak was not an acorn – but a pumpkin. Sometimes there were several pumpkins per branch.
“It’s the Halloween Tree,” Logan said aloud, smiling despite herself. Bradbury’s famous tale of Halloween through the ages had always been one of Logan’s most treasured books. She adored the prose and the eminently poetic stanzas the author used to tell his story. She loved the imagery, and often after reading a page or even a single paragraph, she would close her eyes and feel the words move through her like a wave in the ocean. They were a tide of creativity, ebbing and flowing, pushing the blood through her veins as surely as did her own beating heart.
The story’s main aspect was that of an ageless tree from which hung the “pumpkin fire souls” of the dead. The visages they’d possessed in life were carved magically into pumpkins in the likeness of jack-o’-lanterns, their inner lights burning brightly as they grinned at the leaf-strewn world below.
And now Logan stood before a flowing fountain carved from stone in the very image of that great and imposing masterpiece. The water traveling restlessly through its infinite crevices, cracks, and hollows made the most wonderful sound, peaceful and yet exciting.
The jack-o’-lanterns hanging from its branches grinned or guffawed or oohed and ahhd, all of them gazing through sightless holes that somehow glowed candle light, despite the water that also ran through them.
Logan moved closer, leaned in, and took a better look at the carved white pumpkin nearest to her. The light inside was shed by a single white floating candle, no doubt meticulously lit by some attentive caretaker just now for the masquerade. She looked further up. The next pumpkin on the branch, which sported carefully carved freckles and glasses and appeared to be the visage of a younger boy, was lit the same way.
“Amazing,” she sighed. And it was. There were at least a hundred jack-o’-lanterns on that enormous tree, and every single one possessed a brightly lit soul.
Logan straightened and took several steps back so she could take it all in. She couldn’t help but wonder just then whether Bradbury had known about this when he’d written his book, had possibly visited October Land before, as a bard, perhaps even in his dreams.
Or, maybe, upon the great author’s death, the Village had created this fountain in honor of the man who should have been born a Harvester.
She would never know.
Logan turned away from the fountain, and with a feeling of renewal, she re-gathered her skirts and continued around the fountain’s base and down the worn stone path.
When she’d gone past two houses, the door to the third opened, and a couple stepped out onto their threshold. They weren’t looking at her; they were paying attention to each other. The woman busily adjusted the man’s coat collar, and the man temporarily held her fan for her. She was wearing a dress in somewhat the same fashion as Logan’s, though of different colors, and admittedly not nearly as beautiful. Her hair was bright Autumn red, and fell down her back in tight ringlets that gave Logan a twinge of jealousy.
The man had short cut blonde hair and was dressed in coattails, crisp and proper. He was fairly tall, and dressed as he was, Logan could imagine he was quite handsome. This was what everyone loved about masquerades. When a person was hidden behind a mask, they not only felt uninhibited, everyone around them could imagine them to look like whatever they wanted. It was a win-win occasion.
What were not hidden were the couple’s eyes. The woman’s eyes glowed orange-gold like Mabel’s and the man’s looked exactly like Henry’s eyes, a glowing violet. Another thing Logan noticed was their skin. All she could see of the man’s was his face, but the woman’s sleeves stopped mid-bicep, and her dre
ss had shoulder straps, so Logan was able to see the skin on her arms. Their skin held that same grayish hue. It wasn’t a sickly dead color like that of a zombie, and it would have been difficult to describe. It was almost as if the Harvesters were composed of soft stone, and microscopic bits of mica gave their skin a slight sparkle, the way Logan’s skin sparkled when she wore Victoria’s Secret’s gold flaked lotions in the summer.
When the couple had finished tending to their clothing, they smiled at one another from behind their strapped-on intricately detailed masks, and made their way down the steps.
When they noticed Logan standing there, they stopped. And then, slowly, they nodded – as if in respect.
Logan didn’t know what else to do but nod back.
This seemed to satisfy them, though their inhuman eyes darted to each other for a moment before the two continued politely past Logan and down the lit path.
Now Logan at least knew where she was going. All she had to do was follow the couple ahead of her. She held back for a moment to give them their space and privacy, and then she followed at a discreet distance, making sure to remain far enough behind that her boots wouldn’t be heard.
The cobbled stones grew narrower, and as she neared the edge of town, more vegetation pushed its way up through the cracks between them. Eventually, the last two houses came and went, and The Village made way for the beginnings of the forest.
The trees grew thicker and taller the further she went in, the forest’s age laying itself out for her like a timeline. The cobbled stone road became a lamp-lit path, and the stones shrank smaller and smaller, until she was walking on nothing but hard packed dirt lined with flickering lights.
Eventually, she completely lost sight of the couple ahead of her, as the forest twisted and turned, and overhanging branches drew down lower and lower until she was strolling beneath a veritable ceiling of living wood.
Suddenly Sam (The October Trilogy) Page 6