Born of Shadows- Complete Series

by J. R. Erickson

  "Met him," Fin whispered. "You can't save him."

  Abby clutched the man's hand, alarmed at the paper-thin skin and bird-like bones beneath.

  "What do you mean? Why can't I save him?"

  The door swung open behind her and Abby whirled around.

  Binda stood in the doorway. She narrowed her eyes at Abby, but did not chastise her. Carrying a tray of slimy looking slugs, she walked to the edge of the bed and surveyed Fin.

  "Leaches, my dear."

  Fin's eyes were closed. He had fallen back asleep.

  "I can help," Abby told Binda, watching the older witch carefully arrange the leeches on Fin's bare chest.

  Binda did not speak or look at her.

  "My blood can heal him," she continued.

  Binda paused.

  "This man cannot be saved, Abby."

  "What? Why?"

  Binda pulled the sheet lower and Abby jumped back. From the waist down the man's skin had grown gray and putrid. The smell made Abby gag and she ran from the room, vomiting on the stone walkway outside the door. She did not return to the room, but walked toward her yurt, tears streaming down her face. What had happened to the man? And did the same fate await Sebastian?

  Chapter 11

  Elda knocked on Lydie's door and waited. Lydie had spent a good deal of time in her room since the others had left for Australia. Elda had little experience with pre-teens. It had been decades since she'd experienced the evolution of a child as they transitioned into adulthood and she felt, honestly, unprepared.

  Lydie opened the door.

  "Hi," she said, with a hint of defiance.

  Elda sensed that Lydie wanted to act out, but fought the urges. Though Lydie was young, she had been raised in an old castle in the ways of an old world and teen rebellion didn't exactly fit.

  "Can I come in?"

  Lydie held the door open and retreated to the couch at the end of her bed. A worn paperback lay open on its spine.

  "Are you upset that I asked you not to go to Australia?"

  Lydie bit her lip and broke eye contact with Elda. She looked sad, angry, hurt-a torrent of emotions that all wanted their time in the light.

  Finally, she nodded and swiped a curl behind her ear. She picked absently at a fraying string on her sweatshirt.

  "I'm sorry that it hurt you, Lydie. I want you to know that I have a reason."

  Lydie looked up with a mixture of curiosity and challenge.

  "Did you know that your mother had a sister?"

  "A sister?" Lydie apparently had not known.

  Elda nodded.

  "Your mother mentioned her once many years ago, but then never again. I believed she had died or perhaps they were estranged. After your parents' deaths, I briefly looked for her sister, but could find no address or information about her whereabouts. Then a year ago, I received this."

  Elda held up an envelope.

  "It was addressed 'To Whom It May Concern' at your parents old home. I had their mail forwarded to our post office box many years ago. After a couple of years, the mail slowed and then stopped altogether. Until this letter, of course."

  Lydie held out her hand.

  "Can I see it?"

  Elda handed it to her.

  She studied the envelope. The return address said Camilla Baker, who lived on West Sixteenth Street in Dunedin, Florida.

  "Aunt Cammy," Lydie whispered under her breath.

  Elda widened her eyes, surprised.

  "You did know her?"

  Lydie wrinkled her forehead and shook her head.

  "I don't know. I guess I must have. Seeing her name just now, I suddenly remembered my mom standing in the kitchen saying that we were going to bake a cake for Aunt Cammy's birthday. I don't remember the woman though, or the birthday for that matter. Though I do remember my mom letting me lick the bowl. It was strawberry cake batter."

  Elda smiled.

  "Your mother had a special skill in the kitchen. She made the most divine coconut cake."

  Lydie smiled and then frowned.

  "My memories of her are so flimsy. I get a glimpse, a smell, an image, but nothing of substance. I want to close my eyes and get transported back there, but I just can't."

  Elda took a deep breath and moved closer to Lydie on the couch. She put an arm around her and leaned her cheek against Lydie's soft, sweet-smelling curls.

  "I know sweetie. I still miss my mother and I've been without her for a very, very long time. I cling to those bits of memory too. You'll keep those for the rest of your life, but when people are gone, they're just..."

  "Gone," Lydie finished.

  "Would you like to meet her? Your aunt?"

  Lydie sat up and swiped at her eyes. She stood and crossed her room, looking at a collage on her wall. It contained pictures of her parents together with quotes and images that she and Helena had cut from magazines.

  "Yeah, I think so."

  ****

  Sebastian woke in the dilapidated house. The soft rotting floorboards creaked as he pushed onto his hands and knees. His head ached and he tasted the coppery metallic of blood on his lips. He had no recollection of the witch moving him to the house, but maybe she hadn't. In a world of illusions, space and matter abided by different laws, or perhaps no laws at all.

  His stomach growled and he smiled at the normality of the feeling. He wanted desperately for typical sensations, otherwise he might succumb to the sense of hopelessness nagging at the corners of his mind.

  "Food. One thing at a time."

  He stood and surveyed the room. He did not have high hopes.

  In the kitchen, most of the cupboards hung open and empty. He turned the faucet handle and a spurt of black water rushed out, followed by the groaning cry of empty pipes. No water was a much larger problem than no food.

  He walked back upstairs, pushing doors open to find empty bedrooms.

  After he felt sure the house lay empty, he returned to the front door and the unnerving path that led to the woods. He walked the bridge slowly, unable to avert his eyes from the empty void that lay to either side of the decayed planks.

  He followed the same path that led him to the house. Perhaps he could climb the tree that he had seen the water witch slip out of.

  When he found the dark water floating eerily above the soft earth, he scanned the tree that rose into the water. Like the rest of the tress, it looked black and gnarled. When he jumped for a low branch, it snapped and fell to the ground. Thousands of blazing red ants swarmed away from the ashy bark. He tried for another branch, which also broke. When he tried to climb the trunk, the bark slid away and revealed more ants, millions of ants. They swarmed over his hands and forearms and he felt the sharp sting as they bit him.

  "Oh shit," he cursed, rubbing his arms vigorously. Even as he rubbed them away, he felt more streaming up his legs. He whirled away from the tree and dropped to the ground. The soft earth sank beneath his weight and he writhed against it, scrambling to remove the ants intent on devouring him. He kicked off his pants and struggled out of his shirt, scooping handfuls of the stinking ground, muddy beneath the surface, over his inflamed body. After several minutes of violently applying mud, he lay still.

  "Dream wood, my ass," he whispered. "Nightmare wood is more like it."

  He looked up at the murky water suspended above him and wondered if Claire stood on the edge, peering into the black water, searching for him. More than that, he thought of Abby. What had she done when he never returned from the dream wood? What was she doing at that moment?

  Gradually, the pain subsided and the mud began to dry.

  Sebastian stood and wiped the dried mud from his skin. Shaking out his clothes, he slipped them back on, and attempted to ignore his thirst as he moved away from the pond. More bent, blackened trees lined the marshy ground. When he heard the sound of trickling water, his heart leaped. It was strange how desperately he wanted water now that it was unavailable. Would his mouth feel paper-dry if he were strolling through
the dream wood, rather than locked in a dead world beneath it?

  "The Underworld had rivers, shouldn't this place?" he asked, mostly to hear his own voice. In his life before Claire's death, Sebastian studied mythology. Not in any serious way, but as a hobby of sorts. He had found the idea of an underworld intriguing, but highly unrealistic. He simply didn't believe that people were destined to spend eternity in a world clearly created by the small mind of man.

  The trickling grew louder and the ground beneath him grew harder. The marshy earth gave way to slick black rock. The terrain became steep and slick and he moved slowly, to avoid slipping.

  He found the water leaking from a crevice in a wall of black rock that would be impossible to scale. Sebastian pressed his face against the surface. It had an acrid, sulfur taste, but the water was ice cold. He drank hungrily until his belly felt like it might burst. He stripped off his clothes and cupped his hands beneath the water. It ran slowly and took a long time to fill his palms, but the sensation as it splashed over his body nearly brought him to his knees. Air-dried, he put his clothes back on and followed the rock wall. A half-mile down, he found a cave that disappeared into darkness. He had to duck to enter and looked behind him at the already dim light. He did not have a flashlight or any way to produce fire.

  He could not see how far the cave traveled, but he had to try. Though he doubted the cave offered a pathway out of the witch's world.

  He couldn't shake the feeling that she knew exactly where he was, but he blocked the thought. He felt along the wall, walking hunched over, until the path opened above him and he could stand straight. Images of sleeping monsters popped into his mind to replace the blackness before him. Giant bears with bone sharpened teeth, or worse, creatures that only existed in a world of nightmares, came unbidden to his mind. He had always had an active imagination. At that moment, it served him in the worst way.

  He smacked into a rock wall and stumbled back, falling on his butt. A sharp pain shot up his spine and the breath whooshed from his lungs. The darkness was getting to him. What if he got turned around and never made it out of the cave? He knew better than to allow the thoughts ricocheting through his mind. In extreme situations, people's fears usually killed them, not the experience. Rock climbers, deep-sea divers, hikers lost in the forest-he'd read enough stories to know that he had to pull his shit together if he wanted to get out alive. Not only the cave, but the dream wood, too. Several hybrids had gone in and never emerged. Were they dead?

  When his heart slowed, he crawled on hands and knees to the rock wall that he'd run into. Fumbling blindly, he realized that the cave divided into two tunnels. He stood, slowly, and closed his eyes. The level of darkness didn't change with his eyes closed, but his level of calm did.

  "Which way?" he whispered.

  He didn't question his sudden movement toward the right tunnel. Was he guided or merely making a choice? He honestly didn't know.

  He walked and breathed and counted his steps. Ten steps into the right tunnel, twenty, eighty, one hundred fifty, and then a subtle change. The black seemed less black. He walked faster, still counting, two hundred and ten steps, and then light. The tunnel widened and opened into a spacious cavern. Stalactites grew down from the cave ceiling like a mouth full of teeth, but the freakish imaginings no longer bothered him. He could see again. Several torches lit the interior and he walked toward one, slowly.

  As he moved through the cavern, a rough hand shoved him from behind. He sprawled forward, too surprised to get a hand out and break his fall. He landed on his chest and his face hit the floor. He felt blood spurt from his nose and he closed his eyes against the wash of stars and nausea that followed.

  Before he could turn over, someone straddled him, grasping his hair and yanking his head back. A sharp blade was pressed into his neck.

  "I'm not armed," he mumbled through blood, wincing at the excruciating pain in his face.

  "She sent you?" The man growled. "I'll send you back to her in pieces."

  Sebastian took a deep breath and then shoved straight up onto his hands and knees. The man faltered and dropped his blade. He made to grab for Sebastian's hair, but Sebastian rolled away and jumped to his feet. He squared off against the man, ready to fight.

  "Don't come anywhere near me," Sebastian barked. "Whoever you think I am, you're wrong."

  The man retrieved his weapon, not a knife, but a sharp piece of rock. He looked wild-eyed and vicious. Sebastian could almost imagine his dilemma as he considered whether to run or attack.

  "I'm trapped down here," Sebastian continued, holding up his hands. "The dark witch has trapped me as well."

  "Meghan," the man spit, as if in explanation.

  "Meghan?" Sebastian repeated, surprised. According to the Sky Mothers, Meghan head created the dream wood and disappeared into it more than two hundred years before.

  The man nodded.

  "You're Liam," Sebastian said, vaguely recognizing him from his glimpse into the past. The Liam from his vision had been tan, healthy and robust. This man, pale and rail thin, with yellowing eyes and greasy looking hair, was a wasted version of his former self.

  Liam nodded, but did not drop his blade.

  "I came here looking for you. Hannah sent me."

  "Hannah." Liam whispered the name as if were sacred.

  "Yes, she's waiting for you. She believes you're alive."

  Liam blinked at him and looked at his hands still holding the rock as if he didn't recognize them.

  "Hannah." He said the name again, and this time it seemed to cause him physical pain.

  "You've been stuck here all this time?" Sebastian asked.

  Liam stared at him.

  "How long has it been?" he asked.

  "More than a year."

  Liam sank to his knees and let the blade drop.

  "I thought it might have been longer, decades even."

  "Well, I'm happy to be the bearer of good news, then," Sebastian offered, amazed at his ability to feel compassion for the man who just smashed his face two minutes earlier.

  "I'm sorry," Liam told him. "I've been waiting for Meghan to come for me. I thought..."

  "It's okay."

  Sebastian sat on the cave floor. Now that he wasn't in immediate danger, he could rest. He gingerly touched his broken nose.

  "Sorry about that," Liam told him.

  Sebastian nodded.

  "Now you're stuck here too." Liam sighed, scratching at the blonde hair that covered most of his face.

  "She wants something that I have outside of here. Maybe that will get us out."

  Liam smiled ironically.

  "She didn't send you out to get it, now did she?"

  "No, but the witches out there aren't stupid. They'll figure out how to bargain with her."

  "And this item is something they'll part with to get you back?"

  Sebastian smiled.

  "Abby will flood the world if they don't."

  "Abby's your witch?"

  "Well, I don't own her, but yes, she's mine."

  Knowing Abby waited for him made each moment both better and worse. He longed to get back to her and also feared not making it out.

  "Hannah's mine. Or she was, but at this point..." he gestured helplessly to their surroundings.

  "You've given up?"

  "No," Liam said defensively. "I tried to kill you, didn't I?"

  "How long have you been in here? The cave, I mean?"

  Liam offered him a joyless smile.

  "There's no time here, not the way we measure it up there, no day and night. Sometimes it gets dark for a few hours and then light again, but with no rhyme or reason. I tried to keep time the first few weeks I was here. It was a wasted effort."

  Sebastian grimaced.

  "That would drive me insane."

  "It does," Liam said. "It will."

  Chapter 12

  "Where is everyone?" Julian asked Bridget, coming upon her in the greenhouse after he found the castle empty.
/>   "Oh." She jumped and dropped a bottle of neutralizer. It smashed on the concrete floor.

  "I'm sorry," he said, waving his hand at the spreading liquid. It vanished.

  "You nearly scared me out of my britches," she sputtered, holding a hand to her heaving bosom. Her red hair stood on end and Julian sensed he looked as harried as Bridget.

  "What is it? What's happened?"

  Bridget wrung her hands and shook her head.

  "Nothing, nothing at all, just spooked being here all by my lonesome. It's a rare day that I've got the castle all to myself. That's not all true though. Adora is here, after all. She's in the floating garden. I thought the sun and fresh air would do her good."

  "Wait, did you just say Adora?"

  "Yes, Adora. Oh my, Faustine meant to contact you, did he not?"

  Julian shook his head.

  "He tried. I had a vision of him reaching out, but it was unclear. You're telling me Adora's alive?"

  Bridget nodded.

  "Yes, not in the best of shape, but alive and healing every day."

  She stopped suddenly. "But what are you doing here? We weren't expecting you home for another few days, at least."

  "It's a long story," he murmured absently. Adora's survival felt nothing short of a miracle. Finally, some good news. "Where are Elda and Faustine?" Julian asked. "And Lydie?"

  "Faustine had some emergency errand, ran out of here first thing this morning with barely a sip of tea. Elda and Lydie have gone to Florida. I probably wouldn't be so jittery, but I saw something funny in my teacup this morning. A strange little doll seemed to be floating there."

  "A doll?" Julian asked, mildly impatient. He trusted Bridget's intuitions, but of all the witches at Ula, she was the most scattered and unsure of herself. It was often hard to distinguish the symbols that came to her.

  "Why are Lydie and Elda going to Florida?"

  "Apparently Lydie has an aunt who made contact with Elda."

  "So that's why Elda asked Lydie to stay."

  "Seems that way," Bridget agreed. "But tell me, Julian, has something happened in Australia?"

  "Walk with me back to the floating garden. I'll tell you on the way. I have to leave soon. I'm flying back in five hours, which leaves me just enough time to get back to the airport. But I want to see Adora first."