by Darian Smith
From somewhere behind her, a voice began to sing. The words were unfamiliar, but the sound rang true somewhere in the depths of her mind. Te reo. Maori.
Sara turned and saw Moana striding towards her from the bush, her eyes wide circles of white, but her voice strong. As she sang, the will-o’-the-wisps faded, the water grew still, and Jereth’s image against the tree grew faint.
Sara felt her mind clear of the fae’s influence. Abi and the baby in the water were gone – they had only ever been illusions. Never real. Her eyes blurred with tears. She closed her hand over the ring and drew it back.
“Put it on,” Bridget’s voice whispered in her mind. “It will protect you both.”
Sara slipped the ring onto her finger once more and it was as if someone had switched off a radio. The static in her mind was gone. Jereth’s thrall was broken.
She stumbled back from the water’s edge and Moana caught her.
“You’re all right now,” the Maori woman said. “He almost had you.”
“But...” Sara stared at the other woman. “What are you doing here? I thought you hated me.”
“I thought you were here to call that creature forth,” Moana said. “But I just saw you fighting him. I thought you needed help.”
“Thank you.” Sara swallowed. Her hands were trembling. “We need to get out of here.”
“We can’t.” Moana pointed back toward the circle. Jereth’s image was growing stronger again, clearer. The tree behind him beginning to appear translucent. “He’s getting free. We have to stop him.”
“But...how?” Sara searched the clearing frantically. There was one person who knew what was going on. One person who had been here from the start and knew Jereth better than anyone. Who had trapped him over a hundred years ago. “Bridget! Come back. What’s happening? Tell me what to do!”
The ghost appeared instantly, almost solid in appearance, but for her eyes. When Sara looked into Bridget’s eyes, she could see the green punga branches behind them.
Moana gasped and took a step back, then nodded. “Help from an ancestor. A good plan...for a Pakeha.”
“Without the ring, Jereth will seek energy to free himself,” Bridget said. For once her voice strong, as it had been in life. “The fae manipulate energy. That’s why they have always been associated with illusion and madness – energy in the form of light or bioelectric energy in the brain. But with the industrial age came electricity. Energy everywhere – in every house. Every building. All linked together. At first they couldn’t manage it – the effects of iron and other metals conducting that energy made it difficult for them to handle. But they learned, Sara. They learned! That’s what’s been draining your batteries. That’s what killed the man from the power company. The portals in the old world have been closed. The fae have been reaching out through this portal, this new country, looking for electricity – and you gave it to them by wiring up the house!”
“But...I didn’t know. Why would you leave the house here if it wasn’t safe to hook up to the grid? Nobody has a house without electricity any more.”
“Because we need the house. It is part of the spell that binds the portal closed and Jereth trapped in it. Jereth helped us build that house. The kuia and I used it as a solid doorstop, preventing travel from the other realm. The ring he gave me powered the spell and the local iwi have always added their strength as well. But you took the ring and the protections have been steadily failing ever since!”
Moana stared. “Wait, you mean the house is part of the protections? Why didn’t I know this?”
Bridget shook her head. “Your sister became sloppy with her duties. She should always have had a fully trained family member ready to take over if she perished. But she was young. She never believed she would die before she had a chance to teach her daughter about the entrance to what you call Rarohenga, right in her own back yard. If she had told you, Moana, you might have prevented this instead of trying to destroy my house.”
The Maori woman swallowed. “I only knew some of the details. I knew the O’Neill family brought the ira atua with them and created the portal to their world. I thought the house was part of the portal. I didn’t know it was part of the block.”
Sara touched her shoulder. “There’s no sense worrying about that. What’s done is done. What can we do about it now?” She held up her hand. “What if I put the ring back where I found it? Would the house start protecting us again?”
The tree in the circle writhed and shrieked like a howling wind.
Bridget nodded. “Yes. But you must do it quickly. There’s not much time.” She turned to Moana. “You are your family’s kuia now.”
“Me?”
“You’re all that’s left. You must stay here and continue the chant. Perhaps it will delay Jereth’s escape.”
Moana took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m sorry I misjudged you,” she said to Sara, her jaw tight. “Let’s do this.” Without waiting for a reply, she strode back towards the circle and began to sing.
“Good luck,” Sara called after her.
“You must go,” Bridget said. “Take the ring back to the basement as fast as you can and do not take it off until you get there. It will protect you from Jereth’s illusions. But not for long.”
Sara ran as fast as she could towards the house. The branches and ferns whipped at her legs and face but she ignored them. Will-o’-the-wisps flew across her path, shot at her head and fountained sparks at her from all angles. Her eyes were dazzled and vision spotted with strange coloured lights, but she kept on. The power in the ring made her immune to the fae’s attempts to turn her around.
“Get away,” she shouted, and felt a pulse of energy wash out from her body, pushing the lights and visions back into the trees. The ring on her finger glowed softly for a moment, then winked out.
“I’m getting better at that,” she muttered.
The trees parted and the house was up ahead. She’d left the generator going and a light was on inside, spilling the warm glow out onto the porch and deepening the darkness outside.
Electricity. Energy the fae could use.
Not if she could stop it. She headed toward the generator. She could turn it off now and be safer inside the house.
A figure stepped out of the shadows and swung something at her. Her back exploded with pain. She stumbled, and fell, her knees scuffing painfully on the ground. The figure swung again. This time she saw the plank of wood from the discarded pile of construction debris at the back of the house in time to raise an arm to protect herself. The wood connected with her elbow with a sickening crack. Sara screamed.
The figure laughed. She knew that laugh.
“No!” Horror filled her to the brim, icy and paralyzing, pressing on the inside of her skin with chilled fingers. “No!”
Greg stepped forward into the light. “Hi, Honey. Did you miss me?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The low hum of the generator was a soft backdrop to cicada song as Nate got out of the car. The sun was already starting to set, throwing long shadows across the house and turning the bush from friendly nature park into sinister wilderness. A strange car was parked behind Sara’s in the drive. Greg was already here. So was Moana. She’d driven off at great speed while he’d been buckling Abigail into her seatbelt. There was no sign of either of them now.
“Stay in the car,” Nate told Abi. “Lock the doors and don’t open up for anyone.”
Abigail’s eyes were wide. “I want to come with you.”
Nate shook his head. There was no telling what he was going to find if the man searching for Sara really was her ex. “You’re safer here, kiddo. If you get scared, beep the horn, okay?”
The front door of the O’Neill house was open and there was a light on in the lounge. A ginger cat stared at him from on top of a hall table, daring him to come inside.
“Sara?” he called. “Is everything okay?”
The house was silent.
She’d been so an
gry with him this morning when he’d come inside to check on her. Doing so again so soon felt like an invasion of privacy but the gnawing in his stomach that said she was in danger wouldn’t let him stay still. He hurried inside, moving quickly from room to room, calling her name.
“Damn it,” he muttered to himself, pulling out his phone to shine the flashlight app into the dimly lit corners. His stomach felt like he’d swallowed batteries and his shoulders were tight as coiled wire. “Come on, come on. Where are they?”
Somehow, in the few short weeks he’d come to know her, Sara had become a mainstay in his life. Every day was brighter because she would be there to talk to at the end of it, whether it was just to pick up Abi after work, or to stay for a couple of hours working on the house together. This house, that had been empty for as long as he could remember, now represented fun and laughter and, if he dared admit it to himself, love. It was a feeling he never thought he’d experience again after losing Emma. Now he feared he might be too late to keep from losing it again. The house was empty once more.
Empty, and the door open.
“Shit!” If Sara had been surprised by Greg, she might have made a run for it. They might not be inside the house at all.
The overgrown yard was dark with shadow. The phone flashlight did very little to illuminate more than a couple of feet at a time. He circled the house once, and found no sign of anyone. He crept closer to the edge of the trees, eyes straining in the increasing gloom. He called Sara’s name a couple of times but was answered with silence.
True silence. The cicadas were quiet. There was no twittering of birds or rustling of creatures in the leaves. A chill passed through him, raising goosebumps on his skin.
Then a sound pierced the night and electrocuted him with terror.
The long, panicked toot of a car horn.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sara scrambled across the grass, heedless of the dirt sticking to her clothes and fingers. Her elbow was agony but she pulled herself along, ignoring the worried part of her mind that screamed it could be fractured.
“It’s not possible,” she said. Her voice was fragile and splintered. “How could you find me?”
A flash of lightning lit the sky and she saw Greg’s smile as he advanced on her. “I’ll always find you, babe. You know that.”
She did know it. Somehow she’d always known it. No matter how much she had wanted to convince herself she was safe here, there had always been the fear, the knowledge, that it had been too easy to get away. All the kind words and support from the nurses, counsellor, and her grandmother meant nothing in the end. She’d tried so hard to get away from that life and start anew and yet here he was, pulling her back in. Why did she think she could escape?
The world seemed to narrow around her, hazy, heavy, and hot. Her chest was tight and her head felt fuzzy, the way it did when Jereth’s mind control had taken her into the bush and almost forced her to unlock the portal. The ache in her lower back reminded her of the pain she’d been in the last time she’d seen Greg.
When she’d lost their child.
The thought was an electric shock running up her spine. It galvanised her. She would not let Greg or the Fae control what she chose to do with her life. She would not let her child’s death be in vain. Her response surged up from her abandoned womb, from her gut and her soul. “No! Leave me alone!”
She surged to her feet and ran. She had escaped him before, she would do it again. Her breath was raw in her lungs as she heaved one foot in front of the other, her aching elbow clutched close.
Greg’s footsteps were close behind and Sara’s mind raced ahead, seeking the safest path. Even as she headed for the house, she knew its safety was an illusion. She reached the porch and vaulted the stairs. The door was ajar but even if she could get inside and close it, there was no way the old lock would withstand much force. She passed it by without even slowing, hoping that the move would confuse her pursuer, even if only for a moment.
She reached the end of the porch and jumped, gripping the railing hard as she did so. She sailed over it and onto the lawn beyond, and, as it had done with Moana a few weeks earlier, a chunk of rotted railing broke away in her hands.
Greg, caught off guard and not expecting to jump the railing, was trapped on the porch and would have to back track to the stairs.
Sara threw the broken piece of wood in his general direction and ran toward her car.
She never saw if it connected but heard him swear and a clattering sound as it hit the floorboards of the porch.
The few moments the manoeuvre had bought her were wasted when she realised her car was blocked in. Moana’s car, Greg’s car, and Nate’s ute were all in a row like deadly beads on a string, keeping her trapped.
“Shit.” She ran for the last one in the line, Nate’s ute, and grabbed at the door handle, hoping against hope he had left the keys in the ignition. The door was locked.
A small, brown face appeared at the window.
Sara yelped and jumped back. “Abi?” She glanced behind her. Greg was gaining ground. Behind him, a flash of light, like a torch, bobbed in the distance, near the generator. Probably a will-o’-the-wisp. She couldn’t trust it. Nothing was safe. Except maybe Abi if she stayed in the car. She turned back to the girl. “Stay there,” she said and ran for the road.
The gravel crunched underfoot like teeth chewing through bones. Larger, heavier teeth crunched ever closer as Greg gained distance behind her. The hesitation at the cars had eaten into her lead.
A car horn blasted through the air like an air raid siren. Abi was signalling for help. There was no way it would come in time.
Nate’s house rose out of the darkness ahead and Sara swerved toward it, hoping that her knowledge of the grounds would work to her advantage.
The lights in the house flickered like visual static, the bulbs barely holding a charge before fading out only to brighten up again, like dying glow worms clinging to life. The air crackled with the energy flowing out from the portal pool. The fae were reaching out into the world. She could feel it. Their energy scraped across the landscape, seeking purchase. The wires in Nates house were responding to their call.
She ran around the side of the house, ducking through the garden gate and into the courtyard at the back. There was the verandah where she and Nate had eaten dinner together. The wash of warm memory flooded over her with the scent of freesias and daphne.
Her footsteps faltered. Could Nate be home? Could he help her escape? No. His car and daughter were at her house. And there was no point bringing danger to him now. Greg was her problem. Running was the only solution.
“Gotcha!” A rough hand gripped her shoulder and shoved.
Sara lost her balance and stumbled. Her shoulder grazed along the side of the house and she fell.
Greg loomed over her. “No more running,” he said.
Sara felt the wall against her back, hard and unforgiving. She was cornered. She swallowed. Her chest was tight and her pulse pounded in her ears. She pushed back, somehow hoping the planks would part and let her through. “Don’t,” she said, her voice soft. “Just...don’t.”
The flickering lights showed the smirk on Greg’s face as he opened his mouth to reply. Before he got the words out, his eyes bulged and he screamed. “What the fuck?” He swatted at his back with his hand, spinning away from Sara, deeper into the courtyard.
On his back was the tiny, black and white form of Oscar, the kitten, clinging tightly.
A deep yowl came from the direction of the fence and a big ginger tomcat launched itself at Greg. A grey blur of fur brushed past Sara and began raking Greg’s legs with its claws.
More and more of the cats that’d been loitering around her home swarmed Greg, with claws and teeth and hisses. It was as if he’d kicked open some feline hive and the cats were defending their queen.
Sara stared, open mouthed for a moment, then got to her feet and ran back to the road, leaving Greg and the cats behind.
Sara squinted her eyes. There was another figure within the shape of the ghost. “Abi? Oh my God. What have you done?”
The ghost and girl both nodded. Sara could now see Abigail’s body clearly inside the translucent Bridget. “She is safe,” Bridget-Abi said. “I could not reach you this far from the house without a vessel.”
“A vessel? You’ve possessed her?”
Bridget shrugged. “In a manner of speaking. She is her mother’s daughter after all. She has the gift.”
Something clicked into place in Sara’s mind. “The woman she said used to live at my house. She could see you.”
Bridget nodded and the double-image waved a hand impatiently. “You must return to the house. You must reactivate the spell.”
“But Greg...”
“Is nothing compared to the horror that is waiting to break through into this world. Be brave, my child. You must hurry.”
Sara fiddled with the gemstoned ring on her finger. The fae engagement ring. Bridget had sacrificed so much to protect the world from Jereth and the creatures beyond the portal. How could she give up now? “Okay.”
Lightning flickered across the sky, casting the combined figure of Bridget and Abi into sharp edged colour. In that moment, the magic that bound them schismed. The little girl screamed and clapped her hands over her mouth. Bridget’s eyes widened. “Behind you!”
Then something hard hit the back of Sara’s head and everything was black.
Chapter Thirty
The shadows in the bush thrown by what light was left in the darkened sky had nothing on the terror that punched into Nate’s gut at the sound of the car horn. It jolted him like a live wire. Even before it ended, he turned and ran for the driveway. There was only one reason Abigail would sound the horn like that: Danger.
The distance from the edge of the trees, around the side of the house, to the car felt like a marathon. The silence after the horn was deafening. Finally, Nate rounded the corner and the car came into sight. The passenger door was open. His daughter was gone.