Grim Hill: Forest of Secrets

by Linda DeMeulemeester

  Our legs would not outrun determined, equipped criminals. Even if they left us alone, they’d be right in thinking we wouldn’t survive another night.

  My heart grew heavy as stone at what I was about to do and my stomach twisted into an uncomfortable knot. I’ll admit it – even though everything about this felt wrong, I said the words anyways.

  “Sookie, conjure the most powerful magic you can. Save us.”

  My sister nodded. “Remember, Cat. When I use the mirror to make the summons, everyone has to be inside the medicine circle. Or they will be in danger.”

  An icy dread swept through me. Sookie’s magic always caused trouble, but as far as I could see, at this point trading trouble would give us more hope. Squaring my shoulders, I counted off my fingers for the signals. One, two, three – my team fell into place.

  Amanda, Mia, and Mitch spread themselves strategically among the cabin ruins, in their soccer positions of goalie and left and right defense. They cut off the vantage point to the back of the cabin, which prevented the crooks from seeing Sookie and Skeeter make their way to the medicine wheel. My little sister snuck away clutching the backpack that held the mirror she guarded so carefully.

  Next Amarjeet, Jasper, and Clive moved into left wing, center, and right wing positions, and they lined up, ready for action. That made me the soccer ball. I moved toward the spot where Clive had slept last night. He’d told me the diamonds would be about fourteen steps to the left of the burnt-out stove. While it looked as if the others were picking and searching, I was the one moving amongst the ashes, pushing them around with my stick until I spotted blackened lumps of rock. I made the last signal – then moved in the opposite direction and bent over as if to pick something up.

  While the driver’s eyes focused on me, I sensed – rather than heard – Sookie chanting in the distance. Strange. Even though she must’ve been whispering, I swear her voice blended with the howling wind, making her words sound cold and hard, like the diamonds. I hoped the pilot and thug couldn’t hear her.

  “Fo-the-oh-rum,” she chanted. “Fia-eh-s-gohe …”

  Sweat broke out on my forehead and back, but the wind quickly dried it, leaving me chilled. As her words wove in and out in a peculiar dance, so did my friends. Mitch, Mia, and Amanda edged toward the medicine circle, and Clive, Jasper, and Amarjeet moved toward me.

  While the driver watched, Amarjeet plucked the blackened diamonds from the ashes and made her way to the edge of the cabin, within sight of the other crooks. She dropped the stones there. Jasper and Clive moved in for the final move.

  When I stood up, pretending to hold something in my hand, the driver leapt toward me. He hadn’t planned to let us escape at all. Just as I figured – he couldn’t face what would happen to Sookie and Skeeter, but he was too afraid of the other guys to let us all go. He only wanted to use us to find the diamonds first.

  Jasper and Clive threw ashes in his face. He slumped onto his knees with a cry. The other crooks jumped up, but they didn’t have time to unholster their rifles before Amarjeet scrambled toward the medicine circle.

  “What’s going on here?” shouted the pilot. Then he spotted the diamonds Amarjeet had collected, with the driver slumped over them. “Looks like you are making your own little stash,” he grumbled at the driver.

  The plan was working – as far as the crooks were concerned, diamonds first, kill the kids second. When they bent over to scoop up the diamonds, we stood there innocently, that is until Jasper and Clive threw ashes in their faces too. They stumbled around blindly – the pilot groaned and rubbed a hot cinder out of one eye.

  Lightning cracked through the sky and immediately a clap of thunder made a horrendous explosion, shaking the ground. I turned back to run for the medicine wheel when I lost my balance and fell, landing face first into hot ashes. My skin burned, but luckily I’d shut my eyes. When I tried getting up, though, I couldn’t move – someone had grabbed my legs. The driver!

  “Hurry, Cat,” Mia called. My skin blistered as I lifted my chin and struggled to break free. I hoped the rest of my friends had made it back in time.

  The wind began howling in an unbearable wail, as dirt and ash and even pieces of lumber lifted and fell dangerously around us. The driver tugged me toward him. My shirt rode up and a hot stone burned against my stomach.

  “Ugh,” groaned the driver.

  My legs were suddenly free and somebody hoisted me to my feet. Jasper had thrown more ashes into the driver’s face and Clive had pulled me up. We raced toward our friends.

  I held my hand over my face, shielding my eyes as the wind whipped around us. A burnt chair leg flew by, narrowly missing me, but a charred piece of shingle caught me sharply on my arm. I swear my feet were lifting off the ground even before I made it inside the peculiar calm of the medicine wheel.

  We waited inside the circle as we watched the remains of the cabin sweep up into a swirling tornado. Mia screamed and we all dived to the side as the loft door flew up and over our heads, landing upright and embedding itself in the center of the medicine circle.

  The outlaws ran from the destruction of the cabin and headed toward our circle. I pulled my eyes off them and checked on Sookie.

  An eerie light spilled out of the cracked mirror, which Sookie had set on the ground. It surrounded my sister like a cloak, swirling and thrashing in the wind and making Sookie’s face appear harsh and forbidding.

  She had a burning stick that she used to ignite something she was holding in her other hand. I squinted and recognized it as the hemlock we had found at the creek. Why had she kept it, knowing it was a witch’s evil plant? As if to answer my question, her voice rang out, piercing my ears.

  “With this burnt offering, let my magic move beyond the abyss. Oscail-an-doras!”

  Like brushfire, the light jumped from the mirror toward my sister and then toward the door in the center of the circle. Swirling light illuminated the door and it opened with a thundering crack.

  Then I heard the most bloodcurdling sound of all.

  Howls ripped through the air and my jaw dropped as four black, lumbering fiends sprang from the door. Their yellow eyes glowed like jack-o’-lanterns and steam curled from their snapping jaws.

  Sookie had unleashed the hounds of hell.

  CHAPTER 25 - A Fiendish Bargain

  FROZEN, WE WATCHED in horror as the slavering fiends lurched toward the forest. The criminals screamed in high-pitched voices as they pointed their guns at the beasts, firing uselessly, only to drop their guns and run when the fiends closed in.

  “Waheela,” Amanda gasped, as she watched the black bog creatures chase after the men, the fiends’ powerful jaws foaming in anticipation. “Those waheela are going to bite off their heads,” she said in horror.

  I stared helplessly as the forest swallowed up the men and the fiends. My heart pounded in my ears through each terrifying second. The fiends’ howls grew distant and then died off. At the same time, the winds died down too, and the ash and dirt settled in thick clouds around the medicine wheel. Finally, Sookie stopped her eerie chanting, extinguishing the light that had been streaming out of the fairy mirror.

  I released a ragged breath. For a while, there was heavy silence. Until …

  “So, those fiends are gone for good, right?” Mia asked nervously. I assumed she meant both kinds of fiends – the human kind and the creatures of the bog.

  Sookie didn’t answer. Instead she was staring into the fairy mirror with a puzzled expression. She looked up at me and her face was flushed. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  I had heard Sookie say that before … and it was never good news.

  Utterly exhausted, I slumped to the ground, unable to think of what to do next. The earth beneath me began to buzz, but I had no energy left to check where it was coming from. Everyone else had sat down too, except Sookie and Skeeter. He was looking over my sister’s shoulder, staring curiously at the mirror. “How’d you do that?” he asked.

  Sookie sh
ook her head weakly. She now resembled her nine-year-old self instead of the powerful magician she’d become just moments ago. I refused to use the W-word.

  “Ow,” complained Jasper as he shoved his grimy fingers into his eyes and pulled out his contact lenses. “There’s so much dirt and ash in my eyes, I can’t bear these things anymore. I’m good as blind now.”

  “I guess your spare glasses are …” I began.

  “Ash, along with all my books,” Jasper grumbled.

  Amarjeet folded her knees under her chin and rocked herself, while Mia leaned against Mitch. Skeeter practically crawled into Clive’s lap. Jasper stretched out with his arm over his face. My friends were pretty much spent. I went over to where Sookie had sat down alone, but she shrugged me away when I tried to put an arm around her. She seemed … I had to search for the word … inconsolable. But why did she look so unbearably sad? We’d gotten rid of the crooks and there was no sign of the fiends. Maybe she was just exhausted like the rest of us.

  The lingering sun streaked the sky red. The temperature should have plunged as the sun set, but it remained strangely warm inside the circle. Feeling the exhaustion of the day, and with the warmth enveloping me like a blanket, I stretched out like Jasper and finally fell into a deep sleep for the first time in days.

  I was in an amusement park. It wasn’t like the one in Sweden. It was smaller, more like a carnival, and I was sitting on a garishly painted carousel horse that spun round and round.

  I didn’t like these merry-go-round horses. These weren’t painted ponies like the horses I had usually seen in carousels. Under their bridles, they had bared sharp, yellow fangs, and their ghostly eyes reminded me of the fiends. Faster and faster the horses spun, while the calliope cranked out a tune that sounded like organ music from old black-and-white horror shows.

  “I want to get off,” I cried.

  “There’s no getting off,” said Great Aunt Hildegaard. “You have to stay until your ride is finished.” I looked over and saw that she was riding the horse beside me. I watched my aunt morph into the wild-eyed fortune-teller I’d met in Sweden.

  “Child, you are doomed,” she said in a hollow voice, her eyes narrow slits of white. “The fates have turned against you and each time you succeed worse will wait.”

  I woke up with a gasp and looked around. I shuddered. It’s not fun to wake up from a nightmare and find out your real-life situation is even worse. It was still dark, but inside the circle where we slept the air around us glowed softly.

  We must have been asleep for hours. Everyone was still passed out on the ground. Everyone, that is, except Sookie. I looked around, finally spotting her sitting alone under a nearby tree just outside the circle. She was staring into the fairy mirror. Part of me, the part that was maybe getting too used to my sister’s magic, hoped she’d made contact through the mirror and we would be rescued soon.

  “What do you see?” I asked quietly, joining her next to the tree.

  Sookie looked up and I could tell by her tear-streaked cheeks that she was really upset. I crouched down beside her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t be angry, Cat.”

  “What do you mean?” I said this kind of sharply because fright had taken hold of me.

  “I had to make a promise.”

  “What kind of promise?” These words came out slowly, as if I were still dreaming.

  “I had to make a deal with a fairy,” she finished in a whisper.

  CHAPTER 26 - A Secret Door

  MY HEART THUDDED in my ears. “Why would you make a fairy deal, Sookie? You know those kinds of bargains end in disaster.”

  “It’s only a little promise but …”

  “No such thing,” I said. “What was it?”

  “Just that I had to finish what I started. If I opened the door to magic, I had to remember to shut it.”

  That didn’t sound so bad – actually it sounded like a good idea. But fairy deals were often treacherous. I didn’t like this one bit. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “I told you I had to summon help from the fairy mirror,” Sookie said. “Where did you think the help would come from?”

  I hadn’t thought about that. I only knew that we’d have no chance unless my sister used her magic. Come on, Cat, said a miserable voice inside me. No matter what, you knew if your sister used her magic there’d be a cost. “If it was only a little promise, why are you upset?”

  “I’m not. I … was just homesick.”

  Even though that made sense, I still worried. But Sookie stubbornly refused to say anything more. All I managed to do was wake up the others by my attempts to get her to talk.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Jasper.

  “Are those men back?” Clive looked around in alarm. “Or the hell hounds?” He got a panicked look and slapped his forehead. “Right, I should have thought of it first. Mitch, wake up and help me gather up the guns!”

  Mitch shot up in a flash. While Mitch and Clive went to gather the guns the outlaws had dropped, I quickly told Jasper what Sookie had said.

  “What does that mean, shutting the door to magic?” asked Jasper.

  “I’m not exactly sure. I just know it was a promise,” said Sookie. “In exchange for summoning help. I’ll know when the time comes what I’m supposed to do.” Then Sookie’s eyes grew watery as she blinked back tears. “I didn’t know the help would be those black wolves. They scare me, Cat. And … and I don’t know what I’ll be asked to do.”

  I gave my sister a reassuring hug. She was half-frozen, so I brought her back inside the warmth of the medicine wheel before questioning her more. Once she’d settled in, I turned to her and frowned. “Who is giving you these so-called instructions?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. “Who have you been talking to in the mirror? It’s not Lea, is it?”

  Sookie’s expression grew more guarded and she pulled away from me. “It’s a secret,” she mumbled.

  “Not anymore,” I demanded. “Tell me who you’ve been talking to.”

  Sookie shut down and got that stubborn look. This was just great, not only did she not know exactly what she’d promised, but she refused to tell me who she’d promised it to. How was I supposed to help if she wouldn’t talk to me? Annoyed, I played the older sister card. “Tell me,” I demanded. “Now.”

  “You’re not the boss of everyone,” Sookie said to me. But she didn’t say that in her usual obstinate tone. Her words were so full of sorrow, they left a shadow on my heart. What did she mean?

  Then it occurred to me. “You can’t tell me, can you?” I said as a harsh memory surfaced. My friend Lea had been fairy-bound not to tell us anything about her evil aunt. It was as if a magic spell sewed her lips shut when she tried.

  Sookie nodded miserably. “It was part of the deal,” she muttered.

  Uneasiness stole over me as the sun began to rise. As the sky turned pink, the medicine wheel pulsed a strange green light in the rhythm of a beating heart.

  “What’s going on?” I asked in alarm. The circle stones began shining like glow-in-the-dark skulls.

  We all leaped away from the stones and stared in amazement. The hum grew louder until it sounded like a million mosquitoes were preparing to launch an attack. The early morning light gathered together into a burning ray that lit a fire along each spoke of the medicine wheel.

  Amanda gasped. “It must be the summer solstice,” she said. “My grandmother said that the medicine wheel became very important on the summer solstice because …” She rubbed her temples. Her voice took on an exasperated tone. “I can’t remember.”

  “Maybe I know,” said Jasper. “Those hounds you called waheela are the same supernatural beasts the Celts called bog fiends. The Dene pay close attention to the Otherworld just like the Celts did. Both people accepted the fairy world instead of pretending it didn’t exist.”

  Amanda nodded in agreement.

  Jasper paused and gave me a sober look. “You’re not going to like this next bit, Cat.” />
  I was one step ahead of him. “Let me guess now,” I said. “The summer solstice is like the winter solstice, a time when our two worlds overlap.”

  Looking miserably at the heap of ashes that used to be the cabin, Jasper said, “If only I had my books.” He drew a breath. “So this part is a stretch, but I think it’s possible that during the solstice the medicine wheel becomes a door to the Otherworld.”

  Could this be the door that Sookie had to shut?

  There was something Jasper was missing – that spooky loft – how did that haunted place fit into the equation? I had a hunch, a nasty intuition, that the loft played into this in some way.

  Before I could pursue that thought, the outer circle of the medicine wheel caught on fire. And then the center of the medicine circle lit up like a candle, shooting flames into the sky. The fire had no effect on the door, which swung open in a loud whoosh of air.

  CHAPTER 27 - A Ghastly Sacrifice

  BLUE, GREEN, AND scarlet flames spilled from the open door inside the medicine circle. That fire was too unusual to be from our world. Also, it was blinding, making it impossible to see beyond the flames to inside the door. The outer circle began rotating like a wheel, reminding me of the carousel in my nightmare.

  The air around us began gyrating and had the same effect as when we’d opened the loft door. It tugged at our hair, our clothes, and even our skin.

  “Back away from the circle!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, but the roaring rush of wind drowned my voice.

  We stumbled away from the medicine wheel and gathered at the edge of the forest. The charred ruins of the cabin lifted up and spiraled into the open doorway, swirling like water going down a drain before disappearing into whatever was on the other side of that door. The wind ripped leaves off the trees and they spun into the opening too. Whole bushes were yanked up by their roots and they flew into the door’s gaping maw. As soon as anything flew in, blue light streamed out, growing stronger and more menacing.