by Blair Aaron
“I heard the Prophecy myself. It said a pure maiden would set us free. If the Prophecy is about me, and I'm so pure, then this is the spell that should work. The spell a pure maiden can use to fight Freja off.”
“Yes, but how do you know you're not wrong again?” Augustus asked her.
“I don't, but the crystal responded, glowing bright, when I started to use it when Zamir tried to attack me,” she said.
“This sounds contrived,” Augustus said, crossing his arms, as he slipped his crossbow around his chest.
“I know it does, but we've got to do something. We're running out of time. There's no telling how much time has passed in the towns.”
“Or if Freja is even alive,” Niklas said.
“Oh she's alive,” Humburt said, backing Elsa up. “She's just hiding. I guarantee you she sent that serpent to bite Elsa.”
Elsa looked around the group. “You all remember my visions when the snake bit me? This is our chance. You guys are a big group of lugs who ended up being my saviors. Now it's time for me to return the favor. Freja put me here, she sent that serpent to kill me, and it would have, if you hadn't rescued me. She stole Theo from me. She's trapped Dorien and Theo in the forest from the moment they made the mistake of falling into this place. She sent Dorien here to kill all of you. And if she has her way, we'll spend the rest of eternity here, while she lives on as the popular, well-loved version of me. Her star will rise, while mine will fall. I can't let that happen. I can't leave you guys behind. I know this will work,” Elsa said, as if she were a general rallying her troops. “I won't stop until we get out, all of us, every last one of us, so we can live a normal life in peace. Let's not allow her to defeat us.”
“Do you think she's the one controlling our freedom here, so we can't leave the forest?” Humburt asked her, thinking apparently Elsa had more answers now than any of them, since the snake bit her. Humburt always trusted his guts.
But Elsa didn't know.
“I have no idea if this place is actually alive, from an older time, with a mind of its own, or if it's something Freja conjured up with her black magic. I just don't know, and none of us will know until we cross over that border.”
“I'm with you,” Augustus said, ready for a fight to the death.
“And me!” Niklas said, clenching his fist.
“Me, too!” Humburt said, raising his sword into the air, as it glinted the murky moonlight in all their eyes. Elsa smiled, knowing how good it felt to have all these guys behind her, protecting her. But there was one person missing, who didn't respond, and Elsa saw Kirbleitz standing on the edge of the tar lake, looking pale and sallow.
“Doctor Kirbleitz,” Niklas said, “What is wrong?” The doctor looked over his shoulder then stumbled on his back as the entire group rushed over to him, Niklas leading the way. “What happened?” Niklas said, his voice beginning to break with emotion, fearing the worst. Kirbleitz uncovered a deep and bloody wound from under his vest. “Oh, Doc.no.” Niklas said, his best friend, his mentor now mortally wounded. “We're going to make it ok, doc, I swear. We just gotta make it past the border. Why didn't you tell me?”
“It'll be okay,” the Doc said, taking deep breaths, obviously in pain. His breathing rate was quick and shallow. Not a good sign. Humburt and Niklas picked Doctor Kirbleitz up, helping him walk along as best he could, the Doctor's arms draped over both mens' shoulders. Elsa turned around, ready for the journey to the border. They were all actually going to make a run for it.
Augustus caught up with her, as they continued their walk out of the woods. “Do you know how to get out of here?”
“I have not the faintest idea,” she said, looking ahead. “But we'll find a way.”
“Do you think Dorien will catch us again? Elsa, we won't be able to fight him off, now that Kirbleitz got hurt.”
“Call him Doc. Show some respect Augustus. And Zamir will hold him off long enough to give us a chance,” she said.
“You put a lot of faith in someone we can't even figure out is good or bad,” Augustus said. “You sleep with him or something?”
“We can count on him, I know it,” Elsa said, ignoring the question, as it sent a stab of pain through her heart. She looked behind her, at Niklas and Humburt, and forward into the darkened forest, unknown creatures whistling and calling out to all of them. She was thinking that, wherever Zamir was, she knew he would never let her down.
CHAPTER 46
“Look!” Augustus said, pointing ahead into the pathway they had come from. Elsa and Augustus discussed the possibility that the forest wouldn't let them follow the same path they took to get to Elsa's Cottage. But nothing had changed since Zamir led them away from the forest. Elsa looked at the same wall which formed when Zamir saved her from the shifters when they wanted to burn her at the stake. Tracks still marked the dirt as evidence of the initial scuffle between Zamir and the rest of the wolves. Elsa took this as a good sign that the her plan just might work. She waited for the rest of the group to catch up to her and Augustus.
“The sight of that wall makes my stomach churn,” Augustus said. “I just hope we make it.”
“We will,” Elsa said, her iron will stronger than ever. She looked at the stone wall which had formed before her very eyes, watching it just in case the Forest changed its mind, and entrapped them again. Niklas and Humburt brought Kirbleitz to a rock to let him rest.
“OK, what now?” Augustus asked. That was a good question, Elsa thought. She pulled out the spell from her pocket, terrified of the monumental disappointment which awaited her should the spell fail. She looked around the group, at the beautiful twin men Jordan and Augustus, the terrified Niklas, and the injured Kirbleitz. She feared breaking their spirits more than anything, and thinking about the last time she was here at this very spot, she remembered how willing she was to leave the boys behind if it meant saving herself and getting back to Theo in the town. But the thought now made her sick with disgust. Never would she leave these boys, who had done so much to help her. She unwrapped the spell.
“Here goes,” she said to the group, as they waited. Then she turned back to the wall and spoke the first careful lines of the poem:
“In these dark solitudes and awful wells.” Elsa looked up, waiting for a reaction. Nothing. She continued. “Where heavenly-pensive contemplation dwells
And ever-musing melancholy reigns;
What means this tumult in a vestal’s veins?
Why move my thoughts beyond this last retreat?
Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?”
Elsa looked up, checking to see if the Forest had responded in any way. And yet again, nothing. So she continued.
“Dear fatal evil! rest ever unrevealed,
Nor pass these lips in holy silence sealed!
Go now, unclean thoughts, be gone from blood
Leave me, in thought and breast, Clean, Pure, and Good!”
Elsa's heart beat in unison with the other men, who all stood waiting for the wall to crumble into a pile of rubble again, leaving an escape from the Forbidden Forest once more. This was their last hope, dangling on the thinnest of threads. Every passing second expanded into the future, elongating forever into uncertainty. They waited several minutes. Nothing.
Elsa sighed out loud. “Well that's it,” she said. “Now we wait.”
“Wait for what?” Augustus said. “We're stuck here, and now we've got a murderous dragon on our tail. I guess we should just go ahead and join ol' Doc over there, ready to die.”
“Augustus,” Humburt said, embarrassed by his brother's cruelty. But Augustus was fed up. They all were. “What's it going to take? How the fuck will we ever get out of this hell hole?” he asked, into the wind. Elsa shrunk down against the tree trunk behind her, wishing the damn thing would come alive and swallow her hole. Death was a much better alternative to the Forbidden Forest. She thought for a moment about Zamir, and wondered if he was all right. And the strangest thing happened to her--Theo burs
t through her heart and caught her attention again. She remembered the way he smelled, his beautiful smile, his hairless abs. She truly did love him, and looking back at her experience with Zamir, she felt a ting of guilt for what she'd done. She wanted so bad to be his hero, to be all their heroes, but couldn't change the past, couldn't make her mistakes right, and all she got for her efforts was more misery and further descent into sin. The anger that flooded her blood seemed like it would burst through her neck at any moment, so badly did she desire to get a good person again, to regain her righteousness and virtue. She felt a sudden burning sensation in her thigh, as the temperature of the crystal in her pocket grew hot enough to melt skin. She reached into her pocket and threw the crystal on the ground, as it illuminated the area around her. All the shifter boys looked down at the crystal with awe, a symbol of the Forest's spirit made manifest before them.
“Elsa,” Humburt said under his breath, “What's going on?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “Maybe the spell worked.” The red light flickered across all their faces like some haunted and haunting show from a circus.
And with that, the wall before them crumbled into dust, leaving a gaping hole in the Forest, shrouded in darkness on their side, and brightened by sunny daylight on the other. Elsa stepped forward to get a better look, and from her vantage point, she could see the towns in the distance--houses and buildings which looked just like they did when she left them. She leaped with joy, motioning the others to come through the hole in the wall. As soon as she made a first step, however, Niklas screamed from behind him, as the white two-headed serpent striking Doctor Kirbleitz over and over again, on the cheek, on the abdomen, on the leg, everywhere. He was practically covered with holes from its fangs, laying on the ground, shaking uncontrollably as the venom seethed its way through his veins, causing convulsions. Humburt looked back at the scene--the dying Doctor Kirbleitz and Niklas kneeling next to him, crying in grief, as the crystal in Elsa's hand flickered in mighty flashes, sending a strobing effect through the hole scene--and unsheathed his silver sword, to decapitate the serpent. With one fell swoosh, he cut the snakes double-head clean off, sending it flying across the dirt-floored clearing, far into the trees. Humburt tried to grab Niklas. “Let's go, Niklas. There's no time!” he said, shouting above a monstrous roar. Both Niklas and Humburt looked up to see a giant fireball coming their way. Humburt grabbed tiny Nik and covered him with his entire body, ducking under a rock, as the fire blasted its way over them. Even then, over all the noise, Elsa could hear Niklas wailing in pain, not from heat, but from sadness.
“We can't leave them!” she said, crawling back out of the hole in the wall, toward the blazing fire of Dorien's wrath. Augustus grabbed her shoulder.
“I'll go,” he said, pushing her back near the wall. Elsa watched as Augustus' outline disappeared in the flames, and just as he'd left her, he came flying back from the fire. She looked down at her friend.
“What happened?” she asked him.
“Zamir,” he said, pointing across the rock, near the canopy of the trees. Elsa looked up and saw a pair of angry green eyes, which belonged to Zamir, as he jumped from a high branch onto the dragon, tearing the flesh with all his might, before Dorien gobbled up Niklas and Humburt. In an instant, the explosion from the fire sent all of them backwards, with Augustus and Elsa through the hole in the wall, just as it closed up, trapping Zamir, Humburt, and Niklas in the hellish Forest, seemingly forever.
PART FIVE - A NEW LIFE
CHAPTER 47
Once across the line of the forest, Augustus and Elsa looked down at their feet to see the red ivy entwining itself around their ankles, a last ditch effort to hypnotize them back into the forest.
“Elsa, look,” Augustus said, pointing down at his feet. In the time it took her to look down, the ivy had wrapped itself around half her leg. Augustus kicked off the ivy quickly, tearing the vine from his leg frantically. “It's probably poisoned,” he said.
“We should keep moving,” Elsa said, furious that she let Doctor Kirbleitz get killed just to serve her. That thought stood at the forefront of her mind, as Augustus followed her into the town. In his normal fashion, she could tell Augustus had blocked off the fresh grief sitting in the back of his mind, a whirlpool spinning, ready to suck him under the moment he gave into the temptation to feel anything. Elsa's own sadness and confusion pushed itself through her will, as she couldn't figure out what to do about Humburt or Niklas. She also wondered where Zamir was. But they continued walking along the grassy knoll, and it soon became apparent that both Elsa and Augustus were in for a rude awakening.
Elsa looked out on the town she once knew, and it appeared everything was the same. She could see the town hall at the center of the village, and though the building looked dilapidated and worn down, its steeple crown grayish brown instead of pure white, a little worn and weary, the place nevertheless looked more or less the same. But as Augustus followed Elsa into the town, her attention now on the possibility that much more time had passed than she originally believed, he too realized just how much time had passed since he'd last seen normal villages. They both looked around at the wagons, carried by horses, through the center roads.
Then Augustus tripped over himself, and both of them looked down at train tracks. “What the hell is this shit?” he asked, rubbing his hands over the smooth metal of the track ties. He put his ear to the train track, hearing a distant rumble. They continued on through the town, neither of them seeing familiar faces, and Elsa began to get worried.
“We're never going to find him, Augustus.”
“We will don't worry. He's here, I promise. We'll find him, Elsa. Just trust me,” he said, trying to keep up her spirits. They had come too far to stop now before the finish line. Elsa and Augustus continued their sojourn through the town, pointing out areas they used to remember before being sucked into the Forest's temporal vortex. They came upon headstones and were it not for a familiar name that caught Elsa's eye, she never would have taken a second look. The broken cemetery, never maintained by the locals, featured several surprises for Elsa. She approached the first, which read:
HERE LIES ENNIS AND LILI,
LOST IN THE WOODS
BUT FOUND A LONE HERO
1564-1612, MOTHER
1585-1750, SON
“Oh no,” Elsa said, putting her hand to her mouth in shock. She noticed, however, that Ennis lived over 150 years, and wondered whether that had anything to do with his sojourn in the forest. Perhaps, she thought, Theo's name would be nowhere on these headstones. She ran up and down the aisles, reading every inscription, finding several familiar names.
FATHER DANIEL O'GRADY
1533-1600
Then, twin sisters whom Elsa always remembered were up to so much mischief:
CHLOE AND SARAH SPRITES
LOST TOGETHER IN FISHING PRANK GONE WRONG
1574-1594
And, unfortunately, Elsa found her best friend.
R.I.P PRISCILLA POTTS
1570-1650
Oh, the horror, Elsa thought, checking every last gravestone for any sign that Theo was dead. But she couldn't find any. “I just want to make sure,” she told Augustus, as he came to her side, wanting to console her. He rubbed her arm.
“He's not here. I checked them twice. Neither is Freja.”
“What if they didn't make him a gravestone? What if they just dumped him in the river?”
“Elsa, he's alive,” Augustus said, taking her face in his own. But then the lavish whistle of an incoming train caught their attention, and both Elsa and Augustus watched as the train roared through the center of town. Witnessing this mechanical marvel did more to shock and awe them than anything magical they saw in the Forbidden Forest. Both of them stood, their mouths agape, at the bypassing train.
“Augustus, what world have we returned to?” Elsa asked.
“I don't know. I just don't know,” he said, shaking his head. They decided to take a rest to collect t
heir thoughts in a tavern. For Elsa, it seemed like over three hundred years has passed since she entered the forest, and she despaired whether she would ever be able to see Theo again. In her mind she held off the possibility that she should just fall back into the clutches of the forest, and spend eternity with Zamir. They might have a happy life, full of tumult and fights, but she would at least have something resembling a love life, especially now that her old life and town full of people was now gone. Augustus and Elsa made plans to head to Freja's old worn out cottage to see what was left. On their way there, they came across various people Elsa had never met. All the old she knew and loved were all gone. Priscilla, Sarah, and Chloe, Father O'Grady--all dead and buried. She was overcome with grief for losing all her friends, yes, but even more, she grieved because everything she feared would happened that came to pass. Her life was gone, forever changed, and she was alone, with no home to call her own. By the time she got to Freja's old cottage on the outskirts of town, Augustus noted her reflection. They both realized her transformation was nearly complete. She broke down crying, fearing she would be stuck in Freja's skin forever. What would the local townspeople say? As the townspeople began noticing Elsa's broken state of mind, Augustus made a point of hiding her in a tavern. They waited in the tavern for several hours as Elsa heaved and sobbed, unwilling to take more steps to finding Freja. Augustus reminded her that almost everyone she knew in her old life had headstones in the cemetery, except for Theo and Freja. That meant they be alive. With this knowledge, she became a little more positive.
Augustus looked at Elsa from the twinkle in his eyes, and she realized that he spent all this time making her feel comfortable and safe, when he himself was probably terrified of the new world he found himself in, not to mention how he would ever get Niklas and his brother back from the forest.