Sir Thistlewhip called, “With which we can play tricks on mortals, Sir Eglantine!”
At this, the high, sweet voices all laughed together, a sound as melodious and as eerie as a Wagnerian chorus.
“Let us trade them to Big-Ugly in the cove for sparkles!” cried Sir Rosethorn.
“No good! No good!” cried Sir Thistlewhip. “That one will as soon as eat us! Our weapons, so sharp and fierce, mean nothing to it! That one only fears the lightning-throwers!”
“Let us spirit the giantesses away, comrades-at-arms!” cried Sir Rosethorn. “So far that no mortal will ever regain them!”
The voice of Sir Eglantine replied, “Yes! They shall not find them, not unless they have in hand the star from the crown of the First of Kings, stolen nigh these two hundred years from our Heer!”
“Let us punish these children for the crime of those!”
“Charge!”
Rachel found herself beset on all sides. She twisted and swatted, to no avail.
“Ow!” Astrid cried. “They’re poking me. They’re everywhere! Mean little buggers!”
A flash of lightning illuminated the forest. Tiny knights with dragonfly wings and lances tipped with thorns surrounded the girls, hovering amidst the twirling snowflakes. They wore armor of bark and helmets made from acorn caps. Their faces were fierce and fey.
Then it was dark again.
Rachel waved her hands around but could not catch a single one.
“Oh! I can’t see them!” cried Rachel. “I can’t paralyze them if I can’t see them.”
“Ow!” cried Astrid again, frightened.
Rachel kept up a brave front for Astrid’s sake, but she was frightened. It was tremendously disorienting to be surrounded by tiny sharp things she could not see. She kept fearing they would stab her in the eye or cause her to trip or just keep them from reaching safety until the two girls froze to death. Her breath caught in her throat.
“What would we do at home?” she murmured, her voice warbling. Then, suddenly, she laughed, “Silly me.”
“Silly…Why?” Astrid’s gentle voice was tinged with hope. “You know what to do?”
Reaching into her coat pocket, Rachel pulled out the two small bottles left in her pockets from the Yule holiday and put one into Astrid’s hand. “Here. Spray them.”
The swish of spray bottle pumps sounded in the darkness.
“Och! I am slain!” cried Sir Thistlewhip, though he sounded perfectly hale.
“Flee, flee!” cried Sir Rosethorn, “before the putrid miasma bears down the rest of us!”
“But what of the delicacies!” inquired Sir Eglantine. “The strapping giantesses?”
“Flee! Flee, I say!”
With buzzing and high, sweet cries of knightly woe, the pixies fled into the snowy night.
“And good riddance!” Astrid shouted into the darkness. Then, she grew quiet and ducked her head, as if startled by her own show of pluck. After a moment, however, she sniffed the cold air. “Smells like…” she breathed more deeply, “lavender?”
“Lavender is useful for many things,” Rachel replied gaily, giving the little bottle of Bogey Away an extra squirt before she returned it to her pocket. She, too, breathed in the mingled scent of lavender and snow. “The First of Kings? I wonder who they meant.”
“Do you think maybe they meant the one we learned about in True History, King Alilum of Sumer?” mused Astrid. “And who were the ‘other children?’”
“Other children?” Rachel started.
Astrid hesitated, as if suddenly uncertain of herself. Her teeth chattered a little “They s-said something was s-stolen nearly t-two hundred years ago, and that ‘these children’—meaning us—should pay the price for the others. I assume they meant the thieves.”
“Oh! They did, indeed. Good catch, Astrid! You’re quite sharp!”
“Thanks,” Astrid sounded embarrassed but sweetly pleased.
“We could use someone like you in the Die Horribly Debate Club,” mused Rachel. It occurred to her that she had just heard Astrid speak outside of class more in the last fifteen minutes than in the whole rest of the school year put together.
“I-I…don’t think the princess wants me there.” Astrid ducked her head again.
“Nastasia?” Rachel asked, surprised. “If it were up to her, everyone would be a member! If she seems standoffish, it’s because she’s so annoyed not to be able to share information with everyone. But…it’s dangerous, some of what we do.”
“Like falling out of dreamland in T-transylvania?” Astrid gave a mock shudder. “No thanks! I’m m-more of an R&D person, anyway.”
“R&D?” asked Rachel, puzzled.
“Research and D-development.”
“Ooh! Science stuff. Like Gaius and William.” Rachel cried enthusiastically. “You were an intern at O.I. last summer, weren’t you?”
“Y-yes.” Astrid’s teeth chattered audibly now.
“Oh! I am so sorry! You’re cold!” Rachel turned back toward the bright central area where the wisp lanterns hung above the ice. “Oops.”
“Oops…what?” Astrid asked nervously.
“I’m…turned around. I—don’t know where we are.”
“Can’t we just move toward the bright spot?”
Rachel wet her lips, which only made them feel more chapped. There was no way to explain the problem to Astrid—that she no longer knew where the stumps, fallen trunks, and low branches were—without revealing the secret of her perfect memory. This hardly seemed the time for that. Rachel blinked in the darkness, hoping to recognize a shape, a branch or tree. Near at hand, however, the only object her eyes could distinguish was a single, lone, blue wisp.
Astrid must have been looking at the same twinkle. She sighed wistfully. “It’s a shame neither of us brought an instrument. We could play that song we had to perform back in October for our first quarter review. The one that summoned wisps.”
“What a good idea,” Rachel blinked in the darkness. “I wonder…”
Using her mother’s technique, she made her entire face as still as a mask. Then, keeping her features as motionless as possible, Rachel began to whistle the tune they had practiced in class. The piece was much longer than the short three notes of the hexes she normally whistled. Her first two tries, she lost control of the magic. Miniscule indigo summoning sparks ignited in the darkness, fizzled, and vanished again. Rachel’s lips and cheeks buzzed and tickled. It felt both strange and uncomfortable. But she hated to give up.
Rachel pulled out the lavender lip balm from her pocket and moistened her lips. Then, closing her eyes, she tried again, more slowly. Twinkling, bright points shown through her eyelids, and the smell of apples filled the air.
There! Astrid gasped in awe. Into the silence of the night came a soft, nigh-inaudible sound. It grew louder until it became the whisper-hum of wisps. Rachel opened one eye.
Tiny points of wisp light—blue, violet, lilac, and gold-white—danced around the girls. The wisps circled their heads like a twinkling mobile, illuminating the darkness and the falling snow with their colorful glow. Rachel moved her hands; the little sparkles moved with them.
It was utterly beautiful, as if the stars had come down to earth to bow and dance. Spreading her arms, Rachel threw back her head and twirled on her blades, laughing with joy. Astrid could not twirl. She held firmly to a hemlock branch. Yet her face, too, was filled with wonder, blues and purples playing over her features.
With a cry of delight, Astrid exclaimed, “This must be how the planet Jupiter feels, surrounded by its moons!”
Basking in the radiance of their personal galaxies of whirling wisps, the two girls moved forward. Rachel skated, pulling Astrid behind her. Skating to the whisper-song of the wisps, they eventually came to the edge of the ice.
“Let’s see if you can step on your foot now,” Rachel suggested.
Astrid gazed at the snowy bank. “I-I guess I take off my skates and walk in my socks?”
“Not at all,” insisted Rachel. “Just walk on your blades.”
“But…there’s no ice.”
“Just walk normally. Like this.” After helping Astrid to hold onto a tree, Rachel stepped carefully off the ice and then stomped around, demonstrating. “Just make sure you place your foot straight down each time, and you’ll be fine.”
“Really?” Quite hesitantly, Astrid tried stepping from the ice onto the snowy bank. “Hey! That’s easy! Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that you could do this in skates?”
“Don’t know,” Rachel laughed. “How’s your foot?”
“Smarts, but it’s not as bad as it was. I think I can hobble.”
Another lightning flash illuminated the snowy scene. Astrid let out a soft squeak and grasped the oak key that now hung around her neck.
“Hallo? Someone there?” Ivan Romanov’s voice floated out of the darkness.
“Yes!” Rachel called out. “Over here!”
“What do we have here?” Ivan came forward, a ball of lux light hovering at his shoulder. He had traded his skates for high leather boots with gum soles and moved confidently across the snow-covered landscape. He stopped, however, as if startled. Or, perhaps, he was charmed by the sight of two young women surrounded by will-o-wisps—an aura of gold-white, violet, blue, and lilac dancing around them. For he stood gawking, his mouth open. “Are you…human? Or…”
“Quite human.” Rachel fought not to laugh.
He stepped forward, grinning his princely grin. “Hallo, Rachel and…Anghared? Agnes?”
It took Rachel a moment to grasp that he did not remember her roommate’s name.
“Astrid. Astrid Hollywell,” she replied dryly. “Your sister’s roommate?”
“Yes, of course. Sorry, Astrid.” He flashed her a good-natured smile. “What seems to be the trouble? Leg hurts?”
“I fell,” Astrid said sheepishly. “I-I hurt my ankle.”
“Cold, too, by the sound of it. No worries. Let me give you a hand, shall we?” he asked.
Bending, Ivan lifted Astrid and carried her across the snow, striding as easily as if his arms were not filled with a tall fourteen-year-old girl. In just a few steps, he was more than ten feet ahead of Rachel, who had to place each skate carefully to walk.
“Coming, Mini Griffin?” he called over his shoulder.
“Um. Yes, but I think I’ll skate,” Rachel called back. “Faster that way.”
Returning to the ice, she skated backward, waving until they were out of sight.
Chapter Thirty-Six:
Wilis at the Water’s Edge
“Yoohoo!” Joy O’Keefe’s voice came over the calling card in Rachel’s pocket. “Does anyone know how to get rid of Wilis?”
Rachel, who was a mere hundred feet from the crackling, sparkler-like edge of the sacred ring, slowed down. Wisps twinkled around her like multi-colored stars. Their familiar whisper-song made the darkness more comforting.
Wrestling her card out of her pocket, she spoke into it. “Wilis? Don’t they mostly bother boys? You should be all right, so long as you aren’t heartbroken.”
“They have surrounded Mr. Smith. At least two dozen,” the princess’s voice replied. She sounded urgent. “And I am afraid he’s starting to dance. No, maybe he’s trying to stomp on their feet. Either way, do you recall how to stop them? I know we covered repelling them in Music, but I didn’t bring my sheet music.”
“Griffin, you’re the walking encyclopedia!” Valerie’s voice joined Nastasia’s. “Siggy tried his trumpet and some cantrips, but they won’t go away. Was it salt? Hot pepper? Either way, I don’t have it on me.”
As she listened to the calling card, Rachel turned around in the freezing darkness, hugging her coat close and tried listening for Valerie’s voice out there in the darkness. She could hear distant, eerie, ethereal music, the Ginger Snaps playing their enchantment, the crackle of the sacred barrier, shouts, cantrips, and the yaps and squeals of familiars, but not Valerie. Wherever the others were, they were out of voice range.
An eerie chill scampered up her spine. The ogre! Sigfried had gone searching for the ogre. Rachel was certain of this. He had headed off in to the darkness, taking the other girls with him—or they had insisted on tagging along. He must have headed north and, thus, run into the Wilis William had mentioned. But if Siggy located the man-eating brute, what could he possibly do to stop it? Of course, mere practicalities such as this had never stopped Sigfried.
“How about Lucky?” Rachel asked aloud, “Aren’t they afraid of him? He seems to be able to burn supernatural things.”
“Lucky is not currently available,” quipped Valerie.
“Um…Okay. You said no salt, right? Doesn’t Nastasia have any in her purse-house?”
“No good,” came Valerie’s reply. “Siggy already dumped all of it to stop a thing moving in the dark. Only, it turned out to be someone’s familiar.”
“Oops.” Rachel paused, absentmindedly waving her mitten through the air, watching the swirl of dancing blue and violet and occasional gold-white—as the wisps followed her hands.
In Music class, they had studied a song to dispel Wilis, but it was long—much longer than the wisp song that had been so hard for her to whistle—and no one she knew in their class had mastered it. However, they had also covered Wilis in Math.
“Running water!” she cried. “They can’t cross running water without a special bridge.”
“It’s February, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Valerie replied dryly. “We don’t exactly have a surplus of running water!”
“Yes we do!” Rachel silently thanked Vlad. “You’re to the north, right? Just head south. The creek is still running under the ice. That should do it.”
“Okaaay.” Valerie sounded dubious, but Rachel could hear her calling to Siggy to back up, and the princess’s voice murmuring, “Oh, running water. Very wise.”
Joy’s voice came again. “Hey, Griffin, how’d you know we’re to the north?”
Rachel shrugged. “You’re with Siggy. Where else would Sigfried the Dragonslayer head but toward the trouble?”
• • •
Putting her card away, Rachel hurried northward, hoping to find them. The eerie feeling that had sent a shiver creeping down her spine remained with her. The feeling slowly grew into a sense of foreboding. Something bad was going to happen if her friends stayed out in the darkness. She felt sure of this. She had to get them back to the safety of the proctors before Sigfried found the invulnerable monster.
She reached the northernmost edge of the ice without encountering anyone. Farther east, she could still hear the faint roar of the waterfall. Heading west, she skated along the edge, searching for her friends—until she recalled that the woods were full of rogue fey. Then she darted southward, moving close to the outer edge of the Ginger Snaps’ sacred circle.
The snow was still falling. White flakes danced amidst the golden sparkles of the circle. Her blades left a trail in the white powder coating the ice. As she skated, she veered northward again, hoping to avoid the notice of the proctors. Away from the bright lights of the center, the glow of her entourage of twinkling wisps illuminated the darkness. They glistened beneath her, blue, lilac, and gold-white reflecting off icy patches and, more mutedly, off the snow.
Overhead, lightning flashed, temporarily brightening the landscape. Another white flash, this one vertical, indicated that Dread’s fight against the Heer had moved to the east. Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. She quickly looked away. It was too nerve-racking to watch him fall, but she smiled, impressed by his valor.
Where was Gaius? Facing lightning imps? Ogres? She wanted to call him but felt she should not, in case he was in a dangerous situation. She did not want to distract him at a crucial moment. Still, it made her just the tiniest bit sad that he had not taken a moment to check on her.
Through the trees came an eerie, pale glow. It was precisely the same glow as the white gowns of the Wilis that she had seen on A
ll Hallows’ Eve. Then came the blare of Siggy’s trumpet. Coming around a clump of hemlocks, Rachel saw them: tall, veiled women in white, flowing, phosphorescent gowns. Some had sickly, unpleasant, green flames hovering over their outstretched palms. The ghostly women had paused at a random spot on the ice and seemed to be unwilling to go farther, as if restrained by some invisible wall. They reached out with their long arms, beckoning and calling to the handsome Sigfried.
Rachel circled south, until she was on the far side of the invisible wall, no doubt marking where the creek ran beneath the ice. Soon, through the dark trunks, she caught sight of a ball of lux-light hovering over the princess’s shoulder. Sigfried, Joy, Nastasia, and Valerie stood on the ice, facing the Wilis. Payback growled beside Valerie, who had a tight grip on the elkhound’s collar. Relieved to have reached them, Rachel darted toward her friends.
“What’s that?” gasped Joy, pointing in Rachel’s direction.
Rachel glanced over her shoulder but saw nothing unusual in the darkness behind her.
“Fey or ae?” called Nastasia.
“I think that’s Rachel,” said Valerie, shading her eyes. “Do you realize you’re sparkling? Tell the truth now, you’re really a fairy duchess, not an English one, aren’t you?”
“I’m not a duchess, just the daughter of one,” Rachel replied cheerfully. “And these are wisps.”
Catching on immediately, the princess clapped her hands with delight. “You played the song! The one we practiced in Music!”
“Yes, exactly.”
The two girls smiled at each other, happily.
“Our magic doesn’t work on these wily women,” Sigfried scowled, glaring at the pale women. “What good is magic if it doesn’t work against bad things?”
“You tried the song for repelling Unseelie?”
“What? That thing? It goes on forever! Who has time to learn all that?”
“People who want to live,” Rachel replied dryly. “Did you try a Glepnir band? They’re supposed to be useful against the supernatural.”
“Oh. Didn’t think of that.” Sigfried raised his hands and performed the cantrip. “Argos!”
The Awful Truth About Forgetting (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 4) Page 41