by Aaron Gansky
“Just football. We went to church in Miami. Had a nice church family and all, but haven’t found one up here that’s right for us.” She sighed.
Bailey had hoped being in the house would help her think of questions she might ask. Maybe she’d notice something that would magically point a finger to where the four had gone. But she didn’t see anything—nothing the police didn’t already photograph as evidence last night.
But there was something about the pictures and the chess set. She’d just noticed it now, sitting on the kitchen counter, halfway through a game. The pieces looked like they’d been hand-carved from different types of wood. One side was an army of elves, the other humans.
Bailey tilted her head back and stared up at the ceiling. Something, some clue, some indicator to crack the case, hovered vaporously just out of reach. It was like having an itch in the middle of her back, a constant reminder she couldn’t find relief.
She needed to go home. She stood up. “I’m going to make a call real quick,” she said. She walked back to the den and dialed her home phone number. Her mom picked up on the second ring.
“Mom? This is Bailey. I’m really sorry. I know what you said, but do you think you’d let me come home now? I can bring us some dinner.”
She didn’t answer immediately. After a long pause, she said, “If you ever try a stunt like that again, Bailey Renee …”
“I won’t, Mom. Trust me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
And the agent of Adonai’s creation brought forth the rivers and the seas, separated the land from the water, placed birds in the air, and moles in the dirt, fish in the sea, and trees in the fields. The strength of Adonai’s agent established the very suns and the stars and the moon.
—The Book of the Ancients
WHEN LAUREN’S STRENGTH RETURNED enough for her to sit and stand on her own, Ullwen dragged Oliver toward the center chamber. The way Ullwen sneered at Oliver made her wonder if Oliver would come out of the conversation with all of his limbs and fingers intact.
Aiden said, “They’ll be fine. They want to talk about where to go from here.”
“How about home?” she said.
Aiden laughed, and for once, sounded like he had in North Chester. “Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
Lauren shrugged. “If you asked me a couple hours ago, I’d have said no. But now …”
Aiden sat next to her. “When I was a kid, my dad used to play a game with me. If I got irritated or upset, he’d ask me what my favorite part of the day was. Kind of helped me focus on the good things, instead of the bad. Sounds corny, but it helps.”
“Not corny at all,” Lauren said.
“It is a little,” Erica said.
Aiden grinned. “So, what is your favorite part of this little journey of ours? Or, if you prefer, what’s the thing you miss most about home? The good stuff.”
Lauren pulled her knees up to her chest. She rested her chin on her knees, closed her eyes, and thought hard to remember something good about her home, her family in North Chester. Nothing came to mind immediately.
“I never really liked North Chester,” Aiden said, his voice a little sad. “I didn’t want to leave Miami. I hated Minnesota when I got there.”
“Is that why you got in that fight?” Erica asked.
Lauren had almost forgotten about the fight, about Aiden getting suspended early in the year. He had that bad-kid vibe early on, which only made him hotter.
Aiden shrugged. “More to it than that, but yeah. Anyway, now that I think back on it, I guess there are good things about North Chester.” He looked to Lauren and smiled. “I miss college football with my dad on Saturday mornings,” Aiden said. He sat next to Lauren, clinking and clanking with each movement. “We have this whole routine. We get up a bit early, make ourselves a big breakfast—the greasier, the better—pop some corn and put our feet up. We watch all morning and afternoon. All my chores and housework get put off until Sunday. Even if my mom grounds me for grades or whatever, he still lets me watch.” His voice softened, and he rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, stared off at the wall. “He’s a good dad.”
“Sounds nice,” Lauren said, and remembered her weekends filled with chores and homework. If she was really lucky, she got to drive Bailey Renee and her friends down to the mall.
“And chess,” Aiden said. “My dad carved this chess set. Fantasy themes. Elves vs. humans. He’s always the humans. Makes me be the elves, but that’s cool. We’ll play a game over a few days. One move at a time. I like it.”
“Coffee.” Erica leaned against the wall and held her hurt shoulder. She spoke softly. “I don’t really have a dad, but my mom used to be cool. Used to leave me her leftover coffee in the fridge for when I got home from school.”
Lauren wrinkled her nose. The thought of coffee made her stomach sick. Always had. Still, it never stopped her mom from compulsively brewing pot after pot. She even had to clean it every day after school. She sighed.
“Used to?” Aiden asked.
Erica was quiet for a minute. “She’s worried about other things now.”
Lauren considered asking what that meant, but Erica’s tone warned her it was a bad idea, so she let it drop.
“So,” Aiden prodded.
Lauren shrugged. “My sister, Bailey Renee, is kinda cool, I guess. She’s way too popular for me, and I have to drive her around everywhere, but we have some good talks in the car before her friends get in. I sit at the mall and read for a few hours while they walk around. Those are the good Saturdays.”
Aiden smiled. “See? Not that hard.”
“What about your dress?” Erica said. “It’s gorgeous. You get to prance around like a magical princess. That’s gotta be pretty awesome.”
Lauren smiled. “It doesn’t suck.”
She thought of the way Aiden looked at her when she froze the handle on Erica’s room, and the way he sounded jealous when Ullwen showed up. Those times might be her favorites. But she dared not say so. Not here, not now.
Ullwen and Oliver stomped back. The padded skins of their shoes muted their footsteps, made them little more than soft slaps on the rock floor. Ullwen said, “We have an understanding.”
Oliver nodded. “I’ll be completely honest about all dangers that may or may not face us in the challenging days to come.”
Lauren grinned. A well-scripted answer. She imagined Ullwen telling Oliver off at arrow point. If he did, it served Oliver right.
“No offense, bro, but how about I go with Lauren this time?” Aiden said.
“We will all proceed together. When we reach the switches, we’ll devise a way to keep it levered open. From there, we’ll move on to the east passage, which should be a little easier of a trek, and secure the second switch. We camp back here in the central chamber, where it’s safe. Tomorrow morning, we’ll journey to Margwar for the book.”
Oliver asked Lauren, “Do you want to come, or do you want to wait here?”
Lauren didn’t want to go, but she definitely didn’t want to be left alone. “I’m fine,” she said, conjuring a small flame in the palm of her hand as evidence. She smiled to further sell her consent, though she feared they’d easily see through the half-hearted grin.
Oliver plunged his hands into the sleeves of his robe. “The nar’esh hate fire. Their eyes are adjusted to the darkness of the caves, so any light hurts them and puts them at a huge disadvantage. Between your fire and the torch, we should be able to hold our own and give them a run for their money.”
“The nar’esh have no money,” Ullwen said.
“Is everyone in Alrujah as thick as him?” Erica asked with a sideways smile.
“You mean my broad chest, no doubt,” Ullwen said.
“Oh, no doubt for sure.”
“I don’t think he’s picking up on your sarcasm,” Aiden said.
Oliver said, “Let’s go. The sooner this is over, the better.”
Lauren agreed. She cupped both her hands together, squin
ted her eyes tight, then opened her hands with a flame in each. The more she used her magic, the easier it became to control. Nice, yes, but she had a long way to go before she became an expert. She fought to bury her insecurity and move forward with the same boldness and confidence as Aiden, as Ullwen.
Oliver, torch firm in his left hand, staff firm in the right, led the group. Ullwen and Aiden each took a side of Lauren to protect her from any surprise attacks. Erica brought up the end of the group, a torch firm in her hand, her tongue clacking and clicking in her mouth.
Lauren tried to ignore the annoying sounds, but they echoed off the walls. “Think you could maybe not make that noise?”
Erica shrugged. “Whatever you say, princess.”
They passed the bodies of the nar’esh Ullwen had slain, stepped over them like they were sleeping cats. Staring at them for the first time, Lauren gaped at their abnormally large black eyes, which took up most of their faces. The rest was a tiny mouth stretched thin. They had no noses, and their bat-like ears, thin as skin, sloped up to points. The small light of the torch shone through the thin membranes and illuminated the blood vessels. Her stomach soured, and she quickened her step.
The nar’esh shrieked from the darkness beyond Oliver’s torchlight. He slowed.
“More?” Erica whispered.
“Sounds like it,” Oliver said. “Hard to tell exactly where they are. The echoes bounce off the walls. Makes ten nar’esh sound like one hundred.”
Erica said, “When we get home, remind me to slap you.”
“I’ll slap myself.” He stopped. “There.”
Lauren swallowed hard. She struggled to keep the flames steady in her hand. She concentrated on the light it brought. With inhuman strength, she fought to harness her fear and turn it into something stronger, something like magic.
“They’re behind us, too,” Aiden said, his bloody sword held straight up-and-down.
Lauren took a few breaths and tried to make herself hot inside, but, try as she might, her fear ran cold, from her heart to her lungs to her limbs. The fire flickered.
“Keep steady,” Oliver said. “We need light. We need your fire. We need you.”
“I can’t,” she said.
Erica spun around and stared hard at Lauren through the waning light of Lauren’s fire. “You are such a whiner. No one wanted me to say anything, but we’re all getting a little sick of your complaining.” Unlike Oliver, Erica had given up on whispering.
Shock usurped the fear in Lauren’s face, and her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
Erica pointed her finger in Lauren’s chest. “You heard me, princess. You’re a dainty little flower, aren’t you? And you like it. You play the damsel in distress so perfectly.”
“Lakia,” Ullwen whispered harshly. “Hold your tongue.”
“I’ll not hold my tongue until little miss princess hears what we have to say.”
Lauren shot long past shock and well into rage. The fire burned hot in her hands. She wanted to incinerate Erica, to use her as a human torch. How dare Erica accuse her of being a whiner? She just died! Lauren seethed. “You wretched little …”
“We’ve got bigger problems,” Oliver said.
Something moved above her. Nar’esh. Without thinking, she threw her hands over her head, and the fire she had cupped in her palms exploded into a pillar of flame that spread out over the ceiling, licking at crevices in the rock like rain slipping through a storm drain. Three nar’esh fell in flames and crashed around the group.
Four nar’esh in front of Oliver shielded their grotesquely large eyes. Oliver waved the torch at them, and Erica shrieked for the bats to join the fray from the outlying chambers.
A black cloud poured over them. The still air became a torrent of beating wings. The nar’esh shrieked and pawed at the bats.
Sparky leapt from his spot by Erica’s side and took a nar’esh by the throat. It staggered back and grabbed at the wolf. Sparky released the beast and stumbled along the floor, then lay down, his chest heaving in quick, ragged gasps. The nar’esh collapsed.
Ullwen put three arrows in the back of the nar’esh for good measure. Aiden busied himself separating the nar’esh from their limbs and heads.
Lauren’s stomach ached from the sour stench of nar’esh blood and nar’esh flambé. She harnessed the fire within her, glowing hot behind her eyes. Her veins burned like crevices of a volcano, directing flows of magma toward the sea.
She must have leveled up. Beautiful, Oliver.
Targeting the remaining three nar’esh, the ones nearest Sparky, she loosed another column of heat and flame. They recoiled, collapsed, and burned quickly. The fire extinguished itself, and Oliver rushed to Sparky. He smeared the mushroom-blood paste on the sores that ate at the wolf’s skin, held his amulet, and repeated the ancient prayer that restored Lauren.
“Will he be alright?” Erica asked, dropping to her knees next to the oversized canine. She put her hand on Sparky’s face.
Whiner, Lauren thought, but she had enough decency not to say it out loud.
“He’ll be fine,” Ullwen said. “Vicmorn worked a much greater miracle with Indigo. This should present little challenge.”
When Ullwen had finished his statement, Sparky’s breath slowed, and his eyes opened.
Erica wrapped her arms around Sparky and smiled. “Too close,” she said, as the last of the bats emptied from the cave.
Oliver nodded further down the passage. “Shouldn’t be much longer.” To Lauren, “Fancy magic work. Remind me never to make you angry at me.”
Lauren blushed. “You mean again?”
“Yes, again. If you go first, you might be able to clear out our passages, and keep the nar’esh at bay. With fire like that, we may not even have to fight them again.”
“It’s worth a shot,” she said, but she doubted she had the strength. Using so much magic left her tired, and her whole body ached. She must have overdone it after the first initial surge of power. But she wouldn’t whine, not after Erica’s tirade. Lauren glared at Erica and hated her a little bit more—for being so snobbish, for taking Oliver’s attention away, for being the funny one.
But then, Erica said something Lauren never would have imagined. “You alright?”
“Fine,” Lauren said, confused at her concern, but still irritated. “Wouldn’t want to whine or anything.”
Erica held her wounded arm. Sparky walked around her ankles. “You know I didn’t mean that.” Lauren wondered why Erica didn’t sound defensive. “I said it to get you all fired up. Pun intended.”
Aiden groaned. “Terrible.”
“These are the jokes, people.”
Lauren didn’t care why Erica had done it. Only that she had. “Easy to say now.”
Oliver stopped as the passage came to an abrupt end. “This is it,” he said. “There’s a switch right around here somewhere.”
Lauren sighed. She focused on the fire still cupped in her palms and made it grow to basketball size. She didn’t feel right. Maintaining the fire through the passageway and battling the nar’esh had drained what little energy she had.
“Got it,” Oliver said. “Erica, let me have a dagger.”
Erica handed him the small straight blade, keeping the curved in its sheath.
He pushed on a slightly protruding rock. It clicked, and he tried unsuccessfully to wedge the dagger in to hold the switch down. “The dagger’s too big,” he conceded.
Lauren’s energy drained fast. A chill slithered over her, like a cloud coming over the suns and blotting out the warmth on her skin. But the torches only gave marginal light. They needed her ball of fire to see the crevice in the switch. The torches had burned through most of their fuel and had darkened over the last few hours.
“Try an arrow,” Ullwen said. “The tip should be smaller than a blade.”
Oliver took it and tried again, unsuccessfully, to wedge it in.
Aiden moved forward. “Let me give it a shot.” He took the dagger, raised
it to his ear, and sunk it a quarter inch deep into the tiny space between the wall and the switch.
“Okay, that was impressive,” Erica said.
The last of Lauren’s power slipped from her fingers. Her flame went out, and she sat down. She didn’t want to cry, but the tears paid no attention and came anyway. It took what little strength she had left not to start sobbing. She would have to be content to sit quietly and cry in the dark.
Oliver spun around with the dwindling torch. “Lauren. What’s wrong?”
Lauren lacked the strength and the ability to say exactly what bothered her. She was so very tired. “Need a little break.” She tried to say this assertively, in hopes she’d dissuade anyone from overreacting, but her words came out in a hushed whisper, like a sensitive secret around overactive ears.
“Her magic resource must be exhausted,” Oliver said. He waved the torch in front of her face. “You look pale.”
Mercifully, he didn’t mention her tears. “I’ll be fine in a minute,” she said breathlessly.
“I have something that may help,” Ullwen said. He pulled a small wineskin from his tunic.
As Oliver moved the torch toward Ullwen, Lauren took the momentary darkness as an opportunity to wipe the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her dress.
“Drink this,” Ullwen said. He bent close to Lauren and put his hand on her cheek. “This will help.”
Even if he did smell like dead nar’esh, his touch was soft and warming. She uncorked the wineskin and drank its contents. The cough-syrup thick liquid tasted like orange juice.
“Sap from the harspus tree,” Ullwen said.
Oliver nodded. “Of course. It replenishes your magic reserves.”
Lauren had forgotten the limits of her magic supply. She would have remembered if she had used more magic before battling the nar’esh, but she’d had little need to use much magic beyond the encounters with the beresus and the fangands.
The warm harspus sap coated her throat. The sweetness reminded her of when she was eight and had strep throat. She had to take penicillin for a few days. Each night, before bed, her mother would give her the syrupy medicine and kiss her forehead. Then, her mother would sing her to sleep. She heard her mother’s voice again—wretchedly off-key, but Lauren had never cared. Two years later, her mom went back to work and forgot about her.