“Yeah, chemicals from grabby little hands.” I snorted, trying to get a grip on myself. “At least I don't need to put them back on again.”
That stung worse than I thought it would and brought the pinch of tears to my eyes. All at once, Mordon was staring at me with a concerned furrow between his brows. Thank goodness he knew the truth, all of the truth, but the last thing I wanted him to do was say something that would make the others want to know. I blinked twice to chase away the tears and proceeded to dive into the various drawers; anything to avoid having to look at him again.
Something dark and shiny caught my attention against the back of the drawer. “Why, hello,” I said to the all-black envelope. “How did they miss you?”
Oh, yes. I never thought I’d be so happy to see his telltale stationery and face whatever terrible thing he’d written inside it. It was the perfect distraction to keep from going into a sleep-deprived baby-missing meltdown.
“What is it?” Lilly asked.
Mordon recognized the iridescent sheen, the ink made of light reflecting on the address. “A letter from Death.”
Outside, we could hear very clearly a whippoorwill singing as I inspected the letter. It slid out of its envelope, a glistening letter with its hard-to-read ink that revealed itself when tipped at the perfect angle.
“Feraline Swift, I regret to leave you hospitality so soon and with so little explanation, but I will tell you what I can.
“Unfortunately, I am as mortal as any person. My body is that of the last man whose soul I ferried to the world of the dead. I can still perform my duties, and so I must. If I do not remove the dead from this world, they will remain to haunt the living. This would be bad. Should I be captured or killed, I will not be able to perform my duties. Both must be prevented.
“There is a ritual which will return me to my proper place, unbound to a physical body. It was once called the Broken Feather Rite, performed for mystics and seers. Now it is amongst the magic which was lost upon the falling of the Veil. Find it. Before the date stipulated, if at all possible. -Death.”
Well, thank you Mr. Death, a mysterious ritual to investigate and perform before your little date ends up killing who knows how many people. I’d bet that no one knew offhand how to perform the rite, either, or that it would take me on quests all over the world with its strange requirements. I turned the page over in my hand to make sure nothing else was written on it. Nope. I was on my own with my coven again.
The page Death had written upon began to lighten, the words disappeared with the next glint of light. This was another staple feature of Death’s stationery. Should I ever end up holding a letter by the end of reading it, I would know it wasn’t actually his. The page fell apart into crow feathers, leaving behind one of my old appointment cards that had come as a sample in the mail.
Date & Time: November 11 at Noon
Venue: White Poppy Square
Purpose: Death's Party
Notes: Come early, come prepared. Or I will be very busy indeed.
Lilly spoke first, “Fera? Does that mean that prisoner was Death? We saved Death?”
“Yes,” I said, still feeling a little surprised myself.
“I don't know how I feel about that. Maybe we'd be better off if he...you know, if he died.”
I faced her for a moment. Not that her comment should have been out of the ordinary, indeed, many people would wonder the exact same thing. I wasn’t sure that keeping him alive was the best thing. All I knew was that deep down, I had to do everything I could for him. What hurt was to stare into her eyes and wonder if I would be on my task alone.
The others were in silent agreement with her, their heads bowed slightly as they avoided my gaze. No doubt they were thinking of all the people they'd lost. It made my blood heat to have them so oblivious as though none of them had heard the letter.
“Death doesn't kill. He's a glorified taxi service. Getting rid of him won't spare anyone.”
Leif said quietly, “If that is true, then why was he trapped in a body and deliberately captured?”
“Probably because we all think that he's a grim reaper out to snatch away loved ones.”
“You're giving his word a lot of credibility,” Leif said. “He may be lying.”
“Sure, he may be. I think he's telling the truth, though.”
“Why?”
Why? That was a good question. I couldn’t put my finger on an exact answer, other than I knew that Death had no reason to lie to me. He’d been doing his work for who knows how long, and there had to be a reason behind that.
The feathers rustled in my hands, all stiff and now-dusty, already beginning to age and decompose. “Because he doesn't have very many friends.”
A pause as my words hit home.
Leif nodded. “I don’t like it, but I think you’re right. We’ll do what we can, but you have to be careful. Listen to me. Avoid the market. Live with Mordon for a time, and for pity’s sake, get some rest. You’re ready to fall over.”
“Don’t you want to know what we’re going to do?”
Leif answered me with crossed arms. “I think you need to take the day and sleep. The rest of it can wait until later.”
“That’s your condition for helping me, huh? Make me zonk out?”
“My condition is that you be in a condition to not make grievous mistakes which can and will endanger others.”
I knew he was right in his request, but I didn’t want to accept it when there was so much to do and so little time to do it in.
“Fera.” Leif reached for his wand pocket, didn’t take it out. Yet. “You know that drowsy driving is as dangerous as drunk driving. Spell casting is far more dangerous.”
I snatched the cup Lilly had set on the kitchen counter, paused before taking a drink. “I want somebody to stick around to watch my unconscious body.”
Lilly tsked. “You won’t be unconscious. You won’t even sleep unless you take a moment to relax.”
Mordon held out his hand, cutting off a continuation of her defensive. He said, “I’ll stay. Everyone else, see if you can find mention of this Broken Feather Rite. I doubt it’ll be easy.”
One by one, the others left. I still hadn’t taken the potion Lilly had made. When we were alone, Mordon put one hand on either side of me and he put his forehead against mine.
“What are you worried about?” he asked.
“I hate medicated sleep. It feels wrong.”
“You mean you dream.” He kissed the corner of my mouth, whispered in my ear, “I’ll be here.”
“But I don’t want the others in the colony to know. It’s one giant house, essentially. What if they hear?”
“They won’t hear today. And later, I think you’ll find that you are not alone in your struggle.”
The warmth all gone from my fingers, I brought the drink to my lips and swigged it quickly. Mordon took my hand and guided me to the pile of blankets on the bed. Once I was nestled against his body, Mordon whispered a spell which shut out the light.
“Close your eyes. If you’re still awake in fifteen minutes, we can go dig up the garden with Nest,” he said.
“Okay,” I said and closed my eyes, hearing the steady drum of his heart echoing through his chest.
Chapter Seven
I tossed and turned, though I couldn’t remember the exact details of the nightmare. It was dark, and there were a bunch of “us” running down a path that no one could see. Things were chasing us. Hell hounds sometimes, with glowing eyes and feet that padded the ground after us. Other times there were balls of light, will-o-the-wisp style, which would lure my people away from me. I would yell after them, yell at them to come back, to follow me, but it was too late.
They would go down screaming, and I would listen to their bones crunch and their moans even long after they were gone. When at last the clouds parted from the moon, I took my first follower by his shoulders and shook him. Help me, I tried to say but no words came out, help me. But no matte
r how hard or how loud I tried to say it, the words wouldn’t come, and the things in the dark came closer, closer, and my companion left, abandoning me just as all the others had. I was surrounded by moans, by the stench of rotted fish, by glowing eyes and the moon turned into an orb, and I was alone.
I tore at my hair, and I screamed for them to come back. When the monsters came for me, I grabbed for a stick and yelled, and no sound came from my lips. I tried again. And again. And finally, a whisper burst from my throat. Try as I might, I was frozen and held rigid. Paralyzed.
And I realized I was in my room, alone, drenched in starlight and sweat, shivering with the blankets on the floor. Only one sheet had remained on the bed, and with a shaking hand, I reached out, snared it, and wrapped it up close.
I couldn’t bring myself to reach over the bed.
Under the bed was dark. I didn’t know what was down there.
Even as every rational part of me said that there was nothing in my room, I shuddered and hugged myself, folding the sheet over and layering the sheet over my body, bringing it up to my chin and stifling the tears until I saw where a pile of my clothes was casting a shadow, one that looked like a hound with red, glowing eyes. It snarled, its hackles raised.
I fought through the heaviness on my body and bolted to my feet, leaving the bed in a tangle.
“Fera?”
Mordon was suddenly in the room, on top of the tangled covers, his voice slurred and sleepy. There was no hound. There was not even a pile of clothes to resemble one.
I remembered that it had been daylight when I’d gone to sleep, and that we hadn’t made the bed. My clothes, however, had been restored to their proper order everything neat and picked up. I yanked open a curtain. Mordon's darkness spell dissipated and I was standing in bright late afternoon sunshine.
Mordon rubbed his forehead in an attempt to wake up. “Were you dreaming?”
“I heard growling.”
Mordon blinked hard, and I regretted waking him up so abruptly. Still, confusing as it was, I knew that there was no monster in this room with us.
“You were gone. And the house looked different.” I shook my head, confused. “I heard noises. Not like dream noises, but actual real sounds.”
Mordon yawned and got to his feet stiffly. “Could you move?”
“I am moving now.”
“When you heard the growling. Could you move?”
I frowned, shook my head. “No. But I swear I was awake.”
“Fascinating.”
“What is?”
“You were hallucinating.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Do you know about dreamwalking?”
“Is that where you enter someone else’s dreams?”
Mordon was too sleepy to furrow his brow, instead he yawned again. “Not that. When someone is asleep and they move around as if they were awake?”
“Sleep walking?”
“Yes. You know about sleep walking?”
“I wasn’t sleep walking.”
“No. You were the opposite. When a person sleep walks, their body moves as if they were awake yet their brain is asleep. What you did was the opposite. Your body was asleep, and your brain was awake.” He paused to run his hand through his hair, combing out some of its disorder. “Or, rather, your brain was starting to be awake. You experience your dreams as if you were awake, but your body is still dead asleep.”
“How do you know this?”
“A year learning everything I could in the infirmary. We had a night-guard who would sleep hallucinate about trying to quit smoking cigars and how he could not manage it, even though the smoke was literally suffocating his family. He could be very distressed about it.” Mordon smiled wryly. “The amusing part to this is that he did not smoke at all.”
I sank onto the bed beside him. Mordon stroked my back.
The winds about us were nearly still, bringing just enough of a breath through the windows to cause the curtains to gently sway. It smelled of early morning fog leaving dew in its wake as it rolled down the hillside into the canyon below. Peaceful, restful, soothing. But it wouldn’t last once the sun peeked over the rim and burned through the glistening dew drops on the windowsill. Then, just like that, the smell was gone, and I realized this was an afternoon breeze. The scent was that of the creek, not that of fog. I blinked in weary confusion, reminded suddenly of the changes yet to be made today.
“What did you do for him?”
“Moved him to daylight hours and reduced the length of his shift. Aeron thought his body couldn’t cope with the strain of a night patrol, and I thought he didn’t like sleeping while his family was awake. I think it made him feel as if his job was making him miss out on his children, instead of providing for them.”
“And so, you changed up his schedule? You didn’t expect him to adjust or toughen up?”
“What is the point of life if not to be enjoyed? Why encourage having children unless the parents are available for them? We found another night-guard, someone who hated getting up early in the morning.”
“So you think these hallucinations were subconscious fears.”
“Dreams can be. What was yours about?”
For a second, I thought about telling him about the monsters, but I realized it was simpler than that. Far simpler.
“I was abandoned and alone.”
“Never. Not so long as I am around,” Mordon said and curled me against his side. He added softly, “We should leave soon.” Mordon’s finger snagged on my necklace, withdrawing it from its concealment under my shirt. He recognized the bottle on sight and grinned. “Who gave you this? An admirer? Not poor Wolds, you’ve broken his heart already.”
Oh, crap. Did I tell him? Leif had been so quiet. I had the impression that he hadn’t wanted anyone else to know about what we were planning. What came out of my mouth was a giggle, shrill and very fey-like, thankfully my normal laugh. “No, not an admirer. So sorry to disappoint you.”
“Ah, it’s too bad.” Mordon nuzzled my neck, laced it with fierce nibbles that underscored his desire for something rough and thrilling. “I would love a suitable competitor.”
“Bah, I hate the idea of being a prize.”
“You’d aid me. Wouldn’t that be an amusing way to build our communication skills?”
I giggled again. “Not for the poor man against us.”
“Or woman.”
“Yes. Or woman.”
Mordon added, “Of course … if you’re open to the idea.”
“What idea?”
“We could make it worth their time to lose.”
I smiled as I understood what he was implying. “You’ll corrupt me.”
“Well, if you’re going to think about it in those terms.”
“What terms do you think of it in?”
“Like adding salt and pepper.”
“Salt and pepper,” I repeated.
“If you don’t like the idea, that’s fine.”
I shook my head. “It’s just never been an option before. I don’t know what to think.”
Mordon propped himself up beside me and said with a wicked grin. “Perhaps you should explore the idea with this thought in mind: we’re going to live with each other a very long time. It wouldn’t do to spend it in any boredom.”
“Come, now, how could it get boring when you teased me about playing rough yet treat me as if I were a kitten?”
“I can’t have you saying that I’m a liar, can I? If I can make you beg, you have to tell me who gave you the bottle.” He crouched, extended his arms out as if to catch me.
Dodging to the side, I kept my hands out in front to keep him at a distance. A big smile cracked across his face and he faked a lunge. I shrieked, shied away. He grasped for me, I slapped his forearms with open hands to keep him from taking hold. This quickly descended into a game of slapping wrists, ending only when he rushed me and I was suddenly enfolded in a bear hug. His arms kept mine pinned against my sides, and he picked m
e up so my feet pedaled the air. He kissed my hair with exaggerated noises until I stopped laughing enough to say,
“When you asked about women earlier, you were right.”
“Yes? Is she witty and attractive?”
I giggled. “Not in the way you’re thinking. It’s Lilly. Leif picked a pair for Lilly and me so we can keep in contact. You know how she is.”
“Yes. She’ll have all but forgotten by next month.”
“I hope not.”
Mordon chuckled, softening in my arms, smelling of sweat and contentment. “Of course not.”
My stomach churned in discomfort at the lie’s ready acceptance. While I hated to deceive him, what would I do if later Leif’s life was on the line?
Chapter Eight
The sunroom door led out to a wooden deck overlooking a great, sweeping valley in the bottom of the canyon. On top of the far rocky rim, desolate scrub lands dominated the relatively flat area; on our side of the canyon, the rim was broken into sharp hillsides interspersed with sheer drops which hinted at one time both sides may have been cliff-like. Then again, perhaps it had always been this way: one side a sharp plummet, the other side partway between a mountain and a hill range. No matter what, the river through the middle of the green pastures was certainly the culprit for carving out the great gouge.
“Watch your step,” Mordon warned. One of the steps dismounting the deck had cracked through, and so had to be skipped.
“Yeah, yeah.” I took his offered hand.
As I stepped off the deck and onto a narrow game trail cut into the dirt, I imagined the strength of the river that it must have once been, to saw its way through solid rock and wear such a deep river bottom. The thought made my head swim, because it meant that what was now a strong river would have been but a rivulet in comparison to its ancestor. How long had the current residents been sheltering here, away from the public eye, hidden from those who would hunt them?
I didn't know how I was going to fit in. Something akin to terror held me in place as we walked through the wooded area towards the Kragdomen Colony. Mordon paused, leaned against a tree, and just admired the view with me.
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