by Stella Snow
“Who the hell are you?” Grams was still fighting in her peripheral vision, but Melodie didn’t dare take her eyes off the man staring at her through the wall of vines. He was smiling despite one of his men lying dead on the forest floor.
He placed his hand against the vines that still held the snarling beast. “Where is the Stone?”
Melodie stayed silent. His question made no sense. If he wanted a rock, there were plenty around here.
The man curled his fingers into the vines. Fire poured out of his hand, blackening the vines. The flames wrapped around the creature as well, but it didn’t burn.
Melodie didn’t know where the hoe was anymore. She had no weapons, and no way to defend herself. As the flames crept closer, she pushed back against the vines trapping her. Thorns dug into her skin and panic twisted in the pit of her stomach.
Her grandmother, or whoever she was, drove a long knife into the throat of the last of the men she had been fighting. She ripped the knife free and the man dropped dead at her feet in a pool of blood. “Who sent you?” Grams shouted across the clearing.
The man laughed, glancing back without concern. “You know who sent me, Salathia.”
The hell beast ripped its foot free and lunged farther in, snapping its teeth just inches from Melodie’s face. She choked on a scream, unable to move.
Grams adjusted the knife in her hand and sprinted toward them. The red-headed man lifted his hand in Melodie's direction, whispering again, and a flash of purple hit her in the stomach.
Melodie doubled over, her gut clenching as pain seared down every nerve ending in her body. Her vision blacked out and she pressed her hands against her head as it felt like a fist inside her skull grabbed her brain and squeezed. She arched back and screamed until the pressure finally broke through and pulsed outward, exploding from her in a wave of absolute darkness.
Chapter 4
It was as if her entire body had been scoured from the inside out, skin tingling as if all her limbs had fallen asleep. Everything was blurry. Her eyes couldn’t focus on anything. Melodie blinked and narrowed her eyes, trying to focus on the person hovering over her.
“Melodie, wake up!”
“What—?” Melodie asked, but her throat was hoarse and dry. The bitter scent of blood and smoke burned her nose. Dirt crumbled under her fingers as she struggled upright.
She blinked again and her grandmother’s face swam into focus. It was familiar, yet strange. Her skin, while always tanned, was brown now. Her eyes had narrowed, and the pupils were not quite round. But the most startling thing was that her hair was green.
“Where are you hurt?” her grandmother’s voice sounded familiar at least. She patted along Melodie’s arms and legs looking for any kind of wound. Her hand hovered over the burn on Melodie’s cheek.
Melodie shoved her hands away. “Why do you look different? What’s going on?”
“Get up. We have to leave. Now.”
She struggled to her feet, confused and scared as Grams stood over her protectively. There were two bodies behind her grandmother. Both laid in pools of blood, their lifeless eyes staring at her accusingly. The creature was dead too, its face frozen in a snarl.
Grams grabbed her arm and Melodie realized she had been backing away. Her mind whirred with a million questions as she was dragged back toward the house. Her grandmother’s hands were rough, and the tips of her fingers bit into Melodie’s arm uncomfortably.
Her skin still prickled like they were being watched. Looking back over her shoulder, there was a crater where she’d been laying. The trees around the crater had been hit with such force that they’d broken in half. One had been nearly uprooted. It was like someone had set off a bomb. She looked down at her body again, but she wasn’t burned. It didn’t make sense.
“When we get back, you will get your travel bag, then we are leaving,” Grams said, drawing her attention again.
“Why? Because of that thing and those men with the—the swords?”
“Yes,” she bit out.
“Why were they trying to kill you? Why were you even out in the woods?”
“I’ll explain later.” Grams dragged her along faster.
Melodie jerked her arm away and stopped walking. “Who are you?”
Her heart pounded in her chest. The woman standing in front of her felt like her grandmother, but she didn’t look like her, and she wasn’t acting like her. She had just killed people.
“You’re not my grandmother.”
“I’m the person that raised you, the same person you’ve known for your entire life,” Grams as her eyes darted around the trees behind them.
“This is insane.” Melodie took a step backward.
“Melodie, I need you to trust me. I will explain everything as soon as we get in the car, but for now, we need to hurry. One of them survived. He is still out here somewhere.”
Melodie stopped hesitating and they both ran. This person may not be her grandmother, but she hadn’t hurt her, and she knew the way out of the forest.
The first thing they smelled when they walked back into the house was the bitter scent of burning cookies. Melodie raced into the kitchen and turned off the oven.
“Just leave them, we don’t have time for this,” her grandmother said as she ran back toward the bedrooms. “Get your backpack!”
She followed Grams to the back of the house and found her digging through a drawer. “What is going on?” Melodie asked from the doorway. Everything was happening too fast and her head was still foggy from whatever had knocked her unconscious.
“It’s too much to explain right now,” her grandmother said dismissively as she pushed past her and headed back toward the front of the house.
“You can’t just not tell me what’s happening!” she yelled as she followed her down the hallway.
Grams stopped and whipped around, her eyes flashing with anger. “I’m trying to keep you alive!”
She stared at her with crossed arms, her whole body shaking with anger and fear. The day had started out so well, and now nothing made sense. Her skin tingled again, like it had in the woods, and she rubbed at her forearm in irritation.
Grams sighed and lowered her eyes. “Listen, we have to leave. I will explain everything as soon as we get in the car. Get your travel bag, please.”
“Fine.” She turned and walked into her bedroom to grab her backpack. It still had three changes of clothes, but she had taken out her toiletries the night before. She ran to the bathroom and dumped everything she needed into the bag, then slung her violin case over her shoulder. After a moment’s hesitation, she grabbed her pillow too, since she had no idea how long they were going to be gone.
She had no idea what was happening.
Melodie fell back against the wall of the bedroom and slid to the floor, tears streaming down her face. She moved to try to brush the tears away, but her hand was smeared with dirt and blood. She didn’t know where it was from. If it was hers or someone else’s.
Every odd thing her grandmother had ever done came back to her in a rush. There were so many obvious clues that something had been wrong. She had been so stupidly blind. She should have questioned more.
Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed. Grams knelt in front of her, startling her, and gently grabbed her wrist. She wiped the blood away with a shirt that had been lying on the floor.
“You’re okay,” Grams whispered, pulling her into a tight hug. Melodie shut her eyes and buried her face in her grandmother’s shoulder. “Come on.” She tugged her up as soon as the tears slowed.
She picked up the things she had dropped and stood, staring at the floor so she wouldn’t have to see the strange face her grandmother now wore.
In a daze, Melodie followed her to the front door. Her grandmother opened the door cautiously, as though she expected another attack, then ushered Melodie quickly outside and into the truck. The sun hadn’t set yet, which seemed strange to Melodie. It felt like they had been in the woods for hou
rs.
Her grandmother accelerated out of the driveway, screeching around the turn onto the road. Melodie grabbed onto the door handle and gripped her violin case tightly with her legs.
Chapter 5
“Alright, tell me what’s going on,” Melodie demanded as shock shifted to anger. “Perhaps starting with who exactly you are.”
“I’m your guardian, your mother entrusted your care to me shortly before she was killed.”
“Killed? You told me she died in childbirth, and my father was some Japanese man she met in a bar whose name she didn’t know because he didn’t speak English.”
“There is a lot I couldn’t explain to you before, but there’s no point in keeping it a secret now. We aren’t human. There is a Veil that separates this world from the world you were born in.” Her grandmother tightened her grip on the steering wheel and took a deep breath. “We have been hiding here. When your mother became pregnant with you after an affair, she knew it was only a matter of time before her husband, the king of Telagrad, found out what she had done. She also stole a powerful relic known as the Stone from him.”
Melodie stared at the green hair and the claw-like hands. Her breath hitched as the impossible became real. She looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap, terrified they might be claws as well. “If I’m not human, then what am I?”
“Half elf from your father, and half fairy from your mother. You actually look more like your father than your mother.”
Melodie had no idea what it meant to be either of those things, but her mind was racing too much to stop and ask now. “Is my father dead? What’s his name?
“Yes, he is dead. His name was Caspian.”
Melodie let the name roll around in her mind and felt guilty that she hadn’t wondered about who he was as much as she had her mother. He had always seemed unimportant, just some drunk guy from a bar that would never know he had gotten someone pregnant. She pressed her hands to lips to stop the quivering.
“You look—” she paused, at a loss for words. “Is your name even Jane Smith?”
“No, it’s Salathia.”
“Is my name actually Melodie? What’s my real last name?”
“Your mother named you Melodie,” Salathia said firmly. “And you don’t have a last name in the same way you would here. Your father’s house is Lenhir, and your mother’s house is Yllaria. If it had been done properly, and your mother had married your father, you would have been raised with your father’s family and would have been introduced as Melodie of House Lenhir.”
She sat back in her seat and pulled her legs up against her chest. This was all insane. It made her head ache. Her hand went to her necklace out of habit and the tightness in her chest increased.
“Is this actually my mother’s necklace?”
“Yes.” Salathia reached out, gently rubbing her shoulder. She flinched but didn’t pull away from the touch. “It was given to her by your father. I had to sell the rest of her jewelry to make sure we had enough money to live off of, but I felt that you deserved to have something that had belonged to both of them.”
That must be where the ‘late grandfather’s pension’ and ‘trust fund’ had come from. The sentiment would have meant more to Melodie if she had been told the truth of it sooner. She gripped the necklace harder and decided she hated her wide nose a little less now that she knew it was given to her by someone that would have loved her.
“Where are we going?”
“To the Forgotten. Their leader Esther will give us shelter, and hopefully an explanation for how mercenaries from Telagrad and a barghest showed up in our backyard as well.” Salathia opened her mouth to say something, then shut it abruptly. She took a deep breath before continuing. “We have to hide the Stone that your mother stole before joining the Forgotten. I can’t risk Esther finding it while we are with them.”
“Wait, who are the Forgotten? And why do you have the Stone my mother stole?”
“Your mother entrusted me with the Stone at the same time she gave me you. I promised her I would keep both you and the Stone safe.” Salathia slowed the car and turned down a narrow road that led to the coastline. “The Forgotten are the elves that were left behind on this side of the Veil when the gate closed during the last war over a century ago, which is why they call themselves that. After the gate reopened, they elected to stay here. They are the guardians of the gate on this side of the Veil and they have been helping us since we arrived. Nothing should have been able to get through the gate without their knowledge. They will be able to protect us while we figure out if we have been discovered. It should have been impossible.”
“Why?”
“Your mother did what she could to protect you before she sent us to hide here. She used the Stone to cast a spell that would make you impossible to find. No magic should have been able to overcome it. However, it appears the protections could be broken.”
Melodie looked over at Salathia and tried to not feel like everything was falling apart. Her mind was whirring with questions and panic still threatened to break through the control she’d held onto by a thread so far. Her skin tingled again, and she rubbed her hands along her arms trying to make it stop.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything? You could have told me all of this years ago.”
“And then what? The magic your mother used to hide you also bound your magic so that you couldn’t use it. We couldn’t go back to the other side of the Veil. I wanted to let you live as a human since that was all you could do.”
“I deserved to know the truth,” Melodie snapped. “No matter what I could or couldn’t do, I deserved to know.”
Magic. The word bounced around in her mind and all she could feel was disbelief.
Salathia turned onto a dirt road, then parked the car. “I was just trying to protect you.”
She snorted. “There was no reason to keep this from me, not even to protect me.”
“I did what I thought was best,” Salathia said firmly, her frustration obvious in the white-knuckled grip she had on the steering wheel. “Your first thought is going to be how to get to the Sidhe. Do you want to meet your parent’s families? Find a way to use magic? We can’t go back there, Melodie. It won’t ever be safe.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. Salathia wasn’t wrong. She did want to meet them.
“Now you know, and I need your help. It’s important you remember where this is in case something happens to me.”
“Why can’t you just trust these Forgotten people? You said they’ve been helping us,” she asked through gritted teeth.
“We can’t trust anyone with the Stone, not ever. It’s dangerous. Even your mother shouldn’t have used it, but she found a reason to justify it. Everyone will always find themselves in some situation where they think they have to use it, then we will be in the middle of another war,” Salathia said as she dug a small, black bag out of her travel bag. “Promise me right now that you won’t tell anyone about it.”
“You can’t be ser—”
“Promise me,” Salathia interrupted.
“Fine, I won’t tell anyone about it.”
“Good, now come with me. We need to do this quickly.”
Salathia got out of the car and Melodie scrambled to follow her. The sun was still high in the sky, but under the shade of the trees, the shadows seemed to grow deeper and longer. Even though it was hours until dark, Melodie picked up the pace, having no interest in being out here any longer than she had to. Her skin crawled with nervous energy that set her teeth on edge.
“How far do we have to go?”
“Just up there.” Salathia pointed at a rocky outcropping that could just be seen between the trees. “There is a small cave that is technically an old safe house of the Forgotten, but it has been abandoned.”
“Are you sure it’s safe to hide it there if the Forgotten know about it?”
“It’s the safest option we have at this point. Esther has no reason to look here, the mercenaries
won’t know about it, and it will be safer than in her house.”
The entrance to the cave was narrow enough that a casual hiker might dismiss it as just a crack in the face of the outcropping. As they got close to it, something made Melodie stop dead in her tracks. She didn’t want to keep walking. She wanted to go back to the truck and leave. This place felt wrong. The impulse to turn around was unnaturally strong––this wasn’t normal.
“There is a keep-away spell on the cave to discourage people from noticing it. Old magic from the Founders. Best way to get through is quickly.” Salathia picked up her pace.
Melodie forced herself to move and jogged after Salathia. The strange feeling began to fade, leaving only a general sense of foreboding as she forged ahead. “Who are the Founders?”
“The original Forgotten.” Salathia turned sideways and edged into the entrance of the cave.
Melodie looked at the entrance dubiously, then took a deep breath and followed. The cave wall was rough against her back and having the other side just inches from her face made her feel a little like she couldn’t breathe. Just as she couldn’t take it anymore, the tunnel abruptly widened. She stumbled into the open area gratefully, her feet splashing into water.
Salathia lifted her hand and spoke a word Melodie didn’t understand. A tiny, bright ball of light appeared in front of them. She watched the light without blinking, entranced. It quivered as it hovered in front of them, never a perfect circle.
“How are you doing that?” Melodie asked, her eyes drawn to the strange bobbing light that illuminated the cave.
“It’s a faelight, basic magic that every race can do.”
The cave was barely big enough for three people to stand in. Water seeped from the far wall, pooling on the cave floor. The floor dipped to the right where the water escaped through a small opening.
Salathia set the bag with the Stone in it on a rock that jutted out from the craggy wall. She laid her hands over it and whispered to it, her tone melodic, then lifted them slowly. Moss grew up from the ledge and slowly covered the bag.