Loniel stopped with a swirling of his cape.
“We’ve arrived,” he said, turning to them in the dusky light.
Gwen looked around doubtfully. Aidan pointed to their left.
“Look,” he said. “There’s firelight.” Gwen followed the line of his finger to a flickering glow of a fire below a ridge in the distance. Small figures were silhouetted between trees. Aidan said, “I guess we have to leave the path.” He looked longingly at the wide trail. “I was enjoying walking in a straight line.”
“Ah, but perhaps you will enjoy supper better?” Loniel raised his eyebrows, and let out a smug laugh. “Come, warmth and food await you. Let it not be said that guests went away unsatisfied from Loniel’s fire.” With that he left the path, effortlessly leaping from log to stump toward the fire’s glow.
Aidan gripped Gwen’s arm as she prepared to follow Loniel.
“Really? We’re going to leave the path and follow this mad bloke into the forest?” He looked at Loniel’s retreating back nervously. “Who knows what he wants? What he can do?”
Gwen rubbed her face with her free hand and sighed.
“I know. But what other choice do we have? I don’t know if I can face another hungry night in a tree. We’re already lost, and I don’t know how else we’re going to get out of here. We’re just going to have to trust him.”
Aidan’s face was grim, but he eventually nodded and let go of Gwen’s arm.
Gwen sighed again and said, “Let’s do this.” She pulled her skirts up to her knees and climbed onto the nearest log.
The way was surprisingly easy after the trials of the day. They leapt from log to log, if not as gracefully as Loniel, then at least with as little effort. The bonfire grew larger, and the crackling of burning branches was interspersed with murmurs and laughter. They climbed the last small rise and looked down.
They were on the lip of a shallow bowl, clear of trees. A bonfire was in the center, roaring high and hot, and as many as fifty people gathered around it. Some fed the fire with logs and branches, laughing as the flames leapt up and consumed their offerings. Others passed around platters of food and earthen pitchers. Gwen’s mouth watered. Some platters were piled high with slices and joints of meat, some dripped with grapes and other fruits, still others balanced pyramids of bread. Next to her, Aidan groaned in hunger.
Loniel laughed merrily, and gestured to a few of the platter bearers. They peeled away from the milling group and joined Gwen and the other two at the edge of the bowl.
“Sit, and eat to your heart’s content. I will return when you are satisfied.” He snapped his fingers at the platter-bearers, who placed their burdens on the ground in front of Gwen and Aidan and melted away.
Gwen sputtered, “Thank—thank you. This looks amazing.” Aidan echoed her words. Loniel bowed, keeping his laughing eyes on them.
“For my little birds, of course.” He turned and moved to the fire, losing himself in the crowd. Gwen and Aidan looked at each other.
“Ready?” Gwen asked him.
“You have no idea.” Aidan flopped on the ground. “Dig in, Gwen.”
They fell on the food with gusto, tearing into the bread like animals. An earthen pitcher was filled with clear, cold water, fresh and satiating. As they ate and drank, they watched three figures drag drums from the surrounding woods. The drummers began to play, filling the clearing with pounding beats in intricate combinations. The crowd of people before them split into two. Half moved away and gathered around the edges of the clearing, while the others began to leap and twirl around the fire. Faster and faster they danced, weaving in and out, bending and twisting and jumping. It looked chaotic, but as Gwen watched she noticed a pattern to the madness.
More people joined the dance, and as the drums grew more insistent Gwen’s heartbeat pounded faster. She glanced at Aidan. He watched the dancers, eyes half-closed. His fiery red hair gleamed in the flickering light, and his high cheekbones cast strange shadows on his face. Gwen’s stomach stirred and she glanced away quickly, cheeks warm. She felt him look at her then and kept her eyes resolutely on the dancers.
The beat changed. The dancers paired off and swirled around in couples. Loniel materialized from a nearby cluster of onlookers, bearing a goblet and walking toward them. Gwen and Aidan glanced at each other, Aidan looking wary. Loniel approached with a wide smile.
“Have my little birds eaten enough worms to satisfy them?” Loniel waved away their thanks, interrupting them mid-splutter. “Now that you are fed, you must drink some of my signature libation.” He offered the goblet to Gwen, who looked at Aidan. He shrugged slightly. She turned to Loniel.
“Please, I insist,” he said, his strange tawny eyes intense. She looked into the goblet as he moved it toward her lips. The liquid glimmered darkly in the golden goblet. What harm could it do? The food had been fine. Just a sip, she thought, and opened her lips. Loniel carefully tipped the goblet so the liquid met her open mouth. She swallowed, the drink sliding down her throat in a cool cascade of pungent fruit and deep notes of honey.
“That’s really good,” she said, and Loniel smiled smugly.
“Of course it is, birdling,” he said, bringing the goblet to Aidan’s lips. Once Aidan had swallowed, closing his eyes briefly as if to make the flavor linger, Loniel stepped back.
“Now you can truly enjoy my little bonfire, without the peskiness of inhibitions. There isn’t much in this land more potent than my famous libation. Enjoy, my sweets.” He raised the goblet in a toast as he backed away, smiling wickedly.
The blood drained away from Gwen’s face. What had Loniel given them?
“Did he give us some kind of drug?” she gasped, clutching the grass on either side of her. Aidan leaned back unconcerned, watching the dancers again.
“Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t sound deadly.” He bent his head closer to study her face. “Hey, what’s up?”
“You don’t understand,” she choked out, squeezing her eyes shut. Her father’s blood-drained face swam in front of her, white against the splatters of black on his cheeks. The silence, broken only by dripping ink from a lamp shade. “When I lose control, things happen. I can’t stop them.”
She opened her eyes to see Aidan looking at her with a wariness that surprised her. He asked carefully, “What kind of things?”
Her head was woozy and light. She blinked hard to clear her swimming mind. A strange wave of complacency quickly enveloped the shores of her panic, leaving only a lingering sense of unease around the edges. She stared at Aidan, trying hard to focus. His hair glowed in the flicker of the bonfire, the light dancing and making his whole head seem aflame. His eyes, normally a bright and merry green, were growing dark and shadowed in the dim. Only glints in the firelight let Gwen know that he still looked at her, waiting for an answer. She swallowed, trying to fight the calm. It seemed a ridiculous thing to do, now. She wondered why she bothered.
“Once, when I was seven,” she said dreamily, “I cut a worm in half.” She was half appalled that she was talking, and half entranced by Aidan’s left eyebrow. “I showed a girl at school. She thought it was gross, so I put it together and brought it back to life. She screamed and ran for the teacher. Not that anyone believed her. Idiot,” she added with disdain.
She focused on Aidan as he stared at her, his body completely still. He wore an odd expression of disbelief—and hope.
“What else?” He breathed out the words so softly that she had to lean closer to hear. She put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself. She could feel the heat of his body, and the tenseness in his shoulder. She whispered in his ear, horrified at her blabbing mouth, powerless to stop it. It was oddly satisfying, though. She hadn’t expected that. To share her strangeness, her secret, with another person was almost exhilarating.
“I’ve exploded pillows and watermelons. I’ve made plates fly around the room. Once I made our houseplant sprout until it burst through the ceiling. I don’t know what the matter with me is. When
my emotions are strong, when I lose control, weird things happen.”
Gwen leaned back to gauge the effect of her words on Aidan, hand still firmly on his shoulder. He seemed dazed, eyes searching hers. He swayed and blinked, the drink clearly taking hold.
“For real? You’re not messing with me?”
The fire drew her in. Silhouettes leaped around it, dancing to the drum throbbing like a heartbeat. She had a wild need to jump and run and twirl, join hands with the others and soar over the flames like a phoenix.
“It’s all true. Why do you think I never drink?” She ran her hand down the length of his arm, feeling gratified as he shuddered. “I’m tired of talking. Come dance with me.”
“Do you know how?” He let himself be drawn up by her as she stood.
“Let’s figure it out.” Gwen suddenly pulled him close and grazed her lips against his, softly, like a feather floating on water. Astonished by her daring, heart pumping faster than the drum, she twirled away.
She ran toward the dancers, her dress fluttering around her legs. She felt free and wild, the same way she felt walking in a windstorm, energized and alive. As she approached the ring of dancers they parted to draw her in. She was whisked into the arms of a man with a crown of leaves and white teeth glinting in the firelight. He was bare to the waist, and the golden skin of his left shoulder sported an intricate tattoo of vines and leaves. They twirled and leaped, and Gwen knew exactly what to do. A small part of her was astonished that she knew, but that part was very quiet in the roar of energy that filled her.
She was unsurprised when Aidan joined the dance a few minutes or hours later, she wasn’t sure. Time had ceased to have meaning. As she turned, Loniel’s grinning face swam in front of her, watching. His golden eyes were intense and all-knowing, and his grin was mischievous. She let the dance sweep her away.
Hours or minutes later, she found herself partnered with Aidan. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright. They danced without speaking, Aidan’s eyes fixed on hers. She found herself trying to extend her moves to have her hands lingering on his body. Her breath came faster than her exertions warranted, and a dizziness took over that had nothing to do with the whirling of the dance. The drums pulsed from the edge of the firelight.
A great cry erupted from the dancers on the far side of the fire. Momentarily distracted, Gwen looked over. Some were clapping and shouting, while others continued dancing around them. A couple broke away from the group, held hands, and ran straight toward the fire.
Gwen gasped. Were they going to burn themselves? At the last moment the pair leaped high and soared above the crackling roar of the bonfire. They landed gracefully on the other side as the others cheered, and joined the dance again. Another pair prepared to jump.
Gwen turned to Aidan with excitement and met his shining eyes. They danced closer to the cheering group as the drums beat faster.
In no time at all they found themselves at the jumping point. A laughing woman dipped her fingers in a small clay pot and swirled berry juice in twists on Gwen’s cheek, and in broad stripes on Aidan’s. Gwen briefly spotted Loniel close by, staring at them with a half-smile.
Aidan grasped her hand tightly.
“You ready?” he whispered in her ear. She shivered as his warm breath brushed her cheek. She squeezed his hand in reply and they turned to face the fire.
The flames roared high, the tallest reaching into the air far past Aidan’s head. Gwen stared up at the stars, brighter than she’d ever seen, and then at Aidan. They ran as one to the fire, and leaped.
They soared straight across, higher than Gwen would have thought possible. She looked down midway into the blazing heart of the fire and had a moment’s fear, but it vanished as quickly as it had arrived.
They landed hard on the other side to cheers from the crowd. Gwen couldn’t keep her balance, and they stumbled haphazardly out of the ring of dancers. Aidan tripped as they laughed uncontrollably and they both went down, rolling together in a muddle. They stopped, still laughing, Aidan sprawled on top of Gwen.
Gwen gave a few more chuckles, but those soon died. She was suddenly, intensely aware of Aidan’s body, the whole length of it pressed against hers. Her breathing was shallow. Half of his face was in shadow, the other half gazing at her intently. There was no laughter from him anymore, and he wore an expression of vulnerability and longing. Without thinking, Gwen leaned her head forward and kissed him hard on the mouth. Her eyes closed.
He responded slowly at first, then with a sudden eagerness, pressing her to the ground with his intensity. Gwen’s world shrunk until nothing remained but the two of them, here, now.
The fire died with a hiss, and everything went dark.
Chapter 9
Gwen opened her eyes as Aidan raised his head. The fire was dead. Not just extinguished—even the coals were black, and no smoke rose up from the ash pile. It took a moment for Gwen’s eyes to adjust, but when the area brightened slightly she was astonished that the clearing was empty. Every single dancer had vanished into thin air without a trace. Even Loniel had disappeared.
There was a tremendous crashing noise to her right. Aidan raised himself onto his hands and Gwen sat up. They watched in astonishment as a man burst into the clearing. He was filthy and disheveled, with a manic glint in his eye. His broad round face was scratched and the tips of his fingers were bloody and raw. He looked around wildly then stared intently to his left. Gwen looked in the same direction toward a bonfire burning merrily through the trees with figures leaping around it. The drums began to pound in the distance. Perplexed, she looked back at the man, but he was already scrambling toward the fire.
“Help! Over here!” the man shouted toward the dancing figures.
Aidan pushed himself up and tried to run in the man’s direction, but he had difficulty keeping his feet. He yelled at the man, “Wait! Stop!” But the man was too intent on his target to hear Aidan’s call. Aidan paused at the edge of the clearing and clutched a tree for support. Gwen watched as the man drew nearer to the fire. The fire winked out as if it had never been and appeared farther away, almost invisible between distant trees.
Gwen hugged her knees as Aidan came back and slumped on the ground.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered. Aidan looked at the cold fire.
“That’s one legend that I have heard of,” he said. “The fair folk will lure travelers through the woods by keeping their feasting fires just out of reach.”
“Remember what Loniel said? About humans as amusement?” Gwen recalled the frantic eyes of the lost man. “I guess that’s what he meant.”
“I still don’t understand why he thought we were one of them, one of the—Breenan? Is that what they call themselves?” Aidan frowned.
“I guess we’re lucky enough to look like them?” Gwen said. “That man wasn’t similar at all. And this proves your theory, I suppose. We are in an Otherworld.”
“I don’t want to say I told you so,” Aidan said morosely. “I really didn’t want to be right.”
***
They sat in the darkness for a while. The shock of the bonfire’s demise had released Gwen from her strange mood, and the drink’s effects drained away to leave her tired and sad. She was also feeling more and more embarrassed. She scrubbed at the berry juice now crusted on her cheeks. What had she been doing? The dancing was obviously under the influence of Loniel’s intoxicating drink, but what of her advances to Aidan? Waves of hot embarrassment washed over her, but her stomach still clenched in anticipation. She suddenly wanted Ellie desperately. She needed her best friend to talk to. Confident Ellie always knew what to do, what to say. Gwen sighed aloud.
“Are you all right?” Aidan broke the silence they’d been sitting in, lost in their own thoughts.
“I was wondering how Ellie was,” Gwen said.
“Hey, we’ll find her tomorrow.” Aidan reached a hand out for her shoulder and then pulled away, as if unsure. Gwen pretended not to notice. They watched th
e sky lighten beyond the trees in the east. Gwen lay back on the grass.
“We should get some rest.” The night was much warmer in this new, friendlier forest, and she was quite comfortable lying under the paling stars. Aidan lay down, sighing deeply. She turned to look at his profile, his eyes staring up to the sky. She reached out and touched his arm.
“You okay?”
He turned his head and gave her a half smile.
“Yeah.” He took her hand and gave it a quick squeeze, then released it. Gwen withdrew her hand and closed her eyes, feeling better.
***
Gwen awoke to the sound of birdsong. She was confused at first, and wondered why Ellie was whistling so early in the morning. She remembered where she was when her eyes opened to a green canopy of fluttering leaves far above her head. She sat up quickly with her head swimming, looking for Aidan.
He was across the clearing, humming softly as he leaned over a knee-high bush with glossy dark leaves. He straightened up when he saw her watching him. He held out his hand in an offering gesture. His palm was full of tiny dark berries, round and shiny. He loped over and flopped into a cross-legged position in front of her.
“Breakfast,” he said, laying a large leaf on the ground between them and carefully depositing the berries onto the make-shift plate. “It’s not much, but it’ll have to do.” He popped one in his mouth.
“How do you know they’re safe to eat?” Gwen said dubiously, picking up a berry and examining it.
“I don’t,” Aidan said cheerfully, grabbing a few more. “But I read somewhere that we have a decent chance of survival if they’re blue instead of red berries.”
Breenan Series Box Set Page 8