Spirit

by Shauna Granger

  The arrow thunked into the circular knot just to the right of center. The memory of my grandfather’s voice drowned out whatever Jacob said behind me. I smiled as my grandfather faded away.

  “Did you say something?” I asked, turning to face Jacob. I pulled another arrow out of the quiver hanging from my belt. It was a little uncomfortable as the belt was higher on my waist than the type of belt the quiver usually sat on, but I’d made do by sliding it around to my back and angling it to be able to draw the arrows without them spilling out. I felt a little like Maid Marian – the one that took care of herself, not the one that depended on Robin to save her.

  “I said well done,” Jacob replied, and for the first time, I saw him smile without a hint of anger or irony. It transformed his face. His blue eyes looked clearer than they had in days and the strain around his mouth was gone.

  “Thanks,” I said, dropping my eyes back to the crossbow. I didn’t want to tell him that if he hadn’t tried to sneak up on me, I probably would’ve shot the ground again. I took ten more feet back and tried again. I kept at it until I was a good thirty feet away from the tree and able to hit it every time, maybe not always on that knot, but I stopped missing the entire tree by the time my shoulder began to ache.

  I decided thirty feet was far enough. If anything got too close to me then, either they were close enough for me to be sure I wouldn’t miss or the crossbow would be useless because they’d have caught me. Besides, there were too many trees to keep moving back without others getting in my way, and the crossbow was only so powerful. The arrows would only fly so far.

  I was anxious for Jacob to go to sleep so that I could pull my looking glass out again and check on Steven and Jodi’s progress, but long after we’d finished eating and the animals were dozing, Jacob was still awake. He lay on the ground, one arm under his head as he looked up at the starless sky.

  “Why do you suppose there are no stars here?” Jacob asked.

  “Probably the same reason why the moon never moves or changes,” I replied, adding another couple of small branches to the fire.

  “Huh,” he said, shifting his head to look at the pale moon. “Never thought about that.”

  “How could you miss it?”

  “I didn’t say I missed it. It just hadn’t struck me. Curious.”

  “Yeah, curious,” I said, tracing my finger in the dust, drawing inconsequential designs.

  Jacob rolled to his side to face me, propping his head up with his hand. “How did you know your horse’s name?”

  “The brownie man that tended the horses told me,” I replied.

  “Hmm,” he said, glancing at the horses. “Probably be good if I knew mine’s name.”

  “Yes, it would,” I agreed. “Had you been riding him or did you just take him that night?”

  “No, I’d been riding him,” he said.

  “And no one told you his name?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe he’ll let you give him a new name,” I suggested.

  “Let me?” Jacob turned his confused face back to me.

  “Well, you wouldn’t want someone to start calling you by a new name without asking, would you?” I shook my head at his still confused face before throwing my hands up in the air and getting to my feet.

  Jacob pushed off the ground and hurried to follow me. I walked over to the nameless horse, took the loose reins in one hand, and scratched his muzzle with the other.

  “You have to remember we’re not in our world anymore. Everything here is different.” I spoke to Jacob as I looked at the horse, running my hand over his muzzle. “Fearghus understands me when I talk to him. I’m sure this handsome guy is just as smart.”

  The horse bobbed his head down and up as if in answer to my comment, making me chuckle, but when I saw Jacob’s eyebrows shoot up, a full-bodied laugh burst from me.

  “All right,” I said to the horse, catching my breath. “We don’t know your name; would it be okay if we came up with a new one for you?” The horse whinnied, blowing out a breath that blew the loose strands of my hair back. But in another moment, he bobbed his head again in consent.

  “Blimey,” Jacob whispered behind me.

  “See?” I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Do you have any ideas?”

  “Um, well…” Jacob stepped forward and placed his hand on the other side of the horse’s muzzle, mimicking my movements. “How about Angus?”

  “Cool name.”

  “Yes,” Jacob said, watching the horse’s reaction. “That was the name of me grandfather’s horse. He had a farm near the coast and me mum would send me there on holiday. Angus was the only horse that would let me ride him even though I was so nervous. Miss that damn horse,” he whispered at the end.

  “Well,” I said, turning my attention back to the horse, “how about that? Do you like Angus?” He leaned his head into Jacob’s hand, huffing gently.

  “I guess that’s your answer. Angus it is!” I stepped back to give Jacob and his new friend a moment.

  We rode for nights in amiable silence. I had started to really get the hang of my weapon of choice, even managing to take down a bird when our meat ran out. I couldn’t bring myself to clean it, but luckily, Jacob volunteered to do it. I didn’t have to see the poor dead thing again until it was on a spit over our fire.

  So consumed in finding the edge of the Outlands, we rode as long as Gwyn had pushed us, leaving me exhausted when we broke for camp. I hadn’t had a chance to check my looking glass and see what Jodi and Steven were up to. As a matter of fact, the thought to check the looking glass hadn’t cross my mind in two nights.

  I chewed at the leg of the charred bird, pulling strips of meat off, staring blankly into the fire as the shock of that realization hit me. Having practiced magic for my entire life and having had dealings with faeries and their word games for so long, I knew there was probably more than one way to be caught by the Hunt – I couldn’t forget my purpose. I had to remember my home, my friends, what I was riding for. If I didn’t, I would slip into the spell of the Outlands and be trapped there forever, taking any hope of my friends’ magical recovery with me.

  I tossed Balor the bone and watched him pounce on it like a cat with a bird. His simple-minded joy warmed something inside of me the fire hadn’t touched. When I tried to give him a few of the root vegetables I hadn’t finished, he sniffed them distrustfully before huffing hard enough to cause a puff of dust to rise.

  “Fine, picky,” I said, “but don’t come whining to me later when you’re hungry.”

  Balor cocked a white brow at me, tilting his head to the side, making me laugh. His jaw dropped open and his tongue lolled out in that silly dog grin. I reached out and ruffled the fur on top of his head before standing and walking over to Fearghus. I fed him and Angus vegetables that looked close enough to carrots. Jacob was already snoring lightly by the fire, his head pillowed by his crossed arms. Here the river was shallow and slow. The sounds of the water babbling over the clusters of rocks was enough to soothe anyone, even that grumpy old water sprite woman back in Gwyn’s camp.

  I fished my looking glass out of the saddle bag and took it over to a tree near the horses. I propped my wrists on my bent knees, holding the looking glass up to gaze into the black glass, feeling a stitch form in my chest. The sprite woman was right; staring into this thing, seeing my friends and family, gave me some small measure of hope, but not being able to reach them was wearing me down, slowly but surely.

  “But it reminds me,” I whispered to myself. “It reminds me where I belong, and that isn’t here.” And with that thought, I held my breath and closed my eyes.

  Chapter 12

  Steven sat cross-legged on the floor of my tree house with a white candle held in front of his face. Jodi sat with her back against the trunk that held our spelling supplies, an amethyst crystal ball in her hands. Either they snuck up there or my parents had let them go up. Through the open windows, I saw the bright blue sky of midday, so I assumed th
ey probably asked my parents.

  Steven drew in a long breath through his nose and held it for a moment; his eyebrows were drawn together as he glared at the candle as if it had offended him somehow. Finally, when his lungs must be burning, he blew out the breath through his pursed lips. The wick didn’t light, but a tiny tendril of grey smoke curled into the air, whisked out the window by the cross breeze.

  “Gah, damn it!” Steven swore. His arm jerked as if he was about to throw the candle away but thought better of it.

  “That’s better than the last time,” Jodi said calmly. She rolled the purple crystal from hand to hand, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. I wondered if she could still feel the crystal’s quiet power.

  “I could do this when I was a kid,” Steven grumbled, wiping the trickle of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Hell, I did it the other week!”

  “I know,” Jodi replied.

  “What, do I have to draw a circle and call on the powers of the South anytime I want to light a freaking candle?”

  “No,” Jodi said, “you could always use a match like the rest of us.”

  “So damn funny,” Steven shot back. He held the candle up again and drew in another breath, the anger etched on his face in the pinch of his eyes and the crease formed by his eyebrows.

  “Imagine the fire inside of you,” Jodi intoned softly. “See it burning steadily. Let it grow with the air you breathe. Draw it up through your body until you feel the fire burning in your lungs.”

  Steven’s face became red with the effort of holding his breath and trying to reawaken his natural powers.

  “Now, breathe fire, Drake,” Jodi directed in a voice that should have rung with power but didn’t.

  The wick smoldered under Steven’s breath. The coiling tendril of smoke lifted in the air and became thicker and thicker until the wick finally burst into flame. A relieved laugh burst out of Steven and threatened to blow the candle out.

  “Good job,” Jodi said with a nod before dropping her head back to the edge of the trunk, closing her eyes and concentrating on the crystal.

  “I don’t understand why we lost so much power when Terra” Steven stopped, the word caught in his throat, refusing to be spoken aloud.

  “Takotsubo cardiomyopathy,” Jodi said without so much as stumbling on one syllable.

  “Come again?” Steven asked, arching a brow at her.

  “Tako-tsu-bo cardio-my-op-a-thy,” Jodi repeated, her honors science knowledge making Steven and me feel totally clueless. Jodi lifted her head and twisted at the waist to put the crystal back in the trunk. “Broken Heart Syndrome.”

  “Is that a thing?”

  Jodi nodded, rolling her shoulders to loosen the muscles. “It’s kind of like a heart attack, and people can die from it.”

  “I haven’t felt like I’ve had a heart attack. Have you?”

  “No, and I’m not saying that’s exactly what happened, but it’s my best guess,” she said. “When people lose a loved one, they can develop Broken Heart Syndrome, and it causes heart failure, chest pain, low blood pressure, shortness of breath.”

  “Like a heart attack,” Steven offered.

  “Right. So their body has a physical, detrimental reaction to the loss. I think we may have suffered something similar but on a metaphysical level.”

  “Like, Broken Magic Syndrome?” Steven teased, trying to lighten the mood, but Jodi didn’t so much as crack a smile.

  “Yeah, like that,” she said, blinking slowly at Steven, who shrank under her look.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Anyway,” Jodi said, ignoring the apology, “Shay always said she was worried about what might happen to us if one or more of us…” She trailed off at the end, the word sticking in her throat just as it had with Steven.

  Steven nodded, giving her a chance to get past the moment, that word. “So,” he said, clearing his throat, “this Broken Heart Syndrome can kill you, but not always, just like a real heart attack, right?”

  “Right?”

  “So I guess the same thing is happening here? If we allow it to, this can kill us if we’re not careful.”

  “Maybe,” Jodi agreed. “You’ve lost more magic since I last saw you; you could still light candles with your breath then. What happened?”

  “More of my power slipped away after I banished Shay from Anthony’s apartment,” he said, dropping his eyes to study an invisible spot on his knee. Jodi made a sound of understanding.

  “Funny,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You called me over that night, right after,” she said.

  “Yes,” Steven prompted, leaning toward her.

  “Remember, at the beach, I still had the feral wind?”

  “Yes.”

  “About an hour before you called me, it just stopped.” She lifted her dull blue eyes to Steven’s face.

  “But when I came back in, there was a breeze…” Steven’s voice trailed off.

  “That’s because I was really angry.”

  “About what?”

  “Everything,” Jodi said with a sigh. “But that was the last bit of feral wind I had left.”

  “Oh,” he said as he realized what she meant. “Well I guess there’s no question it really was Shay I banished.” Steven turned his face away from Jodi’s stare, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to stop the tears, but his breath caught. Before he could stop himself, a sob escaped him. I saw the guilt slam into him, and he curled in on himself, clutching his knees to his chest as the tears ripped through him.

  Jodi’s mask of indifference cracked. She pushed herself away from the trunk and crawled the short distance to Steven. She put her back to the wall next to him and put her arm over him. A few moments went by before he turned to her, slipping his arms around her waist, and laid his head on her chest, tucking in under her chin. Jodi wrapped her arms around him, petting the back of his head in slow, light movements.

  I watched them, curled into each other, Steven crying and Jodi making soft comforting sounds, with an ache like none other burning in my chest. My cheeks were wet with tears, but I didn’t bother to wipe them away. I was almost afraid to let go of the looking glass and lose this vision.

  Steven eventually stopped crying and they were just hugging each other. They sat that way long enough for the sky to shift from bright blue to a deep indigo as the sun made its way toward the west.

  “What are we going to do?” Jodi whispered.

  “Something,” Steven said.

  “But what?” Jodi pressed. “Steven, what if we can’t figure this out?”

  “We will,” he said, sitting up to look at her. “We can do this.”

  “But if we fail, I mean, what do you think is going to happen?” Her voice shook, and as she started to crack under the pressure, Steven seemed to find strength. He squared his shoulders and looked into her eyes.

  “I know what you’re thinking, and that’s not going to happen,” he said. Jodi opened her mouth to argue, but Steven continued, “No, Jodi, Shay wouldn’t want that, and I won’t let it happen.” It was a little strange watching them dance around any word that would imply death, as if just saying it out loud would give it more power over them. But then, we’d always believed that words, even thoughts, had power.

  “I know you’re stubborn,” Jodi said, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand, “but if we can’t figure this out, just wanting to save us won’t do it.” They were both quiet again, dropping their eyes. Eventually Steven broke the silence again.

  “You said you invoked Air to get your powers to do something, right?” Steven asked. When he pulled his arms from around Jodi’s waist, he caught her hands, not wanting to lose contact with her.

  “Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “It wasn’t much, but two sparrows came to me.”

  “Right,” Steven said with more life to his voice suddenly. “Maybe we could do that with Shay.”

  “Shay isn’t” Jodi closed her eyes and
pressed her lips together before gritting out, “wasn’t. Shay wasn’t Air; what good would that do?”

  “No, no,” Steven said quickly, shaking his head, “no, not invoke Air or any of the tangible elements. What if we invoked the Spirit?” Jodi stared at him for a long moment, and as the silence stretched between them, my stomach knotted up against my spine. I was sure the edges of the looking glass were cutting into my fingers, but I didn’t care.

  “You mean invoke Shayna,” Jodi whispered.

  “Yes,” Steven said, “exactly.”

  “We’ve never done that before,” Jodi said, shaking her head.

  “We’ve done things close enough to that though. How much different can it be? We did that huge thing with the Angels of the North Wind, remember?”

  “Yes, Steven,” Jodi said in a careful, measured voice. “But that’s not the same thing as invoking a spirit, and besides, we had help with that.”

  “Yes, from Shay.”

  “No, that was Deb’s coven. It was their spell, their power, that those angels answered, not us. Besides, we invoked the angels’ power, not them.”

  “Yeah,” Steven said after a few silent moments, thinking about what Jodi had said. “I guess you’re right. I didn’t really think about it that way.”

  “I’m sorry to burst your bubble,” Jodi said, shifting her eyes away from Steven, gazing off into nothing.

  “Still though,” Steven said, bringing Jodi’s attention back to him, “we know the general idea, right? We cast a circle, we call on the powers of the four tangible elements, and we summon the entity we want to answer us.”

  “Shay,” Jodi supplied, and Steven nodded.

  “I think we can do this.”

  “But, Steven, you and I, we can’t write spells. That was always Shayna’s gift, not ours.”

  Steven nodded, pursing his lips together as he thought. “So we’ll just find a spell that Shay wrote.”

  Jodi scrunched up her face and started to shake her head.

  “Yes!” Steven said with so much conviction that Jodi stopped shaking her head. “Shay’s grimoire is just sitting in her room!”