by Multiple
Oh, geez. Memorization.
“Amun alonza. Hidiay exponentia. Say it back to me.”
Might as well humor her. “Amun alonza. Hidiay exponentia,” I repeated.
“Good. Once more.”
I had no idea if she could really hear or understand me, but she surely hadn’t been telling every ferret that walked by about the spell, so the doppelgänger clearly had some awareness. I repeated the words again.
She nodded. “If you were tricked here, there are three portals in the border woods. One is by the rainbow mushroom, near the white woods. It is the easiest. One is inside the fairy grove. Not too bad if the fairies are in a good mood. The last, of course, is inside the lair of Martel himself. I wouldn’t try that. He is the one who murdered me.” Gem clasped her hands. “I felt you should know. He never got over Dei Lucrii’s failure to be birthed into a golden bloodline, so despite my age, he came for me. Your father was so brave, Tess. He fought him until the end.”
She wiped her eye. “There are six doppelgängers in the forest. They will only speak to your light and token. We all say the same thing, but if you need this message again, find one of the others. This one will now dissolve. Take care, my dearest Tess. Let your daughter’s light shine. Only on the edge of death did I realize how much we might need her. There are so few Golden Enchantresses born to this world. We should not live in fear, but accept the danger that comes with our legacy.”
The image began to disintegrate, falling like sand into a sparkle that slowly burned out.
I backed away, trying to understand everything she had said. I had been mismarked. I wasn’t a nix at all, but what, a Golden Enchantress? That sounded big. Now I knew why Dei Lucrii wanted me, and why he’d gone for my mother. He had known somehow. He’d used her to get to me.
How powerful was a Golden Enchantress? What could I do?
My headband hummed, and I realized that was what the doppelgänger had recognized. The message meant for my mother had come to me.
Now I had to decide what to do about it. A portal by a rainbow mushroom on the border of the white woods. I would find it. I would not talk to fairies. I would get away.
To my home. To my dad. And to Caleb, who had been right all along. He was my match.
15: ‘Shrooms
If only I had a wand and a lumos spell. I tramped through the dark woods, trying not to trip, heading toward the brighter trees. I probably couldn’t spot a rainbow mushroom if it bit me on the ankle.
But my purpose was a hell of a lot clearer than it had been. I had been hidden all my life, kept secret, and now I had a choice: Keep my nix marking or reveal myself. Poison Lyceria. Even if I knew what it was, I probably couldn’t find it in the dark.
Still, I couldn’t help but think the ferrets and fairies might be more receptive to a Golden Enchantress than a nix. I touched the silver circlet buried in my hair. “Headband, come on. I’ve endured your crappy hairstyles for three days. Throw me a bone here. Lead me toward the psychedelic ‘shroom.”
Nothing. I needed an interpreter for it, a narrator who would say, “And the headband, knowing that use of magic would alert the evil overlord to her whereabouts, declined to help the fair maiden.”
Maiden. Ha. I was as soiled as the black earth at my feet. Someone should have told me to save myself for my match. Hopefully the Great Big Enchanter in the sky would just chalk my experience up as necessary dalliances.
I stopped. Something glowed up ahead. I ducked behind a fat tree, trying to make it out. Another doppelgänger? An evil fairy spy?
Instead of gold, this one emitted multicolored light. A rainbow. I didn’t need to know the shape to realize it was what I was looking for. The prismatic mushroom.
I ran.
The trees surrounding it were definitely brighter than the ones I’d just left. I knelt beside the enormous plant, luminous and large enough to sit on. I dropped to my hands and knees, brushing aside leaves and needles. Where was that portal?
Little bodies scurried in the brush nearby, but now that I knew about the ferrets, I didn’t even pause. Faster, I pushed through the messy forest floor. Where was that thing?
Then, I saw it. I put my hand on the cold black ring that had probably once been silver. This portal had been destroyed as well.
I kicked at the mushroom. “Shouldn’t you have been standing guard?” I sat down on it, blowing loose hair out of my face. Gem’s message was almost twenty years old now, and the carriage driver had said there were only a few portals left. I knew of two others. Both were bad choices. Fairy spies and the man who had murdered my grandmother.
Hell, I was destined to die or die breeding. Might as well take down a bad guy while I was at it. I looked at the trees around me. Many were tall and straight, but a few had branches, like the one I’d climbed before.
I found a candidate and scrambled up. I avoided looking at the ground as I ascended the luminous trunk, not pausing until I was high enough that the view was broad and clear. I could see brighter trees stretching to my right, the dimmer ones leading to the dark woods to my left.
My view could not penetrate the blackness, although my instincts told me Dei Lucrii would probably have ridden to his father’s house and therefore was deep on that side.
I leaned back against the trunk and stretched my legs, my first rest since I’d gotten up that morning, or maybe by now it was yesterday morning. I didn’t think I was up for walking all the way back.
I peered into the white woods. The trees became a diffuse glow in the distance, but the light was broken by a few structures. One looked to be a cabin, not quite human sized, but close, maybe eight feet high. Farther off, a gap in the white light glowed green, as though the trees there were a different variety. I stared at it and began to make out bits of yellow light, blinking like fireflies. Fairies. I bet anything that was the fairy grove.
Bah. Rock and a hard place indeed. I began to head back down. There was no big imposing castle of doom like I’d expected. No Oz-like munchkin land. Even a river of Styx would have been useful. A person could plan an attack around a feature like that. But it was just me, some fickle fairies, and an army of turncoat ferrets.
I paused once more by the rainbow mushroom. “Some help you were,” I said.
And right before my eyes, just like I’d asked, came a sign. On the uppermost curve of the mushroom cap, clear as a marquee, were the words “Eat me.”
16: Tricksters
Oh, man. I’d never been a big fan of eating fungi. Picked it right off pizza. Pasta dishes always wound up with little hat-shaped leftovers.
And, of course, the whole thing could be a trick. One bite and I’d be Sleeping Beauty. Or was it Snow White? Whatever, another dame on her back, waiting for some bloke to slip her a little tongue.
Maybe THAT’S where enchanter babies came from. I broke out in a cold sweat.
I felt around the mushroom, trying to figure out how exactly to remove a bite. The top was pristine, unharmed, and seemingly impenetrable. On the underside, though, I could feel that bits had been pulled off. I stuck my fingers inside the squishy flesh and tore off a small chunk. The mushroom shuddered beneath my hand as it surrendered a piece of itself. I clutched it in my fist and backed away. The topside no longer showed the words.
I held the mushroom to my nose, trying not to throw up a little.
“I wouldn’t eat that.”
I turned so suddenly toward the voice that I smacked into a tree. A little dot buzzed around my head. Great, a fairy. “So, you found me,” I said.
“Was I looking?” The light rested on the mushroom and took the shape of a small boy with long slender wings. Or, I assumed a boy by the short hair and sharp nose and heavy eyebrows.
“Of course you were. The ferrets found me first.”
“Ah, yes, the furry beasts.” The fairy stood and walked along the curve of the mushroom. “So shall I lead you to the portal? You will want to get back to your father.”
Did everyone here kno
w everything?
“My Grandma Gem — you might know her? She told me never to trust a fairy.”
“Now, that’s a lie.” The fairy plopped back down. “Golden Enchantresses are the holders of light and beauty. They never say a negative word.”
I snorted. “I think you’ve been living in the spirit world too long.” But now that he mentioned it, I did remember Gem in the dirt, moving every worm and spider with care, as though each creature had a right to share the garden. She hadn’t even minded the weevils eating through the leaves.
I faked a sigh. “Okay, you got me. So where are we headed?”
“To the grove.” The fairy jumped up and became a blip of light again.
“And why shouldn’t I eat this mushroom?”
“Because you are allergic. All nixes are.”
The fairy flew ahead, but I refused to follow. “Why would nixes be singled out?”
The fairy flitted back. “You’re one nosy nix. Don’t ask questions. You’re not allowed to move around without being monitored.”
My headband buzzed, and I knew exactly what to do. I bit the mushroom immediately and swallowed, trying not to retch at the sour mealy taste. “Martel’s house,” I said.
Instantly I stood outside a stone door. The carriage and horses waited just outside, and I ducked behind them to assess my new location as well as test my new skill. Stupid fairy, giving away the game. It definitely paid to keep my real identity hidden.
But now, to figure out the rest. Did the mushroom work one bite per location? “Up a tree,” I said. Nothing happened.
Right. One bite, one move. I should have gotten more of the mushroom. I took a tiny nibble. “Up a tree,” I said.
I moved closer to an oak nearby, but not up. Great. One LARGE bite.
“If I were a portal, where would I be?” I whispered to one of the horses. He blinked at me with a dark brown eye. “Right, someplace private, a bedroom or the lair, like Mom’s and Caleb’s were.”
Then I had an idea. Why not just go home? I bit the mushroom. “My bedroom,” I said.
I was inside a room, but not in my own house, one with stone walls and rough-hewn furniture. A large four-poster bed was surrounded with heavy red drapes just like in a Regency romance. I hurried to a window. Outside, below, I could see the front where I’d just stood near the horses.
I was inside Martel’s house.
I turned back around, looking for bowls or silver rings. The surface of a dresser held only a brass hairbrush. In front of the grand bed, a dress was laid across a bench. I picked it up: white with crystal beads. A wedding gown.
Oh, boy. The mushroom hadn’t taken me to my old bedroom, but my new one. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I muttered.
I opened my hand. The last piece of mushroom was small. I’d only moved within the spirit realm using it, and now I suspected it could not transport me back to my own world at all. If it could, Gem would have said so in her message, not talked about portals.
The heavy door stood slightly ajar. I tiptoed over to it and peered through the crack. A long hallway led to a staircase. Rather than waste my last bite of mushroom, I decided to head out old-school. I squeezed through the door and down the corridor.
17: Pyrotechnics
Sconces lit the walls. Life-sized paintings of men and women throughout every age made me think of Scooby-Doo. I expected the eyes to follow me.
The first room I came to was locked tight. I slipped from door to door, trying all the knobs. Who kept their whole house closed up like this?
Right, bad guys.
I’d be approaching the grand staircase soon, and I didn’t like how open it was to the downstairs. A lair seemed more likely to be underground. I felt for the mushroom in my pocket. Maybe I should just go straight to the portal and hope for the best.
But on the other side of the stairs, a door stood slightly ajar. The light from inside was greenish. That looked very promising.
I took a deep breath and pressed against the wall, staying as far from the rail as possible. When I was past the staircase, I still feared going into the room. Anyone could be in there. Dei Lucrii, his driver, or Martel himself.
Why hadn’t I chosen the fairies?
I willed my heart to slow so I could hear if any sounds came from inside. Voices drifted from downstairs, low and indistinct. It seemed safe.
I peeked through the door. Glass cabinets like my mother’s lined the walls, lit faintly from luminous vials on the shelves. So it was a lair, or something like it, and a very likely location of a portal.
Martel had a lot more supplies than Mom. Hundreds of bottles gleamed inside cabinets. A long wooden desk spread beneath a window, the unchanging moon peeking through the trees.
I glanced around for anything pewter. I didn’t think it would be a coincidence that both Mom’s and Caleb’s were so similar. On the long slab were a few scattered vials, two pouches, and an open Book of Shadows.
I had assumed each family had one. The page was turned to a spell not unlike the one my mother had scrawled in her own book. At the top were the words “ætýcan áblǽst.” My Olde English was rusty, but I knew the word “blast” when I saw it.
The ingredients were listed below. “Mother Crystals” was written in calligraphy, but below it, in tiny print, were the words “potassium picrate.”
That was a highly explosive organic compound used in fireworks. It would make a blast — not a big one by itself, but when mixed with other chemicals, it was a base for many pyrotechnics. In fact, one of the pouches on the desk held them, the telltale green crystals spilling out.
But when I saw the next ingredient on the list, my forehead beaded with sweat.
Sea foam.
I glanced around the table. Two empty green bottles, just like the one that held Mom’s sea foam, sat to one side.
Oh, God.
Martel had killed my mother. And my grandmother.
My knees threatened to buckle. I was torn between escaping and going on a murder spree. What sort of world was this? What kind of men?
I had to pull myself together. I couldn’t fight them now, but I was a Golden Enchantress. If they wanted me this badly, then I had to have something powerful, something they couldn’t get on their own.
They would regret ever involving me, letting me find out who I was, who they were.
I would take the crystals with me in case I needed something to get away. All by themselves, they were not a powerful explosive, but when ignited, potassium picrate made enough of a boom to startle someone. I might be able to detonate it just by throwing or smashing some.
A yellow vial almost fell over as I turned. I paused, wondering if it might also be useful as I tried to escape. I opened the stopper and immediately smelled methane. Sea foam. Probably the undoctored one they’d used to make the explosive version. I stuck it in my pocket.
I should leave, I knew, get a move on my escape while I still had some element of surprise. That fairy could report I had eaten the mushroom, although surely no one would think that I might come straight into the belly of the whale.
I turned back to the Book of Shadows and flipped it to the front page. The list of names was much longer than in the one back home, and strangely enough, in color. Around each ink or charcoal name was a smudge of red, blue, green, or purple. They sparkled faintly, like the markings on our foreheads. I wondered if I would see these colors if I looked at Mom’s book again. I bet so, now that I had done the reveal spell.
The last name would be the current owner of the book. I squinted at it in the low light. Alum Dupree. Never heard of her, but around her lettering was a smattering of gold. Did this book belong to another Golden Enchantress? Was it stolen?
I glanced around the room again. Mom had died seven months ago. This room hadn’t been changed since they doctored the sea foam. It couldn’t be Martel’s main lair, but maybe it had been set up for a Golden they had kidnapped. Maybe she had been forced to doctor the sea foam so they wou
ldn’t be fingered for it.
Time to get out of here, fall back, learn what I would have to do to take these guys out. I didn’t have any foolish notions of confronting them on my own, not yet. I had no way to fight them, and so far had survived out of dumb luck and dumber fairies.
Time for my dramatic exit. Now that I knew what these men were capable of, I had to get out of the house. My next move would put me in the hands of the enemy. I might get lucky, or I might not. I had to give it a try. I popped the last bit of mushroom in my mouth and said, “Martel’s portal.”
18: Too Much Silver
The new room expanded out like a great hall, high ceilinged, with a grand stone fireplace. Three men stood talking and watching the flames, but they instantly turned at my arrival.
“Jet found the portal!” the oldest man exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. Despite his age, he was a near-duplicate of the younger one, silky blond hair in a ponytail, the same perfect clothes and regal bearing. I wasn’t sure which one might have been on the carriage. “Were the fairies helpful?”
The younger one applied a winning smile, and I admit my heart turned a bit. I bet he used that charm on all the nixes before he knocked them up.
I decided not to answer. Instead, I subtly surveyed the room.
The shortest man, possibly the driver of the carriage, stood nearby. “Butterfly is in the net.” He slapped his knee, but the other two men glared at him.
The younger man bowed deeply. “We must introduce ourselves. I am Dei Lucrii.” He laid a hand on the older man. “And this is my father, Martel.”
I recognized the voice now. Dei Lucrii had definitely been the one on the carriage. I wanted to spit at them, especially Martel, since Gem had mentioned him by name. But I had to keep searching for pewter. Nothing on the mantel, not on the side tables.
Dei Lucrii weaved through the furniture toward me. “I’m so delighted to meet you a few days early. How is the potion going?”
What-fucking-ever.
Now I looked around madly. The portal had to be close. I felt a shelf against my back and whirled around. Yes! It was right there. I started the chant.