The boy followed instructions and handed the robe to Diana without comment. Under it, he wore a T-shirt featuring Mickey Mouse dressed as a wizard and a pair of baggy jeans. Out of the robe, he looked like any elementary school kid. Mara handed him the jacket, and Diana helped him slip it on, then removed the cellophane from a turkey sandwich, opened a bottle of water and handed them to him. He ate and drank like a boy who’d gone without for a couple days, barely taking the time to chew once before swallowing each bite.
“If you are done mothering him, can we get back to finding out what’s happening at the Arboretum?” Mara asked.
“He can’t talk and eat at the same time. Just give him a few minutes to finish up and catch his breath,” Diana said. She brushed hair off Nash’s forehead with her fingers.
Ping interjected, “While he’s doing that, perhaps it would be prudent for us to walk ahead on the path to see if anyone is heading this way. It would be logical they’d look for the boy along the trail.”
Mara held out her hand for him to lead the way. To her brother, she said, “It’s probably best if you stay here in case our little friend needs to be prompted to cooperate or at least not to run off.”
Sam turned to watch the younger boy take another large bite of sandwich. “Okay, but I doubt he’s interested in going anywhere anytime soon.”
Back on the path and several yards beyond the logs, Ping said, “That’s a complication we had not anticipated.”
“What do you mean?” Mara asked.
“Nash is a runaway from the Coven on his way out of the swamp while we are headed in the opposite direction.”
“So?”
“You don’t think your mother will turn him lose in the swamp and send him on his way, once he’s been fed and answered our questions, do you?”
“I would guess not.”
* * *
By the time they had returned, Nash was eating a large chocolate chip cookie and appeared less pale and haggard, impressing Mara at how quickly he had bounced back. A good thing since Mara’s mother would likely prevent Mara from getting more information about the Arboretum and the Coven until Diana was sure the boy had recovered from his exposure to the elements. He had not only recovered in their absence, he had become talkative.
“Most of my time at the Arboretum has been doing tests to see which chamber I should go to. Last week the proctor assigned me to Earth, and I started learning that magic—although I’m not very good at it yet. I can’t turn dirt or rocks into stuff yet, but the proctor says I have a particular infinity for plant magic,” Nash said.
“You mean affinity, you have an affinity for plant magic,” Diana said.
“Yeah, which is a good thing since they sent the bowraiths after me. If I had had an infinity for Water or Wind, I might not have been able to stop them. Fire might have been good since they are made mostly of wood. The bowraiths don’t like Fire.”
“You said you replanted one of the bowraiths,” Ping said. “What exactly did you mean by that?”
“That’s when you make them not animate anymore. They grow roots and become normal plants again. I didn’t even know I could do it, until I got scared—when one of them tried to grab me.”
“Can you create a bowraith? Take a regular tree or plant and turn it into a bowraith?” Mara asked.
“No way. Only the curate is allowed to do that. All I can do is make flowers bloom or make vines grow faster, stuff like that. Do you want to see?” He didn’t wait for a response and held out his hand, splaying his fingers in a single wave directed at the ground near Mara’s feet. A patch of tiny purple flowers with yellow pistils sprouted in a mound through the grass at the edge of the trail.
“Very cool,” Sam said.
Nash shrugged. “The proctor said making flowers bloom isn’t very useful in defending the Coven, that I would need to practice more with dirt and rocks.”
Diana patted him on the arm. “It’s a wonderful ability, making beauty like that. Don’t worry about what that so-called proctor said.”
“What is it that the Coven needs to defend itself against?” Mara asked.
Nash shrugged. “In her sermons, the curate says a person with great magical powers will come to attack the Arboretum one day. That we must prepare and be ready to defend the Coven.”
“Does she ever say who this person is?” Ping asked.
“She says it is the one who bound the Aphotis, disrupted the prophecies and oral histories, and destroyed the old faith,” Nash answered as if reciting a memorized litany.
Ping glanced at Mara who raised her eyebrows. “And how are the acolytes preparing for the arrival of this person? By learning the magic of their assigned chambers?” Ping asked.
“The kids spend most of the day learning magic in school. The adult acolytes work during the day outside the Arboretum, and, in the evening, they have practice sessions to improve their magic.”
“What kind of work are we talking about? Are they still building the Arboretum? We’ve been told it is on high ground in the middle of the swamp,” Mara said.
“I think they are done building the Arboretum, at least mostly. Lately most of the work has been on the moat and the barrens surrounding it.”
“Moat? Like around a castle—that kind of moat?” she asked.
Nash nodded and held a hand over his head. “It’s twice as deep as a man is high and wider than a big highway. They just filled it three days before I left.”
“That would take a massive amount of water. Did they do that using magic?” Ping asked.
Mara still found it jarring to hear Ping talk about magic as if it were a common reason for things happening in life.
Nash shrugged. “They diverted a river. I’m not sure if they used magic to do it.”
“What are these barrens you mentioned?” Mara asked.
“A strip of open ground surrounding the Arboretum and the moat where all plant life was removed. Most of the bowraiths came from there.”
“Strategically that makes sense,” Ping said.
“How so?” Mara asked.
“Anyone crossing the barrens would be spotted well before getting to the moat and the Arboretum. It would allow time to prepare defenses. I assume there is a drawbridge of some kind?”
“Two of them, front and back,” Nash said. “Sometimes they do drills and pull them in.”
“Sounds like this will be more difficult than just knocking on the front door and demanding they return my daughter,” Diana said.
CHAPTER 22
A look of alarm crossed Nash’s face as he stared beyond Mara and Ping who stood at the edge of the path in front of him as he finished the last of his cookie. “A wild creature is coming this way. I think it’s stalking us,” Nash said.
Mara spun around, adrenaline shooting through her veins, before her gaze settled on the rotund plated pig-thing that snorted at her as it approached. Exhaling loudly, Mara sagged a bit and said, “That’s just Ginger. She’s harmless.”
They’d lost track of her along the trail as she had explored the dense foliage of the swamp.
“What is she?” Nash asked.
“She’s a chobodon,” Sam said. “Come and meet her. She likes to be scratched behind the plate on her head.”
The boys jogged over to meet the creature, and Mara checked her watch, realizing their break for lunch had turned into a three-hour delay in getting closer to the Arboretum. If they stayed here much longer, it would be unlikely that they could reach their destination the next day—assuming the directions they had gotten at the restaurant from Terrance Martin were correct. She glanced at her mother. “We need to get moving.”
Diana’s gaze shifted to the boys now doting on Ginger a few feet away. “Okay.”
“What should we do with Nash? Take him with us?” Mara asked.
Diana shook her head. “He told us that he wanted to get in touch with his father in Portland. His parents separated when his mother joined the Coven.”
Mara pulled out her phone and looked at the screen. No signal. “We’ll lose another couple days if we take him out of the swamp. I’m not sure leaving your Mara to the tender mercies of the Coven for that long would be a good idea,” Mara said.
“You could take him back without having to hike,” Diana said.
“Take him back where? I don’t know his father or where he lives.”
“You just need to get him to a phone, so he can call his father to pick him up. I was thinking that, if you could transport him to Terrance Martin’s restaurant, Nash could call from there. Just stay with him long enough to make sure he connects with his father and then leave him with Terrance. I’m sure Nash would be safe at the restaurant until his father arrived.”
Mara looked at Ping, asking for advice without saying anything.
Ping tilted his head in assent. “Sounds like a reasonable solution. The boy doesn’t want to return to the Arboretum, and, while he seems nice enough, it would be less cumbersome not to have to worry about a young child’s safety as we confront the Coven.”
“Okay. Let’s do it,” Mara said.
Diana turned and called the boys over. When they approached with Ginger trailing them, Diana took Nash’s hand and, pointing to the rest of the group, said, “We need to keep going to the Arboretum.”
“To get your daughter back,” Nash said.
“Right, but we can’t leave you out here in the swamp by yourself, so Mara will take you to a place where you can call your father. Would you be okay with that?”
He glanced at Mara. “You’ll leave your brother and mother and Mr. Ping?”
“Only for a few minutes,” Mara said. “I’ll take you to a restaurant back in town, so you can call your dad, but we won’t walk there.”
“I don’t understand.”
Sam said, “Mara can do her own kind of magic. She can go places just by thinking about it.”
“Really?” Nash asked. “You can think me to another place?”
Mara rolled her eyes at her brother and said, “Something like that. I’ll go with you to make sure your dad is on the way to pick you up, and then I will return to the swamp. You okay with that?”
The boy seemed to ponder the concept and then looked to Sam.
“It’ll be fun,” Sam said. “And you won’t have to spend another day or two walking around the swamp.”
Nash nodded and smiled. “Cool. When do we go?”
“How about right now?” Mara asked.
Nash unzipped his jacket and began to shrug out of it. Diana patted him on the shoulder and said, “Sweetie, you can keep the jacket.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks. And thanks for the food and for wiping the dirt off me.”
“You’re welcome, sweetie,” Diana said. She nodded to Mara who stepped back from them and waved for Nash to join her.
As he walked up, the boy asked. “What do I need to do?”
Mara took his hand and said, “Nothing. Just hold on for one sec.” She closed her eyes and visualized the outside of the restaurant. In a bright flash of light, they disappeared.
Before Mara opened her eyes, Nash exclaimed, “Awesome! How do you do that? Can you teach me?”
They stood in the gravel parking lot of the restaurant, directly below the marquee sign that still welcomed NaRealm Tran. Only two cars were parked in front of the establishment, suggesting to Mara that they had missed the lunch crowd—assuming there had been one. She pointed to the front door. “Let’s go inside and see if the guy who owns this place will let you give your dad a call,” she said.
As they stepped inside, Mara noted most of the tabletops were filled with dirty dishes and crumpled up napkins. A single waitress with her knee on one of the booth’s benches leaned over the table, wiping it with a damp rag with one hand while lifting a condiment holder in the other. She was the only person Mara could see in the front of the restaurant.
“Looks like you just got slammed,” Mara said.
The waitress gave a tired smile. “Happens every day at lunch. Would you two like a table? This one’s just about ready.”
“Actually we’d like to talk to Mr. Martin, if he’s around.”
The waitress straightened and was about to show them into the back. Mara waved her off and said, “We know where the office is, if you want to keep working.”
“He’s probably in the breakroom, shooting the breeze with the cooks,” she said.
“Thanks.”
Mara led Nash around the end of the counter and into the rear of the restaurant. Again she noted the smell of grease and fried food as they crossed the kitchen and took the corner at the end of the walk-in freezer. At the open door of the breakroom, she paused and looked inside. Two men dressed in white T-shirts and jeans wore food-stained aprons. They looked up at her.
“Mr. Martin around?” she asked.
They pointed toward the office door, which was closed. Mara took a couple steps to her left and knocked. She heard what she thought was a telephone receiver dropping into its cradle and a deep voice saying, “Yeah?”
She opened the door.
Terrance Martin sat in a small office that could have been a closet at one time. He spun around on a swivel stool, and a look of mild surprise swept over his features.
“Didn’t think I’d be seeing you again so soon. Mara, right?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Mr. Martin leaned to his right and glanced beyond Mara’s hip. “Who’s that you got with you?”
“This is Nash. We ran into him out in the swamp. I was wondering if he could use your phone and wait here until his father picks him up.”
Martin frowned and waved them into the tiny office. Mara had to lean over the seated man’s shoulder and press Nash against the wall to allow room to close the door.
Once the door was closed, Mara asked, “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing we can’t deal with,” Martin said. “We just had a bunch of acolytes come through a couple hours ago asking about a kid who ran away. This the one?”
“Probably,” Mara said. “Unless there’s more than one.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t run into them on the trail to the Arboretum,” he said.
“I mostly stayed off the path so they couldn’t find me,” Nash said.
“Smart move but you’re lucky you didn’t get lost in the swamp.” He winked at the boy, then looked at Mara. “He can call his dad, but it might not be good for him to wait here to be picked up. A steady stream of acolytes have been heading into the swamp today. They don’t talk much, but the waitresses say the acolytes in town have been summoned to the Arboretum, like something is up. That wouldn’t have anything to do with you and your friends, would it?”
“Maybe. We had an encounter last night,” Mara said.
“Well, the ones looking for this little guy met up here with a bunch of others riding buggies, and, as best we can tell, they are heading back to the Arboretum.”
Mara slumped against the closed office door. “Buggies? What kind of buggies?”
“ATVs—all terrain vehicles with big thick tires.”
“Which means they will catch up with us on the trail, most likely early this evening.”
“How did you get past them on your way out of the swamp?” Mr. Martin asked.
“That’s a long story. Look. I’ve got to get back to the others. Can Nash use your phone?” Mara asked.
Mr. Martin nodded and stood. “Here you go, son. Sit here and call your dad. Where does he live?”
“In Portland,” Nash said.
“What part of Portland?”
“West Hills?” The boy didn’t sound certain.
“Tell your dad to give you an address where I can take you to meet him.” Mr. Martin handed him a pen. “Can you write it down correctly?”
“Yes.”
Martin and Mara squeezed out of the office and left Nash to make his call. Outside, she said, “You’ll drive him all the way into Portland?”
The man sh
rugged. “It’s not a big deal. Things will be slow until dinner, and I’ve got a few errands I can run while I’m in town.”
Ten minutes later, Mara watched as Martin’s red pickup truck, parked next to the rear door of the restaurant, backed away and swung around the corner of the building while Nash waved out of the passenger window.
With the boy taken care of, Mara wondered what to do about the acolytes quickly coming up behind them on the trail. The buggies couldn’t travel as fast as cars or trucks, but they could definitely move quick enough to catch up with them before they arrived at the Arboretum. With enough warning, she and the others could hide in the brush and allow the group of acolytes to pass.
On the other hand, the Coven knows Mara’s group is on the way to the Arboretum. If nothing else, they’ll see Diana’s vehicle parked at the head the trail near the pump station and will be looking for interlopers. A confrontation was unavoidable, unless Mara could think of a way to deal with them.
Something that’s not noisy, that won’t draw attention from the Arboretum.
First, she had to find the incoming acolytes. Envisioning a place or person and transporting herself there wouldn’t work since she didn’t know where they were or who they were. She mulled over her recent lessons with Ping. Manipulating elements wouldn’t help.
Maybe a spell? Could that work?
She needed to map out the conditions in her mind, an if-then statement, something like, if the acolytes are on the trail in ATVs, transport me to them.
She shook her head. Conceptually, it could work. It just sounded wrong for some reason. Then the word incantation popped into her head. She’d forgotten that part. That’s why it didn’t seem to click. She let it bounce around in her mind for a moment, then, out of frustration, just blurted out the first thing that came to her:
Take me to the place,
Where Tran’s acolytes follow,
On four-wheeled buggies.
She disappeared in a flash of brilliant blue light.
CHAPTER 23
When the flash of light receded, Mara found herself standing in a knot of vines wound under her arms and between her legs, effectively binding her in place. She panicked, thinking it a bowraith, and became disoriented as she struggled against the restraints, which trailed from her body to nearby branches, where leaves rustled with her efforts. Not too far away, a rumble drowned out the noise, and she froze.
Broken Spells (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 6) Page 14