Revary

by Abigail Linhardt

  Unexpectedly, she straightened up and laughed.

  “What?” Clare smiled nervously at her friend’s sudden change in attitude.

  “Why can’t you all agree with Al?” Her voice was changing to a sarcastic plea. “He’s right, okay? Just wise up and see what’s before you and deal with it. Stop running away to your fantasy worlds, stop reading stupid books, stop wearing black, and coloring your hair and face the world! We have to get real jobs and just live. Society demands we have cars, houses, kids, and careers.”

  Clare stepped back. Stella had shoved off from the house and was pacing while she ranted louder and louder.

  “Why will he not man up and help me!”

  “Stop!” Clare cried, reaching out to Stella. “What on Earth are you talking about? You mean Max?”

  “Yes! Always Max,” she screamed in reply. “He’s so immature, but he’d be perfect if he’d drop the act and face reality. He’s smart. He could be an engineer, an accountant, or something that would make enough so we wouldn’t have to live on the bare minimum.”

  Aside from all the talk about society and appearances, Clare understood. “You really, really like him,” she said breathlessly. “I thought he was just a crush or something.”

  A kind of agonized roaring, groan escaped Stella’s throat. “No, I like him, but he’s not right yet.”

  “Yet.” Clare spat the word. “Stella, I don’t know what’s going to happen out there in this ‘real world’ you and Al keep mentioning. But from my experience, I am in it now and it’s just fine. I’m just fine and so is Max. There is no rush for us. We’re awesome, creative people, all of us! Why can’t we just use that a little bit longer?”

  Unfortunately, Stella was rabid by now. She laughed harshly and marched to her front door. “After Halloween, I quit,” she hissed to Clare, facing her. “I can’t handle this anymore. I’m deleting my online characters, tossing my tabletops, and selling my consoles.”

  “Stell, wait!” Her friend turned to the door to leave. There was only one way Clare knew she could try to change her friend’s mind. Something drastic was needed to save what she had with Stella. She could give up all that other stuff Stella had mentioned, but not Stella herself.

  “Wait, Stell.” Courage flooded Clare as Stella halted on the last step. “What if I show you something? Something so very special. Will you agree to wait and talk to us then?”

  “More magic and sorcery?” Stella mocked. Her tone cut Clare’s heart. “What is it?”

  Clare didn’t back down. Her heart was set. “The best kind ever. I promise.”

  “Tch,” Stella laughed sardonically again.

  “It will be worth it. Meet me at the quarry a couple miles from here. Thursday evening. Bring your costume.”

  With dark, narrow eyes and a sarcastic shaking of her head, Stella sighed. “This is the last time, Clare. Remember, I quit.”

  Chapter 13

  The Witch of Decay

  Waiting near the water’s edge, Clare played over in her mind her friends’ reactions when she told them in school she was taking Stella to the fantasy world. They had been jealous, but after she explained herself, they understood and were less anxious.

  “Do we all get a turn?” Lance had asked playfully.

  Alice, however, had more of a warning. “Be careful,” she had said. “You know what happens in other stories when the wrong person crosses over into worlds like that.”

  “But this is my world,” Clare reasoned. “I can handle it.” A new kind of authority had flared up in her as if she wasn’t certain of who she was in this fantasy world and what her mission was. Something about the feeling was off beat with her, but she decided that was just because courage and authority were new sensations to her.

  Sitting in the moonlight with Galis’ necklace wrapped firmly around her wrist, she wasn’t so sure. She had taken precautions. Heather’s protective necklace was safely tied around her neck, her battle-ready sword was buckled on and she had put her fake chainmail on under her ranger costume, remembering how her clothes had turned more real in the fantasy world. Maybe this way she could have light armor.

  She also hoped to meet Prince Gwen and the elf again. Max had said to name him Yilith. She planned to do just that and speak with him for the first time.

  This thought brought back what Stella had said about Max. She had perhaps been in love with him. But she didn’t love him the way he was. She had plans and designs in her head for him, just like Al had about her. But Max had confessed that he’d been crushing on Clare. She hadn’t responded to that well. She had rather ignored it and pushed it aside like a childish crush. Perhaps Stella knew Max had feelings for her and that’s why she was so angry at Clare?

  “I’m here. What now?”

  Clare stood up and turned to see Stella in her simplest black robe and dress with flowing sleeves.

  From the distance, the loon called. Clare smiled and turned toward it. “Do you hear that?” she asked. “He’s calling for his other half. Isn’t it a beautiful sound?”

  “Is that a wolf?” Stella asked, a little nervous.

  Clare laughed. “No, it’s a loon. A king of ducks.”

  A little light returned to Stella’s face. “Oh, that’s kind of cool.” She waited a minute. “Is that why you dragged me out here on a school night?”

  Clare shook her head. “No. I want to take you to my very special world. I’ve told some of the others about it. It’s pretty wild.”

  An exasperated sigh pulled Stella to the ground. She crossed her legs and her arms. “Don’t try this trick with me, Clare. I’m not five, you know?” Her voiced mocked Clare’s, “Let’s go on an adventure and see how imagination can take you to wonderful worlds of discovery and fun!” She frowned. “No.”

  There was no giving up for Clare. She plopped down next to Stella and took her hands, holding them tight. She looked Stella right in her dark eyes.

  “I went to another world.”

  Here, without stopping for a reaction, Clare told her everything she had told Max, Lance, and Alice. She added in her excitement when she got carried away and expressed her hope for meeting Yilith and Gwen again. She told her about Greylheim, the great Umbra, and how everyone feared him, but she had no idea who or what it was.

  “There is a kind of magic in this world that helps me get there,” she ended with. “I want to show you.”

  “You’re crazy.” Stella looked over the lake, the water still as glass. When Clare didn’t laugh it off, say she was joking, Stella shrugged. “Sure, do your thing and let’s see what happens,” she said, fake-smiling and raising her brows.

  This was the part Clare had dreaded. She wasn’t sure how to get there. But the oracle had said that two earthlings were more powerful than one. Grasping Stella’s hands harder this time, she willed herself to vanish and move to the other world. She pictured Calimorden, the safe human kingdom, and wished to go there.

  A buzzing interrupted her from Stella’s pocket. Her mobile was alerting her.

  “Ignore it and get on with your voodoo,” she sighed.

  Unhappy at the interruption and her friend’s words, Clare screamed in her head to be in the other world and her ears suddenly popped, causing her to wince and cry out. Stella did the same. In their hands, they clutched the bone necklace.

  When they opened their eyes, it looked like the same place, only the rocks were glittering and had Celtic looking knots and swirls carved in them. In the woods, tiny little orbs of light circled the trees like large glowing fireflies in the broad daylight.

  Above them, two suns shone in the sky.

  Stella screamed and stood up. “What have you done?” she cried. “Did you drug me?”

  Clare leapt up and called into the woods, “Hello!”

  “This is it, Stell,” she squealed in joy. “This is the place!”

  Even with the fairy woods in front of her and the sparkling rocks with their magic symbols, the two shining suns, Stella shook her hea
d, looking as though she were about to scream.

  “No, you did something. What the hell, Clare?” Her eyes were tearing up with scared rage.

  “I wonder where everyone is?” Clare wandered closer to the woods, peering past some trees. “Hey there,” she said to one of the swirling wisps. “Where are we? Is Calimorden close?”

  The wisp stopped moving around the tree in its nature dance and looked up at Clare with its huge orb-like green eyes. It looked like one of those slim little green aliens one sees in the cartoons only with tall, pointy bat-like ears and buzzing iridescent wings at its back.

  “The queen is just there!” the wisp said excitedly, pointing into the trees. “The castle too, as a matter of fact. The prince is out. He’s on a quest for something or other, as a matter of fact. A Mirror, in the east, perhaps.”

  Clare smiled at the cute thing as it rubbed its face on the tree again and again. “Can you lead us there?”

  “I cannot, as a matter of fact,” it squeaked. “But maybe I could. If he doesn’t know, he cannot beat us to jelly! Yes, perhaps I could, as a matter of fact.”

  “Who’s going to beat you to jelly?” Clare asked.

  This place was a side of the fantasy world she could love easily. No norcan here, no dragons trying to kill her. No sandpedes attacking from nowhere. Just little fairies who loved trees.

  “No one, of course!” it laughed in a rather tiny, maniacal way. “I’ll lead you, of course!”

  “Clare!” Stella growled as she began to follow the wisp. “There is no way I am following some freakish, little glowing thing into a strange woods. What is going on? Tell me or I won’t go.”

  “This is the place.” Clare only spun around to speak, but walked backwards after the wisp. “My magical world.”

  Stella continued to glare until Clare stopped and walked back to her.

  “Here you get magical powers based on what you wear. Look at you! You’re a witch with powers greater than most in your chapter in Sun Age. And I’ve been here before. I know the place. A little. Well…” she glanced around. “The point is that you are what you make-believe here! It’s better than any RPG, trust me.”

  Still, Stella shook her head slowly. “Swear you haven’t drugged me or used one of Heather’s hoodoo spells?”

  Clare wrinkled her face and arched her eyebrow. “I would never, Stell.” She took one cautious step. “Give it a try, oh most powerful sorceress.”

  Sighing, her shoulders falling, Stella nodded. It was obvious she didn’t know what else to do. That wasn’t how Clare wanted it, but it would have to do. At least she was here and could see now.

  “Am I powerful?” Stella asked.

  Clare shrugged. “I don’t have magic. I’m a ranger, I suppose.”

  A thoughtful frown creased Stella’s face then. She was honestly thinking! Excitement eased Clare’s heart a little of its burden.

  “Maybe here I have magic because I’m dressed as a sorceress?” Stella’s tone was only half inquiry as she rubbed her hands slowly together.

  The thought seemed reasonable to Clare, but was not comforting. If that were the case, what powers did she have? Earthling powers, whatever those were, seemed to be rather limited and vague. Pushing the thought away and focusing on her task beforehand, she marched deeper into the woods.

  “Sure, you’re a sorceress.”

  As they walked through the forest trying to keep their eyes on the wisp, Stella eventually grew wonderfully curious about the place. It was like they were tromping through the woods behind school again, as they had done when they were little girls, looking for unicorns.

  “How did you do that?” she asked in a hushed voice as trees stepped aside for them. “You spoke fairy to it.”

  “No, it talks normally, doesn’t it?” She thought back to the norcan and how Folkvar had asked her how she knew their language. She hadn’t known that either.

  “No, you distinctly spoke fairy back there,” Stella said. “I heard you and it.”

  Now maybe she understood. “I’ve always been able to speak to all the races here. Except Yilith. But I don’t think he talks much. Maybe it’s an earthling thing?”

  “Then what am I?” Stella raised her eyebrows. “Why don’t I get special powers too?”

  Now Clare knew why she was curious about the languages. Stella couldn’t understand them. No matter what she told Stella, she would still be upset she couldn’t talk to the creatures and that Clare could.

  “I don’t know,” was all she could say.

  It seemed like they wandered around the forest into bogs, smelly droppings, patches of mosquitoes, bushes with thorns and mud for hours. Every time one of them slipped or groaned or cried out in pain or disgust, the wisp would chuckle.

  “Enough!” Stella shouted.

  “Where are we going, really?” Clare grasped the little green wisp out of the air and gave it a little squeeze.

  “In circles and squares and some zig-zags as a matter of fact!” it piped happily. “Or maybe just circles.”

  Clare threw the thing to the ground with an outburst of anger. “You liar!”

  “I am not, as a matter of fact,” it screamed rushing up to her face in a green fury, its wings making a zinging kind of buzz.

  “You lied and said you’d take us to the castle.”

  “Calimorden? That castle? I can take you there, as a matter of fact!” It turned to buzz away again.

  “Stop saying that!” Clare shouted at its back.

  “He can’t help it. It’s waspish for ‘I lie,’” a smooth voice spoke from behind a tree as a purple hand reached out and snagged the wisp’s wings between two fingers.

  “Come out,” Clare ordered. She found that often her orders were obeyed as if the creatures knew she was an earthling.

  The being behind the tree didn’t step out. It hovered into view. It was a tall spritely boy with black hair sticking way up off the back of his head. His eyes and brows were angled up in a permanent snobbish look. His skin was purple and his glittery clothes were black. His fairy wings were a dark iridescent purple with black veins. It smiled, emphasizing high cheek bones.

  “Clare, already my land is buzzing with talk of you and your brave warriors,” the fairy said in that smooth, lazy voice. “Even the great Umbra is aware of your meddling in his Nether affairs. His power grows even more over this land now. How I hate that.” He pouted and gripped the struggling wisp in his fist.

  “Are you the fairy king?” Stella asked. She could understand this one somehow.

  The dark fairy smiled with a mouth full of teeth, every one of them pointed and glistening.

  “Don’t I wish, as a matter of fact.”

  “That means no?” Clare asked. The fairy blinked at her as it squished the wisp a little more. “You said that when he said ‘as a matter of fact’ that meant ‘I lie.’ You really don’t want to be king?”

  The fairy spun on his toes and made a kind of creepy giggle. “I like you, Clare! So clever and witty!”

  The wisp squeaked in fear as the fist around it squeezed again.

  “Put it down,” Clare ordered again. To her delight, he did. “Now, Jinx,” she named him, “where is Calimorden? And where are my,” she used his words here, “warriors as you call them?”

  Jinx clenched his hands in delight at hearing his own name. “Far away is the castle of humans. Devastated too, but alive. Greylheim returned thrice to find you, but you were not there. I can lead you, but we must go through her realm to reach the Golden Kingdom of Happiness.”

  His voice was so full of hate for the humans that he spit through clenched teeth as he spoke.

  “Who is she?” Clare asked. “Friend or foe of Umbra?”

  Jinx again hissed through his sharp fangs. “Servant of who matters not! Nay, it does as a matter of fact!” He growled and clutched his throat, his eyes popping wide with horror. “I have spoken too much. Come to the castle. I will lead you.”

  He smiled then, the insanity that
had been mounting in his face vanished.

  “This guy is nuts!” Stella whispered. They were rushing through the woods to keep up with his quick movements. “Where is he taking us? Do you always just follow the people you meet?”

  “Sadly, yes. It nearly got me killed once, but the other time, I saved someone from the Nether.”

  Stella was wary the whole time they trudged through the forest now. Jinx was less sporadic than the wisp, who was still following them. It too wasn’t flitting about anymore. It buzzed next to Clare, rubbing its tiny green hands together, and glancing over its shoulder every few minutes.

  As they went deeper into the woods, the overhead foliage grew denser and the air humid. Soon it was dark enough to see Jinx’s and the wisp’s glow. They also noticed that the plants, though thicker in this region, were dying and brittle to the touch.

  “What’s wrong with the forest?” Clare asked.

  “Corruption,” Jinx replied in a steady tone he had not used before. “It is everywhere. She likes it that way.”

  When they broke through the woods, ahead of them was a stone village. Elaborate statues of warriors with flowing robes of marble stood on pedestals. Towers rose from every building. In the center of the stone city was a great, pointed and cruel-looking castle with many spires and slender turrets.

  The people in the village were all entirely covered in bits and scraps of greying clothes. Their faces were hooded, limbs wrapped; the only way they could tell a person was underneath was by the shape the tatters took. Like zombies, these people trudged about, pushing carts and just shambling along the road without a destination. Not one of them spoke as the group neared. When Jinx approached a cluster as he lead them in to the city, the people made a ghostly moaning sound and rushed away from him. The ground was very dead.

  “They fear that which is not corrupt,” Jinx explained.

  When Clare passed them, wrapped hands went up to shield their invisible faces and they cowered beneath her as if she were a bright fire.