Mortiswood: Kaelia Awakening (Mortiswood Tales)

by Gina Dickerson

  Despite residual pain, Calix jumped onto his motorbike, kicking it into life. He asked a question, already fearing the answer. ‘Who does Father Peter suspect is the other one needed to melt the sword?’

  Gunnarr raised his voice to be heard over the engine. ‘You already know, Calix. It is the one who is the same, yet opposite to Kaelia!’

  Calix clenched his teeth. He had a lot of work to do if he was to pick up a Rosealrium bloom on the way back through Mortiswood to catch Kaelia before she crossed the bridge into Niflheim.

  * * *

  Sixteen

  Minster-in-Thanet Roundabout,

  Thanet

  Bran slowed the motorbike as the A299 approached the roundabout junction with the B2190. He went around the roundabout, pulled into a large car park and switched the engine off.

  ‘Why are we stopping?’ Kaelia asked him as he lifted off his cycle helmet and gently pushed her off the machine.

  Bran shook out his raven hair. ‘It’s a hotel. I was planning on seeing if there’s a room free.’ He laughed at the look on her face. ‘Relax, it’s not a come-on. You healed a lot of people today, you need to sleep. So do I. We must be strong for where we’re going.’

  ‘We can’t waste time sleeping!’ Kaelia stomped after him as he strode towards the modern building. ‘We must go now.’

  ‘No.’ Bran stopped abruptly and Kaelia bashed into him. ‘I must sleep. If you don’t want to sleep, that’s your choice but there’s no way I’m venturing into Hel’s realm running at half-empty. Wait here, I’ll find a room.’

  ‘Two rooms,’ Kaelia called after him. ‘I’m not sharing with you!’

  * * *

  Kaelia was perched on the low, brick wall outside of the reception when Bran dangled a key in front of her nose. She snatched it up, the key’s overly large key-ring bashing against her knuckles.

  ‘This way.’ Bran took the lead.

  Kaelia followed him past the reception area and through a series of identical corridors until he tapped a door with his knuckles. ‘It’s this one.’

  Kaelia slipped the key into the lock and opened the door. The room was painted in neutral colours. An armless, two-seat sofa, upholstered in a coffee coloured fabric, sat underneath the window, opposite which was a small table with two chairs. A narrow desk supported a telephone and a lamp, above it was a plain mirror. The bed was swathed in a thick, heavy throw, and laden with scatter cushions, all in varying neutral shades. Kaelia crossed the room and pulled the curtains shut. They were not quite thick enough to entirely block out the daylight but were better than nothing.

  ‘Don’t you have your own room?’ she asked Bran.

  Bran, placing the small table next to the sofa, shook his head. ‘There was one room free.’ He held up a silencing finger as Kaelia made to protest. ‘I’ll take the sofa, you can have the bed.’

  Kaelia watched him re-arrange the sofa until it was in line with the table. Reluctantly, she made her way to the bed and pulled the heavy, top throw off. ‘Do you want this?’ she asked Bran.

  Bran shook his head. ‘I could use a pillow though.’

  Kaelia pushed the scatter cushions aside and pulled the duvet down, underneath were four pillows. Taking two, she tossed them to Bran. ‘I hope you don’t snore,’ she said, removing her boots before settling into the double bed.

  Bran thrust the pillows under his head and stretched out along the sofa, his feet overhanging even with the added extra that was the table. ‘And I hope you don’t ravish me in your sleep.’

  Kaelia threw a scatter cushion at him.

  He caught it and laughed. ‘Actually, I hope you do.’

  ‘The next thing I throw,’ Kaelia warned, ‘won’t be so soft.’

  ‘I hope it won’t,’ Bran countered, closing his eyes. ‘Just make sure the next thing you throw at me is you.’

  Laughter bubbled out of Kaelia’s mouth. A real, proper laugh that made her stomach ache. ‘You’re a dick!’ she managed to say between catching breaths.

  ‘It’s good to hear you laugh.’ Bran’s voice sounded as if he were smiling. ‘Go to sleep.’

  Kaelia turned onto her side and tucked her hands underneath the pillow, resting her head upon them both. Her eyelids slid closed of their own volition and soon, she snored gently as a dream unfurled.

  A murmuration of Starlings dipped and wove through the cloudless sky as dusk settled around Northdown Park, each bird perfectly in tune with the next. The grass was dry, tickly, against Kaelia’s bare feet, and the ground still felt warm even though the sun had dropped. The play area was empty. Rubber seats of the swings were still. An old, half-chewed-by-a-dog, football lay discarded by the play-bus. The air was close, breathless.

  Kaelia walked around the play area, not keen to walk barefoot on either the dry, scratchy play-bark or the squidgy rubberised safety surface. She made her way around the brick-built, flat-roofed cricket pavilion beside the play area and turned under its concrete canopy.

  ‘You’re here!’ Bay jumped up from the middle of three benches that sheltered under the canopy.

  Kaelia crashed into his arms, pressing her face against the solid familiarity of his chest. He smelt as if he had been outdoors for a long time, a mix of earthiness and the particular freshness when clothes are aired off outside. ‘I miss you so much!’ she sobbed into the material of his long-sleeved t-shirt.

  Bay gently smoothed her hair, kissed the top of her head, and guided her to the bench he had been sitting on. Drawing her onto his lap, he tilted her face to his and covered her lips with his own. ‘I love you, Kaelia.’

  Tears ran down her cheeks and wetted Kaelia’s lips, making the kiss slippery. The tears tasted bitter on her tongue. ‘I love you too, Bay.’ She broke into wracking sobs. ‘I just want to see you again!’

  Bay hushed her, soothingly. ‘You are seeing me. Right now.’

  Kaelia sniffed her tears back and nodded. Her eyes soaked up every detail of him, from his chocolate-toffee hair, his soft, brown eyes, the way his mouth lifted lopsidedly at one corner with his smile. His arms were strong around her, his hands larger than she had remembered.

  ‘I wish we could stay like this forever.’ Kaelia leant her head against him and stared up into the darkening sky.

  ‘Me too.’ Bay eased an arm free and reached down the side of the bench. ‘Here,’ he said, handing her something.

  Kaelia took his offering. It was a small, plastic bag. Inside was a solitary sweet, pinkish in colour and covered in frosted sugar.

  Bay eased Kaelia from his lap and deposited her on the bench. Turning, he surveyed the empty cricket pitch and, beyond it, the desolate football pitch. ‘Never,’ Bay said, returning his attention to Kaelia. ‘Forget how much I love you.’

  Kaelia popped the sweet in her mouth. The initial sourness made her squint. She sucked the candy and its flavour changed. What began as a sickly strawberry taste gave way to something infinitely more horrid. Kaelia spat the sweet out. ‘What was that? It tasted disgusting.’ She shuddered, trying to place exactly what the taste was.

  ‘Did it taste like rotten meat well past its sell-by date and crawling with maggots?’ Bay asked.

  Kaelia nodded. ‘Why did you give me a sweet so foul?’

  Bay started to move away. Darkness had fallen fast while Kaelia had been distracted with the sweet. It became difficult to see Bay in the diminishing light. ‘So you remember,’ Bay’s voice drifted back to her. ‘Things are not always what they seem.’

  Kaelia sprung up from the bench. The dark veil of night made her short-sighted. ‘Bay?’ she called, racing onto the cricket pitch. ‘Where are you?’

  There was no answer. Kaelia span around and around, looking for him, until, feeling dizzy, she collapsed onto the neatly shorn grass. This time when she called his name it ripped from her very soul, slicing through her heart on the way out of her mouth. ‘Bay!’

  The burning in her throat woke Kaelia. It was as if she had screamed Bay’s name for real, her throat
physically hurt. Slowly, she turned over; afraid that Bran had witnessed her dreaming. She didn’t want to have to explain anything to him. A sigh of relief eased some of the pain in her throat; Bran was still, his eyes closed.

  Kaelia turned back onto her other side, facing away from Bran and the window, and closed her eyes. The image of Bay’s face scorched beneath her eyelids and a silent tear slid free at the thought of him.

  On the sofa, Bran opened his eyes and quietly turned his head to study the back of Kaelia. He frowned and stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Kaelia’s sleep-cries had awoken him and, unable to shrug them off, he struggled to banish them from his memory.

  * * *

  Margate, Kent

  They had slept for a few hours at the hotel, and then Kaelia had woken Bran and hurried him on. The drive to Margate from Minster only took twenty minutes. Kaelia tugged at Bran’s coat, indicating for him to pull into the car park besides the small library building nestled in the grounds of Northdown Park. There were a few cars on the tarmac, either belonging to dog walkers or visitors to the library. Kaelia clambered off the motorbike and walked towards the bollards separating the tarmac from the grass. Three bollards were newer than the others, although even they were still weathered and aged.

  She trailed her fingertips across the top of the middle bollard, light crackling from her, evoking memories. The bollards had been replaced after the originals had been knocked over by the car that had killed her father. Kaelia wandered over to the nearby play area. It was now enclosed by a fence, presumably to keep dogs away. The fencing made the area feel smaller and not just because she’d grown. The play-bus with its slide was still there but the monkey bars had long since been removed. It was a shame; she’d wanted to touch their cold, smooth bars one last time to remember Bay. The absence of children’s laughter was noticeable but not unusual; it was the middle of a school day.

  Ghosts of remembered laughter teased Kaelia as she opened the gate and wended through the bark chipping covered play area, past the spring rider, tapping it into wobbling motion and to metal framed arches dripping swings. Only two swings remained, their seats missing chunks that had eaten by the teeth of time. Kaelia pushed one of the swings, its creak still familiar from when she had sat upon the very swing with Bay on the other one beside her.

  She turned, casting her eyes back across the play area to where Bran prowled by the motorbike. He had removed his overcoat and the slim fit of his shirt highlighted his angular physique. His dark hair flopped up and down with each step he took. Kaelia screwed her nose up, why was he so antsy?

  Leaving the swing, Kaelia automatically made her way to the grave of the monkey bars. Her throat constricted with emotion. Closing her eyes, she could see her younger self and Bay scrambling up opposite ends of the bars, childish laughter resonating with the sound of cheering from the football match on the pitch across the park.

  Then her hand had touched Bay’s and light exploded and the boy, her best friend, had fallen to the ground. That day had certainly been one for revelations. Kaelia had learnt she was different but had also lost her father. She didn’t realise she was crying until a touch on her shoulder made her flinch.

  ‘We should move,’ Bran instructed. ‘The longer we stay in one place, the more likely it is more Dybbuks will find us.’ He touched her cheek. ‘Why are you crying?’

  Kaelia roughly brushed his hand away. ‘No reason.’ She didn’t want to share the memory of her father’s death, or her memories of Bay, with Bran. What she didn’t know was she had, unwittingly, already shared a minute piece of her love for Bay with Bran when she had been sleeping in the hotel and had called his name in her sleep.

  * * *

  The tide was out on the golden sands of the Kingsgate beaches a few miles away from the park. A woman threw a ball for her terrier to chase and the little dog scrabbled eagerly after it, leaping over rocks and chalk to catch the toy. The shiny ball finally landed on moist sand beside the cliff face and the terrier eagerly snatched it up, shaking it side to side as if killing a rabbit. Cave mouths broke the expanse of white cliff; long abandoned tunnels used in bygone smuggling days. The small dog raced to the turn in the cliff where a steep, chalk incline led up to the caves. It jumped up against the cliff but its legs were short and it couldn’t reach the ledge leading into the first of the chalk tunnels.

  A light breeze ruffled the dog’s wiry coat and the ball dropped from its jaws, rolling away before stopping in a small pool of caught sea water. With a sudden yelp, the little dog turned, racing back across the rocks to its owner dipping her toes in the sea. The small dog catapulted into the surf, spraying sandy water over its owner’s jeans, and sped past her.

  ‘Peaches!’ The woman ineffectively brushed at her legs with her hands. ‘Come back!’

  The dog yelped again and set off across the sand in the opposite direction, forcing the woman to chase after it.

  Small chunks of chalk tumbled down the steep incline and onto the sand below. The Vallesm emerged from the cave mouth and shook out its fur from where it had been resting. The wolf easily jumped off the ledge. It lifted its large head and sniffed the air. With a howl, it bounded around the shore into Botany Bay, wove between where a column of cliff stood isolated from the main land, and slunk up a windswept mound of sand that almost reached up to the cliff top. The Vallesm projected itself from the top of the sandy mound and landed with a thud on the scrubland overlooking the bay.

  Although houses sprawled some distance away from the cliff edge, the Vallesm lifted its head and howled a second time. A frenzied wave of the barking of dogs erupted in greeting. The wolf sniffed the air again. Catching a scent it recognised, it turned with a flick of its tail, leaping off the cliff, it hit the beach running.

  * * *

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Kaelia stopped the motorbike. She had taken control of it after they’d left the park.

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘Howling.’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

  Kaelia concealed a smile. ‘He’s here.’

  ‘For the last time,’ Bran said in exasperation. ‘It’s an it not a he!’

  ‘So you did hear it. You just lied.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Fine, I can’t help it if I’m jealous of a fur-ball, can I? That damn creature can never do any wrong in your eyes.’

  Kaelia restarted the bike. ‘That’s because he never lies to me.’

  ‘It’s a wolf, it can’t even speak!’

  Kaelia shrugged and rode down the residential road leading to the coast. Bungalows and houses faced both sides of the road and the odd person pottered in their front garden, paying scant attention to the pair on the motorbike. Kaelia took the first exit on her left after the road curved, and turned sharply into a smaller residential road. Without switching off the engine, she drew up in front of a green space filled with trees. The tree laden area lay between the gardens of two large houses.

  ‘Why have you come this way?’ Bran shouted in her ear. ‘We need to turn back around and follow the coast into town.’

  ‘This is where I used to live.’

  ‘Which house?’

  Kaelia frowned. ‘Neither. My house was where the trees are now.’ She peered up at the tall, oak trees.

  Bran tapped her shoulder. ‘The Salloki have had a hand in this.’

  ‘It’s as if my family never existed.’

  ‘That’s why they destroyed the house.’ Bran looked around. ‘My guess is they also interfered with the memory of people on this street. This reeks of Draugr magic.’

  Kaelia edged the bike away from the kerb and turned it back around, not noticing the trees rustle. Bran craned his neck as the leaves parted and the Vallesm’s grey-white fur shone through, its amber eyes blinking from the foliage. Bran drew his finger across his own neck in a pointed gesture. The wolf’s eyes blinked once more and it withdrew into the shadows.

  * * *

  The
road to Margate town was easy to follow, running as it did alongside the coast. Kaelia and Bran passed the police station on the hill and stopped at the traffic lights by the Stone Pier.

  ‘The beginning of the bridge to Niflheim is at the end of the pier,’ Bran spoke in Kaelia’s ear. ‘Go around the gallery building and we’ll leave the bike by the bottom of the cliff. We may as well eat something considering we didn’t finish our meal earlier. We’ll tackle the bridge under the cover of darkness. It’ll be safer.’

  Kaelia waited until the lights changed and followed his instructions. Pulling up underneath the slight hang of the cliff, she removed her helmet before speaking. ‘Why was there such a rush to leave the park and my old road?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Did you want to distance me from my memories?’

  Bran swung his leg over the pillion before hopping off the machine. He strode to the railings marking the edge of the promenade and grasped the cold metal. Kaelia dropped her helmet on the floor behind the motorbike, there wasn’t anywhere to leave it and it would probably be stolen by the time they returned. She gulped, if they returned. Annoyed with Bran, she cast a cursory glance around to check for onlookers before flicking a ball of blue-white light at the back of his heels.

  Bran jumped and retaliated with a ball of violet light to Kaelia’s feet. ‘Pack it in,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t have time for games.’