Angus helped her to the bed, then wiped off the dirt with a wet cloth. “Not if we run first.”
Callie looked at him.
Angus wiped at her cheeks.
“I know your plan,” he said. “I have known for a while. But I never told him. I’ve waited until the right time. All I ask is that you take me with you.”
“My bag,” she said, taking the cloth from him. “It’s in the hole. We need it.”
Angus ran back to wrench it out of the vines before the grave could close over.
Callie held her head between her legs and heaved. Soggy dirt slapped to her ruined dress and ran down to the moss. She could feel the grains stuck between her teeth, trapped at the back of her throat.
Angus hurried over with the bag in tow.
“I’m all right,” she said, wiping the back of her hand over her muddy lips.
He shoved a handful of clothes into her arms.
“No,” he said. “But the nausea will pass. We don’t have the time to wait for it to pass. In thirty minutes, the guards change over at the gate. It’s our only chance to get out of the castle unseen.”
Eyes shut against the waves of nausea, Callie managed a faint nod. She went behind the drapes to change into the fresh clothes, and dunked her head in the pond water for a quick clean.
The effects were instant. Freshness washed over her face and scalp, all the way down to her neck, and the dull ache that had pumped against her forehead faded.
Then, she found Angus by the vanity desk, sheathed in a black cloak, and her choker in his hand.
“Wear this,” he said, and offered it to her. “We must protect you from enchantments if we are to make it to the human realm.”
Callie took it and clasped it around her neck. “Why are you doing this, Angus? Why do you want to go there?”
“I don’t.” He blinked at her, as if surprised she would have to ask. “I just want to be where you are. And you want to go there.”
Callie leaned against the desk and looked at the jewellery stand. Her crown was perched on top it, glinting against the light of the jarred glow-worms.
“I’m not your mother,” she said. “I know you want me to be, but I’m not sure I can ever be that to anyone, Angus.”
“You already are.” He tilted his head and followed her gaze to the crown. “If he was going to kill you, he would have done it that night after the court. I thought he would. I cried all night and day, until I learned from Davina that you were buried. I knew when you were freed from the ground, you would try to escape.” He looked at her with those wet eyes that shredded masks and wore truths proudly. “I cannot lose another mother.”
Callie reached out for the crown and ran her fingertips over the golden leaves that shimmered so much like Rain’s eyes. “You choose me over him?”
“I do not love him. He is not what a father ought to be.”
She nodded and drew her hand back. Then, she pulled on her bag followed by the dark travelling cloak.
“It is time,” said Angus, looking grim. “We leave now, or we do not leave at all.”
Callie gestured to the clear arch. “Lead the way.”
Sheathed in hooded cloaks, Callie and Angus hurried down the servant stairs, hand-in-hand. His tight grip betrayed his nerves, despite the calmness of his shadowed face.
They stuck close to the wall, as if glued there, and cringed at the echoes of their footfalls. There was a hollow feeling there, in the names scratched into the stone walls and the stains on the steps. Ghosts of people past, humans stolen and forced into servitude.
Angus released her hand and stopped at an old wooden door. He turned the rusty handle slowly. Its creak whispered through the silence, muffled as Angus pressed his side to the door. It cracked open, just enough for them to peer into the courtyard.
Silent, they waited. Angus held up his free hand, then curled down one finger. Then another. And another.
When his hand folded into a fist, the clang of the gate rattled through the courtyard. Callie flinched, her heart hammering against her chest, hard. She had to bite down on the insides of her cheeks just to quieten her sharp breathing.
The thick, heavy accents of the guards flooded her ears. Footfalls grew louder on the stone ground of the courtyard, and thudded closer to the door. Angus crept back behind the door and stilled. For a moment, they were statues, frozen in time until the footsteps and voices passed by and drifted to the other side of the courtyard.
Another glance through the crack, and Angus snatched her hand. They ducked into the chilly courtyard and looked across at the open gate. Unguarded.
They ran for the gate and slipped through to the fresh outdoors.
Angus took her straight into the bushes that led up to the stables. A steed was tied to a post at the entrance, its coat matching the midnight sky above.
Callie hoisted the saddle and reins off the post and made to throw them onto the steed.
“We don’t have time.” Angus grabbed the reins and fastened them onto the horse. “We will stop to saddle once we are off the grounds.”
As quiet as his whisper, they crept around the stables to the moat and waded through the still water.
Callie had expected something in the water to grab her, to drag her down and drown her with its icy chill. But they made it safely to the other side, and Angus seemed to sense her doubt. He tapped his finger to his throat, a gesture to the choker wrapped around her own.
His earlier words whispered in her mind. We must protect you from enchantments...
The moat was filled with enchantments. And the choker protected her from them.
At the edge of the woods, Angus saddled the steed and they both mounted it. He sat in front, reins in hand, and looked over his shoulder at her grim face.
“Keep silent,” he warned. “Father has guards all through the woods, and we must pass the court to the lake. Father is at the court.”
Callie gripped on tight to his robes and thinned her lips. A quick nod later, and Angus had tugged the reins. They galloped through the thin, windy trees, sticking close to the path but far off it enough to go unseen.
The woods were eerie in their silence. Wind swept over them, but never touched the still, non-rustling leaves of the trees. Birds didn’t sing, toads didn’t croak. The beasts of the woods were as quiet as death. And it turned Callie’s stomach.
Her anxieties didn’t subside even when they emerged from the trees to a pebbled path at the foot of the hill. Callie looked up at the court, and remembered how terrifying she’d first thought its white shine against the night sky.
Callie wondered if she would have followed the path up to the court that night if she had known what awaited her. If she had known that she wouldn’t be leaving the fae realm with Meghan, but with an unwanted fae-boy and a cursed life, she might not have been strong enough to brave the path ahead.
Even as she slid off the steed with the help of Angus and turned her stare to the lake that had dragged her to its floor, Callie doubted herself. And she feared that maybe she wasn’t as noble as she would have liked to believe.
“What are you doing?” Callie grabbed Angus’s arm as he tied the steed to the post. “If anyone from the castle sees it, they’ll know we’ve run away. They’ll know where to.”
Angus ran his hand down the horse’s face with a rare tenderness. “They will know the moment they realise we are gone. The lake is the only way out of the Kingdom.” He stepped away from the horse and faced the foreboding lake. “At the castle, if they don’t already know we are gone, they will within minutes. They will go to my chambers to collect me for night lessons—to study the stars. Remember this Callie, until we are hidden in the human realm, they will be right behind us.”
She nodded and took his hand. “So let’s get the fuck out of here, now.”
His eyebrows shot up to his hairline, but Callie didn’t spare a thought to her cursing. She yanked him with her and marched into the lake’s shore until they couldn’t wal
k any further. Then they swam out as far as they could.
It was easier, she realised, to swim in the lake when she knew she was headed toward freedom, than to swim against its pull to the court. That was the difference. Swimming towards the hope of the known than towards the fear of the unknown.
In the middle of the lake, where the shore and steeds were mere shadows in the night, Angus steadied her in the water and held onto her hands.
“We let the lake take us,” he said. “The choker will protect you.”
Before she could protest, he sank under water and dragged her down with him. She didn’t fight. The water’s pull was nothing like the first time. It was welcoming, gentle. Reassurance embraced her and carried her down to the pebbled floor.
Her eyes saw far through the crystal-clear water.
Angus landed on his feet, and lowered to a crouch. His hands found a small mound of pebbles that pricked a faint memory in her mind, one that she couldn’t place.
Angus pressed his hands hard against the pebble-mound, his lips moving softly against the water. Then the pebbles cracked. Pieces of them broke away and rolled down to the surface, and Callie thought of ants pouring out of their nests in swarms.
When it had peeled apart entirely, and every last fracture of pebble stilled at their feet, a hole was revealed. A hole where no water fell, and the roots of a tree twisted around dry earth.
Angus flashed a wicked and proud smile that twinkled his eyes, then jumped into the hole. Not before he grabbed her arm and hauled her down with him.
Callie’s gurgled scream turned loud and true in the hole. They fell, like she had fallen down the hollow tree. But time and space twisted, and soon they were falling upwards.
Sun and air hit them like a wave crashing in from the sea. They landed at the blackened roots of a tree, tangled together in a pile of groans.
Callie blinked away the pain and rolled onto her back. Soaked and soiled, she peered up at what had been a dirt tunnel moments ago, but had changed into a familiar sky and sun. She looked up with an unbelieving smile.
They were in the human realm.
Then, as she looked around them to the trees that bent in on themselves, as if mangled by a fierce windstorm, her relief evaporated. They weren’t just in the human realm.
They were at the crooked trees where Cormag had found her.
“That wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be,” said Angus, pushing himself to sit up.
With a frown, he rubbed his sore, red forehead and squinted at her.
“Don’t trouble yourself,” he mumbled. “I only hit my head on your knee when we landed. I will be fine.”
Callie snatched him up from the forest floor and dragged him away from the hollow tree. “There’s no time for your jokes, Angus. We’re not safe yet. Fae wander these woods.”
Angus sobered instantly.
It wasn’t the fae that startled him, but what it could mean. For one of his kind to stumble upon a half-fae boy and a human girl with a jewelled choker around her neck would be a dead giveaway. A chance for them to be captured.
Callie held on tight to him and ran through the trees. Without Cormag’s enchantments to twist her direction, she knew just the path to take.
All the way downhill, they ran.
And they didn’t stop until they reached the tavern.
But it was boarded shut. The whole village was.
It was a ghost of what had once been there.
And Callie felt the wretched twist of her stomach as she wondered just how long ago that had been.
25
For miles, Callie and Angus trekked down the desolate road until they finally reached the nearest town. It was little more than a strip of old cottage-like shops and cabins hidden deeper into the woods off small trails. Bigger than the once-cosy village, but almost as abandoned.
“So far, the human world does not impress me,” said Angus as he rinsed his creased gaze over the few shops and rusty cars. “Why not live closer together? And in better conditions. This...” His face wrinkled and he gave a slight shake of the head. “This will not do, Callie.”
“Glamour yourself, Angus.” Her tone was sharp and impatient. “You can do that, can’t you?”
He didn’t answer.
At his silence, Callie looked down at him. Only, she wasn’t really seeing Angus, but a very human-like boy with brilliant blue eyes, raven hair, and rounded ears.
The resemblance to her was enough to make her shiver.
Clearing her throat, she steered him over to the only open shop in the town. An all-in-one corner shop, settled a few metres down the road from a weatherboard bus-stop.
Callie stopped at the front of the glass door, and crouched down to face Angus. “It’s not all like this. There are bigger places, places that will make it easier for us to disappear. Far from the woods. But to get there, we need money.”
He bunched his lips to the side. “I have read about money.”
“Do you know what it looks like?”
He shook his head.
“Right.” Callie stole a quick glance over her shoulder, checking the long road for any signs of fae who might have followed. “We’ll go into the shop, ok? And when I’m talking to the shop-keeper, I need you to take a good look at the money in the till—you need to make it open, understand?”
Angus nodded, a sudden doubt in his eyes. “I am not well versed in enchantments yet,” he said. “My training is not complete. But I will try.”
It was the most she could ask of him, so she swallowed back the sour possibility of failure and forced a smile.
“Good. Because once we’re out of the shop, I’m going to give you bits of paper to change into money. So make sure you study both the notes and the coins as best as you can.”
In answer, he gave a single, sharp nod.
Angus looped his arm through hers as they dipped through the glass door. A bell chimed above them, and a moment later, an old man pushed through the back door.
“Mornin’,” he grumped, rubbing his much-too-long stubble. Then, he noticed their black cloaks and made no attempt to hide his frowned curiosity. “You new here?”
“Just passing through,” said Callie, leading Angus over to the counter. “Our ride back to Aberdeen fell through, and we’ve been walking for hours. When is the next bus?”
The shopkeeper rubbed the back of his neck and looked at his watch. “Should be another hour or so.” The suspicion still crinkled his forehead. “Where’d you come from?”
“An old village a few miles back.” Callie nudged Angus with her foot, giving him the signal. “We were staying with friends at a cabin, but we have to be back in the city before tonight for a family thing.”
“Didn’t know anyone still went down that way.” He rested his hands on the counter and swerved his gaze back and forth between them. “People say it’s haunted.”
“People say a lot of things.” She smiled, and gave a harder kick to Angus’s leg.
Looking down at him, she saw that he was mesmerised by a stack of packaged chewing gum. He blinked out of his daze and looked up at her. Understanding snuffed out the sparkles from his eyes.
“Do you have a timetable for the bus?” Callie brought her gaze back up to the shopkeeper.
“Aye,” he nodded, and moved for the leaflets on the rack against the far wall. “Just over here.”
Callie followed him after a meaningful glare at Angus. Then, she turned her back on him and set out to distract the shopkeeper.
He handed her a few leaflets, and made to go back to the counter.
Callie caught his elbow and guided him back to her. She hoped Angus did as he promised behind them, but she couldn’t look over without giving them away.
“That village, back at the woods,” she began. “Why do they say it’s haunted?”
The shopkeeper dropped his head, as if about to reveal a terrible secret, and inched closer to her—so close, she could smell the stale coffee on his breath.
&
nbsp; It should have repulsed her, but the scent was so strong and undiluted by cinnamon or apples like it had been in the fae realm. A craving erupted within her.
“A few years back, a couple of lassies went missing in the forest. Their whole families came through here, looking for them. Cousins, grandparents, the lot of them. Filled the whole tavern, they did.”
Callie’s breath caught and she dug her nails into the leaflets scrunched in her hands. “Did they find them?”
“Nah, they never find no one who goes missin’ in that forest.” A grave look took his face. “Shame what happened, though. The whole of bloody Scotland was sent lookin’ for those lassies. It was on the news, in the papers, everywhere. Their families wouldn’t let it go. And people stopped visiting the village, ‘cause of the rumours, and the village just couldn’t survive any longer.”
“The rumours?” Her eyebrows shot up and her breath caught on secrets. “What kind of rumours?”
“The kind that said serial killers lived in the forest, or in the village.” The grim set of his hairy lips gave him away. He knew the tales of the fae. He knew what had really taken those girls—her and Meghan.
“Scared off all the tourists,” he said. “And then...” He paused to scratch his throat, looking uncomfortable. “One of the lassies came back. Talkin’ all this stuff about monsters and kidnappings. Thing is, she looked the same as she did when she went missin’.”
“What do you mean by that?” Callie cursed herself for letting so much panic pitch her tone. “How much time had passed?”
“Years. Four at least.”
“And the other girl?”
“Dead.” The shopkeeper had the decency to look down at the floor, pity etched into the lines of his face. “That’s what the lass said, anyway. That she was dead.”
Bitterly, Callie rammed the pamphlets into her coat pocket and huffed. “Guess the monsters got her,” she said. “Or the...serial killers.”
“Dependin’ on what you believe.” The shopkeeper added in a low whisper, too quiet to spook the young boy at the counter, “The whole country thought the lass who came back was driven mad by what she’d been through. But some of the locals...some of them believe her.”
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 29