The Silver Moon Elm

by MaryJanice Davidson

  Eddie had another arrow cocked and his bow aimed before Jennifer could even turn around to identify him as the source of the shot. With tense limbs, Evangelina drew up next to the archer.

  Andi pulled Elise back away from the entrance, and Nakia covered the retreat in scorpion shape. The beaststalkers beyond Eddie and Elise took up positions in a tight circle near the entrance, facing outward and preparing for a counterattack.

  Skip staggered back several steps, until his back was to the observatory entrance. His beautiful blue-green eyes glanced at Eddie and the next black arrow pointed at his heart, and then turned to Jennifer. He let a cocky grin crawl over his bleeding mouth.

  “Can you believe it, Jenny? Eddie fucking Blacktooth.”

  He pulled a black object out of his jacket and pointed it at Eddie. Jennifer looked at it for a few seconds before she realized it was a gun. He fired it three times.

  Evangelina had already thrown her dark aura out to cover Eddie. The boy cried out, but Jennifer couldn’t tell how many of the bullets hit him, or where. Not satisfied with this knowledge, Skip aimed blindly into the shadow and fired five more times.

  There were a few tense moments when Jennifer and the others were not sure what had happened. But then a quiet laugh from the darkness settled the matter.

  Brother. Are you through?

  He emptied the clip.

  A low purr of annoyance spread like the darkness itself. Evangelina advanced, and Skip gave a small whimper. The gun went sailing into the gloom, useless.

  Why isn’t he changing? Jennifer wondered.

  Before she could determine why, Evangelina’s tail plunged through Skip’s abdomen, lifted him up, and threw him. He crashed through the doors and skidded into the darkness beyond.

  “Evangelina!” Jennifer rushed forward to check on the boy, but stopped short of entering the observatory. “You didn’t have to do that!”

  Selfish. Arrogant. Hurtful. Unrepentant.

  Evangelina withdrew her aura with an air of indifference.

  You thought these things of him, even before he

  betrayed you.

  “But that doesn’t mean—” Jennifer stopped short when she turned and saw Eddie. He was sitting on the ground holding his left elbow. Blood trickled down his forearm and over his hand. A grim nod told her he was hurt, but okay.

  A cold shriek distracted them all. The bulbous form of Tavia Saltin filled the entryway. She took in the sight of her dead brother and nephew, then Jennifer, and foam formed on the tips of her mandibles.

  “You little bitch! I knew we should never have let Skip save you! He should have left you behind with the rest of your pathetic kind! I’ll rip you apart! I’ll—”

  Tavia.

  Jennifer turned to Evangelina, but knew even before she saw her sister’s stunned expression that she was not the source.

  Let them in, Tavia.

  Edmund Slider? Jennifer wondered. But the voice in their heads didn’t sound like him. Tavia certainly didn’t respond the way one would expect her to treat her boyfriend.

  “Let them in?!” the spider screamed at the unseen source. “They deserve to die and we could kill them all, right now, if you had the guts!”

  Tavia. Please. Let them in.

  Evangelina’s expression evolved from shock to utter bewilderment. Before Jennifer could stop her, her sister was a helpless young brunette pushing past the giant spider-Tavia and walking into the observatory.

  A few quiet seconds passed. Jennifer felt a wave of recognition come from within the observatory, then fear, then…

  Mother?

  CHAPTER 18

  Quadrivium

  Jennifer wasn’t sure she wanted to step into the observatory. But curiosity and her own desire to have this battle end, one way or another, won out.

  The inside of the observatory was not what she would have expected from photographs in science textbooks and magazine articles. There were no computers tallying astronomical distances or painting interstellar photographs, no swivel chairs with old astronomers sitting in them while peering through a telescope. Indeed, not even a telescope in sight.

  Instead, the inside of the observatory was smooth obsidian, and the ceiling and walls took the same spherical shape as the exterior. There were small pinpricks of light all over the interior surface, and Jennifer realized right away that she was looking at the nighttime sky. Enough illumination pooled at the bottom of the room to see the occupants.

  The floor ahead was smooth and sloped slightly upward. About halfway up the slope was a striking blond spider with red and white facial markings. Seven of the eight eyes were scarred shut—Edmund Slider, I presume!—and he stood still as Tavia rushed to his side. Evangelina was already past them, barely caring who they were.

  It was the third figure in the room, a brunette woman of striking height, who caught Jennifer’s full attention. Jet-black hair cascaded down her pale, freckled shoulders and back. Jade accents matched her simple gown. Tiny freckles peppered her gentle nose, broad cheeks, and the pale forehead above her carefully shaped eyebrows. And beneath those eyebrows were the most mesmerizing points of color Jennifer had ever seen.

  They were black, Jennifer was sure at first. But then the woman shifted a tiny bit, and the gaze turned indigo. Then a step forward, and the eyes were clearly as green as her dress. Each movement brought a new hue into play.

  Right now, those eyes were focused on Evangelina.

  Daughter.

  It was the same voice Jennifer had heard in her head when it called to Tavia just a few moments ago, as clear as a horn’s call in winter, but tender as a fern’s touch in spring.

  It’s really you. You’re here.

  Evangelina stood, transfixed. It wasn’t clear if she was overcome by emotion or trapped like an innocent opossum in a truck’s headlights.

  Dianna Wilson’s gaze flickered briefly to Jennifer—I’ll bet she heard that—but then rested again on her daughter.

  Are you afraid, Evangelina?

  I can’t shut you out

  That was all Evangelina could say. Jennifer saw immediately that her sister was simply trying to find a secure place to take in this new development. She wanted a place where she could think for herself. But the weapon she had used for weeks upon escaping her awful dimension was not powerful enough here. Just as Evangelina had forced herself into her victims’ thoughts—Jack Alder, Grandpa Crawford, and Elizabeth Georges-Scales—so now this woman was doing to her.

  Predator to prey, Jennifer realized.

  That thought definitely got Dianna Wilson’s attention. Startled, she severed the link. “I’m sorry,” she offered in a dry but melodious voice. “I don’t mean to—Daughter, you have nothing to fear. I’m so happy you’re here.”

  Evangelina seemed lost in her mother’s graceful features. Neither of them moved as more people entered the observatory. Eddie first, then Nakia, then a few of the beaststalkers, and then Elise stumbling upright with Andi’s help. Phoebe the newolf hovered by the doorway, whining through her nose at the lifeless body of Skip Wilson.

  “Dianna!” the blond spider called out, taking a few steps back with a sobbing Tavia. “If we are going to end this, we ought to do it now, don’t you think?”

  “A moment please, Edmund.” Dianna reached for Evangelina’s face and caressed the younger woman’s chin. “I’ve been waiting for this for some time.”

  “But your son is dead!” Tavia spat. “They killed Skip!”

  I’m sorry, Mother…

  Dianna hushed Evangelina with a single black fingernail, and she glanced past Jennifer out the doorway. “First things first. I want to hold you, daughter.”

  Of all the sights Jennifer thought she would see when they started this battle, much less when she woke up in this town a week ago, the sight of her newly dead sister hugging her father’s long-dead ex-wife while her ex-boyfriend lay in a pool of blood was nowhere near the top of the list. But they did hug, and Jennifer was sure she saw a rust-
colored tear slip down the older woman’s face.

  “Dianna!” Tavia was plainly losing patience. “They will kill us!”

  This finally broke the embrace. “Oh, Tavia. They’re not here to—”

  “They’ve already killed Otto!”

  “Well, Otto was a bit of a twit, wasn’t he?” Dianna sighed.

  “He was your husband!”

  “Yes, he was.” Dianna stepped around Evangelina, letting her jade dress flow behind her. “Not a very good one. Skilled at sorcery, horrible at interpersonal relations. And so he died. Twice, I believe? Which brings us to our first guest.”

  By now she was almost nose-to-nose with Jennifer. Dianna Wilson had not cast any sort of spell—if she could even do such a thing—but Jennifer had never felt less able to move in her life.

  “Jonathan’s daughter. Jennifer, correct?”

  With great effort, Jennifer was able to raise her hand and shake the one Dianna had offered. “I have no idea what to say to you.”

  “You could start by telling me why you’re here today.”

  “Why not just read my mind?”

  Dianna walked past Jennifer and gauged the force that had assembled inside. “If I have occasion to doubt you, I will. But your father taught me long ago how dangerous it can be to pry continually into a teenager’s mind. Can we just talk?”

  “Fine, let’s talk. You and your friends ruined my universe. I want it back.”

  “Marvelous.” Dianna had completed her circle around Jennifer and beamed at her. “Isn’t she marvelous, Edmund? Tavia?”

  “The exact adjective fails me,” Edmund said in a strained voice, “but that is probably not the one I would choose.”

  “Then you choose poorly. Jennifer Scales has done exactly what I wished she would do. What no other person could possibly have done.”

  “And what’s that?” Jennifer snapped, angry at being talked about as if she wasn’t there. “Put up with the stench of your husband twice without retching?”

  Tavia Saltin cried in outrage and tightened her body into bipedal form. “Have some respect for the dead!” She straightened and spat a single word: “Low.”

  It was sorcery; Jennifer could see that much right away. Strange, she thought, it moves more slowly than Otto’s. In fact, it was a simple matter for her to step to one side and deflect the orange blur with her blades, sending it to the floor to dissolve harmlessly.

  “Numb.” Advancing on Tavia now, Jennifer knocked this blue spell aside, too.

  “Poisoned.” And this sickly green one.

  “Marred!” Jennifer parried the breath as if it were a slow thrust of a crimson mace, and then shoved it back into Tavia’s mouth. Then she crossed her blades under the woman’s spindly throat and pushed until Tavia was pinned against the wall, breathless.

  “That’s enough out of you,” Jennifer snarled. “And if your boyfriend doesn’t take a step back, I’m going to send you where I sent your brother.”

  Reluctantly, Edmund Slider receded from her peripheral vision. At the same time, Dianna entered it on the other side.

  “You’ve made your point, Jennifer. Let her go, and we can continue our conversation. I was enjoying it.”

  “You were saying,” Jennifer said as she lowered her blades but didn’t look away from Tavia, “that I did what you wished. And that was…?”

  “You brought my daughter to me.”

  That got Jennifer’s attention. “Pardon?”

  Dianna’s vermilion eyes sparkled. “Only you could do it, Jennifer. My search for Evangelina kept coming up empty. It cost me my ability to remain in the normal universe, and it nearly cost me my life. By the time I located Evangelina again, she was where I could not get her—in the world I had left behind, rampaging after your father. Worse, she was beyond control, and no one could get close enough to her to bring her to me in this universe.”

  “You were still looking for me,” Evangelina said.

  “I never stopped, darling.” She turned back to Jennifer. “At the same time, the Quadrivium was ready with its own plans for conquest. Despite our best plans, I could not see a way to both change the universe and retrieve her. In fact, had I any choice at all, I would have gladly chosen her and left the universe as is.

  “But it seemed hopeless. And then last week, right before the four of us were ready to take action, the most marvelous thing happened.”

  It came to Jennifer like thunder. “Evangelina died.”

  “Not only did she die, but your grandfather generously arranged for her passage to the perpetual crescent moon among the venerables.”

  “You know about the venerables?”

  “Of course I do,” Dianna said. “During our secret relationship, your father was able to close many parts of his mind to me, but not all of it. Through him, I learned enough: what the venerables were, and what might happen if Crescent Valley were to fall. I even heard of the legends his parents had taught him: of Seraphina, her island, and the silver moon elm. While I never could determine where these places were, I saw the path of events that could lead to Crescent Valley, and Seraphina’s Isle, and ultimately Evangelina.”

  “And only one person could travel that road,” Evangelina guessed.

  “Correct, daughter. The Ancient Furnace. Only she could retrieve you, because the portals were guarded by powerful forces who would listen to no other.

  “She would have to have a reason to want you here. She had, after all, a difficult relationship with you. And so the pieces fell into place: What the Quadrivium already had planned served as the perfect motivation. I knew, Jennifer Scales, that you had to be part of the new universe, and that your efforts to change things back would eventually lead you to Evangelina…and then to me.”

  “You manipulated me.” Jennifer felt warm under her collar. “This whole thing was just a setup.”

  “It was a plan,” Dianna corrected. “And a long shot, at that. Last-second opportunities are both gifts and challenges. So many things could have gone wrong. You could have not survived the trip to this universe, you could have given up, you could have failed at any one of a number of points. But to me, you were my only hope. As a bonus, I got to keep alive the daughter of Jonathan Scales: a girl as remarkable as her father had been.”

  “Stop talking about him like he’s dead!” Jennifer shouted. This was humiliating, to have been shuffled and yanked around like a puppet. “And stop talking about him like you ever cared about him. All you cared about was your own daughter. And you destroyed my world to get her.”

  “You have no idea,” Dianna answered gently, “what a parent would do for a child. I planned the sorcery with a heavy heart, because I was not sure it was the best path. But when the moment of truth came, I served my role on the Quadrivium.”

  “And all four of you agreed to do this, just to free my sister?” Jennifer couldn’t understand why Otto, or Edmund, or Tavia would have cared.

  “The Quadrivium had four members,” Dianna admitted, “and four different motivations. Mine was exploration; Otto’s as always was domination. As for the other two…“She trailed off with a sigh in Edmund’s direction. “They can speak for themselves, if they like.”

  “I would hope,” the blond spider cut in, “my student here could figure that sort of thing out for herself.”

  “Yours was revenge,” Jennifer replied. “I remember how bitter you were about Glorianna Seabright when I saw you in the hospital last week. So you joined the Quadrivium to get rid of her.”

  “Fine logic, Ms. Scales.” As usual, the geometry teacher’s voice managed both admiration and condescension. “In fact, Glorianna Seabright was ground zero for the explosion the Quadrivium set off in history. She was more important to beaststalkers than you may realize. Before she came of age, her kind was scattered, and not very skilled anymore. Many of the beaststalker arts had been lost over the centuries, and even the best among them were decent swordsmen and little more. We needed to crush them before she changed all of that
.

  “So we went back in time and found The Crown when he was a young werachnid. Once we told him what Ms. Seabright would become, and where she lived as a girl, we could step aside. It was an easy matter for him to find her and kill her—thus completing our sorcery. Glorianna Seabright never had a chance to grow up and unify beaststalkers in the way that became so threatening to our kind, and to dragons, truth be told.

  “With her dead, picking off beaststalkers became easier. The Crown’s legend grew, and he became more powerful than any werachnid before him. He knew that the Quadrivium had yet to be born in this time line, and so he made a point of finding and nurturing us. Three of us came to power quickly and helped push the dragons back into Crescent Valley—”

  “I already know this,” Jennifer interrupted. “Xavier Longtail, the dragon you could never kill, told me. I’m glad my father killed your precious Crown!”

  “His death, as it turned out, was incidental by then. The three of us were powerful enough to finish the job. Some years later, all four of us were ready, and the circle was complete. Four members of the Quadrivium, each with some sort of imprint in the two universes—past, present, or future. Otto, for example, was dead on your side, but he still existed here, and that was enough to forge a link. We other three could do the same, and so together we wove a sorcery capable of pulling two time lines together. As we exchanged universes, those in the Quadrivium who already existed in both, became the sum of both lives.”

  “So you killed all those dragons and beaststalkers just so you could walk again.” Jennifer shuddered. “I can’t believe I actually admired you once.”

  “My walking had little to do with it, Ms. Scales. Though it was a nice byproduct. In this universe, you see, I was never hobbled.”