The Forest of Aisling: Dream of the Shapeshifter (The Willow Series Book 1)
Page 19
Without answering he lowered himself to the spot and began digging. I watched, curious about what he was looking for. He burrowed down a couple of feet, then reached into the newly excavated hole and pulled out a worn, burlap bag covering an equally worn wooden box.
He let himself fall back into a sitting position on the twig and pebble-covered ground. He looked over to where I stood. “Curious?” He grinned, holding the box up into the air. I smirked and sat down beside him. He held the dusty chest towards me and slipped off the tattered cloth. It sat there perched in the palm of his hand.
“What is it?” I wondered aloud, my eyes narrowing.
He took hold of my hand and flipped it over spreading out my fingers. He placed the small container in my palm. “Open it.”
I drew the box closer to my face for better inspection. Brushing the bits of soil from the surface I was surprised to see what was left of an ornate symbol scorched into the wood. I traced the flowing lines with my fingertip, easing the last remnants of dirt loose from the design.
“Is this the Tri –” I began.
“Triquetra,” he said, finishing the sentence. “Aye, it is.”
I ran my entire finger loosely over the top of the box before opening it. The lid appeared to be stuck and I was worried about putting too much pressure on it, but, with a slight turn I felt it dislodge and gently lifted it. I placed the lid on my lap and looked inside. A faded piece of cloth filled the interior. I smoothed away the edges of the fabric. Resting inside was a tarnished silver key. The top of the key was an exact replica of the shape that had been scorched on the cover of the box. The Triquetra.
I held it up and examined it in a ray of sunlight filtering through the trees. Despite its tarnish, it still had a glow that became even more pronounced as the rays of the sun rested on it. I looked over at Bram, whose attention was elsewhere. He was staring off into the distance. I touched his sleeve and held up the key. “What’s this to?”
“It opens a chest that Da has. I needed to get it for him.”
“Is that why we came here? I thought you wanted to try and shift,” I texted, balancing the antique key on my leg.
Bram smiled but didn’t answer my question.
“What’s in the chest and why’s the key buried way out here?” Questions flowed from my mouth onto my keypad.
“Ok, I wasn’t planning on going into this now, but since we’re here…” Bram centered his attention to look at me square on. “I found out about my ability to shift when I was eleven years old. My father and grandfather brought me here to the park and told me the whole story. Remember what I told you back at your hotel, about my grandfather being the shapeshifter?” I nodded yes; then Bram continued, “He was ill and hadn’t long to live and wanted to explain ‘the gift’, as he called it, so he told me on my eleventh birthday.
“About a month later, we came back here to the park, just Grandfather and I. He wasn’t doing well. He was weak but determined to show me how to shift.” Bram lowered his head and once again turned his attention to the distant landscape. I could see the emotion in his eyes. The loss of his grandfather was still very much a part of him. After a few seconds, he lightly shook his head and turned his focus back to me. “He took me to the very spot that he’d first learned of the gift when he was a boy. His grandmother was the one to pass it on to him. Along with that news, she gave him this...”
He reached into the collar of his shirt and pulled out a silver chain on which hung a pendant. He lifted it over his head and placed it in my hand. I held the chain high and watched it move freely in the breeze before letting it slip down between my fingers to rest at my fingertips. Like the key I clutched in my other hand, this one was silver, with a similar design. I held the two together side by side. The pendant had only part of the Triquetra shape; in fact, it had only one third of it. I looked at Bram through my raised fingers and returned the pendant to him. He took hold of it and carefully slid it back over his head, tucking it safely into his shirt.
Bram went on, “It’s said that this pendant dates back to the time of the first chosen ones, our ancestors. Three were forged, one for each of the three guardians, with each pendant representing one third of the Triquetra. Legend says the pendants were made by Lugh himself, the god of light, honored for his skills as a craftsman.” Bram pressed his hand protectively against his chest where the pendant hung under his shirt.
“The chest that key opens holds your pendant…the one Shannah wore, along with ancient documents. Shannah was certain something bad was going to happen and wanted to make sure the pendant was safe, so she gave it to Da to hide. When Da took over as Keeper of the Knowledge, he inherited the chest.” I smiled, remembering how much Bram and I had laughed at his dad’s title. “He decided it was the best place to hide Shannah’s pendant. The key has always been buried out here, far away from the chest.” Bram stared at the key still resting in my hand. “Da had never even opened it before Shannah came to him with the pendant. He said the chest was only to be opened if there was a threat of any kind.”
“So your dad thinks there’s a threat?” I asked, realizing I was stating the obvious.
Bram tilted his head. “Don’t you?”
The memory of the mist and the way I had felt, as though I was slipping away, made me tremble. Then I recalled the feeling of power when I resisted it. “But I was able to send it away. Grandma told me to resist and when I did, it vanished. Maybe that’s all we’ll have to do,” I texted, knowing deep down it couldn’t be that easy.
Bram shrugged, “Hopefully yeah, but Da believes that the mist is still weak and trying to gain more power. The fact that you found the claw after the mist appeared on top of your car worries him. He thinks it’s getting stronger and starting to manifest itself into another form.”
“How’s it getting stronger?” I sat up and positioned myself so that we were now face to face. I clutched the key in my hand and rested it on his knee. Bram took in a long deep breath and looked into my eyes.
“When Grandfather and I came here that day, he’d planned on shifting one last time; then he was going to turn the pendant over to me. We made our way to the spot where he wanted to take his final flight, and as he began shifting the weather changed instantly. It went from clear and sunny, to thunder and lightning and tornado-force winds. Grandfather had just shifted and was in the air when lightning struck him. He started falling to earth and his body changed from the eagle to his human self. I just stood there, helpless, watching him, not able to do anything.
“He was close to hitting the ground when I saw him take hold of the pendant around his neck. He immediately shifted back to the eagle and soared up into the storm. A few seconds later I heard him screeching and saw a flash of light directly above me. Next thing I knew, I was at home.” Bram turned his face to look up to the sky which was, coincidentally, becoming overcast.
I gripped his arm tightly. “What happened?”
“Grandfather got me home.” Bram looked from the clouds to me. “The last thing I heard was his screeching. It was the last thing I ever heard.”
My eyebrows knit together in confusion. “But, I thought you –”
“You thought I lost my hearing because of meningitis, yeah. That’s what everyone thinks. Da felt it was easier to explain my deafness saying it was caused by a disease than to say that lightning blew it out.” Bram ran his hand through his hair then cupped it over his ear. I reached up and touched his face. He looked at me and shrugged. “I’m lucky to be alive, you know?”
“Anyway, Da figured that the tribulation was trying to re-form when lightning hit grandfather. When there’s a shift in power, like there was between grandfather and me, it creates a kind of opening. One of the first things that happens is the appearance of the mist. It tries to gather strength when the gift is passed from one guardian to another by taking advantage of the new guardian’s inexperience and the older guardian’s weakness. In our case, grandfather was especially weak because of his illnes
s, and I was pretty young.
“It was trying to take me out as well as Grandfather, but, lucky for me, I have a hard head.” Bram smiled and rapped himself on his forehead. “Once the mist begins appearing, trying to gain its own power, weather starts getting weird; it all gets crazy.” Bram once again surveyed the skies. The wind was picking up and I heard thunder in the distance.
“Speaking of weather…” he said, standing up.
Tiny droplets of rain fell randomly at first, then, within seconds, a downpour followed. In a short time we went from comfortably warm and dry to chilled and soaked. Bram suggested we go to what was left of the building, so we made a run for it – just in time to avoid a huge lightning bolt, followed by another tumultuous release.
We stood inside the insect-ridden structure and looked out at the storm. Its timing seemed more than coincidental. The chill in the air left me trembling. Bram pulled me close and wrapped his jacket around my shoulders. He stood behind me with his arms wrapped securely around me, easing the sudden onset of cold that had washed through us. I felt him rest his chin on top of my head.
“Should we be worried?” I typed on my phone then held it up for him to see.
Bram laughed. “Not yet, I’ll let you know.”
For a brief moment my mind went back home to the friends I hadn’t seen for what felt like ages. I thought about some of the boys I knew, and the difference between them and Bram. They were about his age, but lacked the consideration that Bram displayed each and every time I was with him. Not that he acted too adult; he was as crazy as any of them. It was just that with Bram, he already had his priorities all ironed out…no question. Maybe it was because of the whole shapeshifting, guardian thing – but whatever it was, I admired it, and I respected it. It was part of what drew me to him.
And there we stood, wordless, his arms wrapped protectively around me. I couldn’t help but think that this is where I was meant to be, always. With Bram, wherever that might be.
The storm came to a close, with the sun reflecting through the glistening needles of the pines. Droplets of rain created prisms of color everywhere. I quickly grabbed my phone and took about a dozen pictures. Then I held it out in front of me and snuggled into Bram once more and snapped a shot of the two of us. Bram laughed when I showed him the pic, then immediately grabbed his phone and took one too.
We quietly walked around the soaked area, taking in its beauty. I looked over at Bram, who had his hands in his pockets and was inhaling deeply, filling his lungs with the fresh air. I joined him and ran my arm through his.
“So did your grandfather pass away after he shifted that last time?” I texted.
Bram shook his head no. “It was weird. He actually got better. Da thought maybe the lightning strike did something to the disease. He had a couple more good years. Didn’t shift anymore and he turned the pendant over to me, but I never tried changing until he passed away a year and a half ago. He got sick again and lost a lot of his memory. Grandmother and Da took care of him. He died at home.”
Bram pulled his hand out of his pocket and took hold of mine. “I shifted for the first time the day of his funeral. I’m still figuring it all out.”
I rested my head against his shoulder. “I wish I could have met him…and Shannah,” I typed.
Bram sat down on a boulder and patted the spot next to him. “You’d have loved her, and she really loved you. Da got pretty close to her when Lucy left. He said she talked about you a lot, had visions of you. She felt like she knew you. “
I sat down next to Bram.
“Since meeting you in person seemed impossible,” he continued, “Shannah shared the details about her shifting with Da. She never did lose hope of meeting you, though. She even tried to convince your grandpa to go to the US for a visit…but Conor wouldn’t hear of it.
“Then when Lucy told her about her decision to move to Italy, Shannah panicked. She begged Lucy not to go, said that her moving would weaken the Triquetra and leave us all vulnerable. But Lucy was tired of ‘carrying the burden.’ Shannah told Lucy to at least pass the ability on to someone else, since Lucy had no relatives. She said no, that she didn’t want to curse anyone else with it.”
“So when she left, did she take the pendant with her?” I asked, pondering Lucy’s decision and even sympathizing with her.
“No, and that’s part of the problem. As long as the pendant remained in Lucy’s possession – or at least in the possession of someone she had passed the ability on to – the Triquetra remained whole. When she left here, without the pendant and without passing it on to a guardian, the circle was broken.”
Trembling began in my legs and slowly rose up my torso. A deep sense of dread washed over me. “Where is the pendant, then?” My brows pinched into a frown.
Bram took in a deep breath then rubbed his eyes. “That’s the question. Da called her shortly after Shannah died to tell her the news. He asked her if she still had the pendant. She said she visited Shannah when she came back to Ireland for more of her things and turned it over to her then. She wanted to be through with all of it.”
“Do you believe her?” I asked, becoming aware of the sky once again darkening.
“Da does. No reason not to. She really just wanted out. The question is, where did Shannah put it and why didn’t she tell Da.”
A thought raced across my mind which caused the trembling to literally shake me to my feet. “Bram, this must have something to do with the questions surrounding Grandma’s death, right? I mean, the police found something that made them exhume her body. Grandma was in good health, then suddenly she became ill. Could it be that the illness came about because of the opening of the Triquetra?”
Before Bram could even answer, a tremendous boom from the clouds sent us back to the ramshackle building for shelter. The sky opened up to a deluge and the temperature dropped drastically. The rain was falling sideways in sheets and protection was nowhere to be found.
Bram grabbed my hand. “We’d better make a run for it. This feels wrong; something’s going on here.” His voice grew louder over the angry sky. I tucked the fragile box and key carefully into my pack and nodded.
We began running down the incline which was already slippery from the deluge being unleashed. Both of us had a hard time maintaining our footing on the slope. A flash of lightning split a nearby pine in two and started a small fire on its branches which was quickly extinguished by the rain. I looked over at Bram, fearful that the lightning might once again have been aimed at him. We continued on with difficulty. Between the sudden cold and the relentless downpour, we were finding it almost impossible to keep our footing.
Straight ahead I could make out a large rock formation which had a crevice that we might be able to fit in. I tugged on Bram’s sleeve and pointed over to the boulders. He nodded and we made our way to the shelter. We both were able to slide into the crevice, which opened itself up to a small cave. The smell was terrible. It was from bat droppings lining the cave wall. I gagged and tried to hold my breath.
Bram did the same, then pulled me close. “Willow, we’ve got to get out here. It’ll take too long if we try to walk out. The storm isn’t showing any sign of stopping and I’ve got a bad feeling.” The worried look on his face sent another chill through me. I looked toward the opening of the cave and felt a twinge of panic at the darkening sky, realizing it wasn’t only from the clouds; night was fast approaching.
“I have an idea.” He turned his face to mine. “I think we need to shift.”
My head jerked back involuntarily in surprise. “Shift? Shapeshift? How will that help?”
“Think about it,” he spoke loudly in my ear. “How much faster will we be able to go once we’ve shifted?”
I stared at his dark resolute eyes, “I guess… I should be able to do ok in the storm, but what about you? How can you fly in this?” I said, mouthing the last sentence slowly.
A huge smile crossed his face, almost like I’d issued him a challenge.
I followed him and watched as he stepped out into the storm. His feathered head surveyed the sky; with wings flapping up and down in anticipation of the lift. And with one quick jump he was up, soaring gracefully between trees and circling the small shelter in which I stood. Within seconds he was back, perched on a tree in front of the cave. He flicked the droplets from his wings and shook his head steadily. Then he let out a tremendous screech which pretty much said to me, “Let’s get going.”
I took in a long deep breath. “Ok, ok, I’m coming,” I answered, then closed my eyes. I imagined my guardian self, the wolf, sleek, brownish gray, running through the woods. As fast as I imagined myself, I became it. I looked down at the cave floor and saw the large paws that were now becoming comfortably familiar. I shook my head, releasing droplets of rain that were now surging into the cave. Another screech drew my eyes to the waiting eagle perched high in the tree. He once again lifted his huge wings and jetted up into the gray overhead.
I stepped out into the woods. I had the conjoined awareness of this self and my human self. We were one and it felt good. A quick thought ran through my head: where had my clothes gone and the Triquetra key? A voice stirring deep inside told me not to worry…all was as it should be. And with that, I ran.
The familiarity of the forest was complete and etched into my brain. I felt like I knew where everything was and could find my way around easily. In a short time I made my way to the trail near where we had parked the car. I heard the screech from overhead and immediately understood what Bram was saying to me. No people were near, but I still searched out a covered area in which to shift. I called upon the image in my mind and, when I opened my eyes, found my drenched human body a couple of feet away from Bram’s.