Lost Girl

by Mary E. Twomey

  Bastien checked over his shoulder and swore. “Duchess, we have to ride harder if we don’t want to get caught in the storm. The tonnerre clouds are coming in fast. I wasn’t paying attention.” His arms stiffened and his body went rigid, as if missing this detail was somehow my fault, and he needed to end our budding sweetness so he could be a good warrior.

  I explained the situation to the horses, and asked them to go a little faster, if they could. Cheval rallied, letting out a whinny to inspire the other two and push them on to greater speeds. “What is it, Bastien? If it’s just a little rain, then is it worth maxing out the horses like this? They’ve been going all day. I feel bad that they’re pushing themselves like this.”

  “It’ll be far worse if we’re stuck in the storm. They know the drill. They understand the risks if we’re caught in the storm. They’re loyal to you, so they’ll run as far and as fast as they can to keep you safe.”

  “Hello, I’m not going to melt if I get a little water on me. I’m not a real witch, you know.”

  Bastien’s eyebrows furrowed at the Wizard of Oz reference that went way over his head. “Huh? It’s not a little water, Rosie. It’s a rolling storm that lasts for days. The tonnerre clouds multiply until they’ve squeezed everything out, and then the hail starts.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Hail. I gotcha. We have that in my world. It’s a little annoying, granted. Can we find a place to duck and take cover until it passes?” Though as I surveyed the plains, there was nothing but wheat, wheat and more wheat as far as I could see, with not a single tree in sight.

  “No, babe. No place to hide. I saw hail in your world once while I was looking for you. It was like fat grains of salt. This isn’t the same. Our hail is a ball of ice hurtling down at you.” His arms around me demonstrated the size to be that of a softball.

  “Oh, yikes. Yeah, that wouldn’t be easy to avoid. Sorry, guys,” I said to the horses. For our own sakes, we had to keep riding as if our lives depended on it.

  Bastien opened his mouth, and I immediately wished he hadn’t. “Then there’s the leeches.”

  “Huh? Like, leeches? Little slugs that suck blood from you?”

  “What? No, leeches,” he said, as if I hadn’t been paying attention. “Do you not have them in your world? They fall from the clouds after the hail. They’re half a foot long critters. They’re hairy and have fangs. Their slime leaves a slow poison that scrambles your mind so you have hallucinations.”

  “What the crap, Bastien? And we’ve got a storm of them bearing down on us?” I patted Cheval’s neck. “Go faster if you can, guys. I don’t want any of you going crazy or getting hit with softballs of ice tonight.”

  “We’ll need a plan,” Aunt Avril shouted to us, riding on our other side with a look of trepidation on her features. “We can’t run the horses forever, and there’s no shelter I can see.”

  I looked overhead and noticed a few clouds migrating to the space in the sky behind us, as if drawn to the culminating storm like a magnet. For not having noticed it before, it sure had collected and grown quickly. Each second I watched over Bastien’s shoulder made my eyes widen with how much the epicenter was spreading out. It started to look like thinned black cake batter across the sky. “Oh, Bastien, it’s spreading fast.”

  “Hold tight to me, hun,” he warned, giving Cheval a light kick to urge him forward. The wind started picking up more noticeably, turning cold and biting as it nipped at our faces. “We’ll find shelter.” His words held no certainty, only the promise that if we didn’t, we might not survive the storm.

  28

  My Shelter in the Middle of Nowhere

  My ankle jarred painfully as the hard gallop shook it over and over, but I gritted my teeth through the discomfort. Sweat broke out on my forehead, despite the growing cold. Cheval reassured me that he would take care of us as best he could. I wanted to kiss him and feed him apples, but the storm behind us was inching its way closer, daunting us with the inevitability that we could only run for so long.

  “I don’t want to scare you, but I take this route all the time. There’s no shelter anywhere.” Cheval’s warning was grave. “Lean forward a little more. I can go faster if you’re not as upright.”

  I complied, biting my lip against the tug in my ribs and the worry that flooded me. It was one thing to hear Bastien’s concern, but another one altogether to have those fears confirmed by the veteran of this area. “Cheval needs us to lean forward, so he can go faster.” I tugged him down by his green and blue flannel sleeve. Bastien’s torso covered mine, ramping up our attraction that was mingled with trepidation. “He doesn’t think we’ll make it,” I informed Bastien, trying not to sound like I was freaking out.

  “Stay under me like this.” Bastien’s volume rose as Cheval and the other two horses bolted with renewed speed. “If the storm catches us, you won’t get hit by the hail if I shield you with my body.”

  “I don’t want you to get pelted with giant hail balls and psychedelic leeches!” Emotion choked my throat at the gallant offer. I pried my fingers from Cheval’s mane so I could twine them through Bastien’s. My grip pulsed in his, my cheek pressed to his stubble when he squeezed me in return. His heart beat wildly into my back, matching my own erratic rhythm. For all the fighting we did, we rode in perfect harmony when the storm was bearing down on us.

  His cheek was warm, giving that small space on my face a respite from the biting wind. His voice had a forced calm about it that scared me. “I told you, I’ve got you, Daisy.”

  Panic started to rise up inside of me. My beautiful horse, my new aunt and my first kiss guy were about to get knocked out by giant hail balls. My brain started working overtime, trying to fit a square peg into the round abyss that was Avalon. I had to get us out of this mess. Bastien’s body was already scarred enough. I needed to find a safe place.

  A familiar trickle of intuition leaked into my veins, lifting my spirits from pure anxiety to determined hope. My gut tugged a little toward the left, and I thanked whatever birth blessing gave me the trump card we needed. I didn’t bother questioning it, and spoke up immediately. “My gut’s telling me we should head that way,” I pointed in the vague direction, hoping that the darkness of night was hiding something sturdy and solid that wasn’t too far off. Cheval didn’t have a sliver of doubt that I would lead us to safety, even though he was certain there was no shelter in that direction. I prayed my gut didn’t fail me, now that the stakes were this high.

  Bastien didn’t question me, but trusted my internal GPS without me needing to elaborate. “Rosie’s Compass is calling the shots now, so try to keep up!” he called out behind us.

  When he led the way with the other two horses following behind, I could hear Roland’s anger spewing out all over the place. “She’ll lead us to our doom! Don’t you see what she’s doing, Bastien? She’s a witch! She’s no doubt controlling the storm, driving us right into the heart of it! You can’t be this trusting. What happened to you? Are her lips really so sweet you’d let her lead us away from safety?”

  Bastien was furious, and for once, it wasn’t with me. “Shut up, Roland! Don’t talk about her lips. You know I’m engaged to Rachelle. Rosie’s the Compass. If she says we should change directions, then that’s what we’ll do.”

  “You’ve turned fool for her!”

  Aunt Avril was scolding Roland, but I stopped listening. Bastien stuck up for me. I clung tight to his fingers to show my gratitude. “You’re sure about this?” Bastien asked me quietly.

  Cheval chimed in before I could answer. “I’ve ridden this path thousands of times. There’s nothing in your direction, Princess. But we wouldn’t make it to shelter even if we kept going the way we were heading, either.”

  “I don’t know how to explain it; I just know that my gut’s tugging me this way. No one has to listen to me. I’ve got no proof other than that.”

  Cheval mulled this over in time with Bastien, and together they said, “That’s enough for me.”

/>   We rode hard in the direction I pointed us, and with every racing step, I prayed we were going somewhere safe. I scoured the darkness so that I could find anything we could hide in and wait out the storm that was bearing down on us.

  “See? There’s nothing! And the storm is gaining on us. I knew the little witch would see us all ended. She’s going to take the gems to her mother once we’re all dead. How can you not see this, Bastien?”

  “We weren’t going to outrun the storm the other way either, Roland,” Aunt Avril said in my defense.

  My stomach felt sick that I was leading the escape in a world I didn’t know, through a terrain I was unfamiliar with, and to a place I wasn’t sure existed. I nearly cried with relief when Bastien gripped me around the waist and pointed in the distance. “Is that a person?”

  “We can’t stop for anyone,” Madigan ruled. “We have to find shelter.”

  As we ran closer, the figure started to take shape. It was a man, calmly walking toward us. Like, strolling through the wheat field as if a storm wasn’t brewing, readying to take us all out. The man wore a Newsies cap, chocolate-colored fitted slacks with a gray vest, a white dress shirt rolled up to his elbows and a green shirt underneath.

  Bastien swore loudly in time with Madigan, as if they recognized the man. Aunt Avril let out a cry of scandal, but I didn’t know who the dude was, so I wasn’t sure what the fuss was about. Even Roland was finally speechless, unable to say anything negative to me at the sight of the man. His head was down, his cap shrouding his face (not like I would’ve known him anyway). We slowed when we came to him, and Bastien dismounted behind me. His hand was on the hilt of his knife, his hackles on high alert as he took a step forward to speak for the group. “Your majesty?”

  The man nodded, tilting up his head to offer Aunt Avril a toothy smile. I gasped when I realized he wasn’t wearing a green shirt beneath the white one, but his skin was completely chartreuse from head to toe. Like, Kermit green. His lips were full and expressive when his grin turned toward me, unperturbed that the storm was encroaching upon on us. “Hello, Fleur,” he said to me, his almond-shaped eyes sparking to life when they landed on my face. “How nice to see you.”

  My mouth fell open, and though the storm was baring down on us, a girlish attraction flitted through my mind. The thirty-something man had full lips, an angular jaw and a confident charm to him that made me wet my lips without meaning to. There was a hint of wickedness to his smile and mischief to his teasing eyes that drew me in. There was no other word for it. Kerdik was sexy – green skin and all.

  I chided my libido and tucked those errant thoughts away with a slight blush. “Is your name Kerdik?” I asked, picking the name out of Cheval’s head. My horse didn’t seem too thrilled to be in such close proximity of the man, and backed up a few steps. “You’re the birth blessing dude, right?” He didn’t look much older than thirty-three, but I knew that couldn’t be right if he’d blessed me twenty-two years ago. He couldn’t have been an eleven-year-old wizard or magician or whatever.

  Kerdik chuckled at my terminology. “Indeed, I am. I see you’ve grown up quite nicely since I saw you last. You were just a baby back then.”

  “It’s good to meet you, man.” I didn’t bother with too many niceties. I could feel the cold wind whipping around us, even at a standstill. It hadn’t started raining yet, but the black flat, swirling vortex above us threatened much inescapable damage. “Look, I’ve got a pretty healthy fear of hairy leeches trying to suck the sanity from me. If you’ve got the same kind of fear, you can ride with us. We don’t really know where we’re going, but you shouldn’t be caught out in the open like this. Come with us. We’ll find somewhere safe to wait out the storm together.”

  “He doesn’t need us for anything,” Bastien said quietly between gritted teeth. “That’s Master Kerdik.”

  Kerdik watched my face with an intrigued tilt to his head, as if I’d just said something odd. “You want to keep me safe from the storm?” He said it like he’d never heard of anything so strange. Thick coffee-colored lashes framed his eyes, making each expression something to ponder.

  I shrugged. “Well, yeah. You expect us to just leave you here, all alone?”

  A slow smile spread across Kerdik’s features, making him that much more handsome. “I’ve got shelter enough for us all. There’s nothing else around for miles. You’ll never outrun this storm, Fleur. Come with me.”

  “Oh. Seriously? Thank you. I didn’t totally have a plan.”

  I expected him to hop on the back of Madigan’s horse or something, but he calmly turned from us and lifted his hands like an orchestra conductor to the wheat field.

  The horses spooked, and everyone let out noises of confusion and warning when the ground began to tremble. My mouth fell open when dirt and rocks shot out of the ground like some sort of reverse waterfall. Millions of pebbles started to amass together, acting as one to form a structure of some sort. Wheat flew everywhere, making its own cyclone of confusion until finally a large, towering shape began to take place.

  Water flew out from Kerdik’s outstretched palms, turning the loose dirt and dust into thick, moldable mud. The gooey brown spackled itself between the pebbles, turning the suggestion of a wall into a solid structure that could withstand… I dunno, hairy leeches, I hoped. The rocks and mud mingled together to form what was starting to look like a giant hand, wider than all three horses lined up end to end. The rock hand looked as if it was grabbing at the air before us. Then there were several cracking sounds, and the mud was extruded from between the fingers of the hand, resting on top to form a coating. I watched in wonder as the pebbles expanded like balloons filling with too much water, morphing into each other as they formed an impenetrable roof and walls.

  My brain didn’t have the physics explanation to make sense of that. My mouth dropped open like a guppy, but no sound came out.

  Roland shouted his wonder that was weighted with fear. Aunt Avril screamed at the too much that none of us were expecting to find out here. Madigan dismounted, his long, arched blade drawn. You know, in case the mud needed fighting.

  The moldable rock-hand froze, and the mud and wheat started spackling in between the tips of the fingers, creating a sort of cavern with a long roof. Kerdik turned back to us, a sly smile telling me he enjoyed freaking people out with his super weird elemental magic. If Judah were here, he’d be configuring Kerdik’s stats, to see how he’d measure up in a duel against an ogre or something.

  Cheval was chanting over and over to me that Master Kerdik could be dangerous, and that such power to twist nature itself wasn’t to be trusted. Being that I could converse with animals with my own janky brand of magic, I wasn’t sure if I should heed Cheval’s advice or not.

  29

  Kerdik the Dancing King

  When the impromptu cave was finished, Kerdik stepped inside and motioned for us to follow him. Cheval was wary, but knew we didn’t have another option. The rain started to fall behind us, and I looked over my shoulder to confirm that we were half a soccer field away from the torrential mayhem. It looked as if someone had poked a hole in the swirling pancake cloud that filled a hefty bulk of the sky, and buckets of water were being dumped down on the field behind us. Cheval cursed himself as he reluctantly carried me into the cavern with the others. He backed into the furthest corner from Kerdik, as if he didn’t want me too near the magical green guy.

  The smell of the fresh dirt surrounding us made me feel like I was underground. Though I could hear the rain pelting the field and coming closer, somehow in our cave it didn’t feel quite so harrowing. The shelter was surprisingly deep and long, giving us enough room for all the horses and people to stretch out. We’d been granted a reprieve from the chase, and no matter what everyone’s conflicted feelings were on Kerdik, I was grateful not to have to run the horses past their breaking point. “Hey, thanks, man,” I offered lamely. “That was super way impressive.”

  “But, of course. Can’t have my little
Compass lost in the rain.” His delighted smile only grew when it touched on my face. He turned to Aunt Avril with a slight dip of his chin. “Avril, dear. It’s been too long.”

  “Far too long.” Her reply was laced with accusation. “I tried finding you for nearly two decades. Sent my bravest knights to go looking for you.”

  “Ah, yes. They were delicious. Thank you for the offering. I’m sure you know I’m only found when I want to be.”

  “We were desperate,” she accused, dismounting and marching toward Kerdik – all pretense of civility lost. “You knew what Morgan would do, and you just sat back and let it happen! My region fell to ruin because of her, and you did nothing! Tell me how she got in your good graces. Tell me how Morgan sold herself to you to gain such favor.” Aunt Avril spoke to him like a child mouthing off to an adult who’d let her down, but she was clearly in her forties, and looked far older than him. I didn’t totally understand their dynamic.

  Bastien backed away and untied Roland, who didn’t need to be told not to stir anything up right now. Roland was positively ashen with reverential fear when he took in the green man, matched with a display of his power.

  It was like, the millionth weird magical thing I’d been introduced to in less than two months’ time, so I was less shocked and more grateful. All the differing brands of enchantment seemed to muddle into one big wave of “Huh, that’s pretty crazy.” It was hard to pick out which was the truly impressive spellwork, and which was just the everyday. Apparently, what Kerdik had done by forming us a shelter was more than a little terrifying to the average Joe Avalonian.

  Bastien reached for me with hands that had an uncharacteristic slight tremble to them. He didn’t say a word, but told me with his darting eyes that though we were in a shelter, somehow this might be more dangerous than the storm. I slid down into his arms, grateful to find that I could put a little weight on my bum ankle without pain ricocheting up my leg. Still, Bastien clung to me, forgoing the stoic “she’s nothing to me” demeanor he’d worn like armor around his besties. “Stay back,” he warned me quietly, his arm slung low around my hips. He held me close and pressed my front to his so that we were breathing in unison.