Glow of the Fireflies

by Lindsey Duga

  “He couldn’t have…gotten crushed in the rockslide, right? I mean, he passes through stuff in the physical world.”

  Alder shook his head. “I’m sure he’s fine. Maybe he went to go tell your mother we unlocked the first gate.”

  “Right, the earth gate,” I said with a nod. “So what do we have left? There’s earth, water, air, and…”

  I hesitated, the next element unwilling to come to my lips. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?

  I took so long that Alder said it instead. “Fire.”

  Staring down at the forest floor, I saw flames erupt in the brush. Saw them climb and jump and leap up the bark of the trees. Saw the glow of mana flicker and die as the energy was consumed by something greedier.

  It was like the ethereal plane, no, maybe just this valley, had triggered something inside of me. It brought me back to that awful day six years ago.

  The realization that I would have to face a gate of fire was…all consuming.

  The fire in my vision surged upward. Heat licked at my skin and embers flew at my clothes. Amidst the crackling of flames and their hiss and pop, I could’ve sworn I saw another face and heard a voice calling my name. Meanwhile, the scars on my lower back throbbed with pain. It was like someone was clawing at my skin, reopening wounds that had been closed long ago.

  I slapped at my shirt and shorts, hoping to put out the embers, but I couldn’t. They grew and grew, and my breath shorted—

  Hands grabbed mine, stopping them from beating against my clothes.

  “Brye—Briony!”

  I blinked to find Alder kneeling before me, clutching my trembling hands. Chest heaving, I hunched over, the pain in my lower back echoing up and down my spine.

  “There was fire. In the grass, on the trees, there—” I stopped midsentence as I was able to tell that it wasn’t real. All the plants and trees were alive and well, just as they had been before my vision.

  “Fire? Where? What did you see?”

  “I…” I swallowed thickly, still trying to get my bearings. Trying to convince myself that there was no fire. No face in the flames. No sinister voice. But the soft whisper of pain through my scars was proof that something had shaken me.

  Was this PTSD or something, or an actual spirit haunting me? Why did I keep seeing fire everywhere? “It…it’s nothing.”

  “No, Briony, tell me.”

  Alder’s jaw was clenched, his eyes hard and level, as if mentally preparing himself for what I was about to say.

  I licked my lips, dropping my gaze from his face. “Ever since the fire, I’ve had nightmares. Just smoke and flames and not much more than that. But since I came back here, I had a dream that was an actual memory of the fire, and then in the meadow with my mother there was a wall of flames. It was like it was coming for both of us. And just now, I saw fire in the grass and…” I dropped my head into my hands. “I don’t know if what I’m seeing is real or not. Was that just a vision? Was it all in my head?”

  Alder’s hands rested on my shoulders. They were warm, comforting. “This is why I didn’t want you here.”

  I looked up, my eyes narrowing in suspicion. “What do you mean?”

  He sighed, his gaze searching my face in desperate concern and obvious regret. “I didn’t mention it because I was hoping that you didn’t remember anything about the fire.”

  My eyes widened. “Were you there that day? Do you know what happened?”

  Alder dropped his head, sighed, then looked back up at me, gaze hooded. “It happened the day after I brought you to the ethereal plane for the first time. You were ten, I was twelve. Just kids. Naive, ignorant kids,” he said, a trace of bitterness in his voice. “I should’ve known better, but I wanted to show you something amazing. I had…no idea what I was getting you into.

  “By then, you had more than enough mana to cross over. We’d been playing together for over five years, so you were almost as much a spirit as I was.” His hand raked through his short silver hair. “I should’ve never taken you there, but I…I didn’t know. No one told me…” He paused and closed his eyes, then opened them. “Anyway, I didn’t realize it at the time, but a spirit followed us out of the ethereal plane to the physical world.”

  “What? You said spirits can’t—”

  “When a spirit tries to travel through the boundary, one that doesn’t possess a physical body like I do, it’s either an emissary that’s able to manifest a projection of itself, or…”

  Like Raysh. After he paused far too long, I prompted, “Or?”

  He lifted his head fully to look me in the eye again. “Or the spirit’s astral energy takes on a physical form.”

  This sounded eerily familiar. I licked my lips. “Which is?”

  “Fire.”

  I felt like I couldn’t breathe again—even though I could. Better than ever. It wasn’t my asthma and it wasn’t a panic attack, either. I just felt smothered. The sun, sky, mountains, and forest all around us seemed to press down on me and swallow me whole.

  “So a spirit did start the fire,” I whispered in a strangled voice, covering my face with my palms.

  Alder said nothing. I couldn’t see his face, but I could imagine the tortured look.

  Move on, Brye. You’re only confirming what you already suspected.

  Reining in my emotions, I dropped my hands and asked, “Do you think the fire gate and this spirit that came for me have anything to do with each other? Or could it just be another spirit turning into flames when it crossed into the physical world?”

  Alder suddenly stood, letting out a growl of frustration. “I don’t know. Raysh was right. I don’t know very much at all about the spirit world.” He paced back and forth across the grass. Watching him made me so restless that I had to stand, too. “It’s not like I have spirit parents or even my own emissary teaching me,” he continued. “I was created as a bridge between the worlds, so mana can flow from plane to plane freely. And it’s not like there is a manual for me. I’m not as old as Raysh. I live and die like a human.”

  He said all this in a rush of breath, frustrated, tortured, and even bitter. Not that I could blame him.

  I couldn’t imagine being the only one of my kind, trapped between worlds, a part of both but belonging in neither. It seemed impossibly, incredibly lonely.

  Breathing hard, he turned back and crossed to me, meeting my eyes with a forlorn stare. “Honestly, Brye, do you think if I’d known all this was possible—that you could absorb my mana and be chased by a spirit—that I would’ve let any of this happen to you?”

  Standing so close, I could feel his mana radiating off him. The essence of the Smokies…the world’s best aftershave. I hated to admit it, but it was distractingly intoxicating.

  But I managed to concentrate on his words and hear the pain. The regret. It was real and unquestionable. “I believe you.”

  At that, Alder’s shoulders relaxed slightly, as if a weight had just been lifted.

  “But I’m not going to stop searching for answers,” I said. “I think Mom knows something. I think the same spirit that was after me might have her.”

  Alder nodded, his expression transforming into one of anger. “Then we’ll get her back, and we’ll get the spirit that went after you.”

  A rush of relief swept through me. It was nice to know that he was truly on my side while we went after the rest of these gates. One down at least.

  But it was still just one. The solstice was three days away and I had two days left. Hopefully, the other gates didn’t take longer than a day. Izzie would have a conniption if I was gone so long that…

  I gasped, reeling back. “Shit! Izzie!”

  Alder blinked. “Who?”

  “My friend—my friend is with my grandmother. I’ve been gone for way too long. She’s gonna freak. And I left her car back on Hummingbird Road. Crap.”r />
  “I can show you a shortcut through the ethereal world.”

  Following Alder through the mystical glowing forest seemed completely normal to me now. After only a day in the mana-charged woods with strange noises and strange creatures darting in and out of the underbrush, I was already used to it.

  It even felt somewhat…comfortable to me?

  Or maybe it was just because Alder and I were walking side by side. He felt like this enormous presence beside me—and it was hard to concentrate on anything but him. I barely noticed the growing itchiness along the back of my calves and along my wrists. It was such a normal sensation to me, thanks to my constantly chlorinated skin, that I didn’t think much of it. Probably just a few mosquito bites from last night’s escapades, traipsing through the woods without decent insect repellent.

  Finally, Alder came to a stop by a brook with crystal clear water flowing with blue mana weaving in and out a small but swift current. Smaller Carolina willows dotted the opposite shore, their leaves gently fluttering in the breeze. “This is it. Stand close, okay?”

  As I moved into his side and Alder drew an arm around my shoulders, I couldn’t stop the rush of heat to my cheeks and neck. He, of course, gave absolutely no indication that this was the least bit flustering.

  At once, wind picked up around us, turning and turning into a mini tornado that stretched into the impossibly blue sky. Water from the brook and rogue willow leaves joined the tornado and then—just like that—vanished.

  Back in the physical plane it had gotten darker. The sun had dipped below the mountains, fading into the western horizon beginning its surrender to the night sky.

  Wisps flitted around us, pulsing in various degrees of brightness and color in harmonious synchronization. Their glow illuminated the forest, and I recognized my old house and Izzie’s car through the gaps in the grove of tulip trees Alder had grown. Eager to head back, I took one step forward.

  And promptly collapsed.

  Chapter Twelve

  Pain shot through my legs like nothing I’d ever felt before. It was hot and cold and unreal. I’d never experienced anything like this. It wasn’t torturous, physical pain. It was energetic. My legs and wrists trembled with mystical adrenaline coursing through every vein under my skin, while my body convulsed from the sparks of pure, unbridled mana.

  “Briony!” Alder caught me around my shoulders, his forearm supporting my back. His fingertips traced along the inside of my wrist and his chest pressed against my arm in a sharp gasp.

  “Poison ivy,” he whispered. “Oh no.”

  Scooping me up, one hand under the back of my knees and the other wrapped around my middle, Alder balanced me easily in his arms. I was so uncomfortable and disoriented from the pain in my legs that I wasn’t even in the right state of mind to be embarrassed. I let out an involuntary cry as my legs spasmed again.

  He squeezed me gently in response. “I set you down in it. It had to have been on the tree,” he muttered, words strained with agony. “Where else did it touch you?”

  I sucked in a breath through my teeth as another shock sparked through me. Cautiously, I lifted a shaky hand. My vision was blurry, but I could see glowing red welts decorating my hands and wrists and splotches on my calves.

  “I—I hadn’t—” Another shudder went through my system and I clenched my teeth, sticking my tongue to the roof of my mouth, afraid I’d accidentally bite it off.

  “Shhh, it’s okay. I’ll take care of it,” he said, though his voice was coated with panic. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Alder cradled me to his chest as he ran through the tulip trees. The wisps followed us, floating like Japanese lanterns and lighting our path.

  He stopped at Izzie’s car. “I need the keys,” he said urgently.

  Shaking, hardly able to control my arms, I managed to tug the keys out of my front pocket. Alder unlocked the car, threw open the back hatch and lifted me inside, laying me down.

  Leaning over me, he turned on the car’s interior lights. Before I could ask what he was about to do, another spike of mana hit the base of my spine, and my back arched. My fingers glowed with a pulsing red energy just below my skin, and I sucked in a breath, whimpering at the aftereffects of the lightning strike inside my body.

  “Briony? Can you hear me?” he asked. Light fingers danced across my hot, hot skin.

  My very cells seemed to vibrate with all the mana inside me.

  Dimly, I nodded, swallowing through the magical adrenaline rush. The welts on my calves, hands, and wrists burned with searing heat and freezing cold, glowing mystically in the stale, halogen light of Izzie’s CRV.

  “Just hold on to me.”

  Alder took my trembling hands and guided them to his cheeks. The cool softness of his skin under my restless fingers gave me a little…relief.

  His hands held my wrists and then ran up and down my skin, his fingers grazing the crook of my elbow, running across the luminous, angry red welts.

  Immediately, a feeling of serenity resonated within me. His touch was like a salve against the relentless, mystical energy eating me from the inside out. I blinked, my eyelids heavy with exhaustion, and managed to see light blue mana wind around my arms. Mana drained slowly from Alder’s fingers as they traveled across my arms. Meanwhile the angry red energy from my own hands leached into his neck and jaw.

  A whole different kind of panic hit me as I realized what he was doing. Draining the poisonous mana from my hands. Sucking it out of me like snake’s venom.

  I tried to move my hands away, but he held them in place. “No,” he admonished, “keep them there.”

  “Alder—” I tried to argue but stopped as tremors seized my legs. While my arms felt better, my calves were still in agony. I twisted, my side pressing against the back seat, and ripped my hands away from him, letting out a cry of pain.

  “I’m so sorry,” he murmured as his hands moved to the back of my calves. “Poisonous plants are stronger in the ethereal plane, and they were bound to affect humans differently. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it.”

  I wanted to tell him that we’d both been shaken after the landslide, and that it wasn’t his fault, but I couldn’t. I could only cover my mouth with my hands as I whimpered through the strange sensations of pain and energy spasms down my legs.

  But Alder’s mana was soothing. A shudder went through me as his blue mana calmed the mind-numbing sensations of fire and ice, adrenaline and agony, panic and pain.

  During it all, I thought: Thank God I shaved my legs last night.

  Breathing out, I lifted my arm to lay it across my forehead and squeezed my eyes closed. Only when the poisonous mana receded to a tolerable level of itchy, irritating throbs of soreness, did I open my eyes.

  Alder was concentrating on his work, his hand on my leg literally bleeding mana into my skin.

  I watched him for a moment before I felt strong enough to speak without my teeth chattering. “I’m okay now—it’s better.”

  His brow furrowed and he looked paler as compared to when he’d started. “It’s not all gone yet,” he mumbled.

  “Why did you take me to the car?” I asked, my heart rate finally slowing to a somewhat normal pace.

  “The forest has mana, too. You needed to get away from all of it, until I could…” His breath stuttered, and I knew then I had to force him to stop. Sucking out the poisonous mana, giving me his had been too much for him. Like I saw back in the earth gate, he had his limits.

  I grabbed his hands and tugged them away from my spirit rash, forcing his gaze to mine. “Alder. You’ve done enough.”

  Backlit against the car’s overhead light, his features were impossible to discern. “No, you’re wrong.” The way he contradicted me sounded like it hurt him. “It’ll never be enough. What I’ve taken from you…”

  Taken from me? Was he referrin
g to my memories?

  The pain and regret in his voice seemed to pull and tear at the void in my chest, making it expand until it threatened to swallow my heart as well. How could I feel such anguish from someone I’d met just yesterday?

  My fingertips skimmed his soft, silvery hair as I took his cheeks in my hands and pulled his face closer. Close enough for his cool autumn breath to fan against my cheeks. “You haven’t—”

  A bright light hit our eyes and we both threw our hands up against its onslaught. Squinting, I pulled myself up on my elbows to find the high beams of a pickup truck shining at us like we were two criminals caught sneaking out of prison.

  My organs seemed to rearrange themselves as a slim figure with brown skin and coiled curls stepped out of Gran’s old pickup truck. Son of a sea biscuit.

  “Briony Margaret Redwrell,” Izzie called, slamming the truck’s door, “you better not be making out with some guy in the back of my car!”

  Alder jerked back so fast he bumped his head against the car’s roof with a thud.

  I sat up straight, ignoring the residual sparks of pain, to watch my best friend stomp across the gravel and come to a halt. I glanced back at Alder to find that he had resumed his human disguise. He was all blond hair and green eyes again. I wondered if Izzie had noticed his ethereal form.

  Something about the way she had her gaze honed on me told me she hadn’t.

  “Iz, this isn’t what it looks like,” I said hurriedly.

  She got two feet away from the hatchback and stopped. “Really? Because it looks like you were just about to kiss him.”

  “I wasn’t! Listen—” I said, trying to keep my voice calm as I swung my legs around to jump out.

  Izzie gasped, her eyes glued to my calves and wrists. “Girl, you are covered in poison ivy.”

  Frowning, I looked at my skin. The red welts weren’t completely gone yet, and they still glowed subtly. I was surprised Izzie wasn’t screaming about glowing skin, then I caught Alder’s eye, and he barely shook his head.

  Izzie couldn’t see the mana like I could. All she saw was a rash.