by Erin Johnson
More arrows flew toward Horace, but the villain merely lifted his right hand and they snapped against a shimmering force field he held before him. Another one, a smaller bubble, encased a black, thorny vine that he held in his left hand. The thing writhed and wrapped itself around his hand and wrist, though the bubble kept it from spreading up his arm. A steady trickle of bright red blood dripped from his hand to stain the white snow.
Rhonda, Amelia, and Sam stood and aimed volleys of magic at Horace, while more arrows rained down—some aimed straight at him, others lobbed higher and meant to fall down onto his head. Horace raised his hand and the force field shifted upward, the spells and arrows ricocheting toward Francis, swooping down in bat form.
I cried out as Rhonda stomped out of the front sleigh toward the sharp-boned, deep-eyed wizard blocking our way. "Like sea snakes you're going to use my own spell against my boyfriend! You—"
Horace smirked, his full lips pulling down over his teeth, and stared death at Rhonda.
I leapt to my feet, shouting all the way up to the front, where Hank had borrowed a sword from a soldier and dashed forward, one arm raised for spells.
"Don't!"
Horace looked straight at me, as if the rest of the world didn't exist. As if ten powerful witches and wizards weren't trying to kill him. "Don't what, Imogen?" His low voice seemed deceptively calm.
I swallowed. "Don't hurt my friends! It's me you want—just don't hurt them."
Hank whirled around and shot me a horrified look as I stumbled out of the sleigh and ran forward, my feet sinking in the deep snow.
"Imogen!"
I ignored Iggy and the others as I dashed forward—doing the only thing I could think to do to save my friends. Horace's face grew still and unreadable and terrifying as his hooded eyes took me in. My teeth chattered with cold and nerves as I stumbled on. Francis circled overhead, dodging the volley of arrows, as Horace knelt to the ground, set the writhing vine down, and then leapt back. The bubble that had contained it burst.
The vine exploded, crawling across the snowy ground. It twisted and grew at an alarming rate. It knotted itself together, mounding higher and higher. Within seconds it spanned the width of the road and had grown so tall that only Horace's shoulders were visible on the other side. Soon he'd be completely hidden.
I lurched another few steps forward, nearly alongside the front sleigh. "Wait! Where is Monsters Rise?"
He gave me a tight-lipped smile, deep lines creasing the corners of his eyes where his skin seemed stretched too tight across his sharp cheekbones. Within moments, the vine had twisted itself high enough and thick enough that Horace disappeared from sight. Trembling, I clenched my hands into tight fists and gritted my teeth, staring at the spot where he'd been standing. Why? Why torture me like this? Why not just give me answers? Ever since he'd dropped that maddening riddle on me, find Monsters Rise, Hank and I had been searching for its meaning.
And we'd found a clue, months ago, in the least expected place—my adopted mom. She'd finally told me the truth about my magic—how she and my adopted dad had bought (yes, purchased) me from a woman who'd said I was from Monsters Rise. But this wasn't a place we'd been able to find on any map—and Hank's family's library had all the maps. And now, after months of searching and veiled threats, he was just going to plant some crazy vine and disappear? And I'd be left with my millions of questions about my birth parents, where Monsters Rise was, how Horace knew I was from there… or was it just a coincidence that he told me to find it? I guessed the only good thing that'd come from all this was that my adopted mom and I were actually talking a lot more than we had in the last ten years—and with honesty, which was a first. I still didn't think she fully understood what it'd done to me to always feel different and alone, but she was starting to. And though I disagreed with my parents' choice to keep knowledge of my magic from me, I was starting to understand that they'd done it to protect me.
Hank grabbed my arm and dragged me back, snapping me back to the present. I blinked and stumbled with him as the black vine broke through the snow and frozen ground with sharp cracks and snaps. A tree to the left of the road fell with a deafening snap and the crash of falling branches. A cloud of snow billowed up as the gnarled vine twisted itself taller and wider, forming a blockade across the road. Thorns sprouted from the branches, as long as my forearm.
"What is it?"
We paused and looked back.
"Monster vine," Hank ground out. "I have no idea how he got hold of any—it was supposed to be eradicated decades ago."
"Monster vine?" I panted as I looked up, the wall of brambles casting a cold shadow on our faces. The guards galloped back toward us. They turned their horses and notched arrows, the tips of them burning with bright orange flame. They fired into the tangle of vines, and the monster plant swallowed up the fire instantly. The front sleigh pulled around, and now the brown horse pulled Rhonda, Sam, and Amelia toward us in a hasty retreat. My friends' eyes were wide and their faces flushed.
Francis still circled in bat form over the bramble that now towered as high as the tallest of the pine trees.
Hank cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, "Francis! Come back!"
A thorny branch shot up and wrapped itself around the leathery black bat, pulling him toward the tangle of thorns.
"No!" Rhonda screamed.
Francis wrenched himself free, but careened forward and crashed into the snowy ground in front of the fast-spreading monster vine. Red blood pooled around the bat, one wing missing and lost forever to the ravenous plant.
3
The Road Less Traveled
I pressed my hands to my mouth as my legs wobbled beneath me. Rhonda and Hank rushed toward our injured friend. By the time they got to Francis, he'd changed back to his vampire form, and he threw his left arm around Hank's shoulders. With Rhonda hugging his waist on the other side, they hobbled toward me. Francis's pale faced bobbed forward and rolled, his long black hair slicked to the back of his neck. My stomach twisted. Francis's right arm was missing—it'd been his right wing that was ripped off. His black cloak gleamed wet with blood, and for a moment the world spun and I saw spots. I took a deep breath. Pull it together, woman, your friend needs you. The fact that Francis, the ancient, terribly strong vampire, needed help sent a shock of panic through me. I shook myself and told myself to move.
"Francis!" I rushed forward to help load him into the sleigh that Amelia and Sam held at the ready. But Rhonda and Hank accomplished it between them. I hovered right behind Hank and rubbed my hands together. The vampire's black eyes fluttered under his long lashes.
I gripped Hank's arm. "Will he make it?"
Francis peeled an eye open. "It'll regenerate." He sighed heavily and heaved himself upright in the seat, already looking stronger. He glared at his missing shoulder. "But it'll take days… maybe a week. What a hassle."
A hassle? I let out a heavy sigh of relief and looked around for a seat to drop into. I thought we'd lost him.
Rhonda peppered his cheek with kisses and smoothed back his hair. "Oh baby! I was so worried!"
He rolled his head to the side to look at her and cocked a sculpted brow. "You know it'd take more than that to kill me."
She pouted. "What if it had ripped off a different, more essential appendage though?" Her lips quirked to the side, just barely. The loud cracks and snaps of the vine breaking trees and ice grew closer and louder. Rhonda's smiled dropped. "And also, I don't actually know what would kill you. Apparently you don't trust me enough to tell me."
She folded her arms and with a huff threw herself into the plush upholstered seat next to Francis.
The vampire cleared his throat. "Well, you'll have to excuse me for that. I trust you more than anyone, but when you're the last of your kind you can tell me if you want all the secrets of how to execute your demise being made public."
Rhonda narrowed her dark eyes and pulled her arms tighter across her middle. "Oh, if you want a public demise
I'll…," she grumbled to herself as Hank and I exchanged looks.
"Hate to interrupt this lovers' quarrel," Amelia snapped, eyeing Francis's drying blood on the sleigh seat. She shook herself. "But we have much bigger problems right now." Hank and I squeezed into the front seat of the sleigh beside Amelia and Sam, me half on Hank's lap. It was fine. All of my friends knew we'd been dating for a few months and that Hank's arranged fiancée, Shaday, was not only fine with us dating, but had encouraged it. Apparently she had a mysterious significant other of her own.
Amelia drove the horse to catch up with the other sleigh and Yann and Annie with our supplies.
"That's the way to London." Annie pointed toward the towering bramble. We were definitely not going that way anymore.
I turned to look at the wooden signpost at the fork in the road. The one pointing left had been carved to say "London." The wooden plank pointing right, toward the dark, scary road was much longer. It read "Wee Ferngroveshire—Dead End."
"Kind of a mouthful," I mumbled.
Rhonda muttered, "That's what she said."
I shook my head in mock disapproval, without even turning around to look at her—mostly to hide my grin. The comment seemed appropriate for someone in their early twenties (maybe)—which Rhonda appeared to be. But she'd corrected us, informing us she was around three hundred years old. You'd think she'd be a little more mature. She'd also informed us that gutter humor was quite mature and that if Shakespeare had loved it, she could, too.
Hank looked back at the monster vine, looming behind us. He shouted to be heard over the deafening snaps and thunderous cracks. "Horace has clearly planned this and wants to divert us to Wee Ferngroveshire."
The mere mention of Horace raised the hairs on the back of my neck. He'd been staring straight at me and said my name—like he knew me, like we were old friends. I rubbed my arms.
Hank shouted again. "He could have planted the vine at any time—he knew we'd come this way… and he waited for us. He wants us to know it's him that's sent us to Wee Ferngroveshire."
I shrugged a shoulder, trembling more with nerves than cold, as the sleigh had a warmth spell on it. Though the snow was falling heavier now. I dusted a white pile off my shoulders. "Hey," I said weakly. "At least it has a cute name."
"The cuter the name in the Earth Kingdom," Annie said, folding the reins in her lap, "the worse the town—it's likely to be a real eel hole. It's like how Greenland really isn't green—they just wanted to make it sound nice to lure people there." As Annie was from the Earth Kingdom, she would know.
I frowned. "The dead-end part doesn't sound great, either."
Hank looked around at all of us bakers, Rhonda and Francis, Amelia, and the guards. "Horace may have an ambush planned for us on this more remote road… or the town itself may be a Badlands Army stronghold.”
"Mayyybe weee should turn back, yah?" Yann's breath fogged the air.
Amelia's lip curled. "The last town is crawling with bedbugs, remember?"
Annie adjusted her headband, pulling back her gray hair from her face. "Would you rather be dead?"
Amelia said nothing, but cocked her head as if giving it serious consideration.
Wiley squinted up at the darkening sky. "Snow's falling heavier—we won't make it to that bug-riddled town before nightfall. It'll be dark and snowing hard."
"Yah. And der be wild tings een deez forests." Yann's little eyes shifted side to side under his bushy brows, and Annie patted his shoulder reassuringly.
"Which normally wouldn't be of huge concern, but Francis is injured and Horace could be anywhere," Hank summarized.
As if on cue, a lonely, eerie howl sounded from deep in the forest. Another howl answered it on the other side of the road.
"Great. We're surrounded," Iggy grumbled, still sitting in Maple's lap.
I stood and walked to our sleigh, Hank at my side—though not before he gave Francis a long look and squeezed his good shoulder. Maple handed the lantern over and I held Iggy up so I could talk to him.
"At least you don't have to worry about being wolf food— last I checked they didn't eat fire."
Iggy lowered his lids halfway. "Oh, good. I'll just get to watch all of you get devoured and then slowly die out myself. Not like they're going to bring me firewood." He looked to the side. "Though if I could teach them fetch, maybe they'd bring me some sticks."
I rolled my eyes.
"Well, Prince Hank." Annie lifted her brows. "What say you? Back to bug town or on to the dead end?"
Hank grinned at her. He'd been sneaking down to bake with her since he was a little boy, and I think he considered her a second mother. "Well, when you put it that way…." He swallowed and grew more serious, his lips pressing tight together. He looked at me standing beside him. "Imogen—I think you should decide."
I took a small step back. "Me?" All eyes were on me. "Why?" I hugged Iggy's lantern close to me, his warmth reassuring, though I still trembled with nerves and the cold of the wet snow falling on my face.
Hank sighed through his nose. "It seems pretty clear at this point that Horace is targeting you personally."
I shuddered. He was right and I knew it, but I hated to hear it out loud.
"I want you to feel comfortable with whatever our decision is—I want you to choose whatever seems best to you. I want you to feel safe—well, relatively, given our situation." He gave me a sad smile, his blue eyes dark in the early sunset.
Oh geez, no pressure or anything. I looked around the faces of my friends and knew I wouldn't risk them being devoured by wolves or freezing to death on the road. "Let's go on." I nodded to the dark road on the right. "To Wee Ferngroveshire." If Horace had something planned, it was likely aimed at me.
Hank stepped forward and took my hands in his. He rubbed his thumbs over the backs of my gloved hands, little white fluffs of snow settling on them. "Are you sure?"
I looked into his face and smiled—because I couldn't help smiling every time I laid eyes on him. "I'm sure. If he just wanted to kill us, he probably could have already. And I don't want to risk wolves or getting stuck in the snow." And, I added to myself, I can't help be curious about what lies in this small town in the middle of nowhere that Horace would want us to see. Maybe it would hold some answers to all the questions that'd been racing around my head for months.
Hank nodded and we all loaded back into the sleighs, lining up in formation—though this time we kept quite close together. We plodded down the road on the right, the light growing dimmer and bluer as we passed under arching boughs that formed a tunnel overhead of bare black branches flocked in white snow. The trees pressed in close on both sides, barely wide enough for the sleighs to pass through. The snow barely dusted the ground here, the boughs overhead shielding us from it. The road serpentined on and on and the day grew long into late afternoon. Every time a branch snapped or a crow took flight, the archers swung around in their saddles and my shoulders jumped to my ears.
When Rhonda, in the sleigh up ahead, threw her head back and slapped a hand to her glowing forehead, the sudden jerkiness of her movement nearly gave me a heart attack. But I took a shaky breath as I recognized the telltale signs of the seer receiving a premonition. After a few moments, she relaxed and slid lower in the back seat beside the injured vampire.
"What do you think she saw?"
Hank squeezed my hand.
I leaned forward and asked Maple to call Amelia with the earpiece. We did and she handed it over to Rhonda.
"Did you have a vision?" Maple asked.
Rhonda nodded at us from up ahead and spoke through the little device. "Yeah—for Francis, though. I got a very strong sense that he should stay away from wooden spoons."
Maple and I exchanged looks, while Wiley chuckled. "They are known for their dangerousness."
Hank grinned. Then his smile dropped and I turned to look at the road and what he'd seen. Before us, the road widened and we approached the top of a hill that looked out over a valley below
and what must be the village of Wee Ferngroveshire.
My jaw dropped. "Oh… wow."
4
Wee Ferngroveshire
"Clams!" Wiley let out a huff of misty air. "It's not an eel hole."
I licked my cold lips as I took it all in. Wee Ferngroveshire looked like something out of one of those terrible Hallmark holiday movies I secretly loved to watch—but with better production value. Red barns dotted farmlands bordered by hedgerows mostly hidden among the snow-laden hills. A thick ring of pine forest bordered the valley, and in the center stood the town—all peaked roofs blanketed in white snow. Paned windows already glowed with golden light in the deepening shadows of late afternoon.
"It's beautiful," Maple murmured, missing the smiling glance Wiley cast her way.
I cleared my throat. "Maybe Horace just wanted us to have a cozy Bruma in an idyllic country village?" Hank gave me a flat look. "No?"
We pressed on, much more eager now to reach the town, and soon made our way down into the valley. As we entered the snowy streets of the village we passed townhouses made of stone with smartly painted doors in bright reds, greens, and blues, all glowing with sparkling lights that illuminated shimmering icicles. Wreaths and garlands strewn with pine cones and red holly berries decorated windows and doors. Snow flurries danced around lampposts wrapped with red ribbon, and iron fences, the tops frosted with soft, powdery snow. The knot in my stomach that had tightened upon seeing Horace loosened a little.
Maple clapped her hands together. "It's so charming!" She glanced over her shoulder at Hank. "I mean, I love Bruma in Bijou Mer, of course. But this—this is the perfect Bruma town. With the snow and the lights and—" She gasped and pointed as we entered what seemed to be the town square. "A frozen pond!"