by Krista Walsh
They reappeared around Cassie, Kay with a finger under her chin, tilting her head up. Cassie’s shoulders straightened, meeting the woman’s gaze square on.
“Cassandra the clairvoyant,” she said.
Aya ran her fingers up Cassie’s arm. “Clear-eyed beauty, muse, lover.”
“The Storychanger’s motivator,” said Lan, brushing her fingers through Cassie’s hair.
Cassie stood without moving, accepting their attentions without argument. Jeff squeezed his fists so tightly, his short nails dug into his skin.
“A promise given in exchange for another,” said Kay.
“To return one,” said Aya. “Cancels both. Are you willing,”
“To pay the price?”
“We are,” said Cassie, without hesitation.
Kay’s eyebrow quirked. “Sworn even before the terms,”
“Are known. Some may call this rash,” said Aya.
Lan looked to Jeff. “Does the Storychanger agree?”
Jeff tuned the Sisters out and focused only on Cassie. This was the point of no return. He could have found a way to live without his imagination. Eventually. They were here because she wanted him to be happy. She was willing to make this sacrifice for him, just as he had made his sacrifice for her to begin with.
But this exchange felt selfish. Last time had been for the best reason he could think of: to save the woman he loved. This time, he had no motivator but his own talent, and the guilt threatened to overwhelm him.
But he saw in Cassie’s expression that she would go through with it anyway. If he wasn’t the one to make the trade, she would do it for him.
“All this magic is making my ears tingle,” said Venn. “I’m starting to think we should have gone to Maggie first. Maybe there’s another way to get you all patched up? Something that doesn’t involve these freaks?”
Lan disappeared from Cassie’s side to stand behind Venn. “Smart and pretty, your mistrust,”
“Is wise. But this debate is not,”
“For you to decide.”
Lan glided her fingers across the back of Venn’s neck, and Jeff waited for his adopted cousin to draw a weapon to attack her. He hoped she wouldn’t, knowing it wouldn’t achieve anything except possibly hurting herself. He was surprised that she didn’t even try.
Then he saw the panic in Venn’s eyes, how sweat beaded on her forehead and trickled down her face. She was trying to move, trying to attack, but the Sisters had her bound.
He knew they wouldn’t hurt her, but he would have to brace for an earful when she was free.
Kay turned her attention back to Jeff. “Changer of worlds, the choice,”
“Is on you. How will,”
“This story begin?”
Jeff forced his breathing to slow until the spots cleared from his vision. “Give me my imagination back.”
Kay held out her hand. He looked to Cassie, and she gave him a smile, her promise that everything would work out for the best. He really hoped she was right.
Hesitantly, he slid his hand into the witch’s. Her wolfish smile softened, and Jeff saw an unexpected compassion behind those cat-like eyes. It made him nervous.
Her other arm stretched out towards Cassie, palm facing up. “What was given in exchange,”
“Will now be returned,” said Aya.
Cassie’s eyes widened as a blue light wrapped around her, and she began to fade.
“No, stop! Where are you sending her? Stop it!” Jeff made to run forward, but Kay’s grip tightened around his hand, so much stronger than she looked.
“I’ll find you,” he called. “I promise.”
“Not if I find you first,” Cassie replied, keeping a smile on her face in spite of the tremor in her voice.
And then she was gone. Venn, released from her binding, yelled out and ran over to where Cassie had been.
“Where the fuck did you send her?” she demanded. “At least give us that much. Give us something to work from!”
Jeff’s heart ached at what he’d just done. Watching Cassie vanish had been as much of a blow as if the Sisters had stabbed him in the chest. But he didn’t have much time to dwell on the emotional pain before the physical pain began.
It started as a pressure behind his eyes as Kay squeezed his hand. Aya and Lan came closer, each resting a hand on his shoulders, and the pressure squeezed like a vice. Crying out, Jeff fell to his knees, pressing his hands against his temples, his nails digging into his scalp.
Pictures. Millions of pictures and emotions and thoughts flooded into his head, stretched out his mind. Bursts of light flashed in his eyes, each one bringing with it a stabbing pain as his overstimulated brain tried to process all the incoming information.
He felt himself thrash against the Sisters’ hold, heard Venn’s shouts far away, but the awareness of everything outside his head seemed insignificant compared to the ice cold chill running up his spine. Like brain freeze. Like being hit over the head with a frying pan. Like the worst sinus headache. All of that pain at once. He waited for his head to explode, and death to bring an end to it all.
Fast as a gunshot, it was over. As abrupt as his landing in the coffee shop. Out of breath, and feeling like his brain had devoured an entire turkey in one sitting, he lay flat on the ground. Sweat pooled under his lower back, trapped under his coat, and a gust of cold wind froze the tears on his cheeks.
He gasped for air to try to slow his heart rate, and stared up at the swaying trees until his stomach settled.
Venn knelt beside him, her hand on his shoulder. “Hey, you alive?” The concern behind her cornflower blue eyes belied the flippant tone.
“Not sure yet,” Jeff wheezed. “Maybe?”
“Better be,” said Venn, the harsh edge returning. She stared over Jeff at whom he could only guess were the Sisters. “Otherwise, there’s going to be some heavy-handed conversation in this forest. Can you sit up?”
She extended a hand, and Jeff reached for it as slowly as possible, each movement in his arm sending cascades of lingering queasiness and pain through his body. Finally, long after Venn’s patience had extinguished, he was able to sit on his own, one leg stretched out in front of him for balance, his elbow resting on his other knee so he could hold up his head.
“So did we come all this way for nothing? Did it work?”
Jeff closed his eyes, thought about Detective Pete and Fred the cat. Pictured them at a sports arena with a murdered hockey player on the ice, stick snapped in half. He could see the paparazzi trying to push their way onto the scene, a flash of cameras, the line of police holding them back. He could see one woman, blonde, standing to the side with tears in her eyes and her arms crossed, looking out of place. A dozen scenes spun out from there—an entire plot in his head.
Not new ideas. Old ones. The same plotline he’d worked out for his murder mystery three years ago.
“So unreal,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s all there. Clear as ever. But that was a ride and a half, I’ll tell you. I don’t recommend it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind next time I want to sell my soul to some bimbos in silk in exchange for another human being. Seriously, Jeff. Cassie’s great, but I don’t think I’d ever believe someone worth part of my mind.”
“I hope you never have to make the decision, but I’ll remind you of that when you fall for someone.”
“I wouldn’t hold your breath, Storychanger.”
“Please don’t call me that,” said Jeff. But the epithet reminded him they weren’t alone. There were still questions. Like where the hell they’d sent Cassie.
On shaking legs, he got to his feet, using Venn’s arm for support until he was sure the ground wouldn’t open up and devour him.
The Sisters stayed a few feet away, all in a line with their arms crossed and identical smirks on their faces, as if they knew what he was about to ask.
He asked anyway.
“Where did you send her?”
Lan shook her head. “The e
xchange was one for,”
“The other. It’s ungallant of you to,”
“Ask for both.” Aya tsked.
Jeff took a step closer to Kay, bringing himself up to full height. He’d never noticed before how tall she was, and wondered if she was always tall or just giving the illusion that she was.
Forcing himself to match gazes, he said, “When I traded my imagination, it was for the key to get Cassie out of Treevale, not the woman herself. Now you’ve sent her somewhere and all I’m asking is for you to tell me where.”
A flash of light, and the three women now stood in a circle around Jeff and Venn. Jeff spun around to face Aya, but it was Lan who spoke first.
“You return in a time of great,”
“Need. The bridge crumbles as the earth,”
“Shakes, and Andvell needs its,”
“Storychanger. Your wishes are small,”
“In the face of destruction. Remember your,”
“Oath. The debt is yours.”
Jeff glared at each of them in turn. “It’s moments like this I wish you would just speak like human beings. Are you saying you need me to start writing about you again? Solve another problem? What problem? Or do I need to figure that out on my own as well?” He crossed his arms to mimic their obstinacy. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to promise to help with anything until you tell me where Cassie is.”
Aya pressed her lips together and frowned, the first time he’d seen any of them adopt an expression other than amusement or sly seduction. He dropped his hands and watched them closely. Whatever the problem was, they were worried.
When he wrote about the Sisters in Evensong, he’d misinterpreted events, written about them as one entity, a forest spirit called Cayalan. He only found out when he got here that they appeared in the form of three spirits who liked to play with illusion and mess with his head. They reminded Jeff of the witches in MacBeth, appearing to serve no real purpose but to put ideas in people’s heads. Only out for their own protection, without the effort of solving the problems themselves.
But it was their problem, not his. He would be happy to help them however he could. If they told him what he wanted to know.
After a moment of both sides glaring, Aya finally said, “Curiosity and delusion will protect her. She has her own,”
“Role to play in our survival. Your road,”
“Does not yet cross with hers. You need,”
“To focus on life between worlds.”
Jeff wished he was young enough to stamp his foot. “I don’t know what any of that means.”
“Seek the enchantress,” said Kay, her pale skin turning even whiter as she began to fade.
“No!” Jeff shouted.
“Dragontongue,” said Aya, her skin shimmering in the sunlight as she, too, disappeared.
“Stop it. Get back here. You tell me what’s going on. Where is Cassie?”
“Child sorcerer,” said Lan, her black hair transparent against the shadows of the trees.
“Who?” Jeff demanded.
“They will guide you.”
The Sisters were gone, taking the forest with them, and Jeff and Venn found themselves standing in a field with snow up to their ankles and no answers.
Giant snowflakes drifted down from thick grey clouds, catching in Venn’s black hair to turn it into a polka-dot pattern. There wasn’t a tree in sight for miles that they could see. Or any road.
“This sucks,” said Venn.
“I would have to agree.”
“I really don’t like them.”
“Nope.”
Venn turned in a slow circle. “So what do you think? Any creative solutions to our latest predicament? Way I see it, we can either go off in search of Cassie, or seek out the Dragontongue.”
Jeff stuck his hands in his pockets, wishing he’d brought his gloves with him. Without any protection from buildings or trees, the wind cut deep into his bones. The colder he got, the more his tentative hold on his emotions wavered, and he released a shout from the depths of his gut.
Cassie was gone and he had no idea where he would start to look for her. She had no idea where they were to get back to them. Was she safe?
Protected by masks and delusions, they said, Jeff’s angry thoughts mocked. So she’ll be protected by a fucking tin foil hat?
“Jeff, take a breath,” said Venn.
Inhaling sharply, Jeff wondered how many times Venn had called to him, and how long he’d been cursing the skies. His throat hurt, but that could have been the dry air and a leftover effect of the mindfuck from his imagination reentry. Those Sisters liked to see a man in pain.
“We need to find her,” he said.
“And we will, that’s a non-issue. You know Cassie. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’ll be fine.”
Jeff pressed his palms into his eyes, wishing when he looked back up that Cassie had found her way back. That it was all just a not-so-funny trick from the Sisters, that they’d just sent her a kilometre away to walk back in the cold, and soon she would find her way to them.
But when he opened his eyes again, only Venn stood there, her lips pressed together as she waited for him to calm down.
When she saw he wasn’t about to relapse into insanity she continued, “We, on the other hand, won’t be fine if we continue to stand here in a snowstorm. I don’t feel like freezing to death, so let’s pick a direction while we can still walk. What do you recommend? And please don’t start yelling again.”
Jeff took a deep breath and passed a hand over his face, willing himself back into some form of clear-headedness. He ran through the Sisters’ words.
“Dragontongue is Brady, so they’re telling us to go to the Keep. Why they couldn’t just say ‘Go to the Keep’ is beyond me.”
“Or give us a map.”
Jeff barked a laugh. “Now who’s coming up with creative solutions. Since we don’t have a map, I guess it doesn’t matter which direction we take. I say we start walking and see what we reach first.”
“Great plan. When you start your next novel, I say you should have your characters make the same decision, and see how much your readers enjoy following you for ten pages while your lead does nothing but trudge through snow, blinded by the glare of the sun against the solid white field.”
She said the last words with dramatic flair, flinging the back of her hand to her forehead. Then she looked over her shoulder and gave him a smile and a wink.
“Travelling epics are in right now,” said Jeff. “I could probably make it work.”
They hadn’t taken more than a few steps when the sound of snow crunching under feet behind them made them stop. The other footsteps continued, along with a noise that made Jeff’s insides turn as cold as his outsides. Still reeling from having a lifetime’s worth of daydreams dropped into his head, he couldn’t make heads nor tails of anything he heard.
Is that growling?
Venn turned around first, and immediately reached for Jeff’s arm.
Jeff’s heart started hammering in his ribcage. Nothing scared Venn. If she was afraid, whatever she saw had to be bad. Really bad.
Very slowly, he turned around.
Just as a wolf lunged out of the snow towards him.
Chapter Four
At the last minute, Venn shoved him out of the way so the wolf landed in the snow, fur so white Jeff could hardly make him out in the glare.
The beast snarled and rolled onto his feet, but by now Venn had her knives in hand, winter coat open to reveal the multiple sheaths strapped to her chest.
Jeff saw what she was about to do and cried out, “Venn, wait!” as she threw herself towards the wolf, her own teeth bared in a similar snarl. She crashed into him and they rolled, black on white. The wolf came out on top, slavering and snapping in Venn’s face as she tried to push him off, but couldn’t get enough hold underneath her.
Unarmed, Jeff did the only thing he could think of. Scooping up a handful of snow, he p
acked it into a tight ball and hurled it at the back of the wolf’s head. It did no damage, but succeeded in distracting the beast from Venn. It swung its head around, growling again, and Jeff noticed the way its jaws didn’t line up, as if the lower bone was unhinged. And the eyes looked off…
But he had no extra time for analysis before the wolf shoved off Venn and made back towards Jeff. Rushed, Jeff moulded another snowball, thanking his parents for leaving him out in the snow so often as a kid. Giving the snow a quick kiss, he aimed for the wolf’s face and threw.
The snow hit with an unexpected squelching noise, and when the snow fell away, so did one of the beast’s eyes. The wolf didn’t seem fazed, still rushing towards him. Too stunned by what he had seen, Jeff’s reflexes were dulled and he didn’t get out of the way before the wolf jumped and crashed into him, taking them both down.
An extra weight landed on him as Venn leaped onto the pile, the blade of her knife catching in the sunlight as she brought it down into the beast’s neck.
The wolf twitched, but continued to worm its teeth close to Jeff’s face as Jeff tried to push both it and Venn off him.
With a war cry, Venn made a second attack, bringing the blade around the front of the wolf’s throat and slicing deep.
Jeff twisted his head and squeezed his eyes shut to avoid the blood spray that never came. He heard the rip of the creature’s fur, heard the sound of muscle and ligament being sawed through, but his face remained dry except for the falling snow.
When he heard the crack of a neck being snapped, his stomach had had enough, and he turned his head as far as he could to retch.
“Now that’s just gross,” said Venn.
“For fuck’s sake get off me,” he said between gags.
He kept his eyes closed until first Venn’s weight and then the wolf’s disappeared, and then he rolled onto his side, dousing his head into a patch of clean snow to stop the nausea.
“This thing is dead,” said Venn.
“Good!” Jeff exclaimed, raising himself up to his knees. He cupped a handful of snow into his mouth, swished, and spat it back out again to clear the sour taste of vomit.