by S L Mason
I grab Nick’s arm, pulling him away from the giant mushroom and the graves they hid.
“We need to leave.”
Tom turns away from Jake to follow us.
“You can’t run from me, you coward!” Jake shouts “I always knew the Seelie court was weak. You don’t have the stomach to fight. Blood is the only way to win you fools. This is why you will never win.” Jake hacks at Tom’s back. Tom throws his sword over his shoulder in time to block the blow.
The three of us run with Jake in hot pursuit.
“Even your pretender has no stomach for what must be done. How can you expect her to rule if she can’t even lead a battle? You are lower than flutterbys, so weak are you.” Jake footfalls stop.
Tom shoves me to the side and groans. I glance back only to spy Jake throwing his head back to laugh. He picks up the chase once more. So tight is his grip no the sword his knuckles glow white in the dim purple light.
The screaming voices and tearing whispers lessen the farther away from the graves we get.
“Where the hell are we and why are we running?” Nick’s voice cracks the air. I chance a glance at him and then back to the ground jumping over roots and smaller mushrooms.
“Is Jake still following us?” I ask, my breathing is heavy with a dry mouth.
“Yeah, why does he have a sword? How’d you get the cut on your face? Why is there blood running down your neck?” Nick doesn’t miss a beat running.
“The forest is a battleground graveyard. He’s possessed.” I retort.
“Sarah, what’s going on? Why do I have a sword?” Jake’s lucid words call out to us. “Come on, guys! Don’t ditch me.” Jake pleads, then waves his arms around and tosses the sword to the forest floor.
I slow to a walk and bend over to catch my breath. The dark gloom lifts to a shady mist. The mushrooms thin up ahead. I quicken my pace.
“I have a terrible pain in my shoulder,” Tom complains, his words tear at me. He might be hurt, but I don’t want to stop.
“I want out of this forest of crazy before anyone tries to kill me again,” I shout, pumping my arms and legs, I make for the edge of the tree line.
CHAPTER 11
In the shadow of the Mushrooms, Tom turns and surveys the surroundings. I watch in horror as Tom reaches over his shoulder and scratches above the knife protruding from his shoulder.
“Stop!” I move to Tom. Nick freezes mid-step.
“I’ll be damned! You weren’t lying, Tom. You do have a sharp pain in your back.” Jake laughs, then pulls a gauze packet out of one of the many pockets in his jacket and hands it to me. Tom cranks his head to look over his shoulder.
“There’s a knife in my back. How in the hell did that happen?” Tom looks from me, to Nick, and back to Jake.
“I think Jake threw it at you.” I lower my eyes and bite my lip.
Jake splays one hand around the wound. With his left hand, he pulls the knife, and his right-hand pushes Tom’s body away. A fleshy sucking sound follows, and the blood oozes out the moment the blade is free. Tom unbuttons his jacket and Jake cuts the undershirt at the neck. I pour water over the wound and cover it with the gauze. Jake pulls a roll of duct tape from a leg pocket and rips a strip off. I move my fingers as he presses the tape over the top.
“Well, Tom, now you can tell everyone how I’m a shitty friend and stabbed you in the back.” Jake smiles.
Tom chuckles.
“Wish Will was here. I bet him twenty bucks you would, over a woman.” Tom chuckles.
They both laugh. I don’t see how that is funny. I help Tom pull his jacket over the wound and button it up. His eyes meet mine.
“You going to tell us what happened back in that forest?” Tom’s mirth drains from his face, leaving only the cold eyes of a killer.
“I don’t know. One minute we were walking along and laughing. The next you and Jake were fake sword fighting with Jake trying to kill me. Then you found real swords, and the real fun began. My guns are gone and so is my crossbow.” I look down and away. I don’t want to tell them where the swords came from or what I fear.
Tom’s eyes never leave me. I’m haunted; maybe he is too. His lips smile, but his body never relaxes. He is always on the defense. He knows I’m holding back, but for some reason, he holds his tongue.
We come out in a wide-open meadow. Off in the distance is a barn. Something about it is familiar. This is Fae. Every building can look like the other although I know that isn’t true. Everything here is brought into existence by whoever wants it. They morph and alter everything around them to suit their needs. If the barn looks familiar, it means I’d seen it before. There’s no other answer.
The night I’d been taken, this is where Janice left Arty.
I offer, “I think that’s the home of the Puca.” I announce. Lavender had shuttered when she said his name—Puca.
“The Puca? What the hell is that?” Tom demands and regains his composure.
I fill them in. “It’s some kind of Fae creature. It takes young, strong guys. It’s probably where you were held, Nick. I know that’s where they had Arty before. Maybe they brought him back. Once you belong to the Puca, he generally doesn’t relinquish his property.” I say.
All three of them quiet down. Whatever chitchat or playful banter we had died in the mushroom forest. There’s nothing to hide our approach. No bushes or trees. But daylight in the human world means bedtime here. The Puca is probably asleep, as are his charges.
There are a few horses out front. They paw at the ground, blowing air through their nostrils. They wear no halter, harness, or saddle. They are tame and realized this is where they should be. Horse is merely a term I use quite loosely. One’s blue, and the other’s lilac.
Twisted sound wakes pore off them, their genes had been manipulated to create the colors. Their bodies are lighter, bones stronger, someone had altered their genetic makeup.
So beautiful, I ache while gazing at them. Long, fluffy eyelashes open and close as their intelligent opalescent eyes peek out at me. I can’t help smiling. I’m like a little girl in a fairy dream.
Before when I’d been here, I was terrified. Everything was a threat. I was constantly on the lookout for an attack. Even when I made it back to the surface, threats loomed on all sides. But now, at this moment I don’t feel that; it’s all wondrous. There are still threats here, but somehow, they don’t touch me. Whatever threatens humans doesn’t threaten me. I no longer fall into that category.
I shake my head to throw off the fog; it’s an enchantment. I refocus on the ground between the funky horses and I. Up ahead looms a wake wall spiked with sharp edges. I follow the shape with my eyes, a perfect ring around the barn. My hand pushes Nick back.
“Stop, don’t take another step! You too, Tom! Don’t move,” I shout. The wakes gather closer together at our location.
I watch the wakes dance up into the sky. It’s some kind of a warning line. Is it there to keep people out or something in? I make a nickering sound and a simple whistle. I’d never been around horses. I’m like every little girl, I wanted a horse or pony. Something I could ride to call my own. My mother was against them. She demanded my father promise to never take me riding. She preached the dangers of strange horses.
The blue horse at the barn turns and flicks its tail up in the air, letting the carnelian colored hair float down, spreading out like a sheet. He turns and tosses its head, making a snorting sound. He paws the ground with one of its hooves and moseys towards the line and stops short. I take several steps closer to the wake wall. Tentatively, I reach my hand out, I don’t know what will happen when I cross the line, but I’m going to find out. If Arty’s there, I have to try.
The horse snorts and tosses its head. He doesn’t want me to touch it. I feel its fear almost as if it’s repelling me and telling me—no. I tentatively pull my fingers back, clasping them to my breast. We need to get to that barn. The sound wake goes up, and it never stops. It doesn’t seem to lose its effect
iveness the farther on it goes. It doesn’t interact with other sound wakes, allowing them to morph and mix. It continues exactly the same. The wall breaks the wakes around it, separating and dividing them. It cuts them in half.
I take a deep breath, scrunch my eyes closed and thrust my hand into the wall of magic. The sharp thorns cut into the tender flesh of my palm. I scream, yanking my hand back. My palm blisters, and blood wells from cuts. The sharp edges of the wake glint in the Fae light, almost laughing at me.
Stupid, Sarah! Look before you leap, dummy.
“We can’t cross this line, and I don’t see a way through. I’m going to have to sing it down or cut an opening for us.” My belly bunches. I can do this, I hope. No one speaks.
As I listen for the discordant sound pouring from the security line, I hear notes that should never be together. It’s a war between a chord and discord. My survey of the ground reveals no obvious reason for the line or where it emanates from, or its creation. Nothing more than a white powdery substance.
I pick up a stick and throw it. It passes through without a hitch, same for a rock. Objects pass through, but flesh cannot. Obviously, wind can.
What about fire?
“Jake, can I have your lighter and canteen?” I ask.
He unclips the canteen and places it in my hand. Tom tosses me his Zippo lighter, and my fingers clasp at the raised seal on the backside. I turn it over the medallion and reads ‘Semper Fidelis’ along with the Marines’ crest. I flip the lid off and run my thumb over the roughened wheel. The flint sparks and a flame catches. I toss it over the line.
“What the hell? You are going to get my lighter back, aren’t you?” Tom bellows. Nick moves to block Tom’s approach.
“Yes, but we need to get through this wall first.” I don’t bother to glance at his face and unscrew the top of the canteen and throw a little water across the wake. The thorny wave disappears. The water goes through as well.
But why had the wake disappeared?
I examine the wet spot in the grass. The powder was washed away. It creates an opening in the security perimeter. Next to the water droplets sits Tom’s lighter. I pick it up and toss it at him.
“I’m sorry, Jake. I think we need all your water,” I say. “It’s the only way to create a good-sized opening to get a horse through. I don’t know about you, but I’m over walking.” I announce.
Tom flicks the lighter, reigniting the fire, and closes the lid on his pant leg a few times before pocketing it again, all the while throwing me a hard stare. All three take up their point positions around me as I splash water, dissolving the powder. As soon as there’s enough space for the horse to put his head through he does. He’s a stallion and magnificent. He rubs his nose into my hair and blows air out his nostrils in my ear.
“Yes, you’re a good boy.” I patting his fuzzy cheek. He bends down outside the security line. Using his strong lips, he pulls up some of the grass. I smile to myself because the grass is always greener on the other side of the security fence. I run my hand up and itch between his ears. I whisper, “Wait for us! I’ll be happy to ride you if you don’t mind.” He snorts acceptance and tosses his head up and down. It seemed like a yes to me.
“Now we need three of his friends, and we can go wherever we want,” Nick remarks, he has a one-track mind, move forward.
I scrunch one eye shut and gaze up at Nick. “I want to see what’s in that barn first.” We move in unison, and my blue stallion follows alongside. We tiptoe up to the stable proper. The other two horses standing out front come and rub themselves on me too. I pat each one of them in turn, and they go and stand next to their blue pal.
CHAPTER 12
Janice hadn’t said the Puca was dangerous, but he’d implied it. The security perimeter wake is spiked, to dig into your skin and claw at you. The Puca clearly put it down to keep things in. Or is it to keep something out? I don’t remember the wake wall from my first visit, I only remember Arty blindly following Janice into the barn. The stamping and snorting from the other horses beyond the door drag me out of my past.
The barns sliding doors mock me with their seemingly peaceful appearance. But everything in Fae is deceptive. You can’t rely on it to not squeak, alerting anyone nearby. For all I know the, wood itself might sound the alarm by touching it. I don’t see small critters running around. That doesn’t mean there aren’t alarms here somewhere. The Puca clearly doesn’t want anyone to get out, but doesn’t mean that I can’t get in.
The guys crowd behind me, waiting for me to make the next move. Their presence comforts me. The horses don’t stay behind, the blue stallion is right next to me as if laying a claim. He rubs his shoulder against me and then lifts his head and snorts at the wall, nodding to the opening. It’s encouraging. Still, I’m tentative. He picks up his front hoof as if to kick the door. My heart freezes in my throat while I grab for his hoof.
Why would I trust a creature of Fae? They’re pretty and deceitful.
I don’t want to be heard. This won’t be a clandestine infiltration if we alert them to our presence. In slow motion, the dark blue hoof lowers to the point of contact. I squint to avoid the vision, but my eyes refuse to block the visage before me. The sound of a hoof scraping down wood never arrives. Instead, the tip disappears into the wooden door.
It’s a mirage, a trompe l’oeil, there to fool my eye, and it fooled me. It’s a magical illusion the Puca had woven to keep others away. I thrust my hand into the wooden illusion, and it disappears.
I turn and smile, but none of the guys smile back. Jake nods his head with a big knot of wrinkles between his eyebrows. He tilts his head to the left, indicating we should move in. I pat the blue stallion on his cheek, rubbing down his long neck. I step through the illusion.
On one side of the interior, a rainbow array of horses line the stalls. Some turn to inspect the newcomers while others busy themselves facing the opposite direction. A few nibble the hay hanging inside their stalls. The other side displays a similar layout, but the stalls house humans. They are given only knee walls with the split stall doors, a water dispenser, and a tray for food. It’s more cage than stall.
Twenty-two men. My eyes trail down the line, desperate for the broad shoulders and dark, tossed hair that Arty sports. My heart sinks. At first glance, none of them catch my eye. It doesn’t mean he isn’t sitting down or maybe asleep. I start by the door, walking past each stall. I eat up the interior. With each pass, the knot in my throat grows. None of the guys are awake. They are physically present but mentally asleep. I peek over the top of a half wall into a stall with two guys. One sits on the floor with his back against the far wall. His legs splay out in front of him as he sits on top of a mound of hay. His friend faces away from us in the other corner. A metallic ring of liquid hitting the side of a bucket cues me in. He’s peeing and completely unaware of anyone watching him.
A water bucket sits near the door with food, a couple of bread-looking rolls and some fruit—similar to the fruit at Deston’s castle. I don’t see a protein. Neither of them gives me one iota of attention.
Nick also searches the faces. I never asked myself if he might know someone. I shake my head. Arty isn’t here. My steps slow at the last stall for a cursory once-over of its occupants. Mahogany-colored, matted, hair frames a vacant face, normally etched with a snide half-smile—Brad. He and Camille had been taken, or at least I thought they had been. They weren’t dead with the other kids at the church, and Brad would never have left his car.
On instinct, I whip my head left and right. If Brad’s here, Camille is in Fae too, somewhere. She could very well have been in the corral with me at the maze. My heart speeds up with burning eyes. I don’t like Camille, but I don’t want her to die. I pace from one side to the other, turning at the stall doors.
In the maze, they took us all in pairs. If Brad’s still alive, she probably is too.
Brad stands up next to the door and hangs both hands out between the bars. He stares out, unseeing int
o nothingness. I move into his line of vision. Maybe if I catch his eye, he might see me.
His eyes carry the white, milky-glaze of enchantment. Brad’s eyes are normally those pretty clear baby blues, the kind the girls always swoon over. Now they resemble an old woman’s cataracts.
“Brad, can you hear me?” I lay my hand over his. He’s unresponsive. What did I think, he’s going to wake up just because I spoke to him? If I sing the song, would that pull him out of his enchantment or would I wake everybody in the barn? I obviously hadn’t thought that far ahead, this isn’t going to be easy. Neat is what we need. Either I’m here to get Arty and Olive, or I’m here to free everyone. I can’t have it both ways.
If I free everyone and the Puca comes back, he’ll notice. All of the Hallowed Hills will send out some kind of an alarm and start looking for us. My palms moisten. Damp sweat forms under my arms. I don’t want to be caught. I don’t want Nick caught. Jake and Tom are too old; they’ll die. Puca might not notice one, but he’d notice two.
“Aren’t you going to wake them up, Sarah?” Nicks prodding claws at my resolve.
I bite my lip. I can feel the crinkling around my eyes as the muscles in my forehead pull down. A tingle grows in my nose, the kind when you think you might cry because you know you have to do something and you don’t want to do it.
“No,” I reply.
His pupils dilate, and his eyes open wider. He shakes his head.
Nick plunges in. “Why not free all these kids? I know you can. You did it for all those other kids.” Jake puts his hand on Nicks’ arm, pulling him back a step.
“They will send a lot of somebody’s out here,” Jake interjects. “They’ll know someone is here, and then they’ll hunt us down. No, she’s gonna leave them asleep. Don’t get me wrong, I want a firefight. These are all just kids like you. What are you, maybe eighteen?” Jake inquires.
“Yeah, I’m eighteen. I’m old enough to go to war and carry a gun alongside you, jarhead.” Nick retorts and grinds his teeth, his jaw muscles work over the bone. He stares Jake and Tom down, his eyes shifting from one to the other.