The Waking Forest

by Alyssa Wees

  “You’re welcome.” I smile. “Thanks for—you know. Staying by me while I slept. For guarding me, even if it was only for a little while.”

  “Well, I mean, we were just bored and stuff.” She shrugs. “We just wanted something to do.”

  I shake my head, feeling, for the third time, as if I might cry. Because this is exactly, exactly the Raisa I know. We’re here, we’re home, and she remembers. “I’m sure you could have found something else to do other than babysit a selfish princess.”

  “Whatever,” she says, and I can tell she’s rolling her eyes. “And for the record, it may have been a bit selfish, what you did, but—it’s what I would have done too, if I were you.”

  We slip into silence, the rain still splashing rhythmically all around us. Lightning and thunder, every five seconds.

  “Wait—who’s that?” Raisa says, sensing Gabrielle behind me. She peers around my shoulder. Raisa quickly combs her scraggly hair with her fingers, nails winking. “Are you going to introduce us?”

  “Oh, of course. Raisa, this is Gabrielle.” I wave Gabrielle over, and she holds out her hand. “Gabrielle, my sister, Raisa.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” Raisa says slowly, as if she’s turning the words over in her head.

  Gabrielle’s cheeks flush. “I, uh, yes. It’s nice to meet you too. I mean, I’ve already met you. Sort of? You met me when I was a fox. But now I’m not. A fox, I mean. Now I’m human and I—um, nice to meet you.”

  Raisa’s mouth is open, but no sound comes out.

  “She’s a shape-shifter,” I say, as Gabrielle edges backward to lurk behind me. “I’ll explain later. Right now we need to find the rest of our family and then get to the castle.”

  “And win the war and find the king who put me up in that spinning vortex of doom in the first place and make him stop,” she says. “Got it. Let’s go.”

  She stalks away, her chin high. As I start to follow, Gabrielle speaks, quietly.

  “Rhea?”

  “Yeah?” I pause, looking at her.

  “You know what you said before, about how you’re still getting used to having magic?” she says, and I nod. “Well, you always had magic. In every life, in every dream.”

  I smile, and there is no trace left of the scream that was once coiled so tightly inside me.

  Raisa insists we need to swing by the sea before we go to the city. Swing by, as if we’re simply making a quick stop at the supermarket for a carton of milk.

  “Renata is trapped out there!” Raisa says as we emerge from the foggy field near the shoreline. “We have to get her first, then deal with everything else,” she says, waving a hand as an indication of everything that’s left unsaid. “Safety in numbers and all that. Plus, you need to rest.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” I say, “but I’ve been sleeping for a month. More sleep is the last thing I need.”

  She groans, adjusting the mask over her eyes as it starts to slip. “I don’t mean sleep; I mean rest. You need to sit down for a bit, reenergize. Sorry to say, but you look terrible. Your skin is, like, gray.”

  “Apologies, Witch, but you are a little pale,” Gabrielle adds, then recoils as I turn to glare at her. Whose side is she on, anyway? Mine, I thought, but because of the way she keeps glancing sideways at Raisa, I’m not so sure.

  “All you need to do is stop the surf around her little island, and she’ll come,” Raisa says, hopping over a particularly fiery bunch of broken branches.

  I frown. “Shouldn’t we physically go get her?”

  “No. I’m telling you. Just calm the water, and she can swim to shore. Those scary waves are the only thing stopping her. She’s a really good swimmer.”

  “But—”

  “You’re forgetting, Ree—she’s not human. She’s a nymph. Swimming a mile or two for her is like what running a mile or two is for you.”

  “Running a mile or two is torture for me! Why do you think I prefer to ride a manticore through the forest?”

  “Whatever. It’s like running a mile or two for a normal person who’s actually in shape.” Behind her mask, I just know she’s rolling her eyes. “Just do it! And if she doesn’t show up in an hour, you can magic up a boat or something and we’ll go rescue her. Okay?”

  “Fine.”

  So we head not to the city but to the sea. Just short of where the waves curl and crash, I kneel on the shore, pressing my hands to the sand, and close my eyes. I send my magic into the ground beneath me and out into the silt bottom of the sea, then let it rise up through the water like fingers reaching toward the surface, whispering the words to settle, to soothe. My voice starts to waver as energy pours out of me, and Gabrielle puts one hand on my shoulder. A little of her magic seeps through my skin to steady me. Eventually the waves flatten and slow—though I’m not sure how long this calm will last.

  While we wait for Renata to reach us, I sit on the shore with Raisa and Gabrielle on either side of me, our legs stretched in front of us and the cold waves embracing our bare feet

  “The tattoo on, um, the prince’s back,” Raisa says while we wait. I look at her, confused—both as to why she’s bringing this up and as to why she called Dad the prince. “The one, um, your mother became so obsessed with?”

  “You can call them Mom and Dad, if you want,” I say quietly. “I mean, you don’t have to. I know they’re not your real parents. But I think—I think they’d want you to.”

  Raisa smiles, and it’s like a leap of lightning, sudden and bright. “Yeah, okay. Mom and Dad.” I try to reach for her hand, thinking the moment calls for it, but she slaps my hand away, and I laugh. “Anyway, the tattoo on Dad’s back. It is a real constellation. It’s just real here instead of there, in that place where we used to live.”

  “You’re right.” My memories are rushing back practically faster than I can remember, catalog, and assess them—stories and snippets, riddles and names and places and faces, all discarded in my dreams. And the constellation—I know now that it’s the symbol of life, the left hand of the Wandering One. “Mom wasn’t making it up.”

  I’m supposed to rest while we wait, but I’m not resting. I can’t. How can I possibly relax, when I still have yet to find five more people, including Renata, who may or may not be swimming to us right now? How can I be calm when I still have to wrestle a kingdom away from a king?

  To the north of us the enchanted storm still tosses, anchored in place and slowly but surely quenching the last vestiges of Star Fire. Lightning flits at the edge of my vision every five seconds, but we are too far now to hear its cadenced loop of two-tone thunder. I start to worry that moving the storm may have been a bit too conspicuous—surely someone has noticed that an entire storm raced suddenly across the sky and is now completely stationary over the field until it dissipates. Will the king know I’m here now?

  Will he guess what I’m after?

  “There she is!” Raisa jumps to her feet and rushes toward the water. Startled, I leap up and follow her, gaze raking the gentle waves. “Ren! Over here!”

  I stand on tiptoe, squinting. “I don’t—”

  “Right there.” Raisa points, but all I see is black water marbled with moonlight. “That’s her hair! The rest of her is underwater, obviously.”

  “That’s just a tangle of kelp. Or algae or whatever. I— Oh!”

  As it turns out, the kelp or algae or whatever really is hair. Greenish-brown hair attached to a head that’s attached to a body that just so happens to belong to one of my oldest friends. Her skin has a slightly blue tinge, and where she used to have freckles, she now has scales: on her shoulders, her knees, the bridge of her nose, and around her eyes like a mask, the sides of her neck. Thin and delicate rather than jutting and rigid, the scales look almost like aquamarine petals. If I were to reach out and touch them, I think they’d be soft, pliant.<
br />
  When she’s close enough, gliding serenely through the water, I toss my arms around her and squeeze. Her gauzy blue dress is drenched and her hair is dripping. I’d just started to dry off from the storm, but soon I’m soaked all over again. I don’t mind, though. Not at all.

  “I knew you’d figure it out,” she whispers, and her breath is cool and brackish against my ear. I feel the stream of magic beneath her skin, clamshell clean, slick and salty. “I knew you’d come back.”

  I let go, taking a step away so that she has room to embrace Raisa. “You were the only one who actually remembered, weren’t you?” I ask Renata. “You made the conscious choice to wake up, while the others just disappeared.”

  “Well, it wasn’t easy. Your spell was so strong,” Renata says, with admiration rather than admonishment. She kisses Raisa’s cheek before releasing her, and turns back to me. “But, you know, I’ve always had trouble sleeping. And the sea told me. And the rain and the clouds and the snow. They always know everything, because they’re everywhere. Water is the same in all worlds.” Her gaze moves past me to Gabrielle, who lingers nearby, quiet and as vigilant as ever. “Hello. Who’s this?”

  “This is Gabrielle.” I wave her over. “My guardian.”

  “So pretty,” Renata says, smiling as Gabrielle nods in greeting. “Shall I drown her?”

  At once Gabrielle gives a wordless grumble while bending her legs, ready to pounce at Renata’s slightest advance. But Renata only continues to smile, blinking at me expectantly.

  “No, you may not!” I stamp my foot on the sand, and a tiny tremor grips the earth. Just large enough to rattle our hearts in our chests. “In fact, there will be no more killing unless I say so. I heard about what you did to those guards, Ren. And while I appreciate your helping me, you can’t just go killing people all over the place, okay?”

  She pouts. “But she looks so soft, and it’s been so long since I last sang.”

  At this Raisa grabs hold of Renata’s wrist, squeezing the brittle bones there. “Touch her, and I’ll drown you, you silly girl.”

  “Impossible.” She giggles, and her lips turn blue, almost violet. “But never mind—I can see she’s important to you. Maybe you’ll drown her first.”

  “Enough of this.” The skin over my sternum is beginning to sting, to itch. A phantom pain, because when I look down, there’s nothing there anymore. No slash or seam or scar. Does that mean the rose of wishes inside my macula heart has vanished too? I can’t feel it blooming, swaying on its skeletal stem. My heart doesn’t hurt. Not anymore.

  But still—I want my witchy rose. I want my toothy palace. I want to bestow wishes. I want an altar piled high with warts and blisters, sores and torn toenails. I am willing to hurt, if it means no one else has to. If it means a wish can come true.

  I look at my friends who are my sisters, and at Gabrielle. The sea is quiet, listening. The moons are faint, yawning. They’ll sleep soon, when the sun comes up. And at the same time, everyone else in the world will be waking.

  “Well, we’re not accomplishing anything by standing here,” Raisa says. “Should we go?”

  “Yes, but I don’t think we should walk.” I turn so that I’m facing the remains of Graiae Forest. I raise my hands and say, “Cymst, mantichora. Cymst ot mec.”

  We wait and wait, but not for too long.

  A cluster of moving shadows appears at the forest’s edge, quickly coming closer. The shadows become familiar, and then they aren’t shadows at all.

  Four manticores, each with the lithe body of a lion, the head of a woman, and a curved tail tipped with a scorpion’s stinger. They approach on padded feet, their gait smooth and silent, their shoulder blades bobbing. Renata gleefully waves to them, and Raisa yanks her hand down, holding it firmly. Gabrielle shifts in front of them, protective. Even the sea seems to shrink away, waves curling back on themselves to ensure the beasts will not touch them.

  “Hello, Shay,” I say to the largest of the four, who steps forward and bows with her front legs. Her breath smells like apples and cream, like dirt after rain, and mint tea leaves. It is a scent spun specially for me. Regardless of who I am, I am prey, and manticores lure prey close with the amplified aroma of the things one wants most.

  But I know Shay would never hurt me, even if she were mad at me. I peer at her, trying to find any hint of fury or forgiveness in her face. But she only blinks at me, waiting, and I recall Renata’s assurances from my dream life.

  Shay wants me to tell you that she forgives you. I hope that’s true.

  “Shay, I’m so sorry I left you and the others. I was afraid of so many things—that I couldn’t help you, that the king would turn me into a weapon against you, that I would never be free again.” I wring my hands as the words tumble out of me, but I never avert my eyes, I never shy away. “But I’m here now, and I’m ready to fight. Will you come with me?”

  For a terrible moment I think she’ll say no. She stares at me, and her breath is hot as it steams in the chilly air whisking in from the ocean.

  Finally Shay nods, tossing her messy mane of golden hair. She grins, rusted blood between her teeth. Her voice is spiderweb sticky, just as I remember.

  “Yes,” she says, “of course.”

  A beat passes before she adds, “But our help comes with a price, my sweet, and the price is this: next time you run off, you must bring us with you, no matter where you go. We will not be left behind again.”

  In the maculate style of vows that must not be broken, I put both my hands to my heart.

  “I promise,” I say in the old language. “It will be done.”

  We circle around the city, from here just a smear of distant light on the horizon, blurred by the speed of the running manticores and by the morning mist rising in the east, mixing with the last skyward dribbles of smoke from the fading fire in the forest to the west. The castle is not our destination yet; we are still one girl short.

  As I ride on Shay’s back, she tells me of the attack that happened while I was gone, the one that set the forest burning with Star Fire.

  “It took weeks to plan, nearly the entire time you were away,” she says, my fingers twined in her tangled hair. “A shape-shifter took the form of—well, of you, my sweet, and approached a guard, beseeching an audience with the king alone.”

  I frown at this. “That was risky.”

  “I know,” Shay sighs. “It was not a good plan, and I was against it. But it was also the only plan we had. So we did it. And—it worked.”

  Varon told me as much when I was still the Witch in the Woods in a dream, but it still baffles me. “The king really came to the woods? Alone?”

  “Yes. I still don’t quite understand it. He came, but before he could even speak, there was an explosion, and everything was burning.”

  “Do you know who started the fire? Did anyone see?”

  “No, my sweet. It happened so very fast. The king turned and ran while a group of maculae produced a protective wall to stop the fire from spreading. But by then a quarter of the wood was already gone. Some of us wanted to keep fighting, come up with a new plan, but others decided it would be best to hide, or to leave. To start again somewhere else.”

  “But not you.”

  “But not us,” she echoes.

  I glance to my left at Gabrielle, who’s cringing as she bounces on her manticore’s back. To the right Renata sits calmly, smiling, while Raisa periodically looks over her shoulder at the stinger curled behind her.

  “Can you point that thing in another direction, please?” she shouts, but the manticore either can’t hear her or doesn’t care.

  “I don’t understand,” I say to Shay, her muscles rippling beneath me. I unstick a strand of hair from my lips. With no rubber band to tie it back, my hair writhes all around my head. “What did the shape-shifter say to the king to make him come?
”

  “I believe she said, I know your secret.”

  “Secret? What secret?”

  Shay shakes her head. “I do not know. It was all a ploy.”

  My eyes begin to water in the scrape of the wind, my cheeks raw and flushed. Again I try to remember everything, anything I can about my grandfather. The king, the king. He is…a man. A man with…dark hair? And…olive skin, like mine? Black eyes and…a beard? Suddenly I’m so dizzy, I nearly topple off Shay’s scissoring shoulder blades.

  I can’t remember.

  He is like the gap between two teeth, the infinitesimal space between a fingernail and the flesh beneath, the thin space between skin and soul. Life and death. Here and there. Everything and nothing.

  What I’m certain of is this: whatever secret he has, hidden behind the door in the abandoned wing of the crystal castle lies a clue, a clue I can use to depose him.

  And the secret is only half of this mystery. What happened when he reached the forest? Who set everything burning?

  Then again, maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe all that matters is that I wasn’t here to stop it.

  The sun rises now above the sea, and its bleary light begins to burn away the fog from the fire and the rain. Soon Shay and the other manticores slow to a stop.

  “What’s this?” I say, sliding off her back. The ground is soft and springy. “Where are we?”

  “The Heartless Hollow, Princess,” says Shay, standing close beside me. Renata and Raisa hesitate; only Gabrielle gets to her feet and walks over. “What is left of it.”

  Dread drips down my spine like candle wax, my heart like a flame that someone has just blown out. I lift my hands and sweep them outward, helping the sun banish the gloom. “Aflema.”

  There are no houses here. No buildings crammed together like musty books on a shelf, sloped porches and splintered windows. No flickering streetlight orbs bobbling in the breeze. No sounds but static emptiness. No people. No life.