by Hickory Mack
Alice strode quietly, the men strolled together, heads angled secretively. Doctor Pax, his squad captain and one of the elders were speaking in hushed tones, too engaged in their conversation to notice her approach. Her demon motioned at her and she sneaked closer.
“We’re nearly finished with a new holding facility in the south. It has the strongest security measures we’ve come up with to date,” said the elder. He was tall, with a military bearing and a scar across one eye. Alice froze.
A holding facility for what?
“What happened to the last one? Prosperity has already secured eight upper class demons for your cause,” the captain said. He was a rugged looking man with a full, dark beard.
“They served their purposes. We learn more with each new creature. The team is on to something, we think they’ve figured out how to weaponize the demon’s magic. The previous specimen is dead, we need another one to experiment with. We all felt the effects of the mark up there on that stage. We want the demon that can do that,” the elder said.
Alice’s blood ran cold, her feet turned to lead. How could they discuss this so casually out in the open? She stopped following them, too shocked to listen to more and soon they were out of her hearing.
When Stanley caught up to her she put on a show of being too weak to reach them. She pretended to be in a daze until the event was over and they stopped shoving people at her. When she finally sat next to her father on a bus, Alice was exhausted, but she couldn’t stop acting. She answered every question with ‘I’m not sure...’ and blank stares. He couldn’t take her to task for running off since he believed she had forgotten everything. He probably knew they’d been the ones to wipe her memory.
Stanley was silent the rest of the way. He only spoke once more, to bid the driver good night. Alice wasn’t sure whether to be worried or relieved. Since they’d moved to Tallow her father had been quieter than he’d ever been in Balance. She saw him infrequently, sometimes a week would pass without so much as a note. When she did see him, she was still too angry at him for tearing her away from the life she’d known and too busy dodging Miranda and her gang to really care what his problem was.
They stopped briefly on the faded gray porch as he unlocked the door on the far left. It swung open and thudded against the wall, the handle fitting neatly in the depression left by years of such abuse. Up the dingy stairs and through a second door they removed their shoes. Stanley avoided looking at Alice, which was perfectly okay with her.
“Well,” he said quietly, looking toward his chair with the broken footrest. “That beast will be dead by morning and this will all be over. Get some rest, it’s a school night.”
He said nothing of her condition, nothing of feeding her, asked nothing of her. Stanley shuffled off to his chair and turned on the old T.V. set they’d been given, exchanged for her father’s wealth of books.
The poor of Tallow had no need of books.
“I’m going to shower, I feel gross,” Alice said. The only reply was the voice of the newscaster going over her news conference. The channel clicked over to some comedy of a family living in an apartment a lot like theirs, except their petty fights always ended up happy. Her father used to call these programs brainwashing, teaching people to accept the status quo. She wondered if it helped him accept the life he’d chosen, now.
Avoiding the mirror after her lukewarm shower, Alice toweled off and lay in her cramped, single bed. She stared up at the water damaged ceiling, tracing the familiar cracks with her mind. She rubbed her wrists compulsively. Alice couldn’t shake the feeling of the cuffs, the phantom bite into her skin was too real.
She sat up and hugged her knees, looking around her room, barren of any sentimental items except a single, shiny tail feather from Harry. The room contained only the barest of necessities, not only was it all her father could afford, but also because she’d lost her ability to thrive. All Alice wanted in her life was a pair of shoes that fit and a spool of thread to fix the holes in her socks.
She rocked back and forth, rubbing at her wrists obsessively. Rubbing her hand across the words etched so clearly in her flesh. Within minutes she was up, pacing the length of her room, opening her door to make it feel less closed in. The demon perched on her bed and she sighed with relief.
“There you are,” she said quietly, pausing a moment before returning to her manic pacing. She wanted to go outside. The floorboards creaked and groaned beneath her feet but she continued, uncaring that Mr. Corbin downstairs would complain angrily to her father in the morning.
Alice kept rubbing at her arms and wrists until she cracked the scabs open and felt the hot stickiness of her own blood, finally bringing her to a stop. She crept back to the bathroom to wash and cover them in gauze and sticky, blue vet wrap to hold it in place. Alice peeked back out.
The television was still on, and she could hear Stanley snoring over the laugh tracks. He’d fallen asleep in his chair, as he so often did. He hadn’t bothered checking in on her, hadn’t given any indication he cared. His words from earlier haunted her.
The same people who’d kept her captive were going to capture and torture the only creature that had done her no harm in the last several days. He’d helped her, in his own, scary demon way. She couldn’t stay here and let the walls keep closing in until she couldn’t breathe. Alice tugged her hair into a ponytail and made up her mind. She was going back.
The hunters had confiscated her backpack. That or it had been lost somewhere between her arrest and the building they’d kept her in. It didn’t matter which, all that mattered was making up for the inconvenience. She stuffed a change of clothes and extra socks into her faded gray pillowcase. In the kitchen she quietly built herself a pair of sandwiches. They went with a packaged string cheese and a tin of applesauce into her battered lunchbox. She filled an aluminum water bottle and closed it securely before adding it to the bag.
Under the kitchen sink she found a small flashlight and slipped it into her get-away sack. Alice pulled on an oversized dark green hoodie, and as an after-thought threw her hairbrush, toothbrush and toothpaste in the bag as well.
Mentally going over what she had and what she thought she’d need, Alice acknowledged that what she’d fit into her bag wouldn’t last long if she didn’t find him quickly. She wasn’t even sure she could find him again, especially after his warning about the forest rejecting her if she returned. The internal drive to see him again didn’t make any sense to her, but the need to warn him tugged at her incessantly.
Alice hesitated at the door, staring at the flip-flops on her feet, a symbol of the hated place she’d been held. They were now her only shoes, since her boots had been in the missing backpack. She wanted no reminders of that place touching her body. So she tiptoed back to her room one last time and dug through her drawers, each second pregnant with anxiety. Alice listened for Stanley waking the whole time. Success came under her bed, behind a stack of old notebooks.
She pulled her only pair of thick, woolen winter stockings over a regular pair of socks and rolled her jeans to her knees to keep from getting too hot. Alice knew she was a walking fashion disaster, but she’d be able to move faster and comfortably and most importantly, she could move in silence.
Sneaking into the living room she avoided the creakiest parts of the floor, creeping past her father in his chair. At the door she looked back. She wished it were different, but there was nothing to keep her there. Not one happy memory, no laughter, no bonding moments between her and Stanley. The only memories the place brought her was loneliness and misery. If she couldn’t come back, she wouldn’t be sorry. She thought of leaving a note, but there was nothing she wanted to say. Besides, any words she left behind could be used against her when they caught her and tried her publicly as a race-traitor.
Alice carefully unlatched the chains and bars and slipped out. She paused outside the door, waiting, but her father did not come storming out to stop her. She felt marginally guilty about leaving their apartment u
nlocked, but she did not have a key, another item lost to the purple backpack. Considering what she planned, her father would be safer than her.
The buses didn’t run this late. The only people allowed out after dark were hunters and the miners with their escort of armed guards on their way to and from the mines. Demons varied greatly in their habits and just as many would come out in the day as the night. However monsters, as a rule, preferred the night time. People of any intelligence stayed inside after dark.
Leaning against the side of the house was her trusty old scooter. It had been red at some point, but most of the color had worn off. A thrift store find, she’d worked hard for it, picking up odd jobs for people up and down the street to earn the few dollars in cash. She paused only to touch the stone she’d etched Harry’s name into. Alice straightened and tied her pillowcase to the ‘T’ of the scooter’s handlebars and kicked off, sticking to the curb of the road to avoid the worst of the potholes.
She rode her hardest, the urgency to warn her demon growing with each passing block. The thought kept repeating itself in her head: They were going to hunt him down, and it was her fault. By the time Alice reached the woods at the edge of the nest she was sweating and out of breath, her legs felt like rubber and her ribs ached with a jagged pain. She stopped to wipe her palms on her pants and consider what to do with her scooter. The dirt paths were uneven and sticks and raised roots were hazards she wouldn’t be able to see in the dark.
Folding it up and tucking it next to the largest tree in sight was the only option she could come up with. It’d be too tiring to carry. The trails were used infrequently but somebody could find it. Even if nobody took it, her father wouldn’t let her come back for it. She’d be lucky if he ever let her out of the house again, the authorities would not give him another chance if she were discovered missing a second time. Alice spied her demon and reexamined that thought. They’d think for certain she was in some way beholden to him after this.
Hoisting her bag over her shoulder, Alice set off down the footpath, grateful for the clear sky and almost full moon. She moved quickly, ignoring the occasional stab of a sharp rock or stick beneath her feet. Alice tripped a few times, skinning her knees. Stupid. The blood would attract things. She clutched her ribs with her broken hand and gritted her teeth, refusing to give up. Her pace slowed as she neared where she expected to find the small animal path she’d taken before.
Shadows played with her vision so fiercely Alice came to a standstill, squinting into the trees for any sign of what she was looking for. A stick snapped in the woods behind her. Alice whirled around, eyes wide, expecting to see a monster. Even though she was pretty sure she was still within the boundaries of the nest, the rumors of disappearances had to have come from somewhere. She clicked on her flashlight, hand quivering, but saw nothing among the branches and brambles.
Blinking heavily Alice regretted turning the flashlight on at all; torch blindness making it impossible to see anything outside of the beam of light. For one heart-stopping second, she saw the gleam of cat shaped eyes reflected back at her, too large for a normal cat. When she yanked the light back to where she’d seen it, they were gone.
Hair standing on end she refused to panic, lowering the flashlight to her feet she clicked it off and waited, listening to the sounds of the woods while her eyes readjusted. No further noises came from nearby, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. The air was heavy with presence and she didn’t want to wait around to find out if it was benign or malevolent.
Alice looked again for the elusive path, taking a few steps forward. Her one and only known talent was an uncanny ability to find places she’d been before, and instinct told her this was where she needed to be, even if she couldn’t see it. It was as her demon had promised, she wasn’t welcome in his forest anymore.
Alice touched a tree, pressing her palm to it she sighed. She’d unwittingly sentenced the tree to die along with all the others in the area with her big mouth. Trees within the barrier should not have been allowed to flourish. Unlike Balance, Tallow had few resources aside from the mines, and the upkeep of safety was not tended to as carefully as the other nests.
She rested her forehead against the tree.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Alice’s palm grew warm and she stepped back, tripping over her own feet, falling to her rump with a groan of pain. She winced, but her complaints died in her throat. The palest light came from where her palm had been, marking the tree with a faint green glow.
Heart in her stomach, Alice closed her eyes and counted to ten, breathing slowly. When she opened them again the glow was fainter, but still there. The tree itself seemed to be leaning toward her with the same curiosity of whatever presence was behind her, like the forest and all the beasties within were holding their breath. Unsure of what she was doing, Alice scrambled to her feet and set her palm against it once more.
“I know he told you not to, but please let me in. I need to warn him; the hunters are coming!” Alice whispered urgently to the tree. She felt like an utter fool, but she knew she wasn’t mistaken. This was where the little deer trail had been. “I have to hurry!” she exclaimed.
Another twig snapped behind her and the freshly settled hairs on the back of her neck stood on end once more. Whatever it was had come closer. Louder, far more frightening sounds coming from in front of her demanded her immediate attention. It sounded like a great wind rushing through the forest, coming straight at her. Trees creaked, leaves quaked and a strong gust shoved at her clothes and whipped her hair into a mess of tangles.
Alice frantically brushed leaves, dust and strands of hair out of her eyes. There it was. The forest had opened itself to her. It wasn’t the barely-there animal path of a few days ago. The forest was providing her with easy passage this time, the trail large enough to accommodate a pair of large men walking abreast.
‘Or…’ she thought with a thrill of knowledge. ‘A single man with many large tails.’
Alice shifted her sack more comfortably, thanked the tree and ran, missing the whisper of a frail voice calling to her, asking her to stay. No matter how her feet hurt, no matter how tired she was, she had to correct the wrong she’d committed. If she could get there before an elite squad of hunters and warn him, he wouldn’t have to die an experiment in a basement somewhere. Words passed through her mind. They’d called her a species traitor. A sympathizer, a monster lover. The worst things a child of hunters could be. Alice didn’t want to think too deeply on it, but they hadn’t been totally wrong.
If tonight continued to go smoothly, it wouldn’t matter. She’d be home by morning, the world would think her memories lost, and the demon would be safely off to wherever he chose to hide. With any luck, no one would know she’d been out. Because if they found out, Alice knew, her pathetic life was over. They’d send her to the internment mines. The sentence was manual labor until death for traitors who side with magical creatures instead of their own kind.
Her age wouldn’t save her. Nor would claiming ignorance of the law. An eight-year-old had been sent, when she lived in Balance. They’d made a public example of little Daniel Gracey, accused of feeding sunflower seeds to a sparrow demon. The boy had claimed he’d thought it was a regular little bird, but it wasn’t a good enough defense. A child raised by hunters could not use ignorance as an excuse. He’d been sent to the camps, sentenced to life without chance of return.
She couldn’t allow that to be her fate. If it got too late, she wouldn’t go back, it was that simple. It had to be. Better to try surviving in the wilderness than a slow death in the mines.
Alice ran until the acid in her legs became pure agony and her breath came in painful gasps. She slowed to a brisk walk to let her heart rate go back to normal and her breathing to ease. When her energy flagged she sat for a few minutes and drank her water. Her demon appeared and stood nearby while she ate half of a sandwich to keep her energy up. Pushing herself back to her feet she followed the trail a bit more be
fore it curved sharply to the right. Alice frowned, remembering that his tree was straight ahead a while longer, and then slightly left.
She had to choose. Keep following the path the forest made for her, or go off trail, looking for where she’d last seen him. For the first time it struck her that he probably didn’t live in the tree and he probably went other places. Alice scolded herself for not thinking her plans through and followed the path the forest provided. It was only then that she noticed the way back was gone. As she’d moved through, the trees and bushes had eased back into place, as though the forest had chosen to keep her.
The path veered left again and began climbing a steep hill. Alice was uneasy, she felt watched. Something was nearby, though it wasn’t as strong as what she’d felt earlier. Like the previous beastie, it was curious, but there was a distinct hostility there as well. She peered into the darkness around her, the moon couldn’t penetrate as far this deep into the forest, it was gloomy and nearly pitch black, but she’d learned her lesson on using the flashlight. She couldn’t waste time in blindness.
Being unable to see anything did not alleviate the creepy feelings, but she didn’t have time to worry about it. Whatever monster it was would have to wait until after she’d warned her demon. Ignoring it seemed the best option instead of working herself up into a panic. If it decided to come for her, there was nothing she could do to stop it but run anyway.
Clamoring her way up the hill was tough work and she was out of breath again by the time she reached the top, but she was afforded a view of everything around her. Alice saw a valley below and to the left, and a small mountain beyond that, a tree, double the size of those surrounding it stood at the top.
“That’s where you live, isn’t it?” Alice asked and his shade shrugged uselessly. Groaning, Alice knew that’s where she’d find him. She gave up on returning home right there and then. The moon was high and there was no way she’d make it back before morning.