Rising Silver Mist

by Olivia Wildenstein

  His perfect mate hadn’t been so perfect after all.

  If Borgo hadn’t committed suicide with my poisonous blood—I shuddered at the memory of him exploding into ashes—I was certain Kajika would’ve ended the faerie’s life.

  Truth was, I was a little bitter toward Ishtu. I felt Kajika deserved better than a two-timing wife. He was tempestuous and prejudiced, but no one could fault him his loyalty.

  I pushed Ishtu and Kajika out of my mind. Focused on the other parts I remembered. Magena. Bekagwe. Maagwe. I let the words roll off my tongue, tasted them.

  I threw my legs over the side of the bed. In the beam of light spilling from my bathroom, I crept over to my closet and opened my sock drawer, where I kept the handwritten Gottwa and Faeli dictionary Holly had given me. The words weren’t arranged alphabetically so it took me a while to locate them, but I found two. Bekagwe: wait for me. And maagwe: come with me. I didn’t find magena.

  I decided I would ask Kajika when he showed.

  I pulled on leggings, a sports bra, a T-shirt, and a hoodie, then sent Ace another text message. He hadn’t answered last night’s message, but cell phones didn’t have reception in Neverra—which was where I imagined he’d gone. I hated thinking he’d stayed on Earth, because that would mean he was avoiding me.

  Had I been that hurtful? Our conversation swam through my mind, but I’d analyzed it so many times since yesterday that it had taken on a hazy quality.

  I tugged my hair into a high ponytail that whipped my shoulder blades as I hopped down the stairs. I opened the fridge door and stared at the shelves, trying to decide what I wanted to eat. A flat glass bottle filled with amber liquid caught my eye. I unscrewed the cap and sniffed the maple syrup.

  It smelled like my dream.

  Gottwa history and traditions weren’t completely foreign to me—my grandfather had filled my ears with stories of tribal life—but dreaming of simmering sap felt very specific. Gottwas had been famous for their maple sugar and syrup. They’d tap the trees around their camp during the spring and transform the sap into a prized commodity they could trade.

  As I replaced the bottle, I wondered why I’d dreamed of maple syrup and Ishtu. Ishtu meant sweetness in Gottwa. Maybe that was the link?

  I shut the fridge door hard. Jars rattled from the impact.

  Since when did I analyze dreams? Mom used to do that. Dad sometimes did it. But me?

  My mind was rational.

  I was rational.

  Or at least I was supposed to be.

  I rammed the dream out of my mind.

  While I waited for the clock’s arms to mark nine o’clock, I pulled an article on virology up on my smartphone and read it, cramming my restless mind with concrete facts and useful information instead of baseless deliberations about two girls chasing a bird while their mothers boiled tree blood.

  At 8:58 AM, I opened the front door and scanned the horizon for the rusty gray pickup Kajika had inherited from Holly.

  I waited.

  Waited some more.

  The iron wind chime tinkled over my head. I squinted up at it and thought again of my mother. Originally, Mom had suspended it over our door to protect us from evil spirits. I’d dismissed her superstition as an old wives’ tale. The evil spirits had obviously not been kept out, since she died. The same day I’d repainted the yellow door, I ripped the wind chime from its hook and threw it out. Weeks later, when I learned iron affected faeries—like an electronic dog collar incensed a dog—I’d bought a new one and hung it.

  I reached high and touched the longest metal tube.

  Since Ace and I had started seeing each other, I’d tinkered with the idea of taking it down, but Ace convinced me to leave it up. In memory of my mother, but also because it could potentially deter some faeries from entering my house. Besides, as long as my bedroom windows were shut, the grating noise didn’t bother him.

  Something glinted in the distance. Shading my eyes, I caught sight of a car. It was big and gray, and coughed and clanked.

  6

  The Spirit Plane

  I hopped down my porch stairs toward Kajika’s cab.

  He rested an elbow in the open window. “Your information was accurate.” Purple shadows rimmed his eyes.

  “My information?” I went around the front and settled in next to him.

  “The theft.”

  “Oh.” I wished I hadn’t been right. “What did they need iron chains for?”

  “To fence in Holly’s property. They fear the faeries. Especially the golwinim.” The golwinim—faerie guards in the bodies of brutal fireflies—were keeping tabs on the hunters. “Those pests never leave.”

  “Did you slice off any noses?” That was the Gottwa punishment for theft.

  “Gwenelda promised she had compensated the employee generously.”

  But had she compensated the store? I decided not to ask. “So they’re not planning on attacking faeries with the chains?”

  “We defend ourselves. We do not attack.”

  The gray pickup barreled through the open gates of the cemetery so fast I tugged my seatbelt on.

  Kajika wasn’t wearing his—then again, only faeries could kill hunters, so I supposed he didn’t fear car crashes. But then I noticed his seat belt flapped uselessly by his shoulder, ripped. “Had a disagreement with your seatbelt?”

  He glanced at it. “It tore the night we drove back from the fighting ring.”

  I frowned. I’d been in the car with him, yet couldn’t remember him ripping a seatbelt.

  Suddenly, it came back to me.

  Lily had shown up in the middle of the road. Kajika had jammed his foot against the brakes. His body had slammed against mine. I’d thought his seatbelt had come undone. That he’d toppled over me by accident.

  It hadn’t been an accident.

  I blinked at him, then blinked at the road that flew past my window.

  He’d thrown himself over me to protect me. Shame prickled the nape of my neck. I wasn’t sure what I was ashamed of. Not understanding this before? I rubbed the patch of skin, but it did little to lessen the tingling. “Thank you.”

  After a long moment, Kajika asked, “For what?”

  “For being kind to me when I don’t always deserve it.”

  Silence stretched tightly between us. When after several long minutes he still hadn’t said anything, I asked him what magena meant.

  The car swerved a little. “Where did you hear the name Magena?”

  So it was a name. Must have been the other girl’s name. The one who was running alongside Ishtu. The one whose body I’d been in. “In my dream.”

  “You dreamed of Magena?”

  “I dreamed I was Magena. Was this someone you knew?”

  Tension crimped his brow. “Magena was Ishtu’s oldest sister.”

  “In my dream, she was chasing after a blue bird.” I didn’t mention Ishtu had been with her. “Weird, huh?”

  “She abhorred birds.”

  I frowned. Abhorred? “Not in my dream. The bird thrilled her.”

  His fingers clenched around the plastic steering wheel. “When she was young, she thought they were enchanting creatures. After Lyoh Vega murdered Ishtu, Magena reviled anything that flew. She developed a great talent with a bow and arrow, and spent her days walking the woods, spearing every animal with wings.”

  I imagined the blue bird plummeting from the sky, wings wide and still, an arrow stuck in its feathery breast, dark blood trickling over its small, soft body. The thought chilled me. I felt sad for Magena. Sad something cherished had turned into something loathed.

  “Magena is one of the twelve.” Kajika’s deep voice startled me out of my thoughts. “She lies in one of the rose petal graves.” The air blowing in through his open window ruffled the long strands of hair framing his face.

  “She’s buried in my backyard?”

  He nodded.

  I shuddered.

  “Gottwas believed dreams were a separate plane on which
spirits could interact with the living to deliver messages.”

  “You think her spirit”—I swallowed—“talked to me?” I whispered that last part. There was nothing rational about that, and yet I entertained the idea. I was losing my mind. “That’s crazy.”

  I was crazy.

  “Why?”

  “She was chasing a bird. Happily chasing a bird while women boiled maple syrup.”

  “Maybe she is trying to show you how our life was before faeries tortured us and drove us underground. Or maybe she is trying to inform you of her readiness to awaken.”

  My heart pitched up my throat. “We’re not waking any more up.”

  Kajika didn’t answer.

  “You promised.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes.” Had he though? “You can’t sacrifice people to bring back the hunters. Besides, you have a new clan now.”

  He snorted. “And what a clan that is.”

  “Please. Don’t dig around my backyard. Don’t kill people.”

  “I will not sacrifice your family or innocent humans.”

  “What about the not-so-innocent ones?”

  His amber gaze skirted over me before returning to the road.

  “You plan on waking them, don’t you?”

  His silence was all the answer I needed.

  7

  The Barn

  Kajika and I had both remained contemplative after discussing his buried family, so when he announced we’d arrived, it took me a second to realize where.

  A red clapboard barn sprawled ahead of us, circled by tufts of wild grass and gray mud. It was the place where Kajika fought for money.

  “It is vacant during the day.” He got out of the truck, then hoisted a nylon duffle bag from the cargo bed.

  I eyed the bag as I hopped out of the car. “What do you have in there?”

  “Equipment.”

  “Like boxing gloves?”

  “What would you need boxing gloves for? You do want to learn to fight faeries and defend yourself from hunters, correct?”

  Right. Boxing gloves wouldn’t be useful against supernatural offenders unless they were fire-proof. In that case, they could come in handy. I’d once had my fingers burned with faerie fire, and it had not been pleasant.

  Mud sucked at my sneakers as I trod over to the entrance.

  As Kajika pulled the enormous door open, paint flaked off the worm-eaten planks and fluttered into the spring breeze like pollen.

  The air inside was as cold as the waves that lapped Rowan’s shore at this time of year: bone-chilling. Chafing my arms with my palms, I trailed the hunter toward the ring.

  “You spend a lot of time here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even though it’s far away?”

  “I habitually run here.”

  “In my dream, I was running fast.”

  “Has your speed increased?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Perhaps—”

  “I haven’t become a huntress, Kajika. No blue moon, remember?”

  “Yet you moved water with your mind.” His amber eyes hunted my face.

  “But I don’t know how I did it…”

  He flicked on a switch, and strings of bare lightbulbs lit up the dusky interior that smelled of sour beer and damp hay.

  “You let your mind reach out to its surroundings. That is how you did it.”

  My hands slid off my arms, settled back down along my sides. “I haven’t done it since.”

  “You have tried again?”

  “Yes, but nothing happened.”

  “It took my brother an entire night to figure out how to move the pinecones with his mind.”

  “How long did it take you?”

  He smiled. There was something shameless about his smile. “It came to me swiftly. I believe it was because I had been impatient for the gift Negongwa bestowed upon me. Perhaps your mind’s inability to reach out is due to your lack of excitement about your latent nature.”

  I bit my lip. “You think if I suddenly became okay with it, I could snap my fingers and things would move?”

  “Snapping your fingers will not make anything move.”

  “It was a figure of speech.”

  He raised a dark eyebrow but didn’t comment. Instead he tossed his bag on the floor, crouched and unzipped it. He took out a wooden bow and white arrows that were more ornate than the ones he’d given me in the past. These were fitted with iron tips and feathered fletching. I brushed my thumb over the dove-gray feathers. “Did you make these?”

  “I no longer need to forage and hunt for food, or tan hides to make clothes, and few pahans, other than the golwinim, dare visit our world, so I have much spare time.” He handed me the bow. “Have you ever used a bow, Catori?”

  “Blake and I used to chase each other with plastic bows and suction darts. Does that count?”

  He rolled his tall body back up. “It is the same principle, I suppose. Show me.”

  I nocked an arrow and extended my left arm while dragging the arrow back with my right hand. “Should I let go?”

  “What is your target?”

  There was a bale of hay on the other side of the barn. It was a large target, but it was far away. I tipped my chin toward it.

  The second Kajika nodded, I closed one eye, took aim, and let the arrow soar. It arched and fell unceremoniously between me and my target. “Did I not pull back enough?”

  “Your hands need to be at shoulder-height. And when you pull back, your shoulder blades should touch.” He took a second bow from his bag, fit an arrow, and in the space of a heartbeat, let it fly. The arrow whispered through the air and landed smack in the bale’s middle.

  “Show off.” I smiled.

  His nostrils flared with a soft, amused snort. “I have had much practice. Your turn again.”

  I shot an arrow. It went farther than the last, but its path deviated from the straight line.

  Kajika readjusted my stance. “Again.”

  Another arrow vibrated off my bow.

  Better.

  Not great though.

  “Again. Anchor the string.” He demonstrated. His arrow cut the air like a bullet.

  I tried. Mine whizzed off, but still fell far from its mark.

  “Again.”

  He must’ve spoken that single word two dozen times. By my umpteenth attempt, my arm muscles ached and my back was on fire. On the upside, I no longer thought it was cold.

  “One last time, Catori. And really follow through. Same way you would if you were to throw a ball. Actually, put the bow down.”

  I lowered it. He handed me an arrow.

  “Throw it.”

  Swiping my hoodie sleeve over my brow, I pulled my arm back. My joint throbbed and screamed.

  “Now.”

  I hurled it with every last drop of strength I could muster, stumbling forward from the momentum. The arrow didn’t go far.

  “Did you feel that?”

  “By that, you mean the horrible pain radiating through my shoulder?”

  Concentration transformed into concern, grooving his forehead. “Are you in pain?”

  Even though I felt as flimsy and useless as Kajika’s seatbelt, I regretted admitting it. So I shrugged. “I was being dramatic. I’m fine.”

  His gaze absorbed the shakiness of my forearms. I tried to quell it but failed.

  “Can you shoot one more arrow?”

  “Yes.” I took one from his bag, nocked it, and anchored my aim.

  “Follow through this time. Like you did when you flung it with your bare hand.”

  I swallowed a deep breath and fixed my target, which had been an ambitious—or perhaps stupid—choice. Only one of my arrows had reached it. The cold air slid down my throat, luffed my lungs, and eased the muscle spasms. As my breath puffed out like a white cloud, the arrow whizzed off the bow string, slicing noiselessly through the air.

  It reached its target.

  8

>   The Experiment

  “I did it,” I whispered, afraid that if I said it any louder, the arrow would slide out of the bale and fall, and that would cancel my accomplishment.

  If Kajika were a normal man, a simple archery teacher, he might have beamed at my achievement. Since the hunter was neither normal nor simple, there was no proud smile, no happy yelp, but shadows had shifted out of his eyes. “Commit the feeling of that last shot to memory.”

  I nodded so enthusiastically, my ponytail danced.

  He grabbed his bag and walked a straight line to the bale, collecting arrows along the way. I covered the rest of the barn, snatching the missiles that had gone astray.

  When we’d picked them all up, Kajika asked if I had energy for one more exercise. I said yes. Adrenaline and pride masked my soreness. I’d probably pay for it later.

  “We will develop your reflexes now.”

  I wanted to say good luck with that, but Kajika had vanished. He reappeared behind me. By the time I turned, he’d blurred into another part of the barn. I ran, spun, stopped, listened, but unlike the arrow I’d managed to plant in my target, not once did I manage to pre-empt the hunter.

  After Kajika dropped me off at home, I melted into a bath infused with lavender-scented soap that bubbled as thickly as whipped cream. I submerged every last part of my battered body. My hair fanned out around me, as weightless and pliant as the blooms of algae that floated atop Lake Michigan after a windstorm.

  Air bubbles snaked out of my nostrils, tickled my lips, but still I remained under the foamy surface. I spread my fingers, rolled them, spread them again. The water coated them like warm oil. I thought about how fluidly Kajika had prowled around the barn, how he’d distracted my senses by displacing objects with his mind, shifting my attention to places he was not, confusing me over and over. Would my own mind ever be as sharp as his? Did I have to shed another layer of rationality, accept that my body could perform medically impossible feats?

  That led me to wonder if I could die. Like really die, the same way humans died, or had I somehow become like Kajika and Ace? Only killable by faerie dust or a bloody rowan wood arrow through the heart?