The Druid's Guise: The Complete Trilogy (The Druid's Guise Trilogy)

by Michael J Sanford

  He looked around the room, checking for movement, and finding none, wiggled under the bed. When his face was over the grate, he took a deep breath, and said, “I’m not mad.”

  “Oh, good. How come you didn’t want to play with me today?”

  “Because…who said I didn’t want to play with you? I was locked in my room all day. Not my fault.”

  Julia sniffed, but then laughed. “I know you did it on purpose. Because you didn’t want to play with me. Because you’re afraid.”

  Wyatt started. He recovered and grabbed at the metal grate, forcing his fingers into the gaps. “I am not afraid,” he hissed. “And I don’t know who told you that, but they—”

  “The shadow people did,” she said plainly.

  Wyatt’s whole body twitched and the back of his head slammed into the underside of the bed, but the pain was only a momentary flash in the torrent that raged within his mind. He pulled himself closer to the vent, feeling his fingers tremble no matter how much he told them not to. He hadn’t thought Julia truly aware.

  “What shadow people?” he whispered into the grate, fighting to keep his voice calm. I am not afraid, he reminded himself.

  “Oh!” Julia said. “They’re Lucy’s friends. But sometimes they give me messages for her if she’s not around. Which is most of the time. Lucy doesn’t like them much. But I think they’re fun. And the shadow people like you, Dumb-name. That’s why you’re in the club.”

  “They wanted me in the club?” Wyatt’s head was reeling, the space under the bed seeming smaller with each passing breath. Soon he wouldn’t be able to breathe.

  “Well, yeah. They have final say in who joins and who doesn’t, though they said I can still be in charge of everything else. And they wanted you right away. That’s why Bearsy jumped at you.”

  “Because they told you to…” Wyatt whispered.

  “Uh huh.”

  “Why do they want me?”

  There was silence for a moment. Wyatt couldn’t say how long, but it felt like the entire night might slip away. “Julia?”

  “Oh!” she said suddenly, as if she’d forgotten where she was. “I don’t know. They just like you. Are you afraid of them like Lucy is?”

  “I’m not afraid,” he said, though even he could hear the tremor in his voice.

  “Do they tell you scary stories?”

  “What?” Wyatt said, the confusion easing his growing fear.

  “I don’t know. Lucy doesn’t like the shadow people because they make her remember things she doesn’t want to. She said they have stories that she doesn’t like to hear. Are they scary, Dumb-name? I like scary stories, but Lucy won’t tell me any. And the shadow people say they’re not for me. But I’m not afraid like Lucy is.”

  Wyatt’s mouth was numb. He tried to think back to when he’d destroyed the tree in the forest. He tried to remember the feeling of magic ripping through his body. He had been invincible in that moment. And at the beginning of the night he had set out to chase the haunting shades. But hearing that Julia—and Lucy—could see them too…

  “I’m not crazy,” he finally said. “They’re real.”

  “Are you okay, Dumb-name? You sound funny.”

  “I’m not afraid,” he said.

  “I said funny,” Julia responded. “The shadow people said afraid.”

  “They talk to you about me?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  A small sliver of anger slipped into the stream of fear and Wyatt seized it. “Stop screwing around, Julia,” he said firmly into the metal vent, wishing he could see her face. “What do they say about me? What do they want with me?”

  Julia was quiet a moment and Wyatt thought he’d been too harsh, but then her voice returned. “They won’t tell me. So why don’t you stop being so mean and ask them yourself?”

  Wyatt started to speak again, but something cold brushed against his cheek and froze his words. It was difficult to see in the gloom beneath his bed, but something was snaking up through the grate. Something dark. Something reaching for him.

  He scuttled away from it as quickly as the confined space would allow. Once free from the bed, he stumbled to his feet, and backed away into moonlight of the window. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid.

  Hands of inky mist curled up from under the bed, wrapping impossibly long fingers around the frame and pulled the rest of its evil form into the room. A second followed the first, just as he knew it would. They twisted and contorted, sometimes melding into a single entity only to pull apart a moment later.

  “What do you want?” Wyatt said. He had meant it as a shout, but it came far softer.

  The forms crossed the room toward him, stopping at the edge of light filtering in from behind Wyatt. One of them reached a hand for him, but as it crossed into the moonlight, it dissipated. Seeing that, Wyatt stood taller and let a sneer form across his face.

  “I’m not afraid of you. Whatever you are. You can’t hurt me.”

  The one that had reached for him leaned back and a woman’s face formed in the inky fog of its head. “Why would I hurt you? Why?”

  Wyatt faltered for a second, but he had expected to see her face. The same one from Ouranos. The same one from the roof of Greenwood. However, the twist of emotions that swirled in his gut made it difficult to look at her, so he turned to the second form.

  “What about you?” he said, this time shouting the challenge. The light at his back gave him strength. “Where’s your face? Maybe it’s you that’s scared of me.”

  The form didn’t move or speak, but the woman, her body still indistinguishable blackness, circled around the moonlight to stand at Wyatt’s side. She was closer now, only a few inches of light protecting him from her touch. And no matter how hard he tried, Wyatt couldn’t help but fear her touch.

  “Why?”

  He looked into her eyes and froze at the deepness locked within. Pain blossomed in his stomach and sparked up to his chest where it stopped his breathing. Wyatt couldn’t be sure his heart was beating any longer. Everything hurt. He could smell fire. He could hear the snap and crackle of it.

  “Why why why why why why?” the woman chanted, leaning so close that the tip of her nose burned away in the light, but her eyes remained on his.

  “Why what?” he managed to say. He couldn’t see the other form, but knew it had circled around to the opposite side. Behind him. “What do you want? Who are you?”

  The woman continued to chant. Wyatt shook his head, or tried to. He still couldn’t look away from her. And as she continued to chant, the words began to clarify. Suddenly, as if he’d been struck by lightning, he heard what he hadn’t heard before. She wasn’t chanting why why. She was asking why, Wy’?

  And then he remembered.

  “Mom?”

  The woman smiled, but then his sanctuary vanished as passing clouds covered the moon. The light banished, they were upon him in an instant. He could feel their hands turn to icy claws and though they existed of shadow and darkness, he collapsed under their weight. He struck the floor and curled upon himself as they raked over his body.

  Something wet and cold slid over his ear. “Why, Wy’?” his mother said, piercing through his terror. They continued to ravage his body, but he could feel her lips at his ear, breathing heavily. It made her feel real.

  “Why, Wy’?” she repeated, this time hissing in his ear and gnashing her teeth.

  Wyatt squeezed his eyes shut. “Why what?” he screamed. “Mom! Tell me! Why what?”

  Suddenly, the clawing stopped. Wyatt kept his eyes closed and his body tensed. He could still sense their presence. Her lips were still on his ear.

  “Mom?” he said, now sobbing into the floor. “I want to know. I want to remember you. Why what, Mom?”

  “Wy’,” she said softly. Her hands touched his face and sent a chill racing all the way to his toes and back again. “Wyatt, my sweet boy, why did you kill me?”

  * * *

  When Wyatt could see aga
in, and when what he saw made sense again, he realized he was in what the nurses called the crisis room. It was lined with thick padding and devoid of any windows, the only light coming from bright fluorescents high above. His recent memories were gone, but it didn’t matter. Only one memory mattered now.

  “I need to talk to Ms. Abagail!” he hollered.

  He stumbled around the room, searching for a door. Searching for an escape. There had been a moment where his proclamation of bravery had been truthful, but now he couldn’t even lie to himself. Not that he now knew who she was. But it wasn’t her face or her name that scared him. But her words had dug up something deep within him. Something he had kept hidden so well and for so long that he hadn’t even known it existed. It was still clouded in the same inky blackness that the shades wore, but he now knew there was something there. And he needed to know.

  “I need to talk to Ms. Abagail!”

  He continued to paw at the padding, wedging his fingers into every gap he could find, but the door—if there was one—eluded him. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten there, and he wondered if he had hurt anyone in the process. He couldn’t shake the memory of how he had hurt Mrs. Heclar and Ms. Abagail when the shades had attacked him at The Crook. But the staff at The Crook had claimed not to have seen the shades, though they were many at that point, and formless. But Julia knew of them. She seemed to have known them for long before Wyatt set foot in Greenwood. So, they were real. They had to be. As mad as Julia was, the chances of her manufacturing an identical illusion were too great to be explained away. And they had told her about him.

  “I need to talk to Ms. Abagail!”

  He stopped searching with his fingers and began pounding with his fists. He had no idea what time it was, and truly no idea where he was. Though he had seen the inside of the room on his initial tour, it was so nondescript and blindingly bright, he could be anywhere. Or nowhere.

  “Ms. Abagail! I want to remember!”

  Desperation was taking over and it was difficult to remember the previous moment. Had he searched this corner yet? Had he looked there? Everywhere he looked was the same. Then the room spun. He didn’t think his legs were moving, but everything swirled about him. Then he collapsed. He rolled onto his side and grabbed at his chest, cursing himself that in his confusion he had forgotten who he was. I’m Wyatt the Mighty, he breathed to himself as he reached under her shirt for the ultimate escape.

  His heart stopped, well and truly frozen within his chest. His fingers clawed at his own flesh with more vigor than they had explored the room, but they found the same thing.

  His amulet, and with it his power, was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  AT SOME POINT Wyatt stopped screaming and at some point, he stopped cursing everyone he could think to curse. At some point the tears stopped and at some point, darkness took over and his memories faded in and out just as his consciousness did.

  At some point, they let him out. Broken and powerless, they carried him from the crisis room, and locked him in his bedroom. He was hungry, but couldn’t entertain the idea of wanting food. He could smell his own stench, but had no intention of showering. He was tired, but wouldn’t sleep. If he thought of death long enough, could he become it?

  He had returned to Earth with determination, and he came back to discover his powers crossed over. His new power. The power that would see him to the end of the shades and to the end of the Regency. But just like that—it was gone.

  Wyatt had never taken much notice of how the amulet felt while on Earth, always assuming it was powerless. But now, without it, he felt naked. And weak. Any semblance of peace had been ripped from him and they wouldn’t give it back. He had shouted for it at first. And then he had begged and bartered. He had wept and pleaded. His enemies gave no quarter.

  Wyatt walked to the window and surveyed the deep pine forest. It was night, but he had no idea how many nights had passed in that room. Time was a swirling miasma and he couldn’t grasp it for anything. That didn’t matter either.

  He turned to look at the corners, shrouded in shadows. Was his mother lurking within, waiting to strike? Was the other—who he presumed was his father—there as well? Wyatt shivered, fearing what either would say should they rise up from the blackness again. He had gotten a small piece of what he had wanted, but it haunted him far more than he could have dreamed. And it left him with even more questions. Questions he knew he needed, but wanted no part of. You just…got crap to deal with. Ms. Abagail’s words drifted through his mind, instilling a minute amount of strength. It was enough for Wyatt to grab hold of his senses and piece together a few coherent thoughts.

  He crossed to the bed and crawled underneath it.

  “Julia,” he whispered. “Are you there?”

  Silence hung for longer than Wyatt cared for, but at last, there came the sound of moving furniture beneath him. Then a sweet voice drifted up through the metal ductwork, soothing Wyatt more than anything else could have in that moment.

  “Dumb-name? You’re back? I was very worried about you. Sometimes people go into the bright box and never come out again. Or they come out all funny. Are you all funny now, Dumb-name?”

  Wyatt laughed despite his circumstances. “I’m fine,” he said. “And…”

  “What?” Julia pressed when he didn’t immediately continue.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? Did you throw yourself in the bright box? That would be a silly thing to do.”

  “No,” Wyatt said, shaking his head though no one could see it. “I’m sorry for yelling at you and being…I don’t know.”

  “Maybe,” Julia said quickly.

  Wyatt laughed again. “Hey, Julia?”

  “Yeah, Dumb-name?”

  “I need your help.”

  “Ooh. What for?”

  Wyatt’s arm was curled under his chest and his fingers scratched at the place his amulet should have been. He swallowed down the anger and breathed deeply until he found clarity once more. “It’s a secret sorta thing.”

  “Ooh,” she said again, her voice rising in pitch. “I’ll be right there.”

  Before Wyatt could say any more, there was clatter in the room directly below his, followed by the distant clank of electronic door locks disengaging. Wyatt smiled and wiggled back out from under the bed.

  In what felt like a blink, his door unbolted and a blond silhouetted head poked in. It went before a pajama clad body. Wyatt ushered her into the room and carefully shut it again. Then he stepped back to survey his partner-in-crime. She smiled back at him, barefoot, holding Bearsy and a flashlight.

  He laughed and sat back on his bed, still looking over the nonsensical girl that stood before him. The unassuming terror that had him in tears, had spanked him so hard it bruised, and that could slip around the hospital at night like a ghost.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  Julia looked down at herself, shrugged, and alighted on the bed next to him. Her feet didn’t even touch the ground. “What’s the secret mission?” she asked, the moonlight flashing wickedly off eager eyes.

  “The nurses took something from me,” he said, trying not to give it any further thought. He wasn’t sure he could hold himself together if he considered what had been done to him.

  “Oh,” Julia said, clearly disappointed. “That doesn’t sound like a job for the secret club. We save people.”

  He had been afraid of that. Julia’s morals were twisted, but rigid all the same. He thought his task might not adhere to her code of conduct. At least not without some explaining.

  “We are saving someone,” he said. “It’s very important. And only you can help.”

  “We,” Julia clarified. “We’re a team. You and me.”

  Wyatt nodded, feeling oddly close to the strange child that, consciously, he still couldn’t decide how he felt about. The words she had spoken along with his parents’ apparitions still hung in his mind, but he needed her.

  “It’s you, isn
’t it?” she asked, hugging Bearsy to her chest. “We’re going to be saving you.”

  He nodded. “Something like that.”

  Julia sprung from the bed and waved her open hand at him, gesturing to the door. “Well, let’s go then.”

  Wyatt frowned. “How come you’re so eager to help? And how do you know we’re saving me?”

  “The shadows told me.”

  Pain lit up his chest and then quickly vanished, leaving him breathless, and without explanation. “The shadows?”

  Julia nodded. “And we’re all sorry the shadow people scared you so much. We thought they’d leave Lucy alone if they went to you. That was selfish and wrong of us.”

  “They’re still with her?” He felt silly referring to Lucy as a separate person, but he wasn’t about to call attention to it.

  “Yeah,” Julia said. She looked down at her feet and shuffled awkwardly. “They came back right away and scared Lucy really bad. But they want us to help you.”

  Wyatt stood and glanced at the dim light of the window. “They do?”

  “Uh huh. Lucy said that they said that we have to help save you. That it was really important. And that if we did, then we’d save Lucy too. But Lucy is afraid. But I’m not!”

  Wyatt’s head spun, but he couldn’t dwell on it. He needed to get his power back. And then he needed answers. “Okay,” he said numbly.

  Julia looked up and then twirled in place, arms extended. When she stopped, her hair and eyes were wild, and a wicked grin cracked her face.

  “Do you know where the nurses would keep stuff they took? At the Crook, the staff have a confiscation locker they put things in,” Wyatt said, taking confidence from Julia’s.

  She nodded. “Oh yes, I do. In the main office.”

  “Can you get us there without being seen?”

  Julia thought about it a moment, face scrunched up, Bearsy swinging at her side. “Yep. But there’s always a policeman in the office. He likes comics and root beer. And sometimes he sings to the radio. But not very well.”

  “A guard? Well, does he ever leave the office? And can you get us in there?”