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

by Michael J Sanford

  WHEN WYATT COULD see once more, he found himself standing in his hospital room at Greenwood. He was in the very center of the room and every other object in the room was lying in pieces along the walls. The air smelled of lightning, a burned electric scent. The lights flickered erratically, creating dancing shadows amid the ruined hospital equipment and furniture.

  Wyatt grabbed at his chest and found it bare. He looked down, expecting to see the hempen string and emerald gem set in a fist of driftwood, but he saw nothing but his own pale flesh. He turned his mind inward and found only his own thoughts. Nothing more, nothing less.

  “It’s gone,” Wyatt whispered to himself. There was a cruel certainty in the statement.

  He looked again at the room and wondered when it was. He curled and uncurled his bare toes on the cool tile floor and walked to the open door. Peering into the hallway of the medical wing he saw more destruction. Broken glass littered the ground, along with mangled chairs and splintered wood. Two thirds of the overhead lights were out and the same burned smell hung in the air.

  Wyatt carefully picked his way to the nurse’s station, avoiding the shards of glass and scattered debris. Did I do this? Wyatt wondered, though he could come up with no other explanation. But how?

  The nurse’s station was empty. Wyatt let out a sigh of relief, having expected to see bodies strewn about as well. He spun in a slow circle, trying to decide a course of action. Where was everybody? Had he returned so far into the future that this was all that remained? Had the release of his magic caused the damage, like the detonation of a bomb?

  Instinctively, he reached for the amulet that was no longer around his neck. No, I don’t need that anymore, he assured himself. Wyatt the Mighty is dead and the Realms are gone with him. I’m just Wyatt now.

  But where did that leave him? Absent-mindedly, he found himself wandering away from the nurse’s station and back into his hospital room. He stood in the doorway, studying the pattern of debris. Whatever had caused it had originated from the spot he had returned to after being pulled from the Realms. He was ground zero.

  He turned from the room and slipped. He fell into the door jamb and tumbled to the floor. He sat in place a moment and allowed a small laugh to escape his lips. After all he had done and been through he still had a dizzying sense of coordination. He climbed to his feet, rubbing at his backside.

  He looked for what had tripped him up and found it had been a simple envelope. He laughed again and picked it up.

  “Even an envelope can beat me now,” he said.

  He moved to cast it aside and search for a course of action when he saw the name scrawled onto the front it. Wyatt. He recognized the handwriting immediately, having marveled at its calligraphic quality a number of times when he had still resided at The Shepherd’s Crook.

  “When did Ms. Abagail write me a letter?” Wyatt asked, feeling better to speak the words aloud. He still feared having traveled to a place in the future beyond human existence and that thought scared him most of all.

  The envelope contained no other markings and was still sealed. He ripped off an end and pulled out the single, folded leaf of paper that was inside. He tossed aside the envelope and opened what he assumed to be a letter. Puzzled, he saw that it wasn’t a letter at all but a photocopy of a newspaper clipping.

  It was dated five years prior—assuming Wyatt was still in the same year as he had been previously. A small image of a crumpled vehicle appeared above the caption Traffic Accident Orphans Young Siblings.

  A pit formed in Wyatt’s stomach and he fell against the wall and slid downward. With his knees pressed to his chest, Wyatt read the brief article.

  Shortly before midnight, a family of four was involved in a single car accident along the commercial stretch of route 12, near the Regency Hotel. Harold, 32, and Mariel, 33, were pronounced dead at the scene. Also in the vehicle were their two children, Wyatt, 10, and Lucy, 4. Both survived with minor injuries and were taken to Metro Hospital for evaluation. The cause of the accident is yet unknown.

  Wyatt stared at the words, but kept returning to a single name. Lucy.

  “No, that can’t be,” he said.

  He entertained the strange idea for a moment, but quickly dismissed it. She can’t be my sister, he reassured himself. Her real name is Julia, anyway, and even if I had forgotten her, the staff wouldn’t have. Someone would have said something, especially after I was sent here. He knew it was madness, a strange coincidence, but he couldn’t stop staring at the single line with both their names. Her age would be about right, he thought.

  “No, you’re crazy,” he said aloud, hoping to lend more weight to the statement.

  But then something else echoed in his mind. Something the spectral visage of his mother had said when he’d pressed her about the Bad Man’s motivations. He does not wish you to be together.

  A chill ran down Wyatt’s spine. Could it be? It made no sense. Is it crazier than traveling between worlds? the contradictory part of his mind asked.

  Wyatt tried to slide the news clipping into a pocket, only to realize he was wearing a hospital gown.

  “I have to find Lucy,” he said. “Or Julia. Or whoever she is.”

  He hadn’t seen her since she’d struck him with the dead guard’s flashlight. Wyatt rubbed the crown of his head and winced at the painful lump. The pain brought back the moment with crystal clarity. I don’t want to remember you, she had said moments before striking him. Another chill caused his whole body to spasm.

  “I really need to find her.”

  With the news clipping clutched in his hand, Wyatt picked his way through the debris-strewn hallway to the single security door that separated the medical wing from the rest of Greenwood Hospital. He feared it would be locked—as it should have been—but he found electronic keypad destroyed and the door hanging slightly ajar.

  He grabbed the handle, took a deep breath, swung the door wide, and promptly lost the ability to breathe. He should have been looking into a short hallway of polished tile and stone walls, leading to a stairwell and twin set of elevators. Instead, Wyatt was staring into the corner room of Dorm B, located a hundred miles from Greenwood Hospital, on the small campus of The Shepherd’s Crook, home for disturbed youth.

  The room was just as he remembered it, though it was far tidier than he’d left it. In fact, the only item in the room not bolted to the floor was a single garbage bag sitting on the bare mattress.

  Wyatt took a slow step into the room and turned around quickly. The ravaged medical wing was gone and he was left staring at the back hallway of Dorm B, lined with doors.

  Wyatt stumbled backwards, caught the corner of the bed, and fell onto the hardwood floor. He forgot the pain immediately and scrambled upright, his legs trembling. He stared a few more moments into the empty hallway, then turned his attention to the wrap-around windows that took up a fair portion of the wall space in the room. Beyond the tarnished safety glass lay the twilit campus of The Shepherd’s Crook.

  He couldn’t see anyone or anything aside from the snaking asphalt path that passed the dorm, and a smattering a small, carefully planted trees.

  Wyatt collected himself and walked into the hallway.

  “Hello?” he asked the silence. It replied as silence can be expected to.

  He turned left from his bedroom and took a step into the short hallway that led to the front half of the building.

  “It’s me, Wyatt,” he called out.

  The dining room, kitchen, and sitting area were empty. Wyatt spun in place and walked to the front door. He put his hands onto the push bar and paused, shaking his head. I’ve really lost it now, he thought.

  Failing to think of any option but to continue exploring, Wyatt shoved open the door, stepped forward into the dark, and promptly fell.

  Wyatt lost full control of his body as it spun in the darkness, vague images moving too quickly across his field of view to be deciphered. After two full revolutions, his shoulder struck something solid a
nd deflected his fall in a slightly different direction. Wyatt groped in vain, hoping to halt, or at least slow, his fall.

  He landed a moment later, in a pile of disjointed limbs, abed a pile of stale, and slightly damp, straw. Wyatt rolled and clambered to his feet, spitting hay and clutching his temples, vying for control over his spinning vision.

  His presence of mind returned quickly and Wyatt found himself looking out over a vast cavern. Lit by a mystical and unseen light source, hundreds of platforms stood at varying levels spread through the space.

  “Métra,” he said in wonder. “I’m back in the Realms. But how?”

  Wyatt grabbed at his chest, but found nothing but his soft and hairless flesh. The gemstone was still gone. No longer embedded in his body or hanging from a simple hempen string, the key to which he walked between the worlds was still gone.

  He toed the edge of the platform he was on, cupped his hands around his mouth, and bellowed, “Hello?”

  His voice echoed an inordinate amount of times, but no other response was offered by the underground home of the Children.

  He thought to call out again when the platform shook. Nearly tumbling over the edge, Wyatt managed to guide his fall backwards, landing hard on his back, his head snapping off the hard ground. He didn’t have a chance to cry out or hardly register the fall before hands dug into his shoulders and pulled him upward.

  Like rising from the depths of a blackened pool, Wyatt ascended into blinding light.

  “Wyatt?” called a voice from the brightness.

  “Am I dead?” he asked, stretching an arm toward the voice.

  A hand found his. “You’ve looked better, but you’re still very much in the land of the living.”

  Wyatt grabbed at his head with his free hand. “I think I’ve suffered more concussions in the last ten minutes than most people do in their entire lives.”

  The hand released his and Wyatt turned to see Ms. Abagail leaning away from him to recline in a worn hospital chair. He blinked several times until she cocked her head to the side and frowned.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I just…what time is it?”

  Ms. Abagail thumbed her cellphone. “Almost seven.”

  Wyatt turned to look at the window cut into the far wall. The distant sky was pink and purple, tinged with fiery red. Then he regarded the room at large.

  “Last time I was here, everything was destroyed.”

  “Huh?” Ms. Abagail asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I think…I think I messed something up. What day is it? How long have you been here?”

  Ms. Abagail continued to stare quizzically at him. “I just sat down when you woke up asking if you were dead. You have a nightmare?”

  Wyatt didn’t answer. He was finding it hard to gather his thoughts staring at the clean and tidy room.

  “And it’s Thursday, for what it’s worth.”

  That didn’t answer anything. Wyatt couldn’t remember what day it had been when he’d last seen Ms. Abagail, sitting exactly where she was still. He thought for a moment and realized he didn’t know the month either.

  He looked at his chest and then at the bed on either side of him. No amulet.

  “Did you give me my necklace back?” he asked.

  “Uh, yeah,” Ms. Abagail said. “And then you…uh…”

  Wyatt’s focus shifted and his thoughts grew clearer. “You saw me change worlds, didn’t you? Whenever I was here last.”

  Ms. Abagail glanced at the closed door and made a show of spinning the tall can of energy drink on the bedside table.

  “You saw me, didn’t you?” Wyatt repeated.

  Ms. Abagail sighed and nodded. “I saw you do it back at the Crook, first.” She looked at Wyatt, but her eyes kept jumping around.

  Wyatt could hardly breathe. “You’ve known all along?” he wanted to shout, but it came as a whisper.

  She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “You could have told them,” he said, finding the volume in his voice once again. “You could have stopped all of this. You knew! You knew I wasn’t crazy. Why didn’t you stop them from sending me here?”

  “Do you think anyone would have believed me?”

  Wyatt’s anger flared and he wanted to give into the wash of emotions, but as quickly as they came, they faded again. She was right, he knew.

  “Did you…” Ms. Abagail began.

  “Did I what?”

  “You were going to fight when you left last time. Did you…I don’t know…win?”

  Wyatt felt his memories shift and climb from the depths. He shuddered and forced them back down. “No,” he said.

  “Then why’d you come back? Wasn’t it part of remembering?”

  Wyatt whirled on her. “Did you leave an envelope for me here? With a newspaper article about…me?”

  Ms. Abagail visibly started. She reached into her pocket and withdrew a sealed envelope with Wyatt’s name scrawled on the front in perfect script. It shook in her hand.

  “Not yet,” she said slowly.

  Wyatt’s heart seized. “Oh, I messed things up really bad,” he said, the dread in the pit of his stomach reaching up to instill a tremor into the words.

  “What do you mean?” Ms. Abagail still clutched the envelope.

  The lights in the room flickered and something crashed to the floor beyond the room, hidden by the door.

  Ms. Abagail looked around and dropped the envelope in favor of gripping onto the armrests of her chair. “What do you mean?” she asked again.

  Something flashed outside, lighting up the sky for a moment, like a flash of lightning. Only no thunder followed and Wyatt couldn’t see any clouds.

  He turned back to Ms. Abagail. “I don’t know. I gave up my power. Or at least I thought I did. It was…it doesn’t matter. But ever since, things have been weird. I mean weirder. I don’t think we have much time.”

  “Time for—”

  “Answers!” he shouted, cutting off her words and grabbing her full attention.

  The lights had ceased flickering, but a low rumble had begun, and Wyatt couldn’t pinpoint the source.

  “I need to know. Do I have a sister?”

  “What?”

  Wyatt swung his legs off the bed to more directly face Ms. Abagail. Behind her, he could see a deep crack form in the wall, splitting it from floor to ceiling. A thick black smoke rose from the crevice. He ignored it.

  “Never mind. I know I have a sister. Where is she? Is it Julia?”

  Ms. Abagail made to look away, but Wyatt pounded the bedside table, sending the colored can to the floor. Her eyes locked on his.

  “Julia? The girl who hit you? No, your sister’s name is Lucy.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Wyatt slammed his fist on the table again. Smoke, black as pitch, was slowly pooling against the ceiling. The room was quickly dimming.

  “I don’t know, Wyatt,” Ms. Abagail said firmly. “I only know where you came from, not her. You lived with your grandmother after the accident, but I don’t think she ever did.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that you have, or at least had, a sister. Lucy. But I don’t know what happened to her. She was younger. Maybe she got put in the system early. Adopted, most likely, since she was so young. Wyatt, what’s going on?”

  Wyatt dismissed the question, sprung from the bed, and ran for the door. “I have to find her,” he said without turning back.

  Greenwood Hospital shook as if giants danced upon its roof as Wyatt threw open the door and darted into the open area at the center of the medical wing. Nurses were scrambling for cover, shouting of earthquakes and pleading with their gods for protection. Wyatt stumbled into the nearby wall, kept his footing, and forged onward.

  “Lucy!” he called into each room he passed.

  Most were empty, though some contained frightened children, clinging to the metal frame of their hospital beds. The lights f
lared as he reached the last room, the fluorescent tubes bursting from the electrical surge. Thunder echoed outside to join the lightning, and the building fell into darkness. Wyatt held his breath.

  Emergency lights turned on, casting the chaotic scene in burned orange. There were more shadows than not.

  “Lucy?” Wyatt asked the last room.

  It was empty save for a damaged teddy bear sitting atop the bed. It faced Wyatt, fixing him with its one glass eye. Wyatt entered the room, continuing to call for Lucy. When he received no answers but the panicked shouts of the adults in the room behind him, he called for Julia. Then Mrs. Devereaux. None of the strange girl’s personas answered.

  Wyatt grabbed the bear and shook it. “Where is she, stupid bear?”

  The window exploded in a shower of glass as a gnarled tree branch burst into the small room. Wyatt stumbled out of the way, tossing aside the bear and falling against the bed. The branch throbbed with life and burrowed into the ceiling, sending a wash of stone and plaster downward.

  Wyatt wasted no time exiting the room. A large portion of the floor in the lobby fell away as he did, quickly filling with water until a small pond existed where the nurses station had been. A number of adults thrashed in the water, evidently unable to find the bottom.

  Wyatt ran for them, sliding to the edge of the water, and reaching for the nearest. “Grab my hand,” he yelled above the sound of thunder and a quickly crumbling building.

  The nurse, a young woman no older than Ms. Abagail, made two strong strokes toward Wyatt and grabbed his hand. He pulled her to the edge and helped her climb onto solid footing. She stayed on her knees gasping and choking on air. Wyatt turned back to the water, but it was empty. He didn’t have time to wonder as to the fate of those that had been within the water moments before.

  “Where’s Lucy?” Wyatt demanded of the nurse he had saved.

  She looked up at him, red hair plastered to her face. “What?”

  He slapped her. “We don’t have time for this. Where’s Lucy?” He pointed to the corner room for emphasis. A thick nest of greenery clogged the doorway.

  “Who? That’s Henrick’s room.”

  Wyatt stomped his bare foot to no effect. “Julia. Where’s Julia?”