Janni Simner - Bones of Faerie

I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see Kate clutching a small jar in one hand. “Liza.” Her soft voice reminded me of the touch of her fingers through my hair.

Had she seen my pale roots? Had she seen the visions in the mirror? I didn't know. But I did know that Cam's magic had destroyed Kate's family. Would my magic kill, too?

No, not if I could help it. No one would die from my magic but me. I turned from Kate's pitying gaze and ran.

“Wait!” Kate stumbled after me, but she was too slow. I fled from my town and the fields I'd known all my life. I fled into the woods and didn't look back.

When Father taught me to hunt he said, “Never show fear. Animals and plants can sense fear in your every move. They can smell fear with your every breath.”

I'd asked him whether that was because of the War, but he'd only laughed softly. “No, Liza. That much has always been true. Difference now is that hunter and hunted look much the same. You can never be sure which is which, not until the hunt is through.” Plants hadn't been among the hunters Before, but Father didn't need to say that.

I didn't feel like much of a hunter: not when I reached the river and followed it at a run, not hours later when Kate's salve had worn off and my throbbing back forced me to a walk, not now as the sun dipped below the horizon. Tallow trotted along beside me, unafraid. She'd followed as I fled, and though I'd tried to send her home, in truth I was glad of her company. The cat had ridden on my shoulders much of the day, until they'd grown too sore. I'd taught her to ride there years ago, when she was a kitten.

I kept to the center of the path, barely out of reach of the ragweed along its edges, but it wasn't the ragweed that worried me most. Father had taught me well—I knew I was being followed. My pursuer had been with me the past mile, maybe longer. Ferns and brambles rustled as they shied away from distant footfalls. Ash and redbud and oak whispered softly as those footfalls passed by. And I felt something watching me from within the deepening shadows, felt it with a certainty that made cold sweat trickle down my neck.

Don't venture out alone into the dark, or the darkness will swallow you whole. Even when the sun shone, a tree could take a grown man down if it had taste enough for blood. When the sun set, shadows gathered around the trees and around the other plants, too, not always, but often enough. Not just the ordinary shadows that gather everywhere as the sun gets low—these were darker, with a slow thickness like tree sap, and they didn't go away once the sun set. Even in the dark, shadow vines crept along the ground and shadow branches slashed at the air. Those tree shadows cut deeper than ordinary branches and brambles. Jayce still walked with a limp because a pokeweed shadow had cut him to the bone when he stayed out too late on a hunt.

Yet I thought what hunted me now was human. Someone from my town, sent to find me. I thought—but couldn't be sure. I shivered in the fading light. If plants and animals could smell fear, mine left them an easy trail. A few wild grapevines crept tentatively toward the path. If I called them the way Cam had called, would they sense my magic and come to me? I walked faster, beyond their reach.

Something moved among the trees, closer than before. Tallow's ears perked forward. The something rustled through the brush, veering toward the river. Toward me. Its steps were faster, more sure than they'd been before.

I ran once more. The rustling thing ran, too, matching my pace. The path between forest and river narrowed. If only I could leap above water and wood into the evening sky, the way the airplanes did Before—but I could merely run harder as the water grew near.

Mom sang stories from Before sometimes, faerie songs from a time when only a very few people knew the faerie folk were real. In some of those songs running water stopped magic, just as cold iron did. Iron hadn't helped the airplanes—magic brought them down long ago. But water was different. If the water flowed swiftly enough, neither plants nor magic could get a hold in its depths. I turned and ran off the trail, through a small hickory grove, and down the rocky bank into the river. I gasped as icy water washed over my boots and soaked through my wool socks, but kept moving into deeper water. Mud sucked at my feet and I stumbled, struggling to right myself against the current.

Even as I did, the water around me went abruptly still. That water had risen nearly to my waist. It soaked through my clothes and chilled my skin. I stumbled again and stared. The air had gone very quiet. Near the far shore the river flowed on, but around me nothing moved. Even my pursuer was silent. Tallow stared at me from the near bank, silent as well.

A flash of light drew my gaze downward. The water around me began to shine like a giant mirror. I fled that magic the only way I could, by shutting my eyes and diving beneath the surface. Perhaps if I didn't look, the magic would pass me by and seek someone else to root in instead.

Or I could stay beneath the surface. I could let myself drown and hope the magic died with me—but even as I thought that, I burst into the air, coughing and gasping for breath. My boots were heavy with water, and my wet clothes clung to my cold skin. The river around me had stopped glowing. I swam for shore and as I did the current started up again, pulling at my clothes and dragging me down. I swam harder, then stood and staggered on. Another few steps and I'd be on land.

A rock slipped beneath me and I fell into a hole of deeper water. I reached out blindly even as my head went under. My arms and legs ached with weariness. I really was about to drown, whether I wanted to or not.

Someone grasped my wrists, hard.

That firm grip was enough for me to find solid footing and break through the surface once more. I clambered, splashing onto the bank, gulping air. Behind me the river murmured quietly, just a river, nothing more.

“Liza.”

I looked up. “Matthew.” His hair was coming loose, and a dead maple leaf had gotten caught in it.

“You nearly drowned.” Matthew's voice shook. Sweat trickled down his face in spite of the chilly air. “Are you all right?”

Kate must have sent him after me. She ought to have known better than to send anyone. I stood, shivering. Tallow had moved out of range of my splashing. She licked the mud from her fur.

Twilight cast shadows on Matthew's pale face. He ran his hand over his hair, found the leaf, and drew it free. “I brought you food,” he said as he threw the leaf into the water. “Dry clothes. Flint and steel for a fire.”

“No.” My teeth chattered. My feet were ice, my fingertips tingling. “You need—to go. To get—away— from me.”

“Liza.” Matthew's voice was low but firm, a little like his grandmother's. “I'm going to gather wood for a fire. You'll feel better once you're warm. Okay?”

Nothing could make this okay, but Matthew reached into the backpack beside him, pulled out a blanket, and draped it over my shoulders. Next he drew out a clay jug filled with oil and used a spark from his flint to light the wick within. I drew closer to that small circle of light.

Matthew took out a torch next, lit it from the lamp, and slung a nylon bag for gathering wood over his shoulder. He left me the lamp and retreated into the forest, his torch flickering among the trees. The night shifted from gray to black, and the moon rose as he searched the ground for dead wood.

Didn't he know better than to gather firewood alone at night? Didn't he know better than to risk his life for a magic-cursed girl?