Lili St Crow - Betrayals

Right behind the panic beating like a second heart inside me. And the fear soaking through my entire body. Something bad was about to happen, I was sure of it now. I could only hope I’d received the warning in time, and that I would be able to get away from it fast enough.

Past the gardens the land ran downhill in a gentle slope, toward the river. A ribbon of paved path curved down toward a shack of a boathouse, crouching against the moon-silvered water. The moon was half-full, shedding her light over a gray and white landscape that looked exactly like an ice sculpture with streaks of oil-soaked cotton wool hanging from every sharp edge.

The fog was closing around the Schola in grasping, veiny fingers.

Halfway down the hill, saplings and bushes started springing up, the forest’s outliers. Then the trees rose, dense and black even though they were naked and festooned with shards of ice. The owl soared, came back, circled me as I ran, and shot forward down the hill, leaving the graveled path behind and crossing the paving, heading for the inky smear of trees.

My breath came in harsh caws of effort. I ran, and the owl returned, like it was pressing me to go faster. It wheeled over my head again, and I thought I heard Gran’s voice. That’s a wise animal what muffles its wings so the mouse can’t hear it, Dru. And it’s a wise animal what hides even when it’s quiet. You never know when somethin’s up over the top of you lookin’ down.

The first time I’d seen the owl was on the sill of Gran’s hospital window, the night she died. I’d kept quiet about it ever since. Only Dad knew about it, and he was—

Stop thinking and run. This time it was Dad’s voice, full of quiet urgency. The only place their voices were left was in my head. It was better than being alone but it was so, so lonely.

I tried to speed up, but the thick clear goop over the world was hardening. My heart rammed against the walls of my chest, pulsing in my throat and wrists and eyes so hard, like it wanted to escape.

The world popped back up to speed like a rubber band, and I was flung forward as if a huge warm hand had reached down and tapped me like a pool ball. Almost fell, caught myself, and leapt over the last garden box, clearing it with feet to spare.

Sound rushed back in. Ice crackling, gravel flying, my own footsteps a hard tattoo against frozen ground, the harsh rhythm of my breathing, and behind me, padded footsteps and a high, chilling howl, queerly diluted through the odd, gleaming fog. The taste of oranges ran over my tongue again; I couldn’t spit to clear my mouth and wouldn’t have anyway, since it wasn’t just waxen oranges. I knew for sure now it meant something totally and completely bad was going down.

I ran for the trees like my life depended on it. Because I knew, deep down, that it did.

Branches slapped at my face and hands. I leapt over a fallen log, crunched down in a pile of leaves, and fell. Scudgy leafmuck splorched up through my fingers. The darkness scored itself with little diamond holes of moonlight, sharp frozen reflections. I scrambled to my feet and took off again, dodging a creeping streamer of fog. The locket was a lump of ice on my chest.

Behind me, another howl lifted to the cold sky. This one was edged with broken glass and razors.

It burrowed into my head, scraping against the inside of my skull.

They’ve found my trail. I didn’t know who they were, or even why I was so sure they’d run across my scent. I just… knew, the way you know how to breathe or to pull your hand back from a hot stove. The way I knew to avoid the creeping little fingers of vapor rising from the ground.

The same way I knew to keep running. No matter how many times I fell.

I scrambled and floundered on. The owl’s soft passionless who? who? slid through the woods, bouncing off the steel-hard bole of each frozen tree. There was a kind of halfass trail running along the leaf-strewn floor; I broke through the hard shell of a deep puddle and gasped as icy water grabbed at my ankles. Leapt and landed badly, my ankle almost rolling, stumbled on. The owl called again, hurry up, Dru.

Another inhuman scream lit the night, digging into the meat behind my eyes with razor claws. I let out a miserable, thin, gasping cry and stumbled forward, my hands coming up to clasp my head until the pain was cut off in mid-howl, just like a flipped switch.

What the hell was that? But I had no time to figure it out. I pulled myself into a fist inside my skull, just like Gran taught me. When another scream lifted out of the night, somewhere off to my left and a good ways away, it didn’t scrape along the inside of my head. It just ran hard over my skin like a wire brush dripping with acid, and if I hadn’t been throwing myself forward so hard, I probably would have yelled, too, in miserable surprise and pain.

That’s the trouble with getting involved in the Real World. Once you’re in, you can’t shut it out and go back to daylight nine-to-five. You’re stuck running through the woods at night, risking a broken leg and even worse, while something horrible chases you.

The thin track petered out, the way false trails in the woods do. One minute you think you’re following the road back to somewhere you know; the next you leap sideways to avoid fog that shouldn’t be moving like that, tip into a bunch of friendly thorn bushes, and wonder what the hell happened.

Except when you’re running for your life, those bushes aren’t friends. They spear through your clothes and rip at your skin, and by the time you thrash almost free, the footsteps behind you have drawn much nearer. So near you can hear every shift of weight and crackle of twigs breaking, each splutch of muck on the forest floor as they leap, higher and faster than a human ever could.

Gran’s owl was now nowhere in sight. I froze, tangled in a bunch of thorny vines, and tried to control my gasping. My lungs were on fire; my heart was just about ready to bust out through my ribs and go sailing.

But I tried to be still and quiet. The bushes crackled, thorns scraping. One of them touched my cheek, a cold pinprick. I wanted to shut my eyes, lying tangled on my side, but the idea of being in the dark woods with my eyes closed just didn’t work.

Even the fog was making a sound now. A small rasping, like scales against glass.

My hip, pressed against the cold ground, turned almost numb. Wetness seeped into my sweater and jeans. A cloud hung in front of my face, my own breath, gauzy and translucent.

The footsteps slid around me. There seemed to be two sets, circling each other. I squeezed my eyes shut, lost the battle with myself again, opened them. A line of thorns pressed into my sweater’s back. My sneakers were soaked and my feet were so cold they had vanished into numbness.

Crashing. Snapping branches. Moonlight trickled in, spots of false color whirling in front of my light-starved eyes. The greasy white vapor pulled close, questing through tree branches and reaching down to puddle against frozen leaves with that tiny, horrible sound.

Soft, stealthy movement under the crashing. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, and locked my teeth over a helpless noise. Swallowed hard. The fog was creeping closer, closer, little drablets of it touching under leaves. It looked like claw-tipped fingers plucking at the fabric of the forest floor.

Something moved in my field of vision. Once I saw it, everything resolved into sharp focus.

Anything moving is easier to see at night. The trouble comes when whatever it is stops and goes motionless, but this figure had a patch of shaggy white up near the top. It moved like a wulfen, with thoughtless grace, the fur blurring its outlines as it sidestepped a long white rope of seeking fog.