Into the Forest Shadows (21 page)

The same direction also provided the most
shelter from searching eyes in the form of tightly grouped small
buildings. She hugged the buildings, doing her best to keep them
between her and the ship. Anything to keep out of sight.

An alarm echoed through the clearing. Kate's
heart froze and then beat fast as she searched for anyone running
towards them. She ducked into a hut with two open sides.

Gatherers emerged from the nearby forest.
Kate looked around, not finding anywhere else to go. She picked
across the piles of tools laying on the ground, dragging Ayden
behind her.

The Gatherers ignored her. Coming to the hut
they dropped their tools on the piles before moving further into
the camp.

"Meal," one of them muttered repeatedly under
his breath as he walked by.

Ayden turned and took a step after them
before Kate yanked him back. She whispered to him, "We have work to
do first."

That worked long enough for them to get to
the tool hut, when Ayden again tried to turn to follow the
others.

Kate grabbed him and pushed him against the
side of the hut. She pulled his head down so she could whisper
fiercely into his ear, "Do you want your Uncle and the rest of the
Gatherers to be slaves to the Shadow Creatures and the Newcomers?
Do you want to be a slave for the rest of your life, too?"

A sudden spark showed in his eyes. He reached
up with both hands and grabbed her forearms so hard that she had to
bite her lip to keep from crying out in pain. His face
contorted.

Great, she had a reaction. Too bad it was the
wrong sort of reaction.

"Wake up, Ayden! All the Gatherers are in
danger."

His grip suddenly relaxed. She saw a light
appear in his eyes.

"Kate?" he whispered hoarsely.

Kate let out a pent up breath, "Thank
goodness. I was wondering if Grandma's tea had done any good at
all."

"Tea? What are you talking about?"

"The tea we had. Grandma put something in it
to ward off the spores." She pulled up on his arm. "We have to get
out of here. I know you are warring with the spores inside you.
Find the strength to do it!"

His hands dropped away from her. "Where are
we?"

"The Newcomers camp, and we need to get out
fast before we're discovered missing." Kate pulled him towards a
forest only a short distance away.

He paused near one of the piles. She turned
back expecting to find him following the other Gatherers. Instead,
he reached down and grabbed two shortened rods similar to his old
staff. He handed one to her while passing by.

Kate found the small rod of a collapsed
Gatherer axe in her hand, almost exactly like the one Ayden lost in
the other camp. No time to use it as a walking staff today. She
used the clip on one end to attach it to her belt.

Breaking into a run, she followed Ayden into
the cooling shadows of the trees. Along with it came the full
impact of the torment of the trees. White curled along the edges of
bark and limbs.

Grandma said the forest would tell her where
she needed to go. She hoped Grandma was right and that the spores
inside her wouldn't make it impossible to hear what she needed to
hear. Or the spores in the trees around them.

Ayden faltered one step, and then found his
stride. It felt like old times, and Kate couldn't be more pleased.
With the burst of excitement she felt the pull of the spores
diminish.

So, the little buggers didn't like any strong
emotion. Good, she could use that. That was one thing everyone
accused Kate of having too much of.

They had to get out of the area, out to where
the trees could still move and react the way they wanted to. Before
the Shadow Creatures found them.

A new alarm sounded from the direction of the
camp. This time Kate knew the alarm was for them.

A tree visibly shuddered as they ran past.
Ayden turned to follow a larger path. On the other side of a rise
she saw a bunt for the first time since arriving at the camp. It
scampered away from them in a panic.

A flock of birds flew up from the trees to
their right. Kate caught a glimpse of a dark shadow running among
the trees. She turned her head from the sight, concentrating on
running as fast as she could.

They ran down an incline, the ground beneath
their feet growing soft and mushy. The mix of the trees changed.
Twisted trunks intermingled with low dense trees. A group of bunts
scurried for their holes as they rounded a dense copse of
trees.

Kate felt a familiar tug at her memories.
Ayden must have sensed it, as well. He skidded to a halt.

Past a wall of thick bushes stood the
cream-tree trunks of the memory trees. Ayden led them along a trail
running parallel with the trees.

But the trail turned into the grove. In the
other direction sat a shape that made Kate's blood run cold.
Rustling behind them told her of other arrivals.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Diasis panted. His ears swiveled towards them
as he regarded them closely. "I shouldn't be surprised you've found
a way to resist the spores. It won't matter. Another dose and
you'll be done."

Ayden took a step back towards the forest,
pulling Kate with him, "We won't go back to be another of your
slaves."

"I don't see that you have any choice. I know
the Gatherers have learned to leave the memory trees alone, but
what you have behind you is an entire forest of the trees, along
with a few other unusual trees. Not only will they feed off your
memories, the forest of Shadows and Memories will feed off your
bodies. To go inside is sure death for all creatures of the forest.
The camp is your only choice for life."

"Big speech for someone who can't be
trusted," Kate said, mocking his dramatic way of speaking.

She pulled the Newcomer weapon from her
waistband and held the it in front of her. Ayden activated the
blade on his axe.

Diasis laughed at the weapon. "Do you think I
do not know how the toy works? You cannot use it, for you are not
of the Newcomer kind."

Kate held it steady, glancing briefly at the
forest. No pain emanated from the trees, no sign of spore
contamination, only a strange haze that made her head swim. The
trees wanted them all, inviting them in with a belying innocent
appearance.

She'd snapped out of the memories before.
Just like the spores, they could not resist strong emotion. The
thought of the fate Uncle Travis left her in would be enough to get
the rage going.

Kate caught Ayden's eye, saying quietly,
"Remember what they've done with the Gatherers. Be angry at what
Diasis and the others tried to do to you."

Ayden shook his head at her, his brow
wrinkled with his eyebrows pushed close together. His face then
cleared and he nodded. "Okay."

Kate turned and threw the weapon at Diasis as
hard as she could. "Follow us if you dare!"

Hand in hand, they ran into the forest of
Shadows and Memories. She heard a frustrated howl behind her as
they rushed by the first trees.

She had the sensation of having heard Ayden
cry out, but how could she? She was inside the cabin of the
shuttle, staring through the small window. Standing a short
distance away her mother stared back, the small figure dressed in
gray, folding her hands together in front of her, her eyes sad.

Kate's heart grew heavy over the lost
opportunity.

"I love you!" Kate shouted at the door, even
though she knew her mother couldn't hear her.

A man walked to her mother, turning around to
put a proprietary arm around her shoulders.

Uncle Travis.

Good old helpful Uncle Travis. Who only saw
in her mother a primary shareholder in the company. And who saw
Kate and Grandma as an impediment to his ambitions.

Kate's eyes narrowed. No way would she let
him win. Somehow she was going to save her mother from the
worm.

"You won't win!" She shouted at the closed
door.

The shuttle door faded into the living room
of the condo her family had lived in just before her father died.
She heard a slam towards the front door. Father had arrived
home.

Kate stomped her foot, trying to make the
floor give way. "No! We're not doing this! Do you hear me? We're
not doing this again!"

The barest outlines of leaves and tree trunks
filtered into her vision. Kate concentrated on them. Anything that
wasn't a part of the visions swirling around in her head. Not a
part of the emotions threatening to overwhelm her.

She might have regrets from the past, but
regrets wouldn't help her out of this situation. And she wasn't one
to revel in her own pity party. She preferred action.

And action Uncle Travis was going to get. One
way or the other.

The leaves began to fade among the textured
walls of their small apartment in Oburos City. She heard her mother
shout out her name from the small kitchen. She knew the memory.
Knew Uncle Travis would be in the small living room glaring daggers
at her when she came out of her room.

And she didn't want any part of it.

Kate closed her eyes, listening hard for the
the forest. She caught the sound of creaking. The sounds built in
volume. The creaks and pops of the trees moving eased her
anxiety.

The forest. A dangerous one, but still the
forest.

She opened her eyes to a bright sun above her
and a multi-colored textured carpet below. Ahead of her stood the
mountain, the forest rising and falling in a series of hills and
mesa's all the way to its base. From the largest mesa grew trees
taller than any others.

No, this wasn't right. This couldn't be the
forest of Shadows and Memories.

Her eyes snapped shut again. She put her
hands in front of her, inching forward, hoping to find bark. Other
memories pressed on her, accompanied by the pull of the spores.
Kate stomped on them. Memories could wait.

The sensation of BunBun next to her skin
appeared. Leaves rustled around her. The feeling of the soft ground
reappeared under her feet. Her toe stubbed against a tree root.
Kate opened her eyes, forcing herself to push past the shadows of
the memories that still floated around her.

In a snap the world righted itself. Around
her appeared the cream trunks of the memory trees. In front of her
the ground dropped away steeply, ending in a dark pit filled with a
roiling tangle of brown and white-grey roots.

Kate took a step back from the rim. The roots
snatched up at her feet, prompting her to backtrack from the pit
even faster.

White coiled tendrils dropped down from the
trees, snagging her clothes. She bushed them off only to find them
sticking to her skin. With it the memories surged to overwhelm
her.

She jerked back, ducking down to run under
the writhing tendrils as they again tried to grab her. She could
keep the trees at bay, if she could keep them from touching
her.

She stopped in a small clearing between
several wide trees. Although only one of them was a Memory tree the
other trees pulled at her just as strongly.

Great, she had other trees to watch out
for.

Diasis was right. This wasn't like a small
grove of Memory trees. The place permeated menace. They needed to
get out fast.

If she could find Ayden.

"Ayden!" Kate called out, hoping with all her
heart he hadn't fallen into the pit before she snapped out of the
memories.

No one answered except the trees pulling at
her mind.

Bunbun quaked next to her skin, trapped in
his own memories. She stroked him through her shirt, murmuring to
him.

She searched for footprints but the marshy
ground left no marks for her to follow. She couldn't make out her
own footprints to backtrack. A broken branch gave her a clue of
what direction she might have come from. At least, she hoped it
did.

The trees continued to pull at her,
attempting to draw out of her other memories as well as the feeling
of frustration over her own lack of knowledge about the forest
around her. The spores pulled in a different direction, pushing her
towards relaxation and the oblivion that would follow.

And Kate was caught in the middle of the
mental tug-of-war.

She kept her anger, rage and hope for her
family close to her heart, shouting, "Stop it! Where is Ayden?"

Nothing moved in the shadows. Only the normal
sounds of the forest and the echos of past memories answered. A
face formed in the dark brown of a trunk. She blinked. No, she
couldn't be seeing faces. Wonderful, now she might be
hallucinating.

She pushed forward, even if the direction
might be wrong.

On the positive side, there were no Shadow
Creatures. The forest might give them a good chance to get away
after all, depending on how far it extended. And if she could find
Ayden before the trees hurt him.

"Leave me alone!"

Kate's head jerked up, trying to pinpoint
where the sound had come from. BunBun gave a big shudder and a
small peep. The echo faded away, seeming to have come from all
directions at once.

"Where are you?" Kate called out.

"How can you do this to me?" Ayden
yelled.

Kate zeroed in on the direction. She took off
through the forest as fast as she could. With the Shadow Creatures
nowhere nearby, she didn't have to worry about making noise.

"Let me go!" Ayden screamed in a way that
made Kate's skin erupt in goosebumps. She could hear the raw fear
in his voice.

And Ayden wasn't scared of anything.

She heard thrashing in the trees ahead of
her. Kate pushed her way through a stand of tall bushes. The bushes
snapped back, some of them hitting her in the back as she came to a
stop on the other side.

Gossamer strands glistened silver and green
in the light filtering through the canopy. An intricate web spread
out between two huge Memory trees, with strands continuing to the
forest floor to cover bushes and small trees.