Nevermor (12 page)

The darkness
settled in around her, and she felt alone here in the middle of the woods, more
so than she had at the beach before.  The shadows were thick, encroaching
on her space, and she began to hear the sounds of the night beasts prowling
through the brush.

I hope he will
come back soon.  Where did he go?

Standing there,
unprotected, a strange sound began to drift into Wren’s ears – soft at first
but growing louder.  She felt that she had heard it before, but she didn’t
recall what it was until a glowing orb came cutting through the trees, halting
to dance erratically in front of her.

“Oh!  There you
are!  Rifter went off looking for you.”

The creature did
not respond except in whispers, which Wren thought sounded rather nasty.  They
were of a hideous, hissing quality that she didn’t like.

“I’m very
confused by you,” Wren said thoughtfully.  “I’m not sure that we’re friends but
I don’t know why you don’t like me.  Is it because I was chasing you all over
the sea before?  I realize that you were trying to get away from me, but I was
asleep, you see.  I was dreaming.  I couldn’t help my actions.”

Wren paused a
moment as she considered, but the orb kept moving about, leaving trails of
light in the air as if it was on fire.

“Would you just
be still a moment?” Wren asked.  “I’m trying to speak with you civilly.”

To humor her,
the orb did come to a halt in the air, hovering in front of her face.  Wren
could see into the light then, and what she saw made her gasp.

There was a
little woman inside there, held aloft by the rapid movement of dragonfly
wings.  Her body was golden, and if it had been to Wren’s size, it would have
been long and lean – statuesque.  She wasn’t wearing very much at all, but her
hair was long, though it floated all around her ethereally.  Wren guessed it
might have been the air from her wings that kept it floating all about.

“You are a fairy
inside there!  I knew it!”

The lovely beast
didn’t seem to care for her commentary, moving again so that Wren could not
make her out.

“You know, I’m
not sure how we got to be enemies, but yet I’m not entirely convinced that you
weren’t the one who encouraged me to sleep when I nearly fell into the machine
at the mill – yet I don’t suppose that’s possible.  You couldn’t have been
there.  Someone would have seen you.  At least, I
did
think I had seen
you before that…”

The light kept
drifting forward and then moving back toward her.  It whispered to her as if to
say:
come, come
.  Wren was not sure she wanted to follow.  If she
had been leery of Rifter, she trusted this sprite even less.

“Rifter told me
to stay here,” she said firmly, but the whispers only grew more rapid and
insistent.  The sound of them curled around her ears and slithered over her
mind like serpents.  She tried to ignore them but they wouldn’t go away.  Even
clamping her hands over her ears didn’t work, and then finally she couldn’t
take anymore.

“Alright!” she
cried.  “What do you want to show me?  But I’m not going far.”

The glowing bulb
seemed pleased by that and drifted off through the trees.  Wren was uncertain,
but she followed it.  It moved slowly ahead of her, truly making an effort to
go at a pace that she would be able to keep up with it.  Wren tried to keep
watch around her, unsure of where she was being taken.

Not much more,
and then I’m stopping
,
she told herself.

Just about the
time she was going to say that she wouldn’t go farther without Rifter, she lost
sight of the fairy.

She wouldn’t
have thought that the light could disappear as easily as that, bright as it
was, but yet the fairy had simply vanished.  Wren looked around her, quite
unsure of where she should go now or even where she had come from.  The trees
were very large here in this portion of the forest, and everything looked the
same.

Though she had
her suspicions that the fairy had done this to her on purpose, Wren supposed
she must give her the benefit of the doubt and ask nicely for her to come back.

“I lost you,”
she called, but not too loudly.  “Where did you go?”

At that moment,
part of a nearby tree reached out to grab her.

An arm slid
beneath her throat and she felt something hard pressing against her temple.  A
jolt ran through her and she barely had time to acknowledge her panic before
there was a voice in her ear.

“You have five
seconds,” it said quickly.  “Who are you and what are you doing here, or I put
a bullet through your pretty head.”

“Wait! 
Please!”  She struggled against the arm, but it held her tightly.

“That’s the
wrong answer.”

Near her ear,
she heard the hammer of a gun click back.  Her eyes grew wide with panic.  It
was all happening so quickly!  She was going to die and this would be it?  No!

“
Stop
!
” 
The word echoed back to her, and she realized that she wasn’t the only one who
had said it.  From the corner of her eye, she could see that Rifter had found
her – not a moment too soon and thankfully not one too late.

“This yours?”
the one behind her asked in his direction, and Wren was simply praying she’d
get out of this.

Rifter seemed to
like the sound of that, because he nodded.  “Yeah, that’s right.  Let her go,
Nix.”

They know each
other
,
she thought with relief.  The arm holding her loosened, and once she was able
to break free, she went directly to stand near Rifter.  From there, she was
able to look at the face of the one who had nearly killed her.

He had messy
blond hair down to his chin, stringy and damp.  He was not dressed in leaves
but in a brown cloak that hung over his lean body, camouflaging him.  The cloth
was dirty and stained, but she could see the weapons.  He was loaded with
them.  There was the pistol in his hand, a quiver full of arrows on his back
with a bow, and a sword at his hip – not to mention a knife tucked in the top
of his boot.  There was a streak of blood drawn under his right eye, and Wren
knew what that meant now.

He’s killed
someone today.

His blue eyes
examined her with unrelenting scrutiny.  He was around the same height and age
as Rifter, and if she had her guess, she might have said they were brothers. 
They really did look similar, she thought, but the forest was dark and who
could say for sure?

Was there a
difference between them?  Was there anything warm about this one’s face? 
Rifter had at least been friendly to her, but this one called Nix didn’t seem
at all remorseful for his actions.

“I thought we
decided that a girl was a bad idea,” Nix said finally, in Rifter’s direction. 
He spoke as if she wasn’t there – as if she didn’t even understand his
language.

“We talked about
it, yes, but you don’t decide.
 I
decide,” Rifter told him swiftly.

Nix didn’t seem
to like the sound of that.  His lip drew back and his eyes got a little
sharper.  Then, suddenly, his mouth curled up in a snide smile.

“Of course.  How
silly of me.  That’s how it’s always been.  Why would I think this time would
be any different?”

Rifter looked
ready to counter that, but it was then that they all heard the whispers, and a
bright light came shooting into their midst.

“There you are,
Wisp,” Rifter said levelly, as if her whereabouts had never been a concern of
his.

The wisp did not
seem pleased, and ranted on hatefully for a few moments, darting around him so
energetically that Wren had to step back.

“Don’t talk to
me that way,” Rifter scolded as if he understood her perfectly.  “And where the
hell were
you
?  I told you to find the pirates.  Didn’t you know I had
already taken care of them?  I was looking all over for you.”

She was here
with me
,
Wren thought of
saying, but then she understood.

She did it on
purpose
,
the girl realized. 
She led me to this boy Nix in hopes that he’d kill me.

Wren wondered if
it would do any good to say this, but kept it to herself when she noticed Nix
again.  He had turned to go.

“Walking away?”
Rifter called after him as the fairy drifted over his head.

Nix didn’t say
anything more, and didn’t wait for Rifter to either.  He kept going and had
soon disappeared into the shadows.

“Wait here,”
Rifter groaned, stepping past her to go after him, but Wren had other ideas.

“Don’t leave me
alone again,” she begged, reaching out to grab his arm.  He responded to her
touch.

"It’s
okay,” he said, giving her a reassuring smile.  “It’s just right here.”

“What is?”  But
before she got an answer, he too had vanished into the woods.

1

Beneath the dark
forest, known to very few, there was a system of tunnels that reached out under
the ground, spanning lengths in the cool, hard earth.  The tree roots were like
hallway arches, supporting the chambers of the labyrinth.  This was the place where
the wolves lived, yet this particular pack was not of beasts, but of boys.

If anyone had
chanced to find the hideaway, they would have been met with a surprise – yet
wouldn’t have lived very long afterward.  The group that lived within the
tunnels did not take their secrecy lightly.

The forest floor
was full of holes which allowed easy entrance to the tunnels at different
points.  There were many who had tried to seek out the home of the Rifter and
his Pack, but none had ever found it.  Some said this was because the Rifter
kept it as such a heavily guarded secret in his own mind that the discovery was
able to be hidden from everyone else on the island.

Being one of the
Pack, Nix knew the passages by heart.  He dropped down into one of the
openings, but of course he knew he couldn’t hope to get away from Rifter like
this.  It wasn’t as if he wished to escape.  It was the point of the thing! 
Storming off had its advantages, and one of them was getting back to his
brothers to make them see what had happened before Rifter could twist things
around.  He was good at that.

Nix passed
through the dark tunnel in the silent, still air, knowing that Rifter would be
along behind him shortly, but he reached the den first.  It was quiet.  The
rest of his brothers – none of which were related to him by blood – were lying
low for now, but not for long, and Nix would make sure of that.

There was one
there sleeping on a bear skin that was spread out over the dirt floor.  Could
he not stay awake long enough for Rifter to come back?

Lazy bastard…

“Wake up,” Nix
ordered, dropping his quiver down onto the boy’s chest.  The boy with the dark
curls gave an ‘
oomph’
as he awoke.

“What?  What’s
happened?”  Finn asked, jolting upright and wrapping his arms around the quiver
instinctively – but once he saw what he was holding to himself so protectively,
he pushed it aside.

“Is he back?”
asked Toss, whose wide girth was all but blocking the fire that he was hunkered
in front of.  “Has he brought someone new?”

“He brought a
girl
,”
Nix said moodily as he passed through to the other side of the den.

Just after those
words had left his mouth, Rifter entered behind him, looking perturbed that his
announcement had been ruined, but his arrival had gotten the others’
attention.  They all began to appear.

Toss and Finn
stood to show their readiness in the presence of their leader, and a pair of
red-haired boys who looked as if they had come from both sides of a mirror
crept out of the shadows like rats.  Only Sly did not come forward, and that
was because he was resting above them in an alcove with a heavy, old text in
his lap.

“What?  A girl?”
Finn asked, still rubbing his eyes to fend the sleep away.  “I thought we
decided—”

He stopped when
he saw the harsh glare Rifter was giving him.

“Never mind
then,” Finn corrected, scratching his head beneath his mop of black ringlets.

“We
did
decide that it was a bad idea, but Rifter did what
he
wanted to do – as
usual!” Nix went on, whirling back to light the air on fire with his opinion.

In the niche,
Sly sighed and looked back to the pages of his book.  “Here we go…” he
muttered.

“The sea sent
her to me,
twice
,” Rifter defended.  “That’s never happened.  Besides,
I’ve never called anything faulty – except maybe
them
.”

Rifter looked
disapprovingly at the red-headed twins, Mach and Mech, who he could never quite
tell apart, but they seemed to like it that way.  It was their private joke
against him.  Presently, they scowled at him identically beneath their
freckles, but Finn was amused by Rifter’s joke and snickered to himself.