The Gleaning (2 page)

My Logan and this monster were now a brutal tempest that I had no choice but to watch gust away.

Rage threatened to overwhelm me.

Focus. Help Logan.

It took a huge amount of energy to smother the flames enveloping the euca-tree, but I did what I’d been trained to do. I compartmentalized.

My icy breath covered the forest with new fallen snow until only a few leaves simmered. I had two choices. Follow my doppelganger’s trail into the forest and find out who she was—and why she was impersonating me—or do what Logan explicitly forbade me to do: Go after him.

Lily

I tore through the woods, deeper into warlock territory. Jacob wouldn’t physically hurt Logan before the Gleaning, but he would try to poison his mind; manipulate him into doing Jacob’s will.

I chased the traces of black stink wafting through the air like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs—only this time the witch was doing the tracking. Jacob’s burning had affected me more than I felt comfortable admitting, and my spells’ healing efforts had left me frail and vulnerable. Even with the protective strength of Logan’s amulet, I wasn’t at my best.

Still, it was laughable that Jacob assumed he could render me useless, that I’d lack the aptitude to track the orange dust that left scars against the white tree bark.

That I’d give up on Logan so easily.

Then, I saw her: a blur of white-blonde hair ahead of me on the trail. I sprinted hard after her but was blinded by a flash of white light and collapsed against a tree. A bird screeched overhead, its full wing-spanned shadow veiling my moonlit path. Startled, I let out a small cry and stepped back.

The bird lowered, its bright eyes peering into mine.

An enormous sense of relief washed over me. I was no longer alone. It was Logan’s totem animal. His familiar. It was the red-tailed hawk, Clay.

Logan

Logan was above the action, his body soaring high over dark clouds. Over sweeping forests of black-green, suspended above a vast canopy of trees. His focus narrowed until it centered on a handcrafted wooden structure nestled among thick branches near the top of a tall oak.

“Mama! Daddy!” a young voice cried.

Logan peered closer, trying to make out who had cried for help. And then, in a whirled flash, he was lost, sucked inside the tree house, looking out at a little wooden cabin. Creamy smoke curled out of the chimney, drifting toward the stars. He felt scared, lost, and alone.

If his parents were home, why weren’t they coming for him?

What? Logan looked down at skinny arms dangling from a waif’s frame. Where had that thought come from?

A red Spider-Man T-shirt and jean shorts. Tiny bare feet. Shivering, he waited as his eyes adjusted to the dark, and he bent over onto knobby knees, discovering action figures he was overwhelmingly interested in playing with: a small wooden wizard wearing a tiny blue-cone hat. A bright green dragon.

He was allowed to play with these toys here, but not in the real house. He didn’t understand why.

“Where am I?” Logan said out loud.

Lily

Logan’s totem flew low, talons nearly scraping the dirt before he rose again, only a foot higher this time. As I sprinted after him, Clay’s wings began to retreat, his body grew. His talons morphed into paws, and in a flowing blurred motion, his feathers melded into soft red fur. Now, the fox-creature I had shot earlier stood in front of me, wagging his long pink tongue.

“What is this? National Shapeshifter Day?”

Fox-Clay’s eyes brightened.

“Wait, wait. So that was
you,
Clay? You dug me out of the mud when I was stuck?” Then a terribly remorseful thought. “Oh my Seven Sisters, I’ve shot you twice. I’m so sorry.” I smacked my forehead in regret as Clay cocked his now canine one. “At least I brought you back to life?”

His black lip rose, baring sharp, glowing fangs that looked more frightened than ferocious.

“Come here, boy.” I knelt and pulled his head into my arms. He kneaded into my chest, and I patted his soft fur. “You are full of surprises, aren’t you, buddy?”

He whined a little, but it was more like the purring noise he made after I’d resurrected him. “You know where he is, don’t you?”

He barked once, like an enchanted Lassie. Game on. “Take me to him then, Clay. Take me to Logan.”

Logan

Everything was dark and smelled the way blackberries do after they’ve been basking in afternoon sun—fresh, ripe, and begging to be eaten.

Picking berries from the thicket near his house was one of his favorite things. He knew to watch for thorns. Mama warned him even sweet things could sting.

Rubbing his eyes, his long legs still shrunk into kid’s pajamas, he wondered what time it was and when he’d fallen asleep. One thing Logan knew without a doubt was that his spirit inhabited the body of a young boy, and he needed to figure out why. His memories, thoughts, and feelings merged with this small child’s until he couldn’t separate one from the other. After an hour or so of frustration, he stopped trying and simply gave into the nostalgic sensation of wonder.

Peeking out the circular window, Logan examined the snowflake-shaped stars scattered across the night sky until he settled on the brightest of all—the planet Venus. On tiptoes, he could see every crater, every hole like he had Superman’s vision. Daddy talked about the man in the moon, how if you looked close enough you could see him. But he never talked about this bright planet that looked like Mama’s smile.

His little heart skipped a beat when he looked down. He was so high up! How would he get down? Holding on to the splintery wall, he tripped on something—a rope—with bars. A ladder! He held onto the coils and was about to fling it down like the unraveling of a cartoon tongue, when he stopped. Something, an intuition maybe, made him set it back down.

Lily

I chased Clay through the woods until our destination loomed before us, filtering through both the coastal trees, and my despair, in wisps of broken light.

The Warlock Academy.

We crept up behind the palatial property, a dark mansion on sprawling, impeccably maintained grounds. Clay stopped and sat on his haunches, panting from his exertion on the trail. I knelt beside him, patting his warm, damp head. I cupped my hands together and the icy layer I created in my hands quickly melted into water I offered to my companion. After he drank to satisfaction, I whispered, “Logan’s in there, right? Do you know where?”

Nudging me in the thigh, Clay led me toward the outer corner of wrought iron fencing. He tilted back his head, sniffing the air. His tail twitched as his glowing eyes surveyed the area for Sons of Darkness; then he began to dig.

The hole Clay dug was just deep and wide enough for me to crawl through. I squeezed under after him, praying to the Seven Sisters to mask my scent for the next hour. Then with a twitch of my swordfinger, the mounds of loose dirt solidified back to the way we found them. My magic with Logan’s amulet was powerful, and surprisingly nimble.

Clay waited patiently, all the while sniffing the air for danger. Then he led me to the back of the building, a smooth gray wall devoid of windows or doors. To the naked eye, it looked like a dead end. But as Clay paced back and forth in front of the wall, I realized that he suspected more. Finally, he stopped, confirming my hopes. His wet nose pressed into a thin, almost invisible crack, and when he did, the fissure spread. I backed up, as the wall separated into two craggy pieces, and a dark chasm appeared.

In an intense, fluid motion, Clay nudged me through the opening. Immediately, the wall resealed itself behind me. The last thing I saw before it closed completely was a flash of Clay’s red tail, and then I was alone in the dark.

Logan

“Logan, shh…stay quiet.”

“Mama!”

“Shh. It’s okay, I’m here now,” she said in a soft whisper.

Like the hero-prince in one of her stories, Mama appeared in the doorway of the tree house—her hair tied in a knot, her mouth twisted with worry—to rescue him.

“How did you climb up without the ladder?” he asked.

Mama cupped his face in her hands, filling him with an odd sensation, like swallowing a mug of melted honey. “Magic,” she whispered.

“Teach me.”

“I will. Someday.” She kissed both of his cheeks, then glanced out the doorway again. Her expression, and the low, urgent tone of her voice, frightened him. “Don’t be scared. You are the bravest boy in the whole wide world.”

“Braver than Spider-man”

“Braver. And wiser than Merlin.”

“Wiser than Merlin? Nobody is wiser than Merlin.” He was trying his hardest not to shout.

“Except you, Logan. You are wiser than Merlin and stronger than the strongest dragon.”

“Now I know you are making up stories, Mama. I’ll
never
be as strong as a dragon.”

“You are the most special boy in the world, and one day you’ll be strong as a dragon.”

“I don’t feel as strong as a dragon.”

“You will, Logan,” she said, with flashing, knowing eyes. Then Mama pulled something, a chain with a glowing stone, out of her pocket. “This is for you. It’s a magic amulet. Never take it off, and it will always guide you.”

“A necklace?” He crinkled his little nose. “Necklaces are for girls.”

“Not this one. This one is for wizards.”

The amulet shone in his hand. “Cover its light. Like this.” Mama tucked the stone under his T-shirt’s collar. “It will keep you safe.”

“You keep me safe.”

Mama wrapped him tightly in her arms. So tight it almost hurt. He tried to wiggle away, but she only held him tighter. She whispered in his ear. “It will keep you safe…” her voice cracked, “when I can’t. No matter what happens, no matter what you hear, do not come out of this tree house. Do you understand?”

“But I can’t stay here forever.”

“Someone will come for you. Do not come down alone. Promise me.”

“I’m scared.”

“I know. I love you so much.”

Logan smelled smoke, more than just chimney-smoke this time. He heard voices. Scary voices.

His mother kissed him again, and when she backed away, his cheeks were wet from her tears.

Facing him, she stood in the doorway of the little tree house. He covered his mouth, stifling a scream, as she took a step back and floated on air as if there were an invisible platform under her boots.

He wanted to call out for her, to please come back, to please not leave him alone, but he remembered her warning, to stay quiet. To stay still. All he could do was reach out his hand and watch powerlessly as she floated away into the smoky darkness.

Lily

I had no idea where in the “house” I was (if you could even describe this mammoth residence in as modest a term as “house”). My only clue was that it was pitch black and smelled of moldy fountain water in the middle of a southern summer. Guess I’m not in the master suite. (Unless warlocks did as vampires do and crypt it up at night. Which, for what I’d seen of Jacob, was a distinct possibility.)

I stepped forward, just a tiny step, but stumbled as I reached back to the wall for support. It offered nothing more than an oil-slick surface; my reward was a harsh tumble down a flight of cement stairs.

Landing at the bottom in a heap, I surveyed myself for physical damage—throbbing wrists and butt; bruised shoulder, but nothing broken—then pulled myself up carefully as my eyes struggled to adjust to the dark.

I couldn’t See like I could outside. The warlocks must’ve protected their secrets with a spell that blocked me, and I couldn’t undo it without revealing myself. The question of the moment: did I dare spark my swordfinger or risk another blind-as-bat injury in this labyrinth?

Logan

He opened his eyes expecting the interior of the tree house, the frightening smell of smoke. Instead, he was met by a fishy odor, like seaweed steaming on a hot beach. When Logan turned to his side, his hipbone jabbed into hard cement. His back was twisted into knots. The thin raggedy blanket he lay on reeked like moist dust and moldy cheese.

His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, and he realized where he was.

The dungeon.

Logan groaned as his mind flooded with memories from earlier in the evening, though the details of how he’d gotten here were fuzzy.

That woman in his dream. She had to be his mother. He reached for his amulet and found Lily’s.
Wear it for always. Never take it off,
his mother had said. And he had—until he lent it to Lily.

What happened to her after she floated away? What Jacob had told him—that he’d been abandoned on the steps of the Academy—didn’t match up with the caring mother in his dream.

Then he thought of Lily and the fire. He needed to get out of here. Find her. He’d blacked out after Jacob set the brush aflame. She could easily ward that off, but what if he’d had backup?

This wasn’t like the other punishments.

Now he had something worth protecting: Lily. And a clue to his past he was determined to follow.

Lily

I inched along the slick walls in the dark, my palms slipping along the smooth concrete. Then suddenly the surface wasn’t cool and hard anymore. I felt my hands squish wet indentations into the wall that smelled of fresh blood. I tried to jerk my hands back as I heard a low hissing. A swishing of something…reptilian.