Lure

  Chapter 17

  DAVID

  I jolted awake at the sound of rustling leaves right next to my ear. I would’ve fallen out of the tree if I hadn’t been tied down to the branch by a length of leather. It was Cearo’s belt, knives still attached. I righted myself while trying not to impale myself at the same time.

  Cearo was stretched out in front of me, her dress baggy on her without the belt. She glanced back at me as I settled myself. “Bird,” she said. My eyebrows twitched up in confusion, so she elaborated. “There was a bird by your ear. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Oh, good. Uh, thanks for your belt,” I said. She just nodded slightly. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, didn’t think I could, but I must’ve nodded off after the dog wandered off. The shadows of the forest were long now, so the sun must have just risen. There was no sign of the dogs, but no sign of Mom or Eric either. I hoped they’d made it through the night.

  “I think we are safe from the hounds now. We should get to the hide-out,” Cearo said.

  “Great, let’s go.” I untied myself and handed her the belt. She tied it around herself with no worry of accidental stabbing before jumping down to the branch below. She was already halfway down before I started climbing. As if realizing this, she looked up at me and waited to see if I’d need help. But going down turned out to be a whole lot easier than going up. We made it down in record time and I was even fairly quiet this time.

  “Is your ankle still in pain?” she asked.

  I had forgotten all about it. I hadn’t felt a thing since waking up. “No.” I loosened the wrappings enough to peer at the wound. It was completely healed, just a few pinkish dots where the punctures had been. Miraculous. “Whoa, it’s almost gone.”

  “Good. This way then.” She turned and started on another invisible path. I followed without a second thought about my ankle. Quickly though, I realized we had a different problem.

  “Hey, we’re going the wrong way.”

  Cearo barely paused. “No, we are not.”

  “I’m telling you, yesterday we were going that way,” I said, pointing to our right. “And that’s the way Mom and Eric ran when the dogs chased us. Unless the sun works differently here, this is definitely the wrong way.”

  She stopped very suddenly and I expected to glimpse the full extent of her wrath. Instead when she faced me, she looked mildly impressed. “You always were good at that,” she murmured so quietly that I barely caught it.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. The hide-out is this way. It is only slightly out of the way.” She started to turn again.

  “If they ran in the direction we need to go anyway, shouldn’t we just try to catch up? They’d wait for us.”

  “They cannot wait there. It is too open and the next hide-out is far. They will know it is best to double back and regroup.”

  “They won’t know to come this way though. We have to find them.”

  She was starting to get exasperated, but I wasn’t ready to give up on this point. We couldn’t lose track of Mom and Eric. It just wasn’t an option. She stared at me long and hard, probably waiting for me to crumble, but I stared back, never wavering. After a long minute, she said nothing but walked past me in the direction we’d come.

  I couldn’t believe it. I won. Against Cearo. I should get a plaque to commemorate this moment.

  Soon, we passed the remains of my shirt. It was basically just scraps now. Cearo paused next to it and put a hand up for me to stop. The fabric burst into flames before quickly dying out, leaving a scattering of ash that was quickly dispersed by a breeze.

  “Maybe it is smart to come this way, at least so I can cover our tracks,” she said. I don’t think this actually occurred to her until now, but if she needed a reason of her own, I was fine with that. It still meant we were going the right way. Besides, I’d won. I knew it. She knew it, even if she’ll never admit it. The corner of my mouth tilted up as I followed her on.

  We went a good half hour without seeing anything. I worried that we’d somehow passed the place we’d gotten attacked and were lost now.

  “Are we still retracing our steps?” I whispered tentatively.

  “Yes.” She moved to the side and motioned forward. That’s when I could see an obvious break in the foliage. That must’ve been where we had initially crashed through with the dogs. We ran farther last night than I realized. As I came up even with Cearo, she whispered, “I have covered our tracks up until there. I want to approach that area slowly.”

  I couldn’t argue there. Something could still be there, waiting for us to come back. I nodded, and we began tip-toeing closer. We moved to the right of the break so that we could see partway in, yet it’d be difficult to see us. We came to a stop behind a large tree that had lots of tall brush growing in front of it. We could see through it to the bodies of the dogs. One of Cearo’s knives was still sticking out of one of them. It was so obvious that I wanted to go pull it out right now, but I held back. Cearo was absolutely motionless. We stood until my muscles were cramping, waiting for any threat to reveal itself.

  A twig snapping broke the silence. Both of us faced the direction it came from in an instant. I couldn’t see what it was from here, but I could feel that it wasn’t just an animal. I needed to see. I slowly inched up until I was stretching to see over the bush.

  Near another break in the foliage where Mom and Eric were chased away, a light brown crop of hair was sticking up just above a plant. My eyes locked with Mom’s when she turned toward me and I jerked into motion, ready to run over to her. Before I could finish my first step, Cearo grabbed me and tugged me down. I knew better than to ask what that was about, so I followed her gaze.

  Exactly opposite Mom, three Seelie, including Boden, came into the clearing. One that I didn’t recognize approached the body of the dog with the knife still embedded. He pulled it out and held it up. “Now how’d they come by this trinket?” he asked.

  “I don’t care,” Boden replied, barely glancing at it. “Armed or not, they’ll be no match for us. But it proves they came this way. Split up and search the area. We’re closing in.” Boden headed for the break near Mom while the fire-eyed fairy that I recognized as having had burned me, headed toward the break next to Cearo and me. The fairy who’d found the knife continued searching around the dog bodies.

  I had no idea what to do, where to go, or how to move to get out of this unseen. I had only a second to decide. I dove toward the other side of the tree, putting it between the approaching fairy and me. The universe seemed to like me a little at that moment by allowing me to land quietly on the soft dirt. I’d definitely leave an impression, but maybe if we got away they’d assume it was made during the dog attack.

  I searched for Cearo. She had a similar idea. She also put the tree between herself and the fairy, only instead of diving down as I did, she’d climbed up. She crouched on a low branch as her gaze flicked from the fairy to me and back. So far, we hadn’t been noticed, but that wouldn’t last long. I pointed behind me, trying to ask silently if we should make a break for it. She motioned for me to stay down and held up one finger to indicate she only needed a moment.

  She slithered up to the next branch, where the fairies would only notice her if they knew to look up. Luckily for us, they didn’t know to do that, but Mom did. Cearo began motioning in the direction I’d seen Mom. She seemed to be saying to go the long way around the clearing. It meant sneaking around and staying hidden longer but not having to cross paths with the fairies.

  I assumed this plan had been put into action when Cearo crouched back down. By now I’d had to change my position at the base of the tree to keep out of sight of the fire-eyed fairy as he moved closer. I was now wedged between the trunk and the bush, barely avoiding touching the latter and giving away our hiding place. We had to run soon or I’d have nowhere left to go.

  I looked up at Cearo again, hoping she’d give me a signal to run. She didn’t disappoint. She looked down at me and adjusted
her stance so that she’d be ready to fly off the tree and run. Then, after a brief glance that must have been to make sure Mom and Eric were in position, she held up three fingers to start a countdown. On three, she held her other hand in the fairies’ direction. On two, she flicked her wrist down, causing a loud snap near Boden. On one, the fairies charged toward the sound, and we sprinted the other way.

  Our exit was the opposite of subtle. Cearo’s distraction may have worked for a couple of seconds but no more. We crashed through the forest like our own mini parade. The fairies gave chase. I heard Boden yelling orders to the others to use their elements, but nothing came at us. I suppose a wall of fire in this dense forest would do more harm than good. I once again thanked the universe for taking my side in this.

  They pursued us past the place where Cearo and I had lost the dogs. This time though, there were no sharp teeth grabbing for my ankles. There were just evil fairies who wanted to torture me. They were spreading out, but they sounded confused. I thought they were trying to surround us but doing a terrible job of it. I heard them shout at each other, asking which way. They were losing track of us. Oh, yes, please lose track of us, I thought. I turned back as quickly as I could to find out what was happening. Cearo was flicking her hands up and down and this was followed by cracks and crashes, scattered in all directions but always far from us. It was working. She was throwing them off. Their shouts were moving away from us. Mom was concentrating hard too, covering our tracks so that all of the plant life had grown right back as if we’d never stomped on it.

  Cearo tapered off her distractions when the Seelies’ voices were all but gone. We kept running until we couldn’t bear it any longer. As we slowed to a jog, we tried to be more careful about where we placed our steps. Mom, Eric, and I were getting a little better at being quiet. We’d caught on fast, and soon I thought we’d be able to give Cearo a run for her money. Well, we probably weren’t that good, but at least she wasn’t glaring at us anymore.

  Finally, we took a short rest, hidden among a dense cluster of trees. I hugged Mom and Eric each tight enough to make them have to catch their breath again, but it was worth it to see them safe and whole.

  Barely speaking, we did a quick assessment of injuries. Mom had a large gash on her forearm that appeared to be festering. It not only looked disgusting but also smelled that way. A dog must have caught her too, but I was fine now. What was wrong with her? Cearo pulled out a small bag from her pocket and held it out to Mom. Mom grabbed some white, iridescent powder from it and spread it on the wound. The cut looked better almost instantly. The infection appeared almost gone and the skin was beginning to close. Soon it would just be a pinkish line to match my pinkish dots.

  Cearo must have healed me with that powder after I drifted off last night. I hadn’t even thought about how I could have recovered so fast. I watched her until she finally looked at me. I wanted to thank her, but she looked as if I had caught her in some embarrassing act and quickly looked away.

  “So which way do we head now?” Mom asked quietly.

  “We should lie low for a little while to make sure we have really lost the Seelie,” Cearo answered.

  “Agreed. You have another hide-out near here, don’t you?”

  “Yes….” Cearo studied her for a moment. She was suspicious. “How did you know?”

  “Your library here is in roughly the same area relative to the Seelie castle as the one in the UnSeelie Kingdom. So I thought maybe all of them were laid out the same?” Her voice went up like a question, and she stepped away from Cearo a little.

  Cearo was still. I thought she might be pissed that someone had figured out one of her tricks. She gave a quick nod. “Good hunch.”

  Mom visibly relaxed. “Wow, I was right?” she said under her breath.

  Cearo gave what could almost pass for a smile, and her eyes flashed mischievously. She was a fairy afterall. “You were half right.” She offered no more.

  Mom held onto Eric and me as we resumed the hike. She didn’t need support but she wanted to keep us close. I can’t imagine how terrifying the past hours have been for her. Trying to protect herself and Eric from the dogs, worrying if I had made it to safety, then having to run all over again, the stress should be unbearable. I held her hand just as tight to try to reassure her.

  I looked over to Eric to see how he was doing. He was still solemn, but I was pretty sure the shock had passed for good. In fact, I think the episode with the dogs proved to him how real this was. Hopefully he knew to be more careful now. We can’t trust anything here.

  Cearo stopped so suddenly, we almost passed right by. She gave us that devious almost-smile again.

  “What? Are we here? Is it under this tree?” Mom asked.

  Cearo raised her eyebrows as if to say “figure it out.” Mom looked all around the base of the tree, trying to discern anything out of the ordinary. The tree was enormous, probably the biggest I’d ever seen, as wide as those famous redwoods in the Northwest. Otherwise, I wasn’t noticing anything different about it either. When clearly none of us were getting the picture, Cearo tilted her head way back to gaze far up the trunk.

  Mom’s eyes followed. About thirty or forty feet up the trunk there was a dark gash in the wood that could have been an opening. “Ohh…,” she let out on a breath. She did not seem happy about this turn of events. “But the UnSeelie one you took me to was underground.”

  “I said you were half right,” Cearo replied. She huffed, which I took to be her almost-laugh. “I always change one direction. One that is on the east side here may be on the west side there. One that is down there may be up here.” With a lightning-fast flash of teeth, Cearo turned and began climbing.

  Mom was still staring. “My element is earth. I am not made for this,” she muttered to herself.

  Cearo answered her anyway. “They will not expect you here. They will not even bother to look.”

  Mom sighed in resignation and began to climb. Eric followed after her and I brought up the rear. Climbing trees, I mused — another thing I was getting really good at here in fairy world.

  We disappeared through the gap in the trunk one by one. Not twenty minutes later, we heard Boden and the other Seelie pass us. They’d somehow picked up our trail again, or maybe they’d just gotten lucky with their guess, like Mom. Either way, just as Cearo said, they never even noticed us up here. We were safe for now.