Weald Fae 03 - The Aetherfae

  Mom wasn’t happy about moving the family so soon, but she agreed when Tse-xo-be explained that we were being “stalked” by Naji’s counterpart. In fact, she was paranoid. She climbed into the big white Lincoln and hollered at Mitch through the open door. “Move boys, we need to leave.”

  He and Justice walked with Doug and Ronnie, lugging their bags in no particular hurry. The rain didn’t seem to bother them. Candace helped my grandparents climb into the second row.

  “Mitch, please hurry,” Mom said, while scanning the woods surrounding the house.

  “Okay, okay, Mom.”

  “Now, Mitch!”

  I couldn’t read her mind, but I knew she was seeing images of Naji’s face and hearing his words when he said he’d come for all of us.

  Under a veil of Clóca, the Fae watched from the field as Ronnie loaded the bags and slipped behind Mitch into the third row. Doug climbed in next to me in the driver’s seat. He hadn’t said two words to me since we arrived. A few minutes before we left, Tse-xo-be let him, Ronnie, and Candace call their parents. Since we were leaving, he said there was no harm because the Fae tracking us would find our Vermont hide-away in the next twenty-four hours regardless of what we did. Doug had seemed happier during the call, but even more withdrawn when it ended. I couldn’t blame him.

  Justice stood at the open door and growled at something across the pasture. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Justice’s snarls enhanced the nerves I was already feeling, and the sensation of being watched returned. I closed my eyes and let my mind float out of the car. I concentrated on Mara. Find Mara.

  My mind moved quickly, but not very far. Floating above the branch of the huge sugar maple at the edge of the woods where Mitch and I talked the day before, I abruptly stopped.

  “Justice, come on, boy,” Mitch called. I could hear him from across the grassy field some three hundred yards away.

  “Come on Justice, come on,” Candace joined in trying to cajole the big dog into the Navigator.

  I turned and looked. Justice stood fifteen feet from the open door of the white SUV, baring his teeth. I had seen him do that before. With Chalen, with Cassandra, and with Drevek—across the field my heart pounded like it was jumping out of my chest. She’s here. Without thinking, I snapped back into my body and sprang from the car, forcing the door shut behind me with my mind. With my invisible grip, I lifted Justice and pushed him into car.

  “What is it?” Mom wailed when I forced the door shut and wrapped the Navigator in my strongest Air barrier. Anger, rage, fear, they all mixed in my chest and I used them to pull up Quint. I lashed out at the tree in the space above the branch where I’d just been. The Ohanzee didn’t move from their hiding place a thousand feet away. I stood exposed for several seconds, expanding my Air barrier around the car and myself. She could be anywhere around me. I wish I knew her alignment. If she can make Clóca, she has to be either Water or Air, right?

  “Show yourself!” I snarled.

  Nothing happened.

  Are my nerves just getting the best of me? How could Justice sense what the Fae cannot? My nerves tingled—the sensation of being watched was stronger than ever. No, it’s not my nerves. She is here. Watching me. She’s close.

  I readied the raw elements of Fire and Earth, prepared to combine them into Quint, and quickly pushed my Air barrier out in all directions. I felt nothing as it doubled in size, but as it doubled again I felt her. She was behind me. My Quint missile hit the spot where I felt her, and in less than a second from when I made contact. It sizzled on her Clóca barrier and disappeared. She moved closer to my family. I leapt toward her in a cradle of Air over the top of the Lincoln. I made it half the distance before she grabbed me. So, you’re Air-aligned. She began forcing me down, but I subconsciously changed my Air barrier to Clóca. Her connection to me failed, and I dropped like a rock. Before I hit, my mind switched back to Air and I reappeared next to the driver’s side door.

  Again Mara grabbed me and pulled me toward her. Once again I shifted my barrier to Clóca, and I immediately stopped, her grip vanishing. Clóca defeats Quint. Good to know. It also cuts off Air. I expanded my Air barrier even further, pushing it out into a giant ring. The instant I made contact with her, a pair of massive black wings appeared as Wakinyan dropped onto her barrier, blue energy mixing with orange. She blew him away a few hundred feet, but he lunged again.

  Somewhere in my mind, I recognized the attack coming. My dad’s face flashed through my thoughts and I heard my mom’s voice in my head. I wrapped Clóca around myself and the car, so strong it shimmered like a mirrored dome. Her Air attack washed down the sides of the barrier and gouged huge chunks of earth and stone out of the ground in a circle around us. Everything shook and I tumbled to the ground. Lighting struck her shield and then penetrated. A scream filled the valley. She didn’t sound hurt—she sounded furious, and it sent a shiver down my spine. Out of the corner of my eye her barrier strengthened, becoming visible the instant before she shot away. Wakinyan gave chase, flinging powerful bolts of lightning in her wake. He stopped when she disappeared.

  “What was that?” Mom asked in a shaky voice as I climbed back into the SUV.

  “Doug, drive, please. That was Mara, I think.”

  “Is she gone?” Mom asked.

  I turned around in my seat and immediately felt a pang of guilt. They were all terrified. “I think so,” I said. “Doug, please drive.”

  “Into the giant ditch?” he said, staring out the windshield.

  “I’ll get it,” Tse-xo-be said in a disembodied voice.

  “Which one of them is that?” Mom asked twisting in her seat “Not the bad ones, I hope.”

  “It’s Tse-xo-be…a good one.”

  Tse-xo-be repaired the damage and Doug accelerated out of the yard onto the paved lane that ran down the hill toward the main road. Every nerve in my body tingled, making it impossible to project. I concentrated on calming myself—I had to track Mara. By the time we turned south on Highway 7, I was breathing normally. But I was the only one in the car doing so. Doug’s hands shook on the steering wheel. Grandma’s eyes were clamped closed as she rocked in her seat. Grandpa craned his neck to stare out the side-window. Mom was looking at me, both hands and arms wrapped protectively around her stomach. She was terrified.

  “Mom?”

  She diverted her attention to her lap and took a deep breath. There was something odd about her behavior. Well, more odd than it should have been, even given what she’d just witnessed. She wasn’t clutching Mitch like I expected. He was snug in the third seat with Ronnie’s arm over his shoulder and Justice’s head in his lap. He stroked the dog’s head with one hand and had a white-knuckled grip on both Candace’s hands with the other.

  “Mom?” I said again.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  “Yes, yes, you will,” I said emphatically.

  She glanced up at me with the most bizarre look, still clutching her stomach. She didn’t say anything else. I knew by the look in her eyes that she was worried about something, and it wasn’t just herself. She had the same look when Mitch fell off the roof in Boca Raton and broke his arm. She had it the entire time he was in the hospital.

  Past Dorset, we drove south through the wooded mountains. I stared at the distant peaks that rose and fell beyond the trees lining the road. “I really don’t know what to say to any of you, except I’m sorry.”

  “Mags—” Mitch started.

  “No Mitch, please, let me finish. I didn’t ask for this, but like Aunt May used to say, it wouldn’t matter if I did because I’m in the middle of it whether I like it or not. All of you are in the middle of it now. As much as I tried to keep you out of it, I failed. I’ve lied to all of you so many times over the past two and a half years. I know an apology won’t cut it, but I’m going to apologize anyway and promise that I’ll be honest. There is no point in trying to hide it now.

  “The Ohanzee have a plan. Well, it’s Candace’s plan. A
nyway, if it works, we’ll be able to hide you from them. You’ll be able to disappear.”

  “You’ll?” Mom said. “You’re not planning to go with us?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Why?” Grandma said, her voice cracking.

  “Do you think you’re a, what did you call it, a Maebown?” Mom asked.

  I stared at her, unsure of what to say.

  “I read the journals, Maggie, and I know what you think you’re supposed to be.”

  “Think? No, I know what I am.”

  “No you don’t. You can’t do all those things yet. You don’t have to be one of them—you might not be one of them. You need to stay with us. We’re your family, Maggie. Don’t we deserve to have you with us? Can’t someone else sacrifice themselves?”

  “Sacrifice?” Doug said, staring at me. “You never mentioned that.”

  “Uh, apparently you missed that part in my journal.”

  “Shut up,” he snapped. “You never mentioned sacrifice. Your dad, your aunt, Rachel, haven’t there been enough sacrifices already?”

  “That’s just it: unless I do this, there will be more and more just like them. The Fae who want me dead are bent on exterminating everyone. If I give up, they’ll get their way. And Dad, Aunt May, Rachel, all the others, they’ll die in vain. I won’t let that happen.”

  “Maggie, we need you with us. I need you,” Mom pleaded. “I haven’t told you…I didn’t know how.”

  “Didn’t tell me what?”

  She wiped a tear from her eye and quickly wrapped her arms around her stomach again. “I’m having a baby, Maggie.”

  My head spun.

  “Your dad and I were going to tell you, but he…” she heaved, “…I don’t know how to do this without him. How can I do this without him? Without you?”

  Dersha’s voice rang through my memory. “Four hearts,” she’d said. In my head I wrote, Did any of you know?

  “Yes, Maggie,” Billy said silently. “We know.”

  Well thanks for telling me, I responded.

  “It was not our place. How could the rogues know?”

  “The Council knew,” Faye said. “We sensed it. Vilas told Ozara—he was one of the Seelie who died in Florida.”

  I scribbled a reply in my head. I remember him. If the Council knows, the mole knows, and that means the Second knows.

  “Very likely,” Billy said.

  Mom’s voice rang in my ears. “Maggie, I will not have you leaving us to go off playing hero. That is my final word. Do you understand?”

  I wanted to argue with her, but I knew better. Everyone’s nerves were frayed and I knew arguing with my mother was a no-win situation. There was no way she would back down. I would leave them, in time, but it was foolish to argue about it now. “Okay, Mom, I heard you.”

  “Do I have your promise?”

  “What choice do I have?”

  “I want you to promise me. Give me your word.”

  “Elena, enough,” Grandpa whispered forcefully.

  “What?” she snapped back, glaring at him.

  “And you think you can talk to me that way in front of my grandchildren? You were raised better,” he said sternly. I’d never seen my grandfather angry and it upset me.

  “She is my daughter,” Mom said in a guttural, pain-filled voice.

  I wanted to turn the stereo on and give them some privacy, but everyone was quiet and looking out the windows, hanging on every word. I couldn’t begin to imagine what Mom was going through.

  “And you are mine, mi preciosa.”

  Mom’s face softened and he took her hand.

  “Maggie is eighteen—the same age you were when you left home. I have listened to everything she says and I know in my heart that she does what she believes is right, just like you raised her. She can do these things, muchos milagros. I cannot understand these and neither can you. I trust her to do right. If she says she must go, I trust her.”

  “I trust her, too, papa, but I’m not ready to let her go,” Mom said, her voice cracking with emotion.

  “Ay, mi preciosa, letting go is always the hardest thing,” he chuckled. “But you have me and Mama and Mitch. We will take care of you and my new grandbaby.”

  Mom dabbed at tears. “It’s a boy, by the way. You’re going to have another grandson.”

  “Cool,” Mitch said from the back of the car.

  Doug exited the road and drove toward the town of Manchester. “I need air,” he said. We drove past several large, wood frame homes on spacious tree-lined lots. The homes in Manchester—country colonials, saltboxes, and Cape Cods—were very different from the Victorian mansions and bungalows of Eureka, but Manchester had an unmistakable charm. With each passing house, I wished we could just stop, pick out a place with shutters on the windows, and live our lives like the people I saw. A big part of me wanted to blend into the masses and just enjoy being eighteen. That wasn’t going to happen. Mara was out there hunting me.

  We drove through an intersection, past a small red church with a steeple, and a light gray three-story building with a mansard roof. Doug swung the big white Lincoln into a small gas station. He killed the ignition and bolted out the door, heading inside without looking back.

  “Are we safe here?” Mom asked.

  “I’m not sure—but Tse-xo-be is close…I’ll go talk to him.” Ronnie followed, offering to get everyone something to drink while shooting me a careful look.

  Inside, Doug stood over a chip display. He didn’t appear to be looking at anything in particular, but I could see the pain in his expression. I walked up beside him and wrapped my arm around his.

  “You okay?”

  He nodded quickly. “Fine. Why would I be anything but fine?”

  I let go of his arm as he turned to me. Under the pulsing vein at his hairline, his crystal blue eyes watered. He finally asked, “What does sacrifice mean, exactly?”

  “In the past, two Maebowns destroyed two Aetherfae, but each Maebown died in the process. Nobody except Ozara knows the truth and, if you haven’t guessed, she hasn’t felt the need to share anything with me. I don’t plan to die, but I will do what I have to do to make sure my family and friends don’t.”

  “Why isn’t Ozara helping you? I mean, why in the world has she put you into this situation? Dodging some half-crazed invisible vampire—it’s insane. Aren’t you supposed to save her, too?”

  “I don’t know why.” It was an honest answer.

  He took a deep breath and shook his head. “That would be the first question I’d try to answer, if I were you. Something is wrong about this. I feel it in my bones and I know you do, too.” He fixed his eyes on me.

  “I know. I do feel it, too, but I don’t know what to do about it except to trust the Ohanzee.”

  “Do you trust them?” He asked in a gentle whisper.

  I turned and looked out the window. “I do. Gavin and Billy trust them and I trust Gavin and Billy with my life.”

  Doug exhaled and snatched a bag of chips. “That’s good enough for me, I guess. I trust you with mine.”

  An awkward chuckle escaped my throat—more from the release of tension than anything humorous. “We’d better get back outside.”

  He nodded. “You going to be okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so—if Mom chills out.”

  “I know how she feels, Maggie.”

  I smiled and looked back up at him. “You do?’

  “Yes,” he said, looking intently into my eyes. “She wants nothing more than to protect you—she’d gladly take your place, die if necessary, to keep you out of harm’s way. But she’s dying inside because there is nothing she can do—nothing you’ll let her do. She’s powerless, helpless, and she can’t imagine living a day without you.”

  A warm rush of emotion coursed through my chest. He cleared his throat, rubbing his right thumb at the corners of his eyes. “Congratulations on the little brother. I hope you get to meet him.” Before I could say anything, he walked
past me to the clerk.

  Ronnie slid up next to me, fumbling with an armful of water bottles. “He going to be all right?’

  I nodded.

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Uh huh.” He shot me a doubting look.

  NINE

  BRIAR PATCH

  Once we were back on the road, I projected. My mind raced to a place just a few miles away, where I assumed Mara was watching us drive south towards Massachusetts. She knew by then that Wakinyan was watching us and probably suspected that he wasn’t alone. Even though the Ohanzee had remained hidden, I assumed she knew the rest were close by. We couldn’t disappear with her lingering about, and if the Ohanzee tried to alter us, she would witness it. I had to figure out a way to draw her into the open so Wakinyan could take her down, or shake her once and for all.

  Every time I opened my eyes, either Doug or Mom asked if Mara was still following us. “Yes,” I said each time. The tension grew by the mile. In Connecticut, she tried to compel everyone in the car to think the road veered hard to the right. I blocked her but everyone else in the car saw the image. Doug steered toward an embankment and wouldn’t listen when I told him to go straight. I used Air to force his hands off the wheel, and steered straight until Wakinyan closed in on her. When she used her gift, Wakinyan could find her. She disappeared into the distance and everyone in the car stopped screaming as the road straightened out and the semi they all saw barreling toward us in the vision just disappeared. They were understandably freaked out.

  After the close call with Wakinyan, Mara kept her distance and I’d begun maintaining an Air barrier around us. I had to drop it to track her—I hoped she didn’t know what I was doing. Through Massachusetts and Connecticut she drew no closer than a mile, but distanced herself no further than two. Why doesn’t she go back to the Rogues and bring reinforcements? My gut told me she had a personal vendetta to settle—Naji died trying to kill me, after all. She doesn’t want help, does she?