Across Carina (13 page)

No wonder they haven’t noticed us.

I turned back to the fawn, hoping that it would be ready soon. My hunger was motivating me to be braver around the fire. I couldn’t remember the last time that I had eaten.

Sal, meanwhile, was watching our guests with a cold stare—I think waiting to see if he would need to intervene.

The blonde threw up his arms. “Let’s have a show!”

“A show?” the girl whined. “A show of what?”

She sat up and started to button her shirt.

“Anything!” the blonde screamed, and he swayed back and forth in faux search of his show.

The brunette ignored him. He pulled the girl back down, whispering something in her ear.

When the blonde and I made eye contact, he did a double take. Finally, one of them realized that they had company.

“You!” he said, pointing at me. “You have a fire! Join us, and let’s have a show!”

He waved his hands across his face and bowed.

“What is this guy, a magician?” Sal muttered.

“What did you say?” the blonde asked.

“You guys need to leave,” Sal said louder.

“Leave?”

The brunette pushed the girl off and stood up. He snatched his friend’s bottle and took a long swig.

“Yes, leave,” Sal repeated. “I don’t like what’s happening here.”

“Well I don’t like that you’re in my face!” the brunette shouted. “You think you own these woods?”

He spit on the ground between him and Sal, leaning against one of the trees.

“Step away from that tree,” Sal said.

He moved toward the brunette, and the girl and the blonde watched like it
was
a show.

“Or what?” the brunette taunted. “Are you some forest freak?”

“I’m warning you,” Sal said, a new edge in his voice.

As annoyed as I was, I couldn’t see the problem with the brunette leaning against the tree. After days of conflict, I wanted no more of it.

The brunette took another drink from his bottle, shaking it on his lips. His supply was low. Then he glanced from Sal to the tree once more, and his eyebrows shot up.

“I get it!” he said. “You’re in love with this tree!”

That’s when I remembered the dryads. I wasn’t quite sure how tied they were to their trees, but I had a feeling I was about to find out.

Sal raised his fists and moved toward the brunette. The brunette only laughed. He stepped back from the tree and held his bottle high. And then he threw it.

The bottle hit the tree, smashing into pieces. Alcohol went everywhere. It was in the air and spilling down the trunk of Dion’s tree.

Sal screamed. He rushed at the brunette and shoved him to the ground. The blonde jumped onto Sal’s back, squeezing him tightly around the neck. He finally wrestled Sal off, and the girl looked at me, pleadingly, as she scooted away.

The brunette was free. He whipped off his belt and swung it at Sal, who was still fighting the blonde. The buckle slashed Sal’s cheek, leaving a streak of blood. Sal finally pushed off the blonde and leapt to his feet. He had a boy on either side of him.

But luck had brought him something: a double-fist-sized rock at his feet. It was jagged and gleaming. Sal picked it up and threw it at the brunette, who collapsed with a grunt. Then the blonde charged Sal, and their two heads mashed—blonde against black. The boys took each other by the biceps, circling, and neither was stronger than the other.

I wanted to help Sal, but I knew I wouldn’t last in the fight. I looked at the fawn and the fire pit. I had seen the power of fire once before, but I wasn’t certain that I could control it—that I could act more powerfully than the element itself.

I stood unsteadily. I wanted to fall back down or run away, but the sight of Sal struggling was too much. Even though I barely knew him, I sensed that he would be helpful on my journey home, and I therefore needed him strong and well. Besides, I liked him—as much as I could like someone I’d just met—and I hadn’t liked anyone in a while.

I thought about tearing a thick branch off one of the trees and lighting it in the fire. Maybe that would scare off the blonde. I started for one of the trees, but a question stopped me, burning in my ears.

If I tear off a branch, will I have torn off a dryad’s arm?

And I wondered. None of the dryads had come out of their trees to help us. Could they not engage humans? Were they really just spirits, appearing sometimes as flesh and bone?

No, that doesn’t make sense either. I saw Sal and Dion embrace. I know I did.

So far, I had gone unnoticed. I began to circle the fire in search of a loose branch. At least if it was loose, I wouldn’t have to wonder if I was dismembering a dryad.

After a minute I ran into the girl. She was kneeling over the brunette, who had open eyes and a steady chest, but even still she sobbed. The brunette was rambling, swearing that he would provide for her and slaughter Sal with his bare hands. I felt sorry for the girl, for her involvement with such drunken fools.

Sal and the blonde were still locked in a fruitless struggle. I finally found a branch—three feet long—and ran it back to the fire. Without anyone tending to it, the fire had become unstable. Its flames were jumping high above our little fawn. The fawn looked like it was almost done, but I wasn’t hungry anymore.

I lit the branch and carried it toward Sal and the blonde. The orange glow caught the blonde’s eye, and he pulled away from Sal with a nervous laugh.

“Stand back,” I ordered him.

A surge of energy coursed through me. Wielding the element that I had once seen kill, I suddenly felt powerful. I waved the branch, watching its thick trail of fire flash. The blonde sneered at me, but backed away. I knew that he was frightened, but I realized so was I. Feeling powerful didn’t mean that I was in control.

Sal held out his hands. “Thank you, Jade. Now give me the branch. I’ll take care of him.”

Right then, the brunette burst onto the scene and pulled the fiery branch out of my hands. I staggered back, swearing at him and then at myself for overlooking him. The blonde seized the moment to remove himself from the fight. He hurried over to the girl, where she was still sobbing on the ground.

The brunette turned to Sal and snickered. “Take care of him? You fool! Do you know who we are? I’ll take care of
you
and your pathetic friends!”

He walked to the tree that he’d smashed his bottle on, and then he dropped the branch. Sal lunged at him, but not before the tree was in flames. The brunette looked from Sal to the tree, his eyes widening like he had thought of something. And in a second he was gone, fleeing the scene of the crime. His friends stood up and hobbled after him.

“Dion!” Sal screamed.

He started for the tree, but I grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back.

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” I shouted.

He moved effortlessly out of my grasp.

“I have to do something!” he cried.

He made it to the tree and began circling it, muttering to himself.

“Think, Sal, think! You can’t let her die. You can’t let her die. You can’t let her . . . wait! The stream! The stream! We have to get water!”

The stream was a mile away. There wasn’t time. I watched helplessly as the fire spread from tree to tree, and the dryads’ cries traveled in a wave.

“Why aren’t they coming out?” I demanded. “Why aren’t they coming out, Sal? They’re going to die!”

I knew the answer. I had figured it out. I just didn’t want to acknowledge that I was the reason the dryads couldn’t escape. For they were tied even to their roots. They couldn’t escape without their legs. Their time to use their legs was limited, and they had used it all up for the night on me. To play a game with me.

I shook my head, and Sal did, too. Except he was on his knees, crying, staring up at the sky.

“Why?” he screamed. “Why?! Tell me whyyy!”

And then, as if passing through a filter, his lovely bronze skin boiled red. Rage seeped from his pores. His whole body trembled. He jerked his head toward the edge of the forest, where the trio had fled, and took off after them.

Our fawn had cooked into charcoal, sacrificed along with the dryads. It looked like the entire forest was on the verge of burning down. I was overwhelmed, lifting off, starting to split into two. Everywhere I turned was Garrett’s face, and it made me dizzy. I had to get out of there before I split all the way.

And so I abandoned the woods where the dryads had danced and fireflies had fallen. As I was passing Dion’s tree, I noticed her violet eyes—they were blinking at me. I paused there for a moment, blinking back at her. My eyes filled with tears. And Dion whispered something. I didn’t know what. It was too late. Her blinking slowed as flames coursed to her highest branches, and then her eyes closed in quiet death. I whisked out of the forest, blazed by a familiar guilt.

Several yards ahead of me, Sal’s feet pounded the ground. Ahead of him, the trio howled in a stupor. I ran after all of them, kicking sticks and shoving branches out of my path. Cold air stung my chest. I tried to breathe through my nose, but I couldn’t help panting. I was running out of air, out of ideas.

I stopped to rest. I couldn’t hear anything anymore. Everyone had vanished, taken their voices with them. I knelt down and tried to breathe, to really breathe. The world was quiet, but my mind was in a raucous state. It was being gnawed on by a legion of clones—of my greedy, sinister clones. I hated them, and they hated me, and we all deserved it all.

There was a rustling, then. It had somehow slipped into the chaos. But it was too soft for the scene, and so it pulled me out with it, pulled me out of myself.

I looked up, and I was looking at wheat. A huge field of wheat. It was swaying in the wind, caressing stalk against stalk. It was twice as tall as me. And the moon was shining brightly, illuminating the field in a bluish glow.

I pushed through the wheat, and there was more. I couldn’t see anything else. For a moment I stood very still and listened.

Suddenly, lightning struck the center of the field. Several people cried out.

Sal.

I pushed through the wheat, calling Sal’s name, but I couldn’t tell if he was responding. The cries had gotten louder and jumbled. It was difficult to tell what was being said, much less who was speaking.

“The sky!” someone screamed.

I looked up. The sky had parted where the lightning had hit, and something—no—some
one
—was descending through the hole.

It was a woman. She was wearing a short, brown tunic and holding a bow. She had a case full of arrows on her back. Her long, wavy hair was piled in a messy heap on top of her head, with ringlets hanging down around her stone face—a canvas to gold eyes and a prominent nose.

Artemis,
I mused, remembering my schoolbooks from what seemed a very long time ago.

As she landed in the field, the sky closed back up. I pushed through the wheat to get a better look, and I stumbled upon a clearing. Artemis was standing at the edge of it, her back to me and her eyes on Sal and the trio. Sal’s face was freshly bruised and his shirt caked in dirt. He had clearly engaged in another fight with the boys, who were both wearing bloody frowns.

Nobody had noticed me yet. I crouched behind the last of the wheat, watching Artemis beckon Sal to join her. She moved her finger in a slow curl, and Sal obliged. He looked right at her and walked across the clearing.

He had never mentioned her to me. I wondered if they were friends. It seemed a fanciful thought, but there Artemis stood, with Sal at ease beside her.

She spoke only a few words, and they were low and haunting—ringing across the field.

“You dared to kill my dryads. You mocked and abused them.”

The trio cowered in her presence, their eyes on the ground. Every part of them began to shake. Their teeth chattered, their tongues rattled, and their bones—I could almost hear them clanking as the three fell down in frenzied bows.

“We knew not what we did!” the girl cried.

She raised her bottle as if to explain their actions. I couldn’t believe that she had remembered to grab it amidst the chaos. I wanted to laugh and cry and kill them all.

Artemis’s eyes flashed crimson. “And yet now you mock
me?
By blaming a substance for what you did?”

The girl waved her hands in protest. “No! I would never mock you! I swear it! Forgive me!”

The boys echoed her, wailing, “Please! Please!” but they were quickly interrupted.

“I summon the Erinyes!” Artemis screamed, looking up at the sky.

Sal twitched at the name. I didn’t know who the Erinyes were, but it seemed I was the only one. The blonde scrambled across the clearing and threw himself at Artemis’s feet.

“No! Please, goddess! We will do anything! We implore you!”

I scowled at his feigned speech, only present in the face of death.

Artemis ignored him. She had her chin up, her eyes on the sky. And in another flash of white, the sky reopened, and she ascended.

For a moment, none of us moved. We waited in the quiet despair that Artemis had left in her wake.

Finally, Sal spotted me. He managed a half smile and then ran to my side. His eyes were bloodshot, but wide open, like it was all he could do to keep going.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.

The trio began to scurry about, jabbering over what to do next. I thought that they would make a run for it, but they seemed to know something I didn’t.

“Who did she summon?” I asked. “Who’s coming, Sal?”

“I’ll explain later,” he said. “We need to leave
now.
You don’t want to see this.”

He took my hand, but it was too late. A gust of wind swirled into our clearing, almost knocking us over. It advanced on us like a train.

I held on to Sal as three hideous winged women flew toward us. They were in tattered black robes, carrying whips. Their skin was like cracked leather. They were older than death.

One of them cackled, counting the boys and the girl on her crooked fingers.

“Three on three,” she said. “That’s one a piece, sisters.”