Lichgates: Book One of the Grimoire Saga (an Epic Fantasy Adventure) (2 page)

But she’d changed. Life had lost its flavor since her mom died.

When Kara had gone to the café on her first day back this summer, she saw Tony through the window. She’d waited for that familiar surge of adrenaline and desire, but it never came. She didn’t even blush when Tony smiled from his place at the front. She’d forced a smile in return, but it must have come out as a grimace. The boy had faltered and looked quickly away. He had avoided her eye since then.

She didn’t mind the isolation, though. Not really. In a strange way, she kind of liked it. She often saw family friends on the paths, and they never just let her enjoy the peace that came from a silent hike. She’d already been trapped in a chat with her dad’s previous tennis partner once today. And on her way back to the car, her mother’s old yoga buddy had appeared around a bend. If Kara hadn’t doubled back and slipped onto the first trail she’d seen—the one that led her to the gazebo—the woman might have made eye contact, which meant an inevitable hour-long conversation. Kara just didn’t have the energy.

Kara wanted to enjoy talking to people, but she just didn’t. She could only think about how to get away from the discomfort of inevitably having to answer questions about her mother, whom nearly everyone had loved.

Since the funeral, Kara’s only escape came while hiking. The Montana Rockies were her haven. And when she hiked, she did so alone.

Kara spent a lot of time alone, lately. Probably too much, but she liked the reprieve. When she hiked, she could finally clear her mind. She could forget. A bit of her fear and anger dissolved away with every breeze that rustled the canopy. She simply walked, and nature entertained her. The woods were her home away from home. They were safe. They didn’t pity her or offer tissues or send her to therapy.

She would feel alive again someday, even though the grief made that difficult. For now, she would just hike.

But in the darkest pit of her mind—the one she most ignored—she knew solitude wasn’t the answer. Kara’s hikes only helped her avoid the real problem: that, deep down, she blamed herself for her mother’s death. She had no idea what to do about that guilt.

A tear built up in Kara’s eye, but she used the heel of her palm to wipe it away. She cleared her throat and pushed herself to her feet.

No more thinking.

She glanced around to get her bearings, a ball already forming in her throat. She needed to distract herself, and focusing on happy things had just led to more terrible memories. She instead focused on trying to figure out where she was.

Now that she was sitting in the gazebo—or lichgate, whatever—she could see the view previously blocked by the low-hanging branches. The structure hugged the edge of a cliff and overlooked a valley surrounded on all sides by a mountain range. A river flowed into a broad lake about a half mile into the distance. This wasn’t Lone Pine Lake, since there wasn’t a waterfall nearby. She craned her neck and stood, leaning against the frame for a better view. It didn’t look like Bluebird Lake, or Mills Lake, either. The wind picked up and carried the stale musk of dried leaves and grass.

Where am I?

She pulled her compass from her bag and checked it before glancing up at a pack of clouds that partially hid the sun. The path hadn’t turned south, and she knew her fair share of the Montana trails by heart. This had to be a new valley, one she’d somehow never explored. Her mom would’ve loved this!

Kara sighed. Her hand reached to the locket around her neck, but she stopped. Hikes were for letting go, not remembering.

She stepped off the other side of the gazebo. Again, there was a kick in her gut and a flash of blue light. Her stomach tightened, and she leaned against a tree for support. Bark caught in her fingernails.

No more chicken salad!

A strong breeze scaled the cliff and ruffled her hair. It was more of a rocky hill than a cliff, really, and the mossy slope wasn’t all that steep. It leveled out about forty feet down after a curvy trail.

She pulled out her phone to check the time. Another minute ticked forward, but she had about an hour before her dad sent out any rescue parties. She grinned and looked back at her pack, but left it. This wouldn’t take long, and she didn’t want the extra weight.

Kara used the tree as leverage to hop onto the sturdy path below. Step by step, she inched down the trail. Occasionally, she needed to wedge her tennis shoe into a cranny to slide down to the next section, but other than that, she could take it slow and steady.

After only a few minutes, she reached the valley and squinted back up to where the gazebo’s roof peeked through the trees. Not bad. With her finger in the air, she traced the way she’d taken, starting at the lichgate and going over each step in her head. But when she examined the base of the hill, her finger hovered and came to a stop.

Built into the rock was a marble door shrouded with overhanging roots and dangling moss that clung to its frame like bangs. The gray stone was the exact color of the cliff rock, so she would have missed it if she hadn’t been looking closely.

She brushed her hand along the door’s smooth stone. It was simple, like the lichgate, and had a round stone knob. A small emblem carved into the rock at eye level looked like a four-leaf clover made of crescent moons.

Her fingers itched on the handle. The temptation to explore something ancient pulled her toward the door.

C’mon, Kara. Think this through. There’s a door in the mountain and you’re going to open it? You have no idea what’s behind—

The ground trembled with a sudden force that knocked her against the cliff. The wind stopped, dissolving with a
hiss
into the hot summer sky. She scanned the valley. Several somethings cracked in the ground under her feet.

A sinkhole broke into the turf about fifteen feet away, swallowing the grass and dirt. A man’s voice roared through the fissure and echoed across the lake. When his cry died on the still air, there was silence.

Kara remembered to breathe, and sudden relief washed through her chest as she did. She shifted her weight to leave and even made it a few feet up the path, but she paused as a chorus of men shouted through the hole in a language she didn’t understand. Smoke pitched from the small crater.

Thunder rumbled overhead. A dark cloud churned in the sky, and her heart fell into her stomach; there hadn’t even been a single fluffy cloud up there ten minutes ago. That didn’t make sense at all—how could the weather shift so suddenly?

She glanced to the door and then back up the trail, hesitating, but her decision was soon made for her.

A blinding bolt of moss-colored lightning flashed, striking something in the sinkhole. The hairs on her arms stood on end. Heat coursed through her calves, and she caught her breath. Her ears rang.

Wait. That lightning was definitely green.

The cliff trembled as a deafening boom shattered the air. A drizzle of rain began, but it quickly melted into heavy drops that pelted her skin and clung to her hair. Another rumble coursed along the far edge of the valley. Kara needed shelter, and the last place she would go in a lightning storm was up a hill.

She turned back and twisted the door’s handle, sighing with relief as it opened—unlocked—and swung inward. Still, as wet as it was outside and as much as she wanted a safe place to wait out the rain, she lingered on the threshold to examine the room.

Mud covered everything from the floor to the ceiling, and since there weren’t any supports to hold the roof, she couldn’t figure out how the ten-by-ten dirt shelter hadn’t caved in yet. The air within was heavy, moist with the rot of dead leaves, and her only guiding light streamed in from behind her. Roots dangled from the ceiling like stalactites reaching for the floor. The wind picked up, howling as it pelted rain against her back.

She tested the ground with her sneaker. The dirt floor supported her weight, so she tip-toed into the room and left the door open. Rain fell in lingering drops on the threshold before disappearing into the growing pools of mud. She stuck her hands in her pockets and watched the raging storm outside.

A flash of dark brown blurred past her.

She jumped. A tan flicker snaked along the roof, and clumps of soil fell in sheets. She glared at the ceiling, holding her breath as the settling dust rained onto her shoes.

It had almost looked like a root moving, but—no, that was crazy.

Another streak of motion raced down the opposite wall. It passed through a shaft of light, and Kara saw its pointed, wooden tip. Tiny veins sprouted from it like hairs, digging into the dirt so that it could travel.

It was a root moving.

She bolted for the door, but she never made it.

A second spiny vine shot up from the floor and wrapped around her leg. It pulled. She tripped, falling into the first root as it snaked along the far wall. Dirt poured over her head, blinding her. She coughed on bits of decaying bark. The root tugged again and yanked her onto her hands and knees. It dragged her toward the center of the room. She reached for the knife strapped to her free ankle, the one her mom had—

No. She couldn’t think of Mom. Not now.

A third root wrapped around her waist. Yet another grabbed her hand as she reached for the blade. The roots flipped her onto her back. With a bang, the door snapped shut. Her stomach churned. The floor disappeared. She fell, and the roots let go.

Kara tumbled through the darkness. Whenever she tried to scream, dirt filled her mouth and nose. She eventually just held her breath, closed her eyes, and waited to be crushed in the landing.

Two roots broke her fall and bent with her, slowing her momentum but bruising her ribs in the process. Her hands slid off the grubs and mud as she grappled for something to stop her fall. Her cheeks flushed, and her stomach floated into her throat, heaving and twisting with her body.

She took a deep breath and thudded against something solid. She covered her head with her arms. Light poured around her as she held her position, waiting to fall deeper into whatever she’d gotten herself into this time. Her shoulder throbbed from the landing. Ringing hummed in her ear, but this was a new, silent place. She peeked through two fingers.

Dirt clung to her now-ripped jeans, and red smudges covered the exposed skin on her arms. Her shoes were caked in mud. Blood seeped through a rip in her sleeve, and a purple bruise had already begun to spread over her kneecap. She searched her arms and shins to feel for breaks, but nothing stung. That was good, but her phone had disappeared and her pack was still in the gazebo.

She leaned against the something solid that had broken her fall, which turned out to be a stone desk. Blood from her arm smudged the side where she landed, its red streak a vivid contrast to the desk’s white polish. A matching stone chair sat a foot or so from the desk, as if whoever had last sat in it had only just left.

Her hair was a mess of tangles and soil, and the streaks of mud on her cheeks smelled like a combination of carrots and crusty leaves. She brushed away as much of it as she could, rubbing the last of the dirt out of her eyes and wiping her face with the least-filthy bit of her shirt. The edges of her vision blurred, but the room slowly came into focus.

Stone shelves canvassed every wall from the floor to the twelve-foot ceiling. Every inch of every shelf was covered in books, each bound in colorful leather and labeled with gold symbols she couldn’t read. There were no doors in the walls of bookshelves, and the only light came from a pane of glass in the roof. Crimson sunlight leaked into what could only be a submerged library.

Kara eyed the skylight before pulling herself onto the desk and reaching for the window, but it was at least six feet away. Without any rope, she would never be able to escape through it.

She peeked over her shoulder, trying to figure out how she’d gotten into the room in the first place, but the only evidence of her fall was the pile of dirt where she’d been sitting. It was as if she’d appeared from thin air.

I’m trapped.

Kara sat on the desk and wiped the sweat from her palms onto her jeans. Her breaths became more and more shallow as adrenaline spiked in unison with her pulse. The ringing became a scream in her ear.

“Chill. Out,” she said rhythmically.

She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths to distract herself from the panic. Her chest rose and fell until the rush of her heartbeat faded from her head. When she could control her breathing again, she stared at the floor and debated her very limited options.