creepy hollow 03 - faerie war Read online

  Asim shouts to me from the other side of the Circle. “All right, you’re up, Violet. We’re bringing the first cart.”

  I turn to Jamon. His eyes examine me, giving me a look that I think says, we can trust you, right? I nod. He reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a stylus. I was allowed to use it briefly this morning, but then he took it back. After a moment’s hesitation, he hands it to me. I know this time he’ll let me keep it. It’s the same stylus that was hiding in my boot when Farah found me passed out in the forest. The same stylus Jamon confiscated from me about half an hour after I woke up.

  With a deep breath, I turn around and walk toward the largest piece of blank wall on the outer edge of the Circle. I chose this spot yesterday while everyone else was rushing around getting things packed. I raise my hand to the sandy wall and scratch the words to open a doorway into the dirt. Words that seem to come automatically to me, like breathing. Beneath my hand, the dirt melts away to reveal a black opening. I feel for the edge of the doorway and make a spreading motion with my hands, pushing the opening to extend it. I try not to think of all the people standing behind me watching me wave my hands around like a mad woman.

  When the opening is wide enough, I turn around and see Asim standing nearby with the first cart. I slide one foot backward through the doorway to prevent it from closing, then motion to Asim to bring the cart closer.

  “Ready?” he asks.

  “Of course.”

  With his magic, he sends the cart rolling toward me. It slows and stops before bumping into me. I wrap my hand around a wooden piece sticking out at the front. With my free hand, I release some magic, send it flowing beneath the cart to the back, and push. Then I walk, the cart moving beside me, into the darkness. The light behind me diminishes. When it disappears completely, I know the doorway has closed.

  I focus then on the new hiding place. It’s inside a mountain. I don’t know exactly where, but Asim gave me enough details for me to arrive at the correct place this morning. He met me there and showed me the room he wanted everything delivered to. As I picture the room in my head now, light forms in front of me. I push the cart forward through the rapidly expanding hole, and a group of young reptiscillan men waiting in the room jump up and whoop with excitement. I push the cart into the center of the room, then turn around and head back Underground.

  It isn’t hard work; it just gets boring after a while.

  Open doorway, walk through, wait for doorway to open on the other side, push cart through, walk back.

  Repeat.

  People begin unloading the carts as soon as I push them through. After several deliveries, I’m able to start taking empty carts back with me. I lose track of time, but I must have been going for several hours when Asim makes me sit down to eat something. I assure him I’m feeling fine, but he insists.

  I sit on a swing in the playground munching a sandwich he brought me, trying to ignore Jamon pacing around and around a set of climbing bars. Eventually I say, “Hey, Natesa’s going to be fine. Stop worrying.”

  “What?” He stops and looks up at me. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know that’s what you’re worrying about.” Natesa’s younger brother is nine years old, so he had to go on foot to the new location, along with his parents. Natesa refused to let her family go without her.

  “Don’t be silly,” Jamon says. “I’m worrying about everyone out there.”

  I give him a knowing look before turning back to my sandwich. “Whatever you say.”

  I continue working late into the evening. After my third snack break, I’m sure there can’t be that many cartloads left. With the end in sight, I try to speed up, opening doorways as quickly as I can. But just when I think I’m finally finished, Asim says, “Okay, once we get the transporters through we’ll be done.”

  Transporters? “What? I can’t drive those things.”

  He must notice the panic on my face because he laughs as he places a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, we don’t expect you to drive them. We’re busy loading the transporters onto the carts. These last few trips won’t be any different from the other loads you’ve taken through.”

  I look over his shoulder and see a cart with an egg-shaped transporter balanced on top of it. Two men direct the cart carefully toward me. Just as I wrap my hand around the piece of wood at the front of the cart, I hear shouting coming from one of the tunnels. Most people have vanished by now, but I know there are still a few guards hanging around. And the guys who own the transporters, I guess. I peer around the side of the cart to see what’s going on.

  “They’ve found us!” yells the reptiscillan guard who comes running out of the tunnel. “Draven’s faeries! They’ve—” He jerks to a halt, then falls forward onto the ground. Protruding from his back is a sparkling arrow exactly like the one I shot a few days ago. A moment later, faeries spill out of the tunnel into the Circle. They’re wearing the same dark blue uniform I saw on the man and woman who came searching for us in the forest. Glittering arrows fly everywhere, missing their targets as reptiscillas start vanishing. Colored sparks dart and weave, and spears of ice shoot across the Circle. A knife sails toward me and lands with a thwack in the wooden cart just inches from my head. I duck down behind the cart.

  “Get out of here!” Asim yells to me as he dives for cover behind another cart. He could have vanished by now, but as the Leader Supreme I suppose he thinks he should be the last one to leave.

  I kneel down and drag my stylus through the dirt, writing words to open a doorway at my feet. Hands grab my arm, and something sharp slices the bare skin between my neck and shoulder. I roll onto my back and kick as hard as I can. The faerie stumbles backward just as a dark hole melts into existence beside me. I fall into it, feeling a hand grab for my jacket—and lose hold—as I disappear.

  I drop out of the darkness of the faerie paths and land on my feet in the mountain room. Unloaded carts stand forgotten as chaos erupts like a crazed ogre on the loose.

  “Where’s my father?” Jamon demands, circling on the spot as his eyes search desperately between people. A moment later, Asim appears beside me, stumbling forward a few steps before coming to a halt, as though he was running when he vanished.

  He pulls his son into a hug while asking me if I’m okay.

  When I touch my neck, my fingers come away red. “I’ll be fine. The wound doesn’t feel that deep.” I take a closer look at him. “But what about you? There’s a long cut across your forehead.”

  “Also not deep. It’ll be fine.”

  Jamon’s mother rushes over to her husband and son. “What happened?”

  “Draven’s faeries arrived,” Asim says. “A whole lot of them. I don’t know if they found our entrance leading from above ground or if they simply opened faerie paths into our tunnels.”

  “Who did we lose?”

  “One guard. Maybe more.” He looks around. “I can’t tell yet.” He moves away, walking sideways through the crowd, his eyes searching over people’s heads.

  Jamon runs a hand through his hair, then lets out a long breath. “That was close. At least there weren’t many of us left there.”

  “And we managed to get everyone’s belongings moved before the faeries arrived,” I add.

  “Well, aside from the transporters, but that’s hardly important.”

  “Hardly important?” A guy nearby grabs Jalen’s arm. “Do you have any idea how expensive transporters are? I saved for three years before I could buy mine. It was the latest model! If you don’t get it back, there are going to be some serious consequences for—”

  “Hey, will you get over it?” I pull the man away from Jamon. “Just be thankful you’re alive.”

  He turns on me. “You’re the one who should be getting it back for me. This whole faerie paths thing was your brilliant idea. I should’ve just driven my transporter through the forest.”

  “So why didn’t you? I certainly wasn’t forcing you to put your stupid egg-shaped machi
ne on a cart so that I would have even more work to do.” I push him away from me. “If you want your transporter back, go get it yourself. Do your vanishing thing. I’m sure Draven’s faeries will be more than happy to finish you off when you show up in the middle of their forces.”

  “Don’t you dare tell me what to—”

  “Enough!” Asim’s voice rings above the clamor, commanding immediate silence. “We barely escaped with our lives, and you’re fighting over transporters? It’s not as though you’d even use them here. You no longer have endless tunnels to race along.” He looks out over the crowd of people squashed into the room. “Your homes here will be tiny and cramped. Tempers will be short. You’ll long for your old lives Underground. But this is a war. Sacrifices must be made. Be grateful you got out with your lives and get on with it.”

  I hear some grumbling, but people start moving toward the various doorways that lead off this room and down tunnels that are much narrower than the ones they’re used to.

  “Do you need my help with anything?” I ask Asim.

  “No, no, you’ve done more than enough today, Violet. We’re incredibly grateful. You can go and get yourself settled. Jamon—” he turns to his son “—we need to find out what’s happening with the group traveling on foot. They should be arriving later tonight.”

  They disappear into the throng of people while I try to figure out which doorway I’m supposed to go through. The tunnel behind me leads outside the mountain, so I can rule that one out, but that still leaves me with five to choose from. I see a leader with a list in her hand, pointing people in various directions. I join the queue to ask her where Farah’s new house is.

  Farah will need help moving and unpacking her stuff, so it’s a good thing I don’t have many of my own belongings. Just a few clothes that Farah got hold of for me and—I pat my pocket and feel the paper there—the note from the guy I don’t remember.

  A gasp breaks through the chatter, and I look up to see someone pointing behind me. I swing around, my fingers already prickling with the instinct to fight. Protect. But I don’t see Draven’s faeries. I see a group of reptiscillas running, stumbling, crying. Many of them are children, the younger ones carried by adults, the older ones dragged along. I see blood and scratches and dirt.

  A girl falls onto her knees and drags herself out of the way. People start to gather around her, but not before I notice the colorful ribbons in her hair. I run toward her, skidding to a halt and dropping onto my knees beside her. Natesa has a knife sticking out of her chest, just below her right shoulder. A knife that glitters like fiery golden stars.

  Someone shouts for a healer.

  Someone else screams that we’re under attack.

  “No,” Natesa gasps. “They . . . they stopped. They saw the children and . . . they backed off.”

  “She’s right,” says a man clutching Natesa’s hand. Her father? “They started attacking, but then they disappeared. We ran the final distance to get here, but no one followed.” A woman beside him weeps as she clutches a young boy to her side.

  I feel the crowd moving behind me. A second later Jamon is on his knees next to me. “We need a healer right now. Somebody find a healer!” He touches the knife but doesn’t remove it.

  “Can’t you heal her yourself?” I say. “You know, with your magic.”

  “What? No. We can’t do that. Natesa,” he says to her, “everything’s going to be okay.” He touches her face, then pulls back and looks up. “Where’s the healer?” he yells.

  “Let me do it,” I say. I place both my hands on her bare arm and get ready to release magic into her.

  “What are you doing?” Jamon pushes my hands away.

  “Giving her my magic. It’ll help her body to—”

  “You can’t do that! Your magic isn’t the same as ours. You don’t know what it will—”

  “Move aside.” A woman with white ribbons twisted through her two thick braids steps through the rapidly parting crowd. Behind her is a man with strips of white fabric criss-crossing over his right arm. In his hands is a long, rectangular board. He sets the board on the ground, and he and the woman use their magic to move Natesa onto it. Swiftly, they lift the board and head down one of the corridors. Jamon and Natesa’s family follow closely behind.

  I look around and see more reptiscillas with white fabric or ribbons wrapped around parts of their bodies attending to various people in the room. No one seems to be as badly injured as Natesa, though. Guards run in and out of the room, and healers start sending patched-up people to find their new houses. I join the back of the queue again to find out where Farah’s living while I try to wrap my mind around the most puzzling question of the day: Why did Draven’s faeries back off instead of capturing every reptiscilla they could get their hands on?

  Farah’s new house in the mountain is so small the two of us have to share a bedroom. It’s okay. I mean, it’s not like she snores or anything. It’s just a little weird lying awake at night and hearing someone else breathing from across the room.

  The next morning, I tell her I’m going to spend a few hours familiarizing myself with the tunnel system. In reality, I need time alone to figure out some of my guardian skills.

  I’ve been told what guardians can do—they have special weapons that only appear when they need them—but no one can tell me how it works. Weapons appeared for me when I fought Jamon and when I protected him, but I have no idea how that happened. My body just went ahead and did it without giving my brain time to figure it out.

  I’m also told that guardians are fit and strong and fast and all these other things that I’m so not anymore after spending weeks cramped Underground with barely any exercise. But since I no longer have the status of Major Threat amongst the reptiscillas, no one should mind if I start some private training. The reptiscillan guards or warriors or whatever they call themselves probably have a special training area. No way am I going to embarrass myself in front of them, though.

  The longest tunnel I can find is one that feels like it’s taking me right into the heart of the mountain. I don’t know where it ends, but I’ll turn around before I arrive anywhere important. If this is an off-limits tunnel, I don’t want to land myself in trouble.

  After I’ve walked a good distance, I turn around and run back. Then I run it again. I repeat the process, trying to make each lap faster than the one before. When I’m gasping for air and can’t possibly push my legs to move any faster, I slow down. I lean over and breathe deeply.

  That felt good.

  Without giving myself time to worry about how it will work, I straighten, shoot my hands out toward an imaginary foe, and—nothing. No sparkly weapon. I turn, sweeping my hand through the air as if slicing it with a sword—but still nothing. Great. Am I supposed to be thinking something specific? Is there a spell that goes along with these weapons?

  I drop down to the ground and do some push-ups before trying the weapons again. After a while, I’m doing stupid things like snapping my fingers and shouting ‘sword.’ Not surprisingly, it doesn’t help. I run a few more laps to work off my frustration, then head back to Farah’s.

  I suppose I should start thinking of it as my home too, not just Farah’s. It’s not like I have anywhere else to call home. I reach her tunnel, which isn’t pretty like the one she lived in Underground, and push open her door. Jamon is in the kitchen frowning down at a piece of paper in his hand. The kitchen is a tiny room with barely any space around the table to pull the chairs out, which is probably why he’s sitting on one of the stone counters.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?” I ask.

  He hurriedly folds the paper and shoves it into a pocket at the front of his pants. “I thought you might want to know about everything we’ve learned from the prisoner you helped us capture.”

  “Oh, yes, definitely.” I lean against the back of a chair and wipe sweat from my forehead. “I’ve been dying to ask, but I thought it was probably only leaders who got to know information li
ke that.”

  “Well, usually, yes. But since you were instrumental in his capture, I thought you deserved to know what we’ve found out. And my father thinks you have the right to know everything that’s happening with the Guilds now—since that used to be your life.”

  Right. It’s probably a good thing I don’t remember anything of that life right now, or this would be a difficult conversation. “And everything he’s told you is the truth?”

  “Of course. My dad can make a mean truth potion, you know.”

  “I didn’t, actually, but thanks for the heads up. I’ll be careful not to drink anything your dad gives me.”

  Jamon laughs, something I would have thought impossible less than a week ago when he was still perfecting his death stare on me. “Anyway, let’s go outside and I’ll tell you what we know. I feel like the walls in this place are about to squash me.”

  “I hear you on that one.” I open the door as Jamon hops off the counter.

  “Oh, and you might want to put that jacket on,” he adds.

  I lift an eyebrow. “Is there something I don’t know?”

  “Yeah. Winter’s arrived.”

  My lips part. “But . . . summer’s barely over. We haven’t even had autumn yet.”

  He sighs. “Welcome to the reign of Lord Draven, supreme commander of uncomfortable weather conditions.”

  I groan, grab my jacket and one of Farah’s jerseys from the hook behind the door, and head out after Jamon. He leads the way through the tunnels to the large room I delivered everyone’s belongings to, then down the tunnel that ends up outside. An icy wind cuts through my clothes before we reach the opening. I hastily pull on Farah’s jersey, followed by my jacket.

  I expect to see more light at the entrance, but there’s a boulder positioned on the mountainside in front of it, with just enough space on either side for a person to slip in or out. Guards line the walls of the tunnel, and Jamon tells me there are more guards scattered across the mountainside.