Page 16 of Shadowed Summer Sun
I chilled, smelling iron and mud. Then, Badb landed on my shoulder, but the Undertaker held out a hand.
“She must stay.”
My heart dropped, but somehow I knew the journey was to be mine alone. Smoothing her black feathers and laying a kiss on her beak, I let Badb fly off to a nearby tree.
“Wait for me. I’ll be back soon.” I cocked a crooked smile at her, tension gathering behind my sternum.
She screeched, and I left the In-Between space and stepped through the arch.
The sky within the Guarded Wood was a deep, warbling gray that shifted like smoke in a bowl of water. It clung to the ground, obscuring the base of its enormous trees with a thick fog. It was dark, as if a storm might break out at any moment, and oppressive silence dampened the sounds of my footsteps. No birds or animal noises echoed through the woods, and the terrain was rough with stones and steep drop-offs.
There was no verdant coloring, no deep greens or blues, only a desaturated filter that hung over every plant and rock. Impossibly tall though they were, the pine trees showed sparse branches adorned with sharp needle leaves and gnarled trunks that twisted at odd angles, only to shoot up into the mud water sky.
I could smell stone and dirt mingling with decay and the musty fragrance of a cave. The bark of the trees was too black, seeming to shift with Shadow as I passed beneath their branches, searching for the empty shores of Cottlewick Lake.
It should lie directly ahead, but my visibility was limited to less than a cornfield in front of me. A twig snapped under my foot, the sensation drawing my attention rather than any sound. Next to where I stepped was a dead deer. It lacked antlers, gaping holes where they should be, and had mostly rotted away, its flesh and entrails becoming one with the Earth.
Hovering my hand over the remains, I couldn’t sense its soul trapped within like I could with the husk. It had moved on. I put my hand over my heart. The next part of its journey lay ahead, and the natural cycle wheeled on.
I pressed forward, stepping between the giant pines and into a mass of deep gray mist. The cool wetness tickled my skin, and I felt the King within it. Opening my senses to the Guarded Wood around me, I found him everywhere, in everything, and this time, as my pulse hammered against my ribcage, it wasn’t from fear.
Smoky fog drifted over my skin, flowing like a weightless river across my arms and between my legs. Wetness bloomed within me. The intoxication of want lidded my eyes, and the red glow clinging to my skin intensified. I walked quicker, disregarding the difficult terrain. I had to get there, to the lake. I couldn’t stop.
Sinking lower into a deep glen, which meant the lake must be near, the wind whistled past my ears, singing secrets I couldn’t comprehend. And yet, something within me answered. Looking down at the tingle, I saw the black veining crawling up my fingertips, bleeding into my palm and forearm. It moved beneath my skin, searching, hunting,growing.
I leaned against the base of one of the giant trees, struggling to keep my breath even and my thoughts unclouded. Just ahead, as if frozen in the last moments of a battle, lay the entwined bodies of a great cougar and an over-large black bear. They were long dead and returning to the Earth, their desire for dominance coming to a futile end.
The sharp teeth of the cougar were missing, and the claws of the bear were absent as well, plucked from their previous owner.
Further, I had to continue on further, but the weight of the Guarded Wood sapped my strength, dizzying my thoughts like too much drink. A bent-over birch tree, the black stripes of its bark twisting and expanding, sat in my path. I circled around it and found a King’s Servant behind its leaves.
The headless wolf was decayed, carrying the body of a dead and rotting raccoon across its back. The small creature lacked a tail and slowly disappeared into the body of the Servant, surrendering its strength to the massive beast.
A scream tried to rip through me, but a knowing kept me silent, respecting the Servant’s purpose. It padded forward, digging under another dead being, this one much larger—and fresh. Looking closer, though I had somehow already known what to expect, I saw it for what it was, a hunter, a poacher, who’d stumbled into the forest and stolen from the King’s Wood.
Do not hunt where old Gods tread. Do not stalk beasts into the Guarded Wood.
As the man’s body disappeared into the Servant’s matted, black fur, the creature strode off into the fog, and stillness returned. I moved as quickly as possible, fatigue drooping my eyes while a continuing burn writhing under my skin kept me incredibly aware.
Something growled behind me, low and deep and primal.
I dared not look, speeding my steps toward the lake shore, trusting it to lay just ahead. Shadows swelled inside me, infiltrating my corners and locked rooms and watering the thirsty seed of Darkness that I had struggled to keep dormant for years. The new Shadows within me, the very same that had saved me from Bluestack Jack’s attack, were growing, entwining themselves with that which I had locked away.
The sloshing of waves on rocks drew my attention forward. The beach appeared out of the fog, a circular ring of stones waiting for me, each rock dappled with droplets of mist.
It was time.
Chapter Six
There Is A Natural Cycle. Do Not Break It.
CottlewickLake’scoolwatershone black against the rising full moon, which steadily crept higher into the sky until reaching its lofty peak above the center island. Midnight had somehow found the Guarded Wood, which had delivered me at the precise moment I needed to perform my Invoking.
I could see the central island clearly now, a sand bar pushing out of the water, and black trees taller even than those of the Guarded Wood jutted out of it.
Kneeling in the circle of stones I’d laid for myself, I discarded my shoes and retrieved each of the remaining tools from my pack. I was black up to the elbows now. Placing my stones around me in an arch, the wind picked up, howling through the trees like a great beast. And it was. Not wolf nor bear, but something older, darker.
The St. John’s Wort went in the center of my circle, and then I rose to call in the quarters. Walking to the east, I pulled a crow feather from my hair and held it up to the turbulent wind.
