CHAPTER 1 - KAITLYN
Iwoke from the jump like coming up for air from under water, fighting, terrified, could barely breathe, and — oof. I was face down in grass. I could hear water moving nearby, a river or… I tried to wake enough to count heads. Isla was beside me, then Archie, and Ben. Zoe was on Emma, who was stirring and moaning. Quentin was up. He came into focus, dragging a box toward the trees.
James was lugging a crate. “You up, Katie? We need some help, we’re out in the open.” To Zach he said, “Get your ass up.”
I said, “Are we all here?”
“Yeah, why?” He was panting out of breath.
“I don’t know, I just don’t trust anything.”
I lumbered up, grasped the handles of a rucksack, and dragged it to the underbrush within the tree line.
I stopped and put my hands on my hips. “Wait…? Where’s Magnus? Shouldn’t he be here to meet us?”
We got everyone in under the trees, hidden from view, surrounded by our things, and took stock. Zach fed the kids from a box of Oreos that he had somehow remembered to bring, saying, “We can go back for more, we have the vessel, we can leave at any time, right?”
For a panicky moment I thought,Do we have a vessel?
I said to Quentin, “Show it to me, I need to see it.”
He pulled one from his pocket. “Got it, it’s here. I just don’t understand why Magnus isn’t—”
Galloping horses, hooves thundering, an army was coming, though it strangely sounded very far away.
I jumped up. “Mag—!”
Quentin grabbed my wrist and yanked me back. We weren’t jumping up to greet Magnus, because there was something odd about the sound. A chill went down my spine. The horses sounded like they were approaching, though it sounded faint as if they continued to be distant.
I held onto Isla and Archie, frozen in fear.
There wasn’t a vibration. My eyes settled on the grass in the clearing, wispy wildflowers, straight and still, a small bug flitting from bloom to bloom.
Quentin pressed his fingers to his lips, gestured for us to stay put, and crept from our hiding spot to survey the clearing.
The thundering hooves drew very near.
My eyes were on Quentin’s back. He had his hand up — no noise, no movement.
Hooves stamped, a man’s voice, very very faint, like a whisper, “Haw!” The sound of horses quieted. A faraway sound of a dog barking.
One horse, barely perceptible, rode in a circle inside the clearing.
I held my finger to my lips to remind the kids to not make a sound. Because it was frightening, I wanted to scream and run.
Suddenly there was the sound of underbrush moving. Right in front of us a horse stamped, something smaller rummaged through the brush beside me. The sound was faint, but present, like the shadow of a sound — I clutched the children — a horse was right there. I heard the muffled puff of its breath, the hardly detectable creak of the leather straps. I could barely hear the man on the back of the horse, but I could sense him, his dim breaths — yet there was no one there.
Archie held tight around me, Isla buried her face in my clothes. The horse was breathing, sniffing, it felt like a horse’s muzzle was right there smelling me, the nose of a beast that I couldn’t even see…
It was terrifying how it felt — as if there were an invisible horse right in front of me.
To call it invisible though was not exactly right, there was a shimmer there, a shifting, almost like a blurry motion of tiny atoms, vibrating, in the shape of a horse nose, an inch away from my face.
My full attention was held on that shimmering spot. It felt like at any moment a horse would break through from one realm to another up against my skin, horrifyingly close, but I forced my eyes up to where the man would be — a man who was a shimmering vibrating nothingness. The spot could have been the size of a large man, a warrior, was it… could it be Magnus…?
Then the horse drew away. In its place a frenetic rustling through the brush, a smaller something, a growl, then barking imperceptibly, as if down a long long tunnel, more rustling through all the underbrush and then a milling about as if many men were conferring in the center of the clearing — a whispering of voices we couldn’t make out.
Quentin motioned for us to stay in place as he crept forward. One hand on his gun, the other feeling his way, he crept into the middle of the clearing, then closed his eyes, as if concentrating.
