Spirit Read online

  “You can’t be serious!” I cried. Trying to look in all directions at once, I twisted my head back and forth, watching for movement in the trees. All too soon, I heard the thudding patter of the beasts coming closer. Through the shadows, three white-furred beasts creeped up to join the first. Even from this angle, I could see they weren’t quite as large as the one that had treed me. They circled and snuffled at each other. Two opened their great, bloody mouths and snapped at each other. One caught the other’s ear, biting down until it cried out in mercy.

  As one, the four beasts craned their necks and looked up at me. Eight black and beady eyes glared at me. One let its thick black tongue loll out before circling around the stretched black lips, making a stomach-turning squelch. I suddenly felt like I should be sitting on a plate surrounded by roasted vegetables.

  One of the smaller beasts put his front paws against the tree trunk, his claws flexing before piercing the wood, making it splinter. He shook his hindquarters before pushing off the ground and hanging from the tree. I cursed when the wood held and he didn’t fall like the first. My heart was like a caged rabbit in my chest. I swallowed against the panic rising inside of me, trying to ignore the terrified tears burning as I watched the cat monster’s progress. Slowly, methodically, paw over paw, he climbed the tree, his dark eyes never leaving me.

  Looking around frantically for an escape, I missed the first bird that flew out of the darkness, but I saw the flock that followed. They flew like arrows, dive-bombing the cat monsters, their beaks ripping out chunks of fur and flesh before they swerved right, left, and up again. The birds weren’t very big, not much larger than a crow, but their feathers were red, shot through with white highlights. Their serrated beaks were a dirty yellow and matched the talons jutting from their feet.

  I flattened myself against the tree trunk, turning my face to the side, trying desperately to blend into the tree as they whizzed by. Three of the birds dove for the beast stalking me. He swatted at them with one great paw, slashing madly until he lost his balance and fell, followed by the sounds of splintering wood. He landed on his back with a sickening crack and a strangled whimper of pain before his body went still.

  With a shrill caw of triumph, the flock of birds swooped down on the fallen beast, snatching bloody, stringy bites. With the carnivorous birds preoccupied, the three remaining cat monsters turned and ran, disappearing into the shadows and trees.

  Eventually I remembered how to breathe, and I let my body slide a few inches down the tree to let my knees bend, taking some of the strain out of my legs. My heart still hammered in my chest, but I knew I needed to get out of this tree and start moving. I didn’t know where I was, but clearly this particular spot wasn’t the safest place for me to linger.

  I crept down the tree as cautiously as possible, but unable to be completely silent. Every time my foot scraped against one of the trees or a piece of the splintered wood from where the beast broke away and fell, I froze, waiting for the birds to rise up and attack me. But the birds never turned their nightmare beaks in my direction; they were totally engrossed with the bloody bounty they had taken down.

  When I reached the point where the trees twined together to make one gnarled trunk, I hesitated. I was only about three feet from the ground. Jumping was the fastest way down, but I was afraid the noise of my landing would finally disturb the birds enough to become annoyed with me. But my hands were sore and my arms were shaking again, not to mention how hard breathing with the pain in my side was, and I didn’t want to cling to the tree anymore. Climbing down had been more of an exertion than it should have been. I gritted my teeth, took one last deep breath, and jumped, landing with a large cloud of dust and a distinctive thump. I coughed painfully, gasping at the sharp stab in my side, and waved the dust away from my face.

  Two birds rose up, flapping their wings and cawing, but they just floated back down, rearranged their order, and continued to eat away at the carcass. I made a face, swallowing the rising bile in my throat, and turned away from the carnage just as one of the birds pried a glistening black eyeball free and gulped it down with a squish.

  “Thanks for the help,” I whispered before I turned and started walking. Thankfully none of the birds followed me.

  Chapter 4

  When I was up in the tree, I couldn’t see anything different in any direction. No landmarks, not even an end to the forest itself, so I just picked a direction and started walking. Now that I knew what to listen for, I realized the forest wasn’t as quiet as I had thought when I first arrived. Wings flapped in the distance, strange sniffing noises came from the shadows, and claws occasionally skittered on the hard ground. However, I couldn’t see any of the creatures making the noises. I was just happy to have escaped the cat monsters. But every now and then, I heard the call of something big, big and angry. The something that had roared in answer to my screams. It took every ounce of willpower I still possessed to keep walking and not curl up into the fetal position and just cry.

  After what felt like miles, I heard the distinctive sound of running water. I hurried toward it, careful not to run for fear of making too much noise. I came upon a babbling brook, shallow enough to cross on foot, but the current was fast enough to look clear and inviting. I fell to my knees beside it and cupped my hands, drawing some of the water up to drink. For one moment, I worried about it being contaminated or getting sick from some invisible bacteria, but it looked clear in my hands and it didn’t smell, so I pushed that fleeting thought out of my head and drank.

  It was crisp and refreshing. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was until the water broke over my lips, and it was all I could do to keep from just dunking my head into the brook and gulping down water until my stomach swelled. After I had my fill, I splashed some water on my face, cleaning the cuts from falling through the trees. The sleeves of my sweater were in tatters, but not so bad that I thought I should rip them off. After all, these were the only clothes I had. I ran my damp fingers through my hair, pushing it out of my face, wishing for a hair tie as I gripped the length of it at the base of my neck.

  I was sitting so awkwardly my legs began to tingle, but when I shifted my weight, my ribs protested. Being in a comfortable position seemed almost impossible now. I pulled my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them, and felt the dull ache in my back where my wings would be, should be.

  “Maybe this is Hell,” I mumbled, resting my chin on top of my knees. Maybe Hell wasn’t an eternal cycle of pain and fire. Maybe it was never feeling comfortable again, never feeling safe again, lost forever, and always running from hungry monsters.

  I suddenly felt very vulnerable out in the open, sitting by the only source of water for miles around. Reluctantly, I climbed to my feet, dusting off my jeans and clapping the dirt from my hands. I needed to keep moving until I found somewhere safe to hole up and figure out where I was and what I had to do to get out of here.

  Looking left and then right down the brook gave me no clue as to which way I should go. I figured following the water would be best though. If I was here, then other people had to be here too, and people never live far from water. Finally I decided to follow the brook downstream, figuring it might open up to a larger body of water, and if it did, people would most likely be there. I just hoped looking for other people didn’t turn out to be my biggest mistake yet.

  ***

  The journey down the brook was tedious and boring while somehow still being one of the most frightening things I have ever done. There were periods of complete silence when even hearing the babbling of the brook was difficult. It made every step I took sound like a thumping earthquake, and I was sure those cat monsters would find me. Then I would hear hundreds of invisible creatures creeping and crawling about in the shadows, always feeling like they were just behind me, but every time I turned my head to look, there was nothing.

  Every mile or so, I had to duck behind a tree, trying to keep myself as tiny as the shadows, when I heard the approach of some new
herd of beasts. They ran in every direction, making no direction safe. Some had claws that glinted in the faint moonlight. Some had snapping jaws that clicked as they ambled by. Others still were larger than any horse I had ever seen. But none of them were familiar to me; none of them were from my world.

  Eventually, I stepped out of the shadows again when the last echo of clomping feet faded out of earshot and no others followed for a time. Shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans, the rough fabric scratching against the cuts on my hands, I continued on. My purple combat boots were dull and dusty, almost gray. I don’t know why that bothered me so much, but I had to force myself to pick up my head and stop staring at them as I walked.

  I heard the thunder of another herd of beasts across the brook, but faintly, still far off. I kept my head cocked toward it as I walked, listening for it to grow louder, closer, but not wanting to waste more time hiding until I absolutely had to. A moment later, I heard a human voice whooping in triumph. Similar voices answered the yell, making me stumble to a halt and turn toward the noise. The sound of the running animals grew louder, and I knew they would be upon me at any moment, but so would the humans I could hear close behind. I ran from the brook to a cluster of trees and ducked between their close growing trunks, peering out to watch.

  Moments later, the animals rushed into the clearing around the brook. They were small like opossums, with pointy faces and long rattails, but they had little horns bursting from their heads and their jaws jutted out past their front teeth, two sharp tusks curling up and close to their noses. Definitely not opossums.

  The voices of the people chasing them rang out again just before they burst through the far tree line, spears and bows and arrows in hand, mounted bareback on horses. The horses were larger than any horses I had seen on Earth. They had to be at least eight feet tall, glistening black fur with white fringe bursting at their hooves, manes, and tails. Their whinnies sounded like screams as they reared up, their massive hooves kicked in the air, and white puffs of steam erupted from their pink noses. When their hooves struck the ground and they charged forward, the earth trembled. Pure white dogs larger than Great Danes gamboled and ran between the horses. The dogs had red ears and eyes, their wide jaws open with excitement from the hunt. Their booming barks startling as they snapped close to the ground, trying to catch the scurrying not-opossums.

  I watched wide-eyed as the leader of the pack of hunters, a man with long, flowing silver hair, reared back a spear and flung it forward. The spear soared through the air with a wobble before it thunked into the side of one of the not-opossums. A cheer rang out through the hunting party followed by a wave of arrows, many finding homes in other not-opossums, felling their quarries.

  The hunting group was a motley crew. I couldn’t even be sure that they were all in fact people, as I had assumed from their voices. The silver-maned leader was very tall and lithe, his limbs almost willowy despite the corded muscles under his fair skin. His black eyes seemed to shine in the half light of the forest, illuminating his angular face. When he jumped from his horse, he appeared to float to the ground. His long tendrils of silvery hair danced in the air, revealing overlong, pointed ears. When he stood, I saw his hair was long enough to brush the backs of his knees. He was clad head to foot in leather in shades of white and bluish-grey, and when he walked, his grey leather boots never disturbed the dirt and dust. I’m not sure I had ever truly believed elves were real until that exact moment.

  He found the animal with his spear struck through it and gripped the wooden shaft. He placed one boot on the dead animal to hold it down and pulled the lethal metal tip out of it. I looked away from him and the dead animal, not wanting to see the blood gush out and stain the dusty ground.

  The others with him ranged in size and appearance. Some were just as lovely as him while staring at others was almost unbearable. If I didn’t believe in any other mythical creatures in the universe, I believed in them now from just looking at this group. Two reminded me of the faerie tales of the trolls that lived under bridges, with their gray skin and pot marked faces, bulbous noses and shoulders nearly four feet in breadth, and wide mouths full of yellow and broken teeth.

  There were three smaller creatures, all of them on the back of one hound. Their green, leathery skin was folded over and over on their faces, making ripples up to their batwing-like ears. When they dismounted the hound, the tops of their heads barely reached the dog’s chest. Their fingers were thin and pointy, much like twigs, and they constantly twisted and twined their hands as they scurried about. The lopsided and creepy grins on their faces made me decide they were goblins. Other creatures I couldn’t name milled about, gathering the dead animals and retrieving arrows, but none of them looked like something I would want to anger. One in particular made the memory of my grandmother’s voice echo in my mind. He was a formidable dwarf with meaty hands and a rust red cap pulled low over his head, down around his ears. My grandmother told me that the Redcaps stained their hats with the blood of their victims as some sort of macabre trophy.

  I had been so eager to find some other intelligent beings, to figure out where I was and how to get home, but looking upon that group, I realized how naive that had been.

  The goblins chattered to each other in their own language, and the others laughed and clapped each other on their backs, talking about the feast they would enjoy that night. The giant hounds shuffled around, lapping at the puddles of blood left behind from the not-opossums. I made a face and felt my stomach flip. I swallowed against the nausea, perhaps a little too loudly, because just then, one of the great hounds lifted his massive head with his blood red ears pointing up and turned out.

  I froze, my fingers gripping the tree trunk, not even daring to breathe. The alerted hound stood stock still, only his ears quivering as he listened, but he was soon on the move. He pressed his nose to the ground, sniffing loudly as he walked in a dizzying zigzag, coming closer and closer. None of the rest of the hunting party paid any attention to the dog as he strayed from the group, but I couldn’t look at anything else. Feeling a whole different kind of sick, my stomach knotted up against my spine as sweat broke out along my back and my heart hammered against my chest. Seeming to hear the thundering of my heart, the dog veered in my direction and began to gallop toward me. His eerie red eyes locked with mine, holding me to the spot as I watched him barreling for me.

  I was screaming in my mind to run, to turn away and just fucking go, but my body wouldn’t obey me, and just as the dog’s massive paws launched him from the ground, I screamed. The dog crashed into me with the force of a small car and my body slammed into the ground, pushing all the air from my lungs and successfully breaking my cracked rib. White hot pain lanced through my body. The pain of breathing silenced my screams as the dog stood over me, two of his massive paws on either side of my head, standing on my hair as his giant face leaned close to mine. His nose was wet against my cheek and his breath hot and damp against my face. I shut my eyes tight, not wanting to watch that mouthful of teeth coming at me just before he ripped my face off.

  When a few moments passed and my face remained intact, I slowly cracked an eye open. The hound still stared down at me with his fiery red eyes, but he wasn’t baring his teeth. Instead, his mouth hung open as he panted and his tongue lolled out before he licked the side of my face.

  “Ugh!” I managed, feeling the hot saliva coating the entire side of my face, even catching a little of my hair.

  “Balor!” a voice rang out, making the hound pick up his head suddenly. “Balor! To me!”

  The hound, Balor I assumed, looked over his shoulder toward the voice but didn’t budge. He whimpered and whined, his tail swishing through the air in his excitement.

  “Balor, you blasted mutt!” the voice rang out again, louder and closer now.

  “Oy! Lookie what he’s caught!” a gravelly voice said from my side, but I couldn’t turn my head toward it because Balor was still standing on my hair. The next moment, one of th
e green-skinned goblins stared me in the eye, his face mere inches from mine. I tried to scream, but the pain in my side turned it into a pathetic whimper.

  “What’s this?” the first voice asked just as the goblin disappeared from my line of sight. Dark grey boots stopped right before my face. I tried to look up at him, knowing it was the silver-maned elf I had been admiring earlier, but I knew if I turned my head even a little, Balor’s weight would rip out a chunk of my hair.

  “Is a girl,” a second goblin hissed, crouching down by the boots and my face. His forked tongue shot out, tasting the air and making me cringe.

  “Oh, nay,” the elf said, one boot nudging the peering goblin out of the way before he crouched down in front of me. His wrists were propped on his knees, and his hair pooled on the ground like a puddle of quicksilver.

  “Nay,” he repeated, “this is no girl.” He said girl like gel. His accent spoke of all of the British Isles, not just one. “Here we have a fallen angel.”

  A chorus of noises rang through the group. Some hissed, others laughed, but mostly they made noises of dismissal. I guessed fallen angels weren’t that big of a deal there.

  “Did they cut your tongue when they clipped your wings, girl?” he asked, his black eyes boring into mine.

  “No,” I breathed, wincing in pain at the effort. “But if it slipped your notice, I have a massive dog standing on my hair at the moment.”

  “Aye, yeah,” he said, one hand shooting out to slap the dog on the hindquarters. “Off with ye, Balor!” The dog cantered away, the rough pads of his paws taking a few strands of my hair as souvenirs.