Spirit Page 9

  He paused again, color rushing to his cheeks as the anger crested through him. He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing. I knew the end of the story, but my stomach was still in knots as I waited for him to go on.

  “I caught a cab outside of the pub and told him to follow my brother. His car went off the road, flipping and rolling until it looked like a crushed soda can. The cabbie wouldn’t let me get out to run to him, said it was too dangerous. They put him in the ambulance and rushed him to the hospital, but I knew he was already gone.”

  “And?” I whispered when he hesitated. A tear leaked out and rolled down his cheek.

  “Mira, his wife, was at the hospital by the time I got there,” he said. “By then, they had told her he had passed. She screamed at me it was my fault, that I had taken him to the bar. That it was my fault he got behind the wheel drunk as he was. But I tried to stop him, really I did.”

  “Sure,” I said, nodding.

  “Well, Mira…” His voice dropped as he gritted his teeth again.

  “Yes?” I said, feeling myself leaning toward him, anxious to hear the end of the story despite the knots in my stomach.

  “She called me a kinslayer,” he said. “The bitch called for the Slaugh. Actually lifted her face and screamed out for vengeance on me for killing my brother.” He stopped again, shaking his head, an ugly smirk on his face as he thought back to that moment. “Anyway, nothing happened. I think, for a moment, I expected something to a happen, after all of the stories me Nan told me, but not a damn thing happened. The nurses and doctors all looked up at me with this look on their faces like they were afraid she was some crazy person. I walked away, leaving her with my brother’s body, and went home.”

  “I don’t understand; how are you here then?” I asked.

  “Because that’s not the end of the story,” he said with that same ugly smirk on his face. “I walked home, through town. After his car accident, I didn’t want to be in a car, so I decided to walk. I’ll admit Mira’s cries and curses were following me around, and I might’ve been a little scared to get into a car. Made no matter though.” He shook his head.

  “I walked for hours; the hospital was so far from my home, it was almost dawn when I made it to my street. Then I heard them. The horses came up behind me; I heard the hounds howling for me. When I turned to look behind me, there was nothing, but when I turned back around, the houses, the road, they were all gone, and I was here.” He gestured to the mountains around us before dropping his hands and wrapping his arms around his knees.

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” he said with a nod.

  “I don’t understand,” I said again. “You didn’t kill your brother. You tried to stop him from getting in the car; it was his choice.”

  “That’s how I saw it too,” he agreed.

  “You shouldn’t be here!” I said, feeling my face flush with anger. “That’s not fair. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Just killed him is all.”

  “No, Jacob,” I said, shaking my head at him. “You didn’t kill him. He killed himself. Hell, I’d say Mira had more to do with his death than you did.”

  “I’d be inclined to agree with you, but what does it matter?” He shrugged, holding his battered hands up in surrender. “I’m here, I’m caught. It’s done.”

  “It shouldn’t be,” I argued. “Listen, I’m trying to get out of here. You’re welcome to come with me and see if you can leave too.”

  “How do you propose to do that? Me Nan always said, once the Slaugh caught you, you were caught for good,” he said.

  “I wasn’t caught. They weren’t hunting me; we just sort of stumbled upon each other.”

  “How’s that? How do you come to the Outlands and not be hunted?” He furrowed his brow at me.

  “Well, see, I was already dead, but I didn’t ‘move on.’” I made a vague gesture with my hand. “So I was trying to contact my friends, and one of them inadvertently banished me and I ended up here.”

  “Come again?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I know, kinda hard to believe, but it is what it is,” I said, but the look on his face said he didn’t believe me. “Look, you don’t have to believe me; it’s fine. We just met, so for all you know, I’m a crazy person, but I know how to get out of here. Gwyn told me.”

  “Gwyn?” he asked.

  “The Hunt Master.” I looked around for a moment until I spotted his long silver mane and pointed him out to Jacob. “That guy.” Jacob leaned forward, craning his neck to see. When he finally realized who I was pointing at, his eyebrows shot up and his eyes went wide.

  “I wouldn’t be trusting no elf if I was you.” Jacob shook his head and leaned back into the shadow of the cart, as if he was afraid of Gwyn catching him staring.

  “Oh, I don’t trust him, but it’s all I have right now.”

  “So what did this elf tell you?”

  “He said if I found the edge of the Outlands, I could leave.”

  “Uh huh,” Jacob said with a nod. “And did he tell you how to find the edge?”

  “Well…” I glanced toward Gwyn’s back again, hesitating. “No.”

  “No,” a small smile broke out on his face, “I didn’t think so.”

  “Be that as it may,” I rallied, “it is something.”

  “For you, maybe,” he said. “But I was caught; means I gotta stay.”

  “What’s the harm in trying?” I pressed. “If you can’t leave, fine, but what if you can leave? Do you really want to stay here, always wondering ‘what if I’d gone with her?’”

  “You’re persistent,” he said, making me smile. “That’s not necessarily a good thing,” he finished, making my smile fall.

  “All right, well, if you change your mind…” I uncrossed my legs and got to my feet. I paused a moment to brush off the dust on my pants and hands, wincing as my sore muscles protested, before I turned to leave. I really thought that after I took a few steps away from him, Jacob would call out to me to wait. I really thought he would change his mind and say that he wanted to come with me. But he never did, and when I turned to look over my shoulder, he had bent his head forward to rest his forehead on his knees, leaving me, once again, on my own.

  Chapter 7

  I stayed with the Hunt, riding with them, for a few nights, or at least what I called nights. I started to hate that moon. I glared up at it, screaming in my head for it to just move, but it never did. As we passed through mountains, I would lose sight of it for a few miles, giving my mind a little rest, but it always came back, just over my left shoulder, glowing dimly in the starless sky.

  Occasionally I would ride with Jacob. After the first few nights, he seemed resigned to his fate and started taking to the rides more and more. Once I even caught him starting to smile as the hunters closed in on their prey. As soon as he saw me looking, the grin vanished into a hard line, a wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. I held on to the hope that he would change his mind and come with me, but I kept my thoughts to myself. Whenever he thought I was about to bring up my escape plan, he veered away from me and stayed away longer and longer. Hope seemed to terrify him. Gwyn, I noticed, was also drawing away from me. Every time he looked my way and saw me keeping company with Jacob, he would scowl and turn away. Maybe he liked me coming to him for help, but he hadn’t been much help since that first night, so I had grown tired of wasting my time with him.

  I stayed with the Hunt because we were constantly moving, so staying with them let me cover ground in the safety of a crowd. Some of the monsters they hunted would have ripped me to shreds had I come upon them alone. I also stayed because I was hoping that water sprite would let me look at my friends in her magic caldron. But every night, no matter how much I pestered her, she told me no, or ignored me completely. But I just couldn’t give up.

  The relentless rides started to get to my body though, here in this world where I felt the aches and pains of a body pushed too far and too long. My th
ighs were one constant cramp, and my arms shook when we broke for camp. Clinging to my horse’s mane when the chase was on and he would suddenly burst forward in an all-out gallop, his hooves carving half-moons into the ground, took more effort than I expected. My back ached most of all, through the small of my back and all the way up through my shoulder blades, the pain tugging on my neck. The points on my back where my muscles and bones used to form the hinges of my wings throbbed, red and angry. Whenever I tried to stretch my back, those points would spasm, reminding me of what was ripped violently away.

  “Everything all right?” Jacob asked from behind me while I tried to stretch out my back and winced.

  “Hmm?” I turned around to face him as my hands reached as high as possible before releasing the stretch. “Just not used to riding horses.”

  “Huh,” he said, furrowing his brow as he dropped his eyes. As if trying to remember something, his eyes darted back and forth.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Just,” he started, “well, I never really rode horses either, and I’m not sore.”

  “Oh.” I wasn’t really surprised. Jacob had been caught by the Slaugh; he was a part of it. Of course he didn’t feel pain, not now.

  “Why do you suppose that is?” he asked, lifting his eyes to mine.

  “No idea,” I said quickly, too quickly.

  “Shay,” he said, making my heart ache at the sound of the familiar nickname.

  “Jacob…” I sighed, shaking my head at him. “We had this conversation; you don’t want to believe me, so let it go.”

  “Ah,” he said with a nod, rocking forward on his toes. “Because you weren’t caught by the Slaugh; you’re just here out of coincidence. Right.”

  I snapped. Taking a few steps to close the distance between us, I poked his chest hard. “You know what? Just shove it, all right? I could give a rat’s ass that you don’t believe me, but you will not smirk and act like I’m crazy just because you want to rot here and I don’t. So just stay out of my face.” Before he could say anything else, I turned on my heel and stormed off, leaving him behind and refusing to look back.

  I was so angry and so intent on putting distance between me and the only other human here, I didn’t even see Gwyn until I ran, face first, into him. Gwyn’s arms were around me in an instant to keep me from falling. I felt my face flush as I put my hands up, pushing against the hard planes of his chest, taking a step back, and putting a little distance between us.

  “What’s got the pixie girl’s knickers in a twist?” Gwyn asked with a smirk.

  “My knickers aren’t in a twist,” I shot back, running my hands through my hair, pushing it back away from my face. I fiercely wished for a hair tie when my fingers caught on a knot.

  “Oh, ho?” He chuckled before stepping back as well, seeing the anger on my face.

  “Just shut up,” I said, but the fight had gone out of me and I just waved a hand at him. I didn’t have it in me to deal with his teasing or snark. It reminded me so much of Steven that it made my chest ache.

  “Now, now,” he said a little gentler. “You weren’t even this upset when Balor had you pinned.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. After a moment, I added, “I appreciate your concern,” careful not to say “thank you,” as was my natural inclination. I turned to walk away, but Gwyn’s hand caught my wrist, and he pulled me in the other direction. I tried to fight against his hold, pulling with all my weight and using my free hand to pry his fingers off of my wrist, but nothing made a difference; he just kept walking as if I was happily following him.

  He pulled me into his own tent and the canvas flaps closed behind us. It was fairly large, definitely the largest tent in the entire camp, unsurprisingly. The roof was high enough to compensate for his height, and the floor was covered in soft rugs and furs. Balor was curled up at the foot of the bed. When he picked up his head and saw me, he barked once before bounding over. Gwyn released my wrist as Balor reached me, skidding to a stop just in time to keep from knocking me over.

  “Hey, boy,” I said softly, rubbing his ears and hugging him around his neck. He was tall enough to rest his head on my shoulder when I hugged him. Balor was my only real friend there, but Gwyn had been keeping him away from me.

  “Come over here,” Gwyn said, making both Balor and me pick up our heads to see who he was talking to. “You,” he said, pointing at me as if he had read the question on my face.

  “I’m not Balor,” I said. I stood up straight and kept one hand on Balor’s high back. “You can’t just beckon me and think I’ll jump for you.”

  “I didn’t tell you to jump,” he said. Before I could rise to the bait, he said, “Please, come over here.” I wanted to argue, but I was just too tired and my body ached too much. Gwyn stood at the end of the bed, and when I walked over to him, he placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me around. With a gentle nudge, he guided me to sit on the floor as he sat on the edge of the bed behind me. Just as I was about to look over my shoulder and ask him what the hell he was doing, I felt a brush in my hair.

  “Oh,” I said quietly. I was more than a little surprised, but I had always enjoyed having my hair brushed, so I didn’t even think about pulling away. He worked out the worst of the knots carefully, holding my hair with one hand while he brushed them out with the other until he could finally run the brush through the length of my hair with little resistance. Eventually my hair was smooth, and he brushed the length out down my back, his fingers following the brush. My eyes became heavy and some of the tension in my shoulders started to recede as I finally, for the first time since I came here, began to relax.

  When he stopped, I almost asked him not to. Then his fingers were in my hair again, and I realized he was braiding my hair. Strand by strand, lock by lock he gently pulled my hair back away from my face. Balor curled up on the floor in front of me, resting his huge head in my lap. I scratched his snout as Gwyn worked my hair, and Balor’s red eyes drifted closed as he fell asleep in my lap, totally content. I had never been so jealous of a dog before.

  I’m not sure how much time passed before I realized Gwyn was finished and was just sitting behind me, his knees to either side of my shoulders. When I realized he had been done for at least a little while, I felt very awkward for not noticing it. Luckily, he couldn’t see my face and Balor was holding me where I was anyway.

  “Thank–,” I started to say, closing my mouth quickly before the full phrase was out of my mouth.

  “Would you like to see?” Gwyn asked, relieving me of having to recover.

  I waved at the sleeping dog. “Yes, but I’m kind of stuck.” Gwyn slid out from behind me. He came around and bent over Balor, lifting his head just enough for me to slip out from under him before Gwyn laid Balor’s head gently on the floor. Gwyn pulled two mirrors out of a trunk and handed them to me. It was a little difficult to see, but I held one mirror up in front of me and the other behind me to examine the braid. It was more complicated than anything I had ever seen before. My hair twisted this way and that, forming a beautiful and intricate design, holding my hair away from my face securely.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, wishing I had a bigger mirror to look at, but it wasn’t like he could hang a large mirror on a canvas wall of his tent. The braid seemed to change the shape of my face, the shape of my eyes; even my ears looked a little different. The way my hair twisted away from my face at the top of my head, the thickness of the braid at the back, I looked very much like the way I had always imagined elves looked. I had a hard time keeping the corners of my mouth down.

  “Yes, your hair is lovely,” Gwyn agreed. Both of us were so damn careful not to actually thank the other. “You kept tugging at it and pulling it back just to have it fall forward again. I was afraid you would soon steal a sword and chop it all off.”

  “The thought had occurred to me,” I agreed, handing him back the mirrors, dismissing thoughts of looking like Fae creatures. I had never been more human and mundane that I wa
s right here, right now.

  “You’ve been able to avoid the Hunt much longer than I thought you would,” he said, getting right to the chase. His blunt words dispelled the relaxed environment we had created. My shoulders inched up.

  “That first ride,” I said, looking away from him, “it almost had me, but so many things here bother me, so much it helps me ignore the draw of the ride.”

  “I see,” he said, but I didn’t think he really did.

  “I’m not used to riding so much. Horse-riding is more painful than I ever realized,” I explained. He made a noise of agreement and nodded. “How do you get used to the moon never moving? I mean, how does that not just drive you crazy?”

  “It is how it has always been,” Gwyn said, placing the mirrors back in the trunk.

  “So you’ve always been here?”

  “Not quite always.” He shook his head and made his silvery locks wave behind him. “But quite long enough.”

  “How long?” I asked, unable to help myself.

  He lifted his dark eyes to my face; there was a pinched look to his face. “There is no time in the Outlands.”

  “So that’s why the moon doesn’t move?” I asked, and he nodded. “Then why do we break for camp, go to sleep? If time doesn’t exist here, why do we get tired and hungry?”

  “The body still craves sustenance. If we rode on and on with no end in sight, we would wither and suffer.”

  “But not die,” I added.

  “For those who already died, how could they die again?”

  “So not everyone here is dead?” Now I was very confused.

  “Take that man Jacob.” Gwyn nodded his head toward the flaps of the tent. “Did you see him die? Did you see anyone actually loose on arrow? Stab with a spear?”

  “No,” I said slowly.

  “No,” he agreed, “we are not meant to kill, but to hunt and to capture. To keep forever.”