Tír na nÓg Trilogy, Book II: The Rising Dark

Fetch

How long she followed Charlie, Emery was uncertain. Time passed strangely in the forest. The moment she stepped over the roots and brambles creating a natural boundary from the field, she began to lose her way. Charlie seemed always ahead, a fair, shimmering shade against the dark, calling to her whenever she began to grow weary, begging her to follow, to find him. But so much hindered her. The gnarled roots and hanging plant life and tree limbs, the way the trees seemed to move ever so slightly as if to confuse her, the disorienting little lights that flared every so often, enticing her to follow them . . . her senses could comprehend only so much. And things other than the trees moved in that black, shadowed place. The silence was deceptive; it wasn't a close silence but a cavernous one. Strange, unidentifiable titters and moans echoed from distant and near places at once, but she could see so little that had there been any threats to her safety, she wouldn't have known it. In fact, the farther she went, the more certain she became that there were many dangerous things in this forest, and that she had been incredibly foolish to wander into it. Not only that, but by the time she was sure she'd lost Charlie, Emery knew, irrefutably, that she'd lost herself as well.

At last she stopped toiling forward, no longer sure which way even was forward. She could see very little, even though she'd thrown off her costume mask long ago. She stood on a huge root that had wound its way above ground and placed her hand against the trunk of the root's tree to steady herself. Above, the branches twisted into black snakes and joined the even blacker canopy of limbs and fading leaves above. Looking in any direction was like trying to see through the dark waters of the deep sea, where occasional shafts of pale moonlight illuminated strange, solitary objects: a precarious pile of rocks that couldn't have arranged themselves naturally, a sickly-colored trellis of fungi spiraling down an embankment, a shimmery curtain of what might be spider thread . . . but the moonbeams were few and far between, some so distant that Emery couldn't quite distinguish their nearness. More prominent and threatening were the shadows within shadows that surely moved around her. Wolves lived in forests, didn't they? Emery was sure she saw a sparkle of light against a pair of eyes . . . certain something slithered across the earth under her feet. Blue, celestial fae lights, like little stars fallen from above, floated and blinked at slow intervals like drunken fireflies. Emery thought she'd heard of such lights, that they led travelers astray.

But what way was astray, at this point? What had she done? She'd been so stupid. How could she have followed Charlie so recklessly? If he were under some spell of the witch's, perhaps this was the very goal, to lead her into this forest, where she'd be easy prey for literally anything out to get her.

She dare not call out for Charlie anymore. He was too distant, surely, but what should she do? Beginning to breathe a little too loudly, a little too quickly, Emery turned her body around and determined to walk in the direction from which she believed she'd come. It was likely hopeless, but she couldn't think of anything else to do.

Trembling, Emery stepped off her perch onto soft earth and slowly, carefully, attempted to backtrack. It was difficult and, frankly, terrifying work. Running into the forest, Emery had been driven by excitement and purpose; she'd seen Charlie, right in front of her, and she'd been so preoccupied by keeping up with him that she'd paid no attention to her surroundings. But now, she felt the ground sucking at her feet if she stepped in certain places and things brushing at her cheeks and arms--things that she couldn't see. She heard faint, metallic giggles right near her ears and low, rolling rumbles from far away. Even in the darkness, she caught movements in the corners of her eyes but never quite saw anything other than the faerie lights attempting to lead her further astray.

She'd never felt so alone and yet so watched at the same time. After what must've been fifteen minutes of movement, seeing nothing that differentiated one place from the next, Emery felt a bit of hysteria begin to rise inside her. Surely the shapes were closing in; surely her slogging feet were being pulled a bit more with each step.