Seven Stories

Chapter 12: The Woods

Laya leaned in to put a log into the fire. It rose up with a huge yellow flame, found the curve of the shield the Spirits had summoned, followed it, then shrank back to the firepit. The movement cast shifting shadows on the faces of the group. Lii was sitting against a fallen tree-trunk, Karen wrapped both in her arms and Lii's given up cloak. Behind them, on top of the trunk, was Ikan, a hand in his hair, trying to untangle it with magic, and his eyes lost far away from there.

The Dulain brothers were sitting close to each other, on the barely-dried grass, across the fire from Laya. They had been silent ever since Lii had instructed all of them to follow the Souls and the Spirits.

She had said they would find shelter in the Woods. Laya didn't doubt it. The stories that surrounded the faceless shadows Lii called her friends were enough to keep everyone away but Erindr's madness.

She shuddered, remembering the look on horror on Erindr's face as he realized that, this time, they were coing for him. She knew the other had paid it no attention; they had all been gathered around Agnes then.

That was what worried Laya. She had seen what Lucian had done to the man who had killed his sister. She had no idea how someone from Earth would have been able to be so confident with a blade, but she did not wish to find out how confident he would be if he ever decided she also was to blame in Agnes's death.

As much as she would have liked to explain to him, to tell him she had never meant harm to any of them — she just wanted to go home, she wanted to be under the King of Light's protection again, and fulfill the task he'd given her — she knew she would forever have to keep it to herself. She was now sure that Lucian had the full ability to break her jaw, and he certainly looked angry at the world enough to do so.

"So...," Ikan's voice, no more than a croak. "Are your friends coming back, Lii?"

Lii did not look at him. For a moment, Laya thought she would ignore his question, but finally she took her eyes off of the fire and looked around.

"They're here," she said. "They don't want to be seen by you, is all."

"What do you mean, they don't want us to see them? How come you can?"

Laya was wondering the same thing. The creatures were pitch-black, and the forest around them was dark as the void if you stepped too far from the fire.

"They are different, Ikan. Unlike us, they don't need the light of the sun to be seen."

"Everything needs the light of the sun!"

Laya shot him the dark look Lii did not care enough to cast him. For once, she felt like shoving Ikan's religion down his throat. How he could care so much about something not fitting into the Grand Scheme of Things According to the Territory of Light at this hour was beyond her.

Then she computed the lost, utterly lost look on the boy's face, and she felt her heart quivering. She looked away. This was something she understood all too well; this was what it felt like to have your unshakeable faith, shaken. She suppressed a dark smile.

"What are they, anyway?"

Lii's head shot up. Timothy was still staring at the fire, but it was undoubtedly his voice, feeble though it was.

"What are these things?"

"They're called the Souls, and the Spirits. They look the same but they are not. The Souls..."

"They're ghosts, right? Karen... Karen asked if she... if A... if..."

"If she'd become one of them," Karen completed with a soft voice. "Yes, Timothy, they are a sort of ghosts."