Leonard and I kept running. I couldn’t tell for how long. The trees blocked almost all of the sun, and I could barely see my surroundings anyway. I thought my blurry vision had been due to the smoke, but even after we broke free of it, everything was still dim and fuzzy.
Finally, Leonard slowed to a walk, then after another minute he stopped and sat down. I think. I had never been more grateful for a break in my life. I dropped to my knees, then flopped onto my back, gasping.
For several minutes, neither of us did anything but breathe. I had been coughing almost nonstop immediately after leaving the smoke, and even now the occasion wheeze would rack me. As I lay on the dirt, slowly regaining my air, I began to notice everything else that was wrong with me.
My throat was parched. The heat and physical labor had left me desperate for water, and the metallic taste of blood in my mouth was only making it worse. I must have bitten my tongue at some point. My entire body was in pain from the exertion, the rocks, and the numerous times I’d hit something. My left thigh was aching, like someone had stuck a spike into it. My hands were full of cuts and splinters, and the dirt in all of the wounds probably meant they were going to get infected. My skin was varying degrees of burned, and my face felt the worst. My left ear was behaving normally again, but all I could hear in my right was a very faint buzzing.
I remembered staring down at my hands, still faintly in shock at the blood dribbling down them. Looking at my hand again, I could still see a few faint traces of the dried fluid. And then the weight of everything that had just happened crashed down on me.
I could feel emotions welling up inside of me, terror, rage, confusion, all trying to force tears out, but there weren’t any left. So I just curled up on the ground and broke into hacking, shuddering sobs.
Mr. Ernst, Mrs. Stonegard, Myrtle, Ms. Hayth, Jones, maybe even Grandmother. They could all be gone. Everything is gone! Even the garden.
I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to get up. Every part of me was hurting, and I felt sick to my stomach with what I had seen. I wanted to lie on the dirt and leaves and cry until I fell asleep or died and didn’t have to think about anything anymore.
I did not get to do that. I’d barely been crying for a minute before I felt someone tugging on my shoulder. I rolled over and saw Leonard standing above me. He gestured for me to get up.
“Come on. We need to be moving again.”
In that instant, all of my sorrow morphed into rage at the person in front of me. Everything had been fine, he’d come, and then everything went wrong. And now, he was showing no sympathy or compassion or anything! He maybe looked a little concerned, but he wasn’t acting like it. He never had, just stood there doling out ceaseless requests and commands.
I sat up, slowly, calmly, then let out a cry of fury and swung my arm at his annoyingly calm face. Leonard dodged backward, but I didn’t let up. Throwing myself forward, I kept crawling trying to grab him and pin him down.
Leonard didn’t even seem fazed by my attack, which was even more infuriating. He dodged away from my grasp and then disappeared. I shrieked again in anger, swinging my head around the clearing to look for him.
Out of nowhere, a small but powerful blow smashed into my left elbow, folding it instantly. I lost my support and collapsed face down in the dirt. Then something grabbed the little finger on my right hand, bending it sideways to a painful degree.
Leonard appeared, crouching over my right hand and grasping my pinkie. His face had changed from calm to vexed. That gave me a small tinge of satisfaction.
“What are you doing Amaranthe!?” He shouted in annoyance. “We need to be running!”
“No! No way am I going with you! This is all your fault!” I tried to move but lying on the ground cut off most of my options, and no matter what I did, Leonard didn’t budge on my finger.
“This isn’t my fault! Come on, Amaranthe, we do not have time for this!”
“How many times have you said that already? I don’t want to go with you! I need to go back! Back to- back to the mansion-”
My anger broke in that moment, and I stopped fighting him. Lying face down in the dirt, I began dry sobbing again. After a few seconds, I felt the pain in my hand ease, and Leonard walked over to crouch next to my head. He began speaking, but the words didn’t register in my blown-out ear.
“I- I can’t hear you,” I mumbled, sitting up and instinctively wiping my eyes with my arms. That only made them all burn more.
Leonard sighed. “Look, I’m sorry Amaranthe. I know this must be hard on you, but we need to keep moving. There’s a long way to go yet, and we have even less time than I thought we did. Every second probably counts!”
“Go where? And what were those things? Why were they at the mansion? Why does time matter so much? What is going on?”
Leonard took a few steps away from me, shaking his head. “I could answer those questions, but it would take far too long, and we can’t afford to sit here. Not to mention, answering those would raise more questions, and on and on and on. Please just trust me for now.”
I didn’t trust Leonard. I had no way of knowing what his goals were, what his connection to those creatures was, where he wanted to lead me, or really anything about him. Nevertheless, I believed he’d saved me when facing that being in the mansion, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have gotten off the grounds without his guidance. However, the crowning argument was simple. I couldn’t go back to the mansion. And I did not want to be wandering in the woods alone, especially with those things potentially wandering around.
“Okay,” I said finally. “I’ll go with you if you answer two of my questions.”
“Fine, go ahead,” Leonard replied.
“Where are we going? And what were those things that attacked the mansion?”
Leonard drew in a deep breath. “Those things that attacked us. We call them Star-Demons. And we are headed north, for a person who can help. Now please, let us get moving. We can’t waste any more time than we already have.”
Leonard turned away even as he spoke, scampering off into the forest. I plodded after him, wincing with pretty much every movement I made. As we walked, I kept trying to swipe the dirt and grit out of my eyes, but it was a fruitless endeavor. There was just as much filth on my arms and clothes, and my tear ducts weren’t working at the moment.
My dubious guide didn’t make the walking any more pleasant. He skulked along and seemed to be trying to both hurry and stay quiet at the same time. He had ceased talking and was constantly on the alert. I was almost too tired to care if we were found, but his attitude eventually began to get to me as well, and I began crouching and creeping just as he was.
For hours, we continued like this, long enough that the forest grew dark around us. Trying to pick my way along had been difficult enough with adequate light, its absence led to me blundering along, despite my best efforts to stay silent. This was not helped by the fact that my racket was the only sound in the forest. There were no whispers of animal movements, and even the trees seemed frozen. Leonard, meanwhile, stole through the woods like, well, a fairy. It was exasperating.
Finally, I could stand neither the tension nor the wait nor the silence any longer.
“Leonard!” I hissed out in a loud whisper. “How much longer until we reach this place.”
“Hopefully quick enough.” He answered, not even looking at me.
That terse response stymied me for a bit, but my patience wore out more quickly the second time around.
“You did something with the wood back there in the mansion, didn’t you? Controlled it somehow? Why don’t you do the same thing now?”
“Be quiet.” Leonard seemed more annoyed now, his words almost growled out. “I can’t do anything to speed us up right now. We’re going as fast as we can. Just please focus on moving and don’t get distracted.”
This rebuke stung, and I opened my mouth to snap back at him. However, reason caught up to me just in time. No matter how much I wanted to, now was not the time to pitch a fit. Hopefully, there would be plenty of time for fit pitching later. And if there wasn’t, I would make time eventually. So I closed my mouth and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. However, not focusing on a question brought all the pain, weariness, and sorrow I was feeling to the forefront of my mind again. Not even the constant tripping hazard the forest presented was enough to keep me occupied.
As I walked, I remembered the stomach-churning terror I’d felt when the Star Demon had appeared in the kitchen. I remembered how Mrs. Stonegard had died, mouth open in limp terror. I felt again the heat of the explosion that had killed Mr. Ernst, and the horror I’d felt when looking out the window and seeing the grounds burning. I thought of everyone else who’d been in the mansion and likely hadn’t made it out alive. As I walked, alone with my thoughts, the terror I felt slowly morphed into rage, and then to hate. I hated those Star Demons with a passion I’d never felt about anything before. I wanted them dead, I wanted them gone, I wanted revenge for what they had done to my home.
But there was nothing I could do. I was small, weak, and powerless compared to being that could create liquid fire. I couldn’t turn around and fight, just putting one foot in front of the other was tiring. So I trudged on, stewing in silent fury at both the Demons and my helplessness.
All in all, it was a miserable trek.
I had long past reached the point of being numb to the constant scratches and scrapes I was receiving when Leonard finally halted. It was well past nightfall, however, and no moonlight reached down through the trees. So I didn’t realize Leonard had stopped until I almost tripped over him.
“Ouch!” Leonard yelled, jumping forward as my foot kicked into the back of his legs. I stumbled forward, throwing my hands out to keep my balance. I grabbed a branch that nearly broke off in my hand and ended up with a face-full of leaves but managed to avoid falling.
“Watch where you’re going!” Leonard hissed, walking back over to me.
“I can’t see! Be more vocal about you’re movements!” I pushed the leaves away from me. “Why’d you stop anyways?”
“Because we’re here,” Leonard said.
He turned around, and I lifted my head. We stood at the edge of a small clearing, moonlight streaming down into it. In the center of the clearing stood a small hut, though it seemed to barely deserve that title.
The thing looked rather like a child’s drawing. It had all the components of a hut; a roof, walls, a door, windows, and even a chimney, but none of it was what would be considered, normal. Instead of a bunch of large logs laid together to create neat, precise lines for everything, this cabin was composed of a bunch of sticks that seemed to have been lopped straight off of numerous different trees and thrown together haphazardly. This created a building that, while small, seemed to sprawl every which way, sticking out all over the place. The door was slanted, none of the windows had four corners, and the chimney bent in at least three separate places.
“What even is that?” I asked, staring at the strange conglomeration.
“It’s the home of someone who has hopefully remained unaware enough to flee,” Leonard said, starting forwards again. “If she’s here, then we should be able to get away safely.”
“She?” I asked, following him.
“The witch Moiena.”
I was going to ask more questions, but another look around the clearing halted me. I’d been too distracted by the strange cabin but now that I looked around, I realized something else. The clearing was a garden. It was filled with plants of all sorts, including many that I didn’t recognize. I instinctively wanted to step off the path and go wandering through the plants, but I restrained myself.
Leonard stepped up to the door, then reached up and knocked. I noticed that the door was about twice as tall as he was, though the knob was set at what would be a comfortable height for him. The door rattled as Leonard pounded on it, and I worried that it would fall off its hinges. It didn’t thankfully, and there were several seconds of silence before a piping voice was heard from behind the door.
“I’m coming, I’m coming. Just give me a moment, give me a moment.”
There was the sound of scuffling and hurried footsteps, then the knob began to turn. The door swung inward, revealing yet another strange figure. She stood only a little taller than Leonard and had hair and skin a little lighter than his, though not by much. Her hair was even curlier than Leonard’s and it was stuffed under a small blue hat that looked rather like a cone. She had a round chin and snub nose, over which sat two wide green eyes. Her ears, like Leonard’s, were long and pointed. The large, dark blue dress she wore somehow completed the image.
“Oh my, my. Leonard, what are you doing here? Come in, come in.” She said, voice just as high-pitched as it had been before. She stuck out her hand to Leonard, and he responded by reaching forward and trailing his fingers lightly through hers.
“Look behind me, Moiena,” Leonard said, though he did step over the threshold.
Moiena’s eyes drifted past Leonard to me, and it took her a second before she let out a small exclamation of surprise.
“A human, Leonard? Really, really. What are you doing, bringing one here?”
“So you really haven’t heard anything,” Leonard said. “Wonderful. If you’d allow us all the way in and get some of your healing remedies, I’d be happy to explain it. We need to hurry though. There’s not much time.”
“He gave me the same tune. I believe it less every time,” I offered, ducking under the door, which was about a foot shorter than I was. Moiena backed up as I came through, eyeing me. She didn’t seem scared of me, just very aware of my presence. After a moment, she muttered, “Fine, fine” then turned and bustled further into the house.
I lifted my gaze from Moiena to look around the hut. The interior was only dimly lit, and the source seemed to be further back in the cabin, but I could see well enough. It was, full, was the first word that popped into my mind. There was a lot of stuff. Boxes were stacked everywhere, on the floor, on tables, on other boxes, creating stacks that nearly reached the five-and-a-half-foot ceiling. There were also numerous jars about, perched on boxes or organized into pyramids. I could even see some peeking out of some of the open crates.
However, in contrast to the cabin’s somewhat slovenly outside, everything inside was arranged in a neat and orderly fashion. The boxes were all stacked in straight rows, with enough space for the fairies to walk between them without trouble. I stepped through them gingerly, having to twist my shoulders a bit to squeeze through after Leonard and Moiena.
As I did, I became aware of the smell of the place. The entire place smelled of plants, of leaves and roots and sap all distilled and poured out into a confined area. However, I could also detect a few fainter odors, overpowered by the plants.
I made it through without knocking anything over and found Leonard sitting at a bare table in what was clearly the living area of the cabin. There was a bed in the far left corner, with a rather large pile of rags and cloths beside it. In the center of the room was a blazing firepit that didn’t seem to be ventilated very well, as smoke drifted throughout the room. I immediately realized smoke was one of the scents I hadn’t before recognized. Behind the firepit and close to the wall was an open trapdoor. To my right was a couple of long counters, one flush to the wall and the other sticking into the room. The counters had a variety of jars and pots and cups on them. Directly to my right was the table where Leonard was sitting. There was no sign of Moiena.
“Where’d our host go?” I asked Leonard. He waved vaguely towards the trapdoor.
“Down to get the stuff I asked for. I filled her in on the basics, hopefully she won’t take long.”
Sensing an opportunity, I pulled out a chair and sat across from Leonard. I even mimicked his posture, leaning forward and propping my elbows on the table, resting my chin on my hands.
“Well, since we have a moment, would you mind answering some questions now? Like, why are we even here?”
Leonard closed his eyes for a moment, looking very, very tired. But he answered.
“As I said, we came here because Moiena can help us. We’re relatively close to the Seat of the Summer Court, but not close enough to outrun the Star Demons if we keep going on foot. Moiena should have a means of getting us to the Seat much more quickly.”
“And why is it so important that we get to this seat?”
“Aside from the relative safety it offers, we need to get you there. Once there, the queen will-”
A series of loud thumps cut Leonard off, and then something streaked through the air over our heads. It came from the boxes behind me, soared over the both of us and landed close to the bed. I jumped, ducking reflexively. Leonard leaped from his chair, rolling away and coming into a crouch near the firepit. I raised my head, trying to get a good look at the thing that had startled us. Once I did, I felt slightly foolish.
Sitting on the floor was a small creature barely a foot tall. It had mottled grey and green fur, that seemed to cover every bit of its body, even the thing’s big, leaf-shaped ears. Those ears were attached to a round face that contained even rounder dark eyes and a small, snub nose. It was holding a branch and chewing on it, and its limb was very similar in structure to a human arm, it even had hands like mine.
“Oh,” Leonard said, uncoiling from his pose. “A gremlin.”
“A what?” I asked, not really expecting my question to be answered. It wasn’t like any of my others had been.
“A gremlin,” Leonard repeated.
He remained crouched and extended a hand towards the creature. After a second or two, it cautiously prowled forward, sniffing Leonard’s hand. I saw now it had a small, stubby tail.
“They’re creatures that are somewhat related to us fairies. They aren’t intelligent but are pretty smart for animals, and tend to be nuisances. Humans have tried to stamp them out a few times, so they stay close to fairy lands. It is a bit odd to keep one as a pet; but then, Moiena has always been a little strange. She rejected the Blessing, after all.”
That explanation left me with an increased number of questions, such as how intelligent gremlins were, why were they considered nuisances, and what around the Star the Blessing was. Before I could ask any of them, there was a series of increasingly loud thuds coming from the trapdoor. A few seconds later, Moiena’s head poked out from the trapdoor opening, followed quickly by the rest of her. She was carrying a couple of small vials and a jar.
“Here, here I am.” She bustled out of the door, absentmindedly kicking it closed behind her. Rounding the fireplace, her eyes landed on Leonard, who was now gently running his hand over the gremlin’s head.
“Oh. I see, I see, you’ve met Blink.”
“Blink?” Both Leonard and I voiced our surprise in nearly the same instance.
“Yes, yes. Blink. I found him in the woods a few months ago. The poor, poor thing was in terrible health, so of course I had to take him home and fix him up. He grew on me, and I haven’t been able to get rid of him.”
“Okay. But why the name Blink?” I’d been watching the creature, and he didn’t seem to close his eyes much.
Moiena laughed. “He’s the quickest and sneakiest creature I’ve ever met. He’ll be sitting in the corner one second, then be across the room and on the counter the next. Blink, blink, and you can’t be sure where he’ll be.”
Blink suddenly stiffened, then left Leonard and shot across the room toward Moiena. Latching onto her dress, he quickly scrambled up to her shoulders. Moiena seemed used to this and didn’t react at all. She did react, however, when Blink reached down and grabbed one of the vials she was carrying.
“Hey! Hey! No Blink! Give me that!”
Blink seemed unbothered by Moiena’s cries. He deftly scurried across her head to avoid her grasping hand, then jumped down from her shoulder and bounded across the room. The little grey-and-green blur headed straight for me, hopping right up on the table.
I almost knocked the chair over trying to scramble away, but when Blink landed on the table he suddenly froze. For a long moment, we stared at one another, his grey eyes boring into my blue ones. Then, Blink slowly extended the vial towards me.
“Well, well. I hardly believe it.” Moiena had stopped when Blink had and was now staring at both of us. “It seems, really seems, that Blink’s taken a liking to you, human.”
“And that’s unusual?” I asked, making no move to take the vial.
“Gremlins are skittish creatures,” Leonard said. “Many of them feel at ease around fairies, but I’ve never heard of one latching onto a human so quickly.”
Moiena shook her head. “Neither have I. Neither have I.”
Then she knocked her free hand against her head and stood up straighter. “Well, well, I don’t think it matters all that much. Go on, human, take the vial.”
Reaching out hesitantly, I took the vial from the gremlin. His hands were warm but tough and firm. Holding up the vial in the flickering firelight, I shook it. The dark liquid inside swished around sluggishly. “What is this?”
“Medicine,” Moiena said, handing Leonard the other vial. “It should help you heal a bit more quickly, quickly, and in the meantime push the pain a bit further, further away.”
I peered at the vial more closely. I had gone along with Leonard so far because I didn’t really have any better options, and it was obvious something strange and horrifying was going on, but I didn’t yet trust him enough to drink a random substance from a stranger.
Though, now that Moiena had brought them back to my attention, all of my cuts and bruises flared up again with renewed intensity. My ear was throbbing again, and my left leg was hurting even worse than it had been a while ago. The idea of making all this pain go away was very, very attractive.
I made no move to take the vial. “I’m fine.”
Leonard lowered his own empty vial. “Come on Amaranthe, this isn’t the time to be stubborn.”
“No. I’m not drinking some random stuff just because you tell me to!”
Leonard reached up and gave his ear a hard tug. “Oh seriously, Amaranthe, stop being unreasonable! If you refuse help you’re only going to make things harder!”
“No. I’m not doing it, and that’s final! I don’t even want your help in the first place, I’m only here because I have to be.” I pushed Blink’s hand away, backing up when he offered it to me again.
“Fine. Be miserable, there’s no time for it.” Leonard turned to Moiena. “If you could please go get the branch, we need to be off. The Star Demons could be here any minute.”
“Okay, okay,” Moiena said, turning and disappearing down the trapdoor again.
Leonard turned back to the fireplace, clearly done speaking to me, and I was left painfully aware of my body’s discomfort. I remembered the branch Blink had been chewing and decided to take a closer look at it. It hadn’t seemed like a plant I knew.
I turned back to Blink, only to find the table empty. I blinked, then swept my gaze around the room. Blink was curled up in the pile of rags next to the bed. He was still chewing on the branch, and the vial was nowhere to be seen.
What. I didn’t hear him move. Well, Moiena did say if you blinked, he’d be somewhere else.
I started around the table to approach Blink, but before I could get very far, more clattering came from the trapdoor. A few seconds later, Moiena, sans hat, emerged, dragging a long piece of wood that seemed to have come directly from a tree.
It was around five feet long and five inches around, bent in the middle with a bunch of smaller twigs and leaves sprouting from it. Both ends looked to have been sheared off.
“What is that?”
Leonard ran over and grabbed the other side of the branch. He and Moiena both began lugging it towards the front door, carefully skirting the fireplace.
“This is a branch from the Home Tree. Once it senses the Tree, it’ll return to where it was cut.”
“Senses the tree?”
“Yes. I assume that will happen the minute we step outside?” Leonard looked at Moiena, who nodded. They were now maneuvering the branch through the piles of boxes.
“Correct, correct. We’ll all need to be on the branch before we leave. Here, here Blink! Come on.”
I gave a start, Blink had hopped up on my shoulder. He was heavy and smelled plant-like. Moiena glanced over her shoulder, saw where Blink had gone, and turned back around.
I followed the two of them, edging through the boxes. As I twisted my shoulders, I accidentally knocked Blink into one of the boxes. He let out a trill of protest and scrambled onto my head, tugging my hair as he settled into a new position.
“Hurry up, Amaranthe,” Leonard called. He and Moiena had reached the front door and were straddling the branch as if planning to ride it.
“What are you guys doing?” I asked, struggling to balance the gremlin on my head.
“Getting ready to ride the branch, as you should be doing,” Leonard said.
“What in the Source are you talking about? Why are you about to ride a branch?”
“It’s our way to the Home Tree, of course, of course,” Moiena said. She straddled the branch, but her skirt folded around it and had barely risen at the hem. I’d never seen fabric move like that.
“This is how we get ahead of the Star Demons,” Leonard explained. “It’s the primary reason I came to Moiena’s home.”
Bemused by this, I walked over to the branch and stood over it, behind Leonard and Moiena. They held the branch underneath them, clearly ready to take off. However, what was waist-high for them was just above knee-high for me, so I was forced to crouch awkwardly and lean down to grab the branch.
“Moiena’s going to open the door, then we’re going to run out into the clearing. The branch is going to take off quickly, so hold on tight!”
At these words, Blink slid down from my head to my back, gripping my shoulders with both hands. His left hand still held that branch he’d been chewing on, which dug into my shoulder.
“Ouch! Stupid gremlin, why don’t you go sit on your owner?” I tightened my grip on the branch, suddenly scared. I still wasn’t sure what the branch was going to do, but I didn’t want to fall off and be left behind.
Moiena reached out and pushed the front door open, and we all waddled forward into the clearing. Despite my sudden fear, I couldn’t help but feel ridiculous.
As soon as the entire branch had cleared the doorway, Moiena stopped us, and we waited. The wind rustled through the trees, blowing south, the way Leonard and I had come. I held my breath, heart beating wildly with anticipation.
Then the branch began to rise into the air. I immediately sat down, clenching my fists on the wood. The branch kept rising until it hovered about three feet off the ground. Then, with no warning, the branch took off.