Chapter 18
Alchemy
An unspoken rule of parenting is: don’t lose your child. It’s unspoken because it’s really, very incredibly obvious. However, during those instances where the children outnumbered me two to one, it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
We were all having fun, bounding back to the house for treats.
The girls wanted to race, as they always did.
I refused to let them win just because they were children, just like I always did.
There would come a day that they’d be faster than me and win—but it wouldn’t be that day.
Plus, I wanted to push them to try their hardest, run their fastest. Goddess knows it would prove itself useful, though in my mother’s heart I hoped they’d never encounter an occasion where they were fleeing anything at all.
However, knowing Willowspire, Asunder, and the doomed fate of the realms…
footraces were a wise game to play with them.
When we reached the house, barreling into the front door, I could have sworn I heard two sets of miniature footfalls behind me.
Jolting in surprise, the loom creaked its woody limbs and stacked wood by the hearth.
It confounded me why Spirit was so fond of the odd little creatures.
Their knobby bodies and insistence to just waltz in and out of the house at their any whim was odd and disconcerting.
However, I never had to chop wood, and my wife found them cute, so I kept my grumbles to myself.
As I leaned on the breakfast table to catch my breath, it occurred to me no little hands were grabbing at my pant legs.
The cottage was vacant of its usual chatter and commotion.
The girls must have gotten distracted by something outside.
I wiped at my brow, smearing more blood on the back of my hand, wincing at how close I’d come to losing an eye.
Of course, I played it off so as not to worry anyone, but I’d played too close to danger hunting in pinebear territory alone.
Rations were low, our supplies dwindling quicker as the girls grew older and required bigger meals and more clothing than we had fabric for.
I wasn’t about to waste what little we had on buying from the Vipers’ farm.
The hunters who killed without mercy, without ethics or code.
No thought for the creatures’ suffering, no thanks given to the forest goddess.
Their greed leading them to clean the woods of meat with their inhumane methods, only to charge double in town for their selfish spoils.
No, it wouldn’t serve anyone to dwell on those things, so I kept them inside and hunted just outside my legal bounds…
I hadn’t been caught yet, so what was the harm?
Besides, it was always ever present in my thoughts that the nightmares were back for Spirit.
Even on the nights she didn’t wake me for comfort, I knew.
Her jostling the bed, frantic breathing, and whines in her sleep always alerted me to what I already knew.
What I had always known would come for us.
Fuck, I thought we had more time.
We had to buy more time.
As I stepped onto the front porch, the sky grew dark.
An unseasonably cool wind howled through the freshly budded and flowering trees.
Spirit hadn’t returned yet. My hand reached for my dagger before my brain even realized why.
Sounds of heavy breathing mixed with small sobs as Rumor ran from around the house.
“Matri!” She held onto my leg, pushing stammered words between sniffles.
I dropped to her level and held her arms. “Take a deep breath, it’s alright; I’ve got you. What’s the matter? Where is your sister?”
“I told her not to follow it.”
“Not to follow what?”
“The look of it— I-I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t stop her, Matri, she didn’t listen, and—”
“What did she follow, Rumor?”
My sobbing oldest daughter wrapped her arms around my neck, burying her face in my chest. “I failed, Matri. I didn’t keep her safe like you said. That’s our job—to keep Mother and Prism safe.”
“No, that’s my job, little one.” I tried to pry her off of me, but she wouldn’t let go.
Just then, Spirit appeared, looking a shade too pale for my liking—but I had to focus on the emergency at hand before I assessed her further. Finally, Rumor dropped from my arms and flung herself around my wife’s waist.
“What’s the matter?”
The words died on my tongue as I sorted through my next steps—pushing the pack of angry pinebears from my mind. They wouldn’t have tracked me home, would they? Would Prism run off thinking one of them is adorable and ready to be swooped up and petted? Goddess, yes, she would.
“What’s happened?” Spirit searched my eyes.
“We can’t find Prism.”
“Oh my goddess.” My wife picked up an inconsolable Rumor. “Alchemy, I need to tell you something—”
“Right now, you’re going to take Rumor inside and lock the doors. Do not leave the house until I return.”
Ignoring my wife’s protests, I asked Rumor, “Which way did she go?”
“Past the garden gate and into the big woods. I promise I tried to stop her. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
I made to run past when Spirit grabbed my arm. “You’re still bleeding, let me fix it.”
“It doesn’t matter—”
Before I had finished, Spirit reached toward my brow and whispered a spell. The bleeding stopped, but my heart nearly froze in my chest.
“Spirit,” I whispered. “Magic?”
“Healing a small cut should be fine.”
“It wasn’t lethal. Spirit, the rapture… Asunder…” I shook my head. Another crisis for later. “Go inside now.”
Finally, they did as they were told, and I took off running.
Past the garden gate and into the big woods?
Why the hell would Prism do that? Chasing after something she shouldn’t have been.
I feared my youngest daughter may always be prone to wandering down paths too big for her.
She was too tiny, too sweet, too delicate.
I hadn’t taught her enough, shown her enough survival skills, taught her all I knew of the land, the sea, and ethers beyond.
Not enough time. We hadn’t had enough time.
Time was what we needed more of, and day after day, nightmare night after nightmare night, it felt as if time were swiftly slipping away like a little girl through a back garden gate.
The environment grew colder and darker as I sprinted past my wife’s garden, jumping the fence, and heading into the forest beyond. Gripping my dagger, I stopped to check for tracks. Sure enough, tiny footprints appeared through the mud.
One set of tracks.
It wasn’t like Prism to get her feet dirty.
My throat tightened as I trudged forward.
“Prism!” I called out. “Prism, where are you?”
Following the tracks at a near-panicked pace, horror squeezed my middle at how far she’d gotten. Though, if it were any comfort, I’d only come across her prints and nothing else. I called out for her again.
Branches snapped in the distance.
I froze in place behind a mighty oak tree.
Pinebears would hear my commotion and run.
Fearcats would hear my calls and hide.
Any common woodland predator would do the same… unless…
Something bigger sounded in the distance, but I couldn’t make out a form or shape. Though my magic pricked against my arms, telling me, no, screaming at me, that something was near.
Fearsome beasts be damned, I called out for my daughter again. The thunderous sounds clapped in the distance again, shaking the leaves on the brush and ferns littering the path.
I’d been a huntress for as long as I could remember.
You got a sense, after a while, of when something was watching you.
Furthermore, of when something was about to attack you.
Both instincts banged on the corners of my mind, telling me to brace for imminent danger.
Widening my stance, I scanned the forest. No birds chirped, no small critters scurried… suddenly, everything was quiet.
Then, abruptly, a small sniffle reached my ears.
A fearcat could have been lurking behind me ready to rip me to shreds, and I still would have ignored the sensation of its eyes on my back and moved towards the new, smaller sound.
“Prism!” I called out.
A tiny voice in the distance answered. “Matri?”
Oh, thank goddess.
Hurrying to its source, I paused between a cluster of black thorns. Peering through their barbs, I spotted a flash of blond hair. Careful as I was to step through the thorns, their hooks scraped against my legs and the flesh of my arms. It didn’t matter; I didn’t care.
Finally, cut and bloodied, I made it past the briars.
As soon as I laid eyes on my daughter, heavy magic pressed on my shoulders like the weight of a thousand realms, pausing me in my tracks.
Prism sat cross-legged on a cut tree stump, looking up at me with wide, watery eyes. “He told me to wait here.”
Deathly chills slithered down my spine.
My gaze scanned her as I dropped to my knees in front of the stump, rubbing her unscarred arms. No thorns, no cuts, no blood. I let out a deep sigh, though the weight of something dark lingered over my being like an impending sea storm.
“He? He who? Darling, did you chase a critter here? I’ve been so worried looking for you.”
“The shadow man,” she answered plainly.
All the air in my body knocked from my lungs. My hands were suddenly cold as I took hers into mine. I could hardly contain the quiver in my tone. “The shadow man?”
“He told me to wait here. He said, he said…” Her lower lip shook.
“What did he say?”
“That they were coming for me. They were coming to take me away. Matri, I was so afraid … but then…”
“Yes? What happened then?” I gripped her hands tightly, as if to remind myself I had her, she was here and she was alive.
“Something big, a big monster, scared it away.” Prism clutched my hands. “Matri? You’re shaking. Are you okay? I’m sorry I followed him… He told me I had to. I had to if I wanted to keep my family safe.”
“A monster?” I swallowed. “Did you see the monster?”