19. Miri
19
Miri
W e waited until sunset before we headed out. The knots in my stomach were so tight, nausea rolled through me with every step I took. His warning rang loudly at the back of my mind. These weren’t friendly woodland folk. The magical beings we sought were powerful and dangerous, and if they had done this to us, what else were they capable of?
Still, like a moth to a flame, I couldn’t resist. The woods had been calling me since we got here, radiating with vibrance and temptation. I needed to find it.
“X, slow down,” Lex shouted from in front of me.
Ivy charged ahead, the light from her torch bouncing around on the grassy path, footsteps crunching on fallen leaves.
The last time we’d walked along this trail, the sun had been low in the sky, coloring everything in a dreamy peach-colored haze. Tonight, the moon reigned supreme. Full and bright, it cast shadows of the trees on the undergrowth, like demons out of my childhood nightmares. Their long tendrils stretched in either direction, pointing to our destruction and scaring me the same as it had when I was a child. It was another reminder we were in the wild, that the trees owned this land and so did the things that lived here. In this tale, we were the monsters.
“It’s over this way,” Ivy said, pointing to her left. “I’m sure of it.”
“Okay, well,” Lex cut in with a scoff, “I walked these trails for hours, looking for the ruins. I’m pretty sure I know them better than you.”
“I’ve been dreaming about them for years, Lucifer,” she snapped.
“That’s not the same,” Lex argued, indignation in his tone. “Not at all. What you made up in your head versus what I actually walked are different things.”
“Can we all agree my dreams are more than made up in my head?” Ivy looked over her shoulder and sneered. Even in the darkness, I saw the signs of her impudence directed at our husband.
“Maybe,” Lex added. “That doesn’t mean you know where you’re going.”
“Siobhan told me I did.” As if that explained it all, as if we were supposed to trust some fairy that had cursed us on that Midsummer night.
“Oh, right.” I could almost hear Lex rolling his eyes. “In the daydream you had when the president of Carter’s fan club touched you.”
“It wasn’t a daydream,” Carter and Ivy said at the same time.
“Her eyes turned white, dude,” he added. “She read her mind.”
I tuned them out and looked around as the vitality of the forest beat against me, prodding against my eardrums like a drop in cabin pressure. It recognized our strangeness and had yet to decide what to do with the intrusion. We were taught a lesson two years ago, and here we were again, as if we needed a reminder.
A chill went down my spine, and my shoulders trembled. “Maybe we ought to?—”
“Over here.” Ivy pointed toward a hill and charged ahead. Carter went after her, but Lex stayed back and looked at me.
“You okay?” He eyed me with that addictive mix of dominance and gentleness, like he expected the truth from me and would take it from me if I dared lie.
I cleared my throat, the static charge of the magic in the air a palpable thing, like I’d stuck my finger in an outlet. Its elephant weight crushed my chest, suffocating me, pushing all the air out of my lungs. I couldn’t breathe.
“Lex, this is a bad night to be here,” I said.
“Hey.” He grabbed my hand and swiped his thumb over my knuckles in a caring caress. “Weren’t you the one that said at least we’d die together?”
I forced a tight smile, ignoring the churning in my gut.
“C’mon.” He nodded toward the trail. ”I’ve got your back.”
I went with him, each step more agonizing than the last. When we crested the hill, I recognized the valley below. Two years ago, it had burned with four epic bonfires and a sea of bodies in the middle, dancing to the rhythm of drumbeats. Now it stood barren and empty.
“We’re close.” Ivy stalked down the hill and through the field, likely to reorient herself with the direction she and Lex had taken off in.
“Over here.” Lex headed to the left. Ivy agreed and went with him.
Hugging myself a little tighter and ignoring the rising hair on the back of my neck, I followed. Every self-preservation instinct I had told me to turn back, that this would end in tragedy and if we didn’t heed the trees’ warning, we would suffer the most for it.
The trees know. The trees know all.
Instead, we went deeper. We found the spot where we’d gotten into a fight and farther on, the spot at the creek where we’d made up.
“The memories from that night are still hazy.” Carter gestured toward a giant rock. “But I feel like the ruins should be up that way.”
“Yeah,” Lex agreed.
“Miri,” came a sound from behind me. At first, I thought it was a whistle on the wind, nothing but branches brushing against each other. I ignored it, clutching my jacket tighter around my torso. “Mirrrrriiii.”
I definitely heard it that time. Turning, I scanned the forest line for the person saying my name. No one else knew I was here, no one save the other three people in front of me. Who could it be? Was I hearing things? Was it the trees?
Movement off to the left caught my attention.
“Lex.” My heart pounded as I reached out for him, digging my nails into the sleeve of his peacoat. “You hear that?”
“Hear what?” he said.
“ Miriam, where are you?” The sound of my mother’s voice raised the hairs on my arm, sending a jolt of terror down my spine and into my legs. I didn’t know how I knew it was her; I hadn’t heard her speak in over ten years. But it was her. Definitely.
“Miriam.” My father’s voice echoed next, seizing my lungs, forcing me to pay attention. I couldn’t pretend they weren’t there when I heard them so clearly. This wasn’t the trees. It couldn’t be. How could they know what my parents sounded like?
The trees know all.
“Mum?” I murmured. “Da?”
“What?” Lex scrunched his features together and grabbed my shoulder, trying to get my attention refocused on him. “Miri, what’s going on?”
“My parents,” I whispered, looking up into his intense hazel stare. “Do you hear them?”
“Parents?” Lex had barely uttered the word before I took off into the woods.
Objectively, it couldn’t have been my parents. They’d died when I was a teenager. I’d personally seen their bodies lowered into graves at St. Andrews Cathedral. But the veil between the realms was supposed to have been the thinnest on Samhain. If they were haunting me, tonight might be the only night they could make contact.
I had to try to reach them. I just had to.
“Mum,” I shouted, running through the woods, jumping over fallen trees. “Da!” I pumped my legs harder, cranking my arms at my sides. “Mum! Da!”
“Miriam!” The sound came from my left, and I took off in that direction.
“Miri!” someone shouted behind me, but I ignored them. My parents were here. Here! I had to see them. I had so much to ask them. I needed to know what they thought I should do. I needed advice from the only people who understood. I yearned for my mum to hold me in her arms and kiss my face and tell me I’d be okay, that I was smart and strong and loved. My inner child longed to hear my father call me his girl and bounce me on his knee. Sure, I knew I was twenty-four years old, but age didn’t matter when the warmth of my father’s affection had been withheld from me for so very long.
“Mum!” I shouted.
“Miri!” came the voice behind me again.
“Miriam! This way!” I turned right, but something big and hard collided with me, taking me down to the ground. I landed with a loud oof, the air pushing out of my lungs.
Lex.
“Stop it,” he said, grabbing my wrists to pin them above my head when I tried to wrestle out from under him. “You can’t run off by yourself.”
“ Lex?” came a deeper, darker voice.
Lex’s features dropped. He froze, turned to ice on top of me, and lifted his head to look above us. “Marcus?”
“ Miriam!” My father’s voice cut through the night air again, urging me forward.
“Lex, come find me! I need to talk to you! I need to tell you something!” Marcus called, his tone worried and panicked.
Lex hopped off me, and I pushed myself upright, listening through the gusts of wind and rattles of fallen leaves for my father again.
“Da!” I was desperate now, turning in place so I didn’t miss anything. My heart raced and tears streamed down my face as I searched. Where is he? Where is he? I spun around, sobs pouring out of my chest as I tried to get my bearings. In the tussle with Lex, I’d lost my way.
“Da!” I called again, my voice cracking as I gasped for air.
“ Miriam!” I took off to the right, running harder this time to stay away from Lex, the sounds of crunching twigs and fallen pine needles echoing from under my feet. I leaped over a log, my lungs heaving the crisp autumn air, the taste of metal in the back of my throat.
Almost there. Almost there.
“Mum! Da!” I stopped to listen because I didn’t know where to go. I’d lost them. I heard nothing, just the humming call of the forest nightlife.
Bleeding Christ! How could I lose them? You’re so stupid, Miri! So damned ridiculous.
Hands grabbed me by the shoulders, and I jumped, settling when Lex wrapped his arms around me.
“It’s not real,” he said, his muscles trembling as he tried to hold me still. “The fairies disguise themselves as ghosts, remember? It’s not real.”
“I need to talk to them. I need?—”
“Miriam…” my mother called.
“Alexei!” Marcus cried. “Save me, Alexei! Save me! I need your help.”
“C’mon.” I grabbed Lex’s hand and set off toward the left. Any second, we’d duck around a tree, and there they’d be. Instead, a big structure loomed in the distance and when we got close enough, the ruins came into focus.
We’d found it!
Mum! Da!
I skidded to a halt, digging my heels into the dirt to stop myself. Ivy and Carter had beaten us there, but that wasn’t what made me freeze. A tall, brunette woman wearing a long, flowing white gown stood in front of the structure.
Ashley.
“ Welcome back,” she said, her voice holding a metallic tin-like quality that made her seem otherworldly. Her presence lured me in, seemingly safe and entrancing. “It’s been a while. Follow me.”