Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVEREST
“We can’t risk traveling through my shadows, nor the Seelie tunnel.” I turned to Tegan. “You can portal us through me, right? You’ve done this before.”
She grinned. “Many times, yeah. Just go there in your mind and I’ll do the rest.”
I nodded, then glanced to the rest of the group huddled around us. “When Tegan’s portal relocates you, do not move. Wherever your feet land is where you shall remain until I give clearance, understood?”
Everyone nodded.
“Good.” I took a deep breath, then closed my eyes, picturing our destination in my mind. “Whenever you’re ready, Trouble.”
Tegan’s rainbow magic swirled across my vision, followed by a bright flash of white against my eyelids. Traveling through her portals was nearly identical to using my shadows but it was much more convenient when she did it, at least with a whole group going.
I knew the moment Tegan’s portal faded away and the others took in our surroundings simply by the sharp gasp from Savannah behind me.
A smirk pulled at my lips. I opened my eyes and the smile vanished as I took in the first dangerous decision I’d ever made in my long life: the back door portal into Mother’s realm I created when I was a small child.
I’d somehow managed to keep this safe and hidden from Mother for a thousand years . . . until now. This door would cease to exist after this. For good and bad.
“No, ma’am. N’uh’huh’. No,” Savannah drawled, her accent adding a few syllables to the short word. “This is my backyard!”
“What do you mean?”
“Your backyard?”
“I thought you were from Salem?”
“I don’t even see a house.”
“Savannah, what do you mean?” Cooper’s warm voice was calm and patient, as he always was with her. “We need a little more information than that.”
She let out a holler that made me chuckle, which was why I hadn’t turned around yet.
“Just through them trees there is Mamaw and Papaw’s house.
What’ch’you mean you need more information than that?
I was born here, Cooper Devon Bishop. I was raised right here in these here woods, in these here mountains—”
“So not literally your backyard—”
“I BUILT THAT CIRCLE AROUND THE DOORWAY WHEN I WAS TEN, COOPER,” Savannah was shouting now, her voice raising a few octaves although I alone understood why. “No, no, no, no. Ionlikeit, ma’am.”
The rest of The Coven and their pets started asking questions.
Then I heard Tegan chuckle in my mind, followed by her telepathic thoughts, “Okay, I'll admit. Even I didn’t see that one coming yet. Might’ve if I had more time.”
“I am certain you would have,” I whispered back into her mind. Then I spun around and had to cover my mouth with my hand to stop myself from laughing.
Savannah had picked up one of her Mamaw’s old switches she’d left lying around the stone circle surrounding the lone stone archway and started swatting everyone with it to make them back up.
There was a whole lot of hollering, shrieking, and cursing from everyone except me and Tegan, who stood beside me.
Tennessee grabbed her wrist and lifted her until her feet dangled off the ground.
“No, Tenn, no. We don’t belong here. We’ve got to go. You don’t know what I know,” she yelled with her words overlapping each other. Those wild blue-sapphire eyes spun to me. “WINTER FROST MOUNTAIN, MA’AM. YOU GOT SOM’ SPLAININ’ TO DO.”
Tenn lowered her to the ground, then slowly released his grip. “Just stop hitting us, okay?”
“Just stop trying to get into my circle, okay?” she shrieked, her cheeks fully flushed now. She pointed to the archway behind me. “You don’t know the monster that lives in there—”
“No, but neither do you, Savannah,” I spoke slowly to ensure I had her attention. Then I turned and strolled over to the archway made of stone. “You know not what you saw—”
“Bullshit. I saw my life flash before my eyes, is what I saw. I saw . . . I saw . . . it was—No, we need to go. Right now. I need to sage my brain. I can’t be seeing that thing no more. Not again.”
“Savannah?” I walked around the back of the archway, then stopped directly under it. “Do you trust me?”
She gasped. “Well . . . hold on, this is different—”
“No, it’s not.” I gave her a small smile, then transformed myself into the shadowy, faceless, bony monster that used to haunt her as a child.
She screamed and leapt away from the circle only to slam into Cooper’s chest. He gripped her arms and held her tight while his pale-green eyes narrowed on the monster I’d become.
The rest of The Coven and crew had gathered tightly around them, equally as confused.
Well, not Tegan. But nothing really applied to her these days.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Savannah cried softly, her whole body shaking in earnest. “I can’t do this again. We gotta go, y’all. This monster is evil—”
“I’m not evil, Savannah,” I said with the growly, rumbly voice she clearly remembered, judging by the way her whole face paled and her body locked up.
I took a step forward so I was merely a foot in front of her, then I leaned down so my now glowing red eyes would be more level with hers. “I asked if you trusted me, Savannah.”
Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. For a moment she just stared at me, as did the rest of them. “Everest?” she finally whispered.
“As I said, you know not what you saw,” I said with the monster’s voice still. Then I released my magic, letting my body reclaim its normal appearance. “You saw what I wanted you to see, what you needed to see.”
“WHAT?” she screamed and swayed on her feet.
Tenn cleared his throat and lifted one finger in the air. “Can you kindly fill the rest of us in on what the fuck is happening right now?”
I nodded and half-turned away from them so I could gesture to the archway, which in the dim lighting of this thick forest, where the barest slivers of moonlight reached us, looked eerily similar to the archway in the Land of the Lore.
It was made of gray stones that looked as pristine as the day they were built there many centuries ago.
My magic repelled the wear and tear nature would’ve normally left.
“This back door I created has had many faces over the last thousand years, having been hidden beneath many a different form of structure built by the family protecting it.
For the first few centuries a tree had grown up and around it, concealing the small orb within it safely.
At the start of the One Hundred Years' War, the family protecting it realized trees were being set ablaze for a variety of reasons, so they had the Wheel of Fortune come and safely relocate the tree to right there.” I raised my left hand and pointed to the tree that was nearly as old as me and heard Savannah gasp.
“They tried burying it beneath dirt, encasing it within a stone tower, building a home over top of it—and many more, before they settled on this archway.”
Savannah whined. “WHY?”
“Because over the course of the war, the fae had become infamous for using magical archways to trap their prey—mostly humans. So, by the end of the war, the humans had a deep, deep fear of lone archways in the forest. This fear the Appalachians were so kind enough to unknowingly carry from generation to generation, thus protecting this one the family had built.” Despite myself, I smiled.
But thankfully, my back was to them so no one else saw it.
“However, twelve years ago the youngest member of that family, a small toddler by the name of Savannah Morrigan Grace, became obsessed with it.”
The others gasped.
“Wait, the family that protected this doorway was Savannah’s family?”
“Yes.” I turned and met her stare. “Though our dearest Savannah here did not know what the archway truly held, she assumed that the stories of the evil fae her Mamaw and Papaw told her were true . . . and yet . . .”
Savannah whined and covered her face with her hands.
The others looked back and forth between us with confused expressions.
“Over the next six years, Mamaw and Papaw slowly lost control of Savannah’s unshakable attraction to the orb. When she was ten, she nearly touched the orb with her bare fingers—had I not intercepted.”
“That’s not when I saw the monster though,” Savannah whispered as she dropped her hands in defeat.
“No, it wasn’t. I was much kinder in my efforts to frighten you away at that time. You were little . . .” I smirked and shrugged, shoving my hands in my jeans’ pockets. “You were also the single most stubborn person I had ever met, save for one. You could not let it go, could you, Savannah?”
Her eyes glistened but I saw the haunted fear still within them. She shook her head. “I . . . couldn’t stay away . . . I . . . I don’t know why . . .”
I do.
“When Samhain was approaching, I warned your father he had better settle this matter or I would. I told him he had until All Hallows’ Eve.
If you came here that night, I would take matters into my own hands—and none of you would like the way I did it.
” I gave her a small smile. “Your father did try, but as you know, he was not successful.”
“Wait . . . hold on.” She rubbed her eyes, then looked at me. “You spoke to my father? You’re tellin’ me you know my father?”
“Yes, Savannah, I know your father. And your grandparents, and their parents as well.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes. “Oh yeah? What’s my dad’s full name?”
I chuckled. “I could tell you his full name, his real full name, but since you do not know it, I suppose I’ll give you the one he’s used among humans . . . Raeven Oasis Grace.”
She gasped so hard her hands flew up to clutch imaginary pearls. Her mangled fingers trembled as she shook her head. “No, wait. No one knows his name is Raeven Oasis. He’s always gone by Ray Grace—”
“Among the humans, yes.” I nodded. “But non-humans knew him as Raeven—”