Chapter Twenty-Eight
Into the Dysterwood
Standing at the edge of the meadow, tucked just behind a scraggly bush, Oliver spread out the blanket he had borrowed from Mr. Allen and let out a contented sigh.
It was perfect. It was cool enough to be pleasant with only their jackets on, the flowers were open and swaying in the breeze, and the shallow hole in Felipe’s leg had already closed overnight.
If they were lucky, Felipe’s arm would be healed by the time they went into the Dysterwood on Sunday.
Oliver glanced at his pocket watch. He had left Felipe at the inn to finish shaving and getting ready, but he would be there any minute.
Reaching into the wicker basket, he quickly pulled out all the things he and Gwen had bought at the general store and pharmacy.
It looked excessive, but Felipe deserved a treat.
Oliver had arranged the crackers, jam, cheese, and peanut butter half a dozen ways on the blanket before he realized something was missing.
“The sodas,” Oliver said aloud. He looked around the empty meadow and the too quiet road, but there were no people or animals to speak of.
If he ran back to the inn to collect them and Felipe, he doubted anyone would bother their things, but one could never be too careful.
Feeling around the bottom of the basket, Oliver pulled out the ring box.
He bit his lip as he opened it, watching the sun gleam across the amber and gold.
My light in the darkness. Felipe had proposed first, but still, he hoped he would say yes and that he liked the ring as much as Oliver liked his.
Unlike so many things in his life, proposing to Felipe felt right.
As he went to put the box in his pocket, a metallic click sounded behind him.
Oliver froze and turned, his heart pounding in his ears.
Standing in the field of flowers at the edge of the trees was Daphne Stills.
Leaves clung to her faded red hair and color rose in her cheeks as she pointed a gun at Oliver.
Somewhere in the trees, he thought he heard the clink of glass and a gasp, but he didn’t dare turn his head to look.
“Give it to me,” she demanded. Flowers flattened beneath her feet as she drew closer. “Now.”
“Give what to you?”
“Don’t play stupid. The ring. I know you have it.” She motioned to the box with the muzzle of the gun. “Hand it over, nice and slow.”
Oliver blinked and followed her gaze to Felipe’s ring.
He distantly realized she was mistaken, and the urge to correct her rose unbidden.
Let her have it. Will had been terrified his aunt would get her hands on the signet ring and make a new bargain.
He didn’t want to give her Felipe’s ring, but it would give them time to get a plan together.
When she realized it wasn’t the right ring, she would be furious and probably throw it in the swamp.
His heart sank as he pictured the gleaming amber.
He could get him another ring. Leaning forward with his hands up, Oliver hesitantly held the box up for her to take.
A ghost of a smile played on her lips as she snatched it from his hand and tucked it into her dress.
The grass crackled beside him as roots sprung up from the ground quick as snakes and twined up his left arm before jumping to his right.
Oliver struggled against his binds as the roots pulled tight.
“Get up.” When Oliver didn’t move, she yelled, “Get up!”
Oliver’s pulse pounded with dread, but as he slowly stood, he glanced to the side and found Gwen watching him with wide eyes and the bottles of soda clutched to her chest. For the briefest instant, he locked eyes with her and nodded toward his neck where the signet ring hung from its chain.
Take it, he silently pleaded. She knew the plan.
She knew what had to be done. He felt her invisible fingers on the back of his neck, and the chain slid down the length of his body.
It hit the ground and slithered across the grass out of sight as Daphne came up behind him.
“Let’s go.” Daphne jabbed the gun into his back and nudged him toward the trees. “Call for help, and I’ll blow out your kidneys.”
Walking through the meadow with the gun at his back, Oliver held tight to the tether and their half-concocted plan.
All he needed to do was stay alive long enough for Felipe to reach him.
If he followed Daphne’s rules, she wouldn’t shoot him; he could do that.
He believed in very little for certain, but his belief in Felipe never wavered. He would find him.
***
STANDING AT THE SHAVING mirror, Felipe focused on the spangles of anticipation flitting from Oliver’s side of the tether and smiled.
The previous night’s horrors had faded to stains on the carpet and a bottle of alcohol turned wet specimen, but the echoes of panic still haunted him at how close he had come to dying again.
He trusted his ability to heal, but not that much.
Unknotting the sling, Felipe stretched his arm with a wince.
The bruise on his collarbone was breaking up and the ends of the bone no longer ground together when he moved his arm, but it still hurt.
Another day of babying it, then. Felipe had just slipped his injured arm into his jacket sleeve when he felt it, a flash of fear and the steady, focused kick of adrenaline.
Oliver. Grabbing his knife and his gun from the nightstand, Felipe hammered down the steps.
The moment he reached the bottom, the tether sagged in his chest like it had been made of taffy.
No. No. No. They were supposed to go in together.
Felipe’s mind raced as he stuffed the knife into his pocket and the gun into the waistband of his trousers.
Oliver would never go in alone, not after last time.
Throwing open the front door, Felipe collided with Gwen.
Their foreheads knocked, and glass exploded at their feet as they jumped apart.
At the sound, Mr. Allen appeared from the hall with Argos at his heels. “What is going on in here?”
“Daphne Stills has Oliver,” she cried the same time Felipe said, “Oliver’s in the Dysterwood.”
Felipe stared at Gwen as the words sank in. “I’m going to go get him.”
He had nearly pushed past her when her powers slammed into him like a wall.
“Wait! Take this,” she said, freeing the signet ring from its chain with shaking hands.
As if expecting him to bolt, Gwen held tight to the ring and his gaze.
“Remember the rules. Do not leave the path. Do not call for the Lady, only Oliver. Do not forget that the woods can’t hurt him, but it can hurt you. Say it back to me, Felipe.”
He didn’t have time for this. He needed to get Oliver. When she didn’t let go, he stepped back and repeated the rules back to her. The Dysterwood and the Lady can’t hurt Oliver, he repeated to himself again and again. That one was going to be the hardest to remember.
“Good.” Staring into Felipe’s eyes, Gwen said solemnly, “Do not make me go back to New York alone, Felipe Galvan.”
“I won’t.”
With a nod, he slipped on the signet ring and took off toward the trees at the end of the road as fast as his legs would carry him.
***
THE LIGHT IN THE DYSTERWOOD was wrong. It had gone from a bright morning to a foggy evening the moment Oliver tumbled through the trees.
His sinuses burned at the wave of magic washing over him, but there was no time to acclimate.
Daphne urged him forward at a steady clip.
Her gaze swept over the woods as if looking for something before she shoved him off the path and into the mossy underbrush.
Oliver’s stomach twisted at the transgression, but Daphne Stills didn’t care.
She trod over bushes and through spiderwebs without a second glance, as long as it led her deeper into the woods.
Oliver silently apologized and hoped the woods would understand that he was doing it under duress.
When they were deep enough that she was confident Oliver had nowhere to run, she stuffed the ring onto her finger and tossed the box into the brush.
Her green eyes lit up as she slipped it onto her finger.
“I demand an audience with the Lady!”
She raised the ring skyward and waited but nothing happened.
She tried a second time, but the silence only grew louder.
Oliver watched her, hoping she wouldn’t suddenly remember what the ring was supposed to look like.
Then again, it had been nearly forty years since it disappeared.
After what he had heard, he doubted she would spare his death a passing thought if she realized he tricked her.
“Damn that woman. You can’t ignore me forever!” Releasing a huff of frustration, she stormed back to Oliver and put the gun against his back again. “You call to her.”
He swallowed hard. He needed to wait for Felipe. “What makes you think she’ll listen to me? I’ve never seen her.”
“You came back out of the Dysterwood after I shoved you in, so I know you’re Stephen’s brat. You are the heir to the Dysterwood. She has to listen to you.”
She said it as if it was distasteful to her, and the trees gave a menacing shake.
The energy in the forest was shifting, like they had stretched the limits of the Dysterwood’s goodwill, and one false step would end in them getting torn limb from limb.
He didn’t want to attract the Lady’s notice.
He needed Felipe for that part. Oliver took a slow step back.
Take me back to the path, he thought, please.
He took another blind step backward, and his heel hit solid wood.
A silent sigh escaped his lips as an animal screamed and chattered in the distance.
Daphne gave him a queer look; the trees around them had shifted from oaks to rows of towering pines between one step and the next.
“What did you do?”