Bound In Blue: Book One Of The Sword Of Elements (9 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Maybe it was because of the holly, but the nightmare was subtly different. I looked up from the warm embrace of the woman who carried me and saw a young man following us, though the light was too dim to make out his features clearly. The woman stopped and turned to speak to him, but I couldn’t hear the words; the dream had always been silent except for the sound of her heart and my own breathing. She began walking with increased urgency and so did the young man though he kept his distance. With a familiar gesture, he brushed long hair out of his eyes.

I woke with a start.

It’s just a dream. People see crazy things in dreams.

I could hear the drizzle of rain falling on the roof and the light filtering through the blinds was grim. Reaching for the glass of water and bottle of acetaminophen on my bedside table, I swallowed a couple of pills and closed my eyes until my headache receded.

After I showered and dressed, I decided to go to the bakery. It was a little bit of a drive, but it was the only place local that sold French
macarons
. When Peter and his parents went to church—they were heavily involved in their local congregation—Mom would never let me go with them. She would go to the bakery and get a box of
macarons
—jewel colored meringues shaped like UFOs with jam or cream in the center. I thought it was our special ritual, but maybe she was just pawning me off with a treat to keep me from wanting to go with them.

I suppose it’s reasonable that a god might not want her kid to spend her Sundays learning about a rival one.

As I left the house, I checked the sprig of holly to make sure it was still wedged into the loose piece of siding above the door. Even after a chilly night, it was fresh and green.

The bakery was quieter than usual because of the rain and only one of the tables was occupied. I breathed in the sweet smell of sugar. Ordering a dozen
macarons
in raspberry, pistachio, and salted caramel, I promised myself I would save some for later, but knew I’d end up eating them all before lunch.

As I waited for my order to be boxed, I realized the group sitting at the table was watching me. I wasn’t used to people paying attention to me yet and mauve discomfort filled me. When the waitress handed me my change, I rushed out of the café, fumbling in my pocket for my keys.

“What’s your hurry?”

Startled, I dropped the keys on the pavement as a woman walked around me. She bent down to pick them up and held them in front of my face.  I snatched them back and shoved them in my pocket.

We stared at each other. The woman’s skin was pale and drops of moisture clung to the fiery red strands that had escaped from the elaborate braid draped over her shoulder. Around her neck she wore a thick gold choker open at the center and engraved with strange symbols. I blinked first; the rain had turned to a fine mist that coated my lashes.

The rest of the group wandered out to join her, two men and another woman. They all wore black though the styles varied. The woman in front of me wore a leather jacket belted at the waist, leggings, and low-heeled boots.

Looks like someone rented the Matrix.

I made a move to walk past her and she countered to block me. “So you’re the Anomaly.” She almost spat it. There were some sniggers from the others. This was a gang—a very stylish one—but still a gang.

I was surprised. No one had ever noticed me enough to bully me. “Yup, that’s me, the big old anomaly. Who the hell are you?”

The woman smirked. She knew who I was so she had to be one of Taliesin’s Protectors. He may have backed down, but there was a real threat here, I was sure of it.

I tried to remember what I’d done by instinct when I faced the Cŵn Annwn. Closing my eyes, I tried to use my interior vision to see the power inside this woman—because she had power, I was sure of it. There was more laughter, but I forced myself to concentrate. The Cŵn Annwn was pure and simple, but as the outline of her form appeared in my mind, it was filled with an elusive and shifting landscape of color. A couple of hues dominated—gold and red—but tainting them all was a black that charred the others wherever it touched them.

I reached out my hand and heard her intake of breath when I brushed her arm. I shuddered. I could feel the blackness emanating from inside and eddying around her. The woman pushed me away but not before I managed to grasp some of it.

There was shouting, but I ignored it. In my mind, I looked at the strand of blackness held in the mental image of my hand.  It felt like despair. It felt like power fed by strong emotion.  Power used to hurt.

Hurt just for the sick satisfaction of it.

The dark power seemed to acknowledge my recognition; it twisted in my hand and changed its shape into a whip. When I imagined snapping it at the ground, I heard the crack. Pain shot through me and I opened my eyes.

So much for synesthesia.

I held a length of some black substance in my hand and by the shocked look on the woman’s face, I knew she could see it too.  Pulling the trailing end across the wrist of the hand still holding the pastry box, I could feel its slithering weight on my arm. I snapped it at the ground between us and the woman jumped back while the others gathered in a frightened knot behind her.

A whip was the right shape for it. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but this power was used to torment, even torture. I wondered if the woman knew. I wondered if she’d ever used it on anyone.

Shaking the black rope off, I grabbed the woman by the arm. Before she could resist, I closed my eyes to see the aura of color surrounding her and then hooked my fingers into it. She shoved me away, but I held on and pulled with mental, physical, and maybe even spiritual effort. After a brief resistance, black power flowed out of her and rushed towards me. I fell onto my back on the wet pavement as it surrounded me. It poked and prodded at me, trying to find a way in, but I held my breath and kept my eyes shut tight. I couldn’t let it in the way I did with the Cŵn Annwn’s power. I didn’t want to know what this dark magic felt like.

The pressure disappeared. I opened my eyes and saw black smoke pluming into the air to be shredded and washed away by the rain.

I pushed myself up into a crouch. The pastry box was still in my left hand and I had to use my right to steady myself as I got to my feet. The woman stared at me, panting, before turning and walking away. She gestured and the others followed.

Nausea hit me as the pounding in my head doubled. I got the keys out of my pocket, but they slipped from my fingers and it took me two tries before I could pick them up. Stumbling to the car, I slid in and tossed the pasty box on the passenger seat, but a terrible smell cut through the pain and I pried open the lid. The
macarons
were ash that steamed and stank.

I threw the box out the window.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I parked in front of a building on a side street downtown and checked the back of Goodfellow’s card to make sure I was at the right address. The place was abandoned and there were no other cars in the small parking lot. I expected it to be locked, but the front door opened into a dingy vestibule with an old elevator on one side and a roped off stairway on the other. I made my choice and pushed the cracked and yellowed elevator button. When the door jerked open and I stepped in, I tried not to imagine rusty cables breaking and sending me hurtling down to the ground in a heap of twisted steel.

The ancient contraption creaked its way to the next floor, and after a jolt, the door opened again and I stepped into a spacious foyer of white marble and walls covered in elegant grass cloth. The air was cool and damp.

“Hello?”

“Miss Lynne? Is that you?” Goodfellow emerged from around a corner wiping his hands on a frilly tea towel. He was dressed in head to toe green again. “I wasn’t expecting you for another hour. Is everything all right?”

After the incident with the woman, I hadn’t wanted to be alone and had come straight over, but all I said was, “I didn’t mean to be early. I’m sorry if I’m interrupting anything.”

He waved my apology away and tossed the towel back into what must be the kitchen. “Not a problem, my dear. Come into the living room and we’ll have a little chat.”

I followed him into a large room decorated in green and white and then almost immediately sank weak-kneed into the closest chair. Outside the floor to ceiling windows, trees stretched for miles and faded into distant, foggy mountains.

You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.

“Where are we?”

Goodfellow held out his arms as if he could embrace the view. “One of my favorite places in all the world—Gwydyr Forest in the heart of Snowdonia. Wilder than Sherwood, more open than the Black Forest—pine and spruce and a view of great Snowdon peak itself.”

I had to swallow before I could speak again. “Snowdon?”

“The highest mountain in Wales.”

I stood and walked to the window to touch the tips of my fingers to the cold glass. It was real. We were in a house perched on the edge of a small, rocky lake. Trees swept away from it on all sides.

“How did I get here?”

I heard Goodfellow sigh. “I can’t believe Viviane left you so ignorant. Why would she do such a thing?”

I had no answer.

Goodfellow folded his arms across his massive chest. “How did you get here? How did I get you away from Taliesin and his people? It’s because of the Paths. I might not be able to defy the bard completely, but he knows I could tell my kin to make themselves scarce, if you know what I mean. I could make it quite difficult for him to traipse back and forth across the world with his army.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You know about the Wall?” I nodded. “Before the Wall, the Paths were used to travel through the world or to Avalon when the way was still open. The Paths were once part of the ancient forests covering the earth when the magic of creation still flickered among the trees. Those first forests were sentient and allowed creatures to pass through them, or not, at their pleasure. Thus, the Paths were born and I found them.”

His voice twisted. “Eventually I found Cernunnos at the end of one of them. But all things must pass away and new forests were born which had no thought and did not grieve or rage when they were paved over for strip malls and condos. But the ghosts of those original forests remember and their Paths remain. Except for me and my kin, few can find them. Of all the earth magicians, Arthur had the best sense of them, except for . . .” The Green Man shook his head and walked away, leaving the sentence unfinished.

I followed him. “Except for who?”

He shook his head again. “It doesn’t matter. Someone who is lost and gone.”

I was hungry for answers. “Who are your kin then?”

Goodfellow sat down on one of the white leather couches in the center of the room. “I am the Green Man and can walk any Path, but there are lesser beings who can also find them. I call them my kin and the earth magicians call them Guides. They are creatures of the forest—wood sprites, dryads, tree fairies—a network created to transport the earth magicians through the world. To their credit, the magicians are usually fair in their payment, but some have the power to force the Guides if they chose to.”

“But not you.”

“No. I am old, Miss Lynne, very old. In a way that I can’t explain to you, I’m a part of those first forests. I feel them still.”

I glanced back at the elevator door at the end of the hall. “I didn’t exactly come here through a leafy trail.”

Goodfellow laughed. “I can make a Path look like anything I want, even an elevator in an abandoned office building.”

Sitting down on the matching couch across from Goodfellow, I noticed the long wooden box and thick folder on the glass table between us. “I really appreciate your help yesterday, but why did you want to see me?” As an answer, he handed me the folder and I opened it and dumped out the contents on the table. There were several bank books, bank cards, and a document which turned out to be a birth certificate with my name on it.

“It’s a fake, but a good one. Viviane had several made up over the years when she needed to. She destroyed them after she used them.”

“Why?” I asked in surprise.

“Names have power, even names on paper. It wasn’t my place to ask what she was protecting you from. Perhaps she was just being cautious.”

I took a closer look at the paper in my hand. It looked authentic to me. “You did this?”

The Green Man’s laughter shook the windows. “I’ve kept up with the times, but not to the point of becoming a master counterfeiter. There’s a banshee in Dublin who’s the best in the business. Banshees know when someone is about to die. This one started out in identity theft and then diversified. The money is real though. I made all the deposits myself. You have ample funds in several institutions and currencies around the world.”

I flipped open one of the bank books and gasped. “Where did all this come from?”

Goodfellow shrugged. “As a goddess, Viviane had received tribute from her worshippers, but most of it was gone by the time she asked me to take care of her affairs. The Seer of New York gave me a heads up back in the Seventies that a certain company with, shall we say, a very common fruit as its logo would be worth following.” He winked at me. “Even a god is well served by a few good investments. I didn’t do too badly myself.”

“Why didn’t she give this to me herself? How could she even know I would find your card and contact you?”

Goodfellow’s smile slipped away. “She didn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Viviane was explicit in her instructions. I was to deliver these items to you and provide any assistance you might need, but only if you contacted me. A test of fate, she called it. All she said was that events had not transpired as she had once planned and she would not force their shape going forward. She had left things in place for you, but that greater gods than she would need to guide you to them, or away as fate decreed. I didn’t understand it, but then, you know how she was.” He seemed embarrassed, but I didn’t know if was for himself or for Mom. “Miss Lynne, can I get you something to drink? I was just making some tea when you came in.”

“No, I’m fine. What’s in the box?” I asked bluntly. He was trying to distract me from the last item on the table.

“Smart girl,” the Green Man murmured. Clasping his hands and leaning forward, he considered me intently. “I’ll be straight with you. When Viviane told me what she wanted me to retrieve and keep for you, I was shocked. I tried to argue with her, but she wouldn’t listen.  ‘Only if Rhiannon comes to you,’ she said, ‘only if she asks.’ Since I figured it was highly unlikely, I agreed. I went to the location Viviane gave me and recovered this box, but I don’t have to give it to you unless you ask. And believe me, Miss Lynne, you don’t want to ask. Some things are better left hidden.”

I wanted the answers Mom offered me in death that she’d denied me in life.  “I’m sorry. You’ve been good to me, but I have to ask. Will you please give me what my mother left me?’

Goodfellow sighed as he slid the long box across the table toward me. It scraped across the glass; whatever was in it was heavy. Flipping open the silver clasp on the side, I lifted the hinged lid to reveal a long shaft of distorted grey and yellow metal. Something had been melted and left to harden into an ugly mess, but I couldn’t tell what. Goodfellow made a soft noise and I looked up to see tears running down his cheek and into his beard.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Excalibur,” he whispered.