(Skeleton Key) Into Elurien (15 page)
Read (Skeleton Key) Into Elurien Online
Authors: Kate Sparkes
I snorted. “Not even a little.”
Jaid smiled and paced away, alert for further danger. Verelle was gone, but the monsters probably felt no safer in Fairbrook than I had when I’d arrived in Elurien. They were surrounded by their own nightmare creatures here.
Zinian and I helped Auphel sit up. Her bleeding had slowed, but I wasn’t going to ask her to move until she felt ready. If the townsfolk were still disturbed by the monsters, that was their problem.
Zinian pulled me a few paces away.
“Do you feel free, now that it’s done?” I asked.
He drew in a deep breath of air that had grown thick with pre-rain mist. “I do, but not for that reason. I once thought I was chained to my past as long as Verelle lived. But after you left, I realized that her death wasn’t the key I needed.” His eyes crinkled in the corners. “It was you. The night we spent together, I lost my chains.”
Tears welled up, stinging my eyes, and I nodded. “I know what you mean,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Different chains, though.”
“I found your letter after you left.”
I winced. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”
“I’m glad I did, though it tore me apart when I realized that I felt the same way about you, and I’d let you go.” He grazed my cheek gently with the back side of a curved claw, then leaned in, stopping just before his lips touched mine. “I didn’t come here to finish Verelle. I came for you.”
I pressed my lips to his, not caring who might be staring.
Somewhere behind us, Auphel let out a weak cheer.
I
f there’s
one thing to be said for Newfoundlanders (and there are so many things, really), it’s that they know how to pick up and carry on after disaster. Verelle had hit the town harder than any winter storm, but the cleanup wasn’t so different. The people banded together to rebuild.
Those who still lived, at least.
While the people of Fairbrook had been trapped on the island, a storm had blown in at the other end of the causeway, keeping Verelle’s secrets safe. There was much debate over whether to make the story public or cover it up. Would it be good for tourism, or would it frighten people away?
I didn’t participate in that discussion, but I did what I could to help while my friends recuperated in the bookstore, well away from the humans. My parents hadn’t come to visit us, and things between me and my mother remained uncomfortable at best when we met in town. I doubted I’d ever be forgiven for telling her off. Loretta Walsh knew far better than I how to hold a grudge.
My friends and I spent three more nights in the store, all of us too exhausted to do more than scarf down a meal and collapse into sleep—me from my current hard work, them from their sudden release after years of fighting.
Zinian shared the bed upstairs with me, and sleeping with his arm wrapped around my waist and his breath against my neck was heaven.
“Emergency crews inbound,” Gus Hodder commented to me on the third morning. We’d found him hiding under the grocery store’s loading dock with a broken leg the evening after Verelle’s fall.
“’Bout time,” muttered an older man who passed us. He gave me a nod. “Friends still resting?”
“They are.”
“Proper thing.” He scowled at a Coast Guard helicopter that passed overhead.
The town had kept things quiet until the most important parts of the cleanup were completed. They’d moved bodies to a refrigerated back room of the store. At least the soldiers had disappeared now that Verelle was dead, not leaving so much as a feather behind as proof they’d ever existed.
I kept my eye on a stranger in a black trenchcoat—a walking cliché of a mysterious government official if ever there was one. His dark skin appeared flat and somehow bloodless. He wore a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes, but winced and glared upward as the clouds parted and the sun broke through. He made me nervous.
I turned toward a rustling noise in the alley behind me. Zinian stood in the shadows, where they all preferred to remain, even though many of the townspeople had tried to offer our legendary hospitality to them once they’d got over their fears. Gus gave him a quick nod and hurried away.
“Outsiders are poking around,” I said to Zinian as I walked over. The man in the trenchcoat turned, squinted into the darkness behind me, and held up one finger in a clear command.
Stay.
I don’t think so.
I threaded my fingers between Zinian’s, and we hurried through the alleys toward the bookstore.
Jaid was waiting on the back step with Tomie, who had become quite attached to this incredible cat-person who was able to work the can opener. As it turned out, his family had been in Florida for the winter, and the poor fellow had been forgotten in Verelle’s chaos. The spoiled creature would have all the treats he could handle soon enough.
Jaid stood as we approached.
“It’s time to go,” Zinian said.
“At last,” sighed Auphel from inside the store. She squeezed out the door and wobbled a few paces. The hits she’d taken from Verelle had hurt her more than I’d realized, but she would recover. She turned to Zinian with concern written in the creases of her heavy brow. “Did you ask?”
“Not yet.”
My heart skipped. I knew what the question was.
Zinian walked toward the park, and I followed. We looked out over the pond. Leaf buds had finally decided to show their faces on some of the trees, giving the park a hazy green cast. Spring was taking its time coming as it always did, with false starts and backward steps, but summer would be glorious when it finally arrived.
“I suppose everyone expects you to stay here,” Zinian said, without looking at me.
“They seem to. My uncle is already going on about plans for rebuilding the dairy bar, and I’m sure someone would put me up if things stayed too frosty at home. Things will get better for me here, I think.”
People were already treating me differently. Not like the defeated wanderer I’d expected to return as, but a hero.
Zinian nodded sadly. “Not for us, though. We need to leave before more humans come to the island.”
“I know.” Their work here was done. Asking him to stay for my sake, in a world that would see him as a monster in the most terrifying sense, would be cruel.
He pulled a key from his pocket, big and black and metallic. “If you wanted to come back to visit us, I would leave this with you. I—” He stopped himself, then turned to look at me. His brow furrowed. “The thought of never seeing you again is unbearable to me. I know these people need you, that you belong here, but I can’t leave without knowing we’ll meet again soon.”
“I know,” I said again, this time as a whisper that squeaked out around the lump in my throat.
I knew what it would cost him to leave the door open to this world of humans. He would trust me to use the new key well, but as I considered the townspeople, the stranger in the trenchcoat, and the unknown tourists who would soon flood our fair shores, I knew I couldn’t expose Elurien to the possibility of them finding it. As much as I wanted to keep the best of both worlds, I couldn’t be that selfish.
“The key returns with you,” I said. “It’s not safe otherwise.”
Zinian let out a long breath. “I know that’s the right thing,” he said. “But it’s not what I wanted to hear.”
“I’m not finished. I just need a minute to think.”
I had come back to Fairbrook out of a sense of duty, giving up my own vague dreams and hazy plans because I couldn’t think of anything better to do with my life. And maybe things would be better now if I stayed. But there was another world open to me. Life in Elurien wouldn’t be easy for a human, especially one in love with an amalgus. But it would be a life that was worth something. In a world that was busy reinventing itself I could do the same, carving out a position in the city, preserving history and then completing it by recording the other side of the story.
I looked up at Zinian, who watched me with patient expectation. For the first time in my life, I knew what I wanted. No hesitation. No fear.
I stepped closer and placed a hand on his chest. I let my fingers slide over his warm, smooth skin and around his waist, and pulled him to me. “I want you, more than anything,” I said. “If you’re not too embarrassed to be seen with a human in Elurien, that is. The key returns with you, but so do I.”
His smile sent warmth radiating through my chest that was almost painful in its intensity. Maybe we’d face opposition, but we’d change their minds. One at a time if we had to.
“Where will we live?” I asked. “I can’t abandon the library, and I’ve got some ideas for helping out in the city. But you—”
He brushed my hair back and kissed my forehead. “I’m free now. I’ll brave the city. I can endure it with you by my side. But perhaps, when you’re not too busy, you can see the rest of the world with me.”
“Deal.” I pulled him into a long, deep kiss and ran my nails over his back from wings to waist. He shivered. “But let’s not make it a plan. Let’s just see what happens.”
We walked through the park together, passing under the crisscrossed shadows of nearly bare branches, and I drank in the beauty of my world for the last time. Leaving it would hurt, but I was ready to let go and leap.
I had other places to be.
L
ate that night
, we followed Jaid to the utility shed in the park. The door had been transformed from a dull metal thing with flaking green paint into an ornate wooden door covered in carvings of birds. I traced my fingers over its surface and tried the purple glass knob.
Locked.
Excitement filled me until I thought it might lift me off the ground.
This is it.
“Everyone ready?” Zinian asked.
“I was ready before we got here,” Jaid said.
Auphel grunted. “I’ll still stay at the library?”
Zinian smiled up at her. “I’ll see to it that you’ll do as you please. You’ve won your freedom. No more fighting.”
“And no Kringus?”
“And no Kringus,” he agreed, and reached for my hand. “You’re sure about this?”
I grinned back at him. For once, I didn’t feel like I needed a lucky charm to get me through. I had everything I needed right there with me.
“Absolutely,” I said.
He slipped the key into the lock and turned it. The door swung inward, revealing a dark and foreboding space beyond.
“Ready to fall?” Auphel asked.
I grabbed onto her hand and Zinian’s, and he took Jaid’s.
“No,” I said, and squeezed Zinian’s fingers tight. “I’m ready to fly.”
Hands in claws, we stepped through the door.
~
T
he End
~
T
hank
you so much for taking the time to read my
Skeleton Key
novella!
All reviews are appreciated
.
If you would like to read more from the
Skeleton Key
series, please click on the link below:
K
ate Sparkes lives
on the magical island of Newfoundland, where she’s always checking wardrobes, locked doors, and interesting caves to see whether they lead to new worlds. She passes the rest of her time hanging out with her family, reading, walking her dogs, and writing fiction that lets her come very close to escaping reality.
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