Page 33 of Soul of Shadow
After dropping Lou and Abigail at home, Charlie drove to Elias’s house in the woods. Her Bronco bumped and jostled its way through the trees until it could go forward no more. Then she put it in park and went on foot.
As she trekked through the forest, she looked for signs of the creatures she’d encountered on her last visit to the woods. Though she heard a few shakes and rustles in the bushes, nothing presented itself to her. Scared into hiding by her car’s engine, perhaps.
Still, the forest was undeniably beautiful. The leaves glowed a subtle green. Pulsing vines decorated with delicate white flowers wound their way up the trunks. She saw the same sap as before, sparkling amber nestled into the cracks in the wood. Charlie ducked beneath branches and stepped over bushes. Her eyes darted over the landscape. Should she look at the ground, in case something slithered over her feet? Or up in the sky, in case something swooped out of the air?
Just behind her ear, she heard the sound of her backpack unzipping and felt the tiny movements of the vätte clambering up onto her shoulder. It squeaked once, but Charlie put a finger to her lips, telling it to stay quiet.
They moved through the forest until they came upon two white pines clustered tightly together. Turning sideways, Charlie wiggled through the branches. The vätte ducked low, trying to hold its tiny arms over its hat—but they were far too short. After a tight squeeze, Charlie stepped out into a clearing.
A clearing filled with light.
At its very center, flying in a chaotic cluster, were the same purple fireflies she saw on the night she ate the eyaerberry. Only this time, there were hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands. They buzzed around each other like bees in a hive, emitting a low droning sound. Charlie walked toward them, mesmerized. Their formation reached upward like a tornado, tighter at the bottom, looser at the top. They couldn’t possibly be fireflies, could they? Their flying pattern was too precise, their buzzing unfamiliar. It almost sounded like voices. Like the low chatter of a thousand—
“Älvor,” said a voice behind her. Charlie startled, turning around to find Elias leaning against a tree behind her.
“What?” she asked.
“Älvor. Fairies, as the humans call them.” He pushed off the tree trunk and started toward her. “Fickle little things. Seem perfectly harmless one moment, then decide to lay a curse on you the next. Easily offended.”
She edged back from the beautiful purple creatures. “What are they doing?”
“Preparing for their dance,” he said. “Every dawn and every dusk, the älvor gather to sing and dance. I imagine it’s beautiful to witness, but I can’t know for sure, because I’ve never stuck around long enough to watch.”
“Why is that?”
“Fairy dances can be fatal to those who pass. They risk getting sucked into it and losing all sense of time. They might finally relax only to find that a century has gone by, or longer. And if that doesn’t do them in, the fairy song will.” He waved his hands around the air beside his ears. “Älvor music gets stuck in your ears. Drives most people out of their minds.”
“God.” Charlie drew away from the fairies, back toward the safety of the trees. “You weren’t kidding when you said there are dangerous creatures out here.”
“These guys?” Elias waved a hand and set off in the opposite direction, across the clearing. “They’re nothing. Wait until you see thedraugar.”
Charlie jogged to catch up. “The what?”
“Ghastly things,” he said cheerfully as he ducked under a tree branch. “Like ghosts, only much worse, because they only form when a truly wicked person dies. Someone full of hate and misery. They turn into these tall, monstrous, cloaked skeletons, all claws and jagged teeth. Absolutely terrifying.”
“Why do you sound so happy about it?”
“Anything that inspires fear is something to be happy about. Now.” He led Charlie over moss-covered rocks and through bramble bushes that clawed at her legs. “It’s time we get rolling on this investigation. And I know exactly where to start.”
“At the tree where they found Robbie’s shoes?”
“Well deduced. You’re a regular little Velma.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I’m surprised you know whatScooby-Doois.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re all”—she waved a hand toward him—“mysterious and hermit-y. You’re a shadow being who lives alonein a creepy house. How am I supposed to know what the rest of your life was like?”
“You aren’t,” he said, with the implied follow-up ofNor do I want you to. “But I didn’t grow up under a rock. I had a mostly normal childhood—including watchingScooby-Doo.”
“And another question,” Charlie said, hopping over a patch of moss. “What are you even doing at Silver Shores High? It’s not like you’re there for the education.”
“No, I’m not,” he agreed. “But I needed to be here, in this town, and I needed a pretense for why. I’m eighteen. I certainly wasn’t going to get a job, and there are no nearby colleges. So. High school kid with a foster family it is.”
She hesitated, not wanting to push him too far but desperate to know more about his background. “How long have you been a mare?”
He studied the ground as they walked. He seemed to be weighing his answer, deciding whether he wanted to give her the truth. Deciding whether he wanted to give her anything at all.
