Chapter 1: The Forest Ways
Through the Well of Pirene
Chapter 1: The Forest Ways
“And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.” Revelations 6:2
Daphne
That had been the worst day of my life.
There had been such high hopes for it, but come mid-afternoon, my plans had been soundly crushed. As I stared out the kitchen window at the falling red and gold leaves of a warm Massachusetts autumn carpeting the street, the confinement of the house closed in. I could easily imagine my friends being driven to the mall, where they would have an absolutely fantastic time without me.
“Did you hear me, young lady?” Father asked in what he clearly believed to be a tone of patient authority. It sounded more peevish and moody to me. I glanced over at him, but he hadn’t bothered to look up from his paper. I chose to interpret the President’s stern face glaring out from the front page at me as my father’s own for the time being.
“Yes, Dad,” I answered. The paper crinkled in what must have been a spasm of irritation.
“What did I say?” he insisted.
Listening to the television with most of my attention made my answer half-hearted. “You want me to do stuff with Amelia today.”
“I don’t just want you to do stuff, Daphne. Your mother and I want you to watch over her tonight.”
Any hope I had for tonight’s plans with my friends to undergo a rebirth and resurrection shriveled up inside me. “For how long?”
“All night.”
I had already imagined my plans as a crumpled list sitting on the table. Now, they had burst into flames, instantly turning to ash. Sucking in a breath through grit teeth, I calmed myself before putting on my best wheedling face. I turned towards the paper, opening my mouth to address my appeal to the President of the United States.
“Don’t bother, I can’t see the puppy dog eyes.” He sighed—the paper shuffling sounded a bit like a sigh, too, for that matter. “Look, it won’t kill you to sit for your baby sister for one day.”
“But Daddy, what if it does?” I tried anyway. You can’t fault a girl for trying.
“It’ll make for interesting funeral conversation.”
“Dad!” The very idea was offensive. I pivoted, however, crossing my arms and countering with, “I should at least get something if I’m going to be stuck here all day. Babysitter rates.”
“If I wanted to pay for a babysitter I’d hire a babysitter. Half.”
“Three-fourths.”
“Half,” he said, with a note of finality. That suited me just fine—he had forgotten to negotiate what the original pay rate actually was, and when he was tired after a long day out with Mother I’d be able to drive a harder bargain. Small comfort for missing the day with my friends; at least I’d have money for tomorrow.
“Deal,” I agreed, perking up with a bright smile. “Now, where is Amelia?”
Almost as if on cue, I heard the front door slam.
“Speak of the devil...” Father said. Small feet pounded along the floor.
I turned in time to catch a muddy bundle composed chiefly of a pair of pink sneakers, a messy blond braid, and soiled clothing as it barreled into me at twice the speed of sound. I yelped at the impact and fell to the floor.
“...And she shall appear,” Mother finished the phrase for him, her own blond hair in disarray as she half-slumped in the doorframe leading to the porch. There were more important things on my mind, though.
“Amy!” I growled from the floor, trying to fend her off. It was like trying to push a friendly squid away, for she seemed to have three-to-four times as many arms as she ought to. “You little rat, you got my new jacket all muddy!”
“You’re a rat, and your jacket is dumb, anyway. It barely covers anything!” She beamed at me with a toothy grin. “We’re going to play today!”
Snarling at her insult to my fashion sense or trying to strangle her would only get me in trouble at this point, so I settled for grabbing her by the shoulders and holding her still while I stood up.
“We are not,” I said, firmly, establishing my ground rules—or to be more accurate, my dominance—before it got any worse, “going to play today. You are going to sit—quietly—or play on your own—quietly—while I do something productive. Like watch TV or call up my friends.”
Amelia’s face changed from beaming to hurt to cross to enraged so quickly I could almost marvel at her changeling-like variability. It was like she had a superpower for gear-shifting emotions. “Daphne!” she protested, stamping a muddy foot. “That’s no fair! Mom promised we’d get to play today!”
“Well, it’s high time you learned that life isn’t fair,” I answered, a bit tartly, but I felt entitled to it. “Besides, Mom and Dad won’t be here, so that means it’s my rules.”
“You and I need to have a talk sometime, young lady,” Father said. I could just make out the top of his black hair from behind the paper.
Mother was more direct, going over to put her hands around her messy younger daughter. “Now, Amelia, don’t you throw a fit or Mommy is going to be very cross,” she said, in a tone that brooked no argument. My sister stuffed her complaint, pouting with cheeks full. “Daphne?” Mother asked, lifting her own gaze to me. “Please. Play with your sister.”
“But Mom,” I protested. I didn’t bother with the wheedling face; it never worked on her anyway.
“Just take her outside, go on a walk,” she almost pleaded. Mother never really pleaded with her daughters, of course, but it wasn’t a command yet.
“Outside?” I grimaced, looking out at the warm autumn sky. It was so disgustingly wholesome and breezy. I might catch a lethal case of Ralph Waldo Emerson and start waxing poetically about fall colors and still forest pools if I went out there.
“You used to love going outdoors!” Mother complained. “All those nature walks as a girl, the trips with your cousins. I loved reading what you wrote about them.”
My mind flashed involuntarily to my bedroom, to a worn leather satchel in the closet. Buried within it was a girl’s diary, which pulsed like the heart of a vile, nameless god. I shuddered. “That was then, Mom; I was, like, five.”
Father rustled his papers as he turned another page, chuckling. “More like eight or nine. You came home dirty as much as Amelia does. Whatever happened to that messy girl we had?”
“Boys happened,” Mother lamented, sighing. She took Amelia’s backpack from around her shoulders and began to arrange the contents on the kitchen table with a mother’s distracted efficiency, though she knew Amelia would have handled it herself given the time.
“Ugh!” I griped, throwing my hands up. “Ugh!” I added again, for good measure. “Fine, I’ll do it, but only if it gets me out of this conversation!” Before they could thank me—or scold me, or whatever it was they were planning—I marched into the front room and exchanged my fashionable jacket for one that would keep off the weather when it turned cold tonight. I slipped off my platform shoes and put on a pair of sensible tennis shoes. Amelia materialized at my side with a small bag, a magnifying lens and a book of local insects poking out of one end.
“Bye Mom! Bye Dad!” I called, pushing the door open. I pulled my cell phone off of its charger before stepping outside, hoping I would be able to find some coverage out in the park. The phone was placed into my purse along with the utterly vital compact I kept for such emergencies. Wouldn’t do to meet a handsome hiker unprepared.
“Bye, honey!” Mother called, leaning out of the window as we walked by. I began pulling my hair into a ponytail while Amelia practically skipped along behind me. “Have fun!”
“Yeah,” I called back, peering up to see where we were going. Down the hill there was a short road and a stretch of town between us and a forest which had gone largely untouched by humans for over a hundred years, protected from exploitation in the early twentieth century, and nearly unused for millennia before settler and native habitation. Its canopy, bright with the colors of an autumn afternoon, whispered in the wind, as if trying to tell every passerby that, even in the days it had seen human hands, it had remained mysterious for reasons of its rough terrain and fickle weather. How I had loved that enclosed secrecy as a child, flights of fancy taking me to faraway lands filled with strange and colorful things.
“Yeah, right,” I muttered again and trudged on. The sign on the side of the trailhead was largely ignored, save for a quick glance. I had seen it often enough before to know what it said:
EVERFREE STATE PARK
Massachusetts State Parks & Forests
* * *
Clear water hummed and bubbled softly below the footbridge, flowing over the smooth stones of the stream bed to expose the darting shadows of fish. I massaged a sore ankle while lifting my phone up to the light dappling through the tree cover, hoping to catch a stray signal through the holes. No dice. The bars remained firmly buried. With a groan I shoved my phone back into my purse and hitched it up, scanning the nearby trees. Spotting a bright golden head against the carpet of leaves, I started towards Amelia, careful not to slip on the mud from last night’s rain. Amelia’s eyes were focused intently on the brush in front of her, the entomology book open on her crouched knees while she poked at the leaves with a stick in fascination.
I expected more people to be out in a part of the woods so close to the town. The day was beautiful, too, but we were all alone. The holiday sales in town probably had something to do with it—people who weren't me were getting to hang out with their friends and get something done instead of heading out into the middle of nowhere. Evidently, my sister and I were the only ones who just had to enjoy nature today. Trying not to set my teeth too hard, I paused on an incline near her that had a view of an old gazebo, some park tables, and a long stairway up a hill that stood nearby.
An old park bench lay invitingly within reach, as well. Its worn surface was hard, yet inviting after the walk. I sat down and rubbed my ankles. The nearby hill caught my attention, and while considering the relative merits of a nap versus a hike up for a shot at better reception, I noticed Amelia had sprung up at my side. She held her hand up, and I recoiled at once when I saw the caterpillar nestled there. I made a face while the caterpillar lazily devoured the maple leaf it held and ignored us both.
Amelia only beamed harder. “Isn’t it beautiful, Daph?”
Of all the things in the world to have a childish fascination with, why did it have to be bugs? Even when I was her age, I had found them disgusting. They had too many legs, slimy skins, squirmy segments, and oozing ichor and soulless eyes and gross hairs and all the other horrible things bugs had. I had much preferred birds, and I could still pick out a few species among the trees around us. My amateur birding days had come to a right and proper end when I had put away my books and binoculars and other silly things. At the minimum, birds eat insects, which was a point for them in my book.
“I don’t care if it’s going to turn into the most beautiful butterfly on the planet in an hour, you get that thing away from me now,” I growled, pulling my windbreaker’s sleeves up over my hands to cover them and waving at my sister in an attempt to ward off the demon-thing. Maybe the climb up the hill wouldn’t be such a bad choice after all.
Amelia’s face fell; I knew I had disappointed her by yet again failing to enter into her world when invited. It wasn’t like I was blind. She wanted to spend more time with me and hang out with her big sister. I was a kid once, too, and had looked upon my older cousins with envy and had wanted them to acknowledge me. Who seriously wants their baby sister tagging along with them everywhere, though? Didn’t I have my own life to live?
“Fine,” she huffed, bending down to deposit the caterpillar back on the bush. Not that the creature had cared; it had gone on pointedly ignoring both of us to continue concentrating on its meal. Amelia sprang back to her feet, once again flipping emotions like they were lines on a switchboard. “I know! We could go swimming!”
“Em, it’s the middle of autumn; we’d freeze.”
“Make snow men?”
I stared around with exaggerated patience before asking, “With what snow?”
“Mud men, then.”
“No.”
Amelia bounced to my other side as I turned to walk off. “We could play catch!”
I displayed my hands for her. “We didn’t bring gloves or balls, Amy.”
“Catch frogs?”
“No.”
“Climb trees?”
“No.”
“Ugh!” Amelia burst out in disgust, in a surprisingly good imitation of my outburst earlier today. “You never want to do anything, Daphne. You’re so boring!” she shouted, stalking off towards the benches to sulk, her long golden braid lashing behind her like an angry tail.
Letting her run across the footbridge gave me some much appreciated peace and quiet. Starting towards the stairs leading up the hill, I turned and glowered at my sister, who was by then swinging on the worn, painted rails of the gazebo with a despondent air about her. She gave a big, dramatic sigh, probably because she knew I was looking.
I brushed a few stray hairs out of my face and chewed on my lip for a moment. When my sister flopped unmoving on her back, I muttered under my breath. If she thought that pretending to be dead would get my attention, she was crazy. Ten minutes passed before I trod back, placing my hands in my pockets and making it appear as though I was there under protest. “Fine, Em, have it your way. Let’s play something,” I said, poking her limp body with a toe.
“Yay!” Amelia cried and sprang up, revived from death at once by my concession. “Let’s play a game, then! Cowgirls and Indians,” she suggested at once.
“That’s terribly insensitive to Native Americans, Em.”
“Space invaders?”
“Again with the games we can’t play without tools,” I said, leaning against the gazebo’s peeling frame while golden leaves swirled in the breeze around us. “And no, I won’t play it with my imagination,” I added when she opened her mouth.
“Hide-and-seek? Bonnie and Clyde? Harold and Maude?”
“Now you’re just throwing names at me to see if I—” I paused, thinking back over what she had said. I snapped my eyes back down at her. “What was that one you just said?”
“Harold and Maude?”
“No, the other one.”
“Bonnie and Clyde?”
“No,” I snapped, my tone waspish, “the one before that.”
“Oh!” She grinned. “Hide-and-seek! Do you want to play that?”
My own answering grin might have scared her off if she hadn’t been hoping for me to acknowledge her so badly. It was something of a Cheshire smile—toothy, wide, and mildly sadistic. There were beautiful possibilities in this game. “Yes. Yes I do. In fact, I’ll seek and you hide.”
“All right!” she said, putting her hands on her hips and looking me in the eye defiantly. “I’ll bet anything you can’t find me,” she declared—the poor, sweet, adorable thing.
“You’re probably right.”
“I’ll bet you a cookie you can’t!”
“I’ll bet you ten cookies I can’t.”
“Da-aph!” she griped, and rolled her eyes. “You’re supposed to bet if you can. Well, whatever, count to one hundred and let me get started!”
“Okay!” I said, with sweet poison in my tone. Turning to face the gazebo and setting myself, I glanced briefly to make sure she was running.
“No peeking!” she accused, glaring at me until I covered my eyes with an arm.
“All right,” I began, and started counting loudly, with a deliberate pace. “One, two, three…”
Listening to sneakered feet darting across the wood and then over the leaf-strewn earth, I waited until I could no longer hear my sister running. “…thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four…”
I risked a glance, scanning the tree line slowly.
“Thirty-five, thirty-six,” I chanted, and started to creep away in the opposite direction from the one she had run, “thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine.”
I paused. Nothing.
“And forty is good enough,” I said, almost as giddy as she had been, and pumped a fist. “Yes! Freedom!”
So I looked ridiculous, but it wasn’t like anyone was around to spy on me. I had seen to that. Amelia would catch on eventually, of course, but for the next two to three hours I was as good as alone. With a new spring in my step, I started to make my way up the hill, with only a pair of thrushes dancing in the air nearby to keep me company.
Warm afternoon sunlight greeted me as I began my ascent, the wind stirring my hair and the trees around me. Branches swayed and creaked, and the brush shifted with the passage of tiny animals. Without Amelia to distract me, there was nothing now between me and the natural setting I had let myself be lured into, and its rustic allure was trying to grab a hold of me once more. These woods might as well have been my backyard for how familiar they were, both here and in deeper parts where Mother and Father may not have been happy to know I had gone all on my own. It’s why I didn’t really feel as guilty as I should have about being so irresponsible and letting Amelia go unsupervised. After all, I had done that, and I turned out all right, didn’t I?
I had kept turning up at the door skinned, bruised, and covered in sweat and dirt more often than not. Trekking from hill to dale, fording streams, I would sometimes even scream my lungs out at the birds in the sky for the sheer joy of it.
There, on top of that hill, I could almost see myself down by the river now. The old mossy log damming half of the stream below had been sturdier then, and I had walked on it every day to my adventures deeper in the woods, past the worn sign by the horse trail that cheerfully pointed the way to Boston and the crumbling fence. I shook my head, gazing the other way, towards the west, where hardwoods clustered along a rocky ridge. It took little imagination to picture shapes lurking in the brush, darting from tree to tree. Faeries and goblins of an overexcitable little girl’s fancies danced at the edge of my mind, crowding to break back in. It seemed to me that I was forgetting something, and something very important to me at that. I didn’t feel quite like looking at it, though, not directly, so I tried thinking about it obliquely, my eyes sweeping over the park expanse from my new vantage point, ankle pain quite forgotten.
Tension began to worm its way up my spine as, for the first time since arriving, I wasn’t distracted from my own thoughts. I knew then that I probably should have refused to come here with Amelia. There had been chances to divert her. We could have gone to see a movie downtown. When she insisted on staying outdoors, I had thought of going to a horse ranch nearby, where a friend of mine lived.
Instead, I had brought her here.
Without much success, I tried to dismiss the unease I felt. This place was yesterday’s news. It should have been behind me, and its hold over me should have broken already.
If that was true, however, why did I suddenly feel so very small, looking out over the trees and fields I felt were so desperately familiar? It had been nearly ten years since I had last set foot among these hills, and yet it was like opening the first page of a book I had read a thousand times. Well-worn books didn’t make you tense up and dread what you might find when you turned the page, however.
Confidence in my ability to handle what memories this place might throw at me began to crumble steadily. Alarmed, I tried to think of something, anything, to distract me again and stop the train of memories before they could collide with my composure.
As it turned out, I had become so thoroughly lost in my own recollections that my phone had started to ring at least once without my noticing it. With a frenzied rush for my ringing phone, I fumbled for it in my purse and answered the call before I could check the caller display. “Hello?”
“Honey! Finally!” my mother’s voice came to me, jittery with the poor signal. “I’ve been calling for at least twenty minutes now! Where have you been?”
“I’m sorry,” I answered quickly. Unnecessarily, I pulled the phone away to glance at the display, seeing that it was indeed Mother’s phone. “I didn’t have a signal until a minute ago.”
“Of course,” Mother waved it off, metaphorically. “Well, your dad and I are at the theater now; how are you two doing?”
“We’re fine,” I responded in that typically teenage manner guaranteed to raise hackles among most parents.
“Are you playing?” Mother, with her laser-like focus, wasn’t biting.
“Yeah, we’re playing hide-and-seek.” It was technically the truth.
“Are you hiding or seeking?”
“Seeking.” I scuffed idly at a dirt-covered stone buried in the hill with a foot.
“It doesn’t sound like you’re seeking very hard.”
“Oh please, Mom.” Hardly any thought was needed for my answers. “No one knows the woods here better than I do. If she can hide from me, she can hide from anyone.”
“I suppose so.” She laughed. “I guess if you get lost you can always ask Leit Motif for help.”
“Hah!” I responded at once in a forced laugh. It was almost like a grunt of pain rather than any gesture of amusement. I felt as if Mother had jarred my memory with a brick to the head, sending shards of teeth and thought bouncing across the mossy earth. “Leit Motif, right, Mom, funny. Hah. Ha ha hah.”
“I’m almost disappointed that your sister never developed an imaginary friend of her own,” she went on, oblivious to my epiphany. “You were so cute. Always coming home with stories about your little adventures.”
The tiny factoid that had been prying at my brain ever since I came back to these woods had popped out with the rest of the detritus. This allowed me to examine the little sprig of information from all angles. Buried under a knot of disappointment and layers of new memories, it had been unearthed with all its sharp little edges. I was relieved to see that it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. The pain had dulled.
Leaning forward against the railing, I pulled my hair loose to let the wind catch and stir the strands. Taking a look down the hill, the wash where the creek flooded every spring caught my attention. I could almost see again two tracks in the mud, one small and sneaker-clad, the other big and many and round. “I’m glad you thought my being a complete dip was cute; real motherly of you,” I replied at last, my tone a fair bit more bitter than I had intended.
I felt small and oddly tender. It was as if she had just pried open a bandage on a sensitive wound.
“We all have embarrassing little things we don’t like to think about, Daphne,” she said. There was a pause as she lifted the phone from her ear, talking to someone I couldn’t hear clearly—Father or another patron perhaps. “Don’t get so wrapped up in being a teenager that you forget to laugh at yourself.”
“Nah, it’s all right.” I laughed it off. “I just hadn’t thought about it in a long time. I’m o-over it, it’s just weird. Really, I barely even think about it any more. I don’t even like the woods, waste of my time.”
“I understand. Well, your father and I need to take our seats now. Don’t leave Amy alone for too long, all right?” she asked. “You know your sister loves you.”
“Yeah, I do, even if she is a little brat,” I drawled, smirking. “Bye, Mom.”
“Pots and kettles, Daphne. Goodbye,” she said, hanging up.
Giving my phone a glance, I tossed it back into my purse and started down the other side of the hill, wrapped in my thoughts. It had been a long time since I had thought of… her.
I whistled a little ditty with five bars, a rising and falling melody that would have been meaningless to anyone else. To me and my memories, it was a key turning in a latch. Deep within my mind, a vault unlocked, and a breath of air stirred dust off the contents.
Turning, I saw a small, dirty girl in overalls burst from the brush, her blond hair in a ponytail, with a garden trowel in one hand and a pot lid in the other. Little wings had been glued on to her hair band. “Hah!” she cried in triumph. “Behold, foul creature of the woods, I am Daphne, the noble Valkyrie warrior!”
Rising from the muck of the stream, covered in pond slime and gooey mud, a terrible creature opened her mouth and announced in a piping, sweet voice, “Muwahahaha! Foolish human, you have tread too far into my domain, and you shall suffer a thousand stinging deaths!” On all fours she shambled towards the tiny girl who swelled in my imagining, becoming a righteous Norse shield maiden wreathed in power, her trowel now a folded rune-blade and her pot lid a bulwark of steel and hard ebony. The four-legged, shuffling, mud-covered figure began to hum a battle theme, and soon twisted into a slime-covered troll, her forearms lengthened horribly so that she could walk on them as she slavered and snapped her jaws.
As vividly as if I were there in the past, the battle scene unfolded before me. If the details were a little off, I hardly noticed enough to care. Dreams had always been better than the real thing to a girl of that age and temperament. The titanic battle raged across the field, overturning trees and flattening hills, drying rivers and cracking bedrock.
“With my strength I smite at you, vile beast!” the Valkyrie thundered, and skewered the she-troll center mass. In truth, of course, the trowel bounced off a mud-covered flank with little noticeable impact aside from sending crusted gunk flying, but the other girl sold it as if she had received a mortal blow from a mighty blade. She stumbled back on all fours, bellowing in agony, “Oh, argh, blargh!” The girl toppled back and forth, prolonging her death scene. “Woe, I am defeated! Slain by a beautiful warrior, cut down before my time, ripped from the pages of history!”
“Pst,” the little blond girl hissed, “Vikings didn’t have paper then, stupid!”
“Never to be remembered except in infamy in song or story!” the play-troll lamented, slumping against a rock and flopping pitiably. “Oh, for shame, my children will know only of my defeat! Sing them my dirge, noble warrior!” The little would-be Valkyrie rolled her eyes as the other began to improvise death lyrics on the spot, and—deciding to finish the fell beast before she could die of annoyance—tackled her off the rock and into the nearby stream.
Squeals of girlish laughter rang from the trees, startling birds from their nests, as the two struggled in the clear, crisp water. They splashed and dunked one another; they splashed, and they giggled. Drenched, they let themselves flop onto the shore, exhausted and happy in that way playing children are when finally spent. The little blond girl turned to her friend and giggled breathlessly, gasping out, “That was fun!”
“Yeah, but next time, I get to be the Valkyrie warrior,” the other answered, grinning from ear to ear, then declaring, “A mighty pegasus!” With that, she put her legs under herself and rose, bracing with all four hooves to shake her dark blue coat, sending water and bits of river sand flying every which way. Her long mane and tail flopped wetly and shone a shiny black in the sunlight. The little blond girl squealed again and shielded her face from the spray. Giggling, she rose and took the beaten hair band from where it lay, sliding it onto the now-revealed filly’s backside to adorn it with the attached wings.
“Sure, but aren’t you a unicorn?” the human girl probed, reaching out to poke the horn protruding from her friend’s forelock.
Navy blue hooves warded her off. Grinning with her expressive face—its features faintly equine in the way a human’s was faintly ape—she hopped onto the flat-topped rock and lifted a hoof proudly.“Then I’ll have to be a powerful and fabulous alicorn princess!”
Taking a breath, I shut my eyes. When I opened them, I was alone by the stream bed, the rock and shore bare of my imaginings. My heart pounded in my chest, echoing emotions that had come unearthed with the vivid memory. The doctor had said it would all fade with time—would that it could fade a little faster.
I couldn’t think of anything else as I wandered among the trees on the old paths. I certainly didn’t think of Mother or Amelia or other things not in sight. I didn’t think of the latest fashions or which boys at school were cuter than the others. I didn’t think of bands, math homework, shopping, dances, television programs, or any of a hundred normal, expected teenage preoccupations I had piled between myself and the childish things I had left behind. A thousand silly, vapid, distracting ideas served to separate the forest and who I was from who I became. As it turned out, this left me quite vulnerable, because without those distractions, every tree and bush in this land with which I was so intimately familiar became a gateway into a forgotten slice of memory.
Here, a foal and a little girl swung perilously on branches across a stream-cut ravine. There, they paddled in a hand-and-hoof-made canoe down the deepest part of the river towards the lake. They climbed trees over by the wash and they caught frogs in the ponds. The girls had first met in the last snow of winter, over by the lightning-blasted pine—two young, curious creatures keeping their distance and feeling one another out, frightened a little but with that bold spirit of reckless adventure that came to define them both. “What are you?” they had asked in unison, and then screamed at once in fright at seeing the other could talk, both running for cover. The filly had been the first to laugh at her own fear, and the girl had followed suit.
With my head filling up on flashes of recollection and my heart thudding with half-remembered feelings, I paused on a ridge lined with stones, one that had the best view of the sky for miles in any direction. There, on one hot summer night, they pitched a tent and told stories around a lantern to frighten one another. I knelt down to peer inside, my eyes penetrating the cloth effortlessly, when—sleepy and giddy, with their bellies full of s’mores and milkshakes and their heads cottony with a long day’s adventuring—the little girl had leaned across the open survival guide she had pillaged from her uncle’s army duffel bag and thrown her arms about the sturdy neck of her dark-coated friend.
“I love you, Leit,” she whispered, her fingers curled tightly in the long mane.
“I love you, too, Daphne,” Leit Motif had answered, her forelegs nearly as pliable as arms when they closed around the human girl, squeezing her just as tightly.
Daphne—which is to say, I—had pulled away, then, my face wet. “I’m g-going away for a week. M-my family’s going on a vacation,” I had said, stammering over the words. I grit my teeth in the present time—I really had no reason to be crying, I knew I was going to see her again after, but little girls could be so ridiculous sometimes. “Then it’s back to school. I’ll come by after school, I promise, just like before!”
“I start school, like, a few days after that; I’ll have plenty of time,” Leit said. Caught up in the mutual emotion, Leit sniffed and rubbed her nose, her green eyes huge and shining. “Hey, I know!” she suggested, brightening. “Why don’t we go to your place when you get back?”
I had frowned. “I don’t know, my Mom and Dad… I don’t think they like you…” I hemmed, but I could see the appeal. Ever since we met, my mother’s tolerant laughter on being told of Leit Motif had rankled me. The thought of showing up at the door with her in tow to see their faces was priceless.
Leit Motif might as well have been reading my mind, her face splitting in a grin. “Come on, you know it’ll be great!” she encouraged. “I want to see your new sister, too. I’ve never seen a human foal before.”
“Baby,” I had corrected absently, and beamed. “Yeah! That’s perfect. Then I’ll get to visit your folks, right?”
“Sure! We’ll bring everyone together for a big picnic, and it’ll be like everypony is part of a big two-species family, and we’ll be like sisters!”
We hugged and the promises had flown back and forth, before we had curled up next to each other and fallen fast asleep. Mother had scolded me so fierce the next morning for staying out after dark that I couldn’t help but let it slip. I would show her Leit was real.
I closed my eyes, banishing the images again, and settled down on the grass with a heavy sigh. The part that came next was the part I really wished I could forget, a part of my life that was going to keep aching no matter how long I refused to look at it.
Taking in the late afternoon air and the wilting trees of the park, I realized that I had run long enough. I sat absorbing the beauty of a forest that was surrendering to winter’s grasp and realized that if I didn’t—like the trees before me—strip my soul of the dying leaves of the past, I would never overcome the lingering fragments of pain in my heart, circulated with every pump of red sap blood.
Bracing myself, I closed my eyes, gathered my resolve, and peeled off the unseen bandages.
“She is real, she is real!” little Daphne shouted at her mother, screaming now. Her face was filled with tears, and her hands were curled into little fists. My parents kept insisting and insisting that Leit Motif was just a dream, and I was so angry. “I spoke to her, I held her, why can’t you understand?”
“Daphne, please. Just stop,” Mother shouted over me, at her wit’s end. “We are going home right now if you won’t be quiet and listen to me.” She didn’t stay quiet. We did go home. I never did apologize for ruining our vacation, the last we had taken as a family after Amelia had been born—add that to my list of things I need to do to get closure today.
Three days home. Three days staring at the woods, knowing Leit Motif wouldn’t be there, leaning on my windowsill by the shattered remains of my bulky old-school Game Boy, smashed in a fit of quickly regretted pique. After all, I had said I was going to be gone for a whole week; she wouldn’t bother coming back before then. I saw myself walking into class. She was telling everyone about Leit Motif now, and they were all eating out of her hand, the faces of kids eager to hear about her stories.
I stared down at a big wooden desk and a chair with a small, stubborn girl ensconced in it. A patient, kindly face adorned with spectacles sat across from her, his hands folded. She could pick out the typeface on the modest watch his wife had given him as a birthday present, and the round scar in his hand he had received in Vietnam. She came to know him very well over the next few weeks, so I could fill in those sorts of details easily enough. Her big mouth opened on that first day and told him, quite firmly, “Yes, doctor, Leit Motif is a magical unicorn—though she can’t do any magic yet, and she doesn’t have her special talent yet either, so she isn’t sure what sort of magic she can do—and we’re best friends, and I’m going to show everyone.”
She told him as much for two weeks.
Images folded in my mind; a teary, uncertain face walking along the familiar paths. I could peer down the cliff and see myself now, with Mother and the doctor in tow. “Leit!” she called. “Lei-it!”
“Let’s go and see,” he had finally suggested, sensing perhaps that my doubts had reached a turning point. After two weeks of him patiently pointing out the holes in my story of how no one else had ever seen her, in showing me the children’s stories of unicorns and faeries I had grown up devouring to show me the basis of my dreams, of using my own damnably intelligent brain against me to show how easy it was for me to make up perfectly rational stories on the most flimsy bases, he felt I could finally make a breakthrough. “Let’s go and see, and put it to rest.”
“Leit?” I had tried to call one last time, but it came out as a raspy whisper instead. I stared off into the darkening woods.
Put to rest and buried.
I lowered my face into my hands with the wind whistling past my ears and through my hair. All my childish things lay around me, all illusions stripped away. I tried to sever them, to let them join the blue sky at the far western horizon which even now had begun to darken into earliest twilight.
If only burying someone and moving on were quite that easy.
Amelia
I was so bored.
I kicked a small rock, watching it bounce down the trail. Hiding had been fun, but I didn’t see the point any more. The sky was starting to turn red, and Daphne had not yet come crashing through the woods like a big, dumb elephant. For the first hour or two, I had actually believed she was going to go through with it this time.
I guess that made me dumb, too.
My book of insects—“Entomology” was quickly becoming one of my favorite words—lay open on my bag. The thought of going back to hunting was thrown out immediately, as I had already been collecting bugs for the last hour, and it was getting harder to find new ones in this one part of the wood. My journal was full of sketches and notes. There were more than enough to blow my science teacher’s socks off and maybe his shoes as well.
That made for yet another thing I liked that Daphne didn’t care enough to pay attention to—she just didn’t get me.
Leaning against the tree and watching the sky, I chewed my lip thoughtfully. None of my friends had any older siblings, so they weren’t any help. How did you explain what it’s like to be ignored by your big sister to someone who doesn’t even know what it’s like to have a big sister to begin with, let alone what it meant when she ignored you every time you tried to show how much you cared or how much you wanted to spend time with her?
Forget about explaining it to Mom or Dad, either. I scrunched up my face and gave my best nasally impression of Mom, “You just need to try harder, sweetheart; she’ll come around. She’s a big girl, and she wants to do her own thing now and then.” For Dad, I pictured a bullfrog I had seen in a cartoon and puffed out my cheeks, speaking as deeply as I could, “Mom’s right, pumpkin. Daphne’s just trying to be a teenager. There will be a time for you to have fun together.”
“Stupid!” I shouted to the uncaring sky, startling a few birds, letting the world know how I felt about that. “And I’m not a pumpkin, I hate pumpkins! I’d rather be a kumquat!”
That settled it; a girl could only take so much pushing around. I squared my shoulders like a lumberjack getting ready to face off with an Ent and stuffed my textbook into my satchel. Its bookmarks were carefully set in place before my journal went in behind it, tied shut with a big rubber band. Next came my magnifying lens, then my pencils and my crayons, and finally my compass. I snapped the bag’s clasps shut—briefly admiring how it resembled a floppy-eared monster bunny with a squiggly mouth from the front—and hitched it on. “All right,” I informed the beehive I had hoped to surprise Daphne with, “I’m going to find my sister and make her understand!”
When I got back to the place with the benches by the water, I searched around to see if Daphne was just sitting around. It would be just like her to be completely lazy and ignore me by taking a nap or something. Not finding her there, I hiked to the top of the hill, but she wasn’t there either. I did find her shoe print on the flat rock at the top, however, so she probably went up here to get a signal so she could talk to her stupid friends. I hopped up on the stone fence and squinted around under the setting sun, looking for—“Ah hah!”
There she was, her head tucked down and her hands in her pockets. She’d let her hair go, and it was flying all over in the wind, like a yellow flag. I found a nice muddy spot and slid partway down the hill before running the rest of the way, my satchel flopping at my side. “You traitor!” I shouted at her. It was the first word that occurred to me.
Daphne’s head jerked up, and I almost skidded into an uncontrolled slide on the path in surprise. She’d wiped her makeup off, and her face was all puffy, as if she had been crying. Which was impossible, of course, since everyone knew that evil queens had hearts of stone. It was obviously some sort of elaborate ruse, and it wasn’t going to fool me.
Squeezing out my courage, I faced her down, as if there weren’t several heads between us in height. “How dare you leave me out there!”
“I wasn’t—” she began, but I didn’t let her continue. I was half afraid she might say something that would make me less angry at her.
“—wasn’t looking for me at all! You broke your promise, you said you were going to play with me!”
“I didn’t actually promise anything,” she evaded, which was exactly what I had wanted to hear.
“No, you didn’t, and you never do!” I stamped my foot for good measure. “You’re always saying you’re going to do things, and then you dump me with the rest of the junk! I waited for hours because I wanted to spend time with you and you were off talking to your friends and playing with your hair!”
“Amy,” my sister began, “I was going to come looking for you. I was just on my way—”
“Just now?” I interrupted again. It was getting hard to stop talking, like there was this train churning up inside my throat, and I kept on talking, faster and faster. “Just on your way now? Just like always, it’s always on your time or not at all. When do I ever get to decide what to do? How long until you just take me out and leave me on the road somewhere, so I can go off and be raised by wolves like you’ve obviously always wanted?
“If you don’t want me around, why don’t you just go away and stop jerking me along?” I continued with barely a breath to spare, “You’re the stupidest, ugliest, meanest, most hateful sister in the world!”
Daphne’s eyebrows shot up, and I could see her color rising. Good.
“Well you’re the filthiest, brattiest, most selfish little sister the world has ever known!” she shot back. The wind picked up and the leaves began to blow hard across the ground, swirling around us.
I gathered my breath and pronounced the most fatal, most unforgivable curse imaginable. “Well! If that’s the way you feel, then maybe I don’t want a sister!” A branch fell off a ways in the wood, as if to punctuate the severity of those words.
Daphne was taken aback, startled, but it only seemed to redouble her anger. She lowered her face to meet mine, while I rose up to meet her on my tiptoes, nearly nose-to-nose. “Yeah? You wouldn’t last ten minutes without a sister.”
“Oh yeah?” I snarled back, like a mean dog.
“Yeah!” she hissed, like an angry cat.
“Fine!”
“Fine!”
I hitched up my satchel, turned, and ran. I didn’t cry, either. My face just gets wet like that.
* * *
I’m not sure how far I ran. Daphne probably didn’t even care enough to call out to me. Even if she had, I didn’t care. I needed her as much as I needed fire ants in my shoes.
Running up and down the hills sapped my energy quicker than I thought it would. Mom always had us stick to the trails when we came out here together. Sheer temper drove me forward through the backwoods until nightfall, though, and then I understood why some kids are afraid of the dark. Dusk was only about half an hour, but it was surprising how fast it got dark after the sun set.
Somehow, the path had dwindled from a sneaker-trodden dirt road to a dinky little deer trail, ferns and other forest foliage nipping at my shins. It was already so dark, I hadn’t noticed until a branch snagged at my bag. Pencil outlines of trunks stood out from the edge of the path, and even those were beginning to fade into the shadows. The canopy was only visible above because it blocked out the stars. Without the moon being high enough to provide some sort of illumination, every tree and rock was cast in near pitch black; even when I lifted my hand up, I could only tell it was there because it blocked the stars.
The cold had me zipping my jacket all the way up and stuffing my hands into my sleeves. I might have shivered a little, but it had absolutely nothing to do with being scared. Any other girl might have been frightened, lost in the forest and all alone out in the dark, but not me. It was getting really cold, however, and it would get a lot colder soon. On a long night like this, staying up to watch the stars come out, it was nice to have a thick blanket and a cup of hot cocoa. Two things that were desperately lacking.
A little girl, all alone in the woods at night; by all rights, I should have been terrified. Determination and bitter feelings wouldn’t let me be scared, though. I absolutely did not need a useless sister to hold me back, either. It’s not like Daphne knew anything about the forest anyway. All she cared about was her school work and Facebook pages and boring boy bands. She certainly didn’t care about me or anyone real except herself. Jerk.
“I’ll show her,” I muttered. Taking my satchel off, I kneeled and carefully rummaged over its contents, thinking. Mom and Dad weren’t getting home until close to midnight, so they wouldn’t know what had happened unless Daphne had already called them—which she wouldn’t. “I’ll get out of here all by myself, and when I do, I’m going to tell her that I’ll let Mom and Dad know everything if she doesn’t do what I say. I’ll be able to get anything I want, and she won’t be able to say a thing, or she’ll get in huge trouble. Maybe they’ll even send her away somewhere. To prison. A prison on the moon would be nice.” It was a little better to hear my own voice while I worked. Not that I was afraid of being alone or anything like that.
Pushing aside my supply of cool mint gum in my satchel, I fumbled at a dark shape and blew a breath out in relief. With a click, the boxy flashlight taken from the garage came to life, forcing me to glance away to blink out the spots. It wasn’t a good idea to point one of those near your face when it got that dark. I stuck a stick of gum into my mouth and pointed the flashlight back into the bag, seeing if anything else might be helpful. Out came the survival compass, its lanyard tied around my wrist; I didn’t bother checking the temperature meter on the side—I didn’t think I’d want to see exactly how cold it was. There was also the music player Grandmother had given me for Christmas, but if a bear was going to sneak up on me, I at least wanted to hear it coming early enough to scream before it gobbled me up in two bites—which would be really cool at least.
Mom told me not to talk like that in front of other kids, but she can be silly like that. Who doesn’t think bears are cool?
Not seeing anything else of use at the time, I carefully closed my bag up and stood, sweeping the flashlight’s beam around. Two pairs of eyes glowed back at me for a moment, making me jump. At the noise, they became vague, blurring flashes, running away as fast as they could.
“Okay, Amelia,” I whispered, “all you need to do is get unlost and leave the dark, coyote– or bear–filled woods and get back home. Then it’s nothing but ice cream to eat and rubbing it in Daphne’s stupid face for months.” I turned my wrist over and held the compass level. With the flashlight, the compass pointed out which direction north was, which meant I needed to turn around to head west to get to town.
A quick spin on my heels set my heading, an eagerness to strip Daphne of all her dastardly, big-sisterly powers spurring me on. The harsh beam of the flashlight cut through the darkness and starkly outlined the brush and small rocks in hard shadows. It swept a long way among the trees, diffusing into a misty haze in places. When I was younger, I might have filled that low fog up with all sorts of things that might have been perfectly happy to gobble up a little girl who wandered from the path. But I was a big girl, now, and I was going to get out of this mess all by myself.
I hoped.
The wind continued to blow, and the trees kept on rustling in the night, unseen but not unheard, as I began walking. Owls had been calling earlier, but they were quiet now. I began to wish I had taken out my music player because it was starting to become more than a little eerie out here; even a spooky soundtrack might have been better than nothing. There were other sounds, though. Bushes shifted in the dark—likely more rats and other rodents on the forest floor—and my shoes crunched on the fallen leaves and loose soil. Sweeping the light ahead of me every few steps kept me from falling into unseen holes. With the bed of fallen leaves, it was hard to see anything even with the light, but it was certainly better than going without it.
Checking my compass after a while had me biting my lip to keep myself from screaming. I couldn’t have gone very far, but I had already started to drift north, which was exactly where I didn’t want to go because the woods only got denser that way. There would be roads and settlements in almost any direction, but how long would it take to get there? And if I was getting turned around, I wouldn’t get anywhere.
Resetting my course and heading off into the forest again, I wished I had a cell phone of my own. My confidence started to dry up with my throat, and my earlier resolve not to call for help would have vanished instantly if I could have called someone for help, or at least been able to see the time of night or a map. A part of me even wished for Daphne to show up, if only so I could yell at her so I could feel better, and we could be lost together instead of alone.
When I climbed up a small ridge, though, I almost cried out. A light! I could see a light!
It hung like a little sun over a trail, its gentle, yellow glow beckoning to me like a moth to a porch light. Roots tripped me up twice before I remembered to stop running and check where my feet were landing. It would have been really stupid of me to fall and crack my head open at the final stretch, but I was just so excited to see any sign of civilization.
Panting, I slid to a halt, falling over backwards on some loose dirt before the lantern. My braid hung in my face, nearly undone from the poor treatment it had received. The lantern swung slightly in the breeze, its light wavering around me. Looking around, however, I felt a sudden chill. The lantern’s pool of light was an island within a sea of shadow and drifting shapes that I couldn’t really make out. There weren’t any buildings around, judging from the lack of light, not even a little outhouse for park rangers. I forced myself to cheer up, though. A light meant electricity, and it meant people came this way, maybe even at night. Getting lost on a trail would be a lot harder, too.
Oh... right. Getting lost on a trail was how I got into this situation.
It all seemed a little strange, for all that. The lantern, hanging on a curved post, seemed like one of those old-timey pieces they put up in the old colonial part of town. It even flickered like a candle flame instead of a proper electric light, but it could have just been busted. There was more that seemed wrong here than just the light, though. I stared up at the sky, hoping to see the moon or something familiar, but even that seemed wrong. The stars in the sky were no help, either; constellations weren’t hard to spot, but only Orion was visible, and it was in the wrong place entirely for this part of the year. Or I think it was in the wrong place; it seemed a little funny itself, for that matter, with some additional stars in places they shouldn’t be.
But none of that mattered. There was still a light, and it meant that I was in better shape than I had been, smashing through the woods. Turning my compass up, though, I could only stare at the little dial, eyes wide and jaw trembling—the stupid thing said I had been going east! Even as I watched, knuckles white around it, the needle inside wobbled a bit, as if it were unsure whether north was directly ahead or somewhat to the left. It was unbelievable; my trusted navigator, broken! It was like a sister who had turned traitor. I nearly cried right then and there.
Nearly. I’m a big girl, and I don’t cry over stupid things like that, no matter how badly the night was going.
Wiping my face—because it was cold, not because I was crying—I spun around and started down the trail, the cone of my flashlight watching the path ahead. It curved a bit, but the going was a lot faster now without having to worry so much about branches or roots or holes to trip over. There were little horseshoe-shaped indentations in the trail, too, so it was probably a horse trail. The family of one of Daphne’s friends had a horse ranch outside town—hopefully it was one of theirs. Maybe I’d get to ride home on a pony. With any luck, a sign would present itself along the roadside soon.
There was neither a sign nor a pony, however. It certainly wasn’t a ranch, either. I stopped along the trail, staring ahead with a smile creeping across my face. There was light, and not just a single light but what must have been a whole house of light. I would have run if my feet weren’t so tired, but I still nearly skipped for joy, my bag bouncing at my side.
I froze.
The pond and the clearing it was in had no house, and it lacked anything like lamp posts or light fixtures, or even lanterns or candles. Instead, there was a full moon through the trees which I knew was just last week! I had memorized all of the full moons for the next two years in case of werewolf attack. Besides, the moon wasn’t supposed to be quite that big or bright. Either way, it was almost as bright as daylight, or nighttime in a movie.
As I stared, what I thought to have been a very shiny rock... fluttered. The biggest beetle I had ever seen or imagined popped out of the ground, its back a snowy, luminescent white. It trundled along with its spindly, egg-white legs and searched along the ground, prying up little morsels of green. Before anything could be decided about it, however, something else moved.
That something else was so fast that I almost didn’t see it at all before it struck. Long and sleek with smooth black fur, it had the look of a great cat, with alert triangular ears and a swishing, tufted tail. It pounced from the cover of the tall grass and slapped its paws over the great white beetle, pinning it to the ground. The monster’s teeth gleamed with their own unearthly light beneath the moon, and its eyes seemed bright with blue fire. A gasp escaped my lips, and a twig snapped underfoot for good measure. The beast’s head jerked up, but I had already leapt and grabbed a limb of the tree beside me, hauling myself up and on to it before the thing could cross the clearing to look. My flashlight had fallen to the ground, for it was too big to stuff into any of my pockets. In its spotlight, the monster was illumined sharply, a powerful shadow.
The beetle lay forgotten on the mossy clearing while the cat-thing paused, looking up at me as I climbed up another limb to get even further away from it. It lifted a paw and turned my flashlight over. There was a low hiss as the beam caught it nearly full in the face, and it backpedalled, tufts of fur or mane on its back rising and making it look even bigger. I could see that its claws, fully extended, were at least as big as a lion’s, if not more so, and gleamed with the same witch-light its teeth did.
Even as it smoothed its fur and considered me for its next meal, though, I couldn’t help but be fascinated. I had seen lions and cougars and tigers at the zoo before, but they had never seemed so dangerously alive as this one—or as beautiful. It had that same fluid feline grace and predatory posture as it circled below, and I hoped it couldn’t climb trees if it decided to. There was no stopping it if it did.
“Not afraid, bairn?” it asked, and I just about let go out of shock. Its voice was as smooth and deadly and alien as the creature itself was, sounding like fine sand. There was an odd little click with the words, like some insects made, but I wasn’t really thinking about insects any more. “Oh,” it breathed, “you’ll be very surprised if that gets you riled.”
“You can talk!” I realized how stupid it sounded immediately, of course, but sometimes those things just slip out. Despite my fascination, instinct had me wrapping my arms and legs tightly around the branch. Shifting my body around slipped my unkempt braid from my back, however, dangling it low—too low for my liking. The thing might spring up and hook me with its claws that way.
“Always the first thing they say to the Morgwyn. Why not declare more important things, bairn? Might suggest, ‘I am poisonous’ or ‘Are you full?’”
“But I am poisonous!” I said at once, pouncing on the opportunity like it had on the beetle. I opened my mouth and blew a neon green bubble from the gum I had been chewing all night.
The Morgwyn, or whatever it was, danced back another pace, its blue eyes wide and hot as the bubble popped and I sucked it back in again. I didn’t let relief show, keeping my gaze firmly on the creature. It circled back, slowly and more cautiously, the tufts on its back rippling. “Oh, she is crafty,” it hissed. “Did she dose herself or is it natural to her kind? One must find out.” I wasn’t sure if it was speaking to me or if the thing simply wanted me to hear its thoughts, but I didn’t let it unnerve me. Dad’s voice echoed faintly in my head, telling me not to show fear in front of those who wanted to hurt me.
“Yeah, too bad,” I told it. “Why don’t you go eat that pretty beetle instead? I don’t want to get gobbled and you don’t want your belly to melt.”
“By the by,” it disagreed, “the Morgwyn is quite content to interrogate a time yet. None would dare touch its prey before it was done.”
“Well, I’m not alone. I’ve got a big sister coming, and she’s the biggest, meanest, ugliest green ogress you ever did see. She’ll pop your head right off if you don’t leave me alone.” I knew it was a bluff, but there weren’t a lot of choices open to me. The monster was a weird mixture of scary and lovely, pacing down there. It was kind of strange, but I remembered how much I really wanted a cat just then.
“The wee bairn is full of things to say but not so full of things done. You remind one of...” it paused, trailing off. Those fiery eyes looked off into the distance, the Morgwyn seeming to consider something, its hot breath steaming in the night air. “Yes,” it hissed, more excited now, as it rotated back to face me, “you are the girl, the one who walks the woods.”
“Yes,” I answered immediately. It was a very important lesson I had learned from Mom’s favorite movie of all time: Ghostbusters.
“I see now. The yellow hair, the algae green eyes, the earthen smell.”
“I do not smell!” I protested, although the rest of the description was definitely me and couldn’t possibly be anyone else.
“Forgive the Morgwyn its rudeness and threats, bairn,” it said, its tone immediately shifting. Its claws retracted and it sat down, lifting a bare black paw in a gesture of welcome. “You have been expected.”
It wouldn’t surprise anyone to hear that I was suspicious. The spider was always welcoming when it thought the fly would come willingly into its home. Still, it could have attacked me at any time, if it weren’t wary of the “poison” or whatever other surprises I might have. Insects had all sorts of nasty gifts to give to things that tried to eat them. If the Morgwyn was being truthful, maybe I wouldn’t be stuck up here all night... or until it decided I was worth trying anyway.
Besides, there was a girl who looked just like me who was being expected by weird monsters in the woods at night; how could I pass up on that sort of mystery?
“Expected, by who?” I asked, intrigued, “Or what?”
“Why, the Morgwyn, and others as well,” it explained. “A fabulous kingdom awaits you, of song and magic. A land populated by griffons and dragons and unicorns and pegasi and more.”
“Unicorns? Dragons?” I gaped.
“Surely, only a fraction of what awaits.”
Chewing on my lip, I looked down at the Morgwyn, weighing my options. Stay up in a tree until morning and hope the Morgwyn didn’t manage to eat me anyway, then try to find my way home; or risk the jaws of a giant demonic cat now so I could have a chance to visit a magical fairy tale land.
“Sold.”
Daphne
It took me all of about ten minutes to realize what an idiot I had been. Not to mention a jerk, evil sister, or whatever other terms applied right then. Even if she had known her way around, letting a little girl wander around the forest when it was about to get very dark very quickly was about as irresponsible as someone could get.
“Amy!” I shouted, for all that I knew it was pointless. Sulking by the stream had let the dusk go from red to a deep navy blue across half the sky and for a healthy girl to run very far indeed. Twilight stars sparkled in cold mockery of my belated concern.
With visions of a golden-haired figure lying broken and bleeding in a ditch spurring me forward, I ran the way she had gone. All my earlier anger was melting away now. As if the day’s emotional rollercoaster hadn’t been harrowing enough. When I found her I was going to grab her and shout at her and ask her why she had been so stupid, and then I probably wouldn’t wait for her to answer and hug her and take her home and give her all the ice cream she wanted. Or something like that. Her name came out as hurried, panicked gasps, my pace not allowing me to call out to her.
I kept running, and my legs began to burn before long, dashing over the trails headed deeper into the woods. Visibility steadily declined as the shadows of the trees, already merged into one vast swamp of darkness, deepened. Catching my foot on something unseen ended my mad dash, pitching me face first into the earth. Once the dust had settled, I hobbled to my feet, massaging my face and brushing it clear of leaves and dirt. “Ow.”
Panting heavily, I stared around at the dark forest, which refused stubbornly to yield its secrets to me.
“Amy! Amelia!” I shouted, “Em, it’s Daphne!”
My voice echoed over the valleys. I waited.
No response.
There was no point in charging ahead without at least thinking where Amelia might have gone. If she left the trails, it would be very easy for her to get irrevocably lost among the trees. Only the most dedicated hikers and the park managers themselves knew the land better than me, but one of the first things I learned was not to go wandering off in the dark. If Amelia had taken this direction and kept to the trails, it would take her deeper into the woods, and the nearest habitation in that direction wasn’t for miles. It all seemed impossibly bleak.
If there was any hope of finding Amelia, it lay in one place.
As a young girl, every trip out into the woods had a specific meeting spot in mind. That last time, with Mother and my therapist at my side, an hour had come and gone with no sign of my imaginary unicorn friend. The meeting site wasn’t visible from here, not in the dark, but the towering old oak would still be there, unchanged by a mere eight years. There was a good chance Amelia was there. If she had come this way, she would meet up with the river before long, and that would lead her straight to the oak. More importantly, it was the only place with shelter for miles around, and hikers often used it as such. Assuming Amelia had run out of bluster by now, she’d be there.
So resolved, I pulled myself together and began hiking again, picking a steady pace and ignoring my pain and discomfort. The moon was too low, the earth was pitch black, and even with my cell phone lit and pointed toward the ground, the trek wasn’t without its trips, falls, scrapes, and bruises. In spite of that, I was rapidly eating up distance now that there was a destination in mind—the area around here was more familiar that I liked to admit. Occasional glances at my phone’s screen, which had a few new chips and scratches from my many tumbles, failed to change the lack of a signal, as if the whole of Western Civilization had been left behind.
A loon called with its eerie scream as I found myself on that familiar ground again. The grassy knoll, the cavern-like roots. A star-filled sky hanging over a rugged landscape. Even the lights of the surrounding towns could be seen from up here, staining the horizon with their night lives. They spread across so much more of the skyline now. Yet another reminder of how things had changed.
The wind bit at me, stealing away what little warmth my body held from the run up the trail. Rubbing my arms did nothing to stave off the shivering as I looked around. Nearly the entire park lay before me. From here, it might be possible to catch a glimpse of her flashlight if she turned it this way. I scanned the darkness for the faintest pinprick.
There! A flash of blue!
I stared for a minute, conflicted. That was where she had come from. There wasn’t time to allow myself to be distracted by such thoughts, though. Only one thing mattered right now—my little sister.
I ran.
* * *
It was as bad as it could possibly be.
My breathing heaved, and I tried my best to quiet it. A younger Daphne might have been able to deal with this sort of exertion, but a few years of sedentary living could do a number on someone’s energy. By the surrounding scene, however, it seemed that calm and quiet was going to be important. I lifted my head carefully over the log I was hiding behind, and stared down at the grove, which rose on the side of the hill by one of the deepest parts of the river ravine.
Three short men were down there, handheld lanterns arrayed about them. Each was wearing a strange overcoat and had a weird look about them, but I knew thugs when I saw them. All hair and muscle and bad teeth.
Seeing the lantern light had nearly given me a heart attack, and trying to approach through the dense brush on the top of the hill had been liable to kill me as well, but I was glad I had. Sweaty, dirty, bruised, and maybe a little bloody, I crouched down among the leaves and covered my hair with the hood of my jacket to keep anything shiny from showing. It was just like the games I used to play in the woods, only now it was all too real.
One of the brutes was rubbing a long, knotted stick in a nervous fashion, watching the approaches to the grove warily. Another, digging at a tin of something dark and fragrant, grunted, “Morgwyn comin’?”
“Yeup.”
“Sure it got the girl?”
“Same as last six times you asked,” the one with the stick said, his voice even more guttural and unpleasant than the other.
“Only asked four times,” the one with the bean can complained, stuffing a handful into his mouth.
“That’s only ‘cuz you can’t count past the four fingers on your right hand. Ain’t never occurred to you to use t’other one, even though it got five.”
“Shut yer mouth. Just ‘cuz the big guy gave you the shiny stick don’t mean nothin’,” Bean Can growled and glowered at his companion.
“It means there’s one set of brains between us, and I got a full share.”
The one with the bean can frowned at that. The hitherto silent one spoke up, “Wait, don’t that leave us with... wait, no, ya gotta carry the two—”
The stick came down with a snap. I swear there was even a flash of harsh light, like he’d just struck a magnesium rod against the rock, and I had to restrain myself hard from jumping. Now where the hell did that come from...
“Quiet!” he hissed. “The Morgwyn’s comin’—saw its devil blue eyes just now—and if you turn your back on it or make it think ye’re weak, so help me Discord, I won’t lift a bloody finger to save you.”
They all rose up, and the other two even lifted what looked like big, ugly woodsman’s axes. All three stood in tense silence. All three of them seemed to be genuinely wary. Even afraid.
The wind stilled.
If it was hard to keep from crying out before, it became nearly impossible when my sister strolled into the glade. It was even worse when I saw the thing she was walking at the heels of. My eyes grew to saucers as I saw what they meant.
Devil blue eyes, like two bright stars burning in the dark beyond the circle of the lanterns.
I hardly had time to react when the man with the stick lifted it into the air and, at once, lights burst from its tip, filling the air with their magnesium glow and casting a light as bright as day. They hovered and spun like hissing comets.
I knew it!
My heart raced and I felt every tendon in my body tense, as if seized by electricity. I was transfixed by those lights. I knew it!
I knew it was real all along!
Not two hours ago I had told myself that I had buried all of my hopes and dreams and Leit Motif herself, and here were all three being suddenly and violently unearthed. A monster cat and a magic wand, right in front of my eyes.
Weeks of being told I was fooling myself. Months of being told magic isn’t real. Years of saying I didn’t care, that I didn’t want to think about it. Those choices had led me to put away all the childish things in my past, so I could get on with my life.
All of it could go straight to hell.
“I knew it!” I shouted, springing up into the air with all the joy I had bridled deep inside me, hidden away in the dark recesses of my soul so I wouldn’t feel it ever again.
Five sets of eyes turned towards me in the sun-bright clearing.
“Oh damn it.”
No help for it now. I reached down, grabbed the branch I had left for just this purpose, and heaved. My purse, with all of its useful contents emptied into my pockets, came flying out of the dark beside me and, with my scarf unraveling from the tear I had made, showered all three of the ugly men with heavy, fist-sized rocks and a great deal of dry sand from the river bank. The one with the bean can was brained on the side of the head and went down with a bloody stain, catching himself on one hand, while the other two were definitely surprised and blinded.
“Run, Amelia!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, even as I gathered myself. It was totally insane, but I had no other choice now. I had to protect her. I had to. I put my feet on the log and leapt like a lioness at the man holding the magic wand—or at least a very angry house cat.
Even though I had probably half his mass, I collided with him while he was still rubbing sand out of his eyes and with all the force inertia and gravity could lend me. The impact knocked the wind out of us, but I recovered first. He tried to hit me with the knotted stick in apparent instinct, and I grabbed it in both hands. A great gout of white flame shot from the tip, and it grew hot in my hands.
The other two brutes dove for cover as we began to struggle over the wand. He with the greater strength and impaired vision, I with the better vantage on the wand and a fierceness born out of righteous fury. With every twist, the wand shot off again. One beam hit a nearby tree, and it burst apart immediately, logs of sawn lumber raining down like a lumberjack’s ill-timed wish. I heaved, turning the wand again, and it swept sparkling light over a pile of leaves. A great shower of white birds flooded into the air as the pile changed, shrieking and clawing, washing up into the dark like the foamy spray of an ocean wave.
The other two brutes didn’t dare come closer, not with the wand firing off this way and that. I swore I heard an elephant’s trumpet, and one of the rocks that had tumbled by the campsite bucked and leapt like a horse. Pine cones burst into smokeless fire, and the other two brutes yelped and rolled to keep their clothes from alighting. I shrieked and dug my foot into the struggling man’s face, and balls of blue plasma bubbled out of the wand to land around us, swallowing holes in the earth with barely a whisper of effort. The one with the bloodied head shrieked in a high-pitched voice and fell back from one of those globes, losing his heavy leather bag.
Every blast of the wand was like a gunshot going off. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see blisters rising on my palms from the heat if I could see more than faint flashes. The white, magnesium-bright blasts left me nearly blinded with spots, and each burst of sound left my ears ringing. My heart stopped as a flash went off near my face, with each individual spark showering off the tip and leaving a bright trail in my vision. Where it hit I had no idea, so consumed by the struggle and violence of the magic that nothing was distinct any more. With all the pandemonium, I believed for a moment that I might actually get through this in one piece, if I were quick enough. It was like the games Leit and I had made up together, fighting against imaginary thugs of our own making. I wished I could see where my sister or the cat had gone, but I had to keep all my attention focused on the task ahead of me. Maybe if I could get the wand away, I might have a chance. If I could only get my foot under him... I had to...
When my weight shifted, my foot slipped in the mud, throwing me off balance. The wand slackened in my grip, and, for one horrible instant, I knew I had made a terrible mistake.
With a great heave and grunt of effort, the man under me shifted, throwing his weight behind his shove and pushing me back. With the wand in a death grip, it almost came back with me. Instead, its tip pointed directly at my chest.
Alabaster light filled my world. I felt myself drifting back, softly, as if on a bed of clouds, watching the trees float by me through a haze of pearl fog. I was falling, gently now. Down. Down I went.
With nary a splash, I slid into the dark water. The surface closed over my body, and in my mind, a dark river, too, swallowed me whole into its depths.
* * * * * * *
So we begin! I'd like to thank everyone who swallowed the Humans in Equestria warning and kept on through. For my first foray into first person perspective I don't think I've done that badly. There may be some edits in the coming weeks as I get feedback from various sources, but the content is unlikely to change.
I'd like to talk a little about the direction and influences before we get too much further in. I was chatting with a friend of mine (GaPJaxie) about how most Human in Equestria stories were, frankly, not very good, and the notion came to me of doing something inspired by Labyrinth. In that 1986 movie with David Bowie and Jennifer Connolly, Sarah (the main character) made an ill-advised wish and attracted the attention of a group of strange creatures who had designs on her and her younger brother. Throw in a little bit of Narnia, Oz, and Greek Myth... well, you'll see.
I'm not sure how many of you were expecting Amelia to be a perspective character. Hopefully, you like her well enough, because she has a stake in this affair as much as anyone else. Bit of a weird kid too, as you're finding out.
Originally, Amelia was going to be a bit younger and more of a foil than a character. Thing is, that basically made her into a useless damsel who pushed the plot along by being an object, and I rather liked the character that was evolving in her place as this precocious, kind of strange child. This gives the story two forms of personal development represented in the older and the younger sisters respectively.
Those of you were here before may notice that I re-combined the first and second parts of chapter 1. Let me know if you think this makes the chapter too daunting. Thanks!
Comment below!
Detailed comments are super appreciated. Especially if you dislike - can't improve without knowing what's wrong!
I would also like to take a moment now to credit my proofreader GaPJaxie and Morning Angles, my primary editor. Sagebrush for his aid in edits and his selfless promotion of my material. AuthorGenesis for editing assistance. Uncountable others for their support and assistance.
I expect this list to grow as I tack on new editors. Look forward to your help as it comes, and look forward to the new chapters, folks! I'm churning them out as fast as I can.
Reading by Emily.
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This turned out really, really well. I wouldn't be surprised if this got featured at some point here.
1876641
I would certainly hope so! I put a lot of heart into it.
This is actually pretty original. I'll be watching to see where this goes.
Have a mustache.
I like this very much, I want to see more please.
This story is confusing to me
. I don't entirely know what was going on in this chapter, but I'll watch for what happens next.
1877866
Could you let me know what is confusing? I could clarify it for you - and if it's very confusing, I might like to fix it.
1877876What is going on in this chapter? For me it became confusing some point around when the pony stuff came in. Was it her imagination or something else? What type of HiE story is this? Regardless, I'm going to keep an eye on this story to see where it goes.
This next question is unrelated to this story but I'm wondering, when the next AMiHS chapter is coming? (Sorry if I annoy you with that question, I'm just dying to see it.)
This is different
1877945
1) She has an extremely vivid imagination, and is good at imagining her memories in great detail.
2) A Mile in Her Shoes' chapter 1 is under severe revision, I've been working at it as I've been able :D
cant wait to find out what happens ( fav. and like )
This fic is, different, in a good way, for once there us a HiE where the human is FEMALE. For originalality, I'll give you 55 Bro points, use 'em well!
1880886
I'm honestly surprised I haven't seen more of those <_<
There is a group for them (Human girls in Equestria) but it's not very big.
I suspect a lot of HiE is self-insert fan fiction, which I've always felt was fairly vile. Daphne is a girl because that's how it came out in inspiration and no other reason. :D
Well, I happen to like strong, independent female leads in stories, so I'm sure that's a factor.
Fantastic story so far.
I do hope you'll vary it a little from Labyrinth. Won't want to make this too predictable, after all.
FEMALE!
1883576
Oh, significantly, I promise you. Amelia is going to be her own player in events, at the very least.
you could say, the picture sucked me right in.
That is a great beginning and I really liked how we got to know the girl before her adventures in Equestria started and how she knew her pony friend in the past especially with a hint of that pony might coming to help her in one day (even though I'm worried that she might be the enemy). The only flaw in this beginning is how confusing it was when it was shifting to her memory, I mean when she starts talking about. There's no pause or break or even good perspective shift between the past in the present until later into the past. I'm not sure how you can fix this in this style but I like the way it was laid out in the end though.
any updates soon?
As much as I found myself disliking Daphne, I've really been enjoying this story so far. Time to read the next chapter!
"To a my bedroom" doesn't parse. Should it be just "to my bedroom"?
anybody else think the opening to this was VERY similar to the Labyrinth?
Moody teenager? check
Thinks parents are pushy? check
dislikes younger sibling? check
younger sibling gets taken to magical world? supposed to happen
Moody teenager must now save sibling from said magical place? future event
all we need now is discord to pop up with some magic crystal balls and be voiced by David Bowie
Excellent start! I believe my first impression can be summed up by the two words I uttered when Leit Motif was identified: holy shit!
This flows rather stiltedly. The pace is jarred as we transition from the previous sentence to the next. Maybe something like I waited for ten minutes before placing my hands in my pockets and made it appear as though I was there against my will.
Run on sentence. Period after detritus and modify following sentence. I pondered, or I examined to start the next part, perhaps?
Other than that, did really see anything problematic with the rest of the chapter.
"When I was a little girl, I had an imaginary friend..." In all seriousness, this story has the makings of greatness. I've always enjoyed world-jumping stories, (a bit of an escapist in that regard) and the 'forgotten childhood' angle adds in a sense of fantasy that is sure to become interesting as time goes on. Reminds me strongly of my own daydreams long past... Well done thus far, Ether. Can't wait for what comes next!
- Headwind
The writing style is of such high a level, and the characters so incredible lifelike and well thought out. You could take the mlp parts out, shift in some original material, slap a cover on it, and sell it in B&N and people would never be the wiser. Strike that, they would be raving over it.
The best complement that I can give -and I give it rarely- is that you're work is truly professional.
I have but two words for this story:
FUCK. YES.
Huh? but this is...but...but how...BWAH!!
How did you do it? How did you capture the magic of childhood so perfectly that I feel myself reminicsing about my own?
HOW!? WHAT SORCERY IS THIS!!!
Can I have more?
-C.Storm
I´m sorry if I can´t give much of a detailed criticsm but...wow, just wow. You detailled the whole childhood thing so perfectly and created two interesting and unique sisters. I can´t wait to read the rest and I have the strong feeling this journey is going to be mindblowing epic. Let´s see what happens next
The atmosphere in this fic is fantastic. I've been blocked for a better part of a year, wondering just what my writing was missing, and I think I found it here. Never to be an asshole and imply you stole it from me, of course, but man, I was there in that cold autumn forest along with Daphne and Amelia and I just can't wait to get started on the other chapters to see where they've wound up.
This story is so awesome!!! And I'm only on chapter 1!!! I just have to start reading the next one!!
I have only begun to delve into this budding saga, and just thought I’d post some observations, a few notes from chapter 1 which hint to me that the author knows his/her stuff!
>>>“You and I need to have a talk sometime, young lady,” Father said. I could just make out the top of his black hair from behind the paper.>>>
Excellent, no listing of physical traits or stuffing them into a descriptive paragraph. They’re spread out and emerge naturally within the narrative, steadily building the material appearance of the individual characters at the same time their personality and manner of speech are being constructed.
>>>It was so disgustingly wholesome and breezy. I might catch a lethal case of Ralph Waldo Emerson and start waxing poetically about fall colors and still forest pools if I went out there.>>>
Maginificent! A touch of comedy, fitting with the tone of the scene, and utilizing classical references in a casual mode of thought which simultaneously establishes the look and feel of the scenery!
So far I’m only half way through chapter 1, but already I see a level of literary competence far in excess of the majority of what I’ve read on this site. It’s clearly professional-grade fantasy writing. I’m going to hazard a guess that the writer is a university-level writing student, but if not I will be even more impressed as that means this talent was developed independently!
And as others have noticed, I also recognize the "Labyrinth" similarity. But it's a rarely used plot, and one that is even less frequently used very well. The few times I've seen in in fanfiction, it's more or less the identical tale with the characters and settings replaced a bit, akin to "Romeo and Juliette" with the only differences being the story taking place in Memphis, TN and the main characters being named Billy Bob and Daisy June.
I can already tell this story is aiming for much more than mere mimicry.
Another chapter 1 observation!
>>>“I’m almost disappointed that your sister never developed an imaginary friend of her own,” she went on, oblivious to my epiphany. “You were so cute. Always coming home with stories about your little adventures.”>>>
And then following it up with the misty memory of some suggestive 'footprints' in the mud! Oh you clever writer, you! Even though we all know, you're writing the way a proper story SHOULD be told; with all those subtleties and little indecisive nudges suggesting a world we have never seen before.
Oh I see I am going to LOVE this!
Until the sad/scary parts. Then I'll be all like, "NOOOOOO!! Why is this so perfect?! I can't jump in and save them without at least one huge plot hole!!"
I have now finished chapter 1...
Oh... my.... god....
This is FANTASTIC!! I shall march straight to Hasbro headquarters, leap the sea serpent-filled moat, kick down the steel doors with the spikes and laser canons sticking out of them, defeat the demon security guards and Gorgon secretaries and DEMAND that this be immediately approved for publication!
There are some HiE stories I enjoy for light reading or prototypical adventure, but this is PROFESSIONAL-GRADE material! This is HIGH FANTASY!! This is the sort of thing I'd expect C.S. Lewis to comment on in like manner, "Here be beauties which pierce like sword or burn like cold steel."
I give to you: THE DIVINE APPROVAL OF THE DEUS EX INSERT!! *the heavens open and shower upon the writer the power cosmic*
Well, wasn't planning on reading this - more just... checking it out - but the writing is excellent, the dialogue is natural, and I'm loving the core cast more than I was expecting. So... yeah, I think I'm in this for the long haul. Fantastic, so far.
To answer the Author's Note, it... definitely is hugely daunting. I'm leaving this comment a little after the hallway point, because I know I'm going to be in and out of this tab for days. That said, I wouldn't want to lose any of this, and I get the sense that every chapter will be this long, so I don't really see a decent way to make it less intimidating.
Hmmm, so this is what happens when you take Labyrinth, remove the 80's cheese (as delicious as it is), replace David Bowie with a mythical animals and monsters (that aren't too far from actual dangers you'd face in the wild) and set up the characters nicely before throwing all hell at them.
The thing I find interesting about this first chapter is how little of it relates to MLP. That is not a negative comment. The issue with a lot of HiE is that there's a lot more emphasis on the Equestria part than the human and they don't deliver fully on the prospect other than "Hey, lets make some references to Earth's technology and how different it is Equestria's."
Here, we've got original ideas about Equestria (at least have to assume that's where this is, again, so many original ideas) that add your own flare to the world. I am looking forward to the seeing how the character tags tie into the plot, but I'm content with just seeing how you develop this vaguely world.
I've only read a tiny bit but it awesome
Sometimes, EQD posts one of those stories. You know, the ones with flat dialogue, a predictable story, boring exposition, cliché plot points, Mary Sueish main characters, and so forth. They're the kind of story that make you take a step back and go "What the hell, pre-readers?" Those stories only get posted as the "best of the best" in fanfiction because they're grammatically flawless. The pre-readers are so busy looking for spelling and grammar errors that they loose sight of the big picture, forgetting to judge a work by its entertainment value rather than its picture-perfect spelling and grammatical prowess.
But this piece of work...isn't one of those stories.
One chapter is all it takes to hook someone on a story. Chapter one is the deciding factor of whether it will sink or float. If number one is boring, I don't click on chapter two. It's as simple as that. I can tell from this chapter, that I'll stick with the story to the end, so long as the rest is as much of a joy to read as this. I couldn't think of a single thing that I disliked about it. It was, as far as I can tell...perfect. I'm eager to read more.
This somewhat reminds me to the movie Labyrinth, I wonder why?
This is fricking awesome! What an amazing way to start. The first section itself would make a great stand alone one-shot, and we're just getting started. I'm so excited to read the rest of this I'm prctically bouncing in my seat.
Labyrinth vibe was very apparent. Nice.
The very first two lines of this story were a quote from Revelations followed by "That had been the worst day of my life.". That initially led to some amusing implications.
I n the comments I read a section snipped from this story. My first thoughts were ones of apprehension, for that stolen bit sterilized seemed to be tinted purple. Thankfully, I've seen that to not be the case. Rather, you use every sentence, every word, to expand upon the characters of these individuals you're writing about.
I like this story so far, and I am probably intending to continue on. One big problem for me was that the chapter was a really long. It literally took me from 2:00 pm to 7:00pm to read this, beginning to end. Probably because I am just a slow reader. I can't wait to read some more!
Best first chapter I have ever read. Ya hooked me lets see if the rest is as good as the bait.
This is some hot shit, right here.
What a fantastic opening to a story. Aside from a questionable description of the Everfree state park early on, this is flawless.
Not only that, it's refreshing to see a HiE with an actual teenage girl at the helm for once.
I'm in this until the end.
'Do you want to build a snowman?' Sorry had to be done.
Great start and interesting premise. Love the subtle culture references BTW.
T
Very good narrative, and the story is promissing
sorry but... someone can explain the "Ralph Waldo Emerson" joke?
A bit heavy for me: I found it hard to get into a flow so I ended up skimming a lot. Looks interesting otherwise, though. Getting some Labyrinth vibes, like this could be the start of an 80s Jim Henson movie.
I enjoyed this much more than I did when I first read it. Really looking forward to reading the rest!