Page 32 of The Folklore of Forever (Moonville #2)

Thirty-Two

It is not uncommon to find what appears to be nature-made or human-made landmarks growing out of ley lines possessing high concentrations of energy. Examples are a rock column locally known as the Devil’s Tea Table (for more about the mysteries of King Hollow Trail, see pages 21, 34–36, and 97), and several old, ramshackle buildings scattered throughout Vinton County that remain standing in spite of demolition attempts. Legend has it that one of the buildings on Vallis Boulevard was not put there by humans but by a ley line.

Local Legends and Superstitions, Tempest Family Grimoire

I come back to consciousness with a thumping headache and the inkling that I have made a bad decision. “Morgan, wake up.” I poke at him until his eyes open. He grumbles, ill-tempered.

“Why?”

“I feel weird.”

His hair doesn’t have the decency to look hilarious first thing in the morning. It’s every-which-way in a sensual, throaty-voiced Are you coming back to bed for round three? kind of a situation. His face is drained of life, eyes purple-shadowed, and the general zombie-ish pallor is inappropriately doing it for me. “Do you want me to feel you and see if I agree?”

I flick his ear.

He sits up. “Ouch. Fuck, my head.” He moans, cradling his skull. “That is not nice at all. I do not like it.”

“I’ve got a headache, too. I think it must be early yet.”

“What’s this stuff on my knee?” Morgan rubs a white flake between two fingers, bringing it to his nose to sniff. “Deodorant? Why is there deodorant on my knee?”

I unzip the tent, peeking out. “Where’d Luna go? I swear she showed up last night.”

“No, she had to take the dogs home.”

Morgan and I stop, then slowly look at each other. It clicks. “ Ohhh. ”

“Was it something we ate?” he wonders. We take a moment to dissect our meals yesterday. Maybe the filter on my water bottle has been tampered with. “I can’t figure out what parts were real and what parts were fever dream.”

I dig graham cracker crumbs out of my neck. “At least some of it was real. I remember putting these crumbs on you.” I reach for my glasses. Beside them sits a glass vial with four drops of gold potion remaining. Morgan’s Miracle Cure. “You!” I seethe, trying to grab for him. Morgan scuttles backward. “You did this. You poisoned us with slow-cooked mischief and mayhem.”

I can see it in his face: the flash of recognition, the probability that I’m right. The struggle to dodge responsibility.

“But I used it before, on my scratch,” Morgan insists. “It definitely didn’t make me hallucinate the first time.”

“Maybe trace amounts don’t affect you as much. The second time, though—that was an overdose.”

Morgan is enraptured. “Psychedelic potion? We could sell that, too, and make just as much money as we would if we called it medicine.” He straightens. “Wanna put it on ourselves again?”

He cannot be serious. Of all the dangerous, stupid—

He is serious. “I tried to perform surgery on you!”

“Okay, yeah.” He scratches his chin. “Maybe not, then. Today.”

Perhaps just as mystifying as what happened to us biologically is what has happened to us geographically: the tent is sitting smack-dab next to a river. We did not set up camp next to a river.

“None of this was here yesterday, right?” I survey the swollen water, the two of us standing on its bank. It’s a gray, drizzling day, cold moisture seeping through my pants.

He shakes his head. “No. And I know that for a fact because you kept saying we needed to camp near a source of water and I kept reminding you that we hadn’t come across any.”

We are parked beside a gurgling, icy river with no rational explanation, and it is not, in fact, early morning, but noon.

“Your pet crushed my leg, and you poisoned me,” I say crossly. “You’re carrying all the tent mishmash today, and I’ll carry the pillow and Cocoa Puffs.”

“Hey, I protected you from that snake last night! You’re welcome .”

“That snake wasn’t real. You were probably screaming at your own shoelace.”

“Hm.” His lips purse. “That would explain the missing shoelace.” Then he watches me unscrew the cap of my medication and swallow a pill. Somehow resists asking what sort of pill it is, even though he’s nosy and impulsive.

I answer his unspoken question, anyway. “SSRI.” I wave the bottle. “Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Twenty milligrams every morning helps me keep feeling like the same person all month long. It’s the reason I was able to move back home.”

He searches my face, inquisitive. “Luna and Romina have mentioned a few times that they hoped you’d come back to Moonville, and they said you said you never would.”

Yep. All true. “I have premenstrual dysphoric disorder,” I tell him. “I’ve struggled with it since my early twenties but didn’t know exactly what was wrong with me until about eight months ago when I saw a thing online about PMDD, and how it isn’t normal, actually, to feel like a completely different person in the one to two weeks before my period starts. I’d get severe mood swings, brain fog, insomnia. Crushing anxiety and depression. Any tiny thing to go wrong would feel hopelessly insurmountable, and I’d have a total meltdown. But also—and this is the big one—I’d get suddenly dissatisfied about where I was living, so I’d pick up and move. New city, new state. Then my hormones would go back to normal as soon as my period started, and I’d be left dealing with the consequences of all the decisions I’d made during the luteal phase of my menstrual cycle.” I circle my finger. “Every month. Behaving irrationally, wanting to move somewhere new. Period starts. Feel normal for two weeks. Then it happens again. And again.”

“And now you’re cured?”

“I’m way better. I still get a little emo a couple days before my period starts, but the urge to turn my life upside down has gone away and I can stay put in one place without a problem. The day I sold my camper van and bought a car, packed all my stuff to drive back to Ohio—I can’t even describe the feeling. I was so proud of myself.”

He smiles affectionately. “I’m proud of you, too.”

I look down, busying myself with my suitcases, hyperaware that I don’t talk about myself this much with other people. Why am I telling Morgan personal information? And why doesn’t it bother me?

Morgan and I give each other privacy while answering the calls of nature, getting dressed, acknowledging that certain parts of this expedition are not as great as I’ve been romanticizing, et cetera. Then we sort of stand around for a bit, looking to each other for direction. We’re vaguely somewhere in Falling Rock Forest. We might be a hop, skip, and a jump from the main road; we might be miles out. It’s especially tricky to guess now that we’ve ended up…not where we started.

“What if brays are watching us go to the bathroom?” Morgan asks.

“Then it’s the most excitement they’ve gotten in a while, so let’s just be grateful that we’re not in their position.”

“Yet. If we die out here, we’ll become like them.”

“You only become a bray if you’re alone in the forest when you die. We’re not alone.” I survey the area. “Let’s make the most of this nice weather and see if we can find a trestle and a cave close together. Find the trestle and cave, find the Black Bear Witch’s lair.”

My statement is punctuated by an unexpected downpour of chilly rain. I did not account for this. Normally I’m a big fan of chilly rain. There is such romance in foul, gloomy weather, in wind that’s out to pull teeth. It makes me yearn to sit at my window in fuzzy socks, mug of steaming tea in hand, watching the bricks of Vallis Boulevard gleam copper as the sky spits.

“Please tell me you packed an umbrella,” he says, knowing full well that I did not and neither did he.

We roam about, trying to stay under the cover of tree branches. Forte sleeps angrily in his baby sling strapped across Morgan’s chest. Being wrapped up snug seems to induce a state of hibernation in him. “What does that turtle look like to you?” Morgan asks me, gesturing.

“Like a turtle.”

“Damn.” We trudge on. He inquires after a squirrel, a rabbit, and a deer. They turn out to be, respectively, a squirrel, a rabbit, and a deer.

“We might not be discovering new paranimals left and right, you know.”

“Why not?” He leans away to examine a cardinal, which turns out to not be a cardinal because cardinals do not have fire smoldering casually from their tail plumage. “Something smells like it’s burning,” he notes. “We must be close to a cabin.”

“Or, we’re close to a bird that’s on fire.”

Morgan jumps back. “On fire?”

“Or is fire,” I amend. The bird trots forward, twittering. “There’s smoke where its wings should be.”

“See?” he crows. “What’d I tell you? No reason we can’t be discovering new paranimals left and right.” He withdraws his phone and activates the camera. It shuts itself off. “I wasn’t gonna share the pictures online!” he yells at the invisible forces thwarting his photography. “It would show up as a normal bird on camera, anyway.” He manages to get the camera working again, but the bird hurries off.

“Notice how it didn’t fly, though!” I point out. “Because it doesn’t actually have wings.”

Insensible to the weather now, he urges me to describe the animal in profuse detail, copying it all down on paper. “We’ll call it a conflagrinal.”

But the conflagrinal, as it turns out, is the only new creature of interest we come upon for quite some time. By dinner (a feast of canned chili and crackers), even Morgan’s enthusiasm has waned. We study a strange film floating in the rushes of a swamp. In spite of all the rain we’ve gotten, the swamp is stagnant and carries a pungent odor not unlike wet clothes that have been sitting in a washing machine for a week. “This could be a paranimal’s molt, maybe,” I say hesitantly, dipping a twig into the water. The film instantly wraps itself around the forked end of the twig, adhering to it. The beautiful iridescence reminds me of abalone, slug trails, the way oil in puddles refracts light. “Can’t say for sure, of course—”

Morgan is desperate for something new to grab his notice. “It is irrefutably from a paranimal. It looks silver to you and white to me.”

“That could be perspective.”

“Let’s bag it.”

My fingers have cuts on them from pulling back vines and branches to see if any of them are hiding caves. No such luck. We did find a trestle, but a trestle is useless if there aren’t caves nearby.

While I was preparing for this trip, I envisioned myself endlessly patient. One with nature, studying every leaf, rodent, and insect. Utterly enthralled, capable of sitting still for so long that my bones would groan when they moved again at last. Maybe I’d become so enamored of the forest that I’d never leave.

“I’m sore,” I grouse. “I miss my mattress. Sleeping on the ground sucked, and all I can think about is my ass.”

“All I can think about is your ass, too,” he replies distractedly, reviewing the never-ending expanse of trees.

I don’t know if I want to laugh or threaten him, and I’m still deciding when I hear voices again.

“One clamp of their jaws on your flesh and your lungs filled with water.”

I hold out a hand. “Stop.”

Morgan watches me closely, not saying a word. I tilt my head.

“Once upon a time, nobody went into the forest and came out of it alive.”

The words wink away. I think the forest spirits must be trying to communicate a warning, or a threat. “Somebody doesn’t want us here,” I murmur.

We roam deeper into violet dusk, the path becoming rougher, overgrown with wide, flabby mushrooms, split trees, and blinking yellow eyes crouched in the undergrowth. My feet ache from walking all day, my muscles are sore from carting luggage, and my eyes beg for sleep. Where did the brays go? Can they see us? Are they following?

The deluge lets up to a drizzle, tearing apart a low fog that drifts across the old wood like interstellar clouds. “You smell something burning?” Morgan asks.

I sniff. “A conflagrinal?”

We search the skies, at last locating a big puff of smoke that seems to be pouring from nowhere.

I can’t make out the chimney until I’m looking at the smoke, and I can’t see the roof unless I’m focused on the chimney. The only time a window is visible is when I’m staring directly at a door. It’s as if the tiny building pencils itself into the frame reluctantly, pieces at a time, not giving more than it has to. If I strain my eyes hard enough, I can just distinguish four dark, blurry exterior walls and a steeply pitched roof. The closer we step, the more solid it all becomes, as if waking up from a dream.

The cabin must predate many of the trees surrounding, as thick roots have coiled beneath its foundations and risen like the undead. It was constructed close to a creek, but erosion has widened the waters and now the building’s southwest corner is ready to fall in. A tiny pond, the sort you’d normally see koi fish swimming in, rests close by, its black waters rippled with leaves and yellow toads.

There are four doors, one cut into each side of the cabin. The one facing us bears a carving of an owl and the words Nothing to See Here . On another, an oak leaf and This Is a Tree, Nothing More. The third door has antlers growing out of it where a doorknob should be located, along with the sentiment You’re Not Really Seeing This ; and the fourth door, labeled Off You Trot, is frozen shut with a thick casing of ice. Every minuscule hair on my body stands up.

“This has to be it,” I whisper. “The witch’s lair, and a fire’s going.” Gray clouds wisp from the chimney cowl, curlicuing upward. “She’s probably inside right now. What do we do?”

Morgan pushes a hand through his hair, fingers shaking slightly with nerves. His face is ghosts and shadows, black eyes alert. “We didn’t plan this far ahead, did we?”

The goal has been: Find the Black Bear Witch. But I suspect that, deep down, we didn’t think we would, and that’s why we’re dithering at her doorstep, presumably, with empty heads. Do we just say Hey, found you! Give us some magic, please ?

My hand finds Morgan’s, fingers lacing tightly together. He raises his other fist to knock. Even though I can see it connecting with the wood surface, the contact produces no sound. Not a thud , not a thunk , not a thump .

The door swings inward, presenting an empty one-room house with a caved-in floor.

I wrench Morgan back to prevent him from walking right over the threshold and into a pit.

“It’s…” He gazes around in haunted disbelief. “ No. With the way we can hardly see the house even when it’s right in front of us, that means it’s magicked, which means it has to be her lair.”

I give his hand a gentle squeeze. “Maybe she’s moved. Don’t worry, we won’t stop looking.”

We’ve put so much effort into this, and so many wishes and hopes, that even though all we’ve found is a ruin, we can’t bring ourselves to move on yet.

“It smells familiar in here,” he notes. “Like maple syrup.”

I inhale deeply. “Whiskey.”

“I don’t understand where the smoke is coming from if there’s no fireplace.”

“And no doors to suggest bedrooms where a fireplace might be…” I stop, eyes narrowing on the wall opposite us. “That wall is not quite right.” One moment it’s covered in peeling wallpaper, the next it’s brick, and then wood, in such a gradual evolution that I wouldn’t notice it at all if I weren’t staring unblinkingly.

“It’s like there’s something moving in there,” Morgan tells me, “but I can only see it out the corners of my eyes.”

He’s right. The longer we look on, the more it seems there are silhouettes and pockets of light floating about. Morgan points. “Fire!”

“Where?”

His breath releases in a gust. “It’s vanished again.”

I reposition myself, staring ahead but trying to glean what’s happening along the edges. And there it is—a lick of bright, merry light. I face it straight-on, and it’s gone. I think I catch snatches of low music, too—but I can’t keep a lid on any of it, my senses scattering and confused.

“Maybe she still comes by now and then?” Morgan wonders aloud. “Hopefully we can bargain some magic out of her without ending up as bouillon cubes in her next meal.”

“We don’t have proof that she’s a cannibal,” I point out diplomatically. “ I’m a witch, after all, and my delicacy of choice is the nonpareil.”

“Yes, but you don’t live in a spooky cabin with invisible fire.”

“You don’t have to rub it in. I’d adore a spooky cabin with invisible fire.”

He smiles warmly, and it sends tingles all over me. But then the happy feelings die when he says, “I think it’s an illusion to scare people off. I’m going in.”

“No!” I seize his shirt. “If it’s not an illusion, you’re going to fall into that .” I gesture to the caved-in floor. “You could get seriously hurt. Even if I can pull you out, how am I gonna manage to carry you home?”

In a heartbeat, he is intimately close. His breath is a cold plume, his gaze urgent and filled all the way up with an emotion so visceral, it’s as if I can feel whatever it is he’s feeling.

Yearning.

“Risk for reward,” he says evenly. “The Black Bear Witch has to give you magic if you find her lair, in exchange for making you forget where it is and that you ever found it.”

“Only according to the legends,” I remind him. “We don’t know for sure if she’ll give us anything. Or if she’s real. Or if that’s an illusion and not a pit that will kill you.”

His muscles tighten with resolve.

“We’re this close.” His right hand strokes up my cheek, slipping into my hair. Both of our heads tilt, and the world goes soft and sparkling around me. “Maybe I’m wrong. But don’t you want to find out?”

Find out is the everlasting flame that keeps me burning, of which he’s well aware. The reason I search for the unexplained is so that I can then explain it, so that I can pin its wings in a shadow box and know what its name is.

My breathing flutters. Skips. “You’re trying to seduce me again.”

Morgan’s gaze is serious, and it levels me. “No, Zelda. I understand you. You understand me, too, which is why it won’t come as a surprise when I do this.”

He walks over the threshold and disappears.