Page 35 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

CHAPTER TWENTY

If we walked all night, I didn’t know it. All I remembered was the cold numbness after my fight with Flora and then suddenly blinking in the dawn of another day. The morning hurt for more reason than one, and I lifted a hand to shade my eyes.

Cattails and cordgrass rose from the still silvery waters of the marsh.

Sunlight flashed off the iridescent wings of dragonflies and undulated along the ripples of disappearing frogs.

The air was fresh here, not rancid with decay.

I found myself inhaling deeply and leaning forward into the light.

Below me, the water was like glass, revealing all the secrets usually shrouded by murk. Like a marsh from a fairy tale.

“We go east,” Kian announced in a soft voice, afraid to disrupt the chorus of crickets.

“This is a marsh,” Daphne said. “One does not simply ‘go east’ as the crow flies. There are all sorts of lagoons and feeder streams and switchbacks. Not to mention wet meadows that could just as easily swallow us as provide respite from the water.”

“We head in an overall easterly direction,” Kian amended.

“We’re doomed,” Shari said.

“A map would help,” I said pointedly.

The junior scholar gave a single nervous chuckle. “Y-you heard the high lady. No maps except this one in here.” He tapped his temple.

“And do you happen to know the exact route through the lagoons and streams to the other side?” Daphne wanted to know.

“Um…”

“Good gracious,” Daphne muttered, stalking off to get her own lay of the land.

“The high lady’s attendant was from the Marsh Court,” I said. “Do we need to be worried about patrols?”

“Um…”

I fought not to roll my eyes. “Where is the seat of the Marsh Court? Is it nearby?”

That, Kian knew. “No!” he exclaimed excitedly. “It’s further inland, to the west.”

Well that made it nice and tidy; we were headed east, so maybe we’d get lucky. Crouching down, I sank both hands into the still marsh water and activated my sparkle vision. By the Green Mother, I needed a better name for that.

The water amplified my sight, as I suspected it would, and I pushed my perception farther and farther like I had in the Fire Grove.

Just as I was beginning to despair there would be no end, the marsh condensed into a small river that dipped south to feed into the River Neave.

North of the river was dry land. I couldn’t see farther than that, so I blinked away Elfame’s radiance and returned to the sight before me.

I relayed what I’d discovered to the group, and Kian confirmed we needed to be north of the marsh’s tributary. Then it would be a straight shot to the Court of Shoals.

Daphne began removing her shoes and hiking up her skirt. “Better to go barefoot so you don’t lose your shoes or twist an ankle,” she told us. She flashed us a smile. “Ask me how I know.”

“I’d grow you another walking staff, but why hike and wade and get filthy when you can go by boat?” I replied saucily.

“I like the boat idea,” Kian agreed quickly, hugging his overcoat tight around his middle.

Brushing my finger along the branch of nearby larch tree, I felt along its needles for a cone that was neither too supple nor too brittle.

Finding such a one, I pinched it off and rolled it between my palms to release the wafer-like seeds.

I retained the largest seeds and returned to the water’s edge to crouch down once more.

The magic oak tree eagerly answered my call, flooding my palms with primal magic.

Simple green magic could’ve completed this task, but why settle for the song of a single cello when I could listen to an entire symphony?

Cooking in the cave had reacquainted me with the instruments at my disposal, and all their individual uniqueness, but there was a reason my Tree of Life was one glittering white opal flecked through with many other colors.

The facets of my magic were supposed to be used in concert.

It’s why I’d felt joy adjusting the amulets—I’d been using my magic as intended, to its fullest potential. Embracing me.

Shannon and Flora’s warnings against magical displays rang faintly in my memory, but I’d never develop the fine control I needed if I didn’t practice. Besides, we were alone in the marsh anyway.

Earth and water elements flooded into the larch seed, swelling it with potential.

Fire activated its spark, and the seed ballooned with growth.

Air guided its shape as life poured through its capillaries.

The opalescent magic whizzed and swirled as the sapling grew.

With a final dazzling burst of light, it was done.

A fine, flat-bottomed boat remained. The mature larch wood was the pale brown of coffee that had been diluted with too much milk (or perhaps the perfect amount), and it camouflaged beautifully with the marsh reeds and grasses.

From an aerial point of view, the boat resembled the vertical cross section of a pear: a sharp stem of a prow to cut through the water and a rounded body and stern for passengers.

I’d enjoyed the magic so much that I’d grown decorative embellishments along the gunwales—reeds bent under crickets, waterlilies in all stages of bloom, and green herons luring fish to the surface with tiny leaves.

A figurehead that bore a startling resemblance to the Violet I had seen in my moonflower hallucinations rose high above the water.

So high, that if you stood upon the bow’s gunwales, you could sling your arm around her shoulders.

There were comfortable benches and a sturdy rudder, and I grew oars from some of the remaining larch seeds.

The entire process had only taken a handful of minutes, and when I was finished, I found Kian and Shari staring and Daphne smiling. “I’ll never tire of watching you do that,” she said.

I returned her smile. “All aboard?”

Shari scrambled in, and when Kian made to follow, I stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Let me charge your amulet. I didn’t get a chance to do it… before. And you still look like you.”

I’d forgotten to change Flora’s amulet too, and just had to hope that no one found a wandering garden gnome suspicious.

Kian waited patiently while I superseded the commands of Callan’s earth and Shannon’s water magics, and the junior scholar’s appearance changed dramatically.

He was still tall—nothing could hide that—but he was suddenly thin and freckled with auburn hair and turquoise eyes. Fiachna spat in surprise.

“I’m still me.” Kian lifted his fingers and the opossum confirmed this truth through his scent.

He still grumbled, not wholly convinced, as Kian sat down in the exact middle of his bench with his hands tucked between his clamped knees.

The opossum disliked the water more than Kian’s new appearance and moved to his head in semblance of a white fur hat.

“What’s her name?” Shari asked, running a hand along the gunwale. “It’s bad luck to ride in a boat with no name.”

Naming her had been the furthest thing from my mind. “I could use some suggestions.” With one foot braced on the stern bench, I craned around to eye the last passenger. “Mare?”

Daphne lingered on land, searching the woods behind us. Looking for Flora. There was no sight of the garden gnome.

“I’ll give her a ping,” I offered softly.

The older woman passed a knuckle under each eye, turned, and gave me a brisk nod before joining the others in the boat. “You should name it Hope .”

“ Tha Dòchas Ann ,” Kian said. “It’s Faerish for ‘There is hope.’”

True words. Not knowing where Flora was, I sent a Scouting Spell into the forest. I was strong enough now that I could hide my magical signature in case anyone was fast and clever enough to catch my ping and send it back to determine my location.

The creatures of the wood and any nearby fae would feel only a shiver, like a tickle down their spine or an errant breeze, but Flora would know it was me.

I stole another moment to send Sawyer an image of the marsh and where we were headed.

Thistle thorns! I hadn’t thought to ward him off from The Happy Hound.

Frantic, I sent him images of the burning tavern and the strong impression he avoid it at all costs.

His alarm raced through our bond like a spark through a dry cornfield.

When he’d mastered himself enough to transmit an image, it was of a familiar paper birch forest. Safe was the emotion tied to the healthy, unscorched trees with golden leaves.

Thank the Green Mother for that.

“Hurry,” I told him. For all sorts of reasons, but the primary one being I was in desperate need of a snuggle.

I wanted to hold his little body close, smell his clean scent, and feel as much as hear the vibrations of his purr.

The love of a treasured animal could always cut through the darkest days.

To my relief, his tinny voice replied, “Coming.”

Shoving off with the aid of some air and water magics, I set Tha Dòchas Ann gliding through the first lagoon.

I took my place at the stern and gripped the tiller with both hands.

“I need to use my second sight to guide us, so you three need to be on the lookout for any obstructions and call them out to me, okay? There are oars to course-correct us if I can’t react fast enough. ”

All three claimed an oar.

“Kian, before we get well underway, is there anything in here that we should worry about? Marsh muirdris or something?”

“Just undines, merrow, kelpies, gailfean drakes, and the usual,” he rattled off, his chipper attitude of a question well answered fading upon the realization of the danger inherent in that answer.

He clutched his oar tighter, looking frantically from side to side as if the clear water was only a beguiling illusion.