Page 10 of Up from the Earth (Equinox Seasons Duet #1)

Nine

Power Is Given To Those Who Can Wield It. Embrace Life’s Chaos & Grow.

J erking, I launched upright into a seat, only then realizing that I’d somehow fallen asleep. Several moments passed before I could make heads or tails of my surroundings. What first registered, above all things, was that it was quiet.

Not the quiet of an empty house nor that of a place that should be bustling but sat unused. No, this was the quiet of a still spring evening—only distant rumbles of thunder and the drone of crickets filling the space with noise.

When I blinked, my eyes slowly focused, and I was able to put sight to touch. I’d felt the softness of a deep, new moss beneath me, and now I saw it for real under my hands, under my legs, under everything. It was the bed where I slept, and I awoke with no aches and pains from mattress springs, no cricked neck from sleeping at an odd angle. I’d been perfectly cradled by a womb made of green things.

That was not to say I wasn’t sore. The space between my legs ached—a deep burn that only served to remind me of my Wolf and the explosion of color he’d brought into my life. I only wished he was there, for I knew I was alone.

“A bedroom?” I glanced around myself, taking in the four walls that surrounded me.

They were constructed of forest, with only the inclination that I could not go those ways to assert themselves as barriers. A ghost of brick-like structures haunted the shadows, suggesting this might be where the two different realms met.

With my pulse now calm, the pounding receding to a gentle thud, I realized that something else was different about those walls. I could…sense them. Not the bricks, the mortar that sat between them somewhere out of sight, but the trees. I could feel them—as if they were extensions of my arms.

Lifting a hand, I focused on a particular birch, its swaying branches catching an invisible breeze. I shifted my fingers to the left, twirling them down one after the other. The tree mimicked my motion, drifting its branches down to the left one at a time.

Repeating the gesture to the right showed the same results.

Odd…

Standing, I slipped free of the mossy cradle. The billowing, sheer gown I’d been draped in before somehow covered my skin. Repaired from the damage, though somehow different, the shoulders hanging low on my arms. Tiny embroidered flowers tumbled down from the top, the neckline a gentle sweetheart cut.

Yards and yards of gauzy fabric fell from the waist and draped over my legs, the dress trailing after me. Any individual layer was sheer, but stacked together, they provided coverage. There was a long slit up the side of my right leg as well. And my hair had grown, my near-white, wavy tresses falling to my waist.

Incredible .

I padded toward the wall closest to me. Nature, in its raw integrity, was there: dirt, bush, and undergrowth. Small mushrooms—fly agaric and death caps—poked their little heads out from beneath thick layers of fallen leaves and the usual decay of the forest. I knelt down, reaching for one.

Neither was a good choice if you were looking to eat and survive, but something dared me to challenge them. A bold move that even I knew better than to test on a normal day. Though, I had a feeling that days of that nature were long behind me.

I popped one of the red caps free, bits of the white dots on top flaking off and falling to the ground. My heart was racing, but everything inside me called for this to happen. Tossing the thing in my mouth, I chewed enough to swallow and waited.

Nothing happened.

It was very likely that I hadn’t eaten enough to be detrimental, but it was more than that. Nothing happened. I could sense no stomach upset, no bitter taste. I was immune to whatever the little fungi might have done otherwise.

The only thing I did sense was the melting of the mushroom into its core elements and how I absorbed each of them into my being. They were stored somewhere inside me…for later use.

How…how do I know this? What’s happening?

Turning my attention to the death cap, I cocked my head. It was still small, this one that grew on the very edge of the wall. It was still growing. What would it look like when it was fully grown? How large might its cap be?

Raising my hand, I held it over the fungus, twisting now to the right as I conjured the image of a clock in my mind. Clocks turned in one particular direction, signaling the progression of time. If I twisted nearly completely around, almost a full rotation, it would mean I'd reached the end of the plant’s life.

And sure enough, doing so spun the death cap into maturity, its full cap growing to several inches wide, and then to death, its cap shriveling to nothing. I’d seen its entire course of life in but a moment. Turning my hand back the other way, attempting to send it back into youth, made my arm shake, stealing my breath.

I could not go that way, not without a cost. I should not go that way. It was… wrong .

Life stirred all around me, waking up as I neared them. I could shift them through decay, make them flourish if they required more, but once dead, they could not be changed. The alarming wonder of it all was how the power wound through my veins like roots. I was connected to it all. I could recognize the magic that I’d always contained to some extent, wake up.

I was waking up.

My being felt altered—new and reborn at once. It was as if a great block or weight had been removed, the burgeoning sorcery that had lay dormant for years finally finding its spark to ignite. Swirling my fingers through the air, I watched the trails of subtle green energy dance between them. Was this who I’d been destined to be?

“Indeed it is, little beast. But you are not quite finished with your trails. There is one remaining—one that will lend meaning to your new gifts.”

A shiver worked through my spine as The King spoke. He was such a strong presence in my mind, in my soul, but I’d experienced him now, at least one of his forms at any rate. I felt that connection, and the voice in my head was not the same shock but a pleasant companion.

If one that remained quite… intimidating .

“What is it? Can’t you just be straightforward for a change?”

A deep, rumbling chuckle melted through my being, and I, of course, already knew the answer. In no way did I expect an ancient being to speak in clear, concise instructions. Part of all of this was understanding that I had to interpret and much as perform. It was about following my intuition and succeeding. Both were integral to whatever great journey this was.

“A final test awaits you, little beast. It will give you the power, but more importantly, the knowledge to understand how we must defeat the fiendish presence that seeks to fracture this realm.”

Flickering in the corner of my eye, the door to this odd bed chamber was glowing a faint yellow-green. It hummed with magic, calling me toward it as I’d been called toward the woods before. I stepped up to it, steeling myself as best I could for what might lie beyond this passageway that still resembled the forest, the width of it a sizable tree trunk.

The gnarled handle felt warm beneath my palm, and I twisted it open, feeling that gift affect the natural cycle influencing the door itself and what lay behind it. Yanking itself from my grasp, the thing swung open with considerable force, releasing a popping sound that made my ears ring.

Revealed was more of the forest, but this one picked up and set down in a new location. One that was home to a thin stream that cut through the trees and led deep, deep, deep into the woods. Fog crept over the ground in the dim, dabbled light of the spring day, the scents of wondrously varied fauna slipping through.

With a long inhale, I squared my shoulders and crossed the threshold.

As ever, Cerri…onward.