Young Writers Society

CHAPTER 1

She walked down the street in the rain, staring at the muddy ground at her feet. Raindrops crashed like silver boulders into the steadily rippling creek that passed under the road… She thought of what lay before her, both dreaded and looked forward to seeing the creek in the shallow moon’s light. Her neck ached and her shoulder blades throbbed in ceaseless agony. The glow of the newly lit streetlamps reflected off the wet pavement and illuminated her small, pale face, her green eyes, the wisps that escaped the long orange rope of her hair. The children watched her as they played up and down their laneways; both curious and fearful for reasons they did not comprehend. She walked with a lithe, graceful step, though she never seemed to try; she wore faded, baggy clothes, hiding hr slim figure within the layers. Slim, but strong; pretty, even beautiful, but alert, awake, cagey, dark, despite her bright features. She listened to their excited shouts, none of which were directed to her; none of which she wanted to have directed to her. Only too conscious of the anomalous attention she was receiving as she walked home alone, she shrugged even deeper into her grey sweater and looked back at the ground, shivering in anticipation of what was bound to come.

* * *

The house that my foster mother, Carol, and I shared was distinguishable from the other hundred only by the little yellow buttercups that had accidentally invaded the front flower bed during the storm. If it wasn’t for that, I’d have walked right by it, like I had three out of the past five days.

The door eased open slowly, and as I walked in, I was greeted by a familiar silence as well as the strong scent of dish detergent and Windex. Everything was spotless: the dishes done, the phone hung up, the cupboards shut.

Not wanting to disturb the quiet orderliness of the place, I wrenched open the closet door and hung up my sweater and backpack on the hooks in the back. Dumping the wrapper left over from my lunch, I hefted my books up the steep carpeted staircase to my bedroom.

My room was quiet and empty, what with there not being a bed or a dresser or whatnot. Instead, I slept on a tiny beige loveseat tucked under the thin, filmy curtain that covered the window overlooking the garden. The sun filtered through it, resting upon a thickset oak desk in the centre of the room which was piled over with papers, many of them drawings, others blank but for the faint outlines of something lost in the realms of my “wild imagination.” The closet was partially blocked by an array of potted plants, and a suitcase containing my only clothes lay open on the floor.

The room was small, the light bright and yellow, and it reminded me of the home I dared not speak of. I had locked it away in a trunk at the back of my mind, identical to the one that hid my only belongings at the back of the closet. Those memories could wait till midnight.

Six hours later, I woke from a restless sleep. I listened for one quiet moment, then abruptly reached under the bed and pulled out a black halter-backed shirt and a tiny pair of navy shorts. I dressed quickly, hiding my face within a black hooded cloak.

I went barefoot out to the canoe, dragging it behind me down the steep, wet ditch that led to the creek. The mud, diluted by rainwater, sloshed, thin and icy, around my ankles. The sharp first-of-December winds bellowed, and the trees splashed me with rain and morning dew. The clingy mist made the slick outer shell of the canoe slippery, causing my hand to slip and a shard of twisted metal to cut my finger.

A bead of glittering liquid fell from the scratch and splashed onto a dull orange leaf on the forest floor like a drop of mercury or liquid silver. Thin as it was, it trickled across the leaves that were strewn so chaotically over the riverbank that they looked perfectly set, as though spread by hand. The blood sparked in the moonlight that shone through the mass of naked branches overhead.

I gasped in pain, the first sound I’d heard all night, apart from the canoe over the dirt and the mud sucking at my feet. I dropped the canoe and stuck my finger in my mouth. After a moment, I resumed pulling the canoe with one hand, then spun it into the water, and lowered myself in.

As I paddled toward the middle of the creek, I looked up. There was a full moon. The great celestial orb hung motionless in the dark sky, like a silvery eye, staring back at me, cold and blank. On a sudden impulse, I changed direction and brought the canoe into the center of the moon’s reflection on the water’s shimmering surface.

Carefully I stood on the edge of the little craft. I took off the cloak and stashed it underneath the wooden bench. Then I knelt down on my hands and knees, and spread my wings.

CHAPTER 2

I felt every feather separate from my back as I stretched them out. The tension in my back eased immediately. I leapt from the boat, and it barely rocked; I was twenty pounds of solid muscle and hollow bone that barely contributed - maybe two or three pounds. I pumped my wings hard, and with a couple of swift wing-beats, I was gliding just below the tree-line, my endless wingspan brushing the trees on either side of the narrow stream.

I spun onto my back, facing the sky. Then I righted myself and surged upward until I could barely see my own house, and dove.

My wings automatically folded against my back as I spiralled down again, the wind whipping my fiery red-orange hair out behind me to reveal bright green eyes usually hidden behind grown-out bangs. They glowed strangely, emitting a fierce sense of power, determination, and beauty.

Words tumbled from my heart and out of my mouth, and I spoke them aloud into the darkness.

“Fensalir.” My World. A second dimension of Earth, inhabited by creatures that humans recall only vaguely as myths and legends.

“Harpy.” I was a Half-Human, part Human, part Magickal. It was my Magick-eagle blood that gave me my nine-foot wingspan, my incredibly precise vision, my hollow bones, my lightning-quick reflexes.

“Ceridwen.” My name. It had long since been shortened to “Dwen.”

“Ter.” My best friend, even closer to me than my older sister Phara, being only a year older. It was he I thought about most – he was on Earth here somewhere, too.

“Fensalir.” Again I spoke the word, only this time with a longing, loving reverence. My heart ached to be someplace I knew I would never return to.

We - the Fensalirians - worshipped the moon. Midwinter’s Night is the most sacred day of the year, because it’s the night when the moon is out the longest, making it a day of celebration and power. The Elves, our power-hungry neighbours with whom we shared Fensalir, used this power to attempt to banish all of the Half-Humans to Earth – by opening the Portal.

But for some reason, it didn’t work: Ter and I, at least, went through it, but the Elves were stopped somehow – perhaps by a Druid, perhaps just by raw chance.

On Earth, I’d gone into some sort of hibernation; I’d gotten here, stumbled around aimlessly for months, then had sort of gone to sleep until humans found me. Very quickly I’d learned to hide my wings, change my name, and just generally stay hidden.

I knew I would never go home. From when I had crossed the Portal I had had seven years before it would lock, and I had been just seven then. At fourteen now, I could face the reality that was my life now. I’d never see my sister Phara again, or my father. I would never look out my bedroom window and see my bright, beautiful, town of Betterhope again. Never again would I feel the cool rush of water against my stomach as I dove over the cliff, my body pressed flat against a waterfall so high there was barely enough oxygen to breathe at the top… The exhilarating falls as I spiralled downward, nothing but a streak of white feathers and green sea spray…

Tears prick the corners of my eyes as I broke the water’s surface. A cloud rolled over the moon with a strong gust of wind, blocking that pale, ghostly shadow of my past completely.

CHAPTER 3

It was night time again and I found myself swimming though the water, this time wearing my only dress. It was sea-foam green, my favourite colour, not too pale, but enough so that my eyes were still bright and piercing. The bottom was in tatters and it was stained all over, but still it was beautiful, being made of spider-silk, and it felt as if I were wearing nothing at all. It was my last and only connection with home.

Even then I felt the tension in the air. As I glanced off into the woods across the stream, a strange feeling came over me, and, for but a split second, I seemed to be in the woods looking out at the water, instead of the other way around.

I froze. Carefully adjusting my eagle-vision to accommodate the near-blackness of the forest, a flash of neon green caught my eye – and the tree behind me exploded in a shower of sparks.

A shock of adrenalin surged into my system and, barely knowing what I was doing, I was diving deep into the water. I saw the dancing flames reflected onto the creek bed, and before my movements could be tracked, I flipped myself out of the water and onto the bank. Instantly, the trees on either side of me burst into flames, faster than should have been possible.

Faster then should have been possible for humans, you mean.

I gave a violent start at the words that seemed to have been planted directly into my head – it took me a second to recognise the sensation. Even in my head I could detect the sneering tone and drawling accent. I bit back an angry retort, because I knew who they were, and I knew what they wanted: They were Elves, and they wanted me dead.

All the dragon meant was that they were Shapeshifters. Which, face it, could be an entirely different problem.

Yes, your reflexes have slowed, also…

As a half-dozen escape routes ran through my head, an enormous column of fire exploded barely a foot in front of me. I reeled backward, side-stepping and changing direction in an instant, gritting my teeth as I rolled in midair. Reflexes? Slowed? I don’t think so, I thought back, immediately feeling the heat on the back of my neck intensify.

We’ll see about that, he snarled. His words made me shiver despite myself. There was a sudden roar from above, and fireballs rained down on me. My breathing quickened, and I felt the flames getting closer. No, I begged silently. Don’t let this happen to me… But I didn’t let him hear me, and kept my face set in a sneer, not wanting to seem weak.

My wings, already singed and sore, began to fold in around me, and my heartbeat slowed drastically in just a few seconds. The Elf’s horrible voice broke into my head again, a loud hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, that echoed inside my head as the flames closed in all around me. My system was shutting down, going into hibernation, like it had in my first years here ob Earth. But hibernation only kept starvation and dehydration at bay; the flames would kill me anyway.

But even as the Elf’s voice faded away, a second voice entered my head: young and panicked, as well as furious. Dwen! As it spoke, I felt strong hands wrap around me, dragging me through the fire, then shoving me roughly into the creek.

I couldn’t move. I was still going into hibernation, too quickly, and even the icy waters couldn’t pull me out of it. Blackness enveloped my consciousness was even as pain split my skull. I felt myself fading…

CHAPTER 4

An eternity later I awoke to the sound of a boy’s voice. “Dwen! Dwen! Wake up!” Wake up! The voice switched to mind-speak. I smiled as I regained conscience. I recognized his spoken voice instantly. I spoke his name before I opened my eyes. “Ter.”

His anxious face peered down at me, and it was familiar despite the fact that I hadn’t seen it in seven years - his tanned skin, chapped lips, long, sticky blond hair, piercing black eyes, and, of course, his two-inch long pure-white fangs.

Ter is a vampire.

“Come on. We have to hurry. Look!” He continued without missing a beat.

“Where are we going?” My voice was slurred.

“Anywhere. Away. Away from here. You’ve been out for hours.”

A fierce image exploded before my eyes. I recognized the scene in front of me as the Meurmaza fire. My heart began to pound. I felt as though my fourteen-year-old mind have just been shoved into my seven-year old head. An eight-year-old Ter slept beside me. Lucio, Ter’s grandfather, sat under the shelter of the Crystal Cavern, pensively studying the full moon as it travelled across the dark sky. All of sudden, Ter’s head jerked up, making me jump. I smiled, allowing myself to be absorbed into the alluring pallor of the moonlight.

My heartbeat accelerated as I realised I wasn’t coming out of the dream. The sudden cries of victory, the screams… I turned, facing first the Elves streaking down the center aisles, brandishing their torches, then the swirling vortex of mist that had been a bonfire seconds before: A Portal.

A familiar wave of rage, disgust, and power surged through my veins, and, as I turned back toward them, the Elves stopped suddenly, as if they had run into a brick wall - but there was an opposing effect on Ter and me: We flew backward, screaming, and landed inside the Portal…

A hollow, anguished shriek echoed through the trees - mine. I realised I was still moving: Ter was carrying me, one arm around my waist, the other under my knees, at lightning speed through the forest. The Earth’s gravity had little effect on us, as Fensalir’s was so much stronger. I gasped, barely able to breathe as he ran.

“They’re messing with your head.” Ter’s voice was still perfectly calm, like it always had been in Fensalir, as if the past had simply evaporated in these few minutes. I focussed on breathing and on easing the pain that crackled through my spine as his body shifted around me.

By the time we had stopped, the sun was setting. Rays of brilliant yellow and red played amongst the trees, mingling with the ever-lengthening shadows. It should have made me smile, but instead my heart ached as I remembered the Fensalir moon, or my moon, as I liked to think of it, setting as the sun rose, first silver, then bronze, and finally gold as it slipped away behind the hills.

“We’ll go faster if we fly,” Ter panted, spitting into the weeds. I just stood there, staring at him, wondering why he was here. “We need to get home.”

I kept right on staring, not hearing what he was saying. Instead, hot tears were suddenly pouring down my face, and then his, leaving clear rivers through layers of dirt.

I was strong, strong enough to carry Ter for hours a time, easily, though he was eight times my weight, even if the moon’s power wasn’t strengthening me...

CHAPTER 5

As I woke, I realised that I must have passed out during the night. I was covered in mud, and the sunlight streaming through the thin winter foliage was burning my bare legs where the fabric had been ripped away.

I couldn’t see Ter anywhere, so I made to stand, grimacing as my burns scraped against the frost-hardened earth, but before I could get to my feet, strong hands gently pulled me up. “Morning,” I yawned, turning around. Ter stood behind me, his chin-length dirty-blond hair sticking out from his head and falling into his eyes, his pants ripped, his shirt gone. He smiled back wearily, shoving his hair back with long, slender fingers, only to have it flop back down again.

But I wasn’t in the mood for playing games and hoping anymore. I looked him in the eye and asked my question, preparing myself for the answer. “How do we get home?” The words came out a little harsher than I’d intended, but I didn’t want to take them back. Ter blinked at me in his slow, deliberate way, saying “I have no clue” without having to speak the words out loud. It softened the blow, sort of, unlike my hopelessly blunt manner. “Well, where do we go from here?”

“I don’t know.” Did I mention yet how much I loved that voice? Even when it was saying something that was potentially ruining my life? “We need to hide. They obviously won’t be fighting us here - too close to the humans,” he explained, misinterpreting my confused expression, “but that won’t stop them from tracking us. We’ve got to keep moving. That’s pretty much it for now.”

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing behind him and over a mess of broken branches and crushed boulders. Spinning around, he leapt back, seizing my wrist and shoving me behind his back. A long moment passed before either of us moved.

“I think it’s Magickal. Unless you know of any sort of fire here that appears out of nowhere, moves in perfect parallel lines, and then spontaneously disappears again?” Like he hadn’t been here just as long as I had. “I’m being serious now, Dwen.” Yes, I can do that, too, I’m not that much more immature than you are.

“No.”

“I’m going first, then.”

“No way! Can’t we just go around the creepy-and-possibly-lethal path? This time? ’Cause last time it didn’t go so well, if I remember correctly.” It was Ter who had convinced me to move closer to the bonfire.

“Not if we want to figure out what it is and if it’s Elven Magick.” Did I want to know? I wasn’t sure, but didn’t say anything, just stood there with my arms folded across my chest, seething at his annoying (though obviously life-saving, I’ll admit) attempts at chivalry.

“It’s Magick, but it’s okay, walk over!”

“Do I have to walk over it? How about around? I could fl-”

“Walk across the Magick path, Dwen.” From between the trees, I could see Ter rolling his eyes at me exasperatedly. I clamped my mouth shut and started walking, jerking back a little as my bare foot touched the seared ground and a tingle shot up my leg so strongly I felt like I’d just stuck my toe into an electrical socket. I didn’t notice the look Ter gave me when I did it, and kept going, feeling like I was going to go snap, crackle, pop any second, until I finally thought to ask Ter if this was his idea of “safe.”

Only right then I turned around a tree stump and a solid wall of clear, shimmering glass erupted from the ground, leaving a circle of flame all around it, and trapping me inside. The air glowed for an instant, and my skin stung where glimmering shards of wood struck it. I leapt backward, but didn’t move; made to scream in terror, but no sooner had I sucked in a sufficient breath than I choked on the smoky fumes. Before I could shut my mouth, I gasped as icy blue flames materialized and licked their way gracefully across the glass, quickly carving intricate patterns that I instantly recognized as letters, or runes, rather, as it wasn’t really English lettering like was used on Earth or in Fensalir.

Utter silence followed the vanishing of the flame. I could not hear Ter, or the forest sounds; the winter birds, or the faint rustle of branches, nothing. The words written on the glass burned my eyes, and I felt each character etching itself into the back of my skull. I couldn’t turn away, couldn’t close my eyes - I was paralysed, helpless to whatever was doing this, this force... And the words sang to me.

Three to leave

Three to return

Through the barrier Time hath weave

Innocent to die

Still to remain

Through Time till Power is nigh

Considerable talent Power takes

Underestimated

Through Time breaks

I had just one brief second to feel the ground under my feet...

Close to Great Ice

Rising near

Once, twice, thrice

Rising fear

From fate all run

But fate is Power

All is done

Above flames tower

Watch your Soul

He leads your feet

Pays the toll

Till thrice hearts beat

I was flung backwards through the air, landing “safely” with my head against a boulder. As soon as I got my hearing back, which must have been a good five minutes, at least, I realized that Ter was yelling. “Dwen? What just happened? Where did you go? Are you okay?”

“I was right there, beside the tree stump. Yeah, I’m fine, just stop yelling or my brain is going to explode.” I wasn’t sure if they really sounded much like words, but he shut up anyway. A few minutes later, as soon as I could raise my head, I understood why Ter got so upset. I must have looked pretty bad, crumpled in a totally unnaturally position against a boulder and covered in grey ashes and burns. Standing slowly, and leaning heavily on Ter’s arm, I began to explain what I had seen.

“There was this wall of… Glass. And this blue fire that painted runes on the wall.” I paused, wondering how to phrase this next part. “And it spoke to me.”

Ter stopped dead, his expression instantly changing from confusion to alarm. “What?” He took a step backward, almost dropping me.

“I was like it was inside my head. There was this whole poem, or maybe it was two, I’m not sure. But it said something about –” I stopped talking and allowed a pale-faced Ter a few seconds to digest this onslaught of information.

“Has this happened before?” He finally asked, his voice tight.

“No. I mean, I have heard stuff in my head before, but that’s normal, because Earth doesn’t have Magick enough to guard human minds. What? How abnormal is this?”

“Firstly, very rare. Especially in a World with so little Magick, like you said. And secondly, I’m surprised that you aren’t dead right now.”

And, though I was terrified out of my mind, I found it in me to be a little ticked off. “See? What did I just tell you about avoiding life-threatening situations? I am seriously starting to doubt your decision-making skills!” No answer. He began to walk again, and I followed, one hand held to my forehead.

“You Read a Prophecy.” Right out of the blue an hour and a half later.

“I whaaaat?” Aha. Now I understood his distress.

“You should have been dead! You’re scaring the heck out of me!”

“Yeah... Maybe that has to do with Earth too. Maybe there wasn’t enough power left to kill me.”

“Tell me what it said.” He sounded frustrated, and I really hoped it wasn’t my fault, and I didn’t want to make it my fault, but I recited it anyway.

Ter finally stopped and sat down on the hard ground. It had gotten dark much faster than I’d expected, and soon ribbons of pale gold and bronze and teal rippled across the winter sky and over the forest, reflecting off the frozen earth and the icy, naked branches all around us.

I couldn’t sleep. The words of the Prophecy replayed themselves over and over in my head... Sang to me. I watched Ter, asleep against a tree, talking in his sleep, his lips moving but no coherent words said aloud, and wondered how I had survived all these years without him.