Bones of Faerie - Janni Lee Simner [47]
“Why'd Caleb give you that, anyway?” Allie asked. “I never even knew he had it before.”
“I don't know.” That was one of my questions for Mom when I found her. Not my first question, though. My first question was why she'd left me in the first place.
“Come on,” I said. “We should go while the sun's high.”
Matthew, Allie, and Tallow followed me across the clearing and down the other side of the hill. Huge bluffs rose to the west once more, but to the east the forested land was level. Beyond the trees, the River murmured on. I found my steps drifting toward it, forced myself away, and found myself drifting again. Rebecca fidgeted uneasily.
Allie stepped right off the road, and Matthew pulled her back. Allie fought him a moment, then shook her head like a sleepwalker waking. “The River's calling me,” she said. “Just like Liza called me. It says I had no right to escape the way I did. It says I have to go back.”
Matthew growled softly and tightened his grip on her arm. I turned toward the water. “Go away,” I said as firmly as I could.
More firmly the River murmured back, Come here. Sweat trickled down my face, though the air was cool. I stepped toward the water without realizing it and drew back with effort. Rebecca started to cry, and her cries were timed to the River's flow.
Come, Liza. Let us finish what we started. In one of my daughter rivers, not so long ago, you sought my darkness.
I pushed my heels down firmly against the road. If I could keep shadows back through the long night, I could resist the River's call.
“I don't hear it,” Matthew said. But then he'd never come close to drowning, not like Allie and I.
“Watch Allie,” I told him, and I started walking again. Not toward the water. Along the road toward the Arch.
Come, Liza. Seek silence, seek darkness, seek rest.
I lifted one foot at a time, the way Father had taught me for hunting, pressing it firmly back to the ground ahead before lifting the other.
After only a couple hundred paces the road ended, leaving only forest between us and the Arch. I slowly came to a stop, ignoring Rebecca's cries as she grabbed at a lock of my hair. The Arch was very close now, and very bright. I craned my neck to glance at the top of it.
Its legs were hidden by trees, but they must have been hundreds of feet apart, as far apart as the Arch was tall.
Beside me Matthew kept hold of Allie's hand. Tallow twined around their feet. Allie's lips were pressed tightly together, her eyes closed, as if she fought something I couldn't see. I could feel it, though, tugging at some place deep inside me. Ebb and flow, ebb and flow, one small tug after another. Come, Liza.
“We have to go through the forest,” I said. Matthew nodded.
Slowly I led the way among the trees, pressing each foot deep into the dirt as I set it down. Ash and cypress didn't seem concerned with us, though. The trees bent toward the River, moaning softly, stretching their branches downward. I yearned to turn toward the water as well, but I kept walking forward instead.
Behind me Allie screamed. Tallow bolted past. Even then I moved slowly, digging my boots into the soil before I turned my head. Matthew held Allie beneath the armpits. The girl bit and kicked, trying to get away. “It's calling!” she cried. “You don't understand. It's calling and I have to listen. I have to!”
Matthew struggled a moment to balance girl and pack. “It's all right. I won't let her go.”
I nodded and forced my attention back to my own steps. One more step. Then another. And another. I lifted my left foot out of the dirt and onto bleached stone. My right foot followed a moment later. Water lapped at more stone just a dozen yards away. A few more steps and I stood beside the base of the Arch. I kept going, walking around to its inner edge.
The air about me shimmered with sound, a low hum that muffled the River's call. Rebecca fell silent and pressed her fists against my chest. Metal shone beside me, above me—even the base of the Arch was many