Chapter 3

Into the Woods

Boreal’s lumbering gate rocked Ari into a thin and uneasy slumber. A white void filled her dreams. The emptiness broken by fog, gunshots and strange animal cries echoing through the haze, muffled and distorted. Panic seized her stomach in a vice grip. She pounded at the walls of the void, but she wasn’t strong enough to break through, not yet.

Something growled close to her ear. Ari woke with a gasp and tumbled off of Boreal’s back into a bush. The glowing bear stopped, sat, and stared at her, his expression unreadable. Ari stared back at him and groaned.

“Are you unwell?” he asked.

“I was hoping you were a dream, but I guess I’m not that lucky.”

The bear’s head tilted to the side. Ari sighed and wriggled around in the bush like a turtle stuck on its shell. The backpack was so damn heavy. She tugged her arms through the straps and sat up, pulling leaves and twigs out of her hair. Her eyes were dry, the salty remains of last night’s tears making them itch and burn. She rubbed at them, feeling feverish, and thirsty.

Digging through the backpack, she found her canteen and the letter of introduction. She glared at the envelope. Despite fifteen minutes of struggle the night before, the paper refused to tear, and the wax seal couldn’t be broken.

Guess it’s magic, she thought, taking a hefty swig from the canteen. The sweet graces of hydration washed away the headache and the fever, but couldn’t do anything to soothe the burn of knowing her father kept so many secrets from her.

“Can’t believe I spent years fighting for my life in algebra class when I could have been learning spells.Why didn’t anyone tell me about any of this?” she asked no one in particular.

“I don’t know. Is strange,” Boreal said.

“Yeah, yeah it is,” Ari grumbled. She pulled a hoodie out of the backpack and tugged it on. While it wasn’t cold, the persistent fog that drifted between the tangled trees and undergrowth was cool, and the damp chilled her skin. Her shorts were traded for a pair of jeans. Hopefully the fabric would protect her from the brambles and thorns that had already left raw trails on her ankles. She downed a granola bar and took a few more swigs from the canteen before shoving it back inside the bag and climbing to her feet.

Looking around, all Ari could see were trees, the silhouettes of more trees, and brush. A few stones broke up the monotony. Sometimes it felt like things were slowly filtering into existence with each step, like the world around them wasn’t fully formed. Feasibly, they could be on Earth, in the depths of some forest somewhere in the world, but deep down she knew they weren’t. The air felt different. It was cleaner and it buzzed with something, some kind of energy that prickled her skin. It resonated in her chest.

“Where are we?” Ari asked.

“The Meridian Wilds. A shifting place between worlds,” Boreal said, using a gnarled pine to scratch an itch between his shoulders.

“Worlds? Plural? Like there’s more than one?”

“Yes. Why would there only be one?” Boreal asked.

Ari didn’t know how to answer that.

“How do we get to a world? Are there more doors like the one I came through?”

“Doors, gates, tears in the veil surrounding worlds. Hard to find if you don’t know where you are going. Impossible to open without magic or a key,” Boreal said, picking berries out of a nearby bush. Ari crouched down and picked a few herself. The bear gave her a nod when she glanced at him, silently asking whether they were safe for her to eat or not. They were green and lumpy and tasted like a tangy mix between a blueberry and a raspberry.

“Dad said I need to go to a place called Taitamar, is that a whole world?” Ari asked. Boreal nodded and she followed up with another question. “How are we going to find the door?”

“I have been to this world. I can sense door. Is not far, only take a day or two to reach,” Boreal said, getting back to his feet. “We should move. Is not safe to linger.”

Ari nodded, hefted the pack onto her shoulders, and climbed onto his back. Boreal bounded forward, nearly unseating her. As they tore through the forest, Ari pondered the quest her father gave her. She was going to another world to find her mother. The thought of meeting her mysterious matron unleashed a whirlwind of clashing emotions. On one hand, she was excited, on the other, resentful. This woman had been absent from Ar's entire life. She never called or wrote. There were no photos of her. She couldn’t be found on social media. It was like she didn’t exist.

When Ari grew old enough to wonder why she didn’t have a mom like other kids did, she turned to her father for answers. Initially he dodged the question. Eventually, once he realized she wouldn’t give up, he told Ari that her mother had died when she was born. She’d been sad at first, but the feeling faded fast. It was hard to morn someone she’d never met.

In the end she decided having her mother around wasn’t important. Hamza and Ashlain provided more that enough love and support and Ari took pride in having a unique family. Still, she thought about her mother from time to time. Now that she knew her mother was alive, all her questions came rushing back, and she knew wouldn’t get the answers she deserved until they reached Taitamar. Depending on how satisfactory those answers were, she would either forgive her absent mother or tear her apart . . . verbally of course.

As Ari muddled through her feelings, a keening wail echoed through the fog, followed by the sound of snapping branches. Ari’s stomach clenched and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She could feel eyes on her back. Something was chasing them, hunting them. She could tell it was something big from all the noise it was making and it wasn’t alone either.

Ari glanced over her shoulder in time to see it burst through the brush and screamed. It looked someone had sewn a rotting alligators head onto the body of a van-sized scorpion. It snapped its jaws and skittered after them with horrifying speed, another, smaller specimen following close behind.

“Boreal, what are those things?” Ari asked, her voice shrill.

“Corpions,” he said between panting breaths, “too fast, I can’t out run.”

A wave of burning cold fear washed through Ari.

“What are we going to do?”

“Fight,” Boreal growled. He leaped over a fallen log and maneuvered into a dense thicket behind three thick oaks. The corpions smashed into them, too large to slip through and reach their quarry. The trees groaned, trunks creaking, and roots snapping as the monsters bashed against them. The bear roared, his starlight eyes flashing. “Get behind me!”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Ari did as she was told, retreating further into the thicket. Boreal’s claws glowed white hot, scorching the wet soil beneath him and leaving burning trails across the forward most corpion’s snout. The monster screeched and lashed out with a dagger like foot, piercing Boreal’s shoulder. The bear roared again and staggered back, silvery blood painting the leaf strewn ground. He regained his footing in time to dodge the descending truck of an old oak felled by the corpion. Ari dove out of the way, narrowly avoiding being crushed, but before she could get to her feet, the second corpion was on top of her.

She screamed, twisting and rolling to avoid its feet, stinger, and jagged maw as it attempted to rip her apart. One foot sliced across her ribs and another pierced her sweater, pinning her in place. Its stinger reared back for the final strike and its jaws split wide to devour her. Ari threw up her hands, eyes shut tight. The white void waited behind her eyelids.

“No, no, no, come on! I need to get out of here, I’m gonna die!” she yelled, pushing against the walls wrapping around her. They wouldn’t yield.

Ari cried out in frustration and felt something inside snap and ignite. Heat rushed from her chest into her arms in an exhilarating wave, begging for release. Instinctively, she raised a hand, and snapped her fingers.

There was a flash and a scream. Ari suddenly found herself returned to the forest floor. The corpion above her tossed its head, screeching as flames lapped hungrily at its fetid flesh. Ari stared at her raised hand, felt the heat prickling under her skin, and snapped her fingers again. A ball of fire sparked to life, dancing above her finger tips. Its light and heat drove the beast back.

Free and itching with adrenaline and rage, Ari pushed herself up, and threw the ball of fire at the monster’s head as hard as she could. Flames splashed across its face like water. Acrid smoke filled the thicket as its hard black eyes boiled. Blind and burning, it fled, smashing a path through the trees.

As it disappeared, Boreal landed the killing blow on the remaining corpion. His searing white claws tore through its chitinous hide, severing its head. A waterfall of tar spilled from the stump of its neck as it collapsed, twitching for a few seconds before its legs curled against its abdomen and became rigid. The thick, sweet stench of its blood hit Ari’s guts like a sucker punch. She vomited. Boreal waited patiently for her to finish before approaching.

“The blood will draw more, we must go,” he grunted.

“Can you . . . give me a minute?” Ari asked, swallowing back bile.

The bear waited exactly a minute before repeating himself. Ari glared at him, but climbed shakily to her feet, and onto his back. They raced deeper into the thicket, each sound echoing from the fog causing them both to stiffen with anticipation of attack, but none came. Eventually, Boreal slowed. He didn’t seem particularly tired, much to Ari’s surprise, but he was wounded. His silvery blood made his fur sticky in places.

“Are you okay?” she asked shakily.

“I am fine. You?” he asked in turn.

Ari looked herself over. The cut on her ribs stung, but it wasn’t deep. There were bruises waiting to bloom, and mental scars lurking behind the hum of adrenaline, but she’d live. The worst thing was the taste of vomit lingering in her mouth. She pulled one of the bottles of water out of her back pack and swished some of it around in her mouth. She spit into a bush and took another sip to ease the burning in the back of her throat.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

They were both silent for a time. Ari looked down at her hands. The heat was gone, but her skin still tingled with the memory of it.

“Did I do magic back there?” she asked.

“How else would you conjure fire from nothing?” Boreal asked.

Ari didn’t reply. She concentrated on the buzzing energy within herself. It surged in her chest like a roiling sun. She imagined some of the sun’s fire traveling down her arm to her right hand and snapped her fingers. A ball of flame sparked above her fingers again, making her gasp.

“Boreal, am I a wizard?”

“Hmm . . . you don’t smell like wizard,” he said and tilted his head to the side. “But magic is in you. Since we first met I sense it.”

Ari nodded and held the ball of fire, wondering what to do with it now that she’d summoned it. She couldn’t just throw it off into the woods. What if she started a forest fire?

Maybe I can take the magic back, she thought, imagining the fire returning to her hand and flowing back to the sun in her chest. It took a few tries, but eventually she managed to extinguish the fire and reclaim the magic used to spark it. With a grin she summoned another ball of flames, using just enough energy to produce a marble sized sphere. Ari repeated the trick once more, creating a blazing mass about the size of a beach ball, its heat pushing back the surrounding mists. As she marveled up at it, a sudden wave of exhaustion hit her, and the fire flickered out. She swayed on the bear’s back, clutching at his fur to keep from slipping off. The bear grunted and stopped. He gave her a reproachful look.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m just . . . woah,” Ari said, rubbing her eyes. Her body was heavy. She hadn’t been this sore since her last hike with Hamza. He’d taken them up a mountain in Montana. It was a great trip but she was a limp noodle for at least a day afterwards.

“Using magic is like flexing muscle. Untrained muscles tire quickly,” Boreal explained, “Don’t strain yourself.”

“Yeah, okay, got it,” Ari said.

The bear nodded and started walking again.

As night closed in they stopped by a small river to rest and tend to their wounds. Ari used her new spell to light a fire, making sure to use only enough energy to get the dry leaves she’d packed under the logs to start. The fire pushed back the damp air and brought with it a thin sense of safety. Ari stared into it while she chewed some jerky and a few of the green berries she’d grabbed earlier. The bear refused the granola bar she offered him, explaining that he didn’t need food, but could eat if he felt like it.

The crackling fire and the calls of night birds and insects filled the silence between them.

“You know, I grew up reading about kids stumbling into new worlds, wishing for my own adventure. This really isn’t how I expected it to go down. Thought it’d come in the mail,” she said with a small laugh that was soon followed by a tired sigh. “What’s my magical destiny?”

Boreal snorted. “Bah, destiny. An excuse to ignore choices and actions and blame their outcome on the universe.”

Ari frowned at that.

“So there’s no ancient prophecies or anything?”

“Not that I know. Future is always changing, hard to predict, even for those with the sight. Sometimes knowing what might happen, change what will happen.”

“Oh,” she said, not exactly disappointed, but dimmed. If she didn’t have some kind of magical destiny, why was she here? Why was this all happening?

She remembered her father opening the door to the wilds. He’d used magic to do it. Maybe she’d inherited it from him, a gift of her biology rather than the hand of fate. Or perhaps her mother had something to do with it. Ari shook her head. Every passing moment generated more questions. They were mounting in her mind, tumbling over one another, piling up faster than she could answer them. It was exhausting.

With a shake of her head she got to her feet and set up the small tent strapped to her pack with the quick efficiency of a practiced camper. After the corpion attack, she didn’t think she’d ever be able to sleep again. Adrenaline still sizzled in her blood, but the second she unrolled her sleeping bag and climbed inside, she fell into a deep, and blissfully dreamless sleep. It was the kind of sleep that left one feeling drunk and confused in the morning.

Blinking up at the tent’s roof, it took Ari a few minutes to register that the speckling glowing smudges on the thin orange and white fabric was sunlight. She stepped outside and was delighted to see the heavy fog had lifted. Daylight transformed the eerie forest into a verdant paradise. Birds sang over head, swooping between branches, seeming just as happy to be free of the gloom as Ari was. She grinned up at them and pulled off her hoodie, letting the sun kiss her arms and face.

“Boreal, isn’t this great? Boreal?” Ari asked, her brow furrowing as she realized he was gone. She walked around the dead campfire and found his tracks, following them to the riverbank. She couldn’t see any on the other side. Did he swim away? The calm that the sun had brought faded. Did he abandon her? How was she supposed to find the door to Taitamar without him?

“Boreal? Boreal!” she called, her voice chasing off the birds perched above. There was no reply. Trying not to panic, she returned to the tent, looking around for more tracks, for any sign of where he went. Turning in circles, a half second away from a panic attack, she stopped when something bright caught her eye. She squinted and stepped into the brush, pushing branches aside to get a better look. It was big, yellow, and strikingly artificial.

“What is that?” Ari asked. She pushed through brambles and tight foliage. As she got closer a faint but familiar scent reached her.

“Is that . . . bacon?”

She broke through the brush into a wide clearing dotted with flowers. Her jaw dropped. In the center of the clearing sat a squat brick building. It looked completely out of place, like it had been swept up and dropped in the middle of the woods by a storm. The big yellow sign she’d seen wrapped around its roof, black letters spelling out the words, Waffle Hut.