Gentle rocking roused her, and as Yuelina opened her eyes, she realized she had lost little time in her faint. She was cradled against Cliff's chest, his arms carrying her easily, as the branches of strawberry tree -arbutus, she reminded herself- floated ahead of his sure stride as he carried her into the open door of the house. Other characters from the students' writings had gathered here, most uncertain what to do with themselves in this unfamiliar world, two of whom were in the living area: a large, shaggy wolf who had introduced himself as Percy and liked to talk about philosophy when awake, but was currently curled in a furry ball, sleeping in the corner of the room; and the wood sprite, Lewellyn. Yuelina saw the girl sitting on the floor, leaning against a stained, and threadbare couch, sagging in the center and looking the worse for wear. An open book was cradled in her lap, and she seemed oblivious to all else. Yuelina could not blame her for preferring to sit on the floor instead of the filthy couch.
"I set the wood in the center of the room," Cliff's chest vibrated against her shoulder as he spoke. The branches followed his direction and settled across the old, orange and brown throw rug on the floor. The edges were curled with age, and stains spotted the fibers. Yuelina gave Cliff's chest a pat with the pads of her fingers, careful to keep her claws off of him.
"I am well, Cliff. Please let me stand."
Cliff pursed his lips, clearly in disagreement, but without argument, he lowered Yuelina's legs to the floor, offering her support until she showed she could stand unassisted. It took her saying Lewellyn's name three times before the slight figure responded, "Hmm?" Deep green eyes looked up from the book. They were narrowly spaced, as though pinching in her slightly pointed nose on a slender face. Her dark brown skin seemed to shine in the dim lighting of the single lamp she was using to illuminate the pages of her book. She looked like the smooth shell of a chestnut.
"You work with plants, do you not?" Yuelina inquired.
"Sure. What do you need?."
Yuelina pointed to the pile of branches between them, "A wreath; one large enough to fit around the neck of the beast that killed Enid. Can you make one with this?"
Lewellyn cocked her head and looked between Yuelina, the branches, and back again. "Of course. But why did you bring so much?"
"I... I thought wreaths need excessive amounts of foliage to..." Yuelina rounded her hands in front of her, making a circular motion. "To make them."
Lewellyn grinned. "Not for me. Let me show you." She lifted forward onto her knees, shaking back her mane of long brown and green hair to reveal her garments of growing and writhing vines, leaves, and small blue and white flowers. She looked a living plant herself. Kneeling as she was, the branches before her came almost to her chin, and though she appeared to be childlike, she had claimed to the others to be hundreds of years old. Small, brown hands reached out for the first branch, and as they watched, the branch came alive under her touch, much as the vines she wore upon her body. It bent around itself, growing, growing, sprouting new leaves, new flower buds. The buds bloomed and fell, and in their place fruits ripened and plumped as more buds blossomed.
Yuelina wanted to be more impressed, to be captured by the wonder of watching something so beautiful, but it nagged in the back of her head how angry she was with herself for being wasteful with her energy by riding shadows with entirely more burdens than what was needed. She could feel it inside of her; she was fading, and she had to conserve what little she had left. Without turning away from what they were watching, Yuelina addressed Cliff, "You must take this wreath to the brothers."
"Me? It'll be faster if you do it than if I drive, you know that."
"I cannot." She felt Cliff stare up at her.
"You need to stay and rest," he decided.
"I cannot do that either," she replied, returning his gaze. "This is almost finished. I cannot stay here and hide while there is more to be done."
"Cannot," Cliff scoffed. "You mean will not. Listen here, if you can't even do your disappearing/reappearing act without falling over anymore, and now you're needing to send an old man like me instead, you sure as hell don't need to be off chasing that thing. It'll kill you."
"That is my risk to take."
"I could stop you. Keep you here."
"You could," Yuelina agreed. "I am asking you to take me with you, though." Their eyes continued to bore into each others', their contest of wills straining until Cliff finally blinked and looked down.
"Just don't you die on me, girly," he mumbled. Yuelina placed her hand on his shoulder.
"Thank you." She turned to Lewellyn again to find the wreath sitting prettily in the center of the rug. The other two branches had been grown into a pair of couches facing each other, wood interwoven onto itself, leaves and flowers sprouting all over. Lewellyn herself was curled against the arm of one couch, nestled in a thick bed of leaves, her long hair draped around her body, and the book once more in her hands. "And I thank you as well, Lewellyn."
"Be careful," the wood sprite said, looking up. "That thing scared me, Yuey. Don't let it lie to you."
.oOo.
"That's it, then," Dean said as he placed the last of his five pages in the non-threat pile. It was Maximus Magnum. He had expected something other than a lanky, awkward teenage boy, growing up with the unfortunate situation of having a name that didn't suit him at all. Still, it had been funny. "Seems we've already met or seen the handiwork of all the baddies these kids came up with. What are you doing?"
Mr. Vino was back at his desk, hunched over Mangleclaw with a red pen in hand. He looked up at Dean's question. "I'm grading my student's work."
"No, no, no." Dean stood and snatched the paper out from under Mr. Vino's hands. "This one has already been taken care of. If the student gets this paper back in their hands to re-read it and let their creative juices start flowing again, the character might come back. We can't risk that. As soon as we finish this job, all these killer character pages are getting torched."
"And if we burn the pages of the monsters," Sam put in, "it's only fair we burn all of them."
Dean cut his eyes briefly to Sam with that statement, a twitch in his jaw. "Yeah," he said to Mr. Vino. "All of them." The expression in the blue eyes looking up at him made Dean shrug uncomfortably.
A horrified scream reached them from the still open window, followed by a woman's voice, "NOOOOO! OH MY GOD! SOMEBODY HELP MEEEE!" And more screaming.
Dean whipped his head around to Sam, and the two of them shared a look they both knew well. He dropped the paper back on the desk and pointed at Mr. Vino. "Stay here," he commanded and ran out the classroom door on Sam's heels. With the class being the last on the end, it took only a few steps for them to crash through the outside door, both brothers reaching into their waistbands to draw their guns. Gurgled screams lead them up the hill in the darkness, and as they ran, Dean willed his eyes to adjust to the darkness after being inside the brightly lit classroom. But then as he made sense of the shadows in front of him, he almost wished he couldn't see it.
The thing was massive, hulking atop the sloppy mess of what it had made of the woman, whom Dean assumed had been another teacher. The thing's feathered body was hunched over, face down, as it stood on sturdy, scaled, backwards-bend back legs, and slashed into the remains of the woman with talons on similar forelegs. He raised his Colt in unison with Sam's Taurus, and both of them sent multiple bullets ripping through it.
Strix-ish jerked its head up and screeched at them, a horrifying blend of a barn owl and a woman's shriek. Gobbets of flesh dropped from a wicked, curved beak jutting from a flattened, heart-shaped face and smeared down onto the black-speckled white feathers which sprouted in sickening patches from the human-like breasts on its chest. It unfurled its massive wings, and Dean could feel blasts of wind coming from them as it flapped heavily and lifted its body into the air with another screech. It whirled in the air above them and disappeared over the tree line behind the school.
"Great," Dean said, scanning the sky where Strix-ish had vanished. "Now we've just pissed it off."
"Do you see it anymore?" Sam was also looking in the same direction.
"No, but you can bet your ass it's gonna be back."
"Georgetta?" Mr. Vino had silently climbed the hill behind them and was advancing on the ruin left behind by Strix-ish. Sam tried to put himself between the teacher and the carnage, but Mr. Vino wasn't having it. He poked a fingertip hard against Sam's sternum and glared up at him. "You will move." Another poke. "Now."
Sam glanced at Dean and stepped aside. Mr. Vino's shoes squelched in the blood saturating the grass as he moved around Sam. "It shouldn't have been this way for her. She has a family. The students love her." He looked back at the brothers with glassy eyes. "There were so many kids who would have given up, dropped out, if it weren't for this woman." He looked back down at her. "So many teachers who come to her for help..." His voice started to crack. "She teaches English too, you know, and damn good at it." With that, Mr. Vino took a knee next to his friend.
Dean turned away to give him a moment of privacy, which faced him toward the parking lot. Sam moved to his side to face the lot as well. Two figures backlit from the light posts were coming toward them from that direction, passing the side of the main building. The shorter of the two was holding a large wreath.
"We heard the gunshots, and we saw it leave," Cliff said as he and Yuelina joined them. He avoided looking at the two teachers on the ground behind the brothers and hefted the wreath. "I sure hope this is what you need, 'cause if bullets ain't stopping it..."
"It should," Sam said, reaching for the wreath. "Everything the students wrote on the pa-"
Before he could take the wreath, a massive claw swooped down and wrapped around Sam's outstretched arm, yanking him off the ground. A backdraft of air smashed down on the rest of them as the beating of wings lifted Strix-ish upward to take away its prey.
"SAM!" Dean bellowed after them as he stumbled to regain his footing, but he was helpless to do anything. "SAM!"
