A/N: Thanks to the people that reviewed! Nice to know this story wasn't forgotten!
Chapter 14: Through the Forest I Have Gone
The first thing I became aware of was that the ground was cold and mushy under my bare feet. I could feel the slid of grass between my toes and it reminded me longingly of home. Of lying out in my backyard in June with the sun overhead and my headphones over my ears. I always hoped for a tan, but usually ended up with a nasty sunburn. But this grass was not like Louisiana grass that was always warm and swampy. The ground underneath was firm, the mushiness coming from the light dew that stuck to the blades.
Stephen's hand was still in mine and as soon as the world came into view, I saw his tall figure walking beside me, equally confused.
"This is unexpected," he noted, and it was then that I finally took in our surroundings.
The last time I'd done this, when I was bringing back Stephen, I'd arrived on a normal London street and been led to the American-style diner where Stephen was waiting. But now, we were surrounded by tall trees in an unfamiliar wood and the air was growing unbearably cold.
"Where are we," I asked, moving closer to Stephen for warmth.
"I was mostly hoping you could tell me. I've never been anywhere with this many trees."
"Well, it's not the South, that's for sure."
Keeping me close, Stephen started moving ahead, glancing through the trees for any sign of life. "Well, all the leaves are dead, so at least we know its winter."
"Winter where?"
This brought on a sigh of frustration and Stephen's brow furrowed further. And then I felt it – a pull. I couldn't have explained it, really. It was like an internal compass insisting I walk in a certain direction through the trees and to resist it would be painful.
"This way," I insisted, pulling Stephen after me. He opened his mouth to question this, but shut it in the same second. I could feel it, something passing between us. It was more than just feeling his emotions as I had before. I could feel his essence… or something. His spirit. I knew that if we were to be separated in this world, I could find him again easily – even in an unfamiliar forest in the middle of nowhere.
"So, is now a good time to talk about our relationship," I asked, and Stephen looked at me as if I'd just suggested tap-dancing with an alligator.
"Now? While we're in some alternate reality looking for two two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old soldiers and Freddie's brother?"
"Yes, here. What happened last night… it was important," I explained, staring down at my feet and unable to meet his eyes. "I've never done anything like that before. I've actually never done anything past kissing. And I've never been in love before and no one has ever said they love me… not for real. Like that. And it was the most wonderful thing I've ever felt, and I lost you once and I'm terrified of losing you again. And I'm scared that I'm too intense and I'll ruin this thing we have. And here we are, in Crazyland again and risking our lives and still, none of this is more important than the fact that I love you."
All of that had come out in a rush that I wasn't sure even made sense. I found myself gasping for breath.
Stephen stopped walking and pulled me to a halt… and his hand came up to gently lift my head so he could look me in the eye.
"What we did last night was the most important thing that has ever happened in my life," he stated simply. "I've never had anyone in my life that I thought I couldn't lose. In fact, people deserting me was to be expected. But you…"
His eyes were becoming glassy, the emotion making his voice deeper and my very skin felt electric. Even the pull I felt that was urging me forward seemed to pale in comparison to the love I felt welling in me at that moment.
"You came back for me. You saved me, Rory. Twice. And when I think I could lose you… it's worse than dying. And I can say that for a fact."
He opened his mouth to say something else, but in the next second I was up on my toes and my lips were pressed to his. It was intense – so intense that I think I scared him at first, but he was kissing me back, lifting me off my feet so he could crush me to him and my arms were wrapped tightly around his neck. Screw Arthur and Richard and Kyle. At the moment I didn't care how long it took to find them.
I felt the rough bark of a tree at my back as Stephen pressed me into it and my legs came up to wrap around his waist, causing the dress to hike up to my hips. His lips were demanding and desperate and we couldn't seem to get close enough to each other and just as my hands traveled down to the buttons on his shirt…
I felt pain.
Pain that tore at my gut and nearly made me vomit. I pushed Stephen back… and nearly fell to the ground since he had been the only thing keeping me upright. He caught me, steadying me on my feet as I scanned the woods.
"Something's wrong," I explained. Fear; that was the cause of the pain. "I think there's something… or someone close by. And I think we want to be far away from them."
I took Stephen's hand again, pulling him after me as I ran through the woods. Ran – as much as I hate running. The further we traveled into the trees, the more the pain receded until it was more of a dull ache.
"Sid said there were other souls waiting in the stone," Stephen recalled. "He said to be careful not to wake them up."
"We haven't been sent for them." It was something I was remembering from the last time we were in this position. "When I came to get you, we couldn't escape unless I brought Sid and Sadie back with us as well. I had to return with everyone I'd been sent to get or no one woke up. We've only been sent for three people. Bringing anyone else back goes against Sid's magic I think. Or something like that."
"Then let's find who we're looking for quickly and get out of here."
The pull was still there, growing stronger by the minute, but the never-ending forest was crushing my hopes. It was like a maze that we could wonder for eternity and never find our way out of. Already I'd lost all sense of direction and had no idea where we'd started off at. But just then, the pull intensified, and the trees parted to reveal a small house.
A very small house. In fact, it looked like it was barely one room. As we emerged beside it, we were standing on a dirt road that was lined with several other houses, all equally small. There was a well across the street, one of the old timey things that people used to actually haul water out of. Not the decorative ones people set up in their yards back home. Looking back at the houses, they seemed to be made of material I was completely unfamiliar with and they all had the thatched roofs I'd read about in fairy tales.
"I don't think we need to worry about where we are as much as when we are," Stephen realized, looking in one of the grimy windows.
"Sid did say they were from 1760… something. It looks about right."
"This must have been a village outside of the London city walls."
Hand in hand, we walked down the dirt street, staring at the remnants of lives past. Here and there were handmade shovels and rough wooden toys. Rough-made fences were set up behind some houses that had likely held horses or pigs or whatever animals people had back then. There were barns and a small shack that looked like a flower stand.
Suddenly, Stephen pulled me over to one of the houses that had the front door standing open. When we reached it, I realized it wasn't a house, but a shop of some kind. There was big open fireplace at one end of the room and a long work table covered in random bits of twisted metal.
"Amazing," Stephen sighed in wonder.
"Amazing… because?"
"It's a blacksmith's shop. You don't see them anymore. There's not much use for them, what with factories and such, but this… You see, here… the metal is superheated in the fireplace until it glows and the blacksmith then hammers it into the shape he fancies. They could make all sorts of things. Fire-pokers and horseshoes and decoration. Once he had the metal in the shape he needed, he would dunk it into a bucket of water and it would harden as it cooled."
His eyes were alight with fascination, and I could see the academic in him nearly drooling.
"It is pretty cool that we went back in time," I realized. "Although I kind of prefer central heating."
Stephen laughed one of his rare laughs and squeezed my hand. Then I felt the pain again.
"The others are coming. The one's we don't want to meet," I said, pulling him out of the blacksmith's shop and down the road. "We need to keep moving."
The road twisted, opening out to more houses and small shops. In the distance I could glimpse a vineyard and a few pumpkins sitting atop the cold ground. The pull was very strong now and when my eyes landed on the house at the end of the street, I knew instantly that was our destination.
"In here," I explained to Stephen as I threw open the door and pulled him inside.
We were in a kitchen. A small, but efficient looking kitchen. There were no decorations except for a small pot of flowers on a round table. There was a fireplace in the corner with a large pot hanging over it that smelled enticing. And sitting in one of the homemade chairs was a man I recognized as Arthur Kent.
"You. What are you doing in my home," he demanded, rising from his chair and pulling an ancient-looking pistol from his belt. Stephen immediately pulled me behind him. "You think you can simply go about barging into a person's house like that?"
"We're here to help you," I explained, just as another man stepped into the doorway that seemed to lead to a bedroom. Richard Canterbury. We now had two of the three.
"Who be they," Richard asked in a voice that sounded rough and uneducated.
"Strangers claiming to be here to help us," Arthur said, never lowering his pistol.
"Just listen, please," Stephen reasoned, stepping forward slowly. "We mean you no harm. We are here because of the ritual you performed."
"The ritual…," Arthur moaned, collapsing back into his chair. "That witch… monster… whatever he was. He tricked us."
"Elias Townsend," I asked, and both Arthur and Richard fixed me with hateful stares.
"You know him," Arthur inquired. "One of his friends told us the spell. Told us how to do it. We thought we would come back like him, that we could stop him."
"So many dead," Richard lamented. "He killed so many."
"But his friend tricked us. Now we are stuck here, forever."
I really should have been more sympathetic, but I couldn't stop the eye roll. "If you would listen to us for a second, we're here to save you. We can wake you up."
Finally, Arthur's haunted eyes turned to me… filling with something like hope. They were very green eyes. It was then that I noticed just how young he was. He couldn't be more than twenty-five and Richard beside him looked just as young with his long blond hair and fair skin. So young. And yet, they had been in the King's army. Had led a regimen of soldiers to solve a problem. So much laid to rest on such young shoulders. Just like mine and Stephen's.
"I can wake you up," I began. "That's why we're here. But we have to find one more person."
"No," Richard yelled, and I realized then that his voice wasn't uneducated, but had a slight French accent. I didn't think English was his native tongue. "The others stuck in here with us… they are all… not right. Mad, like him!"
"We cannot let you bring them back," Arthur lamented, his pistol waving wildly. "It is what we fought so hard to stop! If he has his army, he will be unstoppable. You don't understand what he has done!"
"We do understand," I shouted, and then doubled over with pain.
Stephen's arms were around me in a second and it only took one look at me for him to understand. "Listen to me," he demanded, his voice no longer consoling, but authoritative. "We want to help you defeat Elias, but in order for that to happen, you'll need to trust us. There are others in here that can feel her power. That are looking for her. If you want them to remain asleep, come with us now."
Arthur still seemed unconvinced, but Richard's hand came down on his arm, pushing the pistol down to his side. "She is just a girl," he explained. "Do you think the monster would send a child to lead us astray? He already has us where he wants us, no?"
"You trust them," Arthur inquired.
"It seems the only option."
Stephen nodded quickly, motioning to the door. "Then we should move quickly."
But we made it no farther that right outside the door before we saw them. Some were merely shadows, lumbering onward with no real purpose, while others were more substantial. A woman held a moth-eaten shawl tightly around her neck while her beady eyes fixed hungrily on me. Hands reached out and voices called in a variety of languages and Stephen pressed me behind him, Arthur and Richard flanking him on each side.
"We can't let them touch her," Stephen implored, and Arthur nodded, raising his pistol. He fired a shot, but it had no impact on the hoard before us.
The pain intensified and I felt so weak suddenly that I had to clutch Stephen's arm to stay upright. I could feel the power flowing to me from him, and I wondered if, without the connection, I'd be dead already.
"There is a window in the bedroom," Arthur announced. "We can go back through the house."
I tried to move where he directed, but my feet were slow and sluggish now. Without hesitation, Stephen whisked me up into his arms and ran back inside while Richard slammed the door behind us. The window Arthur led us to seemed warped and clouded, nothing like the clear glass I was used to. The frame protested as he lifted it, but when it finally gave, Stephen shoved me through it, and I collapsed on the ground.
And gasped in surprise.
I was on a sidewalk. A normal sidewalk in a modern street in London. Lining the street were closely packed townhomes and parked cars. Cheery tulips lined the flowerbed in front of one house and a child's blue ball lay in among the dirt and weeds.
"My… of all the wondrous things," a voice exclaimed from behind me and when I turned, I saw Arthur gazing around with his mouth hanging open.
Stephen, seemingly unfazed by the change of scenery, was by my side, lifting me to my feet. "How are you holding up?"
"I'll be fine, as long as we hurry."
His emotions were locked down behind his glasses, but I could feel the tension in his hands and in the link. He was terrified for me.
"Do you still feel the pull," he asked while Richard and Arthur moved to examine a car, commenting wildly over the "metal monstrosity" as they called it.
Closing my eyes, I thought of Kyle's body lying on the floor back in the hotel room. Focused on his face and of what Freddie had told me. And like a beacon, he pulled me towards him.
"This way," I exclaimed, moving through the small front yard and cutting between two townhomes. We stepped into a quaint backyard that was surprisingly large. A garden of colorful blossoms took up every nook and there was a delicate sound of trickling water from a stream that butted up to the yard. Over the stream, I could just see the end of a wooden bridge.
"I know where we are," I whispered, worrying if I spoke too loudly I'd ruin the tranquility of the moment. "Freddie told me about this place when you were… when we were looking for your ghost."
Stephen raised his eyebrows, but it was the only look of astonishment he gave at the mention of his death.
"We couldn't find you and Freddie thought you might have returned to some special secret place that was important to you. This was her special place. I think she said it was her aunt's house… or maybe her grandma's house? She said it was her favorite place in all the world, but she'd never really told anyone about it."
Hesitantly, I moved off towards the bridge with Stephen beside me. The exhaustion was growing worse now and my muscles were beginning to hurt… which seemed odd considering my actual body was lying unconscious on an industrial carpet.
We rounded a cherry blossom tree and moved through the rose bushes until we came upon the bridge. It was made of dark wood and spanned the small stream that carried tiny fish along the current. I could see why this was Freddie's favorite place. Part of me wanted to sit by the water and watch the sun set.
Stephen pulled me to a stop at the base of the bridge and when I looked up, I saw Kyle. He was sitting in the center of the bridge with his legs dangling over the side and his face turned up to the sky.
"Are you real," Kyle asked, his eyes slowly opening and turning to us. "Nothing in this place is real."
His eyes froze me in place. They were dark and intense. The kind of eyes that can read your soul and then smirk over your insecurities. Cruel eyes.
"We are," Stephen answered, stepping forward slowly. "You're the brother of Freddie Sellars, yes?"
"The one and only. I see she finally bothered to send for me. How delightful."
Kyle stood then, and he was nearly as tall as Stephen, his messy blond hair blowing in the wind. His pants were huge and baggy, his t-shirt black with holes. It looked like what people wore when I was five, that grungy look left over from the nineties. But there was something about him, something that I really didn't like.
His gaze finally found me and his lips lifted in a lopsided smirk. "You here to kiss me awake?"
"It's more of an I-lead-and-you-follow thing. No touching," I insisted, and Stephen took a step closer to me.
"Well, lead on. But tell me this, is my father dead yet?"
This question took me by surprise. I certainly couldn't recall any mention of Freddie's father. And as he asked the question, I saw that cruel mask that he wore slip slightly. There was fear underneath.
"You're father," Stephen questioned, and I sensed he was experiencing the same dread as me. In response, Kyle just raised his eyebrow, waiting.
"Is there a problem," Arthur inquired, appearing in the backyard among the flowers. His face was overly anxious. "Is that the one?"
Before I could respond, the pain returned, punching through my gut and nearly sending me to my knees. "We need to go. Now!"
"Where," Arthur asked. A reasonable question to which I didn't have the answer for.
It was Stephen – of course, intellectual Stephen – who guessed the answer. "Back to the hotel. Last time we had to go to Marble Arch because that was where the Oswulf stone was from, but this stone is different. I think we should return to where the stone is in the physical world."
"Sure. Whatever. Let's go," Kyle nodded, gesturing for us to lead the way.
Stephen took my hand as I limped along and we made our way back out to the street. Only now it was a different street.
"Is this what the world is like now," Richard inquired in his heavily accented voice as we stepped out on the sidewalk only a mile from the hotel. It seemed odd to me then that someone who was clearly born in France should have such an English sounding name as Richard Canterbury.
"Once you get used to it, it's not that impressive," I replied offhandedly. I was mostly focusing on the tiredness of my limbs and the fact that my heart wanted to explode. "Technology always fails, cars break down. And nothing costs a nickel anymore."
Kyle smirked at my sarcasm, but Arthur and Richard merely looked confused. And Stephen… Stephen was staring at me in horror.
"Rory, your nose," he exclaimed, and when I reached up to my face, my fingers came away sticky with blood. Just like the last time I vanquished a ghost. "And your arm."
The nasty cut Sid had opened up in my arm was now visible and my blood dripped down to the dirty sidewalk.
But instead of taking the time to panic, I started walking again. "We should keep moving. The hotel is right around that corner."
And sure enough, there it was, as dingy and rundown as I remembered. The door to our room was open, the inside dark and fathomless. A black pit. We were so close… and then the pain.
It came on so fast that I didn't even have time to react before someone grabbed my arm, pulling me to the ground. Stephen was there, landing a punch into the side of a man's face and pulling me up in the next second. The pain was so intense that I could hardly stand.
"There is more coming," Arthur yelled, pulling his pistol even though it had been proven useless here.
"We just have to make it through that doorway," Stephen implored. To me he asked, "Can you walk?"
I had my teeth clamped down on a scream and I feared that if I opened my lips to answer, all that would come out would be endless shrieks. I shook my head as silent tears rolled down my cheeks.
Without hesitation, Stephen swung me up in his arms – and then we were running.
Kyle on Stephen's heels and Arthur and Richard bringing up the rear. I could hear voices now. They were begging to be saved, not to be left behind. Begging for escape or peace or simply for us to stop. Some were sobbing or screaming. The sounds were so horrible, I clamped my hands over my ears.
One scream rose above the others and at the sight of Stephen's worried face, I realized it was mine. But I couldn't stop. The pain… the voices…
The doorway of the hotel room was before us and then…
We were consumed by the darkness.
