Chapter Twenty-Six
Hand in hand, Charlie and Cas made their way back up to the house in the later afternoon. Coming up around the back porch, they came across Faolán, whose perturbed and worried expression set bells off in Charlie's head.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Ivy's missing."
"I thought you were with her this whole time," Charlie sputtered, standing in the doorway of Ivy's empty room.
"She's a grown woman. She doesn't exactly need a babysitter," Dean retorted tersely. "She seemed like she just wanted to be alone, so I gave her space."
"Doesn't look like anyone came in and kidnapped her," Sam said, trying to remain calm in the midst of an incensed Charlie and an equally hot-tempered Dean.
Faolán nodded in agreement with Sam. "The protection we've put on the house would have negated any outside magic, so if somebody came for her they would have had to break in."
"I didn't even hear her leave. Did you?" Sam asked Dean and Faolán.
"My meditation was quite deep," Faolán admitted. Dean just shook his head.
"She left on foot, then," Charlie said, "so she must be nearby, right? I mean, she hasn't done anything…rash."
Castiel, without explanation, dropped to the floor and peered under Ivy's bed. "There we go," he said mysteriously from the floor.
"What?" Charlie asked, crouching next to him.
"Something's been pulled out from under this bed – something that doesn't move," he said, pointing.
The Winchesters dropped to the floor on the other side of the bed and took a look.
"A…suitcase?" Sam ventured.
"Not far off," Faolán murmured from the doorway. "It's more like a duffel bag. The girls both have one for last-minute jobs."
"It's been a while since we've been called out of the area on really short notice," Charlie said.
"So, she's basically run away," Dean growled. "Great. Where'd she go?"
Ivy pushed a branch out of her way and broke into a small clearing in the woods. She'd headed away from Griffin Vale on foot until she hit the Motors; from there, she'd bribed Skipper and Jamie with a fat, nondescript envelope each – the former for his motorcycle, the latter for the keys to his family's secluded cabin north of Pine Valley, and both for their silence. Once she'd hit the bottom of the mountains that loomed in the north over the town, she hid the Ducati in the same manner that she had hidden the DeVille the day of the dire-cougar hunt.
She'd been hiking for about two hours by now, and was glad to find the clearing. A small stream bubbled from beneath a haphazard pile of rocks, and the late afternoon sun seemed to illuminate the area. Here grew some wild herbs and fungi that the Griffins collected for their magical pantry. But even though the picturesque scene was nearly a walking cliché of silvan enchantment, and even though magical plants grew there, it wasn't her destination.
Ivy filled her spare canteen from the spring and foraged around the base of the rocks and among the roots of some trees for the small, delicate plants and mushrooms she needed to bring with her. Once they were picked and safely stowed in her pack, she took a deep breath and steadied herself, renewing her resolve.
Exiting the clearing on the side opposite from where she'd entered, Ivy picked her way over a large fallen tree and continued northward.
Charlie had made a somewhat threatening phone call to the Motors and managed to weasel the story out of Skipper and Jamie, but it had taken some time. By the time she'd gotten it out of them, it had taken an hour and a pay raise for each, and daylight was fading fast.
"If she's planning on spending the night the O'Harraughton cabin, that mean's she'll be within an hour or two of the holy well," Charlie said. "That's where the veil is thinnest around here, and if she gets there by dawn she could very well cross over."
Faolán nodded gravely in accordance. "Though she might not actually be planning on going through," he said, trying to be optimistic.
"I don't care," Dean cut in. "Why are we still standing around here? We know where she's going, so let's haul ass out of here already!"
"Dean, she's got at least three hours of a headstart on us," Charlie explained, the fact that her patience was quickly wearing thin evident in her tone. "To catch up we'd have to hike up well into the night, and if her strike time is dawn – which it mostly likely is – that means we'll barely have any time to recuperate before shit hits the fan. And you know it's going to."
"Cas, can't you just zap us up there?" Dean wheedled.
"Not all of you," Castiel reminded him.
"Well, just me then."
Sam interjected with a vehement, "Are you out of your mind, Dean?" He shook his head, his brown hair shaking wildly with the emphatic movement. "No way, man. You and Cas are so not going up there without the rest of us."
"Well, what do you suggest then?" demanded Dean.
Faolán raised a hand to cut in. "Though I have not taken that form for many years, I can shift into a horse and carry somebody there," he suggested. "One of the enchantments of my horse body is extreme swiftness, and even with a rider and some weapons on my back I could make it there in half the time it would take us all on foot."
"But that still leaves somebody behind," Charlie said quietly.
Ivy made it to the the O'Harraughton family's cabin just as the sun was setting in earnest and she breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing for the first time on her hike. She climbed the stairs up onto the front porch of the cabin and let herself in as quickly as she could with six locks to open.
Once all six locks were barred again behind her, Ivy crossed the living room and dumped her bag on the squashy old sofa and sat down next to it, allowing herself a few minutes of hard-earned rest before doing anything else. She shut her eyes and breathed deeply to gather herself mentally, though it was with some difficulty that she blocked her cousin and her friends from her mind
She couldn't afford to dwell on how they were most likely reacting to her disappearance. This whole mess was hers to clean up, and she'd be damned if she let them get in any deeper than they already were on her account.
"Not necessarily," Faolán told his companions. "You're forgetting a few important things, Charlie," he continued to explain. "First, I've been living here. Second, Pine Valley is a Fey hot zone, as you humans would call it."
"Yeah…and your point being…?" Sam asked, the petulant question indicating just how much the situation was starting to wear on even his saintly patience.
"My point is that not all magic that crosses over to this side of the veil has to be evil," the pucá replied. "I know for a fact that one of you humans will be able to pass through a tree portal."
Three sets of human eyes stared at him from above gaping mouths, then turned to stare in similar fashion at Castiel when he said, more to himself than anyone else, "Oh, of course."
"We just have to find the right tree by this house," Faolán said, "and knock on wood, quite literally."
Dean eyed the pucá suspiciously. "And how do we know that whoever gets in there is going to end up where we want them, and not God-knows-where?"
It was now Faolán's turn to give Dean a disparaging look. "Have you met me?" he asked petulantly, the very humorous and very human expression even more comical coming from him. "I can communicate to the spirit in the tree."
"Spirit in the tree," Dean mumbled as Faolán, clearly not having anything else to say, turned away from the group to head outside. "Sure. Why not?"