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I screamed and tried to push her away, but it was like pushing against foam rubber. My left hand sunk into spongy flesh. She was lifting my hand to her mouth, which was gaping wider and wider, her lips opening like rubbery flaps, revealing a second row of sharp yellow teeth behind the first row. Black feathers were sprouting from her skin. Her tongue was covered with suction cups that latched onto my skin and started to pull.
“What are you?” I cried, but already I recognized her. The great black crow that had tried to attack me. This was its true face: a feathered monstrosity that sucked the life force out of its victims…just as it had fed on Nicky and Flonia and Liz Book.
I had to get away from it before it sucked me dry. Already I could feel the life draining out of me. I couldn’t push against it, so instead I braced my feet on the lower porch railing, hoisted my hips up onto the upper railing, and tipped myself backward. I fell six feet onto my back. If the snow hadn’t cushioned my fall I might have broken my spine. As it was the fall knocked the wind out of me. Above me Mara was spreading her arms—wings now, sprouting black feathers—opening her mouth into an angry caw, and preparing to swoop down on me.
I rolled to the side just before she landed. I scrambled to my feet and pushed off the ground, my fingers grabbing handfuls of slushy snow as I came up…and something else. A stone with a hole in it. The fairy stone that I’d put in the ice ornament back in November had fallen to the ground and now it was in my hand. As the creature wheeled around to attack me I fleetingly wondered if there was some way to use it against her, but I didn’t have time to figure it out. Nor could I recall asingle spell, not even the one for defending against attacks from above. The creature was flapping its wings, getting ready to attack me.
I turned and ran blindly, my slippered feet sliding in the snow. I could hear the sound of wings behind me—hugewings. The creature she’d transformed into was far larger than the bird I’d seen before. Maybe the size she transformed into was governed by her hunger, in which case she was starving! I had felt the force of her need when she sucked at my wrist. I didn’t think she would stop once she caught me. But how could I escape her? I could see the inn across the street, but if I ran there Mara would catch me in the middle of the open road. I pictured her pecking at me like a vulture stripping meat from a piece of roadkill. To my right stood the line of pine trees at the edge of the woods. If I made it in there she’d follow me, but it wouldn’t be easy to fly through the narrow gaps between the trees. At least it would slow her down.
My decision made, I flung myself to the right between two trees, scraping my shoulder on the rough bark. I heard the creature’s angry caw behind me and turned just in time to see her crash into the trees, black feathers flying everywhere. She hit the snow and for a brief moment I thought she might be stunned senseless, but then she gathered herself up and, tucking her ragged wings to the side, dove through the trees.
I ran. Farther into the woods, leaving the path so she wouldn’t be able to spread those huge wings. Geez, its wingspan must be six feet! I was sure the bird hadn’t been this big when she attacked me on Christmas Day…and she’d been bigger then than when she’d attacked me on the Solstice…and way bigger than she’d been when she’d swooped down on the path outside of Bates Hall the first time I’d seen her…buthadthat been the first time I’d seen her? Those yellow eyes, that plaintivecaw—they were the same as the small bird I’d found trapped in the thicket…and released. I had let this monster loose on Fairwick! I had to do away with it.
I glanced behind me, hoping I’d lost it in the maze of trees, but it was right behind me, soaring above the tree line, so big now that it blotted out the sun. It was looking for a clear path to dive down at me. I had to lead it into the thicket, where the overgrown shrubs and vines were so thick that it would be trapped. I had to trap it in the Borderlands where it came from.
I blundered on through the trees, not even sure I was going in the right direction since I’d left the path. When I’d last looked up the sun had been behind me. If I veered to the left I’d be going north—the direction I’d gone the first time I’d found the thicket. I dodged around a tree to correct my direction…and heard the flap of wings overhead. Something sharp grazed my cheek—talons stretched out to grab me. Ahead of me I saw the beginning of the thicket, the bare branches of the honeysuckle shrub twisting together in an arch. I dove under a low-hanging branch and heard the bird crash into the shrubs with an angry shriek. Black feathers filled the air around me like soot from an infernal explosion. I looked back and saw it stumble to its feet dragging one broken wing behind it, its awful yellow beak snapping at my heels. I ducked my head and crawled deeper into the thicket, pushing vines out of my way to block the thing’s approach.
I had found the thicket all right, but my plan had been a little short-sighted. So long as I was bigger than the creature I couldn’t lead it into a space small enough to trap it. Instead I would soon be snared in the vines like a fly trapped in a web and then the creature would be able to pick my bones at leisure. Still I blundered into the underbrush, digging myself deeper and deeper into what I was beginning to suspect would be my tomb. It had been the tomb for other creatures—the small birds and mice I’d seen before—but as I dug myself in deeper I also found larger and stranger creatures: an animal that looked like a rabbit but had long fangs, bat skeletons with tiny human skulls, and a long sinuous fish tail that led, horribly, to a human torso. A mermaid? How had a mermaid gottentrapped in these woods? There must be a body of water on the other side of the door, which meant that I was close to the door. Perhaps if I could lead Mara to the door I could make her go through it. Today was the Equinox. If the door opened on the Solstice mightn’t it also open on the Equinox? And I was a doorkeeper…with a fairy stone in my pocket. It was worth a try. It might be my only chance to escape being killed by Mara. But first I had to find the door.
I paused for a moment to listen and realized it had been some time since I’d heard the creature behind me. Had I lost it? Or had she circled around to cut me off? The thicket was full of tiny sounds: the rustle of twigs, the drip of melting snow, and, faint and distant, the rumble of surf—the sound of the ocean in a landlocked woods trapped in the thicket as if trapped in the whorls of a seashell. I crawled toward it, drawn by the strange mystery of it as much as by the slight chance of escape. As I crawled I noticed that the snow grew thinner and the ground softer, and my hands sank into sand. Around me, threaded in the vines, were seashells and fish bones that swayed and clanked like wind chimes. And then I was out in the open in a round glade.
I stood up and looked around me. It was the glade I’d come to with Liam on New Year’s Eve. Across from me was the arched doorway; now, instead of being filled by the moon, it was filled with a milky blue-green mist—the color of sea glass. I stepped toward it…and heard a corresponding step behind me.
I wheeled around and found myself facing a creature out of my worst nightmares. The bird-thing had begun to change back into human form but had gotten stuck in between. It stood on two legs, but those legs ended in scaly talons. Its body was stippled with black feathers. One arm hung fleshy and broken, the other—feathered—flapped angrily at its side. Her face was just recognizable as the girl I’d known as Mara, but for an ugly yellow beak and that horribly gaping mouth that openednow to scream at me. The long sucker-covered tongue lashed out like an angry cat’s tail.
“Mara,” I said, willing my voice to be steady. “This world isn’t the right place for you. Wouldn’t you rather go back?”
She squawked and beat her wing in the air. “What do you know?” she croaked. “We are starving in that world. There is nothing there to eat. Here…” The awful tongue snaked out of her mouth and writhed over her beaky lips as she took a step toward me. “Here there is such abundance that you waste it. These young people take drugs that deplete their life force. They drive in their fast cars half blind from alcohol. They have sex for entertainment and stay up all night pretending to study. Why shouldn’t I drink of their life force when they treat their lives so cheaply?”
“They’re not all like that,” I said, taking a step back toward the door. I could smell salt air mingled with honeysuckle. Was it always summer in Faerie? I wondered. I wanted to turn and look, but I couldn’t risk taking my eyes off Mara. “And I’m certainly not like that. I don’t take drugs or drive drunk…”
“Ha! You’re the worst of all! You were willing to let that incubus suck you dry…”
“You knew Liam was an incubus?” I asked.
“Yes! I recognized what he was immediately, but he didn’t recognize me. He was so set on seducing you he barely looked at anyone else. And you—you were willing to follow him into the shadows. I can smell it on you.” Her tongue lashed out and grazed the bruises on my right hand, which I’d stuck in my pocket. “Those marks were made because your flesh was dissolving with his—and that could only happen if you were willing to go with him. I’ll tell you what.” She stretched her beaky lips wide in what I realized was supposed to be a smile. “After I suck you dry I’ll leave what’s left of you in the Borderlands. You can spend eternity in that hellhole with your boyfriend.”
“Is it really that bad there?” I asked, turning slightly to look behind me through the door. The minute I turned Maralaunched herself at me—as I knew she would. I drew my hand out of my pocket, slipping the fairy stone onto my finger, and shouted the opening spell:“Ianuam sprengja!”
A cold wind rushed through the arched doorway and shadows stretched out toward me, sniffing at me, hungry for my warmth, my solid flesh…my very life. Washethere? I wondered, leaning toward the door, but then I heard the flap of wings at my back and I dodged to the right…just as Mara’s right wing brushed my face. She should have gone through the door, but instead a flash of light split the air above us, accompanied by a cracking noise and a shout that sounded likebucky frakking dent, and Mara crumpled to the ground at my feet.
Confused, I looked up and found Frank standing over the crumpled body wielding a baseball bat.
“Jesus, Frank, what are you doing here?”
“Trying to save your life, McFay. You’re welcome.” He stepped over the body, reaching for me, but Mara’s wing struck him square in the chest and threw him back against a tree with a sickening crack of bone. Then she launched herself at me.
I didn’t have time to dodge this time. She landed on me inches from the open door. She crouched over me, one hand around my throat, one wing beating the air above me. The awful mouth opened wide, the yellow beak stretching like Silly Putty, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth gnashing together. Drops of putrid saliva fell on my face. I closed my eyes and prayed that it would be over soon.
The pressure of the creature’s weight lifted so suddenly that I felt lightness in my chest. Was this what death felt like? I opened my eyes and saw Mara hovering in the air above me. She was wrapped up in a tangled skein of shadows…and then she was spinning, head over heels, toward the door. I rolled over just in time to see her crash through the door. The shadow hovered on the threshold, coiling back.
“Quick, close it!” Frank was next to me, screaming in myear. I looked down at the fairy stone on my hand…and pulled it off.
A wind blew threw the glade, sucking all the air through the door. Frank grabbed me and held on to a tree trunk to keep us from being sucked through. A whirlpool churned just in front of the door. The coil of shadow that had banished Mara writhed in the air and then took a shape. For just a moment I saw Liam’s face hovering above me. I felt a brush of lips against mine, caught the scent of honeysuckle in the air…and then the coil of shadow melted and, with a loud crack and suckingwhoosh, the door slammed shut.
