Autumn (26 page)

             
“Truly, there is nothing to worry about,” Eli said easily but Arabel remained unconvinced.

             
“You’re not…” Arabel paused; it seemed so wrong, to have to ask. To have to offer reassurance. Arabel wasn’t sure how one played fairly at love. She would have to go on blind instinct, she realized. She tried again.

             
“You’re not… jealous
…
are you? Bec
ause I’ve just met Zander Cross
,
and he’s nice and all - but you
, why, surely you know, you have my heart, Eli Frankel! You’
ve no
thing to worry about,
if you were thinking that I -”

             
The last part of Arabel’s sentence was cut off most effectively by the decisive smack of Eli’s lips as they claimed hers with a territorial force that took her by surprise. Arabel melted into Eli’s passionate embrace and felt him claim her body with the insatiable twin urges of youthful uncertainty and the dizzying grandeur of first love.

             
Eli tangled his hands in Arabel’s hair and her breath came sharply, hitching in her throat as he broke off the kiss and nuzzled her ear.

             
“I’m sorry,” Eli said, whispering into Arabel’s hair. “I don’t know what’s come over me.”

             
Arabel smiled and kissed him softly. “My heart,” she whispered in return, and this time when Eli favoured her with a smile, it was genuine, and the hollow, uncertain intensity appeared to have been firmly chased away from his beautiful, almond eyes.

             
Zander joined them a moment later. Astride his gallant and feisty palomino, Zander’s keen, green eyes glinted brightly with unspoken merriment and Arabel realized the younger Cross did not miss a thing. Zander was well aware of Eli’s discomfort and although he’d done nothing to provoke it, he was a canny enough fellow to know when to back off.

             
“To St. Martin’s Bog!” Zander cried enthusiastically, raising a hand in the air in a mock salute to his newfound companions. With this cry, the three of them galloped toward the infamous murder site in the darkening shadows of the late autumn afternoon.

             
From within the Muilse Tearoom, a lone figure watched. And waited.

             
The sun moved behind a large cloud and an instant chill washed over Arabel. For a brief moment she thought she could hear the violent sadness of a woman crying with deep, heartrending sobs. Arabel strained to listen above the noise of the racing horses but the sound only became fainter. An insidiously forlorn foreboding hung within the autumn air and Arabel felt it pass through her.

             
Annoyance crept into Arabel’s body as she shut out the feeling of the violent sadness of the unknown woman and forced her mind to remain completely within the physical world of the five senses. The ‘normal’ world. The reality almost everyone agreed upon. The only reality most people knew, and the one world where Arabel could never, ever take anything for granted.

             
Ahead of Arabel, in the distance, she could just make out the shape of the crooked oak tree. It was massive. Its army of branches spread out in a threatening curtain to block out the light from above and its enormous web of tangled roots amongst the carpet of the forest appeared intent upon taking over the greenery wherever possible. Lichen and moss grew heartily upon its thick trunk and the crooked branches seemed to wave imperiously at the other trees, signifying their superiority.

             
Crowning the top of the tree was a thick spike of branch, grown crooked and hooked, as if some giant had pulled and held it until it was permanently bent and could no longer straighten its proud bow. An eerie silence hung over the tree, as if no one dared wake the sleeping giant who must surely be lurking somewhere nearby. Snow decorated the ancient oak with a frosty, glistening veil of white, lending it an imposingly haunted appeal.

             
“Here lies the oldest part of the forest.” Zander spoke conversationally, although Arabel could see he was alert, his bright eyes surveying the energies, looking for hidden entities.

             
“Is that the symbol for the Dorojenja?” Eli asked quietly, glancing at the shield, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the still, desolate location.

             
Zander nodded. “Thought we’d wiped them all out. Apparently not.” His expression turned grim as he and Eli shared a quick look of mutual understanding. Arabel was at a loss.

             
“The Dorojenja?” Arabel repeated blankly, looking at Eli. “Who are they? What are they?”

             
“They existed many years ago; in fact, they are reputed to be the ones who destroyed the Elmatuo Bridge, the bridge to the Ancients and the Contemplatives,” Eli supplied.

             
Arabel frowned. “Why would anyone want to do that?”

             
“To unsettle the world, to alter the Grid,” Zander spoke up. “Their motives have never been clearly outlined and they have worked together in secrecy since before the beginning of recorded time.”

             
Zander picked up a loose stone and threw it, hard, a small symbol of his irritation.

             
“We thought we’d taken care of them.”

             
“How exactly does one eradicate a secret society?” A
rabel asked. “Sounds to be
a
most impossible task!”

             
“It is,” Zander agreed unhappily. “Well, let’s hope I can get something off of the shield.”

             
The threesome moved toward the shield where it rested against the base of the crooked oak tree. As they approached the tree, a whisper on the wind was felt by all of them – a soft caress, a gentle voice, a subdued fury.

             
Ira crowed repetitively, Caw! Caw! Caw! Caw! Caw! Raucous and unsettled, Ira flapped his wings viciously, and stared at something only he could view.

             
Arabel tuned in to the crow’s mind, to see if she could see as he did.

             
To Arabel’s utter amazement, she watched as a long limbed, bearded, dirt covered fellow appeared to climb out lazily from within the very insides of the crooked oak. Apparently Arabel’s whimsical thoughts of waking sleeping giants were not so far off the mark after all.

             
The giant tree man’s eyes were dark pools of black, his white beard stretched to his chest and he wore a pale robe that shimmered around his long, elongated, floating frame. One hand stayed inside the tree trunk, grounding him there, Arabel supposed, and his feet did not touch the ground. His voice, when he spoke, sounded rusty, as if no one had disturbed him from slumber for centuries.

             
“Who has come to see the Elemental?” the tree creature asked imperiously, his rusty voice a great thundering rumble that gave Arabel and her companions quite an unnecessary shock.

             
Arabe
l could tell from the expression
on both Eli
’s
a
nd Zander’s faces that they too
could now see the strange creature.

             
“Greetings, sir, we have come to collect the shield of the black arts. To dispose of it where it can no longer darken your woods with its evil desires,” Zander spoke calmly but Arabel could tell he was both excited and intrigued and his natural curiosity was only held firmly in check until the moment he could be allowed to give it full reign to explore and question.

             
“What shield is this?” the Elemental demanded. “Let me see that of which you speak.”

             
Zander and Eli crossed to the shield. It was larger than Arabel had surmised it would be and apparently a great deal heavier. It took both Gypsies to lever it up and hold it so that the Elemental could survey it.

             
Arabel studied the shield closely and took note that the lines appeared to be arranged in a convoluted pattern of elliptical circles overtop what looked to be a set of some sort of advanced mathematical equations and the murky grey background was that of a headless bird. A dove? Arabel couldn’t be certain what sort of bird had been sacrificed to the shield, but she was certain that the convoluted pattern of circular lines were drawn in blood. Human blood.

             
The Elemental gazed down at the shield. His expression altered from benign curiosity to slow, burning anger.

             
“You dare bring this to the forest?” he boomed, his eyes flashing dangerously as they fastened upon the magical shield of darkness.

             
Arabel took a step back. The Elemental was frightening, his rage was hot fire, and he looked as if he could summon the darkest forces of evil himself. Ira cawed loudly; he flew up toward the Elemental, hovering aggressively by its long white beard.

             
“We didn’t bring it here, sir! We have come to destroy it!” Arabel beseeched him.

             
The Elemental swung his gaze toward Arabel, as if noticing her presence for the first time. His eyes softened and he actually smiled.

             
“You have returned,” the Elemental said gently, with a pleased and surprised expression upon his ancient, bearded visage.

             
Arabel glanced at Eli. What was the creature talking about? Eli shrugged. He had no idea.

             
“I am here now, yes,” Arabel responded respectfully, not entirely certain how to proceed and unwilling to further incur the wrath of the ominous tree spectre.

             
“Vio-letta!” the Elemental exclaimed in delight.

             
The whole body of the tree creature seemed to light up with his enthusiasm, and the brightness expanded to encapsulate the entire section of the forest they were in with a blue, hazy light. Arabel was sure she could hear birdsong now and the faint chirping sounds of contented creatures and the foraging of animals amongst the greenery. It was as if the forest could live again whilst the Elemental enjoyed a rare moment of pleasure.

             
“Violetta was my mother,” Arabel said softly.

             
Eli and Zander both glanced at Arabel in surprise, and then at each other, dumbfounded. Eli took hold of Arabel’s hand; he was unsurprised to find it trembled.

             
“Vio-letta,” the Elemental said again, rolling the letters off of his ancient tongue with a long cherished delight.

             
“Come!” he demanded imperiously, holding out one long brown shimmering hand to Arabel.  From within it, the Elemental unfurled a long length of glowing, golden cord. He offered it to her. The rope moved toward Arabel of its own accord, twisting nearer and nearer toward her, slithering closer, like a reptile.

             
Arabel stared at the Elemental. As if in a dream, she released Eli’s hand. She grasped the rope of gold that the Elemental offered and pulled tightly on the cord.

             
And disappeared completely.

             
Arabel wasn’t frightened. Not at first.

             
But after several long moments of dark, dank, earthy breaths, Arabel realized her eyes were actually open, not tightly compressed together, and that there was simply nothing to see. She was in complete and utter darkness. She was an unwilling prisoner, locked in the trunk of the tree and she could not move. There appeared to be no way out.

             
A claustrophobic panic wrapped itself closely around Arabel and she fought against the urge to scream. The smell of the earth was old and moist, no sunlight had ever been seen inside. Small insects crawled around and said hello to her and Arabel was relieved that they were merely curious as opposed to being horridly gleeful parasitic bugs that would strip the skin from her bones as she stood there, trapped in the ancient crooked oak.

             
“Elemental?” she called out softly, wondering where the creature could have gone.

             
In her hands, Arabel still clutched a bit of gold rope. It must have broken off when she was pulled into the tree trunk. The piece of gold rope had a smooth texture, more like a worn coin than a threaded rope and Arabel rubbed it within her fingers for comfort. She wasn’t cold, but she was damp, and the darkness was rushing in toward her like an unwelcome tidal wave, unrelenting and unrelieved. Arabel told herself not to struggle, not to panic, not to scream.