Autumn (27 page)

             
Arabel screamed.

             
She screamed as if her lif
e depended on it, because maybe
it did. Arabel screamed until her throat was raw and tears fell unchecked down her beautiful face. Her fists pounded against the unyielding structure of the tree and her feet paced the small width of the earthy prison. Damp clumps of earth rained upon Arabel’s head from the pounding of her fists against the unyielding surface of the tree trunk.

             
The ring Eli’s mother had given Arabel, the square cut gem, began to shine. Arabel ceased her screams, settling herself down to a small occasional whimper as she stared at the glowing stone. Releasing a slight but steady beam of light, it illuminated the space she was held captive within and Arabel struggled to find a corresponding place of calm within herself which would assist her in figuring out a path to freedom. Arabel kissed the ring in gratitude as it highlighted the structure she was locked within.

             
Arabel could see roots, lots of them, climbing the inside of the walls, almost like a ladder. She gazed thoughtfully up. There wasn’t much to see as the light from the ring was a thin beam and unable to traverse its strength up to the top of the hanging roots. Beneath Arabel’s feet was the cold earthy ground. There was nothing below, so there must be something above, she figured.

             
An overwhelming sense of hysteria bubbled below the surface of her consciousness as Arabel tentatively took hold of one of the roots and pulled, to test its strength. A small shower of dirt fell again upon her, but the root held, and Arabel determined to climb her way out of the tree trunk pit.

             
Painstakingly Arabel scaled the inside of the tree trunk, holding her breath, then remembering to breathe, disallowing all thoughts of dying here in the dark, dank prison. The roots were a tangle of tree flesh and Arabel could easily hang on to two or three at a time for leverage. Still, her progress was slow, and she still was unable to view above her, to see if she was actually climbing anywhere other than just straight up within the trunk. The ring continued to shine and Arabel was so grateful for its pale light that she could have cried. Well, she was crying, so she supposed she could have cried harder.

             
After some time, Arabel was quite exhausted. Her arms burned and her legs screamed with the effort of hanging on against the wall of dirt without toeholds of any sort. Her head ached and her lungs were beginning to revolt against the dirt she was inhaling each time she took a breath. Arabel glanced down below, to see how much distance she’d covered and was dismayed to see that the floor of the trunk was now rising up to meet her – and so to close the distance from the ground she’d gained.

             
“No!” Arabel cried out desperately. “No!” She sobbed as her feet touched the floor and the light of the ring faded and went out.

             
Arabel did not want to die. She did not want to die alone, in this tree, never having fully loved, and never knowing real freedom. She didn’t want to die!

             
“Shh…” a deep voice rumbled. “Be still now, tiny human.”

             
Arabel could see nothing, but she was certain it was the voice of the Elemental.

             
“Help me!” she cried immediately. “Help me, please, I’m trapped here!”

             
A blinding light flashed suddenly and Arabel was forced to close her eyes or burn out her retinas. The light was brighter than the sun but there was no heat. It reminded Arabel, strangely, of the bright light of the Ondines. Arabel could hear the pulsing of the energy of the light as it poured over her, restoring her strength and drying the frantic tears upon her face.

             
Arabel opened her eyes. The Elemental stood in front of her and she knew intuitively that they were still within the vast, magically enhanced tree trunk, but in some other part, not the horrifyingly damp prison of the last few minutes. They stood in what looked to be a roomy grove of majestic oak trees, a strange white sky hung overtop of them.

             
“You forgot me,” the Elemental accused softly, a sad look within his black-pooled eyes.

             
“You mistake me, sir,” Arabel explained, “for my mother, Violetta. She is gone now, passed to the other side. I am her daughter, Arabel.”

             
The Elemental peered at Arabel for quite some time. “Hmm…” he responded at length. “Not Vio-letta?”

             
Arabel shook her head.

             
“You look and feel to me as she did,” the Elemental observed, and Arabel could hear the puzzlement within his voice.

             
“I am sure my mother would not have forgotten you, sir, nor purposely forsaken you,” Arabel replied, wishing for some sort of context to refer to. “Can you tell me, please, what are you? And how did you come upon your acquaintance with my mother?”

             
The Elemental let out a long and rusty sounding sigh. The tree spectre turned away and Arabel could feel the sadness adorning its energy field like a heavy, old winter coat.

             
“Has it been so long then?”

             
“I am unsure, sir. I was very young when my mother passed. She’d not had time to speak of you to me. I would have been too small to understand.”

             
“How…how did the lady pass?”

             
“Fever, sir. A great fever came upon The Corvids and many were struck down. Both my parents, lost.”

             
The Elemental hissed in a breath. “A fever, you say?”

             
Arabel nodded and relaxed enough to look around. She felt safe now and knew no harm would befall her. The strange grove of trees stood alone in a strange white world without borders or edges.

             
“Why did you keep me in that prison for so long?” Arabel found she could not resist asking. “I was terrified.”

             
The Elemental looked surprised. “All must pass through the gateway. Why, t’was only a moment or two, whilst I readied your favourite tea. Or rather, your mother’s favourite tea,” he amended, catching himself.

             
“It was longer than a moment!” Arabel retorted with a shudder.

             
“Perhaps our versions of time differ then; I am sorry if you were frightened.”

             
“Terrified, more likely,” Arabel replied almost cheerfully as the Elemental passed her an ancient looking china cup with the aromatic smell of fresh honey, jasmine and mint rising up from within it. Arabel breathed in deeply of the luscious scent.

             
“I didn’t know this was my mother’s favourite,” she said.

             
The Elemental smiled. “And now you do.” He motioned to the expanse of the space they currently occupied. “Come and see, survey the sights your mother so loved. Vio-letta was so very special.”

             
“Yes,” Arabel concurred, amazed to meet this creature who had loved and known her own beloved mother. “Very special.”

             
The Elemental led Arabel a short distance away to where a garden of lilies bloomed and small birds sang cheerful songs of the spring to come. The white light bathed the scene in a serene glow and a sense of peace pervaded Arabel’s mind. She sipped the tea gratefully; it served to wash away the dirt and panic and she began to feel herself again.

             
And then she remembered Eli, Zander, and the shield.

             
“We came to destroy the shield,” she ventured.

             
“The shield?” the Elemental repeated blankly.

             
“Yes, the evil magic of the Dorojenja,” Arabel informed him.

             
The Elemental’s face clouded with a dark fury. “The fever, you say, took Vio-letta?”

             
“Yes, Elemental.”

             
“The Dorojenja conjure evil fire! They would burn the old forests to the ground, cripple the humans, slay the animals - all so that their dark beast might roam freely, forsaking all that is natural and pure in this realm!”

             
The Elemental grabbed at Arabel’s arm but she could barely feel his touch, as the Elemental was a mere whisper of energy, barely physically manifest at all. Arabel wondered that he was able to provide her with a physical cup of tea when he himself was mostly space and light.

             
“Tell us how to
defeat them, then,” Arabel beseeched him
.

             
“Defeat them? You must annihilate them!” the Elemental thundered.

             
Arabel said nothing and waited until the being calmed again. She sipped her tea quietly.

             
“How did you chance upon an acquaintance with my mother?” Arabel queried, both to distract the creature and to quench her curiosity, after a moment had passed.

             
“It was long ago now, it must have been,” the Elemental began. He scratched his chin under the long white beard, remembering.

             
“She was foraging for berries in the forest.  She saw me.” The Elemental smiled at the memory. “It was spring-time and she was as the spring herself – a beautiful maiden comprised of sunshine, a glorious bringer of the dawn. Vio-letta could see me - and most cannot - so I invited her to tea. And she came often, many times after that, until she one day, she ceased to come at all.”

             
The Elemental peered sadly at Arabel.

             
“A fever, you say?”

             
Arabel nodded.

             
“Yes. A deadly one.” Arabel didn’t mention the fact that both she and Eli had so recently come through that particular trial by fire as well, but she wondered now to herself if the Dorojenja’s evil magic had had anything to do with it.

             
“The shield must be destroyed. You must do this for me,” the Elemental said to Arabel, his voice a command as opposed to a request.

             
“Gladly, sir, just tell me how.”

             
“Create the white ring of fire for protection. You must do this in a place you harbour only positive vibrations for. This is very important! The Dorojenja cannot pierce true-heartedness and they can only waylay the effects of honest magic. They have built their strength upon the darkness and the weakness of ego and deception; they know nothing of the magic of the heart.”

             
Arabel listened closely, transfixed by the Elemental’s voice. The rumble in it sounded like rainclouds and if she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine she was in her room, watching excitedly as a wild, thrashing thunderstorm ripped through The Corvids.

             
“Burn the shield in the sacred flame. Burn it and any others you find bearing their crests of evil.”

             
“I will,” Arabel agreed. “I will do exactly as you ask.”

             
“Tell no one of your task. I charge you with this duty, daughter of Vio-letta. See that the evil dies with the shield and it darkens our forests no longer.”

             
“Why would the Dorojenja pick your tree for their ceremonial site, Elemental?”

             
“I am the root of the forest; destroy me and you destroy the protection we offer.” The Elemental sighed, a deep rumbling in his floating chest.

             
“I am the last of the Elementals, when I have gone, we shall seed this land no longer.”

             
“What exactly are you?” Arabel entreated the creature.

             
“I am the tree-blood, both the seed and the tree, the Oak spirit, the Elemental force of Nature.”

             
Arabel was still confused but decided to say nothing about her confusion. Instead she realized she had better return to Eli – he would be frantic with worry - and within this strange hollow of the tree, Arabel could sense nothing of any other place.

             
All that had been, seemed stripped away. All that remained was the still, white sky and the singing birds, and the booming laugh of the Elemental as he delighted in Arabel’s presence.

             
“I must return; my friends will be concerned,” Arabel said reluctantly.

             
The Elemental peered down at her. “You will come again,” he ordered and Arabel nodded.

             
“Most certainly, sir, I shall visit again.”

             
“Do not forsake me, small human.”