Autumn (31 page)

             
Eli took hold of Arabel’s hand as they walked. His fingers threaded with hers and she felt comforted. It would take them at least two hours to get to the Copse and Arabel knew they needed to hurry. By unspoken assent, the three of them picked up their pace, hoping to make it to the safety of the Gypsy camp sooner rather than later.

             
Eli wanted to know if anything further had happened with Arabel’s grandmother the previous evening, and he sent Arabel a quick, private, telepathic message. Arabel shook her head in response. She’d gone straight up to her room last night and Amelia Bodean had avoided her as well, thereby the potential escalation of their disagreement had been averted. Eli squeezed Arabel’s hand and Arabel smiled at him.

             
“I’m trying to learn more of my grandparent’s history,” Arabel informed her companions. “The whole business with the Dorojenja and their ability to project fever has me wondering of the dark times, when my parents died, and so many others in The Corvids. Have the Gypsies any theories as to whether or not the fever was of their making?”

             
Zander’s jovial face was set in serious lines. “Speculation runs along those lines but nothing has ever been proven.”

             
Eli turned to Arabel, his interest piqued. “D’you believe they were attacking us, when we were so recently ill?”

             
Arabel nodded emphatically. “That’s exactly what I think!”

             
“But why now?” Eli speculated. “What is propelling them to engage us in this fight right now?”

             
No one answered Eli’s question as no one was clear on what it was the Dorojenja were trying to accomplish. Or what they might have had to do with the recent murders as well.

             
“Those who died – in
the dark times of the fever,”
Arabel wondered aloud, “were they all magically inclined? What is the common thread all of the victims would have had?”

             
“Good question,” Zander replied. “Many Gypsies fell to the fever, including mine and Xavier’s parents. Xavier practically raised me, although honestly, he’s not really even that much older than I am.” Zander shrugged. “He’s just always been more mature,” he smiled, a brief moment of lightness they all were cheered by.

             
“Do we know how many of the victims of the first fever had ties to the dark magic?” Arabel asked but neither Eli nor Zander had the answer to her question. Arabel resolved to ask Mireille, Baltis and Xavier as soon as she could in order to suss out their thoughts upon the subject.

             
A murder of crows flew overhead and Ira excitedly called to his mates to join them. The cluster of crows answered Ira’s invitation excitedly and the murder swooped down, lower to the ground, so that they were now flying alongside Ira and the cart, as if they were additional guards, posted to keep the party safe.

             
Arabel sighed in delight. The crows flew in unison, one big, black feathered group of psychic sentries. She was glad for their company, their magical protection, and their raucous, corvid chit-chat.

             
“We’ll make straight for the Lodge,” Zander decreed as they approached the edge of the Copse. “The circle for the sacred flame sits behind it. The circle is mightily protected and even the Dorojenja will not be able to penetrate our collective energies.”

             
The Lodge came now into view and Arabel saw that the door torches had already been lit. Although it was merely late afternoon, the sun had begun setting a few moments earlier every evening and darkness hovered eagerly. Arabel’s stomach rumbled loudly and she realized she hadn’t eaten yet today, despite the fact she had stored rations in her haversack. Arabel resolved to rectify this as soon as they reached the Lodge. While Eli and Zander unloaded the shield, she would have a moment to quickly feed herself. No point in being weak when all of her strength would be needed for the ceremony, she reasoned.

             
Goblet drums, the Gypsy darbuka, sounded loudly in the distance, and were accompanied by the rhythmic strumming of guitars, violins, a couple of girnata - the Gypsy clarinet - and a stray fiddle or two.

             
A low humming echoed in the air and Arabel glanced at Eli. He was moving toward the side of the cart to unload the shield and his brown hair had fallen into his eyes. He brushed it back impatiently and Arabel smiled; he looked so strong, so vibrant, so much of a hero to her. Eli sensed Arabel staring at him and he turned his gaze toward her. Eli’s slow, honeyed grin was bemused as he drank in Arabel’s appreciative gaze. Arabel could almost feel his lips upon her, both easing and stoking the fire that burned between them.

             
Zander coughed and Arabel quickly looked toward him. She swore he was able to read her thoughts, much like his brother, and she resolved to keep her private inclinations private. Eli was smirking slightly and Arabel turned away, presumably to rummage for something edible from within her haversack.

             
A slight blush accented Arabel’s cheeks and she gratefully pulled out her lemon water and some fruit and cheese to distract herself. Ira and his corvid friends began a chase and scurry game around the perimeter of the Lodge. Arabel laughed, delighted at their antics, and listened to their naughty provocations.

             
The drums, meanwhile, increased their tempo. It sounded as if the beat called to the very pulse within Arabel’s veins. Arabel closed her eyes. She could feel the music speaking to her; it urged her to dance, to sing, to slough off the dismal coat of dark energy that permeated the air outside of the Gypsy protection.

             
Dance with us, the drums beseeched her, tread upon the land; dance!

             
Arabel’s foot began to tap, she simply couldn’t stop herself. The drums were approaching, the noise was becoming louder and louder and the strumming guitars sounded like a wall of music as the musicians came into view. There were maybe twenty of them, and beside them, Arabel was surprised to note, sedately walked Francesca de Lorimar, flanked by her own entourage of Gypsy handlers.

             
Francesca smiled as her bright pink eyes met Arabel’s and Arabel grinned in response, liking the tiny medium despite herself. There was just something reassuring about Francesca; she was so simply and utterly whole within herself, which was the only way Arabel could explain it. Francesca was solid, in a way Arabel felt that she was just beginning to become. Arabel thoughtfully drank heartily of her lemon water and then replaced the glass bottle in her haversack, along with the bit of cheese she’d saved for later.

             
The sacred circle was painted white upon the ground in some sort of natural dye and kindling was placed to the side of the circle, waiting to be moved within the perimeter and lit with magical intention. The drums changed their beat and the tempo increased yet again. Now the guitars ceased their playing and the darbuka alone pierced the silence of the Copse. The drummers flanked the sacred circle, their rhythm haunting and primal. Arabel shivered.

             
The sky began to further darken, painting the sky in deep purple and amber. Long shadows danced and moved amongst the trees. From within the forest, several figures appeared and Arabel was pleased to see that Mireille and Baltis were among them. Arabel stood with Eli, his arm around her, as they waited for the others to join them.

             
Arabel reflected back to her encounter with the Elemental. Although the Elemental had charged Arabel alone with the task of destroying the Dorojenja’s evil talisman, Arabel knew it would have been an impossible task to accomplish by herself and that she had been right to bring in the Gypsies to assist her. After all, they had dealt with the secret society before, and whilst Arabel was a gifted intuitive and a natural, hereditary witch, she had not spent her whole life learning magic and practicing spells as they had.

             
Eli moved away to join Zander in rolling the Dorojenja talisman into the sacred sphere. The drums pounded at Arabel’s head and she wondered how it was that the beat could
still be increasing in speed.
It sounded like some sort of strangely intense demon-drums to Arabel, so dark and heavy was the drumming, so fast and furious the beat.

             
Francesca, Mireille and Baltis joined Arabel at the edge of the circle. Without warning, the drums ceased. The silence was deafening as the echo of the last beat faded into the air. The drummers backed away in unison, fading into the forest depths, and only a few Gypsies remained just outside of the circle.

             
Arabel notice
d that
Madame de Lorimar had joined her daughter. The Gypsy Elder was dressed as usual in her standard flamboyant style and her headdress was so elaborate that Arabel wondered how she could stand its weight upon her head. The bright pink turban was thickly wound with numerous layers of material and adorned with silver beads that glistened in the fading light.

             
Xavier appeared a moment later, dressed in flowing ceremonial robes of deep purple. Francesca moved to him immediately and they stood together for a moment, facing one another in silence. Arabel regarded them curiously; she could see energy flowing between them – a bright clear yellow beam. Arabel tuned in to the energy, to read it, and found it was a thread of astral protection that the two Gypsies were winding around the circle
, to encompass all who were
assembled.

             
Zander moved into the center of the circle and motioned for Arabel and Eli to join him inside of it. The three began a series of general protective spells, moving their athames in unison, creating a tight web of unity. The trio of magical practitioners began with the easiest spell and worked their way through until they performed the most difficult of the protective chants.

             
Once this basic magical rite was performed, Zander lit the kindling. The flame sparked immediately and Zander lowered the lit tip of it to the ground, tapping it to the flammable, powdered line of fine, white dye, which quickly ignited and raced a burning hot lick of fire around the edges of the circle. Now Arabel and the two young men were ensconced within the sacred circle of white fire as the Elemental had demanded.

             
The energy became electrified and Arabel could feel power rising up from the ground, penetrating through the soles of her feet, traveling up her spine, igniting her energy centers much like the flame had spread to form the circle of fire. Arabel felt herself to be on fire as well, but not as if she was being burnt, more like she’d been purified by the flames, scorched with protective light and seared with an invisible branding of magic.

             
Arabel felt power radiating out from her, multiplying, returning to her three-fold in essence.  Zander took two pieces of wood; he held them to the flame until they caught and then he passed one to Arabel and one to Eli so that each of them now held a burning torch.

             
With the protective flame within her hand, Arabel knew the heady surge of magic. It was as if something had ecstatically burst within her very cells, but it was not unpleasant or painful; it was pure, unbridled power and Arabel relished the sensation. Arabel looked to Eli and Zander, and together as one organism, they held their flames to collectively burn the Dorojenja’s evil shield.

             
The wheel of death cried out in pain as the flames licked its surface and raced to cover it completely in fire. It was as if the victims of the evil, who had been trapped within the blackness of its shell, were now being unleashed by the purifying fire. Arabel wished she could shut her ears to the horrific sounds that the shield emitted, but she could not.

             
Cries of women, cries of children, cries of animals, and cries of men. Soul destroying wails sounded within the circle and the shield became coated in a thick, black soot as the blood writing burnt away and the trapped energies were released within the protective ring of fire. Arabel instinctively made contact with both Eli’s eyes and Zander’s eyes so that they were all joined as they dropped their respective pieces of wood onto the top of the burning talisman.

             
Arabel knew nothing but the smell of the burning wood; she heard nothing but the cries of the tortured souls and she saw only the blue flames licking their way up into the purpling sky.

             
The fire grew hotter and brighter as the energies dispersed. Arabel’s face was flushed from heat and her heart pounded within her chest. Her breath came quickly and she felt rooted to the ground, held in sway by the intensity of the proceedings. The flames burst into a series of sparks and the shield buckled, and finally it cracked open, becoming an angry blue-orange fire which engorged itself from within. And then, suddenly, it simmered, and Arabel knew that the talisman had been dismantled and the trapped energies finally freed from their dark prison. The flames receded, and finally vanished into utter nothingness.