Hear Me (12 page)

Deacon Ryder gave her a look. “What all fathers are concerned about for their daughters.”

Somehow, she doubted it. Her dad was a scientist, not an overprotective reactionary. When she told him she and Archer were having sex, he’d made the appointment for her to get birth control himself. But she was not in the mood to argue about her father’s beliefs with this man this morning. “It was only puppy love.”

“Puppy love can be dangerous, too, Ivy. What if you’d ended up with a baby from your forest lover, as your father did?”

She set her cup down. “To be fair, Deacon Ryder, my mother had the baby, too.”

“Yes, and see how that turned out.” The old man gave a piteous sigh. “Many’s the night when I counseled your father on how to manage, raising his daughter all alone while his wild wife did who knows what in the forest.”

Ivy hadn’t known that either, and she doubted the deacon’s counsel included trips to the OB-GYN. “Thank you for being there for him, sir. I’m sure you helped him immensely, and I couldn’t have asked for a kinder or more invested father.” That, at least, was the truth. “He helped me understand my forest side, and my town side.”

The deacon pursed his lips so hard Ivy wondered if the milk had gone sour. “Yes, I remember those days, Ivy. Your father was concerned he’d been too lenient with you. That you were growing wild like your mother. That your forest side would take you over. Blood will out, you know.”

Her shoulders tightened, but she forced her tone into a lightness she didn’t feel. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “As near to the forest as
humanly
possible. And now the barrier is down.”

Ivy said nothing.

“You must promise, child, not to go into the forest. I won’t have you trapped there when the bells begin to ring again.”

A shudder passed over her skin. “You’re repairing the barrier.”

“Trying to,” he replied. “It’ll take a bit of work, unfortunately. The curse that brought it down was heavy indeed.”

In the shadows, Archer beamed.
 

Ivy brushed imaginary dust from her pants. “Well, Deacon, I wouldn’t want to keep you…” Wait. Maybe she
did
want to keep him. The longer the deacon remained, the longer she’d keep him from… doing whatever it was he needed to do to repair the bells.

And the deacon seemed in no rush to leave. “Ivy,” he said in the voice of a man who’d delivered ten thousand sermons, “Do you know why we built the barrier of the bells?”

“Because the forest had grown dark and dangerous, and we had to protect the town from evil magic,” she recited politely. Was it ever true?

“We always have to protect ourselves from magic, Ivy, evil or otherwise,” he corrected. “And the rising perils the forest presented gave us an opportunity to do so.”

An opportunity? Archer took a half step out of the shadows, and Ivy made a covert gesture at him to stay back. He frowned at her.
 

“I was never so blessed in my life as when it became clear to me that the time had come to reveal the evil of the forest for what it truly was.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“When this town was first founded, Ivy, it was nothing. Just a backwoods little speck. The settlers turned to forest magic out of desperation those early, lean years. They endangered their everlasting souls, yes, but they did it to survive. Can you imagine what might drive a people to that?”

Behind the deacon, Archer shrugged and nodded. Ivy had to agree. She understood, all right, but not nearly so well as her lover did.

“I thought the people of this town would never get over this original sin, this temptation of the forest and all the evil it contained. But times change, Ivy. You saw them change.”

Yes, she had. The posters, the ridicule, the fear, the isolation she and her forest-blooded neighbors had faced as fear of their kind had grown in town and beyond.

“The forest was driving away business. Do you think Ernest Beemer could have built up his quarry—do you think big city investors would come into our town, open factories and chain stores and build apartment complexes and cell phone towers—if we were every second threatened by fairy tale monsters?”

“Well, no, now that you mention it…”

“Which is why we need to get this barrier back up. Cutting off the forest—it’s made our town safe. Prosperous. Virtuous, too.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You don’t know how many vigils I’ve sat for girls like you, Ivy. Girls that weren’t so lucky to come away from their forest boys safe and sound. Girls with forest—” he made a face “—
things
growing inside them.”

Ivy leaned away from him as a sour taste spread over her tongue. Had she, too, been a forest
thing
to the deacon when she was born? Was she a
thing
to him now, ever teetering on the edge of eternal damnation?

“It was vital that we protect kids like you from making these same mistakes. From making the same mistake your father did.”

Ivy’s brows knit as she stared at the older man. “Did you share these… concerns with my father?”

“Of course!” he cried. “Your father was my greatest triumph. A forest-lover to the core. You know that. His greenhouse? His forest girl? No matter what I told him about the evil he courted, I thought he’d never listen.”

“But he did listen,” she pressed, though something seemed to tug in the corners of her mind. “Eventually. He saw the darkness rising in the forest, and he realized you were right.”

“Yes. He did. And he saw you, growing closer and closer to that forest boy. And he knew he couldn’t condemn you to his lonely fate. And while I fought for every soul in the town, I admit your father only fought for your heart.”

There was a sound behind Deacon Ryder and he turned to look down the hallway, but there was nothing there, to Ivy’s relief. She didn’t need Archer to have heard that last part.

Ivy’s mind was reeling. She’d thought her father had supported the creation of the barrier because of some dreadful thing he’d seen in the forest, but what if that were no more true than his story about warning the forest folk to leave before the bells began to ring? What if it was the deacon who’d convinced him to turn from the forest and the folk within… in order to protect Ivy?
 

“What are you saying, sir?” she asked softly. “Is there no wicked magic coming from the forest?”

“Of course there is!” the deacon hissed. “Every twig in that forest is the work of the devil!”

Careful, Deacon. I have a whole greenhouse full of twigs.

“I’d burn every last leaf to the ground if I could, but that’s not necessary, as long as we have the bells. Blessings on those sweet, silver bells.” He bowed his head in thanks. “So, you see how we need your help.”

“Excuse me?”

“The bells have stopped!” the deacon cried, and bits of spittle flew from the corner of his thin lips. “The engine that drives their power has ceased. We need to jump start it.”

“I’m a florist and a teamaker,” Ivy protested. “Not a mechanic.” Or a magician.

“You’re a Potter,” said the deacon. “That’s what matters.”

“What?” Ivy looked at him in confusion. “Whatever do you mean?”

But he didn’t answer, because just then, Trapper the dog started barking his head off.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Deacon Ryder ran for the door and Ivy cast one more look down the empty hall.
 

Damn Archer! Why didn’t he stay put? She hurried after the deacon to find him tugging at the dog’s straining leash. A second later, the beast sprang free, beelined around the corner of the shop and headed straight for the greenhouse.
 

The deacon pulled out his walkie-talkie and called for help, while Ivy shoved her arms into the sleeves of her coat and cursed dogs and overconfident forest men, in that order. If only her curses held weight, like Archer’s could. She shook her head in frustration and followed after Trapper and the deacon, her boots stamping with a satisfying crunch through the icy powder. How lovely to hear the sound of ice crystals, after all these years of bells. Even the dog’s howling sounded fresh and clean.

She turned the corner and stopped dead. Trapper had reached the greenhouse dome, and was up on his hind legs, his front paws splayed on the glass. He growled loudly, his long teeth bared, his ears flattened against his head. But there was nothing there.
 

At least nothing townies like them could detect.

“What do you see, boy?” The deacon asked. “What do you see?”

Ivy knew what
she
saw, right beneath the canine’s front paws. There were smears on the glass — a handprint, the impression of a cheek. Her face flushed against the cold morning air and for a second she feared the Deacon could tell what those marks meant, that he somehow would be able to see that she’d had hot and dirty sex a few hours ago on the other side of the pane.
 

“There’s something in your greenhouse!” The deacon whirled to glare at Ivy.

“It’s locked,” she insisted. And she had locked it, last night, after she and Archer had left. But that didn’t mean Archer hadn’t snagged a key and sneaked back inside while she and the deacon had been talking.

The crunch of boots behind her made them both turn, and Ivy’s heart leapt into her throat at the idea of Archer revealing himself, but it was only Shawn Cooper from the tire shop, come to see what all the fuss was about.

“Look!” Shawn raised his arm to point at the dome. Ivy and the deacon both stared.
 

Something was rising from the surface of the dome like steam, if steam came in colors of violet and black, swirling up the legs of the dog like a fast-growing vine. The dog’s howls turned to whimpers, and he tried to pull his paws off the dome, but couldn’t. He jerked and flailed, arching his neck and looking back to his master with wide, fearful eyes.

“It’s black magic!” the deacon shouted, backing up a few steps as the dog let out a high-pitched shriek. The smoke had covered the dog’s legs and chest now, and was wrapping tight about his neck.
 

The others were rooted to the ground as if the snow were made of glue, but Ivy ran forward, shouting at the… thing that had the dog in its grip.

“Let go!” she cried. “Let go!”

But before she could reach it, it floated up into the air, taking the animal with it. The dog twitched as he floated, like a fish caught on a line, and the smokiness spread, choking out Trapper’s hysterical whelps and making him jerk and writhe in terror.
 

“Dear God in heaven,” the deacon whispered, as the smoke enveloped the dog’s back and belly, and traveled down his hind legs. Any moment now, it would crest the roofline, and everyone in town would get an instant demonstration of what might happen now that the bells were silent.
 

Ivy crouched in the snow and jumped as hard as she could, grabbing the creature by his dangling tail, just as the smoke reached its tip. Her hair touched bristling fur and something cold as well water and dark as a grave.

Ivy…

The echo that roared through her bones was unmistakably Archer’s.
 

And then she fell back into the snow, her bones jarring against the frozen ground, her arms full of German shepherd. He twisted out of her grip and turned to face her, half in a crouch, his head held low and ears folded flat.

“Trapper?” she whispered. But Trapper was not the beast that stood before her, growling and snapping impossibly long teeth. Its eyes were pure black, and its hair seemed to have grown several inches.
 

Ivy’s breath froze in her lungs. Oh, no.

Archer?
she thought at it.
 

It reared back as if to lunge.

“It’s me!” she cried. “It’s Ivy!”

“It’s a demon!” screamed the deacon. “Kill it!”

Shawn fumbled in his waistband, and the dog-thing turned toward him and leaped. Shawn went down in the snow, a pistol tumbling out of his hands. Ivy scrambled to her feet but had no idea what to do. The beast was all claws and teeth and rage, a dark, furry blur on top of the screaming man.

A crack sheared through the icy morning, and the monster stilled and slumped on top of the man. Shawn pushed at it with bloody hands, and it fell to the side, a German shepherd once more.
 

There was a smoking gun in the deacon’s hands, but Ivy had no time to think about it. She knelt in the snow next to them. Shawn was bloody and torn, with deep gashes on his forearms and large punctures on his face and throat. She moved to press her hand against the wound and he shied away.

“Don’t touch me, witch,” he hissed. “You set that thing on me.”

She recoiled. “You need an ambulance.” Her voice sounded calm. How odd.
 

Beside her, the dog wheezed and whimpered. His eyes had gone back to simple, doggy, brown. They were wide now, as if he had no idea how he’d gotten there, in the snow, with a bullet in his body and his life draining into the snow. Gingerly, she touched his flank. At least there was one soul in town who wouldn’t flinch away from her hands.
 

Deacon Ryder frowned in frustration. “Waste of a dog.”