The Prophecy of Shadows (19 page)

“That’s right.” Chris said, still smiling. “Before we were allowed to use our powers, there wasn’t such a big of difference between us and humans. Until ninth grade…” He paused, glancing at Danielle and Blake. “Or earlier for those of us who broke the rules. And if I remember right, Danielle didn’t just trade comic books with Matt. Didn’t the two of you have a thing?”

Blake smirked. “I remember that …” he said. “Then your parents thought you were getting too close to a human and wouldn’t let you go over his house to play anymore. You were devastated.”

Danielle huffed and glared at Chris. “My parents knew what they were talking about,” she said. “There was no reason for me to waste my time with a human. Besides, it was in second grade. We were seven. It doesn’t count.”

“Oh, it counts.” Chris nodded his head dramatically. “Nicole,” he continued, facing me. “What’s your consensus on this?”

“Does this really matter?” Kate interrupted, parking and yanking the key out of the ignition. “Let’s just check out the woods, follow the compass, and do whatever we’re supposed to do.”

We all climbed out of the car, and I studied the woods for the first time. Bosley Woods made Clenton Woods look like a welcoming palace. Just looking at them made me step backwards in revulsion. A gray mist hovered above the ground, ready to suck in anyone who walked on it, and the air smelled damp, like there was mold growing everywhere. The wind blew the tallest trees back and forth, and it sounded like the forest was groaning, warning people to keep out.

Still, the creepiness was more than what the forest
looked
like. Because staring at it made a bone-chilling cold wash through my body. My chest tightened the same way it had before the two-headed hound attacked Blake and me at the playground—like a warning to leave before it was too late.

I looked down at the compass in my hands. The needle pointed straight towards the woods. I shook it a few times to see if it would change its mind, but it stayed locked in place.

“This is the right place,” I said, wishing I could tell them otherwise.

“Is it just me, or are the woods creepier than normal?” Chris asked, his teeth chattering.

Kate shivered and rubbed her arms. “They seem … evil,” she agreed. “If that makes any sense.”

“It makes just as much sense as anything else that’s happened recently.” Danielle squinted like she was trying to see past the fog, which wove between the bottoms of the tree trunks like it had a life of its own.

Blake stared straight into the woods. If he was scared, I couldn’t tell. “So are we doing this or what?” he asked.

The color drained from Chris’s face, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Who’s leading the way?” he asked.

Kate took a small step forward. “I guess I’ll do it,” she volunteered. “Earth is my element, which means this clue is mine. Whatever it is that we need to find next should be calling to me—or however it worked for the three of you.” She turned to face me, standing straighter. “I’ll need the compass,” she said matter-of-factly. “Since it seems to be telling us where to go.”

“Right.” I held the compass out to her, and it felt good to get rid of it. Maybe Kate was supposed to have been controlling the compass all along, and because I’d been holding it, it hadn’t pointed us in the right direction.

She took it from me, and the arrow stayed in place.

So much for that theory.

“Follow me.” She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and walked confidently towards the woods. I hoped the bravery wasn’t just for show. With Earth being her element, Kate should be comfortable in places like this.

I walked through the opening to the woods, and a chill passed through my body. The forest held no traces of life. Grass had grown here at some point, but all of it was dead—browned and wilted, pressed to the ground like it had been trampled in a stampede.

I glanced over my shoulder to check on the others. Blake was only two feet behind me, having just stepped over the perimeter. He paused and met my gaze.

“Do you want me to go ahead of you?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I said, reminding myself that we were more powerful than any animal in these woods. We shouldn’t have a problem protecting ourselves. “But thanks.”

“No problem.” He looked to where Kate waited next to a tree so big that it must have been hundreds of years old. “If anything tries to attack from behind, I’ve got your back. After all, I owe you.”

I wondered if he was referring to when I saved him from hypothermia, helped him kill the monster last night, or both. But Kate was waiting for us, so I just said thanks, turned around, and jogged down the path to catch up with her.

“Scared?” Kate asked, a wry smile on her lips.

“A little.” I looked up at the looming branches, arched like gnarled fingers about to reach down and snatch me up. “Like you said, the woods are creepy.”

“They’re just trees,” she said. “They’re not going to come alive and attack us. Plus, I get the feeling that it’s not the trees that are evil. It’s something else. Something hidden in the woods.”

I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. “With our luck, the compass is pointing right to that ‘something,’” I said.

“We won’t know until we get there.”

With that, Kate turned around and led us towards wherever the compass was telling us to go next.

We trekked deeper into the woods, the tight feeling in my chest growing worse with every step. The further we got, the more the temperature dropped. The cold penetrated my bones, and I could barely feel my fingers or toes anymore.

“Are we almost there?” I asked Kate, stumbling on a twisted root. I caught myself and looked over my shoulder to see if anyone saw, my eyes instantly meeting Blake’s. He smiled, and I turned around to continue walking, my cheeks heating from embarrassment.

“The path is getting wider,” Kate called back. “Hopefully that’s a good thing.”

“Right,” I muttered. The cold was growing worse with each step, and I brought the ends of my sleeves together and held my hands inside of them, trying to get some feeling back into my fingers. I really needed to remember my gloves. I wished I were inside in front of a fire, sipping on hot chocolate like any normal person would be doing in the winter.

“I think this is it,” Kate said from ahead.

I hurried to join her in a circular clearing. Just like the rest of the forest, the grass was dead and pressed to the ground. But the break in the trees allowed the sun to shine through, and I looked up, smiling as the warmth caressed my cheeks.

“What is this place?” Blake asked from beside me. He shivered and brought out his lighter, flicking it on to form a hovering ball of fire.

I took my hands out of my sleeves and held them over the light. My fingertips stung as the warmth returned to them. “Thanks,” I said, pushing the pads of my fingers together to check if I could feel them. I could. “But you shouldn’t use up too much energy. Whatever we have to do next … well, I don’t know what it will be, but I have a feeling that we’re going to need to save up as much energy for it as we can.”

Danielle joined us, also warming her hands up above the flame. “Nicole’s right,” she said. “You shouldn’t use up too much energy.”

Blake moved his hands to his sides, and the fire disappeared. The change of light made my vision spotty. I blinked a few times until it was back to normal and turned my focus back to Kate. She was staring down at the compass with wide eyes, her jaw dropped open.

“What is it?” I rushed to her side and looked at the compass, gasping at what I saw.

The needle spun around so quickly that it blended into the gold background, looking like it could break or fly right off at any second.

Kate snapped the compass shut, looked at each of us, and said, “I guess we’ve reached our destination.”

“What now?” I asked, looking around the clearing again. It wasn’t a circle like I’d originally thought—it was more of a semi-circle, curving around two huge trees.

“I’m going to ask the trees what we need to do,” Kate resolved, marching over to the largest one.

“Did you just say ‘ask the trees?’” Danielle laughed, her upper lip curled in disbelief.

Kate placed a hand on the side of the tree, not bothering to answer Danielle’s question.

“Yep.” Chris nodded, his lips pressed together. “She’s ‘asking the trees.’ What
else
do you do when you’re in the middle of a forest with a crazy compass and no clue what to do next?”

Kate held her hand against the trunk, her eyes closed. She stood like that for about half a minute. Then she lifted her hand off the tree.

The ground grumbled, so loud that it could have been Hades trying to escape from the underworld. Then the tree roots shifted. They moved farther apart, revealing a boulder behind them. The branches reshaped, creaking as they twisted up and around each other, meeting at the top to form a huge archway.

“The trees just moved.” Chris drew back, his face pale. “They
moved
. Like they’re alive.”

“Trees
are
alive,” Danielle said slowly. “But yeah, they moved. And trees don’t do that.”

“These trees do.” I glanced at her and then back at where Kate stood, mesmerized, in front of the boulder.

“It looks like a door,” Blake said, taking a step forward. “I would say we should go through it, but we can’t walk through rock.”

“True.” I turned my attention back to Kate. “What did you mean that you were ‘talking to the trees?’”

“I touched them and I could communicate with them.” She shrugged. “In my head, of course. I can do that with all plants.” She nodded, like that explained everything, and turned to Blake. “You’re right—it’s a door. We’re supposed to walk through it.”

“But it leads to a rock,” he said again. “The ‘door’ doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Or it doesn’t
look
like it goes anywhere.”

Danielle laughed. “So we’re supposed to walk through the boulder?” she asked. “And it’s supposed to take us where? To a secret platform so we can board a magical train?”

I almost laughed as well, but then I saw Kate bite her lip like she was about to cry, and I stopped myself.

“If we go in there, we’ll be able to get out, right?” Chris asked. “We won’t get stuck on the other side?”

“There’s only one way to know,” Kate said. “Let’s test it out.”

Before any of us could stop her, she stepped into the rock, disappearing completely. Ripples spread across the granite, like when a stone is dropped into a pond.

I stared at the rock in disbelief. “Where did she go?” I asked. “Is she gone?”

“I don’t know,” Chris said. “Should one of us go in after her?”

We all continued staring at the boulder. No one volunteered.

“I can go,” Blake stepped up, his face hard with determination.

“No.” Danielle grabbed his hand, as if that would be enough to stop him. “Don’t try to pull that again. Earth is Kate’s element. She knows what she’s doing. If you go after her, you might hurt yourself. Again.”

“That’s a risk we’ll have to take.” He pulled his hand out of hers and crossed his arms. “We can’t just stand here doing nothing.”

“I should be the one to do it,” I said, wishing I could sound half as brave as Blake. “If Kate’s hurt, I can heal her.”

“You could …” Danielle stared at me, her finger on her chin, as if she was sizing me up.

“You can’t go alone.” Blake locked his gaze with mine. “We’ll both go.”

I stepped closer to him, trying to swallow down the panic surging through my veins.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured, placing his hands on my shoulders. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I promise.”

I nodded and took a deep breath. Blake would keep me safe. I had to trust him.

But what if whatever was waiting on the other side of that rock was too dangerous for either of us to handle?

Before I could think about it too much, Kate stepped back out, a huge smile on her face. “See?” she said, brushing a twig out of her hair. “The trees don’t lie.”

“Thank God you’re okay!” I exclaimed, running up to her and giving her a huge hug. “We had no idea where you’d gone. We were about to go in after you.”

“I’m fine,” she said with a small laugh. “Really. It’s no big deal.”

She did seem to be okay. Then I realized that I was about two feet away from the boulder, and I took a few steps back. The boulder probably couldn’t suck us in, but it didn’t hurt to be careful.

“I guess this means that if we go in, we can get back out,” Blake said, joining Kate next to the boulder. “Good to know.”

“But where does it lead?” Chris asked.

“I couldn’t tell.” Kate shrugged. “It was pitch black in there, but it smelled musty, like the Earth. Blake can use his fire power to light the way. But this is where we have to go next—I
know
it. So are you all coming or what?”

I stepped forward at the same time as Danielle. Kate made room for me between her and Blake, and Danielle stood on the other side of him. My fingers brushed against Blake’s when I squeezed into my spot. The contact caused a wave of heat to course through my body, but I stuffed my hand into the front pocket of my jacket, not wanting to let Blake distract me from what we were about to do.