Wild Magic (8 page)

Finn sat on the grass, his back resting against a wagon wheel. He looked at the moon again. It was clear of the treetops, heading for the highest point in the heavens. He started to chew a thumbnail. The night was so quiet, he could hear his own heart. His own breathing.

With the beat of a wing, Flyte flew from the wagon to a nearby oak. He settled. Tidied a stray feather. Watched Finn with dark eyes.

“Soon?”

Finn had asked the question but the hawk didn't reply. He knew Finn was really talking to himself.

“How will it be, Flyte? Fast? Slow? Will there . . . be pain?”

Finn's breath was coming faster now. Fast and shallow. He glanced at the moon. It hadn't moved since he last looked.

In the glade, nothing stirred. No sounds disturbed the silence. No wind in the trees. No owls in flight. Nothing.

Then a rustle and—
shooo!—
Flyte launched himself into the darkness
.
Seconds later he was back on his branch, ripping at the dead mouse in his talons.

Finn shook his head. While he waited for the most terrifying moment of his life, his companion was thinking only of supper. But that was how animals behaved, wasn't it? They hungered, killed, and devoured. No thought. No guilt.

Soon he would understand that.

Time passed. The moon rose higher. Finn watched it and remembered the hunt. Remembered following the silver stag as it flashed between the trees like a moon through clouds.

“Why did I follow?” he asked himself for the umpteenth time. “What spirit possessed me? Perlal, Fennon, the others—they all tried to warn me. Why didn't I listen? I can think of only one reason: my human blood. My mother's blood, hot and thick in my veins. What else could it be? The others respected the law. I alone rode into that forbidden place.

“I was enchanted—I'm sure of that now. The forest worked its mysterious magic and I couldn't resist. No, that's not true. The
human
part of me couldn't resist. Instead, it spurred Aspen on.

“Oh, how I wish I could turn back time! I would follow my friends and feast in the castle. The stag would run free to this day. And I would not be burdened with such a curse.”

Finn paused for breath and, as he did, he became aware of a smell. A strange, sweet smell that turned foul on the tongue. The smell of decay.

He unlaced his leggings and pulled them from under him. The wound was festering. The flesh was rotting on the bone.

“Oh!” Finn felt faint just looking. His breath started to come in gasps. The smell was getting stronger. It seemed to be oozing from his skin. All over his body. Such a stink.

He looked at the moon. It had reached the zenith: the highest point on its journey. It would go no higher tonight.

“No,” moaned Finn. “No. Not now. Not here. I never meant it to happen. Please. Anything I can do. Anything you want from me but this. Not this—
ah!
”

No more words. Finn was thrown forward onto the ground as the first pain hit him. It ripped through his body, like a hand had reached down through his mouth, gripped his guts and pulled them right out. He writhed on the forest floor. His body was itching all over. He wanted to scratch.
Had
to scratch. He looked down at his bare legs and saw the fur. It was pushing through his skin, thick and wiry. Red as rust.

Finn tried to cry out but his tongue wouldn't let him. There was nothing but a snarl, caught somewhere at the back of his throat. He shook his head, trying to shake it loose, and it came out as a growl—so unexpected, so loud, he terrified himself. Fear: that was all he knew now. Fear and pain, fighting inside him like wild dogs. His body was a battleground, elf versus Beast, and the Beast was winning.

Finn's body was pummeled and punched, stretched and snapped. Every muscle, every fiber, every bone of his body was realigned. Fats and fluids were squeezed from old spaces and oozed into new ones. Finn could see nothing but red mist; hear nothing but white noise. He was lost, trapped in a whirlwind of transformation. And the strangest thought flashed through his brain:
Don't attack me now. I cannot protect
myself.
In a few minutes, he would be the most powerful creature in the land. But until then, he was no safer than a mouse.

And just when Finn thought things couldn't get any worse—they did. The mist before his eyes started to clear, his long limbs settled, he regained his balance—but he felt his consciousness slipping away. The Beast was taking control. Finn felt like he was scrabbling up an oily slope, toes and fingers clawing, desperately trying to hold on . . . but all the while he was sliding backward, down, down, down into a black pit of nothing.

No!
he cried.
No!
But it was only in his head. Nothing came from his throat but a fiendish growl.

Wild with panic, he looked around, his golden eyes showing him the forest as he had never seen it before: bright, sharp, exposed. And then his great muzzle lifted itself toward the moon, his throat opened and he howled: a bone-chilling, spine-numbing bestial moan of a howl. His wet black nose drew in a huge lungful of air and filtered it for the scent it was seeking. Blood. Finn gave a final silent sob, let go, and slid down into the darkness.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

Cold. Wet. Bright.

Finn didn't dare open his eyes. Where was he? What was he?

He summoned his other senses. He was lying on grass: he could feel it prickling his naked body. The wetness was dew. The brightness was sunshine. A blackbird was singing. Morning had come. It was over.

He opened his eyes and saw the wagon.

“No,” he said, in confusion. “I wasn't dreaming. It
did
happen.” He tried to sit up, but his body ached so much, he couldn't manage it. Finally, he rolled over onto his belly and pushed himself up. He looked around. There were animal tracks beside him. There was blood too, though it wasn't his own. The wound had healed. Nothing remained except the silver scar. So where had the blood come from?

He pulled himself to his feet, using the wagon as support.
Oh!
It was no dream. His legs had surely been running all night.

He scanned the glade, noted a cloud of flies, and stumbled toward it. There he found what he was looking for. A dead deer, half eaten, lay in the long grass beneath the trees. Finn could taste blood on his breath: a stale, rusty tang. He ran his tongue around his teeth. Something was caught there. He pulled it out. Deer fur.

Finn sighed and rubbed his face with tired hands.
Water
. That's what he needed. He needed to be clean. Needed to wash away the stink and the shame.

There was a stream beyond the trees. Finn scrubbed his skin and washed his hair. Cleaned the dirt and blood from under his fingernails. Picked every shred of meat from his teeth and chewed wild peppermint to sweeten his breath. Then he returned to the wagon, dressed himself in fresh clothes, pulled out his cooking pot, and set about making a civilized breakfast.

“So,” he said to himself, “that's how it's going to be. Well, at least I had fair warning. And I had the sense to return here. That's good.”

He picked up his torn clothes and threw them on the fire, making a mental note to strip next time, as soon as the change began. Then he remembered the horses.

“Aspen!” he called. “Gray!”

There was no reply. Finn started to panic. What if he had attacked more than the deer last night?

“ASPEN! ”

An answering whinny came from between the trees. Finn felt a wave of relief wash over him and, when the horses reappeared, he actually had tears in his eyes. He was so pleased to see them unharmed.

Soon breakfast was ready. Finn sat in a pool of morning sunshine with a bowl of porridge in his hands and a mug of mint tea by his side. He watched the horses contentedly grazing on the lush grass, and Flyte preening his feathers on top of the wagon.
How
perfect is this?
he thought.
If a traveler came by and saw
us now, he would never guess how different things were last
night! He would see only the sunshine and the peace.

And in that moment, Finn decided he would try to be like that imaginary traveler. He would see the sunshine, not the shadows. He would forget the panic and savor the peace. And he would try not to think about his other self—the Beast that would drag him back into the darkness in one month's time.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

And so Finn began a new life. After several weeks' wandering through Elvendale, he found a home: the caves set high on the side of Hamelin Hill. But he didn't stay there permanently. He journeyed far into the world of mortal men, listening for any rumor of rats. And there were plenty. With hope in his heart, he would travel to yet another rat-infested town—and every time he would be disappointed.

There would always be a simple explanation for
the increase in rats. An especially good harvest. A particularly bad winter. Sometimes it was the sheer filth of the town. People were packed into tiny houses. Houses were crammed into narrow streets. Streets were squashed onto islands, hemmed in by town walls and rivers. Back lanes were narrow, sunless, and slippery, full of whatever rubbish the townsfolk had thrown out. Rotting vegetables, night soil, dead animals . . . It was rat heaven. They would feast and breed till there were so many of them there was almost a plague.

Almost
a plague. But not quite.

Again and again, Finn walked through unfamiliar streets, his heart tight with disappointment because he could count the rats. If it really were a plague, he wouldn't be able to do that. There would be too many. He would trip over them in the street. Find them on his chair, in his bed, on the table, stealing from his supper bowl.

Finn would stay a single night and move on. Sometimes he would travel to another town. Sometimes he would return to Elvendale, entering through one of the ancient doors in Hamelin Hill. Aspen would always be there to greet him, though Flyte was often away, traveling through the mortal world, hunting rumors.

But wherever Finn journeyed, the Beast went with him: a memory, a shadow, a shape that waited to become solid. Every month the wound would weep. Every month the Beast would come, and blood would be spilled beneath the full moon.

Time passed. A hundred years . . . two hundred . . . two hundred and fifty . . . and still the curse held. Finn was finally giving up hope. He started to believe he would be doomed forever; he was convinced the stag had lied to him. Its promise of a special child had been nothing but a trick. A final twist in the tale.

And then, one bright summer's day, hope returned, falling from the sky on fire-gold wings.

Finn was at home, standing on the cave ledge, gazing toward the Whispering Forest and lost in the darkest of thoughts when Flyte arrived.

The hawk dropped through the cloud veil in a hunting dive—wings pinned back, eyes on target— and landed heavily on his master's shoulder.

Finn staggered backward, regained his footing, and laughed out loud. “Flyte!” he cried. “Would you bowl me over the edge? Take care, my friend, I beg you!”

The hawk shook itself and coughed. “I have seen them.”

Finn was instantly alert. There was something about the bird's energy that struck him as unusual. Flyte wasn't an excitable creature. “Rats?”

The hawk nodded. “Thousands of them.”

Finn felt the breath leave his body. After so long, when he'd thought all hope was gone! He tried to stay calm—but could feel himself getting excited, like a boy at a feast.

“Thousands? Where?”

“Close,” said Flyte. “So close!”

Finn held up his hand. The hawk obligingly climbed onto it and Finn brought it before his face. “
Where
?”

“Hamelin!” said Flyte, dancing up and down like a parrot. “Hamelin Town!”