The Blue Woods (8 page)

The great willow tree that marked the boundary between Willow Heights and Twin Willows loomed into view, its sweeping branches crystalline with tiny icicles. I veered around it, the blood pulsing in my head. There wasn't a day, an hour, a minute when I didn't miss my dad. Would it be better to have never known my dad, so I couldn't miss him? So I didn't have that constant pain in my heart where he should be? I soared right through the tree's branches, breaking icicles off in the wake of my beating wings. No. Cal should be pitied for never knowing his father. I was a better person for having known mine. But the other things—the mother who'd been honest with him from day one, the easy money they had to live on without having to struggle. A hot-white bolt of an emotion I didn't like shot through me. Stop it, I told myself. After all, I was the Guide. I had to rise above.

You know, you get a choice,
I said.
You can refuse the Call. So if you have any major life plans . . .

Well, I did get early admission to Yale, with a soccer scholarship,
Cal said.
But I'm going to defer.

What? Are you nuts?
If I'd gotten into an Ivy League school when Heath had come to me, I would've told him to take his Call and shove it.

Who cares about Yale?
Cal exclaimed, his enthusiasm bounding around my head like a toddler on sugar overload.
What the Benandanti do is infinitely more important than studying literature written by dead white men.

Twin Willows' shabby Main Street blurred beneath me. We passed Joe's, Mr. Salter's hardware store, and the high school, all quiet and dark. When he put it like that, the Benandanti's work was more important than anything school could teach, but it still would've been nice to have had the choice. A voice niggled inside me, reminding me that I'd
had
a choice. I wanted to argue with it, but I couldn't. I had made my choice, and I had to stand by it. And deep down I knew that if I could go back and do it all over again, I'd make the same choice.

So I guess I don't need to give you twenty-four hours to decide, huh?

Nope. I'm accepting right here and now.

Snowcapped roofs dotted the world below me. Cal's figure moved in and out of view like a shadow, backlit in cerulean light.
You need to be sure. You need to understand what you're giving up. Your life is going to change drastically. You'll have to lie to your friends. The Benandanti expect you to give up everything in service to them.

Oh, I know,
Cal said.
Yale was actually just a backup in case I didn't get Called. But I knew I would. It's fate.

Fate, destiny—those words kept chasing me, like a hunter I couldn't outrun.
Seriously?
I asked Cal.
Wouldn't you rather be in the safety of Yale's walls than out here, risking your neck for a future you'll never have?

I can go to Yale anytime,
Cal said.
This is what I need to do right now.

His certainty made me want to slap him. He had no clue what he was getting into, how his spirit would falter after weeks of no sleep and not even one small victory over the Malandanti, how his heart would break the first time he saw one of his fellow Benandanti fall.

I flew higher, closing my mind to him again. This boy, he would regret this someday.

The air sharpened around me. I circled above rooftops, my feathers knife-edged against the cold night wind. Maybe he wouldn't regret this. Maybe he was sure that this was all he was meant to do in life, that there wasn't anything else out there as important as this. Maybe he really
did
know.

Maybe I wasn't worried for him. Maybe I was jealous.

Which way now?

I didn't answer; I just veered to the left toward my farm. The farmhouse was gilded with moonlight. The weather vane spun as I flew past, its old familiar creak sending a streak of longing through me. I wished I could go home again. I missed my room, the well-worn living room couch, and Lidia's kitchen. Another twinge of longing stabbed me, and I realized what I really wanted was to go back—back to the time when this house was a refuge, when I could trust everyone in it.

Beyond the house, the gloomy ruins of the barn stood shadowed against the night.
Whoa,
Cal said.
What happened here?

This is my farm. The Malandanti burned down the barn. As a warning.

Crikey,
Cal said.
That sucks, Alessia. But we'll get them back, won't we?

Well, we had gotten them back—by retaking the Waterfall. And then they'd killed the Lynx. And then we'd destroyed the Guild. And then they'd tortured Bree and captured Nerina and reclaimed the Waterfall again. It was a never-ending cycle of destruction. I wanted to believe, like Cal did, that we would get them back, that we would end this, but it was just so hard to keep hope alive anymore.

We passed the empty hen trailers at the edge of the pasture; when we'd claimed the house had mold, we'd moved the hens to the same farm where we were boarding the goats. Cal sprang over the stone wall that marked the edge of the farm, and the gateway to Nerina's old lair, before the Malandanti had discovered it. Branches broke as he barreled through the forest beyond.
We're getting closer,
I told him.
I suppose you already know what this site is.

Actually, I don't. You guys keep that information really secret. I don't know what any of them do, just where they are.

Well, at least we'd kept one thing out of public knowledge. Like I was reciting a prayer, I listed the sites.
Twin Willows is the site of the Waterfall. One drink of the water will give you a vision of the future. But you cannot choose what you will see. And you may not like what you do see. The Redwood site contains the power of healing. The Congo site has the power to control minds. The Tibetan site is the source of all our power, the power to separate our souls from our bodies. The site in Pakistan has the power to manipulate time and space. The magic of Angel Falls can suck out a life force. And the power of Friuli, the Olive Grove, is the power that binds all these together. Immortality.

Finally! I've been dying to know all this for years!
Cal charged through brush and trees.
So what happens when you accidentally touch the water?

Slow down,
I told him as twigs snapped beneath his paws.
We're almost there.

Have you ever touched the water? What did you see?

The silvery bark of the birch trees shone in the darkness, and the rumble of the Waterfall echoed back to us.
I mean it, Cal—slow down—

Was it like a hallucination or was it like a dream that you had to decipher?

Slow down!
I screeched.

Too late. Cal's powerful body burst through the trees before he could stop himself. He skidded to a halt at the frozen bank of the stream above the Waterfall and missed colliding with the magical barrier by inches. At the pool down below, the Bobcat and the Boar looked up.

I dove in front of Cal.
Get back,
I ordered.

But—

I swiped one of my talons a breath away from his nose.
Do NOT question me! GET BACK!

He stumbled into the brush at the same moment that the Boar reached the top of the Waterfall. From the other side of the stream, Cora burst into view. She'd be in hiding, on patrol. In an instant, she was by my side. We dove, claws outstretched. The Boar feinted away from me, but Cora caught it on the other side. It squealed, blood pouring from its nose, and tripped backward. I clipped its flank with my beak, and it rounded on me, its long, pale tusks aimed right at my heart. I buffeted up out of its reach as Cora struck it again, this time at its neck.

Breathing hard, the Boar made one last attempt to gore us, but we were too fast for him. He knew better than to waste his energy trying to catch two winged creatures who could endlessly fly out of his reach with every attack. It stumbled back inside the barrier and joined the Bobcat at the bottom of the Waterfall. During the entire fight, the Bobcat hadn't moved at all, keeping the Malandanti's hold on the Waterfall secure by remaining inside the barrier.

Cora and I flew back into the birch trees and found Cal pacing back and forth.
I could've helped,
he said.

You're not trained,
Cora said.
You could've been hurt.

It was just one Malandante—

The only way we will regain the site is if we have a complete Clan,
I said.
We can't risk any threat to that. Until you are fully trained, you will stay out of battle and listen to everything I say.

Cora cocked her head at me.
I don't think your own Guide could've said it any better.

Pride and reluctance warred inside me. I still didn't think I was ready to be a Guide. But I couldn't go against the
Concilio
, and I had to trust that Nerina knew what she was doing. It was vital that our Clan be complete, and there was no way Nerina would allow me to be Cal's Guide just for kicks or just to teach me a lesson.
Are you going back on patrol?
I asked Cora.

No sense now that they know I'm here,
she said.
I'm going to head back to Jeff's.

See you back there.
Cal and I headed back into town while Cora swooped away toward Jenny's house.
So what happens now?
Cal asked.

Now we train. Every night.
I told him that the Sands house was our home base for now and why we were all staying there.
You should just plan to be there every day after school. There's a lot going on right now, with all the Clans.

When we got back to his house, Cal paced around his body for a minute. I remembered what Heath had told me, so long ago.
Think of something that ties you to your human form.

He stilled, and a moment later the Catamount disappeared. While Cal gulped down big breaths of air, I dissolved into my own body. I kept my eyes closed for a moment before I sat up, trying to calm the beating wings of the Falcon that still lived inside me. When I opened my eyes, Cal sat on the edge of the bed, his hand pressed to his heart.

“Are you okay?” I asked, getting to my feet.

“I think so. It's just a . . . new sensation.”

“Understatement of the year.” We stared at each other for a moment and then both started laughing.

“Guess so.” Cal grabbed a T-shirt from the floor and pulled it over his head. “Come on, I'll show you out.”

The edges of the sky were just beginning to lighten as Cal walked me to my truck. I breathed in the dawn and turned to him. “I think you'll be a good addition to the Clan, Cal.” I stuck out my hand for him to shake.

But instead of taking it, he pulled me into a tight hug. I buried my face in his shoulder for a second, breathing in the sleepy, spicy scent of him. He smelled different from Jonah. Softer. Not as complicated. I pushed him away.

“Thanks for being my Guide,” he said, his mouth widening into a smile.

“Oh. It wasn't really my choice.” His smiled faltered. I put my hands up. “Only because I didn't think I was ready. But, um, now I'm glad.”

“Good.” He shivered. “I'm gonna go in before I freeze to death. See you tomorrow,” he tossed over his shoulder as he jogged back to his house.

“Today,” I called after him. He waved to show he'd heard me. I climbed into the truck, started the engine, and turned the heat up to full blast.

A thin line of pink illuminated the horizon as I drove through Willow Heights back to my own town. Maybe I'd underestimated Nerina's cleverness. Because I couldn't help but think that she'd known about Cal, that he'd been Benandanti-obsessed since he was a kid, that he was the eager opposite to my reticence, and that he was the golden sun to the darkened moon that was Jonah. I turned the truck onto Willowbrook Lane. Oh, yeah. She'd known exactly what she was doing when she paired me with Cal.

Like Daughter, Like Mother . . . Finally

Bree

The problem with being beaten within an inch of your life was that it took a really long time to recover. I wanted to punch the movie producers that showed ordinary guys running around like heroes the day after getting pummeled. It was so not realistic.

I lay on the air mattress, cataloging all the things I should have been doing instead of staring at the ceiling: Finding Jonah. Researching another way to get him out of the Malandanti. Spying on my dad to see if I could figure out the Guild's next move. Finding Jonah, finding Jonah, finding Jonah.

Instead, all I could do was watch the shadows move across the walls. I tried to roll over, but every muscle screamed, every bone creaked.

“Hey, Bree. You asleep?”

I turned just my head to the bottom bunk where Jenny lay on her side, watching me. “I wish.”

Jenny sighed. “I'm worried about Alessia.”

I lifted my gaze to the empty top bunk. She'd gone out to find our new Clan member. Even if she hadn't told me where she was going, I could still sense it deep down, that another Benandante had been Called. Ever since the spell we'd performed at the Waterfall, the one that had brought down the Guild, my mind felt even more attuned to the Clan. Like somehow that spell had woven me deeper into the fabric of the Benandanti. I only wish it attuned me closer to Jonah. I had never felt so far away from him before, and it was making me crazy.

“I'm sure she's fine,” I said, pulling my focus back to Jenny. “It's not like they're going into battle or anything.”