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“I thought you were taking me to a new school,” I protested.
“I am,” Artie said. He was panting slightly and I took the bag from his shoulders. He let it go gratefully.
“There isn’t a school out here,” I said and pulled the bag over my head and settled it against my hip.
We were fairly deep in the forest and a few miles outside town. The trees were close around us and though I knew that the sun was shining above our heads, the coverage from the branches was so thick it could have been late afternoon underneath the foliage.
“This is your school. This forest. Everything you need you will find out here,” Artie said.
“I didn’t know you were a hippie.”
Artie laughed.
I smiled. I couldn’t help myself. I liked this kid. He seemed genuine and pure in a way that so few people were.
“So think of it this way,” Artie said and drew a large circle in the air. Following his fingertips, a red circle appeared.
“What-” I squeaked.
“There are a bunch of different species in this town. For simplicity’s sake, we will stick with us and wolves, okay?” Artie asked.
I stared at the circle between us, watched it spin and nodded.
“The wolves of this land have guarded the Lock for thousands of years. Our magic springs from the center of it,” Artie said and waved his open palm underneath the center of the circle.
A pond appeared. I watched a small fish leap up and dive back in.
Artie drew lines from the pond to the circle and back again and then repeated the gesture over and over. He picked points and smaller versions of his siblings, Dante, and I appeared.
“The magic flows into us and back again to the center. With you and Dante, the conduits from the spring-” Artie tapped the lines that drew Dante and I to the pond, “-are slightly larger than we have ever seen before.”
“So we have more... stuff?”
Artie grinned. “Exactly. More stuff.”
“And Dante can do this too?”
Artie waved his hand through the circle and the reds and blues of his imagery faded back into his palm. His expression went from thoughtful to something more urgent. He pushed his glasses back up on his nose and jerked his head to the side, deeper into the woods.
“I guess it’s more complicated than just having more stuff. What you and Dante are hasn’t been seen in a long time,” Artie said and turned his back to me and continued walking into the forest.
“What Dante and I are...? What are we?” I asked, hurrying to catch up to him.
“I should have explained this better. It’s hard when you grow up with it, you know? You kind of always know stuff,” Artie said.
He was following a path that only he could see.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something twinkling, despite the lack of light. I turned, opened my mouth to let Artie know.
“Don’t,” Artie whispered.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at them.”
My confusion was mounting.
“We’re almost there. Hurry, please.”
I didn’t protest. The twinkles were gathering and darting into my field of vision. There were clicks and they sounded hungry.
I kept my eyes on Artie’s back and when he offered me his hand, I took it, happily. I could feel something rolling off of him and it wasn’t an emotion. It wasn’t tension or even worry. It was thicker than that and I felt like I could touch it, like I could wrap myself in it, like it was a physical representation of comfort.
“Here it is,” Artie said and he stepped into a circle of small black river rocks. He pulled me into it as well and then dropped my hand.
I kept my eyes on the ground even though I could see that whatever was clicking at us was gathering in number.
“We’re safe. You can look,” Artie said.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. You’re going to have to get used to it anyway. Anything or anyone that lives in the forest is going to be fascinated by you,” Artie said.
I raised my head and stared at the creatures that were staring up at me. They were less than a foot tall and they had arms and legs like a human, same with eyes and ears and head, but beyond that, my mind pulled a blank.
One stepped forward, as close as possible to the black circle of stones we were occupying, and stared up at me. She had mossy colored hair and leaves placed strategically over her body and her eyes were black with no discernible sclera. Her skin was a pale green and she carried a small spear in one hand.
She clicked.
I jumped back.
“What- what are they?” I gasped and looked around.
There were hundreds now.
“Duende. Friendly spirits that live and occupy the forest. They keep it neat and clean but don’t piss them off. The way they kill a person is particularly awful. But it does feed the whole clan for a month,” Artie said.
I turned to him, mouth agape, tried to form a question, but I only watched as he stepped backward out of the stones and the duende descend upon him. That comforting blanket-feeling fled as soon as he left the circle.
“Artie!” I screamed. I tried to go after him but ran into a wall.
I was trapped in that circle of stones.
“Dude, relax. They know me. They used to babysit me. And you are safe in there,” Artie said.
“Why did you tell me not to look at them? Why did you make them seem scary?” I demanded.
“Because if they don’t know you, they can be dangerous,” Artie said and sat down. I watched one of the women of the clan climb up onto his shoulder and begin to braid his hair out of his face. She chittered at him and it sounded like she was scolding him.
“And the amount of magic that is coming off of you is suffocating. You are going to blow a gasket any minute now,” he added calmly.
Is that what that was? I could feel it clawing at my throat, scratching behind my eyes. It whispered in my head over and over words that I couldn't understand in a language I was pretty sure hadn't been spoken in a millennium. There was a weight on my chest that made it so much work to breathe.
“They can feel it coming off of you. And if they were anything but exactly what they are, I would order them to leave, for their own safety,” Artie said.
“Why?” I gasped and fell to my knees. Consciousness was no longer a sure thing.
“Let go, Lou. You have to let go before you can learn anything else,” Artie encouraged.
I hated him. He was comfortable, living in this magic, while I was choking on it.
“That’s why I brought you out here. You won’t hurt me. You could never. The forest will protect the duende. You can be exactly who you are here,” Artie said.
My hands were sinking into the black soil of the earth beneath me. It was swallowing me alive. When I looked over to Artie for help, he only stared back at me, serene and calm.
“Let go,” he whispered.
So I did.