Chapter Nine

“Holy shit!” I twisted and jerked, falling off the narrow twin bed with a thump, twisted in the covers. Meanwhile, the fox leaped gracefully to the floor.

I clapped my hand over my mouth, listening for any sounds of movement downstairs from Izzie or Gran. Nothing. Apparently they hadn’t heard me. Hopefully they were still sleeping.

The fox lazily blinked eyes that were dark emerald green, similar to the human version of Alder, and slanted, vixen-like, same as Mom’s and mine.

But its body was see-through.

It was a spirit. A large spirit fox had been sleeping on top of me.

“It’s about time you woke up.”

Luckily my hands were still over my mouth, because I let out another scream—this one muffled.

The words had come from the fox. Its translucent body had glowed brighter as it tilted its head in the way that animals do.

It talked.

The fox arched its back like a cat and stretched. Then it yawned, its long pink tongue rolling out to reveal glistening white fangs.

“Calm down, Briony. Weren’t you expecting me?”

Once again, the voice clearly came from the fox, but his mouth hadn’t moved. Of course, I wasn’t sure if that would make the experience any less creepy.

I tried to focus on what he had said. I was expecting… “Oh! You’re the emissary.”

“Well done. How clever of you.”

Great, he’d been blessed with sarcasm. “Excuse me for freaking out when I find a nature spirit using me for a bed,” I grumbled, ripping off my cocoon of covers, and then stood. “So you’re here to show me how to open the spirit gates?”

The fox looped around me and headed for the attic door, his little spirit paws not making a sound as he padded across the rug. “Yes, so let’s get started.”

I darted to cover the door to prevent the fox from going downstairs and scaring my grandmother into cardiac arrest. “Whoa, slow down there, Mr. Fox. I need to put on actual clothes first. I’ll meet you outside.”

The fox huffed and shook his head. “Humans are such a bother. Hurry up. We don’t have much time before the solstice.”

I was about to ask him just how long opening these gates would take, when he vanished entirely. His body had grown more and more translucent until it was gone altogether.

Now alone in my attic bedroom, I rushed around, breathless, throwing on clothes and sneakers. I could hardly believe this was happening. Yesterday when I’d said I was going to open the gates, it already seemed like it had been a dream. But it hadn’t. Now I had a see-through fox telling me to hurry my ass up so we could get moving.

As I was creeping down the steps, trying not to make a noise that would wake up Izzie or Gran, I thought about Alder and his offer to help me.

As immensely curious as I was about him, his warnings weighed on me heavily. He said he wanted me to leave this valley. Who’s to say he wouldn’t try to thwart me somehow? If this fox showed me where to go, I could skip out on my meeting with Alder at my old house. I’d never said I’d meet him there anyway. He’d just told me to and assumed I would.

After scribbling a quick note to Izzie that I was going back to my old house, I grabbed her keys and headed out the door, wincing at the slow creak of the screen door as it closed.

I absolutely hated dodging and sneaking around my best friend, and I knew that this couldn’t be my solution forever, but as this fox had reminded me, I had so little time. The summer solstice was less than a week away and no one had yet shared how far these gates were away or how difficult they would be to open.

The idea of leaving Izzie disappointed and hurt made my gut twist, so I promised myself that I would tell her as soon as I saw her again. So what if she looked at me like I was crazy? I had to take that chance. She was the closest friend I had, like a sister even.

Moving through Gran’s garden toward Izzie’s car, I scanned the rhododendrons and black-eyed Susans and the rest of her overgrown weeds and flowers, looking for my new orange, green-eyed friend. “Psst. Mr. Fox? Where are you?” I hissed.

After moving around the garden for far too long looking for him, I stomped over to the car and yanked the door open. Maybe I would have to rely on Alder after all.

Scratch that.

The fox was in the passenger seat.

“Son of a—” I gasped, jumping back and banging my hip against the open door. “You must stop that.”

“Stop what?”

I slid into the car, buckling my seat belt. “Forget it, just tell me where to go. Is there some magical rainbow highway that will take us to the spirit world?”

“Just go north. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

North. As if everyone knew where north was. But even if there hadn’t been a compass on Izzie’s dashboard, I actually would’ve known. The sunrise was telling, how the sun was still working its way over the eastern mountain ridge to my left, but I could also just feel it. I didn’t know how.

I shifted the car in reverse, did a three-point turn, and then started down the long gravel driveway, taking a left onto the highway.

As we drove, the fox was silent and immobile. His green eyes were set on the moving forest, and his translucent body would sometimes get lost in a passing shadow.

Unnerved, I decided I had to talk to him. If he wasn’t going to offer any information, I needed to ask as much as I could. “So my mom called you an emissary. What does that mean exactly?”

“I’m your link to the spirit world. I’ll guide you on finding the gates and opening them.”

“You mean like a spirit guide?”

The fox huffed out a breath through his nose, fogging up the window glass. “Well, I am a spirit, and I am your guide, but I wouldn’t use that term. Putting aside that it can mean different things to different human cultures, it implies that I care about your spiritual well-being and the path your life is taking… I don’t.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I’m here to ensure you open the gates. What happens afterward for you is not my concern.”

Well, at least he was honest about it. “Okay, do you at least have a name that I can call you?”

The fox turned away from the window to face me. “I have many names, as do most spirits, but you may call me Raysh. As for what I am, I am a projection of a spirit from the ethereal plane. My true body cannot exist in the physical plane.”

Hence the see-through factor.

“But Alder can walk in the physical plane and he’s a spirit,” I said. In fact, I recalled Alder had mentioned that he was the only spirit, apart from the wisps, that could walk in the physical plane. “So like…what’s his deal?” I asked, “How can he be here but other spirits can’t?”

Raysh’s tail swished and his eyes narrowed, as if the mention of Alder was irritating.

“That boy is an anchor to the planes of existence. Think of them as three leaves fluttering in the wind. Alone, they twist and twirl midair, apart from each other. But when on a branch, they are connected, and a bug can travel from one leaf to another. Alder is that branch.”

“Okay, he’s a branch. Sure.” Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, I rubbed my temple, where a headache began to form. “So what’s in it for you? Why did you agree to be my emissary?”

Raysh looked back out the window. “I’m almost as old as time itself. You cannot imagine the monotony of seeing the same things day after day. Being an emissary allows me to see a new world.” His voice felt heavier somehow, laced with longing.

Sensing that was a delicate topic, I moved past it. “Can you tell me more about how these gates work? For example, how am I supposed to unlock one?”

“Each gate is attached to an element of the physical world. The elements are the building blocks of the physical world, but they cannot exist without mana. So the gates are essentially pools of mana that make up the elements in the physical world. They serve as pillars to the astral realm.”

“So how will opening them allow Mom to come home?”

“Unlocking the gates merely allows the mana to flow freely. Humans can then pass through the barriers that would have otherwise been blocked off to them.”

“But how did she get there in the first place?” I asked. “Did she go there on purpose? Did she leave and then just accidentally fall down a rabbit hole?”

“Rabbit holes would be too big for humans.”

Why would I have thought a spirit fox would get that reference? “No, I just meant, did she actually stumble upon it through some weird portal?”

“You’d have to ask your mother. Stop here and turn.”

Almost slamming on my brakes, I just barely managed to swerve down a side road. Hummingbird Road.

Chills danced across my arms as I thought of Alder waiting for me there. “Hold up. Why are we going to my old house?”

“We need the human spirit to assist you in opening the gates.”

More chills. “You mean Alder. Why?”

Raysh’s lips rippled back, baring his white teeth. “I don’t like it, either, girl, but we need him. He is a product of all three worlds, and since the gates are as well, they require his touch.”

“So you’re saying I can’t open the gates without his help?”

“Yes.”

“But Mom said only I could unlock the gates.”

“Yes.”

Finally, I stopped the car entirely to turn and stare at the fox in my front seat. “Both of us have to?”

“Yes.”

I leaned back, trying to process this new information. I had to work with him to open the gates. Had to. There was no way this would go well. For one thing, Alder hadn’t been too thrilled about this whole quest. It seemed like the only reason he was coming was because he wanted to make sure I didn’t get myself lost or eaten by some spirit. For another, I didn’t even trust my classmate to write half of our science report, how the hell was I going to trust a tight-lipped, ethereal nature boy who kept telling me to get lost to do something he didn’t even want to do in the first place?

“Where the hell is my house?” I exploded, slapping my palms on the dashboard. I couldn’t explain it. I’d been here just yesterday. I was already at the end of the road and I didn’t see a single gravel path to turn down.

Raysh stood on his hind legs, placing his paws on the window. “We don’t need the house. Just him.”

I looked to the right and, sure enough, Alder stood off the side of the road, under the shade of a large tulip tree, leaning against the trunk.

As I parked Izzie’s CRV on the shoulder, I could see that he had reverted back to his more human-looking self. Gone were silver and gold, replaced with blond hair and eyes the color of the leaves he stood under.

While I had been grilling Raysh, I had gone up and down the street twice, and the burned house was nowhere in sight. Had the bulldozers come early? Was my house already leveled, its rubble transported away? That fast?

But then my gaze caught on a strip of white gravel running along the side of the road not far from where we were standing. The beginnings of a driveway. The only problem, of course, was that there was no driveway, just an entire wall of thick trees.

Had he…? How…?

Alder watched me carefully, clearly waiting for my reaction while I put two and two together. I opened my mouth and then closed it, pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth to prevent myself from saying anything I would regret.

The truth was I wasn’t sure what to say or how to feel. I didn’t need to see it myself to know Alder had somehow caused an entire copse of trees to grow overnight. Obviously a nature spirit would be able to make plants grow, but a miniature forest? That was impressive. His trees now shielded my house from view—all to keep the bulldozers from finding it and tearing it down.

At least, that felt like the only plausible explanation.

Alder’s eyes narrowed at the fox sitting by my ankles. “The emissary, I take it?”

I glanced down at Raysh, who didn’t seem thrilled to meet Alder either. Did spirits get along? “Um, yeah, this is Raysh. He said he can show us where the gates are.”

Alder tore his gaze away from the fox to look at me, his brows lifting. “Us? So you do want me to come along?”

My stomach flipped. “Well, apparently, I need your help to be able to open them.”

Alder tilted his head, his brow furrowing. “How’s that?”

“Good question,” I muttered.

Like Alder had said last night, he really didn’t know much about the gates, including, apparently, the fact that I needed his help to unlock them in the first place. He’d offered his help last night purely on an I don’t want you to do this alone mentality.

Nice of him, but unnecessary. I’d rather trust myself to do something than trust a total stranger.

Only now it looked like I was forced to work with not one, but two strangers.

I turned to the fox. “You want to walk us through how this is supposed to work, O furry one?”

“A gate can only be opened by bringing its key into the physical world.”

I folded my arms. This endeavor seemed to get more daunting by the minute. “No one mentioned a key.”

Raysh shot me an annoyed look. “All gates have keys. Unfortunately, the key cannot be stolen by a spirit.”

“Why not?”

“The guardians that hold the keys are powerful, ancient beings. Stealing from one of them is taboo for a spirit, and besides, we are bound to the elements they control. So only you can get the key, Briony.”

I folded my arms. “Then why do I need Alder?”

“Bringing the key to the physical world is only part of the process of unlocking the gate. It must also be combined with the mana of its element. Alder is the only one able to infuse the key with enough mana to unlock the gate.”

I imagined opening an old treasure chest under a giant tree, and then a little victory tune went off as I pulled out an old-fashioned brass key and held it up over my head—like in one of those old video games that Izzie’s older brother played. It was what had come to mind, but truthfully, I didn’t know what to expect. I glanced at Alder to gauge his reaction.

He was already staring at me with an unreadable expression. “You need me to help you, but you don’t want me to.”

My cheeks burned for some reason, because it wasn’t that I didn’t… My history with Alder had to be the definition of complicated. That feeling that I kept having whenever he’d touch my arm or hand, or even being in the same presence as me? It wasn’t just nostalgia. It was loss. I’d lost something very dear when I’d forgotten this boy in front of me.

And I wasn’t quite ready to face it.

Hugging my arms, I muttered, “What do you expect? I don’t remember you and you haven’t exactly been helpful. All of yesterday you told me to get lost.”

“That’s only because I don’t want to see you hurt again.”

The void in my chest gave another groan of pain. I took a breath. “Well, this might be the one chance I have to actually… heal. Living with over half my life missing hasn’t exactly been easy.”

Silence followed my confession, and he stared down at me. I could only return his intense look with one of my own.

“Might I remind you both we have a gate to open? Or shall the two of you just keep gazing at each other?” Raysh’s voice floated up as he licked his paw nonchalantly.

Both of us flinched and looked away. My cheeks were hot, and Alder’s neck was red. Dumb fox.

Clearing his throat, Alder stepped through the tree line and was swallowed by the shadows of the thick canopy of leaves above. “Then let’s get going.”

…

Twenty minutes of walking later, we came to a grove of yellow birch trees. I could almost picture this place in the fall months when the trees would be a golden yellow. Leaves would shiver in the autumn wind, one gust away from floating to the forest floor, but right now, they were a soft lime-green and shaped like teardrops with strong veins running horizontally across.

Raysh stopped in the middle of the grove, sitting down and swishing his wispy tail right through the grass. “Here is good.”

I looked around, trying to find some mystical gate. For whatever reason, I almost expected a gate made of clouds. “Good for what? Is the first gate invisible or something?”

“The gate is in the ethereal plane,” Alder explained. “Although, I don’t know where exactly. Luckily, the fox does.” If I wasn’t mistaken, I could trace a small amount of bitterness there.

“There are many things you don’t know,” Raysh huffed. “Spirit though you might be, you have the heart of a human. And because of that, you will never be one of us.”

Alder said nothing in reply to the odd comment, but I noticed the brief look of pain cross his face, and I found myself wondering what that had meant. He could look like a human, sure, but what parts of him specifically were spirit?

“Whatever. Let’s just cross over,” Alder said, his tone short with irritation. He paused then held his hand out to me. “You’ll need to hang on.”

I stared at his hand, remembering what I’d felt the last time I held it. The Smokies coursing through me like oxygen in my bloodstream. The effect had been addicting and intoxicating—thrilling. I hadn’t wanted to let go of him.

It had also been slightly terrifying. Too intense.

My gaze drifted to the friendship bracelet around his wrist.

I’d trusted him once. Enough to go into the world with him when I’d been a little kid. I had to do it again.

I reached for his hand and, like a magnet, I latched onto him. His fingers laced with mine.

The autumn chill going through me. The smell of flowering mountain laurel and dogwood in my nose. A warm fluttering in my stomach.

Before I could place the last sensation, Alder moved forward and I followed, my feet clumsy and heavy with awareness of my own physical body. It had never felt like a burden before, but it did now. I was like a weight falling to the bottom of a pool.

I was about to open my mouth to ask Alder to slow down, when I felt the slipstream encase us once more. Wind rippled around me, like I was breaking through something—a net or a web—made of a substance lighter than air. Mist curled around our calves, reaching our hips, blowing up into my hair and painting my skin with the energy. It made my body buzz and my pulse race. It felt so alive.

It whirled and curled around my limbs, and Alder tightened his hold on my hand.

Then all of a sudden, he stopped—so quick and so fast that I fell against him. His arm curled around my shoulders and steadied me against his chest. His heart thudded under my ear and Raysh’s words came to mind: you have the heart of a human.

Pushing the thought aside, I stepped forward, away from Alder’s chest.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I answered, blinking against the bright glow of the surrounding trees. Immediately I recognized that they were the same birch trees as the grove we’d been standing in a half minute before, but instead of green, they were now yellow. The color of their name.

The entire grove glowed gold, the mana pulsing gently around tree bark and leaves.

“They changed,” I breathed, watching as a mustard-yellow leaf trembled and fluttered to the ground.

“In the ethereal plane, the trees take on their best form. For the yellow birch, it’s in the autumn, where the leaves stop photosynthesis and rest, and the trees can finally relax.”

Instead of staring at the forest around us, I took in Alder’s appearance. He was back to being shades of copper, gold, and silver. His spirit form.

“Is that what happens with you?”

He glanced down at me, raising an eyebrow. “What?”

I gestured to his silvery-white hair. “Is this your best form?”

That earned me a tiny smile as he shook his head. “It’s my true form. I hide it during the day in case humans see me.”

“Can you not control it at night?” I asked, thinking of the moment by the lakeshore when he had transformed before me as the sun went down.

“I could, but it already takes a lot of concentration to hide the wisps.”

I drew in a sharp breath, realization hitting me. “That’s why they’re disguised as fireflies—you hide them.”

Alder nodded. “The wisps can easily be seen at night—so I hide them as fireflies. But in the daytime, it’s me who needs to be hidden.”

“This way,” Raysh said, trotting up the path, not bothering to wait for us.

“Stick close. Do not wander and…try not to touch anything,” Alder instructed as we wove our way through the gold trees. Their mana brushed against my skin, and I could taste their fresh winter mint scent and feel the sun on their leaves. My whole body grew warm with it.

From the grove emerged a path that curved this way and that, serpentining upward at a slight incline. Growth was absolutely everywhere, making the forest much darker than the yellow grove of birches. The trees seemed to get larger with each step I took, and as I peered farther into the woods, I could’ve sworn they were so thick and large that they felt closer to the size of California redwoods, rather than the slimmer sugar maple trees I knew them to be. Their unique leaf shape of five points, smaller than the normal Canadian maple leaf, was familiar to me, even though I knew I’d never really come across any sugar maples in Knoxville.

It was then I realized why I was able to identify plants with just a glance. Maybe having the astral energy of a nature spirit made you a botanist without the fancy PhD. Go figure.

Or maybe Alder had just taught them all to me and I’d retained them somehow.

Either way, I was able to tell when the scenery became…unnatural.

For the most part, the changes of the forest within the ethereal plane were subtle, besides the obvious increase in size. The moss climbing the trees wasn’t just green, but a rich aquamarine, a full-color spectrum from lime to violet. The flowers themselves were illuminated, glowing with a mystical aura.

We passed bishop’s cap, tiny white flowers that grew up long green stems. They shined so bright white that it was like walking through a forest of Christmas lights. Several times I had to force my feet forward when all I wanted to do was stand and gawk at the resplendent world around me. More colorful flowers, like fire pinks, purple phacelias, and blue phloxes decorated the trail that Alder led us down. The colors were more saturated, more vibrant than what should’ve been real.

I ached to touch one. To bend down and smell their petals and feel their mana. Surely each one was unique and special in their own right.

As if Alder sensed my temptation, he kept glancing back at me.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Okay, why can’t I touch anything?”

“Because you’re a human.”

“So?”

“You don’t belong here.”

“Raysh.” Alder glared at the fox then gave me a sheepish glance. “There are parts of this world that could harm you.”

I glanced at the glowing flowers and sugar maple leaves surrounded by the soft green mist. They certainly didn’t look threatening.

“Flowers are dangerous?”

“Let’s just say you shouldn’t risk it.”

“Huh. That’s comforting.”

He chuckled. “Hey, you asked.” He paused ahead to lift a branch for me. As I made my way between the trees and under the canopy of branches, I found a rabbit sitting where I’d been just about to step. If it had been any other normal-looking rabbit, I might not have leaped a foot in the air, but as this one was covered in moss and had purple flowers where its tail should be, I couldn’t help it.

With a yelp, I jumped back, the top of my head hitting Alder in the chin. Rubbing his jaw, he steadied me. “It’s just a sprite.”

“Which is what exactly?” I planted a hand over my racing heart.

The rabbit tilted its head. Did it know we were talking about it? Could it understand us?

“It’s a nature spirit but doesn’t possess much mana,” Alder explained, then added, “It’s not, um, cognizant.”

“You mean it’s not like Raysh. It can’t talk.”

“It can’t talk to humans,” Raysh sniffed. “I can hear it talking just fine.”

I started to kneel to get a closer look at the sprite, when the ground shook under my feet. At the tremor, the bunny sprite scampered off into the undergrowth.

Alder and I froze while Raysh continued along as if nothing were amiss.

“Was that…” I started as the earth once again trembled.

“I’m guessing we’re close,” Alder said, reaching for my hand.

When he took it, I didn’t feel anything this time—no Smoky Mountain senses running through me, or anything at all, actually. Merely his pressure and his hold.

I glanced at him, confused as to why I couldn’t feel any of him. Not the texture or warmth of his skin. It was as if he cut off all sensation from me. Was that the only way to prevent him from giving any mana to me?

The ground shook again, and I refocused. “What the hell is happening? Is this an earthquake?”

Earthquakes were common in Tennessee, but barely noticeable—nothing like this.

Geography class taught me that the Madrid Fault ran right through West Tennessee, and the Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone was a hotbed of activity. Seismographs in the Tuckaleechee Caverns outside of Townsend often recorded quakes with a magnitude of two or smaller, but most people didn’t feel them at all.

“Remember how I told you there were guardians?” Alder asked as we cleared the bend in the trees and came to the edge of a vast green meadow.

I gasped, involuntarily squeezing Alder’s hand.

A beautiful buck stood in the middle of the meadow, easily larger than any deer I’d ever seen. From this distance it looked more the size of a moose—big, powerful, imposing. A king of the forest.

Other than the creature’s antlers, and its unnatural size, it appeared to be a normal white-tailed deer. The antlers, though…were not antlers at all. They were branches. Branches that extended outward at least two feet, decorated with leaves, vines, and budding flowers.

The great buck reared back on its haunches and came down hard on its front hooves, and the earth…trembled.