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An audible pop is followed by white-hot pain shooting through Rachel’s body as she lands shoulder-first on a hard surface. Before she can come to grips with the throbbing in her bruised shoulder, the numbness running down her arm, or even the unfamiliar surroundings, fingers dig into the soft flesh of her upper arms and manhandle her back onto her feet. A cry of agony rips from her throat, the sound bouncing off stark walls and uneven floors. Tears fill her eyes as those fingers grip her tightly, brutally. A solid figure shoves her forward and Rachel almost trips over her own feet. Those hands keep her upright and push her onward, forcing her forward.
The roughhewn floor is pockmarked from neglect. Liquid festers within the cracks and holes like pus-filled sores. It stinks of mildew and old blood. The stone walls seem to shine as water trickles down from the arched ceiling, gathering in the angles between the floor and wall. There are no windows to allow fresh air and light inside, only a yellow glow coming from a narrow corridor leading out of the chamber.
“Let go o’ me!” Dougal’s voice rebounds, thick with dread and hoarse from screaming. “Rachel!”
Rachel struggles against her captor, trying to twist around and out of the hands—more like forceps—keeping her subdued. Her abductor squeezes her shoulder. Stars blind her, and she sucks air through her teeth to counter the pain. A chorus of unfamiliar voices joins in with Dougal’s echoing shouts. Laughter and catcalls, taunts and jeers. It’s an overwhelming uproar that sounds like the inside of a prison, but the dimly lit, dank surroundings give the stone room the appearance of a medieval dungeon. The incomprehensible circumstances make it difficult for Rachel to focus on anything other than her confusion and pain. Her survival instincts begin to kick in, forcing her to fight back instead of being a benevolent, reasonable human being.
She pulls her good arm forward, bends it upward, and drives her elbow into the body behind her with as much power as she can muster. The oomph comes first, before the hands lose their grip on her arms. Rachel spins around, kicks out at her attacker’s shin, and throws an almighty punch without aiming. Her fist collides with a chin, making the bones in her hand vibrate. The guy goes down. Not wanting to lose her chance at escape, she sidesteps the lanky man who’s thankfully still stunned, and finds Dougal putting some distance between himself and the much larger specimen attempting to restrain him.
She scans the chamber. Her umbrella lies a few feet away, within reach. She rushes toward it.
“Run, Rachel,” Dougal shouts from the scuffle with his oversized opponent.
Instead of running, Rachel picks up her umbrella, swallows hard as she walks up behind the man overpowering Dougal, and pulls back her weapon. A satisfying, hollow thwack resounds through the stone room as her umbrella connects with the man’s temple. It’s enough to make the attacker go limp. She watches him crumple into a heap on the unhygienic floor and kicks him once in his ribs for good measure. Rachel looks up at her red-faced companion, who’s now busy catching his breath.
“Where on God’s green Earth are we?” Rachel asks as her attacker runs away, most likely to raise the alarm. She doesn’t expect Dougal to answer, but he raises a finger, indicating that she wait.
“Fair folk lands,” he says.
“That means absolutely nothing to me,” she says. When he doesn’t answer, Rachel says, “Dougal, can you please elabor—?”
“Fae. Faeries. Fair folk,” he explains as he walks past her to pick up his discarded baseball bat, which had rolled across the chamber and stopped against the farthest wall. “We’re in the Fae Realm, Rachel.”
The nervous titter she involuntarily releases earns her a reproachful look. “That’s absurd,” she says in a high-pitched, panic-filled voice. “That’s completely ludicrous.”
“Aye, it is,” Dougal says, making his way toward the semi-conscious attacker. He pushes the end of the bat against the guy’s shoulder. The man’s eyes flutter open, his determination and disdain plain as day. “How do we get back to our world?”
Rachel walks closer to look at the man. Dressed in an official-looking uniform of some kind, he stares at Dougal. She can’t make out the exact colors of his attire or see much of his face in the gloom either, but he doesn’t appear to be the type of person who goes around assaulting kids for fun. His gaze moves to meet Rachel’s as she comes up beside her companion.
“How do we get back to our world?” Dougal repeats in a threatening tone.
“I don’t know,” he says, turning his attention back to Dougal. “We were just making our last rounds before the next rotation starts when we heard rolling thunder coming from in here, and there you were. Two kids sneaking around in a forgotten part of His Majesty’s dungeons.”
Rachel shakes her head, blinking a few times to try and snap out of this crazy dream.
Urgent footfalls belonging to multiple people resonate from somewhere beyond the chamber. “Where are we exactly?” Dougal asks, ignoring the approaching commotion.
“Telfore, Orthega.” The man turns his gaze to meet Rachel’s once more. “I thought we’d gotten rid of your kind.”
“Excuse me?” she asks, specifically offended by your kind, which could’ve been directed to any number of things: her Irish ancestry, her gender, the insane belief that somewhere in her lineage women made pacts with the devil and had been convicted of witchcraft and heresy. The list went on.
Dougal wraps a hand around her wrist before she can lose her temper, and he leads her through the opening in the wall, into the narrow corridor she’d noticed earlier. Rachel lengthens her strides to match his walk, but she soon finds jogging easier to keep up with him.
Situated every ten feet apart, wrought iron sconces are mounted against the walls, holding lit torches. Flames flicker and their shadows dance as they hurry down the corridor, which stretches on for a good while before it suddenly curves and ends in a steep, winding staircase carved from rock. There is no railing. No precautions had been made during the building of this place to keep people from falling to their deaths. Dougal, who’s clearly not concerned over the architectural defects, walks to the staircase at a brisk pace. Every now and then he glimpses over his shoulder, looking past Rachel to see if anyone’s following them.
“We shouldn’t go up,” she says before Dougal can begin his ascent.
“But—”
“Did you see those guys’ uniforms?” she interrupts him as she looks down the dark spiraling staircase, where a void waits to devour anyone who dares enter. “There are more where they came from. I’m pretty sure if we go up, we’ll be caught, but if we go down...”
“Sewers,” he finishes her train of thought and nods before beginning his descent into the pit.
She hurries after him, ignoring the heavy footfalls and the authoritative shouts growing louder behind them, focusing on her own footing in the pitch-black darkness. With one hand pressed against the wall—a false sense of security if ever there was one—she feels her way to safety.
They accelerate as the footsteps become a distant, bad memory.
Down ...
Down ...
Down ...
It grows colder the farther they travel. Dampness coats the walls and covers the palm of her hand. The stench of sewage becomes more obvious; the sound of rushing water promises freedom. Perhaps, if their luck holds out, there is a slim chance of getting out of this mess alive.
Her mess.
They’re done for unless they find a place to hide or find a way back to the forest soon. Adrenaline is the only reason their exhaustion hasn’t caught up with them yet, and hers is already depleting.
She reaches solid ground as Dougal raises his bat and slams it down against a metal gate—a metal gate that hinders their escape to safety. The loud clang, clang, clang as he rhythmically beats down on a rusty lock can barely be heard over the roar of the stream beyond, but the mere idea of someone hearing the clamor and coming after them doesn’t sit well with her.
She looks back, the darkness obscuring any sign of their pursuers. How long do they have? Impatient, she turns back to Dougal as he sorts out the obstacle with brute strength.
Clang, clang, clang.
“Come on,” she says, anxious to get out and away. “Come on, Dougal. Put your weight into your swings.”
“Yer welcome to take over,” he snaps back. Annoyance, or fear, twists his features and colors his skin red. Dougal raises the bat and slams the rusted lock again.
A final clang rings before the gate squeaks open. Relief washes over her. She says a little prayer of thanks as they escape into the underground tunnel, where a speck of light is visible in the distance. Apart from the platform, which is hardly wide enough to fit them both comfortably, the rest of the journey is a treacherous one. Water laps at a rocky ledge—broad enough for a single person to carefully walk upon—and kisses the eroding walls.
Rachel follows the hesitant Dougal through the tunnel. Sludge squishes underfoot, sticking against the soles of her shoes, squelching so loudly her stomach churns in disgust.
Time seems to pass slower than usual, like it’s working against them, but the speck of light becomes larger and brightens up their surroundings.
“Halt!” a voice booms over the rushing water.
The command is quickly followed by a barrage of arrows being released, arrows that fly every which way and narrowly avoid hitting their intended targets. Warning shots, no doubt.
“Are you crazy?” Rachel shouts at them, heart pounding hard as she speeds up. Their response is to let loose another few arrows, which cut through the air and pin into the walls around them. “We’re just kids, you morons!”
Dougal stops, cautiously turns to rest his back against the wall, and bites his lower lip as he studies the stream below. “Can ye swim?” he asks when she closes in.
“Yes,” she says without deliberating on her answer for long. Only afterward do the consequences of his question dawn on her. “Oh, no, Dougal.”
“Deep breath,” he says, taking her hand.
“No—” Rachel’s scream is lost to the darkness as Dougal pulls her off the ledge.
They break the water together, which envelops them both in a cold, raging embrace. The icy water slams the air out of her lungs, and she loses her grip on Dougal’s hand as the violent current drags them downstream. She panics. The tempestuous, dark waters roll around her, making it impossible for her to figure out where the surface is located. Oxygen. She wants to breathe so bad. A hand grabs her by the collar and tugs her backward. She kicks, trying to get away and swim upward—or where she assumes up is—but Dougal’s body slams into her. All she wants is to break through the murky water and inhale. The river roils suck her deeper into its shadowy depths. Rainstorm debris and manmade waste toss together in the underwater rollercoaster. Tread water turns to mud. Something prickly jabs into her side, gouges at her clothes, before moving past.
Then, without reason, the water gives way and gravity takes hold again. Gone is the floating. Gone is the tumultuous water. The end of her inexplicable fall is softened by luscious, emerald-green grass. The darkness is replaced by the bright afternoon light, a welcome sight after scurrying around like rats in the sewer. Sputtering and coughing, too weak to begin coming up with an explanation for this wicked trip, Rachel lies on her back and stares through the forest’s canopy of leaves. Beside her, still gasping and wheezing, Dougal is on his hands and knees. She watches him grab fistfuls of grass, retching up the filthy water. His strength gives out and he lies down, breathing hard.
Shivering, Rachel sits upright, reaches for the umbrella between them, and drags it closer. She laughs weakly through chattering teeth as she inspects the family heirloom, and finds it in perfect condition, aside from a few muddy splotches covering the umbrella’s canopy.
“I don’t know what yer laughin’ about.” He turns his head to face her, cheek pressing against the grass. She ignores his criticism, fumbling with the clasp keeping the material wrapped around the shaft. “We were almost murdered thanks to ye.”
She casts her eyes to the white birch arch standing ahead of them, benign. “I got us out of that place, remember? If we’d have gone up, we’d never have seen daylight again.”
He props himself onto his elbows and looks at her in disbelief, blue eyes scanning her features. Without saying a word, he sits upright.
“Okay, fine. I accept responsibility for getting us there—wherever there is—but you have to give me credit for the rest. I did save your life ... twice. Just like you saved mine, although I’m not happy about the way you went about it.”
“Yer talkin’ a lot,” he grumbles. “I don’t like it.”
“I don’t care whether you like my talking or not. I’m freaking out here, sue me,” Rachel snaps back. “The fact that I’m not hyperventilating right now is amazing in itself. I mean, first we get chased by a shadow, which probably destroyed a huge part of the forest and, God forbid, our homes. Then I get assaulted before I have to swim through heaven-knows-what because some idiots were shooting arrows at us—”
Dougal interrupts her rambling with an outburst of his own, speaking in the same language he’d used the previous night when they had encountered the Black Annis. He stands and wanders off to where he’d left his backpack before their underground adventure.
She hurries to her feet, rushes after him, and asks, “What is that anyway?”
“What?”
“The language you’re speaking. What is it?”
“Gaelic.” He busies himself with the backpack to avoid looking at her.
“Oh,” Rachel says, pushing the mechanism of the umbrella up to dry the fabric.
Dougal’s surly silence rolls off him in waves as he pulls the backpack on and walks back the way they had come earlier.
She follows, grimacing from the overall aches and pains, and trying not to pay too much attention to the squishes of her sodden shoes every time she takes a step.
When the silence becomes unbearable, she says, “Quick question: If I had said I couldn’t swim back there, would you have left me behind?”
“Aye,” he says without looking back.
“Brutal,” she mutters.
“I’m not very keen on ye right now, Rachel. Ask me again tomorrow.”
Rachel doesn’t know how to respond, simply follows him as he retraces their path through the forest, keeping a watchful eye on their surroundings. The trees are as dense as she remembers them, the brush hardly disturbed after their race through the woods. The quiet encircling them is visceral, as usual, but the smell of their unexpected swim lingers no matter which way she turns. Thankfully, the sun is out, and the day is hot, even in the gloomy forest, which helps to dry her clothes and the umbrella. Her shoes, however, are a whole other matter.
“Sorry for goin’ off on ye,” he says after a while, his tone low.
“It’s all right. I’m sorry for getting us into that place,” Rachel says in turn, picking up speed to walk beside him. “Friends?”
“Yeah, but don’t go steppin’ into faerie circles again. Next time, I won’t follow ye through.” Dougal affords her a weak smile.
“Fair enough,” Rachel says, smiling back at him. “Remind me again, what’s a faerie circle?”
“Och! Didn’t Nan teach ye anythin’? The mushroom circle was a faerie circle, Rach,” he explains. “It didn’t act like I expected it would, what with the birch arch and all yer pushin’ to get through, but usually a faerie circle takes ye to the Fae Realm without any extra hurdles.”
She purses her lips together. “I didn’t know,” she whispers.
“Aye, I know. If ye had, ye would’ve figured out sooner why Nan’s been makin’ ye do weird stuff over the years.” Dougal shifts the backpack on his shoulders. “In the old days, folks used to leave gifts for the piskies in order to placate them. My da told me about it when I was a bairn.”
“Piskies? You mean pixies, right?”
“Aye, pixies,” he says. “Our egg plantin’ yesterday was s’posed to appease the fair folk in some way, too.”
“Judging by the day we’ve had, I’m going to just say it didn’t work.”
Dougal makes a show of sniffing in her direction and his face scrunches up in revulsion. “Ye can say that again.”
“You don’t exactly smell like a bouquet of daisies either,” she says, swinging her umbrella around to dry it faster. “Speaking of bad days, what are the chances of us running into any more trouble on our way home?”
Dougal’s humor evaporates and his features smooth into a blank expression. He scans the forest again, his body becoming stiff as it readies to deal with a threat as soon as it’s detected.
He swallows, and whispers, “I don’t know. I hope none.”
The forest changes in appearance as they walk; ancient trees seem to have been ripped out by the roots and thrown across the path they had trodden earlier, leaving them no other option than to take the long way around. In some places, smaller flora specimens are crushed beyond recognition, whereas younger trees are damaged by the falls of the bigger ones. It looks like a warzone, like forgotten mines were triggered and had torn apart the earth itself.
She feels a pang of guilt for ignoring the ACCESS PROHIBITED sign, but the guilt soon turns into concern for her hometown, for the people who live there, for the children who are gone. Is this what they’re up against? Is this unseen entity, this monster with the strength of a bulldozer, the crux of Shadow Grove’s problems?
Rachel can’t begin to answer these questions, but she’s almost certain her dad, Liam Cleary, can.
