We hurried along the shoreline, and I was glad the water made a small dip into the earth. The gentle rise of land to our left created a cover to block us from the prying, albeit drunken, eyes of our ‘guests’ on the lawn. We followed the soft white sand to the edges of the forest and found a narrow path.
To the left and just inside the bushy boundaries of the forest we also found the shack Greylock had mentioned. The ancient structure had been built with logs from the surrounding woods and put together by hands long-since passed from this world. The door faced the path and an old cauldron, once black but now browned with rust, sat outside the entrance. Aside from the door there was no other way to get inside. There wasn’t even a chimney for Santa Claus to climb down.
Chris studied the cabin with an even greater attention than me. I set a hand his arm. “It’ll be okay. I’m sure he has a plan.” He cast a look at me that made me snort. “A good plan that won’t get us killed or have our powers sucked out of us. Now,” I looped my arm around his and tugged him down the path. “Let’s hurry up so we can see what this plan is all about.”
“Gladly,” Chris mused as he broke free from my grasp and took the lead.
I glared at the back of his head. “I’m the bait, remember? Bait gets to be first.”
He turned his head to one side so I could see his mirthless smile. “There’s plenty of opportunities for you to risk your neck in here, but I’ll take this one.”
I playfully slapped him on the back. “Don’t be such a pessimist. I mean, the worst thing that can happen to us in here is we die, right?”
Chris stopped so abruptly that I crashed into him. I rubbed my nose as I glared up at him. “What’s the-”
“Do you hear that?”
I tensed at his question and looked around us. All was quiet and dark in the spooky woods until I heard a soft moan. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as my imagination kicked into overdrive.
I scooted closer to Chris’ back and grasped the back of his coat. The beam of my flashlight suddenly decided to start shaking. The coward. “Y-you don’t think there are ghosts in here, do you?”
“I hope we don’t find out.”
The noise came again, slightly louder this time. I cleared my throat of the frog that had made a home in it, but my voice still came out an octave higher than it should have been. “I-I was just joking about death being a worst-case scenario!”
Something white about the size of marble floated out of a thick mess of brush some twenty feet ahead of us. I stiffened as the strange object drifted in our direction. Chris swiped his hand at the object and captured it in his palm. He clenched his fingers around the white thing and frowned.
I looked up at his puzzled expression. “What is it?”
He opened his hand and revealed a wet spot. “It’s frozen water.”
A thought struck me that made my eyes widen and my heart quicken. “Ice!”
I raced around Chris and over to the brush where I dropped to my knees. The bushes parted beneath my hands, and I revealed the ground as Chris came up behind me. Laying there amid the dead leaves was a small white figure.
My jaw hit the ground. “It’s Freor!”
The white object was indeed Freor, but it wasn’t in the best of shape. There was barely a white glow from its body and a pool of melted ice lay beneath it. Its wings, too, were gone. It looked almost. . .human.
Chris knelt beside me and pursed his lips. “Do you think it’s still alive?”
“Y-yes.”
The reply didn’t come from me, but from our tiny little frozen friend. Freor’s eyes fluttered open, but there was a haziness in them that I didn’t like. It was as though a soft film of death lay over them.
Freor’s wavering voice came out in stops and stutters. “You mortals… are very… slow…”
“What happened to you?”
Freor shifted a little and winced. “A mortal… with a shadow… but not… their shadow…”
I leaned down and met Freor’s filmy gaze. “What mortal, Freor? What did they look like?”
Freor took in a deep, shaky breath. “Tall. Broad. Pretty like one of us.”
My eyes widened and I whipped them up to Chris. “Maxwell!”
He pursed his lips. “He fits that description.”
A thought struck me, and I slammed one fist into my other palm. “The doorknobs!”
Chris blinked at me. “I don’t follow.”
“That’s how they were able to change the doorknob in their room!” I reminded him as I grasped his hands and gave them a shake. “Just like the shadow changed the knob in our room, and then he had his… his mate,” I couldn’t finish my sentence as I cupped my hand over my mouth. “That means he… he…”
Chris’ face was tense and horribly angry as he nodded. “He hurt his own mate to try to deflect the blame from him and onto us.”
I shut my eyes and a shudder of horror and anger ran through me. “That… that monster!”
“Yes, but we have one problem,” he pointed out as he nodded at Freor. “Freor’s our only evidence that Maxwell is that monster.”
“That might be enough to do something about it,” I insisted as I scooped Freor into my arms. The tiny elementals icy spirit hardly left a chill against my skin. “And that gives us a good excuse to get the hell out of here.”
Chris lifted his eyes and swept them over the darkened area. “I couldn’t agree with you more.”
I stood and cradled Freor against my body. In the soft glow of the magical creature, I could see its whole body, but something was missing. “What’s wrong with you?”
Freor shivered. “The shadow… it… it touched me.” A shiver ran down the whole of the elemental’s body. “It’s so… so…”
My eyebrows shot up. “Cold?”
Freor’s hazy eyes rolled up to me and the tiny creature frowned. “Of course not! It’s warm!”
I blinked at our small friend, but Chris nodded. “I understand. The shadow branded you and most of your powers have been sapped.”
Freor nodded. “Yes. I didn’t realize until it was too late and got stuck here. The forest hid me until you came along.”
I swept my eyes over the many trees. “But why didn’t the forest let us find you before now?”
Freor brushed a hand upward over the view of the canopy. “I had to stay here. The trees… they told me it wasn’t yet time…” Another shudder ran through the poor thing. “Too warm! Too frightfully warm!”
Chris looped an arm around me and drew me down the trail. “We should get back-”
I froze as a terrible feeling of dread washed over me. Freor shot up in my arms with wide eyes. “It’s coming! It’s coming back!”
Mist poured out of the trees on either side of the path. The damp air turned chilly as our vision closed in around us to a mere few feet.
Freor’s voice broke through the panic that was rising within me. “Yay! Chilly!”
Chris swept me into his arms and dashed down the trail. “Time to go!”
We sped along the hard-packed dirt, and in my position, I had a great view of the part of the path we left behind. The beam from my flashlight bounced up and down, illuminating the way ahead of us which unfortunately consisted only of more path. The mist followed us like a lost dog, one that had every intention of eating us. That is, if it could catch up. The shadow’s shroud was fast, but my wonderful mate was faster still. With every four steps we gained ground, and soon there was a good distance between us and certain doom.
I turned my attention to the path ahead of us and glimpsed the shack, but beyond that was not the open field I expected to see but more woods. Damn this crazy forest.
Chris flew us past the rusty cauldron and slammed his shoulder against the door. The wood gave way and swung inward, sending us tumbling inside. Chris stumbled and his grip on me loosened. I slid out of his arms and landed on my feet on the floor with my chilly bundle still cradled against me.
There really was no other exit, and a cold chill followed us into the room.