Grandmother's Secrets

[Red]

Things were getting complicated.

I pulled my jacket tighter around my thin frame, red hoody pulled up over my hair, and shuffled my feet impatiently as I waited for the light to turn green. Finally the crosswalk signaled WALK, and I jogged across the street. I didn't look behind me. I didn't check to make sure no one was following me. I knew they were.

The sidewalk slapped at the bottom of my boots as I kept up the pace, satchel bouncing off my butt. I turned down a walkway that continued past a wrought iron gate, the fence surrounding a rundown apartment complex. I punched in the number to unlock the gate, and shoved my way through as soon as it clicked. I tried to keep my breath even, but my heart was pounding as I walked up the path. I was past the first building before I realized the gate hadn't slammed shut behind me.

Don't look.

I swallowed hard. I wasn't prepared for a confrontation, but I found myself pulling my bag around to the front and putting my hand into it anyway. Let them wonder about it. I only had a few more yards to go. Building DD loomed, and I cut right suddenly, taking the outside stairs two at a time, practically bounding up to the third floor. I could hear feet on the concrete steps just behind me. I could imagine breath on the back of my neck.

I reached the door as it was flung open, and my grandmother grabbed my arm and pulled me over her threshold. The oppressive feeling at my back was gone, instantly. She frowned at the open door, but closed it again without a word. She took me by the arms and looked me over carefully. "What big eyes you have," she teased gently.

"Grandma!" I nearly collapsed on the tile, adrenaline still coursing through my body. "That was too close. I'm not ready yet. I can't do it. This was all a mistake and I'm sure there's another kid out there you can torture."

"You can and you will," Grandma said, her eyes stern. "Come on, Red, I have tea ready for you."

I shrugged out of my jacket and zip-up hoody and hung them up by the door. Grandma's apartment was overly warm, as usual. "Tea sounds great. Just what I need to calm my nerves. My un-calm, stressed out, nearly got killed by...whatever that was nerves."

"Did you have a spell ready?" she asked from around the corner in the kitchen. I could hear cups on the countertop.

"Yes. I mean, sort of. Not really." I could feel her displeasure radiating from the other room, and I didn't feel like joining her in there at the moment. I walked over anyway, and leaned against the refrigerator with my arms crossed. "I was working on the light spell all night last night and I'm tired and all of this seems like just a really good way to get killed."

"The worst way to get killed, really," Grandma said unhelpfully. She handed me a teacup and we sat at the dining room table. Everything in her house was covered with a doily or an arrangement of fake flowers, and it was dusty. My nose itched. "You have a good foundation, Red. You know more than I did at your age."

I sighed. "Not very comforting."

"My threshold is strong. Nothing is going to cross over here without losing most of their power." She stirred her tea with a tiny spoon, tapping it lightly against the thin china.

"Why are they even following me? I'm a nobody. I'm weak. Is it just because I'm easy prey?"

Grandma looked into the middle distance as she sipped her tea, steam swirling in the air. "Perhaps it's time I told you."

"Told me what?" I felt a prickle in the middle of my back, and she turned toward me just as every single ward at the door lit up and/or exploded. We were showered with splinters and psychic remnants of magic as the door blew off the hinges and slammed against the shelves on the wall opposite.

[Red]

"Ustulo!" Grandma shouted, standing as I cowered on the floor, a gout of flame roaring from the wand in her hand. To an untrained eye the wand looks like wooden knitting needle - to the trained eye as well, I suppose. A wand is simply a tool used to focus one's Will, and can take just about any form. Some prefer staffs, others practice and carry both. None of this is going through my head in Grandma's apartment though, as she pointed her free hand toward me, silvery bracelet gleaming, and shouted, "Foribus itio!" as whatever it was that had burst over her threshold roared loud enough to rattle my head.

My body slid backward and down, a strange darkness yawning beneath me as I hit where the china hutch should have been. I squeaked, "Reditio," and my messenger bag slammed into my chest as the apartment faded from around me. The sound took a while to disappear, however, and I could hear Grandma shouting as if I were at the bottom of a well.

I stood up as soon as everything was still, clutching my bag to my body, and looked around. Everything was dark. Too dark, even, an inky blackness that felt oppressive, and hinted at things that scuttled and hunted. I pulled my wand out of my satchel, slinging the bag across my body, and turned as if Grandma's apartment was going to be there somewhere. Instead I found that I was standing on green grass, and there were trees around me. My breath caught in my throat.

Grandma had sent me into the Nevernever.

[Red]

On the surface you might think that there are worse places to end up in. I mean, the alternative was probably a brutal death at the hands of whatever had managed to punch through Grandma's wards and hop her threshold. After doing all that, whatever it was still had enough magical juice left to ...do whatever it was it was doing at the moment. Hopefully being splattered into goo on Grandma's favorite rug.

Somehow I didn't think that was happening.

I turned around, looking behind me to see if there was any visible soft spot or Way back to Detroit. I couldn't feel anything, and all I could see were trees. They were gorgeous birches, surrounding the tiny meadow I had been deposited into. I didn't want to move my feet. I had never been into the Nevernever before but I knew that a wrong step could put me surrounded by goblins or as a meal for some giant spider creatures, or who knows. Grandma had created a Waypoint in her apartment and it led here. It stood to reason that here was therefore reasonably safe. There, a few feet away, might not be.

I hesitantly sat down right where I was, wrapping my arms around my knees. I would wait until she opened the Way again. When it was safe.

The sound of horns made my head swivel, and I bit my lip. After a moment the horns sounded again, and underneath it I could hear barking. A faerie hunting party. I shrugged out of my red hoody and bunched it up, sitting on top of it and then holding very, very still.

[Sawyer]

She wasn't hard to sniff out, a frightened morsel huddled in the glade exactly where he'd been told to look. The man edged out from between the trees into her eyeline, and put his finger to his lips as her eyes widened. The baying of the hounds was louder, and he gestured for her to join him.

She shook her head - a firm no. Smart, but annoying. He reached in his pocket (she stiffened and her wand pointed in his direction) and drew out a crumpled bit of paper. He tossed it at her, and she grabbed it in the air before it hit her lap. Unfolding it, she read quickly, her thick eyebrow raising.

He gestured again, the elven hunting party close enough that he could hear the jingle of the tack on the horses, and she hopped up, bag and sweatshirt hugged to her body as she hurried over. He drew her into the forest, grabbing her hand and pulling her along what was a little less than a rabbit track. It was a Way nonetheless, mapped by the girl's grandmother many years ago. Her breath was loud and ragged, and she kept looking back over her shoulder. The sound of dogs grew quieter.

[Red]

So, I don't usually follow strangers into the woods, but at this point I didn't have a lot of options. Stay, and become a fae's plaything for eternity (or until they got bored), or follow the scruffy stranger. The note he'd given me was in my grandmother's precise cursive, saying he was a friend.

Of course, he could have stolen it. Was he part of the White Council? Something about the way he walked, a saunter...partially slouched... Well, it didn't scream WIZARD to me. "Excuse me," I started, and he turned his head only to shush me. I pursed my lips in frustration, but kept my mouth shut. The trail crossed a larger road, still overgrown with grass in spots, and I couldn't hear anything following us. I stopped walking, and he was forced to do the same, backtracking to stand in front of me.

"We have to keep moving," he said, reaching for my arm. I jerked myself out of his grasp.

"Who are you? How do you know my grandmother? When did she give you this?" I held up the crumpled note.

"All good questions," he said softly, "But I thought you might be more concerned about whether I can get you back to Detroit or not."

Oh, yeah. I gave the note another shake, and then adjusted the strap of my satchel. "Well, can you?"

"Only if we keep moving." He made as though he was going to take my arm, but backed off and settled for a gesture. "C'mon princess."

I rolled my eyes at the nickname, and we walked in silence until we came to a waypoint. The Nevernever isn't like the real world. Ten feet traveled in Fae could be six miles on earth - six hundred miles for that matter. If you didn't know where you were going, you could end up in Timbuktu. Or eaten by spiders in the Nevernever. Or ogres. I looked over my shoulder with a shiver. It was getting dark.

The man mumbled some words and held up his hand. It glowed brightly, whatever it was he was holding, and the Waypoint opened like a mirror. I hesitated, and he did take my hand then, stepping through with me.

[Sawyer]

They stepped out of Fae and into a dark basement. The girl gasped softly at the darkness, and her grip on his hand tightened until she realized what she was doing and let go. "Can't stay here either," he said. "Something could have felt that and come looking."

She sighed, but followed him up the stairs to a door that opened to the abandoned ruins of a house. It was night. "I know time is different ...there... but I never..." She gaped a bit at the broken walls and graffiti, the house barely even a shell. But that was Detroit, these days. He didn't dwell on it, or the whys. Things just were what they were.

He led her out and then hit the clicker for his truck. She hesitated, then jumped in the passenger side as he turned on the engine. The neighborhood around them was a gaping maw, teeth missing, decay set in on those that were left. Some blocks only had one or two habitable houses, and they stood out like the grin of a jack'o'lantern. The place was, as they said, not what it used to be.

"My name's Sawyer," he offered after a moment, driving on toward more hospitable areas.

"Red," she said, needlessly. "Thanks. For helping me." She struggled into her hoody, and added, "I still don't know why, of course. Grandma -" Red hesitated. "Is she...?"

He looked at her silently, then back to the road. He knew it was on his face, and her eyes welled up with tears as she stoically looked out the other window. What do you say to a girl who's just lost her only living relative? He cursed himself silently, but kept driving.