Swans and Silence Page 5

  The yarn unraveled as if urging me forward and I followed.

  The yarn straightened out. It hadn't taken nearly as long as the starwort journey. The season was wrong here and right in Fable, so I followed the almost-glowing yarn into the forest once again, taking as much comfort as I could knowing that it would lead me back to my brothers when the time came.

  The noise got louder. I glanced back. The lights were closer and then peeked out from behind the trees. The pair of them was coming up the road like two giant, glowing eyes, so bright that they lit the trees around them. I broke into a run, following the yarn, hoping it would roll up behind me so whoever or whatever was coming wouldn’t be able to follow me.

  The yarn was easy to see in the dark. That could be a bad thing. I ran away from the tiny camp and into the underbrush. The trees surrounded me and the rumbling noise stopped along with a final crunch of gravel. Something that sounded like a door opening and closing followed along with shouts.

  I’d been detected.

  Whoever was in that invention had seen me.

  I ran faster. Getting into Fable sounded even better now. My life could depend on it. The yarn wove deeper into the forest, through thicker and thicker trees, and down several hills. Footsteps were distant behind me, not giving up.

  Shrubs slapped at me. The yarn provided a glow but not enough to light the way. I followed a purple line into a dark void filled with wooden hands and leafy fingers. I scraped a tree trunk and kept going. Ravel up behind me, I begged the yarn. Please. Don’t show them how to find me.

  But a glance told me that that yarn wasn’t obeying. It remained a floating tether behind me. Anyone could find this.

  I was going farther and farther downhill. Even the leaves felt different down here, more broad and soft. The shrubs got more dense and slowed me down. The yarn wasn’t showing me an easy way. It might even be taking me to the clearing where we first came out when we got here from Fable. It might be the same one Annie was using. I’d have to take the risk.

  “Is someone out there?” A man called behind me.

  I didn’t answer. I was sure the noise of me fleeing was enough to alert them.

  “Come on back up. We won’t hurt you.”

  I detected a lie and pumped my legs harder. They would hurt me. If those people weren’t supposed to be in the camp and they knew I’d caught them, they might even take me prisoner. Bandits showed no mercy. They might even be trying to hide from the law. There was law in this world, right?

  But then the forest cleared.

  And next to me, the yarn rolled back up with its faint rustle.

  I was here. Moonlight spilled into a small meadow filled with waving flowers. This wasn’t the portal we had used, but the scene was magical, filled with life. This place reminded me of the fields back in Fable. Of home. Father had said on his last visit that portals should always make you think of Fable.

  I crouched in the tall grass.

  The man and woman shouted again, then grew more distant. They had missed me.

  I had no way to check the time. There were no clocks out here. One of the video game boxes the brothers had back at the cabin would tell you the time, but we had nothing else. Even Father didn’t know everything about how this world worked. The moon was a crescent, low in the sky.

  I waited. And waited, holding the ball of yarn. No sounds came up behind me. The bandits seemed to have lost my trail. That was good. I didn’t need them finding me out here. There was nowhere to hide.

  But twigs still snapped in the distance. I sat down in the tall grass, trying to make myself smaller and hide in case any bears were roaming through the woods nearby. There didn’t seem to be as many of them as there were in Fable, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. And there might be wolves. Wolves could be either neutral or dangerous, depending on whether you were in the light region or the dark one.

  I watched the moon drift overhead, getting higher in the sky. It was almost full, maybe a few nights from reaching full brightness. I felt more protected in the grass the longer the silence dragged on. The bandits had lost the ball of yarn. They could be lost in the dark. I could hope.

  Maybe they’d run into Annie and she’d turn them into swans, too.

  Wait. No. Father had said never to mess with swans, that they were the one creature he would never interfere with. One of his hunting pals had his arm broken by a swan's wing once.

  After a long time, after the moon had almost reached the top of the sky, the air began to feel electric.

  It reminded me so much of the circular pond back in Fable that for a second, I was sure I was near it. I stood up, looking around. No water, but the field had grown brighter. Even in the dark, I could make out the colors of the flowers around me. Purple. Yellow daisies. Even a few tiny blue ones that I had never seen before. But no starwort. That was still too far away.

  The electric feeling grew as the minutes passed. I walked closer to the middle of the field and the sensation got stronger until my hair about stood on end.

  “There she is.”

  I jumped in panic. A gruff woman’s voice rang out on the edge of the forest. I turned in a circle and couldn’t see anyone at first, but then two moving shadows drew closer. The bandits. A man, and a woman. I could make out their shapes across the field and they crashed through grass. I had seconds before they reached me. I backed away, tripping on a stone and getting up again, as I ran closer to the center of the field. The electric feeling was almost screaming now. The portal was ready to open.

  And then a flash of golden-white light flared around me.

  I fell through a void of brightness for what felt like an eternity. I landed and blinked away the sunlight stabbing at my eyes. I breathed fresh air and kept running. Green grass stretched under my feet and blue sky stretched over me. Two people grunted behind me and I pumped my legs and clutched the yarn, not stopping. The bandits had come through to Fable with me.

  Home.

  And I might die here.

  The man yelled profanities behind me. He had no idea why he was here. I didn’t look back. There must be people in that village. I ran faster. An older woman in a black dress and white apron swept up outside her house. She didn't notice me coming.

  The man shouted something vulgar at me, something I had never been called before. They were going to kill me. I glanced back to see the man and woman bolting after me. They were gruff, like my brothers said, with scraggly faces and scowls. The man wore a black T-shirt with a picture of a skull and the woman an ugly blue blouse that had seen better days.

  And the man held something metal with a handle and a short tube.

  It might even be a gun.

  I went to shout for help, but remembered my brothers. I couldn't speak. These people might be just as dangerous as Annie and I had to warn this village.

  At last, the old woman looked up.

  And ran inside her house, dress swishing.

  I darted in and closed the door behind her. I might die here. The door had a wooden crossbar that went over it, something that was odd for a village. I slid it over just as the door started to rattle as the two bandits pounded on it.

  "Who are they?" the old woman asked. She backed towards the corner, to where a trapdoor waited. She had an escape hatch like she expected danger. And she was a very old woman, at least in her eighties. She had books everywhere, including a leather-bound one with gold leaf on the table.

  "Open the damn door!" the man shouted, throwing a blow. "What just happened?"

  My senses sharpened and I caught every detail around me. The dust flying from the door as they pounded on it from the other side. The sunlight filtering through the straw roof above me.

  "Are they with Alric?" the woman asked.

  I shrugged. I wasn't sure. I rushed over and opened the trapdoor for the old woman. It opened on darkness and stairs that went right into the earth.

  "Down," she ordered me. "Stay quiet."

  I eyed her. They already knew
I was here. What good would that do us?

  But I didn't protest. I scrambled down the steps, clutching my ball of yarn. Maybe the bandits wanted that. They'd seen what it could do.

  I couldn't give it up.

  If I did, I would give up on my brothers. Without it I'd never find a portal back to the other world.

  We reached the bottom of the stairwell and the woman pulled the door shut above me. The smell of dirt was overbearing. I hoped it blended in long enough to throw the bandits off. "Walk," the woman ordered. She had more energy than I expected. "Quickly. They will find the passage."

  I pushed forward, feeling along the wall with my elbows. It was slow at first, but then the sound of the door breaking down echoed through the house behind us. I'd never heard so many horrible words uttered from one man and woman. They talked about how they were going to shoot me and take whatever I had, and how I wasn't going to tell the police--whoever they were--that I'd seen them.

  "They're from the other world," the old woman whispered. She pushed up behind me and I was already going as fast as I could into pure darkness. I felt like I was walking through a long grave. Plant roots tickled at me skin and my cheeks. It was like the old wine cellar at the castle, the one no one used any more because it was about to collapse. The yarn glowed in my grasp. I was holding a purple ball that was floating through a void. I wanted to ask her how much longer this would take, but remembered my vow to help my brothers. I could speak to no one. I kept my lips pursed shut and kept going.

  "This is a maze," the old woman explained. "You need to make a left about here." She grabbed my arm and yanked me to that side.

  I obeyed, biting in a cry. The yarn warmed in my grasp like it was begging to be used. We were moving slowly. The bandits stomped around back in the old woman's house. Something fell over, but the woman kept her calm. She was brave. Most of the older ladies in my kingdom would have fainted by now.

  "There's a trapdoor," the bandit woman shouted. "Over here."

  We didn't have time to wander around down here. I faced the yarn in my hands and thought a command.

  Show us the fastest escape.

  And then it floated and unraveled at a speed it had never reached before.

  "Your yarn," the woman breathed.

  The glowing lifeline shot into the dark and made a right up ahead. I flailed around, grabbed the old woman's arm and yanked her after the floating purple line. I could run through the dark without the risk of running into a wall and making all this earth collapse on us. I breathed heavily as the trapdoor creaked open some distance back and footsteps thudded down the stairs.

  They were relentless. These bandits wanted us dead.

  They might even go after the rest of the village.

  Chickens clucked above us as I pulled the old woman along the floating yarn. It glowed more as if urging us to hurry. Roll up behind us, I thought.

  This time it obeyed as if ashamed of its past mistake. The yarn rolled up beside me, forming a growing ball again. The old woman muttered something but we kept going.

  “Where are you?” the man shouted, far behind. He called us some terrible things. “Where did you go?”

  A corner. Another corner. I felt like the yarn was taking us in circles. But then the string sloped upward and sunlight filtered down. The old woman panted next to me. I hated dragging her through this place, but I had no choice.

  We climbed out of the underground. The two of us had run some distance. Trees and daylight greeted us as we ascended from the tunnel.

  The female bandit shouted again, but her voice was muffled and far back. The two of us stood there in the cover of the forest, panting. The old woman bent over and grabbed her chest. I reached out to steady her.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I just haven’t run that fast since Alric’s flock of crows landed on this village a few months back. I’m not exactly a spring chicken anymore.”

  Alric. She knew about him. I shouldn’t be surprised. All of Fable knew about him by now. Months ago, the whole Fox Kingdom next to us went dark for a short time because of him. The Stone Kingdom went through the same thing and I’d heard a rumor from Bernice that the Tree Kingdom had been shrunken and imprisoned in Alric’s lair all because he was hunting for someone. This woman must suspect these bandits had been sent by him.

  The shouts from the underground maze got louder for a second, then faded as the old woman recovered and breathed normally again. She faced me. Her face was kind, but her eyes hard like she had seen a lot, like she was filled with stories. Some of them were dark. “You came here from the other world. And so did those criminals, I’m afraid. You must have stumbled into a portal.” She studied my clothes and took a step closer like she was about to share some horrible news. “A lot of people appear at this village when they come through. You’ve landed in a world called Fable, where the fairy tales you knew as a child are real.”

  It was my clothes. She didn’t realize that I was from Fable. I couldn’t speak. Fable was just the normal world. The other world was the strange one.

  "Do you understand?" the old woman asked.

  For the first time, I realized how hard breaking my brothers’ curse was going to be.

  I couldn’t utter a word. To anyone. So I nodded.

  I waved the woman away from the tunnel that sloped into the ground. We’d traveled some distance from the village, so far that the houses looked like they could fit tiny dolls. The darkness underground had thrown off my sense of direction and distance. The bandits were under the field and the trees somewhere. I hated the thought.

  “Don’t worry,” the old woman told me. “They will be lost down there for a while. We have a little bit of time. They may even fall into one of the pit traps we’ve dug down there. But just in case, I’ll post a huntsman out here who can shoot them before he’s detected.”

  I opened my eyes wide. This old woman wasn’t capable of murder.

  But she was capable of protecting herself. “The village here has dug these escape tunnels in case Alric ever decides to invade.” She took my arm and walked me around the huge field that held the village in the middle. She was also strong. We stayed in the trees, under cover. I could barely see the field, but I felt better the more distance we put between us and the tunnel exit.

  The trees were stained with bird droppings like the biggest flock in the world had landed here at one point. “And I’m afraid Alric will, with me here.”

  I wanted to ask her who she was and why Alric wanted her so much, but I couldn’t. She was just an ordinary village woman, maybe even a wise woman. Alric went after bigger prey. Kingdoms.

  “You don’t speak much, do you? Or can you speak?”

  I shook my head. This was frustrating.

  The woman frowned at me. “I’m Mary,” she said. “I’m from the other world, the one you just came from. I came to Fable by mistake thirty years ago. A portal opened in my library after I had decorated it for a fairy tale reading. I’ve been here ever since, with no way out. But I’ve made a life here.” We found a small trail through thick trees and I felt safer. If the bandits came out of the tunnels, we were hidden. “Alric does not want me here. I know things about the stories that bind this world together. You aren’t with Alric, are you?”

  I shook my head so hard that my neck went into spasm and I had to grab it. And here was this story stuff again, the whole creepy idea that we were characters in the other world's collective imagination. Stories. Legends, almost. This woman must be in the believer camp.

  Or maybe she was right.

  “Those criminals that followed you? Are they?”

  I shrugged.

  “Do you even know who Alric is?” Mary wasn’t wasting her time. I could sense she was normally a nice woman, but stress had turned her inside out and brought out thorns. I knew how that felt, to have to bring out parts of yourself that you never wanted to. I’d had to show my brothers tough love many, many times.

  I nodded. And frowned.

 
“Are you from Fable? That yarn you carry. It’s magical. I believe it’s in at least one story, though I can't remember it off the top of my head. There are so many."

  I nodded and checked to make sure the bandits weren't coming through the forest at us. We remained hidden. At least she knew what questions to ask. Maybe Mary had seen people appear by her village before. I'd heard from Bernice that they tended to drop people in the same places.

  "So you've gone to the other world and back," she said. "I see. Are you on the run from Alric? Have you figured out which story is yours?" She kept her voice low and asked me the question like it was the most important thing in the world. As if the world depended on it.

  Somewhere, a bug buzzed.

  I shook my head again.

  Mary might know something about swan curses. About easier ways to remove them. Wise women knew things and Bernice had told me stories about Hilda, the wise woman from her village. Hilda used to predict the future and she always had magical artifacts around her hut.

  And I had no way to ask her. I couldn’t mime out my story too well, let alone six flying swans and Annie herself. And if Irving was right, I couldn't even draw pictures.

  Mary turned her head. “Check the field. I don’t see too well. Make sure those criminals aren’t out. If they’re not, just nod at me.”

  She wasn’t asking me to speak, at least. Perhaps she knew something about this after all.

  I checked the field. Flowers waved in the breeze and a few sheep grazed way across on the other side, but there was nothing else. I shook my head and Mary smiled.

  "Then I will send someone over to deal with them. They will be lost forever in the maze. Let's walk back to my house."

  We exited the forest and the village spread out in the distance. The grass came up to my knees. We stood near a huge clump of blossoms that were shaped like little white stars.

  My heart rose.

  Starwort.

  So. Much. Starwort.

  Fable’s lighter part was never short on flowers. I had made the right decision to come here and search. It would cut down the time needed to travel to wherever it was in the other world. I'd just need a sack.