3. Silva

Silva

There was a note of smoke on the air, a slight breeze carrying the acrid remains of a faraway bonfire, competing with the pungent smell of trees around her. It was the first out-of-place thing she noticed as the door to the Plundered Pixie creaked heavily, spilling her stumbling out into the alley . . . or at least, where the alley should have been.

Silva gasped at the sight around her. The alley behind the bar was gone.

She was meant to be standing before paved concrete and blacktop, swept down fanatically by the building's fussy, type-A owner. The dumpster that was emptied once a week should have been right there. Beyond it was the spot where Tate kept his sleek racing motorcycle, just before the empty space where his car ought to have been strategically parked before the Pixie's back door to prevent any wanderers from getting too far up the narrow drive. He kept a neatly tied stack of compressed cardboard for recycling beside the dumpster, which was hosed down weekly, along with the rest of the alley. She had never needed to hold her breath to keep from retching when venturing out the door that Tate used most often, never needed to pick her way across broken glass and smashed bottles. The alley was kept as neat and orderly as the pub, as the restaurant, as his clinically clean apartment.

Right now, his car was on the other side of the lake, which was where they were meant to be headed. And the only reason they were venturing into the alley at this time of night in the first place. The alley that was not there. The alley that was gone. Gone!

Silva spun in circles, her mouth gaping each way she turned. Instead of concrete and fencing, she was surrounded by trees. Towering, ancient-looking trees, each boasting trunks so thick they would have required several clones of herself, all holding hands, to encircle their bases. White birch with peeling bark and oozing black pines, stretching to the heavens and blanketing the ground with their needles. Above, the black sky held a strange violet cast, and the moon hanging over the Pixie's flat roofline flooded the area in cool white light.

She could make out a thicket of bramble, heavy with dark, ripe fruit, just ahead. If this were an afternoon walk, she might have exclaimed in delight at the sight of the wild blackberries, tugging Tate forward and holding up the hem of her dress to fill with the sweet, pungent fruit. It would have been the perfect end to their mini trip out of town, a picture-perfect snapshot in her memory, softening the knowledge that she'd played the most minor role in the execution of his party.

She would smear blackberry juice over his lips and kiss it away, leaving them both a laughing, sticky, berry-smeared mess, too much in love for anything else to matter . . . but they'd not stumbled upon this berry patch in this strange forest hours earlier and Tate had not materialized in the doorway behind her now. Instead of her rosy-hued daydream, something inside her blared out a warning not to approach the fruit.

She clenched in panic. A forest? What is going on?!

Despite the heavy tree cover, Silva could see a clearly delineated pathway of packed earth cutting through the trees, leading off where the alley should have been. Am I meant to follow that? Do these trees think I've never read a book or heard a story? Following the path leads right to danger, always.

Leaning back through the Pixie's door, empty and black like a toothless maw, she was relieved to see the familiar outline of the building's interior appeared intact. But the short hallway was empty and the staircase beyond was silent. She was alone. Terror tightened her insides. Silva didn't understand what was happening. She was alone in this strange, silent forest where the alley should have been — Tate's footsteps had been a heavy thud on the staircase behind her, but now he was gone too, leaving her with nothing familiar but his old girl's swung-open door.

As if it could hear its mention in her thoughts, the Plundered Pixie shuddered and groaned, the old building itself beseeching her to come back inside.

It's a trick of the light. The news said there was a solar storm. Maybe this is just an aurora. What . . . what if he's out there somewhere?

"Tate?" she called hesitantly, wincing at how overloud her voice seemed, breaking the tranquility of the forest before her. Silva floundered as she let go of the Pixie's door, suddenly feeling unmoored, her arms shooting out as if she were on a tightrope and in danger of tumbling to the ground. Maybe you are. "Tate?" she called again, stepping away from the door. There was no answer.

The sky was wrong, somehow. Everything was wrong at that moment, but the sky in particular stood out to her. The sky above Cambric Creek always looked the same. The stars shifted, constellations moving across the sky with the seasons, but the positioning of the lights around town never did, same amount of light pollution, no matter the time of year, no matter the weather. The sky above Cambric Creek was familiar and trustworthy.

So too, she had come to discover, was the sky above the Plundered Pixie. Greenbridge Glen's light pollution was minimal, the rolling green hills of agriculture being the perfect backdrop for brilliantly colored sunsets, indigo and violet swirled skies, threaded with pink and a red smear of crimson at the horizon at sunset. In the middle of the night, the sky above Tate's apartment would be awash with starlight, more pinpricks of light in discernible shapes than she had ever seen over her hometown, with the muted glow of the resort hotel just to the left.

This sky was all wrong. If she set aside the fact that this forest had no business being behind the pub, the sky alone was enough to set off alarm bells in her head. The moon was misplaced, was sitting in the wrong station of fullness, and even more disturbing — it was far too large. Golden and low, a comically giant crescent hung above the trees that shouldn't have been there at all.

The moon should have been nearly full, she knew that. She and Dynah had been comparing horoscope apps that tracked the moon stations earlier that same week, and just that night Ris had mentioned a full moon dinner put on by the Lunar Society happening later this week. The oversized, slender crescent hanging above her was just a day or two off the new moon, and Silva shuddered at the implication — if this hallucination would have gripped her any earlier, she'd be sitting in pitch-black darkness.

The stars that winked overhead formed constellations completely unfamiliar to her eyes, and she knew what stars should have been overhead. After all, she was a silm? elf, and regardless of what criticisms Tate might have of modern Elvish observation to the old ways, she had grown up dutifully studying the stars for which their kind were named, earning high marks in requisite Astronomy all through school.

How is this happening? What is even happening?! This must be a hallucination, Silva told herself as she took another few hesitant steps. Ainsley probably had drugs baked into the cookies for the party or something. There's going to be a giant centipede that tries to talk to you and a cat who will ask to borrow your shoes.

Perhaps, she thought with far too rational a mind to be someone locked in the grips of hallucination, she had never left Tate's apartment. Perhaps they had gone to bed after all, and this was simply a dream she was having from which she desperately needed to wake.

It must've been a trick of the light, for she could see every detail of the forest around her with startling clarity, even though the overhead streetlamp that should have been there had been subsumed by that giant moon. The oversized crescent gave everything an ethereal glow, allowing her to see each leaf and stem, the pebbles lining the packed earth pathway, and the strange clusters of flowers blooming beneath the moon. There was a hint of mistiness to the air, like a slowly dissipating fog, adding to the otherworldly atmosphere. The air was sweet-smelling and verdant, and ahead, farther up the pathway she would absolutely not be following, Silva could see the glimmering reflection of a small pool just off the trail.

"Tate!"

That time she did not hold back, calling out as loudly as she could, hoping that he would materialize from the trees, or else that she might wake up from this dream. Glancing over her shoulder, she looked back to ensure he was not there as she called, waiting for her at the dark doorway to the pub . . . the pub that was now at least fifty feet away.

Silva shrieked when a flocking of small birds erupted from a nearby tree, startled by her shout. The birds swooped down as she screamed, dropping to the ground, and covering her head. Their feathers grazed her forearm as they moved in what felt like a far-too-threatening formation, disappearing into the mist in a flurry of beating wings, leaving her gasping.

When she pushed shakily to her feet once more, Silva jolted, nearly dropping to the ground again. She was even farther up the pathway, no more than ten feet away from that crystalline pool, despite it being in the middle distance just a moment earlier.

Whether she was dreaming or not, it was the sight of that little pond that made tears finally well in her eyes. The surface of it gleamed beneath the moonlight, perfectly round, edged in purple and yellow flowers, so much closer than it had been just a few heartbeats earlier. The water was still, giving it a shining, glass-like appearance, like something out of a painting. Silva didn't know why her heart felt as if it suddenly possessed claws, tearing its way up her chest to the back of her throat. Panic filled her. She didn't understand why that little pond seemed so terrifying, but the voice in her head had begun to scream at her to run.

She listened.

Spinning around, she nearly sobbed to see that the Plundered Pixie was so far back she could barely make out its outline in the darkness. Taking off in a sprint, Silva focused on the trail before her and the black brick doorway she had left behind. She was filled with the gut-deep certainty that if she took her eyes off the Pixie's doorway for even a moment, it would vanish, and she would be trapped here forever. You should never have wandered away from it in the first place. Don't look away, don't look away. Whatever you do, don't look behind you.

She had only taken at most three or four steps into what should have been the alley, but now she was running pell-mell up that packed-earth path, farther away from the bar than should have been possible. You're never going outside alone again. You might never leave Cambric Creek again. Tate's going to need to pack a bag and get comfortable at your place.

So intent was her focus that she never slowed at the sound of her own voice being called out, hazy, indistinct, and far away. It didn't matter, for she was nearly there, the wide-open maw of the doorway beckoning. The ancient wooden beams of the pub groaned out to her, and Silva readied her body to throw itself over the threshold.

When she was engulfed in strong arms, pulled from her course, from the safety of the bar, she screamed. Screamed and fought, the prey instinct that had told her to run now instructed her to fight, to channel her fearsome ancestors, to fight with tooth and claw as if her life depended on it.

"Silva!"

Tate's voice broke through the panicked fog that enveloped her, and the fight within her died as quickly as it had sparked. She fell forward into his arms, allowing him to support her, cradling her to his chest as she gasped like a fish, flopping on the banks of that perfectly still moonlit pool.

They were in the alley behind the bar. Paved concrete and blacktop, just beside the neatly tied bale of cardboard next to the dumpster. Tate was there, unhurt, with arms around her, looking no worse for wear, despite her panicked attack. Above their heads, the streetlamp buzzed. A sob erupted from her throat, barely able to scrape out, for as winded as she felt.

"Dove, are you hurt? Are you all right? Silva?"

Silva felt his hands moving over her carefully but quickly, down her back and arms, gently poking and prodding and squeezing, as if he were attempting to ascertain that she had no injuries, no broken bones or scrapes that he could not see. They were in the alley, the alley that was meant to be there, that had been there all along. Suddenly, she couldn't get close enough. Flattening herself against his chest, Silva wrapped one arm around his back and another around his long neck, pushing her fingers into the haphazard remains of his topknot, now loose and lopsided, sliding down his head in a glossy black avalanche.

For a long moment, she could do nothing other than wheeze against him, attempting to catch her breath. She was freezing cold and exhausted. A heaviness pressed down on her, tendrils of fog seeping into her mind, like a hazy cocoon. All around them, the night was full of the familiar sounds of Greenbridge Glen, and high above, a gibbous moon hung in the sky, cold and remote and appropriately sized.

Silva squeezed her eyes shut against his chest, feeling as though she could sleep for a hundred years. Rubbing her nose against the firm expanse of him, she inhaled deeply, her heart tripping for only a moment as her nose was invaded by a misty forest smell, quickly overtaken by Tate's familiar sandalwood warmth.

"I-I'm fine," she mumbled into his shirt, struggling to remember why they were in the alley in the first place. "Really, I'm fine. I'm not hurt. I'm just so tired." She yawned hugely, barely able to keep her eyes open.

Tate gave her a little shake of frustration in response to the yawn, dislodging her from his chest. Silva pushed up just enough to raise her head. There was a gouge beneath his eye, she saw now, a drop of blood welling at the tip, from where she had clawed at him.

"Well, that's a relief after having me spend the whole bleedin' night looking for you," he snapped. "What happened? Do we need to take you to the hospital? Silva—" Tate's voice cut off as he swallowed, raising her head again and cupping her cheek. "Dove, if someone's hurt you—"

"No!" she yelped, her sluggish mind struggling to keep up with his words. "No, really, I'm fine! I-I'm not hurt. No one — no one did anything to me."

"Then where were you?" he shot back, voice bristling with frustrated solicitousness. "Help me to understand why I've been kicking through bushes all night looking for you, Silva. I've been ‘round this fucking lake a dozen times calling your name. I rang the police and they said they couldn't do anything until morning. I was just on my way back to dive in."

He gripped her chin gently until her eyes met his once more. Silva felt trapped in his pointed, honeyed gaze, her stomach executing elated somersaults within her. She couldn't remember where she'd been and didn't know how to answer his question, but his vehemence was a testimony to how much he cared. If she hadn't been so exhausted, she might have preened at his attention.

"So," he went on, his voice managing to be airy and light and still convey the deadly seriousness that only Tate could manage, "if there's someone or something out there that's hurt you, someone who's threatened you, something that's offended your delicate sensibilities to the point that you were left catatonic from the discourtesy and unable to answer when I've been calling your bleedin' name for the last five fucking hours, you need to tell me. You need to tell me so that I can find them and kill them. I'll necromance them back to life for the pleasure of killing them twice, because I love these boots, dove, and now they're wet. What happened? Who were you running from? Where were you?"

The world narrowed and her mind reeled. Her mouth dropped open, jaw working, but nothing came out. Where were you? She was so tired, and as much as Silva might have been happy to bathe in Tate's concern any other time, at that moment, she couldn't force her eyes to stay open or her mind to cooperate. She had been racing Tate out of the building when the door stuck, and the next thing she knew, she was trying to claw his eyes out. What happened?

"Didn't you hear me calling you, Silva?"

Didn't you hear me calling? His words jiggled something loose in her brain, and she heard an echo of herself crying out, calling Tate's name. Didn't you hear me calling? She had gone out the Pixie's back door and he had not followed. She had been racing him out to the alley . . . and the alley had been gone. She breathed him in, smelling that wild forest smell. The forest! The forest!

In a rush, the confusing events of the previous half hour washed over her like a wave, cleansing her mind of the heavy fog that had settled over the last thirty minutes. The alley behind the Pixie had been gone, and in its place, a forest had stood. Silva's eyes filled with tears, panic crowding her chest once more.

"Didn't you hear me calling?" she challenged, pushing off his chest to gaze up accusingly. Tate's dark eyebrows came together in a furrow, and she felt the muscles in his lean arms tense. "I was calling your name! Over and over, but you never answered. You left me alone there!"

She began to cry in earnest, frustrated tears tinged with residual terror, even though she still struggled to put together the picture in her mind of what had happened. Tate cupped her face in his huge hands once more, thumbs wiping at her tears.

"Where, dove? Did you bang your head?"

"I was calling you and calling you and you never answered," she burbled, too aware that she was an inelegant crier and that her face was probably already blotching like a blueberry. "And I kept getting further away."

"Silva, where—"

"The forest!" She dropped against him as soon as the words were out, feeling overcome by exhaustion once more, although the picture in her head had finally come together, the fog gone. Silva knew how preposterous she would sound if he made her explain every little thing. The moon was wrong, and the ground kept moving and you never answered. He's right, she considered for the first time since she'd stumbled out of the Pixie's doorway. You probably banged your head.

Beneath her, Tate had gone stiff. "A forest."

Silva nodded miserably. "The alley was gone. There . . . there was a forest instead. With crooked trees and a little pond. It was beautiful, but I was afraid." Silva paused to sniffle, realizing he'd not moved a muscle. "I-I was calling your name, but you never answered. Didn't you see me?" Her voice was small, and her words were petulant, using up what was left of her energy as she dropped against him once more. That's it. You must have fallen. Stumbled out the door and banged your head on the way down. You're probably concussed. "Tate? I-I think you're right. I think I must've banged my head. And I'm so sleepy . . ."

She could barely feel him breathing beneath her. If she weren't clutching a handful of his shirt, Silva might have persuaded herself that she'd been embraced by a finely chiseled statue, at least until Tate's stupor broke.

"It's fine, dove." His voice was soft and careful, and she nearly mewled when he stroked the length of her hair.

Silva closed her eyes, tucking her face against his chest as he turned them down the dark hallway, pulling the Pixie's heavy back door shut behind them and setting the alarm. Tate ascended the staircase, still holding her aloft.

"It-it was only a minute or two, though," she went on, talking into his shirt. "The door was stuck, and I had to push hard to get it open and then . . . and then I must have fallen, I guess? But it was only for a few minutes. Why did you call the police?"

They were back in his apartment then, everything felt cool, and familiar, and he carried her straight through to the bedroom, never slowing.

"A few minutes is all it was, little dove. You're right. I was just overreacting. But now I think you should get some sleep. We've had a very long night."

The party. He must've meant a long night from the unexpected party, Silva thought. But as Tate deposited her gently on the bed, peeling her out of her clothes and tucking her beneath the fluffy duvet, her eyes locked on the side of her pink quilted weekender, sitting atop one of his tall antique bureaus.

The weekender bag they had left to fetch, the one she had left in the car. The car that was parked on the other side of the lake. He would have needed to go down the alley to reach the road if he'd gone around to where the car was parked. I've been ‘round this fucking lake a dozen times. I was going back to dive in.

She didn't know how to explain anything. Her head felt heavy and clouded, and as Tate slipped beneath the sheets beside her, she didn't have the energy to question anything else. Silva pressed herself against him, letting his chest absorb the tears that were still falling as he stroked her hair. She couldn't account for anything.

"It's alright, you're safe and sound now," he murmured against the top of her head, placating and light. "Do you remember what I told you that first night we met, dove? I'm the scariest thing in the darkness. You don't need to worry."

It had been just a few minutes of time that she had lost, she was sure of it. The Pixie's door had stuck, holding them inside the pub, and she had gone crashing out into the alley. Then you must have fallen and hit your head. Tate would have found her sprawled in the alley the moment he reached the doorway, only a minute or two behind her. Silva felt her heart thumping in her chest, discernible in the tips of her fingers and beneath her jaw.

None of that explained why she was able to see the sky lightening beyond the window on the other side of the room, an indication that it was just before dawn. Her heartbeat thumped at the back of her tongue and behind her eyes. It had been just after midnight when the last of the party guests had left, when Tate had locked the door behind Ainsley and Elshona, after she'd hugged Ris, when they had gone upstairs to realize her bag was still in the car.

And now it was dawn. She had lost the whole night, somehow. But you only took two steps away from the door. Silva felt the timpani-like reverberation of a racing heartbeat against her, surrounding her, able to feel its panicked vibration against her skin.

As a golden finger of light began to stretch across the sky outside the window and her eyes fluttered shut at last, she realized it was Tate's.