“Enough,” Lucian commanded pushing an abundance of his power into the room so that all of the wolves were on their knees and the fae’s eyes bore holes into the floor. “Sally, you begin,” he told her coolly.
Sally cleared her throat before speaking. “Do you think we should take her seriously? What if it’s just a ploy to distract us, or what if they, I’m sorry to say it, are already dead and it’s just a trap?”
Peri shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. My sister has become quite the deceiver and while I have my doubts about her motives I would rather be cautious than run the risk of leaving two girls in the hands of Lorelle and whoever else is yanking her chain if there is a possibility we can save them.”
Surprisingly there was a moment of silence before Adam finally spoke up. “So what’s the riddle? We only have twenty four hours to solve it and find the girls.”
Peri nodded. “Okay then.” She looked down at the paper in her lap where her hastily scrawled writing stared back up at her. “Remember it’s a location that we are looking for.” Then she read.
“Pitter, patter, pitter patter rain drops fall,
The bitter wind bites down to the marrow.
Little bird, little bird don’t you fall,
You won’t come back a little sparrow.
It aches, It aches, hunger and thirst,
Glisten, glitter to the bistro they go,
Tick tock, tick tock, who’ll be first,
Dusk sets, dawn rises can’t be slow.”
“Don’t every one speak up all at once,” Peri added dryly when she finished reading and looked up at the blank faces staring back at her.
“I need a pen and paper,” Sally said suddenly snapping her fingers as if they would suddenly appear in her hand. She glared at the high fae when Peri snapped her fingers and a stack of paper and pens did appear on the floor. “Must be nice,” Sally muttered as she snatched up a piece of paper and a pen.
Peri shot the healer a smirk before looking back down at the riddle before her.
Silently, one by one, the group picked up paper and pen and began writing down the riddle, going over in their minds what it could possibly mean.
“So it’s a place,” Elle said as she tapped her lips with her pen and stared at the words she had just written. “Well would the pitter, patter, pitter patter, bit indicate that it’s a place where it rains a lot?”
“Bloody hell, that narrows it down to a few hundred countries, not to mention cities,” Costin growled.
“We have to start somewhere,” Crina added.
“Did she specify if it was in the U.S., since that is where she obtained them in the first place?” Sorin asked.
“Nope, why on earth would she give us a hint like that?” Peri answered snidely.
“Okay if the pitter, patter is rain, then the bitter wind bites down to the marrow must mean it’s also cold in this place and windy,” Adam suggested.
“What the crap does a little bird have to do with a place?” Sally looked up at Peri. “This isn’t straight forward, she’s making a play on something Peri. Little bird and not returning as a sparrow, that means something, it’s a reference to something but I don’t think it’s the place necessarily.”
“What do you mean?” Peri asked her eyes narrowed as her ears perked up at the healer’s words.
“I’m not totally sure yet,” Sally admitted. “But with references like the little bird, the glitter and glistening and the bistro, I mean seriously what would those have to do with a place? It seems more like she is referencing something that would point you in the direction but not necessarily describe the place itself.”
Once again the room dropped into silence, the only sound was the scratching of pens and the occasional growl of frustration.
A knock on the door several hours later had a few heads popping up as Peri absently said, “Enter.” She didn’t look up from the paper she and Lucian stared at to acknowledge whoever had knocked.
“Is this some secret meeting that we aren’t supposed to know anything about?” The sound of Stella’s voice breaking the ominous silence had everyone in the room finally looking away from the words that were frustrating them. Not only was Stella standing there looking curious but the other two healers were right behind her. Anna attempted to look around her shoulder while Heather’s head was tilted slightly obviously listening to every detail.
“If it was secret, then we did an awful piss poor job of keeping it that way, don’t you think? And being as old as I am there are very few things I do piss poor anymore.” Peri rolled her eyes as she reached up and stretched her arms and back. She was stiff from being hunched over for so long and the much needed stretch seemed to help wake her up a tad. “If you insist on standing there in the doorway, please do come in and make yourself useful,” Peri told the three healers who stood staring at them curiously.
The three girls pushed into the room and walked around the sitting bodies. Anna helped to guide Heather around everyone until they reached the bed where Peri and Lucian sat. As they sat down on the floor Anna looked up at Peri. “So how can we help?”
Elle chuckled. “Something seriously has to be wrong with them. They are taking this all way to well.”
Peri ignored her comrade and explained what she had told the rest of the group hours earlier. She then read the riddle to them, pointed out the pen and paper and told them to get to it. They didn’t have to be told twice.
Heather mulled the words of the riddle over and over in her mind. She repeated them under her breath committing them to memory as she tried to work through what the meaning was behind them. Sally had mentioned, after Peri had filled them in, that she thought the riddle was eluding to a location by referencing something else. So Heather focused her attention on the things in the riddle that weren’t so obvious. She considered each line, breaking them down in her mind, and attempting to give meaning to them in any way that might make sense. It was going to be a long day she decided, as the murmurs around her continued.
∞
Jewel watched Kara unblinkingly as she sat propped up against a tree in the dark forest where once again Lorelle had basically tossed them. She stared at her unconscious friend, willing her to continue each labored breath that rattled through her weak lungs. She had lost a lot of blood in the little ploy executed by Lorelle and her evil master. Jewel gave thanks to whatever god or goddess she needed to for allowing the magic in her to do what it was obviously intended to do, and that was to heal. She would not have been able to forgive herself if she had had to watch Kara die on that table at the hands of a vile shadow person and an evil fae with an inferiority complex.
For so many years she had read book after book of fairy tales, fantasy, sci-fi and the like about evil and the good that conquers it but never in a million years did it prepare her to face it. Even after her mother’s many adamant attempts to convince her that there was so much more to the world they lived in, she could never have imagined someone like Lorelle or something as horrible as watching Kara’s blood flow from the huge cuts in her arms and the horrific designs now carved on her skin. As she stared at her new friend and the symbols on her face and neck she considered this new ability to heal and slowly made her way to Kara’s side.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, Kara,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I’m not brave or bold like you and didn’t fight back. But, I’m going to try something now, something that might make up for a tiny sliver of my failure.” She took Kara’s hand in hers and tried not to shiver at the cool temperature of her skin or the clammy feel against her own flesh. She closed her eyes and pictured the power that she could feel inside of her own body swirling around like ribbons of gold behind her closed lids. Her body felt warm as she attempted to once again control it and push it towards its intended goal. Jewel thought about each symbol and the location and one by one she pushed her healing power to them. She watched in her mind’s eye as the cells regenerated and the tissue healed and slowly began to close. Sw
eat formed on her brow as she attempted to minimize the scarring as much as possible. Jewel attempted to remove as much of the symbol as she could in hopes that the distorted pieces would keep the evil from being able to use Kara.
When she opened her eyes and started to pull her hand away she sucked in a breath as Kara’s hand clenched around her own preventing her from severing the bond. Jewel looked at Kara’s skin and wanted to weep as she saw that it had worked. There was a small amount of scarring in some places but for the most part the symbols were gone, though she knew the damage did not only lay in Kara’s flesh. It was also branded forever in her heart. The pain she endured at Lorelle’s cruelty would not be easily forgotten. Jewel wished desperately that she could take that pain away, but she knew the only healing that would work for that was time.
Kara’s hand continued to stay tightly closed around her own as she continued to sit by the unconscious girl. She knew they had to figure out a way out of this nightmare because if they didn’t it was only going to get worse. Her mother had spoken of such evil and she had honestly believed that nothing that vile could possibly exist, not in their world. She was wrong, so very, very wrong. Now the only thing left to do was to wait. Wait for Kara to wake up, wait to see if she would be able to move, wait to see if Lorelle or her horrid master would come seeking them again. Waiting had always sucked but in that moment Jewel decided that never in her life had she hated waiting so bad. Hurry up and wait, she thought to herself as she leaned back against the tree behind her and continued to hold on tightly to the first true friend she’d ever had. She closed her eyes and tried to put away the things she had seen. She reached for the good she knew to be true. She reached for her mom’s love, strange though she may be. She reached for the books that had kept her company for so many long nights. She reached for every ray of sunshine she had ever felt upon her skin. These things she had to think on because the alternative was too dark, too scary.
“Remember Jewel,” her mother’s voice echoed in the quiet places of her mind. “Darkness, pitch as night, will come to you. It will surround you and threaten to take from you everything you hold dear. You must not succumb. No matter how it suffocates you, you must look for the light and latch onto even the tiniest flake because even the smallest amount can pierce through the blackness, showing you a way out.”
At the time Jewel had thought that her mother’s speech was better suited to some fairy tale book, not as advice to her teenage daughter. But now, as she sat surrounded by that very darkness her mother spoke of, she understood. She needed to find the light. She knew with light there was hope, and hope was something she could work with.
∞
Heather’s head was beginning to throb with the effort to stay awake. They had been at it for hours and hours and night had fallen once again. They were no closer to figuring out the riddle than they had been when they started. Frustrations levels were running high and she was sure that at any moment Peri was going to make good on her threats to turn them all into some disgusting insect. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and let out a deep breath, attempting to relax the tense muscles in her back. She needed to think about other things for just a few minutes. Maybe stepping back and then returning to it would help her see the riddle with new eyes. Ha, new eyes that’s a good one, she laughed at herself, as she frequently did.
Her mind drifted off to the things she would be doing had she not been abducted by a crazy fae and her apparently too hot for words mate along with their merry lot of supernaturals. In the evening she typically listened to audiobooks. She had always loved books. She loved the rich details they provided, the intense relationships and the intriguing plots. They were so much more exciting than her life, well until now that is.
Her latest book was not one she thought she’d ever be listening to, but one of her friends had balked when she had said she hadn’t read them, stating, everyone and their dog has read them, how have you not? Heather had refrained, barely, from the smartass remark of I can’t see in case you haven’t noticed. She knew her humor about her situation made some people uncomfortable. So that was how she found herself listening to the Twilight Series. Yes, yes, it was way overdue and she was way past when it was cool to be a twihard, but it was pretty good for the most part. She had only read the Anne Rice version of vampires so it was interesting to see them viewed differently, complete with sparkling bloodsuckers…and that’s when it hit her, like a bolt of lightning shooting straight into her mind.
“It aches, It aches, hunger and thirst,
Glisten, glitter to the bistro they go,
Tick tock, tick tock, who’ll be first,
Dusk sets, dawn rises can’t be slow.”
The words ran through her mind and their meaning slipped into place. It aches hunger and thirst, just as a vampire thirsts for blood. Glisten, glitter, the vampires in Twilight sparkled. Okay, she thought, what about to the bistro they go? The only thing she could think of in regards to that was the restaurant that Bella and Edward dined at together, although it could also be literally referring as humans as their restaurant. Eww, that’s just wrong, she scowled. The tick tock, who will be first is obvious, Lorelle or Peri. She thought back to the beginning of the riddle, about the little bird not falling, maybe she means not to fall in love. Because if she falls in love with Edward and he changes her, she will come back a vampire, not the innocent sparrow she once was. It was a stretch but she’d run with it for now. Then there was the part about the rain and cold, this was an obvious reference to the weather of the location.
Heather took a deep breath and let it settle into place. If her breakdown of the riddle was correct, then Lorelle was talking about Forks, Washington. Part of her wanted to blurt it out, to shout it at the top of her lungs because they had been at it for so long. But then there was a part of her that wasn’t fully convinced that what she had deduced was correct because, really, it was ridiculous. How could an evil fae like Lorelle possibly make a riddle up based on a freaking teen book series from the twenty first century? It didn’t make sense, not that anything in the past twenty four hours had made sense. After deliberating and arguing with herself she finally dropped her head and raised her hand.
“If you ask me if you can go to the bathroom I’m going to…,”
“Turn her into a cockroach, we got it Peri,” Elle interrupted.
“Just so long as we’re clear,” Peri said as she turned her attention to Heather. “You don’t have to raise your hand. Just speak up, someone will start listening eventually.”
“Once I tell you what I think the riddle is referring too you’re going to think I’m ridiculous so raising my hand like a juvenile seemed appropriate.”
Peri didn’t comment but simply waited for her to continue.
“Do you happen to like paranormal teen fiction?” Heather asked the fae, feeling totally foolish.
Peri’s eyebrows drew together as she leaned forward with her elbows braced on her knees. “Maybe, what’s it to ya?”
“Does your sister know you like paranormal teen fiction?”
Peri rolled her eyes. “Yes and she thinks I’m an idiot for it, but seriously some of the hunks in those books are beyond swoon worthy.” There was a low growl to Peri’s left. She reached over and patted her mate’s leg. “Don’t worry wolf, they don’t hold a candle to you.”
“I think the location is Forks, Washington,” Heather finally blurted out. The room was silent, and Heather could feel the stares boring into her. She knew how it sounded but she was hoping that now that she had said it, maybe one of the other young girls would see it too, provided they had read the Twilight series, but then who hadn’t right?
Several minutes of silence crept by when finally someone spoke up.
“Bloody hell,” Sally laughed. “She could be right, Peri. Now that she’s said that I’m looking at the riddle from that angle and it just makes sense.”
Heather quickly went over the ideas she had thought out and Sally agreed with her, seeing th
e correlations as well. Slowly, others that were familiar with the series began to speak up and share their thoughts.
“I agree,” Peri finally said. “Why I didn’t see it sooner I don’t know, but knowing my sister as I do, this is exactly something she would do. Something so simple and obvious in many ways and yet so ridiculous that you wouldn’t give it a second thought.”
“What do we do now?” Anna asked.
Peri looked at the clock on the wall. “We have twelve hours left until the time limit Lorelle set has expired. So we’re going to shower, eat and then a group of us will head to the infamous Forks to hopefully rescue the healers my sister claims are there.”
There were murmurs of agreement as they began to file out of Peri and Lucian’s room. When they were finally alone, Peri let out a sigh as she looked at her mate.
“I can’t believe she used a teenage romance book to give the location; that just shows that she isn’t in her right mind. She is obviously certifiably nuts.”
“That Heather is a bright one,” Lucian added as he took Peri’s hand and pulled her up from the bed.
“I imagine she uses her mind a lot more than the average person.” Peri closed her eyes as she stood in front of her mate. She tried to imagine what it would be like to not be able to see, to only be able to rely on her other senses. “I wonder if she ever feels as though she is trapped inside of herself. It seems a lonely thing, to not see the world, the colors, the beauty and even the ugly in it.”