Page 199 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“Meet me outside once you’re decent,” Pete said. “We’ve a meeting with Myrrdin and his clerics.” His mouth twisted before he glanced back toward the oasis. “To discuss the depth of your powers.”
That sounded an awful lot like a meeting Uncle Neel or Briar would’ve agreed to. “Are my powers other people’s business now?”
The corner of Pete’s lips twitched. Several times. “Aye,” he finally muttered, then tramped off.
Though I wanted to take my time just to spite Pete and the other males entitled to know my magic’s secrets, I bathed quickly, then donned a set of dry, clean clothes left upon the palm stump table while I’d slept.
Pete certainly had good taste in feminine apparel. The leafy top (more a bustier) and shorts he’d scavenged fit comfortably, if not a smidge skimpily. But I’d seen the other beyns in the garden. I was right on trend.
Leaving my wet hair loose, I clenched my hands for another argument and tromped in my semi-dry boots out into the morning—twilight?
I paused, stars winking down at me from a lavender-blue sky. Phosphorescent bugs square-danced about my head as evening creepers symphonized their chitters, knocks, and hoots, as they’d done on my arrival the previous night.
Or was it the previous night? How long had I slept?
“We’re in a time pocket,” Pete reminded me. He knelt by a stone wishing well, washing his hands in the bucket Jet must’ve left. “If time stands still, so do the heavens above us.”
Supposing that made sense, I moseyed to his side. We didn’t speak as he washed, and I people-watched.
Several fires roared in the square, where feyrs, beyns, men, and women alike breakfasted, feeding their young. Moms chatted amongst themselves, their kids scampering about their legs before heading into a pavilion for what I assumed was school. A bespectacled, gangly man (and I mean human) stood at the head of the makeshift class, scrawling with a brick of talc what looked like Celtic runes on a humongous slab of slate hanging from the truss above him. He wore a white powdered wig upon his bald, sweaty head, so at odds with the leafy clothes adorning his reedy figure. What beef did Gentian have with such a bookish fellow?
The village was abustle with choring. Fishermen canoed on the sea, spreading nets, while others cast lines out for lunch. There were washer people knee-deep in the water too, scrubbing heaps of laundry until their hands were red and honest. A group of pre-teens reaped what they could from an orchard to my far left, Furby-esque creatures with long, frond-like tails playing pranks on them as they worked, stealing fruit from grass baskets retaining their harvests.
A structure smaller than the school pavilion housed an open-aired cafeteria, where fae and humans worked together—by hand and by magic—to bake bread and other fae confections in a spacious stone oven.
Several males wielded axes in the jungle outskirts. I watched, amazed, as they felled one tree, something akin to a coconut, and its shorn stump sprouted back to its original state in a blink—overgrown nuts and all.
My mystification of little import to Pete, he rose with a groan. “Shall we be on then? They’re no doubt waiting for us.”
I cringed as Pete led the way. “What exactly do Myrrdin and his clerics want to know about me?”
If Myrrdin’s a prophet, shouldn’t he already know enough?
“They didn’t feel it necessary to inform me,” Pete groused. Was he as annoyed by their gall as I was? “Myrrdin, especially, only tells me what hefeelsI should know.”
Oh,that’s definite bitterness in his voice.Maybe his attitude that morning had nothing at all to do with me.
“Should I be worried?” I bit my lip. “That they’ll find out—” I quieted as we neared several fae shooting dice in a circle. “You know.”
About my fire.
Pete paused, softening for once. “Last night, I said there’s no one here who’ll harm you. I mean that still. Regardless, if you know that you’ve a power, Myrrdin’s already privy to it.”
I frowned, preferring privacy.
Pete’s mouth bunched. “It’ll be the bits you don’t yet know that he’ll wish to pry from you.”
I gulped. “And how—how will he do that?”
“That, I can’t say, but he and his brethren won’t hurt you.” Pete headed down the sandy path. “I’ll make certain of it.”
I rushed after his long legs and into a jungle outcropping. We walked several yards down a flowery hill, above which monkey-cats swung from vines, cackling like hyenas. Then, pushing past several overgrown ferns, another stone circle—Eden’srealplace of worship—appeared.
Situated atop a hill, tapered megaliths towered into the twinkling morning night, the henge they created more spacious than a football field. Ancient and weatherworn in appearance, the stones were hewn from some mossy blue rock, glistering in the starlight. Double rows of torchieres lined the path Pete and I traversed toward the circle. Various feyrs dressed in homespun regalia, much like Myrddin was last night, gathered off the beaten path beside a typical American log cabin. Smoke tendrilled from its stone chimney. Though it didn’t quite seem his taste, I guessed Myrrdin hung his robes here at night.
“You’re late, McKenna,” a small, wiry figure rasped.
Pete simply replied, “Aye,” but something about the other’s voice raised my hackles.
