Chapter 1
Late
In the Rocky Mountains outside of Boulder, Colorado
Fern had most summer days to herself, which made arranging chores and babysitting jobs around her secret trips easier.
Today was not one of those days.
Inside their SUV parked in the driveway, she scooted the box labeled wrens w/ bugs and Glass-Fragile into place. She was about to close the hatchback when her mom came to the door of the garage they used as a glassmaking studio.
Mom looked ready to go, her curly brown braided hair trailing down the front of her blouse and hanging past the waist of the dressy jeans she always wore for art shows. But in her soft Irish accent she called, “How many boxes of flowers do I have?” and turned back inside.
Fern squelched a groan. She had one day to finish Gran’s projects—less if Mom didn’t get going soon. But Mom didn’t know that, couldn’t know that. Fern ducked into the vehicle. She’d planned to leave by eight this morning. It was nearly eleven. Their inspection started tomorrow, at noon. Brush didn’t cut itself, ponds didn’t magically fill and wildflowers didn’t sprout from nowhere. I’ll just have to work as fast as possible once I get to Gran’s.
“Wish you’d made a list,” Fern muttered. Like Gran. “Eighteen of flowers, thirty-seven total! Is that all you need?” she called, trying not to sound too impatient. Mom always repeated the same stuff when packing for a show, but today, of all days, why was it taking forever?
Straightening, she hovered one hand over the hatchback, then pulled her phone from her cargo pants pocket, checked the sunrise time for Glasgow and set tomorrow morning’s—Friday’s—alarm for seven hours earlier.
A shadow fell across her phone, and Mom handed Fern the tool bag—which she never packed until the last minute—and closed the studio door. “Five hundred pieces should be enough stock for three days.”
Fern let out a breath. Finally.
She put the tools into Mom’s torch case, zipped it and then closed the hatchback. “Inventory and display stuff. Your demonstration supplies. Your cooler is on the seat, water bottle. Got the cashbox? Your purse—yeah, both are here. I think you’re ready, Mom. Long drive to Colorado Springs. You should get going.” She opened the driver’s door.
“That anxious to get rid o’ me, huh?” But Mom smiled up at her, her hazel eyes bright with laughter.
“You know that’s not true,” she started, but Mom put a finger over Fern’s lips, a reach from her five-foot frame to Fern’s height of six feet. She patted her cheek and brushed back strands of Fern’s hair, the silky black so different from Mom’s thick curls that people often assumed Fern was adopted. They mentioned their hair differences more often than Fern’s light olive skin.
“I appreciate your help.” Mom gestured to the SUV, then pointed across the bridge to their cabin half hidden in spruce and ponderosa trees. “Remember what I said about being careful, locking the door—”
“Seventeen, Mom. Remember?” Fern pointed to other cabins dotting the forested hillside of their small mountain town. “Neighbors we trust.” She balled her fist and flexed her bicep. “Wrestling training.”
Frowning, Mom clasped Fern’s hand and pulled it down. “Unless you are in danger, do not physically confront a stranger. You never know what weapons people possess.”
“Sure, have me haul all your stuff, but forbid me to take anyone down.” Fern rolled her eyes, but Mom was only repeating the team honor code. “Fine. I’ll call for help.”
“I’m happy you’re spending time with friends,” Mom said, and guilt stabbed Fern.
She bent and hugged her mom so she didn’t have to say anything. Mom had allowed her to skip helping at their booth for the weekend because she’d been offered a babysitting job one night for the boys she tutored and a sleepover at a friend’s another.
What Mom didn’t know was that Fern had said no to both invitations.
Three more days and the secret—and dreaded lying—would end. Fern drew a breath. “I love you, Mom.”
“You’re growing up so much, my meadowsweet, I wish…” Mom gave a watery smile and traced a design with her index finger on Fern’s forehead, just as she always did when they parted. Then she kissed it, leaving Fern’s skin tingling for a moment. “I love you, too.” Mom gave her a last hug and—to Fern’s relief—climbed into the SUV. “Oh, my sunglasses!”
“Right here.” Fern plucked them from her mom’s hair.
She shook her head. “What would I do without you?”
And that was exactly why Fern had this secret. With no father in her life, or any other relatives, she and Mom were all each other had. Everyone said that was freaking weird and that Heather Fields must be in the Witness Protection Program. Fern had believed it, too…and then, a year and a half ago, she’d met her mom’s mom, her Gran. Secretly.
Some days Fern wanted to shout that she knew.
But there was so much more Mom refused to tell her—like what had happened to her dad and why Mom wouldn’t acknowledge her family. Gran was just as bad. But this very weekend, the end was in sight. By Sunday, Gran’s strict community council would vote on their inspection, and she and Gran should—would—have the approval to keep their family land.
So Fern forced a smile and said, “I don’t know what I’d do without you either.”
The SUV drove away, a cloud of dust rising off the gravel road, Mom not suspecting a thing.
Fern waited, without obviously waiting, by watering her flowerbed. Or at least she pointed the hose at it, her other hand trailing a familiar path to the suede pouch she always wore, its leather laces looped around her neck and hidden beneath her favorite Earth Day T-shirt.
When she was sure Mom hadn’t turned around because she’d forgotten something—and when she could stand it no longer—she locked herself inside their cabin, stuffed a can of pop and a candy bar into her cargo pants pockets and headed for the bathroom.
It looked ordinary enough, but their bathroom held a secret. That secret allowed Fern to keep two promises this weekend—to Mom that she’d be safe at home and to Gran that she’d be there for their inspection.
Pulling out the pouch, Fern removed a glass piece on a fine chain. She’d found the long teardrop among her mom’s things and had taken it for dress-up when she’d been little, but she didn’t think Mom had made this piece. The color-flecked glass wasn’t one Mom used. And it did something no other glasswork of Mom’s did.
As she always did, Fern held the glass on her flat hand. “I wish to go to Gran’s.”
The glass glowed bright green and warmed her palm. A wind rose, circling her hand and then her, whipping her loose hair around her face. Light from the teardrop rose into the air, changing as it did. Bright green, to sage, yellow green, rusty brown, chestnut brown and back to bright green again. She braced her legs against the current until the light settled on the wall, swirling round and round in a perfect doughnut. The doughnut grew, nearly touching the floor and not quite reaching above her head.
Portal? Gateway? Wormhole? Fern called it her rabbit hole. Secret passages like this were supposed to be in wardrobes, forgotten attics, the study—or was it the library?—with Colonel Mustard. But the bathroom? This was where she first discovered what the teardrop did, and because it was the only magic Fern could do in her otherwise mundane life, she used it there.
Ducking, she stepped one foot over the glow in their bathroom in Colorado’s
Front Range, through the rabbit hole and into Gran’s bathroom on the Isle of Giuthas
in the Irish Sea.
***
Chapter 2
Deadline
The Isle of Giuthas
The wind faded, and the rabbit hole shut down by itself once Fern closed her hand over the teardrop. She put the glass into her pouch, calling out, “Gran?”
No answer. Strange. Fern glanced into the open bedrooms along the hall and strode to the main room at the front of Gran’s cottage.
Wheek, wheek, wheeeeek! came a shrill cry. Seconds later, Gran’s guinea pig barreled around the old couch, her long gray and white hair brushing the polished floor like a dust mop. She ran straight to Fern, who bent and caught her up into a hug.
“At least you’re home, Hilda. How have you been?”
Hilda burrowed under the hair that had fallen over Fern’s shoulder, then poked her nose through the black strands. Her little eyes were barely visible under a shock of white fur, and when Fern brushed it back, Hilda licked her.
“Aw, thanks. I’ve missed you, too.” Fern streamed her fingers through the chubby animal’s soft fur. “I promise, soon I’ll have plenty of time for petting.” She carried Hilda to the window overlooking the vegetable garden, scanned it, then the nearby wildflower patches, searching for a gray-haired, wiry, outdoorsy version of her mom.
“I guess she’s started without me.” Here, it was nearly six o’clock, early evening. Fern had promised to arrive by three.
The guinea pig burbled a string of chirps, and Fern looked down to find Hilda’s gaze locked on her face. Oh, great. Hilda had that look, sounded that way. Just like when Gran talked to her and Hilda “talked” back. Fern shook her head—
Something moved outside the window. A bird…yes, a small flock flew ahead of someone coming around the cottage. Several someones, including Gran.
Their gazes met, and Gran said something to a man at her side. Fern’s breath caught. It was Sir Humus.
“Surely,” Gran blustered loudly enough her voice carried in through the open window, “I can spend a minute with the lass now that she is here.”
Only Gran had guts enough to antagonize the council representative who had threatened to take away her land.
Why is he here already? Had they got the start of the inspections wrong? But we’re so close to being done. Fern’s fingers started tingling in the annoying way they sometimes did, so she set Hilda down and shook them.
Gran burst through the door, her pixielike face twisted into a frown. The five songbirds that’d managed to enter with her circled the room and twittered furiously.
Fern bent to hug her. “Are we in trouble?” she whispered.
“No, but you were late, and I have to go.”
“Mom ran late—oh.” Gran was wearing an off-white linen dress, not her work clothes. Her long, wavy hair hung loose instead of in a braid. “You can’t work this evening, then? That’s okay, I can manage.”
Gran patted her cheek. “Good, lass. I’m glad you’re flexible, because I have some news: I have other inspections to attend to, not to mention they are sticklers about favoritism so don’t want me present on my land for the judging because I’m on the council, too. You must complete your trial on your own.”
“What?” Fern gasped, her mind blank for a moment as she tried to keep up. “You are on… What do you mean my trial?”
“Aye. You asked me to stop keeping secrets from you and the time has come for that.” Gran’s brow creased, her bony fingers crushing Fern’s. “Your work on the Meadows is a test to see if you can restore the land despite having no magic yourself. However, I didna tell them you have no magic. Nor that you are Heather’s child. Keep it secret you are my granddaughter until you pass. Then we shall fix that, best we can. But your mother’s blessing—do you have it?”
“Geez, Gran! I thought we’d tell her together.” Fern’s voice rose. Stressed out much? She clenched Gran’s hand, although what she really wanted to do was throw someone to the ground. “And just how will I do these things? A magical place needs magic.”
“Shh. I have but a minute, dear. I know you’re up to taking charge. ’Tis clear you’ve inherited the touch and tha’ is enough. Because I lifted the barrier that kept others out of the Meadows, they are seeing the lovely flowers you have grown and know it is all your doing. But with the barrier gone”—Gran raised a finger—“take care if you see flickering along our boundaries.”
That was why she wasn’t allowed off the property? And never saw anyone else here either? “No nasty neighbors, then?”
“None,” Gran said cheerily. “In fact”—she dropped her voice as the screen door creaked—“I’ve arranged some help for you, though I have no doubt you can complete our work. Stick to the rules.”
At the doorway, Sir Humus poked in his white-haired head at a height that matched Fern’s. “Lark Fields, you know very well a minute is up. Come along now.” He waved a small, tan globe—glass—attached to his watch chain. “Good day, Mistress Fern.” With a nod, he retreated.
Gran pulled Fern down, as if to kiss her cheek, but instead whispered, “I wish you hadn’t been late, lass. Finish your list as best you can. Get your mother’s blessing. And please feed Hilda,” she added louder. Then she pointed at the guinea pig, said, “You be good!” and went outside, the birds with her.
Fern assumed the people on the porch would walk away, but they gathered closer and the air shimmered. As she craned to see better, Gran’s birds alighted on her shoulders and disappeared with her and the others.
Staring, Fern stumbled back. That’s… Ohmigod. She smashed her fists to her forehead and paced a circle in the kitchen. I will not freak.
Magic. Real magic.
Whenever they were working and magic came up, Gran always said “the touch” was enough, Gran’s old-time wording for Fern’s green thumb. But that wasn’t magic, not like disappearing people, or the portal opening with a magical teardrop. Fern lifted her head to stare at the porch again. I can’t do anything like that. Seriously, Gran had arranged a trial for a nonmagical person—her—to take charge of magical land?
The pressure was on, worse than finals. Gran had to keep her land. Fern sighed and reached into her pocket for her pop. If she thinks I can pass the test, then I will darn well try.
Fern opened the can, raised it in a toast and drank until the sugar refueled her. Then she trudged to the refrigerator and ran her finger down a worn piece of paper. The List.
Sir Humus had delivered this paper a year and a half ago in the winter, an attachment to a notice in legalese that said the Meadows habitat no longer contributed to the wildlands of the Isle of Giuthas. The council would seek replacement caretakers if Gran didn’t bring it into compliance, which could be satisfied if she grew the plants on their list. After the no-nonsense Sir Humus left, Gran had stood on the front porch a long time, her jaw tight. Finally, she’d said, “Well, Fern? What should we do?”
There’d been no question in Fern’s mind. All that old-fashioned talk about the land being a part of you suddenly felt real when told they might lose the land Gran’s family had lived on for centuries. They’d researched the plants, plus added projects like raising partridge and repairing a pond dam to “put things very right,” as Gran said.
Gran had hired out some clearing and ground preparation, but the rest hadn’t been easy. Growing flats of seedlings and spending hours planting while sneaking around Mom and trying to keep up with her homework, wrestling team and tutoring left Fern wishing for magic.
None had appeared. And Gran’s was all but gone, for some reason she wouldn’t explain.
Most of the items had been crossed off, leaving Cut oak saplings. Clear pond ditch. Put in pond plants. Grow ratna plants.
Hilda climbed on Fern’s foot, nose sniffing at the refrigerator. Wheek!
“You want a treat?” Of course she did, especially after Gran had said to feed—no, Hilda hadn’t understood that. This was the guinea pig’s usual behavior when demanding food. Fern got a carrot from the fridge. Hilda took it and trotted to her basket.
Fern swept her long hair into a band and covered it with an orange bandanna. If she wanted to knock one project off the list, she ought to cut those oak saplings before the rains that came most every evening.
Taking the rest of her pop, she pushed through the screen door, grabbed a pair of loppers from the tool bin under the covered porch and walked into the surrounding fields. In the peak of summer bloom, countless pastel-colored wildflowers speckled the tall grasses. Flax and daisy, pennyroyal and teasel, yarrow and bedstraw. Acres of meadowland filled the shallow between two wooded mountains on the twenty-mile-long island in the Irish Sea, closer to Scotland than Northern Ireland, though Gran said they considered themselves Irish.
A bank of rain clouds was already moving up the valley. Hiking hard in long strides, Fern crossed several hillocks, dodged butterflies trying to land on swaying flowers and breathed. She filled her lungs and her soul with the perfumed mix of blooming flowers, pine and the faint hint of the sea. She exhaled, then inhaled even deeper. Just the scent of the island calmed her as much as digging in the dirt and handling plants.
She topped a rise and allowed herself a moment of this: the grasses brushing her hands, birds singing, the damp of the coming rain. This was totally not the dirty farm her mother claimed she’d grown up on. Their family land was wild and natural, and Fern loved it with a fierceness that sometimes hurt.
She scanned the rolling hills to find the right gully.
A birdcall echoed with the whistling wind, a different one than the usual sounds. Weoo-weoo-weoo, came the call again, and she spotted the reddish, hawklike bird. A red kite, rare here, hunted their property, even though it usually preferred the woods growing up the side of Mount Lookout.
She groaned. “If you’re nabbing our partridge, Gran’ll be sorry she left.” Some of the two dozen birds they’d reared must be hunkered down nearby. She swung the loppers at the kite. “Hey. You. Get out of here.”
The kite flapped higher, and she kept an eye on it while walking the low swale between several hills. The bird circled twice more before finally folding its wings and diving among the oaks. Good. No doubt her grandmother would run down the “Forest neighbors” and lecture them about controlling their kite. Gran called these neighbors by the land they managed, though likely they had other, real names. Says the girl named Fern Fields.
Taking another swig of pop, Fern skirted the hillside they’d seeded weeks ago with knapweed and came to the gully between two hills, the one filled with skinny oaks marked for removal.
The saplings weren’t here. Their painted stake stood on the top of one hill, surrounded by their flowers. Had Gran cut them without telling her? Fern poked through the grass. Stubs of cut wood stuck up, the cuts fresh. But where was the brush? It’d take a lot of effort for one little old lady to carry off dozens of saplings, and like Mom, Gran let Fern, with her broad, muscular shoulders, handle the heavy labor.
On the other side of the gully, a patch of grass lay flat. Fern picked up a lone branch, and its leaves whipped in the wind. Oak. Maybe Gran’s promised help had shown up.
A faint trail of bent grass stalks led over the hill toward the trees. Fern followed it. She shouldn’t be so fixated on this. The saplings were cut, gone, whatever. Yet, with their inspection this weekend, the last thing they needed was a complaint that Meadows’ brush had been dumped on the neighboring property.
Raindrops began hitting her back. Great. She’d look inside the woods, mostly because she was curious if it’d look different now that Gran had lifted this property barrier. But if she didn’t find the brush soon, she’d give up.
Halfway down the hill, she missed a step. Her feet slid out from under her and, crying out, she landed on her rear, dropped the pop and loppers and skidded on her back until her flailing hands caught bunches of wet grass. For a moment, the ground tilted, and starbursts of light blinded her. I didn’t hit my head, did I?
Then the ground leveled. Panting, she stared at the sky. Ohmigod. It had happened so fast. Her shirt and pants were soaked, chilling her skin, but she wasn’t hurt. The rain had let up and somewhere close the kite’s weoo resonated over and over like an echo. Above her…was that hollyhocks? And over there, sunflowers?
Fern rose on her elbows. They were. These weren’t plants they grew in the Meadows. Non-native flowers sprang from carefully tended soil plots. Crushed plants surrounded her, delicate whorled leaves catching on her forearms.
“A kind of bedstraw?” Okaaay, a secret non-native garden had been behind Gran’s barrier. But was it on the neighbor’s property or theirs? She rolled over and pushed up to her feet. Where were her loppers? She straightened—
Lights blinked in pinpricks over the grass. Oh crap, Gran warned me—
The ground tilted. Fern crouched for balance. Everything shifted like her computer’s whirling photo screen saver, the images framed in a murky light revolving like her rabbit hole’s magic. The garden of hollyhocks and sunflowers cartwheeled away, and several scenes flipped by until two settled before her like an open card. On one side, rain pummeled the Meadows’ hills in a thrumming she could feel through her heels, and on the other, a fresh leafy scent wafted from the interior of a deep woodland.
Those had to be other portals since the swirling magic was similar. The Meadows portal was farther away… But that’s where I want to be.
She took a step. The ground shuddered, and a new image appeared inches from her feet. A yawning hole. A wave crashed up over the edge of it, wetting her front and salting her lips.
Fern recoiled—and the strip of ground she was standing on fell away.
With a yelp, she leaped for the closer woods. The world canted, wind and rain thrashed her. Instead of clearing the dull, twisting light, she tripped across it and crashed to the ground. Sliding backwards, she grabbed a tree trunk and held on.
***
Chapter 3
The Rip
Weoo-weoo-weoo. The kite’s call sounded over and over while the ground slowly rocked to a halt. The bird, the lack of rain, the rough bark digging into her fingertips…even with her eyes closed, Fern knew she’d made it to the woods. Soaking wet.
So that wave had been real. Please let me still be on the isle.
She released one arm to swipe aside the strands of hair stuck to her cheeks and looked around. The murky magic was gone. The tree she clung to grew just inside the woods’ edge, and—thank goodness—the Meadows lay back the way she’d come. The ground didn’t look quite right, like puzzle pieces not aligned.
At least it wasn’t dropping into the sea.
Her right foot was super cold, colder than the rest of her. And stuck. Fern tried pulling her feet free of some scrubby bush. What held her trapped? A buzz of panic rose. She put more muscle into it and felt something pulling on it, on her.
Fingers tingling, she clutched the tree, using it and all her strength to haul her leg free. It was like dragging a bag of mulch. Her numb foot was coated in murky slime. Strings of it stretched back to the bushes, pulling at her like a bungee cord.
She scrunched to the tree, got a better grip and looped one arm under her leg to hold it against the slime’s pull. I just need to lose the shoe. No way was she touching the slime, so she dug her heel in and wiggled. The laces were tight. A stick to loosen them would help. She reached—
“He wouldn’t be wrong, so she has to be here,” said a male voice. “Keep looking for a gap.”
Fern sat up fast. The slime yanked on her leg, nearly jerking her free from the tree. She clutched its rough bark. No one was in sight, but she heard erratic breathing between the kite’s weoo calls. Leaves rustled from two different directions as something moved closer…
A guy crawled into view. Her breath caught, and he pivoted, close enough to touch if she hadn’t been clinging to the tree. His rusty-red hair fell in curling waves around his face. Freckles dusted his cheeks.
“Hey, lass, there you be. Raven?” he called over his shoulder. “This way.”
For a moment, she just stared, because—geez—one second she’d been alone, and the next here was this big guy. He looked in his late teens, with green eyes and an accent. Scottish, or Irish, she didn’t know, but he wore some kind of traditional clothes, a pullover shirt with laces at the neck. He crouched on his heels, taking her in from wet hair to her slimed foot.
“Ach, that’s nae good,” he said.
She shivered. Think. His arrival isn’t so different from how I got here, so he’s likely a neighbor of Gran’s and not dangerous. But her pounding heart didn’t believe that. Despite what she’d promised Mom, she struggled to get both feet beneath her in case she needed to defend herself. The muck pulled back, harder this time. Her grasp on the tree slipped.
The guy lunged and wrapped a large hand around her free wrist. “Do’na let the rip take you in!” He grabbed her other arm, too, and hauled against the slime.
An unstoppable tremble coursed through Fern at the fear in his voice. She seized his wrists, found a root or something to brace her left foot against and shoved with everything she had toward this freckled stranger who had become her lifeline.
“Raven!” he shouted, fingers digging into her flesh as he struggled to hold her. “Help.”
Leaves crushed right beside them. Someone invisible grunted. “Watch out,” groaned her rescuer, just before a knee popped into sight between two trees and a body stumbled after it. The new guy—Raven?—swayed off-balance, his hair swinging in a long, black braid. He flailed his arms—and wings. Huge, black wings.
Impossible.
The ground tilted toward the bushes. Gasping, Fern lost her footing and slammed onto her belly. She slid, screaming, “Ohmigod, no!”
Rescue Guy heaved backward and dug in his boot heels. Her slide slowed, but her body stretched, muscles straining. The guy yelled, “Rip energy’s got her,” at the same time Raven swore and threw himself at her.
She flinched, expecting him to smack into her, to pin her to the ground. But she continued to slip while he—is this really happening?—hung suspended, half over her, wings sweeping up and down, feathers whacking her, the bush, the ground, sending sticks and leaves flying everywhere.
Blood pounding in her ears, Fern ducked her head, and when she dared to look up again, her rescuer was also sporting a pair of wings, rusty-colored like his hair. Of course, that makes sense, said a ridiculous voice in her head.
“Ready?” Raven grunted.
For what? Fern wanted to ask, but she couldn’t catch her breath. Numbness was spreading up her right leg, her body was stretched to its limit, and her rescuers had wings. Asking stupid questions was low on her list of needs.
Hands clamped onto her right knee—Raven, it had to be him, though Fern didn’t turn—and her leg warmed. He pushed his hands down her calf, driving away the numbness. The heat reached her ankle. Her heel. Over her foot. Her toes felt like a vise grip had them, numb and heavy. Fern strained to move, once more digging her free foot into the soil and clinging desperately to Rescuer Guy.
“Come on,” he muttered, his face close but gaze looking past her.
Seconds dragged to a minute, and still her foot didn’t come loose. Then, finally, she felt the pressure of Raven’s hands squeezing.
Her foot popped free.
Rescuer Guy fell backward, and Fern landed with an oof. The ground rocked under them and tilted again.
“Go!” shouted Raven from right beside her head. He scooped an arm under hers. Rescuer Guy did the same on her other side, and they hefted Fern to her feet.
They hurtled into flashing lights, the woods disappeared, and then the ocean reappeared between two flares of color. Roaring filled her ears, the wind whipped her hair, and a giant wave crashed over her shins.
The water shot up colorful droplets that coalesced into a black mist. It spread, boiling inside out, becoming a whirlwind of brown leaves with the sound of flapping wings.
The water shot up colorful droplets that coalesced into a black mist. It spread, boiling inside out, becoming a whirlwind of brown leaves with the sound of flapping wings.
* * *
The Witch of the Meadows released March 27, 2018.
Buy the ebook from me directly. Or available with paperback and Large Print edition through online retailers.
Amazon | Apple | Nook | Kobo |Ingram Spark | Universal Book Link