One Shred of Light: Part Seven

     She knew she couldn't wait much longer without rousing suspicion if she was still being watched. She would need to start her garden again to grow food for the rest of the year if she were a real Neopet just living an ordinary life there. She looked out at the woods in the distance through her window. It was night, and they were too dark to see into. She thought she could hear distant sounds coming from them, howls of strange creatures, but she hoped that was her imagination.

     She rolled up the map and got up. She would need to pack so she could set off at first light the next morning. The sooner she got started, the more daylight hours she would have to make her way through the woods.

     ***

     Fiona was lounging on a sofa in the foyer again, fretting about Nox's absence.

     "How I hate waiting. Why must I be cursed with such rotten timing?" she complained. "Are you sure the master wished not to be disturbed?"

     "Yes, Fiona," Magax sighed for the fourth time. "He said he was busy with a spell and to only disturb him if Fyora herself kicked down the door, and only if she actually kicked down the door because that would be something he had to see."

     "Oh, drat," she sighed.

     "Fiona, Hubrid is not expecting a report from you. You're not obligated to update him personally with your progress. You could have taken however long you needed in silence and he wouldn't have cared. I'll tell him you were here and things are still going well. You can go," Magax offered.

     "Oh, I know you can. I hate sitting around here, but I also hate the idea of going back to Faerieland. My self-enforced good behavior is stifling. What I wouldn't give to make some mischief!" she wailed in despair.

     "Then go do it," Magax said without any sympathy. "If you have the time to sit around here wallowing in self-pity, then surely you can go out in the woods and spook Neovian children."

     "Oh, I suppose I could, but I don't dare. They know me. I'm supposed to have turned over a new leaf, given up tormenting the little creatures, devoted my life to good. If word gets around that Fiona was up to no good again, those goody-goodies might hear of it and then everything I've done will be in vain. What I wouldn't give for a chance to try out my abilities with the Werelupes!" Fiona moaned.

     "Then return to Faerieland and make healing poultices and smile beautifully with that cruel mouth of yours and give my ears a rest from your miseries," Magax suggested, glowering at her.

     She pouted at him, but he took no notice of her. She flopped dramatically on the sofa and left out a dramatic sigh, but he still acted as if she didn't exist. She sat up again and resumed pouting; Magax was a cold creature, and she should have known better than to expect sympathy from him, but she still wanted it.

     "By the by, what became of your Neopet nonevent?" she asked after a spell.

     He glanced over at her, looking annoyed. "How should I know? Once I was sure she wasn't a threat, I forgot she existed. Would you please find some sort of occupation for yourself?"

     Fiona smiled at him and rose. "Yes, I think I will. Something occurred to me just now. I will see you soon, I hope."

     "At last," Magax sighed in relief.

     Once she was gone, Magax settled in to rest in peace. However, the peace would not come. He shifted, feeling uncomfortable; he could not figure out what had disturbed him. He worked hard, going over the last few minutes in his mind. He finally pinpointed what had disturbed him, it was Fiona's sudden good-spirits when she brought up the Wocky girl he had watched.

     She had left, and he knew she was off to make some kind of mischief, despite saying that she couldn't because it might make it to the ears of the Faeries she was deceiving. Only, she had said it was the Neovians she couldn't harass. The girl was isolated. If something happened to her, no one would know or care. Fiona could torment her to her heart's content.

     Magax didn't know why this bothered him. He had successfully put the girl out of his mind since the day of the incident. He might have been able never to think of her again if Fiona hadn't mentioned her. Also, Fiona liked to cause trouble, but he was sure that the girl would be able to cope with whatever torment Fiona could devise. There was no reason for him to be concerned about her wellbeing.

     Except, Fiona had been lamenting a lack of ability to try out her control over the Werelupes. An innocent Neopet, completely isolated from the world, no one to miss her should something happen to her...

     "She wouldn't," he said aloud, sitting up straight.

     He sat back against the pillows, trying to settle in. So what if she did? It shouldn't matter to him what she did. Her face as she cried and apologized for an attack that wasn't her fault rose up in his mind again.

     With a curse, he pushed the window open and flew out into the morning greyness of the Haunted Woods.

     ***

     Caelum shouldered her pack and looked around as she walked. She glanced at the map again, checking for the hundredth time to be sure that she was going the right way. There was a road leading from where she lived right to Neovia, and she was on it. It was a straight shot, so as long as she didn't leave it, she ought to reach Neovia safely.

     She was trying to tell herself that she was being paranoid to be worried by the woods. It was day, she was on the road, and so far she'd been in them for three hours and nothing had jumped out at her. Valeane's warnings kept echoing through her mind, making every sound, every tree, even the light seem more sinister than it otherwise would have.

     She bit her lip and soldiered on, clinging to the memory the dream had dredged up. She had been seven years old when that had happened, Anastasia had been closer to forty, but still felt bound by it. Anastasia had kept her promise while she had been alive; it would be unfaithful of her to abandon her end of it just because Anastasia was dead.

     She looked at the map again; again it told her that Neovia was another five hours along the road at the pace she was walking at. Caelum sighed and rolled it up, it would only be another few minutes before she would unroll it and glance at it again.

     ***

     Fiona had been overjoyed to come to the little house on the edge of the woods and find it empty. She couldn't see her at the river or in the nearby fields. From the slight traces of destruction around the house, Fiona could guess what had gone down there the day that Magax had attacked. The girl had been forced from her safe little haven and into her domain.

     She floated down to Caelum's home and pulled a gardening glove off the bench it was sitting on. She flew back into the woods, moving fast. If the girl made it to Neovia, which was the only place that Fiona could think she would be going, the game would be up.

     As she flew along, she focused on calling the Werelupes. She had only done that once before, and it had required a lot of focus to bring the two she had managed that time. That had been on the first day, and it had been over a month since Nox had given her the gauntlet. According to what she had been told, the more time that passed, the more control she should have over the Werelupes.

     She raced along the road through the woods, and she felt them coming. An evil grin slid across her face, there would be many of them. Below her, six Werelupes broke from the trees and onto the main road, keeping pace with her with long strides.

     She tossed the glove down and shouted, "Find the owner of this glove and make sure the last thing she knows is fear!"

     The Werelupes stopped for a moment, sniffing the glove. With the scent in their nose, they raised them into the air and smell it. The owner had been there not very long before. They turned to look at Fiona, their grins as cruel as hers and their eyes glowing red with the thrill of the hunt.

     They nodded to her and then started again, racing away to hunt down the unsuspecting Neopet. Fiona sighed with both pleasure and melancholy. She wanted to stay and watch, but time had run out. She needed to return to Faerieland before she was missed. Still, she consoled herself, she would return that night to a positive report from the Werelupes.

     She teleported herself away as her Werelupes bore down on Caelum.

     ***

     Caelum heard them coming. The pounding of feet on the road was loud in the stillness she had finally grown accustomed to after four hours in the woods. She turned to look and saw nothing, but she could hear them coming. The grey light was just barely better than night, and the road behind her was covered in a light mist.

     She saw their glowing eyes first. Six sets of eyes suddenly cut through the mist, and she knew she was in trouble. The only things with glowing eyes in the forest were the things she had been told to avoid at all costs. She started running, racing along the road, knowing she was fleeing for her life.

     She glanced over her shoulder and saw the creatures in full: Werelupes. They were gaining fast, they had almost overtaken her already, even though she was running as fast as she could. Her heart hammered in her chest, there was no way she could outrun them.

     She remembered belatedly that she could still fly. She hadn't been flying because the trees covered the road at points, and she didn't want to lose it while flying. She jumped into the air, flying upwards towards the gaps in the trees that would admit her into the safety of the sky.

     For a moment, she thought she was safe. Then, a searing pain shot through her wing and she was falling. She turned to look as she crashed back to the earth. A Werelupe had jumped high enough to rake her wing with his claws, disabling her. She hit the road with a great enough impact to force all the air from her lungs. She lay there dazed for a few seconds, then she pushed up and looked around.

     The Werelupes had her surrounded; they were leering at her with their cruel grins and red eyes. She knew better than to ask them why they were doing this. Werelupes hunted travelers through the woods. The only strange thing was the time of day. She was under the impression that they only operated from evening to daybreak. She saw them tensing to spring. She closed her eyes and tensed, trying to brace for what she knew was coming.

     Instead, she heard a pained yelp. She didn't open her eyes; she was too scared to. She heard angry snarls followed by several other pained yelps. She opened her eyes when she heard the pounding off the Werelupes' footsteps racing away.

     She was alone on the road, the Werelupes had left her. She noticed a burn in the dirt on the road and recognized it.

     "Magax?" she called, sure she was mistaken, but unable to deny what she was seeing.

     There was no response. She tried to get to her feet, but her legs gave out, angry bolts of pain shooting through them. She fell back to the ground with a cry of panic. She didn't think her legs were broken, lightly sprained at the worse; they were too bruised from the fall to bear her weight without creating enough pain to force her to get off them. She looked at her wings. One of them was fine, but the other was torn from the Werelupe's claw. She pulled open her bag and searched around in it, but she knew it was hopeless. She hadn't packed healing potions; she honestly hadn't expected to need them.

     She put her head down against the dirt track, the adrenaline from the experience now spent and leaving her shaking. She was trapped in the Haunted Woods. Whoever had saved her might as well have left her to the Werelupes, because something else would finish the job soon enough.

     She heard a sound in front of her and looked up. She found herself looking up into Magax's face. It was truly blank, none of the barely restrained malice lurking in his eyes like there had been on every other encounter.

     "Thank you," she said, unsure of what else to say.

     He turned around and knelt down in front of her. For a moment, she was confused. Then she realized that he wanted her to climb onto his back. She hesitated a moment, but she was as good as dead as she was. She had nothing to lose. She climbed up, ignoring the flares of pain that shot through her as she did so. He jumped into the air and more flares of pain shot through Caelum, but she bit her tongue and didn't cry out.

     They made the trip back to her house in silence.

     When they arrived there, he landed and opened the door to her house. He walked in and stood next to the bed so she could drop herself onto the bed. Caelum groaned in pain, even though the impact was soft, and then sighed with relief. The golden light of the meadow seemed so much richer than it had before her trip into the Haunted Woods. She was inexpressibly grateful to be out of the woods again.

     "Where do you keep your healing poultices?" he asked.

     "They are potions actually; poultices are a thing of the past mostly. That cabinet there," Caelum pointed so he would know which one.

     He opened it and took a few down, depositing them where she could reach them on her nightstand. She reached over and examined them, picking out two that should ease the pain and speed up the healing process. It wasn't as fast as healing magic would have been, but it was far faster than healing unaided would have been.

     Magax headed for the door and she turned to look at him.

     "Magax, thank you! Thank you so much," she called after him. "I don't know why you did it, but thank you."

     "Don't ever go into the woods again," he said quietly. "I won't save you twice."

     He left without another word, and Caelum set about healing her wounds, more confused about Magax than she had been when the quest had begun.

To be continued...