The Prophecy and the Familiar

EIGHT

Ivy trembled. The Standing Stones aside, this was a powerful place. People long ago buried their dead here, and their shades still lurked. Some of the grave markers yet stood, though they were covered in moss and the ivy that had provided her name. The sense of them, the sense of death and otherworldly knowledge, had always kept her from entering the woods.

She hadn't been here since the farmer's wife had carried her out.

The Standing Stones seemed to call to her. If she had dared to think of them in years past, she would have said the stone circle lay at the midpoint of the path that bisected the woods, starting at the edge of the cornfield and ending near Alastair's cottage. Now, though, she followed her sense of foreboding through a serpentine maze of overgrown trail and ancient trees.

Maybe I don't recall as much as I thought. Her mother had told her to ignore the shades of the people laid to rest in the woods, and the old ghosts, made restless by looming Samhain, ignored her back—that, at least, she had remembered true.

All around her, the creatures of the woods fled: squirrels, mice, deer, bats, even one of the dogs from the nearest farm, all heading for safer havens. Ivy heard and smelled them—real and solid, unlike the shades—but ignored them as well. Wildlife tended to steer clear of her, as did dogs and the village cats.

Branch by overgrown branch, the light of the blue moon disappeared, blotted out as though the forest were snuffing out candles. As each cold ray of illumination blackened, strange, fragmented memories flashed into Ivy's mind.

Did I follow my mother's scent? Yes, I must have.

Willow had bullied her into the farmhouse, hidden her behind the cold wood stove, and told her to stay put, safe from the storm. Inside the farmhouse, inside a circle of protection laid down by the Queen or perhaps Willow her own self.

Fat lot of good it may do. Her mother's voice, overheard as she slipped through the cat flap and into the roiling night. This is a true Midsummer's Demon.

Ivy hadn't been in the house yet—she wasn't sure if the farmer or his wife even knew of her existence—but it was no foolish kitten's curiosity that impelled her to leave. Terror for her mother had driven her from her haven.

Ivy halted at a grave marker, less weathered than the others, and paused to gather her wits again. This marker, a pedestal of granite whose inscription had only one legible word—"beloved"—boasted a miniature statue of a cherub. Ivy hopped onto the pedestal, squinting in the treacherous light of the moon. The cherub's face seemed to shift, grimacing as a stray breeze stirred the shadows.

I jumped up here before. I could see...I saw the demon in the stone circle.

Her mother had shrieked in warning and rage at the demon. Isabella—the witch was there, wielding her wand—had shouted to Alastair, then cried out in terrified panic. Something about a child, a child who shouldn't have been there...

That child would have been my master. The realization hit her hard enough to provoke a dismayed mew from her throat. How had the child gotten here? Had he followed his mother, just as Ivy had?

You might get to ask him, Ivy pondered, and jumped down. If he even remembers.

That was the wrong that needed righting. Isabella and Alastair's child, lost forever to the gateway of the stone circle.

The Standing Stones loomed now, cold and black and infinite. Her nose recalled smoke, as thick as tar. The last time she had seen the stone circle, it had been aflame.

Ivy knew only the barest scrap of demonlore, but she recalled that Midsummer brought fire demons. This one would have immolated half the countryside and whatever unlucky villagers got in its way. The townsfolk would have blamed it on lightning, had the witch and wizard and their familiars not banished it.

If two of them hadn't given their lives, that was.

I saw Alastair fall.

Willow, howling in anguish and wrath. Isabella, grimly chanting in a voice that was as determined as it was shaky with shock and fatigue. The Queen, leaping from stone to stone and warding away the demonfires with magical hisses.

The child! Willow, Rowan, my baby!

Isabella stumbles to her knees, exhausted by the effort of the spell. Queen Rowan jumps to the center of the circle, Willow crouches at her side, and the two Cats face the demon. Their fur bristles. Their eyes glow green and gold and red in the flames.

The child, indistinct in the smoke, cries out and tries to run to Isabella. Visible only as a blurry absence of form, the demon swirls toward the young one.

Rowan turns, and with one leap, shoves the child between the two tallest stones. Willow holds her ground, rises up, and screams. Magical power leaves her mouth and creates a shield over the two Cats and the child—

The child is gone. Disappeared into a strange, whirling, unnatural vortex between the stones.

Ivy didn't dare to gaze directly upon the stone obelisks, now only a few horse-lengths away.

The Queen had hissed, backing away from the shimmering portal. She didn't mean to push the child through, Ivy realized. Oh, my Queen...but you saved the life of your mistress's son...

Isabella cried out, and the wand had fallen from her hand. Rowan wailed at the sky. The demon, sensing their sudden weakness, struck.

Fire roars from the insubstantial blur. Willow screams again, and while the demonflame burns the tip of the Queen's ear to a crisp, her life is saved. But Rowan cannot gather her power in time—and Isabella cannot pick up her wand in time—to save Willow.

"No!" The word was wrenched from her. Ivy did not want to remember further. Her mother had flown through the air in a cloud of smoke and blood. She never landed. Only a pile of black fur, a spatter of red on one of the obelisks, and a leather collar remained.

"Ivy!"

She turned and, astonished, saw the Queen behind her.

"It is time to go through the portal, kitten." Her face betrayed sadness and regret. "Can you see it?"

Ivy forced herself to look back at the stone obelisks. Instead of vague tree-shapes and shadows from the moon, the space between the stones was filled with the glittering whirlpool she remembered from before. She hissed.

"Go," Rowan said. "Honor your mother, Ivy."

Ivy yet hesitated. "Why can't you go? I don't know what to do!"

"Go," said the Queen, patiently. "The demon you saw earlier is returning. My mistress is banishing it. It's no fire demon, but I don't think you want to meet it on this side."

On this side? But as she started to form the question, Ivy thought she sensed the entity from the cornfield, fleeing Isabella and heading straight for them.

She turned and darted into the portal.