Into the Woods

Chapter 13

As soon as the words left his mouth the reaction to the area was instantaneous and fantastical. The weak flickering flames of his little birthday candles burned black and the very air gained a certain ethereal luminescence. More of the lambent pitch blazes appeared midair around him, floating up and down, bobbing in place, so close to the boy that he felt as if he should have been able to feel their heat. And yet there was none. In fact a shiver rolled down Lance's body, for a chill had been set upon the atmosphere.

Against his palm the branch began to vibrate, and his gaze snapped back to the front. He couldn't let go and his other hand flew up to his wrist, heart beginning to pump faster and faster as if he were running. A glow lit up the small wood like a star had fallen into it.

This did burn, but his cry of pain was locked behind his gritted teeth as he tugged on his arm. Wind picked up around him, dragging at his clothes and lifting his hair, stinging at his eyes and swirling the loose gravel into the brief mandala of stone and leaf before wiping them away once more. No sound accompanied this gale.

A crack appeared in the stick, splintering up and out from beneath his palm, another formed, and the plank shattered like glass. Debris rocketed outward, past him, some of it embedding in his flesh. But Lance couldn't feel it, his very being was trembling from the energy held in this liminal space.

The hovering blazes extinguished as suddenly as they'd ignited, the glimmer that came from the very quality of the setting itself went dark as if there had been a switch flipped from the other side, and once more the normal sounds of the night resumed as if nothing had happened. Only one candle remained, the small fire settling after the eerie storm.

Lance waited with baited breath. Sensation slowly returned to him, the first was a warmth, that dribbled down his right cheek. Before the stinging pain of the multiple cuts set in. He resisted the urge to lift a hand to wipe away at the blood dripping down, but was too worried that if he moved at all, even allowed so much as a blink, he would miss something of vast importance.

Only... nothing really did happen.

"This can't be it!" His own voice startled him as he shouted into the swiftly chilling evening.

Maybe he'd done something wrong... well, he had, but he'd hoped.... He'd prayed that all of his shortcuts would somehow be enough. They simply hadn't been.

He could feel the prickle of tears teetering on the very edges of his eyelashes, a breath away from spilling over as his tenuous grip on this very last ray of hope slipped.

The boy couldn't start crying now though. He doubted that he would ever stop. He spun on his heels, ready to run straight back into the woods. Unsure exactly what his new plan was, only that he'd find another one of those damned faeries and ask, no demand, that they--

He barely spotted the looming shadow in time and almost fell back as he over corrected. Had he not Lance would have collided with the figure that stood suddenly alongside him at the crossroad. Even in the gloom of the night this silhouette was darker still. Despite the low illumination of the stars, and of the waxing crescent that was just now cresting over the tops of the trees, it was as if an obscurity hung over them both, and it was only due to the single, small, weak candle light that Lance was able to make out any details of this stranger at all. In this stunted tuscan glow that quivered, deceptively over the features. He noticed, first and foremost, the eyes that were focused with such incredible intent upon him were like a violet inferno rimmed by deepest eventide, set into an almost angelic face, which veritably gleamed in the gloom it was ever so pale.

More particulars became apparent as the boy looked on. Like how those teeth, set behind a wicked smile, were pointed like.... Like fangs.

Lance gulped, thoughts stuttering over the next terrifying minutia his eyes took in, and he was unable to drag his gaze away despite the fear that very suddenly had his blood turning to ice in his veins and his breath freezing within his lungs.