Witch Clan: Matriarchs, John Stormm [great reads txt] 📗

feel their familiar lights coming from anywhere near. It was as if they were nowhere in this world, and he didn't like that prospect at all. Feeling about for someone or something familiar, he could feel the faintest touch of a kindred soul. It seemed a far ways off, on the other side of the haunted forest he now faced.

Looking into the darkness of the forest trail, he could make out pale ghostly lights between the trees. This intrigued him, and seeing the little shaggy creature ahead of him on the trail, he just had to go in and get a better look. The shellycoat looked like a shaggy haired teddy bear, or roughly about the same size. It’s dark eyes gazed up at him through matted hair and a mirthless, toothy grin cut across its hirsute face.

“Are you alright?” he beamed at the critter.

“I’m doing better than you are,” it wickedly shined back at him.

“I only wanted to help,” he insisted.

“And that was your undoing,” it projected sinister thoughts at him. “Someone is here for you, wicked child.”

“I’m not a bad boy,” Johnny glowered. “Where’s my grandma?”

“You have no more grandma,” a woman’s voice chimed in. “She will have no more to do with such an evil brat.”

“My grandma wouldn’t leave me,” he shouted in panic. “She loves me. She wouldn’t do that. I’m her boy.”

“Then where is she now?” The Vough came forward into his view. She was a tall and gaunt figure of a woman, with wild, pale blond hair that ran down her back. She wore a long green dress with wide sleeves. Her features were elongated with long spidery fingers ending with nails that more resembled talons. In those hands she carried a polished wooden scepter with an orange glowing orb at the end.

“You were a bad boy, leaving the yard like that,” she scolded. “Your grandmother cannot be troubled watching the both of you if you’re going to be traipsing off like that, so she left you to me.”

“I just wanted to help the little furry guy,” Johnny whined, tears flowing freely now. “I wasn’t trying to be bad. I want my grandma.”

“It’s too late now, wretched Sidhe child,” the Vough said. “You’ll have to stay with me at my place until your grandmother has time to come for you.”

“She’ll come to your house for me?” he asked hopefully.

“If she wants you and something doesn’t eat you first, you filthy thing,” she spat back viciously. “But I can’t imagine who would want such a devil boy.”

Johnny was stunned and shocked to his heart. The images and the slurs struck home with a familiarity he couldn’t deny. Perhaps his mischief had gone too far this time. Grandma was always defending him from others who thought he was damned. He berated himself for not being more helpful to her and being more obedient. Even though eventually he would be left to himself, he didn't want that to happen so soon. He had only himself to blame, because there was no one else. Now maybe Leona could have his room next to Grandma’s. Maybe if he was good, he could come back and they would let him stay in the guest room. That wouldn’t be so bad. He would follow this hateful woman and be the best he could be until his grandma came for him. He wanted to cry, but he knew that would just annoy them even more, so he held in his tears and put on his brave face.

The shellycoat scampered ahead of them up the trail. There was no trace of a limp or any injury. It was beginning to dawn on him that the belligerent little creep had purposely fooled him to get him into trouble. The idea of kicking it and giving it a real limp crossed his mind and gave him a moment's pleasure. He didn't want to do anything that might forestall his grandmother coming to get him soon, so he satisfied himself by beaming that image to the shellycoat. It turned and bared rows of needle sharp teeth at him. Johnny grinned back and focused his feelings of forlorn upon the creature who had caused them. The shellycoat howled and tore off the trail into the woods and kept running.

"Now what has come over that stupid peck?" the Vough wondered aloud. "No matter. We've got a ways to go and no time to waste, you foul thing. Keep up with me now, or no telling what may snatch you off the trail here. This world isn't exactly friendly to Sidhe kind, you know."

He didn't know, but then neither was the other world he knew. They had run his kind out of it at sword point centuries ago. He had a few human friends but he understood the human capacity for love was limited and should never be pushed. He dare not push it at all here. He shined a plea for Brother George or some of his pixie friends but it was like shouting in an empty room. There was no one to hear his call. He was alone here, without the benefit of his grandma. Maybe this woman would like him a little better if she got to know him and he was a good boy. He didn't like her much, but she was all he had, so he would try harder.

* * *

The Vough led him through the depths of that strange wood all that day and into the night. Not being human, she didn’t tire. Being only half human, Johnny was just a little tired. His human half rested in its dreams, while his Sidhe half probed the darkness and touched and examined the myriad life forms he sensed watching their progress. The orange glow of the sceptered orb cast little light in the nighttime forest, but then his fae eyes needed little light to see, and he had other senses that extended out to satisfy his incessant curiosity. He made it a point not to fall more than a step or two, at most, behind the Vough.

There were winged creatures flitting about, that loosely resembled pixies, but these kind had none of their light. Where pixies tended to be playful, and sometimes to the extreme, these beings were cruel and enjoyed tormenting any hapless creature they found. They had a rat cornered in the hollow bole of a tree and were taking turns piercing the rodent with long thorns. It would turn to try to dig itself farther into the tree and one by one the piskies would dive down and place yet another thorn in its tattered hide. Such were the number of thorns piercing it, that if human daysight was all that Johnny had, the rat would have looked like a porcupine with inverted quills. The animal was weakening noticeably from blood loss and insects drawn to its scent made the poor beast all the more miserable. Was his proximity to the Vough all that kept himself from becoming the object of piskie malice? He drew closer as she cleared away the largest spider web he had ever seen for them to pass down the trail.

Johnny was very hungry and as snappish as the Vough could be, he thought it best not to nag her verbally about his needs. Instead he chose to superimpose his feelings of hunger upon the woman herself. This worked well as she decided to stop their trek long enough to draw her obsidian knife from her belt and cut a portion off a giant puffball. It looked as unappetizing as a rising lump of bread dough, but the insides were dry and not gooey as he expected. She sat down on a stone and offered him some, but he settled for the fried egg sandwich he had in his daypack and a piece of sweet pear. Removing it from its waxed paper wrapping, he folded the wrap as his grandmother had taught him and placed it back in his pack. Eating his lunch so much reminded him of home, he could not help his tears from falling, but he made no sound to draw unwanted attention. He had a bottle of his grandpa’s soda in the pack, but no bottle opener. There were still some nuts, muffins and another pear. He rationed these for later.

Having satisfied her hunger, the Vough rose from her seat and tirelessly continued their trek down the forest trail to her home as the gray light of day broke through the dark forest canopy. Johnny followed close behind. The trail came to a wide chasm that had a sluggish waterfall that spanned a couple hundred yards at the north end. A sluggish river dribbled water over a hundred foot precipice into a black pool below that emptied into a series of streams that flowed southward through a marshy valley that was a little over a half mile wide at this point. The trail continued in a ramp down into the marsh and crossed the numerous streams by a series of log footbridges.

As they picked their way across the footbridges to the small, grassy hillocks in midstream, he was fascinated by the variety of plants he saw there. A tall plant topped with a flower that looked like an wide, open, green clamshell lined with thorns had just snapped shut on some kind of bird that had gotten too close. He decided he would not let his curiosity get the best of him this time and followed the Vough, who was dragging the hem of her long dress through all the filth of the swamp.

At the top of the chasm on the other side, the mad fae turned and waved her scepter over the valley below and chanted gutturally. When she was satisfied that she had said enough, she continued leading them through another section of dark woods that gradually led to higher, broken ground interspersed with evergreens. He was curious about what it all meant, but was afraid to ask. The strong feel of impending rain was in the air. His grandmother would be along to get him eventually, and he would be waiting and on his best behavior.