“Right about what?” I asked.
“That the only way to get all the fae on board is to see what the wellspring says. They sort of worship the thing, right?”
“More or less,” I said.
The reality was that all magical creatures had a sort of symbiotic relationship with the Wellsprings. Their magic fed into nature, and sustained the mystical DNA that lived within our cells. The fae of the world did look at the wellspring as more of a living entity than shifters did, but worship wasn’t quite the right word.
Rasp nudged Vincent’s shoulder and nodded his head at Sahalie. “Bro, I knew you’d like it here. Want me to try and get the digits for you?”
Vincent. having finally realized we’d all noticed he was ogling Sahalie, blushed and lowered his head. “No,” he mumbled and jammed his fists into his pockets.
“Leave him alone,” Delphine said and swatted Rasp’s arm. “You’re embarrassing him.”
“Damn it, lady, will you stop hitting me. You’re worse than my mom,” Rasp said, rubbing his arm.
“Sounds like she should have given you a few more whacks when you were younger, then you wouldn’t be such an asshole.” Delphine rarely ever resorted to cursing, but the quirk of her lips told me she rather enjoyed teasing Rasp by acting like his overbearing mother.
“I’m not an asshole.”
“I’m sorry, dear,” Delphine said. “I should have said irritating jerk. My apologies.”
“Uh, okay. Thanks, I guess?” Rasp said uncertainly.
“I don’t want to be an asshole myself,” I said, gritting my teeth, “but can you all please shut up? I’ve got a pretty important thing coming up that might get me killed, so if I could concentrate, that would be great. ‘Kay? Thanks.”
They had the decency to look abashed as we continued walking deeper into the forest. I smoothed down the ceremonial clothes I’d been given. Sahalie and the others had dressed me in what they had called “traditional” attire: a skirt of woven birch bark strips and a white, flowing fur cloak with gorgeous, braided beadwork that would make the ladies at the sewing shop drool with envy. My feet were encased in handmade leather sandals, and a wreath of oak leaves and pine boughs twisted into a crown sat on my head. I tightened my grip on the vial of liquid that came from an underground aquifer that sat below the wellspring. Achakos had instructed me to drink it right before I stepped in.
“Are you ready?” Delphine asked.
I took a deep breath. “As ready as I can be.”
Ahead, the trees thinned out, and I saw the fae spread out around a clearing.
“Have any of you ever seen a wellspring?” I asked.
“I did once, a long time ago,” Vince said. “With my dad. It was one of the really small ones inside the Decimus kingdom.”
“What does it look like?” I was dying to know because I’d never had the chance to see one of my family’s wellsprings when I was a kid.
“Hard to say,” Vincent said. “The one we saw was small. More like a puddle. I guess it was kinda shimmery, floating above the ground and-oh, wow!”
When we stepped into the clearing, what we found before us was nothing like he’d described. Rather than a small puddle, a massive, glittering sea stretched out before us. It took up the entire clearing and wound its way deeper into the forest. Had it been water, it would have looked more like a swamp with all the trees sticking up through it. Even in the late-morning sunlight, the shimmer of magic illuminated the underside of the canopy, creating a surreal light.
Humans couldn’t actually see magic, and if one of them had stumbled on the area, they wouldn’t have noticed the shimmering, reflective light or the faint ripple of magic as the wind blew across its surface. No, humans would only have gotten a strange feeling, a chill in their bones. That was how the “haunted forest” myths humans had been telling since time immemorial had started.
The Wellsprings tended to appear in naturally isolated locations-forests, deserts, mountainous regions far from most human settlements, and therefore far from technology. No one knew exactly how these founts of magic selected the areas they appeared in, and that gave more credence to the idea that they were, in some way, sentient. It was quite similar to how fungi had been shown to solve problems and select the paths of least resistance in lab settings.
“This is amazing,” Delphine said in awe, putting a hand to her heart.
“It used to be more impressive,” Kaskawan said as he stepped forward to join us. “At one point in time, this was the largest wellspring in existence. It stretched out like an ocean, reaching all the way beyond the border of Canada. Nearly three-hundred-fifty miles. The banks of this wellspring sat at the edges of both modern-day Vancouver and Portland, Oregon. Now?” He sighed sadly and swept his hand toward the glittering lake of magic. “It is barely a shadow of what it once was.”
“It’s still huge,” I said, unable to tear my eyes from it.
“True,” he said, but he looked a little depressed. “It is still one of the largest in the world, but nowhere near where it should be. Though, it will be more than enough for what you’re about to do.”
“Which is?” I asked. “You haven’t told me much about the ceremony.”
“It doesn’t take much,” Sahalie said as she walked forward. She was carrying a bundle of dried herbs and flowers. “You’ll need to be sanctified first.”
She touched the end of the bundle, and a spark ignited at her fingertips. A moment later, an inch-thick finger of smoke drifted up from the center.
“Drink the water now,” Sahalie commanded, waving the stick around my head.
I did as she asked, breathing in the burnt scents of sage, thyme, pine, and a few other things I couldn’t pick out. When the water hit my mouth. I actually widened my eyes in surprise. Even though I had been holding it tight in my sweating palm, the water was ice cold. It made my tongue tingle, like I’d just stuck a battery in my mouth.
Something in the smoke was making my head swim as well.
“What’s in there? Weed?” I asked, blinking to clear my vision.
“Marijuana is a very strong magical herb,” Sahalie said, deep in concentration as she swirled the smoke around me.
“Ay, yo,” Rasp said with a chuckle. “Could I…uh…get sanctified next?”
Delphine swatted him again.
“Will you stop hitting me?”
Before anyone else could say anything, Sahalie cast the smudge stick aside and took my hands. The other fae began to chant, a high and low throat-singing that send weird, reverberating vibrations through the surrounding area. Leaves jittered, and my own chest hummed with the vibration. It made my dizziness even stronger.
Sahalie cleared her throat and began to speak, squeezing my hands for emphasis. I had no clue what she was saying. The language was heavy with trilling consonants and tongue-rolled vowels. A strange sense of foreboding as well as hope settled over me. I couldn’t help but think it was a kind of warning, as well as a prayer of protection or perhaps a wish for good luck.
Sahalie released my hands. “The wellspring is ready for you, and you are ready for it. Proceed. I do hope we will see you at the end, Sister Brielle Laurent.”
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