The music was louder here. The hall had undergone a similar transformation, plaster walls replaced by stone, and framed pictures replaced with woven tapestries. Brendan passed his sister’s room. The door was open. Looking in, he was shocked to see the green vines woven throughout the room, twined through the mass of clothing on the floor, tangled around his sister’s bed. A half-eaten sandwich was oddly cradled in a nest of leaves. Delia lay beneath a blanket of dense vines, her face pale and peaceful in the moonlight. If left to their own devices, the vines would soon cover her face and smother her. Brendan felt alarm but the music beckoned him, urging him toward the living room.
The familiar room was utterly altered. He recognized the richly carved hall from the artwork on his iPod. His parents’ comfortable, overstuffed furniture was barely visible under a carpet of vines. Where the TV usually occupied the corner, a large wooden chair loomed. In the chair, so real, more real than she could possibly be, sat Deirdre D’Anaan.
In the picture, she had been beautiful. Onstage, she had been incandescent. In person, she was breathtaking, terrifyingly radiant. In the eerie light, her pale skin glowed with a cold fire. Her long, nimble fingers, each decorated with golden rings, caressed achingly beautiful music drawn from the harp she held on her lap. The harp was exquisitely carved, inlaid with woods of many different hues, its surface polished and smooth. On her shoulder perched the tiny creature from the CD cover and the show that night. The little wings, veined and transparent like an insect’s wings, fluttered once, twice. The little eyes glittered in the pale glow of the moon streaming through the broad front window. It glared warily at Brendan as he came to stand in front of the woman’s chair.
“Is this a dream?” Brendan asked. His voice sounded so loud, a jarring contrast to the rich sound of the harp.
She didn’t stop playing. She raised her eyes to his, and he felt a shiver of delight that she should waste a gaze upon him. “A dream? No. I have wrought a Sending. Such are my gifts: I am a Weaver. I pass the thread through the loom and make tapestries for the mind’s eye. But I have no time to waste. What I do is exhausting.”
“What do you mean?” Brendan frowned. He felt like a child, an infant in front of her. Looking directly into her shining eyes was like looking into the sun. He wanted to hide his face but he made himself hold her gaze.
“You left the hall tonight before I could accomplish my goal. I rarely perform for the People of Metal. 40 I had to see you for myself.” The woman raised a hand and pointed a long, elegant finger at his chest. His scar flared in agony. “I have come to dispel the glamour that has hidden you for so long. The Ward is failing. Soon, you will come to understand who and what you are. Enemies search for you. Soon, they will be able to see you.”
“Enemies,” Brendan gasped, clawing at his chest. The pain was deepening. “I don’t understand.”
“No. You were hidden among Humans until you were old enough to defend yourself, choose for yourself. You cannot possibly understand. You must learn your true heritage and find your true strength before you are destroyed or turned to darkness.”
“Turned to darkness? I’m a high school student! What darkness?” Brendan shook his head. “I must be dreaming. This is some kind of post-concussion thing. I’m going to wake up and everything will be back to normal.”
“Foolish boy!” The woman frowned, and for the first time, Brendan sensed something dark and dangerous behind her beautiful eyes. The mark on his chest ignited with fresh, crippling pain. As he fell to his knees, gasping, she said, “You have no idea of the danger you are in. I am trying to save you!”
“You have a funny way of showing it!”
“Breandan! You have a destiny. There is no use trying to escape it.” Her voice was impossible to deny. The tone was fell 41 and it throbbed with power.
Brendan staggered to his feet. He had to get away from the music, from the power of her voice. The strange way she said his name, like Mr. Greenleaf. The thought that they were related came back, stronger than ever. “Who are you, exactly? Why should I trust you?”
“There is no time,” Deirdre said. “This Sending is exhausting to maintain.” Indeed, lines of strain creased her brow. “Listen to me.”
“No!” Brendan cried. He staggered across the floor and through the door that led to the hall.
The walls, the carpet crawled with vines that coiled around his ankles and wrists, making him stumble. Something buzzed past his ear. The little creature had left Deirdre’s shoulder and zipped about his head, shrieking. The whir of its tiny insect-like wings was maddening. Brendan batted at the creature but it ducked away easily. Suddenly, the thing dove at his chest, scuttling under his T-shirt. The feel of its tiny hands scrabbling across his skin filled him with revulsion.
“Get away!” Brendan shouted, slapping at the thing with both hands. “Get off me!” He was starting to panic. He banged into the wall and fell on his hands and knees. Instantly, the vines clutched at his hands. A sharp pain in his chest made him cry out. The little creature had bitten or clawed him!
Then the creature, having slithered out from the shirt, flew up and hovered in front of him, holding something in its hands. Brendan’s eyes went wide. It held a glowing spiral shape in its tiny fingers. While Brendan looked on in fascination, it opened its jaws to reveal rows of minute, needle-sharp teeth and began to devour the glowing shape, shredding it like a pastry and popping the pieces in its mouth with relish. 42
The shape was somehow familiar. “My scar,” Brendan whispered in horror. “It’s eating my scar!” He looked down at his bare chest, exposed by the rent in the cotton shirt. In place of the scar there was merely an empty patch of reddened skin. “That is so gross!” He swatted at the creature, but it darted out of reach and continued its feast.
“The Ward is broken,” the woman’s voice intoned. “Now you will know your true nature! You will live among the People of Metal no more. You shall come to the Fair Folk!”
Brendan spun around to find Deirdre standing in the hallway behind him. She was tall and dire, filling the doorway. Her face radiated an aura of strength and authority. She spoke, and her voice was as irresistible as a hurricane, as inevitable as an earthquake. “The People await you. Your true family awaits you. You will return to us! You must be prepared before it is too late. There are those who wish to harm you. They will try to turn you to a dark purpose.” She reached for him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Brendan shouted. “I’m with my family! Who wants to harm me? You’re the one with the crazy vines and the creepy little, scar-eating thing! Why should I listen to you?”
“You must listen,” Deirdre demanded. “I don’t wish to frighten you. I wish you to understand!”
“No,” Brendan whimpered. “Leave me alone.” He backed away, tripping over a snarl of vines. He had to escape. “Mum! Dad! Help me! Don’t let her take me!”
Scrabbling against the clutching vines, Brendan hauled himself hand over hand into the kitchen. He pulled free of the clinging tendrils with a final heave. He grabbed the edge of the kitchen table and pulled himself to his feet. He gasped in horror.
His mother and father sat at the table with a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits between them. The vines had completely engulfed his parents. His father’s head lay on the table, his mouth open. Leafy fingers clawed down his throat. His mother sat with her head thrown back, a mass of crawling leaves engulfing her. The only part of her that was recognizable was her left hand, where her wedding ring glinted in the silvery light.
“No!” Brendan screamed. “No! Let them go! Let them go!”
A thick root twined around his foot and jerked him off balance. He crashed to the tile floor of the kitchen as vines swarmed hungrily over him, enveloping him, pinning his limbs uselessly to his sides. The vines wormed their way up over his shoulders…