Tír na nÓg Trilogy, Book II: The Rising Dark

Teeth and Toes

"And why did you bring her, then?"

"Called first into the gateway, she was! It couldn't be helped. Fate chose her."

"Rosey posey, she's got pretty skin. I'd like such skin, smooth and fair."

"Perhaps she'll give it to you--"

"Perhaps I'll take it from her."

"And her tiny sweet teeth, then! See them?"

"Human teeth."

"Lovely, lovely human teeth it is. String them round your neck for luck, for dancing."

"Hush now, both. You'll not touch this one. She's not for your deciding, then."

Emery heard the voices as she began to surface from an under-watery sleepiness, but even with her eyes open, she saw no one, nothing, just a sort of deep gray mistiness left to right, up to down. She flung her hands to her eyes and rubbed, but nothing changed. Thinking she'd gone blind, the girl began to panic, felt about and found herself sitting on a hard earthen floor.

"Don't fret, pretty," spoke one of the voices, so near that Emery startled and scooted backward.

"You haven't lost sight," said a slightly deeper though still rather pinched voice. "You see what we want you to see."

"What is this?" Emery asked, finding her words. "Where am I?"

A buzzing sounded at her right ear, followed by a thin drawl: "It was you who stepped into the ring, foolish soft one."

Something poked her bare neck, and Emery flung her hands up to cover herself. She hated being unable to see. These creatures, whatever they were, seemed malevolent or mischievous or both, and she was afraid. "C-can you send me back? Please I--I'm sorry for stepping into your mushrooms. I promise I won't do it again."

"Hear that, then? She's promising." This voice was, if Emery had to guess, female--or, at least, it sounded more feminine than the other two she'd so far distinguished, though all three were higher in pitch than a human voice.

The deepest voice replied, "You haven't anything to fear. We won't harm you."

"Yet . . ." said the mid-range, drawling voice.

"Oh, please please! Might I have one tooth? Or some of her soft hair? A fine nest it would make--"

"Quiet! Enough of your chittering." A fourth voice entered the fray, quite different from the other three. It was almost human in sound, though it seemed genderless, and there was a sort of regal quality to it, though Emery couldn't figure out why, exactly. Though everything remained gray mist, undulating rhythmically, and Emery saw nothing otherwise, she felt the presence of this fourth being drawing near to her. "She's meant to be here, and we're meant to leave her be. If you so much as touch her again, I'll have your throat out."

The authority of this fourth voice frightened Emery, even though it apparently wanted to protect her. She sat and waited for them to act, to speak, to give some indication of why she was there, the whole while her eyes staring blindly into the gray, wondering what these beings looked like and where she was.

After a tense moment, the authoritative voice sounded again: "We will speak, and then they will return," it said, and Emery assumed its words were meant for her because abruptly, all four of them were gone. She knew it without needing her vision. How long they'd take, she didn't know. They'd given no indication. Minutes? Hours? God forbid, days? What was she supposed to do while she waited? She was hungry and confused and blind—and she just wanted to be back with Cullen, trying to get out of the forest. He'd saved her so often . . . Could he do it, this time? She wasn't so sure. She didn't even know if she was still in the forest.