Read Online Hawthorn by Carol Goodman - Free Book Online Page B

bodies twisted in the mud, gunfire lighting up the sky in lurid blasts . . .
    As if the image had summoned them, the sky opened up above us. Sulfurous yellow light scythed through the skeletal trees, and the ground shook under our feet.
    â€œThe zeppelin!” Helen hissed, grabbing my hand. “It’s come back!”
    We ran from the searchlights strafing the ground, but there was no place to hide. All the underbrush had been burned away. The blasted trees offered no shelter. I could hear the zeppelin right behind us, the hum of its engines rattling my teeth, scraping inside my brain. The searchlights skittered beside us. I felt one touch my brow and for a terrible second my mind went completely blank. It was as if I had been erased. Then Helen pulled me out of its path and my mind stuttered back up like a rusty machine just in time for me to see that the light was stretching toward Helen.
    I grabbed Helen and unfurled my wings, mantling them over us just as the light reached us. I had no idea if my wings would protect us from the scouring light. I could feel the heat and smell my feathers singeing, but we were still alive. But for how long? How long would my wings keep out the burning rays? How long would our minds be our own? If we were going to be turned into mindless drones I’d rather be dead.
    Then suddenly the heat was gone. I felt cool air on the outside of my wings.
    â€œI think it’s gone,” Helen whispered.
    â€œIt could be a trap,” I said, parting my wings a fraction and peering through the gap between singed feathers. A Darkling was standing over us, his wings mantled over his head. He was backlit against the glare of the retreating ship, so I couldn’t make out his face—but Helen recognized him right away.
    â€œMarlin?” she said, getting slowly to her feet. “Is that you?”
    He lowered his wings and stepped forward. His face was older, lined and scarred, a white streak in his reddish-brown hair, but when he smiled he looked like the same boy who would do somersaults off the Shawangunk ridge. “Helen! Ava! I thought it must be you when I saw the color of those feathers. But I hardly dared hope—it’s been over ten years!”
    â€œWe went through Faerie!” Helen cried, and then in a rush, “Oh Marlin, I’m so sorry. If I’d known I wouldn’t see you for so long I’d have never been so awful to you!”
    I stared at Helen. So I
hadn’t
been the only one to fight with her boyfriend that week.
    â€œYou weren’t awful, just truthful. I only took it so badly because my feelings were hurt. I felt terrible when you wentmissing. We all did.” He turned to me. “I thought Raven would go out of his mind. He blamed himself.”
    â€œBut it wasn’t his fault!”
    â€œYou couldn’t tell him that. He said that if you hadn’t argued he would have been with you the day you went missing. It was my fault, too. If I hadn’t been sulking I’d have been keeping an eye on you. We knew something was going on in the woods. The
tenebrae
had been gathering for weeks, taking over whatever creatures they could—trows, boggles, even lampsprites—searching the woods for something.”
    â€œFor the broken vessel,” Helen whispered. “We found it that day.” Quickly, Helen told Marlin what we had learned from Mr. Ward. He listened intently, his face grave. Watching him, I could see all the pain he had witnessed over these last ten years reflected in the heavy stance of his body, the lines etched in his face, and the gravity in his eyes. Although I’d caught a glimpse of the carefree boy he’d once been, that boy was gone. When Helen was done he nodded gravely.
    â€œWe suspected that the shadows found the third vessel in the summer of fourteen. We’d seen human wars before, but never one like this one. Humans burrowed into the ground killing each other in the