Page 15 of Death of a Mortal

“Are you trying to lead us somewhere?” I asked it. I wasn’t sure if my voice sounded as loopy as I felt.

The way it stared was…jarring, like it saw more than just two girls stumbling through the woods, like it was more sentient than the average bird.

Its only response came as a tilt of its head. It looked the opposite direction from where we stood and took off at the exact moment we heard a terrifying noise sound through the forest, like a cross between a high-pitched scream and a low, throaty growl—like it was two voices but somehow fused as one, separate but combined. It set my every nerve on edge and made the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand straight up.

Reality crashed over my foggy brain, the returning adrenaline blocking out the fever-induced lightness. The voice seemed to come from everywhere. I didn’t know which direction to retreat.

Had that damned bird led us into a trap? Nella tensed beside me and shifted closer with a sharp intake of breath. The wind picked up around our feet, swirling in a circle, lifting the leaves from the ground in a wide vortex. Another…wail was the best way to describe it, echoed around us. This time, it sounded closer. Was it a banshee? Were wailing banshees even real? It was the first terrifying thought that came to mind at the sound, but I was pretty sure they weren’t real.

My mind felt clearer. The pain was just a background distraction I found I could ignore in this desperate situation. I knew enough about the fae from school, but not much about the creatures thatlived in their lands, bound by the invisible border constructed by a fae king long ago—allegedly. Mortals had no way of knowing if such a force existed, as we couldn’t sense magic. So we went on the word of the cruel king that he was protecting the mortals from the fae creatures we knew nothing about. I suppose the fact that insane mythical creatures hadn’t turned up in our mortal town so close to the border meant that there was likely at leastsometruth to the magical barrier.

The thing in the forest continued to wail. The sound inched closer, but every time I contemplated running in one direction, the next wail seemed to come from where I had planned on going, making my panic reach a crescendo. We were left stumbling around, bumping into each other in a small circle, feeling very vulnerable.

The sound was making my ears throb to the point where I had to let go of Nella to clasp my hands over them. She dropped to her knees behind me as fear took over and propelled me. I dropped next to her and wrapped her in my arms as she screamed. Releasing my own ears doubled the pain pressing on my eardrums and seemed to push into my actual brain, feeling like it was swelling and pressing against my skull and ready to explode.

Just as I was about to close my eyes to the pain, I glimpsed movement at the edge of the clearing to my right. I forced my eyes to stay open and follow the movement, both Nella and I paralyzed on the ground in a heap. A small figure was stalking closer to us around the edge of the clearing. I could make out spindly legs and arms, as if the thing was fragile and bony. I couldn’t make out its eyes or a mouth, but I could tell its head was turned toward us, watching. The clothes it wore seemed thin as a sheet of paper and just as white, billowing in the wind still swirling around us. Its makeshift clothing covered only the lower half of the thing’s bony body and stopped at its knees, every bone pronounced. The creature seemed to have the same anatomy as a mortal human yet was far from human with its cries and thin purplish skin.

It had long, flowing jet-black hair that seemed at odds with therest of the weathered body. The hair was almost beautiful and flowed over its chest, covering what could have been bare breasts.

I tried to pull Nella to her feet, but she seemed glued to the ground, limbs frozen and unwilling to move. So instead, I found some sliver of courage and grasped it for dear life.

“We mean no harm! Let us be, and we’ll let you be!” I cried out, praying it was human enough to understand me.

The thing stopped its pursuit and wailing and stared at me. I realized with a lurch in my gut that it had no eyes, only indentations of sockets with thin skin clinging to its pointed bone structure. Its mouth seemed to smile, but it was hard to tell, as it had no distinct lips, just an opening that peeled back to reveal spaced-out thin yellow teeth that I guessed had once been very sharp but had been ground to dull points over time. And I assumed this thing had been around for a long time.

Nella stirred on the ground behind me as the creature’s stare-with-no-eyes seemed to shift a fraction from me to her. I bolstered the last remnants of my courage, intending to protect Nella with my last breath.

“Child, can you understand me?” the thing asked in a voice that was unearthly and somewhat feminine. Its eye sockets turned back up toward me, clearly intending the question for me.

I could hear the wailing behind the question, but it was faint and less painful, almost diminished as it mixed with the words I could distinguish.

Nella’s screams started up again, and I became desperate to make them stop. She must have heard only the wailing, no words, or else she would have been as shocked as I was that this thing spoke.

“Yes, I can! Please, just—stop. I’ll give you anything you ask to leave us be!”

“Naci!” Nella screamed, pleaded.

“Fuck, Nella, I’m trying. I don’t know what to do! You run if you get the chance, do you understand?”

“You are unique, my child,” the creature said, ignoring the panicbetween Nella and me. “A mortal that can understand me and not succumb to my wails without their brain bleeding and imploding. It is mere amusement that has kept my call from ruining the other.”

The other. I looked to my sister on the ground, my fear for her growing to a potent thing as I saw a trickle of blood stream from her ear between her fingers.

“Stop, please! If your amusement buys her life, then tell me what you wish, and I’ll do it,” I pleaded with everything I had.

It pondered my offer for a few wonderfully silent moments, giving Nella a reprieve.

“You could be useful, I suppose. I’ll give you a task, a unique one. A difficult one. If you succeed, I shall grant you your life and one question, and I shall answer as truly and honestly as is possible with my knowledge, which I admit is vast.”

Of course it hadn’t been enough to survive my father and Aemilia. Now I had to survive an ancient creature’s creepy—and most likely deadly—forest task.

“And if I don’t succeed?” I asked, fear and uncertainty interlacing with my thrashing heartbeat.

“If you fail? Well then, I will wail until the other’s head explodes and take you as my personal plaything. It’s not often that I can keep an intelligent being alive while speaking to it. This is a banshee’s gift and curse.”

Holy. Shit. The thing was,in fact, a banshee. I thought banshees were just warnings in nursery rhymes, stories to frighten children into staying away from fae lands.

I had no choice but to accept. This couldn’t be how either of us died. Not here, not now. Not right after we’d gotten our first taste of freedom that promised a better life.