Darkness in Appalachia

It was dark, too dark. She swore that her eyes were opened but there was no light at all. Her body would move but she seemed to be tied to something with a rope or chain around her waist. She tried to move away but the rope tightened, holding her more firmly. She panicked, whimpering as she kicked and hit, desperate to get loose. The rope around her waist moved away but then she was pinned on her back by something else. She felt something lay on top of her and grab her wrists, pinning them over her head and effectively immobilizing her.

“Let me go.” She screamed at the top of her lungs as she continued to struggle. She went into a frenzy, bucking and twisting wildly. She was able to get one hand free and clawed where the face would be if it had a face. “Get off of me.”

They continued to struggle and she could hear someone speaking but was too worked up to listen. There was a clicking sound and light flooded the room. She blinked, trying to adjust to the sudden brightness as a loud voice drew her attention.

“I thought I told you you couldn’t do any of that shit in my bad unless you invited me too, David.”

Her vision began clearing and she saw Puk standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. She stopped struggling and looked up, finding David above her panting with exertion. Confusion flooded her body as she struggled to think of any reason that she would be in Puk’s bed with David. “What the hell?”

David saw that she had calmed down and rolled off of her. He sat on the edge of the bed wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and smiled down at her. “It’s good to see you awake.”

She struggled to a sitting position, pulling the blanket up with her. “What’s going on? How did I get here and why were we in bed together?”

Puk laughed and came into the room, sitting on the other side of the bed from David. “Oh, honey. It really sucks when you wake up in bed with a handsome man and don’t remember anything doesn’t it.”

Robyn blushed and looked under the blankets, checking to see if she was dressed. Relieved at seeing her familiar tank top and shorts, she lowered the blanked and glared at the two of them, extremely annoyed at the broad grins they both had aimed at her. “Are you two going to tell me what’s going on or what?”

David laughed. “Calm down. We’re just happy that you are awake. It’s been a rough couple of days since you fought with Ameet.”

Robyn’s eyes widened as she remembered. “Ameet! What happened to him? Did my spell work?”

Puk nodded, her purple eyes twinkling. “It worked perfectly. That fireball you made caught him completely by surprise and left nothing but a burnt out husk. It almost did the same to you but we were able to pull you out before that happened.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Then, I guess I’ve been unconscious because of my injuries. There were probably pretty severe.”

They looked at each other and their smiles faded. David was the one who spoke this time. “They were really bad. Most of the major bones in your body had been broken and several organs were lacerated and punctured. Your throat and vocal cords were also damaged pretty badly. But that’s not the real reason you’ve been out.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that enough?”

“It is but we were able to treat those pretty quickly after Puk called on a few more healers.”

Robyn turned to Puk. “Who else did you get to come?”

Puk shrugged. “A few of Beryl’s friends and a couple of others. We had about five healers in here working on you and Walker.”

Robyn sat up straighter. “How’s Walker? I remember you saying that he made it home but did he make it through all right?”

Puk waved her hand at Robyn to get her to lay back down. “He’s fine. All of his major injuries were healed and he’s just resting now. He would probably be in here too but Beryl gave him something to make him sleep.”

Robyn smiled. “That’s good. I was worried about him. OK. Now tell me why my injuries weren’t the reason that I was out for so long.”

“Well, it was an injury that kept you down, just not a physical one.” David smiled at the look she sent him. “Do you remember that Ameet was removing part of your soul?”

Robyn hesitated, a shadow passing in front of her eyes. “I remember that he said he was going to but I don’t remember him actually doing it.” All she could remember was pain so extreme that the rest of the world ceased to exist but they didn’t need to know that.

He took her hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of it. “Well, the piece of soul that you lost was in the chamber with him when your spell went off. It was burned with him.”

Robyn looked back at him and her stomach twisted in anxiety. “But souls can’t burn. They aren’t solid matter and are basically just energy.”

“That’s what I was told too but we learned otherwise later.”

Puk drew her attention. “Robyn, shouldn’t you go back to sleep and we can tell you the rest in the morning?” Something in her tone sounded off and she wouldn’t meet Robyn’s eyes.

“Haven’t I been in bed for days already? I’m not tired.”

“But we are. It’s the middle of the night and we’ve been taking care of you non stop for the past three days. David’s had to go to work and then come back here to help and I’ve been handling everything around here while making sure you and Walker were comfortable.” Her voice was harsh but Robyn felt that she didn’t really mean what she was saying. Fear settled in her stomach as she tried to imagine what could be so bad that Puk wouldn’t want to say.

“It’s OK, Puk. If you can make some tea to help her sleep I will take her up to her bed and answer her questions until she falls asleep. That way, you can get some rest in your own bed.”

Puk looked at him and something softened in her face. “I still think we should wait until morning to talk anymore. We should let Beryl check her out first thing and just let her sleep until then.”

“How am I supposed to sleep now that you’ve made me so curious? I want to know what’s going on, Puk.” Robyn’s tone was almost pleading and Puk finally met her eyes. Puk saw the fear in them but also a resolve that hadn’t been there before. It reassured her and she stood, planning on letting David do the explaining.

“Fine. Just remember that...” She hesitated, unsure of what to say. Shaking her head, she disappeared from the room without saying anthing.

Robyn turned towards David, giving him a hard look. “OK. Now tell me what’s going on. I’ve never seen Puk so nervous before.”

David looked away from her but tightened his grip on her hand. “I think that you will understand once I’ve finished. Just remember that we did what we needed to save you and don’t get mad. OK?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I can’t promise not to get mad until I hear what you did but I will remember that you did it for me. That will have to be good enough.”

He laughed softly. “Right.” He turned his gaze back to her and met her eyes. “You woke up the morning after your fight with Ameet after Beryl and her friends had worked on you all night to heal your injuries. As soon as your eyes opened, you began screaming and crying while tearing at your skin. Nothing we did would get you to stop and we had to knock you back out to prevent you from hurting yourself.”

She frowned. “I don’t remember anything like that. Why would I be hurting myself?”

“It took us a while to figure that out too. Beryl spent hours checking you for brain injuries before moving onto something else. She had told us that it was unlikely but she wanted permission to check your soul. Puk told her it was OK but to be careful.”

Puk reappeared at that point, handing Robyn a cup filled with tea. “I didn’t think that she would find anything but we were at our wits end. Every time you woke up you would scream and claw at yourself, nearly taking your own eyes out at one point. We didn’t know what else to do.”

Robyn took the tea and looked up at her. “What did she find?”

Puk threw back the covers. “I’ll let David explain that. I need to get some sleep and it would be nice to do it in my own bed instead of the couch.”

David stood and gathered her up, cradling her against his chest before she had a chance to try and stand on her own. They left the room with Puk looking after them, a melancholy look on her face.

Robyn held her cup between both hands, trying to make sure it didn’t spill. “I can walk, right?”

He looked down at her and smiled. “I don’t know. You should be able to but this seemed like more fun. Besides, it will be faster than waiting for you to get your bearings back.”

Robyn didn’t struggle. She was more concerned with Puk at the moment. “What’s wrong with Puk? She seems angry or sad or something. Did I do something else that I don’t remember?”

He shook his head and began climbing the steps. “She’s not angry at you. She’s worried that you will be angry at her. She thinks than when you find out what we did you will kick all of us out and she’s preparing for the worst.”

Her brow furrowed. “What could you have done to make me do that?”

They had reached her bedroom and he put her on the bed. He didn’t speak while he helped her make herself comfortable and covered her up. He sat on the edge of the bed and turned to her. “Drink your tea and I’ll finish telling you what happened. Just don’t interrupt anymore.”

She glared at him but took a drink of her tea. She relaxed against her pillows and waved her hand to tell him to continue.

He looked away from her, staring into nothing as he began to speak. “Beryl checked your soul and discovered that Ameet had done a lot of damage when he had removed a piece of it. She said that it had been cut into pieces and wasn’t coming back together the way it should. She didn’t know why and didn’t know what to do to fix it. We sent out messengers to every entity on the reserve to see if anyone had seen anything like this and knew how to fix it. It took hours but we eventually got lucky, and closer to home than we expected.”

He turned towards her and smiled. “Tristan showed up at the house looking for you. He was having one of his good days and realized that you hadn’t been by to see him. I was at work at the time but Puk explained the situation to him. To her surprise, he recognized the condition and actually knew a way to fix your soul.”

Robyn nearly choked on her tea. “Tristan did? How did he know something like that?”

“No more questions remember.” She sank back against the pillows reluctantly and looked at him, waiting for him to continue. “He binds souls together, remember? His power allows him to manipulate souls though he doesn’t call it that. He says that what we are calling a soul is actually person’s essence and that the soul is something best left to the gods.” He smiled a little as he remembered the lengthy lecture they had had to endure. “But what’s important is that he said he knew away to help your soul come back together but he would need help. He simply didn’t have enough power to perform magic at that level. We sent out word again, this time asking if anyone would be willing to lend him their power and you would have been surprised at the number of volunteers we had. Tristan examined you and told us what we would need to do. He would need to use pieces of souls as sutures to hold your soul in place until it healed and he would need a larger piece to replace the piece of soul that you had lost.”

“Where would he get pieces of soul from?” Robyn felt like she was close to understanding why Puk thought she would be angry.

“He got the pieces for the sutures from Puk, Walker, and me but we couldn’t afford to lose enough to replace the piece you’d lost. We needed someone a lot more powerful. Someone with a comparable power level to yours.”

Robyn’s mind went through all the powerful entities on the property as she tried to imagine who had a similar power level to her and would be willing to give up a piece of their soul. Her eyes widened as she settled on who it must have been. “Isonade.”

David nodded. “Yep. She had been at the house ever since she heard what happened and volunteered a piece of her soul to save you. Tristan was able to remove the small amounts he needed from us without causing any pain or damage. The spell took most of the night and it took several entities to cast and maintain it. When he finished, Tristan and the other entities left to rest and are probably still trying to recover. Isonade slept here that night but left the next morning, saying that she needed to get back to her pool to recover.”

Robyn didn’t speak as she absorbed what he had told her. She wasn’t sure how to feel about having pieces of other entities souls inside of her and didn’t know what the long term effects of such a thing would be. At least now she understood why Puk thought she’d be mad at her. She had often worried about how being a guardian made her something other than human and this would make her even more inhuman.

David let her think, watching her face go through a range of emotions as she processed the information that she had been given. He knew she had reached a decision when she sighed and closed her eyes.

“I guess I should say thanks. But you still didn’t explain why you were in bed with me when I woke up.”

He laughed and leaned towards her, relieved that she seemed willing to accept what they had done. Taking her face in his hands, he kissed her sweetly but thoroughly. When he broke the kiss, he rested his forehead against hers. “I’ve been waiting three days to do that. We’ve been wondering if you would be the same person when you woke up or if you would wake up at all.”

She was slightly out of breath. “That still doesn’t explain why you were sleeping with me.”

He encouraged her to finish her tea before taking the cup from her and turning out the light in the room. Climbing into bed with her, he pulled her against him holding her close until she relaxed and rested her head on his chest.

“You were so cold for the past few days that we were afraid you’d freeze. You shivered no matter how many blankets we put on you or how high the heat was turned. Beryl finally suggested that we use body heat to warm you up. She said that sometimes a person needs not only heat but to know that someone else is with them. Walker offered to lay next to you but Puk didn’t want him to shed all over her bed and Puk is nothing but skin and bones so she couldn’t offer any heat. That left me.”

Robyn smiled as she imagined the argument that had caused and felt her eyelids flutter. David was still talking but his voice was fading as she snuggled into his warm arms and began drifting off. She had just enough time to think about how nice it felt to be held before sleep claimed her.

It took over a week before Robyn was back to full strength. During that week, David slept with her every night and carried her downstairs every morning before heading to work or to do errands around the reserve. She spent most of her time on her couch with Walker at her feet. Entities visited frequently to make sure that she was feeling better and would be back on her feet soon. Puk handled everything around the house and even learned to use the computer to check her email and deal with legal matters. By the end of the week, Robyn was going stir crazy and had insisted on at least being allowed to use her computer.

She had remembered what Ameet had told her about another guardian helping it and wanted to see if she could find out who it was. She contacted other guardians to see if any knew of a gate in West Virginia. She made David bring down her families journals a few at a time and scoured them for any mention of the location of other gates. When she found them, she marked them on a map she had saved on her computer.

She located the gate that was most likely where Ameet had come from and began research on the property that it was on. Doing deep background checks on the current owner and every previous one she could find. When she was confident that she had found everything that she was able to find, she called her three friends together.

“I wanted to let you know what I have been working on for the past several days.” She had gathered David, Puk, and Walker in the living room to let them know what she had found out. “I don’t know if I mentioned it or not but Ameet suggested that another guardian had helped it. It said that they provided humans and entities for it to absorb and pointed it in our direction.”

Walker growled. “You’re saying that someone helped that thing. I don’t believe it and I don’t think you should either.”

Puk nodded in agreement. “Besides, if it had come across another guardian, he probably would have absorbed them to gain their power. It wouldn’t have waited until it got down here to you.”

Robyn waited for David to comment as well but he just crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her solemnly. “I thought the same thing at first but then I noticed a couple of things. The biggest being how it knew to circumvent my barrier.” Puk jerked and Robyn knew she had her attention. “It knew exactly what spell to use and knew that it would need a human to perform that spell. It also knew information about us and used that information to avoid being detected for over a week.”

“It did say that it was stalking us. That should be how it got its information right.”

Robyn shook her head, dismissing Walker’s simplistic answer. “That may be how it got specifics but it would have to have a little information before getting here. How else do you explain the dogs and other entities never detecting it? It knew what to protect itself from and came in with a plan to avoid detection.”

Puk was getting frustrated. “I don’t see what that matters now. Ameet’s dead and can’t hurt us anymore.”

David finally spoke up. “It matters because it suggests that you have another enemy. Whoever this guardian is that sent Ameet here did so with a purpose.”

Robyn nodded, grateful that someone else could see what she was worried about. “Right. I don’t know if we should be on guard for another guardian to show up and pick a fight or if there’s going to be another, stronger entity that’s going to be sent down here. I’ve been trying to find information on the gate in West Virginia which is where the first bodies were found but I can’t seem to find much. There’s a location listed in one of the journals but nothing about the guardians that are bound to it. The registered owners of the property haven’t been related either. I can’t tell if the owners are the guardians or if there’s someone else.”

Walker’s eyes became more intent. “Do you think that he would attack us again?”

“I don’t know. All I really know is that we aren’t set up to defend against things like Ameet on a routine basis. I want to change that. We need to get some stronger defenses set up and spend some time learning more offensive maneuvers.”

“You also need a reliable way to send messages between you and everyone else. Depending on dogs and word of mouth might have worked previously but it won’t if we are going to have to fight.”

Robyn turned to David. “That’s why I invited you here, David. You know more about strategy than Puk and I and can teach us. I’m hoping that you will help us set up some kind of situation that would work out here.”

“And then what?” He looked at her and she knew that she was going to have a fight after what she said next.

“And then you need to stay away for a while.” His face turned stubborn and she continued before he could argue. “I’m not saying that I won’t see you but I think that you need to stay off the reserve for a little while. It’s pure luck that you haven’t been bound yet but that also means you don’t have the same amount of power as a guardian or an entity. You saw what Ameet was capable of and it only makes sense that the next attack would be even worse.”

David turned away from her to look at Puk and Walker. “Could you two leave us alone for a few minutes? And Puk, I do mean alone.”

Puk smiled and disappeared while Walker stood with some effort and headed towards his room. David waited until he was completely out of earshot before turning back to Robyn. “I’m not leaving.”

Her eyes flashed. “I already explained the situation to you. I can’t protect my home if I am worrying about you.”

“Then don’t worry about me. Teach me the magic I need to defend myself and fight back.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know if there’s enough time for that. Besides, this isn’t your fight.” She nearly wilted at the look he leveled at her. “It’s not your home and you aren’t responsible for protecting these entities. You would be better off if you stayed in town and focused on human matters.”

He had stood while she spoke and came towards her. Leaning over the chair she sat in, he places his hands on the armrests trapping her between the back of the chair and him. “I’m not leaving. You can try to push me away as much as you want but I’m not going to leave.” He leaned even closer and she had to tilt her head way back to keep his face in view. “There are things here that I want to protect and I will do so.” His eyes moved over her face and his voice softened. “I know that you might be scared of what is going to happen but I’m not. I saw what you did to protect this place and I saw all the entities that came through to save you. I know we can face whatever is coming and I want to be by your side when it gets here.”

“What about your job? Your family? The more you are here the higher chance of you being bound to this place.”

He shrugged. “That doesn’t bother me. I can still work my job and not be away from here for more than 48 hours and my family can come and visit me. They will understand if I tell them I can’t leave, especially if I tell them I have found someone.” He raised a hand to touch her face. “I couldn’t walk away from you now if I wanted to. You hold a piece of my soul.”

She looked back at him and her heart squeezed at his words. She could tell just by looking at the stubborn set of his jaw that he had no intention of leaving. Part of her felt relieved that she would have someone beside her for at least a little while. Another part of her was scared of what might happen in the future.

Deciding to worry about the future later, she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down for a quick, chaste kiss.

He raised an eyebrow, surprised that she had been the one to initiate it this time. “What was that for?”

She smiled. “Just my way of saying thanks.”

He smiled at her, his eyes tracing her lips before returning to meet her eyes. “That wasn’t enough. Thank me some more.” He pressed his lips firmly against hers and pulled her tight against him. With this kiss, he wanted to convey how much she meant to him and wipe away the fear that still showed in the depths of her eyes.