Chapter 2: Go Ask Alice
"We're looking in the wrong place," Tinker called.
"We fell down the hole and through the looking glass." The woman cried back. "He's here! You only have to look!"
Tinker scanned the woods and saw a dark figure flitting through the trees, keeping pace with them. It was delicate-boned woman in a black mourning dress. A blindfold of black lace veiled her eyes. Tears ran unchecked down her face. At her feet were black hedgehogs, nosing about in the dead litter of the forest floor. In the trees surrounding Black and the hedgehogs was a multitude of crows. The birds flitted from limb to limb, calling "Lost! Lost!" in harsh voices.
"Black knows all about him." Tinker said. "Why don't we ask her?"
"She is lost in her grief," White breathed into Tinker's ear. "There is no thread between you. She has no voice that you will listen to."
The thumping noise came from the direction that they needed to head, speeding up until it sounded like helicopter rotors beating the air.
"Wait!" Tinker reached out to catch hold of White, to warn her. She missed, grabbing air. "The queen is coming. You've murdered time. It's always six o'clock now."
"We can't stand still!" White caught Tinker's hand and they were flying low, like on a hoverbike, dodging trees, the ground covered with a checkerboard design of black and white. "We have to run as fast as we can to keep in the same place. Soon we won't be able to run at all and then all will be lost!"
"Lost! Lost!" cried the crows and Black flew like a silent shadow on Tinker's other side. They had left the hedgehogs behind. The red ribbon of White's blindfold raced on ahead of them, coiling like a snake.
"He eats the fruit of the tree that walks." White stopped them at edge of a clearing. The ribbon coiled into the clearing and vanished into the ground. "Follow the tree to the house of ice and sip sweetly of the cream."
Feeling with blind fingers, White followed the ribbon, hand over hand, out into the clearing. The bare forest floor was black, and grew blacker still, until the woman was sheer white against void with red thread wrapped around her fingers. Tinker took hold of the thread and followed out into the darkness. Beyond the edge of the clearing, she started to float as if weightless. Tinker tried to grip tight to the red ribbon, but it was so thin that she lost track of it and started to fall upwards. The woman caught hold of her, pulling her close and wrapped the red thread tight around her fingers, making a cat's cradle. "There, no matter what, you can always find me with this."
Turning away, the woman pulled on the ribbon and pearls started to pop out of the ground, strung on the thread. "It starts with a pearl necklace."
Tinker was drifting upwards, faster and faster. Black and her crows flew up to meet her in a rustle of wings, crying "lost, lost."
Tinker opened her eyes to summer sky framed by oak leaves. Acorns clustered on the branches, nearly ready to fall. A cardinal sung its rain song someplace overhead.
With a slight rustle, Pony leaned over her, bruised and battered himself, worry in his eyes. " Domi, are you well?"
Tinker blinked back tears. "Yes, I'm fine." She sat up, trying to ignore the pain in her head. "How is everyone else?"
"Stormsong is hurt. We have called for help but we should start for the hospice."
"Its eyes are open," Stormsong said from where she lay on her side, a bloody bandage around the leg that the creature had bitten. "It's not coming back."
"What the hell does that mean?" Tinker asked.
"It means what it means," Stormsong groaned.
"There is no sign of the beast." Rainlily added.
"Okay," Tinker said only because they seemed to be waiting for her to say something. How did she end up in charge?
Almost in answer, a sudden roar of wind announced the arrival of Wolf Who Rules Wind, head of the Wind Clan, also known as her husband, Windwolf. Riding the winds with the Wind Clan's magic, he flew down out the sky and landed on barren no-man's-land of the Rim. Dressed in elfin splendor, his duster of cobalt blue silk, hand-painted with a stylized white wolf, whipped out behind him like a banner. He was beautiful in the way only elves could be - tall, lean, and board shouldered with a face full of elegant sharp lines. With a word and gesture, he dismissed his magic. Released, the winds sighed away.
Beauty, power and the ability to fly like superman-what more could a girl want?
"Beloved," Windwolf knelt beside her and folded her into his arms. "What happened? Are you hurt? I felt you tap the clan's Spell Stones and pull a massive amount of power."
The 'stones' were granite slabs inscribed with spells located on top of a vastly powerful ley line that the domana accessed remotely via their genome. Until Windwolf unleashed his rage on the oni, Tinker hadn't realized the power that the stones represented. In one blinding flash of summoned lightening, it suddenly became clear why the domana ruled the other elfin castes. Somehow, the monster had tapped funneled the power through her.
"Oh, is that what the fuck it did to me?" And with that, she lost control of the tears she'd been keeping at bay. What was it about him that made her feel so safe in a way not even Pony could? She hugged him tightly, trusting he would make it right. As she wallowed in the luxury of being sheltered by the only force besides nature that seemed larger than herself, Windwolf turned his attention Pony.
"Little Horse, what happened?" Windwolf's voice rumbled in his chest under her head, like contained thunder. "Who is anyone hurt?"
"We were attacked by a very large creature," Pony went on to describe the fight in a few short sentences, ending with, "Stormsong took the brunt of the damage."
"We need to get her to the hospice." Tinker pulled free of Windwolf's hug, smeared the tears out of her eyes and started for Stormsong. "The thing bit her in the leg."