The Shadows Grow Longer
It wasn’t yet noon when they left the settlement, headed for the Black Forest. But their steps seemed to linger, something pulling them back as if wanting to prevent them from arriving. Vince knew he should ask if they were getting any closer. The day of the Embercasting, as young Theo had explained to them, was essential not only for the Whiteflame wolf pack, but for the world as a whole as well. The pyre lit on this day would keep the evil spirits at bay and prevent them from invading the world, tainting it with their darkness. Vince hadn’t fantasized about being caught in a fairytale since he’d been a child, despite having been chosen as Danny’s guardian. Until recent events, his life had been free of magic. And now, he was walking through the snow, after having turned into a wolf, and they were about to confront an enemy with supernatural powers.
The air was growing colder, biting their noses. Jack complained a little, but Theodore challenged him to running a race, and that gave the city clairvoyant enough of a workout to make him feel better.
Vince sniffed gently. The scent of pines traveled to them from far away, because he had yet to see the forest Theodore had talked about. If they met this fake wisdom tree, what should they do? Vince remained convinced that it was impossible for them to have time-travelled, and only their spirits – the irony wasn’t quite lost on him – were there to witness something that would probably help them later.
It was tough not to realize that they might have to watch everything happening under their very eyes with no possibility to intervene. Was there even the smallest chance that they could stop this, whatever was to follow? But Jack was right to assume that changing the past shouldn’t be possible, according to the natural laws they knew.
Yet, there were so many things they didn’t know. Vince decided in favor of cautious optimism as he broke into a run, as well. Jack and Theodore were having fun on their own, chasing each other through the deep snow. Theo’s smaller wolf disappeared into a wave of snow only to emerge from it, howling victoriously. Jack clearly needed to learn a lot more about being a wolf because he got tangled up in his own feet and stumbled from time to time, causing Theodore to tease him.
It broke Vince’s heart to see Theodore like this, his young self. Because there was a lightness in this version of Theodore Pembroke that was forever gone from him as an adult. Did Theodore remember these times with his pack? Or was it all engulfed by pain, turning it into misery and nothing else?
Jack was right. If he had arms, he’d give the lost wolf a hug.
The pine forest rose before them seemingly out of nowhere. One moment he was following his two companions with his eyes, and the next they were so close to the Black Forest that they seemed to have passed through a portal to bring them there. Vince threw a curious look behind them, but the white landscape remained the same. There were no signs of a portal or a veil or anything equally magical to explain the sudden appearance of the tall trees hovering above them.
It deserved to be called the Black Forest. Snow didn’t cling to the branches, and the dark green of pine needles mixed with the shadows between the trees, creating compacted darkness. Vince tried to make sense of anything that stood beyond the first line of trees but gave up quickly. It was simply impossible to glean anything unless you got close enough to explore the place. A faint smell of rot wafted from the place, making Vince reconsider his desire to get closer.
“Is the wisdom tree part of this forest, Theodore?” he asked out loud.
“Yes,” Theodore replied, running toward him. Before Vince’s eyes, he shaped back into his human form. It filled Vince with an unexplainable sense of longing to see the child doing that with so much ease. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think he was overwhelmed by regret over being unable to shapeshift as he wanted, too. But he’d never been a wolf before today, so how could he explain that?
“Well, where is it?” Jack asked, eager to face the evil itself. Vince couldn’t say he shared his friend’s enthusiasm, but they needed to see this tree and confront it. Even if they couldn’t go against it, maybe unmasking it for the evil it was enough to convince young Theo to give his father back the flint of Embercasting. That was his hope, and he was sticking to it.
“I don’t know,” Theodore said. “It just appears when I’m here.”
“Is it here that you met it the first time?”
Theodore nodded. “I have to become stronger. Not many venture to the edge of the Black Forest. Not wolves my age.”
“Weren’t you afraid?” Jack asked. “This place looks positively ominous. I’m not sure I’d come here by myself.”
“That’s because you are quite cowardly for a wolf,” Theodore said with self-importance.
“True,” Jack admitted without showing one sign that he felt insulted.
“You should become braver, like me,” Theodore insisted.
“I’m not sure how that’s going to work,” Jack retorted. “I basically wake up like this. I’m a cowardly dog.”
“Wolf. You’re a wolf.”
As entertaining as it was to listen to their banter, Vince needed to take stock of their surroundings. Chances were that the fake wisdom tree wouldn’t even make an appearance. Somehow, he doubted it. The pine trees stared back, listening, and their shadows were growing longer.
“What time does the Embercasting start?” he asked.
Theodore interrupted his efforts to convince Jack to become more courageous. “Toward the evening. That’s when the pyre burns the most beautifully. And after that we’ll have a feast. Will you stay?”
“Of course,” Jack replied for both of them. “We wouldn’t skip a feast for the world. Right, Vince?”
Even Jack’s cheerful voice faded to a whisper as a gust of wind rustled the crowns of the trees nearby. All three of them were now staring at the Black Forest, waiting.
A shape detached itself from the shadows, sliding toward them. Vince tensed, and he could tell, by Jack’s short yelp, that he wasn’t the only one who had noticed the thing.
“You’re here!” Theodore exclaimed and hurried toward the shadow.
Jack made a move to stop him, but Vince got in the way. To understand what was going on, they needed to study their enemy first. If the so-called wisdom tree took off and disappeared, they might not get another chance like this.
“Who did you bring here, alpha?”
A voice belonging to a grave rose from the strange apparition. It did look like a tree, but a gnarled, tortured one. It had no leaves, just as Theodore had mentioned, and it smelled badly of rot. How could young Theo not smell it?
There had to be a spell. But any spell could be broken, right? Vince had no idea, but paying attention was of the utmost importance right now.
“They are time-travelers,” Theo announced. “One of them, the white cowardly one,” he said, pointing at Jack, “has nightmares, like I used to have. Can you make his bad dreams go away, too?”
“I think I’m good,” Jack said in a high-pitched voice. “And it’s not like I have them anymore.”
“You don’t have to be afraid,” Theodore insisted.
As the child turned his back to the tree, the dark shadow behind him grew longer. Long branches grew and curled inward as if they wanted to trap Theodore in the cage they were creating.
Vince moved forward. The tree didn’t appear to have eyes or a face, but a voice came from it. Whatever moved and had a voice couldn’t be indestructible, Vince encouraged himself.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The tree halted, and its branches slowly retracted. “Guardian,” he said. “Your kind is a rare sight in these parts.”
So the creature knew what he was. Could it tell the same thing about Jack? Vince wasn’t willing to volunteer any information.
“This child is under my protection,” he said.
“What child?” Theodore asked. “Are you talking about me? I am not a child! I am the alpha of Whiteflame!”
“See?” Sly delight could be read in the creature’s voice. “You are wrong to assume that anyone here would be in need of your protection. You may return to the place you came from.”
The tree was cautious. That told Vince that it didn’t know more than they knew. At this point, they were enemies carefully probing and sizing each other up.
“My mission here is clear. I must protect the alpha’s offspring,” Vince continued. “And you are not the wisdom tree.”
“Vince,” Theodore exclaimed. “You are rude! I’ll tell my father.”
“How did you fool the alpha’s son?” Vince taunted the tree. All he needed right now was for the apparition to admit to its true nature. Theodore would see the truth then. “He is just a child. You didn’t have the courage to go against someone your size, did you?”
Theodore continued to protest, but Jack was by his side now, dragging him away from the tree, his fangs sunk into Theodore’s coat at the back.
The tree laughed, if laughter was a word that could describe the terrible croak that emerged from the old, hollow bark.
“You are not all-powerful, Guardian. You must return to the place you came from. There is nothing for you to do here. Alpha,” he addressed Theodore, “these two are misled spirits. We must send them back home.”
“I knew they were spirits,” Theodore bellowed. “What do you mean, misled?”
Vince circled closer. If there was a way for him to attack the apparition and return it to the dark forest where it truly belonged, he would do so.
“They are here to prevent you from claiming your right to be the alpha,” the tree said.
“I knew it!” Theodore struggled in Jack’s hold, but to no avail. When necessary, Jack could be pretty strong.
“But not because they’re evil,” the tree continued.
Vince felt a sharp pain in his jaw from how hard he was grinding his teeth without even realizing it. The dark spirit before him was cunning. It knew that accusing Vince and Jack openly might not get it the results it wanted. This way, it succeeded in making Theodore to continue believing in him.
“They are only misled. Aren’t you, humans?” the tree asked.
***
Jack knew something was going on, and it had to be a bad thing. He was losing strength; that was the first thing he noticed. And he was shrinking! And what was that ugly-ass tree doing, calling them humans when they were… wolves?
“Eek! Vince, are you seeing this?”
He had dropped Theo at some point, and now he was staring at his arms, which were no longer covered in fur. He had his jacket on and wasn’t completely naked; this way, at least, he’d survive the cold.
From where he stood, Vince stared back at him. He was also regaining his human shape, or real shape, if they were honest about the whole situation.
But that was bad.
“Ah, you see?” Theodore shouted, running away from Jack and back to the tree. “It removed the curse cast on you. Now you are yourselves again. I knew you weren’t wolves,” he said, feeling content with his reasoning. “You are just two odd people. Dressed very strangely.”
Well, Jack couldn’t contradict that last part. In the boy’s eyes, they appeared like two strangers, who, indeed, were wearing weird clothes. The people around here clearly didn’t know what a blessing zippers could be.
“Theodore, listen to me.” Vince began walking toward Theo, but a heavy branch barred his way.
“Do you think that I’d allow you to trick the true alpha of Whiteflame out of his birthright?” the tree asked.
Theo was now close to the evil leafless tree and looked curiously at them.
“That is not what we are doing,” Vince said. “Theodore, something bad will happen if you disobey your father. As a wolf, you should know that. The alpha’s word is law.”
Theo seemed unsure. He looked at Vince, then back at the tree. How could a kid not see what an ugly son of a bitch that thing was? Maybe he was being kept under a spell. That would explain many things.
“I should return the flint to my father,” he said. “Maybe next year he’ll let me light the pyre of the Embercasting.”
“No, you must do it now. I didn’t mean to tell you, but your father doesn’t have long to live, alpha,” the tree said. “You, seer,” it addressed Jack now, “you can see the future. Show us where Tharion, Theodore’s father, will be, one year from now.”
So that motherfucker knew who they were, or at least what they were, because it called Vince a guardian, and it knew that he, Jack, was a clairvoyant.
“I’m not going to show you anything. I’m not going to use my gift to do harm. Don’t you know that’s an oath all seers take? Or maybe that is doctors, but anyway. I’m not going to help you.”
It looked like it wasn’t up to him. With the same grating laughter, the tree shot a branch at Jack, going right through his shoulder. Jack shouted, but pain didn’t come; instead, a string of cards began flowing out of the place where there should’ve been a wound by now.
Tears came to his eyes, though he hadn’t called them. Everything was happening so quickly. A green mound appeared, formed by the cards, and there was no doubt in his mind whose resting place that was.
“Father!” Theodore cried out, seeing, whether with the eyes of his mind or simply his physical eyes, the same thing Jack understood.
“Of course, this is the future only because you made it so!” Jack cried out. “Theo, please, don’t listen to this tree. Can’t you see how ugly it is? What wisdom tree would be so leafless and disgusting?”
“Silence, seer,” the tree boomed. “It was your choice to come here and witness my power.”
“What do you mean?” Theo asked. Poor thing, he no longer sounded quite so brave.
“You will become alpha, Theodore,” the tree said. “You have the flint. You don’t need these two. The seer, at least, showed you why you can’t postpone becoming who you were meant to be from birth.”
“For real?” Jack shouted. “Did we just make things worse?”
Vince intervened. “No, Jack. This thing knows how much danger it is in. It has the power of illusion, that is why it made us appear as humans now. But illusions can never survive the truth.”
Jack would swear Vince was worthy of becoming a superhero after all of this ended. He jumped straight at the tree, toppling it into the snow and bringing it down. Theodore yelled at him to stop, but Jack saw his opportunity. He rushed and gathered Theodore underneath his arm, pulling him away from the fight.
It looked like being human had its advantages. For once, Jack was the taller one, and he could hold Theodore back.
“Let me go,” Theo protested furiously. “I’m the alpha of Whiteflame. You can’t treat me like this!”
Jack was doing his best to hold the boy. “You’re just a tiny alpha. Wait until you grow, for goodness’ sake!”
But Theo wanted to have none of it. The sounds of the fight between Vince and the tree gave no clue as to who was winning, and Jack had to struggle to hold Theodore.
In the end, the little Tasmanian devil managed to break free and pushed him away with such force that Jack went tumbling down the slope. Jack hurried to get back on his feet and saw Theodore running toward the settlement. Well, that meant that young Theo would go straight to his father to tell him about what had happened. Tharion would know what to do. Given the way they were fumbling through this quest, they hadn’t done that horrible a job.
Now he needed to rush to Vince’s help. Climbing the slope was much harder as a human; Jack was starting to miss being a wolf, although he had been one for too little time to really get the gist of it.
While he was busy tumbling about, Vince managed to pin the tree.
“Way to go, Vee!” Jack shouted, putting his hands around his mouth to make the sound of his voice travel farther. “Kick it! Kick it hard!”
Vince was too busy subduing the evil creature to reply, but it looked like he was really close to winning.
A rumble passed through the ground beneath them. Jack stopped running. “Vee, did you hear that?”
“Do you think I’m the one you have to defeat?” the gurgling voice of the evil tree taunted them.
Jack didn’t have to ask what the hell it meant by that. The rumble was repeated, but this time what was happening above ground worried Jack a lot more.
The Black Forest was on the move. Just about all of it.
TBC
Thank you for reading!
@Derek - indeed, they cannot change the past, and as you astutely noticed, if they do that in any way, that will mean that they would never meet Theodore - hence the paradox (which makes the whole 'don't change the past' requirement for time travelers a pretty good foundation for the whole thing) - the evil will not remain hidden :)
@Mark Mortland - oh, lol, the finished book that was unfinished... I get that feeling sometimes, too, but I know I must stop. The confrontation between Jack and Vee on one side, and some pretty bad trees... I think it will be interesting.
@DavidB - Jack and Vince will do their best! The story will be pretty tangled for a while... but it will have a resolution, I promise!
If you enjoyed this story, consider supporting the author on Patreon.
To get in touch with the author, send them an email.
