Feast Read online

  FEAST

  HARVEST OF DREAMS

  MERRIE DESTEFANO

  Dedication

  For my son, Jesse

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part 1

  Chapter 1 - Russet Shadows

  Chapter 2 - Ticonderoga Falls

  Chapter 3 - Deep Dark Secret

  Chapter 4 - A Century of Magic

  Chapter 5 - Invitation in Hand

  Chapter 6 - Birds of Prey

  Chapter 7 - Dark and Deep

  Chapter 8 - Laced with Magic

  Chapter 9 - A Secret Wound

  Chapter 10 - A Dark Tide

  Chapter 11 - Autumn Skies

  Chapter 12 - A Glass Jar

  Chapter 13 - The Great Puppet Master

  Chapter 14 - Human Blood

  Chapter 15 - The Killing Room

  Chapter 16 - Sketchbook

  Chapter 17 - Lulled into Slumber

  Chapter 18 - The Edge of Twilight

  Chapter 19 - Shimmering and Silver

  Chapter 20 - Silver-Gray Skin

  Part 2

  Chapter 21 - Back in the Wood

  Chapter 22 - White Shadows

  Chapter 23 - River of Black Silk

  Chapter 24 - The Land of Nightmares

  Chapter 25 - Dancing Burning Beast

  Chapter 26 - Glittering Machinery

  Chapter 27 - The Safe and Narrow Path

  Chapter 28 - Secret Message

  Chapter 29 - Chameleon Skin

  Chapter 30 - Monsters

  Chapter 31 - Words of Warning

  Chapter 32 - Gnarled Fingers

  Chapter 33 - Wild Thundering

  Chapter 34 - Fog and Shadow

  Chapter 35 - Bending Reality

  Part 3

  Chapter 36 - A Great Hairy Beast

  Chapter 37 - A Haze of Flies

  Chapter 38 - Skin Like Chameleons

  Chapter 39 - A Wintery Nightmare

  Chapter 40 - Indulgences

  Chapter 41 - A Ravenous Glare

  Chapter 42 - Bittersweet

  Chapter 43 - The Boy with the Music

  Chapter 44 - Strange Costumes

  Chapter 45 - Like a Beacon

  Chapter 46 - Trick or Treat

  Chapter 47 - Below the Surface

  Chapter 48 - Mountain Empire

  Chapter 49 - Almost Blinded

  Chapter 50 - Moon Song

  Chapter 51 - To Be Human

  Chapter 52 - Honey Wine and Starlight

  Chapter 53 - All Alone

  Chapter 54 - A Perfect Home

  Chapter 55 - Cavern of Light

  Chapter 56 - Moon Magic

  Chapter 57 - Shadow-Cast Landscape

  Chapter 58 - The Beating of Wings

  Chapter 59 - Almost Magical

  Part 4

  Chapter 60 - Fire and Smoke

  Chapter 61 - Dark Magic

  Chapter 62 - Shadowy Creatures

  Chapter 63 - The Darkness of His Soul

  Chapter 64 - A Quiet Night

  Chapter 65 - Shapeshifters

  Chapter 66 - Footprints in the Mud

  Chapter 67 - Outsiders

  Chapter 68 - The Best Legend Keeper

  Chapter 69 - Paintings of Lily

  Chapter 70 - Moon and Sky

  Chapter 71 - Fabric of Reality

  Chapter 72 - Until Now

  Chapter 73 - Wet Wood and Smoke

  Chapter 74 - Rumbling Quake

  Chapter 75 - The Dare

  Chapter 76 - Fingers of Ice and Fog

  Chapter 77 - A Distant Song

  Chapter 78 - That Awful Quiet

  Chapter 79 - A Thousand Yellow Eyes

  Chapter 80 - Darkling-Filled Sky

  Chapter 81 - Evil for Good

  Chapter 82 - Tumult of Black Wings

  Chapter 83 - Gone

  Chapter 84 - The Rules of Harvest

  Chapter 85 - Whispered Enchantment

  Chapter 86 - A Black Shadow

  Chapter 87 - Ghost-Like Wraith

  Chapter 88 - Half-Cast Enchantments

  Chapter 89 - Supernatural Power

  Chapter 90 - A Great Wall

  Chapter 91 - The Feast of Forbidden Dreams

  Chapter 92 - Red-Black Hands

  Chapter 93 - Smoke in the Wind

  Chapter 94 - Crowned with Dreams

  Chapter 95 - Faery Tales

  Epilogue - Eight Months Later

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  By Merrie Destefano

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Part 1

  Dream no small dreams for they have

  no power to move the hearts of men.

  —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Chapter 1

  Russet Shadows

  Ash:

  She was just a girl—bony, pale-skinned and wild—when we stumbled upon each other in the woods, the wind shimmering through the trees around us. She was nothing like her parents, both of them sleeping back in their rented cabin, the stench of rum and coke seeping out the windows and doors.

  She should have been scared when she saw me, appearing suddenly in the russet shadows, but I could tell that she wasn’t. Her long dark hair hung in a tangle, almost hiding her face. In that moment, I realized that she lived in a world of her own.

  Just like me.

  “Do you work at the inn?” she asked, her gaze running over my form curiously.

  I nodded. Somehow she had recognized me. True enough, we’d seen each other often. I did work at the inn, and I brought her parents fresh linens and coffee every morning. But this was my free time and I no longer wore human skin.

  “You’re different. Not like the other one.”

  I frowned, unsure what she meant. I cocked my head and then followed her pointing finger with my gaze. She gestured toward a trail that led deep into the woods, all the way to the edge of my territory.

  “Have you gone that way?” I asked, concerned when I saw her yawn.

  She nodded and stretched, all of her barely as tall as my chest.

  I heard him then, one of my wild cousins, calling to her. She lifted her head and listened.

  “He wants me to come back.” She shifted away from me, started to head down a path that led to shadows and darkness. In that instant, a stray beam of sunlight sliced through the trees, fell upon her milky skin and set it aglow, almost like fire. That was when I saw them.

  She was surrounded by imaginary playmates. Transparent as ghosts, an arm here, a leg there, a laugh that echoed and followed after her.

  I quickly glanced at her forearms, bare for midsummer, and they bore no mark. No one had claimed her yet. She was still free.

  I could have claimed her for myself right then and to this day I sometimes wonder why I didn’t. But she was so small—only seven years old, much too young to harvest, though my wild cousin wouldn’t think so.

  His calls were growing more plaintive, more insistent; the trees began to moan beneath his magic, and I grew angry that he would consider intruding on my land with his wanton hunt.

  She walked away from me then, and without thinking, I followed her, just like one of her imaginary playmates. They jostled alongside me, all of us watching her, hoping for a moment of her attention.

  The trees parted to reveal a wide grove up ahead of us, filled with thimbleberry and wild peony, their fragrance drifting toward us, intoxicating as incense. I saw him then, right there at the edge of my territory, the land that I had claimed nearly a century earlier with my own terrible curse. He was one of the barbarians who regularly raided the other mountain villages and he stood akimbo, his dark skin glistening in the dappled light, his wings
spread broad and proud.

  She gasped and stopped walking.

  He must have disguised himself when she’d seen him earlier. Pretended to be a woodland creature, a fox or a squirrel. But now he had grown confident in his spell over her, bold enough to expose himself for what he truly was—a dangerous predator daring to steal from me.

  She glanced back toward me and whispered, “He looks like an angel, don’t you think?”

  What did she think I looked like? I wondered.

  “He’s beautiful,” she said.

  “No, he’s not.”

  Even from this distance, I could see his brutish features, the flattened nose and splayed legs, the long fingers with broken claws and the yellow teeth. His stench carried on the wind, unwashed flesh and carrion blood. Centuries of poor breeding had spawned beasts like this and I could see that he was near as old as I was, probably near as strong too. His eyes began to glow, pits of bright fire in the shadowed glen, and he lifted his chin, in both defiance and melody. A song drifted from his lips, sweet as clover honey; the chanted poetry began to wrap itself around the girl like ropes of silk. With just this tiny sliver of magic, the creature had her under his spell.

  Her eyes fluttered and her limbs waxed soft and supple, her knees began to bend beneath her. I grinned wide when she fell to the ground, asleep and safe.

  For she was still on my land.

  The fool hadn’t known that you must tempt children nearer before you begin to sing, for the magic of home is too strong for them, a fact I knew all too well. That was how my own curse began, nigh on a century ago—by breaking all the laws.

  “Give her to me,” my cousin growled, a fierce expression folding his face. His shape wavered when the sunlight grew stronger, passing from behind a bank of thick summer clouds. His naked skin sizzled and he drew away from me into the shadows. “She is my spoil. ’Twas my enchantment!”

  “No. And you know it well. All that which lies within my boundaries is mine and mine alone.”

  “ ’Twasn’t always that way, though,” he teased, trying to draw me out to battle. “Time was your mate shared this land with you, until you killed her.”

  My blood turned to venom. I left the child on the ground and stepped nearer the forest’s edge. With one hand I reached through sun and shade until I gripped him by the throat and squeezed. I had been wrong, he wasn’t nearly as old or as strong as I was.

  “You are wrong,” I said through gritted teeth, “though I thank you for reminding me.”

  Both of my hands were about his throat then, tightening, driving the life from his ragged carcass as he flailed and clawed. I held him, breathless as if he had plunged beneath a pool of icy water, watched his strength fail, all the while enjoying his torment, until I heard the child moan behind me.

  She was waking up.

  “Begone, foul beast,” I said in lowered tones. “Leave and never return or I promise you, I will finish what we have begun on this day. And you will cross over into the Land of Nightmares, never to return.” I released him and he fell to the ground like a sack of dead rabbits, loose and unmoving. Only his eyes glaring up at me and the shallow movement of his chest proved that life still flowed through his bones.

  I turned my back on him, shifting my skin at the same time, assuming the familiar features of Mr. Ash, caretaker of the nearby inn and groundskeeper of the forest. I sang my own soft enchantment as the child opened her eyes, changing her memories just a bit so she’d forget about the wild creatures she had seen here today.

  She wiped a hand across her forehead and yawned.

  “Miss MacFaddin,” I said, a tone of surprise in my voice. “Have you taken a nap in the woods?” I reached a hand down to draw her to her feet.

  She nodded as she looked around us both, a bit confused.

  “I did,” she answered, her brow furrowed as if she didn’t believe her own words.

  Some enchantments take instantly. Others take days. Eventually, she would forget that she had seen me in my true shape.

  “Let me walk you back to your cabin and safety, young lady,” I said, putting one hand ever so gently upon her shoulder.

  She glanced up at me through that wild tangle of dark hair, her eyes filled with mystery and curiosity and something that I don’t see very often. Gratitude. Some part of her still remembered what she had seen, I realized, and that thought made me strangely glad.

  We parted at the forest’s edge, her cabin in sight. She turned at the halfway mark, when she was fully surrounded by green meadow; she waved at me and smiled. I saw her imaginary friends gather about her, only this time I could see who and what they were.

  A cowboy, a princess, a faery, all pale as ghosts.

  And another shadowy creature, new to the pack, stood away from the others, wings folded neatly at his back.

  This last creature was me.

  Chapter 2

  Ticonderoga Falls

  Ash:

  A bell on the door jangled and a hush fell across the room. I stood near the counter, a pile of odd supplies stacked before me as I waited for old Mr. Hudson to snap to attention and tell me how much I owed him. Then the room filled with a hint of early frost, mingled with the fragrance of sunlight and fallen leaves, and somehow, without even turning, I knew that she had just walked into Ticonderoga Falls’ only grocery store.

  Twenty-five years later, she had returned.

  I wanted to look around and see how she had grown, see if those imaginary friends of hers still tottered just at the edge of sight. But I kept my eyes downcast instead, focused on the counter and the bag of sugar and the pound of coffee.

  She laughed and a smile teased the corner of my mouth. Another voice joined hers, a young boy.

  “Samwise is watching us, Mom. Look,” he said.

  Then I swiveled on my heel, took all three of them in one glance.

  A tall woman hesitated at the end of one of the crowded aisles, dark hair falling in tangles around her shoulders, a small boy at her side with hair the color of autumn birch leaves, while a dog stood just outside the window, grinning in at them, a leash tethering him to a lamppost.

  She looked up and her gaze caught mine. No memory of me flickered in her eyes, but then why should it? I’d changed my skin since she’d been a little girl. I’d had to. Couldn’t stay the same person in this small town, not when I’d easily outlive all the inhabitants and their grandchildren.

  “This all you’ll be needing, Mr. Ash?” Hudson said behind me.

  “Mr. Ash?” she asked, taking a step nearer, still not seeing any resemblance between me and the creature she had met in the woods so long ago. “Are you related to the caretaker who used to work over at the bed and breakfast?”

  “My father.” The lie slipped from my tongue easily.

  Her expression softened and she held out her hand. I took it gently, held it in my palm, perhaps a moment longer than I should have, but she didn’t seem to mind. “He was a friend of mine, once,” she told me. “My family and I visited here. A long time ago.”

  “Mr. Ash is the caretaker now. A fine one, too,” Hudson said.

  Caretaker. Not the word I would have chosen.

  “Really. Well, we might be seeing one another then. I just rented the same cabin my parents and I stayed in.”

  I wondered if she was like them, if she would fill the rooms with the stench of alcohol and fighting. I didn’t think so. I had a feeling she was different. Her hands danced through the air when she talked, as if she were pulling words from the ethos. Steam and smoke curled from her fingertips—a phenomenon only my kind could see—and I tilted my head with curiosity, trying to look deeper.

  It would have been much easier if she belonged to me.

  “I’ll check in on you later,” I said. “Make sure you have everything you need.”

  “Will you be staying for the Hunt—” Mr. Hudson asked, but I cut him off before he could finish.

  She’s an outsider, you fool.

  I shot him a q
uick glance and his eyes flashed wide at his mistake. He wore his sleeves rolled back and part of a long, jagged scar peeked out on his left forearm—my mark. He and about half of the town were mine.

  He stammered for a moment, then righted himself. “I meant to say H—Halloween. Will you be staying?”

  “No.” She didn’t seem to notice his awkward speech. “Not that long. We’ll be leaving in the morning.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said, meaning it. I glanced back outside and noticed that there was no husband waiting for her in the SUV parked at the curb. No ring on her finger either, although a band of white flesh told me that there had been one.

  I pushed my groceries aside. “You can go first. I’m in no hurry.”