Entangle (A Lure Novella) Read online

  Chapter 1

  My mum gave me a wooden toy sword and pushed me out of the house, telling me to go play. I turned back to object, but the door shut in my face. I slumped in defeat. I studied the toy in my hands. A sword, she’d actually given me a sword. What was I supposed to do with it? Sword fights were boring. They were even more boring when the opponent was air. Not an air fairy, I mean actual air because none of the other boys ever wanted to play with me. They thought I was weird. I thought they were dumb.

  I heaved a bigger sigh than any eight-year-old ever should and trudged over to the usual play area, dragging the sword on the ground behind me. Maybe I’d draw in the dirt with it. I didn’t really need it, since I’d been practicing with my earth abilities, but I guess the elemental could use a day off.

  All the children in the village played in an area where we could practice with our elements if we wanted. Most of it was grassy thanks to the natural landscape and the disproportionately large amount of earth fairies. I heard my parents say once that earth fairies were common here but the Seelie had more of the other kinds. The play area also had a fountain for the water fairies. They liked to make it splash over to create tiny streams across the ground. There were patches of dirt scattered around from the fire fairies burning the grass away. I assumed air fairies could play here too, but we didn’t have any air fairy children in the village at the moment.

  I plopped down on one of the bare patches that the fire fairies had moved on from and started carving my picture. I was drawing Cearo and one of her storms—or I was trying to anyway. The toy sword was too long for me to use it comfortably as a drawing tool while sitting. I was better with my earth ability. I tossed the useless sword away in frustration.

  I used my elemental to etch lines in the dirt like I would with my fingers. When Cearo’s body and head were done, I made some grass grow to make her hair. I laughed at the picture and imagined the real Cearo—because she was real, I was certain—with grass for hair.

  My concentration was broken when feet ran right in front of me, trampling my work. An older boy, maybe ten or eleven, was laughing, but not at me. He was laughing at the little girl chasing after him. I remembered hearing about her. She was the youngest fairy in our village so all the adults doted on her. I thought she was five now. She was crying and yelling at the boy and jumping for the doll he held over her. Her eyes blazed red through her tears, already fierce even though she was just a little kid.

  The boy was a lot taller than her, so I didn’t see how she was going to get her doll back. I decided to help her. He and his friends picked on me too. I stood and was just about to run over when I noticed my toy sword on the ground. I guess it would come in handy after all. Picking it up, I was charging over there, ready to impale him, when the unexpected occurred. The boy had bent over the girl to get in her face with his taunts and she punched him. Hard. Right in his stupid nose.

  The bully and I both froze in shock for a moment. I recovered first. I burst out laughing. I laughed so hard I fell to the ground.

  “Stop it! Stop laughing!” he said, holding his nose. “I’ll hurt you!”

  It was too late for that. My sides were already hurting from laughing. It didn’t deter me though. I couldn’t stop. That was the greatest thing I’d ever seen. The little fire fairy was my hero. Finally, he dropped her doll and ran away, wailing.

  She picked up her doll while I calmed down. She walked over to me. Still splayed out on the ground, I gazed up at her, meeting her glare with a smile. “That was amazing!” I told her. She didn’t look like she believed me. “Really, it was! I wish I could do that.”

  “Why can’t you? You’re a boy. Boys get to play fighting games.” I didn’t really know what to say to that. I lost her attention when she saw my toy sword on the ground. “Is that yours? I want to play!” She didn’t wait for me to answer. She just grabbed it and began thrusting it at an imaginary villain.

  She dropped her doll on the ground and forgot about it as she fought her make-believe battle. I picked it up and sat it down next to me so we could watch her. I drew a picture of her and the imaginary foe she battled. Soon it wasn’t just one in my picture, but a whole army of monsters against her. And still she was victorious.

  When the sun started to set, her mum called her to come in. She came over to me. She saw my latest picture of her standing over dead monsters, holding her sword up in triumph, and said with absolute confidence, “I could do that, you know.”

  I smiled at her and replied, “I know.”

  At that, she returned my smile for the first time. She gave me my sword back and took her doll. “I’m Tova. What’s your name?”

  “Randolph.”

  “See you tomorrow, Randolph.” She ran off, and I watched her until she disappeared around a corner.

  Only eight years old and I was a goner.

  The next day, my mum made me take the sword again and go play. I’d give it to Tova again, I guessed. She wasn’t there when I got to the play area, so I sat down to wait. I was relaxed, just picking at the grass and then making it grow back, when someone kicked me in the back.

  I had a feeling I knew who I’d see when I turned around. Ah yes, it was the bully from yesterday glaring down at me. He had two friends with him too. I sighed, waiting for their attack to begin.

  “Where’s the little girl? Not here to save you today?” He sounded odd because his nose hadn’t healed yet.

  “So you admit she got the better of you?” I asked. I immediately regretted it. He was probably going to hurt me even more now.

  “She got lucky,” he sneered. He moved closer to me and looked down with disdain. “You shouldn’t have laughed.”

  I scrambled away, dodging his kicks. I got to my feet and ran, but he caught me after only ten steps and pushed me to the ground. His friends surrounded me so I couldn’t get away. I braced myself.

  “AHHHHHH!!!” A shout sounded from behind us, getting closer. I peeked out from between my arms that were shielding my face to see Tova running toward us with my sword pointed in front of her.

  The bully’s friends ran away in an instant. The bully looked around wondering where his back-up had gone. His confidence died quickly without them. At the last moment before contact, he dodged to the side.

  Tova, realizing she’d missed and was about to trample me, skidded to a halt. She threw a glare at the bully who picked himself up and ran away. “Told you I could do it,” she said.

  I thought she meant defeating monsters, like in my picture yesterday. That boy definitely was one. “I never doubted you.”

  She smiled at me and her eyes glowed brighter like sparking flames. “Want me to show you how?”

  Not really, but I liked spending time with her. “Alright. Show me your best moves.”

  Tova twisted and lunged, bringing the sword down on more imaginary enemies. She started to move through the field, chasing them as she fought. Abruptly, she stopped and turned back to me. “Aren’t you going to copy me?”

  Somewhat reluctantly, I replied, “Alright.”

  I did the best I could. I watched her and tried to move exactly like she did. But apparently my body didn’t understand these movements. I fell on my butt several times. Every time Tova’s eyes would flick to me, and I’d turn away sheepishly while I got back on my feet.

  Minutes later, I tripped over a weed and fell forward, smacking my chin on the ground. This was probably my hundredth fall. The air was knocked out of me, and Tova’s left her in a heaving sigh. “You’re really bad at this,” she said.

  “I know,” I sighed, flipping onto my back. I was scared that she was about to reject me like all the other kids, so I met her eyes nervously.

  She was looking at me just as uneasily. “Do you want to stop?” She kicked the ground at her feet like she was already disappointed.

  “Yes,” I told her honestly. Her shoulders hunched, disappointment confirmed. “But you should keep going if you want. I’ll watch.”

  S
he shot up out of her slump and looked at me surprised, like she expected me to demand she stop too. “Really? Okay! You should pay attention. You can tell stories about my victories. I’ll be as feared and famous as Cearo!”

  And that’s what I did every single day. Tova wielded the toy sword against countless evil villains and monsters, and I drew it all and told stories of her greatness. We got so used to great, terrifying monsters that we weren’t bothered by the bullies anymore. After all, if Tova could beat a kelpie—even an imaginary one—what couldn’t she beat? She fended off the bullies with little more than a look, and I spun tales of their weakness for days.

  A few years later, Tova was practicing a strike she had seen a guard make on Seelie invaders. “And then he did this!” She spun wildly away from her just-defeated enemy to the new one at her back. I thought the guard must have done it with much more finesse or he would have been gutted during the turn. But for an eleven-year-old, she was pretty good. “And then drove it right through his belly!” She thrust the sword to the place the enemy’s pelvis would more likely be, but she’d learn to compensate for her shortness eventually.

  She held the pose for a moment before she relaxed out of it. She breathed heavily from the exhilaration and smiled at me. “Amazing,” I told her. “I wish I had seen it myself.” I had actually, but I didn’t want to ruin her fun. Especially since we wouldn’t get to do this as often after today.

  She sat next to me, and then we both collapsed onto our backs. She stared up at the sky while I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of the grass and wildflowers. Starting tomorrow, I would be an apprentice to a local craftsman. I’d be sitting in the back of his shop all day, not speaking to anyone, and trying to make things from wood. I didn’t have a particular skill for it, but since I didn’t have any real skills, my parents said I was lucky the craftsman was willing to take me on and maybe I’d pick it up with time. I wasn’t as optimistic, but like them, I didn’t see what other option I had.

  Tova was to start training as a maid like her mother. As much as I wasn’t looking forward to my apprenticeship, I felt even worse for Tova. She was not made for that life. It would bore her to death. I only hoped it wouldn’t smother the fire in her.

  “I wish today would keep going so we’d never get to tomorrow,” Tova said.

  “Me too.”

  “Tell me one of Cearo’s stories.”

  I opened my eyes to peer at her. “Why? Surely you don’t want to spend our final afternoon of freedom hearing about her evil deeds.”

  “But she’s invincible!” she said. Then quieter, she added, “She wouldn’t be stuck as a maid.”

  I then told Tova all the Cearo stories I knew.

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