Circles in the Stream (Avalon: Web of Magic #1) (8 page)

“Like a barrier between two worlds,” Emily said in a hushed voice.

“Emily,” Adriane said hesitantly. “What if Ozzie really does come from another world?”

“So now we’re also supposed to believe in magical worlds, too!” Emily shook her head.

Adriane stared at her. “After what’s happened here—after what you’ve seen—can you sit there and tell me it’s not possible?”

“I don’t know,” Emily had to admit. “There’s so much weird stuff going on, I don’t know what’s possible.”

Adriane was silent. She gazed at the dreamcatchers. A slight smile played across her lips. “You know what might be cool?” Her jet-black eyes flashed. “What if we took the stones
we
found and weave them into…”

“Dreamcatchers?” Emily guessed, intrigued.

“Better. Power bracelets,” Adriane responded.

Emily was into it. “Sorta like making our own web of…”

“Protection.” They’d said it together.

A few minutes later, the girls sat cross-legged on the floor amid a pile of rawhide strips, satin, and lanyard. Adriane had the idea to combine the colored lanyard and black satin string, and Emily shared some knots she knew. It took some trial and error to find a way to hold their stones securely, but at last they each had a very cool new bracelet.

Adriane held her arm out and turned her wrist this way and that. “Not bad,” she said admiringly.

Emily stood up and stretched her legs. Her gaze settled on a framed photograph of a handsome couple.

Adriane saw her looking and took the photograph down. “My mom and dad. They’re artists. They do these ‘performance art’ and sculpture exhibits. Pretty weird, huh?”

“How come you live with your grandmother?” Emily asked.

Adriane shrugged. “They left to go on a world tour. So they dumped me here in a nice
stable
environment for a change. They say they’re going to settle in upstate New York when they get back but I’ve never been in the same school more than a year, sometimes less.”

“My dad lives in Seattle. We e-mail each other a lot,” Emily said.

“At least you talk to him. My parents send me postcards... sometimes.”

Emily couldn’t imagine being so out of touch with your own parents.

“So, you’ve been here six months, right?” Emily said, not wanting to intrude further. “That means you’ve been to school…”

“Middle school.” Adriane snorted. “The way some kids act, you’d think it was Stonehill Academy.”

“There must be some kids you like?” But Emily remembered the girls in the park.

Adriane shrugged. “Friends are overrated.”

Emily blinked. “You can’t mean that.”

Adriane’s silence told her she meant exactly that.

A pang of homesickness swept over Emily. She’d always had friends she totally connected with.

She turned around to face Adriane. “What do you think is going to happen at the meeting tomorrow night?”

“They’ll probably kick me and Gran out of here.” Adriane began to pace back and forth. “Then they’re gonna send in the Army to kill all the animals. Then they’ll cut down all the trees and make a golf course or something!”

Emily laughed, not knowing if Adriane was joking or not. “That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?”

“You saw the letter. Quarantine! How extreme is that?”

“What can we do?” Emily asked, feeling a familiar wave of helplessness.

“If we can prove there really
are
rare animals here, they’d
have
to leave Ravenswood alone! That glade where you found your stone—do you think you could find that place again?” Adriane asked.

“It’s right behind the Rocking Stone.”

Adriane stopped. “There’s nothing there but woods.”

“No, that’s where I saw it. I was going back there when I ran into you and Ozzie.”

“We need to find that glade! Can you get away tomorrow?” Adriane asked.

“As long as I get my chores done…which reminds me, I should get back. “

“What should we do about
him
?” Adriane jerked her thumb in the direction of the snoring ferret.

“I’ll take him with me.” Emily gently scooped the ferret up and deposited him in her backpack.

“Mommy, I don’t want to ride the flobbin,” Ozzie mumbled, sleepily.

Adriane shrugged. “Elves! Come on, I’ll walk you and Alice up to the main road.”

Outside, the western sky was awash with orange and purple, tingeing the forest with a magical glow. From out of nowhere, Stormbringer appeared by Adriane’s side and joined the girls as they made their way along the road. The wolf was silent and Emily had to remind herself that Storm wasn’t just Adriane’s pet dog, jogging along beside them. When they reached the edge of the park grounds, the girls stopped.

“Okay, tomorrow we’ll search the woods and see if we can find the animals,” Adriane said.

“We’re going to have to be really careful.”

“I’m not afraid,” Adriane boasted. “Are you?”

“I grew up hiking in the Colorado Mountains, where plenty of wild animals roam—I’m not afraid.” Emily tried to sound as brave as she could.

“You know,” Adriane said, “there’s an Iroquois story that says if two people wear the same bracelet, it means they’re linked, joined.”

“Like…friends?” Emily smiled and raised her bracelet.

Adriane grimaced. Then a small smile escaped her lips. She held her braceleted arm next to Emily’s. The two gems sparkled in the fading sun.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Emily was up early. She dressed quickly, pulling on shorts and an aqua T-shirt. Sliding on her hiking boots, she ran downstairs to check on the cat. Her remaining bandages looked clean and dry—no more seepage through the white gauze, no unnatural glow evident at all—and she actually ate all the canned food Emily gave her.

Emily went to the Pet Palace and fed the dogs, then returned to the house, where she fetched Ozzie from her room. He was still sleeping on the big fluffy pillow she’d given him for a bed.

As she slipped him into her backpack, he opened his eyes. “Hey, what’re you doing?”

“Rise and shine, we’re off to see the wizard.”

“Really? That’s great news!”

Emily shook her head as she bounced down the stairs. “You are one wacky ferret.”

“Thank you.”

Carolyn was sitting in the kitchen eating a grapefruit and making notes in her scheduling book.

“Hey, Mom.” Emily opened the refrigerator and grabbed the orange juice. “I’m going over to Adriane’s, okay?”

“Chores done?”

Emily smiled. “Yup. And the cat’s doing much better, too.”

Carolyn smiled. “That’s great, Doc. But wouldn’t it be better if Adriane came here?”

“Why?” Emily gulped down her juice while she waited for an English muffin to toast.

“I’m not happy about you going into those woods.”

“Mom! Adriane lives in a house, not in the woods!” She left out the fact that once she was at Adriane’s house, she was, technically, already in the woods. She lathered her breakfast with jam and handed a piece to Ozzie.

“Strawberry! Yumm!”

Carolyn looked over. Emily and Ozzie both smiled back.

E
MILY MADE HER
way across the park and up the road to the preserve. The morning air held a faint crispness that reminded her summer was fading. She sighed, thinking of what September would bring: more changes.

Ozzie was rummaging around in her backpack.

“Stop fidgeting,” she told him.

“Where’s the oatmeal ones?”

“They’re in there.”

Ozzie stuck his head out. “Can this wizard help us find the portal?”

“I was kidding about the wizard.”

“Oh.” Ozzie leaned out of the pack, clearly depressed. “I’ll never get home, will I?”

“Maybe
we
can help you.”

He perked up. “You’d help me?”

“Of course I would, and Adriane would, too”

“You know, if I have to be stuck here, I’m glad it’s with you.”

Emily smiled.

They found Adriane outside the cottage, brushing the mistwolf’s coat to a shiny luster. Stormbringer’s eyes were closed in pleasure, but she opened them when Emily and Ozzie arrived.

“Morning,” Adriane said with a smile as she glided the brush over the wolf’s back. She had on hiking boots, black T-shirt and jeans, and a baseball cap with the words NO FEAR embroidered on it.

“Hey!” Emily returned. She looked at the wolf. “Hi, Stormbringer!”

“Hello, healer. Hello, traveler,”
the wolf replied, nodding to Ozzie.

“Why do you call me ‘healer?’” Emily asked.

“That is what you do,”
the wolf replied.

“Just don’t call me breakfast!” Ozzie scrambled down Emily’s side to the ground.

“I have already eaten,”
the wolf assured him. She looked as if she were grinning.
“It was a—”

“Gah! Don’t tell me—I don’t want to know!” Ozzie put his paws over his ears.

Adriane knelt and unrolled a large scroll. “Check this out. It’s a map of the preserve. I took it off the wall in the foyer.”

The girls spread the map on the ground and crouched over it. Ozzie joined them.

“It’s old, but the basic layout of the preserve is still the same,” Adriane said. “So…I say we start here up at the north quadrant and follow this trail. It winds down here to the Rocking Stone.”

“I don’t see the glade near the stone,” Emily observed.

“It’s not on the map.”

“I fell out in a big, open area,” Ozzie offered, walking out onto the map to study it.

“Looking for the rabbit hole, Alice?” Adriane asked the ferret.

“I am not a rabbit.” Ozzie looked himself over just to make sure.

“Do you have any idea how we can find it?” Emily asked him.

“I don’t know, but it’s magic. Magic attracts magic—I know that much,” he replied.

“We don’t have any magic,” Emily reminded him.

“Gran said these stones hold magic.” Adriane held up her wrist. Sunlight reflected off the gold and amber jewel.

Adriane rolled up the map, stood, and slung her olive-green backpack over her shoulder. “Let’s move out!”

Emily followed Adriane across the wide lawn in back of the manor. A garden of hedges and flowers lay just beyond the green; the hedges were planted in geometric patterns with pathways in between, like a maze. Near the entrance stood a large stone fountain in the shape of a mermaid. She held a beautiful carved urn over her head and water poured from it to splash off her up-curved tail into the round basin below.

“This place is just so amazing,” Emily breathed.

“C’mon, slowpokes!” Adriane had ducked through an opening in the trees at the edge of the lawn. Emily quickened her steps to catch up. They found themselves on a trail winding through a section of open woodlands. Narrow swaths of meadow separated clusters of trees and bushes. Stormbringer trotted on ahead, fading from view among the tall feathery grasses and wildflowers.

“I feel like I’m on a safari!” Emily exclaimed. The girls crossed a small stream and entered a section of forest thick with tall junipers and furs.

Suddenly Adriane stopped and looked around. “Hold up,” she said.

Emily heard a rustling of leaves and the patter of approaching hoofbeats. “Over there!” She pointed through the trees.

The most amazing creatures came bounding through the woods. They looked like deer, but with long ears and green stripes.

“What
are
those?” Adriane whispered.

“They’re like the animals I saw in the glade. Maybe some kind of zebra?” Emily guessed.

“Jeeran,” Ozzie simply stated.

The girls looked at him.

“What?” Emily asked incredulously.

“Jeeran, herdbeasts found in the hills of the Moorgroves. I’ve seen lots of them. They’re fast and jump really high.”

“Don’t tell me they come from your world, too?” Adriane asked.

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?” Emily asked.

“Okay, I won’t tell you,” Ozzie replied.

“Wherever they came from, they’re here now,” Adriane laughed. “Come on, this is wild!”

The girls ran through the woods and came to a wide-open field, but the strange animals were too swift, and the field was empty. Adriane kicked the dirt.