Sapphire by Elayne Griffith

a
familiar woman’s voice was saying. “I will then be able to open the
doorway to our worlds once more.”
    There was a moment of silence.
    “ Fifteen?” said a man’s voice. “Then you’ll come
back? For her? And give us everything you promised?”
    Some distant part of Shawna, the one watching this
memory, understood and recognized the voices. Where had she heard
the man’s voice before? Everything felt foggy and distant.
    “ Yes. Do not fail me, and I will not fail
you.”
    She recognized the voice. The same frigid arrogant
voice that had demanded her from her father right before falling,
falling, falling from those protective arms.
    More silence. Then a different female voice broke
the forest symphony of crickets and frogs.
    “ Are you an angel?”
    Shawna finally recognized the voice as Mary’s and
knew the male voice must be John’s.
    “ An angel of your salvation, but my power wanes
here. I must leave. I will return for her when she is
sixteen.”
    “ We will keep her for you,” said Mary,
practically in tears as she spoke to the apparition.
    “ Pray for my return,” said the being that called
itself an angel. “And you shall be rewarded for your
services.”
    But the words were surrounded by snares.
     

     
    The visions were fading. She blinked her eyes. Dark
tree trunks were blurring past.
    “Ouch!” snorted Mira. “Don't yank my mane out, I'm
rather vain of it.”
    “Huh,” Shawna said, still recovering from the
visions.
    She frowned, trying to remember the voices, but the
long-forgotten memory was fading. Rays of early sunlight set the
hills ablaze as they galloped into an enormous field. The cold
darkness of the forest was quickly dissipating like her memories.
Morning's warm glowing arms wrapped around her face and hands while
Lula stirred from inside the pack. Mira slowed to a canter and
finally to a walk far from the forest's edge. Her sides were
heaving, and Shawna realized they must have been galloping half the
night.
    “Why’d you do that?” Shawna said, touching her
temples. She whirled around. “Where did it go?!”
    She expected to see the monster leap from the
shadows, but everything was still; only birds chirped their morning
greetings.
    “I had to blind you from it.” Mira’s legs trembled
for a moment, but she kept walking.
    “Did I faint?”
    “You did. I nearly lost you once, but I kept you
aware enough to hold onto me.”
    “I don’t like it when you do that. It makes me feel
so—”
    “Vulnerable?” Mira rolled an eye back at her.
    “Um, yeah. Can you also see what I see?”
    “Only if I open my mind to yours as well. In this
case, I did not.”
    Relief washed over Shawna, stemming more from the
embarrassing memory of Jarred than the mysterious one with the
apparition. “Just don’t do it anymore. Please.”
    “I give you my word. I felt it was necessary in that
moment. You were both giving it too much power. Molochs feed on
another’s energy, in this case your fear.”
    Shawna glanced back at the receding forest. “That’s
what came for me at my house. Why? Tell me what they are.”
    “Not now,” Mira laid her ears back. “What did I just
tell you? Keep your thoughts away from it. I will explain later in
a safer location. We’re nearly there.”
    “What?” said a drowsy little voice before Shawna
could ask where.
    Lula emerged with something wiggling on her head.
“What happened? Is it gone?”
    “Um, Lula,” said Shawna, pointing at her. “I
    think there's a worm on your head.”
    Lula looked unconcerned. She slowly raised her hand,
grabbed the worm, and flung it into the tall grasses.
    “I told Capella nobody likes worms except
her.”
    She settled down between Mira's ears and blinked a
few times.
    “I fell asleep. What did the fuzz-ball have to
say?”
    It seemed Lula had remembered everything but the
race for their lives all night.
    “You don’t re—” Shawna started to say before Mira
laid her ears back at her.
    “Say nothing,”