Oregon in the Fall - 15. Chapter Fifteen: Heart

“It’s interesting,” Clara said.

“What is?” I responded.

“The way you both are mooning over each other right now.”

“We are not!” Dave said.

I nonchalantly withdrew my grip on Dave’s hand, disentangled my leg from his leg, made sure my head was upright and not leaning against the man next to me, and smiled at Clara. She had nothing on me.

Clara shook her head and chuckled. “You left Deia’s presents behind, Dave.”

He gripped his neck. Nothing there. “Fuck,” he said.

“I’m sure we can go back now that this place is friendly,” I said.

“Yeah…” Dave responded absent-mindedly. He seemed sad, looking at the floor.

“We’re going to get him back.” How, I didn’t know. But we had to find a way. I was conveniently ignoring the fact that the magical barrier that had held us in place as we opened the gate to Labirinthoset had been painted red with Mark’s blood. What were the chances of this going well?

‘I’m here for you,’ I said to Dave without speaking.

‘I know. You are the reason I feel like home. Even here.’

I smiled at him, and he lifted his head to meet my gaze. ‘I found you.’

“I’m glad you’re alive, Dave. And Grey… I’m sorry I called you a monster,” Clara said.

“Why did you call him that?” Dave said.

“You almost died. I wasn’t able to heal you… and I lost it. Grey saved you. I have to be thankful for that.”

“You have to be?” I asked her, not sure how to read her right now. My voice was a tad bit accusatory, testing. Her demeanor changed.

“Yes. My feelings don’t matter right now.” She closed her eyes, lips pressed firmly together. After a pause, she continued, “Actually, let me be quite frank, Grey. Because unspoken things never help in the long run. You entered our lives, and we went with you on this journey. You lost a… friend. And I almost lost my brother. Hell, maybe I did lose him. Everything has changed.”

Feelings. Confusion. Was I supposed to be upset about this? No. I don’t… I… So I said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” My eyes became wet, tears forming.

“For what? What are you sorry for?” Clara asked angrily.

“I’m sorry I’m not a better person. I’m sorry I don’t have all the answers. Or any. I acted on a whim, and my wolf agreed with me. You were unable to heal him, and Dave had to be saved. He had to be. I found him, and I wasn’t going to lose him.”

“Clara, we went with him willingly! You yourself saw the change in the magic, something had to be done. Call it fate or whatever, but this adventuring party was meant to happen,” Dave said, forcefully.

“You, Mister, can shut the fuck up. You almost died and were burned to a crisp like a fucking rotisserie chicken. You lost speaking privileges for a moment, so just zip it.”

“A chicken?” he said unwisely.

Clara waved her hand in a furious lash through the air, and constricting vines appeared over Dave’s mouth, tied behind his head, growing tighter. I was sure this woman was not to be toyed with, now I saw proof of that again. Dave, however, had an answer to it—albeit without speaking directly because he frankly couldn’t do that at the moment.

‘anger. attack. remove,’ I heard his wolf in my head. That was new.

His eyes snapped fully open, no longer filled with part amusement, part confusion, but ablaze with a fierce, fiery orange. The air crackled around him with raw energy, making the hairs on my arms stand upright. A growl rumbled deep in his chest, a sound that seemed too primal for his human throat.

Before I could even shout a warning, the vines tightened, then sizzled, the vibrant green turning to black ash. Acrid smoke filled the air just for a moment as they burst, scattering with an audible crackle.

Dave’s eyes flickered back to their usual blue, his expression registering both shock and a lingering hint of the savage energy that had blazed through him. His mouth fell open, and he stared at his hands as though they’d been the ones doing what just happened. They weren’t.

Clara was pulled out of her furor. She said, “What the fuck.” For a moment, I thought we were past the discussion, but then she continued, “See what I mean? Everything has changed. He’s… what is he?”

“I’m Dave!” Dave shouted.

I was in awe of him. He was a frightening being right now, so unknown, so… untested. But he was mine. It felt dangerous and powerful. And yet there it was—the lingering memory of the story my mom had once told me about the human turned wolf that was lost. What happened to him?

How could I protect Dave from that?

“In the spirit of openness, I think my wolf knows what Dave is,” I said.

“And what’s that?” Clara said.

“Aten.”

“A ten? Are you kidding me? Are you rating my brother right now?”

“Aten. It’s a name. My wolf mentioned the name, he recognized him.”

powerful. like us.

“Oh. Aten and wet blanket. Nice.”

“I think you’re using humor to mask your fear and panic right now.”

Dave chuckled.

Clara said, “Damn right, I am!” And her demeanor lightened up a bit. Maybe it helped.

“My name’s Wepwawet, I think. Not wet blanket,” I said. I wasn’t sure what it meant, though.

“And what does that mean to you?”

“Nothing.”

“You were speaking ancient before, according to Maio. I think there’s perhaps five people in the world who can, and you just do it like that.”

“Ok,” was all I could muster.

“Deia said you were a god. And to be quite frank, we didn’t really talk about that afterward.”

“Well, if I recall correctly, that’s where her knowledge ended. And I am the clueless one. Again, just to remind you.”

“Am I a god now, too?” Dave asked. Good question.

“To be honest, it wouldn’t surprise me. But if that is true, you always have been. If I had to guess, you turning into a wolf, and doing it so easily, was always meant to happen. And… huh,” Clara said.

“What?” I asked.

“Coincidences don’t exist in this narrative. I think we’re far beyond that point. For one thing, I believe Mark might be one, too. A god. He is your brother, after all, Dave. And also, if everything is predestined, why do we even sit here and think about things? Would it not happen anyway?”

“Whoa, wait a second…” Dave said.

“I trust you, Dave. I watched you grow up. You are my heart and my soul. My brother. And if you are now part of this triad, we need to bring Mark back. It has to happen. I see no other way,” Clara said.

“How do you play into all this?” I asked her. Blunt, but it was on my mind.

“I’m the wise one. You need me because both of you are idiots.”

“Fair,” I said.

“The appearance of Theodore confuses me,” Dave said.

“Yeah. But I believe him to be more clueless than we originally thought. He didn’t know about his children. He tried to kill me, and to be quite frank, I don’t think this outcome here with Dave being a seething sun ball is what he planned for. Powerful, sure, talking to us from beyond a veil. He was even able to activate a trap in here, but I don’t feel his presence anymore. For now, I think he is out of the picture.”

“Except the curse,” I said. Memories of my family, my pack, came rushing back. I had no idea how to feel. How long ago was it that I was chained up back in the Strawberry Mountains? A week ago?

“Let’s journey to the heart. If this place is nice now, that won’t be a problem. We need to find some answers. And then… then…” Clara said, but her thought seemed to drift away.

“Then we need to visit my family. My pack. The root of the curse is there. I don’t know where it all started, but Beatrice and Theodore and Mark and Dave and me, it all ties back to the pack.”

“You surprisingly make sense, Grey,” Clara said. I expected applause, but there was none. “And Grey?”

“Yeah?” I said.

“Can I hug you?”

“Um, yes?”

So she did. This beautiful and powerful woman hugged me, and I was thankful for it. I was thankful for her honesty, and bluntness. Those were qualities I didn’t have. If something didn’t necessarily have to be said, I usually avoided talking about it. But everything we just said to each other was important, and cleansing. She is good for me, good for us. Clara—rose—pine—mint—was the honest one. And I knew things could be ok if we only worked together. I looked over at Dave, who just smiled at us. He smiled at his sister and… me. And all was good for a moment.

“We should go back inside the more twisty paths of this place,” Clara said, motioning towards where we came from and away from the now sunlit room with windows many stories above us.

And that’s where we went. Yet as we ventured back into the twisting corridors, my heart pounded in my chest, and though I tried to reason it away as a residual echo of the earlier confrontation, a nagging unease lingered.

Suddenly, I tripped over seemingly nothing, my vision blurring for just a second. When I blinked back into focus, the world had shifted. Faint, almost translucent outlines of wolves now shimmered over the ancient murals that lined the passageway.

“Dave, Clara… do you see that?” I asked, a tremor in my voice that betrayed my mounting anxiety.

Dave looked at me with a confused frown. “See what, Grey?”

Clara, however, met my gaze with widened eyes and a slow nod. “The wolves… they weren’t there before. They’re faint, like echoes of something…”

A chill ran down my spine. Were the wolves a reflection of my own past, the echoes of that lost wolf from my mom’s story? The fear was a cold weight in my gut. What if Dave ended up the same way? What if I couldn’t protect him? Was this a warning from the labyrinth, a sign of the dangers to come? Or maybe I was just imagining things. Perhaps the stress was starting to get to me.

So we moved deeper into the labyrinth, the once-formidable passageways feeling strangely safe. Clara led the way initially, her eyes flitting over the walls as though searching for clues. “The heart,” she muttered. “That’s what we need. Answers, maybe even a way to Mark.”

“If only we had a map of this place,” Dave grumbled.

“Or, like, a magical compass…” I added, knowing it was a pipe dream.

We wandered in silence for a while, the labyrinth stretching out before us in its endless turns. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were missing something obvious. This place had practically turned itself inside out for us, but now… nothing. Frustration gnawed at me.

Suddenly, Dave stopped dead in his tracks, his hand flying to his chest. “Wait,” he said, his expression changing. “I feel… something. A pull.”

Clara and I exchanged bewildered glances. “A pull towards what?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Dave admitted, his eyes wide. “It’s like… I belong somewhere.” He spun in a circle, looking down various corridors as if trying to pinpoint the sensation. Then, he pointed confidently into the dimness. “That way. I need to go that way.”

The instinct to trust Dave, the wolf now so undeniably a part of him, warred with a flicker of caution. But, Clara, ever the pragmatist, simply shrugged.

“Well,” she said. “As good a lead as any, I suppose.”

With a shared hesitant glance, we followed the direction Dave had indicated. After all, he was connected to this place, and he was sensing the pull. This had to mean something.

The labyrinth’s twisting corridors seemed to melt away as we followed Dave, his pace growing more determined with every step. I glanced at Clara, her usual confident stance replaced by an air of quiet wonder. The strange pull Dave spoke of was palpable now, even to me. It felt less like a direction and more like… gravity.

Suddenly, the narrow labyrinth opened into a vast chamber. Sunlight filtered in from unseen openings high above, casting an ethereal glow on the space. Yet, the light wasn’t the source of the awe that stole my breath.

In the center of the chamber floated a heart. It wasn’t merely a symbol, but a literal, pulsing organ the size of a bear, intricately woven with veins of glowing gold and shimmering, pearlescent muscle. Its rhythmic beat echoed through the chamber, matching the frantic pulse in my own veins.

“Whoa,” Dave whispered, the word barely audible.

Suspended in the air, just in front of the magnificent heart, were both of their necklaces. Deia’s gifts, tokens of love and brotherhood, now glowing with the same golden light that coursed through the veins of the heart.

Clara gasped. “That’s impossible…”

Yet there the necklaces were, defying all sense and reason. It felt less like a coincidence and more like a summons. A wave of emotions crashed over me—awe, disbelief, a flicker of hope, and an undercurrent of something primal I couldn’t name.

“Mark,” I choked out, my gaze fixated on the necklaces. Even without knowing how, I felt a certainty that this impossible sight held the key to bringing him back.

We took a hesitant step forward, and then another, our eyes locked on the heart and the necklaces. With each step, the rhythmic beating grew louder, seeming to vibrate within my chest.

Suddenly, a voice boomed through the cavern, making us jump. It was deep, resonant, and echoing, as if the labyrinth itself had found its tongue.

“Wepwawet. Aten. Osiris.”

The names rolled off its non-existent tongue, a chilling litany. Dave’s face had gone pale, his eyes wide. Clara gripped my arm, her usual composure cracking. No, cracked.

Who the fuck was Osiris?

“Wepwawet. Aten. Osiris.”

Mark?

And then something within Dave awoke. He straightened, his body seeming to change subtly before our eyes. His words were harsh and guttural, echoing the cadence of the labyrinth’s pronouncements. But I understood them.

He said, “Sahk nu, Labirinthoset.”

It seemed to work magic. The labyrinth’s voice fell silent. My own tongue felt heavy and strange within my mouth, and I too began to speak. The words came unbidden, flowing out of some deep well within me, my voice joining with Dave’s in a strange ritual. “Thuk bara.”

This caused a shift. The magnificent heart pulsed with new urgency, and a shimmering circle opened before it, like a doorway cut into the air itself. Within, stone steps descended into a radiant sea of light, blinding in its intensity.

We stood frozen, the echoes of our ancient utterances fading. Finally, Clara broke the silence, her voice filled with awe and a hint of fear. “What the hell did you just say?”

Dave blinked, as if waking from a trance. “I said… help us.”

My response was equally terse. “I said… thank you.”

What could possibly go wrong?