Betwixt The Moon And Sun
Chapter One
Math had been created just to torture me.
Really, it had. Numbers were all fine and good, adding and subtracting came almost as easily as breathing, and multiplication only gave trouble in the sixes and the twelves.
It was the algebra that was my sworn enemy.
It wasn’t like I could just let my mind wander; oh no, not me! Certainly not… in any subject. As a result, I got high marks but no friends who stuck around, plus I was labeled a bona-fide nerd, not an image helped by the fact that I always had a book or three waiting for idle moments… or the glasses which enabled me to see my hand in front of my face.
At the moment, I was struggling over a particularly difficult question: the value of x in correlation with the value of y. It wasn’t like I was going to care about these things two years into the future, or even that afternoon. Still, I had learned early on that idle minds can be damaging, especially if you were me. So I bent over the question, puzzled, and finally came up with an answer. I wasn’t sure if it was right or not, but even if it wasn’t I would stand by it.
And that was the last of the questions assigned for the class. Out came the ever ready book, a favorite about… well, princesses and grand adventures and dragons. It was also a romance, the sort that’s based on chivalry and danger and the lady reading signs that I had never seen in real life, directed towards other people or, sometimes in my secret dreams, myself.
I heard giggles from people sitting next to me, but did my best to pay them no heed. What good would come from rising to the bait, other then public humiliation for myself and an ego boost for them? No, far better to immerse myself in a world where everyone was kind except for the bad people, and even then there were ways out of danger.
As such, the school bell startled me out of my reading, and I jumped.
A window shattered, and everyone spun to look. It was one of the windows where no one sat beside it, so no one could have broken it.
Whispers ran through the classroom, “The ghost! It’s the ghost!”
I blushed, and thanked anything and everything that math was the last period of the day. I wouldn’t have been able to stand another class, even if I was good at it. People… they were trying, when they had to assume paranormal activity was the answer to everything. Especially when I knew the answer myself… even if I didn’t know the cause, exactly.
Maybe I was lonely; I wouldn’t know, since I had spent much of my life without friends, apart from my mother. Other people and I just didn’t get along very well.
So I gathered my things, stopped by my locker, and started for home.
Two things happened that day. The first was that I spotted a tree that was shredded, for lack of a better word. I sighed, walked over and patted the trunk. I whispered an apology for the wounds it had taken due to my lack of control, before continuing my walk.
And the other… The other was even odder.
A boy decided to walk beside me, and smiled.
“Hello,” he said. “My name is Griffin. Yours, maiden?”
Now, I knew of Griffin. He was the only other person in the school to be teased as much as I, but for entirely different reasons. Where I was reserved and bookish, and smart, of course, Griffin was just different. He was smart, too, and I had seen him reading a book when I noticed him in the lunch hall, but his books were always bound in leather and didn’t have titles. He was teased for his hair, which was a dusty brown that looked dipped in powder, his clothes- which were more then a little out-dated, since he wore breeches and what could only be described as a fabric garbage bag with holes cut for his head and arms. Under that he wore what I thought was a woman’s blouse.
He also had a necklace, which he wore unabashedly; a pendant, I thought. Up close, I noticed that one of the points was gold, another silver, a third copper, a forth bronze, and the fifth a light, metallic blue.
I blushed; not because he called me maiden- he called everyone maiden if they were female, and all the males ‘sir’- but because we were walking together. I could only imagine with horror the rumors that would spring from this.
“I-I’m Sabriel. C-can I help you?” I stumbled over my words, more than a little embarrassed. Maybe he would go away…
“Well, you may allow me to walk with you, if that is all right.” He bobbed a little, and I blinked. Allow him? Me, telling anyone not to walk with me? That was good for a laugh, and my lips twitched a little, but didn’t extend into a smile.
“That’s all right, really. I… don’t really mind.” Much, I added in my mind. Still, it had been a long time since anyone had walked with me by choice… second grade was the last time, I think. That had been when my… troubles had begun.
“If you’re certain, Lady Sabriel, then it would honor me.” Griffin grinned at me, and I nodded back. We stalled somewhat in conversation, then, since what more was to be said? Still, he must have caught me glancing at his pendant, since he lifted it up for study.
“Are you interested in it, Lady?”
I stumbled, and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught my arm. I blushed beet red and twisted out of his grip, and shrugged. “I-I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Griffin nodded, and let it fall back to his chest. “It stands for the five energies.” My confusion must have shown on my face since he continued. “The first energy, the gold, is that of light. The second is silver, speed. The third is copper, mind. Bronze stands for power, and the blue is for peace.” He held his pendant for a moment, and then let it go. “Look at that tree, there.”
I looked, and blinked. It was a tree that I didn’t know; spreading branches and small oval leaves and light bark. The leaves were the brightest shade of yellow I had ever seen, and littered the ground like tiny flower petals. I stopped walking, mind going blank.
“Do you see it?” Griffin asked. I was about to turn and ask what he meant by ‘seeing it’ when I did see it. It was a green… thread, of a sort, twisted into the tree. But it was fading to a dull brown. “The tree is falling asleep, now, isn’t it?”
I nodded, hardly noticing that Griffin’s hand was on my shoulder, and the other was resting on my arm.
0O0
For the rest of the week, Griffin walked with me to Grimshale Street, whereupon he turned left and I turned right. And each time he pointed something out; a rock, a bush, once a cat that seemed to be waiting for him, almost. And each time there was something to notice, some thread or fire or hidden glint, that only showed itself to him and me.
I didn’t even mind when I was teased for my friendship with him, which blossomed as I ate lunch at his table, the both of us reading our books and not talking. When we did talk about something other than what we saw on our way home from school, I found an interesting conversationalist. And accidents were happening less and less, as if Griffin was doing something to help me.
Maybe he was. He admitted, almost happy, that he believed in magic. “Not that nonsense chanting and hovering over a bubbling cauldron, unless I’m swearing at dinner boiling over, but actual magic. The real power of the world, not this electricity nonsense they’re trying to teach us,” were his exact words. I had to smile at that, only to later wince at a far off sound of something breaking.
Still, Griffin was good to me, which was why it came as a complete surprise when he dragged me down Grimshale street with him just six days after we first started to talk.
0O0
“Griffin, where are you taking me?” I tugged at his hold on my arm; he wouldn’t let go. I was slightly frightened- I didn’t know why, but I was scared of him- but mostly I was irritated. “I have to get home, you know. Who else is going to put supper on?”
Griffin didn’t even look over his shoulder. “You have to see this, Sabriel! It’s important.”
I almost had a heart attack at his modern English. Before that he’d used words from the past, or Shakespeare. Now though… even the lack of ‘lady’ before my name would have been shocking.
“Griffin! Where-” My words choked off at the sight of the… dilapidated house before me. The yard was overcome by brambles and snarls and tons of thorns that gleamed in the fall sunlight. The rest of the property didn’t seem any more welcoming, with a sagging porch and a sagging roof. Even the walls appeared to be sagging.
“Well? Isn’t it wonderful?” Griffin waved his arm at the house, and I found myself wondering if he was insane. Which I promptly asked him.
“Are you insane? Wonderful? I’m amazed it hasn’t fallen down yet!” My words had vehemence from surprise and a little fright; I’m sorry to say that I would have willingly stopped walking with Griffin at that moment.
Fortunately for me, Griffin didn’t give me much of a choice.
He dragged me towards the gate, which opened before being touched. I shivered, clutching Griffin’s arm as the gate closed, again without help from humans.
“Griffin?”
Besides the freakish gate, other things were worrying me. The first thing was that Griffin was simply acting like someone who was certainly not Griffin. He was dragging me by the arm, his grip hard enough to bruise! And…
And Griffin jumped out of the brambles and stabbed Griffin with a kitchen knife.
The Griffin that held onto my arm shrieked and stumbled backwards into thorns, clutching at his stomach. The other Griffin, the one who was a murderer now, walked towards me. His face was a study in concern and kindness, hands out.
“Lady Sabriel, are you all right? The knave did not harm you, did he?”
I rolled up my sleeve to check my arm, and sighed. “Bruised, but not broken.” I paused, and looked up. My eyes surely widened, as I looked between the two Griffins. “Y-you killed him!” My voice squeaked, and I stumbled backwards.
“Hold, Lady, please! Allow me to explain!” Griffin leapt forward and grabbed my hands, but unlike the other he didn’t hurt me, just… held me. “It is complicated, I am afraid, but truly you must know!”
I shivered. “C-can we leave? Just tell me… who was that?” I pointed at the dead Griffin, and the living Griffin looked over.
“A worthless Mavni with a horrid disguise. Come. We must leave this place. It is not proper surroundings for a well-bred lady like yourself, or anyone with an ounce of decency.”
Looking around at the thorns and rot, I was forced to agree. Maybe I should have been afraid of Griffin, after the murder and all, but… I trusted him. Six days and I already trusted him not to hurt me… to protect me. And he had.
It wasn’t rational, it flew against all logic, but I followed Griffin down to a park that was nearby, and as different from the thorn-infested property as night was to day. The park had a sand box and nothing else, the trees were scraggly and overgrown, and it was beautiful. Griffin knelt in front of me while I sat on one of the two benches.
“Lady, first I must swear to you, I meant no harm. If I had known that the letter was a trick in order to get you alone, I would never have-”
“Whoa, Griffin, what letter?” I held up a hand, lifting my eyebrows. Griffin blinked, and then pulled a piece of heavy paper from under his fabric garbage bag.
“This.” He held it out to me, and I scanned it. The word usage was heavy on misspellings, used the words betwixt, thou, and whilst, and the general implication was that I was in danger… outside of the city. It was signed ‘Mavni’, which was, I remembered, what Griffin had called the dead man.
“Mavni? Then, this must have been sent by the one that pretended to be you.” I handed the letter back, and Griffin hid it wherever such things went.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Mavnis are slovenly cowards who never go into battle alone. I believe we shall have to step everything up, Lady Sabriel. I am sorry about this, but it is the only way to get you to a measure of safety.” Griffin stood up, and pulled me to my feet. He must have misjudged the force necessary, because I stumbled against his chest. Maybe he hadn’t, because the next moment he was clutching me to him with one arm, and sketching a symbol in the air with the other.
I fainted the moment our feet left the ground.
