Tricky was utterly
unprepared for this. Her clothes weren’t made to deal with all this white,
thick, cold stuff. She was wet through, and felt weighted down. She’d never
experienced snow before, only read about it. Apparently some big old jolly man,
all dressed in red, was going to come careening over the slopes on a sleigh
pulled by some funny looking animals, and offer her a present – at least that
was what all the old books said when it was the season for this stuff to fall
from the sky, back before the shift.
But the only big old man likely to show up
here was Douglas Bottle, aka Gandalf, and Tricky knew his jolly disposition was
more a sinister sneer. No, she didn’t want any old men showing up to give her
anything, thank you very much. She was doing just fine on her own.
But why was he traveling this way? He was
way too easy to track in snow. He knew she was following him. Or was that the
point? Was he thinking he was setting his own trap? Tricky chuckled to herself.
He really hadn’t learnt, had he? He was helping her implement her own plan. She
just needed to know where he’d gone soe she could pull all the threads
together.
She stopped by one of the snow laden trees,
a strong spruce. She put her hands on its trunk and received its high jittery,
lime green energy. When she visualised Bottle, she saw his brightly dressed
garb rushing off ahead of her, slightly downhill, then it paused by a large
conifer and vanished.
She passed on some of her own energy to the
tree as thanks, and stuffed her hands back in her pockets, attempting to save
them from the cutting cold. As she looked at the path ahead, she couldn’t help notice
the heavens above. Up high on a mountain side with air sharpened by the cold,
the clarity of the night sky was striking. It seemed full to bursting with
bright pinpricks denoting other stars in other universes. Tricky wasn’t
familiar enough with constellations to know if the patterns were different from
her own time, though she suspected they were. And the streak of distant
nebulous cloud which outlined the arm of their galaxy gave it more depth. She
inhaled a deep lungful of crisp clear air and gave herself a moment before
continuing her pursuit.
Even though she was here to weave a little
magic of her own, she still embraced the awe and wonder at passing through these
locations. And there was no shortage of them, as this particular stunt was
proving.
Tricky knew Bottle thought he knew what he
was doing, leading her into a trap, but he clearly underestimated her crafty
nature. It was a merry dance alright, but one he wasn’t going to end up enjoying,
she was sure of that – oh yes she was. She smiled to herself as she set off
down the hill. She wished she could see his face when he realised how he’d
allowed her to ensnare him.
When she arrived at the large conifer, she
closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. The crystal air made everything a
little bit sharper and she quickly saw the remnants of the line Gandalf had
opened into the next time. But the energy colour had shifted slightly, as she
suspected, because he was trying to lead her into his own trap.
To those that could read energy as well as
Tricky, this ploy was obvious. He’d already tried it twice and she hadn’t
fallen for it either time, but he hadn’t seem to have realised that. And what
it enabled Tricky to do was create her own little net of deception. The fact he
was still clueless meant there was a greater chance of success.
She took another breath and blew out gently
across the line causing it to glow. She took out the obsidian still wrapped in
germwort and scraped up a grain of creasy from the few loose in her pocket. She
didn’t need much, just a spark to open it a slither. She held them in the air
against the line, and when she dropped the creasy onto the covered stone, it opened
a crack as she’d hoped. She took a tiny piece of aluminium foil out of another
pocket and stuck it in the gap. It fizzed and crackled, but closed, leaving a
barely visible scrap of metal in the air. Few people would notice its existence.
Such metals were a rarity in Tricky’s world,
but she’d come across a roll buried in some rubble where there’d been a
dwelling before the shift. She’d only ever used tiny scraps, learning early on its
use as a replacement mirror.
A raucous cackle escaped her and echoed off
the snow covered hills. Oh this was going to be so much fun.
Parasite Crop by Mark Cassell
