Free Beneath by Gill Arbuthnott

without my mother realising, then all you have to do is pull Freya into the water with you, and you’ll both come out at the pool in
your
forest.”
    “Don’t I have to get her back here for that?”
    “No. The river that runs past my home is linked to the pool in the forest here.” He paused.
    “If my mother discovers what’s happening, she will try to stop you. She is not bound by this.” He touched the torque around his neck. “She will spin illusions so that you think Freya is something else. You must grasp tight to whatever you find yourself holding, and get her into the water.”
    Jess remembered the words that had made no sense, and their meaning was now suddenly clear.
    Hold fast the briar,
    Hold fast the falcon,
    Hold fast the flame.
    “All right,” she said. “How soon can we go?”
    “Now. It’s light enough to be safe for you. It will take about an hour to get there.” He rose and kicked apart the remains of the fire. “This way.” He set off without looking to see if she was behind him.
    It was just light enough to see where she was going, though they weren’t following any sort of path as far as Jess could tell. The undergrowth made the going difficult, and Finn stopped to wait for her when she fell behind.
    As the light grew, she looked around her at the Kelpie – the Nykur – world. The light itself was disconcerting, making the air and the forest beyond it quiver unless she was looking at it directly; almost as though it wasn’t solid, but a reflection in wind-ruffled water.
    The trees were no sort she had ever seen, their trunks soaring high above her to open in a canopy of green and silver leaves that moved in the wind. The enormous briar bushes that grew among them were barbed with huge curved thorns. No wonder she had mistaken them for claws in the darkness. They were laden with blood-crimson flowers that had a strange musky scent, not like a flower scent at all. When Jess strayed close to one, Finn pulled her quickly away from it.
    “Careful. They bite,” he said, cryptically.
    She found out what he meant a few minutes later, when she drew close to another one without thinking. She gasped in pain as a branch whipped against her, and thorns tore at her like teeth.
    She stepped back quickly, sucking blood from her wrist.
    “It moved. I swear it aimed at me,” she exclaimed.
    “I told you not to get too close,” Finn said.
    There was no sign or sound of birds, but the whine and buzz of insects filled the air and there were tracks through the grass where animals must move among the trees.
    “It doesn’t look like autumn here,” Jess said, catching up with Finn again.
    “It isn’t. Time runs differently for us.”
    She thought a little before she spoke again.
    “What will happen to you once I take Freya back?” she asked, prepared to be rebuffed.
    “This will disappear once you go back to your world.” He gestured at the torque.
    “But will there be trouble for you, because you helped me?”
    “The others will know I had no choice because of this, but they’ll be angry that I was stupid enough to let myself be trapped, especially by you.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    He looked at her then, to see if she was mocking him, and found that she wasn’t.
Was there a chance that she felt something for him?
he wondered.
    “What about the boys?” She suddenly remembered. “Where are they? Can I rescue them too?”
    “Other families have them. You can’t take them back: they’ve been here too long and they wouldn’t remember anything about your world. This is their home now. They don’t know any other.”
    They had stopped walking during the last exchange. Now Finn said,
    “Come on, Jess. We need to go.”
    That was it. That was what she had forgotten from last night.
    “Stop!” she commanded.
    He slammed to a halt, glaring at her.
    “My name. How do you know my name? You didn’t tell me last night.”
    “We need to go,” he said, but he was helpless until herwords