Chapter 20: Chase

Without moving her body, Addie locked onto Christena’s location, about ten paces behind her. She guessed that Christena still didn’t know about Addie’s magic, since Christena still continued trying to use her illusion magic to hide herself in the darkness. Her attempts to hide were painfully obvious to Addie who, using her spatial sense, easily knew what was fake and what was real.

Another illusory voice tickled Addie’s ear, this time seeming to come from directly in front of her, “I’m right here, little Addie.”

In response, Addie simply smirked. She knew for a fact that Christena was not ‘right here’. Without turning around, Addie pushed out a pulse of power from her soul. She didn’t know how to fight; she’d never trained with a blade or shield. Even in the forest, she had never used her powers to attack, Squishy had done that for them.

But, she did know how to use her powers in one clever way; Addie fell back on her favorite plan, running away. But she wasn’t scared or running out of desperation. She was playing to her strengths.

Since Christena was still behind her, Addie sprinted forward in the opposite direction, before she began to curve her running to lead Christena away from the manor. If Addie had her directions right, this way would bring them out to the forest when they reappeared in reality. She focused on her spatial sense, watching the space behind her to make sure Christena was following.

Each step followed the next as Addie sprinted forward, her breath started to come faster. She began to taste iron at the back of her throat as her lungs strained against her chest, but she didn’t stop. She ran unceasingly and without fear. She led Christena further into Realmspace and as far away from the manor as she could.

A clone of Christena popped up in front of Addie, all glowing light and no substance. The fake tried to reach forward as if to catch Addie and stop her mad dash. For a moment, a jolt of surprise at the sudden appearance caused Addie’s breath to hitch. Luckily, she quickly stamped down that feeling without stopping. To prevent that from happening again, Addie closed her eyes tightly shut. Her spatial sense wouldn’t be fooled by Christena’s illusions.

“You wouldn’t abandon me here, would you, Addie? In this realm of cold and gray?” Christena’s voice tickled her ear as if she were whispering right next to her left cheek.

Addie ignored Christena’s taunting and kept running. Besides, Realmspace would spit her out eventually.

No matter how hard she ran, Addie could not possibly match Christena’s adult strides. She was slowly catching up. It didn’t matter though. Addie could feel her grip on Realmspace slowly beginning to fade. Though her powerful build-up of magic had locked both her and Christena in here, without Addie pumping more magic in to fight against Realmspace trying to push her out, they’d be out of here in just a few more seconds.

One moment, Addie was running, and the next...

The walls around Addie were perfectly not out of place. She sat in her room, tea cups splayed out on the tea table in front of her. Mr. Wiggles, her stuffed bunny, sat elegantly in his personal tiny chair. She slowly sipped at her tea, enjoying the miniature, pristine peace of a tea party. Her dad even said he would join and was certainly only minutes away.

But something was strange, Addie’s heart beat as if she had just finished a marathon, and the tea somehow didn’t taste like anything at all— not even like water. Most strangely, she knew Christena was nearby and approaching at quite a rapid pace. For a moment, that felt confusing. She didn’t see Christena, after all. No this was something else, just at the tip of her tongue.

It was her spatial sense.

And everything around her wasn’t real.

Addie forced her eyes shut and fought against the small worm-like tendril of magic as Christena’s illusions broadened out from the physical world into Addie’s mind. Christena wasn’t even close to being as strong with mind magic as the village witch, Addie found herself thinking derisively. Plus, her illusions forgot to add taste. No one drinks flavorless tea.

Snapped back to reality, or in this case, Realmspace, Addie knew she had wasted precious seconds confused by Christena’s illusionary room, and now the maid had practically caught up to Addie. The walls and setting still seemed to be around Addie, but now she knew they weren’t real.

She turned her head behind her just as Christena reached out to grab her from behind.

“I caught you,” Christena’s grip was firm, but not nearly harsh enough to trap Addie. That seemed odd, it was almost like Christena’s grip was playful, like when they used to play tag together. The discordance made Addie hesitate for a moment, but it didn’t matter.

Realmspace finally broke through Addie’s magic, a membrane of magic forcing them out. Addie smiled during the transition.

In the confusion of the sudden deportation from Realmspace, Christena stumbled and nearly fell face-first on the forest floor, causing her grip on Addie to loosen.

Addie’s heart soared with triumph as she broke free and hastily scrambled to her feet, using both her hands to push on the dirt floor to help her stand. She jumped away before Christena could recover. Not only had she drawn Christena away from the village, but she had baited her into the forest.

This time, Addie didn’t hesitate for a moment. She took off at a sprint and closed her eyes. This felt familiar; however, something much more dangerous than a wolf was chasing her this time. Addie expanded her awareness out around herself, easily moving through the forest as she ran.

At the same time, she swept out her spatial sense behind herself, looking back toward Christena. It looked like Christena had already recovered, and she was now chasing after Addie. Addie just hoped Christena didn’t realize that she had a destination in mind.

Scanning this part of the forest, Addie realized that she recognized it. If she could just get a little bit farther, she’d be able to find one of those super big trees.

Some tension pulsed in Addie’s chest as she realized Christena was faster than her. Addie never could beat Christena at tag, even when she tried her hardest. This time, she had an advantage though. Addie turned ever so slightly, moving into the thickest, bushiest area nearby and then continued her sprint. She easily dodged every single plant; her spatial sense made it easy. She weaved through obstacles like she was born to it— she dodged through the forest like Squishy would. Like the way she had done back when she had to escape the Aurwolf.

Addie giggled as she watched Christena have a significantly harder time. She bumbled through the forest, crashing right through everything. Didn’t she know it’s easier to run with the forest than against it? That seemed obvious to Addie, at least.

Why not make it even harder on her?

Instead of ducking under an incoming tree branch, Addie grabbed a hold of it, bending it forward as she continued to run, and finally she let go of it. With a thwoom the branch flew back into place, forcing Christena to flinch and duck underneath or get whacked.

Next, Addie tore some vines off of a nearby tree when she ran past. She held onto the vines and jumped over an incoming prickly fern. When Christena got close to the same fern and prepared to jump over it, Addie threw her vines at the maid. She got a bit lucky, but the timing could not have been more perfect. At the top of Christena’s jump, the vines hit right into her, some of them tangling into Christena’s legs. Instead of landing gracefully, the former maid tripped and fell face-first into the thorny bramble patch, shouting as she did so.

While Christena was still escaping from her thorny prison, Addie grabbed a handful of small rocks and shoved them into her pockets.

Checking behind her again, she saw a few thin streams of blood start to trickle down Christena’s arm and drip off her elbow. A bunch of thorny branches stuck to her skirt, and she dragged them through the dirt. A few pieces of branch also still hung down her arm. When she noticed them, Christena took a few moments to scowl at the branches, then she carefully pinched a spot between thorns before throwing it off herself.

After getting through the bush, Christena seemed to pause and reconsider. She tried putting on a nice face as she asked, “Come here, Addie. You wanted to play games together, right?”

Addie wouldn’t fall for that. Instead, she took out some of the rocks she had hastily shoved into her pockets earlier and threw them at Christena’s face.

Christena waved her arm, causing a nearly transparent white barrier to appear in front of her. The first few stones reflected and bounced off the barrier, but the last couple shattered the barrier as they bounced off of it.

In retaliation, Christena snapped her fingers, and several white-hot glowing stars orbited in a crescent above her head. They started to shoot out towards Addie, and she did the only thing she could think of to avoid them.

Addie tugged on her soul and jumped into Realmspace. A moment later, she reappeared in reality a couple of feet from where she just was.

Christena turned her head to Addie’s newest location, but she seemed too worn out for the moment to use any more magic. The older woman sagged to catch her breath, giving Addie a bit of time to run and hide behind a regular tree.

Even behind the tree, Addie could easily use her spatial sense to see Christena’s current location. Christena was looking directly at Addie’s current hiding place and mumbling something under her breath while waving her hands around in random-seeming patterns. Not wanting to be on the other end of whatever that was, Addie looked for another good hiding place nearby.

With a destination in mind, Addie dipped back into Realmspace and took a few steps toward her right. She reappeared in reality almost directly inside of a normal-looking bush. Within the bush, Addie could easily see out of it, but she was camouflaged enough that she suspected anyone looking at the bush would have a hard time finding her.

In line with her suspicions, Addie could now see Christena’s confused-looking face. She was glancing all around, trying to pinpoint Addie’s location with no luck.

Christena sighed in frustration, then pointed at her feet. She waved her pointer finger out to Addie’s old hiding place and back to her feet again. A luminous trail of blue light appeared between Christena’s feet and the tree Addie was hiding behind before.

The trail seemed to stop at the tree for a moment, but then it started pulsing. After a few moments, the pulsing ended, and it started creeping incredibly slowly toward Addie’s new hiding place in the bush. After moving forward about a step, the line of lights shot forward faster than Addie could react. They reached her almost instantaneously, lighting up the bush she was hiding behind so brightly it blinded Addie for a moment.

The bright light turned off just as quickly, and Christena was already doing something new. A giant ball of rolling red flames shot out toward the bush Addie was hiding in, and she had to jump back into Realmspace to avoid it.

When Addie reappeared, the bush was completely charcoal, but it seemed like the flames hadn’t spread out at all from there. Strangely, she didn’t feel any heat from the flames at all, despite only being a couple of steps away. Her spatial sense told her something odd, too, like the bush wasn’t really all that damaged. She shook the strangeness away, just glad she had avoided the fireball. Time to try something different, she decided.