Old Evil

III

III

Deep in the Ancestral Bogs, Miri Charmwell ran her fingers along a gnarled birch tree that lay on the forest floor.

She knelt and beheld an entire sea of fallen trees around her. They were piled up like matches, thin bundles of wood dotting the landscape.

She had been here since six in the morning, studying every tree for oddities. They had been uprooted, like something simply pulled them out of the ground as if they were weeds, then laid them down in big piles.

She had given orders to her research team to inspect every tree before doing anything else. It was long, mundane, tedious work.

She had to work side-by-side with them, even though she already knew the cause of the destruction.

No one else did, though. And studying the trees bought her time to figure out how she was going to save herself, continue her research with Old Dark, and still give the governor what he needed.

The oppressive heat had taken its toll on her. She thought she had been prepared, but as the day sweltered on, it eroded her energy.

And she had only been here for a morning. She didn’t know how she was going to last for two weeks.

She uncapped her water bottle and took a long drink. The water had turned tepid and was distasteful. She had just poured it from the cooler an hour ago. She found herself thinking that the Ancestral Bogs should have been called the Infernal Bogs instead.

She wiped a mass of sweat from her neck. The wide-brimmed hat on her head was ringed with perspiration, and so was the floral bandana around her neck. Already she’d taken several breaks, sitting on fallen trees as she watched Laner and the rest of the crew walk around with phones and notebooks, taking photos of everything they saw.

Laner had tried to stay close to her, but she kept her distance. With all the history between them she didn’t want him getting any ideas. He just couldn’t let her go, and every time he doffed his sun hat at her and adjusted his auburn bangs, he had a look in his eye that said he still had feelings for her. His eyes did the talking.

She didn’t have any feelings for him.

Her mind was elsewhere, thinking about all the events that had happened in the last few days.

Just a few days ago, Old Dark’s tomb had been here. She had seen it. She had been inside it.

Now it was a wasteland in the middle of a wasteland, a semi-circle of felled trees half a mile in diameter, the biggest mystery the media had ever seen. Even Miri didn’t know what happened here for sure.

Nearby, two team members balanced delicately on a tree as they walked, talking to each other. They wore long pants and long sleeves, and they carried backpacks with airflow systems to keep their backs cool. Clearly they knew what they were doing.

Miri didn’t mind the crew. Just earlier, she had met them and introduced herself. They were a young group, much younger than she had expected. Most of them had only been out of college a few years. But they shared a love of archaeology. As she told them her expectations (she made them up), they had taken notes eagerly and asked a lot of questions.

They were refreshing compared to the governor, who had barked orders at her on exactly what he wanted. He would be demanding a report later, and if she didn’t have something for him, he was, quite literally, going to chew her a new asshole.

A woman plopped down on the tree next to her. She wore a pink shirt and jeans, had purple hair in a bob hairdo, and a diamond stud just next to her lip.

“Want some water?” Jasmine asked.

Jasmine White was the team lead. Governor Grimoire had recommended her highly and she had proven him right. She reminded Miri of her former self a long time ago, when college graduation was still fresh on her mind and the world held endless potential.

Miri dumped out her bottle of water and poured some of Jasmine’s into her own.

“Don’t worry,” Jasmine said, “I’ve got plenty in the van. You don’t do many archeological digs, I assume.”

Miri drank the cold, crisp water and and gave a relaxing sigh.

“I guess that’s obvious,” she said.

“Water’s important, but not as important as beer,” Jasmine said. “We always bring a few cases for later.”

Miri smiled. “I’m looking forward to that, then.”

Jasmine took a swig from her canteen and glanced over at Laner, who was bent over, inspecting a tree.

“We’re a tight-knit group,” Jasmine said. “Most of us went to archaeology school together.”

“I didn’t expect you to be so young,” Miri said.

“Neither did we,” Jasmine said, laughing. “Governor Grimoire was pretty fed-up with the last team. They weren’t adhering to the Magical Lands Act. Last election he decided to put some new blood in the department. Most of us grew up in the Half-Eight, so it was a no-brainer.”

Miri puffed. Obviously, the governor needed support from younger voters in the Half-Eight. That was the only reason he hired Jasmine. Was she too naïve to understand that? Miri decided not to ask.

“We’ve been doing this for four years,” Jasmine said. She leaned forward and ran a stick through the mud.

“Can I ask your opinion?” Miri asked. “What do you think about all of this?”

Jasmine thought carefully before she spoke. “There was something here, but now it’s gone.”

“What do you think it was?”

“Could have been an entrance to the aquifer,” Jasmine said. “My first thought when I arrived was that this had to be aquifer-related, but now I’m not so sure.”

Jasmine motioned for Miri to follow her. They stopped at a tree that was split in half.

“I’ve spent a lot of time around birches,” Jasmine continued. “They look sickly, but the truth is that they’re quite vibrant and resilient. If we were looking at an aquifer event, we would see the presence of magic. Birches, more so than other trees, have shallow root systems that attract magic. When you pull one up, it usually looks something like this...”

Jasmine showed Miri a smartphone picture of her sitting atop a papery birch tree whose roots were exposed. They had a pink tinge to them, as if magical bubbles were leaking out.

“Ah...” Miri said, tilting her head at the photo.

“These birches didn’t go that deep,” Jasmine said. “Their roots are averaging about twenty feet at most per all the ones I’ve seen.”

“So what do you think now?” Miri asked.

Jasmine pointed to a notch on the tree.

“Foul play is what I think,” she said. “Birches bruise easily. But this is a forceful bruise. Something like this could only be caused by machinery.”

Miri gasped.

Jasmine knew her stuff. Miri would have expected no less from a field researcher.

But that was going to make her life difficult.

A lot more difficult.

“This was definitely machinery,” Jasmine repeated. “Other than that, though, I’m completely stumped.”

Miri knew she had to find the pond.

Old Dark told her that there was treasure at the bottom of it, enough to completely distract the investigation.

The old dragon had been right. Distraction was what she needed.

“What do you think, Professor Charmwell?” Jasmine asked.

Miri was about to respond, but then someone called her name from across the dig site.

Laner waved to them. His voice was enthusiastic.

“Hey, Miri, I found something!” he shouted.

Miri and Jasmine started walking toward him.

“I’m glad the governor picked you for this,” Jasmine said. “I have a ton of respect and admiration for you, professor.”

“You’re too nice,” Miri said.

“No, really. It’s nice to see a woman who isn’t afraid to speak her mind. I hope one day I can be like you. I can’t believe they took your doctorate. I’ve been hoping you would get it back.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I’m even a professor anymore,” Miri said.

Jasmine looked over at her with concerned eyes. “You don’t mean that, do you?”

Miri regretted saying anything at all.

Ethics. It was such a gray area...when you needed it to be.

Miri called out to Laner. “What do you have?”

“This tree is different than the others,” Laner said. “It’s—”

Laner lost his balance and fell. A huge splash resounded through the area.

The pond.

It was so full of sediment and so placid that no one had seen it.

“Laner!” Miri cried.

But he didn’t rise. Bubbles rose to the surface of the water and popped.

“I don’t think he can swim!” Miri said.

Jasmine whistled. Nearby, one of the research crew ran to the spot where Laner had fallen. He took off his shirt and dove into the water.

A few moments later, he resurfaced with Laner in tow. Miri and Jasmine pulled them out of the water.

Laner looked stunned.

“God, Laner!” Miri said. “I didn’t know you couldn’t swim.”

“Of course I can swim,” Laner said between coughs. He was covered in beige mud. “But I found this. It was embedded in one of the trees.”

He held out his hand, revealing dull, mud-covered shards.

Jasmine took the shards from Laner and wiped the mud off of them with the bottom of her shirt. She gasped.

“These are Magic Eater shells,” she said. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re in business!”

Miri’s heart raced as the crew circled around.