The Choice

by Cindy Cipriano

  The boy, however, seemed indifferent to the man’s pleas. How many times has he done this? How many times did it take for the boy to lose his compassion for others? Finley tried to block out the man’s screams, but his pleas for help echoed against the boulders, finding him even as he clapped his hands over his ears. He understood why the boy preferred the depereo to be unconscious.

  The boulder finally slammed shut, the force blowing a gust of wind in Finley’s direction. With it wafted the horrible iron smell that seemed somewhat stronger now that the boulder had been fed. Finley’s eyes watered and he vomited some of the orange lake. The boy wheeled the cart around and headed back toward Finley, who was battling dry heaves.

  Finley found his breath and asked for what he thought was the hundredth time, “Where are we?” He was certain the boy would continue to ignore his question, but he was wrong.

  “We are caught in the Void,” said the boy.

  Chapter Eleven

  Not the Underworld

  Although Finley was relieved to learn he was not in the Underworld, if the boy was telling the truth, being caught in the Void was no less of a nightmare.

  Finley was careful to keep his mind shut to the boy while he processed this information. The Void was a place of nothingness; its only inhabitant was a Fetch who ferried Sidhe from the Otherworld to the Underworld. Finley didn’t know much else about the Void, except a childhood story he never believed to be true. The story was called The Apprentice. Finley had forgotten most of the details, but he remembered a few facts, probably embellished to discourage Sidhe from breaking the Additions Law.

  Historically, it had been acceptable for Sidhe to add duine daonna to their clan. Like Daniel, these Additions became slaves to clan members. Adding Sidhe had always been forbidden. But several decades ago, one Sidhe did exactly that.

  In an attempt to gain favor with the Keeper of the Hobayeth, this Sidhe gave the Keeper an infant changeling. In return, the Keeper commissioned the Sidhe as his apprentice. It was later discovered the infant was a Sidhe. The Keeper, fearing he would be held responsible, turned the apprentice over to the Foletti clan. There was a trial, and the Rule of Seven was applied. The apprentice was banished to the Void for seven lifetimes.

  I am the second Sidhe ever to have been added to any clan, thought Finley. The irony of his situation hit him, and he cackled manically. The boy looked at him with an odd expression. Finley kicked himself internally for allowing the boy back inside his head. He stopped laughing as the pieces came together.

  This boy must be the Fetch. Was he the apprentice who was banished here for breaking Sidhe law?

  Finley stared across the vast expanse of the orange lake. The golden circle was once again as smooth as glass. He thought it unnatural that area was completely free of ripples, when waves still rolled onto the shore. He gazed deeper into the shimmering circle.

  Of course. The golden center is the Void’s circle. The way in is a violent storm. So what’s the way out?

  “There is none,” said the boy, turning to face him.

  “If there’s a way in, there’s got to be a way out.”

  “Gee, I wish I would have thought of that,” the boy said sarcastically. He headed back to the blood-red forest and Finley followed.

  “How long have you been here?” asked Finley.

  The boy gave a grim laugh. “Always.”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Do you have any idea how long you’ve been here?” the boy countered.

  Finley thought about this. Everything that happened here: his arrival, the boy beating him, the chase into the forest, the stranger and his disposal into the boulders. All of this must have taken several hours, but at the same time it seemed as if only minutes had passed.

  The boy snickered. “You’ve been here one year,” he said.

  “You’re crazy,” said Finley.

  “I probably am,” said the boy, shrugging. “But I’m not wrong.”

  “How is that even possible?”

  “Notice there’s no sun?” asked the boy. “There’s also no moon. We don’t have days here. The only measure of time is when someone goes through the Void. And each time that happens, one year passes in this place.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He told me.”

  “He who?” asked Finley.

  “The Before.” The boy slowed and dropped the rope of the cart at the opening of a wide-mouthed cave. A lit torch protruded from each side of the entrance. The boy took one and walked inside. “There was someone here when I first came. He was the Before. I am the Now.”

  “Where is the Before?” Finley asked, following the boy closely.

  “Dead.”

  The boy walked to the back of the cave and pointed to a mound made of thousands of tokens. Finley recognized most of them as belonging to the Hobayeth clan, but there were tokens from other clans as well.

  Finley noticed one from his own, the Tusatha clan. He picked it up and turned it over in his hand. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of these.” He wondered about its owner and what they had done to end up here.

  “They don’t end up here,” the boy reminded him. “But their tokens do.”

  He’s right. Whoever owned this token ended up in the Underworld, thought Finley. He tossed the Tusatha token back onto the pile as if he might catch the evil done by its owner. Then he pulled the depereo’s token from his pocket and solemnly added it to the pile.

  When the boy turned to exit the cave, the torchlight cast a glow onto something carved into the cave’s walls. Small vertical hash marks clustered in groups of five.

  “You do that?” asked Finley.

  The boy nodded, and to reinforce this he added a line to the last group. “Another moving day done,” he said.

  “If each one represents a moving day, and a moving day represents one year, then you’ve been here…” Finley paused, silently counting the groups of marks.

  “Always,” the boy interrupted.

  “That’s impossible,” whispered Finley. “I’ve counted at least seventy-five marks, and there are many, many more.” He stared at the boy. “How old are you?”

  “I already told you, I’m eight.”

  “Impossible,” repeated Finley. He does look like an eight-year-old, but he sure doesn’t talk like one.

  The boy laughed and led Finley out of the cave. He replaced the torch and picked up the rope to the cart. They walked back to the stone house where the boy dragged the cart inside and parked it along the back wall. He sat down at a crude table and Finley joined him, sitting in the only other chair.

  “What’s your name?” asked Finley.

  The boy stared at him as if trying to puzzle it out then shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t remember.”

  Again Finley wondered how long the boy had been here. How many years had passed since he last heard someone call him by his name?

  “Well, I’m not going to call you ‘boy,’” said Finley. He stared out the window. Out of habit, his eyes searched the sky for the sun to determine the time of day then he remembered there was no sun here. “Sun,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “I’m gonna call you Sun.”

  Sun shrugged again.

  “What do we do now?” asked Finley.

  “We wait. We always wait.”

  “For what?”

  “We wait for the next storm. The next depereo. The next moving day and the passing of one more year.”

  As they sat in silence, an idea came to Finley. He carefully shut the door to his mind and kept his next thoughts to himself.

  Sun may be waiting, but I am not.

  Finley thought about the waterspout, and how it brought the Sidhe. No matter what Sun says, if there’s a way into a circle, there’s a way out—and I’m going find it.

  Finley lost track of time as they sat inside the small house, Sun waiting, Finley planning. When the wind screamed, flailing itself at the pitiful house, he was
ready. Sun rose from the table, grabbed the cart, and headed back to the lake. Finley followed him, looking over the top of Sun’s head to find the waterspout.

  The spout was as large as the last one, twisting a fit through the center of the lake. As Sun waited patiently by the water’s edge, Finley studied the spout intensely. He saw no sign of anyone passing into the golden circle. The spout moved closer toward them and Finley dove into the water, swimming out to meet it.

  Sun screamed with laughter behind him.

  The water was colder than before and the waves were choppy. The wind was deafening, wailing around Finley, urging the water to climb up the spout. After a few quick strokes, Finley was sucked into the funnel, and he didn’t resist.

  There was a flash of yellow as a woman sailed past him, landing in the orange water some twenty feet away. Finley had almost reached the center of the spout when he was picked up and flung away like garbage. He soared through the air and landed belly-first in the orange lake.

  Sun splashed by him toward the unconscious woman. Finley listened to Sun’s groans as he wrestled her onto the cart. Finley struggled to get up and immediately fell back into the water. When he stood again, Sun was already dragging the cart with the woman on it toward the black boulders. Finley collapsed into the water and watched as Sun tipped the woman into the deep chasm of the boulder.

  Sun dragged his cart back toward Finley, shaking his head. “That’s gonna cost you,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” asked Finley.

  “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  Although only the second time he’d witnessed the disposal of the depereo, Finley already knew the routine. They returned to the cave, grabbed a torch, tossed the woman’s token onto the pile, and Sun carved another line into the marks. Sun walked to the opposite side of the cave, and Finley noticed more marks, different to the others. These were horizontal and they made one long column.

  “What’s that?” asked Finley.

  “When I first came here, I thought I was shrinking,” said Sun. “I know it sounds crazy, but I really did. I decided to keep track of my height, and sure enough I was shrinking.”

  Finley looked at the highest mark, which was about six inches above Sun’s head.

  “That’s how tall I was when I started keeping track,” said Sun. “I’m sure I was taller, but I didn’t think about marking it until I had already begun to shrink.”

  Finley looked at him skeptically. “I didn’t just shrink.”

  Sun pointed to the topmost mark. “When I was that tall, I was older. As I shrunk, I got younger. It was hard to tell at first, but as time passed, it was obvious. Every escape attempt took one year off my age, and several inches off my height. Once I turned eight years old, I stopped shrinking.”

  “I’ll bite. Why eight?” But Finley answered his own question. “The age of accountability,” he said. In a place where nothing else made sense, this did. Sidhe don’t hold children under the age of eight accountable for their actions.

  “That’s right,” said Sun. He motioned for Finley to put his back against the wall. When he did, Sun handed him a sharp stone.

  “This won’t prove anything.” Finley sounded braver than he felt, suddenly paralyzed with fear over the possibility of reverting to the eight-year-old version of himself. He gouged the wall with the stone just above his head and stepped away. His mark was about the same height as Sun’s highest.

  Sun took the stone and set it at the base of the wall.

  “This place, it knows what we do,” said Sun. “Whenever I came up with a plan, it would almost work. But the next time I tried, it was like the Void morphed somehow to make the escape impossible. It’s like this place gets smarter.”

  They walked back to the stone house, and Finley was shocked to find he didn’t have to duck to pass through the doorway. Sun turned toward him and gave him an I told you so sneer.

  “Terrific,” said Finley. Not only had he lost some of his height, if Sun was right, he was now twelve years old again.

  They sat at the bare table and Finley wondered if food had ever been served there, more out of curiosity than hunger. And then he realized something else. “Why is it I’m not hungry or even thirsty anymore?” he asked.

  “You don’t need to eat or drink here,” said Sun. “You only needed the water to heal from your unfortunate arrival.” He shot a grin at Finley.

  “Yeah, that was pretty great, thanks,” Finley said sarcastically.

  “Hey, what’s your name, anyway?” asked Sun.

  “Finley.”

  “Tell me, Finley. How did you end up here?”

  “A brownie’s curse,” said Finley. “What about you?”

  Sun shifted in his chair, but didn’t answer.

  “Must have really been something,” said Finley.

  “Let’s just say you aren’t the only one who finds your situation ironic.”

  Finley was struck again by the oddity of an eight-year-old who spoke like he was so much older. “How so?”

  “Like you, I’m not supposed to be here,” said Sun.

  Finley’s thoughts returned to The Apprentice story, and he wondered if Sun was telling the truth.

  “I’m not the Apprentice,” Sun said, spitting the words out in disgust.

  Finley looked at him, confused.

  “The story, from what you remember, is true. Well, mostly true. I am the Addition.”

  Finley stared at him in disbelief. “How is it you remember what happened to you, but you don’t remember your name?”

  “Again, like you, I doubt anything will ever make me forget the curse that brought me here. What was yours?” asked Sun.

  “Fero tuti latum.”

  “That sounds about right. I hate to tell you this, but I think you’re my replacement.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked Finley.

  “Because there is only ever one Fetch. The Before died shortly after I arrived.”

  “Was he sick?”

  “Not in the traditional sense. First he got really old, really fast. Then he just sort of faded away. For a long time afterward, I was convinced I could still see him in the shadows, like a ghost. But I think I only imagined seeing him, so I didn’t have to face the fact that I was alone.”

  “He never told you anything that would help you escape?”

  “Never. And even if he knew, I don’t think he would have told me. He was glad I came. He was ready to leave the Void, but he couldn’t move on until someone else got here to do his job.”

  “And what about you?” asked Finley. “Are you ready to leave me here to take your place?”

  Sun looked at him for a long moment. “Not really. I mean I’m glad to finally be done, but you seem like a nice kid. You don’t deserve this any more than I did.” He looked out the window, embarrassment coloring his cheeks. “But it doesn’t matter what I think or want. There are two rules about the Void. Someone has to do this job, and there can only be one Fetch.”

  They sat in silence as Finley tried to take it all in. Sun was an Addition. Just like Daniel. Is it my destiny, or just bad luck to be tied to another Addition? Finley wondered.

  “You’re not tied to me,” Sun said bitterly.

  “That’s what you get for reading other people’s thoughts,” said Finley, but he regretted the words as they left his lips.

  Sun chuckled. “That’s what you get for not shutting the door. I mean, can you blame me? My own stories got dull a long time ago. And by the way, we’re both Additions.” He thrust out his right hand. “I’m glad I got to know you before I died.”

  Finley laughed and shook his hand. “You too, Sun.” He wanted to learn as much as he could about Sun before he moved on to wherever he was going. It didn’t seem right that no one would ever know Sun’s story.

  “How did you escape from the Hobayeth Mound? I mean, I was beginning to think I’d never get away from Devil’s Peak.”

  “I didn’t exactly escape so much as they threw me out
.”

  Finley laughed then realized Sun was serious. “Sorry. It’s just I can’t imagine a Hobayeth ever getting rid of an Addition. What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything. In my seventh year, I reached the point of no return, like any other Addition. I was supposed to have an automatic allegiance to the mound and receive all of their talents. Well, I never felt like I belonged there, and my talents always seemed to work the opposite from how they were supposed to. By the time I was twelve, they were convinced something was wrong with me.”

  Finley remembered how Sun had said he was special.

  “Yeah, that.” Sun smiled a sad smile. “Anyway, they framed me for stealing a Bart from the Keeper’s family and banished me from their mound. I spent the next year looking for the Apprentice. I mean, I couldn’t go home when I didn’t know where home was. I’d heard about his trial in the Foletti Mound, and so I traveled there hoping to learn about my home during his confession. I tried to hide myself in the crowd, but right before he was sentenced, the Apprentice locked eyes with me and said ‘corporis simulo.’ The next thing I knew, I was here with The Before chasing after me with a club.”

  “So the coward switched places with you when they cursed him,” said Finley. The injustice of Sun’s imprisonment washed over him in a rage that melted into a strange sense of brotherhood. Neither of us belongs here.

  “Exactly,” said Sun.

  “I wonder where the Apprentice is now.”

  “Don’t know, but I know where he isn’t,” said Sun. “He hasn’t had his moving day yet. And now that my time is up, I won’t have the happy job of moving him.”

  “I’ll handle it,” said Finley, raising an eyebrow. As he made the promise, he realized he didn’t know what the Apprentice looked like.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Sun. “He’ll get what’s coming to him, whether you know it’s him or not.”