Mend the Flesh (The Phoenix Series Book 3)

by Sarah Rockwood

  Spin was sleeping on a pile of sand by the door. He had burrowed down into it, so only his head and hands were visible. It was kind of cute, his little bald flaky head poking up from the sand, a little trail of drool and snot streaming from his face. The sand rose and fell with his breath, little trails of sand shifting as he moved.

  "Good morning, Spin," I whispered to him.

  "Hmmm-mmm," he mumbled and then snuggled deeper into the sand. I couldn't leave him out here, in a few hours he'd be baked like a ham. I tapped him gently on the head.

  "Spin, it's time to get up."

  "Hmmm-mmm." More mumbling. More action needed.

  "Spin! Get up!" He moved so quickly that sand exploded from his body, I had to hold my hood closed against the onslaught. I did not need more sand stuck to me.

  "Ah! Ah! Ah!" Spin randomly yelled as he jumped up, then he saw me. "Oh, Phoenix, oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't hear you come home."

  As he babbled, the front door of Royal's place came crashing open. I didn't have to turn around to know who was rushing up behind me, Sid had a very distinct gate, that hand and foot shuffle thing I'd come to know so well.

  "You are back!" he cried as he came to a complete and surprisingly gentle stop at my feet.

  "I'm back," I said from deep within my hood. The sun was getting higher and hotter, and I was not burning this fresh face flesh. Say that three times fast.

  "It did not go well?" Sid asked.

  "Why do you say that?" I asked, slightly incredulous.

  "You have your face hidden."

  "Even if it had worked well," I shook my head, "Which it did, I still wouldn't be parading my new face around in this bright sun. Do you guys even have sunscreen?" The two minions looked at me like I'd grown another raw meat head.

  "Sun screen?" Spin rolled the words around in his mouth.

  "Never mind," I muttered.

  "Breakfast!" Royal called from the open doorway. How did he know I'd be home?

  "Excellent!" Spin cried as he bolted through the door, sand trailing in his wake.

  "After you," Sid said.

  "Thanks." I glided inside in my big tent robe.

  10

  Royal spooned bacon and eggs onto plates. My stomach was cold and empty and covered with muscle that growled as the smell hit my nostrils.

  "That smells amazing," I said as I took a seat at the counter. My hood was still up, and I didn't plan on taking it off anytime soon, so I used my fork to fly bits of egg and toast into its cavernous depths. Royal interrupted my egg shovelling.

  "Take the hood off."

  "Is that an order?"

  "I need to see how healed you are."

  "Fine." I felt like a pouty teenager. When I finished these eggs, I was so out of here. "You couldn't just let me eat for a few minutes."

  "Hood."

  I sighed and pulled the hood back, all three men gasped.

  "What?" I looked around at their stricken faces. "I couldn't possibly have gotten worse out there."

  "No, Phoenix," Sid replied, "not worse technically, just more shocking perhaps."

  "Seriously?" I jumped up. "I need to see this."

  I walked down the hall towards my room, three gentlemen hot on my heels.

  "Guys, I'm okay, you don't need to babysit me."

  "We'll see," Royal muttered.

  I entered the room and went straight to the large glass I had come to know so well.

  I didn't look good.

  Yes, I had a new layer of muscle all over my once bony frame, and yes I now had eyelid and fingertips and all that good stuff. But what I didn't have was skin. And skin, I learned as I looked at the horror show starring back at me, was the important part. I looked disgusting. I looked like that Simpsons' Halloween episode where that weird gas turns them all inside out. I looked inside out. I looked down at the big tent I was wearing and started to pull it up, exposing my feet. I gagged and dropped the robe to the floor.

  "You don't have to look, my lady," Spin said, crawling forward ever so slowly like he wanted to be close to me, but a huge part of him wanted out of the room. "You can wait until you've healed some more. Maybe at the next moon?"

  "No, I need to see this. I need to know what I'm dealing with."

  "Are you sure?" Royal's voice was a dry whisper from the doorway.

  "This is my body!" I yelled. Fear and pain were starting to get to me. A deep scream was trying to get out, and I didn't want to let it go. "It's my body," I said more calmly. "If I can't handle it, then I'm fucked."

  Spin gasped at the swear, but seriously, this was the time for swears.

  "Alright, let me help you." Royal stepped forward and took the robe in his hands. "I'll pull it off as gently as I can, but it might stick to you in a few places."

  "Gross." I put my arms up. "Go for it."

  Royal did his best, but yes, the fabric did stick to me in a few places as he brought it over my head. There were a few seconds of grey darkness as the voluminous cape-robe-thing flowed over my head and then I was free. I closed my eyes, the breeze hitting my flesh and making me wish I had skin to goose bump.

  When I finally opened my eyes, I did throw up. It wasn't much because I hadn't gotten much of the eggs and bacon in me, but throw up I did. My legs buckled and Royal was right there, catching me in the fold of the robe he'd just pulled off, careful not to touch my raw flesh. Sid and Spin sprang into action and started cleaning up my mess.

  I hadn't grasped the severity of my situation until just that moment. When I was a skeleton girl, it had been easy to ignore what was happening, to almost laugh at it. Oh no, you can see my ribs! Or hey, where'd my ass go? Ha ha. It had been too fantastical to believe I was actually alive in that state. It had felt like a dream. Me walking around bandaged up like some mummy from a black and white movie. But I wasn't in black and white anymore. I was in bright crazy technicolour. Well, mainly red and its various variations. But this was colour.

  I think the worst part was my stomach. Every single muscle was visible and as I breathed they shifted with every inhalation and exhalation. They were a shiny red mass that covered what was once a dusty dry skeleton. Every inch of me shone with a gloss of fresh blood. I had a terrible thought and looked down to realise, yep, I was leaving bloody footprints. I reached out and touched the wall, leaving a single dot of red behind.

  I turned in the mirror and saw that I had an ass again, which was about the only good thing going on at the moment. 'Ass' being the term I was going to use for the blood covered chunk of flesh that had formed in my backside region.

  My face was bizarre. I could see now why the boys had freaked out when I'd taken off my hood. My eyes were ringed in muscle that moved and twitched when I looked in different directions. My head was covered in strips of muscle that ran away from my eyes and over my skull and then joined the ropier things that covered my back. Bands of muscle stretched from under my eyes towards my mouth, and my lips were surrounded by a ropy loop of meat that pulled and pinched with every word I spoke. As I watched it move in the mirror, I realised I was talking. I shook my head to clear my mind and watched tiny droplets of blood splatter across the floor.

  "I'm going to be okay."

  "You've said that many times, Phoenix." Sid was quietly wiping up the tiny splatters of blood. "You must focus your mind now. Your kind has survived this many times, so will you." He stopped wiping and looked up at me, a smile on his face. "You are a warrior. This is nothing for you."

  There was a look of deep pride on his face, and my wings twitched at my back as I, present me, showed them memories of all that Sid and I had been through, the late nights on my couch watching movies, the stories of his adventures. And then our adventures through the Void: Yeren's cave, the Riders and Baba Yaga, and the stone winged dog things I'd smashed to a million pieces. We'd been through a lot together. And we'd been through a lot while we were apart. I thought back to seeing him hanging from the wall deep in the City of Caves. Bloody, beaten, near death. He had been th
rough some serious stuff while we'd been apart. We both had.

  "Did you rat me out to the Guard?" I said the words quietly so only he would hear.

  "Phoenix," he hung his head, "I wish I could tell you no, but yes I did." He looked at me, his eyes cold and dry. "By the time they finished with Yeren she had told them everything. Everything!" The word was a harsh whisper. "I tried to stay strong, to keep my mouth shut. I thought maybe if they just had her words they would think she was lying. But then they brought in Ganaraj, and he is," Sid shook his head, "no, was my leader. And he was very powerful. He used his horrible techniques on me, he drew the memory from my very soul, and no matter how hard I tried to cast him out, he ran like the wind through my mind and took all he wanted. So yes, I did betray you to the Guard, and I will take that shame to my grave."

  "Whoa." I shook my head again, more blood, more wiping from Sid. "So Big G mind rapes you, and you think that's your fault? You think that means you betrayed me?"

  "I did."

  "Holy crap, Sid!" I raised my hands in exasperation, and larger drops of blood hit Sid in the face. "Sorry about that." He wiped them away. "Seriously Sid, I would not hold you responsible for that. He forced you. You didn't have a choice. You tried to keep my Secrets, and he ripped them from your mind. That is not your fault, and that is no reason to stay away from me for all this time." I tried to kneel down but my knees squelched, and it grossed me out. "Sid, you were one of my closest friends. I need you in my life. Look, at me," I ran my hand over my fleshy mass, and it felt slippery, "I'm a bit of a mess right now. I could use you back in my corner."

  "My lady," he stood up to his full height, a big smile spread across his face, "I never left."

  "Excellent!" I clapped my hands and felt them squelch together. "So gross." I looked around the room, Royal and Spin were gone. "Where is everyone?"

  "We're right here." Royal was coming through the door with Spin behind him. Both were carrying bundles of cloth. "We were getting you some clothes."

  "Clothes being the code word for bandages that will cover and absorb my current bloodiness?" I tried to smile, but I think with all the strips of meat crisscrossing over my face the effect was lost.

  "Yeah," Royal grimaced, "we’ve got to do something about that."

  The three of them got to work with me standing in the centre of the room like a strange doll. There was a time when standing nude in front of these guys would have been decidedly odd, but naked goes out the window when you don't have skin. So I stood there and let them look me up and down as they decided on the best way to wrap me up.

  "I think we've got to do a layer of the terry cloth for absorption and then cover the whole thing with the thick canvas."

  "Thing?" I asked. Everyone ignored me.

  "Agreed," Sid spoke, "The canvas in thick enough that if she is to bleed through the cotton, it will hide the leaks until she is able to get better clothing."

  Basically, I was the movie, Carrie.

  "Guys, I just need to be able to get to my place. Once I'm there, I can do another healing, and that should seal up all this juiciness."

  "Alright then, let’s start with the terry cloth," Royal said.

  "You mean the towels?" Spin asked.

  Good lord, they were going to wrap me in towels.

  The procedure took some time. The group decided that the best way to go was to start with my pelvis and torso so that they could then sit me down to wrap my legs. The pelvis wrapping part got a bit weird. The three of them looked at each other unsure of who was to do the actual wrapping. I eventually had to step in and take the cloth, sorry towel, from them and wrap my pelvis myself. Which sucked and no one knew where to look. I couldn't get the strips of cloth all the way around by myself. And I left bloody handprints on everything I touched, which defeated the purpose entirely. Eventually, Spin shuffled over and did a surprisingly sensitive job of helping me into the bandages. Once he and I had my pelvis wrapped the others could step in. They made quick work of my torso, legs and arms and then repeated the whole thing with the heavy canvas. My wings weren't as bloody as the rest of me, so Royal slipped sheets around each one, tucking the ends into my shoulder wrappings.

  My head was left unwrapped. Royal fashioned a large hood out of the canvas and then, using some netting, put a veil over my face.

  We all stood before the big mirror and surveyed our work.

  "I look like a mummy from a low budget horror movie."

  "You'll do," Royal grunted.

  "Yes," Sid interjected, "it is a highly unusual outfit, but it will serve our purposes."

  "I think you look cool!" Spin was the only one smiling. Well, I was sort of smiling, but you couldn't see it under my hood. "You look like a space ninja!"

  "How do you know what a space ninja looks like?" Sid asked.

  "I go to the movies sometimes."

  "Okay guys, the wrapping is complete, and it's time to get a move on." I started down the hall. "Sid, Spin, grab your stuff. Royal, if you could fetch my sword."

  "Really?" he asked.

  "Well, wrap it up tight and give it to Spin to carry. I don't want any mistaken touches while we're Travelling."

  "On it."

  I didn't need to pack. I'd come here with nothing, and I'd leave with just the bandages on my back.

  It didn't take the guys long to pack either. They both had their backpacks on and were out the door in minutes. All four of us walked over the rise towards Royal's Travelling point. When we got there, he handed the tightly wrapped sword to Spin who strapped it to his body with a length of rope he pulled from his bag. I turned to Royal.

  "Thank you for everything."

  "You're welcome."

  "I will be back."

  "I know." He smiled. "And it'll be sooner than you think." He smiled and walked away.

  I was left there standing with Sid and Spin. Sid the minion that had started it all, and Spin who had helped me when I was knee deep in crap and scrambling around in the City of Caves. Two trusted companions. Things with Sid seemed to be back on track. Our little talk in my bedroom, well the two talks we'd had in my bedroom, seemed to have put things back together again.

  "My lady?" Sid broke through my thoughts.

  "Why so formal?"

  "The Names Travel. I feel that from this point on, we should not use your real name. You are still vulnerable, and if any creature were to track you, I am not confident that Spin and I could protect you."

  That was exactly what he'd said to me back in my apartment all those years, wait, it was only months, or maybe weeks ago? Man, I was starting to get on Traveller time. Those were the words that started this adventure and here we were embarking on another chapter.

  "Good point, Sid. And to be doubly safe, I'll call you Tweedle Dum and Spin, Tweedle Dee."

  "I don't believe that will be necessary," Sid grumbled as Spin hid his smile.

  "Spin you've got the sword?"

  "Yes, ma'am." He clutched it to his chest.

  "Well, I'm pretty sure with my wings all jacked up that I'll need to borrow some power from you guys to Travel."

  "Then we shall hold hands," Sid instructed. "Then you simply think of your home, and it will direct our Travel."

  Think of my home. That sounded a bit like when Silverwood told me to think of Archer so I could figure out which portal to take. That time I'd ended up balls deep in the silver man stronghold being 'helped' by the ever terrifying Mhyr.

  Huh, I wonder if Silverwood had known something like that could happen?

  "My lady?" Sid asked, his hand outstretched.

  I parked the Silverwood question and took his hand. Spin slid a dry flakey palm into my other hand.

  "There's no place like home," I whispered.

  Then we Travelled.

  11

  The Travel was uneventful, maybe because I was now the minions' leader or maybe because Spin and Sid's power was less than my own? I don't know. All I do know is that the three of us landed on our feet
in the middle of the forest path, and that ain't half bad.

  "Are you guys okay?" I asked as my head whipped back and forth checking the area.

  "Of course," Sid replied immediately. "We are quite used to Travel."

  "That was great!" Spin exclaimed, the muslin wrapped sword still gripped tightly against his chest. "I've never done that before!"

  "You've Travelled, surely, Spin?" I asked.

  "Oh yes, but never that far and never with other people!" He was practically bouncing. "I never knew the time tunnel could be so colourful!"

  "Oh, isn't it always?"

  "It is for you, my lady. For others it appears differently," Sid answered.

  "Weird..." I looked up the path towards my home. "I guess we'd better get moving."

  "Indeed," Sid urged.

  "Follow me then."

  I started off down the path with the two minions behind me. Sid walking on two feet and Spin, who had the sword, was shuffling along with a two-legs-and-an-arm gait. I looked back, and he was definitely dragging behind.

  "Sid, can you bring up the rear please?"

  "The rear?"

  "Yes, can you walk behind Spin? I don't want him exposed while he's carrying my sword."

  "As you wish."

  I was going to ask him if he'd seen the Princess Bride, but he was already down on hands and feet and scuttling towards Spin. As I waited for them to figure things out, I took in the beauty of the forest: the dappled light that broke through the trees, the light bark, the sounds of birds chirping. It was a wonderful spot. I could feel in my bones just what in my past life had brought me to this place. I felt calm here, open and vulnerable, but welcomed at the same time. It was an incredible feeling.