by Kara Timmins
Eloy held out his hand and scowled at the heaping pile. Timyr ate his all at once, chewing the lump-like tumorous bulge in his cheek. Neasa gave Malatic half the amount that she’d given Eloy and Timyr.
Across from Eloy, Malatic looked into the fire as he put the first few seeds into his mouth. Eloy watched, waiting to see what he hoped he wouldn’t. Malatic bit, chewed, and grimaced.
The wince was such a small thing, the antithesis to the beastly animal that had attacked them, but the reaction sent fear through Eloy like a shock of ice. He didn’t move his head as he looked back and forth from Neasa to Malatic, and finally saw what he had been ignoring: tension. The kind of strain that came from being too aware of a lie.
“Who’s taking first watch?” Malatic asked, finally looking at Eloy. “What?”
“You feeling okay?” Eloy asked. He didn’t mean to sound so cold.
“As fine as someone who just carted a mountain-sized bear that decided to start rotting before it was dead. How are you feeling?”
“I’ll take first watch,” Eloy said. “You get some sleep.”
46
Eloy kept watch most of the night, running his hand over the strange, uniform ridges that made up the edges of the rock’s poles and listening to the rummaging, tearing, and crunching sounds of creatures feeding on the bear in the distance. The noises grated on his senses, sometimes sending shivers up his arms and up the back of his neck, but reason told him it was a good sign: the bear was diseased, but not so much that it no longer belonged in the forest’s natural order. Larger animals lumbered in the distance, but nothing else had the same desperate, chaotic movement of the bear.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, listening for threats and fighting off thoughts of what it meant that Malatic and Neasa were hiding something from him, Timyr woke up.
“I didn’t think you’d fall asleep so early,” Eloy whispered.
“You and me both,” Timyr said.
“Must have needed it.”
“Must have. You should get some sleep,” Timyr said. “If I needed it, that means you do too. Unless you have something on your mind.”
Eloy looked out into the darkness toward the bear. “Nothing of value.”
“If you say so. Did Vivene take off?”
“Yeah, pretty soon after you went to sleep. Think she’ll be okay out there?”
“Sure she will. She’s of this forest. She’s better off in it than we are.”
“So was that bear,” Eloy said.
“Get some sleep. You’re not getting anywhere with whatever’s on your mind tonight. Worry about things when they’re here to worry about.”
Eloy looked over at the rounded shapes of Malatic and Neasa sleeping. “I’ll do that.”
47
As the days slipped away, the four fell into step with one another. The hours of daylight got shorter every day, but the silence between them made the days feel longer. There was a weight to the energy that bound them together; Eloy felt something in his chest that he’d never felt before, something weighing down like an anchor on the parts of him that gave his spirit levity. Worry and guilt spread in him like a fuzzy mold.
When anyone did speak, it was usually Neasa and Timyr murmuring something about a part of the forest. Eloy didn’t want to ask about their conclusions; their faces, pinched in concern, said enough. He didn’t need them to point out the growing patches of dead leaves, the dried remains of creatures with pitted and leathery hides, or the cries of madness from some animal or another in the distance. Illness was all around them.
“Is the thing getting close now?” Eloy asked one day.
“It’s all around us,” Timyr said. “But the sense of it is stronger ahead. I can’t make much sense of things around here anymore. What it is, I can’t say. But it’s close.”
“Maybe it isn’t a thing or a person,” Eloy said.
“Can’t say for sure,” Timyr admitted, “but like I said before, there’s a consciousness to it. Why it hasn’t come for us yet? I can’t know.”
Timyr walked ahead, his contribution to the matter done.
Lost in the days and the silence, Eloy barely noticed that they were making less and less progress each day. Even when he did realize it, he couldn’t bring himself to usher them on faster.
But not even apathy can last forever. Eventually, everything becomes something else.
Eloy wasn’t sure why he didn’t say anything as a yellow hue pushed away all hints of pink liveliness in Malatic’s face. Eloy didn’t want it to be there, and for days he told himself the change was a trick of the forest light. The leaves above were probably sickly, so of course they would filter the sun rays in a different shade. He told himself that they were all getting tired, which is why the distance they covered every day was shrinking. The delay wasn’t because Malatic was falling behind. Eloy told himself he was watching for signs, and he was, but he wasn’t prepared for the ways his mind would explain away everything he saw.
“Can we stop for a bit?” Neasa said at midday.
“Sure,” Eloy said. “What’s going on?”
“Just need a rest,” she said.
Malatic caught up to the group. “We stopping?”
“Just for a little bit,” Neasa said. “I just need a moment.”
“Sounds good to me,” Malatic said, and sat hard to the ground. “How long are we going to—” He leaned back into the tree behind him and fell into it, a hollow crunch crackling as he went. “What the . . .”
Malatic pulled himself out of the crumbling tree trunk and all four looked at the indent.
Neasa reached out for the closest branch and wrapped her fingers around it. At first, it didn’t look different from any other tree limb. Then she closed her eyes and squeezed. The wood crumbled in her hand like dense snow and fell to the ground.
“We’re in the thick of it now,” Timyr said.
Neasa wiped the gritty pulp on her pant leg and reached out to help lift Malatic off the ground.
“Whatever this thing is, we have to be getting close.” Eloy said.
“I think you’re right,” Timyr said.
“Let’s get away from this tree,” Eloy said. “Who knows what’s wrong with it.”
Eloy moved forward fifteen strides before he realized that Neasa and Malatic hadn’t followed. He looked over his shoulder and saw them both standing under the sagging limbs of the sickly tree. Neasa had her head tilted back and her eyes closed. Malatic said something to her, the words too quiet for Eloy to hear, and Neasa didn’t move.
“Neas,” Malatic said, a little louder. He grazed the back of her arm with his fingertips.
“I’m coming.” She brought her attention back down to Malatic and gave him a weak, sad smile.
Even at a distance, the look on her face made Eloy feel as if his insides were made of the same stuff as the failing tree.
“You okay to go on a little longer?” Eloy asked.
“A little longer,” Neasa said. “Maybe just a little more.”
48
Malatic fell two days after they passed the tree. Eloy didn’t see it; Neasa and Malatic had dropped back behind him and Timyr, a formation Eloy had grown used to.
“Wait!” Neasa called.
The sound of her panic was so strange that Eloy didn’t recognize it as Neasa’s voice at first. For a moment of fleeting madness, he thought there might be someone else in the forest with them. Maybe even the thing that was lurking just out of sight, the poisoning thing. But then the pieces fit together, and her panic split apart and became his own.
He looked back and didn’t see Malatic. Timyr ran from behind him, and Eloy matched pace to reach Neasa. When they were a few strides away, Eloy saw Malatic, lost in the leaves and vines on the ground, lying on his side, his eyes closed.
“What happened?” Timyr asked. “
Get him sitting. There’s a rock five steps to your left. Let’s get him over to it and prop him up.” He lifted Malatic up by his armpits and pulled him off the ground.
Neasa picked up Malatic by his feet and walked forward as Timyr backed up. Malatic didn’t resist, his head flopping down on his chest.
“What happened?” Eloy asked.
Timyr put Malatic against the rock and tipped his head backward.
Eloy couldn’t deny the glaring truth as he looked down at Malatic. His mouth gaped open, causing the skin of his cheeks to slope down from the jutting ridges of his cheekbones. It didn’t look like there was any blood pumping through his flesh. Eloy had seen vacant and slack faces like this before. He had seen them up close on the battlefield next to the Bowl, and again in the marsh after the battle against the Vaylars. He had seen it in Goodwin. A cold sweat sprang up over his whole body. He wasn’t ready for what was happening.
“Is he . . . ?” Eloy started to ask.
Neasa cut him off. “No! Don’t even say it. He’s not. He’s still breathing. He needs to rest.”
“What happened?” Timyr asked again, softer this time.
“We were just walking,” Neasa said, her tone even and stoic. “He said he felt pain in his head this morning. I gave him something to help. He’s had it before. I don’t think that’s the problem. He seemed fine. Quiet, but fine. I don’t know what happened.”
“Neasa—” Eloy started.
“What, Eloy?” she asked, her stare cold. “What are you going to say?”
“Neas,” Eloy said. “I’m just trying to figure out how to help him.”
“I’ll figure it out,” she said. “You stay here with him. I’ll go find something to help.”
Timyr moved to follow her.
She turned on him and held up her hand. “I’ll do it. Stay with him.”
Eloy and Timyr watched as she strode into the forest.
“It’s not safe for any of us to go too far alone,” Timyr said.
“I know,” Eloy said.
“He’s pretty clammy,” Timyr said. “This isn’t good.”
Eloy looked over to see that Timyr had his hand on Malatic’s neck. “How bad?”
“He’s not dead, so at least there’s that. There a sickness in him. But you both knew that, didn’t you?”
“I guess we did.”
“Well, it’s not good. That’s all I’ve got for you.”
“But he’s alive.”
Timyr nodded. “He’s alive.”
“I’m going to make sure Neasa is okay,” Eloy said.
“I’ll stay here with him. Be careful.”
“Of course.” Eloy followed the crushed leaves Neasa had left in her wake.
He didn’t have to walk far. She was standing in a small clearing, staring down at something in her hand. She didn’t look up as he approached, keeping her eyes on whatever was cradled in her palm.
“Neas,” Eloy said softly.
She looked up when he was a few steps away from her. “I don’t know what this is,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Eloy asked.
She held up a withered vine. “It looks like cerain, which is good for head pain. But it smells like epfer, which is poisonous. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what any of it is. This isn’t my forest. No matter how hard I try, I’ll never know it.”
“You’ve gotten us this far in more than a few forests that aren’t yours. If anyone can figure out the right way to use the things that grow here, it’s you.”
“Maybe I could have. Maybe if we were back around Timyr’s house I could have. But everything is just so . . .” She pulled up her bottom lip, her chin wrinkled against the strain. “Everything is so sick.”
“Neas.” Eloy reached out to put a hand on her back.
She turned and walked away from him.
“This is it,” she said.
Eloy had forgotten what it sounded like to hear Neasa fight back tears. It had been so long since their time with the Seer that he had forgotten what it sounded like to hear such emotion in Neasa. He followed her to where she’d stopped to look up into the forest canopy. The activity and rustling they had become accustomed to had dwindled to almost complete stillness, aside from the gentle ripple from a lazy wind.
“This isn’t it,” Eloy said. “This isn’t the end.”
“I don’t know how to help him. I’ve been trying. Sometimes I think something is starting to work, but then he gets worse. And then there’s more walking. Day after day. And you don’t even notice. You don’t look at anything else anymore. You don’t even talk to us anymore. You just stare. The closer you get to that damn rock the further you get from us.”
“You think I don’t see you?” Eloy said. “Of course I see. But you weren’t talking to me. Every time I asked, you said that everything was fine, that everything was okay. The three of us are in this together, but the two of you have a different connection. What makes you think I’m able to understand what’s my business to push into and what isn’t?”
“You’re the one who’s leading us, Eloy. We’re here because of you! We’re in this forest because of you! We’re following you! He’s going to die because of you!” Neasa looked at him with fury in her eyes.
He felt her words go through him like a lance.
Anger hit him first. He wanted to defend himself, to make her feel just as bad as he did. The words bubbled up: she was the one who had been treating Malatic, and if he wasn’t getting better, that was her fault. Fortunately, reason was swift, but it brought shame as it pushed the anger away. Imagining what it would do to her to actually say those words made him feel sick.
Of course, he’d thought exactly what she said—his great fear and shame verbalized and confirmed. He took a step back. A numbness flooded his body, as if he’d been hit. He couldn’t look at her red and angry face anymore, full of accusation and, yes, truth. He turned away and started walking back the way he had come.
“Eloy,” Neasa called. Her voice cracked, the anger gone.
Eloy stopped. He wasn’t ready to look back at her. He waited until his vision cleared and wiped his face with a rough rub of his hand. He felt her behind him.
“I . . . I don’t know why I said that,” she whispered. “Eloy, I’m sorry. I’m the one who wanted to come with you. I’m the one who wanted to explore. He came because of me.”
Eloy turned around. The pain in her face broke something in him that he knew would never repair. He had seen anguish in her before, but that had been an old sadness, tempered with preparation and assessment. What he saw now was a fresh wound. He pulled her into his chest and felt her shoulders start to shake. A splotch of wetness spread through his shirt where her face was pressed.
He didn’t know what to say to help her, to take it all away. There wasn’t anything he could do, and he hated that he knew that fact so well. He ran through the people to blame: himself, Neasa, Amicus, maybe even Nicanor. He knew what it felt like to find the person to bear the weight of the accusation. He held it for Goodwin, and he would hold it for Malatic too. And then he pushed the thought away. They weren’t at that point. Not yet.
Eloy made small circles with his hand on her shoulder. “Neas, he’s not dead. We can’t let ourselves act like he is. We can’t do that to ourselves.”
She pulled away, the skin around her eyes swollen. “But it’s not good. I don’t know how much longer he can go on. I doubt he’ll be able to walk.”
“Then we’ll wait. We’ll let him rest.”
“I don’t know if that’ll be enough.”
“What do you want to do?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I ran out of ideas a while ago.”
“I am sorry, you know,” Eloy said. “I should’ve said something. I should’ve asked.”
“Me too. I sh
ould’ve said something. I shouldn’t have kept this from you. You do seem different, though.”
Eloy looked down and closed his eyes. “Am I? I don’t know what that means or what to do about it.”
“I don’t know either,” she said. “Probably nothing to be done. I guess we’ve all changed.”
She was a few steps away from him when he opened his eyes and looked at her again. She had her arms crossed over her chest and her shoulders pulled up, as if she were protecting herself from a burst of cold air.
“It seems so naïve of me now,” she said.
“What does?”
“The idea that I would be able to go home one day.”
“You still might,” Eloy said.
She looked at him, pity in her face. “I’m not, Eloy. I’m never going to see Valia again. I’m never going to see my father again. I don’t know when it happened. Probably when we stepped on the Siobhan. But there was a moment when we crossed a line. We’re never going back.”
“That’s not true,” Eloy said.
She gave a weak smile, tears filling her eyes again. “It is.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“You don’t have to.”
Thoughts of Critiko, Corwin, and Francena passed through his thoughts, and the idea of them felt more like phantoms than memories, their permanence as figures in his past rather than his future as real as Goodwin’s. The reality was a dark hole that he wasn’t yet ready to dive into. Neasa had taken the jump, and she was probably right, but Eloy wasn’t ready to follow. If he accepted that there was no way back, he couldn’t go forward. Something had brought him to this strange land, and he had to trust that path. Without it, he was lost.
“We should get back,” Eloy said. “It’s not safe here.”
“It’s not safe there, either,” Neasa said.
“True. But you have to work with me a little bit. I know you’re scared and upset, but I can’t lose you. I need you to find your strength. You have so much of it. I need you to find it again. Malatic needs you to find it again.”