Secrets of the Tally

by Halie Fewkes

  “This whole shore is solid thistleweed!” he shouted to me. I saw the thorny vines and red leaves between us. “You’ve got to come about fifty cubits south, and there’s a place you can climb out!”

  I nodded and turned the direction he said I’d have to swim, but something grabbed my foot and water surged back over my head as it jerked me under again. It was another Siren, even greener and fiercer than the last. This one jabbed the back end of her trident into my stomach and then charged forward, pushing me through the water until I landed in the patch of thistleweed.

  Every leaf and broken thorn felt like a tiny shock, a pricking burn, and a biting sting all at once. A poisonous fever raced into my mind, and I could feel my awareness clouding as I brandished my sword at the Siren to ward her away.

  Her trident was far longer than my blade, and she plunged the prongs into my flowing mass of hair, twisting sharply. Despite all my thrashing, I couldn’t pull myself free or move my head, nor could I reach her with my own blade. She tried to pull me to the ground by my hair, but I fought to stay standing, arched at an angle where I could see the sparkle of sunlight on the water just above my eyes. I thrashed more and tore at my hair, but I couldn’t pull it free.

  The Siren kept me just below the surface as every thistleweed leaf around me burned and stung against my skin. My arms, my neck, my face, my legs — the smarting seeped deeper the longer I struggled to get free.

  I could hear muffled shouts from Archie on the shore ahead. He was so close! I just had to get to him through the thistleweed.

  It dawned on me that I had one desperate measure to break me free from the Siren — and I was willing to take it. In one swift swipe I cut through all my hair and dashed forward. The Siren wasn’t about to follow me into the thistleweed, and I lunged straight into the thick of it, bursting from the water to grab Archie’s outstretched hand.

  A hundred thorns scraped my arms and legs, leaving tiny bleeding trails that would surely have the Siren fleeing for her life. Archie pulled me onto the shore where I crumpled to the ground and heaved water out of my lungs. Air had never tasted sweeter.

  “Allie! Are you alright? Can you hear me?”

  I coughed and nodded quickly. Nauseating clouds were beginning to set in, and I thought sputtering more water up might help to clear my head, but my mind just began spinning one way and my stomach another. Even with most of the water spat onto the ground, the spinning only picked up speed.

  “West and Michael?” I asked.

  “I’m sure West escaped somewhere down the shoreline,” Archie said. “I got Michael out, but he’s bleeding everywhere. He’s just past that tree down there. I’m going to grab him and be right back. Don’t move, alright?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, holding one hand to my forehead. “Where are you going again?”

  “Just past that tree down there,” he repeated, pointing. It shouldn’t have been so hard to find a tree, but I just couldn’t focus clearly enough to figure out where it was. “Allie, just don’t move for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

  I curled into a ball and heaved a big sigh. “Alright, Allie, you know that you’ve been poisoned, right?” Archie hadn’t come back. The voice whispering to me was my own, and I felt obligated to answer it. “I know, so now I have this fever. It can’t kill me though. No way, not with all our healing mages at the Dragona. It’s just going to make me crazy.” I laughed shortly to myself, “It’s already started! At least I know it. Archie will get us help. Except the Dragona is days away from here. And Archie has to carry Michael too. We’ll never get there.”

  I continued muttering to myself, but even I couldn’t understand what I was saying. I heard something rustle the leafy bushes behind me, but when I snapped my head around I didn’t see anything.

  Then I saw Archie setting Michael against a tree trunk so he could come speak quickly to me. I hadn’t actually noticed them arriving. Maybe they had just appeared! “Allie, do you know who I am?” was the first thing he asked me.

  “You’re Archie,” I replied with a scowl.

  “Ok, that’s a good start. Listen, you’re about to start seeing things, and everything is going to be more confusing than you know, but I need you to stay with us. No matter what happens, you have to stay close to me and Michael. Can you do that?”

  I closed my eyes and nodded a few times. “Mmmmhmmm.”

  “Allie, what’s my name?”

  “You’re… Wait, you’re…” I knew! I did know who he was. I also understood the severity of the situation when his name didn’t come to me in a split second. I couldn’t handle more memory issues.

  “Archie!” I spat out.

  “And you’ll stay with us, no matter what happens?”

  “Yes. I promith,” I said.

  “Good. Let’s go.” Archie slung the arm of the second guy over his shoulder and started off.

  I followed them sleepily.

  I followed them dreamily. Then the dreams became real.

  Falcons swooped over top of us, talking about the weather. Leaf walked next to me for a little while, telling me about baby dragons. A few of the trees danced to Eclipsival music as we walked by, and I craned my head back to keep watching them.

  The dreams grew scarier. The Sirens had followed me out of the Sea. They kept their distance, but they slithered along behind, watching. A tama cat pounced between me and the two guys ahead, and I was forced to stop as it eyed me dangerously. Golden fur, lean muscles, black tipped ears, almost the size of a bear, it was going to kill me. With my attention on the cat, the Siren grabbed me from behind, and I screamed as she shook me by the shoulders.

  “Allie! It’s just me!”

  The Siren holding me flickered and turned into the guy who had been carrying the other.

  “Allie, none of it’s real. I promise, nothing you’re seeing is the truth. You have to keep walking.”

  “Alright,” I said, shaking my head to hold onto the moment of clarity.

  “Do you still know who I am?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, wanting to cry. “But I know I trust you.”

  He smiled and squeezed my shoulder. “We’re almost there.”

  I was pretty sure I hadn’t lost consciousness at any point… But if I hadn’t, I had to admit that my memory of the entire walk was riddled with holes. I couldn’t tell how much time had elapsed, but there was no way we could already be at the Dragona.

  “Mizelga’s cabin is out here,” I blurted unexpectedly as the image of a strange old woman surfaced in my mind. “Maybe she can help us.”

  Guy-one studied me with concerned interest. “That’s where we’re going… But how did you know that?”

  “I think my life might depend on us getting there,” I mumbled to the ground as the leading guy veered onto a barely noticeable animal trail.

  The earth rumbled and split apart before my eyes, forming a gaping fissure I couldn’t possibly jump over, and I managed to stop myself right before I fell into it. Someone said, “Come on Allie, keep walking.”

  I closed my eyes and whispered, “It’s not real.” I took a careful step forward, and actually, it was real. As soon as I stepped into the fissure, I fell an impossible deadly distance, so fast I couldn’t even scream as the wind ripped past me and I hurtled to the rocky depths.

  “Allie, it’s not real,” the blue-eyed one said, pulling me to my feet again.

  I locked gazes with him, suddenly suspicious of where I was being taken. “Where are we going?” I demanded. The stranger still had a hold of my hands, and I yanked one free so I could jab a finger into his chest. “And why are you so ridiculously attractive?”

  “Can we talk about this at a later time?” he asked as I glared and tried to figure out why he was suppressing a laugh. “We’re there. I just need you to look ahead and walk. Ten more paces, come on.”

  “Fine, but it’s just ridiculous,” I muttered straight to his face. I felt my mind begin to wander again, but something about his eyes anch
ored me in the present, the way they truly seemed to see me, and know me, and care. He gave me just enough clarity that I could see a rotting cabin ahead of us, at the end of a stone path suddenly beneath my feet. I asked, “Is that real?”

  “Yes, that’s Lady Mizelga’s cabin,” he said as he let go of me, passed the second guy now sitting on the ground, and stepped onto the porch. He knocked loudly with no response.

  “Be careful, she’s crazy,” I said loudly from the pathway.

  “Yes,” he answered, turning away from the door, “but please don’t say so around her. Lady Mizelga!” he yelled. “We need your help!” The door opened a crack as I staggered onto the porch, and a tiny decrepit woman peered through the opening.

  “I don’t do medicine anymore,” she croaked, about to shut us out.

  I stumbled forward quickly enough to stick my hand in the closing door. Didn’t even feel it! “Please?” I pleaded with her. “We’ll do anything if you—” she tore the rotting wood back open on its rusting hinges, saw me, and gestured for us to enter. I stepped inside, and then watched as suspicious-guy dragged half-conscious-guy through the door as well.

  “You,” she said pointing to someone in the room, “put the one you’re carrying in the room behind me. You’ll find a table. And you,” she said, now approaching me. The woman was tiny and reached up to grab my eyelids. “What have you done to yourself?”

  “She got into a huge patch of thistleweed,” someone called back to her.

  The tiny, small, old old old woman thrust a triangular bottle into my hands and said, “Drink this. You’ll recover.” Then she retreated back into the enclosed room.

  I followed her to find a table in the middle, with the injured one already on it, and I noticed the walls were covered in various jars and cages full of creeping bugs and scary concoctions.

  “Get out, get out!” she shooed us from the room.

  “Wait,” the blue-eyed one said, “wouldn’t it be best if we—”

  “You want me to help him or not? Get out.” She hobbled toward us and we backed out of the door, which was then shut lightly in our faces.

  “Come on, Allie, drink it,” he said, pulling the stopper from the bottle.

  I peeked into the depths, and saw — “Worms.” I cringed.

  He checked in the bottle and assured me, “No, no worms in it.”

  I tipped it back and swallowed the two gulps it contained with a shudder. Dead grass and bitter tree bark.

  “How do you feel?” Archie asked.

  I was instantly aware of where I was and who was around me, but all I could mutter was, “Exhausted,” before I stumbled toward a wooden bench and Archie grabbed me to keep me from careening into it.

  I woke later to the noise of someone moving around the room and found I had a comfortable wool blanket thrown over me. My first thought was that I needed a weapon, but a flickering lantern only illuminated Mizelga hunched over her desk.

  “Your friend is doing all better now,” she whispered. She still had her back to me as she mumbled to herself, and I barely picked up the words, “Follow me,” as she left the room, holding onto the doorframe to support her movement. Archie slept on a second wooden sofa, sitting with his legs pulled in like a tight ball, and I laid the blanket across the front of him before I went anywhere.

  “I can’t believe we both survived,” I whispered, not sure what I had ever done to deserve Archie in my life. I was beyond relieved to see he didn’t have a scratch on him.

  I turned to follow Mizelga into a musty dark kitchen, and she closed the door behind me, which set me on edge. She whispered, “I have been waiting for you for a very long time, Allie.”

  “Who are you?” I asked, my words sounding slurred.

  “Who I am is not important. You knew me once, and someday, you shall know me again. Right now, I need to give you something that belongs to you. I took it a very long time ago, in a time when I understood very little.” She handed me a small wooden box, about the size of my two fists held together, decorated with intricate carvings across the faces. “Someday, when you remember, return here please? I would enjoy the company, and we could catch up on a few things.”

  “Sure,” I replied dumbly, “I’ll… come back to visit.”

  “Good. Now go back to sleep. It is late.”

  “But, wait. Can you please tell me how you used to know me? I am so desperate to—”

  “After you remember, we’ll speak.”

  “No, I really need to know why the Escalis want me. I need you to tell me.”

  She nodded to herself, said “Goodnight,” and then walked through a different door to go to bed. I was a little puzzled, but I returned to Archie’s sofa in the main room and leaned back against him with my feet kicked up on the bench. Why was nobody ever any help? I blew out the lantern and fell back asleep.

  When the twittering of birds was finally loud enough to wake me up, I opened one bleary eye and saw the box I had received on the table next to me, proof I hadn’t dreamt the whole thing. I picked it up and thought of opening it as Archie came in through the front door, letting in a warm shaft of sunlight.

  “I looked everywhere,” he said brightly. “No Escalis, no falcons, I think we lost everything that was after us. How do you feel?”

  “I feel normal,” I said, relieved. “How’s Michael doing?”

  “Lady Mizelga says we’ll be good to take him home today.”

  “Already? How can he be better already? Actually, I don’t care! When do we leave?”

  He laughed. “You anxious to get out of here?”

  I held up my thumb and finger to say a little bit as Mizelga came out of Michael’s room. I saw to my surprise that he was sitting up on the table, his entire torso wrapped from his waist nearly to his shoulders. I was pretty sure it was an excessive amount, but I was no expert to be talking.

  “You are able to walk now,” Mizelga told him quietly. He jumped off the table and exited the room at a quick stagger, holding the wall for support as soon as he reached us.

  “How are you feeling?” Archie asked.

  “Lousy,” he replied, the squint of his eyes showing a clear irritation with his condition. He did look pretty lousy. He picked up his deerskin jerkin to pull it over the bandages, and I could see at least six holes that had been torn clear through it. His bandaged side actually looked better than the rest of him, which was covered in scratches and trails of dried blood from getting out of the Breathing Sea. Michael rubbed his hand over his side once he got the jerkin on.

  “I can’t run like this,” he scowled, cringing as he hit a particularly sore spot.

  Mizelga picked up the box she had given me from off the table, handed it to me, and then opened the door to send us outside. “It is time for you to go,” she said in her decrepit old voice, motioning for all of us to exit. She followed us out to the porch, carrying a brown linen bag and a large wooden bowl full of some sort of liquid.

  “Can you take care of this for me?” she asked Archie, handing the bag to him. “I found it in the forest next to my favorite patch of toadstools. The nerve of the creature!” I definitely saw something squirm inside, and when he opened it I peeked in to see a fluffy brown rabbit.

  I glanced at Archie to see that he wasn’t thrilled to accept such a gift, but he replied, “Sure thing.” Then something more worrisome caught my attention.

  “That’s a gigantic snake!” I exclaimed, jumping back from the scaly green mass of muscle slithering alongside the cabin.

  Michael narrowed his unhappy eyes even further and said, “Allie, there’s nothing there.”

  The old woman laughed to herself and said, “You’ll still be seeing things until the fever fully wears off. And well, this could help, but you probably won’t want it.” She turned to retreat back into her cabin, but I stopped her:

  “What do you mean? What’s in the bowl?” I asked.

  She stood with her back to us, thinking to herself, then I saw her nod as though agree
ing with something. She returned to me, stepped very close, and tipped the bowl to the side so the contents spilled onto my sandal-laced feet. I felt my shoulders immediately tighten from the splash of cold water, but I remained otherwise frozen in bewilderment. In all seriousness and with her eyes gazing up to mine, she said, “Water. For luck.” Then she stepped back through her door and shut it, no further explanation on the way.

  Michael’s expression mirrored my befuddlement, and I saw Archie trying with all his will to keep from bursting into laughter.

  I flatly said, “We should go,” as multiple locks scraped into place. We walked down the steps and onto the stone path, slowly I might add, because of Michael.

  Archie had his hand over his mouth as though he still couldn’t restrain himself from grinning at the absurdity that was Mizelga. I knew he wasn’t directly laughing at me, but the action still irritated me to no end. I tried not to overreact, but I didn’t come across kindly as I asked, “Did you know her?”

  Archie, his smirk coming to a conclusion, thought quickly over his answer. “Know her? I don’t think so. I mean, no, I haven’t met her, but we’ve all heard the stories, haven’t we?”

  “Sure,” I said, still feeling like I was missing something important. “Then, does she know you?”

  Archie shrugged and replied, “I don’t think so. What’s with all these questions?”

  “I don’t know. What’s with the rabbit in the bag?”

  Archie held the bag up at eye level, but the bunny inside had settled down for the ride. “Didn’t you hear?” he asked. “I’m supposed to take care of it. And we should probably slow down. We’re leaving Michael behind.”

  “It’s more than just the wound that hurts,” Michael complained as we slowed to wait for him. “I’m sore all over from those tree roots slamming into us. And Archie practically dragged us through a briar patch to avoid the thistleweed. Why are neither of you shredded up like I am?”

  “Well, we kind of are,” I said, trying to make him feel better. “I have a bunch of holes in my clothes like you do…”

  “And I’m sorry for pulling you through the blackberries,” Archie said. “We were a bit limited for options.”