She made the mistake the first few times of not thinking she needed the anti-nausea medication. They would mix some in with whatever else came down the IV so when she got back home, she was feeling halfway decently, until the anti-nausea meds wore off. Then as soon as she would take the pills, she’d throw them back up again. Soon she realized she should simply take the anti-nausea pills whether she felt sick after or not, and that helped a lot.
Andi and Ben had figured out that she was, indeed, eligible for a viatical settlement as an employee. They put her through the process anonymously to see how her own offer would look. It wasn’t tremendous, since she had her life insurance from work as well as a term-life policy, and neither of those was worth very much. At this point in her life, though, she wasn’t especially close with her sister - Andi’s sister and niece were her beneficiaries - but her insurance benefit could comfortably pay for her niece’s college.
Andi decided that she was still worth more dead than alive, and politely declined her own offer.
-
“You’ll need to leave soon,” Sen said. “Time is short.”
Herron nodded.
“You’ll need these.” Sen opened a wooden box on his desk. The hinged lid was carved with uneven waves to look like the surface of the sea. He placed three leather collars on the table.
Herron looked at them dubiously. “Collars?”
“They’ll allow you to breathe underwater.”
“There are three of them.”
“Indeed.”
“She’s not coming with us,” Herron said.
Sen’s eye twinkled at Herron. “You’re in love with her.”
“Hope? No.” Herron knew Hope wasn’t who Sen was talking about. “But you might be right.”
“There’s no ‘might be’ about it.”
Herron’s cheeks and the tips of his ears flushed. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. She’s clearly smitten. And not about me. It doesn’t matter. I have a mission and I’ll do it. She’s still not coming.”
Sen gave Herron a crooked smile and shrugged. Then he slid the three collars across the table to Herron. Herron picked up two of them.
Ivy burst in through the door and shook the snow off of her. “Guess what! I have the best news!” She didn’t wait for Herron to answer. “Hope’s coming with us!”
Herron sighed and glared at Sen, then he picked up the third collar.
chapter 26
Herron agreed with Sen that they couldn’t waste any time. They didn’t stay overnight in Frost River Falls. Instead, they gathered their things and set off for The River immediately, stopping at Hope’s house so she could pick up her own gear.
Ivy poked about Hope’s place, looking for clues about her new companion. When she looked up at the ceiling and saw the massive beetle horn hung above her, her jaw dropped.
“What is that?” Ivy asked, fascinated.
“It’s the horn of a snapping dragon beetle.”
“Wow. Did you kill it?”
Hope nodded. “Yeah, Pepper and I did. It was terrorizing a bunch of the ranches out here, stealing mice from the ranchers. We tracked it down and we got it.”
“Wow! That’s very impressive. I don’t think we have any kinds of dragon beetles in The Meadows. You know, the more I get out into the other Realms, the more I realize we don’t have in The Meadows. We don’t seem to have an awful lot of predators or beasts or dangerous monsters. Everything is pretty peaceful.”
“The Meadows is pretty sheltered and peaceful,” Herron said. “It’s idyllic. The weather is perfect all the time, you have normal day and night cycles. Your land is fertile so you can grow whatever you want. The wildlife is plentiful but small, sylvan, non-carnivorous kind of animals. You don’t have a lot of insects so there aren’t a lot of spiders, at least, not of any decent size. It’s easy to be complacent and naive when you’ve spent your entire life in an environment where nothing is dangerous.”
Hope glanced at Herron, hearing an icy sting in his voice. Ivy seemed not to notice.
Ivy said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. That’s why it’s important that I have a good guide.”
Herron opened the door. “I’ll wait outside,” and he left the small cottage.
“He’s way more upset than I thought he’d be,” Ivy said. “I didn’t realize how he felt until today. He didn’t say anything! He didn’t do anything about it, that’s for sure!”
“Herron doesn’t seem like he’s the type to hit you over the head with it. I think he put out the bait and he was waiting for you to take it.”
“That’s ridiculous! If he doesn’t tell me, and he just waits, how can he be mad if I didn’t realize it was there?”
“If you did know,” Hope began, “would you have done anything about it?”
Ivy frowned and crossed her arms, thinking. Hope resumed her packing.
“I don’t know.”
“Really?” Hope asked.
Ivy shrugged. “I just never thought about it. He was showing me all of this exciting new stuff. We were having adventures together. Naturally, I felt some affection toward him. How could I not? We experienced a lot together. Life and death. You know?”
“I know perfectly well.” Hope nodded up toward the beetle horn. “That’s kind of how Pepper and I ended up together. He used to be good through and through. I’m sure of it. But he just... I guess he got a taste of what the darkness could give to him and that’s what he wanted.”
“And if you did know,” echoed Ivy, “would you have done anything about it?”
Hope sighed. “No.”
“Well, there you go.” Ivy smiled at her. She glanced out the frost-covered window. “Can I kiss you?”
Hope blinked at her. “I’m not sure now is a good time.”
“Do you want to kiss me?”
Hope closed her eyes. “Badly.”
“Then it’s a good time!” Ivy stepped close to Hope, pressing her body against hers. She leaned forward and gently kissed Hope. Ivy put her arms around her and stroked up the spine of Hope’s left wing. Hope shivered and pulled away and Ivy sucked Hope’s lip until Hope pulled back enough to free it.
Hope opened her eyes. “Wow.”
“It’s been a while for you, hasn’t it? Have you kissed anyone since...?”
“No.” Hope glanced at the window, too, and said, “Come on. We can’t leave him out in the cold all day. Let’s get going.”
She strapped her sword to her waist, shrugged into her backpack then shouldered her quiver of arrows alongside it. She lashed a dagger to her thigh, then picked up her bow. “I’m ready.”
-
Ivy loved flying over The Winter Kingdom again. She was still mesmerized by the beauty of the place, this time from higher altitude.
Hope had suggested they fly higher than they had when Herron and Ivy arrived. “You’re lucky not to have encountered anything mean at ground level,” she said. “There are nasties out here, especially this far out from the city. Still, don’t fly too high, either, though. You don’t want to attract any more hawks.”
“Wouldn’t they be looking at the ground for food?” Ivy asked.
“Not necessarily,” Hope said. “Some of the ground creatures aren’t super edible, so the hawks catch a lot of smaller birds in the air and take those. They can catch fairies midair, too. It happens more often than you’d like to know. Be wary.”
Ivy was about to ask what kind of ground creatures were around when Herron shushed them. Ivy smirked. She desperately wanted to know what kinds of creatures they’d avoided encountering on their way in.
Ivy looked over at Herron and saw that he was making his slightly in pain strained face. She flew nearer to him and asked, “Is your wing bothering you? We can rest if you --”
“I’m fine.”
“Look, Herron --”
“I said I’m fine.” He sped ahead of her.
Ivy sighed with frustration. Hope looked at her, and Ivy shook her head and sped up, too. Hop
e shrugged and matched their pace.
It wasn’t long before Herron slowed down again. Clearly, he was in need of a rest, and just as clearly, he wasn’t going to demonstrate any kind of weakness in front of Ivy or Hope. That’s not like him, Ivy thought. He’s very practical, not stubborn. Is he really that upset? She slowed.
“I’m really sorry,” Ivy said, “but I need to rest.” She flew to the ground and landed lightly on the powdery top snow. “I’m sorry.” If I need to ask for a break so that Herron can rest for a minute, that’s just fine, she thought.
Herron and Hope landed by her and Herron slowly, deliberately flexed his right wing.
“You okay?” Hope asked Herron.
Herron nodded.
“You?” Hope asked Ivy.
“I just need a minute,” Ivy said. She knew that every few hours, Herron either needed to slow down for a while or take a few minutes to rest. I hope Herron doesn’t try to skip those breaks, she thought. I know he needs them every so often and I pretty much need one all the time. She chuckled to herself. Or, at least, I did. She flexed her own wings, noticing that they weren’t as sore as they had been when they first set out. By the time they had reached Choon in The Rainforest, her wings and her legs were sore and achy constantly. She wondered just when they had stopped hurting all the time.
Ivy noticed an interesting pattern in the snow and walked over to check it out. She was just bending over to peer at it when she heard Hope yell at her.
“Ivy! Look out!”
Ivy straightened to look back at her just as a gigantic spiked, white claw punched upwards through the snow and snapped closed where her head had just been. She leaped backwards to take off into the air when another white claw, this one dull and knobby, shot out of the ground and snapped shut on her ankle. It yanked her down to the ground and she landed on her backside, hard, but Ivy kicked free of the claw as she landed.
The snow parted and a giant white crab raised up from the ground, towering above Ivy. Its beady eyes stared down at her on thick stalks and its fearsome looking jaws worked open and closed. It advanced toward her, closing on her sideways in a spiral pattern. The crab tried to snap at Ivy with its spiked claw again but she rolled to the side.
In an instant, a steady stream of arrows pelted against his hard carapace, all of them deflected by the rock hard armor.
“Damn,” Hope swore. She dropped her bow, drew her sword in her right hand and her knife in her left, and leaped into the air. She flew above the crab, flipped midair to give her some extra downward momentum, and dove toward the ground behind it. Hope twirled as she was diving and swung viciously at one of the crab’s legs as she approached the ground. Her strike was aimed precisely at one of the leg joints and it cut through almost effortlessly. The bottom of the crab’s leg fell away from the crab’s body and it teetered backwards before it regained its balance on its other legs.
The crab made a rough chirping noise and backed up quickly, trying to get Hope in front of it. On the other side, Herron made a similar move, though without the acrobatics, and dove at the rearmost leg on the crab’s other side. His aim was true, as well. He sliced through the membranous joint and the bottom of that leg was sliced free. A juicy yellow spurt soiled the snow. The crab wasn’t able to stay flat after losing two hind legs, and it tipped backwards. Its rear edge dug into the snow and it was caught.
“Go!” yelled Hope. Ivy took off, launching herself straight into the air and out of reach. Ivy saw the crab push itself to the side with its spiked claw and snap for Herron with the blunt one. It caught him around both legs and yanked him down to the ground like it had done to Ivy. Herron tried to twist but couldn’t, and he smashed into the snowy ground.
Ivy cried out, feeling helpless. Then, seeing that both of its huge claws were occupied, she steeled her nerve, drew her dagger, and charged it. She darted toward the claw that had Herron pinned and thrust her dagger into the joint, then she jerked it to the side, trying to cut through. She didn’t manage to get all the way through, but another splash of vivid yellow liquid shot from the wound.
The crab chirped and clicked again, then wrenched its spiked claw free to snap at Ivy. Hope flew fast between the crab’s body and its spiked claw and she struck at the elbow joint on that side. Her stronger strike, with a longer, heavier blade, sliced right through and cleaved the claw clean off.
Ivy made another thrust into the joint of its blunt claw. The crab let go of Herron and tried to scurry away, but Hope was back in the air in front of the crab again. In two skillful strokes, she severed each of the crab’s eyestalks. The crab’s chirping became a screeching, and Hope dealt the final blow by plunging her sword straight back into its shell where its right eye had been.
The monstrous crab collapsed into the snow.
Ivy yanked her knife free then ran over to Herron.
“Are you okay?”
Herron turned over onto his back. “Just had... the wind knocked out of me,” he answered breathlessly. He lay on his back and raised his legs into the air, turning his feet in circles. “I’m okay.”
Ivy whirled and flew, rushing, to Hope, throwing her arms around her. “We did it!”
Hope hugged her back, then let go and landed. “We sure did.” She reached up and slapped her hand against the hard shell. “This was a big one. They usually don’t get this big.” She walked around it, admiring it. “This would have been a good addition to the food stores in the city.” Then the smile faded from her face and she flew over to Herron.
He was sitting up now, rubbing his shins. “That hurt.”
Hope nodded. “I know it.” She turned back to the crab. “Ah, well, we’ll feed the birds for a few days, anyway.” She reached out a hand to Herron.
He looked at her for a second, then took it and stood up. “Thanks.”
Hope nodded to him, then left him to check Ivy over.
“I’m fine!” Ivy laughed as Hope walked around her checking her from all angles.
“You are. And you’re uninjured. You never know when you take a gash out here in the cold and you don’t feel it until it’s become dangerous.”
“Oh,” Ivy said, then twisted and turned to check herself out.
Hope grinned at her. “I said you were fine.”
Ivy shrugged innocently, then burst into a broad smile.
“Come on,” Herron said. “Let’s get moving.” He took off, then Hope did, as well. Ivy turned to look at the crab. She narrowed her eyes at the corpse, then took off, too.
-
A day later, they had shed their heavy winter gear and were standing on a tropical beach on The Island, in facing a long, wooden pier.
“The Island isn’t a Realm,” Herron explained, “it’s a part of The River. The fairies here call their capital The Island, because, well...” He gestured around them.
Hope and Ivy both nodded understanding at him, then all three of them turned to face the giant, metal, bell-shaped chamber at the end of the pier.
The native fairy, whose name Ivy couldn’t remember, said, “This will take you to The Deep.” He examined their magic collars and added, “These should allow you to breathe and talk normally down there.” He was a tall, muscularly built fairy with huge wings, skin a dark, dark, earthy brown.
“Should?” Hope asked.
The Islander shrugged. “You never can tell these days.” He grinned at her.
She laughed and shook her head. “I guess you can’t. Anything else we should know?”
“The Mer are... Well, they’re not fairies,” he said. “They’re Mer. Don’t expect them to act in a way you’re accustomed to. They speak oddly, they say weird and disturbing things. And they are completely devoid of any feelings. They have no emotions at all. Remember, they aren’t being rude. They just can’t be nice.”
“How long of a ride down is it?” Ivy asked.
“About an hour. It’s tight in there. I hope you’re all friendly!” The Islander laughed. “Whenever you are all ready, friends
.”
They walked down the long pier and peered into the bell. It was a large metal room, wide on the bottom but curving into a narrow point on top. There was a wooden bench running around the perimeter from one side of the door to the other. They walked in and sat down, Hope and Ivy close together, Herron on the other side. The Islander closed the door and spun the wheel on it, sealing them in. He knocked on the glass porthole and gave them a thumbs-up. Then the chamber shook and dropped into the water.
Herron handed each of them one of the leather collars and helped fasten them snugly around each of their necks.
Ivy’s chest tightened in fear when she saw the waterline rise over the porthole. Hope took her hand and squeezed it. Ivy squeezed back, feeling a little bit better. After a few minutes, Ivy saw a brightly colored fish dart by the porthole. She shot to her feet and ran over to it, peering out in fascination.
“Wow!” She said. I’m getting tired of saying that word, she thought. “Look! Look at all of the fish!”
Hope stood and came next to her, peering out the small, round glass window. “Amazing.” She looked out for a few minutes, then went to sit back down. She glanced back at Ivy, then said to Herron, “It’s possible she doesn’t know I’ve left.”
“Ha, ha,” Ivy said. “How could you not want to see this? This is amazing.”
Herron slid over to sit next to Hope and spoke quietly. Ivy wasn’t sure Herron knew she could hear him.
“Listen,” he whispered, “I owe you an apology. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to come originally, but I’m glad you did. I let my pride get the better of me. Twice.”
Ivy stared out the window, straining to catch every word, but trying to look like she couldn’t hear them. Whatever that’s supposed to look like, she thought.
“Don’t worry about it,” Hope whispered back. Then she whispered something that Ivy couldn’t quite make out, but she was pretty sure she heard her name.
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