But he cared about only one thing: Miss Sadie’s well being.
Had the notch he’d taken out of the shape succeeded in removing her from the barrier? Did the barrier affect her?
He managed to lift his head, to look at her more closely.
“You’ll be fine, Thomas,” she said, patting his shoulder. “You’ll be just fine.”
Her voice bore a comforting tone, but the expression on her face had a tightness to it. He knew by the way her eyes strained at the corners, and how her lips closed into a narrow line.
The notch had not succeeded. The spell affected her.
He tried to speak, but couldn’t. She swallowed hard and looked around, with her eyes wide. Her hand paused in mid-air above his shoulder. He couldn’t manage to speak. He didn’t have the strength.
Brady and Farrell had their hands clamped over their ears, their eyes shut tight. Brady had his head tilted back as he wailed. Farrell rocked back and forth on his knees, screaming.
“Miss Sadie,” Thomas managed to say. “Sadie.”
She didn’t look at him. She looked past him, out over the edge of the cliff as if considering it an option.
“Sadie, no.”
Somewhere in the direction she looked, the barrier ended. It had to be close. He’d changed the shape of the spell. It might even be at the very edge of the cliff.
Brady, apparently unable to handle the noise in his head, broke and ran for the edge of the cliff to the north. He disappeared over the edge, and his fading scream carried up onto the landing.
“That must be a mighty unpleasant buzzing,” Clara May said.
Eli nodded. “I reckon so, to make a man do that.”
Thomas tried to call out for them to grab Miss Sadie. A whimper escaped her throat as she bit her lower lip. Her arms and face trembled with an unseen exertion.
No sooner had Brady’s scream completely faded, then Farrell stood, looked around, and also bolted for the edge. He never removed his hands from his head, and his scream lasted a full ten seconds before it ended.
“Sadie,” Thomas said.
He tried to lift himself up on his arms. Much to his surprise, he half succeeded. The pain was fading fast, leaving him merely exhausted. He reached a hand out to Miss Sadie, and the one arm supporting his torso’s weight failed. He fell back on his face.
Miss Sadie stood. Her body trembled as she looked around.
“It’s too much. I can’t take it.”
“Sadie,” he said. “Don’t!”
She ignored him. She didn’t even seem to hear him, and headed for the cliff’s edge.
Once you assume the responsibility of the barrier, you cannot save yourself from it. It becomes you. It defines you—because the lives of so many others depend upon it. You are, in essence, in bondage. And all because of some explorers in Africa, and my parents’ willingness to ignore mainstream beliefs.
Chapter 35: Over the edge
Thomas screamed and reached out to grab Miss Sadie’s ankle. The tips of his fingers brushed a boot.
Miss Sadie didn’t look down at him. She had her eyes fixed on the cliff’s edge, and seemed to notice nothing else. Not even Clara May, who stood almost directly in front of her, at Mr. Milne’s head. Worthless, no-good Clara May.
“No!” Clara May said. “You ain’t going over that edge.”
She stepped in front of Miss Sadie’s path and held her arms out wide. Miss Sadie skidded to a halt, bumping into Clara May, who wrapped her arms around Miss Sadie. They stood just a few feet away from the cliff’s edge.
“That ain’t a good choice,” Clara May said.
Thomas struggled to his feet.
“Let me go!” Miss Sadie said.
She fought to break free of Clara May’s embrace. They grunted as they fought against each other, and after a moment Miss Sadie succeeded in getting loose, and headed for the brink, again.
By then, Thomas had gained his feet, but his legs wobbled. His arms trembled. He couldn’t have done much to contain Miss Sadie if he reached her—which he couldn’t do in time.
But Eli leaped past Thomas, and threw his arms around Miss Sadie. Clara May joined him, grabbing Miss Sadie again, and the two of them held onto her tight. They struggled not two feet from the edge.
“Let me go!” she shouted.
She fought against them, so that their feet shuffled continuously closer to the abyss. They grunted and readjusted their tenuous grip on her.
“That girl’s gone downright bonkers,” Franky said.
He still knelt on the ground, covered in blood as he clutched Stanley’s gutted body. Tears streaked his face.
Thomas had to do something to save her. The barrier spell ended very close to the cliff’s edge. He’d taken that notch out of it. It had to be close.
A plan came to him.
He would take her over the cliff in the proper direction.
He turned on his wobbly legs, looking for a patch of dirt on the ground. But everywhere he looked, he saw only rocks.
“Franky,” he said, “do you have what you need to cast your fishing spell?”
“What?” Franky said.
“This ain’t no time to be fishing,” Papa said.
“There aren’t any fish up here,” Charles said.
Thomas spotted a patch of dirt at the base of a tenacious bush on the longer side of the landing, about twenty feet down. He headed toward it. His legs threatened to give out.
“Can you cast the spell?” Thomas said to Franky. “The one that raises fish up to you?”
Franky shrugged. “Well, sure.”
Miss Sadie continued to scream. Clara May cried out and fell away from her, right at the cliff’s lip. Eli’s grip on Miss Sadie looked weak as his face strained. Thomas wished he could trade his life to get his brothers to help. He would gladly trade Papa’s.
“Help him!” he shouted, pointing back at the struggling pair, continuing toward the bush.
Papa, still sitting with his back at the altar, pointed from Charles to Miss Sadie.
“You heard him! Go help her!”
A light seemed to go on in Franky’s and Charles’s heads. Charles jumped toward the edge. Franky laid Stanley on the rock, and went toward Miss Sadie. Before they could reach her, she roared with a burst of effort and broke free—all except for one wrist, which Eli held on to with both of his hands. One of her black-booted feet swung out over the edge, but Eli leaned back, stretching her arm out behind her, keeping her aground.
Charles reached them first. Franky arrived a moment later. Along with Eli, they pulled her back over the brink and moved her away from the edge. They wrapped their arms around her and spoke to her—presumably words of comfort; her wailing drowned out all their voices. Her eyes had a crazy look about them, an insane determination to die. They looked toward the cliff every moment.
She was safe physically, but not emotionally. If Thomas could get her out of the buzzing, would it even matter, or had she lost her mind, already?
Thomas reached the bush and pushed past its lower branches, to the base, hoping that somehow the wind and weather hadn’t washed away all of the dirt.
It hadn’t. The trunk grew out of a crack in the rock, with some hard-packed dirt around its base. He clawed at it with his fingernails and the tips of his fingers. They were already sore, so the pain of digging meant little to him even though it was like prying into rock.
Grunting, he pressed his fingers against the dirt even harder. His fingers ached, but the effort succeeded, and he broke the surface. He dug and pried, and more dirt came up in chunks and soft soil. When he had a handful, he backed out of the bush branches and struggled to his feet.
“Please!” Miss Sadie cried. “Please, please let me die! The sound is too much!”
She wailed long and loud—a pitiful sound. A desperate plea. The cry of a lunatic.
“Franky,” Thomas said as he strode back to his brothers. “Franky, you have to cast your spell.”
“I need
water for the spell,” Franky said over his shoulder. “And there aren’t any fish to cast it on.”
“You’ll have to change the spell,” Thomas said as he reached the group. “You’ll have to change it so that it works on me and Miss Sadie.”
“What?” his brothers all said at once.
“Son,” Papa said, “I reckon you’ve got some crazy plan, but I think you should reconsider.”
Thomas didn’t have time to explain. He needed to get Miss Sadie out of the barrier as quickly as possible, to reduce the likelihood that her insanity would last forever. He held out his arms as if asking someone to place a baby in them. He held his left hand open and extended, and the right in a fist, clenching the red dirt. He nearly had to shout to be heard over Miss Sadie’s begging.
“Give her to me,” he said.
“What are you doing?” Charles said.
“Just give her to me.” He shook his arms to emphasize his demand, and his brothers obeyed.
As one, they lifted her up, and placed her in his arms. She still struggled, and Thomas nearly fell from the weight. But his legs had gained some strength, and he gripped her with everything he had. His brothers held her there, too. Her scream pierced Thomas’s ears like pins.
Charles, somehow, ended up right in front of Thomas. His face twisted in effort as he struggled to keep Miss Sadie in check.
“I need water for the spell,” Franky said.
“Use your spit,” Thomas said. “When I count to three, all of you get out of my way so I can jump off of the cliff.”
Charles’s eyes widened in surprise as he realized what Thomas was going to do. His gaze snapped to Thomas.
“You can’t do that.”
“That’s a poor choice there, son,” Papa said.
“My spit won’t be enough,” Franky said.
“Then get everyone to spit into your hands.” He met Charles’s gaze with certainty. “I have to do this to save her.”
“You’ve gone insane,” Charles said.
But there was a gruff respect in his tone and in his eyes, and for a moment as Thomas looked at his brother, he wondered if the two of them might somehow get along in the future. If they might be like real brothers instead of enemies. In that moment, it seemed almost possible, as if something had changed both of them and their outlooks on life.
“A man’s got to make his own choices,” Papa said.
“One,” Thomas said.
“Insane,” Charles said.
“Two.”
“Don’t do it,” Franky said.
Thomas ignored him. “Three.”
His brothers and Eli stepped away from him and let go of Miss Sadie. He nearly dropped her, but managed to hold on as he used all of his remaining strength to take three running steps and launch himself over the edge.
* * *
Almost instantly, Miss Sadie ceased to struggle. Her wailing stopped—which Thomas found strange, because if she knew that he’d hurled her over the edge of a thousand-foot cliff, she probably would have screamed at their imminent death. He certainly wanted to.
The air rushed in his ears and face. The ground rose at an alarming rate. He had about ten seconds before impact.
“What are you doing?” Miss Sadie said, her voice panicked. She wrapped her arms around his neck.
He returned to the place inside himself, where the well of liquid light waited, full, and began to cast the spell that softened dirt. He would have to time it just right, throw the dirt down onto the ground immediately before impact—and hope that Franky’s spell worked at such a distance, and well enough to slow his fall considerably.
“I now sacrifice my second-life days,” he said, and immediately the internal wind began to blow. He hardly heard it with his ears, for the rushing of the wind already filling his head. “I sacrifice my days to soften this dirt, that new life may be planted in it.”
The wind siphoned second-life days out of the well. The accompanying pain came, of course, but it was hardly anything compared to what he’d felt only a minute or two before.
The ground rushed up at them.
He released Miss Sadie’s legs, so that his hand holding the dirt was free. Her legs dropped down by his. He had an arm around her shoulders, pressing her body close to his.
“This dirt in my hands,” he said, grinding the dirt in his hands, turning it into powder, “represents the dirt that I will soften with my second-life days. I give a year of my second life to make the ground soft.”
The more second-life days he used, the softer the ground became. A year was far more than he’d ever used with this spell.
The power flowed out of him. It shifted from a wispy trail to a thick flow, a bar as wide as the well that stretched up into the black void. With so much leaving him, the pain became strong, again—as strong as before.
The ground came closer and closer, at an ever-increasing rate. There were trees down there. His spell would do no good if they landed on rocks or in a tree’s branches, but he could do nothing about their trajectory.
The flow from the well cut off: his spell was done. The dirt in his hands bore the power to soften the ground.
They had, perhaps, two seconds left before impact. Franky hadn’t cast his spell. Or, at least, it hadn’t taken effect.
Miss Sadie screamed and buried her head into his neck as he raised his hand with the dirt.
Franky had failed him.
No, that wasn’t possible. Franky wouldn’t do that. The spell had failed Franky.
The ground came up. Up. Up. Tree branches snapped at their bodies, opening up to a flat dirt ground—without rocks. He lowered his hand to throw the dirt down, and as he opened his palm, the falling sensation suddenly lessened. It was like his stomach dropped from his chest into his legs.
Franky’s spell had taken effect. Their rate of descent halved.
His palm opened as his arm swung down. The enchanted dirt hit the ground directly beneath them.
They struck the ground an instant later.
It might have been bearable had I made a better choice of spouse. Now, at the close of my Life Vision, I pray that if Thomas fails and I am brought back to life, I can communicate this to him: choose the right woman, Thomas. Choose the right woman, and the burden of your life—of your duties—will be lighter.
Chapter 36: Freedom from bonds
They survived. That was something. A start.
And they didn’t break their necks. At least, he didn’t break his. He knew because he could still feel the pain throughout his body. Only, now his feet hurt a great deal, as well. In its own way, that was good, too.
He had to take the little victories, at this point, because he and Miss Sadie were buried up to their armpits in soft dirt.
When Thomas and Charles were little, they’d played a game where they’d thrown knives into the ground. If you didn’t bury it up to the handle, you lost. Now, Thomas felt like one of those knives. Only, he’d thrown himself.
Their impact had created a shallow crater and caused dirt to splash up and around them, almost like water. Now, it rested on the hard-packed ground that hadn’t been affected by the soil-softening spell. Beneath the surface, Miss Sadie’s body still pressed against his. Above the dirt, her head rested against the side of his neck, up to his ear.
Perhaps a dozen seconds had passed since they’d hit, and she hadn’t said a word. Her breathing came short and fast. Her arms rested on the top of the dirt, and wrapped around him. He rather liked it.
Sunlight filtered in past the oak branches above, into the small clearing where they’d landed. The wall of the cliff rose up behind them, rocky, ominous. But less threatening now that they’d overcome it.
She exhaled hard and long.
“My legs really hurt.”
He grunted. If she could feel her legs, her neck wasn’t broken, either. Only one question remained: had the buzzing driven her permanently insane?
"Are they broken?”
She shook her head,
so that her hair tickled his ear.
“I think I’m fine. Just a little sore from the shock.” She paused to breathe some more. “That sound was awful.”
He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to probe for sanity, but didn’t dare ask outright if she’d gone batty.
“When did it end?”
“Almost right as you jumped over the cliff. I was sure glad you did. I wanted that sound to end, and even death was a good alternative.”
Thomas looked around, thinking of Brady and Farrell. They’d probably landed somewhere nearby, but he couldn’t see them because of the trees. He and Miss Sadie had no doubt been fortunate in where they’d landed.
She looked up at him, and her mouth widened in a smile.
“It’s over, isn’t it? The barrier destroyed all the zombies.”
He nodded. “I could feel them burning up. All of them inside Sanctuary.”
“And how does it feel—being the one responsible for that?”
“Actually,” he said, “it feels pretty good.”
She laughed and shook her head. On sheer impulse, he leaned his head down and kissed her on the lips.
He’d kissed girls before. Plenty of them, back in the days when he and his friends lived wild and free, before they got married. It had been more than a year since his last kiss, though, and he wondered as she lifted one hand to the back of his head and pressed his face closer to hers, if he’d simply forgotten how pleasant kissing was, or if kissing Miss Sadie was just exceptionally nice.
As the seconds passed, he decided that she was just exceptional in general. He could marry her. He could settle down with her and have a family.
And, much to his surprise, the idea didn’t prick his sensibilities. It appealed to him rather strongly, and he understood why.
Because it was his choice.
The marriages of all his friends had not been his choice. Independent of what he wanted or thought, they’d gone off and gotten married—which they had the right to do. But their actions had affected his situation without him having any say in the matter. That was why he hated it so much. He hadn’t chosen to lose his friends to marriage.
Keep Mama Dead Page 32
