by Kara Timmins
“Yes.”
Neasa’s mouth tightened and twisted to one side. She nodded.
Eloy moved to her and pulled her into his chest. She wrapped her arms around his waist.
“If anyone can find what he’s looking for and save us while he’s doing it, it’s you,” Neasa said against his chest. “I want to ask you to abandon this path, but I lost the right to ask you for anything after getting you to take me to the Seer.”
“That’s not how this works,” he said with his cheek against the top of her head. “We don’t have a balance. That’s not how family works.”
He felt a twitch of emotion go through her. She hugged him harder and then pulled away. “Sounds like we’ve made a plan, then. We’re splitting in half.”
Eloy nodded. He felt like exactly that.
52
Malatic was well enough to start moving again after a few days. He slept a lot in that time, and his breathing seemed to level, as if he knew he didn’t have to keep fighting against the unknown anymore, that his trip into chaos with Eloy was at an end.
Neasa and Timyr spent the time going over the flora Neasa was familiar with from Valia and describing the color, texture, smell, and taste of every possible flower, leaf, bark, moss, animal, and insect that might help. Timyr mostly sat stroking his beard and nodding, asking questions when he thought he knew of a something similar.
Eloy struggled to find acceptance. He was consumed with disgust: for himself, for their situation, for the relentlessness of it all. But their plan was made and set.
The part that sickened him was how much he wanted to keep going forward. He’d been doing it for so long that the paths in his behavior had been carved out too consistently, too deeply, to change. But maybe he could use his need to find the solution to save his friend.
Neasa walked up behind Eloy as he finished packing his bag. “We’re going to start back now.”
“It’s still early,” Eloy said, not looking up. “Have you had something to eat?”
“Early is better,” she said. “We’re not going to be able to move fast, so we need all the time we can get. What about you? Are you ready to start again?”
Eloy nodded. “My bag is packed and ready.”
“Does that mean you’re ready?”
“That means my bag is packed.” Eloy stood up and hugged her. “We’ll find what we’re looking for and we’ll catch up.”
“Okay.” She sounded muffled against his chest. “Sure.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“I want to. It’s what I tell myself is going to happen.” She pulled away and looked up at him. “I’m sorry again for what I said before. You helped me get exactly what I asked for. More than I asked for. I got to explore places I couldn’t even have dreamt of. Some things I could have lived without. But there were some really amazing things too. Thank you for forgiving me those years ago. Thank you for understanding why my father and I did what we did. I wish everyone could forgive the way you do.”
The more she said, the more he was sure he would never be able to forgive himself for what he was about to do—to let her and Malatic go slow and wounded into an uncertain forest.
“There are more things to see and do,” Eloy said. “We just have to wait until Malatic gets better. There’s still time.”
Eloy hated the pity in her face. If he didn’t love her so much, it might have made him hate her in that moment. Instead it just buried the splinter of what was happening deeper into him.
“Are you going to say goodbye to him?” she asked.
Eloy looked over at where Malatic was sitting hunched over, possibly sleeping.
“Yeah,” Eloy said. “Of course.” But he didn’t want to. And he heard the weight in her voice when she said the word “goodbye.”
“I’ll go pack up the rest of my things and say goodbye to Timyr,” she said. “It’ll give you a moment to say what you want to say before we head off.”
She walked away, and he stood there. He wanted to have something in mind before he walked over to Malatic. But nothing came, so he hoped that the right words would come.
He sat on the ground next to Malatic, whose eyes were closed. Eloy was ready for that to be enough, that just sitting together would be a fine way to spend their last moments together, but Malatic must have sensed his presence.
“We’re all set then?” Malatic asked, his eyes still closed.
“Almost.”
Malatic rolled his still-slouching neck to the side and looked at Eloy. “How long were you planning on sitting there before saying something?”
“Forever would’ve been nice. I guess you’re still keen on someone sneaking up on you.”
“I’m a deadly fighter, ready for everything and capable of anything. Luckily there isn’t anyone around who needs me to prove it.”
“They wouldn’t know what hit them.”
“They rarely do.”
The smiles fell off their faces like shards flaking off a shale wall.
Malatic looked toward Neasa. “How far do you think we’re going to make it?”
“As far as you need to.”
Malatic turned back to Eloy. “Okay, how about an answer that isn’t as useless as a full latrine hole? Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot kid. My body stopped doing what I tell it to, but I didn’t become a different person. I wouldn’t do that to you. Don’t you dare do it to me.”
Eloy smiled, not because there was anything funny about what Malatic had said, but because Eloy saw the steady and focused intensity that was reassuringly familiar.
“It depends,” Eloy admitted, seeing Malatic soften and slump again. “If something like that bear comes at you, I don’t see how the two of you can take care of it. Then again, Neasa is clever and has held her own in a fight before. But if you try to throw yourself into the fray, she’ll lose focus and you’ll both die.”
Malatic nodded.
“You’ll be moving slow.”
“And what about this thing that’s supposedly roaming around?”
“I don’t know. Timyr is certain that it’s out there, and there are signs of it around, but why haven’t we seen it yet? If it exists, what is it waiting for? We’ve been holed up in this spot for days, weakened, and still nothing. I don’t know. Something’s off. But I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”
“You wouldn’t worry about it because the thing that’s going to kill me is what’s already killing me,” Malatic said without emotion.
Eloy sighed, closed his eyes, and nodded.
Malatic made a tisk sound out of the side of his mouth. “Of all things, of all the dumb things I’ve done, this is by far the most irritating way to go about this. It’s like I just skipped some things and went right to dying of old age with a body that’s not working right. It’s some sick kind of punishment. Deserved, maybe.”
“If that’s true, everyone should ready themselves for some serious retribution.”
“Since we’re doing parting truths, I’m disappointed I don’t get to see what the big show is at the end of this road of yours. Knowing what happens isn’t why I came, you know that. But that doesn’t mean I’m not curious. I don’t blame you for going on. If you’re twice as curious as I am, and I’m willing to bet you’re more than that, I get it.”
The sentiment was an attempt at a gift that Eloy didn’t know how to receive. He hung his head and nodded, not in agreement, but in an attempt at maintaining his composure.
Malatic had his head turned in the opposite direction. “It’s not right.”
Eloy looked over at Neasa. “What isn’t?”
“That I’m here for her and she’s sad for me and all I want is to see her normal again and all she wants is that I never came here to get like this in the first place. And yet here we both are.”
“I agree. It doesn’t se
em right.”
“Maybe there’s clarity on the other side of this life.”
“Hopefully,” Eloy said.
“I’m not much for hoping, I think.”
Neither man spoke as they heard the familiar sound of carefully crunching footfall.
Neasa stood before them, with enough bags for two people draped and dangling off her shoulders. “Everything is packed up except for the furs on your back,” she said to Malatic. “Do you want to walk with them or tuck them away?”
“I’ll put them away,” Malatic said. “But I’m carrying the bag. And a few of the others. You look like a pack mule.”
“I look like a mule?” Her stern face added a layer of offense.
“I mean, you don’t. The bags make you look like a mule. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m sick.” Malatic cringed as soon as Neasa turned away.
For a moment, everything felt normal. Eloy let it harden and calcify in his mind. He wanted to keep it. Then Malatic looked tired again, and Neasa looked more nervous than angry, and it was time to do the hard thing. Again.
Eloy pulled Malatic close and hugged him. “We’re going to find something to help and we’re going to catch up with you.”
Malatic thumped Eloy on the back a few times before softening. “I know I just said I’m not much for being hopeful, but for Neasa’s sake, I hope you do. And since I’m already doing it, here’s hoping there’s clarity for us both.”
“I hope you have as much insight as this the next time I see you,” Eloy said.
“Sure.” Malatic stepped back. “Goodbye, my friend.”
“Goodbye, my friend,” Eloy said. It stuck in his throat.
Neasa stepped in and wrapped her arms around Eloy. Eloy hugged her back, but felt mostly bags.
“I hope you find something, anything, and I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she said. “And I hope it’s worth it.”
She was out of his arms and walking away before he could say anything.
The only thing left to do was watch them go. The sun was still in front of them, finding its way through gaps in the leaves, vines, and branches. Soon they looked like two darkened forms cut out of sunlight. One turned, Malatic, and held up a hand.
A final goodbye.
53
Eloy was grateful that Timyr kept conversation superficial and to a minimum for the next few days, but while the silence may have started out of respect, it transitioned into cautious observation.
“I just don’t understand it,” Timyr said, finally, three days after parting with Neasa and Malatic. He stuck his fingers in a sickly green slick that was dribbling out of crack in a tree and brought the coated tips of his fingers up to his nose. His face puckered, pulling together toward his wrinkled nose. “It smells like illness. But almost like a human kind of sickness.”
“Should you be touching it?”
“If this is any danger to us, it’s not going to matter at this point. We’re in the middle of it now.”
“What don’t you understand?”
“What’s going on.”
“Can you still sense it, whatever it is that’s doing this?” Eloy asked.
Timyr turned his back to Eloy. “No, I can’t. Like I said, nothing makes sense.” The words came out hot, irate.
Eloy wasn’t sure why the question had made Timyr so angry, but his terse answer, pointed footfall, and breakaway lead sent the message.
They were running low on the dried meat and other, more palatable foods. Most of their meals were eaten in mandatory silence, due to the excessive amount of chewing required for the seeds. There were signs of animals all around them, and the desire to set a trap grew with every day, but the reminders of the dangers dangled, dripped, crumbled all around them. The hope of a clean meal was distant, let alone finding something useful for Malatic, but they still looked. Eloy did his best to ignore his growing anxiety.
Timyr built a fire every night and kept it low, another sign that he was getting nervous, more unsure—probably more than he ever had been before.
“Do you have any stories?” Eloy asked, looking for a reprieve from the weight of the two human voids at the fire.
“Stories were never really my thing,” Timyr said.
Eloy looked back into the fire. “No problem.”
Timyr huffed. “I guess I have one or two my parents told me and Midash when we were little. I’m not promising anything good.”
“That’s okay,” Eloy said.
“I’m guessing you want an Aerelion story.”
“Doesn’t have to be.”
“I don’t have much else. And even less of those than you might think. Anyways, give me a moment while I try to remember. It’s been a while.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“All right, I think I’ve got it. So it’s the five of them, my mother and father, Aerelion, Cero, and Rayner. Did my mom tell you about those last two?”
Eloy thought back to the image he had seen in Kella’s memory, of the two men telling the story around the campfire. “Not specifically, but I think I know who you’re talking about. Go on.”
“Anyway, they were there too. And I haven’t told you where yet. I told you I wasn’t good at this.”
“It’s fine. Keep going.”
“Okay. So, the five are looking for something, I don’t remember what. They were always looking for something, I guess. Or maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were just always getting into stuff for no reason. Who knows.
“Anyways, they’d gone over some mountains, and they thought they had known mountains and they thought they knew what they would find over these mountains, because they figured it would be just like every other mountain they’d gone over before. But the future doesn’t give a damn about what you think is going to happen, and this mountain range told them just that.”
Eloy wondered if a story was a good idea after all.
Timyr must have noticed a shift in his audience of one. He cleared his throat. “So there’s nothing but an endless range of mountains ahead of them, just one after another. Aerelion says to them, ‘Maybe we should head back. Who knows what’s out there, and if the weather changes on us, we could be in some trouble.’ They all start to agree, but my mom hesitates. She doesn’t want to go forward, she wants to turn around and go back to where she knows there are hearths, fire, and food. But she stops, and Aerelion notices that there’s something wrong. ‘What is it?’ he asked her.”
Eloy leaned in. He could see it all in his mind with a special clarity.
“She didn’t want to say it,” Timyr went on, seemingly invigorated by Eloy’s rapt interest, “because she knew well enough how Aerelion would respond, but she couldn’t keep anything from him.
“‘There’s a whisper,’ she said.
“They all knew what she meant. They knew what she could do. ‘What kind of a whisper? What is it saying?’ Aerelion asked.
“‘I can’t tell,’ my mom said. ‘It’s far away. It’s not in words, exactly. I can tell it’s troubled. Distraught.’
“Just like she knew he would, he turned his feet back toward the endless waves of the mountains.
“‘You can go back,’ Aerelion said as he went, ‘or you can come with. But I’m going to find where that voice is coming from.’
“Of course they all followed him. He had to have known they would, because how would he have been able to find the voice without my mother? Not to mention the others were carrying a lot of the supplies he needed. Giving them a choice was only a courtesy.
“They walked for days, maybe even weeks. Up mountains, down mountains. Their mouths got chapped and the snow got thicker. They moved slowly, careful not to sweat too much in their clothes. There’s no betrayal quite like freezing to death in the water your own body makes. So they took their time, all the while
following the whisper without words in my mother’s head. She got attached to it. She worried about the thing so much she started staying up through the night listening to it, trying to communicate, but it never seemed to respond to her. My father started getting worried. He would catch Aerelion alone and say they needed to turn around, for my mother’s sake. But she wouldn’t have let them. You know my mom, it’s not wise to go against her wishes.”
“I remember,” Eloy said with a smirk.
“They went on, my mother becoming more focused and more obsessed every day. There didn’t seem to be any end to the mountains, until they came upon a surprise. They crested the top of one of the ranges expecting to see more of the same, but below was the beginning of a clearing: flat ground surrounded by rough rock. Like a bald patch in the middle of the world’s head. There was something in the middle of the flat ground.
“‘That’s it,’ my mother said. ‘That’s where the voice is coming from.’ But she seemed unsure.
“‘There’s something you’re not telling us,’ Aerelion said.
“He knew people, and he knew this group best of all. He didn’t need her ability to read minds.
“‘It still seems so far away,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’
“‘There’s something wrong about this place,’ my father said. ‘I didn’t sense this clearing.’” Timyr tapped his temple. “My father knew the earth like I do, but better. And he was younger then, had a keen sense of things.”
“‘There’s only one way to figure out what’s going on,’ Aerelion said.
“And as he always did, he set off down the mountain, leaving the others to follow. They made their way to the bottom, and once they were there the mountains looked down on them like giants.”
Eloy resisted the urge to shiver at the thought of it. It sounded too much like the Bowl.
“But they still couldn’t see what was in the middle,” Timyr went on. “The area was bigger than they thought from above. My dad said, again, that there was something not right about the place. Even if Aerelion wasn’t determined, my mom was, which meant it didn’t matter what my dad said, they were going to keep going.
