Chapter 30: Falling
His hand swiftly reaches for mine. We connect with intense force. My fingers intertwine with his, but then the unthinkable happens.
He falls with me.
He had had to loosen his grip on the trunk even more than when he pushed himself ahead to grab me. The force of my falling pulls him down with me.
Falling!
Royce doesn’t let go of my hand as we tumble down, smashing into branches as we go. I bite my tongue in order not to scream, and our backpacks harshly slam to the ground. I try to grab at anything with my other hand, and he does the same.
Crack!
Crack!
The branches break on contact. Thankfully, though, they are slowing our descent to the ground—to death.
I’m not going to die like this! I vow. Not before reaching my freedom!
NO!
I finally grab onto a branch. It’s flimsy and will eventually give way, but it allows us to slow down enough for Royce to grasp another one just below it. As my branch fractures, I fall again but am prevented from going further down by Royce whose hand grips mine. This time, he doesn’t allow the force of me falling to pull him down with me. Instead, I find myself dangling with my only lifeline being Royce who is also hanging from the branch he clutches for dear life.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice uncharacteristically shaky the second time in one day.
“I think so,” I manage to say.
Don’t look down, I tell myself.
“Let’s take a breath, Madrigal.’
“Okay.”
I try to even out my breathing, but only accomplish to prevent from hyperventilating. The situation is too dire for me to calm down. We’re dangling from high on a tree—who knows how long till our arms give out? Even though it’s hardly raining anymore, wind is starting to pick up and pushing our bodies in different directions. This is fatal.
Fatal.
Get a hold of yourself, Madrigal, I instruct myself, pulling up my free hand to clutch where Royce is holding onto my other one.
“This is not as bad as it seems,” Royce utters quietly.
“What do you mean?” I say with clenched teeth—one thing is to be optimistic but another is to be totally unrealistic.
“At least we’re not splattered all over the ground.”
“Not yet anyway,” I mutter.
“Madrigal, we’ll find a way out of this.”
I sigh with a long breath. “Royce, that branch we’re hanging from will probably give out. You know that, don’t you?”
“We’ll find a way out of this,” he persists.
“If you let me go,” I say quietly, “you’ll be able to use both your hands to pull yourself up.”
“Don’t even say it,” Royce snaps furiously.
“But—”
“I’m not letting you go! Do you understand me?”
“Listen, I doubt if I’m this Supernova. I’m sure I won’t explode if I hit the ground.”
“Do you think that’s the reason I won’t let you go?” His incensed voice has flashes of deep disappointment.
“Maybe,” I respond meekly.
“I thought you were smart.”
“I am,” I affirm.
“Then why can’t you see the reason why I could never let you die?”
“But—”
“I’m not letting go!” he snaps. “You go and I go with you!”
“Thank you,” I utter quietly. Other than my real parents, I had never known this type of incredible loyalty in my life.
“You’re welcome,” he says. “Now, we have to figure how to get out of this.”
The wind had picked up even more. The only reason why we had heard each other was because we were so close. The noise is almost deafening and the shrill air is starting to push violently at us. We need a miracle.
We need one right now!
A bright, explosive flare sweeps through my mind. It’s like a sudden light illuminating me. Then I see it—my miracle.
I mean I see it in my head like a vision.
Flashes of scenes evolve in my head as if they are about to occur. Nothing like this has ever happened to me, but they seem so real! My heart throbs wildly as if begging me to pay attention.
I see the fierce wind pulling in a tree branch just a fraction but enough for me to have an opportunity to grab onto it. It will happen within the next few seconds. It will save me if I believe in this vision. It will save Royce too.
Dare I believe in it?
“Royce,” I mutter, “I don’t have time to explain—just trust me—swing me towards over there.” I take my free hand off his as I show him the direction.
“Okay.”
“Ready?” I ask. I’m relieved that he trusts me even when I’m not sure about this myself.
“Ready,” he answers.
As Royce sways me in the direction I told him, the wind rips through the tree, but we don’t travel far enough. I don’t reach the branch. He swings me again with much more force, and I manage to curl my arm around the tree limb when the fierce wind pushes it slightly in.
He lets me go.
I feel oddly disconnected.
The other hand he had been grasping automatically goes to the branch. Like in my vision, I pull my legs up and wrap them around the tree limb. I start inching towards the trunk at a snail’s pace. I’m under the branch and not over it but have a firm hold on it. From my periphery vision, I see Royce doing the same as I am.
We meet at the gray trunk at nearly the same time. He quickly wraps his arms around me and even though the tree is between us, I still feel his thunderously beating heart. Neither the heavy wind nor the deafening ruckus can alter our moment. We hold one another for a long time.
The wind finally calms down as if tired of its own insanity.
“We should go down,” he comments, loosening his grip on me. “Let’s take advantage of the break in the weather, don’t you think?”
I nod in agreement. “Yes.”
“Be very careful this time, Madrigal.”
“You can be sure of that.”
He climbs down first and tests every branch by shaking it harshly before stepping on it. I painstakingly set my feet carefully over each one of them. With excruciating slowness, we finally reach the bottom where our backpacks are laying.
What a relief!
My joy is short-lived when I notice an expensive lighter on the ground. The colonel must’ve dropped it. I suddenly remember why we climbed the tree in the first place. The colonel could be lurking around.
I start to open my mouth when Royce puts his index finger to his lips. Then he motions me to grab my backpack, and he snatches his as he sweeps the lighter in his hands. We can’t afford to waste any resources. The lighter will probably come in handy.
He swiftly scans the clearing, his sight darting from one end of it to another. No one’s here except for us. I’m sure he’s guessing that if the colonel had heard us, he would’ve already gotten here. At the moment, though, I feel particularly vulnerable with us being out in the open like we are. The clearing, with the scarcity of trees, is too exposed.
Royce quickly moves towards the wooded area. Taking care of only stepping on grass and not leaving any muddy footprints, I follow his lead. When we are safely in the coverage of an abundance of trees and foliage, he motions me towards the only kind of tree I know the name of—a Weeping Willow. A thick blanket of leaves cascades down in dense perfection from the top to the bottom of it. We can’t see the trunk with its leaves being so plentiful.
We crawl inside this fortress. Feeling well hidden and as safe as possible under these dire circumstances, I take a good look at us for the first time. We are bumped and bruised with purple marks all over our battered skin. Miraculously, we hadn’t broken or even sprained a single limb.
‘You’re bleeding,” Royce whispers in my ear as he gently extends my hands, large blisters and cuts thr
oughout them.
“I’m fine,” I whisper back.
Even though the bulbous blisters throb and one of them has already popped, I’m not going to let anything minor like this make me into a coward. I can and will deal with the pain.
He takes a small bottle of peroxide which he had removed from a basic first aid kit in his backpack and pours it over my wounds. I hardly notice what he’s doing. His close proximity to me and touch are becoming too familiar. I frown.
“Why did you swing me to the branch without asking questions?” I whisper in his ear to get me to concentrate on something other than his nearness to me.
He looks at me with a perplexed look as if he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
I continue, “You know, on the tree?”
His face loses its question mark. “Constanza told me that your special abilities would eventually come to you. The urgency in your voice told me the time was here—was I right?”
I nod, surprised at his accurate guesswork.
He releases my hands, leaving me disconnected again. Opening his backpack, he pulls out a few strips of dried, wild boar meat. It wasn’t from the one I had helped kill, but Claudio had given us his personal stash—one that was already prepared. The bear meat had long been eaten.
Royce quietly hands me a piece. I start to chew, and he does the same.. Lost in our own worlds, we’re silent for the next fifteen minutes. We had gone through so much—especially today.
I think back to the desperation at the tree when the vision had come. Had it been true? It seemed like a strange dream. Everything had happened so fast.
Meggy’s words come at me, “Let your power float up.”
Then Pilar’s advice quickly proceeds after, “Open your heart and unleash your power.”
Had I finally unleashed my abilities? Could I believe that?
Could I?
I had opened my heart to Royce—opened all of it. It had been easier than I had thought. Having been closed for most of my life, being sprung open is frightening.
Royce stares at me as if wondering what I’m thinking. I eye him back. Does he know how I feel about him? Does he feel the same?
My clumsy fingers touch my lips. They no longer feel like those of a child because that’s what they felt like before Royce had kissed me.
My first kiss.
His sight falls to my mouth, and I wait for him. Wait for him to come to me again.
I don’t have to wait long.
His overwhelmingly handsome face starts nearing mine, and I lean his way. I place my hands on it wanting to feel the warmth of his skin. Abruptly pulling them and myself back, I flinch in agony.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, concerned.
I smile as I show him my hands, reminding him of their painful condition but at the same time, showing him I’m fine. I move towards him again for the promised kiss. This time, he doesn’t meet me halfway.
“What’s wrong?” It’s my turn to ask.
“We can’t,” he whispers.
.I look at him with perplexed eyes; hurt emanating from inside of me.
“We just can’t,” he states, turning away from me.
Supernova Page 28
