THE MARK Page 17

  The rest of the meal was quiet. None of them ate with as much gusto. She regretted having to leave so soon but she and Morwenna had talked about what was best. They needed to go while they still could, before another mercenary tracked them down and brought reinforcements. It was time she faced what had brought her there in the first place, to do what she had set out to do. Tomorrow the final leg of their journey would begin.

  * * *

  Chris took her time packing. She checked and rechecked the supplies, constantly patting her dress, making sure the dagger was still there. Then she took the long way around to the stables to say good-bye to Molly. Morwenna had been kind enough to conjure plenty of oats and hay for the mare. Molly nuzzled Chris’s hand as Chris stroked her neck then her face before running her hand down her mane. She wished she could take the mare with her, but so few horses had made it to Nightwell that they needed her more there. Besides, Morwenna had said the swamp’s terrain would be impossible to navigate on horseback. Chris would figure out a way to get Hannah’s body back without her.

  “Thank you for carrying us so far. Enjoy your new home, okay?” She leaned in and whispered, “If I end up seeing Narento and Erah, I’ll tell them about you.”

  Chris walked out of the stables and around to the keep. When she rounded the corner everyone had assembled to see her and Micah off. And it really was everyone. All the survivors from The Middles were out in the courtyard too even though it was drizzling. They were all there to wish her and Micah luck.

  Queen Morwenna hugged Micah and told him to be strong then did the same to Chris. When they separated, her smile was a mixture of fondness and sadness. “Thank you for returning my children to me,” she said.

  Chris searched for the words but couldn’t think of what to say so she dipped into a deep curtsy.

  “No goodbyes,” Digs said, stepping forward. “You two are coming back after all of this. No goodbyes today.”

  Chris stood upright. She went to give Digs a hug but he took a step back. “I’ll see you soon,” he said before walking back into the keep.

  “He’ll be alright,” Megland said. “I’ll make sure of it.” She surprised Chris by giving her and Micah a hug. “I’ve seen what you two can do, your courage and strength in impossible circumstances. I know you can do this.” She let go and followed Digs.

  After making their final preparations, Chris and Micah finally walked away from Nightwell Hold, a fine, misty rain soaking their cloaks. Their companions from The Middles waved, calling out their well wishes. Some just watched as they crossed the drawbridge and quickly-filling moat. Only when Chris and Micah took their first steps across the once canyon-like gap in the earth that now only spanned a foot did everyone stop waving and cheering. Only then did they stop saying good-bye and return to the task of rebuilding what was once torn asunder.

  CHAPTER 23

  The rain had finally let up. Chris and Micah were making steady progress in their march toward the Swamplands. The muddy ground was messy but navigable. The Fly had shown up as soon as the rain stopped. He perched on Chris’s shoulder, pointing directions whenever she stopped to get her bearings. Micah seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, or maybe he was taking a cue from The Fly, deciding it was better to walk without talking for a while. Or perhaps he was thinking about what they were walking toward. She was.

  The flat desert was turning into hills, making it difficult not to slip and fall as they climbed the slopes. Mud sucked at the bottoms of their shoes. They were climbing a particularly steep incline when Chris looked up to see light radiating from the other side of its crest. When she reached the top, she found its source. At the bottom of the hill the brown muddy slop gave way to an excruciatingly bright mirrored surface. The sun had finally peeked out from behind the clouds and it glared up from the ground before another cloud passed over it.

  The Fly swooped down to the glass, landing on its hot reflective surface. The sky below him gave the illusion that he was flying still. When he saw their reluctance, he did a little jig, his tiny legs tapping on the glass.

  See? It’s fine, he seemed to say.

  The old Micah would have dared her. He had always known how to get her to do stuff she wouldn’t otherwise do, like putting her video up on YouTube. Like the time he got her to play “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” on the piano in the auditorium right before a big school assembly. She had been booed off the stage, but she and Micah had laughed about it until they cried. She wondered if he would ever be that person again.

  Chris stepped onto the glass and seeing it wasn’t going to break held a hand out to Micah.

  “I’m going, I’m going,” he said, stepping onto it by himself.

  Chris took a few steps forward, trying not to think about what was underneath. Did it cover hills or was it just a thin pane of glass then nothing? The sky beneath her threatened to pull her feet out from under her.

  Micah was ahead of her already. “It’s better if you don’t look down.”

  She took his advice, planting one foot in front of the other, trying not to overthink things. Thankfully, it worked. When they were moving again she asked, “What do you think they’re doing back home?”

  “I don’t know,” Micah said. “I don’t like thinking about it.”

  “No, I mean if it were just another day and we weren’t where we are right now, just hanging out at the diner or watching a movie, what would they be doing right now?”

  He thought for a moment. “Well, mom would probably be out with Steve.”

  “Which one’s Steve again?”

  “The one that was in the Army. He works construction now.”

  “Oh, yeah. He seemed nice.”

  “Mom seems to like him. Like a lot.” He scratched his beard the way he always did when something was bothering him. “I think they might get married.”

  “That’s a good thing, right?”

  He shrugged. “He plays WOW more than I do.”

  Chris shook her head.

  “World of Warcraft,” he explained.

  “You play World of Warcraft? You never told me that.”

  His face flushed and Chris knew he was embarrassed and not just sunburned.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t want you to think I was a nerd.”

  She smiled. “Oh, it’s way too late for that.”

  He grinned back at her and nudged her affectionately with his elbow.

  “Seriously, though,” she said, “there’s nothing wrong with it. I would’ve liked you anyway.”

  She looked straight ahead as she said it, not daring to look down at the glass below and certainly not at Micah.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “What about me what?”

  “Your mom? What would she be doing right now?”

  “That’s easy,” she said. “She’d be working in the yard. If a storm came through she’d be outside picking up the sticks that blew out of the trees. Then, later tonight, she would light the pile of them and have a bonfire.”

  “And we would have S’mores.”

  “Oh, definitely.”

  Chris felt a deep ache in her chest. She’d thought about home a lot while they had been gone but never missed it quite as much as she did at that moment. She prayed that someday she and Micah would see it again.

  * * *

  Chris turned over for the fiftieth time that night. Sleeping on a mirror wasn’t exactly comfortable. She didn’t understand how Micah and The Fly did it. They were lying still, both in a deep sleep. When it got really quiet Chris even thought she could hear The Fly snoring a high-pitched buzzing kind of snore. When she went to turn over for the fifty-first time she finally gave up, accepting the fact that she just wasn’t going to get to sleep that night. The mirrors hurt and she had too much on her mind, namely that she was going to have to kill Leroy. Chris patted her skirt, feeling for the dagger yet again when she heard the soft trill of a flute. Its song was in a minor chord, slightly dissonant and sad.

&
nbsp; “Hello?” she said.

  Micah rubbed his nose with his hand and turned to face away from her. Not wanting to wake anybody up, Chris followed the faint tune and its warbling beauty. When she crested the hill, she saw a dark blob in the distance. A hand reached up from it, beckoning her. She opened her mouth to tell Micah and The Fly but nothing came out. The note the blob had been holding finally resolved and a slow, mesmerizing melody took its place. Chris gathered her senses enough to try to call out again, but she was interrupted by the black mass.

  “Christina,” it said. It sounded like her mother. “Come here, sweetie.”

  The song seemed to be reaching out to her, and Chris could feel the notes gently guiding her forward. She was pulled by a “C,” led by a “G.” She had to see what was making the music. It folded around her, the same sensation she’d had when her mom had wrapped her in a towel after a bath when she was little, that feeling of warmth and safety.

  Chris didn’t see where the glass ended and the water began. One minute she was walking on a solid mirror, the next she was swimming. The water was so still the night sky was perfectly reflected in it and she could barely discern the ripples where she disturbed the universe around her. She swam until her arms began to burn, the heavy dress weighing her down. The music tugged her through the water, pulling her back to the surface whenever she went under. She was swallowing whole solar systems by the time she reached the island. Chris grabbed the slimy black root of a tree and used the last of her strength to pull herself back onto dry land.

  She lay there a while, sputtering and coughing. The black glob she had seen at a distance was actually an island. Moss dripped from the trees’ branches. Everything smelled of decay.

  “Get up, Christina,” the voice called. “Get up and come to me.”

  Chris struggled to her feet, her muddy shoes slipping on the bank. She grabbed onto a branch at the last second and it snagged her dress. Something moved in the water. Who knew what was down there. Maybe a monster of some sort. Something that would tear her to bits and not think a thing about it.

  The music started to get louder and Chris felt her heart begin to push her blood through her veins super slow, almost molasses-like. She walked toward the melody, pushing the shadowy vines that draped along her path aside. A mosquito bit her cheek, and she listened to its high-pitched giggle as it flew away.

  What the hell is this place?

  Brushing the last veil of vines out of her path, she could finally see what had been making the music. Squatting near a fire were a couple of toad-faced people. Their oversized heads peeked out from underneath the hoods of their long black cloaks.

  “Join us,” Toad One said, sounding for all the world like Chris’s mother.

  “We won’t bite,” said Toad Two. This one sounded masculine. He put the panpipe he had been playing down on the rock next to him. Chris struggled not to walk over and touch the instrument. She could still feel it reeling her in. Finally, she was able to tear her eyes away from it and she took a seat on one of the large smooth stones that circled the fire. Maybe she could snag the panpipe when neither of them was looking.

  “Who are you?” she asked, licking her lips. She had to tuck her hands under her legs to hide their shaking.

  Toad One spoke up first. “Oh, no one special, dear.”

  “Too true,” said Toad Two. “But you are on quite the mission, aren’t you? Speaking from experience, those Swampers aren’t to be trifled with. What a task for a young woman to have to undertake!”

  How did they know all of this? Deep inside, Chris knew everything about the island and its occupants was wrong. She knew she should leave, running, screaming for her life. But the panpipe had her anchored.

  “You’re in the in-between place again, aren’t you?” Toad One said, all concern and warmth. A mosquito hung in the air near her giant eyeball, and she flicked out her tongue to gobble it up. “Isn’t the in-between the worst?” she asked as if nothing had happened.

  “Well, it’s…” Chris said. “Wait. How do you know all of this?” The question was muffled as if smothered by a pillow. She just wanted to hold the panpipe, see how it worked. She kept sitting on her hands so she wouldn’t make a grab for it.

  “Shh, shh,” Toad Two said. “That’s not important right now. You have an impossible task ahead of you. It must feel, well, overwhelming. Am I right?”

  Chris tried to ignore the sweat dripping off her nose. “You’re not wrong.”

  Toad Two nodded at Toad One. Just as he’d suspected.

  “Well, dear,” Toad One said. “we’ve got something for you then.” Her grin widened until the corners of her mouth almost met at the top of her head. She picked a silver cup up off the ground next to her and poured its contents into a small glass vial that she closed with a cork. The liquid inside glowed green.

  It was getting to be more difficult for Chris to resist the pipe. She had been shifting her body to face it while the toads were talking. Now she was leaning forward like she was about to do the fifty-yard dash. “I don’t know…”

  “Of course you don’t! That’s the problem!” Toad Two said. He croaked out a laugh like he had delivered an ingenious punchline.

  Toad One patted Toad Two’s knee lovingly and said, “Just give it a try, Christina. What’s the worst that could happen? You’re going to lose one way or another when all is said and done. Be with Micah and lose a friend. Don’t be with him and lose a love. Go home and lose Kellet. Stay on Kellet and lose your home. Use your magic and betray your lost family’s memory. Stay true to their memory and lose your magic… it’s all the same in the end. But this,” she said holding up the vial, “this can do nothing but give you a bit of clarity. No harm done.”

  The pipe was playing again. Toad Two held it to his lips, the underside of his chin bulging out then retreating, his deep bass adding to the song.

  The instrument wasn’t what was important here. It was the bottled magic across from her.

  Toad One held the vial closer to the flames so Chris could see it. She swirled the green within it, its shimmering light reflecting on her face. The toad’s features shifted in its glow, and suddenly she was no longer a toad. She was Chris’s mom smiling back at her. “Come on, honey. Take your medicine. You’ll feel so much better, I promise.”

  Chris finally recognized the melody Toad Two had been playing. It was the same tune she and Claire had made up for a silly nursery rhyme they used to love when they were little: “Sing a Song of Sixpence,” it was called.

  She recalled how she and Claire had laughed at the blackbird biting off the maid’s nose in the rhyme. Something about it was so comical. The maid was hanging out some laundry and a bunch of birds flew out of a pastry, one of them taking her nose with it. She never saw it coming.

  Chris watched Toad One swirl the vial, and as the last note rang in her ears the memory of Claire faded with it. Without realizing she’d taken the liquid from the toad, Chris tilted it up to her lips. The green juice poured into her mouth and down her throat, tasting like cough syrup. When the last of the music faded away she realized what she had done. Chris gagged, trying to spit out whatever it was she had just taken, but it was too late. The fire in front of her grew. The toads grew. Everything around Chris increased in size, even the vial she’d been holding. Soon the fire was a mountain of flame and the toads seemed to be giant gods staring down at her from Olympus. She looked up at them wondering why they would give her something that only served to make everything bigger. Then it dawned on her that everything wasn’t bigger. She had shrunk.

  Chris started to run, but Toad One was fast. Her tongue swirled down and snatched up Chris like a sticky tornado. It wrapped around her tightly and pulled her toward her face. Right before Toad One’s mouth closed Chris saw The Fly buzzing toward them through the trees, but he couldn’t save her any more than anyone else could.

  Toad One closed her mouth and all was black.

  CHAPTER 24

  Toad One’s breat
h smelled like sweaty man socks. Chris tried to get her bearings but her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark after looking into the fire. The thudding of her heart was still slow and loud, but after a while it was just background noise. Her eyes finally became accustomed to the dark as well. A weak green-yellow blinking of a consumed firefly lit the toad’s mouth every few seconds. It filled the cavern with the regularity of a blinking clock radio after a power outage.

  The firefly was on the roof of the toad’s mouth, way in the back. It was consoling the mosquito Toad One had eaten earlier. One of its thin black legs draped across the other insect which wept softly, pearls of blood dripping from its proboscis like tears.

  Chris walked toward the front of the mouth, the spongy tongue making her bounce with every step she took. Placing her hands on the lower and upper halves of Toad One’s mouth, she tried to pull them apart. Nothing happened. She tried again, really putting her back into it, still nothing. She felt for the dagger in her pocket but couldn’t find it.

  The tree… When she had climbed out of the water, it must have snagged her dress and torn her pocket. As if in confirmation, her hands went through the tear and out the other side. She couldn’t cut her way out.

  “It’s no use,” Firefly said from the back. “Nobody gets out of here alive.”

  The mosquito cried louder. Big drops of blood dripped onto Toad One’s tongue. Chris might have felt some compassion toward the bug, but she was pretty sure that was her blood it was dripping onto the floor.

  “There’s got to be a way out,” she said.

  “Believe me,” Firefly said while hugging Mosquito, “I’ve looked. I’ve been here for days, just holding on while she keeps bringing in more ‘food.’”

  “Then we could get out when she opens her mouth again to eat.”

  He shook his head. “Nobody gets out, I tell ya.”