THE MARK Page 4

  “Micah and I are seventeen. You’re still the baby of the group.”

  Digs stopped walking and said, “Huh. Well, this baby just saved your boyfriend from losing an arm.”

  “Uh, guys?” Micah said from behind them. Christina held up her free hand and turned to Digs.

  “Hold on, Micah. I got this,” she said. She had lots of practice defending her friendship with Micah, explaining it to everyone else. “He’s not my boyfriend. We’re just friends. A girl and a guy can be friends.”

  “Guys?” Micah said.

  “You two seemed like a lot more than friends when you hugged,” Digs said.

  “Guys!” Micah yelled, finally getting their attention. “Look.”

  He pointed east, where the pale yellow light crept over the horizon.

  “You need to go,” he said to Digs. Chris heard anger in his voice.

  Digs searched the mountain range to their west, getting his bearings. “There’s another cave entrance about ten minutes from here. I’ll get there faster by myself. You two get some sleep. Then keep following the trail north. I’ll find you after sunset.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he ran toward the mountains.

  “What’s his problem?” Chris asked after he had left.

  Micah was already walking again. The candelabras’ lights were winking out one by one.

  “Let’s just keep going,” he said.

  “But Digs said—”

  “I don’t care what Digs said. We can sleep later. I want to get to the castle, find Megland, and just go home.”

  “I want to go home, too,” she said.

  “Okay, then,” he said, walking faster. “Let’s go.”

  She struggled to match his pace. Something Digs had said had set him off. But it was late—or, rather, early—she was getting tired, and something told her to just leave it alone.

  * * *

  Micah kept walking long after Chris suggested they stop, and even though it was almost noon she had yet to see a single structure break the monotony of the grasslands. It was just trees and grass, trees and grass, all day long. Micah didn’t help, either. He was uncharacteristically quiet, so instead of passing the time talking like they usually did they trudged along in silence.

  The bread they had brought with them didn’t go very far. Chris was so hungry she imagined that if her stomach could flip itself inside out to eat her other organs it would have. It had been at least four days since she’d eaten an actual meal. She needed rest and food—lots of food. She didn’t know how much further she could walk without them.

  It was midday when they saw a wavy clump of green ahead. The air in front of Chris’s face sizzled in the heat, and she hoped the lush cluster wasn’t a mirage. The trees had broad leaves and as she got closer she saw short green grass. She used what energy she had left to jog to the shade before collapsing next to a shallow pool to drink. Afterward, she kicked off her shoes and let her aching feet breathe. Micah drank from the pool’s cool waters then filled the sheepskin pouch that Digs had sent with them.

  “We should rest here,” Chris said. “I can’t stop you if you want to keep walking, but I need sleep or I’m not going to make it.”

  He screwed the lid back on the pouch and looked at her. It seemed like forever since he had done that.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, laying on his back. “I’m so tired. I just want this to be over with so we can get back home.”

  “Yeah.” She didn’t want to say it, but there was something that needed to be addressed. “What if we can’t get back, though? What if we get to Polaris and Megland doesn’t know what to do either? Do we stay here forever?”

  He thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know.”

  Her eyes were growing heavy. “If there was a way for us get here there’s got to be a way to get back. We just have to find it.” She didn’t know if he heard her. He was already drifting off to sleep.

  Chris gazed up at the leaves that hung like a mobile overhead. The sun only made their green tint brighter, and they reminded her of when, as a child, she used to shine a flashlight behind her hand to look at the redness, the translucence of her skin. Her mom had shown her that one night when Chris, Claire, and their mother had a “campout” in the living room. The three of them gathered under sheets tethered to the furniture. After her mom brought in microwaved S’mores they started telling ghost stories, flashlights pointed up at their faces for effect.

  “Look, Chrissy,” her mom had said, placing her flashlight underneath the webbing between her fingers. Chris saw the redness there, the thin purple and blue veins that made it possible for her mother to hold the flashlight, tie sheets to furniture, or braid her hair. Lying on the cool grass now, Chris recalled how it wasn’t the story of a murderer with a hook hand that gave her nightmares that night but images of her mother, blood red and transparent.

  As she closed her eyes she put the image out of her mind and drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  A snapping twig pulled Chris out of her dream just as she was approaching the gates of a castle with flaming walls, a sword at her side. She and Micah had slept most of the day. The sun was starting to set, the shade beneath the trees darkening. She was still tired but they needed to get back on the road so Digs could find them. The castle shouldn’t be that much farther.

  A twig snapped again, this time closer. Chris sat up, all thoughts of sleep gone. She searched the brush surrounding them. Micah was still passed out. She wanted to wake him, but she didn’t want to make any noise. What if it was a mercenary?

  The bushes next to Chris rustled and someone stepped out of them. Chris shook Micah. Hard.

  “Wake up!” she said. He was rubbing his eyes when she jumped to her feet. She grabbed the nearest thing to her, a branch about the size of her forearm. Chris didn’t know how useful it would be if she had to fight but it was better than nothing.

  “Who’s there?” She raised her voice to the figure that was emerging from the shadows. “Digs, is that you?”

  Micah was on his feet now next to her. “Digs, if that’s you just say so,” he said, his voice still rough with sleep.

  The person stepped out into the last traces of daylight. It was a woman in ragged, loose-fitting shirt and pants. Her head hung down, long brown hair covering her face. Micah automatically stepped forward.

  “Hey, are you okay?” he asked, reaching out to her.

  “Micah, don’t,” Chris said. She didn’t lower the branch. Something about the woman didn’t feel right.

  As soon as Chris had the thought the stranger raised her head and moaned. Her face was flaky and wrinkled. Her eyes stared ahead, looking straight through Micah as she licked her lips with a dry tongue.

  A horse burst through the trees, and Chris yanked Micah away before it could run over them both. The rider leapt from his saddle and hogtied the woman as if he were a cowboy at a rodeo. He was around Chris’s mom’s age, deeply tanned, wearing a sort of safari outfit. When the woman was suitably incapacitated he turned to Chris and Micah.

  “Now what in the hell are two kids doing way out here?” he asked, tipping up the brim of his hat. He took a look around and smirked. “You’re not doing anything you shouldn’t be are you?”

  Micah stepped forward but Chris placed her hand on his arm.

  “We were out for a walk and got tired, that’s all,” she said.

  “And when I fart, I fart butterflies,” the man replied.

  “Does it tickle?” Micah asked.

  The three of them stood there still and silent until, finally, the stranger’s face broke out in a wide grin. He reached over and slapped Micah once on the back. One of those good ol’ boy thumps she’d seen guys give each other. It rocked him forward.

  “Does it tickle,” he said, smiling. “Yes, indeedy!” He took a deep breath, then let it out slow, looking away. “You two need a ride? I got a wagon.”

  Chris peered past the trees and barely made out the shape of the w
agon in the dying light.

  “What are you going to do with her?” she asked, nodding toward the woman.

  “That Marked one? She’s going home, to Polaris,” he said then corrected himself. “Actually, she’s going to Polaris then she’s going home.”

  When Chris looked skeptical he said, “She ain’t hurt. Tell me where you’re going and I promise I’ll get you there safe and sound.”

  Chris looked at Micah. How could they trust someone who just hogtied another person in three seconds flat? And what about Digs? They should be meeting up with him now.

  “Not going to tell me, huh?” the man said. “Alright.” He took off his safari helmet and even in the growing darkness Chris could see the shock of white where the protected skin contrasted with the more jerky-like skin. He scratched his head. “Well, let me see if I can guess. You’re not going south cause there’s nothing there but caves. Can’t go west cause of the mountains or east cause of the water. So that really only leaves one way, right?”

  Fart butterflies.

  “Tell ya what,” he said. “You give me a hand hitching up the wagon and I’ll give y’all a ride north. How about that?”

  “No thanks,” Micah said. “Come on, Chris. Let’s go.”

  The man put his helmet back on. “You sure about that? It’s getting awful dark and there are more of these, you know,” he said, indicating the woman still on the ground. “Yep, they’re just wandering all around out here, waiting for somebody like you to come along. That’d damn near make their day.” He hefted the woman up, slinging her across his shoulder like a fireman. “Oh, and you’ve got another day’s walk to Polaris. So good luck with that.”

  He walked to his horse and lay his captive across its back, in front of his saddle’s pommel.

  Micah pulled Chris to the side. “I think we should go with him.”

  “What happened to ‘no thanks’?”

  “Another day? We need to get home. We can’t be out here for another day. Think about your mom, after everything she’s been through…”

  “I know what she’s been through, Micah. Don’t talk to me like I don’t.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know exactly what you meant.”

  “You made up your mind yet?” The man called out to them, leading his horse back through the trees.

  “You haven’t told us who you are,” she yelled back.

  “Me? I’m The Last Resort.”

  “Chris,” Micah said. “I change my mind.”

  “You know what? We’d love a ride,” she called out, not taking her eyes off Micah for a second. Last Resort or not, this stranger was their ticket to Polaris. Staying where she was and fighting with Micah wasn’t going to help anything.

  Chris strode toward The Last Resort’s wagon, Micah close behind. Thank goodness he wasn’t being stubborn and choosing to walk. She hadn’t really thought things through. Had he not come with her, she would have been riding away with a dangerous man. Alone. At night.

  “Thanks,” she said when he caught up to her.

  He just nodded.

  They helped The Last Resort with his wagon and soon they were back on the path toward Polaris. And one step closer to home.

  CHAPTER 7

  The sun hadn’t even come up over the hilltops when they reached a dense forest. Birds flitted from branch to branch chirping unfamiliar melodies. Then, just as quickly as the wagon had entered it, the forest cleared and standing before them was the first castle Chris had ever seen in real life: Polaris.

  She had thought it would look different. This whole time she had imagined they would arrive and there would be this gray stone keep, just one big building, like most of the castles she had seen in movies. But Polaris was a different beast altogether. First of all, it was huge. The outer perimeter was a massive wall that surrounded not only the main keep that sat on the crest of a hill but what looked like an entire village. At intervals along it were high blockish towers, and Chris could see the small figures of scouts patrolling the top of the wall between them. Smoke rose from a few of the buildings in town. Some of the villagers were already awake.

  The Last Resort drove up the narrow cobblestone road that ran straight through the heart of the village. As he passed, the few people that were out made way for him, some even averting their eyes. Micah tapped Chris on the shoulder so she would see the old man they were passing stopping in his tracks to kneel. Micah looked at Chris and she nodded. Yes, she saw it, too. What were they so scared of?

  Once they were finally out of the village the road broadened. Every so often they passed massive stone sculptures of kings, proud men wearing crowns brandishing swords. Then the statues of kings ended and different sculptures took their place. Chris shivered when she saw the stone versions of Swampers, their long arms outstretched like they were reaching for anyone approaching the keep.

  When they pulled up in front of the keep the sun had finally risen and its light revealed what couldn’t be seen before. The stones in front of her glittered just like the mines had. They were infused with the same minerals that shimmered blue and green, and they seemed to catch the very first of the sun’s rays and incorporate them into the walls.

  The Last Resort stopped in front of the keep’s southern tower. Chris and Micah climbed out of the wagon.

  “I’ll be seeing you two around,” he said before lightly touching the brim of his hat and driving away. Chris had no doubt he would make sure of it.

  Once they stepped through the tower’s door and were inside its walls, the light died away. Candles were lit here and there but their glow was weak and greasy, mostly smoke, nothing like the torches in the caves. Something felt wrong about the place. It was like Chris and Polaris were on different wavelengths. Her bones creaked and groaned with the dissonance.

  They took a winding set of stairs to the top of the tower and Chris knocked on the heavy wooden door. Everything she and Micah had been through—all the thirst, hunger, and fear—had led to this moment. If only someone would answer the door.

  * * *

  Chris was in a red world. She lay with her eyes closed, the sun shining through her lids. She was afraid that when she opened her eyes nothing would have changed. She would be out in the oasis, her arrival at Polaris nothing but a dream. And she and Micah had days of walking ahead of them.

  “You ever going to wake up?” someone said. A girl from the sound of it. And inches from Chris’s face because she could feel her warm breath on her skin.

  Rubbing the gunk in her eyes away, Chris asked, “Are you Megland?”

  “No.”

  Who answers a question like that? It would have been normal for her to say something like, No, I’m Abby. Nice to meet you. And you are?

  She was still groggy. Ever since her trip to Kellet it was like she couldn’t sleep enough. Chris fought to open her eyes then tried to make out the figure sitting next to her on the bed. At first glance the girl seemed angelic: long, blond hair, fuzzy around the edges where the sun shone through the narrow window behind her. She leaned forward a bit, and when Chris could make out the details of her face the illusion was shattered. In front of her was an ordinary looking person, nose a tad too large for her otherwise delicate features, eyebrows bushy with a couple of longer stray hairs. When she smiled some of the illusion came back, if for just a moment.

  “If you’re not Megland, then who are you?” Chris asked.

  “Hannah. You?”

  “Christina. Chris. Whatever,” she said, groaning as she sat up.

  “Which one would you prefer? Christina, Chris, or Whatever?”

  Chris wondered why Hannah was messing with her, but when she looked at her face she saw sincerity there.

  “Chris is fine,” she said.

  “Okay, Chris. Did you want to go down to the hall and eat lunch? I could bring you up something if you want. Megland said to look after you until she could come up herself.”

  “What hall? All I saw were stairs.”
>
  Hannah smacked herself in the forehead dramatically. “Of course you don’t know what The Hall is! You’ll have to excuse me. I forgot for a second that you’re from,” she lowered her voice, “another place.”

  Chris’s chest tightened. How much did Hannah know about her and Micah?

  “I’ve never known anybody from outside the Northern Kingdom,” Hannah said. “The king has all sorts of visitors, of course, but we maids never get to talk to any of them.” She took Chris’s hands into her own and asked excitedly, “What’s it like living in the mountains? Is it true there are wild trolls?”

  Chris felt she could breathe again.

  “Not so much anymore,” she improvised, and she fielded another dozen questions before Hannah stood and showed Chris the powder blue dress she was wearing. Chris couldn’t help but be amused at Hannah’s energy and enthusiasm.

  Just then the door creaked open and a woman with platinum hair pinned up in a bun walked in. One look at her green eyes and Chris knew who she was. She stood there for a moment, looking Chris over, before saying, “I’m Megland.”

  “Chris.”

  “Hannah!” Hannah said as if it were a game.

  Megland turned to the girl. “Would you mind running to the hall and getting her a plate? I’m sure she’s hungry after such a long journey.”

  Hannah smiled at Chris before closing the door behind her.

  “She’s a lot to take in, I know,” Megland said. “Hannah hasn’t been working here long. She’s still such a child, but she’s a good girl. I trust her. She can keep a secret.”

  “Good to know.”

  Megland walked to the slit of a window and looked out. “When Micah first arrived Digs sent word that he’d be bringing him to Polaris, that he came from a different world. Had anyone else said that I would have laughed in their face, but Digs isn’t one to make things up. And he certainly wouldn’t have risked his own life to bring you here on a whim.” She looked at Chris. “A Swamper brought you to Kellet?”

  Chris nodded.

  Megland sighed. “You are in danger then.”

  “I didn’t know what he was. It was like I wasn’t in control of myself. Digs said Leroy charmed me.” Chris didn’t know why she felt like she was in trouble. Even though Megland only looked a couple of years older than her there was something about her that felt like Chris was talking to an adult, someone far more mature.