5. The Blood Doesn’t Stop at The Hand
DESDEMONA
The orphia can channel one another, but the power gained can only be used to perform submagic. Channeling from your species is much more potent. In the end, the power will go back to its rightful keeper.
– INTRO TO SUBMAGIC FOR AGES 6-10
Ifound a little river in the mastick and I’ve spent hours there every day for the past three days. At least I know I can open a portal back to Aralia’s room, but tonight’s venture will be a little more dire.
Aralia offers me clothes and her magical blusher again before the party. I’ve never worn something so nice into the woods. A black skirt and a shirt with puffy sleeves. The fabric feels unfamiliar, certainly one we don’t have at home.
Then she wipes black stuff across her eyelashes. I don’t know why, but I ask, “Can I try some?”
She holds up the tube. “Mascara?”
I make a mental note that the black stuff on eyelashes is mascara. “Yeah,” I say nonchalantly.
Aralia hands me the tube. “Here ya go.” I follow what she did, but I don’t go as close to my eyeball as her. Instantly I look… different. My eyes are bigger, wider, a little more traditional. I smile a little; I look more like Elliae.
I should ask Aralia for more of these glamour things.
When she pulls a flask from her boot, I instantly think of Damien and his daggers. I try not to miss him. I’ll see him soon.
“Do you want some?” she asks me, holding out the silver flask.
“What is it?” I ask.
She laughs at me and says, “Vesi. Duh.”
I really shouldn’t drink, not when there is so much underway for me. But how could I turn down trying the drink while I have the opportunity? I can tell Damien all about it, how it compares to the rena at home. I’d like to know. So I say yes, and it glides down like nectar, nowhere as sweet but just as smooth. Nothing like rena. Good to know.
The forest at night could almost be the septic, except it’s a bit brighter thanks to the moon. There are some apala trees here. The light from the buds was the only light—apart from candles—that we had at night back home. It’ll be good to be back.
I spot Kai standing on a log, telling a story while his arms wail around him. Aralia hands me her flask again, and when I pretend to take a sip a little vesi trickles down my throat.
“You’ve acquired the prince’s favor,” Aralia says to me, her voice pompous in a way that I’ve grown to recognize as sarcasm.
“I guess I have,” I say. Too bad I’ll be gone tonight.
“It’s a shame he’ll be married before the end of the Collianth cycle.” She takes a swig from her flask.
“He’s engaged?” I ask.
“That’s what this party is for,” Aralia tells me. I worry I’ve been too self-absorbed these past few days if I’m missing important pieces of information like that.
I scan the forest for the most worthy candidate, the orphia—preferably Folk—with the least amount of wits about them to channel from when I hear a familiar—and droozed—voice call out, “Desy!” Kai stumbles around on his log—the perfect candidate. Powerful, droozed, and above all, I’ve gained some small amount of his trust.
Aralia gives me an infuriating look and ends it with a wink. I smile, even though I’d like to slap the stupid grin off her face.
“Desy, Desy, Desy,” Kai says, arms flailing more and more. When he slips, I end up catching him, settling him down on his log.
“This is your party?” I say to him, and his face falls.
“No. It’s Lucian’s,” he slurs and looks somewhere in the distance. “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy,” he says in a mocking tone. “He used to be my sister—I mean—he used to be my friend!”
“Oh,” I say stupidly. “I thought the party was for your engagement?”
Kai picks up a glass bottle—one I recognize because we make them in the welders’ village. My stomach churns. It says Moon Vesi on the label.
“Our engagement,” he mumbles.
“What?”
“Our engagement!” Kai shouts. “His,” he points, and I follow his finger right into the boy with the midnight eyes. “And mine.”
Lucian.
His name is Lucian.
“Oh.” It’s only now that I take in the state he’s in. Droozed out of his mind, trying to drink more, shoulders slouching, mouth flipped upside down perpetually. “My apologies.”
Kai starts laughing so hard I worry he might choke.
“Why are you laughing?” I ask him.
He looks at me, his head tipping back like his neck is fluid. “People prefer to say congratulations.” His head falls back, and he starts laughing again. When he’s recomposed himself, he drinks some more.
I put my hand on his, and when his droozen brain registers my touch, he looks at me. “Do you want to go somewhere quiet with me?”
I rub my thumb along the top of his hand.
He giggles, a goofy little laugh. “Yeah,” he clears his throat and says in a deep voice, “yes.”
I have to do this. I will never be able to fit in here. Will never be more than easily manipulated septic scum, and I’m okay with that, so why try to change it? Besides, these kids have had everything handed to them. I’m just giving him a real-world experience.
With his hand in mine, I help him up and feel for his essence. It feels like Damien’s, sharp and precise, quite different from the Air Folks. I take him through the quickest shortcut I’ve identified and can feel the vesi kicking through me, though not nearly as much as Kai, who’s stumbling over every step like he has two left feet.
“Desdemona!” someone calls—a familiar someone. I don’t want to turn around. I wonder if Kai could make us invisible with that dandy light magic, but there’s no way he’s in a state to do such a thing.
I keep walking, hoping she will just go away, take another drink, and forget what she saw. But three steps into my plan, I realize it’s a terrible one. I turn to face her. “He’s droozed out of his mind!” Aralia calls. “What are you doing?”
I walk back to her with Kai on my arm. Think, think, think. What to say?
“Kai asked me to take him to the river,” I say. “I think he’s thirsty.”
“Water,” Kai mumbles. “I do want water.”
“I’ll come with you,” she says.
“I got it, really.”
Aralia gives me a long, pointed look. “Why do you think I share a suite with Calista?” She grabs his other arm.
My plan has barely commenced and it’s already failed. I walk with Aralia, not having any other choice. When we get to the river, her hand brushes against mine and I make an effort to feel her power. Fluid and untamable. More powerful than your typical Air Folk. Perhaps enough power for me to use a little and get to Lorucille.
There’s a rock a few feet from me, big enough to knock her out with one hit if I use enough force. With Aralia holding Kai over the river, this is the perfect time. Slowly, I pick up the rock. It’s behind my back when she looks at me. She lets go of Kai, throwing him on the grass, and pulls out her flask and a joint.
“Want some?” She holds both intoxicants up.
“Sure.”
“So, have you smoked before or not? I don’t have any guesses, seeing as I’ve never been to Utul,” she sings her last words with a smile.
“I have not,” I say and copy her movements when she hands me the joint. “What’d you mean earlier? About sharing a room with Calista?” I ask and hand her the joint.
“It’s my job to watch her.”She shrugs. “I’m her advisor.”
“Is she really that difficult?” I say with a small chuckle.
“Her parents think so.” She takes a drag from her joint. “But no, she’s not that bad. She’s almost all talk. So, what were you doing out here?”
“My mom was taken,” I say, thinking on my feet. “I think whoever took her brought her to the septic, but Headmistress Constance won’t do anything about it.” I lean into her and whisper, “I think they’re scared of the septic folk, but I’m not, not if I can get my mom.” I take a glance at Kai. “I was going to channel some of his powers to open a portal there.”
“Okay,” she says.
“Okay?”
“I’ll do Kai’s job. Channel me.” She holds out both her hands to me.
“Really?” I ask, playing the part of the grateful disbeliever. When I don’t come back she’ll be worried, probably think someone took me, might even go to the headmistress unless she’s scared of the consequences. “Thank you!” I squeal and take her hands. She says something, but I don’t hear her over the rush of her power. I have to shake myself out like a corenth after a bath as it flows into me. I visualize home, the mirror I left through, and then I touch my hand to my reflection in the water.
A piece of the river turns black, then into my dwelling. I’ve done it. I’ve accomplished my biggest goal. I’m getting my life back. I jump through before Aralia can see where it’s taking me.
I come through the mirror dry and I call for my mom again and again before I take in the state of the dwelling. Our clothes on the floor, the only clay flower vase we’ve ever owned shattered on the ground. Holes in the orange clay walls. No one home. I run out, run through the little village, run through my home, right to Damien’s house. I slam against the door, pounding over and over. Janice answers and wraps her arms around me.
“Des?” she says, and I hear tears in her eyes. “You’re alive.”
“Why wouldn’t I be alive?” The words spill from my mouth.
She rips her hands away from me, holding onto both my shoulders, her dark brown hair tangled around her and stray pieces stuck in her mouth.
“Des?” he says, his voice filled with emotion I’ve only heard from him when we talked about his dad. Damien runs to me and Janice steps out of the way. His arms wrap around my waist and he’s twirling me around in the small entrance of his dwelling. His head is burrowed between my shoulder and neck, and I can feel his breath trickling down me.
I’m home.
I’m home, I’m home, I’m home. So where is my mom?
I catch my breath and regain my dizzy composure when he puts me down. I look back at Janice. “Why wouldn’t I be alive?”
“Oh, honey,” she says. “There was a corenth attack in your dwelling. We thought it took you both.”
“What do you mean you thought it took us both?”
Damien is looking at me like I am some fragile, foreign thing. Like I’m the glass we were never allowed to keep, and I want to scream.
“Where is my mom?” I ask.
Janice’s bottom lip quivers and she takes a step back. It’s Damien who steps forward and says, “She’s gone, Des.”
My breath hitches, and then it stops entirely. Like the air is being sucked from my lungs.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” No one says a thing. “Was there a body?”
“Des—” Damien begins, but I don’t let him finish.
“Was. There. A. Body?”
He swallows. “No.”
If I can, I will find you.
She’s not dead.
I look between the two of them, my heart shattering. I made it so close, I am home, but my mom isn’t. I have to go back to the dwelling, find something I can use to find her. Anything.
“I’ll be back,” I tell them both. “I promise I’ll be back.”
Damien pulls me into a hug when I try to run. “Don’t go, Red. Not again.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into his chest and pull away. “I have to.” I think of the red-eyed Folk before I plant a kiss on his cheek and am out the door. I hope he doesn’t follow and I wish I got to say goodbye to Elliae, just in case I don’t make it back like I promised.
I cling to the wall in my dwelling to keep from falling to the floor, until the only option I have left is falling to the floor. I rub my temples and hold my spinning head in my hands. Focus, I tell myself, focus. The room is spinning, and between the running and the panic, I am more than out of breath.
What a joke this is, to make it home and have the most important piece of it gone. I can’t believe I tried to run away with Damien as if my mom isn’t half of my everything.
I wish everyone in the preppy, stupid school could experience this. The heartache of losing everything. Those poised and pampered assholes have had everything handed to them their entire lives; meanwhile, the rest of us have to cling to the scraps we get that are so easily taken away.
My nails claw into the clay walls, and I manage to stand. I stumble through the room, but what I’m looking for I don’t know. Blood, hair, something to give me a clue as to what has happened.
The cruelest, sickest joke of an idea flashes through my mind. I’m not entirely sure I will follow through with it until my hand is on the only mirror in our dwelling and I envision the mastick and the river I just left.
Nothing happens. Of course nothing happens. Even my worst idea is one I cannot follow through with.
My back crashes into the wall, and my hand grips the memor stone around my neck, breathing harsh and heavy to keep the tears down. I pull too hard on my mom’s necklace and the chain yanks off my neck. I throw the necklace to the ground and my head into my hands and my hands into my knees. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
Then I am no longer in my dwelling.
I’m standing in the woods, high on a mountain where Mom and I lived when I was ten. I can tell by the puddles on the ground. It was the only place I’ve ever lived that had rain. Flames lick my knuckles, my fingers, and my mom is there. “Very good,” she tells me. But the flames don’t stay on my hands. I light everything around me on fire too. Even the wet trees.
And when I open my eyes, my dwelling is burning. The door opens and I tell Damien to run, but the Folk who walks in isn’t Damien. I recognize him, but I don’t remember his name, nor do I remember his red eyes.
“Get out!” I scream. “Get out, get out, get out!”
The man starts choking. He falls to the floor, and that’s when I see the most peculiar thing. The shadow of an orphia claws out from him, burnt to a crisp, covered in orange and pink boils, but it can’t make it out. It claws and claws, a few inches outside of the Folk’s body, before it starts to choke too, and eventually it falls to the ground with the Folk. Neither of them move.
I cannot swallow. I cannot move either, not until the flames lick my hair and I know there is no other choice but to try to run. Still, I can only crawl. I make it to the Folk and I pull his eyelids apart, just to be sure, and I see that his eyes are brown, not red. Then I put two fingers to his pulse.
There’s nothing.