8. The Edge of Insanity
The Edge of Insanity
Darien
E mpty air and a painful landing awaited Darien should he make one wrong step.
Balancing on the tree limb, he felt the world tilt.
His eyes snapped away from the ground and up to the apple hanging only a foot in front of him.
As long as he was facing forward, his balance would hold.
He stepped forward, trusting his feet to find their place, and plucked the honey-tinged fruits before tossing them below. A yelp paused his next drop.
“Hey! Careful, Darien!”
He risked a glance down, peering through branches to see Jon rubbing the top of his head with one hand and holding an apple in the other. He glared up at Darien before tossing the fruit into the overflowing produce bin beside him.
“Try keeping your eyes open, Jon. This is the last tree for the day.” Darien plucked another apple, careful to aim through the empty spaces between branches.
Jon mumbled something but caught the apple, tossing it with the others.
Darien climbed higher, hearing the moan of the tree limbs that threatened to break under his weight.
Being the most limber and slightly built of the field hands, Darien was always chosen for picking duty.
It didn’t hurt that he had the unnatural agility of a cat.
On the few occasions he had slipped, Darien had always caught himself at the last moment.
The other field hands refused to go any higher than their ladders could reach, but Darien wasn’t one to let something like gravity get in his way.
Darien hugged the trunk on these higher branches.
He picked every apple in arm’s reach, then stepped out to grab one more.
It was an unnecessary risk, but it wasn’t in Darien’s nature to leave any task unfinished or any question unanswered.
Or at least, it hadn’t been. But since his encounter with the shapeshifter…
A sight caught his eyes and arrested his thoughts.
A young, yellow-haired boy perched out on the edge of the branch, stretching out his arm to claim an apple just out of reach.
Letting go of the trunk, Darien stepped toward him, his mouth opened in warning.
Too late, Darien registered the sound of the cracking branch.
It snapped, sending Darien and the thief spiraling through the air. Darien shouted, scraping his hands as he caught hold of the lowest branch, his legs dangling like a fish at the end of a hook.
“Darien!” Jon yelled.
Darien grunted, his bare hands burning against the bark.
It was a beginner’s mistake, a fool’s mistake to forget gloves.
Hand-over-stinging-hand, Darien worked his way back toward the center until his feet found purchase on the gnarled trunk.
Using its grooves, he descended to solid ground and looked around for the boy.
Only Jon stood before him, his eyes scanning Darien’s hands. He whistled at the raw damage.
“Where’s the boy?” Darien asked, pulling his scraped hands out of Jon’s view. No need to make a show of his stupidity.
“What are you talking about?”
“There was a boy on the branch with me. Did you see where he went?”
Jon looked at him strangely. He’d been doing that a lot lately. “I didn’t see anybody else up there with you.”
Not again , Darien thought. There was no boy lying in the dirt of the orchard. Likely, there had never been a boy in the tree. Only in his mind, just like last time.
Jon hesitated at Darien’s silence and laid a hand on the younger man's shoulder. “Let’s just call it a day, okay? We’ve done enough.”
“Yeah, sure.” Darien shrugged off the hand. “Grab that bin, would you?”
Darien hefted one of the heavy bins, ignoring the sharp pain in his hands, and headed through the orchards toward the storage barn.
He could feel Jon’s eyes on the back of his head as they walked down the long rows of trees that surrounded the small farmhouse.
The deep green of the leaves would change soon to orange and brown as fall came, but it was this vibrant green that Darien loved the best.
He focused on the trees, ignoring the pointed looks that Jon shot his way.
Of all the farm hands, Jon was the only one who knew the truth about Darien and his parentage, or lack thereof.
If Jon knew that Darien was hallucinating, he would want to help.
Darien could trust him with anything, but he wasn’t sure what this was.
Not yet, anyway. It had all started with that dark-haired girl on the side of the road. Anara .
Darien’s bin of apples thumped on the ground of the barn. “I’ll go back for the last bin.”
“But your hands,” Jon protested.
“No, I’m fine, really.” Darien headed back toward the open doors. “Why don’t you start sorting?”
Darien fled before Jon could push the matter any further. He needed the solitude of the orchard, the familiar sweet smell of the apples, and the hum of bees to settle his thoughts. His hands shook slightly as he shoved them deep in jean pockets.
Ever since his trip to the Wall, Darien hadn’t been himself. Even Aagen had asked about his strange behavior. Darien told him an animal had run him off the road—he had to explain the truck’s damage somehow—but he held his tongue about Halla. More importantly, he didn’t say a word about Anara.
The truth was, he didn’t know how to explain it, not without sounding insane.
Darien could just imagine Aagen’s face when he told him.
A girl ran in front of the truck, and when I confronted her she changed into a woman.
Oh, and when her hands touched my face, they paralyzed my body and made me black out.
Did I mention she was gone when I woke up, and I’ve been hallucinating ever since?
If Darien couldn’t believe it, how would Aagen? Darien nearly convinced himself it had been an animal that ran him off the road and the girl a figment of his subconscious imagination. He would have succeeded, too.
If not for the hallucinations.
Figures from his dreams were walking beside him in real life.
Their bodies were blurred as if standing behind rippling water, but they appeared most often when he was alone.
They never stayed long. The boy on the tree had been the clearest hallucination yet, which was probably why Darien hadn’t realized it at first. It hadn’t taken Darien long to guess the hallucinations were connected with the girl he pretended didn’t exist.
Two days after the crash, his pretense had crumbled about him. Darien had been out in the orchards trying to ignore the hallucinations that stalked his waking hours by daydreaming about Larissa’s golden eyes instead. When he woke, he was not alone.
“Hello, Darien.” Anara leaned against one of the trees, smiling as though they were friends.
Darien had leapt to his feet, backing out of reach, her paralytic shock fresh in his mind.
She hadn’t appeared in child form this time, but rather, closer to his own age.
He waited, watching to see if she would shift again, wondering if she was real or just another hallucination.
The same ruby pendant, hidden slightly by her leather jacket, winked at him.
“What do you want?”
“Oh, good.” Her copper eyes beamed. “We can skip past the part where you pretend you don’t remember what happened and get straight to it.”
“What did you do to me?”
“I found her, Darien, and I need your help.”
Taken aback by the seriousness in Anara’s tone, Darien paused. “Explain yourself or get off my land.”
Anara covered her eyes, muttering frustrations. “Loki’s Knot. You still don’t remember. This is more complicated than I was led to believe.”
Darien stared in apprehension as the girl rubbed at her temples through her hair, unsure if she was waiting for his response.
She dropped her hands. “I can’t make you remember, but I can’t give you much more time either. I’ll be back soon, so be ready next time. Pack up whatever you need and make your goodbyes. She’ll need our help once we find her. I’m sure there are others already on their way.”
“Leave?” Darien stared at her, this woman who dared show up in his life and turn it all awry without any explanation. “Look, I don’t know who you seem to think I am, but I’m not going anywhere with you. It’s time you leave.”
She pushed off the tree, her long dark hair swinging behind her. “I can’t have you fighting me on this, Darien. I need you to wake up. I’ll be back soon.”
He opened his mouth to rebuke her claim, but then, from across the orchards, Darien heard Aagen call his name. He’d turned away for a moment, but when he turned back, Anara had disappeared. Darien nearly convinced himself she had been another hallucination.
He’d done his best to go about his day, to forget the urgent look in her eyes.
But his dreams grew in intensity and frequency every day since, bleeding into his waking consciousness, invading every moment until he questioned what was real.
The boy in the tree was his most recent hallucination, and Darien knew that it would not be his last.
With stinging hands, Darien strolled through the orchards toward the last bin that needed retrieving, replaying Anara’s promise in his mind.
I’ll be back soon .
Darien had no doubt that she would, but he didn’t know what he would do. She didn’t seem like a threat, besides the whole paralytic shock incident. He grimaced at the memory. Maybe he wasn’t the best judge of character.
The trees shook their baring branches at him as he passed by. Most of the trees in this segment had been stripped by the demands and quotas of the land. Their next delivery was coming up in a few days. Darien was looking forward to seeing Larissa again.