CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Before, sitting at the table set with silver by silent servants had forced him into a semblance of civility. But now, surrounded by nothing but an endless sea of trees, by birds and beetles, Sy found himself unwilling to keep up the charade.
Especially not with Terrence. He was sure he was not the only one effected by the wild air, and though David trusted this boar, Sy did not.
“What are you doing out here?” he demanded bluntly. “Where are the others?”
“A fine hello,” Terrence returned. “David and Bertrand have wandered off for firewood. I, far more sensibly, am looking for food.”
“What of your wagons?”
Terrence stood up straighter. “Seems your companion relieved our wheels of their axles in the night.”
He must have found some sleep, then, for he had believed her to be asleep beside him all night. Light sabotage, indeed. He felt both amused and unaccountably defensive. “You’ve no proof it was her.”
“You’re right,” Terrence jeered, waving his hands. “Must have been the spirits.”
Sy winced. He couldn’t believe he’d let himself have anything in common with this creature. “I asked you where the others went.”
“Most of them took the horses and went home, but those of us left stuck together. You’ve always been a bit soft, so let me give you some advice. Safety in numbers. Keep yourself to the center of the herd, and you’ll be the last one standing.”
Sy folded his arms over his chest, impatient.
Terrence lifted his, acquiescent. “We were together, but then Claude and Aquila snuck off on their own. Sabina was with us too, but she disappeared.”
Remembering the distressed sound that had led Anya away, Sy felt his blood drain. Since he had little to spare, it nearly made him swoon. “And you didn’t go after her?”
“We tried, but she vanished,” he said, yawning. “We decided to make a camp and let her find us.”
“You seem to be taking it well,” Sy said through clenched teeth. “There should be someone there to meet her, if she finds it. She could be injured. Afraid.”
“Don’t worry your pretty head, Sylas. David and Bertrand may be back already. And I’m going back soon. I’ll have to.” Again, he yawned, stretching casually. “I’m exhausted.”
“The day’s barely half over.”
Terrence frowned. “It’s nearly sunset.”
Alarmed, Sy looked up. What he had taken for morning light was in fact late evening.
Impossible. He could not have been walking more than an hour or two.
Though the sun was in the west, now, it was still in his face.
Somewhere, somehow, he’d been turned around.
How long had he been walking the opposite direction?
He looked behind him, as if some explanation would reveal itself in the wash of leaves.
In the subtle wind, they waved at him.
Warily, Sy turned back to Terrence. “We should return to your camp. Quickly, I think.”
Terrence scoffed. “Afraid of a few songbirds? Did you know some of them eat meat? I saw one, pecking at a deer carcass. Foul. I’d have shot it, but my rifle’s gone missing.” As he said this, he eyed the shotgun with obvious avarice. “Think your country cousin knows where it went?”
Sy still felt strongly as if something was watching him. “Your camp. Is it far?”
“Pace yourself,” he laughed. “I was on a mission before you interrupted me. There’s an apple tree, just this way.” He set off, sure as any huntsman.
Haltingly, Sy followed. “Didn’t you bring any food with you? Those wagons were stuffed with it.”
Terrence looked at him with pity. “Sylas, that will run out.”
Sy closed his eyes to keep from rolling them. “Of course, but we shouldn’t eat anything from the forest if we don’t know where it came from.”
“But I know where it came from. The tree.”
Sy pressed his fingers to his temple. If nothing else, Terrence was proof good looks and old money could accomplish miracles magic could only pretend at.
“What I mean,” he said carefully, “is there are dangers here we may not fully comprehend. We shouldn’t take foolish risks.”
“Is that more of your Lady Rustic’s spirit talk?” Terrence laughed derisively. “I’d say it was part of her fleece, but she seemed to believe it. She found out about your indenture and ran, didn’t she?”
“Not exactly,” Sy murmured, shifting the gun on his shoulder, and realizing its truth as he said it.
She could have left him there at the table or taken his offered coin purse and run to another, guiltless.
Why hadn’t she? She was crafty. Did she suspect he intended to keep more of the prize than he promised her?
Had she suspected it all along? Another jagged piece.
Terrence was oblivious. “Claude and I have a bet, but since I’ve rescued you, you owe me. So tell me.” He leaned closer. “Does she scream?”
Sy stopped dead in his tracks. “Excuse me?”
“What else would you be paying her with?” He smirked.
“Dirt in her hair. Girls like that like to be roughed up.” At Sy’s stony silence, he clarified.
“Country girls. That’s what Claude says, though you know how he likes to talk.
But country boys do too, in my experience.
Just until they stop fighting back. It’s not their fault – fighting’s all they know.
Anyway, does she scream? I say she does. ”
“Do you know,” Sy said suddenly, “I’ve thought it over, and you’re right. Those apples are a chance too good to pass up.”
“I knew you’d see reason,” Terrence said brightly. “I always knew you were smart. Have to be, to come from your background.”
Sy smiled deferentially. “How magnanimous of you.”
Terrence accepted this as a deserved compliment, clapping Sy on the shoulder. “It’s alright; the right pair of legs will dim even the brightest mind. But those legs have walked off. They always do when they realize you’re not made of money.”
The apple tree that had excited Terrence’s interest was close, in a small clearing.
It was bigger than any apple tree Sy had ever seen, though he had admittedly not seen many.
Almost the size of an oak. It was far too tall to climb, but the ground around it was littered with fallen fruit, red as fat jewels.
It was beautiful, like something from a children’s picture book.
Even so, it gave Sy an uncanny impression, like something seeking.
Gaping. Like the lurking quiet in the dark, but more solid. An absence made frighteningly present.
Almost like the sound he had heard – or not heard – earlier.
If the tree itself was strange, there was something deeply unsettling about the clearing. Massive roots broke through the otherwise barren dirt at the base of the tree, bereft of grass or vines or even moss. Nothing else grew. No birds sang; no insects chirped.
Terrence picked a handful of apples off the ground.
With uneasiness creeping up his chest, Sy grabbed one, turned it over in his hands.
It certainly looked like a normal apple; almost picture perfect, like it had been cut out of a still life.
Perfectly red and shining, the skin unbruised despite the rough landing on the crooked roots.
The sound of flesh tearing turned his head. Terrence had bitten into one. White juice dripped down his chin. Sy watched him. He didn’t seem to suffer any ill effects and took another eager bite.
Still, remembering Anya’s warning, Sy set his apple back on the ground. He peered up into the tree. Though a slight breeze stirred his hair against his neck, the leaves remained perfectly still. As if crouching. Readying to pounce.
At his back, two figures emerged from the woods, carrying armfuls of dead branches. David and Bertrand.
“There you are. And Sy.” David stepped beside him and set the branches at his feet. He sounded relieved, but, registering the shotgun, his forehead wrinkled. “Where is your hunter?”
“We decided to part ways,” he lied, watching Terrence carefully. His eating had not slowed. Now, though, he clutched at his stomach as if pained.
“Apples?” Bertrand said happily. “Thank the skies; I’m starved.” Then, after a moment, he let out an incredulous, “Huh.”
“What is it?” said David distractedly, still frowning at Sy.
“Bit early for apples, isn’t it?”
“I found them,” Terrence replied, tossing his spent core aside and biting into another. With a grimace, he clutched his stomach again. “These wild fruits are odd. They taste…strange. Good, very good. But strange.”
David scooped one off the ground. Just before it touched his lips, Sy clutched his wrist, locking his arm in place.
“Strange in what way?” he asked Terrence, glancing at David.
“Strange like…like I’m satisfied and unsatisfied at the same time.” David returned Sy’s look; Terrence had never been so poetic. “Like every bite is simultaneously giving life and taking it away. Like I’m…like I’m eating myself.”
David’s muscles shifted in Sy’s grasp as his apple fell to the ground with a thud. Sy rolled it over with his foot. Still no bruises.
Terrence had finished the second apple, and bit into a third.
“Perhaps you should slow down,” Bertrand suggested. He set down his sticks, glancing warily at Sy, who kept his attention fixed on Terrence.
Terrence was not listening. Despite his words, and the way he gripped his stomach as if he were about to regurgitate what he’d eaten, he devoured the third apple with the enthusiasm of a starved animal. The three of them watched his strange behavior, rapt.
He stopped eating. He dropped the half-eaten apple and spit the white pulp left in his mouth onto the ground. Frantically, he ripped open his shirt.
In the center of his chest was a bruise the size of a fist. But the bruise was not the plum color of pooled blood. It was a sickly, turbid brown, the skin gone wrinkled and thin. Like the bruise of an apple.
Terrence pawed at his skin, as if to wipe the bruise away. The flesh wrinkled further under his touch. “What’s happening?”
“Something’s wrong,” Bertrand called.
“I feel strange.” As they watched, the bruise on Terrence’s chest grew, spreading, swallowing the entire center of his chest. “Someone help me!”
“We need to do something,” David said, reaching for his pen and jerking forward.
But Sy kept an iron grip on his wrist. “There’s nothing you can do,” he said. When David jerked his wrist again, he let go. But David stayed planted beside him.
Terrence pawed at his chest, then started scratching. When his fingernails touched the bruise, the wrinkled skin collapsed and peeled away like soggy paper. Inside of his chest was a white, hollow cavity. Small green worms chewed through the mealy flesh beneath his crumbling ribs.
He screamed. Bertrand paled and clamped his hands over his mouth, retching as he spun away from the sight. David pulled out his pen but stopped short of rolling up his sleeve.
Sy only watched.
The bruise and tear kept spreading, faster and faster, up his chest, around his throat, up his jaw. His screams became choked, as if his mouth was full of dirt.
“Shoot him,” David said. As if drawn from a nightmare, Sy started and stared at him. David’s eyes were transfixed in horror on Terrence. “Do it, Sy.”
Sy fumbled for the ammunition pouch, struggling to remember what Anya had told him.
Slugs and birdshot, slugs for killing big things.
Something about a safety? There are only so many ways it can work, he thought, his hands shaking.
Perhaps he would blow his hands clean off.
What would happen to his bond with Edgard then?
Before he had a chance to find out, Bertrand was beside him.
Firmly and carefully, he took the gun from Sy’s unsteady hands and plucked a slug from the pouch, depositing it and shutting the barrel in one motion.
With his crushed right hand, he held the barrel aloft, bracing the butt against his shoulder. With his left, he pulled the trigger.
Terrence’s muffled cries ceased as his body fell to the ground. As they watched, it disintegrated, leaving behind nothing but what looked like fresh soil on the exposed roots.
All that remained of Terrence shifted, stirred by the digging of the writhing worms.