16. Chapter 16 #2
Serich grabbed my hand to help me stay upright as I dropped down the backside of a particularly massive fallen log, but he didn’t release it as we resumed hiking.
The alcerin didn’t appreciate the lag in pace.
I don’t think It did either, but he restricted himself to a cross little snort and kept his words to himself.
“I’m glad we didn’t have to stay in that cottage another night.” Serich squeezed my hand, our slick palms pressed together. “I was worried she’d grow too used to your skin and decide she’d like to keep it.”
I hadn’t mistrusted Blathilde. I wondered if that made me stupid or na?ve or both, and I expected It to chime in with an answer as Serich and I climbed up and over another colossal fallen log, but he didn’t.
All he said was, Has the alcerin made you blind?
Watch out for that puddle, when my feet hit the earth.
I lurched back against the wet log like I’d been scalded.
Serich and I were suddenly surrounded by tiny ponds of molten silver, still as glass, rimmed in earth and moss.
They looked like starlight made liquid or melted-down diamonds, and offered no reflection as we skirted them.
The hair on my arms bristled as I surveyed a metallic horizon glittering with water.
Just avoid them, It said in a monotonous lull that I supposed was intended to soothe me. Keep going, just avoid them.
We moved slower now, our pace more deliberate.
I charted my course a few steps at a time and made a game of it, the way Livvy and I skirted the rain buckets clogging Lord Fletcher’s dim hallways.
Just something we had to do to get where we were going.
Did she miss me the way I missed her? I missed whispering to her in the dark of our bedroom when the howls kept us up at night; I missed how safe her hugs felt, how seen her unwavering gazes made me feel.
I missed helping her with her hair in the mornings, listening to her invent stories for her little siblings.
How she’d make me laugh with her impressions of Mary scolding us for something silly in the kitchens.
I wanted to tell her how strange it was, having a man as a constant companion.
How they smelled different, moved differently, how I sometimes felt Serich’s eyes like hands on my body.
I wanted to make sure she and her family were okay, that they hadn’t been punished in my absence for the crime of sharing houseroom with me.
I hoped she hadn’t tried to protect me at risk to herself.
I hoped she knew how much I loved her because I had the horrible suspicion I hadn’t told her enough.
I felt sick at the thought of never being able to tell her again.
And I said none of that aloud, but my mind wasn’t my own. It cleared his black throat and said I’m sure she’s fine. She’s done nothing wrong. And she knows you love her. You never made a secret of it.
Soon the puddles grew larger, burgeoning into impassive ponds.
I planted my steps more carefully, Serich a few paces behind me.
Looked left, right. Listened to the wood, which gave up no sound.
Kept my eyes on the best route around the maze of puddled water.
Did it have its eyes on me, too? I was afraid of what might be beneath its enigmatic, nonreflective surface, though nothing could lurk within it; the depth was too shallow. There was no conceivable way…
There’s nothing in the water, It said. It’s just an obstacle to move around.
The distance between each pond shrank. In a few instances, it was no larger than the width of my foot.
I stopped, when there was enough room to plant both my boots, to check Serich’s progress.
His feet were much larger than mine; he was forced to take a shaky leap to avoid twin ponds set too closely together, and for one horrible moment, I thought the toe of his shoe had kissed the water.
But then he landed beside me, the pond behind us serene as ever.
I grabbed the satchel slung across my back, twisting it around to dig through its pockets. The alcerin made us quick, not agile. Wulfsnare might lend dexterity to our feet.
“Take this.” I pressed a bit of the wispy gray herb into Serich’s hand and popped a chunk into my own mouth, chewing furiously. “I don’t like how close the ponds are getting. Blathilde said this can help with agility.”
I didn’t know what I was supposed to feel when wulfsnare delved into my veins.
All I felt was the funeral drum of my heart, beat-beat-beating in my throat, my temples, the pressure points at my wrists.
The alcerin was howling like a wolf for me to move but my brain was cautioning me to stay, and all around us, impassable water smirked from every direction.
Am I feeling as I should? I asked It. Has the wulfsnare taken?
I’ve never had it. I don’t know anything about it. I’m not human, I’ve never needed an herb for agility. You’ll have to take it on faith that the hag knew what she was talking about. Do you trust her?
Yes.
Then go.
I did, moving on tiptoe, mouth still gritty with wulfsnare, tongue veiled with the tang of incense. My eyes skipped around the puddles like a stone, mapping the course that looked friendliest. There were areas of land no wider than my thumb that I would have no choice but to take at a leap.
Jump.
I didn’t know if It or the wulfsnare had said it, but I listened. Acted. I landed on the ball of my right foot, my left following suit a moment later, every cord and scrap of sinew in my limbs primed and tightly coiled.
“It worked?” Serich called from behind me, marooned on the island of moss I’d just left.
I didn’t twist around to look at him as I called, “Just let it guide you; it must know what it’s doing.”
Like a dragonfly, I buzzed from pond to pond, nimble on my toes, my muscles oiled and steady.
It didn’t seem scary anymore but positively easy.
Serich flitted around behind me, the gentle thumps of his feet alerting me of his progress.
The ponds swelled ever larger, bleeding into one another as the earth sloped to the right.
A part of me wondered if they might soon form a lake.
But the alcerin didn’t care to dally over the thought and the wulfsnare had hijacked my eyes to chart the best route, so I didn’t bother checking.
I might not have looked at all had it not been for It tensing in his cell, his claws clenched around the bars.
Don’t, It said, when he felt my neck crane to find what he’d sensed. Just go.
I looked anyway.