Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
Asound wakes me from my sleep. I tug the blankets higher and roll over on the lumpy mattress. It’s dark in the inn room, but just enough moonlight streams in that I can make out a large picture on the wall.
Before my eyes, a long nose eases its way out of the painting, followed by a hoof. A massive horse head appears, eyes glowing red, and it’s obvious he’s coming to get me—
I jerk upright with a scream.
“What? What is it now?” Kalos’s cranky voice pulls me away from the horrifying sight emerging from the picture.
“Horse,” I wheeze, terrified. I point a trembling finger at the wall. “Horse is coming out of the painting.”
“Oh, by the High Father’s hefty ball-sack.
” Kalos gets to his feet and moves toward the painting.
My sleep-fogged brain is filled with fear…
and then confusion as he raps on the wooden frame and turns back to glare at me.
“This painting? This painting of a tree? This painting with absolutely no horses in it?”
“There was a horse,” I mumble, my heart still racing. “I know what I saw.”
“This is another one of your insane dreams, isn’t it?”
“Horse,” is all I manage.
He waves a dismissive hand at me. “Go back to sleep, o, sunshine-spewing martyr. I’ll protect you from the horses.”
Thank goodness. With that promise, I nod and lie back down. I’m asleep immediately once more.
I wake up to early morning sunlight and the sound of drums. Sitting up, I rub my face in surprise. “It’s morning? I slept all this time?”
“Did you?” Kalos sounds sour about it, too. He sits on a corner of the bed, feeding Dingle an ear of corn. “I seem to recall arguing with you about a horse coming out of a picture.”
I wipe my sleep-crusted eyes. “I don’t remember.”
“Of course you don’t.” He sounds pissier than before. “Your stress dreams are making my hair turn white.”
“Ha ha. Cute.” I smile.
He doesn’t smile back. “I had to clean up after the goat. You’re welcome.”
His crankiness rolls right off my back. I stretch, yawning. I feel pretty good. Crazy hungry, but good. The music I can hear through the walls makes me want to tap my toes, too. “It sounds like a party outside.”
“It probably is,” he says, like a surly old man.
I hop up and move to the window, peering out through the bubbled glass. I can’t see much of anything, but the streets look as if they’re filled with colorful blobs that move. People, probably. “Do you think it’s Gental down there?”
“The better question is, do I care?”
“Wow, you’re fun this morning. Everything okay? Do we need to talk?” I turn away from the window, glancing over at him.
“I am not fun, because I am the embodiment of Apathy,” he grits out, tossing the corn cob down onto the woven brush mat on the floor. “I have been sitting here in a small room with a bored goat while you snored. I fed him. I entertained him. I even picked up his shit because it stank.”
Clearly, he resents all of this, too. The look of annoyance on his face pricks at me.
It’s not my fault I slept for twelve hours straight.
I’m the mortal in this equation, and I’ve been running myself ragged trying to keep us safe.
There’s no need to take things out on me.
I know it’s the Apathy speaking, but there’s a difference between being exhausted with the world around you and just being a dick. I ignore him.
Music from outside floats through the air, and I can’t help but tap my foot.
I pull out my other tunic from my pack and sniff it.
It’s wrinkled and smells rank, but it’s better than the one I’m wearing, at least. I quickly change clothing, my back to Kalos, and start to finger-comb my hair.
If there really is a festival going on, it could either mean a lot of vendors or that everyone’s closed up shop to celebrate.
I won’t know which one it is until I get down there.
Humming to myself, I almost hope it’s the latter.
I wouldn’t mind a few days of having fun and enjoying a party.
I bet there’s good food and alcoholic drinks. Dancing. Merriment.
It all sounds so fun that I immediately want to be down there in the street with everyone else.
But we’ve got Dingle to think about, and the goat needs food and drink just as much as I do.
There’s a bit of old linen strips at the bottom of the bag, and I use one to tie my ponytail back, then tie the second in a jaunty bow around Dingle’s neck.
The goat bleats and tries to nibble on it, and I laugh and scratch at his chin.
“You have to look like a pet when we go out, buddy.”
“You’re going out?” Kalos sounds practically offended at the thought. “In all this?”
I give Dingle’s chin one last scratch and straighten. “Of course. We talked about this last night. We need supplies. We need clothes and food and weapons. It’s all very practical.”
“Which is why you’re humming,” he comments, voice flat. “And not at all that you wish to join the festivities.”
Even his dismal attitude doesn’t bug me. I check under the rickety bed, looking for my worn sandals. “I want to see what the festivals are about here. If it’s anything like home, there’s music and food and fun and I want to see what it’s like.”
“You weren’t chosen to be my Anchor because of ‘fun,’” he says in a scathing tone. “You’re not a fun person.”
That makes me stop short. I sit up and turn to look at him, miffed. “I can be fun.”
“No, you can’t,” he says firmly. “You have taken it upon yourself to be a martyr determined to nursemaid everyone you run across. You are perpetually cheerful and competent, even when it’s inappropriate. You are optimistic and determined, but you are not fun, no.”
For some reason, that hurts my feelings. I snag my sandals and grab the bag of coin, brimming with irritation at him. I fling the door to our room open. “You know what? Fuck you. Stay here, then. I’m going to go join the party.”
“You can’t go very far,” he calls laconically after me. “We’re tethered—”
“Then I’ll party on the doorstep,” I bellow and slam the door behind me.
I storm down the stairs with my sandals in hand, and as I do, I practically seethe with irritation at Kalos’s attitude. How dare he say I’m not fun? I was fun back home! I did fun things! I…
I try and think of the exciting things I did.
The reckless, fearless, daring actions I’d taken.
All of the things I can think of seem to be from early years of high school, and I’m twenty-seven.
I went out drinking with high school friends, and snuck into movies, and stayed up late playing video games…
but that was before my parents died and David took over as my guardian.
After that, it was part-time jobs to bring in income, and night classes to squeeze in some college education.
I think of the friends in class that would invite me out, only for me to inevitably decline.
I needed to get home to take care of David, or I’d have to run errands.
I remember the looks on their faces, and they’d stop asking when they’d realize I was never going to join them in being young and carefree.
And as time wore on and I continued to take classes here and there, I grew older than everyone else, and my classmates stopped wanting to hang out with me.
Everyone my age had jobs or families. My friends from high school had long forgotten me, and even when I was invited somewhere, there was always another shift I needed to pick up, because having the money for food became far more important than going out for a few drinks after work.
How could I go to a movie and unwind with buddies when David was at home with his head hung over the toilet?
Or so weak he couldn’t get out of bed and needed someone to take care of him?
So no, I haven’t been fun. Not in a long fucking time.
A martyr determined to nursemaid everyone you run across.
That one hurts. It hurts because it’s so close to home. Haven’t I traded being David’s nursemaid for being Kalos’s?
But…I loved David. I took care of him because he needed me. Because if you can’t depend on family, who can you depend on? I don’t love Kalos. At this moment, I don’t even particularly like him.
I get to the bottom of the stairs, and some of the despair and sadness I’m feeling washes away from me.
The music is loud here, coming through the walls of the inn, and I can hear cheery drumbeats and cymbals and what sounds like a horn of some kind.
The windows of the inn have been thrown open, and outside I can see people everywhere in the streets, waving colorful ribbons and dancing about. It looks like a parade.
Why shouldn’t I join them? I can have fun for once.
I briefly think about going upstairs and retrieving Dingle. Retrieving Kalos, too. Making them both come with me.
Instead, I’m drawn to the door, to the fun they’re having outside.
A vendor dances past with a tall pole, round loaves of bread spitted upon it, bobbing through the air above his head.
Behind him, a woman with a tambourine twirls in a pink skirt, her hair done up with flowers.
She tosses a handful of flower petals into the wind, and they drift, fluttering in the sky.
I step outside and join the revelers.
Perhaps it’s the sunlight, or the fact that there’s not a single mosquito or black fly or swamp anything in this town. Perhaps it’s the music or the flowers, or the friendliness of the people, but I’m having the absolute best time.
Someone hands me a mug full of beer and I drink it without a second thought.
I eat everything I see, some of it handed to me by revelers sharing the wealth, and some of it purchased from wandering vendors, of which there are dozens.
I dance and I sing, even though I don’t know the songs, and the streets are filled with hundreds just like me, who want to do nothing more than to celebrate and have an amazing time.