~for July~
I'm doing the Daily 100 plus Camp Nano, in the hopes that I can get really motivated to finish revising Book Man. Sir was kind enough to let me extend my deadline to the end of July instead of the end of June.
Time to get my butt in gear and get some revising done.
(But I'll still be working on Chosen Grandma as well, obviously.)
BlueAfrica's Daily 100
230 posts in this topic.
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Okay, so. First off, here's a list of my goals for the month, in order of importance.
1. Finish this draft of The Book Man.
2. Write ~1500 words/week of The Chosen Grandma.
3. Write at least one review each day.
4. Revise the first 1000 words of The Chosen Grandma.
So with that in mind, I can count rewrites of Book Man scenes, new Chosen Grandma chapters, reviews, and rewrites of the first 1000 words of The Chosen Grandma as part of my Daily 100.
That gives me pleeeeeeeenty to work with. Ideally, each week in July will go like this.
Mon - Tues: write this week's installment of Chosen Grandma
Wed - Sun: rewrite as much of Book Man as possible
daily: write at least one review
spare time: work on 1000-word revisions
(The first 1000 words of Chosen Grandma isn't due until the end of August, so it's just kind of an extra thing to write if I'm done with my weekly LMS installment and have gotten ahead on/done with Book Man. I just want to work on it now so I've got plenty of time to get feedback before turning in a final copy.)
So! I'll probably mostly post new Chosen Grandma writing and Book Man rewrites, not reviews. But those are all the things that will help me achieve my current writing goals. -
Day 1: Book Man rewrites (1946 words)
Spoiler
Narodnaya’s voice followed them for a long time after she had vanished, ringing in their heads even as the mountain range and forest neared. By the time they reached the treeline, the sun was setting and their damp clothes chilled them. At least they wouldn’t have to spend another night on the bog.
Without having any idea what Glasswood looked like, Christian knew this wasn’t it. The trees had unnaturally straight trunks, matte black, which stabbed into the sky higher than trees had any right to be.
“They look like lampposts,” Sarah said.
Poorly maintained lampposts, Christian thought. A wave of homesickness swamped him. Cherry Street with its gleaming streetlamps that bathed his house in warm yellow light. Here the sun couldn’t cast anything better than a dim, reddish glow.
The canopy was a tangle of black boughs and twisted black leaves like iron scrollwork. No wonder the sun couldn’t break through, Christian thought as he craned his neck for a better look. Then he noticed that the source of light wasn’t the sun. Glowing bulbs in the shape of peaches studded the canopy.
“Maybe they are lampposts,” he said. “Or are they trees?”
“And why can’t they be both?” a voice boomed overhead. He and Sarah jumped violently.
Perched on a branch far above, swinging her feet, was a rotund woman. At least, Christian thought from the voice that she was a woman. The red bulbs (fruits?) reduced her to a paunchy silhouette. She flung herself from the branch and scurred down the groove black trunk like a clanky squirrel.
Even after she had planted her booted feet on the forest floor, details of her face remained a mystery: she wore an enormous scarlet welding mask. Leather encased the rest of her impressive girth, leather so thick it might have been made of rhinoceros hide.
“It’s close-minded fools who can’t see the beauty of duality,” she barked. Christian and Sarah winced. Evidently, she had only one volume. “The trees are lanterns. The lanterns are trees. Are you simpletons?”
She raised the welding mask, and Christian stepped back hastily. Beneath the mask, her face was a patchwork of grey skin that looked like bits of old metal fused together—except her cheeks, which shone ruddy like the fire of a bellows. Her eyes were bright blue and round and glittered like sapphires.
“Where did they come from?” Sarah asked. Christian expected the strange woman to call them simpletons again, but she didn’t.
“I grew them, of course! Planted each one with my own hands, from young lamplings out of the Great Iron Forest. Of course, it takes quite the black thumb to coax them into growing so tall and producing such fine fruit.”
As if in response to her words, the trees waved their leaves like tiny hands. Metal clanged musically throughout the forest.
The woman chuckled. Her laughter clanked, too. “Modest, aren’t they? They get so embarrassed when they think I’m flattering them. What they don’t understand is that I’m always flattering myself.”
“But who are you?” Christian asked. Cold, lost, and aching, he swam in a haze of befuddlement over this odd forest and its equally odd, incredibly loud inhabitant.
Her eyebrows crept up her forehead until they seemed in danger of flying off. They were thick, metallic grey, and perfectly regular.
“Why, the Metalworker, of course. I can see you’re not from around here.”
She emphasized you’re as if to indicate that anyone of any importance at all would’ve known exactly who she was. Her sapphire eyes glittered as he glanced between him and Sarah, awaiting some sign of recognition.
“Of course we’re not from around here,” Sarah said. “We’re not even from this world, or planet, or whatever you want to call it.”
The Metalworker stared at her in surprise for a minute and then burst into clanky laughter.
“Not from this world? Well!” She wiped her eyes, though Christian could see no tears in her eyes. “The very idea. You must be daft.”
Christian kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. Her booming voice made his head throb.
“I am not,” Sarah snapped. “And neither’s he. But we’re parched and exhausted and half-starved, not to mention lost. So if you—”
“Of course, they say Goblin fled this world for another.” Amazing how her voice thundered even when it seemed she was talking to herself. She elbowed Sarah (who did not look pleased about it) and spoke in a conspiratorial boom. “But you know what I think is that Neva had him executed and doesn’t want anyone to know. That’s where all this ‘other worlds’ nonsense comes from. If Goblin is in another world, I can tell you which one: the Great Hereafter!”
“Yeah, all right,” Sarah said, stepping closer to Christian to avoid further elbowing. “But we’re really—”
The bellows-fire in the Metalworker’s cheeks dimmed.
“Hard to believe he turned out so bad. Always a good lad, Goblin was, for all the mischief he got up to. Good with growing things.” She paused, her face as grey and sober as an overcast sky. Then her cheeks flared up again, and she chuckled. “Nearly as good as me, but he could never catch up. I’ve nearly a thousand years’ experience on him. With lampposts, that is. Never could get those nasty old greenleafs to take. With lampposts, now—”
Sarah sighed.
“Come on,” she muttered to Christian. They headed deeper into the lampposts, leaving the Metalworker to her prattle. Christian felt a little bad for their incivility, but only a little. It didn’t seem like there would’ve been a way to escape her politely, not when she cut them off every time they spoke! And that after scaring them half to death and calling them simpletons and saying they were daft. They’d find their own way through the lampposts.
His stomach whined. They’d find their own food, too. He’d never been one for camping, and he had a terrible sense of direction, but there was Sarah. She was a police detective. She was bound to be good at all those tough, outdoorsy sorts of things, right?
They’d been walking for a long while, Sarah’s head bobbing left and right as she took in their surroundings, when finally she said, “What the hell are you supposed to eat in a forest of lampposts?”
It was true, Christian realized. It wasn’t like they were out in the wilds of Scotland. Everything was made of iron, probably, anyway, except maybe the strange reddish fruits. Bulbs. Whatever they were. He wished they’d thought to fill up on cranberries back on the bog. Now he wasn’t sure which direction the bog was. He opened his mouth to ask Sarah but then decided against it. If she didn’t know, either, they were well and truly lost. He didn’t want to know. Was bog water safe to drink? He didn’t know that, either.
“There’s bound to be water around here somewhere,” Sarah said a while later. Christian didn’t reply. His mouth felt like cotton and tasted like a sewer. He hoped she was right, kept hoping she was right, but maybe iron trees didn’t need water—maybe water made them rust. Maybe there was no water in the entire forest.
Why had they ever come to this wretched place? he wondered miserably as the day wore on, forgetting they hadn’t come by choice. The sun appeared to be setting outside the wood. The reddish fruits brightened overhead like streetlamps at the deepening of dusk, but they hadn’t found food or water and had come no closer to finding Liza.
“What I wouldn’t give,” Sarah said, yet a while later, “for some splintery old wooden trees and a fire.”
“And some food to cook on it,” Christian rasped. It was the first time he’d opened his mouth in hours. He barely got the words unstuck from his throat. Sarah stopped walking and looked at him.
“You sound awful,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, too, but not as bad as his. “We need to find water.”
“Maybe there isn’t any.”
“There has to be. Come on.”
He lagged behind as they kept walking. She seemed tireless, marching through the lampposts as if she knew exactly where they were going. He wished he had a bicycle. He’d cycle right on out of this horrible forest.
His stomach gurgled more belligerently as night crept up on them, but the forest seemed devoid of anything edible. New plants appeared, each as inedible as the last. Wrought-iron vines twisted up tree trunks or wove together into statues. Clusters of rubies, emeralds, tourmaline, and opal hung from golden shrubs. Silvery stalks with flowers of beaten copper sprouted at the bases of trees and rocks.
“Wow,” Sarah said, stopping just long enough to rub a golden leaf between her fingers. “We could buy enough food for a year with a handful of this crap, if there was anywhere to buy it.”
She noticed Christian doggedly dragging after her and stood up straight, waiting for him to catch up. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, too tired and thirsty to answer. She gave a small smile.
“Not used to this kind of thing, eh?”
“I cycle,” he managed to say. “But. I always take water.”
She made a face. “Yeah, I’m sort of dying here. We’ll find some water, okay? We will. I promise.”
“I know,” Christian said, even though he didn’t. They walked on.
He didn’t like the vines. At first he’d thought they had grown into laced iron statues of birds and beasts, or twisted around the lampposts. But as he saw more and more of them, he realized they hadn’t grown that way; they were growing that way, now, noticeably, all around. Tendrils crept along the forest floor, snaking up the lampposts, stopping their silent creeping to twist around as if watching their journey. He shivered and hurried along, trying to keep close to Sarah.
It was long after nightfall when they finally found water. The bulbs in the trees glowed brightly as ever. Something owlish sounded in the distance, less a hoot than a metallic grating like a rusted scissors-lift.
“Here,” Sarah said. She reached the river first but waited, squatting on the riverbank to guide him to the water. He blushed was glad she’d done so; he felt ready to fall down and was pretty sure he would’ve fallen right into the water if she hadn’t had a hand on his shoulder. “It looks all right to drink.”
Christian stuck his hands in the water and slurped noisily, too thirsty to feel embarrassed. The water was freezing cold and made his teeth ache, but he didn’t care. When he’d drunk his fill, he rolled over onto his back and stared up through the iron canopy while Sarah took her turn. He caught a glimpse of the night sky through a gap in the leaves.
Sarah sighed deeply and sat back on her haunches.
“Thank God,” she said. Then she laughed.
“What?” Christian asked.
“Look at you,” she said. “Your shirt’s a mess.”
He glanced down and saw rusty leaf litter staining his shirt orange where he’d lain on the riverbank. He looked back up and pointed at Sarah with a tired grin.
“Your shirt,” he said. She looked down and laughed again, brushing away the rust coloring her own shirt, and Christian laughed, too, and they laughed and laughed over nothing at all, laughed until their throats were so raw and dry that they had to stop and drink more water. Then, exhausted and drunk from laughing, they flopped back in the rusty leaf litter and fell asleep side by side. -
Day 2: 1000 word Chosen Grandma rewrites (135 words)
(I'm going to keep struggling with this until bedtime, but I'm posting this now since it's over 100 and I don't want to forget.)Spoiler
Chapter One
In which Edna Fisher is bored with Bingo, becomes the Chosen One,
and leaves the nursing home for better things.
The wizard came to the nursing home on Bingo Day. He appeared with a small pop! in the middle of the cafeteria, jerking the seniors from their stupor. Delighted whispers filled the room as they wondered why a wizard would show up here, of all places, and tried to remember how long it had been since they’d last seen one.
It was the whispers Edna noticed. She’d been knitting under the table so Jeanine wouldn’t see, but she looked about at the sudden noise.
“Oh, my,” she said, pausing in her knitting. “My, my.”
A wizard! A real wizard, with those silly purple robes they all wore and a fluffy beard to boot. -
Day 3: The Chosen Grandma (836 words)
(Probably going to keep working on this, but we'll be out and I'll be crashing into bed when we get home, so no posting later on.)Spoiler
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In which, I dunno yet, some stuff happens. FIX THIS LATER, WOMAN. DON’T FORGET THIS TIME. <oops, yeah, you can see I haven't fixed that yet. Ah, well. Before I publish, for sure.
Edna awoke in darkness. For a moment, she thought she was in her room back at Golden Years. Someone’s faint, wheezy snores droned across the room—Marguerite? But there was an IV needle poked in her forearm and various tubes and machines hooked up to her, all the things she didn’t like about hospitals even though she knew they were there to help. Perhaps she was still trapped in nightmares. Any moment now, she’d feel a blast of heat from dragon-fire, she’d see Percival’s grave—or worse, his face, gaunt and skeletal as she’d never seen it in life.
Funny. It didn’t feel much like a nightmare, except for the machines. And they weren’t even that scary. She listened to their soft, steady beeping and found it vaguely calming. And what was that weight at her side? Her hand fumbled along in the bed until she felt something round and furry. The cat. Someone had brought the cat into the nursing home. Well! Jeanine wouldn’t like that at all.
A sliver of light fell across her as the door opened. She tried to look around, but her head felt like an anchor. She wasn’t wearing her glasses, anyway. Her fingers tightened in Mittens’ fur, ready to beg Jeanine to let her keep him, just for the night…but it wasn’t Jeanine, she realized, as the blurry figure approached. It wasn’t anyone she’d ever seen before at all. It was a middle-aged woman with dyed red hair, wearing scrubs, and at the sight of her everything came rushing back and Edna remembered that she was in the hospital.
Darkness obscured the room as the door closed again, but a moment later it was chased away by a warm, dim light that seemed to come from nowhere in particular. The woman smiled and put a finger to her lips. She pointed across the room, where a girl with long, dark hair was curled up in an armchair, asleep. Edna peered about, trying to see whether Benjamin or Theobald Smith’s blurry forms were there, too, but it was just her, the girl, and the red-haired woman.
The woman busied herself with checking the machines.
“How are we feeling, Mrs. Fisher?” she whispered.
Edna didn’t whisper back so much as not have the voice to answer any louder. “Better, thank you.”
The woman nodded. “That must have been some fire. You shouldn’t let your granddaughter use magic on a bonfire.”
Granddaughter? Edna didn’t have any grandchildren.
“I understand the appeal, and at her age—I was just the same, in fact, ready to use magic for every little thing! But children really should understand the responsibility that comes with magical studies.”
Oh. She must have been talking about Clementine. Edna nodded, trying to look like it wasn’t news to her that she had a granddaughter.
“Not that I’m blaming you, of course,” the woman said. “Your son—”
Edna flinched, wondering how the woman could possibly know about Percival, but a second later she calmed down. Another fabrication, that was all. It was just those ding-danged nightmares. They’d gotten to her more than she’d thought.
“—your son tells me he’s done his best—he’s working on a PhD in space magic? And a single father, too. You certainly raised him right, didn’t you? Not that I’ve ever been interested in space magic, there’s a lot of physics involved and I prefer my magic pure. But when you come from a long line of witches—”
“Oh,” Edna rasped, “are you a witch?”
The woman smiled more broadly. “I surely am. Healing, that’s my interest—well, of course, or I wouldn’t be here, would I? Some of the other members of my coven think it’s awfully old-fashioned of me, but I can’t help it. I like helping people. Speaking of which, do you need more painkillers? I dosed you with some magic earlier, just a little so you wouldn’t wake up in a lot of pain.”
“My throat’s a little raw.”
“Of course it is. You breathed a lot of smoke, and hot ash, and—you’re really in amazing shape, all things considered, and your age besides.”
Edna couldn’t help herself. The woman was a witch, after all. “How old are you?”
The witch chuckled and sat on the edge of Edna’s bed. “Now, now. You know as well as I do that it’s not polite to ask a woman’s age. But I’m older than I look and a good deal older than you, you can bet on that. Now, let me take care of that throat for you.”
Edna settled back on her pillows. She should’ve been a witch. She didn’t mind the white hair and wrinkles and bad vision—she’d been near-sighted all her life anyway, and wrinkles, she thought, were a sign of a long life lived well.
But it’d be nice to have both her real hips and knees. -
Day 4: The Chosen Grandma (180 words)
(Had to do some revision on yesterday's but managed to move forward after.)Spoiler
And to—well, if she’d been a witch, couldn’t she have just made all that smoke suck itself right up? She could’ve saved the church, and kept the girl from looking so frightened and pitiable—she could’ve divined Theobald Smith for sure, found the right one on the first try, and gotten the sword before it was too late. The girl would’ve come too late, found it gone, and returned to wherever she’d come from.
Why, she wondered for the first time, why on earth had the wizards named her as the Chosen One? She was old and alone and she didn’t even know magic.
The witch ran her hands over Edna’s chest and throat. Edna resisted the urge to giggle, but a cracked smile formed on her parched lips. It felt ridiculous. The witch wasn’t doing anything. Just running her hands in the air. You’d think there’d be, Edna wasn’t sure what exactly, but maybe magical sparks or a golden glow. Something. But there was just a middle-aged red-haired woman in scrubs moving her hands along in the air. -
Day 5: The Chosen Grandma (1117 words)
(Scrapped and rewrote almost the entire chapter because False Starts Are Totally Fine When You're on a Deadline, Right?)Spoiler
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In which Edna learns more about her new companion.
Edna awoke in darkness. For a moment, she thought she was in her room back at Golden Years. Someone’s faint, wheezy snores droned across the room—Marguerite? But there was an IV needle poked in her forearm and various tubes and machines hooked up to her, all the things she didn’t like about hospitals even though she knew they were there to help. Perhaps she was still trapped in nightmares. Any moment now, she’d feel a blast of heat from dragon-fire, she’d see Percival’s grave—or worse, his face, gaunt and skeletal as she’d never seen it in life.
Funny. It didn’t feel much like a nightmare, except for the machines.
And they weren’t even that scary. She listened to their soft, steady beeping and found it vaguely calming. And what was that weight at her side? Her hand fumbled along in the bed until she felt something round and furry. The cat. Someone had brought the cat into the nursing home.
Well, that didn’t make any sense. They hardly liked it that she fed him outside. They’d never let him in. She felt like she ought to be able to figure out the answer, but her head felt like an anvil and her throat and chest like burgers that had been left on the grill too long. Everything was vague and fuzzy, which was at least an improvement over the nightmares, so she lay there stroking the cat and not wondering too terribly hard about it.
The wheezy snores died away. She heard the squeak of vinyl and the comfortable sounds of someone stretching. A moment’s hesitation.
Then, a whisper in the darkness.
“You awake, Grandma?”
The girl. Everything rushed back, and Edna remembered that she was in the hospital. She wasn’t quite sure her voice would work, but she tried anyway.
“Yes,” she croaked. Goodness, that hurt. Her throat was a desert. At least she wasn’t dripping soot out her nose and mouth, and she could breathe. That was something.
The vinyl creaked again. A moment later, the girl approached her bed. Her first impression was again of hair, although this time it was because her glasses weren’t on. The girl’s face was a shadowy blur, gently green in the glow of the machinery monitoring Edna’s body.
“You look better,” she said. “A little. I, um. I thought you might die.”
She was hugging herself, looking young again. Sometimes, Edna thought, it tired you out just to see how much younger than you everyone else was. Her parched lips cracked into a smile.
“Take more than that to do me in,” she managed. She was thirsty. She tried to turn her head, see if there was a glass of water nearby, but her head was too heavy. In the darkness and her glasseslessness, the machines were all she could make out anyway.
The girl seemed to know what she wanted. “Hang on.”
She slipped out the door and vanished into the hall. Edna’s fingers tightened in Mittens’ fur. All right, it wasn’t a nightmare. But where was Benjamin? Was he okay? Where was Theobald Smith? What exactly had they told the hospital staff, anyway?
Something hopped up onto the bed by her feet, and she about had a heart attack. Heart hammering, she raised her head half an inch off the pillow and saw a black, fuzzy thing padding up her stomach. Round eyes glowed golden in the middle of its face. She relaxed and breathed deeply, trying to quiet her racing heart.
“Don’t do that to me,” she told the beast. It had come all the way up to her chest and sat looking at her with its head cocked. Or its eyes, anyway. She couldn’t really tell where its head ended and its body began. It peered over her side at Mittens, nestled against her hip and still asleep. Then it stepped cautiously off her chest and snuggled up with the cat. Edna’s lips cracked into a smile again.
A sliver of light fell across her as the door opened and the girl returned, bearing a paper cone of water.
“Sorry,” she said. “I had to get this from a cooler, I didn’t see any of the nurses around.”
“Thanks,” Edna said, and promptly spilled half the water down her neck as she tried to take a drink while lying down. “Snickerdoodles.”
Without a word, the girl located some paper towel and mopped her up. Then she held the cup steady against Edna’s lips and helped her drink.
Lord help me, Edna thought. If I’m ever this helpless, just take me out back and shoot me.
She could’ve drunk a lake, but the paper cone was too soon empty. Now at least her lips didn’t feel like old pavement.
“Thank you,” she said.
The girl shrugged. Edna tried again.
“It was very kind of you.”
The girl blushed—at least, Edna thought she did—but didn’t say anything. Well, then. If she was going to be that way.
“I thought for sure you’d laugh at me again.”
The girl seemed unable to meet Edna’s gaze, but she pulled an armchair out of the shadows across the room and dragged it up next to the bed. Then she sat, with her legs pulled up in front of her. The black fuzzball stood up, shook itself, and hopped onto her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last.
“For which part?” Edna asked drily. “Laughing at me, or the fire?”
“Both, I guess.” A hesitation that Edna couldn’t read. The girl’s hair kept her face in shadow. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
A longer hesitation, a sigh, and a small voice that seemed meant more for herself than Edna. “Abuela would be so disappointed.”
She rested her chin on her knees. The black fuzzball nosed at her until she laughed and wiped her eyes on her arm.
“What is that thing?” Edna asked.
“Coral? She’s a cryptid.”
“A cryptid?”
The girl slowly unfolded and let Coral sit in her lap. The creature vibrated with a soft humming that reminded Edna slightly of a cat’s purr. “A monster. Basically. She’s not very scary. But she kept the other monsters from moving in under my bed when I was little.”
She added, a little begrudgingly, “She seems to like you.”
Edna didn’t know what to say to that. They sat in silence for a moment. Then the girl blurted out, “Are you really the Chosen One?”
The door opened. Edna looked around, hoping to see Benjamin, but no. It was a middle-aged nurse with dyed red hair. The girl fell silent and curled around her cryptid. -
Day 6: Book Man rewrites (1203 words)
Spoiler
The cat was kneading his stomach. Christian’s mouth curved into a smile.
“Stop that,” he said without opening his eyes.
The cat persisted. Strange that he didn’t hear any purring. Usually the cat sat on his stomach and purred so loudly that he’d lie awake until the alarm sounded. Annoying, really. But he couldn’t stop smiling.
“Cut it out,” he said. His bed felt awfully hard and scratchy, and his comforter too.
The cat continued kneading his stomach. He opened his eyes.
He was on his back in the forest of lampposts, lying on the rusty leaf litter. It was not his cat; iron vines poked and prodded at him. More of them had curled over and around him in the night. He struggled free, flinging them away with a cry. The vines recoiled and slithered off through the leaves.
Christian rubbed his eyes. He missed his cat.
“Morning,” Sarah called. She was sitting on the riverbank, dangling her feet in the water. Her shoes sat beside her on the shore. “How are we feeling this morning?”
Christian fell back into the leaf litter with a groan.
“Yeah, me too,” Sarah said. Iron leaves were tangled in her hair and clothes and left her looking generally rust-colored. Christian was pretty sure he didn’t look any better. She drew her feet out of the water, patted them more or less dry, and slipped back into her shoes. “We’d better get a move-on. The sooner we get out of here, the faster we’ll find something to eat.”
“Here, here,” Christian said.
“We’ll follow the river. That’s bound to lead us out eventually.”
That might have been true, but following the river proved harder than they thought. It was nothing more than a small stream, really, and it kept branching off into other streams as they went. They had no idea which of these streams might lead out, which would do so quickly, which might lead them to people, so they guessed as best they could and told each other that they were lucky to at least have a consistent, if someone metallic-tasting, source of water now. Christian did find it comforting. The stream was more musical than most to begin with, and a breeze would sometimes blow through the silver reeds lining the banks and sound like a chorus of pipers. And it was nice to at least have something to follow, rather than wandering aimlessly through the lampposts, even if you weren’t quite sure where it was leading.
Then, too, sunlight filtered in from somewhere. He couldn’t tell where, as there was no gap in the intricate black canopy overhead. The reddish fruits’ light grew dimmer and dimmer as the sun rose outside the forest. Although it was harder to see without the glow overhead, the light they had was clear and grey rather than the stuffy red light of before. It was so much less oppressive that it lifted his spirits. Several hours into their walk, his spirits rose so high he felt he might be able to fly right out of the forest.
“Look!” he cried hoarsely. He pointed, but he didn’t need to; a smile had already spread across Sarah’s face.
“Daylight!”
Real daylight, warm and blue. Their pace quickened the closer they got to the light, quickened until they were sprinting, and then, when the daylight was upon them, they skidded to a stop.
A bog stretched before them. Unless the lampposts were hedged by identical bogs on either end, Christian and Sarah had circled back around to the bog they’d left the morning before. There was the thick layer of sphagnum studded with evergreens and carnivorous plants, the cranberries hanging in shining clusters in the sun.
“Well,” Sarah said, “at least we can eat.”
They stepped out into the sunlight, squinting. A breeze ruffled the cranberry plants and the evergreen needles; a bird keened something shrill and thin in the distance. Otherwise, the bog was silent. That was fine with Christian. Sunshine, real fruit, and no sign of that marsh witch anywhere.
They sat on the edge of the bog, where the sphagnum and water met the forest floor, eating cranberries and not caring too much about the water soaking through the seats of their trousers. The more they ate, the less sure Christian was that they were cranberries.
“They taste like vanilla,” he said. “Underneath, I mean.”
“Like spiced rum,” Sarah said, and raised one in the air as if toasting him. “Cheers.”
When they could eat no more, they crammed their pockets full of as many berries as they could hold. The sun hung low in the sky when they finally stood, stretched, and heard the voice.
I told you to be gone.
Christian’s left foot broke through the sphagnum and sank shin-deep in the water below. He started to panic, but Sarah gripped him under the arms firmly and pulled him free.
“Thanks,” he quavered.
Narodnaya drifted overhead, surveying them with an unreadable expression. He couldn’t help taking a step back, almost stepping right into Sarah. The marsh-witch’s face was just so alarming, with its flat nose and sharp angles and grey-green skin.
Wait, no. he shouldn’t think that. She’d hear him.
He blanched as her eyes flashed. Too late.
I want you to leave.
“We were leaving,” Sarah said. “But there’s no food in that—did you know that forest is entirely made of metal?”
Of course it is. Everyone knows that.
“Well, we didn’t,” Sarah said, somewhat crossly. The marsh-witch’s everyone rang with the same disdain the Metalworker’s you’re had. “We haven’t got forests made of metal where we come from.”
“We didn’t mean to come back,” Christian said. He appreciated the fact that Sarah took charge so easily—it saved him having to, God knows he didn’t want to—but he was afraid she’d get too snappish, and then who knew what this frightening creature might do to them? “We couldn’t find any food in there—”
Narodnaya snorted. Oh no? The scuttlefish know where to find it.
Sarah and Christian glanced at each other. Scuttlefish?
“Whatever,” Sarah said.
Christian nudged her with his elbow. Narodnaya was glaring at her alarmingly.
“What she meant is,” he said, his mouth very dry, “we got turned around. But then we found ourselves back out here, and these cranberries—these cranberries! They’re better than any cranberries I’ve ever had, and ten times the size—”
Humans are so easily impressed by the mundane.
Christian deflated. Sarah glared right back at Narodnaya.
“If you want us to get out of here,” she said, “you could start by telling us the fastest way through the forest.”
You had so much trouble finding your way that I wonder if I should not escort you.
“Oh, no,” Christian stammered. “Oh, no, no, thank you, that won’t be necessary. I’m sure we can make our way. No. Thank you kindly, we really do appreciate—”
The marsh-witch’s green eyes glittered with mirth. Her lipless mouth formed something that might, in some context, be considered a smile, maybe.
If you insist.
“He does,” Sarah started to say, but Christian was really starting to panic now and batted her on the arm. “Ow.” -
Day 7: Book Man rewrites (963 words)
Ahhh, on a roll (sort of). That's better.Spoiler
There was a voice at the door, if you could call it the door when it was just the flaps of another tent.
“Knock, knock,” Rowan called gently.
Liza wiped her face on a too-long sleeve. They’d dug up an old nightshirt for her to wear, and it was too big for her. But it made her feel safe, like she could draw it over her and shut the world out, if she wanted to.
“Come in,” she said. She wouldn’t have blamed the ringmaster for simply barging in—it was her tent, after all. Liza was the intruder. But Rowan was courteous if she was anything. Liza had never found anyone so comforting.
Rowan smiled as she entered. “Feeling better, are we?”
Liza opened her mouth, fully intending to lie, but instead what came out was a sigh and, “Well, I’m dry, at least.”
She leaned back on her pillows. They’d set her up with a cot in a small bit of the big top they all shared, sectioned off with extra silks or blankets. You could hear everything going on in other parts of the tents, or at least the voices, if not the actual words, but she found that comforting, too. Rain pattered on the big top.
“D’you mind?” Rowan asked. Liza shook her head. The ringmaster sat on the edge of her cot and patted her shoulder. “Do you need another blanket? I’m afraid you’ll catch a chill.”
“M’all right,” Liza said, shifting under her quilt. It was nice to have someone fretting over her, nice to have someone to lie in bed and talk to after a week alone.
“Good. Now, love, why don’t you tell me what all’s wrong?”
Liza didn’t say anything. In the first fright and then relief of finding people, some of it had spilled out, but now that things were calm and dry and warm, she didn’t know where to start. If she wanted to start.
Rowan’s hand had not left her shoulder. It squeezed lightly. “Darling, I can’t do a thing to help you if you don’t tell me what it is you need help with.”
Tears stung Liza’s eyes. And although she hadn’t known what to say a moment before, suddenly she found herself telling Rowan everything. Everything. The park and the attack and Duncan’s disappearance, yes, but her feelings of lonesomeness this week and even before that, the homesickness for London that she hadn’t even admitted to Duncan, her sister’s distance, her father’s death, her mother’s drinking. Everything. Somewhere in there, she sat up, and somewhere after that she started crying. It was the longest, hardest, ugliest cry she’d ever had in her life. It hurt to cry, but it hurt worse not to, and she felt like she was making up for all the crying she hadn’t done in the face of pain and hardship in the last sixty years.
Rowan never said a thing. She held Liza when she started crying and rubbed her back and listened until Liza had cried herself out, laughed, and said with a hiccup, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
Rowan smiled at her, and Liza noted with some relief that it wasn’t the pitying kind of smile most people gave you after they saw you crying. “You had to tell someone, I imagine.”
“Mmm,” Liza agreed. Without thinking, she snuggled deeper into Rowan’s hug like a child.
“Now,” Rowan said thoughtfully, “I don’t know what to do about Mr. Abernathy and your detective. If they were thrown off-course by the wraiths, they could be anywhere.”
Liza shivered. “Wraiths?”
“Oh, yes. That’s likely what those nasties were in the portal. They’re not corporeal creatures, you know—more misty sorts of things that love to lurk about places solid beings like us don’t have much truck with. Portals into other worlds, fairy rings, the Land of the Dead—places you and I wouldn’t consider places at all. Goblin may have sent them to throw us off course, but he’d hardly need to—wraiths glory in mayhem and destruction. I’m sure the sound of frightened people rampaging through their land excited them.”
Liza shivered again, and Rowan held her tighter.
“As I was saying,” she went on, “there’s nothing to be done about that. We’ll just have to hope your friends find their way here sometime soon. But your husband—”
Liza wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
“Graham!” Rowan shouted suddenly, startling her. The big top fell silent for a moment. Then a voice replied, “He’s not back yet, miss.”
“Yes, right,” Rowan mused. “I’d forgot. The traps. Well, Wayland, you might know anyhow. Duncan Smith, that’s Isadora’s boy, isn’t it?”
“Yes, miss, I think so.”
“Well then! Carry on.” The talking resumed elsewhere in the tent, and Rowan turned back to Liza with a triumphant expression. “There, you see?”
Liza did not see.
“I know where we can find your husband,” Rowan said.
Liza sat up straight as though she’d been stung and looked at the ringmaster, not daring to believe it was true. “You do? Where? Can you take me to him?”
“Hush, love. All in good time. It’s raining cats and dogs yet out there, and I’m not about to let you out in this weather again. We’ll go tomorrow.”
“But—”
“None of that! You need your sleep—a good, warm, dry one at that. Tomorrow, love. I promise you.”
Liza hesitated, but there was a look in Rowan’s eyes that said quite plainly she’d drag Liza right back into bed if she so much as thought of getting out of it. And the quilt was so warm and comfortable, and the sound of the rain and the murmured conversations so nice.
“Well,” she said, “all right. Tomorrow.” -
Day 8: Book Man rewrites (549 words)
Spoiler
He couldn’t have said why, exactly. But gradually, the drowning and the panic and the squeeze and the pull were replaced by images. Images of places he knew, and people. There was Bea, younger, pre-stroke, standing in his father’s kitchen, making tea and nodding as he told her about his latest favorite book. There was his aunt, the librarian, showing him the newest shipment of books they’d gotten in. There was his father, who had never really understood his obsession with books but got down on the floor in the kitchen of the Book House to paper the baseboard in fiction. Duncan, chuckling as he tried and failed to make a balloon animal; Liza offering him a biscuit from her own lunch in the office lunchroom; Moira’s brief but glorious smiles; the cat coming to greet him when he came home from work. Without his even noticing it, his limbs loosened, his breathing steadied, and soon he was better.
He sighed, a little shakily. He met the marsh-witch’s steady, green-eyed gaze and found it didn’t frighten him.
“Thank you,” he said.
Sarah looked at her too, clearly not at all sure what had just happened.
“He—you’re better?” she said to Christian. He nodded, and she turned back to Narodnaya. “Well, I’ll be damned. How’d you do that?”
The marsh-witch ducked her head, looking almost embarrassed. Memory. I found his favorite memories and helped them through. They blocked out…
“It was a panic attack,” Christian mumbled, feeling a little embarrassed now that his panic had subsided. “There’s, um. There wasn’t really anything to block, they just kind of…happen.”
“How’d you—you say you found his memories?”
Narodnaya shrugged her bony shoulders. I can see anything that isn’t buried too far below the surface—as long as people do not try to block me.
“Is that normally how you’d stop panicking?” Sarah asked, but Christian shook his head.
“Normally I’m not really able to think about anything but the fact that I’m panicking.”
“Jesus,” Sarah said. “Wow. You’re. Wow. That’s amazing.”
The marsh-witch’s thin eyebrows disappeared into her forehead. Christian, meanwhile, feeling that Sarah was poking fun at him for being so pathetic, curled up again, although at least now he wasn’t panicky.
“I know. It’s pathetic.”
“No!” Sarah said, so fervently he dared to look back at her. “No, it’s. You’re amazing, Christian Abernathy. How often do you get panic attacks, like every day?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” Christian said. He relaxed slightly. He wasn’t sure where she was going with this, but it sounded like something better than what he’d expected.
“Wow,” Sarah repeated. “But you have a job. Like, you go to work every day. And you—God, if it were me, I don’t think I could—”
She swore. Then she calmed down and said, in a more normal tone of voice, “You’re a surprisingly strong person, Christian.”
“Oh.” Christian blushed, but it was a good blush. He’d never thought of himself that way. “Well. Um. Thank—thank you. I mean. I mean. I do have medication I take, sometimes. Not with me, obviously. But, you know. It’s not like I’m doing this by myself.”
“You shouldn’t have to. You’d take insulin if you had diabetes, right? You’d wear a cast if you had a broken arm?” -
Day 9: Book Man rewrites (223 words)
Spoiler
Christian smiled slightly. He remembered Bea saying something to that effect to his father once, when his father found out that he’d started taking medication for his panic attacks. “Yeah, I would.”
“So,” Sarah said. She stood up, stretched, and looked at the marsh-witch. “Well. Thank you, I guess. That was. Wow.”
“Thank you,” Christian said again. Sarah gave him a hand up.
The marsh-witch, looking embarrassed again, nodded off to the northwest. There’s a stream that way. If you stick to the biggest branch, you can follow it all the way through the forest.
Then, without so much as a goodbye, she vanished.
“Flighty, isn’t she,” Sarah said. “You all right?”
“I am now.”
She smiled. “Come on.”
They quickly found the creek that had led them out to the bog and followed it until they found a larger branch. The lampposts were farther apart here. Sunlight shone on the iron branches and leaves, dazzling where it pierced the canopy and hit the stream, which widened further as they walked along. It was blinding in the tangled dimness of the iron forest, but they picked their careful way downriver. If only it was a real forest, Christian thought. His feet hurt, his socks still wet, and he wished there was grass and moss to walk in instead of crumbling, rusty iron leaves. -
Day 10: Book Man rewrites ( words)
Spoiler
Edna settled back on her pillows. She should’ve been a witch. She didn’t mind the white hair and wrinkles and bad vision—she’d been near-sighted all her life anyway, and wrinkles, she thought, were a sign of a long life lived well.
But it’d be nice to have both her real hips and knees.
And to—well, if she’d been a witch, couldn’t she have just made all that smoke suck itself right up? She could’ve saved the church, and kept Clementine from looking so frightened and pitiable—she could’ve divined Theobald Smith for sure, found the right one on the first try, and gotten the sword before it was too late. Clem would’ve come too late, found it gone, and returned to wherever she’d come from.
Why, she wondered, why on earth had the wizards named her as the Chosen One? She was old and alone and she didn’t even know magic.
The nurse ran her hands over Edna’s chest and throat. Edna resisted the urge to giggle, but a cracked smile formed on her parched lips. It felt ridiculous. The nurse wasn’t doing anything. Just running her hands in the air. You’d think there’d be, Edna wasn’t sure what exactly, but maybe magical sparks or a golden glow. Something. But there was just a middle-aged red-haired woman in scrubs moving her hands along in the air.
To her surprise, however, she really did start feeling better. A moment ago her head had felt like anvil and speaking had been a burden, but now she felt—perhaps not ready to get out of bed, but like she could sit up, at least.
“Better not,” the nurse said. “This is just for the pain. You’ll still want to rest everything.”
“But it’s magic,” Edna said. “Can’t you just poof me all better?”
The nurse chuckled, and even Clem cracked a smile. They exchanged a glance, and then the nurse said, “Now, Mrs. Fisher, surely you know better than that.”
“What?”
It was Clem who answered. “Magic has limits.”
“So does the human body,” the nurse added. She stopped whatever she’d been doing with her hands and stood up. “We can’t go shooting magic into people all willy-nilly. Your body might reject the magic, the same way it would reject a blood or organ donation that didn’t match.”
“But—” Edna started, but the nurse shook her head.
“Don’t you think we’d heal everyone that way if we could? Magic could put hospitals right out of business—isn’t that what you’re thinking? But it can be very harmful to use it on people who aren’t used to it. We have to stick to small doses. I’m very sorry, but taking care of the pain is all I can do for you right now.”
“I feel fine now,” Edna said.
“I know you do, Mrs. Fisher. But they want to keep you here a couple more days, just to make sure everything’s working properly and that you’re not going to suddenly have a reaction.”
A couple more days! That wouldn’t do at all. They’d finally found the sword, but they hadn’t exactly been secretive about it—they’d left a burnt-up church and a ruined auction in their wake, and Edna knew how these thing went. She’d been so preoccupied with finding the Sword of Destiny that she hadn’t given that much thought to Redway, but she thought of him now. Did he know the wizards had named a Chosen One? Did he know the Sword of Destiny was meant for him? Did he know it had been stolen?
Benjamin came in as the nurse went out, wearing the biggest grin Edna had ever seen. Before she knew what was happening, he had her engulfed in a hug.
“You’re all right!” He pulled back, saw her expression, and frowned.
“You are all right, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” Edna said absently. “Where’s Theobald?”
“Getting lunch. He was getting antsy. I don’t think he likes it here.” Benjamin sat on the edge of her bed. “Edna, what’s wrong?”
Clem frowned at him but didn’t say anything. Edna didn’t notice.
“Oh, Benjamin, why did I ever agree to do this? I’m an old woman, and not even a hag or an enchantress or a witch or a priestess. I can barely walk, for heaven’s sakes. Why on earth did they think I could do this? Only,” she said, “they didn’t think I could do this, did they? Methodius doesn’t approve at all. It’s just that one wizard who named me, isn’t that what he said?”
Benjamin opened his mouth to say something, but she kept talking.
“I don’t know how to wield a sword. I don’t know how to cast a spell. I don’t know how to do anything! I’m eighty-three years old, and I don’t know how to do anything. Except knit. That’ll be useful, won’t it?”
She sounded uncharacteristically bitter. Benjamin stared.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said. She dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. Something seemed to have gotten into them.
“Edna,” Benjamin said at last, gently. “Do you want to go home?”
“I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“There’s the nursing home.”
She laughed. “Not a chance, my dear.”
“Edna—”
“I’m not going back there.”
They sat in silence for a long moment. Benjamin seemed unsure of what to say now; Clem’s frown had deepened, but she wasn’t looking at them anymore. She was curled around her cryptid again, stroking its black fur.
“They want to keep you for a few days,” Benjamin said. Edna shook her head. “Darn it, Edna, why not?”
“Redway,” Clem said. They both looked at her; Edna had nearly forgotten she was there. She reddened under their combined gaze but continued speaking without looking at them. “If he doesn’t already know we’ve got the sword, he’ll find out soon. We can’t stay here.”
“We?” Benjamin said incredulously, but Edna shushed him. “What?”
“She’s right. Where are my glasses?”
“Right here, but—”
The room leapt into focus. Edna sat up and looked around for her clothes. If she was going to save the world, she wasn’t going to do it in a hospital gown. -
^that was 1031 words, but I'm probably going to majorly rewrite it before publishing (even though it said it was published)
-
Day 11: The Chosen Grandma (795 words)
(rewrote the chapter, plus revised last week's chapter, although not enough to bother counting that)
OH MY GOSH I just realized I put "Book Man rewrites" for yesterday, but it wasn't. It obviously wasn't. Jesus, I was tired last night.
Whatever.Spoiler
The door opened a third time, and this time it really was Benjamin, with Theobald Smith—and, to Edna’s surprise—Methodius in tow. Despite the nurse’s advice, Edna sat up and enfolded Benjamin in a hug.
“You’re all right!” he cried hoarsely. His eyes were red, like he’d been crying. “God, I’ve been so worried.”
“I’m all right, dear. I’m all right.”
The nurse stood up and smiled at them. “I’ll give you some privacy.”
Then she wagged a finger at Benjamin and added, “You take care of your mother, young man. Make sure she stays in bed.”
“If I can figure out how to make her do anything she doesn’t want to do,” Benjamin said in what Edna suspected was only partially fake exasperation.
The nurse nodded to Theobald and Methodius on her way out. Edna felt around for her glasses and put them on. The room leapt into focus.
“Your mother?” she said.
“We had a bonfire,” Benjamin explained. “You’re my mom, and Clementine’s my daughter.”
“It’s Clem,” Clem said. Benjamin ignored her.
“Theobald’s your neighbor,” he said. “He saw the fire go out of control and rushed over to help. They were a little confused as to why he didn’t have any smoke inhalation, but he went into a whole thing about all the ways to keep smoke out of the nose and lungs.”
“Used to be in the volunteer fire department,” Theobald said from the doorway.
“And—Methodius?” Edna said, with a glance at the wizard. To her even greater surprise, Methodius was holding a vase of carnations from the hospital gift shop.
“That nurse knows him,” Benjamin said. “But I guess she, er, well, she knows about his past with Theobald—”
Methodius blanched and Theobald scowled, but neither of them said anything.
“—so we made up some garbage about him being in the neighborhood. I guess he works pretty closely with covens all over the world.”
“Trying to get some witches into the Council of Wizards,” Methodius said. “It’s been difficult. The council can be very stubborn about tradition.”
He deposited his vase on Edna’s bedside table.
“Are those for me?” she asked.
He reddened. “Well. Yes, since you asked.”
Well, well. Would wonders never cease? Edna admired the carnations, but now the room had fallen silent, and she didn’t know what to say. It felt as if they were all waiting for her to—what? She wasn’t sure.
...
Theobald’s hand was warm and heavy. He’d worn nothing but frowns before, but now he seemed like the only one who was comfortable. Benjamin looked unsure of what to say; Methodius gazed at the floor, the color of a bad sunburn; Clem’s frown had deepened. She was curled around her cryptid again, stroking its black fur.
“I don’t think,” Methodius started finally. He paused to clear his throat and finally looked up from the floor. “Mrs. Fisher, I—I apologize for what I said, back at the nursing home. It’s true, Philostratus is considered, well, a little, shall we say, unorthodox around the council. We’ve always chosen teenagers, and when he named you—anyway, Centius the Wise does think very highly of him, and if—you know, when you were named, I did advocate for you.”
Edna dabbed at her eyes again. “You did?”
“Yes, I—well, I told the others we ought to hear Philostratus out, anyway, and accept his choice, which—I didn’t realize what would—well, anyway. Mrs. Fisher, I pride myself on considering all sides of an issue fairly and coming to a just decision, but I’m afraid I’ve treated you unjustly. You’ve already stolen a sword and survived a terrible fire. I think, perhaps, the council judged you too hastily.”
“As usual,” Theobald said. Edna waved his comment aside.
“It’s up to you of course,” Methodius continued. “If you really feel that way—no one would blame you if you went home now. The smart money was on young Clementine here—”
Clem’s eyes blazed as she looked at him, but she didn’t say anything, just leaned forward, glued to his every word.
“—so if you did decide to pass on the mantle of Chosen One, well, she could hold the sword for us until we made it official. But if you choose to continue, you have my blessing, as little as that may matter. Philostratus returns from Mars in a month. Perhaps he can tell you what it was about you that made him decide you were destined for this.”
Looking disappointed, Clem settled back in her seat.
“So what do you want to do?” Benjamin asked. His expression was one of resignation, which Edna took to mean he already knew her answer.
“Get me my clothes,” she said. “We’re checking out.” -
Day 12: Book Man rewrites (779 words)
Spoiler
The light was greener here, as well; there were birch trees, real birch trees, mixed in with the lampposts.
“[quotes a poem but the one I was thinking of doesn’t work, so keep looking],” Sarah said. Christian looked at her with surprise.
“[poet’s name],” he said. “You know it?”
She grinned. “I do have a life outside of police work, you know.”
She slipped out of her shoes and socks, flexing her toes in the grass. “Ahhhhhh. That’s better. Turn around.”
Christian obeyed. “Why?” he asked the lamppost in front of him.
“Because I could use a bath, and just because we’re out in the wilderness doesn’t mean you need to look at me while I’m undressing.”
Christian blushed and stared very hard at the lamppost. A moment later, Sarah called, “All clear.”
He didn’t move.
“It’s all right, Christian. I’m in the water. You won’t see anything.”
He turned around cautiously, just in case, but she was right: all he could see were her face and neck. He could imagine she was wearing a bathing suit in there. The water was clear but reflected the sky and leaves, and even those were broken with ripples.
“Joining me?” she asked. He blushed harder. “It’s all right if you don’t want to. It feels great, though.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Look,” Sarah said. “I’ll turn around in case you change your mind so I don’t see you either, okay?”
He didn’t answer, but she turned around anyway. His face was beet-red, he knew without looking, and he’d always been a bit uncomfortable with nudity—his or anyone else’s. Prudish, really. He wasn’t sure where it had come from, since his father was only judgmental of other people’s nakedness and Bea wasn’t prudish at all.
But the water did look awfully inviting. He was sweaty and smelly, and the thought of how the water would feel on his feet…
He hid behind a silver shrub and stripped. His clothes had to be peeled off, they clung to him so, and the thought of putting them on again once he was clean disheartened him. Oh, well. Nothing much to be done about that. He peered around the bush to make sure Sarah wasn’t looking. She was swimming about, now, but on the far side of the pool and with her back still to him.
“I’m coming in now,” he called, just in case.
He fairly sprinted for the pool and plunged in before anyone could see him—never mind that no one else was there.
“Clear,” he sputtered.
Sarah turned back around and smiled at him. “See? Not so bad, is it.”
He shrugged. He felt a little better about his nakedness now that the water made everything wobbly and difficult to make out. Always better when he couldn’t see it.
“D’you think there are fish in here?” Sarah asked. “We could have a good dinner if we can figure out how to catch one.”
He shrugged again. He was a poor fisher even when he had bait and tackle, and now they had neither. He dove under and came up feeling refreshed and less stiff. Swimming was one of the few physical activities he’d always found enjoyable, except for the embarrassment of changing rooms.
“I’ve never done this before,” he said.
“What?”
“Skinny-dipping.”
Sarah looked like she was trying very hard not to smile again. “I never would’ve guessed.”
They gamboled in the water until their fingers and toes pruned. Christian was just starting to relax when he saw Sarah stiffen. He didn’t ask why. The back of his neck prickled.
“Is—is anyone there?” he asked. He’d meant to shout it, but it came out as a whisper. He moved closer to Sarah, forgetting that they were both naked.
“Feels that way,” she said.
“Do you think—do you think it’s that marsh-witch?”
“One way to find out.” She cupped her hands to her mouth and called, “Narodnaya?”
No one answered.
“Or it might be Liza?” Christian said, more hopefully than he felt.
Sarah shrugged but called, “Liza?”
The forest was silent except for birdcalls and the fluty sounds of the wind in the grasses further back along the river. They listened for a long, long moment.
“We’re imagining things,” Sarah said at last. But when they turned around, they saw a cluster of beautiful and unearthly people staring at them from beside the waterfall. There were perhaps half a dozen of them, all with deep blue skin and long, lean bodies, hair that fell in damp dark waves past their shoulders, and silvery tattoos. All of them were naked but did not seem to share Christian’s embarrassment at all.
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