Young Writers Society

45 WET

Christian struggled to his feet. It was dark here as it had been in the park, but instead of being just before dawn it appeared to be just after sunset. The orange tinge on the horizon receded before his eyes. He could not see the ground, but it was squishy and wet—not merely damp as if there had been a rainstorm earlier that day, but covered in water as if it had flooded.

“Liza?” Christian called. No one answered.

He could barely see, but he was positive he was in a field, not a forest. Whatever had interfered with his transportation had pushed him way off course. It isn’t me, Carina had said. Something to do with Goblin, probably, trying to stop him from finding Morrow. Well, Christian thought gloomily, it had certainly been successful. He did not know where he was, where Liza was, or how to get from here to the Sunforest.

Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder crashed overhead.

“Oh, dear,” Christian said. The heavens opened and poured rain down upon him. “Oh, dear. Oh, come on.”

He was soaked to the bone in minutes, and his shoes and socks and the cuffs of his trousers were wet through from standing almost ankle-deep in the soggy, squishy ground. There was nothing for it but to start walking and hope he came across shelter or people or the balloon-artist’s wife soon.

It was a long and weary walk through the night and the rain, and Christian was cold, wet, and miserable long before it was done. He had been walking for perhaps a couple of hours, calling for Liza, when he took a step and fell through the ground.

Whatever he had been walking on, water was beneath it. His armpits stopped his descent. His head and shoulders were above the ground, his torso and legs immersed in the water below, and both were equally wet. He cursed. He grabbed ahold of whatever spongy sort of plant he could feel all around him and tried to pull himself up, but the plant broke away in his hands. The hole sucked him in further, until he thrashed about in panic, and he was pulled down deeper—

Calm down, he told himself, calm down or it would just get worse—

He sat still for a moment, breathing deeply through his nose. Then he reached as far forward as he could, wound his hands deep into the plant, and pulled again. He managed to get his armpits back above the water, but he wasn’t strong enough to pull himself out of the hole. He sank back down and laid his cheek against the spongy plant, exhausted by his efforts. At least, if he had to spend the night like this, he would have a pillow.

Something brushed against his thigh.

With a strength born of adrenaline, Christian leapt from the hole with a yell and scrambled away from it. Then he collapsed, panting with fear and effort. His arms trembled. He went to stand up and brushed his head against something else. He cowered but then realized it was just a shrub of some sort. Three shrubs, in fact, growing close together with a little space beneath them.

“Thank God,” he said. He crawled into their shelter. Though he was already soaked through, it was nice not to have rain falling down on him and water dripping from his hair into his eyes. He reached into his pockets for the matches he’d brought. They were ruined from the rain and his dunking. He threw them aside and cursed again. Then he curled up as best he could beneath the shrubs and, despite his discomfort, fell asleep.

46 THE KEEPER OF THE MARSHES

When Christian awoke, he was stiff and sore and his legs were cramped from trying to ball up tightly enough to keep his feet out of the rain. At least it had stopped. Clouds scudded across the sky, but between them he could see streaks of bright blue. He stood up and stretched, finally getting a good look at his surroundings.

He could see now he had spent the night on a bog. The spongy plant he had felt and walked on (and fallen through) was a carpet of sphagnum moss growing atop the water. The hole his body had left last night was a few yards away. He edged toward it, peering in to see what had touched his thigh.

It was a hand. An ashen hand covered in coarse black hair that waved gently in the water. It seemed to be attached to an arm, and the arm to a body, but the body was out of sight beneath the sphagnum. Christian crept back to his place in the shrubs, feeling sick.

He could not stay here. He needed to continue on his journey and find Liza. Off to the east he saw a mountain range with a forest at its base. How wonderful it would be to escape this wretched bog. But he dared not venture out, even in daylight, when he might break through the sphagnum again and meet a fate like that of the owner of the white hand in the water.

He considered the shrubs. They were sturdy little evergreens, but he thought (doubtfully) he might be able to pull a branch off to use as a walking stick. His nose scrunched in distaste for the task. The shrubs were thickly needled and bigger than he had thought last night, and Christian had never been good at activities that required strength in any amount. Still, he put his hands around a branch that looked like it would make a good walking stick and pulled.

He tugged and tugged at the branch, but all that happened was that his hands turned green and sticky from the needles and bark. The shrub snapped out of his hands and smacked him in the face, quivering indignantly. (No, Christian thought, plants can’t be indignant.) Then a person materialized above it.

It was a gaunt woman dressed in a gown that looked like nothing so much as Spanish moss hanging from her limbs. Despite the greyish-green hue of her skin, she looked basically human, but her eyes were a dim mossy green and looked like cats’ eyes, and her nose was so flat her nostrils receded into her face as snakelike slits. Her hair was wild and tangled and drifted about her bony face eerily as if caught in a wind only she could feel. Her lips did not move, yet a dry, irritable female voice sounded in his head.

This, it said, is too much.

Christian rubbed his hands against his trousers, unsure what she meant. He felt she might think it rude if he did not look at her, but he found it difficult to look into her catlike eyes. Her voice rang in his head again.

I allowed you to walk my lands unmolested, I gave you shelter from the storm, and you repay me by causing injury to my subjects. Others have done so. They walked my lands but now they shall never leave.

Christian thought uneasily of the hand in the water, the coarse black hair covering it. The creature grinned, showing two rows of spiky grey teeth.

Yes, he walked here once and fancied himself so great. When I came upon him to learn what business he had in my lands, he tried to slay me, me, the marsh-witch, the tale mothers tell to frighten their children, and so I killed him. Men of arrogance and power have no place here. He would have done better to brave the mountains; now he is mine.

Christian shivered. Then he realized she must be talking about the man who owned the arm in the water, though he had said nothing about it. Could she read his thoughts? Quickly he tried to stop thinking about how frightening she looked in case she heard him and became offended. What could he think of that was so inconsequential that he couldn’t possibly anger her?

She sounded amused when she next spoke. Tea? An interesting choice, but very well.

He blushed. Back to the present matter. He couldn’t leave until she did, at least not without appearing rude (and he certainly did not want to appear rude).

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know these were your lands, and I didn’t mean to—er—cause injury to this, er, tree, but I fell through the bog last night and I would rather not continue on my way without a walking stick.”

She stared at him intently for a moment and then vanished. He could not help breathing a sigh of relief, though he still had no walking stick and no idea whether she might be able to see him and what he was doing as long as he was in her lands. Before he could continue onward, however, she reappeared with a long, smooth branch the thickness of his forearm. She held it out and Christian took it, testing it against the ground. It sat at about the height of his shoulder, perfect for a walking stick.

“Thank you,” he said in surprise.

She drifted closer to him, searching his face with her catlike eyes. What business do you have here?

“Nothing,” Christian said. He didn’t want her to think he meant to cause trouble on the bog. “That is—I’m supposed to be in the Sunforest, but something threw me off course, and I’ve lost Liza, and—” He brightened. If Liza had landed nearby, perhaps the marsh-witch would know where she was.

But before the question formed on his lips, she shook her head. There are no others. Only you.

His hopes crashed down about his ears. “Are—are you sure?”

Certainly, I am sure. Her voice in his head was irritated. These are my lands. I know everything that happens here, every person who comes and goes.

“I meant no offense,” Christian said hastily.

Her moss-green eyes were expressionless as she considered him. Finally she said, None taken. (Thank heaven for that, Christian thought.) I am Narodnaya, the Keeper of the Marshes. Who are you?

“Christian Abernathy,” he said. “The, er, human.”

Her snakelike nostrils flared, open-close, open-close, for so long he began to feel awkward. Then she said, You do not smell like a human.

“Oh,” he said, taken aback. “Well, I am. Thank you, again, for the walking stick—I’m sorry to be a bother, but have you anything to start a fire? My matches are ruined and I’m still damp from the—”

Her eyes glowed electric green, the private wind whipped her hair about in a frenzy, her spike-toothed mouth opened and she howled in a voice like the wind and rain, “GET OOOOUUUUUUUUUUT!”

So Christian, deciding it would be best to build a fire later, fled.