Young Writers Society

“I think I need to sit down,” Madder said.

She couldn’t even finish the sentence before her legs turned into pudding and made the decision for her; she landed with a soft thump on the sand and rested her head on her knees. The air had turned coarse, and it hurt to breathe. She felt weightless, almost, like she might just float away were it not for the atmosphere bearing down on her.

Percy flopped down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. “We could go to Slidgigt,” she said. “The whole town is under glass, to trap the sunlight; they grow all kinds of fruit for the Tea Company’s special blends.”

“That sounds nice.” Madder hesitated for another moment, then let out a sigh and sagged into Percy. She didn’t have the energy to stay vertical anymore, even sitting down, and she felt… safer with her head tucked under Percy’s chin. “I’m sick, I think,” she added softly.

“I can see that,” Percy said. “Did you hit your head when you fell, or…?”

“No, I mean—” She squeezed her eyes shut until she could see pits of deeper blackness in the darkness behind her eyelids; faint impressions of the other reality ghosted through the pits if she concentrated hard enough. “I don’t think I’m just here. Or just me. I—I see another place, sometimes, and I…”

Percy lifted her fingers to the back of Madder’s neck and ran them through the little hairs at the base of her skull; it felt nice, and Madder but her lip, not wanting to ruin it by talking.

“You what?” Percy asked.

Madder sighed. “Do you ever feel… misaligned?” It was easier to talk if she closed her eyes and pretended that the warm, solid weight next to her didn’t belong to someone who could listen and judge. “Like you’re not put together right?”

“Sometimes,” Percy said. She ruffled her hand through Madder’s hair, leaving it sticking up in all directions. Madder shivered; her scalp tingled in a way that was not altogether unpleasant. Whether that came from Percy playing with her hair or the possibility that she wasn’t the only one who didn’t belong in her body, Madder couldn’t tell. “Nonli says I ought to go on blockers if it gets any worse because thirteen’s the year when it starts to get bad.”

As quickly as it had appeared, the flicker of hope in Madder’s chest died. “I don’t think it’s a hormone thing, for me,” she mumbled. Whatever the wrongness came from, it had something to do with the other reality; she always felt worse in the wake of her… visions or whatever they were. “I don’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Percy said.

“Like I’m trying to be in two places at once and end up stuck in between instead,” Madder said. “Like I’m about to float away and be in just one but I’m sewn into this body and I can’t leave.” Percy’s hand went still on her neck, her fingertips almost touching Madder’s ear and her forearm pressed against Madder’s back; Madder forced herself to focus on that and nothing else, the warm pressure keeping her from drifting apart.

“That’s why I fell,” she whispered.

Slowly, Percy said, “You should probably talk to—”

“No.” Talking about it made it worse; the past minute had made that abundantly clear. Madder supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. “I don’t want to. I can’t.” Cold, oily panic seeped into her lungs just from thinking about it. “Please, Percy, I don’t want to talk to anyone—”

“Okay,” Percy said. “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.” She resumed stroking Madder’s hair, making soft, wordless sounds until the moment of terror passed. “It’s alright. I won’t tell.”

“Thank you.”

They sat like that for a long time; when Madder reemerged to look around, the angle of the sun had shifted by several degrees and the fiery lights on the horizon had grown even brighter. Madder scrubbed at her cheeks with the back of her bandaged hand and experienced a dull stir of surprise when the gauze came away clean. She could have sworn that she’d been crying.

“We should go.” The fire in her feet had receded to tolerable levels, and Madder itched to put more distance between herself and Queensquare. “Slidgigt sounded nice. We could go there,” she added.

Percy made a noncommittal noise and rose to her knees, bracing an arm beneath Madder’s shoulders. She heaved; for a precarious moment, they swayed together, half upright, and then the balance of weight shifted. Madder’s knees extended like a popped spring. She staggered, wincing as the movement drove a blade into her left foot. Had Percy not been there, Madder thought she might have fallen over again, or else just bounced into the air and drifted across the sea.

As it was, she kept her feet on the ground and clung to Percy’s stocky shoulder as she shuffled forward. The sand whispered under her feet in a sibilant language Madder couldn’t decipher, although it made her heart beat faster and poured static into her limbs. A fizz of energy ran down her spine.

“Will they come after us?” she asked. The shape of the beach changed as they moved toward the edge of the rank; it curved inward, and deep gouges began to appear in the sand, as if an enormous beast had reached out of the water and sharpened its claws on the coast.

“Maybe,” Percy said. They reached the first of the furrows; it was maybe a foot wide and twice as deep, and piles of glittering sea glass blinked up from the bottom. Percy hopped over it and then held out an arm to steady Madder while she followed. “I am the queen’s niece, after all, and you’re cir ward. Ce’ll want to make sure we’re not dead.”

“Ha.”

“Really,” Percy said. “The Red Court hasn’t lost anyone in years and Nonli’s proud of that. I’m not saying ce’ll have us dragged back if you really don’t want to go, but ce’ll want to know where we are.”

Madder didn’t respond; the notion that the Red Queen would take that much interest in her whereabouts made her stomach twist uncomfortably. The Red Queen was brusque at best, outright terrifying at worse, and Madder had only spoken to cir a handful of times.

They crossed another furrow. Not far ahead, Madder could see a a wider strip of dark blue—the shallow trench that marked the boundary between this rank and the next. Beyond that was a tangled maze of enormous driftwood logs, all bleached bone-white and bound together with black ropes. The top layer of logs was on fire; the flames flickered between pale blue and green, like a softer reflection of the lights over the horizon.

“What is that?”

“Driftel,” Percy said. “It’s an inn. Sailors and marinepeople, mostly.”

“Oh.” The sand turned choppy, and Madder had to concentrate on her feet for a few moments. When she looked up again, Driftel hadn’t changed. The fire crackled; a charred piece of root broke off and bounced down the sides of the structure, landing in the sand with a soft thud. “Isn’t that dangerous?” she asked.

“What?”

“The fire?” This earned her a quizzical stare from Percy. Madder sighed. “Never mind.”

When they came to the trench, Percy sloshed right through the water without even breaking her stride. She emerged soaked up to her knees and looked surprised to see Madder lingering on the other side. “Coming?”

“I can’t get my foot wet,” Madder said. “It’ll get infected.”

Percy raised her eyebrows. “Still?”

“I’ve got a tiny bit of dead… stuff… on the end of my toe,” Madder muttered, lifting her left foot a few inches to indicate which one she was talking about. “It’s too small to bother cutting out, but it has to be disinfected twice a day and I can’t get the coverings wet…”

She couldn’t jump the trench, either; it stood almost three feet wide, and the banks were soft, squishy mud that wouldn’t make a good landing surface. Madder could feel heat spreading up from the back of her neck.

Pathetic.

“I could carry you,” Percy suggested, wading back into the trench. “You’re pretty light. Come on.” She turned around and, when Madder hesitated, rolled her eyes. “Get a grip on my shoulders and relax; I’m not going to break, you know.”

That wasn’t what Madder had been worried about. Feeling stupid and more than a little selfish, she draped her arms over Percy’s shoulders and let Percy scoop her up by the knees. Eyes shut tight, she hid her face in Percy’s hair and tried with little success to blot out the whispers rattling around inside her skull.

(Pathetic, helpless, weak, needy…)

She couldn’t even tell if they belonged to her or the other her; they swirled around flickers of torn paper and scribbles of black ink. When Percy deposited her on the opposite bank, safe and dry, Madder stumbled over to slump against Driftel’s nearest wall, breathing hard. The images of the other reality faded as she blinked, leaving black spots in her eyes.

There were voices inside Driftel; Madder could hear them floating through the cracks in the driftwood walls, mingling with the snapping fire overhead. It muddied up her thoughts and made it harder to focus.

“How many more of those before we get there?” she asked. Her voice only wavered a little.

Percy offered her a wry smile. “Four,” she said, “and another hedge. You okay to keep going?”

The world was starting to swim around the edges, and Madder shook her head. All she wanted to do was curl up and wait for the derisive mutterings in her mind to stop; Slidgigt may as well have been on the moon for all she cared right now. “Can we go inside? And just…”

Her voice petered out as Percy took her hand and led her around the driftwood walls. Driftel didn’t, as it turned out, have a door, just a ragged gap in the wall framed by tangled roots and garlands of blue kelp. A thick, briny fog rolled through the hole, an aroma so strong it left a visible smear in the air.

Madder tripped inside in Percy’s wake, stuck with the impression that she was entering the maw of a bizarre, fiery monster.