Mother - Chapter 11.1

11

Though the light finally calms, it continues to drown my vision like a thick, shimmering blanket thrown over my head. The hurtling sensation fades along with the thunderous whooshing, leaving a heavy, smothering silence in its place. I squeeze Conrad’s hand tighter than ever, nervous of what might happen to us. However the process ends simply when the door flies open again, revealing a molten, fiery sky of pink and orange. Wanting desperately out of the tree, I pull Conrad close and heave him out of the portal, then throw myself out after him, tumbling onto a bed of grass.

Having already found his feet, Conrad slowly turns on the spot, mouth ajar. “Wow.”

I push myself up, and together we take in the panoramic view.

We’ve arrived in a world of vivid colour, brighter than the wildest of dreams.

Every shade of fire burns in the sky, reds as deep as blood, puddles of yellow and black like shards of painted glass, thick and vibrant, creating the illusion of closeness, as if I can reach up and scorch my fingertips on the sizzling tones. There’s no sun to be seen, yet waves of heat radiate from above, tingling against my skin, enveloping me in a warm embrace.

An opaque river snakes almost entirely around the grassy knoll on which we stand, forming a horse shoe and continuing its journey as if the hill is nothing but a mere inconvenience. Its mirror-like surface reflects the blazing sky with such perfection that it’s impossible to tell the colour of the water.

For miles in every direction, ashy pillars of silver form a shimmering, endless forest, tall and unruly, roots entangled and twisting waist high. Even in the daytime, a glow of starlight gleams behind the bark. I turn back to the portal in time to see the door close on the chamber of blue. The tree now bears no difference to those in the forest all around us, except it crowns the hill in solidarity, like a leader dictating an army.

“This place is like a cartoon,” Conrad says with awe, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he takes it all in. Then, like the abrupt shift of one season to the next, the bliss slips from his expression, leaving behind a mask of shock. He clutches his face and shrieks, “Ow! It hurts!”

“What does?” I say, taking his wrists, peeling his hands away from his scrunched up eyes. He bellows in pain and they fly open, two lamps of horror. A multicoloured flash ignites on each of his irises, a medley of twisting colours fading from one to the next like a kaleidoscope. Slowly, the swimming colours dance a path around his pupils, until they come full circle, washing away the last of the blue.

Once the process is complete, Conrad blinks tears onto his cheeks, and relaxes somewhat.

“What happened, Hen?” he sniffs, gazing at me with his new eyes. Lost for words, I can only stare back. His irises are now hypnotic, shimmering discs of colour, soft shades of pink, green and purple, iridescent like a soap bubble, or the scales of a fish.

Before I’ve finished admiring them, my own eyes sear in pain, and I gasp, shutting them tight. The same as with Conrad, the process repeats. A burning path of agony hoops around my pupils until connecting back with the point of origin. As quickly as it started, the pain fades. When I reopen my lids, Conrad gasps. I assume he can now see my eyes flashing the same display of colours that now dance in his own, until he shouts “Your eyes are so dark!”

“Dark?” I rush down the hill and skid onto the riverbank. Conrad does the same, coming to a stop beside me. We peek over the water to examine our new reflections.

Mother used to say my eyes are the light amber shade of the sun shining through honey. I wonder what she would say about them now, the brown so dark it’s near impossible to distinguish iris from pupil. There’s something animalistic and predatory about them, and something deeply unnerving about not recognizing my own reflection that sends a twinge of dread along my spine.

“Cool!” Conrad says, pressing his face closer to the water. I take his arm and draw us both away.

“Why do you think our eyes changed?” he says, gazing up into mine. I turn my head and focus on the tufts of grass at our feet, the luminous green blades the shade of a highlighter.

“I don’t know,” I say, though a horrible, nagging suspicion flutters in my stomach. The dazzling world around me starts to spin.

“Did you see how I opened that door?” He thrusts his palm out, reenacting the scene. “I think I might be magic!”

The air feels as useless as water in my lungs.

“Do you think we’re very very far from home? Do you think Kit lives here?”

I lose all the strength in my legs and crumble to my knees. My heart beats so fast I think it might explode. The urge to run away as fast as I can fills me from head to toe, though I can only muster the strength to place my trembling hands over my face, as if this will somehow steady my entire body.

“Hen, what’s wrong?” Conrad rushes over and wraps his arms around my head, pinning my hands to my temples.

“I think I’m freaking out, if I’m honest.”

It’s as if every worry and concern over the past few years returns all at once, debilitating me in one swoop, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve always prided myself on self-control, my ability to bury emotion and focus on what needs to be done. Yet the brutality my emotions now overwhelm me shatters this image entirely. Anger and embarrassment now rises in my stomach, too. This isn’t supposed to happen to me. I’m better than this.

Conrad relaxes his headlock and holds my wrists instead. “It’s okay, Hen. Everything will be okay.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes I do! If we just find Kit, we can go back home with him and explain everything to Daddy!”

His words send a nasty jolt through me. He’s right. We need to find Kit. But we both have very different expectations of what we should do after that.

“Conrad, look around,” I say through ragged breaths. “We have no idea where we are! We have no idea what is out there, or what we’re going to do when—“

“You’re thinking about too much. You’re going to scramble your brains.”

“So what’s your plan then, little genius?”

“Focus on one thing at a time,” he says simply. “Like finding Kit.”

I open my mouth before I’ve thought of a good rebuttal, then falter. Maybe he has the right idea. It’s not like I have a better one, anyway. And besides, it’s the only part of our to-do list that we’ll agree on. I try to shut everything out and focus on that one task—on finding Kitsune, the reason we’re here in the first place.

“Got any ideas?” he prompts me.

My legs don’t seem quite as wobbly anymore. I force myself up. “Well, since there’s nothing but trees for miles, and no sun to mark a cardinal direction, we should follow the river.”

“Which way?”

“Good point.” I wander back to the river’s edge, pluck a blade of grass and toss it into the water. The lazy current drags it off to the right. “That’s downstream,” I declare, taking off in that direction. “I read a book once that said you should always go downstream unless you can see signs of civilization in the water, like rubbish. But the water’s too shiny to check.”

“Why don’t you stick your head in?” he suggests.

“Why don’t you stick your head in?”

“Okay, Hen!”

I block his path towards the bank. “Are you insane? We don’t know what’s in the water.”

“You’re right! This place might have jellyfish!”

“Downstream, then?”

He nods and leads the way. I follow after him. And before I know it, the air is a little easier to take in.