“No, she won
’t.”
“Of course. You would know, right?” I say.
“Your female friend’s like me, kind of...a friend to plant life.”
“So that
’s her secret!” I exclaim. “She’s got special powers, and that’s how she grows those man-size squashes. Aha!”
“Yep. She respects them, as I do.” Jenna hugs the nearest weed. I squash a bug trying to crawl up my leg, and she shrieks. “You should hug a tree once in a while, you know!” she says.
This makes me laugh, and I imagine myself in tie-dyed clothes with flowers in my hair and a peace symbol painted on my cheek.
“They give you the oxygen you breathe, and food and shelter,” she says. “They watch us all, constantly.”
“Okay, but that creeps me out. They don’t have eyes, so how can they watch me?”
“They do in their own way.” She waves to a nearby tree. The wind blows, and the tree sways. “See?”
I just laugh. “Whatever you say.”
Jenna scoots a bit closer to me so that she
’s practically in my lap, near my weapon. “Can I touch your weapon now?” she says.
“Sure, I don
’t see why not.” I take my monk’s spade off my back and slowly lower it to her, then hold it back. “Wait, tell me one more thing: What does my aura look like? Is it really pretty?” I say, wanting to hear it from her again. I feel a chest puff coming my way.
A second before she can touch it, Gunthreon rushes out of the bushes. “
Do not
let her touch that!” he yells. Jenna stands up and snarls as Gunthreon runs toward her. “You evil little thing! Go away!” Gunthreon shouts and then shoos her.
“You gonna
persuade
me to go? I don’t want to!” Gunthreon towers over Jenna. She doesn’t budge. “You don’t scare me,” she says. “Now, if you were her, you’d for sure scare me.” She points to me.
“Why me?” I ask
.
Jenna laughs a cute little tiny laugh. “You don
’t have any clue, do you? That’s right. You’re new. Let me just say that karmeleans that are able to soulsearch aren’t born very often—try like ever.”
Gunthreon turns to me. “
’Forest friends’ like this little one are like wolverines. Give them the chance by listening to their sweet talk, and they tear your weapon from you. Then they sell them on the black market. Isn’t this right?”
Jenna sticks her lizard-like tongue out at Gunthreon. “I
’ve gotta make a living somehow.”
I walk over to Jenna. “You were really going to take it, weren
’t you? How could you carry this anyway?” I once again think of ants.
“Actually, I wasn
’t sure if I was gonna take it yet. I don’t even know what that thing is. I was kind of scared to.” She seems genuinely embarrassed. “I probably would have tried, though. I haven’t eaten a good meal in a while.”
I say to her,
“You did have that honey.”
“You call that a meal? What do
you eat in Abscondia?” she whines. “You should come with me sometime where I can show you a good meal, for a price of course. Wildabug and dewjuice and, yum, mealworms!” She looks like a starving dog with a giant ham bone held out in front of its nose, told to stay.
“Yuck!”
I blurt, disgusted.
Gunthreon puts his arm out to me. “Kailey, come back to camp with me. Leave her here.”
“Let her make her own decisions!” Jenna says, sticking up for me.
He replie
s, “So you can take off with her blade?”
Jenna seems to try to keep up her tough exterior, but she looks discouraged now. She turns her head down toward her bare feet. “I
’m not going to take it. I just like her. She’s got good energy. I’d much rather have her as an ally than an enemy.”
“Kailey is not an item I can bargain with, and I need to keep her safe. Good day to you.”
I walk with Gunthreon back to camp, but not without a glance toward the tree that Jenna waved to. Creepy.
“Weren
’t you kind of rough on her?” I say.
“Like most creatures here in Renhala, you cannot underestimate even the tiniest of beings,” Gunthreon says.
The others seem to have found their own place to crash, and are bundled up all snuggly to protect themselves against the night chill. Bu snores, his jar of cookie smell totally exhausted, and Conner, in his sleeping bag, reads from a rather thick book. Lupa drinks something steamy from a tin cup and smiles at us as we return.
“Glad you
’re safe, hon,” she says. “We were kind of worried about you.
All
of us.” She nods in Conner’s direction, but he’s clueless, well into whatever thought-provoking words he’s reading.
“
A little woodsprite named Jenna almost nabbed my weapon.”
Lupa laughs. “Yeah, they
’re almost as vicious as pixies.”
“Pixies?”
“Get some shuteye, because we’re all getting up at the crack of dawn. We’re gonna need plenty of energy and brainpower for those mooncats.”
Lupa informs me that Conner set me up a sleeping bag. She points to it next to Bu—evidently Bu moved it there after Conner set it up closer to himself. Conner was quite the gentleman, too, because I see he gave me the much warmer one with a Sherpa liner. I climb into it, and as I inhale, I can smell his cologne. I suddenly sit up and shout, “Tomorrow is Monday! I have to call into work. I
’ll be right back.”
I stand up and right before I travel home to leave a message for Evan, Gunthreon says, “Stop! Don
’t go.”
“Hey, I
’m still working. At a job. Where I have responsibilities. Don’t tell me I can’t leave a message for my boss.”
“There is to be no travelling to Abscondia during this mission, Kailey.”
“Why?” I keep to myself that I’ve already broken that rule.
“Because every time someone travels, both Velopa and Neda know thi
s person has travelled,” he states.
“And why is that bad? That
’s our whole reason for searching! To find them, right? I could just travel back and forth like twenty times and maybe Neda will come and slap me on the hand.”
Gunthreon shakes his head. “You don
’t understand. That may draw attention to you, in particular. We must be guileful about this. Every time you travel, it gives one small clue as to your exact location. You want Velopa sneaking up on you while you’re indisposed?” His eyebrows are raised high.
“No, probably not,” I mumble
. I see Conner indiscreetly watching my reaction.
Conner stands up and says, “I
’ll do it for you. I travel often, so neither Neda or Velopa will pay me any heed. Give me your work number and I’ll leave a message for you. Is that okay, Gunthreon?” Gunthreon nods after some thought.
“Thank you,” I say softly to Conner. I tell him the number and he travels home. As I lie in my sleeping bag, staring up at the flashes of lightning, I close my eyes a
nd reach to my campmate’s energies, examining each, closely, looking for even a hint of deception, hidden somewhere. I find nothing.
Chapter 35
Uncomfortable
The night is cruel to me. Every single noise wakes me. I nearly put in my iPod earplugs, but the thought of not hearing something important changes my mind.
When the sun rises, I realize the pounding I hear is not from the forest, or from Lupa clanging her pots together, but from my head. Seeing everyone else wake up looking well-rested makes me want to kick them. The imaginary birds and animals I conjure up following Lupa around, Snow White-style especially don’t help.
“How did any of you get sleep last night?” I squint as my eyes cannot take the burning sunlight. In fact, even turning toward Lupa
’s glowing face makes me wince.
“I got enough that I feel ready for our journey today,” says Gunthreon. I
’m not even going to look at Gunthreon when he’s talking, because even he sounds wide-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Conner is already packed and smiling.
“What are you so cheery about this morning?” I glare.
He turns to me. “Did the woodsprite you encountered last night wear a holly necklace?”
“Why yes, she did,” I respond. He smiles widely. “And she is quite smitten by you.” I laugh when he drops his smile.
“What?” he chirp
s.
“Oh, she just thought you were adorable.”
He blushes, and it makes me sneer. He recovers quickly, though. “I was just happy I actually saw her,” he says. “Woodsprites are quite sneaky, and very clever. I thought my tracking skills were improving. Now I know she might have wanted me to see her though—or she just grew lax in her ability to hide because of my blinding good looks.”
“Whatever. Maybe you could go find her, and you two could have some ‘dewjuice’ together and talk about your dreaminess.” I am so going to be crabby all day.
“My, my, so this is how you are first thing in the morning, huh?” spouts Conner. “I’m more of a morning person. And don’t knock dewjuice.” He smiles again. “Just finish packing. We can’t lose any daylight.”
“Lose daylight? It
’s like five o’clock in the freaking morning. How much could we possibly lose?” I try turning toward the sun, but it’s so not worth it. “Oh, and aren’t we also going somewhere it’s dark all the time anyway?”
“Conner
’s right, Kailey,” says Lupa. “We have to move fast. We have to make sure we stop at a few places on the outskirts of Socola first, and we definitely want to get there in the daylight.”
“How come I always seem to be the one totally left out of the preparation plans?”
“I think you work best when you don’t know what to expect, Kailey,” replies Gunthreon. He waits for a response, but I actually don’t have anything to say.
We double-check to make sure we
’ve packed everything, and I say a secret goodbye to my first campsite.
Note to self: If this is what camping is like, I don’t think I like it.
I make sure I leave a small piece of my breakfast sandwich behind for a certain forest friend while nobody is watching. I can
’t help it—I’ve always secretly fed strays. As a child, I’d save all my leftovers and feed them to the pigeons—everything from potato salad to chicken. They always left the onions, though. Life’s all about karma anyway, right? Maybe someday, I’ll be saved by a giant pigeon. You never know.
We travel through some wetlands, which stink like a concoction of cooked broccoli, dirty diapers, and pigpen. It makes all of us cranky, and gives us all horrendous headaches. Lupa ends up cracking open her peppermint jar to let us all use it for a few minutes each. Surpri
singly, this helps tremendously, for our heads seem to clear.
An hour after we leave the wetlands, I still stink of broccoli.
What I would do for a life pool right now.
After we travel the majority of the day, Gunthreon finally stops and turns to all of us. “We are approaching the outskirts,” he says. “There
’s a few things we need to do while outside Socola, and talking with some locals is one of them. There are a few more necessary supplies we should pick up, and then we can stop and catch a bite to eat, and maybe get some information while we’re at it. I’m hoping to get to Socola right around nightfall, because it will seem more natural for us.”
“What kind of information are we searching for exactly?”
I say. I want to make sure I do my best and don’t do anything stupid.
“We
’re searching out the mooncats’ alpha cat. Rumors are spreading of direct connections to the Higher Ones here.”
I laugh out loud, but nobody else does. “They have an
alpha
cat?”
“Yes,” replie
s Gunthreon, “and if you were smart you would mind your manners if you happen to meet him.”
I do my best salute toward Gunthreon.
A glance at Bu tells me he’s troubled. “What’s wrong, Bu?”
“Bu just scared. Bu don
’t like them.” He holds his locket and gently caresses it. I show him my own ring which I am secretly fondling in my pocket. He smiles and takes a deep breath.
“Bu, remember who you
’re with: your friends who love you. And we are all here to take care of you. Okay?”
“Bu worried about Kailey.”
“Why me?” I say. “Don’t you worry about me. I have my handy-dandy spade on my back, and am ready to use it if need be. How about we just watch each other’s back? Then we’ll be fine.” I take his hand in mine and squeeze it.
Conner comes over and clasps Bu’s other hand. We all enter town holding hands, and must look like the weirdest bunch around. I don
’t care, though.
We continue walking through the town. Gunthreon enters a butcher shop while we all wait outside.
When he finally emerges, he’s carrying a particularly large package wrapped in white butcher paper. It’s handed over to Lupa, who opens her pack and places it inside with her other goods. I must remember to ask her if her pack is secretly a never-ending abyss.
We all follow, and Conner points out a peculiar storefront with a picture of a giant mouse eating a particularly large piece of cheese, the words “The Big Cheese” carved into the cheddar.
“Shall we stop for a few nibbles?” Conner turns to Gunthreon who nods.
My stomach screams at the mention of food. “They better n
ot just sell cheese here,” I yap. “I could use a nice, big, fat, juicy burger. Okay, maybe with cheese.”
Gunthreon peeks inside through the foggy window. “We could all use some nourishment right now,” he says. “And a tall glass of something bubbly.”
Lupa follows him inside, her head turning quickly to and fro. Most likely, she’s scanning the crowd, seeing if there’s any potential danger inside this dark and dingy establishment. I puff up my muscles and walk in with a gangster’s stride.
The “crowd,” I see, consists of two people. There
’s one harmless elderly man and a haggard woman who could possibly be a call girl—make that woman, and seasoned at that, because she’s definitely got age on her side. Lupa quickly spots what she’s actually searching for. She practically flies toward the exit for the outhouse. Gunthreon grabs us a table and some chairs. He even finds a chair big enough for Bu to sit in comfortably.
The menu is written on slate on the wall in the sloppiest handwriting I
’ve ever seen. The only thing I can somewhat read is some sort of steak and potatoes, and that sounds scrumptious to me, so I decide to go with it. If it’s close enough to cow I’ll eat it.
The waitress comes to our table after what seems like an eternity, and she
’s not the most cordial. “What’dya all want?” she says, squinting and not even carrying a nice little pad to write on. I feel as though she’s not talking about food. She stares at us—at whom directly, I don’t know, because both of her glass eyes swivel in her head every which way at once.
Gunthreon says, “We
’ll have some of your rosabread and olives to begin. Thank you, kind lady.”
“Uh-huh.” She eventually stops staring and walks away into the kitchen.
“Gunthreon, I have a question for you,” I say. “We’re on a search for these Higher Ones, and I don’t even know what they look like. Are they things, or people, or what?”
“I
’ve seen them as floating, glowing balls of energy,” says Gunthreon, “but I have also heard people say that they take different forms. Neda has been a dragon, a tree, a dwarf, and even a greble, from what I’ve heard. Velopa has been mentioned as many a thing also. It all depends on the individual who finds them. The only thing I know for a fact is that you can feel their strong energy, even if you’re not an experienced reader, if you are within a certain distance of them. Again, whether the experience is good or bad depends on the individual.”
The waitress comes back and practically throws our food onto the table in front of Bu. His eyes swell, and I can see he wants to devour it all as much as I do. It smells delicious. We order our meals, and she leaves again.
Turns out rosabread is much like a sweet bread, but lighter and flaky, and the saltiness of the olives is the perfect complement. The spread that accompanies it is somewhat peppery, and also extremely tasty.
My stomach begs to eat the whole serving of bread, despite the other beings sitting here with me. Conner enjoys his portion as much as I did mine, and I sit and stare as he licks each finger, slowly, savoring every drop of olive juice. He catches me staring, and I cannot help but blush as I turn my head elsewhere.
“Wow, this is so good,” I mumble quickly. “I would think there’d be more people here, with such delicious food.”
“It
’s probably the fact that the food here is not worth the danger,” says Gunthreon.
“Huh? There
’s no danger—”
Just then, the elderly man attacks Bu from behind with a mace-like object. Bu
’s quickness saves him, and he suffers only a brush to the shoulder as Lupa draws a rather sharp garden spade against the man’s throat, forcing him down on the floor. I glance at Conner, and he, too, is amazed by Lupa’s speed. I shove the last piece of bread in my mouth.
“You attempt t
hat again and you are dead!” yells Lupa. “You should be ashamed of yourself.” She lets up on her grip.
In an old, tired voice, he grunt
s, “Why are you here?” The man sits up on the floor. “You know I had to.”
“Well, he was with us! Couldn
’t you see he’s civilized?”
“Yes, but you know I had to, as keeper.”
I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I try to pretend like I do, giving this man my toughest badass poker face.
Lupa moves away, and Gunthreon stands over the man. “If you were wise, you would give us information.”
“What do you want?” he responds with a snarl.
“What is the c
urrent situation in Socola?” asks Gunthreon. “We are a party in need of any information you may have on Neda. That is all.”
The gears churn in the old man’s head for what seems an eternity, until he apparently decides it is information he can provide. “As far as Neda, we, on the outskirts, have our own scouts searching. The mooncats have recently received some word of a higher power, I believe. We here are also in search of Velopa.”
“Thank you, keeper. We have no quarrel with you,” says Gunthreon. “We’d like the rest of our food, and we will leave you peacefully.”
The waitress appears with a helper, and they both carry huge trays of food to our table. She lays them down far more gently than she did the bread, and the food before me makes me want to shed a tear. My steak, whatever it may be, is dripping blood-red, salty juice into the spiced potatoes, which still simmer on my plate. Everyone at the table holds their breath at the spectacular spread.
Bu also ordered a steak, his raw, but he ordered some sort of giant vegetable patty, too, which I
must
try. He lets me take a slice—since I keep staring at it—and I place it on an extra plate next to mine, since there’s no room on my own. I gorge on the steak, lost in my own little culinary amusement park. A greble army could march in right now, and I wouldn’t even know move a muscle—except to bring my fork to my mouth.
After my steak, I decide to try the vegetable patty and see that the portion Bu gave me is much smaller than I thought. He
’s already finished his own portion.
As we eat, with a full mouth, I say, “So why is that guy called
‘keeper’? Keeper of what?” I only dribble a little.
Gunthreon replie
s, “Keeper for the mooncats. They have several spies around, keeping a watch on the outskirts. The mooncats are not very trusting of outsiders like ourselves. They pay the keepers in many ways—sometimes gold, jewels, or even sex.”
“Oh.” I peer out the window, and I can guess where Socola starts because, about a half mile from us, the skies suddenly seem to turn an ominous black. I turn back to eat my last bite of the vegetable patty and discover it
’s gone. I frown at Bu, but he’s engulfed in his own merriment from the food he frantically shovels into his mouth.
Oooh, I wonder if they have dessert
, I think.