10:20
The familiarity of the layout in the sixth garden felt like a letdown. Like there should be something different. Even if it was a giant minotaur trying to take their head off – though what Perfect Bride test a giant minotaur would fulfill Siobhan had no clue.
But instead all they had was five more paths leading towards what was beginning to feel like a ubiquitous hedge wall. Maybe the test here was patience? Like the whole garden thing was just like a test where someone was left to sit in a chair in a waiting room for what felt like an eternity until finally they were seen by whoever they were there to see and they had to remain gracious throughout.
I mean, it would fit. It would be an absolutely awful test but it would fit.
Siobhan turned, noting with no small joy that the world did not go woozy as she did so. She looked to Dempsey then to Kim then to Dan then to, well, every single other person filing into the garden behind her which was to say everyone except Abe. And then she asked, “Patience?”
It was pretty clear that no one was in fact reading her mind as what met her question was a whole lot of confused looks.
“Could it be a test of patience?” she expanded.
“I mean,” Gwen made a face. “I guess. But ugh.”
“Yeah.” Kim looked around the garden, her gaze settling for a mikro or two on one bed then moving to another. “I mean nothing about gardens and plants and flowers and stuff. Its all very,” she waved a hand, “an idyllic afternoon. But couldn’t they have given us a picnic or something? That would really sell the theme.”
“Yeah,” Gwen planted her fists on her hips and looked up at the placid blue sky with its picturesque wispy white clouds. “I could be real patient if I had a picnic. With cookies.”
Patti’s eyes about started from her head. “Good googly moogly, no cookies!”
“Mehhhhh!” Sass vocalized. Siobhan assumed in agreement with Patti. Or maybe the mouse had gas. Most probably agreeing with Patti but still maybe it was gas.
“It could be gas.”
She realized she’d said that aloud when everyone turned and stared at her.
“Gas?” Ivan asked.
Siobhan waved her hand vaguely in dismissal. “Ignore that.”
“Potion?”
To quote a Gwen-ism, sure, she’d go with that.
“Potion.” She started down the path towards the hedge wall. She just kept thinking they, with their alternating climbing flowers and vegetables, had to be significant. “So, what’s with the cookies?”
Abe gave an exaggerated shiver Siobhan felt through the hand curled around her arm.
On the other side of her Prairie muttered, “Cookies!” then leaned in to look across Siobhan to Abe.
“Cookies!” they chanted in unison.
“Cookies!” echoed from Dempsey, Ivan, and Dan.
“Seriously?” Siobhan scrunched her nose. “What is with the cookies?”
“Yeah?” Kim echoed from behind her.
“The cookies are evil!” Patti yelled from the next path over. “Evil!”
Sass squeaked. Possibly in agreement. Again, possibly gas.
Probably not gas.
“I feel like we missed something,” Siobhan says quietly to Abe.
“You did.”
“Cookies?”
“Evil.” Abe grinned. “Possibly. Maybe. Evil. Or maybe misunderstood.”
And there she was thinking the potion was leaving her system. Silly her.
“You missed a lot.” Abe adds. So, maybe not the potion. Maybe The House. Which, sure, okay. The House.
She looked down the path to the hedge. Squinted. Where was the trellis?
Thinking maybe her eyes were still not working at their one-hundred percent best, she decided to walk up further. As if by consensus the group evenly split with Abe and Prairie on either side of her, Ben along the left wall tromping through the foliage, Patti on the path next to him and Ivan on the path closer to the middle one on that side.
Kim and Dan walked along the closest adjacent path to the right. Kim’s head slowly moved as she scanned the plants and flowers. Dan walked beside her, head on a slow swivel. Gwen and Dempsey walked on the far path to the right. Gwen’s voice drifted over to Siobhan, “You owe me a story.”
“Do I?” Dempsey rumbled. Though they were a distance from Siobhan the stillness and silence of the garden made it easy to hear their voices. And the scuff of Ben’s feet as he strode across the beds of plants, instead of using the paths, to amble over towards Dempsey and Gwen.
“I want to hear!”
The scent of lemon verbena and thyme drifted on the still air, rising from the plants Ben’s boots bruised or crushed. Instinctively Siobhan reached out to the roots to determine the damage but she pulled her Magick back before connecting and gave herself a stern internal stink eye. No Magick plant talk. Only cooking. Be. Good.
“Okay, so…” Even as she walked towards the hedge Siobhan strained to hear Dempsey. She wanted storytime too!
Kim drifted over to listen to whatever Dempsey was saying. Meanwhile Dan and Ivan both detoured around the fountains in the center of their paths without slowing their forward movement. Probably because they already heard the story. Or were part of it.
Siobhan realized her lower lip was jutting out and she pulled it back. The view of the hedge didn’t change the closer they got. Siobhan blinked, hard, and stared at the center of the hedge, like that would help bring the trellis into being.
“Abe? Is there a trellis and a gate in the hedge?”
There was a pause then Abe said, “No.”
“Prairie?”
“Definitely no.” Prairie brushed her hand over her side in a soothing gesture. Probably something to do with Kirby. Siobhan’s mind drifted in that direction, wondering not for the first time about the connection Prairie had to the large, three-headed dog.
But, no time for that. They had a trellis to find. Or probably a test to pass.
It made sense, right? Hedge. No trellis. Probably the end of the line and they couldn’t go back so the expectation had to be they would find a way through.
The remaining potion in her veins told her she could figure it out. She could figure anything out. She was that…
No. Whoa. She shook her head and focused her mind, shifting it down more sensible and adult paths. Could she figure this out with the other’s help? Sure. Probably. With their help. Not on her own. And not setting herself against them.
She was no longer that girl, competing to be the best, competing for Sebastian’s regard. She had a family now. Well, a found one. And that was good. She didn’t need to be the best. Just good. Good was enough. A warm feeling bloomed in her stomach, spreading through her chest and travelling down her limbs so her fingers and toes tingled.
Turning her head to look first at Abe then at Prairie and then beyond them to the others, she smiled. “I’m glad to be here with you.”
“Here?” Kim waved her hand, encompassing the majority of the garden in the sweep.
“Here. If I have to be in a messed up, whacky fun house trying to solve puzzles in order to possibly save the world I wouldn’t want it to be with anyone else.”
“Aw,” Ivan smirked. “We love you too.”
“Love you, Mom!” Patti called over from her row.
Siobhan rolled her eyes and smiled. Then she turned back to stare at the hedge. “Any ideas?”
Dan walked along the path connecting the adjacent one to the central one. There wasn’t enough room for him on the center one with Abe, Siobhan, and Prairie, so he stopped on the connecting path and turned to look at the hedge. Then he shifted his toothpick. Then he stared at the hedge some more. Then he pulled out a book from his vest. Then without looking at it he returned it. Finally he looked at Siobhan with a blank look.
“Nothing.”
The group listening to Dempsey kept talking as they spread out along the hedge on the right side. Dempsey drifted close enough that Siobhan could catch what he was saying. “So, then the pastry smacked into Ivan’s face.”
He made an exploding gesture with his fingers near his jaw.
“Really?” Gwen stopped peering at the hedge and turned to look at Dempsey. “What pastry?”
“What pastry?” Kim leaned around Dempsey to shoot Gwen a look behind his back. “That’s all you want to know?”
“I mean if it was a scone it could have hurt that pretty face.”
Dempsey looked at her with a scowl. “Pretty face.”
Kim and Gwen looked at him then busted out laughing. After a mikro his stern expression dissolved and he laughed too. It was at that exact moment that Ben, old Mister ADD, lunged forward and poked the hedge with a dagger.
There was a poof sound then the hedge visibly shivered and a giant cloud of pollen erupted from it, almost obscuring Ben entirely in its cloud. Kim, Gwen, and Dempsey caught some of the fallout with Kim, closest to Ben, getting enough it was hard to see her either. A ball of light hung in the cloud, looking like a lantern in a fog, and then the pollen around Kim dissipated with the smell of smoke, almonds, and maraschino cherries.
Dempsey batted at the pollen drifting towards him, then lifted his shield to cover Gwen. He ducked his head down and Kim walked over, shooting fire sprites from her fingertips to deal with the lingering cloud.
As the pollen cleared it revealed Ben lying prone, face in the shrubbery and his limbs splayed all akimbo with the dagger he’d stabbed into the hedge falling from his lax hand.
“Oh, crap!” Gwen ran over and crouched next to Ben. She grabbed his shoulder in her hand and tried to turn him face up. “He’s more dense that he looks.” She looked at Dempsey. “A little help?’
Dempsey walked over, crouched, and pushed Gwen gently aside with his shoulder. Then he scooped his huge hands under Ben and rolled him gently to his back. There was some resistance, specifically in the region of Ben’s head where it was buried in the hedge. Gwen reached in and smoothed back a branch then gasped.
“What?” Kim craned to look around Gwen’s head. Then her eyes widened. “Whoa.”
“Whoa what?” Siobhan toddled in that direction, trailing Abe and Prairie like baby ducks. As soon as she got close enough to see around Kim and Gwen she saw the reason for the “whoa” and gasp. Air roots that weren’t obvious in the foliage had latched on to Ben’s face. Or, maybe, they’d drilled into his skin? Only there was no blood.
There was a loose net of dendrons covering Ben’s face. Two stout ones dimpled the skin over his eye sockets and smaller roots sprouted from their ends and formed a cage over each of Ben’s eyes.
Siobhan raised a hand and covered her mouth. Then she swallowed and shouldered the risk and sent her Magick into the dendrons with the intention of willing them to release. But, they completely resisted her Magick. Repelled it actually.
Gwen laid a soft hand on his shoulder. “He’s,” she places a hand on his chest and closes her eyes. “alive. And,” she opens her eyes and cocks her head, “happy. Very happy.”
“Can you wake him?”
“Trying.” Gwen curled her lips over her teeth. “Failing. He doesn’t want to wake up?”
“He doesn’t?”
“He doesn’t.”
“I got poofed,” Kim stared at the hedge with pursed lips. “Ben got poofed. Ben is out and I’m fine. Why?”
Gwen ran her hands up and down her chest. “I don’t know. Why am I okay too?”
“I don’t know!”
“Excuse me.” Patti brushed behind Siobhan, Abe, and Prairie, walking quickly towards where Dempsey, Gwen, and Kim clustered around Ben. She stopped and peered intently at the hedge, then stepped back. Pulling Sass’s house off her belt she turned and held the mouse out to Kim. “Can you take Sass?”
“Why?” Kim’s tone was tentative as the hand she reached out to take Sass’ House.
“Because one of us has to be the designated victim. Might as well be me.”
Sass squeed in its house. Leaning out the window it reached hands towards Patti and sang, “Momma!”
The corners of Patti’s mouth twitched as she forced a smile. “Sassy, you stay back.” She shifted her attention to Dempsey and Kim then looked down at where Gwen still crouched next to Ben. “You all should too.”
Kim frowned. “Are you sure about this?”
“Who is the next reckless person after Ben?”
“Me?”
“Nah, you are probably third.”
“What about me?” Gwen rose and stepped back about ten feet from the hedge.
“Fourth?” Before anyone else could ask she turned and pointed at Siobhan, “Fifth.” Back to Ivan, “Sixth.”
Then she shifted her finger between Abe and Prairie, then back to Abe, then back to Prairie. She frowned then shifted to point at Abe, “Seventh.”
Prairie was “Eighth”.
Then she turned and looked at Dempsey, then back at Dan, then back at Dempsey. “Ninth and Tenth. You two fight that one out. Any debates?”
Kim canted her head to the side then twisted her lips to the side. “No?”
Siobhan pressed a hand with the subtlest tremble against her chest. “I am honored to be fifth stupidest.”
Patti snorted then stooped and placed her shield down on the ground. Rising she hefted her cudgel and walked up to the hedge. She turned and stared pointedly at Kim and Dempsey. Kim raised her hands and took a dozen or so steps back, moving until she bumped into Abe. Turning her head she muttered a quick, “Sorry.”
Dempsey walked over to stand next to Gwen then propped his shield on his feet and crossed his arms. “Good?”
Patti gave a vigorous nod then turned back to the hedge. “Here goes nothing.” She reared back with her cudgel then whacked the hedge. Pollen shot from the foliage, engulfing Patti in a cloud. At the first touch of the pollen Patti slumped to the ground.
Siobhan winced as Patti’s head bounced. Then dendrons shot from the hedge and latched onto Patti’s face.
Everyone looked at Patti with looks of consternation and dread. Gwen walked over, stooped, and placed a hand on Patti’s chest. After a mikro she blew a breath out her mouth, stood, and brushed her hands off.
“Same as Ben. Happy. Very happy. And very locked inside with no interest in leaving whatever is making her happy.
Kim blew out a long breath. “Okay,” she drew out the word. “What was the difference?”
Next to Siobhan Abe shook their head. “I don’t know.”
“This sucks.” Kim eyed Patti’s prone form but didn’t move towards it. Instead she turned and looked first at Siobhan then at Dan and then at Ivan. “Maybe we should be more scientific about it? Like first establish what we were all doing the same? And Patti did differently this time?”
Ivan frowned. “Ben used blades. Patti used her cudgel. So, it can’t be a weapon type. And Ben stabbed while Patti bashed. So probably not the type of blow.”
Kim rubbed her chin and made a slow stroll along the hedge, eying the flowers. “Does it seem like it only affects us when we attack?” She eyed Dempsey and added, “Or do something that looks like an attack to it.”
Siobhan picked up the thread. “We don’t have enough data with only two down to make that judgement.”
The jitter in her blood settled as she applied logic to the problem they faced. Or maybe she consumed more of it as she worked to regain full function of body and mind.
“Valid.” Ivan rubbed his chin and shifted his gaze between Ben, Patti, and the hedge. “We can assume the cloud of pollen is responsible.”
“I agree.” Siobhan frowned at the hedge then at their fallen friends. “Is it really relevant what causes the attacks?”
“Unfortunately,” Dempsey said, “I think it is. We either get through the hedge or we sit down and die. I prefer the first to the second.”
Dan stared at the hedge. “Trying to cut it or hit it clearly is not the answer. What else can we do to get through it?”
“Figure out what the Perfect Bride would do?” Kim offered with a frown.
When Dan and Dempsey stared at her she shrugged. “What, it makes sense if we’ve had three Perfect Bride messages after the first three tests then it stands to reason that is our goal.”
“Or,” Abe offered tentatively, “maybe it is what is being tested?”
Kim gave Abe a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
“I was thinking it might be the senses? Remember,” they turned to Dan. “You said that the archetype of the Princess and the Pea stories was finding the most sensitive wife?”
Dan nodded.
“Sensitive. Senses. I think we considered this before?” Abe counted on their fingers. “Test one could be hearing or sound. Two would be sight, maybe?” Their voice lifted at the end of each suggestion, “Uhm, and food would be taste? Possibly?”
“Huh,” Gwen turned and gave Abe a long, assessing look. “Smart. So we’d only have touch and smell, right?”
“I think, yes, if I’m right about it be the senses and the first three being sound, sight, and taste.”
“Ben and Patti touched the hedge.”
“Violently,” Kim said under her breath.
“So, if its touch what’s the goal?” Siobhan asked.
Abe balled their right hand into a fist and rubbed it with their left hand while casting their gaze around the garden. “I don’t know.”
Siobhan looked at the lush garden. “Why a garden for touch?”
“What?” Dempsey asked.
“It makes more sense that a garden would be smell.”
“I don’t disagree. What I don’t understand is what would be a test of smell in a garden. There’s a lot of smells in here.”
“There is.”
Turning her back to the hedge, Siobhan looked down at the plant bed to her right, then over to the one to her left. The one to the left held common kitchen herbs: basil, golden oregano, creeping thyme. To the right white flowers bloomed, the plantings seemingly random: alyssum, lily of the valley, chamomile.
The only things they had in common were they were flowers, white, and strongly scented. As were the herbs. Strongly scented that was. In fact, Siobhan looked around as an idea occurred to her, just about every plant and flower in the garden was strongly scented.
Which did seem to argue that this could be a test of smell. But what did that have to do with the pollen or the dendrons attached to Patti and Ben or the state the pollen or the roots seemed to have induced in their unconscious friends?
“I just can’t make sense of it.”
“If you can’t can any of us?”
“We have to get through the hedge and we can’t attack it.” Siobhan frowned as she tried to come up with any solution that didn’t involve invoking her Magick. She just couldn’t risk it and she didn’t want to have to explain the why to her friends. She didn’t think they’d judge her. Not really. But what if they did. “I can’t use my Magick on it. It’s too strong for me.”
Dempsey scrubbed his hand through his hair and frowned at where Ben and Patti lay. “How do we get those things off their faces and wake them up?”
Siobhan crushed one hand with the other, squeezing until her knuckles cracked. Literally not a single damned thing was coming to her and it sure looked like her friends were in a similar state of confusion. Why couldn’t The House give them a clue? All they could do was trial and error this and it just made no damned sense.
There was nothing unique about the hedge, beyond the fact it had no trellis. And there was nothing at all different about this garden from the last five. Pressure built behind her eyes as she strained to find a single thing that might be a clue.
Dan tapped his book with his pencil. “Three of the six gardens had fountains, but the order was chaotic. Second, fifth, and,” he pointed his pencil at the fountain on the path to the left, “sixth.”
“The layout of all the gardens was the same. Five paths. Three intersecting paths before the final one that ran along the hedge.” Ivan added.
“But the plants all varied.” Siobhan tried to recall if there was any pattern to the plants but they seemed completely random. “Chaotic.”
“What?” Dempsey looked over at her.
“The plants are chaotic. Herbs. Flowers. Trees.”
“Is there anything they have in common?”
“Smell? Strong smells.” She waved a hand to encompass the raised beds. “Not a single plant in here, as far as I can tell, doesn’t have a strong scent.” She frowned. “Yet, they don’t clash.”
“They should?” Dempsey asked.
“You would think so.” Siobhan drew in a deep breath, pulling the scent of the garden into her nose. Next to her Prairie did the same, her nose twitching. “But they are harmonious.”
“They shouldn’t be?” Again Dempsey was the one to ask.
“They shouldn’t–”
Siobhan had the sense of movement. She didn’t think she saw it or felt it but definitely there was movement from behind. Sliding her hand into the basket hilt of the pretty sword Dempsey gave her, she pulled it out of her bag in silken movement while spinning to face the hedge. As she turned she took in the confused looks of her friends. Had none of them heard the–
Her thoughts screeched to a halt as her eyes took in what had caused her alarm.
Vaguely human-shaped and -sized portions of the hedge separated from the main body of it and were shambling towards their group. They had arms and legs and vaguely head-like lumps at the top of their forms but otherwise they were utterly uniquely not humanoid.
Their upper limbs, made up of narrow branches from which long leaf blades sprouted, moved like you’d expect limbs made of branches to move. They swayed, their length writhing in a manner that was utterly unhuman, and at the end of the appendages branches trailed the ground like long fingers. Light flowed through the gaps in the leaves, further emphasizing the wrongness of them.
It was a testament to the synchronicity the group shared that they all followed Siobhan’s lead in turning to face the hedge and the approaching creatures. Instinctively they all gravitated towards each other, scuffling backwards over cobbled paths and gently threading their way through plants as they crossed raised beds.
Dempsey instantly snatched up his shield. “I’ll protect Ben and Patti!”
With this he dashed over to where the two lay prone, braced his legs, and held his shield up to guard them. No bush things encroached at the moment, but it was a safe precaution. Instead they lumbered and shambled and careened in a vaguely Siobhan-direction. Or maybe that was her imagination? She cast about, trying to determine if the others were being targeted and her sense of them coming for her and her specifically was just potion-induced paranoid.
It may have just been paranoia. The hedge creatures definitely engaged those they came in contact with. As she watched Kim dodged a languid swing of a branch then twisted with fire dancing on her fingertips.
Before she could shoot off a sprite, Siobhan shouted. “Cherry laurel is poisonous. Don’t damage the branches.” She stopped. Shook her head. “The arms. I guess they are arms?”
“So,” Kim darted a look at Siobhan while shaking the fire out of her fingertips, “Fire bad?”
“Fire bad. Smoke from burning cherry laurel can be toxic.”
Kim frowned at the encroaching creatures then fell back to stand near Dempsey. “It they get too close I’ll have Air move them.”
“Sounds good,” he said without looking at her as his gaze was flashing left and right, assessing the threat of the creatures. Reaching into his messenger bag he pulled out what appeared to be a wooden gladiator sword. His large hand nearly swallowed the hilt as he readied the blunt weapon to fend off any impinging limbs.
Siobhan turned back to determine how close the creatures were to herself and Abe bracketing her right with Prairie doing the same on her left. Abe twisted their right hand and called ink to pool in their palm. Meanwhile Prairie tucked her daggers into their loops and looked to Siobhan. “Are they caustic to skin?”
“If the leaves are crushed or the branches are cut they release toxic compounds that cause skin irritation and sometimes respiratory issues. The toxins are concentrated in the bark, sap, and berries.”
“Berries?” Dan closed in, taking up a spot several steps back from Prairie on the left in a flower bed, the scent of rosemary rising from where it was crushed beneath his boots.
As if called by his words several of the creatures reared back their limbs then released clumps of berries to fly through the air at Siobhan’s group. Abe swept their hand out, the ink in it flying out like a liquid scarf and absorbing the incoming berries.
Siobhan jerked a look at Abe. “What part of caustic confused you?!”
Abe snapped their wrist and the scarf of ink receded back into their palm. Cherries fell from it to plop on the ground. “No part?”
Instantly, Siobhan felt chagrin. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. It did look bad.”
“Dempsey!”
At Kim’s yell, Siobhan shifted to look to where he and she were protecting Ben and Patti in time to see a giant poof of pollen erupt as a rain of flower clusters hit Dempsey’s shield in rapid order. Instantly a swirl of air flew around Kim, blowing the pollen away before any of it could touch her. Unfortunately for Dempsey he did not have any overprotective air beings to cocoon him.
The billowing cloud of pollen covered him, the drift of it on the air obscuring Siobhan’s view of him. Kim spread her arms and the column of air protecting her drove back the pollen until it dissipated under the force of the air. It revealed Dempsey as he collapsed.
Kim couldn’t move quickly enough to catch him. The ground practically trembled as he tumbled into closest bed of dianthus. The scent of spice and vanilla erupted on the air as he crushed the plants beneath his large frame.
Eyes wide, Kim darted Siobhan a look then ran over to drop to her knees next to him. A hissing sound was the only warning they had as the hedge released dendrons.
“Kim!” Siobhan yelled.
Kim looked up and dived to the ground with her hands over her head and her face buried in the plants. The air roots flew over her head and stabbed into Dempsey’s face. Between one mikro and the next several divided, shooting out smaller roots to cage his eyes. The jet of ink Abe threw at him hit a mikro later. Too late to stop the roots, if that was even possible.
Gwen wended her way along the path, heading for the bed of flowers. She carefully stepped into the bed. Siobhan wanted to tell her at that point it was a little unnecessary since Dempsey’s header had done a real job on the dianthus.
She relaxed her iron control on her Magick, letting it taste the Magick of the dianthus for only long enough to determine the plants were down but not out. Hearty things! Then she released her Magick, reorienting as her senses shifted from the narrow focus on the plants and back onto the reality of the chaos playing out around her.
The attacks of the hedgelings – what she was going with for the plant creatures attacking them in slow motion – did not cease when Dempsey fell. Instead the creatures kept inexorably heading towards Siobhan, dragging their limbs on the ground. She eyed those limbs to make certain there was no imminent flower or berry attack coming from them. But they just seemed determined to reach her.
Looking down she saw why their progress was so slow. Roots protruded from what she was calling their legs, the white of them emerging from the cracks between the stones making up the paths. It was that reality of the creatures being plants, needing the connection to the earth, that was causing their slow shamble.
But they seemed particularly focused because they pulled against the roots which had to be stretching under the top layer of strata. That was the reality of roots – they were elastic – and also, for all Siobhan knew, the hedgelings roots could be growing to allow the movement. Thankfully the plants seemed to be clinging to some semblance of normal so if there was growth it was slow. Meaning their approach was as well, allowing the others to dodge and backpedal to avoid the creatures approach.
“No!” Gwen’s scream drew Siobhan’s attention from the hedgelings and back to where Gwen knelt next to Dempsey in time to watch the ground fall out from under Kim.
The hole flowed, more than grew, expanding outwards rapidly and Kim dropped into the earth, submerging in spurts. First her thighs dropped below the earth line, then her ribs, then her torso so she was left with her arms stretched out, fingers grappling for purchase in the rapidly disappearing ground.
Gwen fell on her butt and scrambled to move faster than the expanding hole. Oddly it flowed around Dempsey, leaving him on a jetty of dirt thrusting from the receding earth. Gwen next to him was largely on the jetty herself, though she did have to draw her feet in and clasp her knees to her chest to retain her seat.
Siobhan cast around, looking for a fallen limb thinking she could hold it out to Kim like she’d heard worked for quicksand. She didn’t think they were facing a sudden pool of quicksand, more like a sinkhole, but it had to help, right? But there was no stray sticks anywhere among the raised beds or cobbled paths.
As she searched the area frantically her gaze drifted over the hedgelings. They’d stopped their approach, kind of hovering and swaying their unnatural torsos so their arms flowed in a mesmerizing dance. Siobhan shook her head and looked to Prairie.
“Do you see this?” she murmured from the side of her mouth.
Prairie nodded hard enough her ponytail whipped side to side. “Yes.”
Meanwhile Ivan ran in from the right of the sinkhole and stared at Kim with frantic eyes. “Give me your hand!”
Kim stretched to comply but her fingers fell just short of the arm Ivan thrust at her across the hole. Dan ran to Patti’s prone form and grabbed the cudgel from her slack finger. He then ran to the edge of the hole, dropped to his knees, and held it out to Kim.
Grimacing and bobbing like she was treading earth like water, Kim snatched at the cudgel with her right hand. Then she threw her left hand out to wrap it over the right. Dan dug in his heels and threw his weight backwards. Rather than being pulled out of the earth, Kim sunk lower.
Abe ran over, flinging a line of ink while on the run. It sailed over Kim’s head as she sank beneath the surface of the earth, disappearing from Siobhan’s sight. Ivan grunted and dug his hands into Dan’s shoulders, adding his strength to Dan’s as they fought to pull Kim up by the cudgel. But the physics of the thing, or maybe the will of the garden, proved their undoing.
Kim must have released her hold on the cudgel as she was fully engulfed by the earth because Dan and Ivan went flying backwards under the force of their combined pull. Ivan landed hard in a bed of sweet violet. As he crashed down the sweet, candy-like scent of the flowers dispersed on the air, for a moment the strongest scent in the aromatic garden.
Dan landed hard on top of Ivan who released his breath on a hard oof. Siobhan wasted no more time worrying about them. If they could make noise then they were breathing and therefore she had to prioritize her concern for Kim who probably was not breathing under the earth.
The engulfment of Kim seemed to be the signal for the hedgelings to begin moving again. Siobhan cast a frantic look at Prairie who gave her a wide-eyed look. Then Abe stepped in front of Siobhan with their right fist raised and ink oozing between their clenched fingers. They threw Siobhan a look. “Go! I’ve got this!”
Siobhan looked at the earth, grown back up around Gwen and Dempsey so he lay and she sat on the flat surface. She looked at Ivan and Dan slowly disentangling from each other. Slowly. Too slowly. It was clear their collision had knocked the air from them. Siobhan had once ran sternum first into a pole protruding from a dumpster. The force of it lifted her off the ground and sent her flying to lie on her back. And for several long mikros where she simply could not breath she’d lay there and thought that was how she was going to die.
She suspected, based on Ivan’s and Dan’s dazed expressions, they were experiencing a similar feeling.
Gwen rolled to her hands and knees and crawled across the ground towards where Kim had disappeared. She pressed both hands to the ground and a look of concentration transformed her features. After a mikro or so of this she scrunched up her face, tilted her head, then curled her lips back from gritted teeth. Tilted her head further. Then pressed the side of her face to the freakishly smooth ground. After another mikro she rocked back to something like a crouch and feverishly started clawing at the earth with her fingers. Siobhan watched for a moment then gathered up her skirt and started striding in that direction.
Movement behind her drew her attention back to the slowly approaching hedgelings. Panic threatened to overwhelm her. The sour, biting feeling of bile played under her tongue and she had to clench her teeth to fight back the vomit. Her eyes burned. The last of the potion jumped around in her veins, demanding she do something and she just didn’t know what she was supposed to do!
Kim was gone! And Ben, Patti, and Dempsey were out of commission. And she and Abe and Prairie were the last on their feet and neither she nor Prairie had blunt weapons so they couldn’t do anything against the hedgelings! Nor did they have shovels to get Kim out of the ground! And if Abe got dropped they had no defense! Sure she could tap her Magick but she didn’t trust it! Didn’t trust herself!
Suddenly words burst out of her throat. She vomited them on the air the release of them causing her stomach to cramp and her throat to close.
“What do you want? What are we missing? I’m tired and I’m coming down from a Magick kick and I really just want to find Grace and go home and have a hot cup of herbal tea to settle me so what do you want?!”
Enter The Woods 