“I don’t understand. What would that person do, if the person took over my mother’s rule?”
He says, “A bad ruler here would keep the people angry and bitter, and it’s the angry and bitter people who take a long time to come to peace. They stay here.”
“Like you.”
“Yeah. Like me. Look how long it’s taken me to come around. The bigger the kingdom, the more power the ruler has.”
“So wait—what you’re saying is that if my mom brings me to life again, she will weaken to the point where this person can take over? I will destroy the entire kingdom?”
“Listen. Your momma’s gonna take care of you. Don’t give up this chance. I wouldn’t.” He steps onto a boulder and reaches for my hand, but I’m just standing there, not able to move.
“You wouldn’t?” I mumble. “Really? I feel like a stupid brat. I got myself into this. I should just accept the consequences.”
“Kiandra, I’ll be the first to tell you when you are being a brat. You ain’t a brat for accepting this.”
“No, listen. Jack did this to me. He knew that my mother would try and bring me back. He wants her to do this. He wants to weaken her. If I let her do this, we’re just playing into his hands.”
He nods, unsurprised, and starts to speak, but I put my hand up to silence him. Because, right then, I realize something. “You knew that all this time, didn’t you? Ever since I got here. That’s why you’ve been protecting me. You knew he’d try to hurt me. Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I told you he was dangerous. What more did you want?” He’d been reaching for my hand, but now he just digs both hands into the pockets of his jeans. “You were just a girl who stepped on a hornet’s nest, is all. I thought all I needed to do was get you away from the nest. I didn’t want you to know about your momma, about this Mistress of the Waters stuff, because I knew you wouldn’t leave. I’m sorry, Kiandra, but the only way you’re gonna make your momma happy is if you do this. And I’m gonna help her.”
“Maybe I don’t care about making her happy. Why do you follow her so blindly?” I say, my voice rising an octave. “What has she done for you that you keep bending over backward for her?”
He doesn’t say anything, just stands there on top of the boulder, rocking on his heels. From his expression, I can’t even be sure he’s listening.
“She’s not your mother. You may feel guilty about leaving your mother, and your mother may be a saint, but that lady across the river is not her,” I say. “My mother was dying and couldn’t even say goodbye to me. She might have been sick, but she could have had more time with me, and instead, she left. Why should I care about whether or not I make her happy? And you keep following her around, doing whatever she tells you to. You sound pathetic.”
His eyes snap to mine. So he was listening. I catch my breath when I realize all the hurtful things I’ve just said. His face begins to cloud, from clear indifference to a perfect mix of anger and disappointment. His brow sinks, and lines form around his eyes. Still, he says nothing. I open my mouth to apologize but only a muffled sound comes out, because I don’t know what to say. I know what I should do, though. To save him, my mother, the kingdom, I have to leave. I have to run away and never be found.
I turn and run. Trey calls to me to stop, but I keep going. I expect Trey to catch up to me, to grab me, but I am ahead of him, out of his reach. How is it I am so nimble, so graceful? I’m running so fast that everything is a blur around me. The farther I race, the more I know that this is the right thing to do. To be alone, not responsible for anyone else. All at once I feel brave and invincible and athletic, things that I never felt before. The feeling is strangely exhilarating.
I come to a stop when I see something moving among the trees. Slowly, it drags itself along, scraping up the forest floor. Letting the air fill my lungs, I turn. Trey is gone. At first I think it’s an awkward, large animal, like a moose, but it stills at the same time I do. I get the feeling it’s watching me. Now, through the leaves, I can make out crisp pink cloth. I duck my head lower and see the shoes. Girls’ white T-buckle shoes, the surface more scuffs than patent leather. One delicate knee-high is up, and one is pooling around her ankle. I strain to remember her name. “Vi?” My voice is a loud whisper.
I know she can’t answer me. Every time she opens her mouth, that foul black mud will pour over her chin. She doesn’t come toward me, though. She stays there, perfectly still. The forest is so quiet that I can hear her breathing.
“I know it’s you,” I call pleasantly, because she’s a child, and a jumpy one, and I half expect her to run away. I think I’ve lost her when she takes one step in the direction she’d been headed, toward the Outfitters, but suddenly she stops. “Stop hiding,” I say. “Come on out.”
She doesn’t move. I wait a minute, but nothing changes. Either the leaves are shuddering in the breeze, or she is.
I step forward, hands out. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
When I’ve moved closer, I can see her eyes, wide and brown as the mud crusting her lips. There’s always fear there, but now it’s magnified. She’s shaking. I peer through the branches and see something lying on the ground beside her. A familiar powder blue. And blood, now crusted and dark, almost the color of the mud around it. And blond hair, now greasy and tangled and matted with pine needles and leaves. My body.
I gasp. “Vi. What are you doing with that?” But it’s obvious what she is doing. She’s moving it toward the Outfitters, not away from it, not where it can be buried in these vast woods and safely disappear forever. She’s bringing it to where the heart of the search party will be, where it will likely be buzzing with people.
She wants them to find my body.
Maybe she always wanted me dead, too, because one thing is clear. She wants me to stay that way.
Chapter Twenty-One
“What are you doing?” I shout at her, but she doesn’t listen. She grabs handfuls of greasy green hair and begins to drag my lifeless body through the mud. She’s so tiny, but when I reach for her, her elbow jabs between my ribs. It doesn’t hurt, but the little girl’s force shocks me. Her eyes narrow to slits. She opens her mouth only a sliver, and black filth drizzles out. I know that if she could, she’d be hissing at me to get away. I put my hand on hers, trying to pry her fingers up, but the hair is wound tightly through them. All I can manage to do is pull up a few strawlike strands that break apart in my hands. I grab the hair closer to the scalp and yank in the other direction. A whole lock of hair at the crown of the head rips free in a series of sickening pops, like a seam splitting, leaving a pinkish-gray bald spot there. That’s me, I think, wincing at the bloody clump of hair in my hands, and am so shocked for the moment that I’m not prepared for what comes next. She lunges at me, throwing me on my back and knocking all the air out of my lungs. When I recover from the shock, she’s straddling my waist and holding a finger up to her muddy lips. Quiet.
I struggle to move, but it’s useless. I’m pinned to the ground. This little girl, not four feet tall, has pinned me to the ground. She looks over her shoulder and before I can form another plan of escape, I hear the swish of feet along the grass. Someone is coming. I strain to see over the little girl’s shoulder, but can only make out a faint glow. Jack. I swallow when I hear his voice. “I’m going to wring that little brat’s neck.” He stops, points his head to the sky, and shouts, so loud it nearly shakes the trees, “Do you hear that? I’m going to wring your neck!” And then he continues on. Once he’s moved on, I exhale. She moves off of me and bends over the body again.