I lost control of my movements again, as branches came out of skin at the legs. This time, I bumped into Mags.
To give her credit, she didn’t really freak out. Beyond the initial surprise at being blindsided by a staggering branch-woman, she was fast enough to reach out and offer a steadying hand, her fingers finding leverage in the mesh of overlapping branches.
Paige saw, though. She made an incoherent noise and backed off, eyes wide. The light in the tunnel flailed wildly for a moment as she dropped her hand.
“Oh, look at that,” Peter said, smiling. He seemed to be taking far too much joy in being able to keep his cool while his sister was shocked.
With the movement of Paige’s light, the entire group had come to a stop. Green Eyes and the vestige children had stopped, further ahead.
“Is she okay?” one of the children asked.
“She’s bleeding,” Paige said.
I looked down at my hand. The branches were rippling beneath gloves, and I worked to pull the gloves off before they could tear, tucking Rose’s machete under one arm.
In places where the branches and extra bones were punching through the flesh, the flesh was red and raw. In other places, the flesh had been scraped or cut, and trails of blood were leaking out, coloring flesh crimson where the branches had yet to emerge.
I flexed my hand, very aware of how the branches were heavier in some spots than others. It was more like my hand than Rose’s, if I squinted, looking past the fact that portions were dark, dry wood and portions were blood-slick skin.
“I am,” I said, and my voice sounded like a jarring hybrid of Rose’s voice and my own.
“You being… Rose?” Ainsley asked. “Or Blake?”
“Blake,” I said it at the same time Mags did.
“Blake!” Evan said, bouncing in place at a point behind the group. “Oh man! I’d give you a hug if I had arms and if I wasn’t on fire and if you weren’t so gross and bloody and is Rose okay?”
Finding Rose was difficult, given how every building block of this body had ‘Rose’ stamped onto it. Or, more specifically, the building blocks had ‘Rus-‘ stamped on them, and the smudges and damage made it look enough like Rose that it sort of worked.
I felt her, and I felt how she was hurt. My surfacing had put holes in her body and it had done a degree of damage to her being.
I felt raw, I felt strange, having given up whole pieces of myself, and I knew that I’d been damaged by my close interactions with Rose. Now she was within me, and the dynamic had been inverted.
“Rose is… she wanted to do this,” I said. “I get the body and the fear and she gets to operate free and clear and pull together the things we need to.”
“But is she okay?” Ainsley asked. “She was supposed to be my future sister in law. I’m kind of obligated to ask.”
“No,” I said, “she’s not okay.”
Ainsley was very still.
I left the second part of my sentence unsaid. And what will you do about it?
Maybe someone was about to say something. It was hard to tell, but I hunched over and convulsed. More branches pierced the flesh to embrace my torso.
Before they could fully emerge, I grabbed and tore away the jacket and part of the sweater-blouse combo. The reaching branches destroyed what I couldn’t remove in time.
I tried to catch my balance, but even with support from Mags, I still dropped to one knee.
More blood and blood loss.
“This might not have been wise,” Ainsley said, belaboring the obvious.
“Rule of thumb,” I said. I managed to get to my feet. “If I’m involved, wise isn’t the word you’re looking for.”
“Blake,” Paige said. She was pale.
“We’ve met,” I said. “You don’t remember, but we’ve met.”
“I’ve pieced things together from what Isadora told me and what’s been said, but meeting you is another thing altogether,” Paige said. She seemed to center herself, and she focused on positioning and providing the light, though she didn’t take her eyes off me.
I looked at her too, and it was chilling to realize I felt nothing. Paige and Molly and I had once been close. I knew it, objectively, and I now knew that the memories were unbalanced. But they were memories were more Rose’s than mine.
Playing dress-up or going to the playground down the street from Uncle Charles’ house or any of the other stuff, it was all largely meaningless.
Looking at the human faces around me, very few meant anything at all. People.
Only Mags stood out, and even that was tenuous.
Still, I felt the need to say something.
“Aren’t you glad our grandmother put you dead last for succession?” I asked Paige. My voice was still broken. Partly mine, partly Rose’s.
“Probably the nicest thing she ever did for you,” Peter commented.
“Don’t think I don’t remember what you said, back then,” Paige said.
“You’re right! Nicest thing I’ve done for you, too.”
The changes were still ongoing. Getting me to the point where I’d been after my epiphany down in the Drains. I twisted my neck as the branches climbed it, trying to stay more limber.
But where I’d been empty, before, now I was a cage that housed a largely paralyzed, terrified body. Branches crawled in and throughout the body and formed the exterior covering, which I had more control over. Rose didn’t house the body, but her emotions did.
“Are you good to keep moving?” Lola asked, without an iota of sympathy in her voice.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Because our best advantage right now is that the lawyer that’s chasing us is on foot above ground, and there is stuff in the way, and our way here is mostly clear. If we can get ahead of him, that has to count for something. I don’t think we will, but I’d like to at least try.”
I nodded.
I started forward, and my footsteps were lurching ones. I stopped and pulled off the first of Rose’s boots, and felt the wood grow from the softer, more sensitive parts of the foot, reaching for the ground.
When I set my foot down, the branches splintered, broke, and bent, and were fixed in place by yet more pieces of wood and shards of bone.
I did the same with the other foot.
This time, as I ran, I was faster. The strength was mine, an unnatural sort.
I could have done with being lighter, but I was more mobile, all the same.
As we progressed, the humans naturally fell behind. I found myself in the company of Green Eyes, the vestige kids, and the goblins.
Somewhere in the midst of it, Evan caught up with us. He was about four feet tall, and he still burned, but the trail of fire behind him was intermittent, only really appearing when he pushed himself to catch up.
“Our goal is to clear the way,” I said. “Vestige kids, show us the path, help the others, but whatever happens, stay away from the sorcerer. His pipes pull you under his control. Evan? It’s very possible that includes you too.”
“But-”
“Be awesome. Stay on the perimeter. Hold back the threats. There will be work to be done here.”
“Okay.”
“I tackle the biggest threat. Green Eyes? Cover my back and flanks.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Goblins,” I said… I paused. “Be goblins.”
“Can-” one goblin started. He hesitated, “Can I have… that?”