Sometimes she could remember the smell of cinnamon and sugar. Other times she remembered nothing but wisps of half formed images. Maybe lies. Her head lied a lot. There were too many thoughts.
Reflection told her most weren’t true. The good was bad and bad was good.
She believed reflection.
But it was just a scrap of fiber.
Why did reflection look so worried? Chrysalis shook her head, because the thoughts were hurting. She was a good girl. And good girls did what their friends asked.
Just as reflection had said there would be, Chrysalis spotted a bubbling, frothing pool beside a burrow. Yanking the rope out of its pouch she gazed at it again.
Reflection could hear, but reflection couldn’t see.
Deep down a thought began to bloom, a strange, silly, little thought. The thought that maybe reflection was keeping something from her. Friends shouldn’t keep secrets.
And yet…
Rather than drop the rope into the pool as reflection had commanded, Chrysalis tucked it gently back into her bodice and burned something else instead. When reflection asked her if it was over, she’d say yes.
But that night, when she returned to the man’s camp and she gazed out at him, and saw him sleeping so soundly, so peacefully she was determined to discover the truth.
The truth would set you free.
Chrysalis wasn’t sure where she’d heard that before, but in the deepest, most private part of her soul she knew it to be true. Still, the man could not be allowed to thwart them… she needed time and she needed distance.
Wiggling her fingers, she altered the land. “It must be done.” It was on the tip of her tongue to say she was sorry, but then reflection would hear, and right now she wasn’t so sure she could trust reflection as well as she once had.
“What’s done?” Reflection stirred at the sound of her voice, and Chrysalis whispered of her deed. Reflection laughed and laughed and laughed, but tonight the sound chilled her to the very marrow.
Chrysalis watched as the land rumbled beneath him with a tight frown on her lips. The hunter had wounded her, might have killed her, she’d seen the decision in his eyes the moment he’d pulled the knife. And yet, all along she’d felt his restraint.
But just as she was slogging her way through all those muddied thoughts the voice in her head grew louder, and louder, and it hurt so bad she could hardly think anymore. Grabbing her skull she turned and walked back to the place she now called home. A small little den she’d hewn out of stone hidden behind a rainbow waterfall.
She never uttered an apology to him for what he’d find come morning, but she felt it all the same.
Aeric awoke to the sensation of being watched. In one swift movement he’d rolled over and had his twelve inch blade poised at the body that’d been hovering atop him just seconds ago.
An angry chatter of squirrel sounded before it’s big bushy tail scampered off, disappearing within a muddy sinkhole.
A sinkhole?
He frowned. How had he missed that last night? His heart thundered imagining what might have happened if he’d made camp atop or beside one. Many an unwary traveler had met their demise by those things.
But just as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief he noticed his pack was gone, and a fire he’d made certain not to set last night was blazing only a few yards away.
The sun was creeping up over the horizon.
There were dark spots everywhere. All his tools, his wares, everything he’d brought with him was gone. Even the skins he’d covered himself with to ward off the chill of night was vanished.
The ghostly mirage of a smiling feline chuckled in his peripheral.
“It seems the creature has struck while you slept,” Cheshire’s drawl was thick and amused.
“What?” he snapped, rubbing his head as the direness of his situation struck. He’d erroneously assumed there was only one sink hole, but like a land full of hidden mines, the tell-tell dark spots peppered the forest floor.
“What the hell?” he snarled, “I did not make camp surrounded by trees. Lissa and I set up in a field.”
Cheshire’s tail swished back and forth. “Hum. Are you sure, hunter, for I am fairly certain as far, as I can be certain of a fair, that you’re in what I affectionately dub the home of shadows.”
“Lissa!” He bellowed. She’d set up camp within the earth, what had happened to her last night?
Cheshire tsked. “She is not here. In fact,” he tapped claw to furry chin, “you’re not here. Or rather, you’re not at her here. She is there and you are here.”
“You said I wasn’t here, so which am I? Here or there?” Huntsman growled, grabbing his head. It was much too early for riddles.
“Try to keep up, man, you’re not here and she’s not there. You’re exactly where you always were.”
Rubbing his throbbing brow ridge, Aeric tried to work out a plan on how to safely maneuver around the countless holes.
“She’s gone off to find the broker. I imagine,” Cheshire squinted at the bright sky, “she’ll be here in three… two…”