The river's edge hissed and collapsed and the survivors stopped their calls as they backed away from the edge.
“I guess we can’t help him,” Fleshripper said dejectedly.
“I never felt safe around that monster,” said another. “He always looked like he wanted to set us on fire.”
“Well, you saw what happened to his mother…”
“His mother? She was the lucky one. I heard his neighbors burned for hours…”
Skidmark snapped her fingers. Lightning crackled and boomed and the survivors looked at her stunned.
“Shut up, all of you,” she said.
Bad enough that she thought the same thing about them, she didn’t need to have her worst thoughts parroted by such useless… Wrong avenue of thinking. Did Bella feel like this? No, Bella probably never felt like this, which was just too wild to think about.
“Anton?” she said.
“Yes?” he said, distracted as he sent his eyes down the tunnel ahead of them.
“What’s your nerd theory on manifesting techniques?” she asked.
“I’m not a…” he cut off as he scratched his stubbled jaw. “I know it’s about aligning emotional intent with Skein's possibilities. Everything you incorporate is your potential, and then it’s activated by your desire. What do you want? How can you achieve what you want? It’s an expression of character. I know I struggled to learn the Storming Absolution spell because it differed so deeply from my —”
“Ok, ok, I get it,” Skidmark said.
“You’re the one who —”
She raised a hand.
“Please, don’t bore me to death.”
The river collapsed again; it was even wider now. Even jumping for her and Anton would be difficult. Silvery light danced across the rapidly flowing black water. It was impossible to see the bottom, but Skidmark knew it was deep and growing deeper. She doubted she could wade through it, let alone a toddler. The deeper it got the faster it flowed. She got a running start and cleared it in a leap. Her landing was awkward but she arrived beside Charlie. With a flicker of lightning, she cleared away the bugs.
“So,” she muttered to herself. “I just need to focus on wanting something and achieving it. Wishful thinking, I guess…”
More bugs melted out of the shadows. They smiled and laughed and whispered of the hopelessness of her task. Skidmark scowled and blasted them with lightning. She blew smoke from her fingernails. Her lightning could travel from point A to point B instantaneously. If her Skein could transmute into energy, why couldn’t other Skein?
Something bubbled up inside her and with a wild grin, she pointed a finger gun at the child. This would work, she knew it would.
“Bang.”
###
Anton’s gut sank as Skidmark lowered her finger. For a moment, he thought she had some secret plan, but then he felt the build-up of her Skein. She was going to shoot the toddler!
When his Skein first awoke and he invested in Insight, he saw the value in life he had always overlooked. He thought this might lead to a change in who he was, and in some ways it had. Since that fateful day on the plane, he had evolved away from the crude thug who did whatever he was told — though often making mistakes along the way. He found Zoe to be someone he believed in following, not because she was family, but because of who she was.
Zoe told him to save the survivors. He had already lost one to the damned head bugs. There was no way he would let Skidmark kill another just because she was frustrated.
He kicked off the river's edge and leaped toward her. With his build of Sky and Air, he floated across the water, moving like the wind, but lightning was faster.
“Bang.”
Skidmark’s word echoed through his floating eyes. Lightning discharged and struck the child in the forehead. Before Anton could even land on the other side of the river, the child disintegrated.
He landed in the spot where it had been. The stone glowed and crackled with heat.
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“What have you done?” he said with a coldness that astounded even him.
Skidmark raised her eyebrows.
“I just put your theory into practice,” she said as she pointed behind him.
Anton didn’t turn, he had eyes for that.
The flaming toddler sat safe and sound on the other side of the river. He laughed and clapped his hands and crawled toward the dark tunnel. The other survivors stood away from him, gently tried to stop him from crawling, and then followed when they realized they couldn’t. Orange flames lit the sides of the wall like a medieval torch.
Anton focused on Skidmark. He studied her crackling finger.
“How did you do that?”
She grinned.
“Like this.”
She pointed her finger at him.
“No!” his eyes widened. “Wait a —”
“Bang.”
Bright blue lightning struck his body. It spread through him, a convulsion, tingling, and as he seized up, he collapsed into a bolt of lightning. Faster than thought, he shot across the water and struck the stone on the far side of the river. He stood there, the air warm and speaking around him as he breathed again.
“— second…” he looked around and laughed. “That’s exhilarating.”
Skidmark leaped across the river.
“Good to know it’s consistent,” she said with a slightly tired grin. “Doesn’t work on me, just on others.”
“We found an artifact like that once,” Anton said. “[Charm of the Monsoon Fairy] that let you turn into lightning.”
“I’ll call this technique the [Skidmark Express].”
He frowned.
“You can name your own techniques?”
“Of course, can’t you?”
Discussing this, and retelling the story from the Mirrobell dungeon, Anton and Skidmark followed the survivors into the tunnel and toward the ship. Their warm voices bounced off the close stone walls and it was almost possible to forget that the island was melting and that they headed toward a confrontation with the Winter Queen — wherever she was hiding.
###
The kitchen wore colors of mint, forest, and asparagus. At the squat, lime-green stove, Bella stirred a large stainless-steel cauldron of pea soup with a long wooden spoon. Big bags of split peas on the kitchen counter lay torn asunder. The dried legumes lay scattered across the bench tops and floor. Sweat dripped from her brow and flavored the soup as she stirred the pot. Both hands gripped the rough handle so tight she feared she might get splinters, but she couldn’t stop stirring. If the peas stuck to the bottom, she would get into trouble. Heat spilled up and licked her face. This had to be the best pea soup she ever made, she couldn’t afford any other option.
Peas leaked from one of the split bags. The hard dried pieces slithered across the counter as the bag slowly deflated. They dropped one by one across the edge and struck the hard mint-colored tiles on the floor.
Click.
Click.
Click and click and click, a clacking hourglass counting down her time to get the soup ready. It wasn’t long until Oriz came home, and Bella needed the soup to be ready. No, she needed the soup to be perfect. Thick green spatters dotted the stovetop and wall behind. Bella wiped her hands on her apron as she looked around the kitchen. It was a mess, but she would be fine if she could keep Oriz from coming in here before she cleaned up.
A knot of tension tightened at the base of her neck. She hoped Oriz enjoyed the soup. With a trembling hand, she lifted the spoon and tasted her concoction. Earthy, and bright with flavors of spring, but lacking salt. She lowered the heat to a simmer and hurried to the cupboard.
The spices were kept above where she did her chopping, and in her haste, she almost knocked the knife from the chopping board. A scent of onion and garlic juice hung in the air, the residue staining the blade a milky white and almost obscuring the runes etched into the side. She reached up high into the cupboard but couldn’t find the salt.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she said as she ran her fingers through her hair and tightened and re-tightened her apron. “It’ll be fine, the ham hock will add enough salt and umami, this will all be fine.”
She went to stir the pot again, it always soothed her to stir the pot. As she did, she saw there was no ham hock in the pot. Her eyes widened, and she gave a little gasp. Checking the clock on the wall, she saw she had enough time. Barely.
Pulling up her sleeve, she counted her bright green stitches and found one loose. With the tip of the runic knife, she sliced through them and teased away a hunk of her flesh. It plopped into the green pot and sank. Blood curled away like ribbons of a lurid cloud as the soup swallowed her meat. She sighed and pulled down her sleeve. There was no pain, merely a sense of lightness. Oriz did so much for her, she knew she did, so it was only fair that Bella did something in return.
Gave something in return.
She stirred the pot, added some broth, and set the lid on top. Cooking had never been her forte, but she was happy to give back.
Taking a break, she went out onto the back porch to smoke a cigarette. Smoke filled her lungs, passed across her lips, and she felt ever so vaguely like a machine fulfilling her purpose. The sky stretched out vast and wide from her isolated little house. Dried grass stood stiff as blades under the wind that whittled over the rolling hills. The sun hung above the horizon as it always did, and the heat warmed her skin deeper than any stovetop. A long road stretched away, and soon enough Oriz would creep up that length in her bright green car.
The rotating clothesline squeaked as it caught the breeze, and Bella hurried over to check the clothes. Her dresses hung from hangars. She felt the sleeve of Oriz’s favorite: almost dry. If this wind kept up, she could get changed before Oriz came home. This night would be perfect. Things had been so stressful lately — she frowned as she tried to think of why because weren’t things the same every day? And wasn’t that why she was happy? Of course, it was, of course, they were, but just because things were the same didn’t mean stress couldn’t peak and valley like the rolling hills — it was up to her to bring a smile to their little slice of sunlit heaven.
Soon enough, this entire land would be green again. Oriz said so, they were just waiting for the rain, and then nothing would matter ever again.
A crash came from the kitchen and Bella hurried back inside. She hoped beyond hope that her soup was fine. There simply wasn’t time to start the recipe over again. Not if she wanted Oriz to like it.
She entered the backdoor so fast that it slammed behind her, and she raced to the kitchen. When she got there, she gasped.
A stranger stood in the kitchen. Dark-skinned and beautiful, with scars on her lips and strange hands made of glistening mirrors. The stranger examined the mess with a raised eyebrow, and when she saw Bella she smiled.
“Hello, Bella,” she said, and Bella’s heart sank at her next words. “I’ve come to take you out of here.”