Chapter Twenty-Three

The scent of thick vegetation brought Nia out of her restless slumber. She thought she was back in the forest for a moment, and everything that had happened lately had been nothing but a horrible fever dream. But as her eyes fluttered open and revealed a room taken over by twisting vines and creaking wood, with a wide-eyed and trembling young man in the center of everything being slowly consumed, she knew then that she was definitely still dreaming.

You are awake, little one. Mister Greeny’s voice scratched at her ears. To her, it was a sound she had grown accustomed to, but to the young man hanging limply in the wall of vegetation, it was a noise that caused him to lose all color.

She pushed herself up on the straw-filled mattress, leaning back on her elbows as she looked around the room. “What’s going on?”

This one came in the night to pilfer your things, he told her as he sat beside the bed, motioning with his muzzle toward her travel pack. I did not wish to pass judgment before you had a chance to consider things.

Nia fought the urge to roll her eyes. For some reason, she wasn’t angry at the young man for attempting to steal her things; she was frustrated more than anything. She didn’t want to deal with this right now, not with everything else happening around her. “Give him a chance to speak for himself. Let me see his face.”

With a flare of will, the vines receded from the man’s face and uncovered his gaping mouth. He took in a ragged breath as if he had been drowning and then started coughing up pieces of wood he managed to bite off while struggling to get free.

“You’re the boy that led us to our room.” Nia accused as she got up from the bed.

“Sp—spare me! P—please!” He shouted in panic; his eyes were bloodshot and flitting fearfully from her to the amalgamation of vines taking the form of a wolf beside her. “I didn’t mean nothing by it! I swear! I just needed some money, is all…” He hung his head, and his poorly kept hair fell like greasy, brown tassels before his eyes. “I need to get out of here… Master Carmickle, he—he hits me something awful…”

She looked at him for a long moment, grimacing at the quiet sobs coming from the young man. She felt sorry for him. No one deserved to be treated poorly; no one deserved to be beaten for any reason. “I… don’t have any money. I’m sorry.”

Although they bartered in the village for everything they needed, she still knew what money was. There were larger villages deeper inside the forest, and she had heard they didn’t always barter amongst themselves. Instead, they used shiny metal or colorful gemstones to get what they needed. Of course, the money he spoke of was probably different from what she had heard was used by the other villages, and it would probably do her well to learn more about it.

The young man’s head snapped up, his face telegraphing an emotion difficult for her to read. “You don’t have any money?” His shift in tone took her by surprise, but it quickly reverted back to an almost feeble whimper as he continued, “I—I mean, I’m so sorry. Th—this is the first and only time I ever done anything like this… p—please…”

She looked at him skeptically, then dropped her eyes to Mister Greeny next to her. He had his head cocked to the side, emerald eyes looking at something she couldn’t see. She wondered momentarily if there was some kind of magic at play that only he could sense, like at the pond with the warding stone.

He’s lying. Mister Greeny said suddenly, his head turning toward her.

She nodded in agreement. She might have been young, but she wasn’t stupid. “What should we do?”

The young man started to say something, but his opinions quickly became urgent mumbles as a thick vine squirmed over his mouth, clamping down like a muzzle.

I can dispose of him without issue, he said to Nia’s horror, and if the man’s urgent thrashing was anything to go by, he didn’t care for Mister Greeny’s words either. His actions were nothing more than a nuisance, but now we know he will do this again. We should prevent that from happening.

“You want to kill him?” Nia asked with wide eyes. “We can’t do that.”

Mister Greeny cocked his head to the side once more. It will prevent future trouble for someone else. You would not allow a predator to stalk about your home for fear of wounding it; why let this man be free to harm others when we can and should put an end to him?

“We. Are. Not. Killing him.” Nia put her foot down. She couldn’t believe she had to tell Mister Greeny that. He wasn’t showing that young man any of the compassion and patience she was used to seeing from him, even a little. It was like he was a completely different… person. She shook her head, “I’m going to get Mister Carmickle. We’ll let him decide on what to do.”

Her bare feet carried her out of the room before he could argue. She wasn’t afraid of leaving the man behind with him, although suddenly callous, she trusted Mister Greeny not to do anything that would betray her own.

The stairs creaked as she hurried down them, steadying herself on the banister with one hand while lifting the hem of her long dress with the other. She could hear a few quiet voices coming from the bottom floor, hushed conversations that faded into near-nothingness before they could reach her ears. She ignored the stares of the few people sitting at the tables, going right up to the long counter and then behind it into the kitchen beyond.

“Godsdamn boy,” grumbled Mister Carmickle as he scraped at a large, cast-iron pot with a wooden spoon. He was hunched over a washbasin with plumes of steam rising from it, a small fire beneath it keeping the water hot. “…where the fuck is he…”

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Nia stood there and watched him for a moment, her eyes searching for his wife, who had cooked her dinner but she had never met. Mister Carmickle was alone. “Mister Carmickle.” Her voice was clear and authoritative, causing the man before her to jump in surprise, dropping the iron pot and teetering dangerously on his false leg.

“L—Lady Mage!?” He stuttered as his head whipped around to face her. “How—what can I do for ya this fine morning?”

She had come this far without knowing what she was going to say. It was obvious what needed to happen, but she suddenly didn’t know how to tell the man his helper was stealing from his guests. “I need you to come to my room right away.”

“Uhh… What’s the matter?”

“Just… there is something you need to be aware of, and it will be easier to simply show you.” She told him before turning on her heel and heading back upstairs, Mister Carmickle’s wooden leg clacking after her only after a moment of hesitation.

“…my Gods…” Carmickle gasped as he entered the room he had offered to Nia. His eyes darted from end to end, taking in the wall of vegetation and his ‘helper’ confined within it. “Wh—what happened?”

He tried to take what wasn’t his. Mister Greeny interjected, deigning to speak to the man and causing Carmickle’s pallid face to turn completely white.

“Nothing was taken,” Nia said as she glared at the wolf. “But we think he has done something like this before and thought you should know.”

“I… well… okay,” Carmickle stumbled over his words, his mind churning as he attempted to understand what was happening around him. “What… do you want to do?” He finally asked.

Mister Greeny looked at Nia, conveying his thoughts to her with a simple nod. She already knew what he thought they should do, and she refused to listen to this particular piece of advice. “That is why I wanted to speak to you about this,” she said to Carmickle. “What happens to thieves usually when they are caught?”

With her words, the young man trapped in the vines struggled again. His futile throws weren’t nearly as violent as before. He had exhausted himself over the last few hours, but he was still making an effort to escape. Whatever punishment thieves received must not be something he wanted to happen.

“Well,” Carmickle started, his eyes avoiding the man struggling to escape. “The first time they are caught, the guards take a hand.”

“The first time?” Nia asked.

Carmickle let out a sigh while shaking his head. “If they get caught again, it’s straight to the gallows.” He finally looked up at the young man, “Godsdamnit Len. After I took ya in, this is what ya do?”

The young man, Len, mumbled something from behind his wooden gag, prompting Mister Greeny to loosen it. “Please… My sister, my baby sister, is sick! I just needed the money to get some medicine! Please—ahhh!”

A wail of pain burst from his dried lips as a long, serrated thorn tore through his wrist, severing his hand. Hot blood spattered the warped floorboards, and the severed appendage flopped atop them like a dead fish, coming to a stop a few feet away. Nia looked at the hand with a mortified expression while Mister Carmickle scrambled back a few feet in surprise.

“Why did you do that!?” Nia barked, glaring at Mister Greeny, who hadn’t moved.

He was lying again, and we had already wasted enough time, his voice was a groaning whisper. We are no closer to finding your mother, and dealing with this any longer only puts us further behind.

The wall of vines came apart like ripping fabric, dumping Len onto the hard floor without a thought to his comfort. He landed in a painful heap, clutching his bloody stump to his chest, blood seeping and dripping onto the floor in fat, crimson drops. He sobbed almost uncontrollably, rocking back and forth as he did so. Losing his hand must have been too much for him to take along with everything else.

She wanted to argue, to say that they could have done something differently so that the young man wouldn’t have had to suffer, but she knew Mister Greeny was right. If she ever wanted a chance to see her mother again, she had to do some things that she would otherwise never do. She had to accept that the world was a horrible place and that she needed to sometimes look the other way.

Nia swallowed the lump in her throat, and the bile threatening to come up. She looked at Len, who was still writhing and whimpering on the bloody floor. She knelt down next to him and wrestled his stump away from his chest. He was exhausted and in shock, so the young man hardly fought as Nia conjured a broad, prickly leaf with her magic and placed it on his bleeding stump.

The leaf molded to what remained of his wrist, the hair-like needles biting into his skin as it did so. Nia didn’t know any healing spells, those she found exceedingly difficult to master, but she still knew much about first aid and the need to stop the young man from bleeding out. Especially in front of her.

She waited a moment to ensure the single leaf was enough before returning to her feet. “It’s done. Let’s get going.” She said in clipped, neutral words. She hefted her pack off the ground and adjusted it so it sat more comfortably on her shoulders. “Thank you, Mister Carmickle, for letting us stay the night. And I’m… sorry for the mess.”

She didn’t wait for him to say anything; she rushed out of the room and headed for the exit. Nia failed to notice that she wasn’t wearing any shoes until she felt the course dirt of the road underneath her feet. She stopped and took a deep breath. She hoped some fresh air would calm her stomach, but the acrid tang of the town only worked to make it turn in on itself even more.

She was angry. Angry at Mister Greeny and how he had so blatantly carried out something so… so violent. She was also ashamed. She was ashamed of herself for being so weak as to think that letting the young man go without any punishment whatsoever was the right thing to do. Logically, she knew that what had happened was for the best. He would have continued to steal from other visitors without any punishment, and maybe those ill deeds would have eventually morphed into something much worse. She wouldn’t have been able to live with herself had that happened.

Still, the idea of taking the man’s hand, no matter how ‘justified’ it was, turned her stomach. She hated the idea of harming anyone or anything. It was as if she was back at the pond, the goblin crawling slowly towards her… Nia shook her head, driving that nightmare away; she couldn’t ruminate on that night or what happened today. More things such as this were bound to occur, and she had to learn to stomach them.

I am sorry, li—

“I don’t want your apologies.” Nia interrupted Mister Greeny as he sat down beside her. “Let’s just forget about it, okay? We need to find the merchants and see what they know about my mother.”

Very well, Mister Greeny rasped, standing from his haunches and looking off into the burgeoning sunlight peeking over the rooftops. I know where they are. Follow me.