8 Gone is the Witch (43 page)

“I feel more conspicuous,” he said. “I think I liked
it better when it was dark all the time.”

Most of us agreed. Tony, still the old stick in the mud, kept his opinion to himself.

“Lilith, do you think some of the crazy creatures we’ve seen will go into hiding once it gets light out?”

“I don’t know
, Carlos. Why don’t you ask Jerome? He knows this place better than anyone.”

Jerome answered quickly. “
Some hide. Others no hide.”

That fed a moment of
paranoia that we didn’t need. I tried not to think about it, but with all the strange sounds percolating out in the woods, every tweet, chirp and tick, I just knew that the
others
Jerome mentioned were about to make their debut.

“Hey,
” said Carlos, though this time not to anyone in particular. “Do you think Dominic’s still waiting for us back at the research center?”

I
looked at Ursula. Her gaze had been to the ground, but Carlos’ words brought her head up with a snap.

“Of course, he
’s still waiting,” I said. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

Carlos shrugged. “
Don’t know. It’s been a few days. A few weeks if you ask Tony. I mean how long can a guy hold a vigil.”

“As long as he needs to
.”

“Yeah, but what if
we’ve been here over a year? You heard Leona. She said––”

“
Aye, he will be in wait,” said Ursula. We all stopped to take note of her words. She stood steadfast and rigid, her posture trimmed in discipline. I had never seen such determination on her face before. Her leveled stare, keen and cool. Her chin up. Lips thinned. I watched her chest rise and fall on a steady breath.

“
Should I never return, and I may not, my Dominic will wait for me. For he doth love me as I love him, beyond mere time and space. What broken path our mortal lives do take shall not our bonds of love forsake. This I know is true.”

I don’t recall if mine was the only dropped jaw
or not, but I know the others were equally speechless. I felt a sudden sense of miscalculation deep in my bones. Something wicked in the cosmic cross-stitch of perceptual balance had shifted. Fate had skipped a beat and altered destiny.

I began wishing, as never before, that I hadn’t let Ursula come with us. Only then did I truly question my motives for doing so. At the time, I had given i
n to Ursula’s argument of reason, justifying her mutiny against Dominic’s authority.

In truth, I was
spiting Dominic, showing him that he didn’t own her. I let her come to a place she didn’t belong, just to keep her from the person she did.

Carlos went up
and put his arm around her shoulder. “Of course he’ll be there. Listen, I was just talking is all. You know, kicking the old can. My head’s in a funny place. We’ll get you home. You know that, and Dominic will be there just like you said.”

She nodded softly
and continued walking. “Tis best we stay afoot.”

We pushed on another
couple of hours, only stopping every so often to gather some dirt to toss into the air, trying to locate a portal. We had just started out again, after our last failed attempt, when Tony asked us to hold up. He had picked up a small stone in his moccasin and needed to lose it.

We
stood in a small clearing where the sandy soil ran from the tree line all the way down to the water, outlining a small river lagoon. I could hear a waterfall off in the distance, but couldn’t see it. That indicated to me that the river was likely more fresh water than salt.

As
Tony sat on a mossy stump to address the nuisance pebble, the rest of us walked to the water’s edge to get a drink.

“What do you think?” asked
Carlos.

“
`Bout what?” I picked up a stick and pitched it into the river. The current swept it away at a jogger’s pace.

“Are we heading the right way, towards town, I mean.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because it doesn’t look like we’re going to find a stupid portal anytime soon.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Why
would you say that?”

“Our destiny’s already planned out.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means––”

“Help! Get`em off me!”

We turned
around in time to see Tony fly past us, covered in a blanket of small black bugs.

“Tony!” I reached my hand out
for him as he flew by, instinctively wanting to help, but not knowing how.

Carlos yelled, “What the hell was that?”

“Moss mites!” Jerome yelled, pointing at the spot where Tony had been sitting. The tree stump, once covered in a velvety soft mantle of forest green moss, now heaved with swells of swarming black bugs the size of beetles.

“Mites?” I said. “Impossible
. Mites are bitty little things. Those fuckers are huge!”

“
Babies,” Jerome said. “Nest sack break. Mites hungry.”

“No! Tony!”

I dove into the water and swam out to Tony. He had already removed his robe and was using it to brush away the clinging mites still feeding on his arms, chest and shoulders.

“Get`em off!
Get`em off!”

“I’m trying!
Hold still!”

I came up behind him and began
swatting, flicking and picking them off as fast as I could, letting the swift-running current carry them away. Carlos joined me, and between us, we cleared no less than a hundred of the bloodsucking arachnids off his body.

“That’s it,” I
said, rubbing my hands down his arms. “I think we got’em all. You okay?”

“I think
. Thanks.”

We came out of the water and gave
him a thorough once over to make sure we hadn’t missed any. Welt marks peppered his body on nearly every square inch. It had to hurt.

As he stood there in his underwear, legs spread, arms out
by his side, I slipped my finger into his waistband just below his belly. “We have to check everywhere,” I said.

He wasn’t shy about it. “Go on. Do it.”

I pulled the elastic band back and looked inside. “Emm-hmm. Interesting.” I made a tisk noise through my teeth for emphasis.

“What?
What do you see?”

“
Interesting. You want me to reach down there and feel around? Could be a couple hiding under some of that.”

“
No, thank you. I can check it myself. Come on. Move it along, will you?”

“All right. Only trying to help.”

I slid my fingers along the waistband, pulling it away from his body as I circled around to his backside. “Ooh. That could be a problem.”

“What
?”

I
pulled the waistband further away. “Carlos, you better come take a look at this.”

Carlos came around and peeked
down inside. “Yup, I see what you mean.”

“
Come on guys. What is it?”

“
Ursula? You want to see this?”

“Oh, come on
! What could be so bad that you all have to look?”

Ursula leaned over and stole a
quick glimpse. “Aye, `tis as you say. A problem, indeed.”

“Lilith.” Tony attempted
a look behind him by twisting his torso. I slapped his back and told him to stop.

“This is serious,” I said. “Don’t fight it.”

“I want to know what it is.”

“We’re trying to figure that out. Jerome, can you help us with this?”

“Jerome? You need Jerome’s help?”

“I got it!
” I said. “It’s a classic SWW.”

“SWW.”
Carlos snapped his fingers. “That’s it! Of course.”

“What?” said Tony. “What’s SWW?”

I grabbed the entire back of his waistband with both hands and pulled up on it as hard as I could. “It’s a super wet wedgie!”

Tony scream
ed louder than when the moss mites were biting his ass. To say he was pissed would be like saying the ES has some slight peculiarities. Still, we all had a good laugh over it. Even Tony eventually loosened up some after seeing how hard Leona laughed.

It
could have had all the makings of a memorable moment, had Jerome not squelched it with warnings of imminent danger.

“Mother mite!
Mother mite!” he hollered.

A
t first, I didn’t know what he meant. Mother might what? But then I saw him pick up a rock and throw it into the brush.

“Mother mite!
She come now!”

We all scattered to find something with which to defend ourselves. I picked up a big stick. Leona and Ursula grabbed a couple of rocks. Carlos had his bolo and Tony
picked up... well, I don’t know exactly what he picked up, but he sure looked good doing it in just his underwear.

When I think of mites, I think of tiny creatures, often too small to se
e without a microscope. To learn that in the ES they came as big as cockroaches, well, that was just a trip and a half. So, when Jerome warned us that the mother was coming, I didn’t know what to expect.

It broke out of the bush like a drunken sailor,
bumping into rocks and trees in a staggered, clumsy gait. I tried to imagine how this bulbous freak; this sea tortoise on spider legs with lobster claws and cornhusk hairs, could grow so large.

Despite being
blind, it had keen senses. I know this because as we circled, it took the creature only seconds to figure it out. Still, that gave us plenty of time to launch an effective attack.

We started by pelting it with rocks. Jerome and Ursula were good at that. Leona sucked. Threw like a girl
, but it disoriented the creature enough for us to quickly gain the upper hand. By surrounding it, we were able to get in close, strike hard and then move out quickly again.

In
one coordinated move, I smacked the creature’s ass end with my stick to distract it while Carlos lunged forward and slashed a gaping wound across its side. It spun around and charged me. Tony stepped in with a large rock and dropped it on the creature’s skull. The audible crack told us it was over. The entire attack took less than a minute.

“Is everyone all right?”
Tony asked.

We were
, yet I could see the same was not so for him. He looked exhausted. The welts had gotten worse, and I knew he had aggravated his ankle by lifting that heavy stone.

“
Tony, listen,” I said. “Why don’t you have a seat over there in the sand? We’ll build a fire. Take a little break.”

“I don’t need a break
.”

“I know you don’t, but the others could use one
. Leona and Ursula are spent. Let them rest.”

“Okay
.” He gave in easier than I expected, confirming my assessment of his overall condition. “We’ll rest, but only for a while.”

“
Sure. Ten minutes, tops.”

I have no way of knowing exactly how long we stayed there, time in the ES being what it is...
or isn’t, but I know it was more than ten minutes. It took that long for Jerome to go out into the woods and harvest a bunch of sticky, broadleaf palms that smelled strangely of eucalyptus and lavender. He tore the palms into long strips like gauze and wrapped Tony up in them.

In the meantime, Carlos took to cutting up the giant mite. He hollowed out the creature’s
exoskeleton and placed its dome-shaped top plate upside down in the fire. He filled the bowl with river water, brought it to a boil by adding red-hot rocks from the fire, and then tossed in Tony’s robe.

After boiling
it, wringing it out and drying the robe over the fire, we were ready to go. So I thought.

“What?” I asked, after Carlos tapped me on the shoulder.

He gestured toward the riverbank. “Tony’s asleep. You want I should wake him?”

I
looked down where Tony lay, all cocooned up and sleeping soundly. “No,” I shook my head lightly. “It’s good to let him sleep. We all should sleep.”

And sleep we did.

Chapter
Twenty-five

I awoke the next morning
under a blanket of ground fog, enchanted by the orange sky and charmed by the aroma of fresh fish cooking over an open flame.

E
veryone else was up, including Tony, dressed in his robe and looking fine. I found him and Carlos perched on a log by the fire, twirling fish on a stick and laughing at things that I’m sure only guys find funny.

The
girls were down by the river, laughing, wetting their toes and splashing their faces.