10. Eva

The farther we travel, the taller the trees get, thick pines looming as ominous giants around us, turning the sky into punctures of light in a green ceiling. It has great beauty, everything seems to be swathed in green shadow, but I am frantic to leave this strange place. I miss the familiarity of regular-sized trees—and the safety of trees short enough to climb.

We ride in silence, because what is there to say? Patty is dead, slumped forward and stinking on Blacky, and we are traveling to a place where they possibly would have had a cure for her, but too late.

During one of our breaks, I briefly consider offering to ride with the corpse instead of letting Theo do it. However, my selfishness prevails. Theo, being a man, has broader shoulders and a larger frame, making him more suited to handle the burden. Besides, it"s his mother we"re transporting, and he probably wouldn"t have accepted my offer anyway. Feeble excuses. I"m aware that I"m letting myself slide further into ineptitude, becoming a liar and a coward—traits I despise in myself. Was the woman I'm a copy of the same? I hate her.

"According to the map, we're approaching a cryometery," Theo says.

I bring Horsey up short. "A cryometery? In this dense forest? Are you sure you"re reading the map correctly?"

Theo circles Blacky around to hand me the map, and I hold my breath at the stink of the corpse. That flesh isn't Patty, a small voice in my head shrieks as I take the map from Theo.

Sure enough, the map is faintly marked with a green that indicates a cryometery—entirely surrounding Esseff. I look again and again to confirm I'm not seeing things.

"Esseff seems like it is actually in a cryometery," I say.

Theo shrugs as if he hadn't noticed this very important fact. "Yes," he says. "It does."

He seems totally unaffected by this. Maybe I'm not the only one who has changed, or maybe I didn't know Theo as well as I thought I did.

"Cryometerys are really dangerous," I go on, "Furies and dragons are known to live in cryometerys and the bigger the cryometery, the bigger the risk."

Theo shrugs again, "Rumors. Are you going to believe some random rumors? We used to picnic in the cryometery by the church in our home village."

"That was a tiny cryometery that didn't even have one pod. It didn't count." I am fighting a losing battle.

"What choice do we have? We have come this far," he says.

I look at the map, searching for an alternate destination. There"s the parish we met the healer in, or we could skirt the cryometery for many days and then travel north until we reach a parish called Palalto. Are settlements really that rare in this land? I want to go home, where I know there are people and neighboring parishes. This place feels too isolated.

Theo snatches the map back from me. "C'mon," he says, "Daylight is burning. Don't you want to see the sea? Esseff is on the ocean. I've always dreamed of seeing the ocean. It's going to be amazing."

I follow Theo in silence. We are going to a magtechal place; does that make it more or less likely that the Magus will catch us? More or less likely that he will forgive me for running away? He married me, he, with his inhumanly handsome face, chose me, kissed me… No—don't romanticize it. He married me against my will, against my permission, not because he loves me but due to some sick obsession with a woman I'll never know. He probably didn't even love that woman. He probably isn"t coming after us. If he were, he would have caught up already.

I stare at Theo's broad shoulders and tousled red hair. He is my true love, I try to tell myself.

Black crows circle overhead, like holes in the gray sky.

"I think we are entering the cryometery now," Theo says.

I look around, if this is the cryometery, then the cryometery looks no different from the rest of the forest other than the fact that the trees are a bit shorter, but even knowing this is a cryometery is giving me the creeps.

To fill up the silence between the birdsong, I try to make conversation, "So, this is supposed to be the cryometery, huh? It looks just like the rest of the forest. Do you think maybe it is all gone or maybe the map is wrong?"

Theo tries to laugh, "No, the map is right, otherwise I'd wonder what that thing over there came from." He points to a large granite-looking box, sort of half-swallowed by the roots of a tree and half-swallowed by dirt. I look away quickly.

"Maybe that is just an old bench or the ruins of an old building?" I suggest.

"And maybe when you plant corn seeds, strawberries will grow. No, Eva. Pretty sure this is a cryometery."

"And maybe one day, you'll learn how to be a decent human being," I retort. The second the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. I was trying for our old back-and-forth teasing banter, but something about the way I spoke was too harsh, too real.

Theo doesn't seem to notice though. He looks at me and grins, "Maybe, and maybe one day you'll learn how to cook a decent meal."

"Okay, fine, what do you want me to cook for you? I'll cook you the best roast rat in all the land."

We go on bantering, and I think we are both relieved at the lightened mood, but that doesn't stop me from noticing more of the granite boxes, some cracked and giving off a faint bluish glow from within the cracks, or that when we pass particularly close to one the air around it seems colder.

I can't help the small shriek that comes from my mouth when the cracks of the granite give away and you can see the glowing blue glass beneath and within that sleeping glass, you can just make out the face of a sleeping man, wrinkled, gaunt, ancient, his hair in a halo around him looking like he is floating in water, while he must in fact be frozen in glass.

Theo is by my side, almost the moment the shriek is out of my mouth, "What is it, Eva?"

His gaze follows mine. "Oh," He whispers, "I had hoped you wouldn't notice." Before I can make a snide comment about how I could possibly fail to notice a frozen dead man, Theo goes on, "But don't you think that means the legends are true?"

"This place is cursed, I want to leave," I snap.

"It's true though, they really do have the ancient dead preserved here. Eva, we should have expected this. We should be celebrating—this is proof there will be a re-awakening. One day we really will be able to speak to my mother again, after we are all re-awakened."

I want to punch him, so instead I hold as still as I can.

Theo misinterprets my revulsion at him for giving this cursed place some sort of spiritual significance as fear. "Look, he's truly dead," Theo raps at the glass with his knuckle, the elderly man continues to look like he will blink awake at any moment but remains frozen. "He can't hurt us. And anyway, why would he want to? They are just waiting for the re-awakening. There is nothing to be afraid of."

"I know that he can't hurt us," I shudder. "That's not the point."

"Then what is there to be afraid of?"

"This place is cursed."

"Okay. Do you have any better ideas? How about you take the lead then, where shall we go, Eva?"

I don't like Theo's tone, but what can I say? We have nowhere to go but deeper into this cursed place. The smell of Patty's corpse suffocates my brain if I pause to think, to consider other plans.

"It doesn't matter. Let's keep going," I don't meet Theo's eyes. I am afraid. Deeply, totally afraid—not of corpses or ghosts—but of the future and what lurks living in this eerie landscape.

And so, we ride on. We continue to pass hull after hull. One of them is cracked wide open like an egg, with shards of blue glass as jagged as teeth yawning open. I try not to look at the shriveled remains inside, but my head turns against my will. But the insides of the glass are empty of everything but dirt, and what might be scraps of cloth.

After a while, the trees become sparser, and the hulls become more frequent. Tiny flowers that seem to dance between every shade of blue and purple spot the ground, growing more frequent as we move on, until, instead of grass, the horses are walking on a sea of blue. A honeyed scent fills the air, masking, though not entirely covering, the smell of Patty's rot. Both Theo and I have to make an effort to prevent the horses from slowing down too much while they graze on what they apparently think is delicious.

It is the most beautiful, and terrifying place I have ever been in. I want to get off Horsey, lay in the soft blue flowers and sleep, but I also want to kick her into a gallop and get out of here.

Theo drops back to trot Blacky beside me. "What spells do you think they used to keep the glass shining so free of dirt?" he whispers.

"Why are you whispering?" I whisper back, though I know why. This place is not a place where you would raise your voice. It would feel wrong.

"Where do you think these flowers came from?" Theo goes on, ignoring my question, and still whispering. "Do you think they are meant to make this place seem as peaceful as Heaven? I'd imagine heaven would look like this. How do you think it is possible they are blooming so freshly at this time of year? This is great magtech…if you could keep crops blooming all year round…"

"magtech is evil," I try to remind Theo, "Don't fall under its influence. It will suck you up."

"Imagine having that kind of power," is all he says.

Part of me does imagine it. No more famine. No more starvation. No more poverty. How could anyone be anything but rich in a world with boundless supplies of food? I feel as if there is a long-forgotten memory trying to reach the surface of my brain but every time I try to grasp it, it squeezes through my fingers like water. So instead, I think about the story Patty used to tell me about the bored princess and the magtechian and remind myself that magtech is evil.

Once upon a time, in a land not too far from here, there lived a princess, and not just any princess, but the prettiest princess who ever did princess. She had long, blonde hair, as smooth as milk and eyes that shone like morning dew.

But because she was so pretty, she was also incredibly arrogant. Everyone did as she asked and gave her all they could give her. They never disagreed with her or told her she was wrong because it was such a treat even to be near her.

She was well beyond marriageable age, but her father couldn't find a husband for her because she found something to complain about in every suitor they brought before her. Too boring, she said of one man, much too boring she said of the next.

Her father had spoiled her rotten, so he didn't force her to marry any of the kind, handsome princes that proposed to marry her. But eventually, in desperation, he put out an announcement that he would let whatever man who could best entertain his daughter, marry her. If someone came forward to entertain her but failed, that man would be put to death for the princess's entertainment instead.

Many men came forward, they sang, they danced, they told jokes, they acted, they performed amazing feats of power and acrobatics, but still they all failed and were put to death.

This went on until one day an evil magtechian heard about the princess and decided he would try his luck. When he arrived, the princess didn't even look up at him.

"What can you do?" she said with a yawn.

"I can make music sound from this box," he said, and a moment later, he made glorious music play from the black box he was holding.

The princess's eyes opened very wide. "What else can you do?" she asked.

"I can make moving pictures appear on this box," the magus said, and he did.

The princess gasped. "Give those to me!" she cried. "They're mine, I want them!"

"I will give you the box only after we get married," the magus told her, "And on our marriage night I will show you the most amazing thing that the box can do."

And so, on their marriage night, after they consummated the marriage, the magus took out the little magtech box to show the princess the final thing the box could do. He held it out in front of the princess, stroked the magtech formula into the side of the box, and "poof!" An exact replica of the princess's likeness was displayed on the box.

The princess loved herself and therefore the image and asked the Magi to make another image of her appear, and so he did, and then he showed the princess how to use the spells inside the box so she could capture her own images to put inside the box. From that day forth, that is all the princess wanted to do—capture images of her own beauty to stare at and save. She was so entertained by her own beauty that she didn't even notice that with each picture she took of herself, the box stole a little bit more of her soul, youth, and beauty, until all that was left was an ugly old crone wearing a princess's crown and laughing maniacally as she stared at an image of her own evil expression.

In turn, the magus she had married realized he had made a terrible mistake: he had shared his magtech with someone incapable of handling it. Thus, magtech is forbidden to mortals.

The end.

"Did you hear that?" Theo says.

"Hear what?" I whisper back.

"Nothing, I think it must be nothing, I'm probably just a bit spooked is all."

I nod. Who wouldn't be spooked in a place like this? We are now passing what seems to have been a series of white and blue-glass fountains, now filled with dirt and those blue flowers growing out of the dirt, looking like surreal water.

"There it goes again," Theo says.

That is when the eyeballs and the face they are set in come into focus. There are light blue eyes staring at me from a face that is as dappled and blue as the flowers that surround it. They are the eyes of an animal, a feline, without any whites, but if I didn't know better, I'd say the face was that of a human boy—other than the cat ears, the whiskers, the fangs, the blue skin.

My blood turns to ice-water. We have come face-to-face with a fury. We're never going to make it to Esseff.