16. Eva

Chapter 16

Theo and I walk hand-in-hand in silence through the forest. Gradually, the blue flowers disperse, and the trees are becoming denser. There is the sound of birdsong in the distance and the sound of crows cawing above us in the trees. Theo tried to scare them away by throwing stones at them, but they won't leave us even though we no longer have a corpse for them to slaver after. Maybe they expect that we'll be the food soon enough.

Blacky is, of course, nowhere in sight.

"You see, we'll reach Esseff yet," Theo says when we stop for lunch, "There is more plants as we are leaving the cryometery."

I nod and chew my jerky, thirty times, thirty-five times, what else is there for me but the dry taste of jerky in my mouth becoming increasingly flavorless?

Soon after we get walking again, we hear it. The voice of a girl singing. A beautiful voice.

"It might be a fury," I whisper to Theo, though I don't think it is. He nods and we approach on softly treading feet.

We see the girl before she sees us. She has the longest, blondest hair I've ever seen, down to her thighs. She's not facing us, but even from behind, I can see she has curves like a waterfall. Theo is frozen beside me. The girl, unaware of us, keeps singing her ethereal song.

"Do you think she might be a fairy or a nymph," Theo whispers to me, "A spirit of the forest?"

The girl is wearing a flowing blue dress that reveals more of her than any dress I have seen any village girl wear. It is more like a nightgown than a true garment, silhouetting the shadows of pure white thighs. I think she really might be a forest spirit.

She sings a nonsense song about a woman named Yoshimi who fights something called ‘robots.'

She breaks off her nonsensical song and laughs. Her laugh, jarringly, can only be described as annoying. Nasal.

"I'm not a fairy," she says. She turns around and looks directly at us. "I'm just a girl, like you. Well, sort of like you." She wrinkles her pert little perfect nose.

I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. She knew I was a girl immediately. I'm simultaneously happy that I am recognizable as a girl (at least by some people) despite my garb and hair, anxious that our identities will be revealed, and irritated by the way she wrinkled her nose at me.

But more than that, I'm shocked by her beauty. Her full lips are like blooming roses, her eyes are like blue lakes, then there's her cute button nose, high cheekbones and perfect chin. I don't know if I am fully convinced that she is human and not a sprite. Something about her reminds me of the Magus and of Iago. I don't like her. She is far too pretty, and she must certainly be arrogant for it.

Theo, beside me, is even more at a loss for words. He's staring, slack jawed. I want to elbow him hard in the ribs. The Magus—no, I can't think about the Magus—but Theo, will I lose him too? Lose him to this girl?

"Who, who are you?" I finally manage to get out.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that," she says.

"Um no."

Theo chooses that moment to find his tongue, "We are two weary travelers, we've come from far away, looking for a new town and new life to settle down in."

I really want to elbow Theo in the ribs. ‘Weary travelers' really? What happened to our cover story?

The girl raises one perfect blonde eyebrow. "Oh?" she says.

"Yes," I say, determined to take over before Theo can stick his foot any further down his throat. "Me and my...husband are...looking for a new place to settle down...our farm burned down." I want to suck back in my words. I called Theo my husband. I said it because I wanted to stake my claim on him, to let this strange, beautiful girl know that he is mine, but it is something I can't take back. But why should I want to take it back? We are going to get married anyway. My mind, my emotions, and my intentions are a sticky, knotty web.

"Your farm burnt down? And you didn't stay and rebuild because?" she laughs sarcastically and nasally, even as she smiles sweetly.

"The plague got to our village. The whole village had to be burned," Theo comes to my rescue.

"That still doesn't explain why you are wearing male clothes," she says.

I say, "It... It isn't safe for a woman to travel. So, I dressed up as a man to make it safer."

The girl tilts her head and shrugs, seeming to accept that.

"Where are we now, do you know?" Theo asks.

Of course she knows! I want to slap him. Was he always this annoying?

"Yes, of course I know." She smiles sweetly.

"And?" I prompt.

"And what?" The sweet smile is not faltering from her face, but I get the feeling she is being purposefully obtuse.

"Where are we?" I grit out a smile of my own. Just pretend this is a stroll in the village, I tell myself. This is a normal day for this girl, and I just need to pretend it is a normal day for me too. I'm not running away from the only life I've ever known; my maid did not die, and I did not watch her rotting corpse get eaten by a dragon last night. This man beside me is my husband, whom I love very much.

"Well, we are near Esseff," she says.

"We are looking for Esseff!" Theo blurts, and this time I don't hold back from elbowing him in the ribs.

"Oomph," he looks at me as if he wants to strangle me, and I feel my smile growing a bit more sincere.

The girl laughs again, "Oh, why didn't you say so. I can bring you there."

Theo sags with relief. I feel nothing but suspicion.

"But I need to finish gathering these berries first. I'm making pie." She says ‘pie' as if she is talking about gold. Strange girl. Stranger than me. Much more beautiful than me and as strange as she is beautiful.

"We'll help you," Theo volunteers.

"So, what is Esseff like?" I ask, as we gather around the bush, plucking berries and popping them into the girl's satchel.

"Umm, well, have you ever heard of magtech?" the girl asks.

I knew I didn't like this condescending girl. "Yes, of course we've heard of magtech," I say.

"So, they really practice magtech in Esseff?" Theo asks.

"Yeah, but like, no, not exactly, more like altechemy. And of course it is regulated. Not just anyone can do magtech. You need permission from the Wizard."

"The wizard?" Theo asks.

"Have you seen a large black horse named Blacky?" I change the subject. I don't want to know any more about magtech than I already do. Learning about magtech is courting death. Theo knows that too, but of course he doesn't listen. It occurs to me that now that we aren't trying to save Patty, we should actually find a village other than Esseff, a safer, magtech-free place to live.

"A black horse named Blacky?" the girl laughs, "No, I haven't seen a large black horse named Blacky."

"Well, have you seen a black horse by any name pass through here?" The berries I pop in my mouth are either too sweet or too sour.

"Nope."

I'm grateful the silence amongst us seems to drop in naturally as we work at our task. My fingers are stained purple by the blackberries. I get pricked a few times by their thorns and keep my ‘ouch' of pain bottled inside, relishing the silence too much to shatter it.

After what seems like forever, the girl's burlap satchel is overflowing with berries. Theo makes a comment about how the pie she's going to make must be huge, and the girl just laughs and pulls out another satchel. Another eternity later, that bag is filled, and the girl lets us know that now we can go back to Esseff.

"So, what is your name?" Theo asks.

"I'm Barbie. What are your names?"

"I'm Theo and this here is Eva."

I want to scream at Theo, demand what he's thinking, telling this strange girl our real names. But then I remember it doesn't matter. The Magus is not looking for me. Telling people our real names won't increase his chance of finding us because you can't find what you aren't looking for.

Theo keeps prodding the girl with questions as we walk, and she keeps giving non-answers. She laughs, takes things too literally, gets distracted by pointing out random things in our scenery like the branches of a tree looking like arms. I'm uneasy. Part of me thinks she is annoying as hell. Another part of me thinks her ditzy act is a trap. Either way, I don't like or trust her. Every time I ask how far it is as we tramp through the forest on what may or may not be a path, she alternatingly answers, "We're almost there," or "Just a little farther."

I'm just about to pull Theo aside to tell him we need to ditch this crazy girl, when what I can only assume is Esseff comes into view behind the line of trees. It is... paralyzing. Instead of a wall, Esseff is apparently surrounded by a fortress made of the softly glowing granite sarcophagus pods of the before times, stacked four high, reaching beyond forty feet tall.

"What the fridge is that?" Theo voices my thoughts.

"Yeah, I guess it might seem a little weird to you guys. That wall is to protect us. To keep the good magtech in and the bad magtech out. It also prevents strangers from wandering in willy-nilly."

"You scare strangers out with corpses?" I say.

"What else would we use?" she laughs. "Not that they are really dead-dead. They are more like sleeping-dead. Don't they teach you guys that in school?"

I grab Theo's sleeve, "Theo, let's go. Right now."

Barbie rolls her eyes and giggles, "Fraidy cat. Meow." She makes a paw out of her hand and mimes licking it. She is frustratingly cute.

"Let's go in," Theo says, "It can't hurt to at least see what's inside."

"Oh, it absolutely can!" I argue. "We don't know what's in there, this girl may be trying to kill us!"

Barbie pouts with her full lips, "That's not very nice."

"She didn't mean it, we trust you. Apologize to Barbie, Eva."

Fridging Theo. Letting this girl pull the wool over his eyes. I keep my mouth shut, refusing to apologize. I cross my arms. I don't want to enter a city of dead people, let alone live in one.

Theo sighs, "Well fine then, Barbie and I will go in, and you can wait out here with the furies and the dragons."

I grab his arm, but he just looks at me and pulls away, following Barbie. My feet glued to the ground. Every instinct I have is telling me to run away, but where can I go? What can I do?

Theo knows me far too well. He knows I don't want to be left alone. He smiles and grasps my hand when I run up beside him. They haven't gone twenty feet before I break.

"Oh, you want to come after all?" Barbie laughs.

The entrance to Esseff is in the middle of the macabre wall of death, is a large, marble arch inscribed with the words, "Work will set you free." The huge door within the arch also seems to be made of marble. It looks like it takes two people to move it. Barbie knocks a rhythm upon the hard stone that makes me think she is hurting her knuckles.

"Password?" shouts a man's voice.

"From dust to dust ninety-seven!" Barbie calls.

I expect the gates to creak as they swing outward, but they don't. I also expected there to be a relatively normal village on the other side of the gate despite the morbid wall, but what I see is nothing like anything I have ever before conceived of—even in the wildest fairy tales I have read. For one thing, the buildings seem to be alive—made of plants and topped with shining black roofs. For another, there are more buildings than I have ever seen before, and they are larger, taller, almost taller than the wall surrounding the village—town—no, this can only be described as a city, although the Magi have abolished all cities, so how is this possible? Does this really count as a town with so many people wandering about? Then there are the green lawns, vibrant gardens, and the distinct lack of any storefronts or signs. It is like a city for elves. The people, for their part, all look happy and glowing with health. They, like Barbie, all wear strange garments. Some of the women even seem to be wearing breeches, like me. Most striking of all, in the distance, in what must be the city's center, there is a white castle, peaked in what looks like a huge white dome, cut in two by what looks like a section of black.

"What is that?"

Barbie answers, "That's the wizard's castle, and that is the wizard's observatory. They say he watches all the known universe through there. And that is how he can catch people practicing evil magtech. But like, you don't have to believe that."

I don't trust her smile. I look at her rounded ears to confirm once again that she is not an elf. I look at the ears of the passerby to confirm. They all have round ears, but more than that, none of them are otherworldly good-looking.

"Is he a magus?" Theo indicates the masked and hooded figure that must have opened the gate for us.

He wears nothing but black, like the guardians are rumored to, and he is even wearing a white mask, but he isn't particularly tall, and he spoke normally, and guardians don't come out during the daytime. "No, of course not—" I begin to say.

"Good eye!" Barbie titters, "Yes, he is. Magtech is allowed here because we have magi. Even the wizard is a magus, obviously."

The magi watch us without a word, brown eyes glinting beneath his hood, oddly mundane, then he returns to his post, standing by the gate. I get the feeling there is a middle-aged man under his hood. The ordinariness of him makes everything even more frightening. I feel spiders walking up my spine.

"Let's go," I whisper to Theo, "Let's go now."

"I can hear you, you know," Barbie rolls her baby-blue eyes at me, "You don't have to be so judgy-judgy all the time. Why don't you try learning a little about us before you judge us?"

My mouth opens and shuts. What can I say to that? I am being judgmental, but at the same time, I think I should be judgmental. I don't want to risk my life just because that might be nicer, more polite.

Theo squeezes my hand, "It's all right Eva."

I hesitate.

"The nearest village is four-hundred leagues away. I can give you directions on how to get there if you want, no one is forcing you to stay. In fact, it might be better if you leave..." That eyeroll again.

"No!" Theo says. "We'll stay. Thank you. Eva just tends to get cold feet. Can you show us a cheap inn we can stay at until we can get jobs? We are already indebted to you."

"We don't have any inns. And you guys don't have to get jobs if you don't want to."

Theo and I exchange a look of confusion.

"I can see I'm going to have to explain some stuff to you guys. Umm. I guess I can take you on a tour as I explain?"

I want to protest, ask to sit down somewhere. My feet are sore, my butt is sore, my legs are sore, and I am hungry. But Theo eagerly accepts Barbie's offer and I trudge next to them, as we make our way down the cobblestone, which is much nicer and flatter than any road in our home village, and I see now is being intermittently navigated by people balanced upon strange two-wheeled devices. They move so fast and gracefully, seeming to move only their legs in gentle circular movements.

"Where to begin, where to begin...hmmm…" Barbie muses, "Well, what you are staring at right now is called a bicycle."

"Can you start from the beginning?" Theo suggests, "How did this place come to be?"

Barbie nods but doesn't say anything. I notice the people passing by glancing at us but not lingering, too busy moving about their own business to worry about ours. A few of them even smile at me. It is refreshing. It is nothing like our home village where no one would meet my eyes or that village we passed through where we were crowded by children and stared at by strangers.

A thought occurs to me, "Where are the children?" I ask. I haven't seen one child or teenager anywhere.

Barbie smiles. Her smile is too beautiful. It makes me want to run.