“No, I’m going to do it.”
“Great. That makes things easier for me.” She stubs her cigarette in the puddle of now-cold coffee and gets to her feet. “You ready to go?”
“What,now?” I clutch the edge of the table as if it can somehow stop things from moving forward. “Don’t I get to say goodbye?”
One unplucked brown brow goes up. “What, and tell him that you’re about to head off to Narnia on some sort of grand adventure? No, sweetie, no one gets to know about our bargain. Your coworkers are going to wonder where you disappeared off to, and you’re never going to come home. You’re going to be just another young woman that disappeared from the city, and no one will ever find another trace of you.”
Oh.
A hard knot rises in my throat. It’s not that I wanted to say goodbye to my coworkers. I can live without telling them farewell. It’s leaving David that I’m struggling with. I’ve been close to my brother ever since our parents died. I talk to him every day. We share everything. To think that I have to turn around and just…disappear without a word of explanation to him hurts.
It feels like I’m abandoning him.
But…how can I not? How can I be selfish when Lachesis is really going to give him everything he needs? I lick my lips, aching deep inside. “Can’t I leave him a note to let him know I love him?”
Her expression grows sympathetic. “Oh, sweetie. Don’t you think he already knows?”
A tear spills out of my eye, and I wipe it away. My hands smell like spilled coffee. “Right. Of course. I just…but…okay.” I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a moment. “I think I’m ready.”
Lachesis holds out her hand, palm up. I put mine in hers, and the world tilts around me.
When my eyes refocus, I’m no longer in the coffee shop.
Chapter
Three
It’s like coming out of a dream.
One moment I’m in the coffee shop downtown, and the next, I’m…elsewhere.
The air feels heavier, the scent of decay all around me. As my eyes focus, I notice sunlight, and trees…and mud. Lots of muddy water, actually.
I think I’m in a swamp.
I glance around, frowning to myself as a bug lands on my bare arm. I slap at it, eyeing my surroundings. I don’t see a single building anywhere. I don’t see a person anywhere, either. Just overhanging trees that grow so thick they blot out some of the sunlight, and a scummy lake of water surrounding me as I stand on what might be the only hillock of dirt in the area. There’s a small tree right behind my back, and in front of me, the swamp water stretches out.
“Of course the god of decay is in a swamp,” I mutter to myself and slap another mosquito away. “Why would he be in a city? That’d make things too easy.”
Lachesis had said that I wouldn’t like this job. Well, she’snot wrong so far. I look around again, moving in a slow circle and eyeing my surroundings just in case I missed a big honking city on the horizon. No such luck. A white crane flies overhead, and the water ripples nearby.
Unless a boat appears in the next minute, I’m going to have to get into the water and start walking-slash-swimming towards…where?
I take a deep breath. “I’m not asking for anything, truly,” I call out. “But a sign of which way to go would be helpful.”
Another white crane erupts from the brush, circles around overhead, and lands in the water nearby. I stare at it and watch as it swims away atop the water’s surface like a duck, heading in one very specific direction.
Well, I did ask for guidance. That’ll do.
“Thank you,” I call out just in case anyone’s listening.
Then, bracing myself, I step into the murky waters.
My sneaker immediately squishes in the mud, and I slide forward. A horrid stench oozes from the brackish water. I gag, putting my hand to my nose. I take another step forward, uncertain. How deep does this water get?
A few more steps forward, and it seems like the answer is—to my knees. That’s a relief, at least. I wade through the water, slapping at the bugs that land on my skin and eyeing my surroundings for differences. As far as I can tell, this looks just like a swamp back home. Maybe I imagined the whole thing?
Maybe I’m not even here? Maybe this is some sort of hallucination?
