Chapter 20: The Arrival

1

Vincenzo grabbed Cammo’s pack and found another coat in his own, covering himself from the wind. The snow fell violently, drowning out the pair's silence as they reached the invisible wall connecting the segments. They looked at each other with no discernible expression, before crossing through.

Like the other transitory spaces in between the seasons, the spot in the middle of Winter and Spring was serene, eerie, and impossible. A gentle rain that greeted them on the other side helped to melt away the snow as the overcast sky bathed everything in an emotionless gray. Giant stone walls, hundreds of stories tall, surrounded them on either side. A wide and deep river stretched infinitely between them, a small wall separating the rivers two channels: one going towards them and one away. The flat rock they stood on had small boats that seemed to sprout up out of the ground.

“I’m done questioning things…” Vincenzo said, grabbing one. “Hop in.”

She climbed over the tall walls of the boat and sat inside.

“Get changed into… cleaner clothes…” Vincenzo said. “I’ll be in Winter, so just grab me when you're done.”

He stepped back through the barrier after she nodded, taking Cammo’s pack with him. With a backwards glance confirming that she wasn't peeking, he started to rifle through his things… He pushed aside clothes, knives, and even provisions in his search. “It's gotta be here somewhere…” he mumbled. “Aha!”

His large hands grasped a small red leatherbound book, a blue ribbon dangling from inside the contents; dropping the rest of the items he opened to that page. A smile spread across when handwriting greeted him. “I knew it, you clever bastard…” he whispered. “I knew you had some kind of backup…”

He opened it.

If you're reading this, then I’m most likely dead. The contents of these pages are just collections of information about the outside world, so they’ll be useful if you make it out. Whichever one of you found this (probably Vincenzo), make sure you go to the right page concerning my death. If I was killed normally: go to page 349. If I became something you didn't understand and exploded: go to 350.

“Okay,” Vincenzo muttered. “Even in death, huh?”

I hope you closed her eyes when I exploded. It's not a sight for a child…

A pang of guilt ran through him when he remembered Plum’s face after the fact. “No, you threw me away,” he argued. “And you ripped my arms off… Couldn’t do much like that.”

In any case: DO NOT WEAR MY FETISH! It's cursed, and my soul has been ripped apart. These are the sacrifices required to do what I did.

“But what did you do?” Vincenzo asked, leaning over the pages to stop thick snowflakes from ruining it.

My hand is getting cramped because I’ve had to write pages of text over the course of this journey, so I’ll be making this quick. Moon-men of the Blood Moon carry trace amounts of its mana in their flesh; eating enough of that flesh with the wish to use that power, no matter the cost, transforms the eater into half-god, before the body explodes from the expanse of mana. If your heart isn't true, then you just explode—no power granted. Don't try it.

Now, onto what I stated above: my fetish is cursed. As I've already explained: once a fetish is paired to someone, it can’t be unpaired and only its partner can use its magic. But now mine is cursed. I don't even know exactly what that means… Only ten percent of wizards have fetishes and even fewer go through the process, so information is rare. All I know is that you shouldn't wear it. A fetish holds fragments of the soul, which is why they’re unbreakable. But since I destroyed my soul, it’ll be different from what it used to be. What it will do, I don’t know. Now give this to Plum and flip it to page 150.

Plum stuck her head through the barrier, making it look like she’d been decapitated. “I'm done,” she said. She saw the book. “What's that?”

“Sorry, I was digging through his pack looking for this,” he said, walking through the invisible ingress. “Here.” He dropped the notebook into her small hands, opened to the page Cammo instructed. “He wanted you to read this.”

“I didn't know he wrote…” she said. Plum climbed back into the wooden raft and used a rain-shield (umbrella) to protect the book. “Where’d he find the time?”

He shrugged. “Can you read?” he asked, dropping his own pack into the boat and pushing it into the stream. He climbed in quickly and felt the rushing water gently rock the wood. “I can’t believe I never thought to ask…”

“I can read,” she said, eyes still glued to the pages. “Don’t worry about me…”

“Then I’ll leave you to it,” Vincenzo, removing one layer of his heavy clothing. He stretched his body across the boat's wide floor, careful not to encroach on the small area Plum needed to sleep and read. “I’m tired… I’m so tired, like you wouldn’t believe…” After dragging a large and dull blanket over his exhausted body, the challenges of the battle hit him like a bullet train, making it difficult to keep his eyes open… until memory forced them apart. He looked over at Plum and she looked over at him. “Plum, did you happen to pick up his mask? His fetish?”

“Yeah… it was all that was left…” Plum answered sadly. She took out the flaccid leather from her own back and watched it with eyes close to welling up.

“Could I have it? When you read the book, it’ll be obvious why,” he asked, holding out his hand. “I’ll keep good care of it. I promise.”

She seemed unwilling to part with the memento for a brief moment. “You promise?”

He managed a tired smile. “I promise.”

“Well… okay…” she said. Plum gave him the mask.

“Thanks.” He put it away in his own pack. “Wake me up in an hour, okay? It shouldn’t take us any longer…” He passed out.

2

Plum watched him sleep for a little bit. He looked very peaceful in a way she bet he’d never realize or believe. “Good night,” she whispered, leaning over to pull the blanket over his exposed shoulder. She set up the other rain-shield to protect his still face and patted his chest when it was secure. Okay, she thought. Time to read. She sat against the boat's high wall and held the book close to her face.

You’re my responsibility, as I’m the one who wanted you in the first place. Your mother wasn't sure, but I wanted you. And we eventually did. I made up this plan to bring you to a rarely visited corner of the world and hide you away, and I don’t regret it. I never have, not even for a moment.

Plum, this was my duty. My duty as father and a husband. If you're reading this, then I fulfilled it. I love you, and I’m sorry that you had to read it and never hear it. I love you. Be safe.

The entry ended there. Plum gazed at the last two sentences, confused by her own focus on them. Then it hit her; Cammo had never, not once in his life, admitted he loved her… It wasn’t enough to make her forgive him for that. Two paragraphs weren’t near enough. For her entire life, Plum had believed it to be the other way around—Locine was the one who wanted her and Cammo never cared. It was just another secret she wasn’t allowed to know until after the fact, and it made her just as angry. Why hadn’t he ever told her? Why didn’t Locine? And if it was all his idea, why was he always so cold? Why did she grow up thinking his face was carved out of stone? Why did he always have to look at her with such emotionless eyes, criticizing her for every little thing she got wrong? Without realizing, she had started to cry again. For reasons she couldn’t understand, she was crying. It took another twenty minutes for her to figure out that she loved him back. And it took another twenty on top of that to realize she’d never see him again.

Plum Noowurl, daughter of Cammo Wurl and Locine Noo, was now an orphan. And she spent the next twenty after that coming to terms with that fact.

3

The pair floated between the massive walls of stone for a while, but the time of day never changed, just like the overcast sky. Vincenzo awoke to see Plum still reading. He let out an involuntary yawn as he began to snack on the last of the orages, eating them without a distortion on his face as the sour flavor had lost all impact over the course of their journey. He felt rested yet hungry, so he began to satisfy that need with whatever he could find: salted meat, dried fruit, fresh fruit, and whatever else had been sitting around his bag. It was only after filling up that he noticed Plum—the sweet little thing that would constantly try to interact with him, pleading for stories and advice—still hadn’t said a word.

“Hey, Plum,” he said, washing his hands in the river. “Plum?”

Plum didn't reply, too engrossed in reading in her own little world. Her solid red eyes ran from one side of the page to another, and then down a line, until she finally turned it and continued on the next passage.

“Okay…” He didn’t take her ignorance personally. “How long have we been floating?” The small island they departed from had become nothing but a dot in the far distance. They’d been floating a while. And judging by her position in Cammo’s notebook, she’d been reading the entire time.

Her head rose when she finally realized he’d awakened. “Vincenzo,” she said, closing the book. “Do you think there's foul play?”

“Foul play?” he said. He looked off ahead and spotted something: another grassy mass of land sat at the end of the river by at least a mile. It looked like Spring.

“In the book, he said that the disease might have been a spell. Do you think that's true? Do you think that all of this is because of some curse?”

Vincenzo looked at her seriously, the calm sound of rushing water filling the silence he created. “Yes.”

Plum was usually cute—as Cammo explained, she was gifted with symmetry and soft features that Vincenzo could immediately tell would blossom into beauty when she grew—but in that moment, her face twisted into a quiet rage, and she looked much older. “I see,” she muttered, gritting her teeth. “And who did it?”

“Probably someone we’ve never even heard of… but I’d be willing to bet they work for my father.” From what he heard, his father didn’t seem to be above such things. He kidnaps children, he reminded himself. That’s why she was in danger. What would be a disease here or there to him?

“I see…” Her rage seemed to subside as she leaned over the edge and stared into the river.

“Be careful, who knows how deep it is.”

“I am…” she mumbled, running her puny hand through the water. “They did it because they wanted wizards, right? Like me?”

“Yeah,” Vincenzo said. “That’s how I’d do it… Cammo said you were going extinct, and that it was getting harder and harder for countries to meet their quota. It was probably a way to get some people off their ass.”

“Hey,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Is it okay if I kill him?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

“Y-your dad… Someone has to…”

He leaned back against the raft and stared into the murky sky. She was right. His knowledge on the subject was lacking—he didn’t know where his father was, what he looked like, or what he was even like—but he felt like he had an idea. Eyes, the dark part of himself that the rock-woman brought out, came to mind. And if that was right, if he had as much power as Cammo hinted, he needed to be stopped. But not by her. “No.”

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“I’m going to.” Surprise lit her face when she heard the words escape his calm and collected face, still staring towards the clouds. He dropped his gaze.

“Why?” she asked, curious.

“I figure it's my problem,” he said.

“Oh…”

He scratched his neck casually while stealing small glances at the bags gathering under her eyes. “Plus, I feel like he’d mess with me otherwise,” he explained, feeling the prick of stubble collecting on his face. He was never a hairy guy; all he could muster in the beard department after months of not shaving was a five-o-clock shadow. “Even if I never went after him, he’d come after me. And by proximity, you. But that’s for later. That’s for when I get my bearings on this planet.”

“Can I help?”

He didn't answer while he grabbed a small and thin knife from the back pocket of his pack. “You’re kind of my responsibility… So, let's not worry about that for now,” he replied, wetting his face with river water and gliding the blade across his cheek. “First things first: we get you somewhere safe. That’s my first priority, Plum. Anything else is a long way off.” The knife smoothed out his skin instantly, bringing him back to the moment he first appeared before Plum. The only difference was the half inch of hair growing on his head. “Safety first, Plum, safety first. I’m sure there’s somewhere we can hide.”

“If we make it, that is,” she mumbled.

“What was that?” he asked.

He looked to see not a look of rebellion, but one of sad impotence. She stared at the bottom of the boat. “Nothing…”

“Bullshit, now look at me.” he ordered, kneeling forward.

She shook her head. “I don't want to,” she sniffled.

“Please,” Vincenzo said.

“No, I didn't want to cry in the first place!” she said. She tried to hide her face.

“Why don't you want to cry?” he asked patiently.

“Crying isn't gonna solve anything…” she whimpered. “Its never solved anything. It’s the most useless thing in the world! And all I can do is cry! What does that make me?”

Every event over the course of the past months hit him like a freight train, and he felt anger. “Who the hell said you needed to solve anything?!” Vincenzo yelled. Plum shot up, surprised by his change in tone, when he seized the moment to pull her close to his chest, hugging her tight. Vincenzo knew what it was like to hate oneself, and knew how hard it was to get out of that frame of mind. He still hated himself. He wasn’t going to let Plum start. “You're a kid!” he stated. “It's an adult’s job to solve problems! Okay?! The only thing you should be worrying about are your goddamned chores! It’s my problem. You’re too young to solve it, just like I used to be. Cammo was an adult. Your mother was an adult. And kids can’t do shit. It’s not your fault.”

She hugged him back with a fury, like she was attempting to crush him with all the power her small emp body could provide. “What?! So you could die too?!” she argued. “Mama’s dead, papa’s dead, and even more people are dead because of me! I hate it! I don’t want anyone else to die…”

Her rage washed away with the healthy stream of tears flowing down her cheeks, and she buried her small head in his chest and began to weep even more violently. Vincenzo sat against the wall again and held her tight, bearing the brunt of her sadness head on. It was a long time coming. Ever since the first night they spent together she’d been on the verge of breaking down. And what better place to break down than in his arms, where he swore nothing would hurt her. That was when everything came out like a tidal wave. Every bit of information that she left out of her late-night confessions were revealed, and it scared him. It scared him because of how twisted her thinking was threatening to become. Like all children (and himself) she wanted to be older, but the reasons for her wish were due to a deep feeling of trauma that came from the uselessness that all children were predisposed to. She saw her mother killed in what Vincenzo imagined was the worst possible way, and she was powerless to stop it. Her father sacrificed himself when they couldn’t win one measly battle, which she was also useless (in her biased eyes) in. And the same illness that ravaged her mother was ravaging who knew how many others, and the only way to stop it would be her sacrifice—which she’d already refused to do out of feelings she didn’t fully understand. He hated himself for the things he chose to do; she hated herself for the things she was unable to. So, he tried his best to nip those emotions in the bud, arguing against her notions of incapability until she couldn’t think of another argument to make as she just resigned herself to bawling into his shirt. It was then that he realized that it wasn’t a lecture she needed. “Okay,” he quietly promised. “No one else is going to die… For the rest of this journey, no more blood is on your hands. ‘Cause none will spill. Capito?”

She nodded, wiping her nose on a clean patch of cloth she’d managed to leave untouched. “What’s that mean?”

“Understand?”

She blew her nose on him. “Okay…” And seemed a lot better.

4

They reached the green island after another ten minutes, where Vincenzo jumped off and dragged their circular raft ashore. Plum had calmed down, her face clean of tears, snot, and a little drool, and Vincenzo’s shirt dirty. The slight shimmer that the invisible wall between segments shimmered just feet away. He put the straps of his pack over his shoulders and waited for Plum to be ready.

“Here we are,” he said. “The final stretch. I think Cammo said it’d just be two weeks' travel till we make it out of this crater… Are you ready? We can wait here a little bit if you need.”

Plum shook her head. “I’m ready. I feel a lot better now.”

“Are you sure?” Plum didn’t seem healthy. The bags under her eyes were already large, but they seemed even puffier. Her lavender skin was lighter, making her seem a sickly pale. Her breathing was labored and shallow, and despite the mild weather, she was sweating like a pig in heat. “Wait a minute…” He pressed the back of his hand against her forehead. “You’re burning up!”

“I’m fine,” she argued.

“No, you’re not. In fact, I’d say you caught a fever.”

She pressed a hand against her forehead to check, wobbling as she stood. “Oh… Oh! Vincenzo!” she said, grabbing her stomach. “My stomach! I have to go to the bathroom!”

Vincenzo could handle boogers but not shit. “OH! Oh shit, okay! Come on, you can go in Spring!”

They pushed past the wall and into the unknown without hesitation. The Italian barely had time to take in the splendor of nature before him, completely focused on getting his sister to crap far, far away from him. The trees were taller than Summer’s, about twenty feet on average, with broad green leaves that sucked up the warm sun, hard brown bark, and flowers budding along the branches. The forest was full of flowers of all shapes, sizes, and colors, growing from bushes, vines, and from the lush grass that reached the middle of his shins.

“Here!” he said, finding a particularly thick trunk. “Go here! I’ll be on the other side if you need anything.”

“Okay, okay,” she groaned. “Oooh… I don’t feel good…”

“A good shit and you’ll be alright,” he said with a pat on the back. “It’ll clear you up…” He dug into Cammo’s pack and passed her some of the dried leaves laid on top of one another they’d been using for such occasions. “Call me if you need anything.”

She took the wipes and went. “Thanks…”

With that taken care of Vincenzo moved back into the clearing they came into Spring from, paying a little more attention to his environment. Multi-colored birds and small animals flitted from tree to tree, chittering and chirping as they traveled along branches in an almost song-like way, making music with the rustling of leaves. Spring was alive. It made enough sense to him. Summer had a couple of animals; Fall did too, even if they were at the bottom; Winter was empty; and Spring was full.

He picked out a cigarette and lit it, taking in the smoke, and letting it out before it began to burn. Cammo had gotten him addicted, but Vincenzo decided that it wasn’t so bad. A little buzz of energy cleared his mind, and he could think without thinking too much.

His thoughts used to be: Is she sick? Are we going to have to stop? Do we even have enough food for the stop, if we have to? How much food do we have? And what if it’s something she can’t come back from? What if it’s worse than a fever? What if it’s something that time and rest won’t cure? Oh, God. What if it’s the same thing her mother had?

They became: She has a fever and she’ll knock it out soon. Either that or it is just a shit.

His only worry, then, was how long it’d take, but those worries had nothing to do with their food supply. When I overthink, I miss the simplest shit, don’t I? Spring was full of food. They were climbing on trees, hopping from branch to branch, and being real fucking noisy about it, too. He’d feed them both fine. But there was a niggling thought in the back of his mind, and he was eighty percent sure that it wasn’t just a symptom of thinking more than necessary. Cammo had said they needed to leave because there wasn’t any food, that the soil rejected every kind of outside plant, and that the jers running around would have been hunted to extinction in just a couple months if they’d stayed. Fall had nothing but bugs, and they were too dangerous. And Winter was a wasteland. So, what was wrong with Spring? What’s the catch? he asked himself. There was a catch. Cammo wasn’t stupid. If Spring was the place to be, he would’ve been there. Is Plum done yet?

He smoked to a nub and stuck it in his mouth, letting his drool extinguish whatever embers remained, and spit it out on the grass. The last thing he wanted to do was disturb Plum while she was doing her business—he didn’t want to, also—but a strange sense of foreboding settled in his stomach.

“Plum? You done yet?” he asked, coming closer. There was no reply. “Plum? Plum, I don’t want to look behind and see you shitting. Are you there or not?” Still no reply. With a bit of alarm, he said, “You’re not.” He grabbed the bark and leaned to see, still not wanting to the victim of some stupid joke, and saw the pink sundress lying on the ground. “Oh no.” Vincenzo held it by the skirt quickly, and then dropped it just as fast—Plum had used it to cover her “business”. He dry-heaved and looked at his hand, making sure it wasn’t stained by any of it, and found it wasn’t. “Plum? Where are you?” Vincenzo went from passive concern to real worry without a pause, and his anxiety only worsened when he spied a red strip hanging from a fallen branch. He ran over and pulled it off the wood; it was Plum’s ribbon. She wore it everywhere. She wouldn’t just leave this lying here, he knew, and pressed on when his eyes caught something else. He didn’t idle, getting to the next piece of clothing the second after he saw it. It was a sock, little and pink and whole. She wasn’t ripping it off, but taking it off. She’s stripping? he thought, putting it in the pocket opposite of her ribbon. Was she burning up that much? Whatever she was doing, she was leaving a trail. He spotted another one of her socks heading in the same direction and grabbed it. What was next? She didn’t have her dress, her ribbon, or her socks. What else did she have to get rid of? He dreaded the answer and dreaded the reality. Another twenty feet off, he saw a little bit of underpants. He stuffed that in his pocket with the socks. “Plum? Come on, I’ve already touched some nasty stuff,” Vincenzo said, walking in the path she laid. “Plum? You’re not dead, I know that much. An animal would’ve just eaten you straight out. Come on, Plum, this isn’t making me laugh. Look, hear…” He silently continued. “Did you hear that? Did you notice my lack of laughter?” His jokes were bad cover. In his voice was a worry growing into panic, and it was starting to feel like panic was the right emotion. “Plum?!” He thought of Frey again. He thought of silence. “Hey?! I said that this wasn’t funny!”

He tripped on something solid, only failing to fall flat on his face with two outstretched arms that caught onto low hanging branches nearby. “Piece of shit…” he muttered, looking down and pushing himself back. “What even…” It was too dark a purple to be a rock, too hard to be some kind of weird mushroom, and too unnatural to be alive. He knew he should just continue on in his search, but something told him to investigate, that whatever it was by his feet was some kind of clue. He squatted down and felt the top of it; it was rough, hard… and warm.

Why was it warm? There’d been a bed of long grass that concealed its sides, and they were gone after some frantic pulling, and when they were gone, he got his answers. Curled up into a ball, her chin on her knees, her back bent, her long ears curving along it, her arms tight along her legs, and her hands on the sides of her face as if she was blocking the sun to examine something, was Plum.