The Red Pearl (3 page)

ANTONIA THOUGHT OF RUNNING OFF, but it was no use. All was dark, and she wasn’t familiar with the woods. Even if she dared brave them, Robin and his guard dog snoozed just outside the tent. She’d never make it past them.

Besides, the man had more or less threatened to relay her whereabouts to the Temple of Azea. Antonia couldn’t have that. She didn’t want the priestesses tailing her, attempting to manipulate or elsewise force her return.

Though she regretted becoming entwined with this Robin person, at least she was free to resume to Elat, once his search for the mysterious map ended. The only question was
when,
exactly, that would be. Desperately, she wondered how Robin’s father, on the other side of the woods, could possibly help them.

She awoke the next morning when the heat became too oppressive. The sky was light as she exited the tent. She found Robin already awake, heating a crude pan over a fire he’d built. “Morning,” he greeted brusquely, beads of perspiration glistening on his brow. “Care for an egg?”

Antonia’s stomach rumbled. An egg? She hadn’t eaten one since before her temple days. Priestesses and their apprentices generally abstained from animal flesh and by-products. Eager, she nodded.

“Good day for travel,” the man remarked. “Not a cloud in the sky. We should reach my father by evening.”

Antonia glanced up. Indeed, through the treetops the sky was a clear, unadulterated blue.

Robin removed the pan from the flames and passed it over by the handle. “Don’t touch the bottom,” he warned. “Very hot.”

Antonia thanked him and took it, along with the spatula he handed her. “But what shall you eat?” she inquired.

He indicated the pan with a bob of his head. “I already did.”

She halted. He’d eaten from the pan in which he was now serving her breakfast? But her stomach groaned lustily, and she slipped the used spatula into her mouth, regardless. Sighing with pleasure, she closed her eyes. The egg tasted every bit as rich and creamy as she remembered.

Afterwards, she helped Robin disassemble the tent and repack his rucksack. Maverick sniffed at her hands, but she raised them to her chest. “I have already finished my meal,” she told the creature. “I’ve nothing left for the likes of you.”

Thankfully, Robin whistled, and the dog left her be.

The woods stretched on for miles, alive with scurrying creatures and bubbling creeks, twigs crunching and leaves crackling beneath their feet. The morning passed rather uneventfully as Antonia followed Robin through the brush, until something collided with the man’s brow. Gasping, he brought a hand to his face as the culprit whirred off, wings sputtering through the humid air.

Antonia startled. “What was that?”

She did not like Robin’s expression. “If I didn’t know any better…” he mumbled, when a hum rattled the breeze. The sound was unnerving, a series of clicks and buzzes that echoed through the woodland sky and seemed to reach Antonia’s bones. Robin frowned. “It appears a hatching has occurred in the west,” he whispered.

Antonia swallowed. “Which direction are we headed?”

His grim expression conveyed the answer. “It’s only a few more hours, if that,” he reasoned, scratching his beard. “We can power through, can’t we? Think you can be extra swift for me, Antonia?”

She looked at her hands. There was no getting around it, she supposed. “Aye,” she replied stoutly. She appreciated that he had at least addressed her by her proper name, and not by that ghastly moniker,
Annie.

With caution, the pair proceeded, while the rattling became louder and more disconcerting with each footfall. Antonia dodged out of the way as several fat insects zoomed at her. One brushed her arm and fell to the ground.

Robin shook his head. “Blind as bats, those ciqédo. I swear, only half the time do they want your blood. The other half, they simply can’t see where the hell they’re going.”

Antonia shuddered, glancing back at the twitching ciqédo she left behind in the dirt. The insects were enormous, twice as long as her thumb. She didn’t wish to think about something so large sucking her blood.

The afternoon clouded under the shady trees, making the hour seem later than it was. Antonia glanced up and took in a breath. Hundreds of little black, winged creatures were poised in the treetops, staring down at them with bulbous red eyes. Heart fluttering, she tugged on Robin’s sleeve and pointed up.

The man craned his neck, taking in the clans of newborn ciqédo. His features darkened. Meanwhile, Maverick trotted ahead, black tail swaying behind him. Another slew of insects swooped down, and Antonia ducked as several more bounced off of her forearm. As though inspired by their neighbors, yet another team leapt from their perches to harass the travelers, forcing Robin and Antonia to run. Maverick, seeming to think it a game, pranced alongside them, snapping his jowls.

Antonia scratched her arm. It itched beneath her robes. The weather was too hot for the material, she thought, irritated. If not for Robin, she could have found new clothing by then, and wouldn’t be stuck outrunning bloodsucking insects in a forbidding forest.

They ran until her feet could take it no longer. Panting, she slowed to a halt, and leaned against a tree. Furiously, she scratched her arm again. The itch was unbearable.

Robin watched her. “What are you doing?”

Antonia ground her teeth, rolling up her sleeve to drag her bare skin against the tree bark. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Let me see,” he commanded, taking her arm without awaiting permission. She trembled at his rough touch. “Good gods, Annie. You’ve been bitten!”

“Bitten?” She snatched her arm back, examining the flesh.

“Multiple times,” he declared, looking upset as he indicated the little bumps and abrasions forming on her skin. “Do you feel all right?”

“Fine.” She shrugged. “It only itches like a demon.” She leapt aside as another ciqédo dropped onto the forest floor at her ankles. “We’d better get out of here.”

Robin still appeared concerned. “Are you sure your arm’s all right? I don’t know if that’s a normal reaction…”

But Antonia barely heard him, for the tree before her dissolved into a kaleidoscope of patterns before reassembling again. She stopped short. “Did you see that?” she whispered.

He glanced around. “See what?”

“That tree.” She pointed, but could not recall exactly which tree it had been. “It just…” She tried to search for the right words to describe it, but vocabulary evaded her.

They carried on, yet Antonia was finding it increasingly difficult to hold onto her bindle. For some reason, the stick kept slipping from her fingers, until she dropped it altogether.

“Annie,” Robin scolded her, bending to retrieve it, when the girl suddenly toppled down, her knees giving way. She barely perceived the man catching her in his hold, his alarmed cry, his questioning in her ear.

“I feel weak,” she mumbled, as the sky above broke apart and rearranged itself, and the leaves turned a strange shade of black.

“OH,
NO.
”
ROB GROANED, HOISTING the girl beneath her arms as he knelt behind her. Her eyelids drooped shut, and she now lay unconscious. “Antonia Korelli, you are bad news,” he grunted, scooping her up and cradling her like a small child.

He studied her reposing face, her rosy cheeks blanching, full lips slightly parted, and gave her a small shake. Curious, Maverick sniffed at her limp limbs.
“She’s passed out, Mav,” the man panted. Unbelievable. Of all the traveling companions one could have, his was allergic to ciqédo.

Rob glanced down at the little bindle she’d dropped. With haste, he stuck it into his rucksack. Dog at his heels, he set off again, moving as fast he could while carrying the motionless girl.

After half an hour, his biceps burned and his hands perspired. Her robes were made of some coarse material that could not be comfortable for her, especially not during that season. She needed new attire. But first, Rob had to get her out of the woods.

He grimaced as her long yellow hair snagged at another branch they passed—how had it not awoken her?—and felt for her pulse. It still thumped, albeit sluggishly.

Rob thought he’d be carrying her forever, that he’d never see the end of the Greyer Woods, when a familiar landmark caught his eye: an old willow tree, its boughs seeping to the ground. He wasn’t far now.

Coming to a halt beneath the willow, he tried to rouse Antonia again, but to no avail. She needed antihistamine, and soon. Repositioning her over his shoulder, Rob bolted from another swarm of ciqédo that emerged from the tree, his boots pounding the way ever west.

Antonia’s head bobbed against his shoulder, his beard itched, and his rucksack weighed heavy at his back. “You’re a real pain in the neck, Annie,” he muttered, though he knew it unlikely she could hear his teasing. “Literally and figuratively.”

At long last, the brush thinned, and he came to the clearing. He saw the log cabin with tufts of smoke chuffing up through the chimney. Rob furrowed his wet brow, wishing he had a free hand with which to blot it. But why had the old man lit the hearth in this heat?

Maverick recognized their location at once, and tumbled ahead into the yard. He barked cheerily, but even so, the sound had no effect whatsoever upon the sleeping girl.

“What the—Maverick?”

Rob grinned as his weary feet brought him closer to the familiar voice. It’d been some time since he was last home.

A portly shape bustled out to the front porch. Patchy brown trousers held up by a pair of worn suspenders, his curly hair wild as ever, Dr. Thaddeus Watkins squinted into the lawn from behind half-moon spectacles. “That you, son?”

“Good morrow,” Rob greeted his father, his voice strained.

The old man blinked. “What on earth are you carrying?”

“A heavy burden,” the man grunted. “And my rucksack.”

His father gaped. “Good gods, Rob. Is that a
woman?”

“A very unconscious woman,” his son answered, climbing up the threshold, “who also happens to be quite allergic to ciqédo.”

“Heavens, has it been seventeen years already?” Thaddeus ran a hand through his graying hair. “Well, get her inside.” He held the front door wide, beckoning them through. “I’m sure I’ve some needles around here somewhere.”

Rob nearly cried with relief to step into the cabin at last, although ludicrously, a fire crackled in the hearth. He was about to ask why but, taking in the number of pots and cauldrons bubbling over it, thought better. He’d no desire to get sucked into a three-hour explanation of his father’s latest bogus experiment.

Still carrying Antonia, he sidestepped a pile of old tins and almost tripped over a sort of insulated tube running across the length of the kitchen floor. “The place is a mess, Thad,” he remarked.

His father looked down. “Yes, well. Since your mother…” He cleared his throat, forcing a smile. “She set a rather high standard of cleanliness, did she not? One to which, I’m afraid, I’ve been unable to live up.”

Rob regretted his comment. His mother had passed away a few years prior, and he and his father seldom spoke of her.

They hurried into the guest bedroom, where Thad brushed off a mess of newspapers, woodblocks and diagrams from the mattress. Rob lay Antonia down, while his father fetched an antihistamine.

The young man slid off his rucksack and lowered himself onto the bed beside her. Her hair was sprawled out over the pillowcase, arms limp at her sides. A thought occurred to him, and he reached into his pack. After a minute of fishing, he extracted a little jar of aloe balm. Carefully, he rolled up her sleeve, exposing her left forearm, where she’d been bitten.

Rob inhaled. Her scratchy robes seemed to have irritated the skin even more. He dipped his fingers into the gooey paste and, gingerly as he could, blotted it over her bites. At least it would help relieve the itching, once she came to.

His father reentered the room with a syringe, and Rob rolled her sleeve up to her shoulder. He was surprised to find a jagged scar there. He wondered what had happened to her. “Perhaps we ought to do the other arm,” he suggested quietly. He was unable to gauge how recently the scar had been obtained, and did not wish to harm her, should the tissue still be tender.

At last, Thad injected the solution into her right arm.

“Do we have anything else she can wear?” Rob asked him. “Perhaps something of Mum’s…?”

The old man winced. “I’ll see what I can find. Meanwhile, Rob, you look like you could use a bath.”

Rob didn’t doubt it.

“And a shave,” his father hinted. “Since when do you wear a beard?”

“It was never intentional.” Rob shrugged. “I’ve been on the road and haven’t bothered with my razor, is all.”

“Well, bother with mine,” Thad muttered, cocking a bushy eyebrow. “No offense, but you look terrible.” He exited the room, and Rob frowned. He didn’t look
that
bad, did he?

Antonia stirred, and Rob hastened to his feet. He didn’t want her to awaken and find him sitting in bed with her; that would certainly give the wrong impression. But she made no more movements, and did not open her eyes.

Eventually, his father returned with an armful of summer dresses.

“Heavens, Thad, she doesn’t need
all
of those.”

“Let her have her pick.” Thad dumped them unceremoniously onto the dresser. “And go get cleaned up. Afterward,” he dropped his voice, betraying a small grin, “there’s something I must show you. Truly, you arrived at the perfect time.”

Rob sighed. He had enough to deal with, between the sleeping girl he’d endangered and the fact that his map was stolen; he hadn’t time for more of his father’s zany projects. But for now, his beard was seriously scratchy and sweaty, and he knew he must’ve smelled awful.

“Suppose I’d better hit the washroom,” he admitted, heading for the door. “Will you stay and keep watch over her?”

“Of course,” replied his father. “But, Rob…?”

He stalled in the doorway.

“Who is she?”

“Just some kid I met on the road,” Rob mumbled, making his way from the room.