The Water and the Wild (37 page)

She stumbled back, her foot lodged in the tangled curl of a vine. Mr. Wilfer steadied her by the shoulder. Fife and Adelaide were stooped nearby, and Oliver was pulling
himself out of a tangle of ivy. The Barghest lay at Lottie's feet. He was bent, as though in a reverent kneel, before Dorian.

“Dorian Ingle,” the Barghest rasped, pressing his muzzle into Dorian's outstretched hand. “Servant of Rebel Gem, it is an honor to be at your service.”

“I—I—thank you,” Lottie sputtered. “Thank you for saving me. For saving all of us.”

Dorian nodded. “My uncle sent his genga to court after his house was raided by the Guard a few days back. He said to be on the lookout for his friend Moritasgus Wilfer, and for the last surviving Fiske. It wasn't until the Barghest found me that I knew just what sort of danger you were in.”

“Danger that you're still in,” said Mr. Wilfer. “We must move quickly.”

Lottie knew what had to be done. She'd seen it done before, and a tug—soft but insistent within her—guided her hand by instinct. She reached deep into her pocket and curled her hand around the warm bundle that was Trouble. Carefully, she lifted him out, placed her lips against his downy black feathers, and whispered, “Take us home.”

Trouble did not hesitate. He flew directly to a branch hanging just over Lottie's head. The branch was pallid, its branches peeling with the ravage of sickness. Lottie pulled it down as carefully as she could manage. Then, gently, she pocketed Trouble in her periwinkle coat.

She was not so shocked this time as she had been in Thirsby Square when she heard the violent groaning and watched the apple tree writhe its splintering bark into an opening.

“Quickly,”
said Mr. Wilfer.

Adelaide stepped inside, and Oliver and Fife filed in next. Mr. Wilfer stood guard at the tree's entrance; he motioned for Lottie to step inside.

“Grissom!” she said, the thought sudden and awful. “We can't go back to Thirsby Square. He knows where I live.”

“Don't trouble yourself with that,” said Dorian, smirking. “I know what route he'll take, and I'm not the only spy in the Southerly Court. You're with me, aren't you, Barghest?”

The dog bent its head in assent.

With a gracefulness that would have put even
Adelaide's best curtsy to shame, Dorian swept a leg over the Barghest's back and gripped its mane.

“Only remember,” said Dorian, “two Northerlies just saved your life, Heir of Fiske. You owe our court a life debt. Think on that while you are in Earth.”

Then he bent and whispered something into the Barghest's ear. Before Lottie could say a word more, the Barghest grunted and set off in a rough bound toward the court walls.

“Come, Lottie,” said Mr. Wilfer. He climbed into the apple tree and beckoned to her. “We cannot linger here.”

Lottie shook herself. “Sorry. I'm coming.”

She took a step, and something clutched her foot.

A hand had emerged from the vine-covered ground, pinching into the hollows around Lottie's anklebone. Her leg buckled in pain, and Lottie fell. She tried desperately to shake off the hand, but its bony fingers only clenched harder. Their owner now sat up from where he had been buried in the vines.

Lottie had not spoken fast enough in the throne room.

“Finally,” said Grissom. “I've got you all to myself.”

“Let her go!” Oliver shouted.

“Grissom,” said Mr. Wilfer, gripping the threshold of the apple tree, “your quarrel isn't with the girl.”

“Fair enough, Moritasgus,” said Grissom. “But considering none of
you
can step across that enchanted threshold, I'll bide my time with the Heir of Fiske.”

Grissom shoved Lottie's ankle from his grip so that she fell painfully to the ground, the air knocked from her lungs. Then he rose to his full height, towering over her, and kicked her in the ribs. A hot pain tore through Lottie. She screamed, clutching at her side.

“You thought it would be that easy? That you could defy the Southerly King and traipse off to Earth scot-free?”

Lottie did not answer. She could not. The pain in her ribs was claustrophobic. And on top of it there was a tightening, thickening sensation in her chest that she had known since she was a little girl. Lottie squeezed her eyes shut and tried to steady her breathing.

“Grissom, stop this!” Mr. Wilfer shouted from the tree, but Grissom only sneered in his direction before turning his full attention back to Lottie.

“Typical,” he said. “Fiskes have always been known for their duplicity—fraternizers with wisps and Northerlies alike. Your mother was the worst of them all, consorting
with the filth that reside in Earth. Of course you have none of the Fiskes' keen. Not with that excuse for a father.”

Lottie tried to speak again, but her throat had seized up in the same tightening strain that raged in her chest.

“What's that, halfling?” said Grissom with a mocking smile. “What are you trying to say? Why don't you get up and tell me?”

Suddenly, Lottie's bad spell was fading, and a new sensation had begun to grow in her chest and burn like acid against her rib cage. Lottie did not feel frightened anymore. She only felt angry. The sensation boiled in her blood and strengthened her bones, pushing Lottie up to her knees. She gripped the ivy beneath her, panting. Her throat warmed and loosened, and words unbundled from her mouth.

“Vesper Bells.”

The ivy burst into motion. Vines snaked up Grissom's legs, cinching tight. They crawled up his potbelly and strapped his arms down to his sides. Grissom's eyes went wide with terror. A vine shot under Lottie's foot and she lost her balance, tumbling back toward the apple tree, where Mr. Wilfer caught her and pulled her inside.

“How?” Grissom screamed. “No!
No!
”

Vine and leaves swallowed up Grissom's shouts, and his body went rigid under the winding, thick shoots of the Northerly vines. Mr. Wilfer tugged Lottie deeper into the apple tree, and the bark sealed up and cast them all into darkness.

“THAT,” SAID FIFE,
“is going to leave some permanent psychological damage. Ouch! What, Ada? It
is
.”

“You all right, Lottie?” said Oliver.

“I'm f-f-fine,” Lottie sputtered, “but is Grissom—?”

“The Northerly vines are relentless,” Mr. Wilfer answered her unfinished question. “It will take the king a long time to free Grissom from those vines—if he chooses to free him at all.”

Lottie gulped. “So what do we now?”

“You must think, Lottie,” said Mr. Wilfer, “of the best place to go in Earth.”

“The Barmy Badger,” Lottie said immediately. “Eliot.”

Then something very important occurred to Lottie.

“Wait! There's no tree—”

But an aching sensation had already started in Lottie's legs, and she suddenly felt like she was in the palm of a giant who was slowly squeezing her to death, snapping her bone by bone. She had gotten it wrong, but it was too late to change now. So Lottie kept on thinking of Eliot's painted room. She thought of ye ol' porthole. The squeezing stopped. Lottie felt weightless and thoughtless for a second. Then came the
whoosh
.

“Well, we're going
somewhere,
” Mr. Wilfer called encouragingly. “Get ready for the flip. Oliver, keep your hands tucked in!”

Lottie thought that turning a somersault in midair had been painful enough when she had ridden with Adelaide, but this time her knees whacked into someone else's back, her nose bonked against someone's foot, and some of her own hair flew into her mouth. Then all five of them dropped to the ground. Everyone was upright and looked perfectly
unflustered. Everyone but Lottie, who was sprawled on the floor. Fife broke the silence.

“Nice work,” he said.

Adelaide poked him hard in the side. “Shut up, you imbecile. Can't you see that she's shaken up?”

“Well, who wouldn't be?” said Fife. “She just took down the whole Southerly Court!”

Adelaide and Fife continued to argue in loud whispers, but Lottie wasn't listening. She had not made a move to get up. She remained still on the floor as the elevator continued on its gentler ascent. Mr. Wilfer knelt by her side.

“How are you feeling, Lottie?” he asked. “May I?”

Gingerly, Mr. Wilfer touched the place where Grissom had kicked Lottie in her side. Lottie watched him quietly as he pressed his fingertips up and down her ribs. A strange look crossed Mr. Wilfer's face.

“That doesn't hurt?”

Lottie shook her head. “No. It feels fine now.”

“A kick like that should've fractured the bone,” said Mr. Wilfer. “I don't understand it. Excepting your headache, you're in perfect condition.”

Lottie blinked at Mr. Wilfer in surprise. “How do you know about my headache?”

Mr. Wilfer removed his hand from Lottie's side, and she suddenly understood.

“That's your keen, isn't it?” she said. “You touch people, and you know what's wrong with them.”

“
Right
with them, too,” Mr. Wilfer said. “Anything physical there is to know, good or bad, I know from a touch of my hands. I didn't become the land's finest healer by sheer force of will. A good healer must have an equally good keen.”

“Mr. Wilfer?” Lottie whispered. “Why didn't you tell me that first night about being a Fiske? Or that I was the final ingredient to the Otherwise Incurable? Why didn't you
tell
me?”

Mr. Wilfer raised a brow. “For the same reason I instructed Adelaide and Oliver that, should I be taken captive and should they run into trouble—two things I feared were very likely—they could never give you up. I told them that, if they had to bargain for their lives, they must use the Otherwise Incurable.”

Lottie frowned at Mr. Wilfer, then at Oliver, whose eyes were a light, timid violet. “You mean, you
told
them to give up the medicine?”

“When Adelaide and Fife and I first talked to Mr. Ingle at the inn,” said Oliver, “he told us we'd have to make a bargain with the king. It was either you or the medicine, and we weren't about to turn you in. We weren't trying to betray you, Lottie. We were just trying to keep you safe.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” said Fife, “but should we be concerned that this tree of ours is noisier than usual?”

Lottie stopped to listen. Fife was right: there was a terrible screeching noise coming from above their heads, and it was getting louder and louder and louder until the very floor began to shake from the sound of it.

Then the screeching stopped. The tree splintered open, and Lottie, who was leaning against the wall there, fell out, backside first, into a damp clump of grass. She was outside, it was nighttime, and it was raining. Electric streetlights buzzed over her head, and she could hear a television blaring from a nearby house. She was in her world, in New Kemble, and she was sitting in the back garden of the Barmy Badger.

“That doesn't make sense, though,” said Lottie. “There isn't an apple tree in Eliot's backyard.”

The others filed out of the tree, much more elegantly than Lottie had done, and the tree whorled shut behind
them. Rather than remain upright, the tree trunk shrunk, growing smaller and smaller still, falling closer toward the earth until it disappeared into a patch of shrubbery.

“Look!” cried Adelaide. She pushed back the shrubbery and pointed. “It's just a seedling.”

“That would explain those fantastic noises on the way up, then,” said Fife. “Those were small roots to shoot through.”

Lottie and the others crowded around Adelaide. Just as she had said, the smallest sapling of an apple tree had emerged from the Barmy Badger's unkempt garden.

“It's from the day that Eliot and I ate apples on the rooftop,” Lottie said in wonder. “I warned him that he might accidentally plant a tree!”

Lottie glanced up at Eliot's window now, half expecting the light to be on, or even Eliot to be looking out of ye ol' porthole. But the window was dark. A rush of fear seared through Lottie, then grief. She had no cure. She might even be too late to watch Eliot die.

She stumbled up the back steps of the Barmy Badger and rapped hard on the door. Rain was soaking everyone's clothes. Fife's normally static-shot hair was wetted to his face, and Adelaide's teeth were chattering.

The back door swung open, and Mr. Walsch poked his white-tufted face out. When he saw Lottie, his mouth went round.

“My dear child,” he croaked. “We've been so worried!”

“Mr. Walsch!” cried Lottie. “Is Eliot all right?”

The old man shook his head. “He's in a very bad way. Very bad. Took a turn for the worse last night. This whole business of you being gone came as quite a shock. We had no idea where . . .”