Fimbs gasped, transfixed by this alien, galvanizing, and almost tranquil scene. Noticing this, Janny warned, "Be careful, Fimbs. You don't have to actually eat the gecko's poison to get a fatal dose."
She looked abashed that he had pegged her distraction as danger, so easily, and apologized. "I'm sorry, I just—I've never seen anything like it."
I nodded. "Yeah, the stalks can be a beautiful place, at times. Sure, everyone talks about the forests like they're this great, terrible evil thing; and while it can be dangerous, for sure, it's also breathtaking to experience for yourself sometimes. I think that's why Rilah was always so bored with our safe life in the glades. It could never replicate such glories as this."
"Zoel...?" Janny asked, wondering where I was going with this.
I waited patiently for a beat, allowing the scenery to wash over me, before I eventually encouraged him, with "Yes, Janius?"
He pulled his lips tight, and tittered uncharacteristically, before continuing his query. "I know I said that I was okay with you not telling us what happened, and all—and that's still true! You don't have
to answer anything you're not comfortable with—but I was just curious about ...I mean, how did you get those nasty wounds on your back? I'm sure you must have had your reasons. Isn't it fair that we get to know what's out there, as well?"
I let out a heavy breath, and blinked burning tears away from the edges of my vision at the remembrance of that difficult time, but he was right. They had a right to know. I swallowed hard, and looked him in the eyes.
"That plant was a man-eater." He nodded, understanding, as they were standard fare in the warnings of what awaited us in the dangerous, dark woods. I continued, "I don't know which one, or what method it was using to manipulate me, but it had me utterly convinced that I was the only one who understood how to escape, and I walked right into its open mouth."
Fimbs gasped, again, but this time with horror in the stead of delight's place. "You mean, you almost died?!"
I snickered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world that someone like me would struggle to survive in the forest. Then, I saw the look in her face, and I realized just how much she looked up to me, to Janius, to all of us with the courage to brave this forest on our own; in spite of our parent's instruction.
I cleared my throat, and gave her response the seriousness that it required. "Yes, several times. I may not look it, but I'm nowhere near as useful in this forest, as Rilah is."
Janny shook his head, knowingly. "That isn't true, Zoel. You're both amazing! Fimbs, he's just being modest—"
"I'm not!" I shouted, cutting him off with my fists balled up, anxiously. "I'm nothing like her... She's the amazing one, and she always will be! Don't tell me that you know what my potential is, when you didn't see what I had to do, just to find you again...!"
"Zoel..." He said, with sympathy weighing heavy in his tone.
A protracted silence filled the air, as we trod through the narrow passage of earth worn smooth by the rush of waters; like a natural trail blazed into the center of the forest.
"No, you wanted to hear the truth of what happened, out there? Well, here it is—I got a foraging reality check, that's what!" The air settled on the scene, and I slapped a chin-height length of some flowering plant with razor sharp edges to its leaves out of my face, before continuing. "If Rilah was here, she would have been able to navigate all those horrible encounters with no difficulty, whatsoever! I've seen her do it, Janius. The way she glides through the forest, it's like she was born for it, you don't know what the five you're talking about!"
He shook his head. "No, I do." he whispered quietly, before resuming with full confidence returned to his voice. "No, you know what? I'm sick of hearing how much greater Rilah is, every single time. The truth is that whatever you had to do out there—that you're oh, so ashamed of—neither of us were capable of pulling it off! The fact is that you went out on your own, and you made it back, on your own. That's something to be proud of!"
Nothing but the normal sounds of distant bird calls and the lows of the waking frogs in the area beginning to stir, as the afternoon turned to dusk, resounded in the brooding dark. No one had the wherewithal to sustain the knowledge of how close we were to uncovering the truth, and the humility to admit how relieved we were to return back home.
"Eeeiigh!" came the identical cry of the Calling Cardinals; those red-feathered recorders, who so eagerly took on the tortured screams of my pleading companion as their new personal mantra. It was a desecration of one of her few, sparing moments of genuine vulnerability, before me—as well as a stark reminder of one of my greatest regrets—and I silently burned at the utter, unsympathetic inhumanity of their callous disregard.
"Was that it?" Fimbs asked, unmoored by the eerie similarity to the human tongue.
Janny added, "I hear it, too... It almost sounds like....!" then he trailed off, as if afraid to say the rest.
"It's Rilah's voice." I finished. "The trees know that we're close to finding what we need, so they're taunting us. Don't listen to them."
It was hard not to see it as a personal assault. These very birds were there. They were right there, when I failed her. They were the sole witnesses of what had become of her; information I was desperate to learn, but had no way of retrieving from their tanagroid mind.
It almost felt like they knew how frustrating it was, to be so close to answers; yet powerless to retrieve them. So, they called and called, to bait me in from one false lead to another.
I would not chase them. I would not heed them. I would not give in.
Anticipating their next questions, I offered up an explanation. "Vassur called them Calling Cards. I think I'd heard of them before, but I don't remember, entirely, if they're actually a type of cardinal or their own thing. They look similar, enough; I think. They're supposed to be from the Third Domain, where there's no more solid ground, and they hunt by repeating the mating calls of their prey."
Janny exhaled, and then said, "I know I'm going to regret asking this, but if they're so tiny that they look like a cardinal, how exactly is it that we're supposed to be afraid of them?"
I looked down, sadly, knowing that the information I was about to share was something that others could easily live their whole lives without knowing anything about. "Well, the truth is, that they're not really interested in humans in particular. What they do, is draw their victims into a section of the bathies where there's a bunch of corpses, watch them drown, and feast on the maggots that crawl out of their rotting flesh."
Fimbs gagged, and tore her face away from the sky, as if the very act of locking eyes with them would be enough to ensure such a brutal end. "Ulp! That's horrible..."
I shrugged, "I can't really think about it as who's right and who's wrong, out here. I mean, something's got to eat the maggots; or else who knows how many Jayflies or Screwworms we would have, out in the glades? They're just doing what comes naturally to them."
"That doesn't make it nice to hear about..." she retorted.
"Nobody ever said the stalks were nice. I said it could be beautiful, but I have no misunderstandings about what I'm doing out here. It's the most dangerous place that you can be. Rilah risks her life, every time she comes out here. I'm just glad that, the one time she needed help, I was there to see it."
Janny supplied, "Rilah is lucky to have a friend like you."
Misty eyed, I countered, "No, I was the lucky one. I didn't realize it, and now it might be too late."
Fimbs squeezed my hand, and I turned to her—wide limpid pools of blue turned green in the harsh yellow light of the torch, locked into mine; filled with empathy, and compassion—before she gave me the smallest, most delicate of smiles, and assure me, "We are going to find her. You're not too late."
I knew she had no way of knowing that, and I knew she knew I knew that, so I decided not to tear her logic apart, and simply accepted the encouragement. "Thank you, Fimbs. I really hope you're right."
It was Janny's turn, now, so he said, "Don't hope. Know it. If you can't believe in her, then what's even the point?"
"I know what you're trying to do, but it won't work! Look at me; really look at me. I left with a pitchfork, a sickle, and a pair of shoes, and I returned with such terrible injuries that I need you both to help me walk! You want to know what happened to my diving back?! I was almost eaten by a spider! Why was I soaked through? The flood almost took me! I made mistake, after—" Then, I stopped. Rilah's scream.