No One Else Could Heal Her by Hiyodori
Author:Hiyodori
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-12-02T00:00:00+00:00
CHAPTER TWENTY
About ten minutes into our hike, I offered to navigate. Wistâwho mustâve assumed I was in earnestâtried to hand me the map.
I didnât take it. âYou might not want to do that,â I informed her.
âYou offered.â
âI was being polite.â
If she hadnât already wanted to boot me into the nearest creek, she certainly did now.
âLook,â I said. âI can read a map. But I canât promise I wonât read it backwards.â
Wist stopped, unfolded the map some more, and pointed. âThis is the route to the cabin.â Her finger traced a very roundabout path to get there.
âWhy not cut across the water?â
âWe have time to go the longer way.â
âSafety first, huh?â
âThere are three tasks at the cabin. Iâd like to get them done before dark.â
âThen knock the last task out before bed, or early tomorrow morning?â
âDo you have a preference?â
I raised my hand as if we were in class. âI vote for morning. Donât want to mess around with the forest at night. If you plan on going alone, of course, do whatever you want.â
âYouâd rather wait in the cabin?â
âLet me see what itâs like before I decide that.â
The trails were well-maintained, with worn stone steps set into the steepest slopes. Some parts even had a railing.
Water trickled through a lichen-painted tumble of rocks far, far below. Unfamiliar bird calls ricocheted sharply among the treetops.
The cicadas did sound different here, after all: more wheezy and mournful, less grating. The air, too, tasted nothing like the air on the island.
About the only thing that hadnât changed was Wistâs willingness to forge ahead in silence. Soon enough, I was struggling for breath too much to attempt to provoke her into talking.
During a brief break, I asked her if she were supposed to use magic to obtain drinking water. Or if First Aid could be used to treat dehydration.
Wist reached inside her bag. She wordlessly handed me a regular steel bottle.
The alleged route to the cabin took us alongside a winding chasm with walls of basalt columns. Deep water filled the bottom. It was wide enough for boating. And unnervingly still, compared to the ocean. All along the gorge, we heard the sound of waterfalls rushing down unseen.
I waved off clouds of gnats. Deeper in the brush, neon yellow spiders crouched at the center of webs the size of hammocks.
The trailâthough eroded and slick in placesâremained unexpectedly clear.
At the end of the gorge, a lace-like cascade of slender white waterfalls finally came into view. Wist led us away from them, through crowds of thin-branched maple trees. They were the sort of maples with delicate baby leaves, leaves so decisive in hue that they made every other green in the world feel inadequate.
Wist stopped. I stopped beside her, plucking at my shirt to fan myself. Everything felt sticky.
âThe cabin,â she said.
I gazed out at a stretch of empty dirt.
There were hints of a neglected garden. A few abandoned brooms. A rusting ladder on its side. Nothing that could be termed an actual building.
âMaybe you read the map wrong,â I commented.
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