The Search for the Eoz Potion

16. Division

Once they were alone, she spoke to her quietly so the rest of them couldn't hear.

"They know what they're doing. We don't have any idea about anything here. We need them."

"How do we know they know what they're doing?" Hailey demanded.

"Didn't you see what they just did back there? They brought down the prison."

"Well," Hailey said skeptically, "It seemed like it was the earthquake that did that. And we just sat around wasting time that we could have been spending looking for that potion."

"I don't know, Hailey. It wasn't all just some coincidence, that earthquake. And don't forget, they rescued us from the army in the forest. They got us here safely."

"I'm not sure they get credit for getting us out of trouble that they got us into," Haily said. "And what's going on with you, by the way? When we got her you were so scared, so nervous. Now you're marching like you're a member of the SG yourself."

In school, Claire was always so quiet, never asking questions in class or arguing with teachers, never really standing out with the other kids. She was shy, but she was also distracted, focused more on what was going on at home than what was going on in front of her. But that wasn't the Claire Hailey saw now. This Claire seemed to care only about the moment, only about finding the potion, even if she had a different approach to it than Hailey. The girls, however, were focused more on their different ideas than their common goal.

"We had no idea what we were doing when we got here," Claire continued. "Giant boulders started falling on us the second we passed through that portal. If it weren't for them we wouldn't have lasted two minutes here."

Not wanting to keep this line of argument going, and realizing that she did not have a good response, Hailey continued by getting to the heart of what was bothering her.

"We came here to find this potion for Faith. That's why Dr. Hampton sent us here. I'm not going to do what Zack did. I'm not going to hang out here forever and never find it. We need to find this thing and get out of here as fast as we can."

Frustrated, Hailey shook her head and walked away. She found a tree and sat beneath it. She thought about leaving. Heading back to the forest, finding the portal, and going home. But she knew she couldn't. She knew the portal was now being guarded by the HRA. And she knew she couldn't leave without doing what she'd come to do. She wouldn't be able to joke her way around that failure. She felt hopeless, with no way forward and no possibility of going back.

As she sat there going over all this in her head, Josef came up and sat beside her. He bent his knees and hugged them into his chest. There were holes in his pants and she could see bruises and scrapes on his legs. It reminded her of all they had fought through to get to where they were now. She just had no idea where that was.

"I was born and raised in the Garden," he started to explain to her. Hailey just looked off into the distance as she listened. "My mom was actually a Searcher. While she was here, she met my dad, who was a native. They fell in love, got married, and here I am. I never really knew why she came, I was only eight years old when he found her. Tellis was still in charge back then. She expelled my mom and threw my dad in jail."

He spoke awkwardly, as though it was uncomfortable for him to share these personal details, as though he didn't share them very often. Hailey easily noticed this and, slowly, it helped to disarm her emotionally even if she wasn't ready to admit it just yet. She couldn't believe what she was hearing about Tellis, the SG hero they had risked so much to save in spite of what she had done to Josef. Continuing to stare off through the trees, the beautiful green trees of the Garden of Yllop, Hailey listened to Josef's story.

"They wanted to expel me too, but they decided they couldn't since I was born here. And technically I hadn't done anything wrong other than be born to a Searcher, so they just kind of banished me to the forest and forgot about me."

At this, Hailey couldn't pretend anymore to not care about what he was saying, and she turned to look at him with sad eyes. It was the first time, she realized when it happened, that they had made eye contact.

"It's fine," he said. "That experience defined me. It was hard, and obviously I miss my family, but I'm not sure I'd change what happened to me. I lived about ten years out there on my own. I built a home, found food. Every now and then I'd head into the Garden to see what was going on, but I was pretty much an exile. Then, one day the General, Tellis, was in the forest to find the portal and seal it off. She was alone when she found me. She didn't have any soldiers with her. I was on my way back with some fruits and vegetables and I just kind of froze. This was the woman who stole my family from me. I'm not sure, but I think she instantly recognized me, you'd have to ask her. I can't really describe what happened next and I've never heard her explain it very well either, but one second she was standing in front of me, staring me in the face with the most evil, menacing look you could imagine. It was terrifying. I thought she was going to kill me right there. But the next second, she was face down on the ground. She just collapsed. I stood there. I didn't know what to do. Part of me wanted to leave her to die, she took everything from me, she deserved it. But I dropped the basket of food I was carrying and checked to make sure she was okay. She woke up and saw that I was helping her, and she just started crying. She was begging me for forgiveness, begging the Queen to come and make things right. That was about five years ago. She helped me start the SG. A few years later Zack showed up and started helping us. We were out there in the forest working together, the whole group we had when you got here, when they caught her. But my point is, after all that, I still believe she can get you to the potion. She saw the Queen that day in the forest and she has been with her ever since. I believe that."

Hailey listened to the story and felt bad for Josef. She understood what he was saying, but she still wanted to know more. She wanted to know where they were going. She wanted to know they had a plan. She didn't want to have to put so much trust in complete strangers, but she had nothing else. While she fought with these conflicting emotions, she thought of something.

"So he could have escaped the prison too," Hailey said. "Your dad?" Josef looked off into the distance. "He's probably out there somewhere, right? That's what you're looking for."

"I'm not so sure he's alive. But maybe."

He looked back at Hailey who was struggling to take in all this new information. There was another question nagging her as she listened. She was afraid to ask it because she was sure she knew the answer.

"Have you ever seen the potion?"

"No one has," he said matter of factly. "But most people haven't seen the Prince either but they know he exists. Sometimes it's easier to believe in the bad things."

Hailey looked at him, not knowing what to say, and not really wanting to try to find something. They were on a mission to find something no one had ever seen while running away from an enemy no one had ever met. If it were not for Faith, she would have been tempted to leave it all and just go home.