Girl of Iron and Magic

6.

6.

PRESENT DAY

Lotte strength enchantment broke before she reached the cover of trees. No matter how much she walked, they always seemed to be out of her reach. She wondered if this was some kind of magic. If this night and this war had stretched space and warped perception so badly that she was trying to reach a forest that was half a continent away.

With a pop, the pain in her leg where the enchantment had been disappeared, and her limbs began weighing down. She crouched in the dirt, unable to move another inch.
Fintan twilled in her ear.

"I can't," she whispered. She hadn't even had breakfast before she went out to get the post that morning. She was hungry, thirsty and remarkably hopeless. Dawn was getting closer every minute and she was nowhere near any semblance of safety.

"I can't," she whispered again even though Fintan hadn't said anything.

She couldn't, truly.

But she did.

She got up, feeling even more tired than she had before she sat down, and trudged on.

The trees... would never come close enough to her.

That is, she'd never come among them. Even if they seemed to be getting larger, it was just wishful thinking on her part.

She was forcing them to seem nearer, just as she was forcing her legs to move.

But then... but then weeds were crunching underfoot. And the next thing she knew, she was leaning her weight against tree trunks with course bark underneath her fingers.
And she was halfway into a dream already when she fell to her hands and knees deep within the woods. There, she saw a tree with  its boughs evenly spaced all along its length so climbing it would be as simple as climbing a ladder.
Hah. It looked just like a Solles tree—the trees in the elven forest that was fighting the humans—but much too short to actually be one. The earth around its roots was particularly loamy and soft. Lotte threw down her pack and cradled against the tree, finding a root just the right height to make a perfect pillow.

She was asleep the moment she lay down her head.

And then she was somewhere else.

It was a lonely hill upon which sat a tower, as tall as Sullivan tower, but made out of old grey stones, like the ones that surround a well in old pictures.

There was lichen growing up the tower walls, along with a snaking spidery creeper, its black stems digging into the crags in the stone. Despite having no leaves to speak of, morbid-looking flowers grew on the creeper, ghastly violet on the outside and vibrant blood-red within. They were a shock of colour amid all the grey and black.
Lotte looked up at the overcast sky, at the ashen soil under her feet, and finally decided to enter the tower.
Inside there was nothing but a spiralling staircase, made of grey stone so worn that its surface was as slick as satin.

She began to climb, taking extra care not to slip.

"Hello?" she said. "Is anyone up there?"

Her voice echoed up and up. She didn't expect a reply, of course, she was just testing the acoustics of this place. She wondered what happened to the thicket she was sleeping in. How did she get here—

"Hello," someone said from upstairs.

"Who's there?" Lotte asked. "Where are you?"

"I'm up here."

She continued climbing. "Where? Can you show yourself?"

"I can't come down."

Lotte hurried her steps. Her heart, from some odd reason, sped with excitement. "Why not?" she asked. "Are you hurt?"