Girl of Iron and Magic

17.

17.
PRESENT DAY

Maloru's mouth was stretched into a long line as Rowan got into the driver's seat and shut the door.

"So, what happens now?" she asked. "Do I try to start the car?"

Lotte shook her head and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. There was always a certain period of time it took for an enchantment to kick in. But she strongly suspected that it wasn't only up to time. It had to do with Lotte's intentions and thoughts. She had drawn flowers in the wind on the car's motor. She didn't know why that was eventually the drawing that had made its way from her brush. It just seemed like the thing to do when she allowed her mind to be blank.

She could make this car move.

After all, a car was nothing but a tool designed for movement. If she could move a tree, she could move this.

She could even move it fast.

"Don't explode, don't explode, don't explode..." Maloru muttered under his breath.

"What," Rowan began, "are we DOOOOING—"

Her last word was a scream. Lotte felt the rush at the pit of her stomach as the car leapt forward. Her eyes snapped open. Rowan was clutching the steering wheel, turning it with the curves of the road. The scenery to the sides was a blur.

With no motor, their passage should've been silent, but there was an odd cackling sound coming from behind, like rocks breaking and branches splitting.

Lotte looked back.

Wherever the car passed, the tarmac broke open, and out of the cracks, weeds burst up as green as emeralds and as tall as shrubs. Flowers bloomed on every stem, red, lilac, yellow, white and orange.

The road ahead sloped steeply down and then steeply up, but the car didn't care to follow the lay of the land. It leapt instead.

On board, Lotte held her breath.

Crash. The car bounced on its wheels, a circle of greenery exploding around it—but it hurried on.

"Curve!" Maloru cried.

"Ah!" Rowan screamed, knuckles white on the wheel.

The road looped sideways sharply, hugging the side of a hill while the other side was a clear drop.

They were going so fast that they only had time to know it was happening before it already happened.

The car ran straight on, off the road. For a terrible moment, they were up in the air, over a deep valley dotted with sheep.

And then the car's trajectory curved mid-air. With another resonating crash, it landed on the road, continuing its mad dash onward.

"We're going to die, Lotte," Maloru cried from the back. "Your car is going to kill us."

"Don't be silly," Rowan said. "I would've said something if—we have to jump off this car at exactly four-thirty-six. Jump to left side of the road."

"Gre—at," Maloru said, his voice cracking.

"Lotte, I can't take my eyes off the road. What's the time on my watch?"

Lotte tilted her head to the side as she slid up Rowan's jacket sleeve.

"2:30," Maloru said for her.

Rowan exhaled. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of her face. "Two hours of this," she muttered. "No big deal."

It was a bumpy ride. Twice more, the car leapt off the road, once at another sharp curve and then when Rowan temporarily lost control of the vehicle when their first tire exploded, followed rapidly by the second. She managed to cut a path through the brush on the shoulder of the road, managing to get back on it about half a mile later.