Ollie MacQuoid and the Journey To Rubius

Chapter Ten

When Ollie was ten, Bax had thrown him from the upstairs window after losing at a game of chess. One of his legs had gotten caught in one of the gnarled oak trees below and immediately snapped as he fell, leaving him dangling upside-down and unable to help himself for almost an hour before one of the servants had heard him crying. He'd never been in that much pain before, and swore that he never would be again.

Boy, had he been wrong.

Every bone in his body felt like it had been shattered. His skin was on fire. The ear-splitting pain in his head made it nearly impossible to open his eyes. He couldn't feel his legs. He lay face-down for what felt like hours, hoping the cold air that surrounded him would help ease the pain. The taste of blood was fresh in his mouth. There was a monstrous weight on his back. One of his arms was trapped beneath him.

"Calla—" the pain of speaking nearly blinded him. He couldn't even cry, only wait for the white-hot agony to ebb away in long, torturous waves. He coughed weakly, sending a spurt of blood down his chin. How many of his organs were mangled? How long would it take for death to come?

Death. Death was so close Ollie could feel it at his fingertips. He pushed at the mud beneath him weakly, as if that would somehow push death itself away. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to die alone, his body mangled beyond repair, his last moments spent in so much agony he could barely think. Who would find his body? Would they ever find his body?

Would there be anyone who actually missed him?

Ollie coughed again. The mud beneath him was a dark, murky red, steaming in the cold. Had Calladin survived the fall? It was a miracle Ollie himself was still alive. He wondered if Calladin had been so lucky. As much as they mutually hated each other, Ollie hoped the man wasn't dead. He had a family —people who loved him dearly. Ollie didn't have that luxury. A tear rolled down Ollie's cheek and landed in the mud. What would his father or brother do if they found him here? Kill him, probably. Maybe Bax would move the tree off of Ollie's shattered legs and stomp on them, simply to make him suffer. He'd done the same thing to Ollie's broken leg, all those years ago.

Was the ground shaking beneath him? Ollie thought he must be hallucinating. Or perhaps he was dying quicker than he expected. It was faint; a distant rumble at most, growing slowly louder by the second. The force was enough to rustle the trees around him and startle a clump of robins the size of large dogs perched above him. Chirping loudly, they scattered in a flock and disappeared.

"Birdies!"

Ollie started. The voice was definitely not human, loud enough to send a fresh wave of pain through his head. A monstrous giggle drifted through the air. The soft rumble he'd heard before had become loud. Something was approaching him —and it was massive. Trees came crashing down one by one, sending clouds of snow into the air. Animals of all sizes came tearing through the direction of the noise, bounding so quickly over his crumpled form that Ollie couldn't tell if they'd even noticed him. The thing — whatever it was —was growing nearer. One last tree gave out in an explosion of ice and splintered wood and all noise came to a halt. A bulky shadow materialized from the crushed treeline and loomed over him. Ollie closed his eyes.

"Hello, Skinny!"

Up close, the voice was less frightening — and less loud, too — as if whatever was making it was speaking in a whisper. When Ollie hesitantly opened his eyes again, he was met with the excited stare of two massive eyes. A young girl's face hovered over him, looking as large as the moon, eyes casting a warm, gentle glow. Her skin was made of tree bark; her hair a knot of flowers, leaves and vines. She had to be over 18 feet tall. Using both of her branchy hands —which were the size of small coffee tables —the tree girl plucked the tree off his legs and threw it aside with ease, then scooped Ollie (and a tubful of dirt) into a car-sized basket woven from what looked to be tree roots. She turned him onto his back and pouted.