The Necklace: The Trial Realm

Chapter Three: Custodes and You

           

I wasn't prepared for the spitting laugh to come from Tawny and I gagged as I wiped my face while she fell back onto her own mat, holding her stomach as she giggled on. "I-swear-Malika-." She says between hysterics. "When- will-I- stop- falling- for-for-your antics?"

If she weren't my only and best friend, I might have slapped her, or jerked her up by her hair, but instead I stood, putting my back to her and wrapping my arms around my waist.

"I'm not trying to be funny, Tawny." I grumble beneath my breath, trying to hide the hurt with annoyance that she doesn't believe me.

She stops laughing suddenly and I hear her stand too, inching closer to me. "Malikah, you can't really think a Worthy was here...at the secret market of all places?"

I school my expression and turn to face her. "I know it sounds down right loony, but I'm telling you. This boy...he wasn't normal."

Tawny's thin brows furrowed, making a tiny crease between them. "You know just because you think someone is strange that doesn't mean they're Worthy." She tells me gently, picking up on my hurt feelings. "There has to be another explanation. Maybe he was just new, or... I don't know, something else. What made you think he was Worthy anyway? And I mean specifically, not just that he was weird."

I take a quick breath and then rush through retelling the entire encounter, trying to hide my pleasure at how shocked she looked when I recounted the part about yelling in the middle of the secret market and scaling the fence in front of everyone. By the end of my tale, I can tell she's torn between scolding me for all of the stupid things I did, and also confused by the experience as I am.

"I'll give it to you, Mali, that is definitely strange..." I can practically feel the 'but' coming. "But," and there it is. "I'm more concerned with the fact that it sounds like he's kind of been stalking you, and now possibly crept up to you while you were asleep. And while I'm glad he left you a gift instead of say, slitting your throat while you slept, I'm still a little weirded out by it."

I'd been so focused on the fact that not only do I have this beautiful necklace now, but I also have a new pair of shoes, that I hadn't even thought too far into how the shoes got here. And the idea of Oliver creeping up to me while I was asleep to leave them here was definitely creepy. I usually sleep with my little dagger tucked beneath my head, but I'd been so tired when I got back to the wallow, I hadn't even unearthed it from the little hole I burry it in near my mat when I'm not here. It's illegal for any Ringdweller to be found with a weapon, but it's also just stupid to sleep without one. People always try to rob you while you sleep, especially in the wallows since we are so vulnerable.

But not Oliver, apparently he'd done the opposite.

Still creepily though.

"Mali, I know it sounds kind of fantastical to have been visited by a Worthy, especially to someone like you, but they just wouldn't do that. And also he doesn't sound like a Worthy to me. He sounds like someone you should be worried about."

I try, and I mean really hard, not to get offended, but it doesn't work. "What do you mean someone like me?" I snap, setting my jaw. "And he sure as hell wasn't from here, so that only leaves one other place he could be from. I'd know if he lived here. I'd have noticed or something, and he didn't look like us!"

Tawny reached out to put her hands on my shoulders, stopping me in my fuming.

She put on her mothering face she uses on the little ones, leaning her head down and softening her voice and face, making her look too gentle to be angry with.