Karla and I clung to the edge of the vast, conical abyss. If not for a few stray loops and curls of frayed root, we both would have plummeted with the Reaper.
The vortex had sliced through many layers of tunnels. Like severed but bloodless arteries, their dark openings gaped, some ringed with seepages of light. At the thresholds of several broken tunnels, lesser Reapers nosed about confused and bellowed into the void.
Hands trembling, too scared to look down, I looked over to see if Karla was okay. She had no obvious injuries, but she had this goofy vacancy in her gaze, as if she were dizzy or plastered.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because … what you did … was amazing. How did you do that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, still stunned. “I just wanted it to happen, and … it happened.”
“Bern was right,” she said. “You are special.”
The partially severed roots unraveled and snapped under our weight. Karla cried out and started to slide. I grabbed her wrist and hauled her back. We crawled away from the edge, up to a flatter part of the mangled tunnel that felt more secure. Panting, I jabbed my sword into the tunnel floor and leaned back against the wall, struggling to gather my breath.
With the Reaper gone, the walls lost their stony texture and much of their mass. The roof sagged, its fibers gone limp as if all resolve had abandoned every root. Feeble lights flickered through the occasional strand. They were back to being ordinary roots again, if these roots could be called ordinary.
Karla grabbed my face and kissed me. Her eyes twinkled, and it wasn’t just from the tears. I had never seen her so giddy.
Bern’s staff poked through curtains of shredded root that had only minutes earlier had been a pile of immovable rubble. I got up and slashed at them with my sword, letting them fall into a heap. Karla recovered her claymore and joined me, wielding the heftier weapon with both hands.
“Hold on, Bern!” I said, as his staff nearly jabbed me in the groin. “We’ve got it from here.”
“We?” he said. “Oh thank God. Are you both okay?”
“We’re fine.”
“La!” Isobel scrambled through the cleft and leapt onto her sister. “Thanks God! I thought that smelly thing ate you.”
“No way,” said Karla. “I’m much too bitter. It would have spit me out. James is the one you should worry about.”
“Astounding!” said Bern, staring down the tunnel at the enormous pit. “Incredible.”
We pushed through to the other side, where Lille rushed over and gave us each a hug. Jeff looked on all sheepish and befuddled. The freckled lady crouched before some pieces of root arranged in a tic-tac-toe grid. She was trying and failing to create something out of them.
“What are you trying to make?” I said.
“I don’t know. Anything,” she said. “A poncho … a toga … something to cover my butt.”
“Picture something you know real well—its smell, its feel, the way it flows—and it will come.”
“Oh look at you, acting like a professor now,” said Karla. “Just make her something already. Unless … that is … you enjoy keeping her in the nude.”
“That’s not it at all. It’s just … if she’s gonna be here, she needs to learn.”
“Calm down,” Karla giggled. “I was only joking.”
