WnW 8.24

I hauled myself onto the next branch after a missed jump, fingernails chipping on the rough wood. My head felt heavy, like I was in a dream on the verge of waking where every action was a laborious effort.

Nell was leaning against the trunk at the origin point of this branch. The Wire Witch boy was there too, talking with her. Above us was an ever-shifting amalgamation of the manor containing the Crawling Skin within a maze not intended to be solved.

It was a temporary stopgap. I could see the manor falling apart as it was handled and the tree itself was more and more resistant to change, cracking and groaning with every alteration. I was astonished that Nell was managing to keep it together under such mental strain.

I trudged towards them.

Nell turned and ran to me. There was some dried blood on her head.

I slowed as she reached me, mind clouded with half-formed ideas of how I would tell her.

“Jason, he-” I got out before Nell pulled my head down to her shoulder and wrapped me up in a hug.

I tried to summon Jason’s military toughness, his rationality. “We don’t have time. We have to find a solution.”

Nell pulled me tighter. “There’s time,” she whispered. “It’s okay. Be sad.”

That permission was all it took. My chest heaved and a sob escaped my lips.

It was so much easier to be angry, to have something that spurred me forward. But now that the tears had come, it felt unbelievable that I had waited even a second longer.

I had fucked up so badly. I didn’t know what I was going to say to Tom and Bailey. It hurt and my tears were only a small relief.

Eventually the crying turned to shuddering breaths and I pulled away from Nell. I’d gotten her shoulder wet and somehow that bothered me even though it was such an insignificant thing.

It took me a few tries to speak as I pulled the butterfly out of my pocket. It was no longer moving. I held it up to show Nell.

“D-do you think if we found them all, you could…”

Nell mumbled, speaking through the cloth of my tattered shirt, “I’m sorry. I don’t think I could. I don’t understand her Shape well enough.” She raised her face. Her eyes were puffy from crying too. “But if that’s what you want, then I could try.”

I did want her to. But I knew I was holding on to a vain hope. The butterflies had scattered in every direction.

Nell gently took the butterfly from me. “I’ll hold onto it. I can keep it alive for a little while at least.”

“Thank you,” I said hoarsely and wiped my eyes.

Nell frowned and looked upward as a massive branch broke off and fell past us.

“The tree can’t keep changing,” I said, confirming what I’d already guessed. “It’s running out of juice.”

“I’m making some progress on examining the Crawling Skin, trying to find how to activate the failsafe, but it’s too slow. It’s changing all the time and it won’t hold still for even a second.”

The Wire Witch approached us, eyes fixed up above.

“You knew about the Crawling Skin. Do you know how to stop it?” I asked him.

He shook his head, clutching the hardcover book so tightly his fingers were shaking. “Quinn was the only one. She didn’t trust anyone else. Turns out that was for good reason.”

Nell turned on him. “What’s your deal?! If you don’t wanna die then help out.”

The boy just stared at her for a long while. Then he spoke, “Maybe this is what I want?” He phrased it as a question. “Maybe I should interfere with your efforts, ensuring the Skin swallows us all. I don’t think there’s anything better waiting for me if I help you. I have nothing. I only had the books and then you took even that from me.”

“There’s more books,” Nell said. “Millions of them waiting to be read. Have you ever been to a library outside that manor? I have. Trust me, there’s a wonderful life waiting for you if you just go looking for it.”

“What can I do that you can’t?” he asked bitterly. “I’m inferior. Organ was happy to remind me of that every chance they got.”

“You can integrate tech with biology,” I said. “I saw your Tree at Sillwood. Can’t we use that somehow?”

He eyed me coldly. “I tried making a Wolf once. Quinn caught on quite quickly and had them killed. Something about not making the same mistake twice.”

“Nick is the reason I grew after leaving Organ,” Nell said. “He showed me that I could break free of what they taught me and start being someone new. But I also had to learn that I was the one who had to make that leap of faith. No one was going to do it for me.”

“Lucky you,” resentment dripped in his voice.

Nell placed a hand to her heart. “I can be that person for you. I believe you can move on from Organ’s collapse. But you need to make the final leap.”

The boy was silent. Rubble churned and fell away from the maze-prison above. From within, a keening choir of voices let out a scream. I shivered. The Skin was trying on new voices.

The Wire Witch spoke, “Biology Revised, volume three. There’s a page about exercise.”

Nell’s eyes lit up and she nodded. “There’s a picture of some people climbing a mountain.”

The boy was surprised. “You still remember it?”

Nell smiled. “I read all those books so many times. They’re ingrained in my brain matter.”

“I was just thinking about how impossible this feels. I could try a hundred different solutions and all of them would come up short. It’s physics and the numbers don’t add up. I can’t climb that mountain.”

“Yeah, but what about Strych?” Nell pointed to the book he held. “I didn’t think the hero would succeed. All the odds were stacked against them. But they found a way.”

He shook his head. “But there were consequences. Sure the hero won, but then they overdosed and died because of it.”

“So are you just going to do nothing because you’re scared there will be consequences? That’s physics too. Everything has a reaction. Pain is inevitable. But what does the hero say at the end?”

The boy stared at Nell. “They said: I don’t regret a thing.”

Nell spread her hands. “I don’t regret anything either. Shit happens and we grow because of it. It’s fertilizer.”

The corner of the boy’s mouth twitched. “That’s like my favourite line from The Dark Door. ‘The horrors persist, but so do I’.”

Nell smiled back. “I liked that book. The scenes were so beautifully described. Now, will you jump with me?”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

The boy shrugged. “I don’t know. But you can just call me Wire.”

He gestured downwards and I peeked over the edge to see the tall white figures of the lightning rod Aberrants. There hadn’t been many lightning strikes recently, but as the Aberrants gathered at the base of the tree, the clouds began to rumble again.

Wire took Nell’s hand and she led him forward.

As we descended the tree we hatched a plan. 

My head was a little less heavy than before as I thought about Kay’s last words.

“I don’t-”