5. Half Life
The next day, Mercy Walker kills her husband. Their youngest daughter does not see it. She simply wakes up in the morning and goes to dig. Her parents are just still sleeping, she thinks, but if the treasure is going to be found they all must work harder. She goes to their cabin to wake them up.
But her father is dead. No magic was involved. Mercy is holding a knife, the only knife the family owns. She is not laughing. She drops the knife and it clatters to the wooden floor.
Lou is horrified. She turns her head away from this awful scene and throws up. She knows why this has happened. Her mother wanted to protect her remaining daughter, and has done it. Nothing will hurt her now.
She is sick again. Then she walks slowly to the cabin and hides in the blankets. It is afternoon when she dares to come out. Her father is gone, but there are plenty of graves to choose from, after all.
Her mother does not eat anything. Normally she eats chocolate. But today she doesn't. She is silent. Lou stays away from her. She ought to have followed her sister after all. There is nothing for her here.
The world is dead.
Mercy laughs. She takes an onion from the table and gives it to Lou. Lou doesn't want it.
"Eat it," her mother says. "Or..."
But there is no or. Lou eats it. She wonders where her sister is now. She does no more digging for a while. Only when evening comes does she pick up her spade and dig it into the ground. Pile after pile of sand. Mountains. She knows she's not likely to find anything.
But she does.
A glowing golden tube. She picks it up. It's one half of a lipstick tube. Just one half. She doesn't care where the other half is. She's elated, even though her father is dead and her sister gone. This is the proof that the treasure is here. This is the proof that they're in the right. They are.
Whatever on earth that means.
She thinks of going to tell her mother, but she doesn't know what she'll say. So she keeps the lipstick tube, and goes to sleep with it in her hand.
That night the lizards come back for Mercy Walker. She figured they would. She's broken all the spells now. She's used the lizards for evil unimaginable and they don't like it. They go for her. But they leave the girl alone, they can smell onions on her.
When Lou wakes up she knows something is wrong. She goes to the other cabin. Her mother the witch is there, sitting on the floor, unable to control the lizards anymore.
Lou gasps and backs away.
Mercy looks at her thoughtfully. She watches the biggest lizard creep towards her. She gives a smile.
"Lou is a nice name," she says.
The lizard leaps at her and Lou turns away from the door. There is no screaming whatsoever. The lizards hurry out and ignore her. Something breaks inside her, breaks even more than it was meant to. She's all alone now.
She goes to the cupboard and takes out a freshly wrapped chocolate bar. She goes outside and unwraps it and puts a piece in her mouth. She chews and chews and hates the taste. But she swallows it. Then she throws the rest away.
She thinks she might be sick again, but she isn't.
She goes to the cabin. She takes the turquoise-studded boots and puts them on. She knows who they belonged to once...her grandmother told her. She takes all the food and water that she can find.
And she starts walking.
She walks for days. She tries to save the water and not drink it all at once but it proves difficult. She took enough onions to keep the lizards away from her, but she's still afraid.
After almost five days have passed, she sees someone walking towards her. A man. He looks quite young. He has dark skin and he's leading a donkey and she has a feeling she knows who he is. She runs away from him.
She knows he was just a ghost. She imagines he's looking for Kate. She wonders if he'll find her, and hopes not with all her heart.
Two days later and she arrives at the town where she met Sir Lizardkiller. Vulture's Hole. Sir Lizardkiller isn't here, but a few people are. Most of them are leaving, they've had enough of living as ghosts. But they find her. And they take her to the next town, and they look after her. They send her to hospital and give her water. She doesn't tell them her story...not all of it, anyway. She simply says that she ran away and that her parents are dead.
There is much discussion about what to do with her. They give her to a foster family, but she's not happy there. They send her to boarding school, but she hates it. She goes from unlived life to unlived life.
And then she is an adult, and she looks at the lipstick tube which she kept in her pocket, and she laughs.
For the treasure will be hers.
Because she was the one in the right.