Chapter 9
It just got hotter as the day wore on. Adam, Sally and Cindy sweated heavily as they tried their best to keep up with O'Reilly who raced like an Olympic runner on speed. They made good time, but Adam had to insist to O'Reilly that they take a rest at the next pond they came to. He scoffed at them.
"'Ou 'umans," the puck said. "Lazy buggers, 'ou."
It seemed that the closer they got to the greedy business man the worse mood Sally was in. Adam decided to talk to her at the risk of putting her into an even worse one. He collapsed beside her and looked at her; she was too tired to make witty remarks now, but he knew something was still bothering her. He studied her in silence. Despite her being half asleep, her eyes closed, and drenched wet, she still looked good. It was only when she used makeup that she looked bad. Sally had always been hard to read, but now it seemed impossible with her sporadic reactions to some unseen force. He continued to wonder at what was going through her head even as she opened her eyes and looked over at him. "Enjoying the show?" she asked. That was the first smile he had seen on her face in a long time. He had forgotten just how nice it was.
"Yeah," Adam said sheepishly, but tried to sound as though he were joking. He had decided to ask what was wrong, but now he was suddenly struck with a case of shyness. Adam stared at the sky again and, as though it reflected him, found the courage to bring the topic up. "What's wrong, Sally?" he asked, only looking at her when the question had been asked. It was made easier.
"Well, here we are in the middle of nowhere, running ourselves into the ground again. I told you guys after Pan: if there are any more supernatural creatures who are looking to battle the forces of evil we should just tell them we're busy," she said, trying to crack a joke. She failed miserably; for one of the few times in her life Sally looked scared. Adam continued to look at her, determined for an answer.
They both knew she was hiding something, but instead of admitting what it was, Sally stood up and brushed the dirt off her skirt.
Adam kept his voice relatively low; the pond lay only thirty feet away. It was where Cindy rested with O'Reilly. "Is this about Cindy?" he asked. Sally whirled around to face him.
"Am I hideous? Annoying? I know there's something wrong with me, so tell me," she said. It was loud enough to get Cindy's and O'Reilly's attention. Sally was trying to keep a brave front but her true feelings betrayed her. For a while Adam was frozen with shock. Does she like me back? Is she mad at me for noticing at Cindy? This was all that was going through his head. The tears that began to form in Sally's eyes were like a slap to his face and he forced himself to respond.
"There's nothing wrong with you," he mumbled. This wasn't Sally. She never behaved like this.
"Then why-?" she began, and then stopped at the sound of tears in her throat. She closed her eyes and seemed to be trying to push everything back down. Adam was sure she had felt like this for a long time. That everyone, or maybe just he, liked Cindy over her. That she wasn't fully accepted by everyone, while Cindy was praised. He guessed this because he had felt the same way when Bryce joined the gang. He didn't know what to say to her to make her feel better though; he wanted to tell her everything going on in his head: that she was every bit as pretty as Cindy, that everyone really did like her, and also, that he had feelings for her.
"Why don't you just ask her out, Adam?" Sally asked.
He tore his eyes away from Sally and stared at a tree. His heart bounced around in his chest, trying to escape the awkward situation. He took a deep breath to reassure it and looked back at her. "Maybe because there's someone else," Adam said. He had finally figured out who he wanted to be with.
"We best be off," O'Reilly interfered. Their eyes remained locked. He could see she didn't entirely understand what he meant and he promised himself he'd tell her everything. Just not now.
As Adam stood and turned around, to once again follow O'Reilly and his tight schedule, he saw the worried look on Cindy's face. 'Why is love so complicated?' he sighed. Adam looked away from Cindy and reminded himself there was a mission to complete. After that he could worry about girls all he wanted.
It was only another ten minutes when the scenery started to transform. O'Reilly slowed down when the trees began to thin out and the large bushes grew smaller. Here the sounds of the once lively forest died and Adam could only hear an eerie wind that gained strength the further they traveled up and down the hilly landscape.
"T'is dead land," O'Reilly told them as they approached an especially large hill. At this, he stopped them. "You 'ave to go on by 'ouselves," he said. "Rynnie 'as made it impossible to live in t'is part of Jarethcomb."
"How can the Aulorean government just take away your land?" Adam asked in disgust.
O'Reilly shook his head. "Rynnie's trying to convince the city to take it from us. T'ey've been discussing it for months, but…" he trailed off a moment. "…I'm sure 'ou've 'eard of Naia if 'ou've met Saline."
Cindy caught on. "The government doesn't want to give the land to him because they banished Naia here."
"Aye," the puck nodded. "And 'tis their sullied secret, but the discussions 'avn't stopped ol' Rynnie from making t'ings 'appen," O'Reilly's face clouded. "The twit poisoned the land where he wants 'is shoppes, driving us innocent creatures furt'er into Jarethcomb."
Adam clenched his fists. "We'll stop this," he promised. He found it revolting that anyone could disregard the lives of so many living things.
"O'er t'is hill is the worst of the disease and beyond the fence t'at marks the Jarethcomb area is a nearby road t'at leads to Aulora," the puck explained. He doffed his hat. "I'll 'ead back to the Secret Path and wait for 'ou there."
Adam, Sally and Cindy thanked him and watched him briefly as he headed back into the forest. The safe forest. Sally looked back at the hill. "Somehow I don't think this business guy will listen to us."
"Well we need to do something," Adam said. "Let's go."
There was some difficulty getting up the steep hill, but the most difficult thing was looking at what was beyond it. O'Reilly wasn't exaggerating when he had said the land was dead. Even the grass stopped growing, exposing nothing but dry, poor dirt and the decomposing bodies of unfortunate creatures that littered the ground here and there. The smell was obnoxious.
"He disgusts me," Cindy spat, starting down the hill.
Adam let her walk ahead of them for a few minutes, hoping that a little time would cool her off. He tried hard to stick to his plan to prioritize, but guilt was setting in. He didn't want to hurt anyone.
"The fence," Cindy suddenly announced. Adam looked up; they had hit a particularly dense patch of creature bodies and had been looking downward. The fence was more a wall of tree logs that stood ten feet in the air.
"And how are we supposed to climb that?" Sally asked.
The girls looked at Adam for an answer.
"Umm," Adam said. Using a Bic could be disastrous. But the likelihood of there being a gate or opening somewhere was good. After all, the Van de Ryn man had to get in somehow. Adam said as much to the girls.
Cindy walked right up to the wall and looked through the space in between the logs. "I don't see a road," she said, "so I guess we just pick a direction to walk along the wall and hope we run into a door."
Adam looked through the logs too. The forest pressed up against the wall, and actually spilled a little over on to their side. "The only thing is, which way do we go?" he asked them. They stood in silence a few moments, trying to devise a logical explanation as to which direction to head in, when they heard a neigh.
Sally cocked her head to the left. "A horse? Was that a horse?" she asked.
"Yeah, I think it was," Cindy agreed.
"Let's go that left then," Adam told them.
They barely started traveling along the wall before Adam stopped the girls from going further. If someone was at the supposed gate, it was probably the business man and his men and since they were here to stop him, it would probably be wiser to stay out of his way until a plan was developed. The few trees would provide cover. Telling Cindy and Sally to stay put, Adam wandered further toward the sounds that had multiplied and strengthened.