Wildwood Imperium (Wildwood Chronicles 3)

HUM.

“We have Carol,” said Elgen. “He’s safe. We only need Esben. And then the Möbius Cog can be made.”

HUM.

“The what?” whispered Prue. It was as if the man was speaking a foreign language. They reached the outer circle, the hooded Caliph acolytes. Prue listened and heard that strange ticking coming from within each of them. There was something strangely familiar, still, about these figures. Their shapes. She looked at them for some kind of sign of how she knew them, but she could only see the dark forms of their mirrored masks. Elgen called her on, noticing she’d paused by the ring of acolytes.

“Come closer,” said the Elder Caliph. “The tree is calling you.”

Indeed, it seemed to be; the HUM was now rattling in her skull like someone was holding a blender to her forehead. The other thoughts colliding in her mind simply fell away: Esben, Carol, Alexei, Curtis, her mother and father, everything. She approached the tree and placed her hand on its trunk.

A kind of electricity entered her fingertips and snaked its way along the length of her arm; it fanned out at her chest and spread through her neck and pelvis and down to her feet. She suddenly felt a kind of spirit, an energy, that made her realize just how tired she’d been before she’d touched the tree, how much the agonizing events over the last year had affected her soul. It was as if she was a dead battery, a walking dead battery, and the Blighted Tree was charging her afresh. Her eyes, alight with new vision, looked to her fingertips and saw a substance staining her fingernails a phosphorescent green.

“Yes,” came a whisper at her ear. It was Elgen. “It is the Blight that gives the tree its power. The Spongiform.” The strange growth, Prue saw, gathered in every nook of the tree’s knobby bark. It glistened and glowed in the light of the torches. “You have come a long way, Prue McKeel,” continued Elgen, “and you have tasted the beginnings of true power. Eat the Spongiform and join us. Leave your primitive life behind; become a true Caliph and help birth the One Tree.”

Prue stepped away, the energy still coursing through her body, and looked to her right, where a hooded acolyte was scraping some of the foaming green stuff from the bark of the tree. Collecting it on the edge of the spoon he carried, he presented it to Prue, all glowing and wet.

“Eat,” said Elgen. “Eat the Spongiform. And join us.”

CHAPTER 14

A Natural-Born Saboteur;

Two out of Three

A warm bath.

It was something Elsie had not had in—literally—months. She’d almost grown accustomed to the layer of grime that had accumulated on her skin, to the ever-present sheen of grease that seemed to act like a hairnet over her curly black hair. She sat with her knees tucked against her chest while her sister used a glass mason jar to pour the warm, sudsy water over her shoulders.

Outside the room, they could hear the preparations proceeding.

A din of men shouting, things being lifted and shifted. Boxes upended and wires unspooled. Little smatterings of French peppered the men’s language; jokes being shared, hearty laughs echoing in the hallway. They were the sounds of a group of actors preparing for their greatest performance, something they’d been awaiting for many, many years. And the call to places was fast approaching.

Inside the bathroom, Elsie remained quiet, feeling the warm water course over her back and shoulders.

“Okay,” said Rachel. “One more time.”

Elsie nodded. “Straight. Left. Left. Straight. Right. Straight.”

“Uh-huh,” prompted Rachel. She was looking at a map that she’d laid on the floor before her, shielded from her sister’s sight by the lip of the bathtub.

“A vent opening. Hallway.” She looked at her sister for confirmation.

“Yep. Then what?”

“Bathroom, just a few feet to the right. Ceiling vent. Going left from the door. Then straight. For a while. Then right. Left. Left. Right. Straight. Vent opening.”

“Good, sis,” said Rachel. “Careful here.”

“Yeah, this is the break room, right?”

Her sister nodded.

“So we wait till it’s clear. Then drop. And then . . .” She faltered here.

“And then?”

Elsie snuck a look over the tub. Rachel snatched up the map.