“How do you know?”
“You like the flowers?”
“Sure. They’re pretty.”
“Look closer.”
Candy steps to the side of the path and picks one of the buds.
“Shit!” she yells, and throws it away. “That flower was a fucking eyeball,” she says.
I point to the trees.
“Look at the moss.”
She squints into the gloom.
“It looks weird. Is it moving?”
“Yeah. They’re bundles of nerves. They’re on all the paths. Like surveillance cameras.”
We continue up the hill and over a rise. With the potion in my system, I feel like I could climb goddamn Kilimanjaro.
“This carpet is nice,” says Candy. “Are all the trails like this?”
“I think so. Anyway, it’s not carpet.”
She kicks at the path with the toe of her boot.
“Ewww. Are those bones?”
“Very old bones. Cartilage. Remains of anything that dies in the forest.”
“Jesus. You take me to the nicest places.”
She looks at the bones again.
“You think there are people in the road?”
“No. Anything that talks gets buried. These are just birds and mice and things.”
Candy bumps into me, trying to keep away from the eyes on the edge of the trail.
“You might have told me about some of this before.”
“I didn’t know if we were in the right place.”
“Still. Whenever you take someone somewhere that’s made of eyeballs and bones, it’s just good manners to warn them.”
“I’ll remember that.”
I almost say, I’ll remember that for next time, but catch myself.
“Okay. We’re in the right world. Where is Hijruun?”
“If we’re lucky, right down there.”
I point to a tower standing at the intersection of four trails. Candy starts walking faster but falls back when my bad leg won’t let me keep up. Still, when we make it there a half hour later, I’m feeling good.