Thea : Chapter Ten

*Drumroll* Chapter Ten! This has been a long time in the making. I had a bit of writer's block for a while there, but I've recovered and finished the chapter. Also, I have a fairly good idea what the rest of the book will look like as well now so hopefully chapters will be published pretty regularly. Words are food for the soul, so bon appetit!

Chapter Ten

Thea

August 7, 1901

I slept for what seemed like centuries. In my dreams, I danced through carefree afternoons speckled with sun. Everyone was there, notably my missing James. We did fancy, special things like going out to dinner in pretentious attire just for the fun of it, or riding horses on a clear day. When it rained, we stayed inside and played charades or cards, reading to each other. It was fantastic. I wanted it to go on for ages more. I decided that when we found James (never if, only when) we would wander the world together, doing everything.

I lethargically rolled out of the dream and into reality. Prancing down the stairs, I realized that Tim hadn’t slept all night. Again.

“Tim, you should get some sleep. I’m serious,” I earnestly advised.

“Sleep is for the weak,” Tim replied with a dismissive wave of his hand, not looking up from the letter he was passionately writing. Finishing it, he whistled two low, short blasts. An emerald green lizard the size of my fist scampered up to him, took the envelope, and bowed courteously before running off.

“Who’s that for?” I asked, distracted from the sleep argument.

“I’m contacting possible informants,” Tim turned and flashed me a smile. “Good morning, by the way. Are you hungry?”

“How can I help?” I eagerly sat down to the mess of papers on the table. “No I’m not, thanks. And good morning to you too,” I beamed at him, excited to get to work. “Are you hungry? Because I’ll make waffles if we need waffles.”

“YES, waffles would be amazing, thank you so much. Afterwards, I do have some things you can help me with.”

I judged his expression; there were huge purple bags under his eyes like bruises. He wouldn’t agree to sleep, I knew from experience. He needed a mental break. The fatigue sat on him like an elephant getting onto an already overloaded boat of thought; I was afraid he would soon sink.

“You know what, I’m going to let you cook the waffles. I’d burn them anyway,” The creases in his brow relaxed. Relief showed on his face for just a moment.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Just show me what I need to do,” I sat down in front of the mess of paper. There were a few distinct piles, with more than enough ink and broken pen nibs strewn about.  

Pointing, Tim named an inbox, outbox, list of addresses, and a map of what each person knew about our situation. “Make sure you don’t directly say ‘we need help’ to any of them, they’ll use that to their advantage. Never give the whole story, keep them a little bit in the dark for leverage. Not that there’s really all too much to hide, we have no information. Make it seem like you know more than you’re saying, though.”

“Tim, I know how to deal with informants. Calm down and go make some waffles. Please.”

“Anything for your majesty,” Tim dramatically bowed. He strutted with some extra pride today, probably due to the new activity in the search for James.

I read all the letters we had received, all containing nothing particularly helpful. There were countless acquaintances and small magical businesses that I had never heard of and would most likely never hear again. Chad and Linda, among the mass of unknown names, were clueless to our case. That made two out of four who might have something real to offer (according to Tim’s “Important Informants” list). One of the two remaining names, Silver, did not even have an address attached, just a question mark. I enthusiastically began a letter to one “Angelica”.

August 7, 1901

Dear Angelica,

I am aware that we have not made each other’s acquaintance, but I look forward to meeting you in the future. I am a close friend of the good Timothy Waterburg, whom I assume you know well. I assure you of his robust health. He sends his best regards and hopes you are in good spirits.

We are looking for a particular person. His name is James, which is neither preceded nor followed by any other name. I beseech you to disclose any information you may have regarding any persons of this nomenclature. I appreciate your timely response in this sensitive matter, and pray that you courteously disregard this message if you are not aware of any details.

Cordially,

Theadosia Arlington

It was quite short and to-the-point; I surmised that such a thing was beneficial, as to save time on both ends. I wished that Angelica might be a kind and understanding person who could help. I read it over a couple times to make sure that it was exactly what I wanted to say. I tweaked it a bit before I judged it to be effectively informative and appropriately demanding. I tried to whistle for a lizard to come and take it away. Embarrassingly pathetic pursed-lip breathing ensued, working to frustrate me beyond belief. If I wasn’t stressed enough before, my inability to do something as simple as this did not help.

“Tim! I can’t whistle,” I hollered. I felt childish and a bit stupid.

A hearty laugh and some mocking whistling fluted from the kitchen. I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see me. A tiny, iridescent lizard that appeared to change color with every movement climbed onto the table, evidently directed towards me by the contents of Tim’s condescendingly elaborate song. The whistling continued, and it became less like a song and more like an epic symphony. I did not stop him, he seemed to be enjoying himself. Glittering swirls of silver magic began pouring in through the doorway, carried with the rich scents of cinnamon, chocolate, and warm waffles.

Tim waltzed in, carrying a platter of incredible - smelling waffles, sprinkled with chocolate shavings and a dusting of cinnamon. He finished his symphony with a flourish of firework magic and song. I clapped for his silliness, laughing.

“How lovely! Thank you, Mr. Tim.”

“Why, anytime, darling Thea. Give that note to the lizard why don’t you, and then we’ll eat all of these waffles.” I gave our letter to the scaly messenger, being sure to remember to politely nod in gratitude.

We made our best effort on the waffles, but Tim had made enough to feed an army of dwarves. I was sure we would have an infinite supply of scrumptious leftovers, but we managed to make a surprisingly considerable dent in the stack.

Letter sent, waffles eaten, sources exhausted. The only thing left to do was to wait, to wait until our nerves were torn to shreds and our worry was at it’s peak. I was already fairly worn. I tried to hide my anxiety from Tim - he would insist that the situation was taking too large of a toll on me and that I should withdraw from the investigations. I could say then, even without having this argument in reality, that I wasn’t going anywhere. I had a resolution to remain as much in the search as physically possible; maybe even more than that.

So I smiled, like I always had. I cracked a joke, maybe - kept things light. Behind struggled a strange unfamiliar sensitivity - it writhed and buckled pitifully behind my new mask. I had never faked an emotion before. Tim was the actor, not me. I hoped my smile looked as carefree as usual.

I do not remember ever seeing Tim tired before then. He was always the cheerful image of mischievous joy. For James and I, he was the bounding curiosity and strength that we no longer had - specifically, right after we were sent away. At that point, Tim was the only thing that had stayed the same. He had seen a hopeful future for us through the distraught, lightless situation. When we had no more energy, when James was close to  giving up, Tim smiled in that way of his and pulled us back up from the brink of despair. He taught us how to pick ourselves up, he helped dust us off, and sent us on our way. Though he seemed strange, eccentric, and exceedingly odd, Tim was loving and nurturing on the inside. Every once and awhile he let it show.

Colorless days drifted by. We waited on Angelica’s response and searched for Tim’s source named Silver. We were getting close to his whereabouts. Tim had recognized him from an advertisement for a Romanian circus that had been put up last year, from a yellowed wanted poster from about three months ago, and besides was able to identify that he had been in town less than two weeks ago using a tracking spell. It seemed that this man Silver had been all over the world, but kept coming back to our town. I assumed it must be for the abundance of magic strewn throughout the city’s underground. That’s why we were there.

A stifling summer morning, the 17th I believe it was, was greeted by a sunny yellow salamander with a crumpled, dirtied note in it’s mouth. Freckles danced across it’s slimy back as it crouched on my pillow, it’s diverging orb-like eyes blankly staring. Invisible dragonfly wings sprouted from it’s spine and arched outward. It dropped the ragged letter on my bed, stuck it’s long tongue onto its’ eye to moisten it, and clambered away on sticky legs. I made a mental note to wash the sheets as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and grabbed the letter. The salamander’s spit stuck onto my hand and I ran shrieking into the bathroom. It wasn’t that I was afraid of a little spit, the messenger had been very cute. It was that it burned.

I scrubbed my hand and I could see the flesh - my flesh being eaten away by the orangey goop. I screamed for Tim, frantically adding soap and soaking my hand in what should have felt like ice cold water, but felt boiling hot instead.

Tim came dashing in, wearing only his long underwear (which technically covered his entire body and made him look like a clown).

“WHAT’S HAPPENING?!?!” Tim shouted, still half asleep. The bubbling skin on my hand was melting away, the bathroom was red with my blood… I plunged my hand again into the overflowing sink and held my breath.

“WHAT IS ON YOUR HAND.”

“I don’t know, I don’t, there was a salamander, and the letter, my skin is on fire,” I burbled, feeling sick.  

“Sounds like a plan,” Tim agreed, bounding away suddenly. I was too giddy to realize that his response made absolutely no sense.

The world began to spin into different shapes and colors, blending and blurring like a Picasso painting. I whispered for help. My hand throbbed and stung, I slowly toppled towards the floor. On the red tinged blue tiled floor rested a dingy lined piece of paper with orange goop on it. My eyelids closed but I could still feel the incredible pain.

I heard Tim come in with a cry of concern, and felt him near me. He turned over my boiling hand with a gloved one of his own, pouring on this and that and murmuring nonsense. Gradually, my hand cooled and a sweet rush of calm came over me. My whole arm felt icy blue. I cracked open my eyes to see him picking up the letter with his (intelligently) covered hands. I tried to tell him that it was salamander spit, but the words sounded strange and garbled even to me. So I stayed quiet.

“It’s from Angelica,” he said out loud, whether to me or to himself, I could never tell. From the splotchy image I could discern with my still incapable eyes, his expression was one of perplexity. He started to read it to me, but it sounded like he was underwater.

I told him all about how I couldn’t understand a single word, and he did not seem to understand me, either. “Never mind,” I sighed as the world faded to a soft green.

I woke up in my bed. Terrified, I sat up to check if the sheets had been changed. The sticky orange footprints were gone. I thanked Tim internally and sank into the cushions. I could not even feel my injury, and it was well hidden from my view by a plethora of bandages.

It was 3 pm, and my belly was growling with hunger. I yawned as I heaved myself heavily from the bed. I hoped that there were straggling waffles to be eaten.

Snapping out of my lethargy, I scurried out of my room, careening towards Tim’s room. The letter!

He was sitting on his bed, furiously studying the message in question. Still wearing the gloves, he was so intent on his task that he could hardly acknowledge my entrance.

“Afternoon. How goes it?” He said, glancing up for less than a second.

“Hey Tim! I feel much better. Can I see the letter?” I said in a rush.

“Come take a gander,” He leaned back, showing that he had been prying a crystallized chunk of phlegm colored something off of the paper. It was the spit, I realized; it had morphed from orange plasma into a hardened grey, green, and yellow substance that came off in flaky chips.

“Wow, that’s disgusting,” I marveled, putting a glove on my left hand.

“I’ll give you five bucks if you eat some,” Tim offered, holding a particularly nasty specimen with a pair of tongs.

“You’re practically giving that five bucks away,” I joked. “Except maybe not because I don’t want to boil my stomach and burn my throat. Thanks though, I really appreciate you offering me hardened magical salamander spit that looks like boogers.”

“I think you just broke the world record for sarcasm,” Tim said, turning back to his work. “I copied the written part on that paper over there,” He pointed to a sheet.

It ran thusly;

Theadosia,

I do know Tim. In fact, I know him a little too well. I am not at all inclined to comply with your request for information. The very fact that Tim had the nerve to contact me is infuriating. He has no right to ask me for help.

I do hope you have an excellent day full of flaming skin. The salamander I sent you is more than capable of turning you into a puddle. I’m afraid you most likely won’t get all the way through this letter before it kills you. Which is a shame, because you could have known that I know where your friend is and why.

Truly,

Angelica

I took a deep breath of hope. Her threats, aggression, and cruel sarcasm passed right through me when I saw that last line. She is the key.

“She won’t give it to us,” Tim answered me before I asked. “I had forgotten that I once betrayed her, long ago. It’s useless now. She probably doesn’t even really know where he is, it’s a ruse.”

He looked up at me with his brilliant purple eyes. Not a word of his excuses were working on either of us.

I wanted to tell him that no matter what, I was going. Before the words left my lips, he agreed; “We’ve got to find her.”

The following week was packed with inquiries and secret meetings, chanted spells and (funny enough) the tracking of sticky orange footprints out my window. We pinpointed and mapped, collected and sifted through the millions of little leads. Most could not even be called leads - they were simply guesses. We knew for sure that she was in town. Angelica had been trading illegal objects and beasts regularly for about a month. The address that Tim had used for the first letter was a dead end. I was sure she had seen us coming, and relocated before we could make any impact. We started our search anew.
A counterfeited growth potion that gave a poor, gullible dwarf infected boils all over his body led us to one of her trading posts. We took shifts, stationing someone to watch the church at all times. It was just like Angelica to work out of a church, Tim said. She had a love for irony.

The waiting paid off. I was lounging with a book at the fountain in the square, facing the church when I saw a wretched old woman hobbling along. I rushed to her aid, taking her withered and bony arm while asking where it was she planned on going. A malicious, rotten-toothed grin spread across her hollow face and she jerked her head in the direction of the steeple. I led her to the doors and quickly turned to leave her awful presence when I heard her cackle. It was the kind of laugh that rings out in dungeons from cursed lungs and vicious tongues, that grabs one’s bones and shakes them to the core. Facing her, she was no more. The elderly figure had morphed into that of a short, beautiful young woman. Her frigid eyes and knifed smile were outlined by innocent lashes and gentle red lips. Hands on her hips and red hair glinting darkly in the sun, she tossed her head back playfully and laughed in her perfectly petrifying way again.

“Darling. I told you that you were going to die. You should have listened.”

Angelica spoke with such power and confidence, I wanted to believe her. Her booming voice seemed to be the one of reason. I stood there, dumbstruck, without an idea of how to proceed.

“J-James,” I eventually stammered out. “You know where he is.”

“You will not play with me. If you are a friend of Tim’s, and if your precious James is so too, you had better run for your lives. If I find any one of you three, I will paint the passerby red.” Angelica smiled sweetly. Her tone was not joking.

“Name a price,” I gasped desperately. I was ready to pay with my life.

Angelica’s smile suggested that she wanted more than just my life. “I want your ability to love.”

“My… love?” I repeated, confused. I was expecting demands of souls, of the lives of my brothers, of unattainable sea serpent hearts. What would giving up this emotion amount to? It would make my whole endeavor pointless. Not for Tim, though. He would have his brother back. I made the split second decision that I would regret for the rest of my existence.

“On one condition,” I hesitated. “I will give it to you when I’ve passed a year with James after his safe return.”

“A day.”

“No shorter than two weeks.”

“Oh please. So sentimental. Fine, I’ll give you fourteen days.”

I cringed as if I had just taken a blow. Only fourteen more days of my life to be spent with him. I counted to ten in my head to calm me down, took a deep breath, and made the worst mistake I would ever make.

“Deal.”