Miss Nobody

Chapter 3

Follow The Water

The birds chirped and the sun shone down as I threw up the contents of my stomach, the undigested pieces of mushrooms purging from my body. I rinsed my mouth with the cold creek water.

I crawled out of the creek and removed my nightgown. I scrubbed the fabric together under the water to get some of the dirt and blood out. The water turned red around me and my mind drifted. Fantasies of being in another place. Bright red tomatoes grew plump on vibrant green vines, reaching their way up to the blue sky. I imagined myself biting into one, still warm from the sun, the juices dripping down my chin and hands. Flooding over my wrists like too much blood escaping my veins.

I rinsed the rest of the blood and dirt from my body and hair with the frigid creek water and tried to connect to Kieran as I turned my nightgown inside out and put it on again.

Our connection was weak.

I scanned through what little of his brain I could and tried to find out where he had been taken.

"Follow the water." Slipped through our connection.

I walked along the creek as the sun moved across the sky. The large Raven called out loudly, cackling as I approached it. It dropped something from its claws and it rolled toward me.

A small apple stopped at my dirty shoe. I picked it up and examined the outside. The skin was unbroken and unblemished. The fruit looked delicious and my stomach growled in response. I took a small bite and gave the piece to the Raven.

The bird gobbled it up quickly and eyed the apple, like it was waiting for more.

I took a bigger bite and kept that one for myself. The next bite went to the bird and back and forth I went until there was nothing left. "That was delicious. Thank you." I said to the bird. "You wouldn't happen to know where I could find a hag stone, would you?" I asked without expecting an answer and continued following the creek.

I was careful to search the ground as I made my way, in hopes of finding one but it made my trek slower, not that I knew where my destination was, anyway. Having a task made me forget, even for a few moments, of the trouble facing me in the real world. Two men dead by my hand, my children ripped from my arms.

The bird hopped next to me or flew from branch to branch ahead.

The sun was only a few minutes away from setting before I stopped. I turned to see where I had come from, all of the forest looked very similar. I had no other direction to go so I kept the creek on my right and followed it, even as the dark crept up on me.

****

The creek grew smaller and smaller before it stopped completely. I spun around.

A stone staircase stood in the middle of a clearing, towering above the tree line but it led to nothing. It ended at the top step.

My heart thumped so hard my chest hurt.

The stone staircase was covered in vines and growth, like no one had ever climbed the steps.

Kieran connected with me. "It's gone."

"For now. You aren't at the top of the scariest staircase in the world by any chance are you?" I looked around before stepping on the first step.

Kieran scanned his memories. "Maybe, it felt like we went up after it...took me." Kieran tried to hide how he was captured but I caught a glimpse.

The woman appeared to him when I was distracted by the Raven. She was otherworldly beautiful and managed to lure Kieran away with a wiggle of her finger and come-hither eyes.

"Seriously?" I asked him in our head. "You fell for something like that? There just happens to be an ethereally gorgeous woman in the middle of the woods and the first time she lays eyes on you she wants to fuck you?" I teased him. "This isn't the eighteen hundreds." I climbed up the stairs but they grew with each step. The more I climbed the further the top step appeared.

"It's not easy sharing a brain with you. You have...choices. I only have one and she doesn't even look at me."

"Who?" I asked quickly. The top of the staircase grew distant.

"Seriously?" A picture of myself flashed in his brain.

"Oh," was all I could say. "Oh." It was hard to admit to myself the reason I kept Kieran shut out so hard. Was it because I was shielding him from my hatred for him? Or was I trying to ignore his feelings for me? "Maybe you can try to find a friend with benefits or something?" I might be okay with that. I climbed and climbed, sweaty, heart pounding. My legs ached.

"Might?" He smirked. "Nah, the risk is too great. You hate me enough as it is."

"You have needs." I convinced myself. I looked down, I was only two steps from the ground.

"I'll wait."

I rolled my eyes.

"She's back." Our connection snapped shut.

I stepped off the second step of the staircase and hid myself among the trees, afraid to wander too far from the staircase, knowing Kieran was up there, somewhere. I connected with him again.

"This will make you taste better." The scary Otherbeing shoved a handful of red berries in Kieran's mouth.

He almost choked on them as she force fed him.

I grabbed my throat expecting the same reaction but nothing happened. Our mental connection was the same but I couldn't feel what was happening to Kieran.

He swallowed the last of the berries and the hag cut along the skin on his arm. He struggled, feeling the pain from her cut. Feeling any kind of pain for the first time in weeks.

The hag paused and removed her finger nail from his skin. "Better." The being moved away from Kieran to a stone fireplace along the wall. It lit the wood underneath and placed a large metal cauldron over the fire. The hag went to her shelves of jars and bottles. Most dusty and layered in a cover of filth. She dumped the contents into the pot above the fire.

She slithered back to Kieran, moving her hands over his body like she was giving him a massage. "Nice and tender." She laughed. "Wanna know what my favorite organ is to eat first?" She questioned him without waiting for an answer. She went to the waistband of his pants and lifted up. She peered at his...appendage.

"That's the first thing I'm going to eat. I must gather the frog liver first. Nothing like a good frog liver and sausage. Haven't had that in ages." She grabbed a giant butcher's knife from the counter. "Or maybe a stew? Would last longer, humans are hard to come by now-a-days." It spoke to itself. "Too stupid to know what's good for them." She raised the knife and slammed it down on the table.

Kieran screamed so loud I could hear him from my hiding spot in the woods. He was up that staircase, hidden in plain sight.

The hag gathered his severed pinky finger and stuck it in her mouth, sucking the blood from it.

I looked at my hand. Thankful that my pinky was still intact and there was no pain.

She hobbled over to the cauldron and threw Kieran's pinky into the boiling mixture. "Better with gillyweed but there's a shortage of that, don't you know? Somethings infecting the lake, making the weed taste like dead humans. Nasty, you all are when you're dead. Can't even smoke it anymore." She wiped her slimy mouth and slapped Kieran's stomach. "I like my bodies nice and fresh. I like their little screams." She made a noise I assumed was a delighted giggle and grabbed onto Kieran's mouth, whispering to him.

I could smell the stench and gagged.

"You'll make sounds too, when I pull your stomach out of your ass but it'll only hurt for a little while. I can get several organs out that way before the body shuts down. You won't die until I remove your heart and brain. Which I save for last. A Delicacy for the highest bidder. The Redcaps pay a high price for human blood, as rare as it's become."

"You better figure out how to Magic me out of here." Kieran screamed at me in panic through our mental connection.

"I'm working on it. I just need to figure out how to get up the stairs, first."

"Dammit Ruby. Get me the fuck out of here." Desperation laced his words.