The Catalyst
Chapter Fourteen
I knelt down to get a better view of the child, her small hand tightly clutching the thick fabric of my cloak.
“Did you lose your mommy, sweetie?”
My hand gently stroked her long light blonde hair, her large eyes continuing to stare at me.
“You look diffwent…why?” She tilted her head to the side, her free hand then reached out and took a portion of my own hair with it.
“Um, I-I’m not really different, just a...uh...a wig, yes I’m just wearing a wig.” I smiled as kindly as I could, hoping she wouldn’t be afraid of me.
“Yes huh! Your eyes are gween, your hair is bwack. Mommy says nobody has those but the Immortals and tat I have to stay away if I sees one.”
“Oh, no no sweetie,” I rubbed her head reassuringly, “I’m not an Immortal, you don’t have to worry.”
“Okay!” Grinning from ear to ear, she took another grip of my hair and started trying to braid it.
A small giggle coiled in my chest. I had always loved children but found it somewhat uncomfortable when they were around, likely due to their parents or possibly the large amounts the travelled in made me feel on guard. People always gave me slight anxiety, I really don’t know why.
“While you give me a lovely hairdo, how about we go looking for this missing mommy.”
“Yea!”
We shared a small laugh as I gripped her tightly and hefted the girl up to my side, where she happily rested on my hip with my arm around her, my other hand coming to interlock with its twin beneath the child’s bottom.
“I completely forgot to ask, what’s your name?”
“Sara.”
“That’s very pretty, it suits you well little Sara.” I smiled at her as she giggled in response.
We entered into the bustling areas where the stalls were crowded with customers, and venders shouted out their vocal commercials. Further toward the core of the buying turmoil was a man doing odd things with fish and bells, and a little boy playing a large instrument I didn’t recognize at all.
I tried not to linger anywhere too long so as not to be noticed, although it seemed that having Sara with me was keeping suspicious eyes away.
“So little Sara, where do you think your mother has gotten to?”
She paused in her braiding to think, her plump pink lips puffed out as she went.
“Mommy makes fings with clothes.”
Her answer was cryptic and unexpected, although still childlike as the girl went back to braiding my hair, thinking her response was perfectly understandable. I exhaled with calm exasperation.
“Does she sell her work?”
“Mommy says she hastah work so I can eats and goes to school.”
“Ahh, does mommy make clothes or does she make other things?”
“Mommy makes lots. Sometimes she makes me clothes!” She smiled cheerfully and released my twisted locks to grasp her dress.
“Did your mommy make you that dress?”
“Uhhuh!”
“It’s very pretty.” I grinned.
“Yup! It’s my favwite one. Mommy said she made it only for Sara.”
Lightly I chuckled at her words, bouncing her on my hip to readjust her position. “There are a few vendors here that sell fabric. Do you see you mommy anywhere, Sara?”
Her brown eyes searched the several stalls, little lips sticking out again as she decided what to answer. “Mommy’s not here.”
“Okay then, let’s keep searching.” Stopping for a moment to think, “I wonder if she’s at one of those nicer places I saw being set up earlier today.” My foot shifted on the dusty stone ground and I headed for where I had left the Immortal.
“TADA!” Suddenly a tuft of my hair was pushed up into my face with Sara beaming proudly on the other end.
“Wow, you did such a great job Sara! Let me get a gift for you and your mommy.”
Releasing one of my hands I worked it into the pocket in my cloak, with some finger maneuvering the bag shifted open enough that I could reach the shiny gold pieces I knew lay in its belly.
“Hey Sara, what’s your very favorite number?”
“I like fwree.” Her mouth stayed open after answering, like she were going to say something else but she never did.
With some trouble I collected three coins, then removed my fist and awkwardly pulled the drawstring as tight as possible in this situation and put my palm out to the little girl.
“This is your gift for doing such a great job for me Sara.”
Chocolate brown reflected burnished yellow, her mouth agape in awe.
“Now make sure when you see your mommy you give her this, alright?”
“I will, I pwomise.” She collected the bits in her small grip. Her excitement was adorable; I couldn’t keep from smiling warmly at her.
“Sara!” A shout came from a few feet ahead of me, altering my attention from the joyful child to a terrified looking woman with the same large brown eyes staring at me.
“Oh hello ma’am.”
She stopped abruptly before me, her eyes seeming to grow larger as she continued her penetrating gaze.
“Mommy!” Sara threw her arms out towards the woman, who upon hearing her shout quickly went to pry her away.
“Here you are sweetie.” I held her out, where her mother swiftly leaned toward me just enough to snatch up Sara into a fierce embrace. I exhaled an awkward cough, “I, uh, I hope her wandering is just a phase.”
I gave them both a gentle, placating smile while backing away slowly and began to head for the meeting place where the
Immortal was likely waiting with growing impatience.
“Mommy, the pretty lady gave me these.”
A gasp followed the exaggerated words of the little girl, but I managed to get myself out of sight before anything else could occur. I didn’t need a grateful, or possibly angry stranger following me around.
The area was rather difficult to remember now that ornaments and stalls filled the viewable buildings and masses of people moved this way and that among them. I sighed with frustration, “I don’t recognize anything!”
As I was just about to turn another corner, I spotted a thankfully very familiar person standing and pacing in a small area near a wall. It was the mysterious hobo-like man with the oddly complacent bird resting upon his hair.
I ran up to him, slightly thoughtless of me really, although it also gave me a chance to observe him more closely as I had wanted to do the first time I saw the man. His absurdly long, somewhat straggly beard dragged along the dirtier grounds as he moved. Now that I got closer, I believed he looked a bit…agitated.
“Excuse me, sir?”
“AHH! There you are, there you are my dear. Shouldn’t take so long, not so long. I’ve been waiting, you know. Waiting and waiting and waiting.”
The peculiar nature of his words almost made me laugh, although I retained my demeanor.
He had one light blue eye and one somewhat amber colored eye; I had never seen someone with two eye colors before. It reminded me of something grandmother had said about her first two uncles that went missing, they had shared eye colors, one grey-blue and one violet.
For a moment I pondered on if that had any sort of connection or was merely a coincidence, when my thoughts hit the brakes and rewound. “Hold on, you said you were waiting for me? Why? What for?” The realization of what he’d said had only just reached me, seeing as I was too busy studying him and falling down the rabbit’s hole of my thoughts.
“You must come, follow me, follow me.”
“Wait! Where are you going?” For such an old looking man, he was certainly quite spry and quick in his movements. I had to jog just to keep him in view.
The man ducked into a small building that sat along the edge of the forest. It looked as though the edifice walls wormed their way into a huge and elderly looking tree, a quite massive one. Once I reached the already opened door, I made a cautious step through it.
“Hello? Creepy hobo guy?”
“Jade, finally!” The Immortal suddenly appeared from my side and took a firm grip on my wrist, pulling me all the way into the building and shutting the door.
My heartbeat was rather rapid after nearly being lunged at, but I fortunately hadn’t made any noises, which was calming to know. “I would have hated to squeal in front of him.”
“What?”
“OH!” My free hand thrust up to cover my mouth. Darn, I thought I was getting better at controlling that habit. “Nothing, it was nothing.”
“You should have been here earlier.” A sigh escaped him.
I rolled my eyes, “Well sorry, I was busy.”
“What could have possibly kept you nearly a half hour later than originally planned?” We stopped in a large, alcove-like room.
“A small child found me as I was leaving the shop I got some supplies in and she was saying she was lost. I simply helped her find her mother.”
“Jade! You can’t be exposing yourself like that!” The Immortal ran a hand over his face; he seemed far more stressed out than usual.
“I didn’t even think you could BE stressed out. What’s the big deal? Calm down.”
“The poison in your body is what’s stressing me out, Jade! According to the mage, that particular poison kills rather swiftly.”
“Poison? Oh yeah, my arm.” I pushed up my sleeve to reveal the soiled bandages covering the discolored skin.
The Immortal took a sudden hold on my limb and moved the sleeve up farther, finding that the wound’s bruising had now spread to my upper arm and from the looks of it my shoulder and part of my chest as well.
“Oh my gosh…” I could feel my eyes widen at the view. “This was only on my forearm a short while ago!”
A foreign voice chimed in. “And we must hurry before that poison reaches your heart. For a human, you’re lucky it didn’t get you immediately; should be thankful an Immortal helped you.” An aged looking person stepped into the spacious room. He certainly looked ancient, even more along in years than the gentlemen from this afternoon. A dark brown robe with some golden patterns weaving around it covered his slightly hunched, short form. “Hello Jade.” He gave me a small smile, closing his eyes in the process.
“Um, hi.”
“Why don’t you come lie down on this table and we can get the procedure underway.”
The old wood of the counter did not look at all sound, and the whole ‘lie down on this table and we can get the procedure underway’ sounded odd and satirically eerie. I gave a hesitant glance towards the Immortal, however he simply nodded for me to comply.
“If this thing collapses beneath me or I wake up without my kidneys, I will be sure to hurt you both.”
My threat didn’t seem to faze either of them, so I crawled up, keeping my dress down and my cloak I had set off to the side so as not to be a hindrance for the mage. Staring up at the dirty and oddly low hanging ceiling, despite it being a dome, I found things becoming comfortably peaceful.
“You should be falling into a sedated state.”
“Hmm?” My voice rumbled softly in my own head.
“She’s ready.”
Though the world had certainly taken on a more nebulous form, I could feel the mage take hold of my bandaged arm and the sudden, raw tingling of cold air rubbing against the wound as he removed the fabric.
“Do you think you could remove all the magic you have placed on her?” The old mage was surprisingly loud beside me. “It would make my job easier.”
“I can, but my work is all that’s been keeping her from feeling the poison’s effects. There is no telling what may happen if I do.”
“That’s one reason for her sedated state, but I simply cannot put her out completely, she must have some consciousness.”
“No, I understand.” Another hand took hold of my injured limb, and from the fuzzy but loud voices, I assumed it was the Immortal’s touch.
“Jade,” my head twitched back at the whisper near my ear. “Please prepare yourself. This is going to be painful.”
My eyes blinked sleepily in a form of response to his words. His hand gripped firmly while an abrupt and odd feeling washed across my body, like plastic wrap being pulled off my skin. It wasn’t until the sensation reached the bruised parts of my body that I felt the pain I had been warned of.
A sharp inhale rushed into my lungs, my eyes ripped wide open while tears began forming and streaming down my cheeks, pooling warmly at my ears. I held in any screams, trying very hard to bite back the piecing agony. Once his hand lifted from my arm, my body set itself into matters of its own and shot a series of spasms through my left side. A few whines managed to slip between my lips until the Immortal’s large hands took hold of my limb and shoulder to stop the movements.
It seemed as though I could feel every single pore on my body, each one’s hair standing up straight in shock of the pain that ran its way through all the nerves which were settled beneath the peculiar markings along my side. Even being sealed by the Immortal’s hands didn’t keep me from the impossible urge and need to writhe, jolt, and wriggle about with the futile attempt to dull the aches.
The elderly mage once again placed his hands firmly upon my arm, far tighter than he had previously. A part of me really wanted to tell him to let go, both of them actually, but I didn’t seem to have maintained a connection from my brain to my mouth…all that slipped away were moans and whines and airy exhales.
“My my my,” the old man mumbled “this girl has an incredible amount of layers on her.”
“What? How many?”
“I can’t say, but it’s a great deal. Quiet strong and very tough. I may need some assistance.”
I followed the man with my watery eyes as he left my side and went to place his bony hand upon the wall, which looked to be the large tree’s center. I wished for a better view, but my body would not cooperate. While my ears were picking up sound like the world was shouting, as his thin lips moved I couldn’t make out any of it.
Slowly I made another forceful convulsion. However, no matter how strongly I tried, the Immortal kept me firmly in place, allowing only my pitiful exclamations and hot tears free.
Just as my eyes finally cleared themselves of my latest bought of sobs, I saw the old man step forward, though this time he had a companion at his side. Lovely, tall, slender, a woman I had never seen before though oddly familiar. Dark, dirt brown locks waved haphazardly around her face and drifted far past her shoulders, a few leaves and twigs nestled in the mess, and the ends of delicately pointed ears peeking through the loose curls. Her features were soft but strong, all done in creamy skin. A smooth though powerful brow touched slightly by widow’s peak bangs with thin, short eyebrows that seemed to be in two parts, the main, though tapered, piece and a little bit cut off…almost like the beginning of a dotted line. A petite, gently tipped nose sloped down to plump lips with a mild cherubic v, and the small chin of a near heart shaped face. But, of all this, my gaze finally settled upon her golden eyes. I knew those eyes. Big, warm, full of wonder and childish intent, lined with dark lashes to further accentuate the emotions always dancing in her bright orbs. And like an accent to them, two dark speckle marks just a bit beneath the lower lids added to her otherworldly appearance.
My lips parted to greet Autumn, but obviously couldn’t seem to form the right words. Nevertheless, she smiled gaily as usual and pressed a long finger lightly against my trembling mouth to stop my trying.
“What could you have possibly gotten into to make me appear in my full form?”
She tucked some of her wild hair behind an ear, and though, now a bit relieved of some hair, I noticed they were not quite like the small ones she apparently wore the times I saw her. No, they were much longer, finely shaped, and it seemed cut in three places similar to the appearance of small leaves hanging from a branch. Each end faded lightly with a calm green; everything added to the earthy glow she possessed.
A graceful hand touched my forehead, which I tried and failed to follow.
“Wow, you were right, my friend.” She sighed heavily, “You do realize that you’ll owe me greatly, Tahlk.”
“Yes, yes, I’m quite aware.” He waved her comment off and returned to his place, with Autumn at my opposite side.
With the way all three of them held onto me, I felt they may be trying to tear me apart at the seams. Thankfully Autumn’s grip was far more delicate than the two men, not that she wasn’t digging into my limbs as well. Pulling strongly at each of them, I still continued to spasm and writhe at the pain, which was happily a bit duller now that I had three magically inclined people forcing my body against an old table in the center of an even older tree.
“You ready?” Autumn loudly questioned, to which each man nodded quickly. Just as I was about to shut my eyes tightly for whatever the hell they were going to do next, my once child friend turned her calming face to mine. “We’re going to wipe all the magic out of your system rather than try to remove the poison itself. I don’t know what may be uncovered, so, good luck Jade.”
I tried to give a small smile of understanding, though I felt like I may have only grimaced with slightly, not exactly calm eyes.
