17. Chapter 17:
Chapter 17:
We continued taking turns rowing throughout the day, until night fell, and we were looking as if we were roughly halfway across the lake. The island looked both larger and smaller than we had initially expected, possible because of its strange rectilinear shape. It came to me in one of those long hours of rowing that the island was quite obviously not natural at all, and had been built by some sort of being. Nature did not like straight lines. I assumed that the witches, with their strange ways of thinking and self-ascribed higher thinking led them to choosing such an unnatural shape for their abode. I wondered where the witches lived, because the island was largely sparse and empty. The fog tht had clouded the island before was only thicker as we got close to it, and I sometimes doubted whether it was even there, as the fog often made it seem as if it was a mirage.
The night was a wholly different matter from the day.
When the sun dipped below the horizon, I saw starts or the first time since I had entered the forest, but only in the patch above the island. The sheer morbid strangeness of it all, along with the smell of rot, which had only gotten more and more sickly sweet as we approached the island made me question whether all of what I was seeing and doing was some sort of hallucination and dream and if I was actually just back in my bed in the town, sleeping a dream-ridden sleep, my body waiting of the respite of dawn.
"Foxglove, why can't you see any stars in the woods? I've noticed that there is no moon here as well." I asked, waiting for Foxglove to give me some sort of perfectly rational explanation , as she usually did. "I do not know. Some people believe it is the witches' doing. I find myself agreeing with them. I've never seen stars before but I have been told about them by those who wandered out of the woods, like the birds. The moon is another matter. We know it is there, and it affects the lives of all the creatures, but it cannot be seen. Some speculate that it is because it is under the capture of the witches when it passes over the woods, but I cannot be sure. In the woods, it is often hard to tell apart folklore and truth, which is real and which is made up." She said, looking intently at the little patch of stars, more concentrated than any other patch of sky i had ever seen before. That patch, too was a perfect square. I made me feel a distinct, immaterial malaise which I attributed to the strange distortion of nature's rules that I ws seeing before me.
The air seemed to be getting thicker, too. More viscous. More Tangible. I could feel my sinuses filling with the almost liquid-like substance the air soon became. I had to push harder on the paddle to push it and my own body through the air. Foxglove's fur swayed and changed shape as if it was pushing through water every time she moved or twitched. It filled me with more and more dread as I breathed it in, and every breath brought with it the distinct sense of loss, of regret, of melancholy.
We soon got used to it, but I wanted to ask Foxglove why. Most of the trip on the boat so far had been silent, and Foxglove had been lost in some sort of intensely pensive thought which I dared not disturb. Eventually, I built up the courage to ask her. "What are you thinking about, Foxglove?" I asked, tentatively. "I am scared." She said, in a matter of fact manner, her statement factual, her face relatively emotionless and plain. I was immediately taken aback. I had never heard her suggest she was afraid, let alone blatantly say it, as clear as day. Each word, each syllable she said was like a heavy weight striking the clock. Her words made me both more worried, and less worried. I did not know why, but Foxglove admitting ehr fear was a paradox to me, something I had not expected would ever happen - something I did not even consider or think about.
"What are you scared of?" I asked, out of curiosity more than anything else. "The Witches, what else? Are you not scared?" She asked me, almost as if the answer was obvious.
"Yes, but I will defeat them, we can do it." I said, trying to channel her factual tone. She only laughed, in a slow, self-deprecating manner. "You won't be able to do anything," She said, "We might be able to slow them down, but not stop them. They are things that we could never understand, we cannot ever even hope to discuss anything with them. Nobody has come back themselves, Stuvlok. what makes you think we are special. I left on this journey thinking I could save everyone. Now I do not think I can save even myself. I never knew that death seemed so close. Even if I come bacl alive, I won't be myself. I will have died an ideological death, something that scares me even more... I do not want to put you down, Stuvlok, but do not let false hopes guide you to a death that leaves you unfulfilled. You might as well understand and accept it now, for dying knowing you were not able to achieve what you hoped to is a much greater loss for yourself than dying knowing you did your best." She told me, in a manner which suggested a hopeful resignation. I knew that she knew that she would not get out as herself. She was telling me that I needed to understand this.
"I think that we have a pretty good chance, Please don't give up. I will do it myself if I have to" I asked, almost pleading to her to not descend into her current hopeless state. "I have not given up," She said, looking into my eyes, "I have just readjusted my expectations. There is to be no hero's welcome, no being recorded in the history books - those were dreams a younger Foxglove dreamed - I will try my very best to do my job, but I do not expect to be happy or fulfilled at the end of it."
We descended back into a mellow silence, the small waves hitting the side of the boat every so often and making soft slapping noises against the hull. I tried not to look into the water too much, because the mixture of decaying matter and algae made my stomach churn. The fact the water was opaque, and opaque everywhere disgusted some deep innate part of me, and I could not quite understand why. The sickly sweet smell only got worse as we continued, and soon Foxglove was asleep. I went to sleep shortly afterwards as well, and I drifted off into dreams of emptiness and death.
Wet.
I woke up, my eyes going frantically from one place to another. My foot was sopping wet.
I jerked up, and looked around, the darkness and fog clouding my eyes. The thick air around me swirled into tiny air currents, pushed by the motion of me getting up. My foot was nowhere near the water, yet it was still wet. Strange.
Suddenly, the boat was bumped from beneath. For a few seconds, I was terrified, before i realised that it was very likely a large wave, and nothing to be scared of, and I tried to go back to sleep. Some water had been sloshed into the boat by the bump, and my other foot got wet. I tried pouring as much of it out as I could with my cupped hands, but some had soaked the wood itself, and so I resigned myself to sleep.
Bump.
It happened again, and I raised my head above the edge of the boat, and saw some sort of dark shape receding into the water, illuminating the algae above it with al almost unearthly dark light, almost as if it was emanating whatever was the opposite of darkness - something so dark it appeared to my eyes as a light of sorts, theabsencee begetting existence. I shook Foxglove awake, and she orientated herself for a second.
"What's happened?" She asked me, looking around just as frantically as I had. "Something beneath us is trying to push our boat over." I said, trying to convey the fear I had in me to her as efficiently as possible, so that she would understand the gravity fo the situation.
"What thing?" she looked over the side of the boat, trying to see what it was, but It had disappeared, and I thought that it must have dived down, readying itself for another push. "I do not know. It was so dark that I could see it." I said, trying to describe it as efficiently as I could. "What does that mean" She asked, as confused as I was. "I Do not know, but It seems dangerous." i said, and began rowing towards the island as fast as I could.
I looked into the water again, and saw the darkness approaching at the speed of an arrow. I tried to move out of its way, and in a few seconds, the absence had leapt out of the water, making the pitch black of night seem as light a colour as white, before falling back into the water with a lethargic splash. The air had become incredibly thick when it had jumped out, so much I struggled to get enough air into my lungs, but it went back to its slight lethargy after it was gone.
"It must be a ghennen of some sort." Foxglove told me, and I thought about how Ghennens were made of clay and blood, and decided that this was something decidedly more different, less physical and more amorphous, something not quite tangible. Maybe it was just our minds, blocking out the very sight of the creature to avoid being damaged. I wondered if Foxglove saw the same thing I did.
Both Foxglove and I rowed as fast as we could, every pish of the oars bringing us closer to the island, yet it was still quite some distance away. All of a sudden, I saw the creature racing towards us.
Then a bump. A splash.
And we were in the water.
The water was icy cold. It made my limbs freeze up, and my mind panic at the moment i fell into it. I managed ot close my eyes and my mouth, and remembered the grisly remains I had seen of creatures who had entered the water or foolishly invited its scourge into their bodies. I tread water, and found it much easier than usual, as the thick nature of the water let me use less energy to stay afloat. The boat had been turned upside down, and I crawled over to it to try and see where Foxglove was. I could not see her, so I assumed that she must have been swimming down and away, and began to try and right the ship. I could not see the creature anyway, I felt a sort of uncontrollable rage bubble up inside of me, a tentative yet furious onslaught of feelings and actions in my mind. I wanted to kill the creature - no torture it - and make it suffer. I hated it so much. The only emotion I could liken it too is the feeling you get when you see a baby, and want to squeeze the baby so hard, but realise that that would kill it.
Suddenly, a shriek.
I looked around, and saw a small brown shape being pulled down into the depths by the creature, or at least something like it, as this one seemed ot be a slightly different shape. The realisation hit me.
Foxglove could not swim.
I raced towards the sound, as fast as I could, keeping my head above the water at all times, and paddling so fast that I had ot wait for thw water to catch up to my arms. ocean I got to where she had been, I looked around for any signs of her.
I felt a sharp tug on my foot.
My head went under. I was being pulled, at a terrifying fast pace under the water, my ears soon filled with the water, and I tried my best not to let my mouth flop open and let in a deluge of death. I opened my eyes, ad tried looking around, The darkness the creature emanated underneath me, having held onto my foot with a strange jaw-like contraption that changed shape every time I looked at it, allowed me to view the World in a sort of distorted dark grey. I knew that my air was beginning to run out, and I was thoughtful in how I spent my time. I saw her. She did not seem to have anything holding onto her.
I tried to swim in her direction, but the creature pulling me down was too much for me to be able to combat. I was soon exhausted, and my air began to run out. Though I knew opening my mouth or breathing in would end in nothing but a sure death, I yearned to pull in something into my lungs, the vivacity with which I had to resist this urge with terrified me. I was no thinking being, the flesh needed air.
Once the world began to grey, I knew that I should try and twist, but my muscles could not generate the movement required. My mind was slowing, and my vision soon darkened as I was flung about carelessly by the creature, the surface seemingly never having ever have existed.
Suddenly, a release.
My own body's buoyancy was carrying me up, through the algae, through the mats of rotting flesh, and into the surface. I floated up to the top, the darkness seeming like some sort of salvation, and I opened my eyes when I felt slow wind passing over my face. I was able to breath once again. I slowly recuperated, and looked around so see what had happened. The boat was the correct way up, and Foxglove stood in it, looking triumphant, rowing it towards me with a face that showed off nothing but Relief.
She dragged me into the ship, my feeble legs only helping he slightly, and I managed to slump into the boat, heaving for the air I had never really appreciated before, and yearning for some sort of explanation or meaning behind the terrible events that had happened.
As we dried, Foxglove seemed to slowly grow morose. Her relief and joy and faded, and her face now bore the expression of a weary traveler, ready to go home, but knowing that their destination is far yet, and that home is something they relinquished the second they set off on their journey.