He held the thick shrubbery back to make it easier for Kira to enter, and was pleased to see that her footsteps, despite her injured feet, seemed firm and without pain.
"I can push things with my stick," she told him.
"See?" She raised her stick and used it to force up a thick vine that had reached from one tree to another on the other side of the path, making a barrier at the height of their shoulders. Together they ducked and went under the vine. But immediately they could see that there were others ahead, barring their approach.
"I’ll cut them," Matty said. "Wait here."
Kira stood waiting, Frolic suddenly quiet and wary at her feet, while Matty sliced through the vines at eye level ahead of them.
"Ow," he said, and winced. An acidic sap dripped from the cut vines and burned where it landed on his arm. It seemed to eat through the thin cotton fabric of his sleeve. "Be careful not to let it drip on you," he called to Kira, and motioned to her to come forward.
They made their way carefully through the passageway, which was a maze of vines, Matty in front with his knife. Again and again the sap spattered onto his arms until his sleeves were dotted with holes and the flesh beneath was burned raw. Their progress was very slow, and when finally the path widened, opened, and was free of the glistening growth—which they could see had already, amazingly, regrown and reblocked the path they had just walked—they stopped to rest. It had begun to rain. The trees were so thick above them that the downpour barely penetrated, but the foliage dripped and was cold on their shoulders.
"Do you have more of that herbal salve?" Matty asked.
Kira took it from her pocket and handed it to him. He had pushed back his sleeves and was examining his arms. Inflamed welts and oozing blisters had made a pattern on his skin.
"It’s from the sap," he told her, and rubbed the salve onto the lesions.
"I guess my sweater was thick enough to protect me. Does it hurt?"
"No, not much." But it wasn’t true. Matty didn’t want to alarm her, but he was in excruciating pain, as if his arms had been burned by fire. He had to hold his breath and bite his tongue to keep from crying out as he applied the salve.
For a brief moment, he thought that he might try to use his gift, to call forth the vibrating power and eradicate the stinging poisonous rash on his arms. But he knew he must not. It would take too much out of him—it would, in Leader’s words, spend his gift—and it would hamper their progress. They had to keep moving. Something so terrifying was happening that Matty did not even try to assess it.
Kira did not know. She had never made this journey before. She could feel the difficulties of this second day but did not realize they were unusual. She found herself able to laugh, not aware of the incredible pain that Matty was feeling in his singed and blistered arms. "Goodness," she said, chuckling, "I’m glad my clematis doesn’t grow that fast or that thick. I’d never be able to open my front door."
Matty rolled his sleeves back down over the painful burns and returned the salve to Kira. He forced himself to smile.
Frolic was whimpering and trembling. "Poor thing," Kira said, and picked him up. "Was that path scary? Did some of the sap drip on you?" She handed him to Matty.
He saw no wounds on the puppy, but Frolic was unwilling to walk. Matty tucked him inside his jacket, curling the ungainly legs and feet, and the puppy nestled there against his chest. He felt the little heart beat against his own.
"What’s that smell?" Kira asked, making a face. "It’s like compost."
"There’s a lot of decaying stuff in the center of Forest," he told her.
"Does it get worse?"
"I’m afraid it will."
"How do you get through it? Do you tie a cloth around your nose and mouth?"
He wanted to tell her the truth. I’ve never smelted it before. I’ve come through here a dozen, maybe two dozen, times, but I have never smelted it before. The vines have never been there. It has never been like this before.
Instead, he said, "That’s the best method, I suppose. And your salve has a nice herbal odor. We’ll rub some of it on our upper lips, so it will block that foul smell."
"And we’ll hurry through," she suggested.
"Yes. We’ll go through as quickly as we can."
The searing sensation in his arms had subsided, and now they simply throbbed and ached.
But his body felt hot and weak, as if he were ill. Matty wanted to suggest that they stop here and rest, that they spread the blanket and lie down for a while. But he had never rested at midday on previous journeys. And now they could not afford the time. They had to move forward, toward the stench. At least the vines were behind them now, and he didn’t see any ahead.
The cold rain continued to fall. He remembered, suddenly, how Jean’s hair curled and framed her face when it was damp. In contrast to the horrible stench that was growing stronger by the minute, he remembered the fragrance of her when she had kissed him goodbye. It seemed so long ago.
"Come," he said, and gestured to Kira to follow.
Leader told the blind man that Matty and Kira had made it through the first night and were well into the second day. He murmured it from the chair where he was resting, lacking the strength to talk in his usual firm voice.
"Good," the blind man said cheerfully, unsuspecting. "And the puppy? How’s Frolic? Could you see him?"
Leader nodded. "He’s fine."
The truth was that the puppy was in better condition than Matty himself, Leader knew. So was Kira. Leader could see that Kira had had problems the first day, when Forest had punctured and wounded her. His gift had given him a glimpse of her bleeding feet. He had watched her rub on the salve and wince, and he had winced in sympathy. But she was managing well now. He could see, but did not tell the blind man, that now Forest was attacking Matty instead.
And he could see as well that they had not yet approached the worst of it.
17
By the second afternoon Matty was in agony, and he knew there was still a day to go before the worst of it. His arms, poisoned by the sap, had festered and were seeping, swollen, and hot. The path was almost entirely overgrown now, and the bushes clawed at him, scraping at the infected burns until he was close to sobbing with the pain.
He could no longer delude Kira into thinking this was an ordinary journey. He told her the truth.
"What should we do?" she asked him.
"I don’t know," he said. "We could try to go back, I suppose, but you can see that the path back is blocked already. I don’t think we could find the way, and I know I can’t go through those vines again. Look at my arms."
He gingerly pulled back his ruined sleeve, and showed her. Kira gasped. His arms no longer looked like human limbs. They had swollen until the skin itself had split and was oozing a yellowish fluid.
"We’re close to the center now," he explained, "and once we get through that, we’ll be on the way out. But we still have a long way to go, and it will most likely get a lot worse than it is already."
She followed him, uncomplaining, for there was no other choice, but she was pale and frightened.
When they came, finally, to the pond where he ordinarily refilled his water container and sometimes caught some fish, he found it stagnant. Once clear and cool, the water was now dark brown, clogged with dead insects, and it smelled of kinds of filth he could only guess at.