"Chaos Lost- Chapter Six" by Johanna Holmlund

Morning. Again.

Ky prayed that today she would come across a road. She had brought no food with her, and she knew nothing of living off the land. She’d had no choice but to pray the berries she found here and there weren’t poisonous.

She wasn’t sure if she was sane anymore. The first few days, Ky had occupied her mind entirely with learning how to walk with two healthy legs and a higher center of balance. She traveled until she was completely exhausted every day, and collapsed under bushes or in small caves every night. The only reassurance was that with every passing day she traveled farther and farther from her old life.

Now, though, she didn’t have something to center her thoughts on. Walking no longer took all her concentration, and it was harder every day to push her thoughts from what had happened. Survival meant forgetting everything.

She felt like she was walking a narrow bridge over a raging river. One thought of what had brought her here, one thought of that night almost a week ago, and she would fall, unable to cope. She couldn’t survive in the woods if she had a nervous breakdown.

A road. She needed a road. Roads led to towns, and towns had supplies. Her boots were wearing thin. Kris’s boots, prodded that little voice within. You’re wearing Kris’s boots… She pushed the thought back, burying it as deeply as she could. She couldn’t afford to remember, not now…

She stumbled onto the beaten down dirt of a well-traveled road, so deep in thought that she hadn’t even noticed the break in the trees. Numbly, she stared at the hard packed dirt, unsure what to do.

Follow the road. But which way? Which way led to the closest town? How far apart were towns? How long was it possible to walk without seeing other people?

What if there was a town just a short distance away, out of sight, in one direction, and she took the wrong way, toward a town days or weeks distant? Ky felt dizzy with indecision, knowing the choice could easily mean life or death. She didn’t have any food, and berries wouldn’t sustain her. It had been hours since she’d last had a drink, and what if there were no streams along the way?

She felt sick. She was drowning in a wave of utter aloneness, the lack of someone who knew what to do, who could make the decision for her. She’d never had to make a decision in her life, and now there was no one to tell her what should be done.

Right… Like before, it was hardly a vague feeling, but one that came from the presence in her thoughts rather than her own mind. The same presence that reminded her now that she wasn’t alone. It was so vague that she was hardly sure she felt it, but it was the only hint she had.

Once again pushing all thoughts out of her mind, she turned to the right and started down the road. She would find a town. Nothing mattered beyond that right now.

Once again, Ky felt completely overwhelmed. People everywhere, going every which way, talking, shouting to be heard above the crowd, some pushing carts, children running around underfoot. Utter chaos.

Ky had never even seen anyone beyond her own family. Kris, her father, Shainsa, and her half dozen half siblings. Once in a while a guest had come, but it was a rare occasion, and it was rarer still that Ky actually saw the guest. The others had all gone to Market Square, she knew, but they’d never taken her with them.

Now, all of a sudden, Ky was dealing with more people than she’d ever imagined existed. She’d thought about people, sometimes, late at night when she couldn’t sleep, but it wasn’t the same. The people she imagined were always just like everyone else she knew, or just a vague representation of the alien idea of other people. Kris had talked about some of the people he’d met at Market Square, but she could no more picture the Square in her mind than she could fly. She had certainly never realized that people could look so different from one another.

Colors, everywhere. Mostly light hair, but a few darker heads scattered throughout the crowd. Many with ruddy, tan skin, with paler faces here and there. People with faces so different from her families that her mind spun- features larger or smaller, spaced differently, so many different complexions… Their bodies, too were different. She saw one person so round that she could not have encompassed him with her- with Kris’s- arms. The only similarity was that they all wore clothes, but even these were different. Bright clothes, earth colored clothes, even a few people dressed all in gray, obviously a uniform.

So many people were smiling, laughing, joking with each other. A few scowled, some looked disappointed, some looked bored. Two men were arguing on the side of the road, yelling with red faces.

Smells. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of smells drifting from every corner of the street. Many of the were the tantalizing aromas of various foods, but a good many were completely unfamiliar to Ky. Some smells were pleasant, even sweet, but just as many were harsh or bitter or rank. Smells of people, and the meat hanging in the butcher’s window, and dust, but so many of the smells were new and unrecognizable. Her stomach churned and heaved; the only reason she did not throw up was that there was nothing to expel.

She’d never imagined that a place like this, or people like this, existed. It was completely alien to her, overwhelmingly so. Ky felt her grasp on the world fading, dropping away, leaving her stranded in this hellish crowd.

Breathe and cope, break down later. Words she had muttered to herself often over the past few days. She wasn’t sure what to do, where to go. Doing her best to avoid utter despair, she made herself walk forward, unable at first to even look at her surroundings.

Slowly, she started breathing again, but through her mouth to avoid the strange odors. Even so, she could taste the town, feel it’s dust coating her throat. Panic fluttered inside her breast, threatening to break loose and destroy her.

The buildings were completely new to her. All she’d ever seen was the house, the barns, and the henhouse and sheering shed. Some of these buildings were ridiculously tall for some reason she could not fathom. She thought perhaps they were like the barn, with a room above the ceiling, but these were so much taller than even that. Even more overwhelming was that there were so many, all packed together on the side of the road. For a minute she thought it was just one big building lining each side of the road, until she saw the tiny spaces between them, some not even big enough to walk through. Every door boasted a plank of wood with paint on it- many with pictures, some with markings that she didn’t recognize. She suspected it was writing, like the spell, but could only hold onto the thought for a moment before it was pushed from her mind.

She felt fairly confident that the ones with pictures told what was sold within. She knew about shops from Kris; you could buy almost anything if you knew where to go.

Boots. The sign jumped out at her from over the doorway of a rather small, one story building wedged between two taller ones. The boots she wore were almost useless, with holes wearing in the soles and at the seams. At the very least, stepping inside would take her away from the crowd on the street.

She stood at the doorway for several moments, unsure if she was even permitted to enter. What if only certain people were allowed to enter? What would they do to her if she trespassed?

Finally, the lure of the quite building overpowered her doubts. Even if she was punished, at least she would be away from the horrible mumbling roar of so many people.

The shop was filled with unfamiliar sights and scents. A sharp, almost spicy scent, rather pleasant if overpowering, filled the room. The room itself was rather small, and divided by a counter that ran parallel to the back wall. There was a space between the counter and the wall behind it, and a door in that wall. On the wall- all four of them, actually- hung pictures of boots and bits of leather. All the boots were different, from ankle high to boots that covered the leg to the thigh, and the leather came in many different colors, ranging from black to a pale tan. It had never occurred to Ky that something as simple as boots could come in so many forms. The only thing that assured her that at least some of them were, in fact, boots was the fact that they resembled what she already wore.

Behind the counter stood an old man. His hair was white and wiry, as was his mustache, and his eyes were sharp points of hazel beneath bushy brows. He was smiling, showing a mouthful of crooked teeth. The smile seemed to fit perfectly with the numerous lines of his face. Ky stood for a moment, overwhelmed once again, and entirely unsure what to do.

“Well, boy, can I help you?” Ky started when the old man spoke. Was there another customer? Ky began to turn her head to see if there was a boy in the shop, and stopped.

He was talking to her. Not her, though, but someone who looked like her twin brother, Kris. He was talking to a redheaded boy who was standing in his shop.

Ky almost lost it right then. She’d managed to avoid thinking about her situation for this long, but now she was confronted with the truth. She was, to all appearances, Kris. No one saw a crippled little girl when they looked at her. If she looked in the mirror, she would see her dead brother looking back. It was almost too much.

The silence frightened her, almost as much as the idea of answering did. What if she said the wrong thing? What was she supposed to say, anyway? Still, the idea of not answering frightened her most of all. She had learned long ago what happened when one avoided a direct question.

 “I… I need some boots.” Hearing her brother’s voice from her mouth was like a knife through her heart. It was the first time she had spoken aloud since that night. It was all she could do to keep from trembling or turning and running away from the town, the shop, everything.

“Well, young lad, this is the right place,” he answered. Ky breathed out, unaware that she had been holding her breath in the first place. He did not sound angry, so surely Ky had said the right thing.

“You’ve not been to town, much, have you?” Silently, Ky shook her head, unwilling to hear her brother’s voice again. “Well, let me measure your feet, and we’ll have a pair made right up. They’ll be ready by mid-afternoon, and you can come get them then. Sound okay?” Ky nodded.

The man came out from behind the counter through a sort of door she hadn’t noticed before, measuring tape in hand. She stood and stared. She had absolutely no idea what he expected her to do next. She started to tremble.

“Well, lad, take off your shoes! Can’t rightly measure them when they’re inside your clunkers!” He smiled good-naturedly and waited for her to take the old, worn boots off. She started to do this, nearly losing her balance in the process. She flushed painfully with embarrassment, terrified at what his reaction would be. To her surprise, it was nothing more than a low chuckle.

“Why don’t you have a seat here?” He directed as he waved his hand at a low bench. Ky did as he recommended and walked stiffly across the room, aware of her every movement. When he said nothing, she sat down and removed Kris’s boots.

She held back tears as the man swooped in to measure her- Kris’s- feet. The feet he measured were far too large to be her own, far too bony, the toes too long. She watched as he lifted them, these feet that were not her own, and yet she felt every time he brushed against them. He mind told her again and again that she should not feel what was happening to someone else’s feet.

This was too much. After so many days, after so much, she could not handle it anymore. Grief tore at her fragile mind, pounding the reality of Kris’s death and the loss of her own body deep into the core of her soul.

Thoughts whirled through her head like a mad storm, tearing apart what little semblance of composure she’d had. Everything came at her at once, bringing with it a roaring in her ears and pulling the world away from her. With a cry that may have been real or imagined, Ky fell into unconsciousness.

Kris. Ky sat up quickly, opening her eyes. Her brother. He was-

He was dead. Despair descended down on her, as weighty as any travel pack. Slowly, everything else floated back, all the memories.

Swallowing back what must have been a river of tears, Ky looked around the room. She was lying in a bed, one piled high with soft blankets. The sun filtered in through a large, if dusty, window. A dresser stood in the corner opposite her, with a mirror resting on the top.

A mirror that showed her brother’s face. She quickly turned away.

At the foot of the bed sat the old man, the shoemaker. He watched her silently, scrutinizing her in a way that made her want to build a wall around her thoughts. He stared at her for a while before he spoke.

“I don’t expect you to tell me what happened to you, but I’d say you need to find someone to help you. Did you know you cried the entire time you slept?” Ky shook her head. Her eyes felt swollen and tired. “Lad, let me tell you something. When something happens to make you so scared of even an old man like me, or to make you have to hold back tears until they just burst out of you, you let people help you. We’re good folks in this town. We do what we can to help our own, and that includes young strangers like yourself. And let me tell you, from they way you look, I don’t think you’ve done anything to be blamed for, so don’t you worry about anyone pointing fingers.” Ky shook her head.

“It’s not-“ She broke off, cringing at the sound of her- Kris’s- voice. Blackness loomed inside her, threatening to swallow her whole.

Kris, Kris, I need you…Anguish swelled up in her throat, crushing any attempt she made to hold back thoughts of her brother. I mustn’t cry again, I have to get out, I have to run and run and never look back…

“There’s a mage, come to town. Talk to him. Mages always know things, they know what to do. This one’s got a ‘Corn, too, so I don’t doubt he can do something for you. You find him, you here, and talk to him. He’ll help, that’s his job. Them Dreyden mages’ll always help.” With that final word, he stood up and started to leave.

Dreyden. Ky had promised Kris. She was supposed to find Dreyden.

“Wait, please-“ Ky closed her eyes and forged on, trying to ignore the pain she felt inside. “I don’t… what is a mage? What is Dreyden? Please…” The old man turned back to her, eyes soft with sympathy.

“You aren’t from near here, are you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Why, mages, they’re the ones who can work with the magic, tell it what to do. And Dreyden, well… that’s the biggest city in Feylar! Some secrets you must have, coming from somewhere where they don’t know of mages.” He left, shaking his head as he did.

Magic. Something about the word seamed so familiar… the spell. Magic was what made spells work, she was sure Kris had told her so. A mage was a person who knew spells? That didn’t seam quite right, because the man had said nothing about spells. They told the magic what to do.

What could magic do? She knew that it had changed her, but what else? Could it change her back? The curse had been magic, too, of that she was sure. That’s what curses were made of.

But how could magic help her? Even if it could change her back, that wouldn’t help. It might even make things worse; she’d be a cripple, so far away from home, an evil girl that no one would want to help. Even if they brought her home… but she couldn’t go home. Kymara was dead.

She was probably buried under the earth, forgotten already by Shainsa and Father. Ky was dead, and Kris was dead, and she was all that was left. This horrible thing, that thought like a girl and remembered what it was like to be a girl, but nobody knew, they just saw some strange lad that wasn’t a girl at all. She wasn’t Ky, she wasn’t Kris, she wasn’t anybody, she was just pieces of dead people that walked around in a place where there were so many people that didn’t know Ky or Kris or know she was dead…

You don’t have to deal with it all now.

She’d forgotten, she’d almost forgotten that little piece of someone else in her mind. That tiny glowing spark that loved her so much, that told her what to do when she couldn’t think anymore. Right now, it told her, ever so softly, that she could figure things out later.

She took a deep breath and stood up, avoiding the mirror. There was a pair of new leather boots by her bed, and she put them on her bare feet. Kris’s feet, but she couldn’t think about that now. She couldn’t think about anything. There was too much.

“Don’t worry about paying for those.” Ky started at the old man’s voice, unaware until that moment that he’d reentered the room. “Like I said, people help people around here.” For a moment, Ky couldn’t think of what he was talking about.

Money! Again her face flushed in embarrassment. Kris had told her a little about money, had talked about how she’d need it when she went to Dreyden. Money was what you gave people in exchange for things, things like food and clothes… and boots.

She nodded, and maybe she smiled, but she wasn’t sure. There were too many thoughts in her head to be any thoughts at all, and she was walking around like she was in a cloud, hardly seeing or thinking anything. She had to leave, she had to escape this man who knew so much about her and how much she hurt.

“Don’t go too far, lad. Remember, this town has nice folks. Ask for help, and you’re like to get it,” the man smiled at her, and as she left, she realized that neither of them even knew the other’s name.

She stepped onto the street, surprised to see that the sun was swollen and red, ready to set. She watched it sink ever so slowly for a moment, then she began to walk down the street that emptied of people as fast as it emptied of daylight.