The next two nights, we practised our flying. Well, I practised while Delph hung on for his life. Finally, I slipped Destin off and handed it to him.
‘You have to try, Delph,’ I said.
‘You can fly – all I need to do is hold on.’
‘We don’t know what might happen. You knowing how to do it by yourself is important.’
He gingerly took Destin from me and I helped get it around him. I then snapped closed a metal clasp I had fashioned and added to the chain.
He just stood there. ‘Now what?’ he asked.
‘Now what?’ I said in amazement. ‘Delph, you’ve been flying with me for how long now? Just do what I do.’
He backed up, got a running start and leaped. He flew straight and fast. Right into a large bush. I ran over and helped him out. He was coughing and his face was scratched from the prickly leaves.
‘I can’t do this, Vega Jane. I’m no good a’tall. Me feet belong on the ground.’
‘You can do it,’ I said firmly. ‘Now, when you run and leap, point your head and shoulders upward. Then you won’t hit the bush again. To turn, you point with whichever shoulder is in the direction you want to go. To head higher up, point your head that way. To come down, point your head and shoulders down. Right before you land, swing your feet down and you’ll land upright.’
‘I’ll bash my head in.’
‘If you do, I’ll put it back together and you can try again.’
He looked at me dubiously. ‘You cannae put no smashed head back together.’
I took the Adder Stone out of my cloak pocket and waved it in front of his face and thought good things. The scratches there vanished. He backed away, looking fearful.
‘What is that thing?’ he exclaimed.
‘It heals, Delph. Scratches and smashed heads. Pretty much anything.’
On his fourth attempt, Delph soared into the air, flew for about a quarter-mile, made a long, if ragged, bank, turned back towards me and landed. On his feet. He was so excited that he snatched me off the ground and whirled me around until I thought I might be sick.
‘I did it, Vega Jane. I’m like a bird, I am.’
‘A very big bird,’ I replied. ‘And put me down before I vomit on you.’
I decided to show Delph the Elemental. When I first pulled the tiny spear from my cloak pocket, wearing my glove, it was not very impressive to him. And considering it was barely three inches long, I could hardly blame him. But when I focused my thoughts and asked the Elemental to return to its normal state, it grew in my gloved hand to its proper length and assumed its dazzling golden colour.
Delph exclaimed, ‘How does it do that, Vega Jane?’
‘I don’t know, Delph,’ I said. ‘It’s only important that it does it when I need it to.’
He reached out to take it, but I stayed his hand. ‘Only with this, Delph,’ I said, holding up the glove.
‘If you touch it without the glove, what happens?’ he asked.
‘Neither one of us wants to find out, do we?’
He slipped on the glove and hefted the Elemental. I looked over at a tree about thirty feet distant. ‘Think in your mind that you want the Elemental to hit that tree. Then throw it that way, like a spear.’
Delph scrunched up his face in concentration, took aim and let fly.
The Elemental travelled a few yards and then dived into the dirt. Delph looked over at me, smiling. ‘Cor blimey. Is that all it does? Har!’
I took the glove from him, picked up the Elemental, thought about what I wanted it to do and let it fly. The tree disintegrated in a flash of light when the spear struck it. I held out my gloved hand, and the Elemental flew back to it, like the hunter hawks I had seen Duf training up.
Delph had thrown himself to the dirt when the Elemental hit the tree. When he looked up, I gazed down at him with what I hoped was a sufficiently patronizing look.
‘No, that’s what it does, Delph. Har!’
Soon, Delph could hit just about anything with the Elemental. I didn’t know if it would be necessary when we tried to pass through the Quag, but I didn’t know it wouldn’t be either.
Late that night, Delph and I sat at my digs in front of a meagre fire while Harry Two snoozed at our feet. Making up my mind, I stood and said, ‘Now you need to see something.’
‘What?’
Quickly I pulled down my trousers and lifted up my tattered shirt and my shirtsleeves, exposing my belly and my arms. ‘Look, Delph!’
His astonished gaze ran up along my legs to my belly and up my arms. His jaw fell.
I smiled because it was clear he had no idea what any of this was. ‘It’s the map through the Quag, Delph. Quentin Herms left it for me. He had it on parchment. But I was afraid to keep it, so I inked it on my skin.’
He drew closer.
‘I’ve memorized all of it, Delph. But you need to as well. We both have to know the way, just in case.’ I held up the Quag book. ‘You know what awaits us in there.’
For the next thirty slivers, Delph studied the marks on my skin as I walked him through the map of the Quag. I would do this for as many nights as possible until the directions were firmly entrenched in his brain. As the slivers passed, Delph’s eyes slowly closed. Soon he was snoring in his seat. I lowered my shirt, sat in my only other chair and looked through the book on the Quag.
On nearly every piece of parchment there was something that could kill you.
But there were some beneficial creatures as well, including something called a Hob that would help you so long as you gave it a small gift. Cheeky blighter, I thought, trading kindness for coin.
I finally closed the book and peered into the fire. One smouldering log caught my attention, reminding me of my grandfather and my parents – swallowed whole by flames.
They had all left by choice. Which meant that they had chosen to leave me.
That was a hard thought to reconcile with but I had other things to focus on. To leave Wormwood and find my grandfather and my parents, because now I knew they were not dead. They were simply no longer in Wormwood. Which meant they were somewhere else. Which meant there was somewhere else other than Wormwood. And that was an astonishing thought.
But then the thought of my entire family, including John, abandoning me seized me once more. I sat down on the cold stone floor and did something I almost never did. I started to weep. I rocked back and forth. I hurt all over. Almost like I had been swallowed by fire myself.
I was startled when I felt Delph’s arms wrap around me, comforting me. I looked up and there he was, holding me and weeping too.
Harry Two sidled over to us and was inching my hand up with his snout, as if he were trying to make me feel better.
‘’Tis OK, Vega Jane,’ Delph said into my ear, his warm breath tickling my skin. ‘’Tis OK,’ he mumbled again.
I touched his hand to let him know I’d heard. But it would not be OK.
Nothing again would ever be OK.
But come what may, I was going to leave this place.
Because I had come to learn that while Wormwood was full of many things, the truth was not one of them.
And the truth was what I needed.
I had nothing else left.