Page 94 of A Song of Air
Bryson jolted at the voice that echoed through the wind. She tilted her head up, straining her ears, wondering if the iron had gotten to her brain and she’d imagined the eerie echo.
“Come find me...”
There the voice was. Louder now. Closer. Like it drifted through the air to caress her ears alone. It sent a shiver down her spine. She should have felt wary, but all she could muster was a welcoming sensation. A burning curiosity.
“No, Bryson...” But even as she scolded herself, she couldn’t stop her feet from moving in the direction the voice had come from. It whispered. It beckoned.
And Bryson was powerless to resist its call.
“Come find me...”
Her feet stumbled over rocks and sticks and fallen leaves. Brambles tore into her clothes from all sides, scraping against her cheeks and drawing blood. She held her arms out, feeling the air, feeling that desperate edge of panic start to rise all over again.
“Come find me...”
Her feet stumbled on the ground, and she burst past the foliage into what felt like open space. The soles of her feet curved and stomped against cracking rocks that nearly caused her to slip and fall. She lifted her iron-coated gaze to the air, breathing heavily, and suddenly there was a voice.
“Oh, dear, are you alright?”
Bryson jolted in surprise as a shadowy figure appeared before her. She could make nothing out save for a slumped, hunched body, and the trembling, creaking voice let her know it belonged to an old crone.
“You look like you have been through something awful,” the crone went on. Her voice scraped like rusted iron, and Bryson could read the concern in her tone.
It made her shoulders relax a fraction. “There was a voice...” But it was long gone now. She hadn’t heard it again, and it left Bryson wondering if maybe she’d just imagined the entire thing.
“Oh, dear.” The crone stepped closer, and Bryson flinched as she placed her withered, leathery hands against her own. “You’re shaking, child. And your skin is cold as ice. Come. Let me take you to my home. I will take very good care of you.”
Again, Bryson found herself powerless to resist as she was led over hundreds, thousands, of crunching rocks that littered the ground. She nearly tripped, but the crone’s grip was firm on her hands as she guided her up what felt like a slope.
“So wet and muddy,” the cronetsked. “Let’s get you clean, yes?” she offered. “No need to fear, dear. I am here now. And I am going to take very good care of you.”
Rot and Decay
Bryson nearly trippedseveral times going up the slope towards the old crone’s house. The ground was blanketed completely by crumbling rock or brick, and several protruding hard twigs. She rammed her shins into them several times, and it was only that hard, firm grip that kept her upright.
The crone didn’t speak again for a few minutes Bryson took a moment to make sense of her surroundings. There was a looming shadow before her, what she assumed was the woman’s house. Yet the closer they got to it, the more her senses sharpened, and so did the foul smell.
