Dear Muse (Those Whom the Gods Wish to Destroy Book 1) (14 page)

The lantern was little more effective than a match light in the pitch darkness. It was enough to see the ground, which was enough to satisfy the explorers. Unlike the trees, the grass was sparse, and the ground quite muddy this time of year. The tracks would make tomorrow's expedition easier, Aiden insisted, unfazed by the oddity they came across. I have only his description, and vague as it is, I am intrigued:

A silky web wrapped around two tree trunks glimmered in the distance like a string of pearls. Even without a light cast, the substance intermittently shimmered. They carefully approached the web, expecting a large and hungry exotic spider. Aiden poked at it with a stick, gently, as though destroying the construct would invoke the arachnid’s wrath. The strings were tough as rope, and when he rubbed the stick with a bit more pressure, it scraped the bark, leaving the web unharmed.

They were too tired to go on, though Aiden knows they were spooked. He admits it, insisting on going during the day tomorrow. He has no doubt the mayor will allow him to continue the search, since his presence is not necessary for the cavern survey. I am certain this will happen, and if I can convince Aiden to delay his trip until later morning, I will assist him.

Caleb is a peer and a good friend, and Vern is a friend to my uncle and was an ally to my father during the Finney debacle. The thought of them rotting in the wilderness is troublesome. My curiosity also requires satiating. I despise spiders, but if my intuition is as dependable as usual, that web was not formed by any known arachnid. That would be an immense comfort, for nothing is more loathsome than insects and their ilk.

Until I see this marvel myself, there is no use speculating. I only hope for something out of ordinary, just for a little spark of excitement. Anything to dull the pains of drudgery, even if it is a wooly rainbow-colored spider.

Entry 24

My wish in the last entry was granted. A waning ink supply leaves me no choice but to choose my words carefully, though my mind is brimming with thoughts.

Despite Aiden’s urgency, we were able to set up a picnic at one of the glades he told me about earlier. It was a temporary respite from the problem at hand. For almost an hour, we chatted and laughed, waxing nostalgic on events that occurred two years ago. Aiden had arrived on the island only weeks before me, a humbling realization on my part because I assumed everyone here had simply always been here. He spoke frankly of his childhood as something of a farm hand, until his family’s livestock was slaughtered and territory occupied by soldiers. His father enlisted, leaving him and his brother and mother to live like scavengers on their own property. His brother and mother died of cholera shortly before the war ended. Upon returning for the war, his father mistook Aiden for a crazed brigand and nearly killed him. The poor man had received a letter notifying him of his family’s death, including Aiden.

And for the next year, he and Aiden did become brigands. It was during this period he befriended Caleb and a few other government insurgents. Though Aiden claims otherwise, I believe my father fell amongst this group, and his actions left him in their poor graces. These rebels made up a small portion of our community. To call them such is unfair, for our presence on this island makes us all mutineers by default. I suppose such labels no longer matter, since we are not an extension of our homeland, but rather something else entirely. At least we hope it so.

Our pleasant lunch is not important. Afterward, Aiden had taken on a grave tone and insisted I return. This angered me quite a bit, so much that I left our belongings behind. Nothing of value, merely a blanket and empty wicker basket. This leaves me with a thought: we came back the same way, right through the glade, and these objects were nowhere. Perhaps I was too preoccupied to notice.

The trip was strange from the start. The muddy footprints were easy enough to spot, but Aiden claims the trees were all wrong. For instance, he remembered resting on a large rock to refresh his lantern right under the hanging branch that kept rubbing against the back of his neck. The branch was still there, as well as the tree, only a dozen paces to the right. It had switched places with a tree with a thin trunk, about as tall as either of us and flimsy enough to snap with a wrist flick. We saw a few more of these younger looking trees, none of which Aiden recognized.

And of course, there was no crystalline web where there tracks ended. Fortunately for Aiden, I still believed his testimony, which had been punctuated with an angry outburst that could not be feigned. My husband is not the whimsical type, prone to fabrications and dramatic displays. That would be his wife.

Since it had only been a few hours, we continued along, marking the trees with carvings. Either out of anger or to be more precise, Aiden hacked the thinner trees with his machete, lopping them in half with two or three swift swipes. I did not attempt to assuage his sour mood, too busy soaking up the sights. I had never traveled so far from civilization on foot. It may have been a few miles, but it felt like an empty continent lay between us and home. Not so much the lack of anything discernibly manmade as the lack of sound, other than crunching twigs and the sucking mud under our heels. I did hear an occasional bird chirp, and much later, the sound of rushing water.

The creek was fresh, though neither of us were about to resort to taking a chance with full canteens. At around this point, my feet were beginning to ache, and I realized that the distance we covered so far would need to be trekked again. There were no horses and carriages where we were headed. Aiden was far too entranced with his search to even consider pestering about my fatigue. Besides, my already swollen belly would be bursting in months. Best get the exercise in while I can.

Not much farther along, Aiden gasped and started to run. I quickened my pace, urging him to slow down. This whole ordeal lasted less than a minute. He halted, turned to me, and as he turned back, I caught up to his side and saw the web. At about ten paces away, it truly did glimmer, so bright it was hard to look at directly. We silently took two steps forward. I made a third step, while Aiden refused to budge. With my fourth, he roughly seized me by the shoulder and tore my shirt. I did not break his grip; he was frightened to death, and for a moment, so was I.

Aiden finally snapped a branch off the nearest tree and insisted we tread carefully. I was not about to touch the thing, but his namby-pamby baby steps around the area caused me to take the branch from him and inspect it myself. Before he could protest, I gently tapped the point against the web. It was stiff, yet not as solid as crystal. It felt and sounded like glass. The temptation to shatter it immediately crossed my mind.

A pale white fluid coursed through the web from the right to left side, dimming the shimmer and giving the substance an appearance that very much resembled glass. Indeed, the white was clearly a liquid, a milky substance that seemed a bit too viscous to be actual milk. Aiden continued to hold me back, remarking the change of color and taking the stick from me to prod it some more. I noticed the web actually went under the bark. Once again, I stole the stick from Aiden and used it to pick at the trunk, chipping away at the bark. The glass tendrils were coming from inside the trees.

Aiden grabbed me by the shoulder again, breaking my concentration. I expected a warning, but he pointed toward the west. I cupped my hand over my eyes and saw another web. Aiden jogged in its direction. I considered splitting up to cover more ground, but shuddered at the prospect of wandering these woods alone.

We circled a few hundred paces around the vicinity and found a dozen webs, half pumping that ugly fluid. At the twelfth, Aiden seemingly read my thoughts and dragged me back. In his palm was a fist-sized stone, and with all his pomp and severity, he tossed and missed. Two attempts later, he managed to strike the tree’s base. On the next throw, he hit the web’s center. It instantly disappeared into thin air without a sound.

The inconsequential result left us both eager for more. The sun dimmed, and before the nightfall, we were hell bent on violating nature’s domain. Aiden broke two more with rocks. In my lust for some kind of upheaval, I unsheathed his machete and walked toward the nearest web. Rather than reprimand, Aiden was by my side. Without hesitation, I brought the blade down on the web, which I will henceforth refer to as tubes because the moment it cracked open, the inner substance and its casing disintegrated into a nearly invisible dust, instantly scattered by the wind.

Sparkling flowers lay at the base of many of these trees. The glimmer lay on the surface of these lotus petals like water droplets after a rainfall. It did rain fairly heavy three days ago, and though the woods were relatively dry, these plants remained soaked. I remembered hearing about the sticky effect of water on lotus petals; perhaps it is somehow related to the shiny substance surviving outside of those tubes.

I was satisfied with the result, despite walking home in the dark. Not a single sign of Caleb, though Aiden did not even mention his friend until we were back home. At the dining table, he silently tipped his cup of ale in the air before taking a sip. Just before I sat down to write, he lay in bed and muttered something about a lost cause.

Will he tell the others? I will confine this day to my memory and these pages. I cannot explain where there is no explanation, for the whole thing is simply an observable phenomenon.

Here is a theory: the glass webbing is a sort of tree sap used to connect and transfer the substance between trees. How exactly does the sap connect from tree to tree? What is the liquid? Does it come from the trees or the lotus petals? I doubt the growth is concurrent, which would require a third party to harvest a substance that disintegrates upon air contact. The hypothesis is too absurd to reflect on any further.

I doubt we will venture the woods anytime soon, especially Aiden. I am tempted to go on my own, but the distance is far too vast for me to return by morning and get enough sleep to teach my rowdy students.

Still, there is something unnatural on this island. Or is there no such thing as unnatural? Would it be considered supernatural? If so, there is more to this island than strange trees.

Entry 25

Aiden and I spoke at length this morning. He cannot resist the temptation to connect the phenomenon and the disappearance of his friends. The equation is not balanced by ignoring a copious amount of variables, I tried to explain, but the oaf is convinced they stumbled into one of these webs and vanished. I could not disprove his theory because neither of us had the courage to touch it with bare skin.

The discussion proved cathartic enough to dilute his paranoia and reinforce his drive to continue working. I went to the schoolhouse feeling relieved, finally putting the bizarre trees and unfortunate disappearances in the back of my mind. In retrospect, I was a damn fool to assume this world would grant me a moment of peace, let alone an easy day.

I arrived to find Phoebe and Hailey comforting Thomas, weeping far heavier than he had after the tap across the face he received a few days prior. Immediately thinking myself at fault, and bracing for the worst, I approached the trio to inquire into the boy’s troubles. His father was Vern, I soon discovered, and this morning, his mother told him the news. She and Thomas were in tears upon arriving, the former saving the latter from teasing; her lamentations had scared the children.

I spent a great deal of time patting Thomas on the head and soaking his tears through my shirt, assuring the boy his father was safe. A missing person is a dead person only to the pessimist, I assured him. Has he ever been lost? No, but David told us about the time his older brother strayed off the road and returned home late. His parents had assumed the worst. But what if they never find him? Leave it to Phoebe to ask the unanswerable.

Did they forget about the other world? Vern and Caleb slipped through the cracks, and it is only a matter of time until the people of the other world return them to safety. Right now, the two were probably sharing a fine bottle of ale, finer than any ale on the lesser side of the Earth. When they have their fill, they will be whisked home on a bed of fairy dust. There are no such things as fairies, Phoebe indignantly cried. I saw them last night with my friend Aiden. Did he and I make a baby yet? Not yet, I admitted, though Phoebe said her mother insists otherwise.

After class, I offered to walk Thomas home. His mother met us halfway and begged I join her for tea. Since I had not drunk tea in months, I could not turn her down. Their house was a bit smaller than my parents’, though still spacious enough due to an impeccable tidiness. All our homes were lacking in decoration, but this one was fairly dull for some inexplicable reason. Still, I cannot complain. Judith was a hospitable and amiable enough woman.

The majority of our conversation consisted of Gwen’s murder. A morbid subject, though less distressing than her current dilemma. Did the mayor protect himself while leaving her fate to the marauders? I really wish she did not phrase her assumptions in such a way. Rather than grant her the doubt of a shrug, I merely shook my head and sipped my tea.

The subject somehow shifted to Thomas, and within seconds, I was made privy of his illegitimacy. The shock was apparent on my face, so I quickly assuaged Judith of her transgression, blaming it on her bluntness, which I was sure to acknowledge with approval. It was a rape, she went on to tell me, followed by a long bout of weeping. By the end of the day, my shirt stank of salty tears.