CHICORY

“Where’s the door?” I asked.

The walk from the far end of the dirt field to the tower had given me lots of time to look for one.

“You’ll see,” said Red.

She took me off her shoulders and set me onto my feet, and then she called out.

“Suzuki it’s us open up!”

“Red?” The voice of a young woman with an accent I hadn’t heard before poured out as easy to hear as if she were standing right in front of us.

“Who else would it be?” said Red, “Open up!”

“Is Hress with you?”

“Yes, we found the children. One of them is sick.”

“Is anyone else with you?”

“No!”

“Are you sure?”

Hress stepped forward, his breathing short and strained from the continued effort of holding Amaryllis.

“Suzuki, come on!” he said, “Stop playing games!”

“I’m not playing games, is there anyone else around you that you can see? You have to be sure.”

“There’s nobody around,” said Red.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

“Really?”

“Suzuki?!”

I felt myself getting excited as the seams of a door as tall as Hress and Red began to open. The door was very thick and heavy looking, and seemed to be a part of the tower. For a few seconds the door eased slowly inward.

The wet field mud squelched beneath Hress’s stomping boots as he made his way into the tower, but then he stopped and turned his head back to Red and me.

“What are you waiting for?”

“What about the others?” said Red, “What will the children think when they see them?”

“We don’t have time to mess about,” said Hress, “She needs to be put to bed and seen to.”

“I know,” said Red, “Take her upstairs. I’ll wait out here for a minute and explain things to him.”

Hress thought for a moment and came to the same conclusion. He gave a nod of his head and then made his way into the tower.

A pretty young woman poked her head into view once Hress had entered inside. I cupped my hands to my cheeks unable to hide my shock. It wasn’t just that the young woman looked a bit like Amaryllis, and wore an amazing black dress with lots of frills and special patterns covering her from neck to shin; it was also because she had glowing gold irises.

“Hi,” she said, raising a hand and waving at me, she then looked to Red and said, “Isn’t he cute?”

Red was busy brushing something I couldn’t see off her left shoulder.

Suzuki leaned out of the tower some more to look around. Her golden eyes landed on Red, then to me.

“Are you coming in?”

Red made a face like she was chewing on something and raised her arms above her head to stretch.

“I just need to explain what’s – you know, wrong with Guy and Angelica and Albie, and Bailey…”

“Oh, I see,” said Suzuki, “I will close the door and open it again when you’re ready.”

Red remained standing with her palms pressed against the back of her head whilst Suzuki went back into the tower and closed the door.

“There’s something you need to know before we go inside,” said Red as she squatted to bring her eyes in line with mine.

“Okay,” I said in a whisper.

Red asked me a question but all I could think was how her hair, caught in the wind, rippled like fire. She was so pretty, despite the un-girly faces she made, a feeling like having a very clever idea touched my thoughts whenever she changed from one face to another.

“Hey,” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“S-sorry,” I said.

“It’s alright,” said Red, “You must be tired. I just need to make sure you understand something before we go inside, okay?”

I gave a light nod.

“Do you know what the Dawn Storm is, Chicory?” Seeing I didn’t, she said, “Well, it’s a magical storm that stays mostly on Wish Mountain. You must never go near it because if the gold lightning strikes you really weird and bad stuff can happen. If someone is struck by the lightning they usually become what are known as Accursed. Am I making sense?”

“Erm, was I struck by the Dawn Storm?”

“Seems like it,” said Red, “Here’s the thing. Inside the tower there are people who are nice and don’t mean you any harm, but they look scary because they’re Accursed. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Scary how?”

“Well, there’s Guy. He looks like a skeleton and his skin is blue.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling too tired to even begin imagining someone looking like that.

“And then there’s Angelica,” said Red, “You met her last night. She found you and told us where to find you both. She told me you sneezed in her face.”

“That monster is inside the tower?!”

“Shh! She’ll hear you!” said Red in a hushed voice, “She’s really sweet and nice and she’s doing her best to put up with her curse. She’s got feelings, okay? She might look scary, but once you get to know her you’ll see she’s – eh, not scary at all.”

“But, but,” I said, doing my best to whisper, “The monster had huge teeth and big spider arms and…”

“I know. She’s Accursed. Can you promise me you won’t be mean to her when you go inside? Don’t hurt her feelings. She’s very excited to have you and Amaryllis here. Do you promise?”

I said, “Okay,” and Red seemed to be happy with that.

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” she said, “There’s also Albie. He’s a large frog. He’s not scary though.”

“Okay.”

“And then there’s Bailey. She’s fine; just give her room, okay?”

“Room?”

“Basically don’t talk to her unless she talks to you first.”

Red leaned in and spoke in a whisper, “She can be moody during the day.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, nodding, thinking the same could be said about Amaryllis.

“Right,” said Red.

She looked around. I looked too, if only to see what Red might be looking for. All there was to see were the bright clouds behind the tower, the blue leaves caught in the fresh air, and the looming forestation that went on and on, and up and up, as far as I could see.

Satisfied, Red folded her arms beneath her large chest and faced the tower.

“Okay, Suzuki, we’re ready, open up.”

“Did you check you’re alone?”

“Yes, come on.”

“Are you sur--”

“—Good grief, yes!”

The tower door opened again; whilst it did I stretched, standing on my tiptoes to take the stiffness out of my ankles.

Red offered me her hand and we walked inside the tower together.

Once we had passed Suzuki on our way inside she pushed the door tightly shut behind us.

In the middle of the large space ahead of me, I could see lots of round tables, and chairs tucked under them. I let my gaze rise up to the ceiling which, like the walls and floor, was also made of the same dully-smooth black stone.

What had Red meant by four floors before? The large room, though strange, had just one floor that I could see; I followed the line where the bottom of the wall started, and the edge of the floor ended, and could see that the room was one big circular ring.

And then I began to figure out why Red had said there were four floors. Right in the middle of the room laid winding black stone stairs. If those stairs were anything like those tall buildings at Rootwork, then that meant there were floors above the one I was standing on.

“Oh,” I said, “Four floors.”

Taking several large steps into the room Red let out a chuckle that didn’t sound very girly at all. As Suzuki crossed the room and stood at Red’s side, I could see Red was head and shoulders taller than her.

“Where is everyone?” said Red.

“They all went to the first floor because they didn’t want to scare the children,” said Suzuki.

“Okay that’s good,” said Red, “Look, I’m going to go.”

Suzuki’s cupped hands tightened.

“You’re going to leave?” she said.

“The children are safe now,” said Red, “You know how difficult this is for me.”

“Okay,” said Suzuki, “So if I understand good, you and Hress find the children together, make them trust you, bring them here, then expect this one to be okay with your disappearing?”

“Suzuki…”

“I am not making you stay, but I think you should explain to this little boy why you want to leave.”

Red’s gaze landed on me.

“Fine,” she said, “I’ll stay, but I’m leaving once things settle down.”

“Okay, thank you.”

“Do you want to make yourself useful then?”

“Okay, how?”

“Stay here with the kid and I’ll talk to the others upstairs. I think bringing them down one at a time will be best.”

Red stormed up the tower stairs and out of sight.

“Hi,” said Suzuki, turning her attention to me, “Would you like to sit by the fireplace? It’s very warm.”

I gave a nod and walked with Suzuki to a nearby fireplace where a handful of large red armchairs were faced towards the flames.

Before I could climb up the nearest armchair Suzuki grabbed me by the armpits and lifted me up onto the seat.

Suzuki moved to the armchair opposite mine and sat down in a graceful motion.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Chicory.”

“Oh,” she said, her golden eyes seeming to glow a bit brighter as she blinked, “Like the plant?”

“Y-yeah,” I said in a small voice.

“And the girl?”

“A-Amaryllis.”

“Is not that a name of a plant as well?”

‘I think so,” I whispered.

“Erm,” I said, struggling to raise my voice.

“Yes?”

“Are you a-a S-Sakurian?”

“Hai,” Suzuki said, giving a small bow of her head.

I felt like there was a stone weighing heavily inside my chest. She looked at me carefully.

“Why do you ask?” she said.

“I’ve never m-met a Sakurian person before,” I said, nervously.

I was suddenly afraid she would no longer be so nice to me for asking her that question.

“I see,” she said, “I--”

Before she could finish what she was about to say a sound like a giant hand drumming its fingers grew loud all of a sudden.

Bile lodged like an acorn in the back of my throat as I peered round the armchair and saw the monster from the storm enter the room from behind the upper staircase bend. The woman-shaped monster’s jaws were clenched, its grimace wide, and long trails of saliva dripped from between its huge claw-like teeth onto the floor like the thick pitter-patter of rain.