CHICORY

My eyes teased open and took in the storage room clutter all around me. I was used to waking in a smelly tent, so the sleek stone floor and walls, and the gold lantern light shining from the middle stairs were an immediate reminder of how far I was from home.

It was easy sitting up and stretching. My sleep had been deep and dreamless. Seated comfortably on the mattress with a blanket draped over my legs, I began to think about Amaryllis and whether or not she was okay.

My right hand slid over the cool floor, and then stopped when I felt firmness at my fingertips.

There was a large green sack; pulling it close I tugged the red string around the neck loose.

Inside my hands found, among other things, an expensive-looking leather-bound book.

Not being able to read I had no way of knowing what the words meant on the pages.

There were lots of drawings of the human body. One showed a man’s willy with the conkers beneath and even hairs. Another drawing in the book showed a woman’s something, I didn’t know the word for it, and nearly clapped the book shut from disgust.

In all there were a set of three large books inside the sack. Taking great care I reached in and found more things to wonder at, including six glass bottles filled with clear liquids, lots of fluffy cotton, and several pointy needles.

My head sprang up when I realised the obvious.

“Oh no,” I said out loud, “I walked in my sleep again.”

I must have stolen the sack and all the items in it during my walking sleep.

Before when I had stolen things from the other orphans during my walking sleep I had felt awful and had tried my best to give back whatever I took right away. It had gotten so bad Amaryllis had to explain to everyone one morning that it wasn’t my fault and I wasn’t stealing their things on purpose. Knowing I might have already ruined Amaryllis’s and me’s chances of staying in the tower for more than a night, the warmth of the tower felt suddenly precious and in short supply, because soon we would be back in the cold blue forest and fending for ourselves again.

After stuffing the items back into the sack I got up from the mattress, slipped my sandals on, and walked toward the middle staircase.

Hugging the sack against my chest I made my way down the windy steps.

The ground floor of the tower was the same as the previous day. The same chairs, tables, and fireplaces matching the bending ring-shape of the room, and no windows to hint at what time of day it was.

I spotted the familiar faces of Suzuki, Angelica, and Guy, who were each sat in armchairs close to a fireplace.

“Oh hey,” said Guy, the leathery-blue skin on his skeletal face creasing into a smile, “Good morning!”

“Morning, Chicory,” said Suzuki, who looked as lovely in her frilly black and white dress as last time.

“Morning!” said a squeaky voice from behind an armchair which was faced towards the fireplace.

Albie leaned from round the armchair poking his adorable head into view.

Angelica was sat silently during the initial morning welcome, her face looked like she was both furious and considering eating me. Her hands guided the head of a sewing needle through a length of light-blue fabric draped over her thighs. I didn’t know why she didn’t join the others in saying good morning, but her ears, easier to see because she wasn’t wearing the straw hat she had on yesterday, twitched in a way that made me think she was in a good mood.

The fear of them all being angry because I stole the sack and the items in it without meaning to stopped me from smiling back at them.

“Erm…” I said, “I’m sorry.”

Albie set his little green hands on the arm of his armchair.

“Whet are you so’wwy for?”

“I didn’t mean to take this,” I said, holding up the sack.

Guy’s neck made a loud popping sound as he learned his head forward.

“What is it?”

“Erm, books, and bottles, and other stuff. I’m sorry.”

Guy leaned back in his chair.

“It’s not mine.”

“Not mine either,” said Suzuki.

“Net mine,” said Albie.

The others looked to Angelica who casually shook her head.

“Why not come closer?” said Suzuki, smiling and shifting her weight to one side of her armchair, making a small gap.

I did as she asked. I wasn’t out of trouble yet, but I did feel a strong glow of relief that none of them were angry with me. It felt oddly nice squeezing between one side of the armchair and Suzuki’s hip.

“Who did you take it from?” said Guy, from his seat next to Suzuki’s; Angelica was left of him, and Albie off to the side in an armchair of his own.

“I don’t know,” I said, “I sometimes walk in my sleep…”

“You mean you sleepwalk?” said Guy.

“What’s that?” said Suzuki, putting a friendly hand on the back of my head.

“You don’t know what sleepwalking is?” said Guy.

“No,” said Suzuki, her voice light as she if she were singing the note to a song.

“It’s a condition where people act out their dreams,” said Guy, “They walk around and do things. It’s usually not a good idea to wake them up. It’s fairly common in my world.”

He looked to me with his friendly but also very dead eyes, “Is that what it is?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

Guy shrugged.

“I’m not surprised nobody here knows about it. This world probably doesn’t know a lot about medicine, especially psychological conditions the way my world does.”

I couldn’t make much sense of what he was saying beyond the words ‘medicine’ and ‘world’. I started to wonder if Guy wasn’t just Accursed, but also from someplace far away where things were different; but trying to imagine what that place might be like drew a blank in my mind.

Guy leaned forward for a second and took the heavy sack from my lap and put it on his own.

“So you think you took this without meaning to?” he said.

“Erm…maybe,” I said, “I don’t know.”

Suzuki’s hand lowered from my head to my right shoulder and gave a squeeze.

“It’s alright,” she said, “You are not in trouble.”

“Damn!” said Guy amid clinking noises, “Look at this!”

He seized one of the leather-bound books and used the tips of his exposed bone fingers to flip through the pages.

“Oh! It’s a medical journal! There’s diagrams of the body…it seems specific to something though.”

He put the book aside, his bony fingers moving to the cork stopper at the top of one of the glass bottles.

“You do not know what it is, leave it alone,” said Suzuki.

“Why?” said Guy, his fingers pinching the cork at the top of one of the bottles but not prying it off, “It’s not like I can die of poison.”

“We can.”

“Then I would just use my healing powers.”

Suzuki gave a look that made it clear she didn’t approve.

“You’re right,” said Guy, putting the glass tubes back into the sack, “I’ll leave it.”

I wanted to ask Guy what he meant by ‘healing powers’ but I didn’t want to say anything that might be thought of as rude.

“Can I look please?” said Albie who was stood atop his own armchair with his hands outstretched.

Guy handed Albie the sack full of items. Albie, being about the same size as me, struggled to hold onto the sack and not fall off his armchair. He looked like a green-skinned child, but with a wide neck, and the head of a frog that was much more frog than it was human. His sandaled feet looked like the feet of a little boy down to the toenails, and his hands were very much like mine. His mouth was wide and his eyes were the size of apples, and were a little wonky.

He buried his face into one of the books, not just flipping through like Guy had done, but looking at the text on the first page very carefully.

“Ooo’” said Albie, excitedly, “This book is boo-tiful!”

“Yeah it’s top quality whatever it is,” said Guy.

“Ooo! It a book about how to administer morphine to patients! It a doctor’s book!”

Guy and Suzuki shot up from their seats.

“That’s great!” said Guy, “Albie take the book and the bottles upstairs right away and show Hress and Bailey. Do you think you can figure out how to administer the morphine with the books help?”

“Sure!” Albie squeaked, putting the book and the bottles in the sack and hopping off the armchair with a nimble froggish plop.

Albie leaped almost to the ceiling in a single bound and then continued to hop up the stairs and out of sight with the sack held in his arms.

“Hwess! Bailey! Hwess! Bailey!” He squeaked on his way up the stairs and out of sight.

Guy put his hand on the top of the armchair I was sat on.

“I don’t know how you got that stuff but we really needed that.”

“What’s ‘morphine?’” I asked, remembering that as one of the words Albie had said, a word that seemed to be the key to helping Amaryllis in some way.

Guy opened his lipless mouth to explain but stopped himself, and instead squatted in front of my armchair.

“Well, morphine is used for…pain,” he said, “When someone is in a lot of pain doctors give people morphine so they don’t feel it.”

“Does that mean Amary is in a lot of pain?”

“Hai,” said Suzuki, “We’ve done everything we can to help her but she is in a lot of pain.”

A nasty feeling clutched my chest.

“What’s wrong with her?” I said.

“We think,” said Suzuki, sympathetically, “That she is undergoing an Accursed change.”

“You mean she is becoming a monster?!”

Guy winced at the word ‘monster’ and Angelica, who I almost forgot was there, gave a displeased grumble from the back of her throat.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay,” said Guy, “The thing is we don’t know exactly what is happening to Amary. She seemed sick at first, but she’s gotten worse. She’s…”

Guy looked to Suzuki who made a simple flick of her head that made it clear she thought he should not say anymore.

“What?” I said.

“We can’t say,” said Suzuki.

“Why?”

“Chicory,” said Angelica in a soft tone, “Hress and Bailey haven’t left Amary’s side all night. Everything that can be done to help her is being done.”

“But Guy said he can heal people,” I said, trying not to cry.

“I can,” said Guy, “I can fix open wounds, broken bones, even lost limbs.”

“So why can’t you help Amary?”

“I’ve tried.” He said, calmly, “All night actually whilst you were asleep. Whatever she’s going through isn’t something that my power can help. Which is actually a good sign. I think she’s undergoing a change because she was struck by the Dawn Storm’s lightning. She’s becoming Accursed.”

“But I was struck by the lightning too,” I said, “I’m not in any pain.”

The thin brown hairs of Guy’s eyebrows lifted.

“True,” he said, “But the storm is weird. We only know what it’s done to us. There’s likely a ton of things that the storm can do to people we don’t know about. The thing is, the storm as far as I know changes people instantly. Angelica, it changed you all at once, right?”

“Yes,” said Angelica.

“And I was transported from my world to this one,” said Guy, “It’s complicated, but it all happened fast. I think the difference is that you’re both children. You’re the first I’ve heard of that have been struck by the Dawn Storm, so it might work differently.”

“And,” said Suzuki squeezing her own cheeks in thought, “It may explain how Chicory came to have the doctor’s book and morphine. Chicory is concerned about Amary, and you have had trouble walking in your sleep for as long as you remember – is that right, Chicory?”

“Erm. Yes.”

“Interesting,” said Guy, “So maybe Chicory is cursed…maybe somehow he conjured up the sack and the morphine without meaning to.”

“Like a Wizard?” said Suzuki.

“Maybe,” said Guy, the word ‘wizard’ seeming to have put out his initial enthusiasm.

Everyone was silent for a few moments and their thoughts kept to themselves.

“What’s a wizard?” I said.

“Trouble,” they all said in unison.