Tres Morass's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The vial lay crushed in the mud, but Scarlett did not leave. Two more days passed. She sat in the corner of the low mud hut and would not stop talking. Tres tried to think about his wife's soul, sealed behind the gold. He could not. Every time he bent his head to work, Scarlett spoke again. "There must be another way," she said. "Let me help you look. I owe you my life. You said so yourself." She had said this a dozen times. The crooked crown hung in her tangled hair. She had scrubbed the pink dress at the water's edge, but the mud stayed. She was a princess with no throne, and she filled his small home like smoke fills a lung. "You owe me nothing," Tres said. "You owe me quiet." He clutched the golden vessel to his chest. The red-and-black circles stared out from its round face. Inside, his wife turned, slow and bright. He could not hear her over Scarlett. He could not think. He stood up. "Come with me," he said. "You want to help. Then help." He led her out into the swamp. He walked until the water rose to his knees. He stopped at a squat tree crowned with clustered golden mushroom caps. Their light glowed soft against the dark water. "These caps grow only in deep swamp," he said. "I need a full basket. Pick every one. Don't come back until it's full." He handed her a woven basket. It was a task with no end. He hoped she would tire and drift away, as noblewomen did. Scarlett looked at the tree. She looked at the basket. Then she looked at him, and her blue eyes went sharp. "You want me gone," she said. "You want to send me into the mud so you can sit alone with a bottle and grieve." Tres said nothing. That was exactly what he wanted. "No," she said. She set the basket down in the water. "I ran from a whole palace of people who wanted me quiet and out of the way. I won't do it for you." She turned and walked back toward the hut, her ruined dress dragging. "But I heard what those mushrooms are for. My old nurse spoke of them. They wake what sleeps. You've been staring at that bottle for a week. Maybe you should stop guarding your wife and start trying to reach her." Tres stood in the water and watched her go. His plan had failed. She would not leave. But her words caught in him like a hook. Wake what sleeps. He looked at the glowing caps above him, then down at the golden vessel against his chest. He had spent every day trying to pour his wife out into a body. He had never once tried to speak to her inside the gold. He reached up and began to pick the mushrooms himself.