Forgotten Ties (Ties, Book 3.5) | ✓

Chapter 18

Skye woke up early the next morning and snuck out of the thrift store to go and gorge himself on more food from the grocery store and fill his pockets with snacks. He'd been in situations like this before where food was scarce and the problem every time was that his 'fair share' wasn't enough to keep his body running. That was okay, though. He'd learnt to be very good at providing for himself, mostly through theft.

The moment Skye stepped back through the doors of the thrift store, Aris approached him with a green coat held up in her hands. "Here, try this on. I didn't get your measurements before you and Nim went off to bed, but I have a pretty good eye for these things."

Skye put the coat on and was immediately too hot even without zipping it up. The sleeves extended midway up his hands and he amused himself by flapping his arms.

"Oh, the sleeves are a little long," Aris said. "I can fix that."

Skye bunched the ends of the sleeves up in his hands. "No. I like it."

"Okay, then I'll leave it how it is. It's really just for crossing the mountains. I doubt you'll feel cold like that ever again."

"Well, who knows where there will be mountains now that they're a thing that grows places," Skye said as he pulled the jacket off before he started getting sweaty. "The future is a very mysterious place."

"Always has been, I guess. That time I lost as an egg was crazy. By the time I'd hatched again and was old enough to really think about things, it felt like I was in a whole new world from the one I'd known when I died."

Skye nodded along, but he didn't say anything. These were feelings he could very much relate to, but sometimes things just felt too big and complicated for him to try to put into words and communicate to other people, so he didn't bother. Maybe one day their lives would stop being crazy and he'd have more energy to spare and he'd give it a go, but not now.

Nim was up and helping Marigold get the kids ready. He'd been helping her with them more and more recently. Skye tried to help too sometimes, but he felt like taking care of himself was a job in itself and he struggled even with that. Maybe if he stayed around and had a chance to really grow up, he would get better at that sort of thing. He already felt like he'd gotten a little better at talking since he'd been with these people.

Or maybe it wasn't even about actually getting better at it. Maybe it was just easier because people listened to him now and usually weren't mean. Sometimes it felt like something clamped up inside of him and his brain didn't even want to try making words because it didn't feel like it was worth the effort.

Nobody was really paying any attention to Skye as they finished getting ready because the children were so complainy and bad at everything. Skye could tie his own shoes and pack his own bag, so he didn't need any help. He tied Miya's shoes for her to be helpful, and she didn't even hiss at him or bite him, which was nice. Once everyone was finally ready, they started off on the journey towards the mountains with Aris leading the way.

Carrying a backpack was annoying. Skye could change his weight, but the backpack was still heavy. He couldn't run or jump around while he was carrying it. Just walk.

He also wasn't enjoying the ongoing burden of having a specific thing that he had to be doing at all times, even if it was just walking. He'd never liked being told what to do, and after dying and becoming part cat, he hadn't really tolerated it at all. It was kind of important now, so he had to, but it really didn't come naturally to him.

A little itching voice in the back of his head told him to just throw away his bag and run off into the woods. It made no sense, of course. He wasn't a woods dwelling boy. He needed people to steal food from.