Karla stood at the brink of the pit, her eyes wide with alarm. She tried to signal me with this quick, waving motion, but I was caught up in the thrill of seeing her and couldn’t understand what she was trying to convey. She pointed at me, mouthed a no, and slashed her finger across her throat.
I raised my palms. “What are you saying?” I said, in a half shout, half whisper.
She waved me off and shook her head, before ducking into a tunnel, out of sight.
“No! Karla! Don’t leave!” My heart did a loop de loop.
I retreated from the brink of the pit and hurled myself into the tunnel wall, ripping into the matrix, practically swimming through the roots. They fought with me, almost as if they sensed my desperation and it inspired them to thwart me. They hooked around my neck and coiled around my arm.
My frustration exploded. I obliterated all that touched me with a shrug that made them droop and melt like candle wax.
I pressed forward, bursting out into the next tunnel, crossing it in a single bound and knifing into the opposite wall.
The matrix of roots, was denser here, and again I found my path resisted. Across this jungle, through the gaps I could see whole sheaths and towers of root cleaving and falling. I caught a glimpse of Karla, struggling to get through. When she spotted me, I feared she would reverse her course and slip away.
She diverted her path. But she didn’t flee. She came straight to me.
I just stood there, agape, as she slammed into me, her body melting into mine. She dug her chin into my chest, and draped her arms around my back. I held her close to me, kneading my fingers in her hair.
The moment felt so surreal. It seemed impossible. I shuddered and started to quake. What was happening? My tears broke out in big, heaving sobs.
Karla stayed calm, sinking deeper into me, the two of us congealing into one.
“Karla … I don’t understand … in Inverness, you said—”
“It was the only way,” she said. “The only way for us to be together.”
“You … planned this? You knew you would find me here?”
She looked down. “I did not know for sure, but I had a hope ... and I dashed its brains out. It was the only way … that we could be … together.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that was what you were doing?”
She scrunched her nose. “Then it wouldn’t have worked. Only accepting the worst, possible case makes it work. I told you. That is what we call the surfing. Riding the storm. You need a strong mind to stay free in Root. To escape the bad things … not just here, but on the other side.”
She tilted her head and looked up at me. “You still don’t get it, do you?” She sighed deeply and patted my shoulder. “But maybe you are learning, because I see at least you are not in a pod.”
Something very large coughed and rustled in the pit. It sounded very close, despite the tunnel walls and layers of root that separated us.
“Did you hear that? That one is restless. What were you thinking, shouting to me? And that light you carried. It was far too bright. You were standing by a nest of Reapers. What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know. I saw you and … I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to lose you … again.”
“Lose me? What you think, I would run away?”
“Well … yeah. I—”
“Stupid boy. You don’t know anything. And you learn so slow.”
She pulled free of my embrace, her eyes grim and determined. She had yet to shed a single tear, and yet I was a total gloppy mess. “Come. We need to find Isobel. She is here. I am sure of it.”
