Page 97 of The Unseen Hour

CHAPTER 40

We didn’t stop until the trees grew thick around us.

I fell on my back, winded.

“Are you all right?” we asked each other at the same time.

“I’ll live.” Orion laughed, then sucked in a sharp breath. “Although my ribs may be useless for a while. I appreciate Death’s help, but I landed all wrong. I do have one bit of good news, though.”

“And what is that?”

He reached into his pack and pulled out the glistening wooden baton. Its color matched the trees near Orion’s hut, and the handle was smooth but gleamed with the same color as the cave crystals.

“We did it!” I yelled, leaping to my feet and regretting it instantly as pain shot through my newly bruised legs. I sat down, staring at the baton in Orion’s hand. “You did it,” I said again, softer.

He sighed.

“One step closer to defeating Charon, and his hour.”

We used a small trickle of water on Orion’s side but preserved the rest. After all, we still had Charon’s residence to get through.

Orion sighed as the water went to work.

The first full day of walking back was largely uneventful, aside from the scenery. At one point the familiar trees fell away, and we found ourselves surrounded by a growing number of large hedges. After a while, we couldn’t see anything over the plants.

“It’s like we’re in a maze,” Orion observed.

“We could try and circle back, find where it starts and go around the perimeter?”

Orion was frowning at the tall shrubbery around us. It was quiet within its bounds.

“I don’t love the idea of spending more time in an unfamiliar portion of the woods with potential predators and possibly Odos on our trail, but I think I like this place even less.”

We turned around but had barely begun to retrace our steps when it became evident that wouldn’t be an option.

“They’ve grown around us. There’s no way out. Bloody ghosts!” Orion cursed, staring at the solid wall of greenery where a path had one been.

We were quite literally hedged in.

Orion pulled the knife from his boot, slashing at the leaves and branches. Bits of hedge fell at our feet, but as quickly as it hit the ground, it grew again, thicker, giving us less space.

Orion stopped. He put the knife back and scowled at the hedges.

“Sometimes I forget just how much power gods have,” I whispered, watching to see if the hedges would continue to close in.

They didn’t.

Orion sighed.

“We’ve got a long journey ahead of us. The good thing is that it looks like if we don’t harm the plants, they won’t harm us.”

“And I’m guessing you’ve never seen anything like this before?”

“No. Even with all my time in the Ether, I haven’t seen everything. I’ve focused on survival. Once I had an area that contained what I needed, I left it at that. I marked boundaries based on where I encountered trouble, and stayed away. All those years I wanted to be free to explore, and once I got down here I lost my desire. Things are different now, of course. I should have looked at every square inch of the Ether several times over.”

But he’d been alone, and he’d lost everyone and everything. It was no wonder he had wanted to protect what he had left. His life, his cottage, his safe area in the forest with the tree hoppers and squirrels. Even his trips to the less-than-responsive Shades.

“Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out together. Why don’t we keep moving forward?”