Page 9 of A Lie so Pretty and Poisonous

“Mom, no!” Cora gasped out.

Alec gripped the reins and stared at me with bulging eyes. “Are you serious?” he shouted.

Wind whipped my hair, but my face remained calm. The horse may be running at full speed, but tranquility had settled over me. I had never second-guessed protecting my daughter, regardless of Clotha’s paths to choose from. The choice was easy to make. Wobbly, I stood to make my jump and looked into the glassy hazel eyes that matched mine so perfectly. “I love you, sweet girl. I promise I will find you.”

I bent my knees to leap off the wagon as tiny arms clasped around my waist in protest. Cora screamed, “No!”

The wagon careened out of control, and the front wheel lifted over a huge rock, violently tipping Alec’s side up and off the ground. A gasp was ripped from my throat as Cora and I were thrown sideways out of the wagon into a free fall. I tugged her toward me and locked her in my arms, bracing for impact with the forest floor. The collision never came.

A temporary burst of pain quickly blazed through me as the forest and wagon dissolved into a cloudy haze of whites and greys. Squeezing pressure encased my body, and voices roared in my ears, sounding from everywhere and nowhere, speaking in dialects I couldn’t understand. Silhouettes faded in and out of focus, and all I could think to do was grip Cora closer to me. She whimpered in my arms, and a peace washed over me, knowing that if this was how Clotha saw fit to finish our story, at least I had my daughter.

My body crashed back-first onto the ground, rolling us from the force of the fall. The haze lightened, and the squeezing pressure dimmed. I could no longer grip onto the edges of my consciousness.

Everything went dark.

Pain. Confusion. Heaviness.

My eyes had sealed shut, refusing to open. The ringing in my ears screamed at me. My head throbbed at my temples, and my body felt like I had been run over by horses. Repeatedly. If this was the afterlife, then it wasn’t peaceful like I expected. Or maybe this was punishment from Clotha for trying to outrun the course she set me on. A course I would continue to outrun, fate be damned.

Someone called out in the distance, battling the loud hum that pierced my eardrums. “Mom.” Then another, closer. “Mom!” Clarity finally found me, the ringing subsided, and my thoughts sharpened. “MOM! Please be alright! Please! Mom!”

My eyes sluggishly drifted open, and a blurry outline of Cora hovered above my face. Her curls hung around me in a curtain, damp and tangled. “Cora,” I whispered, and my hand slowly reached to touch her face. Her hazel eyes came into focus the more I blinked away the heaviness of my eyelids. The ringing in my ears became faint, and the throbbing of my head dulled to an ache.

I shifted my torso up and rested on my elbows, taking in Cora and our surroundings. Dawn approached. The sky slowly lightened, and an array of twinkling stars blinked out one at a time. The thick outline of the surrounding woods was noticeable, but the darkness between the trees hid all manner of secrets and fears. The earthy smell of dirt, grass, and leaves overwhelmed my senses.

Cora stared at me aghast, and a tear trailed down the ridge of her nose and dangled at the tip. The fear I had hoped to keep her from was plastered across her sweet face. “Are you alright?” Worry laced her voice.

“I think so.” She sidled up to me, hugging her knees to her chest. My body ached, but my focus and priority were on Cora. “Are you hurt?” I ran my hands over her arms, legs, head, and back, checking for injuries.

Cora kept her gaze on me, dazed. “No, I’m alright,” her voice trembled. “What happened? Where are we?”

I helped her stand alongside me, my head still dizzy, and ran my hands up and down her arms to warm her. We must have been unconscious from the fall and lay in the cold for hours. My fingers and toes were stiff and chilled. I moved us further away from the barrier as we were only mere feet from it, far too close for my liking.

“We fell from the wagon, sweetie,” I said gently, massaging my temples. All the events of the previous flooded me in an instant.

Terren. My mother. The escape. The chase. Falling.

My brows furrowed at the thought of Terren leaving us be after our fall. An entirely unlikely scenario. Maybe fate was working in our favor after all. Whatever happened, I hoped Alec was alright.

“No,” Cora said, annoyed. “I mean, where are we now? How did we get here?” She gestured toward the woods.

I scanned the area with more intent. The rising sun provided enough light to illuminate the landscape before me with more detail. My eyes skimmed over the trees, taking in gnarled branches with big leaves fluttering in the breeze. I tensed. Wait…

I snapped my head toward Cora, eyes rounded. My breath caught, and she nodded slowly. This was not the same forest we traveled through with Alec.

“Where are we, Mom?”

My attempt to swallow was met with the resistance of my dry throat. The notion that we went through the barrier was preposterous. It didn’t make sense. We would be dead. Uncertainty pushed against my logic, but I sealed the doubt away to stay calm. “I don’t know, sweetheart. It was dark when we came out here, so the forest probably looks different in the daylight. But we must find help and keep moving. I don’t want to be here if Terren circles back.” I scanned her body once more. “Are you sure you’re not injured? Any headache? Does your body feel sore?”

“I feel fine. Just wet and a little chilly.” Cora wrapped her arms around her torso.

So, it was only me who felt like I’d gone to the underworld and back. It always amazed me how easily Cora could recover. She could go through physically grueling events and not feel a thing afterward, but I would take days to recover. The benefits of youth.

“We’ll need to head back into the woods to keep Terren from finding us and head toward Gorstine Village as planned. With any luck, we will be able to get there and find Alec or send word to Greta. Are you able to walk so we can get some help and figure out what’s going on?”

Cora nodded hesitantly. “I guess.”

“It is going to be alright, sweetheart.” I wrapped her in my arms and squeezed. “Let’s go.” I tipped my head toward the trees. She followed behind me, her eyes alert and darting around as we took our first daring step into the tree line.