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He speculated that it was something like getting out of the water if you fell through the ice.
Halo bent his arms and zombie-crawled up onto the moss, arm over arm. It gave way beneath him. Once he had enough moss under his body to act as a type of raft, he kicked his feet. But that didn’t work the way he’d expected.
With a quick check on Max and Mary, Halo closed his eyes. He went back to the moment when Thorn asked Marilin precisely how to get out if the pool’s edge was too spongy. She specifically said not to take off the bog shoes. So, already, count him one down.
Marilin had demonstrated a kind of rolling crawl. With her image in his mind, Halo repeated her moves and was gratified to find himself lying in an area solid enough to support him.
It had been a complicated undertaking, and as he quickly dressed, Halo was glad that he had stripped down to a shirt and shorts. No wonder Marilin had to grab the blogger’s backpack straps to save him. Walking along, and the ground sank away below him? Until Halo experienced having no exit, he didn’t understand the difficulty of the situation.
As Halo tied his boots and slid his bog shoes back in place, Mary was hugging the tree with its four-inch trunk, petting it and having a little conversation about how the tree had spent its day.
And Max was looking at Halo with an expression that screamed, “Fix this!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Halo checked again to see if there was any communication connection.
And when he found none, he assessed.
Mary had been cogent enough to follow his instructions and was dressing while she had her conversation with the tree. Her movements were sloth-like and seemed to come from muscle memory. She didn’t seem to be thinking or processing at all.
Pulling the backpack over her shoulders, Mary snapped the sternal strap in place, then pulled the tiny bouquet of Labrador Tea closer to her nose and sniffed deeply.
Halo looked down; the Labrador Tea groundcover spread as far as he could see.
Marilin had pointed out this plant, telling the team that it was relaxing and could make people lose track of time. “I show you,” she’d said with a knowing smile. “Think in your mind a number of minutes you think that you have been in the bog.” She paused. “Everyone has number?”
She looked at her watch. “Think your number. Okay, we have been here exactly two hours.”
The men looked startled, and she laughed. “You see? Relaxed. Happy. Time flies.”
Halo had set his alarm during his morning planning to ensure that he wouldn’t succumb to the power of the Labrador tea, and he and Mary would leave the bog well before nightfall.
“So like that,” Marilin waved a hand near her head. “It can be, how do you say? Like a hallucination.”
Hallucination.
But Marilin had only been talking about losing the perception of time, right?
Halo grabbed his guidebook and flipped to the right page. Mary had been relaxed on their hike out, he thought. But then, she’d tasted his words, seen him as a guardian angel with wings, fought against some snake-like thing that attacked her in the water, and was now communing with a tree.
Rhododendron tomentosum, also known asLabrador tea, marsh tea, or wild Rosemary, is a small evergreen shrub with white flowers that bloom throughout the summer months. It is often found in bogs and woods with elevated humidity levels. The citrusy scent comes from ledol-containing volatile oils.
It is closely related to the genus Rhododendron.
Halo was developing an absolute aversion to the genus Rhododendron.
When smelling Labrador tea essential oils, the ledol can cause a sense of relaxation and well-being.
He looked at Mary again, resting her forehead on the scraggly tree trunk, barely thick enough to hold her weight. Relaxation, check.
The Labrador tea’s toxicity depends on species and locality. Terpenoid ledol is found in all Labrador tea species. Labrador tea may cause physical symptoms such as dizziness, vomiting, and drowsiness.
DO NOT camp near Labrador tea. Persons with sensitivity to the volatile oils may be rendered unconscious.
Halo looked at Mary. Would he call her sluggishness drowsiness?
Grayantoxins are also found in Labrador tea. While rarely lethal, Grayantoxins can act as a hallucinogenic. In those with an allergy to the plant, this can be followed by hallucinations/delirium, seizures, paralysis, breathing issues, and death.
