Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 293

Chapter 293: Drop it!
Ford dropped Mia’s hand like a hot iron.

When he’d heard the strange hissing noise, he immediately thought of the snakes that sometimes were found in the mines. Grandpa had come running towards him with a similar fear in his eyes.

With an unspoken understanding between them, Ford pointed the direction Mia had gone, and Grandpa’s eyes hardened. Bringing a finger to his lips, the two had set out silently into the tall grass.

Instinctively, Ford had cloaked them both, hoping whatever snake was out there hadn’t found and bitten Mia.

Venomous bites were difficult to treat. Most miners just died in agony without the benefit of the expensive antivenom that the doctor sold.

A flurry of grasshoppers was gathering ahead, hopping frantically forward ahead of the two men.

Ford had grown almost used to not seeing himself, though it was still disconcerting. He had pressed forward until he saw Mia. Grabbing her hand, he had pulled her under the security of his magic without a thought. Grandpa’s bugs whirred into the creature’s face–faces!– and then past the creature, drawing it away.

Ford had run with Mia, pulling her away from the danger. His magic prevented him from seeing her, from checking if she was all right or not. He’d dropped his magic when they broke into the little clearing, near-frantic in his quest to make sure Mia wasn’t injured or bitten.

His relief was short-lived, however, as an irate farmer looked directly into his face.

“There’s a chimera,” Mia hastily explained, her voice hushed. “Ford saved me from it, and Grandpa’s trying to lead it away.”

“A… what?” Seth looked baffled, which was much better than enraged. Ford suppressed the urge to take a guilty step further from the man’s daughter.

“There’s a chimera? Where?” Daniel whispered frantically from behind his father. “They’re incredibly dangerous when hungry or provoked.”

Ford pointed at the direction they’d come from.

Anaisa, who had been sitting silently at the cookfire with the freshly caught fish roasting, stood.

“Do we need to leave? Move our camp across the river, or somewhere further?”

The group looked around at each other. Mia closed her eyes for several moments. Ford wondered what she was doing, and no one spoke. Eventually, she opened them and sighed, her shoulders sagging.

“Either there is no safe place to camp tonight, or this is already the safest place,” She told them sadly. “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.”

“That’s extremely helpful, Mia.” Anaisa took a few steps to lay her hand on the girl’s arm. “We won’t waste time and energy moving anywhere else if this place is the best already. You’re saving us that effort.”

Mia nodded slowly, and Ford glanced at Seth. The man pinned him with a kind of suspicious glare, and Ford looked away.

He’d just saved the man’s daughter from being eaten by a dangerous animal, but sure, a glare for holding her hand while doing so seemed perfectly reasonable.

“I… think I can hide us all, for short bursts,” Ford grimaced. “I’m not sure how long. It would be taxing.”

Hiding himself, he thought he could do fairly inevitably, at least until he slept. Hiding himself and his horse was more work, but even so, he could keep it up for hours before becoming exhausted.

Everything beyond that, such as his small campsite, shortened the time he was capable of sustaining the illusion. The entire camp and all these people, he could maybe do for a few minutes at most. Probably far less including the horses, if he could manage the feat at all.

He hadn’t used his magic in days, since being discovered by Grandpa, except to hide his pain when he needed to do something. He felt fully rested, and hoped that might help things. Hiding Mia with him had been almost as easy as hiding himself.

Grandpa, he’d lost track of. Was the man uncloaked now? Ford had never tested the range of things he could hide, but he didn’t think his magic was in play right now. He silently hoped the old man was all right.

“You’re sure you can do that?” Seth challenged, and Ford lightly kicked the toe of one shoe into the dirt.

“No, Sir. I’m not sure. But I would try.” He replied honestly. Seth’s mouth firmed into a flat line.

“If you can’t hide everything, or it doesn’t seem long enough… Your priorities are Mia, Daniel, and Anaisa, understand?”

“Yes,” Ford nodded seriously. He wished he’d experimented more with his magic. Could he save effort by hiding only them, and not himself? Was that even possible? He’d never tried.

But then, if he was visible, his death would mean the end of his magic for the rest of them.

He hoped he didn’t have to make that choice.

The camp waited tensely for Grandpa’s return. Ford breathed slowly, trying to conserve his effort. He didn’t even hide his injuries so that he wouldn’t waste one bit of magic that could help the others.

As a result, the pain was uncontrolled. His rib wasn’t as bad as it had been, but it still ached terribly. His leg was most of the way better, but the way he constantly used it was probably unwise.

Ford found himself wishing he hadn’t left his crutch behind when leaving the cave.

The silence was deafening. There was no other hiss to make anyone suspect the chimera of returning, but who knew whether such a creature was capable of traveling silently? Perhaps it had been stalking them for days, completely unnoticed until now.

Hesitantly, Daniel took a deep breath and projected an image into the air.

“Mia,” He whispered. “Did it look like this?”

The creature portrayed was a lion, with a fiery mane. A goat’s head jutted out from the middle of its back in a bizarre way, and the tail was a snake with a snapping mouth.

The boy’s cousin nodded, once. “Different colors than that, but yes.”

She paused, for a moment, her eyes going distant, and then wide.

“We have to move. Now. Grab everything you can and get across the river.”