Page 51 of For the Love of the Quest

“Careful,” Thomasin called as Edith bounced on the balls of her feet.

She leapt, and Thomasin’s heart went with her. She landed cleanly, arms wobbling only for a second before she regained her balance. It wasn’t until she was standing still that Thomasin’s heart settled back into place.

Thomasin traced Edith’s steps and terrifying jumps from tile to tile, wolf to bear. They were only a couple rows away from the end when it happened. Edith stood on the owl tile, scanning the next row for the right animal. “The next one is a worm. Do you see it?” she called to Thomasin without turning around.

Thomasin craned her neck, leaning as far forward as she dared. Each tile was only about two feet across. There wasn’t much room for mistakes. She spotted the next tile, an almost impossibly long jump from where Edith was currently standing. “It’s over there, two tiles away from the edge,” she told Edith, her voice grim. There was no way Edith could make that jump. It would be a challenge even for Thomasin, and she didn’t mean that in a condescending or arrogant way. It was just the truth. She was far taller and stronger than Edith. Far more used to physical endeavors.

If this occurred to Edith, she didn’t let on—just said, “Got it, thanks.”

It took all of Thomasin’s willpower to not sprint toward Edith as she bent her knees, readying herself to jump. “Swing your arms!” she shouted uselessly.

Edith’s head turned just enough to meet Thomasin’s eyes over her shoulder. “What?”

“Swing your arms when you jump. It’ll help your momentum.”

Edith gave her arms a few practice swings. “Like that?” There was fear catching in between her words now, and Thomasin wanted nothing more than to scoop her up and carry her to safety. ButEdith had enough people in her life who held her back, who underestimated her. Thomasin wouldn’t be one of them.

“Exactly,” she smiled encouragingly. “Time it just right with your jump.”

On the tiles, there was no room to take a running jump. The most Edith could do was scoot her left foot back in a minuscule lunge. She rocked back and forth between her front and back foot, and Thomasin imagined that she could hear Edith’s heart pounding against her ribs. Edith drew her bottom lip between her teeth, balled her hands into fists, and leapt.

Time slowed as she arced through the air. Thomasin’s limbs went heavy, and her heart stopped because Edith reached the peak of her jump too soon. She was falling back toward the tiles too quickly.

Her feet crashed into the ground with a thud, and then the tile fell away beneath her.

Chapter Twenty-One

Edith knew what was going to happen a split second before she landed. With a loud crack, the tile split into pieces, and then there was nothing beneath her feet. There was a sickening breath right before the fall, right before gravity claimed her, when her body and mind hadn’t caught up yet to the fact that the ground beneath her feet was gone.

Then, she fell. Her arms shot out, hands instinctively scrambling for purchase. She thought she could hear Thomasin screaming, but it was muffled by the roar of her own heartbeat in her ears.

By some miracle, she caught herself on the edge of the next tile, the one she was supposed to land on. Her elbows scraped against the rough surface as her momentum fought to pull her the rest of the way down. Her fingernails broke against the ground as she clawed at the unforgiving stone, but then her fingers latched into the little divot where the worm’s squiggly tail was etched into the stone.

Her fingers digging into that little ridge, her sweaty palms pushing into the tile, that was all that kept her from falling into the darkness. Her legs swung helplessly, and she could feel empty air pulling at them, could feel the vast nothingness beneath her.

Thomasin was shouting at her, but Edith couldn’t make sense of any of it. There was nothing the other woman could do for her, no way to help her.

Edith had only two choices: pull herself up or die.

She didn’t think that she would be strong enough, but if there was one thing that Edith was good at, it was convincing herself that her fantasies were more true than her reality.

If this were a book, then the heroine would suddenly be strong enough to save herself. Through the power of hope and love, bravery and courage, she would overcome her physical disadvantages to save the day. So with every ounce of her might and will, she imagined she was strong enough, because this was not how her story ended. She was the heroine, and a heroine didn’t die because her leap fell short.

Edith pulled until her arms shook with the effort. She pulled until she could get an elbow bent onto the surface, and then the other elbow. She dragged her chest up onto the tile, collapsed against it in sheer relief, fingers tingling with adrenaline.

She wasn’t sure how she managed to maneuver the rest of her body onto the tile, her legs curling awkwardly under her, hips straining at an angle, but she did it.

Her legs threatened to buckle under her as she stood slowly. Every muscle in her body felt wrung out, and there was a fuzzy lightheadedness that crowded her brain.

But she had made it. There was only one jump left, one half the length of the last one. From the worm tile to the dragon tile and then on to the safety of the solid cave ground beyond the fence. Thomasin was still shouting at her, but Edith ignored her. She couldn’t risk stopping, couldn’t risk letting her adrenaline drop any further, because she feared that if it did, she would pass out right on that very spot.

She jumped. Really, she threw her body forward, hoping it would go where it was supposed to. When she landed, her legs did indeed collapse under her, knees knocking into the ground. She stumbled forward, catching herself on her hands just before her face slammed into the cave floor.

Edith let herself fall to the side, rolling onto her back, her feet just past the threshold of the fiery fence. Pressing her hand to her chest, she attempted to get her breathing under control. Her wet clothes still chilled her, but she also felt uncomfortably hot, and she could feel sweat beading along her hairline, dripping down onto her face. Trembles racked her body, and she couldn’t bring herself to do anything but lie there and let her body shake. Nausea rose in her throat, and she squeezed her eyes shut to push the feeling down, but that only made it worse, because with her eyes closed, she felt like she was spinning.

Then Thomasin was there, helping her roll over, holding her hair back as Edith vomited on the cave floor. “You’re okay,” Thomasin murmured, stroking a gentle hand up and down her back.

Edith heaved a few more times, but nothing came out. Thomasin helped her lie down on her back again, then kneeled next to her head. She brushed the sweaty hair from Edith’s forehead, then held her hand between both of hers. With Thomasin’s touch grounding her, she was able to take a deep breath, her body finally relaxing. “I’m sorry,” Edith said, her voice scratchy.