“I’d really like to rest for a bit—for just a bit—Elli; but,” she added, in a tone of resignation, and without looking toward her friend, her head lying on its side, eyes closed, “I suppose we can’t, can we?”
“I’m sorry, Beatríz, but if you can, we should keep going—you can hear the frenzy, even better than I. I’ll walk next to you and help keep you going.”
“More Blackmouths, aren’t there?” said Beatríz, exhaling, as she allowed Elli to help her to her feet. So dazed were the girls as they shuffled on behind the lantern, that Beatríz required all her focus and energy, and both hands, simply to keep it held aloft, and Elli was too weary to dispute the light’s wisdom.
On they trudged, their feet dragging along the ground as if chained to stones. They hiked on in this fashion for what would have been the equivalent in Millerton of several hours, or so thought Elli, the trek reminding Beatríz of their climb into The Mountains, so endlessly the same did the challenging terrain feel beneath her boots. The sound of Blackmouth feet remained with the girls the entire time, becoming a noise they scarcely noticed any longer in its hiddenness and constancy. Only occasionally, when there was a random yelp or a rare growl, did the girls remember to their horror that they were being followed; but at no time did one of the cats emerge—even slightly—into the light that encircled Elli and Beatríz and cradled them with the protection promised by Aneht. At times there was a flashing of eyes or black teeth behind the curtain of darkness that caught the lantern’s rays, but even these soon went unnoticed by the girls in their frequency.
At one point, well beyond the incident with what Elli came to think must have been leeches, Elli was startled by the sound of snarling right behind her—where she had forgotten to look for quite some time. “Agh!” she yelped, and stopped.
“What’s the matter, Elli?” said Beatríz, who was startled more by Elli’s cry than by the snarling of something else.
“A Blackmouth, Beatríz! Right behind me! But . . . but the good thing is that, even though it was only a few feet away from us, it was probably following us backwards—and then, when it decided to turn into the light, and I heard it wail, it ran off back into the darkness.” Elli sighed loudly. “I don’t think they can hurt us, Beatríz, as long as we’re in the light—even if they get really close to us; let’s hope so anyway, huh?”
“Yeah, let’s hope so,” said Beatríz, in a voice that, to Elli, seemed languid.
“Are you okay, Beatríz? Just really tired?” said Elli, grabbing Beatríz’s shoulders and staring into her wide open eyes. Beatríz, swaying like a tall, thin tree in a stiff, variable breeze, and gazing into the circle of gloom where the Blackmouths were prowling and pacing, made no answer, as if she hadn’t heard Elli or wasn’t aware of her presence—or even her touch. And having turned around as soon as Elli cried out, and now facing opposite the direction in which the lantern was leading them, the light was already dimming markedly. A foggy darkness was creeping toward them from the now-fuzzy line of separation between the circle of light and the blackness beyond, the Blackmouths stirring impatiently.
“Beatríz?” Again she said, “Beatríz?”
“I . . . I’m sorry, Elli . . . I don’t know what’s happening,” Beatríz said, her words running together and her legs beginning to buckle. She sank to the ground, sitting on her knees, eyes large and round, reminding Elli of her first sight of Hannah.
“Beatríz! Beatríz!”
Suddenly, as if coming from the Blackmouths who were lurking close by, Elli and Beatríz were surrounded by laughter, shrill and sinister. “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”
Elli, who had lowered herself to the black turf alongside Beatríz, abruptly stood and started to spin around, pulling her knife and thrusting it threateningly.
“Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”
“Beatríz! Beatríz! Hold up the lantern! The light’s going away!” she yelled down to her friend. But Beatríz had let go of the lamp—and she was now crawling away. Elli dove at Beatríz’s legs that were nearly out of sight in the murky fog, grabbing and pulling hard on her ankles. “Beatríz!” screamed Elli.
“Elli . . . !” Beatríz cried weakly, “I have to go! The OOnwees are calling—I have to go to them, Elli! I have to go home!”
Beatríz struggled with sudden, remarkable strength to keep crawling away; Elli strained with an aching body to keep her from going any further.
“Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”
Above the laughter Elli heard the Blackmouths snarling hungrily, closing in, tightening their circle around the girls.
“Beatríz! Stop! Stop! Stop, Beatríz!”
“Let me go, Elli! Let me go to the OOnwees, or I’ll . . .” Beatríz spun around to face Elli, eyes glaring, her mouth quivering. “Let me go, Elli! Let me go—now—or I’ll . . . I’ll kill you! I will! I will! I’ll kill you!”
“Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”
Beatríz pulled her legs from Elli’s grip and disappeared into the fog, into the laughter, and soon—thought Elli—almost certainly into the yammering jaws of the Blackmouths or the spitting eyes of the Wallymogs.
~three~
Just as Beatríz was disappearing into the veiling murk of the OOeegaltabog, Elli reached back and grabbed the lantern; she scrambled to her feet and began to swing the lantern brusquely, first one way and then the other. “Beatríz! Beatríz!” Elli screamed into the fog; she heard a splash, like that of two hands slapping soupy mud, and pivoted toward the sound. As soon as she had completed her turn, the lamp rekindled itself, burning its brightest and falling like a searchlight on Beatríz—who abruptly froze in place next to the water that was bubbling around Beatríz’s hands plunged beneath its surface.
“Beatríz!” Elli yelled again, and sprang toward her friend. The laughter had quickly dissipated into some ancient din and distance, and the snarling of the Blackmouths had ceased, leaving behind only a single pair of cat eyes scarcely visible in the sphere of darkness beyond the light encircling the girls. Elli knelt down next to Beatríz, who appeared to be unconscious, and frantically pulled her friend’s blackened hands from the putrid water, wiping them on the shredded hem of her once-diaphanous gown, now looking more like the dress of an orphaned waif in a Dickens novel.
The lantern, again resting by itself, but this time next to Elli, began once more to dim. “Beatríz! Beatríz! Wake up! You’ve got to wake up, Beatríz!” urged a desperate Elli. She wanted to sob—and sob for hours, perhaps unceasingly so—but there was no time for that. Elli patted Beatríz’s cheeks and rubbed her arms, at times roughly so, and Beatríz groaned, as if deep in sleep, acknowledging Elli’s efforts but resisting them. Elli grabbed the lantern and twisted and turned on her knees until the light returned. But she was horrified to see that the lantern was not nearly as bright as it had been just moments earlier, and that it was, even when pointed correctly, still waning as she sat there. She turned partially back toward Beatríz, bent near her ear, and whispered something. Beatríz opened her eyes—wide—and smiled at Elli.
“Okay, Elli,” Beatríz said languidly. “I don’t want to go on any longer, but, I know . . . ” she sighed, “I can want to want . . . and hope to hope again, even though it all seems so not promising, Elli. I’d rather just die right here—right now—or finally really wake up from this nightmare—than to face it all again, Elli, and likely worse.” Beatríz then closed her eyes and relaxed her limbs, as if, or so it seemed to Elli, she had actually decided not to want to want—nor to hope to hope; not any longer. Nevertheless, inexplicably, Beatríz sat up, and in a single, brisk movement sprang to her feet, taking the lantern from her still-kneeling friend and