Page 96 of Mud

“Each of us will find our key when we find the blood we spilled,” the woman told me, her voice just as dead still, though she was a bit breathless. She was trying to keep her calm, just like the others and I were, but it was easy to see she was having a hard time of it.

“Who told you that?” I asked when I was done with my second puddle and moved on to the one she’d been searching until now.

Because there had to be another way. There had to be a faster way to figure out which puddle of blood belonged to me, which one held my key. This couldn’t be the only way, damn it. It wasdisgusting!

But the man in the middle raised his head, the one who hadn’t spoken to me at all until now. He had a silver beard and cropped hair and eyes that looked almost violet from the reflection of the blood and the dim red light coming at us from Iris knew where.

“The ghost,” he told me, as if that was supposed to answer my question and make perfect sense to me.

The ghost.

I shook my head, gritted my teeth, and continued to search the puddles.

Nine more players came to the puddle area, for lack of a better term, by the time I found my key in the seventh puddle I searched. My stomach didn’t get any stronger and I didn’t get used to the feeling at all. Everything was so red and thick and warm, and the puddles kept on growing bigger with the more blood spilled by that stage, so when my fingers grazed metal at the bottom of the seventh puddle, I wrapped my fingers around it, turned to the side, and threw up.

Impossible to hold it back, but at least it was over quickly, and I wasn’t the only one spilling my guts in disgust. Dragging myself back on all fours, I just wanted to get away from the puddles before I suffocated on that scent. I just wanted to be somewhere where it smelled nice, and where there was no muddy soil beneath me.

Then I could stop and breathe and get myself together. Then I could look at what I’d found in the puddle and see where to go from there.

I figured wrong.

One second I was dragging myself back with my hands, and the next, the ground beneath me disappeared.

I flipped over and fell into darkness, and I didn’t even have time to scream.

I fell for a few seconds, and then I sawgreen.

So much green, all around me, up and down and to thesides. I slammed against wood so hard, I’d count it as a miracle if my shoulder didn’t detach from my body completely.

Except I didn’t stop anytime soon.

Whatever branch of whatever tree I’d hit with my shoulder, the ground was much,muchfarther below it than it should have been—ifthere was any ground here at all. Because I continued to fall and to scream and to grunt every time I hit a new branch with whatever side of me.

I must have gone down at least fifty trees, which didn’t make much sense.

But eventually I stopped—on a tree, but that’s just the thing.

There was no ground and there was no sky and there was nothing butthis tree.

“By the goddess,” I whispered to myself when I managed to grab a small branch near my head and sit up on the smooth bark I’d landed on.

A few blinks later, I finally saw where I was.

It was beautiful.Absolutely breathtaking. It wasone treethat divided into probably a thousand trunks and branches that went all around, twisting and turning and intertwining together like treesdo notdo. The scent was so pleasant—of leaves after rain, not puddles of blood. The green light came from these flowers that grew on some branches, big, as big as my palm, with what looked like lightbulbs in between their green petals. Sturdy-looking ropes hung from everywhere, and some leaves were as big as my entire body. The branches must have gone up at least a hundred feet, judging by how long I’d fallen, and when I leaned out to look down, all I saw was that they were endless.

More branches as thick as trunks—or maybe theyweretrunks. More leaves. More lightbulb flowers. More green light.

No ground in sight whatsoever.

Then I looked up and saw the wolf staring at me.

It was the closest thing to an out-of-bodyexperience I’d ever had. I was sitting there holding onto my shoulder that felt like it might fall off me if I let go, not sure if my bad leg hurt, if the other was wounded or not, not sure if I could stand, let alone walk. Not sure if this was real or if I was dreaming.

And there he was, three branches away, standing proud with his silver and dark grey fur moving slightly with the slow breeze, his eyes amber, like honey, wide and beautiful, his ears perked up, sharp, easily picking up the sound of my galloping heart.

A wolf was standing with me on the tree, and if he jumped at me, there was no way in hell that I could protect myself from him. I wouldn’t be fast enough to draw a gun or a knife. He’d reach me before I touched a handle.

That’s why I was completely frozen. I didn’t move. I didn’t blink. I barely breathed.

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