Mercury, Passage Four
Mercury’s feet were on solid ground again, and she truly thought she might be hallucinating. There was no possible way an old woman could have lifted a human body with her mind. It didn’t really matter to Mercury though. She was free.
She glanced toward both openings in the cave. The one on the left was closer, and she darted toward it with the speed of a jungle creature. The old woman may have been harmless, but she didn’t want to wait any longer to find out.
“Curious girl,” the old woman murmured. With a wave of her hand, Mercury’s right foot skidded backwards, causing her to fall forward. Her nose almost made contact with the stone ground, but her body halted. She was hovering about an inch above the cave floor.
“Let me go!” Mercury demanded.
“You really don’t know who you are, do you?” the old woman asked.
“I don’t want to listen to your tall tales!”
“Prophecies are not tall tales.”
The old woman lifted Mercury into the air, rotating her body in a proper stance. She peered into her eyes like before. Mercury could sense her inner self being analyzed.
“Where do you have to go?” the old woman asked.
“To my mother,” Mercury answered.
“Hmmmm, she’s not well.”
“How do you know that?”
“The flouros.”
“Then you should also see that there is no one to care for her except me. I need to leave now.”
“You will not make it through the jungle. The Coalition will find you. Stay the night, and I will help,” the old woman offered.
“How can I trust you?” countered Mercury.
“I would have killed you already if I wanted to,” the old woman answered, smirking. “I will let you spend the night, but you must do me a favor. Take one of my figurines and hang it from a tree outside the cave. I will need protection.” She gestured to the handmade trinkets that scattered the ground. They were in the shape of a cross and made of long leaves and blue bark from the jungle.
“Do they have the power of the flouros?” Mercury asked.
The old woman chuckled.
“No, no, no, no. Other jungle travelers stay away when they see these hanging from the trees. They make it look like a witch lives in this cave. You can leave here through that opening. Any branch is suitable to hang the figurine. Once it is hanging, you are welcome to come back inside. Or if you would prefer to leave, you may do so. I won’t stop you.”
With a flick of her wrist, the old woman whisked one of the crosses into the air and placed it in front of Mercury.
“I don’t have to come back in the cave if I don’t want to?”
“Do as you wish,” the old woman answered.
Mercury grabbed the cross from the air, and then she was lowered back to the ground.
“It’s a simple walk down that path.”
“Will I have to swim at any point?” Mercury asked.
“Of course not,” the old woman replied. “Why would you think that?”
“This is an underwater cave, right?”
The old woman cackled again.
“And I’m sure you heard that there are two other witches that live here too?”
“They did say three witches lived in an underwater cave somewhere in the jungle.”
“Rumors,” the old woman smiled. “You must be wary of what the other fugitives say.”
“I never said anything about fugitives,” Mercury replied with a tone of suspicion in her voice.
“Even a creature unfamiliar with the flouros would have correctly assumed that you were escaping the Coalition’s prison. No one runs that fast in the jungle if they weren’t in trouble.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Mercury shouted.
“The Coalition does not need a good reason for you to be in trouble,” the old woman shook her head in dismay. “Take the figurine, hang it high on a tree. And return if you wish.”
Mercury’s feet were back on solid ground again, and she nodded in agreement to the old woman. The path leading outside of the cave was dark and winding, but it did not have many extraneous rocks cluttering the walkway. After about ten or fifteen minutes, Mercury could see a white light pouring in ahead. It was the moon shining through a few bushes that covered the main opening to the cave. She maneuvered her way through bushes and discovered the most magnificent view.
The cave opening was maybe a hundred or so feet above the ground, nestled on a plateau of a mountain ridge that overlooked the jungle. Above her head, Mercury saw about forty or fifty of the handmade crosses hanging from the blue trees. It was an eerie sight in the moonlight, but she smirked, knowing that the trinkets held only as much power as an onlooker’s imagination would give them. She climbed a nearby tree and lassoed the cross around a long branch.
The moon overhead was full and bright. She saddled one of the branches and nestled her back into the trunk of the large tree. Gazing into the sky, she finally breathed a sigh of relief. The old woman may be a little peculiar, she thought, but she might be able to help Mercury find her mother. The large, flying creatures of the jungle flew across the face of the moon as the young woman drifted off to sleep.
Next post: Mercury, Passage Five
Previous post: Mercury, Passage Three
Fiction posts: A Star Gaze
Non-fiction posts: A Floating Idea, Day Two: Willpower or Discipline?, Beauty and the Beast Remake Got It Wrong
Mercury Series: Mercury, Passage One, Mercury, Passage Two, Mercury, Passage Three, Mercury, Passage Four, Mercury, Passage Five, Mercury, Passage Six
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