Outsider, pt 5

"So this is the site?"

"This is the place."

Charlie looked around. The spot Tara indicated didn't seem any different than the rest of the forest, but maybe he just couldn't see it. They had walked up a slope to get here, so it could have some kind of strategic value. With the trees blocking the view all around them it looked nothing like the look-out spot they were ostensibly building, but the way the landscape tended to shift and change under their feet with every step, Charlie couldn't even be sure these trees would stick around. He could only be sure of one thing. This was where Tara said he should build the Hollow, and that's what he would do.

Some hours later, Rita had cleared away most of the trees and thorny bushes, with some help from Cale -- or Mikhail, as Tara called him.

"OK, I think I know which ones we could use. These five trees, see?" Charlie pointed them out to Rita. "I think they're tall enough to reach each other and thick enough to bear the load. What do you think?"

"Me?" Rita looked non-plussed. "Sure, I dunno."

"They would need some support. Is there any way you could strengthen them?" Tara asked.

"Me? I dunno."

"All right. Charlie?"

"I have some ideas," Charlie said. "I don't know if they'll work. We'll just have to try."

They started working, suggesting strategies as they went along. Charlie soon found himself caught up in the creative work, the fluid improvisation, ideas surging back and forth among them like waves against opposing shores, shaping and reshaping in their minds while their physical surroundings were reshaped in response. Hours of gruelling, repetitive tasks were broken up by flashes of inspiration, new ideas to try out.

Then, Charlie couldn't breathe. He was on hands and knees, feeling like his eyes would pop out of his head and his heart would explode. Inexplicably, Turner was by his side first, even though the strange little man kept out of sight for most of the build.

"What happened?" That was Tara's muffled voice coming through a haze of darkness. Charlie wanted to run, get away from some imagined aggressor, but his vision was receding into pinpricks of light. A detached part of him realized he was delirious with fear, but once again it was impossible to stop the torrentuous onset of emotion. He felt someone holding him, and something in his mouth.

As soon as he came to, Tara spoke.

"Did you use your Contract?"

"I... ah, ow." Charlie's right hand was sore. He was sitting up.

"Sorry, you were kind of violent," Mikhail's unmistakable voice said behind him.

"Oh. I... I just, there was a crack in one of the trunks. I think, I panicked and I held my finger to it, and it, er. It was just fixed."

"Sounds like Artifice," Turner remarked, somewhere to his left. "Doesn't explain why he freaked though."

"Your Contract was bound to dredge up memories, sooner or later." Tara sat on her haunches in front of him and gave him her best look of understanding, which seemed uncomfortable on her wooden face. "Just remember, we will be here to take care of you if it happens again, all right? We took an oath."

"Tell that to my hand."

"It is fine. You would have hurt yourself much worse if we had not stopped you. We could not let you do that. The oath forbade us to stand idly by and let you destroy yourself."

"Destroy- You don't mean- I wouldn't do that."

"Maybe not physically."

Several days passed in a flurry of activity interspersed with frozen moments. Mikhail precariously balancing a tree trunk on his back while Tara and Charlie tried to wriggle it into place. The ominous snap of wood echoing like a gunshot when Rita lost her concentration. Going back to the drawing board. Eating strange berries that Turner brought them. Butting heads with Tara over the plans. Charlie became unsure which moment followed which, or if chronological order even meant anything in the Hedge.

After what could have been weeks or months, they were a well-oiled machine. The work came so easily to him that it began to appear to Charlie that the reshaping of the Hedge was no longer a physical task. No sooner would they agree on an idea or a solution to a problem than the Hedge would bend to fit their needs.

Charlie opened his eyes. They were sitting in a circle, on a floor of packed earth. The walls around him seemed to have grown out of the earth. Trees and branches were ensnared above him, some of them conjoined as if having sprung from the same roots.

"What's... going on? Are we done?"

"It certainly looks that way."

"But how? I'm not sure what we did."

"Wow. Man, this is awesome!" Rita started standing up, but Turner's spindly fingers quickly locked around her elbow and pushed her to the ground.

"Everyone be quiet," he murmured. "There's something in here with us."