The Finisher

VIGINTI QUINQUE: The Wall of Twiddle Twaddle

I STARED AT DELPH, dumbfounded.

He drew closer and held the book up even higher. “To the Quag, I’m meaning, eh,” he said in a too-loud voice.

“I know it’s the bloody Quag,” I said fiercely, finally finding my voice. “And you don’t have to tell every Wug in Wormwood about it. Where did you find it?”

In a far quieter voice, he said, “Box in the ho-hole you d-dug.”

“How did you know about that?”

“Wa-watched you, di-didn’t I?”

“Have you read it?” I asked in a whisper.

“N-not all. But it don’t s-say h-how a Wu-Wug gets th-through it,” he said.

He eyed my waist. Rather, he eyed the chain around my waist.

“You ca-can fly,” he said. “’Cause-a that thing?”

I felt myself growing angry. “You’re sounding very logical, Delph. Was it all an act before? Because if it was, you are the biggest, sorriest git I’ve ever met.”

He fell back a step, his face betraying his hurt feelings. “I ca-can talk, Vega Jane, when I want to. But th-things get mu-mu-muddled up here.” He touched his head and sat down on a stump and gazed pitifully up at me, the book dangling between his fingers. My anger faded as I looked at his hurt features.

“Where’d y-you ge-get it?”

“I found it at Quentin Herms’s cottage. He was the one who put it together.”

“So’s he’s b-been through the Qu-Quag?”

“I guess so.”

“Then th-the Out-Ou — th-the Out —”

We eyed each other for about a sliver but said nothing.

He held the book up to me. “Ta-take it,” he said, and I did. “No map-a the Qu-Quag,” he pointed out.

“I have one,” I replied.

“Where?”

“Someplace safe.” I sat next to him on the ground. This actually would be my best opportunity to have my most pressing question answered and I intended to do just that. “I had a vision. Would you like to hear it, Delph?”

“Vi-vision? What, like Mor-Morri … gone?”

“Maybe more certain even than that. I went back in time. Do you see?”

I saw him mouth the words back in time. But no realization spread over his features. “Wha-what, like when y-you was a ti-tiny thing?”

“Even before that. But when I was younger I saw someone, Delph. I saw you.”

He looked truly unnerved by this, his face frozen in fear. “The Hel you say.”

“I saw you at Morrigone’s house.”

He shook his head savagely. “You ca-can’t ha-have.”

“I saw you running away from her home. You were so scared, Delph.”

He put his hands up to his ears, covering them. “’Tain’t true, ’tain’t.”

“And I saw Morrigone. She was scared too.”

“’Tain’t true!” Delph exclaimed.

“And I think I know what you saw.”

“No … n-no … no,” sobbed Delph.

I put my hand on his quaking shoulder. “The red light? You remember you told me about the red light? Was it Morrigone’s hair you saw? Was that the red light?”

Delph was swinging his head to and fro. I was afraid he was going to jump up and run off. But I swore to myself that if he did, I would fly after him. I would run him down and make him tell me the truth. I needed to know that badly.

“She was there, wasn’t she? And my grandfather? At her home? His Event? It happened then and there, didn’t it?” I shook him. “Didn’t it, Delph? Didn’t it!”

He shouted, “I was there, Vega Jane!”

“With Morrigone? And my grandfather?”

He nodded.

“Why were you there? Why? You have to tell me.” I shook him again. “Tell me!”

His face was scrunched in agony. He doubled over, but I pulled him back upright. I was out of my mind now. I had to know. I didn’t care if I was hurting him. My whole life was apparently a lie. I had to know some part of the truth. I had to know right this sliver.

I slapped him. “Tell me!”

“G-gone to see her new wh-whist hound me dad brung her after he tr-trained it up. H-Harpie. L-loved H-Harpie, I d-did.”

“Then what?”

“Th-thought I could h-hear Harpie inside. T-took a peek.”

“And you went in?”

He nodded, his face still screwed up in pain, his eyes closed. I kept a grip on his arm. I was willing him to keep going. “D-didn’t see no Wug n-n-nowhere. No Har-Harpie neither.”

“Keep going, Delph. Keep going.”

“H-heard a noise. Still n-no Wu-Wug. So’s I w-went up the stairs. I w-was sc-scared.”

“You were only six sessions, Delph. I would’ve been scared too.” I was keeping my voice level now, trying to force the same calm on him.

“G-got closer, hear-heard ’em. Argu-arg-arguing.” He finally got the troublesome word out of his mouth.

“My grandfather and Morrigone?”

He said nothing. I shook him. “Was it them?”

“C-can’t do th-this, Ve —”

“Was it them?” I roared, twisting his face until it was lined up with mine. “Look at me, Delph. Look at me!” I screamed. He opened his eyes. “Was it Morrigone and my grandfather?”

“Yes,” he said breathlessly, tears dribbling from his eyes.

“Any other Wug?” He shook his head. “Brilliant. Keep going, Delph.”

“Them ar-arguing like that, sc-scared me. But … but may-maybe I c-could help, calm ’em down. L-like I’d do w-with the beasts with m-me dad. C-calm ’em down like.”

“I would have thought the same thing, Delph. Calm them down. Trying to help.”

He let out a little sob and I felt so guilty for making him remember all this, but there was no other way. He put his head in his hands and started sobbing, and I jerked him back straight so he had to look me in the eye.

“You can’t stop now. You have to get this out. You have to.”

“T-two doors d-down that way. Nothing b-b-behind the first one.”

“And the second?” I said, my voice like fragile chips of ice in my throat.

“When I saw …” His voice trailed off and he started to whimper. I thought I was going to lose him again. But I didn’t yell this time. I didn’t hit him.

“You saw something that made you really afraid, didn’t you?”

He nodded miserably. “They wa-was f-facing each uh-other.”

“Was she mad at him? Was she angry? And he was trying to calm her?”

His response stunned me. “’Twas the uh-uh-other way round, Ve-Vega Jane. ’Twas M-Morrigone, what l-l-looked scared. She s-s-seemed to be tr-tr-trying to calm him d-down.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “What was she saying to him?”

Delph took deep shuddering breaths, his body twitching with each of them. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was trying to throw off some sick that had got hold of him. He finally stopped twitching, rubbed his face clear of tears and sat up. He looked directly at me. His expression was clear. There was no more pain there.

“Not to go,” Delph said simply. “Please not to go.”

“And what did he say?”

“That he had to. He had to try. He just had to. He kept saying it over and over. So terrible-like. Hear him in me dreams …” His voice trailed off again.

“Go? Go where?” I said more harshly than I intended.

Delph glanced down at me, his face so pale it looked like the Noc close up.

“Didn’t say. And then it happened.”

“The red light?”

The look on his face was so fearful, my heart went out to him. “’Twas fire. Fire the likes of which I ain’t never seen. It was fire that … that was alive. It … it flamed up all around Virgil, like a serpent swallowing him whole. And then … and then he floated up in the air. And then … and then … he was gone. Without making a sound.” Delph paused, staring ahead. “Not one sound,” he added in what was no more than a whisper.

I could barely draw a breath. What Delph had just described was what had happened to my parents. My parents had suffered Events right in front of me. I had seen it! Only I hadn’t known that’s what it was.

I must have been looking blankly off because I was roused only when Delph gripped my shoulder and shook me.

“Vega Jane, are you all right?”

I still couldn’t speak.

“Vega Jane?” he said in a panicked voice.

My mind drifted back to the memory. I could see the fire swallowing them whole. An Event. Holy Steeples, I had witnessed their Events.

“Vega Jane?” He shook me so hard I nearly fell over.

I finally focused on him. “I’m sorry, Delph. What happened then?” I asked in a hoarse voice, the terrible image of my parents in flames still firmly in my mind’s eye.

He paused, licked his lips. “And then I run ’cause Morrigone saw me.”

“What did she look like?”

“Like she would kill me if she could get to me. I run harder than I ever run in all my sessions. But she was faster. She was there, before I got out the door, she was. Then that’s when it happened.”

“What happened?”

“The red light.”

“But I thought the red light happened with my grandfather. It was the flames.”

“No. The red light … the red light happened to me, Vega Jane.”

I thought back to when I had been in the past at Morrigone’s home. After seeing Delph run away. She had seen me, waved her hand and there had been a blue light.

I looked at Delph. “Delph, are you sure the light wasn’t blue?”

He shook his head. “’Twas red, Vega Jane. ’Twas red. Like the fire.”

“And what happened after that?”

“My head felt all funny-like. But I was running still. I kept running. And … and then that’s all. Just running.” He turned to me, looking drained by all he had recounted. “Why did you ask if the light was blue?”

“Because that’s the color it was when Morrigone waved her hand at me.”

He looked nearly petrified by these words. “You were there?”

“But I never remembered it, Delph. It was gone until I saw it again.”

“But then why did I just remember pieces of it, then? Until now?”

“Difference between blue and red light, I guess,” I said, feeling as drained as he looked. We both seemed to have run countless miles.

But I was also thinking of something else. When I told Morrigone I had visited her home once before, she had seemed immediately tense and suspicious. Now I knew why. She had thought I remembered seeing her all those sessions ago, when she had run out all mad-looking and hit me with the blue light, erasing from my mind what I had seen.

Then something else struck me. I stared hard at Delph.

He finally said, “What is it, Vega Jane?”

“Delph, you’re not stuttering anymore.”

He looked shaken by this observation; his mouth dropped open and then a smile slowly spread over his features. “You’re right.” He smiled more broadly.

“But why?” I asked.

“The words ain’t jargoled no more, Vega Jane.” He touched his head. “In here.”

I put a hand on his arm. “The weight has lifted from you, Delph. I don’t think you’ll ever stutter again. And I’m so sorry I had to put you through that. So very sorry, Delph, because you’re my friend. My only one.”

He looked at me and then to the sky. In the Noc light he looked like a very young again, running alongside me through the woods with nary a care in his heart. And the same for me. I couldn’t even imagine what that would feel like anymore. Even though we weren’t old, we were old with all that we carried inside.

He glanced at me, and the look on his face made me want to weep.

He touched my hand with his. “You’re my friend too. And I’d take you over all other Wugs put together.”

“I’m glad we got through that together, Delph.” I paused and then decided to just say it. “My parents had Events. I saw them. They’re not at the Care anymore. They’re gone.”

He looked at me in horror. “What?”

The tears slid down my cheeks as I continued. “The fire swallowed them up. It was just like you described, Delph. I had no idea what had happened to them, but now I do.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that, Vega Jane.”

“I’m sorry you had to see what you saw too.”

I looked down at the book I still held.

“What about Outliers? Are they in the book?” I asked.

He glanced at me and shook his head. “Outliers? Load-a rubbish.”

I hiked my eyebrows. I had come to agree with him, but I had seen so much that he hadn’t. “Why?”

“If Outliers are out there, what are they waiting for, then? For us Wugs to build this stonking Wall for them to have to get over? Barmy.”

“But you’re helping to build the Wall,” I pointed out.

“And what else can I do?” he said helplessly. “Probably chuck me in Valhall if I didn’t.”

“That’s why they had to put the reward on Quentin’s head,” I said. The answer had just occurred to me, in fact.

“Why?” asked Delph. “What do you mean?”

“They couldn’t simply say he’d had an Event, or a garm had got him. Because that would not have laid the groundwork for the announcement of the Outliers.”

Delph seamlessly picked up my line of thought. “And then to the building of the Wall. ’Cause the one made the other happen.”

“Right,” I said, impressed by his logic. Gone was the mumbly-bumbly Delph with the big heart. He was now strong of both mind and body. And I was pretty sure he would need both. To survive.

What I was about to say might sound to Delph like a spontaneous thought, but I believed part of my mind had been thinking this ever since John left me.

“Delph,” I said slowly.

“What?”

“You asked me if you could come with me through the Quag?”

He kept his gaze right on me. “That’s right. I did.”

“But why would you want to leave Wormwood? It’s all you’ve ever known.”

He scoffed. “What is there here, really, Vega Jane? Forty sessions from now, what will be different about here? And who’s to say there ain’t somethin’ out there, beyond the Quag? If there ain’t been no Wug to go there, how do they know there ain’t nothin’ else? Tell me that. And now they’re putting up this bleedin’ Wall? Har!”

I was so proud of Delph at that sliver that I wanted to snog him.

“I don’t think the Wall is being built to keep Outliers out, Delph. I think it’s being built —”

“To keep us in,” he finished for me.

“Council has lied to us. Krone, Morrigone, even Thansius,” I said quietly.

He nodded absently. “I’ll go with you through the Quag, Vega Jane. On the grave of me mum, I will go with you.”

“Okay,” I said. “If we’re going to really do this, we have to have a plan.”

He glanced at me. “What sort?”

I touched Destin around my waist. “For starters, you’re going to have to learn how to fly too.”

He looked terrified. “Fly? What, up there?” he said, pointing to the sky.

“Well, that’s sort of the point of flying, Delph.”

He put his huge hands up in protest. “I never. I couldn’t, Vega Jane. I’m … I’m too big.”

I stood and motioned for him to stand too and then I turned my back to him. “Put your arms around me.”

“What?”

“Put your arms around me, Delph. And hold tight.”

“Bloody Hel,” he exclaimed, but his arms encircled me. This close, it was surprising how truly big he was, though I had known him all my life.

“Tighter, Delph, you don’t want to fall.”

He squeezed me so tight around my middle that I could barely breathe. “Not that bloody tight!” I barked at him. His grip relaxed a bit. “Now together we’re going to jump, on the count of three. One … two … three.”

We leapt at the same time, straight up. We shot skyward. I could feel Delph’s grip around me tighten. I slowly moved myself forward so that he was now on my back. We raced along only about thirty yards up. The wind whipped over us.

“Bloody Hel!” Delph exclaimed again.

I looked back and up and saw that his eyes were closed.

“Delph, open your eyes. The view is amazing from up here.”

He opened his eyes and looked ahead of us. His grip lessened and I felt his body, stiff as a rock before, grow relaxed. “’Tis beautiful,” he said in an awed voice.

“Yes, it is. Just don’t look down yet. It takes some getting used to and —”

That was a mistake. As soon as I said “don’t look down,” Delph of course looked down. His grip around my waist became iron, his body tensed and he screamed and rolled. That sent us into a dive. We were heading to the ground far faster than I ever had, but then I realized I had never before flown with a 250-pound Wug on my back.

We were totally out of control. Delph screamed. I screamed. We were a few yards from the ground when I reached back and slapped Delph in the face. He immediately stopped thrashing. I regained control, zoomed upward and then back down in a controlled dive this time and we landed, not smoothly, but we landed. As we sprawled on the ground, I looked over at him.

“You almost killed us,” I said hotly. Then my anger faded as I remembered how it had been on my first flight. And at least I had been in control. He was just along for the ride. I stood and helped him up. “That was my fault, Delph. It will be better the next time.”

He looked at me like I was asking him to be best mates with Cletus Loon. “Next time?” he said incredulously. “’Tain’t going to be no next time, Vega Jane.”

“Do you want to get through the Quag?” He sputtered but said nothing. I continued. “Because if we can fly over parts or all of the Quag, we won’t have to worry about what’s in it.” I stared at him expectantly, tapping my boot against the dirt.

Delph blinked, slowly took this in and said, “Let’s give it another go, then, Vega Jane. Har!”