Read Online To Be Free by Marie-Ange Langlois - Free Book Online

but it's
not exactly caused by anything that medication can cure. I only
wince whenever light hits my eyes a little too harshly, the edges
of the sky alight with a red glow of the setting sun - the only
indication of time passing, the rest of the sky a vast stretch of
furious clouds.
    The trail begins after a quick
half-run along the side of the lodge, following a dirt path slick
with mud that threatens to make us fall to its crude embrace, and
stretching into the dark depths of the forest full of leaves
already promising the approach of fall. The leaves and pine needles
are turning different shades of orange and red, and they swallow us
whole as we trek through its trap.
    Quinn and I don't speak much
through the first few miles we put between us and the lodge; both
of us lost in our own musings and the circumstances that brought us
both here in the first place, and ignoring the worsening weather as
best as we can along the way.
    The path is relatively
straightforward, following a gradual incline and slope as we
carefully step along the slick earth promising us free skating
lessons sooner or later. There are a scattering of all sorts of
trees around us with their leafy arms stretching out towards us,
fingers trying to snare us. The rain lets up long after my ankles
have started throbbing and we pass the latest landmark: a natural
spring surrounded by the skeleton of a home, nothing worth writing
home about in weather like this.
    Cloak sitting heavily on my
shoulders, weighed with the rainfall that visits us in bursts - I
gave up on tugging my cowl on and off, and it now simply slits
behind my neck - I propose a respite and find a decent enough perch
on one of the rocks within a ring of the boulders jutting from the
earth in a manner similar to teeth, and pull off my pack with a
sigh of relief.
    Eleven sits nearby, leaving a
respectful distance between us as he, too, removes his burden and
sets it on the muddy ground to massage his calves, wincing.
    "We've still got a ways to go,"
I inform him breathlessly, but he waves off the information and
stands, slipping slightly on the mud and heading into the bushes
with a crude remark thrown over his shoulder - to put it more
kindly than he, he's going to see a man about a horse.
    I do likewise, heading in the
opposite direction for the sake of privacy, and return once I've
taken care of business to see him rifling through his pack,
returning victorious with a canteen and a pack of dried fruit. He
sits down just as I slip on a patch of mud, struggling for purchase
and finding none a split second before I fall unceremoniously to
the waiting earth below.
    Quinn laughs as I land with a
bone-jarring thud on my ass, and I curse his mother's grave as I
pick myself back up, my vision tilting dangerously and a thick red
haze pulling at the objects around me. Staggering, I lean against
the nearest tree and close my eyes, breathing carefully and trying
to ignore the ringing in my ear and the hushed, excited whispers in
my ears - choosing instead to focus on Quinn's ramble, though
trying to find his curious voice in the cacophony of chaos in my
ears is near impossible.
    Imagine standing in the middle
of the world's biggest marketplace, and everyone's talking at the
same time to the point where you can't hear your own thoughts. Now,
add that to the sight of seeing more than one place at once, and
you'll just about have me.
    "Seb?" I hear, and I latch onto
that voice and tiredly motion with my hand for him to keep talking,
breathing shallowly through my mouth. He does so, carefully, and
starts talking about his wife - or ex-wife, now. "I met her through
a friend of mine..."
    His monologue continues on
beyond that, but I don't focus on the words so much as the sound of
his voice - rising and falling, deep tones that catch the interest
of an ear as it brings you along a soothing ride. It's a voice
anyone could fall asleep to - and try to fight the nausea. When I
open my eyes I can still see the