Lizard's Leap: chapter Thirty Five: Sylvia is Dying

‘Please.’

This time there was no doubt about it. There was a whispering voice calling to them in the darkness. It wasn’t just the below-freezing temperatures that made a chill run down their backs.

‘I want to go home. I’m scared,’ wailed Kerry.

Something moved in the darkness and the owl swooped out of the trees, dive-bombing towards them. He flew low, furious to be disturbed in his hunt for food. Then he was gone, back into the cover of the trees, his high, echoing screech ringing loud in his wake. A large shape moved on the nearby grass. They could just about make out its outline.

Vicki broke from the huddle and ran towards the figure lying on the frozen grass. ‘Sylvia,’ she cried. ‘Come quick, you lot, it’s Sylvia.’

They ran to their friend. She was hurt and lying cold and wet in the snow covered grass.

‘Thank goodness,’ she moaned, barely able to speak. ‘Quick, you have to get me into the house. I’m very cold and won’t last out here much longer, my body works differently to yours and can’t withstand the cold.’

Vicki took charge, cradling Sylvia’s head in her arms and making the woman as comfortable as possible. She barked orders at the others who, for once, were happy to be ordered about.

‘Mark, go and find as many warm clothes as you can. Quickly. Kerry, go and make a cup of hot sweet tea. Emma, go to the nearest house and call an ambulance.’

Sylvia didn’t have a phone, because…well, because she had never known anybody who would phone her.

Lying in Vicki’s arms, Sylvia was barely conscious after lying in the sub-zero temperatures all night. Her eyes snapped open and her voice was drawing on all its reserves to yell, ‘No ambulance! I don’t have mortal blood. I can’t go to hospital. I need to get back to Whence, or I’ll die…’

Vicki called Emma back and told her to try and find something that would help them lift Sylvia out of the snow.

Sylvia’s head lolled and her eyes fluttered. The effort of talking had caused her to use the last of her strength and she was losing her fight against the darkness. She was almost unconscious again but she had something else to say. Calling on all of her willpower, she opened her eyes, dispelling the blackness that had come to take her and driving it back. ‘I was coming to tell you when I tripped and fell,’ she said. ‘I’ve been lying there for hours. It might already be too late.’

‘Shush. Don’t try and talk,’ Vicki said. ‘Just lie still.’

Sylvia raised herself up, ignoring the dizziness that was trying to take her into blessed sleep. She had to make them understand the danger they were in.

‘I have to tell you. You must listen. Adobe has been released from The Outer Whither of Whence. He’s free, and he wants the frame. You must be on your guard. He doesn’t know you have it, yet, but he’ll soon find out. Take care, child. I’m weak and I might not make it. I might not be here to help you. So you must protect yourselves. He’s dangerous and he’ll stop at nothing to get the frame and I might not be around to help you.’

Vicki was sobbing. ‘Don’t say that, Sylvia. You’re going to be all right. Of course, you’re going to get better.’

There was so much more Sylvia wanted to say, so much she wanted to warn them about Adobe’s ways, what he might do, but the blackness had hold of her hand and was pulling her away with it. Her head slumped onto Vicki’s chest.

The child was left alone in the snow with the unconscious woman. It seemed like ages before the others came back.

Mark was first with blankets and hot water bottles. They tried to make Sylvia as warm and comfortable as possible.

When they were all gathered around they tried to lift Sylvia onto a blanket so that they could each take a corner and carry her into the house, but it was impossible; she was too heavy. Her pulse was weak. They had no idea what her pulse should be, or even if it should be the same as a human pulse, but they did know that it shouldn’t be the way it was. Sylvia was dying in the snow and they didn’t know where to turn for help.

Kerry was thinking. In times of trouble, Kerry didn’t always appear to do very much to help, but it didn’t mean that her mind was inactive. ‘I’ve thought of something that might just work,’ she said, doubtfully.

‘What,’ Vicki screamed at her cousin. She could feel Sylvia getting weaker beneath her. The cold had numbed Vicki through to the bone and she was in danger of becoming hypothermic, too. Something had to be done. Anything, no matter how slim or remote a chance it was. The frame was dying because Sylvia was dying, not through anything they’d done wrong. Surely this warning to them proved that there must be something that they could do to change it. They were Sylvia’s last chance.

‘For goodness' sake, tell us.’ Vicki yelled, only one step away from total hysteria. But Kerry wasn’t going to be rushed.

She needed to know in her mind that this was a floatable idea before she voiced it aloud.

Eventually, she spoke in an agonisingly slow voice, ‘Vicki, I’m not sure what will happen, but if you go through Granddaddy into Whence and then use the necklace that Sylvia gave us to call her through …wouldn’t that work? Maybe?’

work. Let’s try it,” Vicki said. “You lot stay here and look after Sylvia.'

‘It might work. Either way, it’s all we’ve got so we have to try. We can’t move her and we can’t get help.’

‘I’ll come with you, Vic, in case you need help,’ Mark said.

‘No,’ Vicki shouted at her brother sharply. He looked hurt. ‘No, Mark. You stay here with the others. They might need you if Sylvia gets any worse. You’re the fastest if they need you to get anything.’ This pacified him and made him feel important.