It was late into the night when we eventually reached the bottom of the hill. It was cool, but the humidity helped make the night perfectly warm. This was a gross misrepresentation of what I was feeling. A recently recovered Phillip hopped his way towards us. He struggled with every movement, regardless he tried his best to assist me with Mallory (he did so by placing one of her legs on his head). We dragged on for about a block before I collapsed.

Exhaustion had finally overtaken me. My body ached and with my face in the dirt I sobbed. Mallory stirred on the ground next to me. I lifted my heavy head to watch her slowly return to consciousness. Cautiously nudging her helped and soon she rolled over onto her back.

Mallory cleared her throat, "where are we? What happened?"

Through a stifled sob I said, "I was so scared, Mallory. He was taking you, and I thought I was never going to see you again."

With a voice full of concern Mallory said, "what happened?"

After I told her what I had done she remained silent.

I rolled over onto my back before asking, "are you okay?"

She sat up, "yeah I’m fine. I’m just..." she bit her lip, becoming silent again. After a moment she continued, "how could you do it by yourself? I could have helped you, you know? And what if he had killed you?" Mallory’s anger outshone the fear and worry she had for me, however I could have sworn I detected a sliver of jealousy.

"Don’t worry about that." I attempted to sit up but a splitting headache I hadn’t known was afflicting me caused me to fall onto my back. "I’m immortal now."

Phillip hopped over to my head. He licked the spot where the pole had pierced my skull and I could easily feel his tongue. I had a bald spot.

Mallory threw me a look of confusion, "what? How?"

Raising my wrist off the ground I held my limp hand out so she could see the ring, "because of this."

Mallory, still confused, asked, "what?"

"It makes me immortal, and can turn into a knife." I let my hand hit the ground.

"How do you know this?"

"When I died, I spoke with the Knowledge-"

"The Knowledge? Knowledge of what?" She interrupted.

"I don’t know, I didn’t ask. She just called herself ’The Knowledge." I continued, "she said I had to sign some paperwork to become immortal."

"And you did it?"

I said yes then showed her the newly formed patch of skin underneath my chin. As I did so I described the feeling of the metal pole going through my skull.

Mallory grabbed me by the sides of my face and pulled my head down. Her fingers ran across the bald spot that was now among my dark hair.

"It look’s, like you’re already growing back your hair."

When my fingers touched the spot I could feel a hint of baby hairs poking through my skin.

We sat in silence for a handful of moments. The realization that we now had freedom soon hit us. I began to recall the feeling of joy and expressed it to Mallory. She too was joyous, if only for a moment.

"We need to get prepared." she said to me.

I asked her, "for what?"

"If anyone else ever threatens the town again, we’ll be able to stop them," she took my hands in hers, "together this time." Her luminous smile was an unexpected star in the dark.

* * * * *

We had agreed to do Mallory’s ritual the next day. Due in part because we weren’t sure when any one else would become unfuzzy, due in other part to Mallory’s excitement at the prospect she may be special.

It was a beautiful day, the heat from the sun was near perfect and when it grew too much, a friendly cloud moved in front to protect us from the heat. All morning long the sky was so. Around midday we managed to gather everything we needed to perform the ritual.

Unable to read the language of the weavers, I asked Mallory to write down the translation so I could help as best I could. Some steps seemed odd and I had no knowledge of how it all would result in Mallory being able to create inseams. However the irony of me possessing a ring that can become weapons and travel through my blood stream was not lost on me.

Philip and Melengelle watched as Mallory and I set everything up.

The ritual called for Mallory to do it while wearing a pure white dress weaved by ten handless maidens, but we were certain that was purely aesthetic. She wore a cream colored oversized sweater instead.

A bowl full of assortments sat atop a chair that we had placed in the middle of Mallory’s backyard. Mallory stepped to the chair then held the bowl in both her hands. As the bowl was raised to the sky Mallory began to, in the language of the Weavers, say something along the lines of, "Thy will is my will. My will is the will of the universe." She then said a series of other phrases, which I wasn’t too keen on listening to because I didn’t want to miss my que.

The ritual called for "the beauty of nature" to be added to the bowl, so when the bowl returned to the chair, Mallory grabbed a handful of leaves and twigs that we had set by the foot of the chair beforehand, and placed them into the bowl. We didn’t have a stone pestle to mix the spices and leaves so Mallory used random rock. After mixing the ingredients she lifted her hands to the sky. After Brief silence and a deep breath she returned her attention to the bowl.

The ritual then asked for "a perversion of nature’ which we were certain meant something unnatural, or made by anything that wasn’t nature itself. We decided on using a wooden spoon. Using the rock, Mallory smashed the spoon. She lifted her hands and became silent again, my que. I quickly walked up to her and handed her the thinnest kitchen knife we had found. Taking the knife in her left hand Mallory used it to cut her right palm. She made a fist to force as much blood out of the cut as she could. Blood dripped onto the odd mixture Mallory had created. Then she said something that translated to, "My will is thine will, for thee is I. Thy will is mine will, for I am a piece of thee." At that, she jammed her hand into the bowl.

I stood right beside, prepared for this moment. The lighter I held had already been lit, so when Mallory’s hand was fully submerged I was quickly able to ignite the mixture.

With the mixture lit, bright light danced across all our faces as the flame grew and became a myriad of vibrant colors. Soon the fire became too bright for us to handle, causing Melengelle and I to look away. Phillip however, shut his eyes and used his ears to cover them. Through my own eyelids I could see the bright light diminishing. When the light had faded enough I risked it and took a peak, before fully committing to opening my eyes.

Mallory stood by the bowl that was now flipped over on the ground, with its contents strewn around it. The right arm of her sweater was burned off, along with its shoulder and the lower part of her neck hole, which exposed part of her clavicle. She held her right hand near her face. When she noticed I was watching again she moved her hand to show me her palm. It had a reddish pink mark that looked like a small explosion had occurred. Thin reddish pink marks extended to her fingertips from the explosion mark. The mark slimmed and continued on her wrist. Passing her wrist the reddish pink hue coiled around her arm, like a snake climbing a tree. From this coil came slim strings of color and it was then that I realized the thin sections of the mark were mimicking Mallory’s nervous system. At her shoulder the reddish pink mark wrapped up from her back, over her shoulder, then down towards her heart. At that point the mark seemed to become another explosion with tendrils of nervous system mimicry emanating from it. I say it seemed, because it was difficult to see anything below her clavicle.

Her face gleamed with excitement, "This is so cool!" She pointed her palm at Melengelle and Phillip who were rushing over to us.

Melengelle took Phillip in her arms to make it easier for him to look at Mallory’s mark.

Melengelle asked, "can you do something?"

"I think so," Mallory responded.

I held out a small spool of white string. Mallory cut a length of string equal to the distance between the tip of her middle finger and the bottom of her wrist. She did not use the scissors I provided, she simply used her pointer finger and thumb causing the string to simply be cut. Using the string she made a circular symbol with lines of string running through its diameter. The string solidified into the shape, as if it was made of some kind of wire. She picked up the rock she had used to mix and attempted to apply the string to it. The string immediately dissolved into the rock, leaving a symbol shaped, clothing like inseam on the rock.

For a moment nothing happened. Then suddenly Mallory began to sway as if she had nearly fainted. Melengelle dropped Phillip and helped me support Mallory.

"Are you okay? What happened?" I asked, trying to hide my worry.

"Yeah, I’m good," Mallory said. "I just- hmm. Let me try something else."

We let her go. For another moment nothing happened, then mallory lost her balance again, however she was able to catch herself.

"One more time," she said.

On this attempt the rock she was holding immediately became wet, to the point that Mallory could hardly hold it. Not that she wanted to continue. She quickly dropped the rock, clapped her hands with glee.

"I did it!" she shouted, "my gosh I did it!"

"You made the rock wet?" I asked.

"Yeah!" she took a deep breath to calm herself down before explaining. "The first time I tried to turn the rock into water, but that really hurt my brain. but not my brain. Like it hurted the part of my brain that isn’t physical."

"Riight," I said, not really understanding.

She continued, "then I tried to make water come from the mark. That hurt too but not as bad. So then I thought about the rock just being wet, and it worked!" she shouted that last part. "I think the more complicated it is to do, the stronger I have to be."

"How do you get stronger?" I asked.

"Dunno. Studying hopefully. But now at least translating will be so much easier." Mallory glowed with pride.

She really was something special.

"Oh my gosh Mel!" Mallory shouted, startling my sister. "Do you want super cool powers like us?"

Melengelle promptly shook her head no.

"That’s fine!"

With no intention of interrupting her celebration I ask, "So what now?"

Mallory simply smiled, "well with the Scarred Man gone-"

I have failed to mention. I lied to Mallory. I told her the scarred Man had run away in fear when he saw my knife. I had not informed her of the fact i murdered him. The truth could have saved us much anguish. Not likely. I doubt much would be different had I been honest that night.

"With the Scarred Man gone," Mallory said, "We can get rid of that meat in our water supply, and officially save the town!

"Let’s go tomorrow, I assume you want to practice with your new powers?"

Mallory nodded in agreement. For the rest of the day Mallory tried her best to ignite things using the fire inseam, managed to make other things wet, and even figured out how to pop small balloons with a "pop" inseam.

She was so happy that night, it was enough to bring me hope.

But hope can be dangerous when you don’t fully understand the grasp your monsters truly have on your cursed town.

Next Chapter: The End (Not Really the End)