In The Beginning by Gail Daley (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

“It’s a very...nice cloak. And...some magic.” I smiled, taking her hand again. She eyed me a raised eyebrow for a moment, but turned around and resumed our trek through the trees. The dripping rain and biting winds felt so much colder now, but I welcomed it gladly. My eyelids were growing heavier by the minute, and the freezing weather certainly woke me up.

At least, it did for a while. Time was hard to track in the darkness, but it wasn’t long until my head began to droop again, even through the elements. I was stumbling harder and more often, causing Lia to look back in worry. I would smile and nod, doing my best to continue walking until I stumbled again. We must be nearly there by now...I’m sure it’s just...another few…

I woke up to a shooting pain in my shoulder. I cried out in agony, but immediately clamped my jaw shut and put my hand over my mouth. Apparently, I had fallen asleep while walking and woken up when I landed hard against a protruding root. Lia was crouched over me, trying to help me up. “Lux, oh...Lux, I-I don’t know...I don’t know what to do.” It looked as though she was about to cry.

“It’s...fine.” I rolled over onto my back. “You should...keep going. I’ll...stay here...get some sleep.” Although the situation was serious, I couldn’t help but laugh. What a pitiful display. “They won’t...find me out here. And they won’t...be looking for you...” Having correctly guessed her captor’s plans so far, I felt confident that there was no record of Lia being kept down in the dungeon. They won’t be looking for her. Just me.

“You know I’m not going to leave you out here.” She knelt down next to me, taking my hand in hers. “You know that, right?”

I closed my eyes for a long moment, but miraculously opened them again without falling unconscious. “Yeah...I know. Even though...you should.” I smiled. “You really should.”

Lia smiled back at me. “I still have a list of questions for you. You don’t get to avoid it that easily.” She sprang to her feet and looked around, searching for something I couldn’t see. Whatever it was she seemed to find it, running off into the darkness for a moment before returning with an excited look on her face. “If you can go just a little farther, I’ve found somewhere you can sleep.”

Grunting, I took a few tries to roll onto one knee, and with Lia’s help, I regained my footing. “This better be...worth it. That root...was really...comfortable.” In all my lives, I had never felt as drained as I did in this moment. It took every ounce of willpower, plus a heavy dash of support from Lia’s shoulder, to walk me the short distance to the spot she had found.

A large, gnarled tree stood before us, some sort of strange amalgam of branches and trunks from multiple plants wound into a single structure. Lia led me towards the base, shrugging out from under my arm as I gripped onto one of the branches for support. “Look in here!” She pointed to the base of the tree in front of her. From my angle, it just looked like any other strange tree, and I failed to find any significance in her discovery. As I pulled my way along the branch, I came to see that near the base of the tree where two of the trunks wound together there was a small gap where a person just might be able to squeeze through.

“What am I...looking at here, Lia?” I let go of the branch and plopped to the ground roughly, my head swimming. My eyes were staying closed longer and longer every time I blinked, and I knew that it wouldn’t be long until I fell unconscious.

“It’s a hiding place! I think it should be big enough for us to fit inside.” Lia pointed in between the two tree trunks. “The wood twists around enough to make a little hollow area inside. Nobody will see us in there!”

“So, it’s...still us, then?” I coughed hard, bringing stars back to swim before my eyes. “I can...slip right in there...and you can go home.” I was doing my best to hide just how bad of a state I was in, but I knew she could see right through me. “We must be...close by now.”

She walked up to me with an irritated expression. “Get in the tree, Lux.”

I sat in stunned silence for a moment, then chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.” Crawling my way to the hole, I slowly removed my effects and passed them through, then followed suit myself feet first. It was a tight squeeze around my waist, but I was able to wiggle my way through into the interior of the tree. From inside, I could see that the whole structure was composed of three different trees, all having grown from nearly the same spot in the ground.

The chamber was composed in such a way that I could half lie, half lean onto the wood behind me, creating a recliner-like bed. It wasn’t comfortable by any means, but it wasn’t painful either. I had just enough room to lay out straight, only having to slightly curl my legs. Once I stopped fidgeting, Lia came to the entrance. “I’m coming in now.” Where I had taken around half a minute to awkwardly shimmy my way into the hollow, Lia gracefully slid through in mere moments. With me already inside, there wasn’t enough room for her to easily adjust her position, so she gently leaned back against me, curling up into my chest.

I let out a long sigh, finally able to relax my aching body. Although we weren’t in the most comfortable of circumstances, I found Lia’s slight frame curled up against me soothing. My hazy mind began to wander, and I found myself forgetting where I was and who I was with, living