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“Answer the question,” the scarred woman said as the smoke curled up from her charred arms and her crown of feathers smoldered into flame.
“Which one?” Ellie demanded as terror tightened her voice.
The ash fell closer. Delicate flakes of it brushed against Ellie’s hands, sparking bursts of scorching pain.
“What do you want?” the woman replied.
Ellie opened her mouth to scream.
?
She woke with a jolt.
Her guts immediately revolted against the precipitous movement. Ellie stumbled upright, almost falling from the platform, and then shoved her way out the mosquito netting. She lost the remnants of last night’s lizard behind a fledgling palm as she leaned against the trunk for support.
Her head pounded in time with her own heartbeat as the horror of the dream receded, the pieces of it dissolving like smoke.
Ellie tried to cling to the details, but the remnants slipped away at another roil from her stomach.
She staggered out of the brush a few minutes later to find Adam crouched in front of the fire. More hearts of palm were staked there to grill, along with the carcass of a large catfish.
“Hey, you’re up!” he called over cheerfully without looking at her. His eyes were still on the fire he was tending. “I was starting to think I’d have to shake you out of there. It’s fish and palm hearts for breakfast. Not exactly eggs and bacon, but it’ll get us going.”
As the last wisps of the dream faded, Ellie was forced to acknowledge the obvious. The headache, the nausea, the awful dryness of her mouth… all of it clearly indicated that she was suffering from the legendary after-effects of an overindulgence in spirits.
Adam had consumed at least as much of the blasted stuff as she had. He appeared perfectly, infuriatingly fine.
He finally glanced up at her as she staggered over, and immediately winced.
“Why don’t you sit down, Princess?” he suggested carefully.
“This is your fault,” Ellie muttered thickly as she dropped herself onto a nearby log.
The movement made the pounding in her head intensify.
“Just hang on there a minute,” Adam ordered.
He hopped to his feet with all his usual ease, and then plucked a large green orb from beside the fire. He hacked at it with his machete, pieces of husk flying into the air around him, until he finally chopped open the fibrous exterior.
“Drink,” he ordered as he handed it to her.
“What is it?” Ellie asked blearily.
“A coconut?” he replied, eyeing her a little skeptically.
Ellie frowned at the big, heavy fruit in her hands.
“Why isn’t it brown?” she demanded.
“Because it’s fresh,” Adam returned carefully.
“Yes.” Ellie mustered an authoritative tone. “Of course. Just slipped my mind for a moment.”
‘Slipped my mind’ felt like a better excuse for failing to recognize the obvious shape of a cocos nucifera drupe thanyou have burned away half my brain with your demon drink.
“Take that down while I cut you another,” Adam said. “It’ll help with… er, everything.”
Ellie lifted the drupe to her lips and sipped.
