Chapter 48: The Trees Disagreed About Everything

Chapter 48: Chapter 48: The Trees Disagreed About Everything

The witness with the green wrist cloth said the memory had felt like her own until Dante asked about the eyes. She could remember looking down at a white blossom, although her sister said she had worn it beside her ear throughout the exchange.

"Then let’s check whether anyone saw the paths open," Dante said, keeping the chair still while both women began to answer. "A delivery, a cleaner, anything we can check without making you remember it harder, because we’re getting nowhere doing that."

Honey demanded the orchard’s maintenance record, which earned her a complaint about asking after office hours. She pointed at the resident’s bandaged ankle until the attendant brought a slate from the wall cabinet.

When Honey rubbed the slate, a little orchard rose from its surface. Figures swept fruit through the tunnel, with a white blossom beside one worker’s head. Her sister worked at the bridge. Dante asked Honey to pause it there. Whatever their memories said, the tunnel had been open.

The second witness admitted she’d bought a replacement after selling her own memory, trusting its familiar feelings. Anika photographed her receipt while Rhea asked about the exchange counter.

Honey compared dust in the receipt with pollen on the workers’ gloves, then warned that it proved very little by itself. Dante had already begun building an explanation around the match. He crossed it out, annoyed that being careful involved ruining his own good ideas.

Honey demanded to know what else Dante appreciated about her, spreading her wings while Anika watched with dangerous interest. His glance dropped to the fitted yellow fabric beneath her folded arms before he caught himself, which apparently counted as an answer.

"My eyes are behind the glasses, if you need help locating them," Honey informed him, although she looked pleased enough to make his apology difficult. Anika asked whether he needed directions to those as well, and he took the wheelchair handles before his mouth could make the situation worse.

The witnesses agreed to reopen the tunnel long enough to check its first marker. Honey went ahead with the attendant while Dante pushed the chair, Anika kept beside the injured woman, and Rhea carried the treatment note where she could reach it.

Inside, the tunnel smelled of wet stone and crushed apples. Lamps showed a painted line down the middle, and the attendant warned them to stay between it and the left wall until they passed the disputed marker.

Dante watched the painted line instead of the next person’s back, remembering the shuttle arrow turning behind them. When the line slid sideways under the front wheels, he stopped the chair and called for everyone to move back. Honey and the attendant had already passed the nearest doorway, which began closing while the wall beside Dante leaned inward.

Anika pulled the chair back, but its rear wheel caught in a floor groove. Dante put his shoulder against the padded handle, keeping his hurt fingers clear, while Rhea lifted the trapped wheel just enough to release it.

He told the woman what they were doing before moving her chair again, then waited for her to get her injured leg clear of the frame. Rhea counted with him so they lifted at the same time. The wheel came free with a small scrape, and Dante kept pulling until the chair rested on flat stone instead of celebrating with half of it still trapped.

They rolled backward into the wider entrance as the wall narrowed the passage. Honey remained visible through a narrowing gap, pressing her route book into the space as though the tunnel might reconsider after receiving the correct reference material.

"Move back, Honey," Dante shouted. "I would rather argue with you in person than inherit the book."

Honey withdrew the book, but the gap was still shrinking. Dante asked for her number before the wall closed, repeating the digits as he entered them with a stiff finger. He called immediately, relieved when he heard her answer through both the phone and the stone, and asked her to keep the attendant beside her.

"It was an entirely sound route," she told him. "The building has changed its position without consulting me."

Dante asked Honey and the attendant to check their side’s marker while Rhea examined the resident. He apologized for the jolt and explained where Honey was, letting the woman’s grip ease as she heard the complaints through his phone.

Dante asked each witness to read the words at her exit. The tunnel waited for the bridge to open; the bridge waited for the tunnel. He drew arrows between two boxes and showed the women the circle. Both paths were obeying instructions that kept the other shut.

Anika asked who benefited from keeping residents inside, but the attendant said he didn’t know. Dante wanted an enemy he could name too, yet the resident was still waiting in the chair. He asked which rule they could correct using the moving record, and the attendant finally agreed that the two conflicting instructions could not both stand.

The witnesses corrected their account against the moving record, stopping whenever they relied on purchased memories. Anika photographed each change while Rhea explained the wait to the resident.

Dante made both witnesses point out the same destination and asked Honey to read its street sign twice. She complained about being questioned so thoroughly, and he promised her a victory speech once they reached actual pavement.

They spoke their corrections over the slate. The painted line returned to the center, the wall unfolded, and Honey marched through holding a bent book she clearly intended to charge to somebody important.

The attendant issued a temporary exit strip for all three visitors and a medical departure for the injured resident. Her copper band clicked open under the healer’s recorded release, leaving Rhea to bag it with the treatment note rather than throw away their evidence.

Dante asked Honey for the corrected route picture before they moved. He wanted to be able to describe the way out to Blackwell, including which signs had lied. Next time someone followed that shuttle arrow, they deserved better than finding out where it led by getting trapped themselves.

Dante checked all their names on the exit papers before the attendant took the chair. He photographed the crossed-out instructions beside the corrections too, remembering what the original theater picture had finally proved.

The woman asked whether the band was really off, and he showed her its empty place before they moved again.

They continued toward the perimeter with both witnesses accompanying them to the final marker. Dante could see ordinary streetlights beyond the trees when a thin, frightened sound came from a covered transport crate beside the path.

He turned his phone light toward the sound and saw striped fur, small folded wings and a metal loop tightening whenever the young animal struggled. The crate was labeled EMPTY, but its chest was still moving beneath the restraint, and the release handle was outside its reach.