The Way to Impossible Island

by Sophie Kirtley

  Mothgirl stared at the heap of promises piled up by the fireside – the deerskins, the arrowheads, the fish, the knife, the teeth, the boar. The great plenty. She looked down at her own self – her mud-caked feet; her strong legs; her rabbit-skin cape; her tatty deerskin; her well-worn spear. Was this all she was? Was this all she ever had been? Just another promise to be traded for the highest price when the time was right; as precious and powerless as a dead, bloody boar?

  Pa cleared his throat again. He raised his open palm. And finally he spoke.

  ‘Vulture. Be patient. I will speak awhile with my daughter.’

  Mothgirl felt her knees buckle with relief. She gripped Pa’s shoulder to steady herself.

  Vulture laughed his cruel laugh. ‘He will speak with his daughter!’ he repeated mockingly to his men. They laughed too. Then Vulture turned back to Pa, his eyes glinting, and pointed to the rising moon. ‘Speak fast, Eagle. Vulture is kind. But Vulture does not like to wait – when moon is high, Vulture goes,’ he whispered. ‘With trouble girl, or without trouble girl.’ He spat into the fire, which hissed like a warning.

  Pa nodded and rose to his feet, awkward and massive like a great bear. He lumbered into the dark of the forest edge and Mothgirl followed, her unspilt tears held tight in her belly.

  As she passed Vulture he reached out fast and grabbed her arm. Mothgirl gasped; his fingers were tight as teeth. Heart thudding, she turned and stared defiantly into his moon-yellow eyes, breathing the ripe stench of his blood paint.

  ‘Trouble girl,’ he said, his voice dangerously soft and purrish. ‘Do not fight Vulture, trouble girl! You. Will. Lose.’ Quick as a snake tongue he dipped his finger into the pool of blackening boar blood and drew a line with it along Mothgirl’s cheek.

  Mothgirl cried out. She wriggled from his grip and stumbled away after Pa, rubbing at her bloodied face with her arm. She tried not to hear the ACK-ACK-ACK of Vulture’s laughter coming at her through the shadows like a cloud of bats.

  ‘Pa,’ she whispered, her voice full of trembles. ‘Where you?’

  ‘I here,’ said Pa, sitting on a rock in the dark. He sounded weary.

  She went to him and sat at his feet. He put his hand on her head and softly stroked her hair. ‘Mothgirl, my girl,’ he said. ‘You not have woman ways. You not have man ways. You have Mothgirl ways. But Mothgirl. Hear me: winter comes. I am old. I am not strong. I am not fast. I cannot make you safe.’

  ‘But Hart …’

  ‘Hart is gone.’

  Hearing his big voice tremble, she wrapped her arms around Pa’s knees and let the tears fall free down her blood-smeared cheeks. ‘No, Pa,’ she said, squeak-voiced.

  Pa’s words were whispers now. ‘Go with Vulture, Mothgirl. Go.’

  ‘No, Pa. No!’ sobbed Mothgirl, clinging to him. ‘No, Pa! I cannot. No. Vulture want to shape me like clay, Pa!’

  ‘Hear me, my Mothgirl.’ He held her face in his hands, wiping her tears softly with his big rough fingers. ‘You twelve summers old! You need learn woman ways – it is time!’

  ‘I know woman ways – Mole taught me woman ways, Pa!’

  ‘No, Mothgirl, not enough. Dear Mole is in spirit sleep. Listen me; I not want that great plenty Vulture bring here. I not want fine deerskins. I not want picture-spears.’

  Hope flickered in Mothgirl’s heart. She blinked up at Pa.

  Pa kissed her head. ‘I want make safe my Mothgirl,’ he whispered. ‘Vulture is strong man. Vulture have many strong men. Vole is good man for you.’

  Mothgirl threw her hands in the air, anger bursting through her tears. ‘Vole not man! Vole boy! Vole not strong man! Vulture not strong man! Vulture not wise man! Vulture stinking painted shadow man! Vulture untrue! Untrue!’

  ‘Enough, Mothgirl!’ said Pa, his voice gruff now. ‘Some things are done. And some things are simply not the way. You are my daughter; I am your father. I speak; you listen. I say go; you go.’

  ‘Pa!’ Her breath came in short hiccuping rasps. ‘I am your daughter, Pa. I am your Mothgirl. No, Pa! No!’ She clasped his knees with all her strength and she could feel his sobs come trembling then too, like earthshakes.

  ‘Go with Vulture!’ said Pa’s choked voice. ‘Go, my Mothgirl.’

  Some things are done. And some things are simply not the way.

  She had no choice. Mothgirl staggered to her feet, wiping tears from her cheeks.

  ‘Good girl,’ whispered Pa. ‘It is right. It is how it must be.’

  But Mothgirl could not look at him. With wobbly legs and low eyes she stumbled towards the clearing and the ack-ack laughter and the flickering firelight.

  Just on the edge of the shadows she paused. High on the moonlit hilltop ByMySide was watching her. He howled. A call so wild and lonely.

  Aching with broken love, Mothgirl lifted her chin to the moon and howled her very own wild, lonely cry.

  Go with Vulture’s clan? How could this be the way?

  Mothgirl tightened her spear hand. Then she turned and she ran, lynx-fast, into the dark of the night forest. And away.

  Alone. Free. Afraid.

  Mothgirl ran fast through the dark like the forest floor was on fire, her toes barely touched the ground she moved so quick, more like flying than running. She did not keep to the track; that would be foolish; Vulture and his men would find her easily that way. Instead she charged headlong through the twisted undergrowth: the sharp rip of her skin on thorns, the tear of her hair on tangled twigs, the thud and the scamper and the leap of her fast fast feet.

  Behind her Mothgirl could hear shouts. Cruel laughter. Breaking branches. A hunt. She ran faster.

  Down the hill Mothgirl ran, skidding, slipping, righting herself. She didn’t pause at the river for even a breath, she ran right into the cold black water, until, when she was neck-deep, the force of the current knocked her off balance.

  She heard Vulture’s mocking accck-accck laugh close by as she slid away, gasping a last mouthful of air, before the river closed over her head.

  Mothgirl spun around and around in the whirling black water, so that moon was down and riverbed was up, and the fast current swirled her and whooshed her downstream. To where there were rocks, smooth and dark as sleeping whales.

  Mothgirl didn’t see it looming. Deep underwater her head cronked silently on to the rock. Darkest dark.

  Her body loosened. Drifted. Soft and bending like a willow frond.

  The river slowed, carried Mothgirl gently to the quiet place, where white moon rippled in still black water. And there the river left her body, floating and still in the pearly light.

  Mothgirl felt her body gently lifted from the river and laid on cold rock.

  Was she in spirit sleep? Were her waking days ended?

  Her belly up-squeezed. Water, so much water, poured from her mouth, her nose, her eyes. She gasped a breath. Coughed. And another breath.

  Lying there, eyes closed, her head thumped dizzily. She felt a sharp nip on her earlobe; a stinging pinch that zinged with living. Her heart soared with relief; she was not in spirit sleep! She was in her waking days still!

  Something warm and rough stroked her cheek and her hair over and over. She smelt a smell she knew. A smell like forest and meat and rain. ByMySide!

  Mothgirl felt the quick nip of his teeth on her ear again. She opened her eyes and flung her arms around the wolf’s neck, burying her face in his damp fur. He shook her off gently and carried on licking her dry. She lay exhausted, shivering in this darkest dark.

  ‘Where this place?’ she said, and her quiet voice echoed. ‘Where am me?’

  ‘Shhhhhhhh!’ hissed a voice from the deeper dark.

  Someone else was here. ByMySide growled softly and fear danced with ice feet on Mothgirl’s skin.

  She could see nothing but she heard drips dropping and the air smelt wet-cold. She was in a cave.

  But who else was in this cave with her?

  Then Mothgirl heard other voices; man voices. She looked towards the v
oices and saw a jagged crack of pale moonlight where the cave opening must be. Mothgirl held her breath and listened as the man voices came closer.

  ‘Where she?’ spoke a gruff man voice.

  ‘I not know where she, Viper!’ the other replied. ‘Trouble girl tracks stop at river.’

  ‘Maybe not trouble girl! Maybe trouble fish!’

  ‘Ack-ack-ack!’

  The shadow shapes of Vulture’s men blocked the thin band of moonlight. Their footsteps stopped stepping. Mothgirl heard a loud sniff.

  ‘You smell wolf stench?’ whispered one of the man voices.

  Terror clasped Mothgirl’s pounding heart; she dug her fingers deeper into ByMySide’s fur.

  The other man voice sniffed. ‘Ha! You make wolf stench!’ he answered, his ack-ack laugh echoing eerily in the dark as the men walked away.

  Slowly Mothgirl breathed again.

  The voice in the deeper cave-dark breathed too.

  ‘Hart?’ whispered Mothgirl. ‘That you there, Hart?’

  No answer. No Hart.

  ‘Who you?’ said Mothgirl.

  Vulture? said Mothgirl’s fearful thinkings. Vulture had trapped her here …

  Mothgirl’s spear was gone. She reached into her pouch, and from amongst the wet hawthorn leaves she drew her skinning blade, and held it in her fist. ‘Who you? Show you!’ she hissed as she edged slowly into the dark.

  A shuffle sound, scuffle sound.

  Mothgirl turned. Where the moonlight crept in, a shadow shape was shoving and heaving on a rock; the rock rolled aside and dim grey light poured into the cave. Mothgirl gasped.

  Standing in the cave mouth was the small pale shape of the boy who had played the bone whistle. The boy who had slipped off into the night. Voleboy. Vulture’s very own son.

  Mothgirl tightened her grip on her skinning blade and pointed its glinting sharpness at Voleboy.

  He held his spear out in front of him, but as he stepped backwards away from her, his foot slid suddenly on cave pebbles and Voleboy fell to the ground with a sharp yelp, his spear rolling out of his hand and into the shadows.

  Mothgirl sprang. She crouched above the boy, her blade to his fast-rising chest. ‘Why you take me?’ she hissed. ‘Why you put me in this dark dark cave?’

  ‘I … I … I …’ he whimpered. She pressed her blade closer. ‘I – I – I not take you. I find you! I make safe!’

  Mothgirl rubbed her throbbing head, trying to remember: The cold river. The dark. Could it be true?

  ‘You? You make safe me?’ she murmured, and she drew back her blade away from the boy.

  ByMySide growled, like a warning. But Mothgirl was not fast enough. Quick like a snake Voleboy was up, and on his feet. He seized something long and thin and white from his waist pouch.

  Mothgirl remembered Vulture’s antler knife. Sharp and deadly. Why had she listened? Why had she believed? This boy not want make safe! This danger-boy! She leaped back.

  But ByMySide did not retreat with her. The brave wolf padded slowly towards Voleboy, making thunder-groans deep in his belly. The boy with the moon-white knife held his ground as the wolf sank low, preparing to pounce.

  ‘No!’ yelled Mothgirl. She would not let this danger boy kill ByMySide. She would not!

  Mothgirl ran at the boy like an angry boar, head first and bellowing. She knocked him flat and they fell together to the ground, clawing and biting and tearing at each other as they rolled and kicked and spat.

  Both on their knees now, eye to eye and panting, Mothgirl grabbed the boy’s wrist and at the exact same moment Voleboy grabbed hers. They froze, teeth-gritted, locked together in fury. They each fire-stared deep into the other’s burning eyes.

  ByMySide made that strange sound again; the deep belly groan. Mothgirl gave him a side look. It was not a growl; it was not a danger noise; it was like the noise he had made back when he was pup-small and hungry; what was he telling her?

  ‘Wolf want wolfsong,’ said the boy, still breathing heavy. He spat.

  Mothgirl heard the small tink-tink of a lost boy-tooth rolling on rock; she felt proud-hearted at her own fierce fight-strength.

  ‘Wolfsong?’ she said, mocking-voiced. ‘What wolfsong?’

  Voleboy grunted. ‘You let go my arm; I show you wolfsong!’

  ‘Ha!’ said Mothgirl, tightening her grip. ‘I let go your arm; you not show me wolfsong – you show me spirit sleep! I not foolish!’

  The boy’s lips twitched. ‘I show you spirit sleep?! With what I show you spirit sleep? With this?’ The boy let go a little laugh and waggled the long white blade.

  Why he laugh at her? Mothgirl looked hard then, and in the dim grey moonlight she realised that what Voleboy held in his hand was not Vulture’s death-sharp antler knife. No …

  ‘That … that … your bone whistle …’ she mumbled. She stared, wide-eyed and astonished, at the long white flute.

  The boy laughed so hard then that Mothgirl felt his laugh shake through his arms. He made a little gasp, then a big snort noise came from his nose.

  Mothgirl’s lips twitched then too. ‘You sound like small boar,’ she said, and she threw down his wrist.

  Voleboy dropped her wrist too. He rubbed at the hurt place where she had held him. ‘You fight like small bear!’ he said.

  They laughed together, then solemnly they made the sign of spirit peace with their open hands.

  An owl hooted in the forest dark. Voleboy and Mothgirl leaned warily out of the cave mouth, listening for man voices.

  There were none.

  Mothgirl peered up at the hilltop, far upstream, where firelight faintly flickered. Home. Pa. Her heart ached.

  She glanced at Voleboy; his eyes were fixed on her camp too. Why? she wondered. Why had Voleboy not betrayed her to his clansmen when they came hunting? Why had he hidden with her here in this cave? She stared hard at his face then, but even though his blood paint was gone, Mothgirl could read no answers there.

  ‘Come,’ said Voleboy quietly.

  They climbed down to the river’s edge and sat silently side by side on a rock in the moonlight, Mothgirl and Voleboy, wiping their own cuts clean with sting-leaf and water, listening to owl-hoot and river-splash.

  ByMySide lay at their feet on the river sand, with his head on his paws, still making his strange rumble-belly-groan.

  ‘What wolfsong?’ said Mothgirl quietly.

  ‘Listen,’ said Voleboy. He took his bone whistle from his pouch and put it to his lips.

  ByMySide’s ears pricked. He raised his big grey head, looking all around.

  ‘I not hear wolfsong!’ whispered Mothgirl.

  ‘Shhhhh!’ said Voleboy with a small smile. ‘You girl! Girl not hear wolfsong; wolf hear wolfsong!’ He took another breath and he blew again.

  Mothgirl watched, eyes wide, as ByMySide whimpered and whined, then rolled on to his back, pawing the air like he was a small wolf pup. She rubbed his furry belly in astonishment.

  ‘Wolfsong!’ said Voleboy, lowering his bone whistle.

  Mothgirl blinked at him. ‘Wolfsong!’ she said admiringly. She held out her hand for the bone whistle. ‘I try?’

  Voleboy hesitated for a blink, then passed it to her.

  Mothgirl put it to her lips and blew. Out came a noise like Pa’s stink-wind. They both giggled.

  She handed the bone whistle back to Voleboy. ‘You play good wolfsong!’ she said.

  Voleboy shrugged.

  The first whispers of morning were starting to pale the edges of the sky. Mothgirl knew she needed to go; she needed to find Hart; only Hart could help her. The journey towards the Great Plains would be safer now in the half-dark than later when the sun was full-bright.

  She stood; ByMySide stood too. ‘I go.’

  ‘I come with you?’ he asked quietly.

  Mothgirl thought a moment, then shook her head, kind but firm. Friendship was a strange new taste to her, and she did not trust it. She would be swifter, stronger, better alone.

  ‘V
oleboy,’ she said. He did not correct her. ‘Voleboy, I give thanks.’ Her voice was solemn; this boy had saved her from spirit sleep; this boy had saved her from Vulture’s men. She wished she had a gift to give him as a sign of her thanks. She rummaged in her pouch, but all there was in there was her skinning blade, the hawthorn leaves, and …

  Mothgirl pulled out the smooth flat pebble she’d slipped into her pouch earlier when she was playing jump-stones with Eelgirl and Owlboy. She pressed it into Voleboy’s hand.

  He turned it over in his fingers, his eyebrows low and puzzled. ‘A stone?’ he said. Mothgirl snatched back the pebble; an idea sparked in her.

  With her skinning blade, Mothgirl scratched four lines on to the smooth jump-stone, carving the shape of open wings. It was a pattern she had scratched many times over, but only in hidden places – high on a tree trunk, deep in a cave – for it was the shape of Mothgirl’s very own secret waymarker and she knew that girls ought not mark their way as men did.

  ‘This not a stone,’ she said. ‘This a promise.’ She passed the promise to Voleboy. ‘You make-safe me, Voleboy. I give thanks. One day …’ She closed his fingers around the pebble. ‘One day I will see you again, Voleboy, and I will make-safe you.’

  With her fingertip she drew an invisible circle on the back of Voleboy’s hand. ‘Make safe,’ she whispered, and she let his hand fall. Mothgirl could not tell if he had even understood her promise, for he turned and scrambled back up to the cave without a word.

  Mothgirl watched him go. She sighed, strangely sorrowful. Then, with ByMySide at her heel, she set off along the edge of the moonlit river, towards Hart and the hunting grounds at the Great Plain and – she shuddered – Lathrin Mountain beyond …

  ‘Stop!’

  Mothgirl turned around. Voleboy scrambled across the rocks after her.

  ‘Here,’ he said, and he handed her his spear.

  She shook her head at his stupidity. ‘I cannot take your spear, Voleboy! How you hunt? What you do when a real bear comes?! No, Voleboy. You foolish. Keep your spear.’