by Perrin Briar
“What do you propose we do?”
Gregory thought for a moment.
“You were the son of a fisherman, is that correct?” he said.
“Yes.”
Gregory sidled up close.
“Then here’s what we’ll do,” he said. “You will captain the next ship into port. You will tell no one. We will fill the ship and anchor it. I’ll assign a retinue of guards.”
“We must still inform the port master which ship we will be bringing in,” Captain Timon said.
“We will, but with so much paperwork, I suspect one ship’s information is often accidentally submitted in place of another all the time.”
Captain Timon smiled.
“Which ship would you like brought in?” he said.
“Maiden Voyage,” Gregory said. “And remember, tell no one.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Elian scrapped the last lump of meat off the buffaroo leg bone with his teeth. The centaurs had added some kind of brown sauce that made the meat irresistible. He tossed the bone aside. The centaurs’ hunting dogs were fighting over it before it even touched the ground. Elian licked the sauce off his fingers.
Next to him, Jera was riding her own centaur and chewing on her own buffaroo leg. She was clearly enjoying it as much as he had. He was about to ask if she wanted all the remaining meat when his stomach rumbled, complaining at having been stuffed full.
“What was that brown sauce on the meat?” Elian said to Ramos, the centaur he was riding. “It was delicious.”
A huge smile bent Ramos’s dark sun-kissed features.
“It is my own recipe,” he said, “mashed up centaur droppings and sugar.”
Elian turned pale. Now he understood why his stomach was grumbling.
“Well, that accounts for the nutty tang,” he said.
Elian had never felt so uncomfortable riding before. Riding on a male centaur’s back, his head bobbing back and forth, having no reins or control, and trying not to steer with his knees, was too unnatural to him. They crested a small hill and when they descended on the other side, they were on the outskirts of a large forest. Elian blinked, surprised it had appeared so quickly. The centaurs came to a stop.
“This is the Haunted Forest,” Ramos said. “We caution against entering for there are evil spirits that dwell there.”
Elian hopped off Ramos’s back.
“Unfortunately we have no other choice,” he said.
“Then I wish you luck on your quest.”
“Thank you for all your help,” Elian said. “You have been most kind.”
Ramos bowed, an elegant movement where he bent over his front legs.
“It is our duty to aid the Time Keeper in any way we can,” he said.
“I wish you’d tell that to the centaur tribe we bumped into on the other side of the Dreary Mountains.”
“They are heathens,” Ramos said. “They are not centaurs. They wish the death of all humans. But true centaurs respect the balance, and understand the need for all creatures. But I must warn you: a growing number of centaurs and other creatures are beginning to share the same discontent with the humans. You must be careful.”
And with that, the centaurs took off, their hooves churning up the earth.
“They were a bit more hospitable than the last centaurs we met,” Jera said, still munching on her buffaroo leg. “This sauce is delicious. I wonder what’s in it.”
Elian looked at the buffaroo leg, his face curling up at the brown sauce hanging off it in globules.
“Maybe you should stop eating that,” Elian said.
Jera backed away.
“Only because you want it!” she said. “What else did Ramos say?”
“Just to be careful, and wished us luck. Which is fortunate, because when you jumped on your centaur’s back and said, ‘Yeehaw! Giddy up!’ I thought they were going to skin us alive.”
“They’re half horse. I thought he’d have liked it.”
“A thousand years of oppression at the hands of humans and you thought saying that was a good idea?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Light filtered through the trees, and birds shared their mating songs. It was not so dark and foreboding as the Rumble Jungle had been, but still Jera sighed. They walked into the forest, and were cast into a pleasant twilight.
“More trees,” Jera said with a groan.
“It’s not the trees I’m worried about,” Elian said. “It’s the spirits.”
Elian shivered. He told himself it was just the chill in the wind, but his heart beat faster, betraying his true feelings.
“You don’t honestly believe in ghosts?” Jera said.
“Of course I do. You never heard the rumours about this place?”
“Yes, and I dismissed them as nonsense.”
“Be quiet! You’ll anger them!”
“If I was a ghost and I was trapped in a forest, I’d be angry too.”
“You shouldn’t joke,” Elian said in a whisper.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“Yes there is!”
“How do you know? Have you ever seen one?”
“No, but plenty of people have.”
“Plenty of people thought they have.”
“So, you’re not scared about entering at all?”
“No more than any other forest. I’ll be on the lookout for outlaws and brigands more than ghosts and ghouls.”
Elian peered at the forest around him with wary eyes.
“You don’t need to worry about outlaws,” he said. “Even they won’t come in here.”
Jera shook her head.
“Of all people, you would be the last I would expect to believe in something like ghosts,” she said.
“There’s a lot we don’t know about the world and nature. Just look at how time is skipping. We didn’t know it could do that before. Why should ghosts be any different?”
“Because we can’t touch ghosts. They’re ethereal.”
Somewhere a twig snapped. Elian turned to face the noise, drawing his knife.
“If it is a ghost,” Jera said. “Just what are you going to do with your knife? Show it a trick?”
“Maybe there’s another way to get to the second clock part,” Elian said, eyes wide with fear. “A safer way.”
Jera checked the map.
“The second piece is right in the middle of this forest,” she said. “If we don’t go in this way we’ll have to go in via another and we’ll still have to face the ghosts.”
“I don’t like this,” Elian said, face drawn, eyes wide as saucers.
“You don’t like anything.”
“That’s not true. I like the smell of bacon in the morning. I like the feel of the wind in my hair when I’m galloping along. What I don’t like is going through a haunted forest.”
“I meant on our journey. Everything looks dangerous to you.”
“Am I wrong?” Elian said. “We’ve been shot at by jungle Goleuni, been kidnapped by the Force, almost eaten by centaurs, and now we’re heading into a haunted wood.”
“It’s not haunted.”
Something big and white flew at them. Jera screamed. Elian did likewise, dropping his knife in the process. He ran and dived into a bush.
Jera forced her eyes open. She looked at the object that had swung at them. It was a crude cut-out of a ghost in a white sheet, red spilling from a black hole for a month. It was attached to the tree by a length of frayed rope.
There was a creaking clicking sound and the ghost began to rise back into the tree. Jera followed the sound to a clump of foliage. She spread it apart and discovered a series of cogs and cranks. As it turned, it pulled on the rope attached to the “ghost”. At the other end of the cog apparatus was a length of thin wire. She followed it. It wound around the trunk of two trees. Elian emerged from his hiding place.
“Is it gone?” he said.
“It was just a cut out. A cardboard ghost.”
&
nbsp; Jera held the tripwire in her hand.
“And this is a tripwire,” she said. “People come through here, trip the wire, causing the ghost to fall out of the tree and scare us. It then retracts back and resets for the next person who comes through here.”
She stepped on the tripwire. The ghost swung out again. Elian screamed, ran, and dived into the hedge.
“There’s your ghost,” Jera said. “It’s just a trick.”
Shaking, Elian emerged from the hedge.
“This is just something meant to scare away strangers,” Jera said.
“It worked.”
“The question is, scare people from what?”
As they headed deeper into the forest a scarecrow with skeletal hands flew at them, followed by a pumpkin-headed man, a man with the attributes of a bat, a wolf frothing at the mouth, and what looked like a banana with teeth. Each time, Jera and Puca became less scared. Elian screamed louder. Jera shook her head.
“Can’t they do any better than this?” she said.
Jera came to a flower with an umbrella of thick-lipped purple petals growing in a gap between a tree’s roots. In the centre hung a pair of pink anthers, shaped like a pair of kidneys. Jera leaned down and sniffed it. It smelled of red wine and cheese cake.
“What a beautiful flower,” she said.
“If you think that’s beautiful,” Elian said, looking out between two trees. “You’re going to love this.”
Jera turned, and her breath caught in her throat. The forest ended and gave way to a field that matched the Great Plains for size. The sunlight glimmered from a cloudless blue sky. Spread out before them, running to the very fringes of the horizon in every direction, were endless fields of purple flowers. Butterflies flittered over them.
“I thought this was all forest?” Jera said.
“It’s meant to be.”
“This is what all that ghost stuff back there was for?” Jera said. “To keep people away from here? What’s so important about this?”
“Someone is obviously very protective of their flowers.”
Jera stepped into the field, the flowers coming up to her waist. She ran a hand over the top of them.
“Wait,” Elian said. “Someone wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble in the forest to keep someone out unless there was a very good reason for it.”
“Maybe. But either way we have to get to the middle of this area if we want to find the second replacement part. And we’re not going to find it standing here.”
Elian blinked in surprise.
“Since when were you so assertive?” he said.
“Since one of us is afraid of a scarecrow in drag swinging from a rope.”
As they walked through the field, Jera let the flowers tickle the palm of her hands. Small puffs of pollen wheezed out of the flowers like tiny exploding stars. Puca caught a whiff of pollen and sneezed, and then sneezed again and again. Jera giggled.
“I think Puca’s allergic,” she said.
She tucked him into the inside of her tunic. Bees lingered over the flowers as if selecting the best vintage. There were even a few small birds no longer than Jera’s thumb who seemed to float without wings until she realised the bird’s wings were beating so fast they were invisible. They slid their long beaks into the flowers like a key into a lock and drank the sweet nectar inside. Jera stumbled a few steps. She put a hand to her head.
“I’m feeling a little lightheaded,” she said. “But also very, very happy.”
“It must be the sun,” Elian said. “Wait a sec.”
He plucked a bunch of flowers and bent them into a ring, the flowers poking out. He sat it on her head. It cast a shadow over her face and neck.
“Better?” Elian said.
“Yes, thank you. Do you know, I don’t think I’ve felt this happy and carefree in years? Maybe never.”
“I know what you mean,” Elian said. “It must be these flowers and the blue sky and fluffy white clouds. It’s like we’re living in a planting.”
“A planting? Don’t you mean a painting?”
They shared a look and burst into wild gales of laughter, breathing in more of the pollen.
“Ever since I was young I wanted to fly,” Jera said, her eyes bloodshot and red. “Today I think I’ll finally get around to it.”
“Then fly,” Elian said.
“But I don’t know if I can.”
“You can only try.”
“Okay, then. I’ll try.”
She held out her arms and ran, flapping her arms up and down. She jumped, but didn’t rise. She jumped again, but still didn’t fly. The third time, her feet lifted a few inches off the ground. She flapped her arms harder and she flew higher.
“I’m flying!” Jera said. “I’m flying!”
“I’ll fly too, then!” Elian said.
He flapped his arms and joined Jera in the sky. The giant field of flowers shrank beneath them. As they soared higher and higher they saw the forest was a protective ring of trees around the field of flowers.
A V-formation of pigeese flew past them. A pigoose had a pig’s nose and tail, and the body and bill of a goose. They were all wearing tuxedos and tall hats.
“Hello, Mr Pigoose!” Jera said.
Mr Pigoose took off his hat with a wing and bowed to her.
“Off somewhere nice, Mr Pigoose?” Jera said.
“To the opera,” Mr Pigoose said. “There’s an excellent showing of Swan Lake tonight.”
“Okay,” Jera said. “Have fun, Mr Pigoose!”
Mr Pigoose honk-oinked and continued on flying with his pigoose friends and family. Jera held out her arms and lowered her head. She flew down toward the purple flowers. She pulled up at the last minute, and great puffs of yellow dust waves rose up and fell, washing over all the other flowers, sending out a ripple across the fields. Elian was in the field now, running around in circles, bending the stems over.
“What are you doing, Elian?” Jera said.
“I’m bending the flowers over so they spell something.”
“What are you making them say?”
Elian smiled.
“You’ll see,” he said.
“Do you know, when I first met you I thought you were scary?” Jera said. “But now that I’ve gotten to know you a little I think you’re kind of cute.”
“I am cute,” Elian said. “But I hide it under my cocky nature.”
“I thought so.”
“And when I first met you I thought you were a cold heartless ice princess who had nothing interesting to say.”
“Yes,” Jera said. “I suppose that is me. I can’t help it if I’m like that. It’s just the way I am.”
“The way you were. You’re not like that anymore. You’re fun and calm and I like you.”
“Good, because I like you too.”
“You know what?” Elian said. “I think these flowers we’re travelling through might actually be Gap seed?”
“You think so?” Jera said. “I don’t know what everyone’s worried about. Gap doesn’t seem so bad.”
Puca ran through the flowers, having slipped out of Jera’s clothes at some point. He danced with a flower, leaning the stem over till the petals touched the ground. He kissed it, and when he came away, his face was covered with yellow powder. He sneezed.
Jera skipped through the field singing: “La-la la-la la-la la, la-la la-la la-la la.”
Elian smiled and skipped alongside her: “La-la la-la la-la la.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Gap is the worst thing in the world,” Jera said.
“Even worse than the centaur sauce on the buffaroo meat,” Elian said.
“What are you talking about? That was delicious.”
“Not if you knew what it was made of.”
“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
Jera put a hand to her head.
“I’ve got the worst headache,” she said.
“My mouth feels dry,” Elian said.
>
“Mine too.”
“And I’m hungry. I want some sweets.”
“Me too.”
Elian, Jera and Puca lay on their backs on a small island of trees and grass. Their eyes were bloodshot and red, their faces pale. Jera sat up. Before her was the giant field of purple Gap flowers. The pollen hung over the field like a morning mist.
“What happened?” Jera said.
“We strolled through a field of Gap,” Elian said. “We’re lucky to still be alive.”
“They had to grow it somewhere, I suppose. But why here?”
“Easy to hide. People have been afraid of the Haunted Forest for generations.”
Jera noticed something. A large swathe of flowers had been bent over. Her eyes followed the shape.
“What is that?” she said, turning her head to the side. “It almost looks like a…”
Her eyes widened and she blushed.
“Looks like a what?” Elian said as he got to his feet and stretched.
“Nothing,” Jera said, turning him around. “Face this way. This is the way we’re going. Let’s go.”
“All right. Stop pushing.”
Jera led him up the hill. Puca crouched on Jera’s shoulder and peered back at the odd crop circle that had been made into a giant heart with ‘ES’ across the top and ‘JW’ along the bottom. Puca turned his head to understand what he was seeing, but he was a puca, and pucas don’t understand such things.
Then Puca coughed, his little lungs wheezing with the effort. He coughed again.
“Puca?” Jera said. “Puca, are you okay?”
She held him up to her face. He could barely open his eyes, and his body lay limp and unresponsive on her palm.
“I think Puca’s sick,” Jera said.
“What did he eat earlier?”
“Anything. Everything. I don’t know. I think it’s this pollen. We need to find somewhere safe he can rest.”
Jera took out the map.
“Southeast,” she said. “We need to head southeast.”
The compass needle spun around before settling on a direction.
“This way,” Jera said. “Come on, let’s go.”
A strong wind blew back their hair and ruffled their clothes, and all three of them had to lean forward into the wind to make any headway. In the wind’s wake, a huge pollen dust storm spread over them like a thick fog. They covered their faces with their tunics and ran for the shelter of the trees, the branches raking the sky. But Jera felt her headache coming back, and the sweet elation that came with it.