by A. G. Henley
The others stand and move about the campsite.
“Any change?” Bear asks.
“Not that I can tell.” Peree sounds worn out.
“I’m going to check the snares,” Kai says.
“I’ll go with you,” Bear says. “No one should go anywhere alone from now on.”
The fire crackles and spits as someone builds it up again, probably to cook the goose Peree shot last night. He touches my shoulder.
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
As he stands and walks away, my fingers twitch toward him under the blanket.
They moved. My fingers moved! I try to shift my whole hand. I can’t, but still, this has to be a good sign. I keep at it, silently straining with the effort.
Eventually, Peree tells me to sit up and eat. I obey him, but at the same time, I’m wiggling my toes inside my shoes. My teeth grind together. Kai and Bear return with a rabbit.
“Pack up,” Amarina says.
Everyone moves at once. Someone pours water on the fire. It hisses—the death throes of a flaming serpent. I stay seated, just as I was, but my hand flexes again. Did anyone see?
I’m getting better! I shout inside my head. Don’t leave us!
I strain to speak. Concentrating on forcing the air out of my lungs, I… cough.
Yes!
I cough again, loud and sharp.
“Fenn?” Peree drops to the ground in front of me. “Are you doing that on purpose? Can you answer me?”
“Cough once if you can,” Bear says.
I do.
Peree hugs me to him before kissing all over my face. “Are you okay? What can I do to help?”
“She can’t answer that with a cough,” Moray says. “Are you hurt, little Fenn? Cough if you are.”
I stay silent.
“Do you want to go back to Koolkuna?” Peree asks.
Silence again.
“You want to keep going?”
I cough hard.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Peree says. “Maybe I should take you back and have Nerang check you.”
It takes every ounce of my focus, but I manage to whisper, “No.”
I want to go on, now more than ever. If the Fire Sisters use this terrible power to control the children, what else are they doing to them?
Chapter Eight
“I told you it would wear off,” Kai mutters after I speak.
“When you’re able, Mirii, tell us what happened last night,” Amarina says. “Can you walk now?”
I force out a yes. Within a few minutes, I’m able to string together a short sentence. Relief melts through me when I can finally reach out for Peree’s hand. He keeps me close beside him as we leave the campsite behind.
When I have enough control of my voice, I tell my story. I didn’t have time to notice much about the Sister, other than that scent, the knife prick, and her accent. It was different from my own or the anuna’s. Her words were snipped off at the ends.
Finally, I wonder, “How does a knife prick give the Sisters control over people?”
No one speaks. If Kai knows, she doesn’t say.
We continue to follow the Restless, in the same direction as the current. It sounds as if it’s growing more intense. Clouds chase away the early morning sunlight, while the forest crowds us closer and closer to the edge of the river. Birds flit around us from trees to water. Their wings snap overhead as they fly, likely hunting the humming insects and mournful frogs that I hear along the bank.
“Keep a close watch on the forest,” Derain warns. From the tense silence, everyone already is.
I’m not in the very back of the group for once; I’m in the middle. Derain asked Peree to walk at the front as point. Kai said she’d go with him, of course. The brothers positioned themselves on either side of me, and Bear and Amarina are behind.
I have a buffer of skilled hunters and fighters around me. Not because I’m too valuable to lose, but because I’m the most vulnerable. The Sister was probably waiting for a chance to get me alone to deliver her warning. Her words are the haunting refrain of a song: turn back, go home, turn back, go home.
Following the river, we move up and down easy rises in the land, until easy becomes difficult, and difficult becomes punishing. I’m out of breath, and my leg muscles howl.
“The water sounds like it's running faster,” I comment when we stop for lunch.
“The river has narrowed,” Amarina says. “The banks are pinching in.”
“There’s some white water out there now,” Bear adds.
“We’re near where the Sister and I swam the river,” Kai says from nearby.
“We can’t swim it." I'm thinking of Peree.
“Obviously, you can't,” she says.
Several retorts jump to mind, but I bite them back. Kai is bitter, or jealous, or who knows what. I have to be the bigger person. If only being the bigger person were more satisfying.
“We could build a raft,” Conda says. “My brothers and I made them back home to take across the water hole and hunt.”
“You did?” I ask. “I didn’t know that.”
Moray laughs. “There’s lots of stuff you don’t know about us, sweetheart. You were too busy being all responsible, doing what you were told. You could’ve had a lot more fun if you’d hung out with us once in a while.”
“If you had Aloe for a mother, you would have done what you were told, too.” Their mother, Thistle, was meddling, gossipy, hateful, and she played a role in the events that led to Eland’s death. I wonder how they feel about her. “Who taught you to build rafts?”
“Our father,” Conda says, “before he—”
“Drowned in a bottle of wine,” Cuda says.
Moray laughs, but it’s strained. “Poor us. Right, boys?”
Back home, when the Three assigned Moray to watch me, he told me his father drank too much. What was their childhood like with a meddling gossip like Thistle and an alcoholic as parents? I barely remember the brothers back then, except that Bear couldn’t stand them.
Bear hasn’t sparred with them as much recently, I realize. In fact, he’s been a lot quieter since we left home. Idly, I tap my walking stick on the ground. I used to have a good idea what he was thinking most of the time. Now? No idea. We haven’t had much time to talk. And, I realize, what time I have had I spent with Peree.
“A raft would take too long to put together,” Bear says.
“The Sisters will have some way to get the guru across,” Derain says.
“You said that before. What if they don’t?” Conda asks.
“I choose to have faith that we will find one,” Derain says.
“Faith?” Cuda says.
“Faith.” Derain’s voice is firm. “I have faith that we will be able to cross the river, just as I have faith that I will have my daughter and son back soon. Without it, how could I bear this separation?”
I wince at the longing in his voice.
We stand and move again, trudging up and down yet another hill.
“There was a fire here,” Amarina says at the bottom. We all move toward the sound of her voice. “It is fresh. They scattered the wood and covered it up, but there, you can see ash and char.”
“Nice find, Amarina.” Bear sounds impressed.
Hints of burnt wood tickle my nose—along with the sharp scent of the Sisters. “I smell them again.”
Everyone quiets.
“They aren’t here,” Bear says. “We’d see them. The forest has thinned a bit.”
“But if the Sisters made this fire, the guru may only be a few hours ahead,” Derain says.
We hurry on, keeping to the riverbank. The others box me in, helping me when I stumble. Before long, Bear clears his throat behind me.
“I smell it now, Fenn. You’re right; it burns my throat.”
“Anyone else?” I ask.
“Nope,” Moray says. “We’re following your nose, sweetheart.”
But where is it lea
ding us? Where are the Sisters?
The ground begins to rise again—another hill. We march up, the Restless falling well below us. The hill is clogged with weeds, densely packed trees, and prickly bushes. I tuck my walking stick under one arm and hold the other hand out. Hopefully, I can at least stop myself from going headfirst into Peree, Derain, and Kai.
Plodding along to my left, Conda makes a surprised noise. “A bridge!”
We all stop.
“Where?” Derain asks.
“There… see it?”
I’m jostled out of the way as the others move toward him for a look.
“It blends into the rock wall on the other side,” Peree says.
“How do we get down to it?” Cuda asks.
“Don’t know,” Conda says. “We’ll have to get closer. Careful, everyone. That edge looks like it drops right off.”
Peree takes my hand as we all leave the rustling of the trees behind and step onto what feels like a bare rock ledge. I inch forward. The river, far below now, sounds much different than it did when we first joined it. Now it’s a thousand aqueous creatures that leap, growl, and grind their watery teeth, forming one unstoppable beast.
“Look—a trail to the bridge,” Cuda says. “Cut into the rock wall.”
“The Sisters took the children there?” Bear asks.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper to Peree. “What trail?”
“There are sheer rock walls on both sides of the river. A wooden bridge is secured to each one about halfway up. Rock trails are cut into the walls, leading across to the ends of the bridge. Only… the trails are so narrow, we’ll have to shuffle sideways across, and there’s no handhold.”
The tension in Peree’s voice and the stiffness of his hand isn’t due to the height of the trail or the bridge. He grew up in the treetops. No, it’s the fearsome water a long drop below. I’m afraid of how vicious the river sounds, too, and I know how to swim. I squeeze his hand. He squeezes back.
“So,” Bear asks, “are we going for it?”
“Do we have a choice?” Moray says.
“We could keep walking and find a place to ford the river,” Conda says.
“If we found one,” Kai says. “The bridge is here. Now.”
“This may not be the way the Sisters took the children,” Peree says. “Fenn, do you still smell them?”
“Not right now.” But the wind is whipping my hair around and yanking at my clothes. It could easily be pulling their scent away with it.
“The Sisters must use this bridge,” Amarina says. “Who else would maintain it?”
“We will try it.” Derain decides.
“Then I’ll go first.” I’m tired of following everyone else’s lead—tired of being scared and helpless.
“First?” Kai scoffs. “You can’t see the trail.”
“Going last won’t change that,” I coolly answer. “Peree, will you show me where the trail starts?”
“I’ll go across with you.” His voice is tight.
He leads me farther along the bare rock ledge we’ve been standing on, then stops.
“Put your right hand out,” he says. “You should feel the beginning of the wall in front of you.”
I skim my hand up and down, feeling the rock face. It’s vertical, mostly smooth, and warm to the touch, which is odd because it’s not very sunny today. It feels like the clouds have clustered even more, dulling the light, since we’ve been standing around jawing.
“Move your pack to the front,” Peree says. “There’s no room for it behind you against the wall. Give me your walking stick, and I’ll lash it to my pack with my bow. We’ll need both hands free.”
I hand him my stick and relocate my pack, my heart racing. When I’m set, I suck in a breath and release it. I can’t listen to the river below us, or I’ll lose courage.
“Ready."
I’m about to step out when someone tugs hard on my pack, pulling me back. “This is stupid, Peree. I’ll go first. Someone needs to check that bridge and make sure it’s sound.”
I grip the wall. “Kai, I can—”
She pushes past me onto the trail and takes her first tentative, sliding steps. I'm speechless.
“Let her go, if she wants to so bad.” Peree takes my left hand in one of his. “Okay, face the river, feel for the wall next to you, and step sideways to your right.”
I swallow down all the spiteful things I really want to yell at Kai. I need to focus on not dying now. Pressing my back to the smooth rock of the wall, I step out onto the edge.
The river crashes far below my feet, and the wind shoves my hair into my face and mouth. I can’t tell how deep the edge I’m moving along is, but at least my feet fit on it without hanging off. My stomach cramps and turns queasy, sensing the height.
After another full breath, I slide a little to the right. Then, a little more. And a little more.
I count the paces in my head the way I used to when I was the Water Bearer. Kai’s feet slide along some distance to my right.
To my left, still holding my hand, Peree keeps in step with me. His breathing is shallow.
“Okay?” I ask him.
“Yes.” But that one flimsy word is enough to tell me he’s petrified.
“Picture us in the trees.” I lick my dry lips and struggle to control my own fear. “We’re walking from your house to Petrel and Moon’s, only… um… we’re walking sideways for some reason. Anyway, the wind is blowing through the trees, shuffling the leaves below you. It kind of sounds like a river… but it’s not. Not at all. It’s just leaves and trees.”
He snorts. “Those leaves look like they can drown you.”
“Stay with me,” I say. “We’re in the trees. Maybe a storm is coming in, and it’s blowing hard. But you’re safe.”
As a matter of fact, it sounds like a storm is coming in. The wind plucks at my pack on my chest; the air holds the charged feel of rain ready to be unleashed. We need to hurry, get everyone across this death trap and back on land.
I’ve lost count of my paces. “How much farther to the bridge?”
“A few more steps,” Peree says. “Almost there.”
I start over counting. One, two, three, four… Will we ever get there? Finally, my hand meets what feels like a taut rope.
"We need to duck under the handhold," Peree says with relief. "It’s secured to the rock.”
We both tug on it. Feels secure. Carefully, holding the rope, I bend my knees and go under. I grope for what I assume will be another handhold on the other side. It’s there, about the distance of my outstretched arms, also nice and tight.
“The bridge is in front of you, now,” he says. “Kai’s going across.”
Her feet thud against what sounds like wooden boards. She’s moving one step at a time, probably to test each slat before putting her weight on them. I pull a face in her direction; I could have done the same thing. Slinging my pack onto my back again, still holding each handhold, I step forward onto the first slat. My muscles relax—plenty of room here on the bridge.
“I’ll wait until you get a little way across before I start,” Peree says. “Be careful.”
“Okay. You, too.”
“Get moving!” Moray yells from behind us somewhere, his voice faint. “Storm’s coming!”
The slat under my feet feels strong and fresh, not soft or creaky like wood rotted beyond its useful life. I press down on the next slat before putting my full weight on it. Then the next. Another step, and another.
A hard gust buffets the bridge, sending my heart careening around my chest. I yelp, but the wind rips the cry from my mouth. A second blast of wind hits, shaking the bridge like a toy, throwing me off balance. I step awkwardly to the left, gripping the handholds to keep my balance.
Wood splits with a sudden crack, crack, and a panicked shout for help comes from in front of me, farther along the bridge.
Right about where Kai should be.
Chapter Nine
Rain
drops splatter against my face, and the wind shoves me again—hard.
“Kai?” I shout. “Are you okay?”
“No!”
Peree yells at me to wait, but it doesn’t sound like there’s time. Moving as fast as I can, while testing each step, I cross the bridge.
“Where are you?” I call.
I only hear the sounds of the storm. My pulse, already racing, puts on speed. Did she fall? Would I hear a splash?
“I’m… here.” Her voice comes from around my knees.
I move closer.
“Stop there!” she gasps. “A few slats broke… there’s a gap.”
I grip the rope handholds and feel for the hole between boards with my foot. “Are you on the other side of it?”
She makes a strangled noise. “In it. Hanging from the handhold. To… your left.”
Oh no.
I grope along that rope until I find her hands, cold and hard, clenching the rope. My feet are basically behind me now. I move my arm down to her back, trying not to think about the empty air we must both be hanging out over, or the hungry river below. she’s too far away; I can’t reach all the way around her.
“Can you pull yourself closer?” I blink rainwater from my eyes. Peree’s a few feet behind me now, his feet thudding closer.
Kai moves my way, bouncing a little. I keep an arm around her, but I have to hold the rope with the other. If she fell now, I wouldn’t be able to hang on to her. She'd take us both down. The wind rattles the bridge, shaking us up with it.
Kai shouts, and her weight falls into my outstretched arm, almost dragging my feet off the bridge. “Hand… slipped!”
Her body twists, stretching the muscles of my arm past the point of exertion and into pain. Teeth clenched, I hold her with all the strength I have.
“I’m here!” Peree leans out behind me, his arm joining mine around Kai’s back. Her body stops swiveling.
“We’ve got you, Kai,” he says. “Reach up and grab the rope again.”
Together, we support her as she slides her hands back to our side of the bridge. We don’t let go.
“Now bring your legs up,” Peree tells her.