ever given it to a gossip-demon like Gooshga? Then he'd noted the lack of one ear on the doll and realized it was only a fake. Frijanas always had both of their ears. The leaves were commonplace items, often used as playing cards. Baudry picked up his pace.
Gooshga kept up. She was not planning on letting him easily escape. She had all day, and a whole lot of tricks in her repertoire. She badgered and cajoled him, taunted and teased him, asked him and told him but Baudry managed to keep silent the rest of the way, and once he could see the edge of the woods in the distance, he knew he would make it. Gooshga didn't let up, but grew louder and more goading than ever.
"I can get you whatever you want," she attempted a bribe. "You know that I can. Is it girls? You old dog. I'll be you want girls but the Baudry I know is too shy to ask. I'll do the asking and no telling, I promise. It will just be our secret. No one will know. You whisper to me what you want and I'll get it."
Baudry merely plodded ahead.
"I know where the best sawdust lies," Gooshga insisted. "They grind it up special and smoke it, you know. Did you see there's a goal under there?"
She pointed toward a clump of stones to their left, and Baudry looked also. He had to pay attention to a possible goal. He considered taking a break from the journey to make a closer inspection, but just as his legs began to slow down he remembered just who he was talking to. She was dangerous. That was a narrow escape! If he'd stopped for a moment, he might have been lost.
"Keep it together," he reminded himself, and kept on. Gooshga began to sense her defeat and started to lag a little behind. She shouted louder and tried to inform him of various rumors she'd heard, but Baudry was stepping into the trees, and in moments he was free of the spell. With a huge, overwhelming sense of relief, he collapsed on the duff and, closing his eyes, took a very short nap.
Seven
Baudry did not sleep well, even for the few minutes his eyes were closed. His brain kept buzzing with the feeling that some pesky creature had attached itself to his arm hairs and was digging itself into his skin. He shook and he shivered and woke up clawing himself with his fingernails, but there was no critter and he quickly remembered that the forest was remarkably free of annoying insects.
"Vestiges," he muttered, wondering why certain memories could be retained after all of these years, recollections of childhood terrors even. He remembered as a youth being attacked by horseflies on a beach somewhere during a solar eclipse, or was he combining three events into one? He couldn't be sure. Names came to mind of people he hadn't seen or even thought of in decades. This tended to happen first thing on waking up, as if in his dreams he'd been reliving his old life. He could even smell the fresh bread from the bakery he walked past on his way to school in the first grade. Gremolino's? Something like that. When awake his old life felt distant, less clear. It was strange how sleep could be more vivid than life.
Rising to his feet, he looked around to get his bearings straight, a thought which made him chuckle for some reason. He knew where he was, precisely. Canopus was endless if you tried to escape it, but it was definitely finite, he knew. A group he had joined with had counted the trees, marking each with a notch so they wouldn't count twice. Forty five million, eight hundred seventy nine thousand, six hundred twenty two, more or less. Discussions with certain former scientists led him to the conclusion that this figure represented approximately one hundred square miles. Was that right? Was it possible? There were more than a thousand hapless immortals which meant only ten or so had to be inhabiting a square mile, but their density varied, with some banding together and some keeping apart.
So many trees, but right now he was heading for a particular tree, THE Particular Tree, as it were. This was the tree where The Hidden One was rumored to hide but of course it was only a rumor. Still, where else could he go? He was already close and after another hour of hiking it came into view. It was an interesting choice for The Hidden One. The Particular Tree was a dogwood, not especially large or conspicuous. It lay in a grove of rhododendrons, some larger than it was. It was not the kind of tree within which anyone could hide, but it would have made a great climbing tree for a child, with its rows of evenly spaced horizontal branches, the lowest ones being easily reached from the ground. Baudry inhaled deeply, enjoying the fragrance of the surrounding plants. It was a nice spot, a good place to pick if you had to pick out a place in that area.
He was a little tired from the journey, and seeing as there was no one around, he sat down on the ground with his back leaning against the Particular Tree, and started humming a tune, a composition he had originally made up back in his musician days, a time he had tried to leave behind but which he could never quite get rid of. The tune emerging from his lips now was the same tune that had been haunting him for months, even years. The patterns had etched themselves into his brain cells so indelibly there was no working them out, same as the thoughts that refused to stop drifting along within.
"What are YOU doing here?"
A loud voice disturbed his reverie and Baudry looked up to see the famous young Striker standing over him.
"Do you even hear me?" Barque queried impatiently, when Baudry hadn't answered quickly enough.
"I was called," Baudry blurted out before he realized what he was saying, but it was too late to take it back. He had been planning on not saying anything to anyone about it.
"What do you mean, called?" Barque barked. "Called by what? By who? For what? Come on, speak up, man. You're in my way!"
"I was called by The Hidden One," Baudry said, louder. Might as well let it all out, he'd decided. He gathered himself and rose to his feet, where he stood a full foot shorter than the youth.
"Ridiculous," Barque snapped. "What would The Hidden One call YOU for? You're lying. Why are you lying?"
"I'm not lying," Baudry managed to say. He was intimidated by the Striker. Most people were. He was, after all, the resident hero of the day, used to ordering people about and getting his way all the time. Such an attitude often passed for the quality of leadership, when it was merely rude bluster and arrogance.
"Why, you've hardly even sniffed out a decent goal this whole season," Barque declaimed. "You know the only reason you are ever selected for any team at all is that ludicrous rule that no one who wants to play can be rejected. As it is, you barely contribute at all."
It was true, and Baudry would be the first to admit it, but it wasn't important, at least not to him. The game didn't actually count, after all. It existed merely to pass time.
"I was called," Baudry insisted, "so here I am. What about you?"
"I'm the one who was called," Barque said proudly. "Of course I would be, you know. I didn't expect to find anyone else here. Have you seen The Hidden One? How long have you been here, anyway?"
"I only just arrived a few minutes ago," Baudry informed him. Barque reached out and with his hand to Baudry's shoulder, pushed the older man aside. He proceeded to circle the Particular Tree making a show of a meticulous inspection around the base.
"Have you been up yet?" he asked, then quickly added, "oh, never mind. It wouldn't matter anyway. I'll see for myself," and sprung up into the trees, climbing faster than Baudry could imagine ever doing. The old man watched from the ground as Barque disappeared up into the leaves. The kid wasn't gone very long, though. Moments later he leaped to the ground and announced there was no one and nothing up there.
"I suppose we'll have to wait," he said as if issuing orders. He even pointed to a rhododendron shrub where he apparently expected Baudry to go. Baudry ignored him, and sat back down on his spot by the trunk, to Barque's intense consternation.
"That is MY spot," he said, kicking at Baudry's legs. Baudry glanced up at him and sneered.
"Find another, sonny boy," he said snidely.
Barque could not believe his ears. The insolence! He was not used to being insulted or even talked back to. He didn't quite know what to do. He thought about kicking the old man again, but for some reason he changed his
mind. It was possible, he considered, that The Hidden One was somewhere lurking about and possibly witnessing his actions. He didn't want to make a wrong move, so he determined to rewind his posture and take a different approach.
"Never mind, then," he said in a gentler tone. "It seems that we've both been called. I wonder if anyone else was?"
Barque sat down at right angles to Baudry, and leaned against a different side of the trunk. After a few minutes of silence he spoke up again.
"You don't happen to have any idea what all this is about, do you, old man?"
"Not a clue," Baudry said. "Do you?"
"Not at all," Barque admitted. "Not at all."
Eight
Edeline was tired. Her feet were tired, her back hurt, every bit of her, in fact, was either tired or in pain or both. She hadn't done this much walking since never, and had pretty much given up asking "are we there yet" after Ember's initially curt answers had turned into snarls and then finally silences. Ember had other things on her mind, such as the state of play and the surrounding participants. They were being followed and not inconspicuously. Someone high up in the trees was shadowing their moves and didn't mind if he was heard. She knew what he was and didn't worry.
Edeline was seeing things. She could have sworn just now there was a coffee
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