by J. A. White
Only once, when he was deeply in his cups, had he given Kara anything resembling a clue. Stumbling into her room in the middle of the night, he said that Mother had never wanted to hurt anyone but “made a terrible, terrible mistake.”
Kara had pretended to be asleep.
Kara picked up a gathering basket and flinched at the smell of rotten hushfruits. At some point Father had actually done some picking but abandoned the project midway. A soupy mess crawling with bugs was all that remained in the basket.
Turning her head away, Kara dumped it on the ground.
Although delicious, hushfruits were extremely fickle. There was only a small window of opportunity to pick the fruit when it ripened, after which it would shrivel and die on the branch. Luckily, it was easy to tell the proper time: The hushfruit’s color changed from an unappetizing gray to vibrant purple, and the branches of the tree sagged as though begging to be picked.
Looking through the orchard, Kara saw tree after tree with branches so low the hushfruit grazed the ground.
It was going to be a long night.
She moved quickly. Some fruit was already too far gone and exploded in her hand the moment she touched it, dyeing her fingers a dark purple. Nonetheless, she managed to fill four baskets in two hours. By then, however, exhaustion had caught up to her, and Kara found her progress slowing considerably. There was no way she could pick it all, and her heart sickened at the amount of money they would lose. She cursed herself for trusting Father, who had promised to take care of this days ago. I could wake him up right now. Taff too. Together we might have a chance. But she knew that wouldn’t work. Father would just feel guilty about not having done the work in the first place and would spend more time apologizing than actually working. Taff would be eager to help, but there was his health to consider. The temperature had plummeted in the past hour, and she couldn’t make him come out into the cold like this.
No, the only solution was for her to work as quickly as she could. If Kara could gather another six baskets, that would be enough to fetch them a handful of yellows. She wasn’t convinced it would see them through the winter, but it was a start. In the next hour, she was only able to gather half a basket, however, which she then knocked over with her numb hands, sending fruit rolling everywhere. Kara had to spend another half hour on her knees, looking for the scattered hushfruit with her lantern.
She actually felt relieved when she squeezed one too hard, and it burst in her hand. At least its innards were warm.
I’ll just rest, she thought, sitting at the base of a tree. In a few minutes, I’ll feel refreshed. Then I’ll be able to work faster than ever.
Kara closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she couldn’t feel her feet, and a bird with an eye in its chest was perched on her knee. Kara’s first instinct was to scream, but she felt so tired, so sluggish, that she was unable to open her mouth. She realized, somewhere in the back of her mind, that this was a very bad thing. That she really needed to get to her feet and move around.
Her body refused to listen.
She stared at the bird before her. Its feathers were a deep, rich blue that rippled like water in the moonlight. There was nothing but a bump where its head should be, with a small, dark hole that might have been a mouth. Its single eye was the dark green of murky swamp water.
As Kara watched, the eyeball rolled to the left, and a second eye took its place, this one slate gray. No sooner had this new eyeball fixed itself in the bird’s socket than it was replaced by a different eye, the same blue as the bird’s feathers. If Kara had not seen it move into place, she doubted she would have known that the bird had an eye at all. This strange piece of camouflage quickly rolled to the side, replaced by an eyeball that glowed yellow and gave off a faint but welcome warmth.
At no point did the bird blink.
It’s trying to get my attention, Kara thought. It’s trying to wake me up.
The bird-thing’s eye moved again, and a few eyeballs rolled by without stopping. Orange. Magenta. Albino white. Kara imagined the eyeballs lined up inside its body like marbles on the wooden track of a child’s toy. There didn’t seem to be enough room in its tiny body for all of them, but Kara supposed they weren’t playing by the typical rules anymore.
Finally the bird settled on an eyeball that pulsed and danced with the fiery red of an inferno. Kara’s head burned just looking at it, but some of her exhaustion had drained away. As soon as Kara pressed her hands into the earth and began making the effort to stand, the bird flew to a nearby branch and watched her carefully.
“Thank you for waking me up,” Kara said.
The bird hopped backward. Deeper into the orchard.
“Hey,” Kara said. “Where are you going?”
The bird moved again. This time it took flight, not stopping until it reached the end of the row of trees, where it perched on a branch and faced Kara.
“You want me to follow you?” Kara asked.
The bird’s eye changed color. A vibrant orange.
Yes.
Kara walked to the end of the row, her feet stinging as feeling returned to them. As soon as she reached the bird it took off down a different row of trees.
Found a branch. Faced Kara. Waited.
They did this several more times. They were nearing the opposite end of the orchard, which also marked the northern border of her family’s farm. Beyond that was only the . . .
Of course. Where else could such a strange creature have come from?
“No,” Kara said. “I can’t go there.”
The bird’s caw cut through the night, a strident burst of sound with no end in sight. Kara clamped her hands to her ears. Above her the fragile hushfruits suddenly burst, their purple innards raining to the ground.
“Stop it!” Kara screamed. “Please! I’ll follow you!”
The bird stopped, changed eyes. Pink. Kara thought it was pleased with itself.
It flew out of the orchard and into the wind-torn night, Kara close behind.
Kara crossed the border of her family’s land and stood before the Fringe, an expanse of wild growth that separated De’Noran from the Thickety.
Although it had been cut just this morning, fresh stalks and saplings already stood as high as Kara’s knees. Mother had taught her about the different types of plants—so, unlike other villagers, Kara knew which could heal and which should be avoided. But the Fringe was always changing, and in the darkness it was difficult to differentiate between the red moss that could soothe sore throats and the moss that would make your fingernails fall off.
This is crazy, she thought. Besides, if someone sees me, it will be the Well for sure. Maybe worse. Yet Kara continued to follow the bird. Soon she reached a point farther than she had ever dared travel, even with Mother. Only Shadowcutters—those Clearers assigned to remove flora located within the shadows of the Thickety—were permitted to go so far. Kara’s heart quickened as she slid past drooping, willowy stalks from which hung a dozen mustard-yellow spheres. She knew that each sphere would burst under the slightest pressure, producing nightmarish hallucinations.
Finally the weeds cleared. The Thickety stood before her, massive and ancient and foreboding, with leaves that remained black no matter what the season. The branches here were knitted into an impenetrable wall, save one spot: a small opening no higher than her knees. She noted, with a slightly sick feeling, that she would fit perfectly.
The bird waited patiently, its eye a glowing yellow. Showing her the way.
She thought about Simon Loder and his blank, haunted eyes. The Thickety had done that to him. He had experienced something so terrible that his mind had chosen to shut off completely rather than remember it. Who was to say the same thing wouldn’t happen to her?
“I won’t go in there,” Kara said.
The bird cawed once, a gentle pleading.
Kara took a single step forward, and her mother’s words returned to her through the mist of years: Never journey past the Fringe, for t
hough the Thickety is closed to most, I fear he may make a special exception for you.
“No,” Kara said, backing away. “Never.”
The bird stomped its feet up and down.
“I should never have come this far.” She was exhausted and light-headed and had nearly frozen to death. But now that she was thinking clearly, Kara understood that she needed to get as far from this place as possible.
The bird’s eye swiveled: lavender. The precise hue of her favorite flower.
I’m sorry, it seemed to say.
Before Kara could swat it away—before she even knew what was happening—the bird swooped onto her neck. Kara heard a snap and watched the bird disappear into the Thickety, her necklace held fast in its talons.
“No!” Kara exclaimed, grasping the spot on her chest where the locket had rested for the last seven years.
It was all she had left of her mother.
And it had been stolen.
Without thinking, Kara crawled through the hole in the Thickety, determined to get it back again.
Kara found herself inching along a narrow, branch-lined tunnel. Her only source of light was the bird’s yellow eye, hovering before her like a ghostly sun. The air was warmer here, and smelled of growth and flowers. She thought it might have been a very pleasant smell, had it not been so overpowering. Branches laced together into a tight, impenetrable net pressed down against her back, increasing in pressure as the tunnel became narrower and narrower. She reached up and could not even find an opening big enough for her hand.
At one point something with far too many legs skittered across the back of her hand and vanished through a seam in the branch net. Kara’s shriek of surprise was answered by a thousand rustling sounds from the trees above. If the creatures of the Thickety had not known she was coming, they did now.
Suddenly the ground opened up, and there was only air beneath her hands. She tumbled free of the tunnel, down a short slope of dark, damp earth. On her back Kara clenched her hands together and breathed in the warm, humid air, unwilling—quite yet—to open her eyes.
“I’m inside the Thickety,” she whispered, but saying the words out loud did not make them feel more real. She felt shame and excitement but above all fear, its shadowy wings spread wide enough to encompass all other feelings.
Kara opened her eyes.
It was dark. High above, a canopy of black leaves created a labyrinthine shield that blocked out the sky and any light whatsoever. On the branches below, however, clung gossamer threads of silver web that gave off a radiant glow like moonlight. These webs trailed off after a few hundred feet, and the remainder of the Thickety was cloaked in impenetrable darkness. Looking into it Kara felt dizzy, as though she were standing on the edge of a great precipice.
A stray strand of web dangled before her eyes, glowing softly. Perhaps my people have been wrong all these years, she thought, staring at its mesmerizing light. Perhaps this is a place of wonder.
Kara touched the thread. It immediately went dark.
This sudden darkness spread to the glowing web above, like a fire along a line of kerosene. Strand by strand the silver light extinguished itself.
But before Kara was plunged into complete darkness, something large and fast swung into action. She couldn’t make out its exact features—it was just a blur of motion—but she did see a large number of legs and what appeared to be long, boneless arms. Spinning new thread between two impossibly fast hands, the creature repaired the web. It chattered at Kara angrily, berating her for ruining its work.
When the creature was finished, the web looked different than before, but it lit the area just as admirably. The webspinner gave Kara one final look of warning, then slipped between a small opening in the branches and disappeared into the darkness.
“Thank you,” Kara said. Her voice sounded strange in this place, distant, as though she were shouting to herself across a stream.
Kara didn’t know what to do next. She would leave the moment the bird returned her locket, but she didn’t think that would happen until she . . . did what she was supposed to do. Perhaps if I look around a bit, something will occur to me. It wasn’t as though she had to explore the whole Thickety, after all—just the area beneath the silver light. If she found nothing of interest, Kara would go straight home, locket or no locket. No matter what, she wouldn’t go near the dark part of the forest. Even Kara’s curiosity had limits.
Thus decided, Kara began her search. She had no idea what she was looking for, so she walked with great care, examining her surroundings closely. If there was something to be found, she prayed she would sense its importance.
She did.
Although it was the right size and shape, Kara did not think the shell belonged to a tortoise—at least not any sort of tortoise she had ever seen. For one thing, the shell was inscribed with burnt-orange spirals that seemed to impart some vague meaning. When Kara bent forward to examine the symbols more closely, however, a painful buzzing exploded in her head.
She quickly looked away. If the symbols did hide some secret meaning, it wasn’t one she wanted to know.
When Kara turned back, the one-eyed bird was sitting on the shell, the necklace dangling from its talons.
She reached for it, but the bird hopped away.
“Give it back!” she exclaimed.
The bird regarded her, its eye a solemn but encouraging brown.
In time. This first.
Kara thought about making another attempt for the locket but knew it was pointless; the bird was far too fast. She knelt next to the shell, hesitant to pick it up. There might be something dead under there. Or alive. Kara dug her hand beneath its underside, trying not to imagine a pair of pincers groping for her fingers in the darkness. She lifted her hand, just hoping to get the shell a few inches off the ground, and jumped back in surprise when it flipped over completely. It was much lighter than it looked.
At the very least, Kara thought, it will make a great sled for Taff this winter.
The bird cawed, and the strident sound reverberated into the darkness, emphasizing the unnatural silence of the forest.
“Yes?” Kara asked.
The bird, standing on the spot previously covered by the shell, marched in place. It rotated eyeballs until it reached a faded blue.
Help me.
“Help you do what?” Kara asked.
When the bird opened its eye again, the color was a purple so deep you could fall into it. Pay close attention.
The bird dragged its feet backward, with a slight hesitation each time. Drag . . . stop . . . drag . . . stop . . . drag . . . stop. It hopped over to the shell and perched on it, gazing at Kara expectantly.
“You want me to dig?”
The bird hopped up once.
Yes!
“That’s what the shell is for, isn’t it? For digging.”
The bird hopped again.
“Is something important buried here? Is that why you wanted me to come with you?”
The bird’s eye rotated for a long time. Finally it settled on dark gray, a stone wet with rain. For some reason Kara had trouble understanding the meaning of this one. It seemed a bit ambiguous, but as far as she could tell, it either meant “most important” or “not me.”
Picking up the shell with two hands, she began to dig.
The black soil made no sense. Cupped in her hand, it felt much heavier than the earth from her farm, like a fistful of iron filings. Yet even after Kara filled the large shell with dirt, she could lift it with ease; if anything, a soil-packed shell was slightly lighter than an empty one. This was completely impossible, of course, but Kara was quickly learning not to question things in the Thickety.
She continued to dig.
Surprisingly soon she was standing waist-deep in a hole of her own creation. Kara tried to remember how long she had been digging. She could not.
And then, on her next scoop into the dirt, the shell made contact with something solid.
Immed
iately Kara knew this was the end of her search. It wasn’t that she had a bolt of intuition. It was that the shell crumbled in her hands, spilling between her fingers as it disintegrated into black soil. Within moments there was no sign that her makeshift shovel had ever been there at all.
Kara plunged her hands into the dirt and unearthed a rectangular object wrapped in cheesecloth.
This belonged to my mother, she thought. She wanted me to have it, which is why she hid it in the one place on the island it could never be found. Or . . . something wants me to think that.
It was too dangerous. She should leave the object here and return home before someone saw her. That was the smart thing to do.
But what if it really was Mother’s? This might be my only chance to learn the truth.
Before Kara could make her final decision, the bird fluttered in front of her and dropped the locket. The ivy cascaded gracefully into Kara’s palm.
“Thank you,” she said, tying the locket around her neck. Its familiar weight made her feel whole again.
The bird’s eye shifted to a sullen blue. It was a difficult shade to read, but Kara thought it might be some form of sympathy. No: not just sympathy.
Sorrow.
With a final caw, the creature disappeared into the darkness, leaving her alone.
That one means me no harm, Kara thought, and would not guide me to something dangerous. She began to unwind the cheesecloth. There was a second layer, made of different material, beneath the first. Kara thought it might be some sort of animal skin, though it was none that she recognized. She flipped the object over and saw that the skin had been sewn together with black thread, creating a sealed pouch.
Whatever was inside, Mother had taken great care to protect it.
Kara withdrew a small penknife from the folds of her cloak and cut carefully along the stitches. The thread had been pulled taut and snapped easily.
The skin slid to either side, revealing a black book.
It was bound in a strange material, cold and shiny and oddly moist when Kara touched it, though when she removed her hand, her fingertips weren’t the slightest bit damp. Like the black soil, the book seemed to take exception to the natural laws of the world; though it was larger than the Path—a hefty tome, to say the least—it barely had any weight to it.