The Timekeeper's Moon

by Joni Sensel

  “Did you help with that?” Ariel whispered to Scarl. If she hadn’t been so pleased for Sienna, she might have been jealous. But then Nace retreated to slide furtive fingers into Ariel’s hand.

  “Only the fishline.”

  Scarl waited until Sienna whisked the tears from her face, and then he clasped both her hands. “Sienna.” She looked into his eyes. As usual, Scarl let those do most of his speaking. Sienna’s color rose the whole time. Keeping his voice low, he finally said, “Promise me that if you become unhappy here, you’ll get help from Mo or await our return. I don’t want you trying to get back to Skunk and running into those Reapers alone.”

  “I promise,” Sienna said. “But I don’t think I’ll want to leave. Scarl?”

  “Yes?”

  After a nervous glance at the onlookers, Sienna leaned quickly to kiss his lips. She backed away even faster, pulling her hands free, before he could either return it or recoil.

  “I promised myself I’d do that,” she said, her cheeks bright. She threw Ariel a rueful glance and busied her hands with her necklace. “I keep my promises, that’s all.”

  Ariel didn’t dare look at Scarl’s face, but surprise and amusement contoured his voice. “I’m not sure I understand, Sienna, but thank you. For everything. Good-bye, goodwill, and good luck.”

  The words repeated through the great hall, following them out. Ariel clung to the echoes, especially the ones for good luck. She thought they would need it. The dread of being too late had started to swamp her again.

  Mo took them outside the way they’d come in and then around to a path that Willow could travel over the top of the dam. The horse took some coaxing on the unfamiliar surface, but soon the clopping of hooves echoed through the cool morning air. Though the sun hadn’t heaved itself over the hill yet, the sky glowed with anticipation of dawn.

  Nace skittered ahead to gaze over the rail at the spillway.

  “Don’t jump,” Ariel teased. “I’m not a gazelle.”

  He grinned and swung himself up onto the rail. Her stomach flopped.

  Scarl grabbed Nace’s collar. “Quit being foolhardy. Have you already forgotten that things break?”

  “That’s where we cast thieves,” Mo added. “As far as I know, none has survived. I don’t expect you will neither, boy, unless you grow some more brains.”

  Nace dropped lightly back down and hung his head, but only until the men’s attention shifted elsewhere. Then he cast Ariel a wink.

  She and her friends stepped onto the far lakeshore, waved to Mo, and angled eagerly down toward the river. Perhaps Ariel let herself ponder Scarl’s bridge story too much, because their footsteps seemed to clatter unnaturally loud in her ears. Nace trod alongside her, providing company but not conversation. She missed Sienna’s chatting.

  The river, when they reached it, proved even more troubling. Though Ariel could see it tumble and spray over rocks, no burble or swish reached her ears. It flowed without sound. The matted brambles and stubby trees on their side of the river did not sigh at the touch of the wind. The arid sweeps on the other side, although unburned, looked barren.

  “It’s awfully quiet here,” she said.

  Nace whistled, paused, and tried again. No bird or chipmunk responded.

  “I noticed, too,” Scarl replied. “And so has Willow.” The horse’s ears pressed tight to his head. His eyes rolled as if predators stalked him on all sides.

  Nace slipped back to stroke Willow’s nose, his temple tipped against the wide jaw as if listening there.

  “Think he’s smelling wolves or a lion on the prowl?” Scarl asked.

  Nace turned his face into the breeze to inhale it. He shook his head. Then he waved at their surroundings and wrung his hands as though squeezing a dishcloth: Twisted.

  Scarl agreed. “There might still be places tainted from the war. I’ve been surprised to find anything as large as Tattler or the dam intact. Maybe the destruction here took some other form.”

  Ariel eyed the nearby trees, which looked stunted and forlorn. “Could it still hurt us?”

  “Would you walk somewhere else if I told you it might?”

  Ariel watched the gravel under her feet. “No,” she replied. There was only one path to where she was going.

  She sang her Farwalker’s song to dispel the eerie hush. Nace whistled the tune on her last several verses. That cheered her.

  “You sing something, Scarl,” she suggested, once they’d gone through hers twice. “You must know a few songs.”

  He refused.

  “Come on. You can hum any parts you forget.”

  “There’s only one song I can sing with any grace,” he said. “But it’s a very old war song, and too gloomy for traveling.”

  She pestered him until he gave in.

  “Remember,” he warned, “you insisted.” Then he lifted his voice for the song:

  You take the high road and I’ll walk through shadow

  And I’ll reach our homeland before you.

  The rain and the cold wind will bother me no more

  But arms won’t hold me close again like yours do.

  You take the low road and I’ll walk through sunshine,

  But I’ll rest a while here to mourn you.

  Your love and your young ones will shun the news I’ll bring.

  Their tears, I know, will rip at me like thorns do.

  Scarl’s voice was richer than Ariel had expected, but he hadn’t been wrong about the song’s mood. Nace signaled his approval anyway. Ariel walked silently a while, then piped up with a third verse:

  You take the high road and I’ll grab your coattails,

  And I’ll cling through danger or bad weather.

  Our task still awaits us; it won’t take too much time.

  We’ll both return to lands we love together.

  Nace’s clapping echoed.

  “Perhaps there was something to your days as a Fool, Ariel,” Scarl said. “You certainly could have made up songs for your supper. Sing it again so I can remember it.”

  Pleased, she complied. Her heart jumped higher when Nace shot Scarl a wary glance and then sidled close enough to grab her hand. Every inch of her skin burned, knowing Scarl could see, but when she summoned the nerve to peek over her shoulder, he pretended not to notice either the clasped fingers or her look.

  Nace withdrew his hand all too soon. The longer they walked, the more balky Willow became. He planted his hooves, danced sideways from invisible threats, or rushed forward, nearly treading on someone. Eventually Nace mounted in front of their pack load, lay forward with his cheek against Willow’s long neck, and soothed him with constant murmurs and pats. Only then could they calmly move on.

  Ariel thought she knew how the horse felt when they reached the dead forest.

  CHAPTER 35

  Dog Moon, Full

  From a distance, the hillside looked as though heavy snow had fallen in summer. As they drew near, Ariel realized that the trees gleamed white because only gaunt trunks and a few curling branches remained. Leaves, twigs, and bark had fallen away, leaving a forest of bones. Pale, cracked mud coated the ground beneath.

  “They couldn’t have burned,” she said. They’d passed through plenty of char, but this wood was bleached.

  “A landslide, I think.” Scarl pointed to a vast scar on the hillside.

  They picked their way through the rubble strewn on the bank. The dead trees loomed alongside, sinister. She’d never heard a tree’s voice the way Tree-Singers did, but these wooden ghosts seemed to groan at her just below the threshold of hearing.

  She sighed in relief when they left the bone forest behind. Even thinking felt easier once they’d escaped it. Indeed, a fact burst in Ariel’s mind so hard she stopped in her tracks.

  “This can’t be right,” she told Scarl. “I should have noticed before. We’re walking downstream. But when I saw it, Timekeeper poured toward me.”

  “We’ll just come to the top of the falls instead of the bott
om.”

  She shook her head. “No. It falls toward us. It has to.”

  Nace cast a glum look back the long way they had come, but Scarl gestured toward the hills on their right. “Your falls empty into this river as a tributary, then,” he said. “I used my glass last night, Ariel—half of it, anyway—and I’m sure we’re headed in the right direction.”

  “Oh! You know where Timekeeper is?”

  “More or less. So far, I agree with your feet. Trust your sense of direction and stop thinking. It won’t serve for this.”

  Ariel’s legs moved again. Her soles felt sore in her boots, but her heart lightened.

  Then her mind tracked back over Scarl’s words. “When did you have time with your glass last night?” she asked.

  “After you fell asleep. Nace?”

  The boy raised his head from Willow’s neck.

  Scarl hesitated. “Forgive me if this question sounds cruel. I don’t mean it to. But would you still be a Kincaller if you could speak?”

  Nace nodded immediately. Ariel wondered at Scarl’s abrupt change of subject.

  “Would you tell me why, if you think you can make me understand?” he asked.

  With clear trepidation, Nace sat up. Willow halted. Making sure he had Scarl’s full attention, the boy signaled a bit at a time until they correctly guessed his meaning: I hear animals inside my head. I can speak with them inside my head.

  He finished with a grimace and a twirl of his finger by his temple: Crazy?

  “No, I suspected as much,” Scarl said. “You can hear people the same way, can’t you?”

  Nace shot Ariel a look of misgiving. Reluctantly he replied: A little.

  “Ohhh,” Ariel said. “That’s how you followed us so easily from Skunk! And why Sienna thought you knew things you shouldn’t. She’s right.”

  Alarm filled Nace’s face. He made gestures of protest and hurried to explain: Tracks. Willow. I hear. Most of his other waving was too complicated, and too agitated, for her to understand.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t have things to hide.” Even as she spoke, though, implications unfurled before her. Her conscience generally kept her out of much trouble, but all people had embarrassing things in their lives, mistakes to forget, faults to work on, or feelings they didn’t want others to see. She gasped. “Wait. If you hear thoughts… My thoughts, too?” Had opinions of him crossed her mind lately?

  He shook his head, but he couldn’t suppress a sly grin. Ariel covered her burning cheeks with her hands.

  With effort—and helpful guessing from Scarl—Nace assured her that he didn’t hear single thoughts, but the noise and pitch of emotions.

  Ariel wasn’t sure whether to believe him. “So you don’t hear exactly what I think about you?”

  “He doesn’t need to hear thoughts for that.” A smile tugged at Scarl’s lips.

  Ariel groaned and hurried forward.

  Scarl chuckled, but Nace chirped sharply at her. She could barely meet his gaze, afraid of what thoughts might leak out to be gathered by him. He did something remarkable, though. He reached a hand toward her, palm up, and for an instant she felt the plea on his face, and the reassurance he wanted to give her, echo through her own heart and mind. The unexpected connection—closer than touch—warmed her enough to melt the fear of being known rather too well.

  “I hear you,” she said softly. She had to look away, but she could guess how the foxes they’d watched together had known that Nace wouldn’t hurt them.

  He ducked his face, too, blushing, and coaxed the horse into walking again.

  “I’m sorry I stirred up a storm, Nace,” Scarl said, “but the reason I wondered is this: if Ariel became separated from us, would you be able to hear if she was still al—Still all right?”

  Ariel heard the stumble and knew what he’d started to say. Ignoring Nace’s confident nod, she asked, “Why?”

  Scarl blew an unhappy breath. “Just trying to think ahead.”

  “To what?”

  Looking aslant at her, he said nothing. Already flustered, she battled more turmoil rising inside.

  “You’re scaring me,” she told him, as evenly as she could. “What do you know?”

  He stared out over the river. “Maybe nothing,” he said, “but when you talk in your sleep, Ariel, it wakes me. And it may be foolish, but I pay attention. The Essence flows through us all, and I think it can speak once our bodies and minds become silent enough. No doubt that’s what women attuned to the moon really hear.”

  “I said something after I fell asleep?”

  “We had a whole conversation a few hours later. You remember nothing, I take it?”

  “What did I say?” When he wouldn’t answer, she added, “I’m the one who said it—I should get to know.”

  “No. You advised me not to repeat it, and I’m going to honor that.”

  “I told you not to tell me what I said?” she demanded. “You’re making this up.”

  “If you like,” he replied.

  She spent much of the afternoon feeling as though a stranger had stowed away in her skin and that everyone else knew her thoughts better than she did. The creepy sensation added to the burden of silence hanging over their way.

  Yet pulling her through the gloom was one bright hope that she’d kept to herself now for days. Reminded again by Nace’s labored gestures, she finally broached her idea with Scarl when they stopped for a meal. The Kincaller had hurried away, looking determined, after the Finder remarked on their dwindling food supply, which had not been replenished in Electron. Ariel made use of his absence.

  “Scarl, I’ve been thinking,” she said. “When we go back to the abbey, we could take Nace with us. Couldn’t we? He could care for the goats, and the Storians there could teach him the symbol writing. Then he could talk, even without a voice!”

  Scarl took a long draft from the water jar in his hands and swirled what was left.

  Her heart fell. “You don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Have you already spoken to him about it?”

  When she shook her head, relief eased the tired creases around his eyes.

  “It may be a fine idea, if he thinks so,” he said. “It would open a new world for him. But I can see at least three reasons it may not be wise. First off, he’d be awfully far from his family.”

  “He’s far away now,” Ariel argued.

  “I very much doubt he asked anyone what they thought, though, or considered it carefully himself. He’s almost too old to beg permission, but he may decide he’s needed at home.”

  “What other reasons?”

  He studied her briefly and then offered her the jar. “I’ll stop at one. It’s not really my place.”

  She ignored the water. “You started with three! Tell me.”

  Ruefully, he set the jar aside. “Well, he may hope to draw you into his life, instead of being drawn into yours. And what if you tire of him? And don’t you think Zeke might be jealous?”

  “Zeke?” The notion hit her like a splash: first a shock, then a disquieting dribble.

  Crushing a smile, Scarl flung up his hands. “I may be wrong. Like I said, not my place.”

  “Zeke.” She poked at that strange idea. She and Zeke had been through difficult times together, and she certainly loved him. When he’d first returned home to Canberra Docks after helping to discover the Vault, it had quickly become clear that too much had changed for Ezekiel Stone-Singer to live again with his family. She’d been overjoyed when he rejoined her and Scarl at the abbey. But it had never occurred to Ariel that he could be any more than a surrogate brother.

  “You really think… Zeke?” she wondered, low.

  Scarl’s face cramped. “I’m sorry I said anything.”

  “I’m not.” But now she felt completely confused.

  When Nace returned, he bore only a few grass seed heads for Willow. Ariel wasn’t surprised. They’d passed thickets of berries before the charred lands, but none sin
ce. She hadn’t seen so much as a honeybee on this side of the dam. So she ate tasteless dried fish with her friends, chewing in thoughtful silence and measuring memories of Zeke against a new yardstick. She longed to see him again; she missed his amiable wit and she needed to know he was well. Yet when she glanced up and her eyes met with Nace’s, his bottomless regard drowned everything else.

  Only the need to keep walking could break through, stronger than hunger.

  Poor Willow ended the day bearing them all. The moon rose, swollen, before twilight had leaked from the sky. Seeing it, Ariel quailed and nudged the horse on with her legs.

  Scarl insisted on stopping once the moon had crested and begun sinking again. “I’ve been telling myself ‘just another hour’ for four hours,” he said. “We don’t know what lies ahead, and we all need sleep, Willow included. We’ll have even less hope of succeeding tomorrow if we don’t.”

  Ariel argued for walking until dawn.

  “No,” he told her. “I don’t think we’d reach the falls by then, anyway. It doesn’t feel that close to me yet. And we’ll cover more ground in two hours of daylight. If the light of the full moon itself is important to whatever awaits us, we can come back next August. It’ll be easier once we know where we’re going and why.”

  She couldn’t budge him. Ariel fell into sleep with the weight of failure dragging her under—and a nightmare awaiting her there.

  CHAPTER 36

  Dog Moon Dream

  What if a branch breaks?” Zeke cried. “The wind’s starting to blow. Come down.”

  Already much higher in his maple tree than she had intended to go, Ariel glanced down. The space between her and the ground seemed to throb. Still, she reached for the next slender branch. She would retreat once she’d proven that she was not scared.