“Me find herbs! Fill wineskins too.” He handed Jemma’s to her, which she took with thanks.
Soon, the cave was full of pungent steam. As Bryn stirred the pot, he talked about the coming winter, and the spring that would follow, with its high river waters, and the new growth that even the Mist couldn’t stop. Jemma listened to his stilted words with half an ear, while her mind chewed on all she’d just read. Feeling a renewed determination to heal as fast as she could, she sipped Bryn’s revolting concoction as soon as it was brewed. Thankfully, he’d also gathered roots, mushrooms, nuts, and berries, which, along with some venison he had stored at the back of his cave (“Me no kill,” he said, “only find what fall off crag”), made a delicious stew. For Noodle and Pie, he’d brought back a selection of nuts and dead bugs, which they crunched on with glee. Over the course of the afternoon, Jemma dozed, crystals in hand, while Bryn hummed softly, alternately tending the fire and Sparrow’s broken wing. Eventually, he too fell into a doze, with the full-bellied rats curled on his stomach.
Sapphire-blue eyes pierced the Mist.… She ran and ran, trying to reach them, but they kept receding. Water was rising, pressing on her from inside.…
Jemma woke, the strange triangle of energy tingling between her hands and the Stone again. She needed to relieve herself. Still half-asleep, she untied the straps around her right ankle. Then, being careful not to disturb Bryn and the rats, she put down the crystals and crawled out of the cave to find a private spot. The cold bit into her skin, and the snow was strange to walk on—crunchy, yet it melted when touched.
When she returned to the cave, Bryn was sitting up. “You walk!” he said, gaping at her. “Leg, all better!”
She hadn’t even thought of it. But now she saw the splints lying by her straw bed; it was them whose straps she had untied moments ago without realizing it. All that remained of her fall was a dull ache in her ankle.
Excitement crackled through her.
She could leave, tonight.
No. She could leave this afternoon. Now.
Bryn sat in silence while Jemma gathered her things. As she replaced the old bulletins into the book, a scrap of paper fluttered to the ground—one she hadn’t seen before; it must have been stuck between the others. An orb of light surrounded it, illuminating the black-and-white sketch of a face: a woman in tears, hair cascading over shawl-clad shoulders.
She picked it up. The orb around it stretched toward her, enveloping her. Air stuck in her throat. She could almost feel the woman’s warmth, hear her voice, smell her fragrance. Even before she read the caption beneath the picture, Jemma knew what it would say.
MISSING CHILD’S MOTHER
It was the same face she had seen in the crystal. Her mother’s face. The image of it slid into a hollow in her that she hadn’t even known was there, like a puzzle piece that she had never before realized was missing. It resonated deep inside her, as if it were a pebble dropped into water, whose ripples reached to where Jemma sat now. She turned the picture over. Tiny writing was scrawled with obvious effort across the back.
My darling child. We are waiting.
Jemma felt her destination sharpen in her mind, as clearly as etching on glass. For somehow, something in her knew that her mother, at least, was still in Oakstead—and alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
At the Edge
Friday night/Saturday, early hours
Bryn waved from the mouth of his cave. He still looked a little abashed after the long hug Jemma had given him as she thanked him for making her well. “Happy, me help,” he’d said, blushing.
Jemma waved back at him one last time, then walked away, wishing she could have told him that she’d return to visit someday, but his cave was too close to Agromond Castle for her to consider making such a promise.
Noodle and Pie settled into the hood of her cloak as she trod along in the tracks Bryn had made in the snow. “Go to tree where you fall, he’d said, then straight, to river. Bridge to village this way.” (He’d pointed with his right hand.) “Not far.” To her right, she could dimly see the crag’s descending slope running alongside her, a vague form through the Mist.
Snow squeaked underfoot. Thank goodness for the deer hides that Bryn had tied around her own flimsy boots; they’d prevent her toes from freezing, and make the going easier. He had also bound her legs in strips of sacking—which prickled, but helped fend off the cold—and given her an extra hide for her shoulders, as well as making her a shoulder pouch from a burlap sack he’d found at the back of his cave. She felt it now at her back, holding a chunk of roast venison he’d given her, as well as some pine nuts for the rats, her knife, and the book, whose warmth spread through her with the warmth of her thoughts about him.
Jemma gripped the crystals in her pockets, her breath puffing into the night. The forest was blanketed in silence, the fir branches weighed down by white. Occasionally a branch tipped its load onto the ground with a shush, as if whispering a warning, but she felt safe, held by the stillness around her, despite the dark rock of the crag brooding to her right. From behind her, muffled by Mist and distance, came seven tolls. Moments later, Bryn’s footprints ended by a fir tree, beneath which a pile of snow was scattered with broken twigs and branches.
“This is where we landed, Rattusses. It’s a wonder Bryn found us.”
Noodle and Pie peered out of the hood, and the three of them looked up. Even the top of the tree wasn’t visible, let alone the edge of the crag from which the wind had hurled her. At least the Agromonds would now believe she was dead—who could possibly have survived that fall? It was a miracle that she had.
Cloak. Like wings. It saved you. Saved us.
The cloak billowed slightly as if confirming the rats’ thoughts, and Jemma wrapped it more tightly around her as they snuggled back into its hood. Soon the ground became flatter, the snow covering thinner, and Jemma could feel pine and fir cones under her feet. As the hours passed, she could no longer hear the bell tolling from the castle. The trees became sparser, but more varied. Interspersed with firs and pines were others she didn’t recognize—trees without leaves, whose branches stretched out at awkward angles. Hummocks, like hunchbacks huddled under white cloaks, crouched between them.
To her right, the descending slope of the crag was closer, and Jemma could make out piles of rock through the Mist, hewn into blocks of various sizes. Large, metal wheels creaked in the wind, rust on rust, and several huge chutes leaned against the rock face as though they were propping it up. That must be the quarry, she thought as she trudged by, leaving its ghostly shapes and the silent echoes of centuries of workers behind her. She wondered about the crag’s magic, and what Bryn’s mother had said about its effect depending on how men used it. Whatever it had once been able to do, it now seemed sad and wasted.
Finally, the slope leveled out. “When ground flat, river not far,” Bryn had said. Encouraged, Jemma pressed on. Puddles squished underfoot, soaking through the skins around her feet. Her toes and ankles numbed. A white flake floated down from the sky and landed on her nose, melting into a chilly dribble. Others began falling, gently at first, then thicker and faster, blowing into her face, creating dots of cold on her skin. The wind picked up, blowing head-on through the trees, turning the dots to ice. White drifts piled around her feet, making it hard to walk. Ice gathered in clumps around the rim of her hood. Even Majem’s book was no match for the cold, and soon the only warmth Jemma could feel was from Noodle and Pie, who nestled into her neck, their thoughts seemingly as frozen as their shivering bodies.
Her ankle felt sore, making her limp. Bryn had tried to persuade her to rest it for one more night, and she began to worry that she had been too impatient and made the wrong decision. The snow fell in a thick veil, and without the rock face to her right, Jemma had no landmarks. If she headed into the wind, she reasoned, she’d get to the river. But the wind kept shifting, confusing her. It was impossible to tell which direction she was going. She held her Stone. It infused her with a faint
wave of warmth, but gave her no sense of where the river was.
She was lost. Lost, in a swirl of blinding white. Was this another of Nocturna’s storms? If so, did that mean the Agromonds knew she was still alive?
“Oh, no … no … They can’t know. Please, no …” Despair dripped into her veins, and she pulled the cloak closer around her, but the wind whipped it from her grasp. The pain in her ankle worsened. She tried thinking of Hazebury and Digby, and of Oakstead and her parents, to no avail. Shoving her left hand into her pocket, she closed her fingers around the crystal in which she’d seen the glimmer of her mother. Help me, she entreated, if there’s anyone there.
Snow whirled furiously around her, sticking to her lashes, making it harder to see. She gripped the crystal harder. Help me.… Mother—please, help!
Her palm buzzed. Pins and needles prickled through her hand and up her arm. Then a lightning-bolt sensation snapped to her chest, where her Stone lay. Its aqua light pulsed out, illuminating whorls of snow ahead of her, which then spun in a vortex, forming a tunnel. Jemma stumbled into it, her feet in automatic motion. The tunnel was eerily silent, as if the world had disappeared, leaving nothing but darkness. Then, at the end of it, two points of blue began glimmering faintly, then more strongly—just like those she’d seen earlier in the crystal. Brilliant, sapphire blue. Sapphire … Sapphire Solvay …
“Mother …,” Jemma whispered, then shouted out, “Mother!”
The wind’s howl faded behind walls of whirling snow-flakes. The points of blue became more vivid, pulling her forward. Jemma blundered toward them through the silence, picking up speed. Blue light flooded the tunnel, then she could see eyes at the end, sapphire eyes in a face framed by brown hair. Then a distant voice was calling her, as if through a wall of water: Jemma, my child, come! We are waiting.… Jemma ran toward it, her heart on the verge of exploding—
Suddenly, the face disappeared, taking the vortex, snow, and wind with it. Jemma found herself teetering at the bank of a river. On the other side of its rushing waters, a faint light glimmered through the Mist, then went out.
“Look, Rattusses,” she said, “that must be Hazebury.” But the face had gone.
Jemma’s heart emptied, and she stood for several moments in the still, white night, gazing blankly at the ice floes speeding by. Noodle and Pie nuzzled her face.
They’re waiting for you. She said so. Trust.
Trust … she wished she could. But it was hard to have faith out in the biting cold, with still so far to go. She stroked the rats’ heads with one hand, wiping away a tear with the other. Then, turning to her right, she started clumping along the river’s edge toward the north, where the bridge to Hazebury lay.
* * *
The Mist paled in the dawn light. After walking all night, Jemma was exhausted. With every step, pain flared from her ankle. Her Stone had helped for a while, but now, it seemed exhausted too. She was hungry, and pulled the venison Bryn had given her from her pouch, chewing on it while she fed the handful of nuts to Noodle and Pie, who ate them voraciously. Rain started spitting down, but she was beyond caring.
The river babbled to Jemma’s left, a dark stripe in the snowy ground. An unwelcome memory punched into her thoughts: a geography lesson in which Nox had taught her and the twins that between Agromond Forest and Hazebury, the Stoat River formed part of a moat that surrounded the base of Mordwin’s Crag—and the moat was stocked with deadly, long-jawed Aquadyles, which wouldn’t hesitate to make a meal of her.
“We’d better stay away from the water, Rattusses, and keep our eyes peeled,” she said, shivering. Her hunger evaporated. Thrusting the rest of the venison back into her pouch, she pressed on. To her right, beyond an expanse of white, the forest gloomed in the background.
The snow was melting, becoming slushier as the rain increased, and the ground was now patched with mud. It was slippery, slowing her down. Between her and the forest line, the bog was spiked with long-dead skeletal trees. They towered over her like spies whose bare limbs might somehow send a signal up the crag to the Agromonds: She’s alive … alive … No. They mustn’t catch her. Not now. Not after all she’d been through.
Rain stung Jemma’s face. Her cloak was soaked; her feet felt like blocks of ice; her ankle kept giving way. She muttered her old incantation under her breath to bolster herself—I am a Fire Warrioress, the fiercest in the land—then sighed at the innocence of the girl who had made up that rhyme. But it did seem to energize her, and she limped a little faster.
To her left, the river waters lapped the shore. Ice floes prodded the bank, as if trying to climb. Then, with a loud crack, one lifted and broke. A shadow emerged from under it. Jemma heard the splish of large feet on wet ground. A long, low shape slithered into view ahead of her, like a huge lizard padding on sharp-clawed feet, swishing its tail.
An Aquadyle. Its long jaws parted slightly in what looked like a grisly grin. Evidently, it had marked Jemma as breakfast.
Fear fired her bones. Veering to her right, she sloshed toward the forest; she would be able to move faster on drier ground. But mud weighed her down; rain lashed into her. The Aquadyle’s squelching footsteps were catching her up, punctuated by rhythmic snorts that drowned out her own gasps for breath. She reached for the knife in her pouch, but before she could grab it, she felt a tug at her recently healed ankle and splatted facedown in the mud. Pain shot up her leg. Her foot was in the Aquadyle’s mouth.
“Let me go!” Looking over her shoulder, Jemma aimed her free foot at the creature’s snout, ripping a nostril. It snarled, and bit harder. Noodle and Pie dashed from her hood and down her leg, then began gnawing through the straps holding the deer hide around her boot.
“Rattusses, be careful!” Jemma screamed. They were right next to the Aquadyle’s mouth. But they chewed through the straps swiftly, then clambered onto the Aquadyle’s head and clawed at its eyes. Jemma wriggled her ankle, gritting her teeth in agony, but the Aquadyle’s jaws remained clamped around it. The rats clung on and continued clawing as it thrashed Jemma from side to side. Her ankle felt on the verge of breaking again; the pain was unbearable.
“Leave … me … a-LONE!” she shrieked. For a split second, the Aquadyle stopped, looking startled. Noodle and Pie seized their chance. With a final scratch, they sliced open its eyeballs. Clear, gelatinous fluid burst out and oozed down its knobbly snout. It opened its jaws in an agonized roar, and Jemma pulled her foot free. The rats leapt clear. She grabbed one in each hand and scrambled to her feet, then hobbled away as fast as she could. The Aquadyle continued flailing its head blindly.
But now a second Aquadyle was weaving toward them through the bog. Remembering the venison in her pocket, Jemma whisked it out and hurled it at the beast, but it landed in the mud and the Aquadyle passed it by, apparently more interested in a bigger meal. Noodle and Pie’s squeals urged her on, but she was flagging, the Stone of little help. The tree line was just ahead—but so was a third Aquadyle, joining the hunt.
As her feet hit the solid forest floor, Jemma plopped the rats into her pockets and tried to increase her stride, but the spasms in her ankle were too excruciating. In no time, the two Aquadyles had flanked her, hemming her in.
Terror ripped through her. Wind buffeted her from left to right, whipping the extra hide from her shoulders. Ahead of her, in a small clearing, treetops crashed into one another in the wind. Another of Nox’s lessons sprang to mind. “Aquadyles are like sharks,” he’d said. “Once their jaws start snapping for the kill, there’s no stopping them until they’ve torn their prey to pieces.”
Inspiration struck. Jemma pelted into the middle of the clearing, then stopped abruptly. On either side of her, the Aquadyles also stopped, and turned to face her, teeth chomping. She stood stock-still, heart pounding, sensing them in her peripheral vision as they lumbered toward her. Suddenly, they lunged. At the last split second, she sprang forward. Guttural roars broke out behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the Aquadyles tearing into
one another, shreds of flesh and leathery hide flying everywhere. Stomach lurching, she turned and ran.
Mist thickened again. Branches whipped her face as she passed. Shrubs and hummocks seemed to move in front of her, making her falter. The sickly orb of sun was hidden behind trees; she’d lost her bearings. The ground began sloping upward, and felt as though it was undulating beneath her. Her ankle burned. Her limbs were as limp as mops. All she had learned, every device she might call upon for help, jammed in her head.
“Rattusses, I don’t know which way to turn.…” The slope became steeper; the trees more dense. The road … she must find the road to the bridge.…
“Jemma, over here!”
A voice, soothing, through the Mist.
“Jemma!” A woman’s voice, sweetly familiar, calling from up the hill. “Come, Jemma, it’s me! Over here.”
It couldn’t be, could it? The fragment of dress … the shoe … the hand … She’d been so sure! But that voice,lilting like music, full of stories, safety, and love—it sounded like—
“Jemma!”
Relief filled Jemma’s chest. “Marsh!” she cried. “Marsh, where are you?”
“To your right, Jemma. Follow me!”
Through the firs, Marsh’s familiar form moved away, disappearing up the crag.
“Marsh, I can’t see you!” Jemma’s yells were absorbed into Mist. “Where are you?”
“Here—up here!”
Branches eased back, clearing her way. Jemma limped onward, the pain in her ankle now searing. “Marsh, wait, please! I can’t keep up—” Noodle and Pie scratched and clawed in her pockets as she staggered up the hill. Then Noodle bit through her dress, his tiny teeth sinking into her leg.
“Ouch, Noodle—what are you doing?”
Stop! Noodle bit again, hard.
“Stop? Noodle, you’re hurting me!” Jemma yanked him out of her pocket and shook him. “Why should I stop? Can’t you see? It’s Marsh!” Noodle squirmed, clawing her fingers, and she dropped him. He clambered back up to her pocket, and he and Pie kept nipping and scratching at her leg. “Rattusses, please! We’re so close—”
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