by Rhett DeVane
When Sim squinted toward the clear skies overhead, wind fingered through the evergreens, rattled the barren limbs of an aged hickory tree, then dipped down to push back the sprigs of blond hair hanging across his brows. His blue eyes watered. Back in their home valley, a few splashes of new growth peeked through the leaf-strewn ground, but here, many feet higher, the cold dead season still held life captive. He snugged his scarf closer to his neck.
“Let’s check it out from Taproot’s watchtower.” Sim slipped the sheathed knife back into a jacket pocket and turned around, taking an easterly direction. Sim motioned for Grant to follow, stepping into the depressions made by his feet. “The second one in line always has the easier path.”
“Unless that person follows your path, which may or may not be easy,” Grant said.
They slogged up a series of switchbacks, then back down. At an embankment dotted with massive stones, Sim ascended. Near the precipice, he veered, squeezing into a narrow split in the rock. In a few feet, the slit opened onto a high plateau: Taproot’s watchtower. They dropped their packs and took deep breaths of the fresh chilled air.
“This place always amazes me,” Sim said. “On a clear day, you can see the edge of the boulder field near the new landfill.”
Grant shivered and swung his head to look in the opposite direction. “Sure provides a good view of the army base.”
Anger clawed at Sim’s gut, as it always did when he thought of soldiers. His father had been a military man during the last area war, back in New Haven City. “Far as I’m concerned, the ground can open up and swallow the whole place, army and all. Let it sink into the garbage dump it was built upon.”
If his military father hadn’t been the leader of the resistance, he might still be alive, and Sim would be full-grown by now. Sim did the math. As a human lowlander, he would be sixty-one! Wow.
Sim shook his head. Long time ago. He tried not to think about soldiers. Sure, he pilfered their cast-offs. Found some good stuff. But overall, soldiers were to be avoided.
“I remember that first landfill,” Grant said. “It was good.”
“If it wasn’t for their stupid base, we wouldn’t have to worry about Mad Man’s Pass. We could make it to the dump and back in a few hours and still have plenty of dive time.”
The two stood side by side, lost in private thoughts for a moment. Other than the whumps from melting snow clots bombing the ground, the mountains rested. Silent gods.
“There’s still ice cover at Mad Man’s Pass.” Sim picked up a palm-sized rock and pitched it hard. It nicked bark from a nearby pine before rappelling to the ground and landing with a muffled thud.
Grant tipped his head in the direction of their home valley. “Elsbeth said—”
“I know what Lizard the Lousy said.” He hated to admit Elsbeth was right, about anything. “Doesn’t make it law.” After all, Sim was a year and two whole months older. Meant he was wiser too. Right?
“Still, I—”
“I say, we press on.” Sim shouldered his pack. “Bound to be a rabbit run or game trail through that pass, by now. We’re not the only ones moving around.”
Mari rolled up her measuring tape, a treasured dump-dive find. She gathered her long dark hair and secured it with a snippet of faded blue lace. “Looks like you’ve gained in the middle section, First Mother.”
Elsbeth pressed her lips into a thin line. Had to be the tall stacks of acorn flour pancakes slathered with wildwood honey. Winter brought on boredom, even with books and study and gabbing with her clan. Food provided comfort. “Good thing warmer weather is on the way. I must crawl from these caves and get some exercise, or end up as wide as I am tall.”
When Mari laughed, Elsbeth heard the shadowy echo of her own mother’s mirth. How did the one-spirit magic work? The two tears Elsbeth had gathered into the moth cocoon and worn close to her heart thirty winters ago—had they formed during a time when Elsbeth longed for her own mother? She held few clear memories of her parents, but somewhere inside, their essence must still exist. Hints of them lived on in Elsbeth’s spirit-daughters, like Mari’s musical laughter.
When this younger had emerged from her birth crystal that long-ago spring, Elsbeth immediately knew her name. Mari. Same as the loving mother she once had, before the last area war and those awful soldiers.
Elsbeth thought of her other offspring. How had all of them turned out so physically different from her? She touched one of her long dark braids. None of Elsbeth’s spirit-daughters had the creamy caramel skin similar to her own mother’s, yet pale enough for the swish of nose freckles to show. And shamrock green eyes from her Irish father. He used to tell Elsbeth she was “the perfect sweet blend of light and dark.”
Taka-Herb was the third spirit-daughter. Originally named Herb because of the child’s love of all things green, then nicknamed Taka-Herb after her habit of filching dried herbs and stuffing them into her pockets. As she grew older, Taka-Herb developed a knack for healing. Again, a trait definitely from Elsbeth’s mother. Simply the sight of blood made Elsbeth’s stomach go wiggly.
But Jondu? For sure, her fourth spirit-daughter’s edgy wanderlust mirrored Elsbeth’s father. Ready to go on any quest. So many times in Jondu’s first years, Elsbeth and Sim had led a frantic search for the lost younger. Small wonder Jondu hadn’t fallen prey to a night stalker. Good thing the Pensworthy owls watched over them.
“I have some lovely linen, printed with little yellow and red posies, though the colors are a bit faded.” Mari rummaged in a wooden chest and lifted a thick square of folded material. “Think it might have been some kind of lowlander’s table covering. Has a few stains I couldn’t remove, but plenty of good. Even with your extra, um, girth, I’ll get robes for all four of us from this, plus one for Jen’s new, little spirit-daughter.” Mari hugged the material to her. “Isn’t it exciting? We’ve waited ten springs for two new youngers!”
“A long time. Yes. But we can’t create so many that nature suffers under our numbers.” Taproot had advised this after the births of Grant and Jen. Too many beings had long been the curse of the lowlanders. Their cities crawled with the underfed and homeless.
Elsbeth didn’t truly understand how the one-spirit magic worked. How two tears collected inside a moth cocoon at a time of great emotion and kept close to the heart for six long winter months could turn into another distinct being. She had no idea how Sim created his spirit-sons, with one of his many rocks rather than in a crystalized cocoon.
Shrinking in size, Taproot explained, doubled the creative impulse inside the birth parent. Beings like her and Sim no longer needed another to spawn new life. Sim and Elsbeth had four spirit-children apiece. Now the time had arrived for their children to create life too.
Elsbeth clasped her hands together. This year, this special spring, Jen and Grant would add their offspring to the clan. Bless the Light!
If Elsbeth had her true wish, each spring would bring several new one-spirits, until the clan grew and grew and grew. She imagined a network of caves spreading across the valley, filled with her and Sim’s kin. But because their concentrated life flames promised long lives, she and Sim had cemented a law into place. Only two new births per ten years. One male. One female.
Everything was about balance.
This spring, Jen’s first spirit-daughter would emerge into the Emerald Mountains. Would she share Jen’s wild spirit? Could the clan stand two such reckless creatures? Three, if she counted Sim.
“Just think, Mari. In ten years, at the next birth-spring, it will be your turn.” Elsbeth smiled. Any spirit-daughter of Mari’s would be a welcome addition. Kindness glowed around Mari like a halo.
“I know I—”
“Elsbeth! Elsbeth!” A voice called out. They turned toward the cave’s entrance tunnel.
Sim’s second spirit-son, Slate, skidded to a halt. He gulped air.
“What . . . ?” Elsbeth stepped over to him.
“My dream!” he managed between ragged brea
ths. “My dream!” Slate paced back and forth. His shoulders quivered.
Mari guided him to a sitting stone. “Calm yourself, Slate. I’ll pour you a cup of chamomile tea.”
Elsbeth took a seat across from him. This one-spirit possessed The Sight. How he had landed such a gift from Sim’s restless spirit defied logic. Hard to tell if this reaction was excitement or fear. Slate emoted equally with both.
The clan owed much to Slate’s visions. They had found new wild bee hollows, dewberry patches thick with fruit, and upon occasion, the location of some amazing dump-dive find.
Mari handed over two cups of steaming tea, then decanted one for herself. The scent of chamomile calmed Elsbeth even before she took the first sip. They sat around Mari’s tablerock for a few minutes before anyone spoke, the best approach to take when dealing with Slate.
“Now,” Mari said, “Tell us about this dream.”
He set the teacup down so hard, the pale brown liquid lapped over the edges. “I saw blood and death!” His hands shook. “I saw tears and crying!”
Mari’s brows crimped together. “Has to be a vision of those awful lowlander wars again. Will they never learn?”
His pale face mirrored horror. “No. No! It was us!”
Chapter Three
Sim stood at the jagged edge of Mad Woman Gorge. “More water in the river than I anticipated.”
The gorge harbored a legend, as did most places in the Emerald Mountains. If Taproot’s story was true, some poor soul had jumped to her death at this very spot. Each time Sim paused here, he imagined her swirling and tumbling like a fallen leaf until her body dashed against the boulders at the base of Mad Woman Falls. Sim thought of the waterway as female, too. An angry one. Even when he riled Elsbeth by calling her Lizard the Lousy, she was mild in comparison to these waters.
It had been a record year for snowfall. Seven feet according to the measuring tree next to Taproot’s hollow. Mad Woman River posed a challenge even in a meager snowmelt year. Now, with the spring thaw, she coursed through the rock gorge as wicked and unruly as her name.
“The bridge has been compromised.” Grant motioned toward the narrow outcropping of stones where the clan usually found passage. “I think we should turn back.”
“That’s your problem, Grant. You think waaaay too much.” Sim dropped his pack and slogged to the edge of the gorge, leaning to study the curving riverbanks. “There! See? A birch sapling has fallen across, a few feet downstream. We can use it for our bridge.”
Sim snatched up his pack and settled it into place. Grant snapped two extra clips to secure his own pack. When they reached the uprooted tree, Sim tested his weight on the trunk. “Must’ve come down in the last storm. It’s still green and strong. I could waltz a full-grown mountain bear across and it’d hold.”
Grant hung back until Sim reached the halfway point. The tree shifted. Its limbs slapped the water, sending spray clapping against the rocks. Sim flung out his arms, teetered for a breath-stopping moment, then whooped. He scampered the rest of the way and jumped onto the far bank. He turned and motioned. “Hey, whatcha waiting on?”
Inching along, Grant crossed in slow, even steps. A couple of times, his feet slipped on small chunks of ice still crusted on the sapling’s bark.
“Gah!” Sim called. “Even Elsbeth could make it faster!”
Grant reached the halfway spot and paused. The river swirled over rounded boulders, creating a dull roar. For a second, he froze. Then Sim watched him step until he was close enough to leap to solid ground.
“Good job.” Sim clamped Grant on the shoulder. “Sometimes you have to stop thinking so much and just go.”
As they moved farther from the river and ascended, snowbanks towered on either side of the narrow game trail. The air grew more chilled. The musical ting of water dripping from branch tips joined the low rumble from the river behind them.
“Keep the prize in mind,” Sim said. “Once we reach Mad Man’s Pass, we’ll be on the downslope. We can camp, and spend all day tomorrow dump-diving.”
“Elsbeth won’t be happy when she discovers we’re gone.” Grant shifted his pack. “And you know Taproot doesn’t approve of travel until well after the Spring Festival.”
Sim tore off a hunk of dried plum, offered a bite to Grant, then chewed. “Lizard will get over it. She always does. I’ll find something in that dump to appease her. Maybe some books or chocolate bars. And as for our old mountain man, he’s too caught up in rules. Always has been.”
When his spirit-son didn’t reply, Sim motioned to the pendant suspended from a piece of woven jute around Grant’s neck. “Don’t worry. I’ll have you back in plenty of time for the birth of your spirit-son.”
Elsbeth forced herself to remain calm until she had brushed through the suspended strips of cloth marking Mari’s doorway. No need to make Mari or Slate any more distressed. She entered the main tunnel and broke into a jog.
That dream can’t be about us, she told herself. Can’t be!
As she scurried by her other three spirit daughters’ burrows, she mentally tallied their names: Jen, Taka-Herb, Jondu. Wilted purple mountain asters bordered Jen’s doorway. Taka-Herb’s held fragrant sprigs of dried rosemary tied with twine. Smoothed river rock hoodoos teetered in piles next to Jondu’s door. Then her own threshold, decorated with her line drawings tacked in place next to the wooden nameplate.
So much to do in preparation for the Spring Festival. Add to that, worry over Taproot’s announcement. He couldn’t leave them! Now this.
If Slate’s visions were true, only one person could cause such drama: Sim. Elsbeth had to find him, give him a stern warning against whatever harebrained thing he planned before it was too late. Like the time he snuck into a hibernating bear’s den on a dare. Or the summer he body-surfed Mad Woman River and nearly ended up sluicing over the falls. Or the time . . . She halted the list. It could go on for a while. Fifty years of lunacy.
I simply don’t have patience for tears and crying and . . . Elsbeth shivered . . . blood. And death. She stalled in her tracks, frozen by the word.
Magic could solve a number of things. Death, Taproot assured her, was not one of them. She willed her legs to move again.
Two unadorned holes led off to her left and right. The necessary rooms, Taproot’s term for bathrooms. Though those cavern tunnels wound back and forth for several feet, enough to contain the rank smell, she automatically picked up her pace when she passed.
Elsbeth reached the threshold of the Common Hall, the shared room between the homes of the daughters and sons. Warmed by a massive double hearth, the spirit of the cozy cave calmed her a bit.
For many seasons, this room had held laughter, talk, and the aroma of good food: greens fresh from the banks of the stream, plums simmered in honey, toasty breads hot from the stone oven by the hearth. A pot of stew steamed on the rock stove—turnip roots and carrots if she trusted her chilled nose. Someone would make acorn flour bread to go along, too. Probably Sim’s fourth spirit-son doing the cooking, she hoped. Brick cooked the best of the boys. Sim rushed everything and often burned the meals.
Gabby, Sim’s third spirit-son, glanced up from his doo-brood—a carved, oblong wooden instrument strung with spun rabbit hair. He plucked a chord. “Elsbeth. What’s—?”
“Where’s Sim?” She crossed the room and stood with her arms propped on her hips.
“I’ve been here practicing for the festival for a while. Haven’t seen him.” Gabby strummed a few notes. “She wanders in the mists of the willow’s breath pond,” he crooned. “Her hair tipped with moon, her face shone upon.”
Any other time, Elsbeth would be happy to flop down on a sitting rock and listen. Gabby’s silken voice mesmerized her. His folksy ballads took her to faraway lands filled with damsels and dragons and heroes. Just not now.
Brick huddled over his notepad, close enough to the hearth to use the flickering light. Elsbeth bustled to his side of the room. “Have you seen him?”
&
nbsp; Brick frowned. Took a breath and puffed it back out. Looked up. Everyone knew not to bother the scribe when he was creating. And Brick was always creating, when he wasn’t reading any kind of printed material gleaned from a dump-dive. “Seen who, or is it whom?” His brows furrowed. “I often confuse the two.”
A snake could slither down the tunnels into the Common Room, coil up beside the hearth, jangle his rattler, stretch his mouth wide open with fangs dripping with poison, and Brick wouldn’t notice.
“Sim! That’s whom, or who, or . . .” Elsbeth stomped one foot. “Whatever.”
“You appear . . .” Brick tapped his chin with a stub of a pencil. His red hair stuck out in clownish tufts. “. . . Perplexed. Mystified.” He hummed, drilling the end of the pencil on his chin. “No, befuddled! You definitely look beeeeeee-fuddled. I love that word.” He scratched the pencil tip across the page.
Hope he wasn’t writing poetry. What could possibly rhyme with befuddled? Cuddled? Muddled? Troubled? No, troubled didn’t quite fit.
Stop! She scolded herself.
You have the mind of a scrambled squirrel. On task, Elsbeth, on task! Taproot often told her when her attention split off in different directions. She had hoped, after all of these years, she would think like an adult. But the magic didn’t work that way.
“Well then, what about Grant?” Elsbeth idled in place.
“Let’s see . . .” More chin tapping. “Did I see him today? Or was it last night?”
Slate slid into the Common Hall and skidded to a halt. His thin face flushed pink. Elsbeth shot him a stern shush! look and moved her head side to side. His pale brows crimped together, but he didn’t speak.
“I can’t believe you have no clue where they are.” Elsbeth huffed. “Not like this place is vast.”
“Is it my purpose to keep up with everyone? I think not.” Brick shuffled his papers until the edges lined up. “I have worlds to wander.”