by Rhett DeVane
A small copse of boulders dotted the hillside ahead. Too risky to continue in the growing gloom. He’d stop for the evening, eat, and sleep. In the first light, he would figure out how to make it to the base. Sim trudged up the incline.
The shadowy form dove from the treetop. Sim broke into a jerky run, his feet sinking into the low snowdrifts. His breath came out ragged, tearing at his burning lungs.
The rush of wings sounded above his head. Sim dropped to his knees and covered his head. He would die and never be able to find Grant! Something heavy landed in front of him.
“Master Sim?” a gravelly voice asked.
Sim peered through a slit between his crossed arms. He sat up. Relief poured over him like one of Taka-Herb’s hot tonics. “Kenneth? Is that you?”
“Indeed.” Kenneth of the Pensworthy owls swiveled his great round head left, right, then back to regard Sim with golden eyes. The owl’s white lower feathers blended with the snow-pocked terrain. Come warmer weather, the earthy shades of his upper body would blend as well with the tree bark. The Pensworthy owls had long been friends of Taproot and the one-spirits, yet Sim respected the night predator’s sharp talons. They could snap his body like a withered twig.
“Whatever are you doing out here?” Kenneth asked. “Winter still holds reign. You should be deep underground with the magician and your peers.”
“A fact I truly understand . . . now.” Sim’s shoulders slumped. Cold and worry drained his energy. He could so easily let go, fold himself into a ball, and sleep forever. His eyelids drooped. “I have to keep going. I must.”
“Come.” Kenneth held out a wing and motioned with a dip of his head. “You will do none of your kind any good if you die.”
Sim forced his feet to move until he stood near the great owl. Kenneth folded the wing around Sim and he snugged into the deep down. In moments, his body warmed. Sim recalled Benjamin, the first Pensworthy owl he and Elsbeth had met over fifty years ago. His true friend. The generations that followed were still as trusted, and they all looked somewhat alike. Sim found it easy to think of all of them as clones of Benjamin Pensworthy.
“Hold fast,” Kenneth said. Sim grabbed fistfuls of feathers. The owl lifted off, higher and higher, taking Sim with him to a thick thatch of evergreen limbs. He landed then folded his wings back into place over Sim.
Sim curled into the toasty comfort and fell asleep.
Chapter Six
Elsbeth dropped the decanter of hot spring tonic. “Oh, poo!” Soggy herbs hung from her robe hem and fragrant steaming water puddled on the floor at her feet.
“What’s the matter with you today, Princess?” Taproot sat on his down sofa. A row of curled maps littered the tablerock in front of him. “That’s the third time something in your charge has ended up benefiting the dirt.”
“Sorry.” She used a wad of old cloth to sop most of the tonic from the earthen floor before it turned to mud. Good thing about caves: spills weren’t as much of a problem.
“Maybe I should’ve asked Mari or Taka-Herb to help with the tonic.” Taproot narrowed his eyes and ruffled his beard—better now since he’d given it a much-needed trim. “You’re not usually one for clumsiness. What has you so distracted?”
“Oh . . . I . . .” She wanted to tell him. How Sim and Grant had slipped off for an early dump-dive. How they were still gone. How each passing minute prickled her stomach like porcupine quills. But Taproot’s “dig within” comment still smarted. She’d figure this out. Without his help.
“Is it about the Spring Festival?” He snapped his fingers. “Of course, that’s it! This is the first season you won’t be a spirit-mother, and it passes along to . . . ?”
“Jen. It passes to Jen.”
“Ah.” His lips curled up, though all that showed was a slight lifting of the burly mustache. “Bet you’re worried about what kind of child she’ll produce, eh?”
Elsbeth opened her mouth to reply, but Taproot continued, “The brook wanders, yet doesn’t forget its source.” He paused. “The ocean gleans its greatness from the streams.”
Huh? What did all that mean?
Taproot shuffled the maps, frowned, and shuffled again. “Jen’s spirit-daughter could be totally different from her. Maybe the child will get the best part of Jen, her willingness to try new things. Besides, Jen does have a certain kindness, a motherly quality. After you get past all the crazy.”
Elsbeth plucked long strings of something green and mossy from her robe. When the old magician spoke, a reply wasn’t always required. Once, she had fallen asleep while he verbally pondered a point, awakening later to hear him still talking. He never noticed her silence.
“But part of her spirit-mother will live inside of the new younger.” Taproot made a jabbing point with one bony finger. “Now, Grant’s spirit-son doesn’t concern me. Not one whit. That boy started out wiser than most, from the first time he stepped out of the piece of dark stone Sim chose for his birth vessel. Grant thinks, yes he does, and all of you, heck maybe even me, could learn a lot from him.”
Hope Grant is thinking now, Elsbeth mused. For both himself and Sim.
“Festival is only a week away. That is, if this last bit of snappish cold will give up. Never seen such snow so late.” Taproot snatched up one yellow section of the rolled paper. “Ah, here it is. Now, if Dell-Fee hasn’t moved on, I should be able to find her.”
“Is it far?” Elsbeth hoped not. Maybe over a hill or two. Taproot could be there and back in a matter of days, no longer than one of his trips to the bees’ hollow.
“Don’t know, precisely. This map has no legend. No way to judge true distances.”
“Where’d it come from?” Curiosity niggled at her. She crawled onto the sofa beside him and stood on her tiptoes to study the old document.
“I traded for it, with one of the travelers that passed this way before you and Sim came along.”
“Wow. It’s pretty old.”
“Tis. But the mountains and rivers don’t change. I should be able to find her cave. If she’s still alive, and if some bear hasn’t decided to purloin her home for its den.”
“What are these?” Elsbeth pointed to one of the zigzags.
“Mountain ranges.” He followed a series of curling lines with the tip of one finger. “And these are rivers or streams.” Taproot tapped the map. “This is where we are, in the first valley west of Mad Man’s Pass. Here.”
“Where’s your friend?”
Taproot slid his finger across the paper to a spot marked with a small star. “There.”
Judging by the number of lines between here and there, Elsbeth tried to imagine how long Taproot might be gone.
“I have to leave soon. No telling if I can make it to Dell-Fee’s by the fall. Certainly, I can’t travel the passes after the first snow.”
Wow. He won’t be there until the fall. Her pulse stammered. That meant he wouldn’t come home until after next year’s spring thaw! How would the clan, how would she, do without him for so long? “Then you’ll come back, right?”
Taproot rolled up the map and stored it in a tube fashioned from curled bark. “Nothing is for certain, Princess.”
Sim jerked awake.
Dark. Very dark.
Where was he? In his cave? The foxfire wasn’t glowing at all. His foggy brain groped for clues. How could he be so warm if he had allowed the hearth fire to go out?
Then it all came rushing back, one scary scene after another. The frosted log. The crashing steps in the woods. Grant’s arms flailing as he fell into the icy swirling water. The soldier.
And the blood.
A slit of light opened above him and he blinked to allow his eyes to adjust.
“Good. You’re awake, Master Sim.” Kenneth tilted his wing, allowing more of the dim predawn rays to filter down.
Sim pulled himself upward until his head peeked above the top of the great owl’s wing. The snow had stopped. Every pine bough held cottony puffs. It was so quiet Sim could hear
his own breathing.
“You were hurrying somewhere when I spotted you,” Kenneth pointed out. “You never told me. Why are you up here alone?”
Sim recounted the past hours. The owl listened, pivoting his large head from side to side, ever vigilant. Good thing Kenneth was a friend. Sim would hate to be his enemy, or his prey. Sim had witnessed an owl dive for an unsuspecting mouse rustling in the deep grass, using only the light from the stars and his keen hearing. In seconds, the owl dispatched the mouse with one bite to the back of its head. One easy gulp, swallowed whole. The brains, Kenneth once told Sim, were his favorite part.
After the owl heard about the soldier, he said, “I agree. The most reasonable path is in the direction of the lowlander base.”
The ground below appeared miles away. The height made Sim a little woozy. “You’d better set me down. I have to get going.”
“With your short steps, that valley will be hours, maybe a day, from here. The lowlander has probably reached the base by now. Best I take you. We should get started. I’m not fond of flying in the full daylight.”
Sim’s mouth dried up. Owl-gliding was Elsbeth’s favorite sport, especially on a moonlit night. Jen and Jondu liked it too. They held up their arms and screeched eeeee! Then they’d sit for hours afterwards, discussing proper gliding attire, or how they used their toes to grip the down. Sim had only gone owl-gliding twice. Being so far above the treetops scared the beejeebies from him, though he never admitted it to anyone. He stuffed back the rising panic and climbed onto the owl’s back, to a spot slightly behind Kenneth’s head.
“Let’s fly.” The words came out before Sim’s fright talked him out of it.
Kenneth crouched down, pushed away from the branch, and lifted off. He unfolded massive wings that caught and held the air like billowed sails. Sim squeezed his eyes shut for a beat, forced himself to breathe. The great owl soared through the woods. Tree trunks whooshed by so near Sim could’ve surely touched them had he trusted himself enough to let one hand go free. He clung to the thick down until his knuckles blanched white.
Instead of rising farther up, like the hawks, the owl stayed within the cover of the tree canopy, tucking or adjusting the tilt of his wings to avoid collision. Sim’s eyes watered in the chilled air. He spotted a lone fox loping through the snowdrifts, a hare dashing for the safety of a pine sapling’s lower branches.
The same trip would have taken Sim long hours on the ground, trudging on the switchback game trails ribboning over the hills. Too bad the Pensworthy owls couldn’t transport him everywhere. Mari could fashion special owl backpacks to carry dump-dive finds. Eventually, Sim would feel less fear, maybe grow to look forward to owl-gliding
But that would be taking advantage of friendship. Taproot warned about such.
Twice, the owl landed, settled his wings, and studied the woods. His great head swiveled in a half-circle one way, bobbing up and down, then the other, ending with the same bobbing motion. Kenneth’s huge yellow eyes missed nothing.
Though his vision was not as keen, Sim watched too. He listened for the sharp keee-aaar of a red-tailed hawk or the high-pitched whistle of an eagle. Other birds of prey ruled the daytime skies. Because of their size, the Pensworthy owls were at the top of the food chain. Kenneth appeared formidable, but even he had enemies. Sometimes, other owls. Top on the list: lowlanders. They often trapped and killed owls.
Sim hoped to spot the tracks of the soldier, etched in the white. The night’s snowfall had swiped any marks clean.
“The base is over the next pass,” Kenneth said. “There’s a dead hickory spike near their clearing. We’ll stop there.”
“Sounds good.” Sim’s voice came out with more conviction than he felt. If the soldier still had Grant, where would Sim start to search? He had never gone past the row of metal dumpsters where the soldiers discarded their trash. Even then, Sim only scrounged at night when the majority of lowlanders slept. Elsbeth would spit gravel if she knew he went there at all.
From the vantage point atop the dead tree, high above the army base, Sim watched the soldiers. Were they always so active? The area reminded him of an anthill that had been disturbed. Two roads crisscrossed the base, between long rows of barracks and three larger buildings at the spot where the roads intersected. Sim had never seen this much of the military complex. The metal dumpsters where he came to search for castoff supplies and clothing sat at the rear of the buildings, far enough away to hide the scent of garbage. Up until now, that had been close enough.
In their drab camo-print garb, the men looked identical. Think! Sim ordered his brain. He searched the brief snapshot memory for something, anything, to help him recall the soldier.
“This is crazy.” Sim turned toward Kenneth. “How do I know if the lowlander is down there, or if he still has Grant?”
“We wait,” the owl said. His large yellow eyes regarded Sim. “Under cover of darkness, that’s when we shall search.”
Nighttime. Seemed like it would never come. Every second felt like days. Sim hoped some small detail might point out that one soldier. The individual amidst all the army ants.
“It’s like hunting.” The owl swiveled his head back toward the base. “The best time to approach the lowlander camp is when the shadows give us the advantage.”
Sim had the patrol times memorized. Besides, those army types rarely looked down to his level. They only watched for other lowlanders.
The one place in the Emerald Mountains Sim avoided, except to harvest their intriguing castoffs—the one spot he feared more than any living creature: The army base.
And he had to go down there.
Chapter Seven
Elsbeth slept in fits. The pillow annoyed her the most. She plumped it three times, then slugged it a bunch more. The lumps still pressed against her skin.
Worry and sleep didn’t work together. Elsbeth dreamed of her clan scattered like dandelion seeds, tossed by the wind. They called for her, their voices growing farther and farther away. She could do nothing to stop the force carrying them.
The dream faded and another took its place, a twisted tale in which she searched for something, opening door after door to nothing but darkness. Weird. She had not seen a door in over fifty years, not since the orphanage in New Haven City. No need for such here. One-spirits could move from one cave to the next without slabs of wood or steel separating them. Who needed doors when trust existed?
When Elsbeth roused enough to calm the dream fears, the real worries soaked through. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing her brain to stop creating horrible scenes.
Come morning, Sim and Grant would be gone for over twenty-four hours. Either they had landed the dump-dive find of the century, or . . . Her mind went all kinds of crazy places. Sim was brash, sure, but he never stayed gone so long, not unless several of the clan were along. One of the main safety rules: Past one day, take more to play. Taproot and his rhymes again, like they couldn’t understand without some cutesy saying.
Something shuffled. What now! Her eyes popped open and she waited for her vision to adjust to the low light. No rats down here. Could be one of the many earthworms that often bore holes in her walls on their way to somewhere else.
“Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!” a voice stuttered.
That wasn’t an earthworm. For sure. She sat up.
Slate stood by the hearth, shivering.
“What—?”
“It’s bad! It’s really, really bad!” He rocked and scrubbed his hands up and down his crossed arms.
Elsbeth flipped off the snarled covers and slid her feet into the slippers Mari had knit for her.
Slate mumbled to himself, jiggling from one foot to the other.
Elsbeth approached him slowly. Slate sometimes walked in his sleep. His eyes were open, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t lost in one of his dream worlds. She touched his face. Cold, with beads of sticky sweat sticking to the skin.
“Slate.” Her voice came out soft, gentle. “You’re okay. T
his is Elsbeth. You’re in my cave. You’re safe.”
Slate squeezed his eyes shut then open again. He looked around. “Wha—?”
“Come sit down. I’ll make some tea.” She herded him to a sitting stone, stoked the fire, then slid a filled kettle onto the hot coals.
“I . . . I . . . I’m sorry.” Slate took a deep breath. His shivering calmed a bit.
“I wasn’t sleeping much anyway. I could use a cup of tea myself.” Elsbeth added two logs to the hearth, then shimmied in place until her backside warmed. “Another dream?”
Slate’s head bobbed up, then down.
“Scary one?”
He nodded again. Swallowed hard.
Maybe Slate’s second sight wasn’t something to envy. At times, sure. Who wouldn’t want to see fields of greens or huckleberry shrubs flush with fruit, or to be able to direct a path toward a box of chocolate bars buried beneath piles of trash. But every gift came with a price. Your strongest fire is also your greatest flaw, Taproot said. That one, she understood.
Elsbeth offered a slight smile. “Let’s wait on our tea. Then tell me about it. If you’d like.”
She talked about other things, anything to calm Slate. The upcoming Spring Festival. How much she looked forward to bathing in the stream pool rather than in front of the hearth. About the taste of brook lettuce and dandelion greens, picked fresh and tender. Elsbeth avoided speaking of Taproot and his walkabout.
When the kettle burped steam, she poured two cups and added small cloth bags filled with a blend of dried chamomile and rose hips—both known for their soothing properties. The tea steeped. Then they added honey and sipped.
“Amazing, how this always makes me feel better.” Elsbeth cradled the warm cup in her hands. The earthy sweet scent rose up, made her nose as happy as her mouth. Judging by the way Slate’s shoulders relaxed, the herbal brew had the same effect on him.
“Something bad has happened,” Slate said.
Elsbeth steeled herself. Time to face the unease creeping around them like mountain fog.