Carven Flute

by Steve Shilstone

  Long to emerge from the snow

  A pair of worlds tethered together

  By portals, mirrors of woe”

  (Here Jo Bree wove a lilting flow of notes)

  “The Chronicles made by the Chosen

  To send to the angry wild place

  Stories of here where it’s peaceful

  Written on every face”

  (Here a melody and a spatter of gold glitter)

  “The Chronicles sent, the portals were closed

  So not to be opened again

  While the secret was held by the guilt-burdened witch

  And no Chosen had gripped a quill pen”

  (Here a high trill and blue sparks)

  “The first one Harpo, the second one Lace

  By Prophesy filled the oat pages

  Now here is the third, bendo dreen Bek

  Prophesy answers the ages”

  (Here Jo Bree danced a circle around my head)

  “The witch, Babba Ja, has broken her burden

  Shared it with you, Bekka Thorn

  The night of the Song, it is with us

  You sleep and I’ll sing until morn”

  (Here a flutter of low notes sounded from the ember glow red Jo Bree)

  “Prophesy’s pale purple daughter

  Has made the selection of ye

  So dream, bendo dreen, dream deep

  In the morning you’ll see what you see”

  A comfort of syrup eased me limp. Down I collapsed. Stars. Some. Clouds gone. Jeth and Jith, fat round yellow, in moony climb. Jo Bree whispered throaty wood notes, long and soft. I blinked to dream. And, dreaming, wind lashed at my face. Kar was a ruby Dragon. I clung to her neck. We fled up the black sky. I steered by leaning this way and that. She flamed a road in the middle of a boiling sea. We walked along it, and we played our tambourines. We were in the shop, and Zinna was there. ‘Go ahead, tell,’ she said, and giggled. She hung upside down, and so did Kar. They became Ragaba and Rakara. I tried to place myself upside down, too, but couldn’t. So I rolled under the table, rolling as fast as I could until I bumped against the trunk of a tree. I sat up. Tree on a hillside. Clover hillside. I rubbed my eyes. I saw my chonka lying nearby on the clover. Morning chill. I shuddered. Gray. The tree folded over me and gathered me up into its branches. Such was how I knew that I was yet still dreaming. Such was why I forced myself to swim up, to wriggle, to escape. I demanded to be awake, and suddenly, I was.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Hedge Home

  I gazed without sense at my Roamer hut and, beyond it, at the thorny wall of my bramble hedge home. I sat with my back against… what? I turned my head. Well of Shells. How? I lifted my chonka from my belt and banged it against my forehead. Awake. I WAS awake. So such. I struggled to my feet to look down the Well. Was the portal open? Could I see the dangerous world, the world of this strange language? No and no. Always as I ever had known ’em, the waters of the Well remained murky. Jo Bree. Where was Jo Bree?

  “What chankle in the meadow?” cried a voice from inside the hedge. “Summon! Summon! It’s Bekka of Thorns!”

  I waved a greeting while my eyes darted, searching everywhere for Jo Bree.

  “Fortune! It’s Purple Day! Come tell us the why and the what!” shouted the eager voice. It might have been Old Tando. “Have you seen the witch? Where is jark dweg Karro?”

  Purple Day. It was a Purple Day. I could tell ’em the truth about Zinna and Kar! What a Gwer drollek thrill! All thoughts of Jo Bree and the Well fled from me. Smiling broadly, I strode across the meadow and sang out, “A Gwer drollek tale I have to tell! Summon! Gather!”

  I slipped into the hedge to find a very storm of bustle. Tambourines chankling, bendo dreen poured down the tunnel, racing for the Assembly Bower. No dignified march. A rush! I folded my arms and nodded at all who raced past me. Wide their eyes with excitement gleamed as they grinned and hurriedly nodded back. In the shortest span, I stood alone in the tunnel. I heard nervous chank chonkling from the Assembly Bower, followed by silence. I approached the room, formally banging my chonka on my knee, once for every two strides. What a difference in me from times ago before I became Chronicler, when truly I was Silent Bekka, timid and frightened. Now, eager to speak to the assembled bendo dreen, I strode fast. I entered the Assembly Bower. All eyes glued stick fast to me. I marched apace to the front of the room. I raised my chonka over my head and announced, “such and so a Gwer drollek story I have for you this day!”

  I held ’em bound. They swayed with me. They dared not breathe at times. They gasped. My story proved to be as gaspable as a weary traveler’s first view of Honeygold, Clover Castle. Such was surely so. How I shocked ’em when I revealed that Zinna, gone from the hedge, was not bendo dreen, but instead, a jrabe. How I double shocked ’em when I told ’em that Karro, too, was jrabe! Three times I gasped ’em when they heard from my lips the revelation of Karro as Zinna’s daughter! Shock of all shocks! A known parent! And jrabes! Shapeshifters! Dragons! Barrier! Witch! City of jrabes! Jo Bree!

  After I spun it all out, it took some time for the tumult and the shouting and the consternation to subside. Without dissent, all bendo dreen heaped me with praise. I accepted the first bowl of thorns and the biggest slice of capp melon. I bathed content in the babble I created.

  “The best Gwer drollek ever! Better than Bandy!” I heard Zoffo of Thorns say to Barla of Thorns.

  “And to think, they lived among us!” thrilled several bendo dreen, many of ’em, as they came to slap me on my back, heartily, in praise.

  Pleasure spread. I rode it until Old Tando of Thorns, Purple Elder, with a twinkle of delight in his eye and a grin of Purple pride on his lips, asked me, “Would you allow us, Purple youngling, to have a glimpse of the Carven Flute?”

  I was twofold sunk. An Elder had asked MY permission. Fold one. Where was Jo Bree? Fold two. The final portal. Prophesy.

  I excused myself clumsily, saying, “Jo Bree delivered me here, and such is all I yet know. I must return to the Roamer hut. The Prophesy. It is not yet…over.”

  As I left, all the assembled bendo dreen raised their chonkas and chonkled ’em chanking, bidding me good-bye. The Purple Celebration resumed, happily, with jabbering. I hurried from the hedge. Where was Jo Bree?

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Open

  Maybe in the hut. The Roamer hut. Now mine. Under the table? No. Behind that stack of oat parchment pages? No. On any of the shelves? No, no, no, and no. Ink pots? Not there. Cupboards? Bins? Crates? No. No. No. I stroked my chin. I made a decision. I would begin my search again at the Well. So such, I’d been delivered there in some magical manner, hadn’t I? Maybe that meant something. Maybe when there, Prophesy might reveal some sort of a clarity to me. I left the hut and slowly approached the Well, scanning the meadow all the while for any sign of Jo Bree.

  “Jo Bree?” I whispered with hope.

  I moved to the Well and placed my hands on its rim. I leaned over to look down. A smile. A smile is what I felt spreading across my yellow green bendo dreen Chronicler face. The Carven Flute hung suspended a short span above the murky water. Where had it been before? I didn’t know, and truth, didn’t care. Such. It pulsed rainbow hues. With a patient rhythm, it wheeled around and around. It floated lingering notes of melancholy up the Well shaft and into my ears. Then its windy woody voice sang:

  “Prophesied pale purple daughter

  Whose sister flew down the Well

  Freely has chosen a bendo dreen

  To break the Barrier spell

  Bendo dreen Bekka of Thorns

  Throw your arms open wide

  Yellow sparks on the water

  The strange world no more will hide”

  My arms I threw wide, not to mention my eyes. Yellow sparks fell like rain on the water. Hisses sighed. Little plumes of smoke hung, melted away. The Carven Flute rose in dignified pulse until it touched my very lips! Jo Bree! One long last sad note it let fall down the Well of Shell
s. The Carven Flute faded to flush yellow pink and sailed serenely into my outstretched right hand. I closed my fingers over the cool and smooth. The water in the Well simply went clear. Such was so! I could see. I could see! The other world! The strange world! The world where Babba Ja Harick secretly went and shoved her sister into the fire! Such! Gwer drollek! The world of this language unknown to all on my world save me! If you are reading this, if you CAN read this, your world! Dangerous!

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  While I Wait

  There is the how that the portals came to be reopened. Such and so I have written it down. Story complete, but not. Kar, Rakara, I mean to say, has ever been away these past five months of moons. The last time I saw her, we were there on the shore of Longthin Lake. She flew off with Ragaba. Such. Oh, truth, I have written out this entire Gwer drollek story while I wait for her return. Added also, I have learned to play Jo Bree! I practiced out by the Well of Shells every afternoon. Jo Bree remains flush yellow pink. Not once has the Flute pulsed rainbow since the day when the Well portal opened. I did bring the Carven Flute to show to the bendo dreen. I played it in Assembly Bower at the Festival of Tambourines. A simple lullaby of notes, a soothing nursery memory known by each and all of us bendo dreen, I floated out over the gathering. A proper hush and awe fell over the Bower. Hollow wooden wind, the notes sang softly. Such was so. Whenever I enter the hedge now, I hear respectful whispers. “The Chronicles, she writes ’em.” “She has Jo Bree.” “She journeys from the hedge.” “Silent Bekka, she’s been to the Wide Great Sea.” Other? I look down the Well at the strange world of this language. Such a place of known, but unknown wonders and horrors. I almost want to bind together this Chronicle with the first one I wrote and leap with ’em down the Well. Almost, but such is not quite so. After all of the thorns have been sorted and counted, I am yet a bendo dreen. It is enough that I am able to leave the hedge and journey on THIS world. More journeys, more stories for me to find. The witch told me. Oh, the Babba Ja Harick flew to visit me bar weeks ago on an afternoon while I practiced Jo Bree’s longest most mournful notes. She listened, smiling sadly. She would not touch Jo Bree, though I offered to return it to her. It was mine now, she said. She stood away from the Well, would not approach it. She asked if it was as truly open as her crystal ball had shown. Her words stumbled, but I got ’em. I told her yes. She moved her spectacles up her nose and gave me a piercing squint. She nodded once, said “keep bell…no…well…yoss,” and flung herself to the sky on her broom. She circled thrice high before arcing away east toward the Boad, all Fidd and Leee Combined. Such. I do wish to travel searching for Gwer drollek tales, but not alone. I need my shapeshifter jrabe best friend. We make a team. Jark dweg Kar and Silent Bekka. What was that? I hear…

  SHE’S BACK!

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