Raffa shook his head. “No. But that just means you’ll be the first.”
Naturally, Jimble on crutches meant that the twins and little Brid had to have crutches as well. Their father, Mannum Marr, had made three more pairs of various sizes, despite Trixin’s protests. “How will I even move about the house with all those crutches swinging around?” she had griped.
When Raffa first heard about the amputation of Jimble’s leg, he had been overwhelmed by guilt. It’s my fault, for forgetting about the wolves. If I’d remembered—if we’d been better prepared—
It reminded him of how he had felt when Garith became deaf.
Da noticed his despair. “Raffa, you made mistakes, it’s true,” he said. “Even so, you are not responsible for the actions of others.”
He means the Chancellor, Raffa thought, and lifted his head a little. His next words came slowly. “Is there any way,” he asked, “to make sure that your mistakes stay your own, and—and don’t end up part of someone else’s?”
Da shook his head. “I would have to consider that a yearning,” he said. “People are a wonder. They will always surprise you, for both good and ill.”
A pause. “What if we were to agree,” Da went on, “that we might both work toward something like this: Think carefully first, and then act boldly.”
“Both of us?” Raffa was startled.
Da raised his eyebrows. “Do you think me too old to learn something new?”
“No, I—” He’d actually never thought about it at all, the idea of his parents still learning.
He nodded, and Da nodded in return.
Now Raffa leaned against his mother. He inhaled deeply but quietly, filling himself with the scent of her presence, which helped slow his tears. Mohan’s hand was on his shoulder, large and strong and warm.
“There is still much work to do,” the Advocate was saying. “The conditions in the slums are a problem, an indignation. And there have always been those who would divide us—who would have us think more on our differences than on what we have in common, as Obsidians and as human beings. It will not be easy, but we must never give up.”
“. . . never give up,” echoed the shouters.
“I have taken the first step toward a more just society,” the Advocate continued, “by naming three new Commoners. Haddie Oriole, Mohan Santana, and Quellin Woon—all of them Afters—will have full participation seats in the Commons until the next round of elections.”
Mohan left Raffa’s side to stand next to the Advocate along with Haddie and Quellin. The cheers and applause seemed to reach the sky.
More tears—this time, of pride and hope, for the Afters and for all Obsidians.
Salima hugged Raffa, and kissed the top of his head. She was crying, too.
It wasn’t long before his eyes were dry: Somehow the crying never lasted as long when he had someone else to cry with.
“Friend!” Echo squeaked. “Friend friend, friend friend!”
He had just returned from his night feeding. Raffa was standing outside a tent on his family’s land not far from the pother settlement. The tent would serve as a shelter while he and his parents rebuilt their home, which had been burned down on the Chancellor’s orders months earlier.
A sizeable and interesting group was gathered there, a week after the Advocate’s speech. Kuma kept an eye on Roo, who sat in the garden, with everyone else a respectful few paces away. Twig and Bando were trying to climb Jimble’s crutches. Garith, Trixin, and Callian stood next to Raffa.
“Yes, Echo,” Raffa replied. “All friends.”
“Are we ready?” Trixin said, impatient as always.
Fitzer’s wagon was hitched to two horses that could not have been more different in appearance. One was Callian’s noble Mal; the other a much scruffier horse, old but sturdy. Raffa patted the older horse’s neck.
“Here you go, Dobbles,” he said, and gave the horse a piece of carrot.
Dobbles, his family’s faithful cart horse, had vanished months earlier, after the cabin fire. He had been found in the Commons stables, probably commandeered by whoever had set the fire. So many things sundered by the Chancellor would never be whole again, but being reunited with Dobbles had been a small bright moment.
Callian sat on the wagon seat and drove, with Kuma seated next to him. Everyone else rode in the wagon bed, except for Roo, who loped behind or beside, occasionally falling back but always catching up again.
They were headed for the gorge, on a sunny but brisk spring morning. Hepaticas and spring beauties bloomed lavender and palest pink in the ditches and verges. Callian drove the horses at a steady but leisurely pace, which enabled Roo to keep up and everyone else to enjoy the ride.
Trixin was talking about the picnic lunch she had brought.
“Crackerbread and cheese, of course. Dried apples and dried tomatoes. The Commons kitchen gave me a ginger cake and walnut cookies. Roseberry tea to drink. And guess what else?” She looked at everyone expectantly.
“Pickles and jams?” Raffa said.
Her face fell. “Jimble, did you tell? I’ll skin you alive—I wanted it to be a surprise!”
“I didn’t!” Jimble protested.
“He didn’t—I was kidding!” Raffa said.
Everyone laughed except Trixin. “You won’t laugh once you’ve tasted them. I brought rind pickle and cumber pickle and cappisum pickle, and bramble jam and apple fluff. Made them all myself last fall.”
“Mmmm . . . prapple chab,” Garith said. “I love prapple chab, it’s better than good.”
“Prapple what?” Trixin said, before she saw the sly grin on his face.
Raffa laughed again, in both delight and surprise. It was the first time he had heard Garith make a lipreading joke.
The picnic was not the main purpose of the trip. Raffa’s friends were accompanying him as he took Echo back to the gorge. Roo and the raccoons would live in the Forest of Wonders, where all three had been born. Raffa knew that there would be many future visits to both gorge and Forest, with his friends, to his friends.
The magnificent cliffs rose on either side of the track. Raffa took a moment, and a breath.
The last time I was here, it was with him.
The gorge would always remind him of Fitzer. Other things would, too, like the river, where they had first met. Raffa already knew that at times sorrow would blind him when he least expected it.
But there were more memories. Compost. Egg-and-cheese turnovers. Frypans.
There would be smiles as well.
After lunch, after peaceful naps with full bellies, after games and mushroom-hunting, the sun began to fall and the gorge grew chillier.
Garith walked over to Raffa, who was sitting on a boulder, stroking a sleeping Echo.
“Now?” Garith asked.
“Almost,” Raffa said. “Just a little longer.”
He had talked things over with everyone several times. “I honestly don’t think Twig will know the difference,” Kuma had said. “It’s mostly Roo she talks to, and that won’t change.”
“Bando never had very many words to begin with,” Callian said. “I don’t think he’ll notice, either.”
That left only Echo, who was now waking from his daylight sleep.
“Friends many!” Echo exclaimed, recognizing where he was.
“Yes, Echo, I’ve brought you back to the gorge,” Raffa answered. “But I need to tell you something. It’s not safe for you to talk anymore. Too many people know about it, and they might try to—to hurt you. So I’ve decided—”
Pause. Swallow.
“I’m going to make it so you can’t talk. I’ll come here to visit, and I hope . . . I hope you’ll always remember me. But it will be safer for you if you can’t talk, and—and you’ll be like all the other bats again.”
“Don’t talk.”
“That’s right. Not even to me.”
“Don’t talk Raffa?” Echo tilted his head in what seemed to be puzzlement.
Another swallow. “I’ll always talk to you, Echo. And you’ll still be able to talk to me. Just . . . not with words.”
Echo was quiet for a moment. Then, “Raffa good.”
A sob and a chuckle at the same time. “Echo good.”
Kuma and Callian approached, each carrying a raccoon.
Raffa took the small bag of antidote powder out of his rucksack. He held out the bag so the other two could each take a handful. Then he took some himself.
“I’ll go first,” Kuma said. Cradling Twig like a baby, she opened her fist directly above the raccoon’s nose. The powder fell all over Twig’s little face, into her eyes and mouth, too. She sneezed, then coughed, then trilled indignantly at Kuma.
“Sorry,” Kuma said. She gave Twig a piece of dried apple. Twig’s delighted chirp showed that all was instantly forgiven.
“Our turn,” Callian said.
He dusted Bando with powder the same way. But Bando had seen Kuma and Twig, and he knew what to do. First he put his hands over his eyes to protect them from the powder. And as soon as he was finished sneezing, he pawed at Callian, clearly asking for his own piece of dried apple.
Garith was watching Raffa closely. “Do you want help?”
Raffa was grateful for the offer, but he shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.
Do it quickly.
With one hand, he held up the perch necklace. Then he let the powder fall from his other hand onto Echo’s wee face.
Echo coughed, then sneezed twice and shook himself all over. Raffa showed him a moonwing moth he had caught earlier, one of the bat’s favorite treats.
Squeak squeak!
Echo made what was obviously a sound of delight. Raffa tossed the large moth into the air, and Echo left the perch to catch and eat it. Raffa’s heart tightened into a hard knot as he gazed at Echo in flight. The first time we ever talked, it was about insects . . . skeetos . . .
Echo spiraled higher, then headed for the cliff face, where he would join the thousands of other bats that lived within the gorge’s stone walls. Raffa watched until he could no longer see the little bat. Then he turned and was startled to see his friends staring at him, their faces full of concern. The knot in his heart began to loosen into something different—still sad, but fuller and warmer and softer.
“Time to go,” Trixin said.
“You’ll be back soon,” Kuma said.
“Can I come then, too?” Jimble asked.
Garith said nothing, but reached out to put an arm around Raffa’s shoulders. At the last second, he pulled his arm back and gave Raffa a mock gut-punch instead.
But Raffa had anticipated the trick and neatly slapped the punch away.
“Nice one,” Garith said.
Raffa was about to reply when, to his surprise, Echo reappeared and swooped low one last time, squeaking and chirping and squeaking some more.
Raffa knew exactly what the bat was saying.
“I love you, too, Echo,” he called as the bat flew away again.
For the rest of his life, Raffa would be able to close his eyes and see what he saw now: Echo’s wings, crisscrossed by scars, glowing translucent against the sunfall sky.
About the Author
Photo by Sonya Sones
LINDA SUE PARK, recipient of the Newbery Medal for A Single Shard, is the bestselling author of many books for young readers, including picture books, poetry, and historical and contemporary fiction. Born in Illinois, Ms. Park has also lived in California, England, and Ireland. She and her husband, a journalist, now live in Rochester, New York, and have two grown children. Learn more at www.lindasuepark.com.
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Books by Linda Sue Park
NOVELS
Wing & Claw: Forest of Wonders
Wing & Claw: Cavern of Secrets
Seesaw Girl
The Kite Fighters
A Single Shard
When My Name Was Keoko
Project Mulberry
Archer’s Quest
Keeping Score
The 39 Clues: Storm Warning
A Long Walk to Water
The 39 Clues: Trust No One
PICTURE BOOKS
The Firekeeper’s Son
Mung-Mung
What Does Bunny See?
Yum! Yuck!
Tap Dancing on the Roof
Bee-bim Bop!
The Third Gift
Xander’s Panda Party
Yaks Yak: Animal Word Pairs
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Copyright
WING & CLAW #3: BEAST OF STONE. Copyright © 2018 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
COVER ART BY JIM MADSEN
COVER DESIGN BY JOE MERKEL
Map by Mike Schley
* * *
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017954099
Digital Edition DECEMBER 2017 ISBN: 978-0-06-232746-8
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-232744-4
* * *
1819202122CG/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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