Urchin and the Rage Tide

by M. I. McAllister

  “That boat,” she said at last. “That round boat.”

  “Good girl,” said Needle with a glance at Urchin. That was the sign of a Voyager, but they already knew about that. “Anything else?”

  “There’s a circle thing,” said Myrtle. “I don’t think I did that.”

  Urchin and Needle bent to examine it. The circle in the moss was hard to distinguish at first, but once they had recognized it, it looked obvious.

  “A ring means safety,” said Urchin, “but there’s nobody in the circle. Who’s being kept safe, Myrtle?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, and screwed up her face as she tried to concentrate. “I suppose it must be the moss. It must mean that it’s nice safe moss, please, Mistress Needle.”

  Needle suppressed a sigh. “Here’s a bit of spare canvas and some charcoal,” she said. “Can you draw a picture for me?”

  While Myrtle drew, Needle glanced around the workroom, hoping that Urchin wouldn’t notice and ask her what she was looking for. Sepia had been making a yellow-gold velvet cloak for Urchin, and had consulted Needle about it—Sepia had felt the color would suit Urchin better than the usual squirrel green. Needle had found the velvet for her, and had been helping her with the collar, which was tricky to sew. Hadn’t she left it in one of the top cupboards? She was sure she had. Perhaps Thripple, or one of the other seamstresses, had moved it. It was a lovely cloak. Sepia had even lined it and waterproofed it with resins, and for her sake Needle wanted to finish it, whether or not Sepia ever…Don’t think about that. To stop herself thinking about Sepia, she looked over Myrtle’s shoulder to see what she was drawing.

  “An almond,” she said, so suddenly that Urchin jumped. “That’s your sister and brother with an almond, isn’t it?” Myrtle nodded and Needle turned to Urchin and Oakleaf. Almonds meant secrecy.

  “That’s not a lot of help,” she said softly. “It probably means that Furtle and Ouch are somewhere secret, but that’s the problem.” She glanced over her shoulder again, then whisked around to look at what Myrtle had drawn next, and snatched at Urchin’s arm.

  “Urchin!” she whispered. “She’s drawn a hellebore!”

  Hellebore for danger. Urchin squeezed Needle’s paw.

  Priest, captain, king. In Mossberry’s cell, there was silence at last. He lay on the floor with the phrase chanting itself in his head. Priest, captain, king. He had thought he was meant to be priest of Mistmantle, but to be priest was not enough. Priests of Mistmantle were quiet, gentle animals. If he could be a priest he would be a priest who ranted, shouted, raged, and made the animals fall to their knees before him—or rather, before the Heart, of course. He should be respected like a captain and honored like a king because the Heart spoke to him. It was his destiny. He must be priest, captain, and king. A fiery priest, a feared captain, an adored king. Such an animal would be the greatest figure in Mistmantle’s history, and it was his destiny.

  He sprang up. “Priest! Captain! King!” he shouted.

  Docken’s voice called back to him through the door. “Make up your mind,” he said. “Do you want to see Brother Juniper? If you want a captain, you can talk to—”

  Mossberry picked up the chair and hurled it at the door. “We have no priest, no captains, no king!” he screamed. “Priest, captain, king,” Mossberry muttered. It was his destiny to be all three—or was there something even greater and stranger for him? Perhaps the task before him was not only great, but terrible.

  Furtle and Ouch had always loved exploring. Being a bit on the small side even for their ages, they were easily overlooked in a crowd, which they liked, because it meant that they could slip away without being noticed. On the night of the rage tide all the young hedgehogs had been in the hillside burrows listening to Mother Huggen’s instructions—Nobody is to go outside at all, that is the king’s orders, do we all understand? You’ve been brought here because it’s safe. If any of you were to go running off, we might never find you again.

  Furtle and Ouch had only half listened. Ouch had heard the bit about not running off, but that was all right. He’d walk. You could see much more if you walked. So at the very first chance, he turned and trundled slowly and happily toward a mossy patch against the wall.

  Furtle had taken in rather more of Mother Huggen’s talk than Ouch had, but she had always looked after her little brother. She’d thought she’d better see where he was going.

  Ouch had prodded at the moss first with his snout, then scraped at it with his paw. He was most excited to find a crack in the wall behind it. It was very small, but there was just enough room for two tiny hedgehogs to squeeze through if they went one at a time and flattened their prickles.

  “Oh, look!” exclaimed Furtle.

  Ouch had found the most beautiful cave. It was wide and rocky, with white stone and twisted pale tree roots gleaming against the walls. A spring trickled down from a rock.

  “I like it here!” said Ouch. “It’s a bit too crowded in that big room, isn’t it?”

  Furtle twisted around to look. She could see a few prickles and hear Mother Huggen’s voice, though she couldn’t make out the words.

  “They don’t know where we are,” she admitted, “but we know where they are, so that’s all right. We’ll hear if they call us.”

  Having sorted that out, they’d had a wonderful time. They had made their own little burrow out of pebbles and earth, but Furtle said they would need moss to make beds, so they went to find some. They hadn’t needed to look far. A little more exploring had brought them underneath a spreading tree root, where the moss and soft earth gave way easily when they tugged at it. This had also released a clump of fat pink worms, which were delicious. By the time they had eaten and made their nests, Ouch was so very tired that his eyes could hardly stay open, so Furtle wrapped him in soft green moss and sang him to sleep. He had looked beautifully cozy like that, so she had wriggled in beside him. Warm and fed, they had slept deeply. The slow, fine trickle of sandy earth in the burrow was softer than a lullaby, and had not disturbed them at all.

  “I’m so sorry, Captain Padra!” said Mother Huggen, and wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron. “I don’t know how I managed to lose Furtle and little Ouch. I’ll never look their mother in the face again.”

  “Mother Huggen,” said Padra, “come here.” He put an arm around her, carefully, as was best with hedgehogs. “You are doing a wonderful job, keeping order in a hill full of healthy young animals with too much energy and too little freedom. I’m astonished that there’s only two of them missing. Really, Huggen. You’re more capable and experienced than any of us. If it had been left to me, the whole lot of them would have vanished. Urchin and Needle are on to it.”

  The end of the mists brought bitter disappointment to Corr. The sky was sullen with cloud, and soon a gray rain was falling steadily. Being an otter, he didn’t mind being wet, but he would rather have one good soaking than this constant dripping of rain. Soon it would be dark, and there wouldn’t be much chance of steering by the stars if he couldn’t see them for the clouds.

  But long ago, Crispin and Urchin had taken boats beyond the island, and had had adventures, and if a squirrel could do it…He trailed a paw in the water to feel the pull of the tide, sniffed the air, and turned his boat in what he hoped would be the right direction, according to the course of the tide that had swept Sepia away. He sailed when there was a wind and rowed when there was not, praying for the Heart’s help until his eyes were closing.

  When he woke up, he was still muttering prayers.

  Urchin, Needle, Oakleaf, and Hope had assembled cloaks, food supplies, and flasks of water. Hope was to come with them because, as he said, he thought like a hedgehog but found his way like a mole, which could be useful.

  “We’ll start from the hilltop chamber where they were last seen,” said Urchin. “We believe they’re somewhere mossy and safe.”

  “That narrows it down,” muttered Needle.

  “They’re small,” Urch
in went on. “They can’t have gone far. Myrtle, you can come with us.”

  “Is that a good idea?” asked Needle. Taking him to one side, she whispered, “She’ll only slow us down!”

  “But if she calls them and they hear her, they’ll come,” said Urchin. “They might be scared of us and hide if they hear us coming, but they’ll trust Myrtle. And”—he turned and took Myrtle’s paw—“you’ll keep drawing pictures for us, won’t you?”

  “She’ll draw snowdrops everywhere,” muttered Needle. “She’s got a thing about snowdrops just now. Look, she’s doing it already.”

  “Good,” said Urchin. “They’re a symbol of hope.” Hope, hearing his name, peered shortsightedly about until he realized that Urchin didn’t mean him. “Ready, everyone. We’ll need another cloak for Myrtle.”

  “And currants,” said Myrtle.

  “Currants?” repeated Needle.

  “Furtle and Ouch like currants,” said Myrtle. “We all do.”

  “And currants,” said Urchin. “Provisions, lanterns, ropes, a cloak for Myrtle, and currants.”

  Corr couldn’t possibly stay awake all the time. However hard he tried, flexing his paws and claws, standing up in the boat to stretch his limbs, and singing every song he knew, his eyes would close, his head would droop, and he would wake to find himself drifting off course. He yearned for someone to share the journey with so that there could be one rowing and one sleeping, and, when they were both awake at the same time, someone to talk to. That would be good. He had never been alone for so long before, day and night and day and night and day. Sea, nothing but sea. Sometimes, when he felt his eyes closing and the dreams seeped into his head, he would jerk awake and pull on the oars as hard as he could. There were long, weary hours with no sight of land. He sometimes thought he’d be better off with a storm—at least, in a storm, he’d have to struggle to control the boat and bring in the sail, and he couldn’t get sleepy while fighting for his life against a furious gale. It had never occurred to him that being a Voyager could be so boring. Another rainy night seemed to last forever, and he was glad of the cloak he’d brought with him.

  The sky grew lighter. At first he thought the line on the horizon was only clouds, but it became clearer and stronger, and, unlike the clouds, it didn’t change. Land! He sat up straight and rowed with new strength in aching muscles. Being a Voyager was suddenly exciting again. As the land became clearer, he hoped that it really was Whitewings. He knew nothing about the other islands in these waters, except that there was a deserted fire island somewhere—a dead volcano. He had no wish to arrive there.

  He had not yet learned that land in sight is always farther away than it first seems, especially to a young animal already tired and aching from rowing. He felt he had been rowing forever before he could see any details—high, sheer cliffs rose up, with something that might have been streams weaving snakily down them. It didn’t look at all like a promising place to land, but when he steered east, working his way around the coast, he felt a lot more hopeful.

  This was much better. He heard the noises of a busy harbor long before he reached it. Hedgehog voices called to each other, oars splashed, and there was the steady thump and thud of cargoes being loaded and unloaded. Before he rounded the bay, he could see the masts of tall ships, their pennants fluttering in the breeze.

  Gradually, Corr saw the bustling animals loading ships on the harbor. They saw him, too, and the chatter died away. Hedgehogs carrying crates stopped, and stood still to watch him. Squirrels ran up masts to see what was going on.

  “Otter!” whispered someone. A small hedgehog looked up at his mother and stretched up on his clawtips to whisper in her ear. Corr remembered Urchin telling him that there weren’t any otters on Whitewings. The young hedgehog probably wanted to know what he was, and whether he’d bite. By the time he’d rowed to the jetty, most of the animals had gathered on the shore to watch him, and were reaching out to help him tie up the boat.

  “Otter, aren’t you?” called a hedgehog, who, from his sword and elegant cloak, must be a senior animal. He reached out, shook Corr’s paw heartily, and helped him from the boat. “Welcome to Whitewings. I’m Morrow, I look after things at the harbor.”

  Corr stepped onto the jetty. His legs felt wobbly from sitting in the boat for so long.

  “I’m Corr of Mistmantle,” he said.

  “Delighted!” said Morrow. “Mistmantle? How are you going to get back? Never mind that now, you’ve only just got here. Someone bring him wine! Bring him bread, bring him fruit! Bring fish! Fish, of course, I suppose that’s what otters like, is it? It must have been hard rowing, all that way on your own! What’s the news, and what’s your errand here?”

  As Corr told of the devastation of Mistmantle, the whole crowd seemed to want to look after him. They spread their cloaks for him to sit on, brought him food and wine, and sat down to listen to his story. (The young hedgehog, who had been frightened, timorously put out a paw to touch his tail.) When he told them of the rage tide, several animals nodded in sympathy.

  “We had a rage tide here, too,” said Morrow, “but nothing as bad as it was on Mistmantle. Your island must have taken the force of it, far more than we did. So what help do you need? Shall we try to send food? We can send a shipload if it can only get through the mists. Queen Larch needs to know about this. What do you need?”

  “We need a different sort of help,” said Corr, and told them, as briefly as he could, about how Sepia had been swept out to sea. But as he told the story, his heart sank. He could see no sign of recognition on their faces.

  “Sorry,” said Morrow. “She hasn’t turned up here, I’m afraid. She would have been more than welcome if she had. But you should be taken to the queen. She’ll want to hear of all this herself.”

  “I should go on looking,” said Corr—but he knew it would be senseless to go on without a night’s sleep, and he would need more provisions and fresh water. He let Morrow escort him to the queen’s home. He had heard of Urchin’s trek across Whitewings in the bad old days of King Silverbirch, but this was very different. Where there had been wasteland, now crops, trees, and flowers grew; and Morrow seemed keen to show it all off to him as they walked. Trees had been planted in earth brought from Mistmantle and were growing well, wheat and flowers thrived where there had been silver mines. Corr would have thoroughly enjoyed it all if he hadn’t been wondering how soon he could leave, and go on looking for Sepia.

  “Queen Larch lives in the new palace,” said Morrow. “She’s talking of giving it a grand new name, but she’s not telling anyone what it is yet. It’s only just finished being built. Her Majesty insisted that the rest of the island had to be restored before she had a palace to live in. Spent most of her reign up to now in an overcrowded burrow like everyone else. Here it is now. You’ll see Her Majesty’s mighty fond of flowers. They never grew much on this island in King Silverbirch’s time. If you could grow solid silver daisies he would have had any number of those, but he couldn’t see the point in anything colorful. You can see the palace from here.”

  In fact Corr couldn’t see the palace at all, but only the cascade of flowers in front of it. As he came closer he saw that behind the terraced garden lay the sprawling and upturned roots of a fallen tree. “Fell down when the earthquake struck,” said Morrow. The palace had been built into the roots. It could only be approached through the gardens, where a female hedgehog was hoeing out weeds. When she looked up, she smiled in delight.

  “An otter!” she said. “From Mistmantle?”

  “Your Majesty,” said Morrow, bowing. “This is Corr of Mistmantle.”

  The queen! thought Corr, who had taken her for a gardener. He knelt, but his legs were so tired and sore that getting up again was a painful struggle.

  “Corr is on a quest,” said Morrow. “He’s looking for a missing squirrel.”

  “Oh?” said Larch.

  “Her name is Sepia, Your Majesty,” said Corr.

  “Sepia!” The que
en’s eyes widened, and Corr’s heart leaped with hope. “Sepia of the Songs?”

  “You’ve seen her?” he asked.

  “Oh, no,” she said, “I’m sorry, I haven’t seen her since the Raven War, but I remember her well. Tell me all about this!”

  She brought him into the shade of the tree root palace and sent for a drink made mostly of borage—it tasted horrible, but Corr soon felt better for drinking it. When he had told the queen his story, she shook her head.

  “Sepia was one of those squirrels who has more to her than most,” she said. “Cedar was very fond of her. For her sake, I wish she had been washed up on the shores of my island. She still may be, and I can set a watch for her, just in case. And, if there’s any news, I’ll send a swan to Mistmantle. But she isn’t here now.”

  Until now, Corr had only felt sore and tired. Now he felt heavy. He didn’t know where to search next, and told himself to think. What next?

  “If she isn’t on Whitewings,” he said, thinking aloud, “where should I go now?”

  “Nowhere, until you’ve recovered your strength,” she said firmly. “You’ll be no use to Sepia if you collapse at sea. There’s the old Ashfire—I’ve heard that there’s not much of it left now. But there’s always Swan Isle.”

  That made sense to Corr. Swan Isle was in the opposite direction.

  “And if she did get there, she’d find friends,” the queen went on. “The swans are eternally thankful to Mistmantle.”

  “I’ll try to find it,” he said. “King Crispin said there were other islands in those waters, but I don’t think she’d survive long on any of them.”

  The queen put a gentle paw on his shoulder. “Rest tonight, Corr,” she said. “Tomorrow, we will refill your stores. Sleep here tonight. And, when you leave us, take this.”

  She opened a dark wooden chest in which Corr could see a row of small, plain earthenware pots. She lifted one out, and, even though it was still sealed, the aroma of honey drifted from it.