Blue Hills

by Steve Shilstone

  I tingled fairly with pleasure. The sun sank in the stiff silence. I babbled about the stories. My tongue could not wag quickly enough. Words spilled. I was thrilled. The thrill was there. This time the thrill was there, not like as in the grotto. Something truly had happened to me. Had I really bathed in the Greenwilla River without truly knowing so such that I had? I was the Chronicler. I was on my way to retrieve the witch from the Blue Hills. I was certain I could and would do it. In the company of the Monuments, sleep that night was filled with wonderful dreams.

  Chapter Eleven

  Labbimist

  Fog was thick all around when I awoke the next morning. I stretched my arm out. My hand was engulfed, hidden by gray. Truth, the extremities of my long-stockinged limbs, ankles and feet, were lost in the dense squatting mist. Quickly I drew my knees to my chest to make certain I was all there. I felt around crawling to find my highboots, succeeded, and pulled ‘em on. Stiff silence. Motionless cloud. I thought of Kar.

  “Kar,” I whispered.

  No response. I crept along the grassy ground and discovered one of the marble benches. I rubbed my hand across its slick wet smoothness. I moistened my lips.

  “Kar?” I called a little louder.

  “Hmmmf,” came a muffled sigh from off to my left, followed by a frantic fluttering of feathers and a “Bek, where are you?”

  “Right here. Listen. Follow my voice. I’ll keep talking until you … oof!”

  Kar crashed into me and fell clutching at my jacket in a flapping heap of red webbed feet, yellow tuft wings, single blue plume feather on lavender mallet head, and shimmery shuddering green feather body. She secured herself, pressed her mallet head to my nose and began to spout.

  “It’s the Labbimist! We’re captured! We’ll never get out! It held the Babba Ja Harick for SEVEN years! Such! The Gwer drollek of Lorelei Lo and the Dragon. Remember? They escaped when they found the wand. We have no wand! We have no magic! You need magic to escape the dreaded Labbimist. Oh, why did we sleep? Why did I let you talk and be happy? We knew the Labbimist roamed here and near. We knew it! Why didn’t we know it? We should have known.

  Now I’m stuck ridiculous, and I’m trapped in the Labbimist. Forever! No magic! Bek! Bek! Why do you sit here smiling? Such? So? Bek!”

  Early on near the beginning of Kar’s rant, a pleasant thought entered my head and shooed away all fears, all uneasiness. Such was truly why I wore a smile of contentment.

  “Kar,” I said, “settle. We have nothing to fear from the … Labbimist. Oh, truth, I am so such certain that some of what you say is too … true. But not all. Not all. No doubt we have been … engulfed … by the legendary Labbimist. No doubt. Oh, yes, that’s it. We surely would be … doomed … to stumble time and again and again … upon this … shapely … marble bench no matter what direction away from … it … we chose to attempt our … escape. No doubt. If! If …”

  I tilted my head close to one of Kar’s blinking pink eyes. I felt the desire to impress her. Heightening the drama, I allowed the pause to fill with stiff silence.

  “If what?” said Kar at long last, as I’d hoped she would.

  I heard the ember of hope in her voice. I heard the faith in me. Satisfied, I brought the ember to flame.

  “We are trapped and doomed to wander, dear Kar, if … if the Labbimist is the only creature in All Fidd and Leee Combined on Boad, the only … the one … and only, to have retained its magic when the witch crossed over into … the Blue … Hills. Kar, now you know why I smile, don’t you? Hop onto my arm. I will walk us out of this … density.”

  Kar believed in me. She always has. Such is so. She released the grip she had on my collar and hopped onto my arm. I adjusted the dead dry wooden tube Jo Bree in my belt, stood, chose a direction I thought might be east, and walked off so such with confidence. In no time at all, the mist thinned and we left it behind us. I turned in triumph to stare at the thick blanket of gray cloud. It writhed in seeming frustration.

  “Bek, you’re smart. When you’re right, you are fair truly right,” praised Kar.

  “To the Blue Hills! Yes! That’s it!” I announced, bursting with self-importance.

  Chapter Twelve

  To the Danken Wood

  Why was I spirited with so such a lively fire? I was happy enough to hop. Why? Two days earlier hadn’t I been pounded low to gloom by the weight of the stiff silence? Such. Something had happened. I swam? Memory before and memory after are clear. I was wet. I was pulling on my highboot. Before that? A span of blankness. Before the span of blankness? Clarity of memory. I said “Let’s swim” for no known reason, surprising myself. Then span of blank. I’m pulling on my highboot. Clothes dry. Hair wet. Confident. Not gloomy. Such. So.

  I pondered thusly and strode out strong along the grassy bank of the stiffly silent Greenwilla River. Kar studied me from her perch on my arm. Her lavender mallet head was cocked to the left. Her pink eyes stared unblinking.

  “Bek, you are … different,” she observed.

  “How different? I’m not different. I am the Chronicler of the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined. Chosen. I have been to the Realm Beyond … Realms. I earned the honor to possess the Carven Flute. I, a bendo dreen, dared to … leave the hedge. I have traveled in time alone back into the legendary past to … to … arrange the proper path for Delia Branch and … and … Runner Rill. Yes! That’s it! How can such as I fail to … to … bring Babba Ja Harick home to her … her … cottage?” I boasted.

  “What happened to my Silent Bekka? Such you were called. Remember? I was jark dweg bendo dreen Karro, and you were timid Bekka. We were the oddments in the hedge. Known so such truly. Look at me. Am I not jark dweg in this silly feathered form? I’m still a cracked melon at heart, besides being Kar and the first and only jrabe jroon Rakara and Queen Jebb of the Acrotwist Clowns. But who is this bold strider carrying me through a land of lost magic? Can it be Bek? Where is the timid and doubtful?” said Kar.

  “Banished,” I announced. “Listen closely, Kar. Here is my plan. We’ll abandon the river and take a little … detour when we reach the Danken … Wood. Such. We will visit the witch’s cottage and … and … examine it for clues. Yes! Clues to help me determine why … why … she left. Let’s swim.”

  My hair was wet. I was pulling on my highboot. The skin of my hands was wrinkled like as if I had been swimming for hours. Kar waddled backward, fluffing and shuddering her feathers.

  “Bek, that was amazing. How did you do it?” she said.

  “Do what?” I tossed out carelessly, not knowing what I had done.

  “Swimming underwater all the way over to Clover and back three times! That’s what! Something is oddly strange. Not only stiff silence and no magic. But such else, too. With you. I’ve lost powers. Seems so such like you’ve gained ‘em,” answered Kar, and she flew around my head in little circles before adding, “But you can’t do this.”

  “No, I can’t … fly,” I admitted, though I almost half felt like giving it a try. “You can fly. And what’s more, I’ll get you the … the … rest of your powers back, too.”

  I jumped to my feet, snatched a few blamberries from a nearby low thicket, jammed ‘em in my mouth, and slapped my shoulder, an order for Kar to settle there. She did. I strode firmly a ways by the river’s edge, scrunching with my boots on the gravel sandy shore. I pushed off the stiff silence with loud bendo dreen songs of the forge, of the shop, of Festivals, of story. I was the stubborn boulder around which flowed the stiff silence. Across the river to my right I saw the bright patch colors of Sadlar’s Garden in Clover. Many a Gwer drollek passed by or through that place. No time now to tarry. No time for a visit. I was on an important mission. Such was truly so. In the distance to my left and beyond the oat fields of the Boad, the tall pointy trees of the Danken Wood stabbed the sky. No time to visit the hutter conical cottage I noticed some distance off in the fields. Such.

  “There. The witch’s edible cottage in the … the … Wood. We’re going
there,” I said.

  Late afternoon brought us to the edge of the Danken Wood where it pressed down close to the river. I paused. Kar fluttered low beside me.

  “There’s the boulder where we broke through the Barrier on the Carven Flute adventure,” said Kar.

  The boulder stood in the river surrounded by stiff frozen churn. I remembered. I touched the dead wooden tube of Jo Bree in my belt. It was on that very so such adventure I had won the right to possess it. I vowed silently to return to the Carven Flute its powers.

  “To the … the … cottage,” I commanded.

  Chapter Thirteen

  To the Abandoned Cottage

  With a purpose I walked the edge of the Wood by a tricklestream. Wood on my right, fields on my left, I moved in the darkening orange of dusk. Kar perched on my shoulder, flew off in a flutter, perched on my shoulder, flew off. She overflowed too full jumpy with nervousness to remain settled. Such was so.

  “It’s going to be dark. We’ll lose our way. I wish I could shift to jrabe Rakara and sense us along,” she complained after completing one of her nervous flights.

  “Clouds are scattered. Moons will guide us,” I answered shortly.

  So such seemingly satisfied, she sat for a spell, ridiculous silly with her blue plume feather. From the corner of my eye I could see her preening the tip feathers of her right wing tuft.

  “Ha! Feather habits,” I commented.

  “Well, it’s one thing I can do,” she sulked.

  The moons, Jeth and Jith, arrived in the sky, both of ‘em three-quarters fat. Plenty of blue light lit the tricklestream and made long black shadows in the Danken Wood.

  “The witch walked this very … path before she … she … conjured her cottage,” I thought and then said aloud to slice through the stiffness of silence.

  “Gwer drollek. After she collected the rings and her sister flew down the Well,” mumbled Kar, who, in truth, had been napping, mallet head under wing.

  “A path … runs from this … tricklestream up the … the … hill to her … clearing,” I said, slowing down and surveying the wall of trees to my right.

  I brushed Kar from my shoulder, fell to my knees, and dunked my head through a screen of feather ferns and into the cold stillness of the tricklestream. A chill surge of happy slapped me, and I drank, gulping with glugs. I sat back laughing and shook my full wet head of coppery hair.

  “What are you doing? What was that?” screamed an upset, so such angered Kar.

  “Settle,” I giggled. “Watch. I will close … close … my eyes and count one … one hundred paces. I will count. Yes! That’s it! One hundred … paces with my … my … eyes closed. Then I will turn to the right and march up the … the … the …hill and enter the cottage clearing. Yes!”

  I sprang up, slapped my shoulder, and waited for Kar to settle there. Without a word, she did. I was so such that impressive, commanding and strange. Off I went, eyes closed, counting. I stayed on track by the feel of the tricklestream ferns brushing against my left highboot. I stopped short at one hundred, pivoted right, and opened my eyes. The moons lit the way up a hill through a rising corridor of tall, black-shadowed, stiff standing trees.

  “How did you …?” Kar began.

  She snapped her mallet mouth closed when I rushed stumbling up the slope and into the clearing atop it. The witch’s cottage hid blackly there in the shadows. I felt for its lemony doorknob, found it, turned it and pushed open the door. The silence was stiffer than ever, and I heard my heart pounding. In I went, feeling the clutch of Kar’s webbed feet digging into my shoulder.

  “Buckletar and … and a … flint. Yes. That’s it,” I whispered gleefully, finding first a lamp, then a flint.

  I struck the lamp live, and yellow light made shadows jump. Kar fluttered to the table where the crystal ball of Babba Ja Harick usually rested. The table was bare. I broke off and ate a corner of it. Kar stared at me, amazed.

  “What?” I laughed. “It will be whole in the morning.”

  “No magic,” she gasped.

  Stricken momentarily empty with guilt, I saw what she meant. The edible table would not be whole in the morning. Magic was gone. I waved a hand.

  “No matter,” I blustered. “I’ll get it back.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Return to the River

  I believed in myself. Four waterwizards waiting by the Well of Shells believed in me. More even. Others, all of ‘em, were gathering there so such to stare at that beeketbird stuck midair five spans above the roof of my hut. Kar believed in me. A truth. As always. She slept peacefully, mallet head shoved under yellow tuft wing in spite of earlier saying she wouldn’t. She stood on one flat red webbed foot with the other tucked up tight like as a fist under her green feather belly. She balanced on the table where the witch’s crystal should have been. I tried to find comfort, sitting up, back against wall, hugging my shins, chin resting on knees. The flicker of the buckletar lamp next to ridiculous Kar entranced me. My mind vapored into a nightmare sleep. Such. So.

  In the dream I found myself sitting outside the witch’s cottage and looking down the hill at the tricklestream. The stream, constantly changing color, writhed and wriggled by like a beddysnake. Blustery winds shook the trees. The sky lit up a menacing green. My feet and legs up to my knees were bootless and clad in long purple and black striped stockings. I held my hands in front of my face and watched ‘em transform from plump yellow green bendo dreen to bony pale lavender. My fingers grew long and twisted. Rings began appearing, popping one at a time onto my fingers and thumbs. A wisp of my hair, suddenly white and scraggly, flew in my face. I threw myself sideways and scratched at the door. Lemony doorknob.

  “Yoss!” I shrieked, ripping myself from the dream. There I was, on my side in the witch’s cottage with dim dawn poking through the window.

  “What?” croaked Kar, falling over, flutter flapping, blinking her ridiculous pink eyes. “Did I hear the witch?”

  “No … I … dreamed a bad dream,” I muttered before adding loud and strong, “The river. Back to the … river. Blue Hills. I have the clue I … need. Let’s go.”

  “What’s the clue?” Kar sensibly asked.

  “I’ll tell you … later. No time … now,” I said, rolling quickly to my feet while checking to make certain my hands weren’t bony and lavender and my stockings weren’t purple and black striped as I pushed ‘em into my highboots.

  I fled the cottage, Kar rose fluttering after me. I ran down the hill and back along the tricklestream. I rushed with happiness. I didn’t know why. And I felt invisible mysteries coming at me from all sides through the stiff silence. I grinned. I ran faster than Kar could fly.

  “Wait!” she cried. “Bek! These stupid tuft wings don’t flap fast enough. Wait! Bek! How can you run so such fast? Bek! How? Why?”

  Truth, I sailed skimming, leaping, dodging hedges left, right, hopping the tricklestream. I roared with laughter to see the trees flashing by. When I spied the river, I increased my speed and added flips and tumbles like as such I had never done before. I jumped to a stop with the toes of my highboots dipped in wet sand next to the stiff and silent Greenwilla River. I giggled madly. Moments later, Kar fluttered into view. Ridiculous Kar.

  “Bek! What now?” she challenged in nervous frenzy.

  Widening my eyes, I pointed east. I nodded and grinned. She settled in apparent alarm to float on the stiff silent river. I did a little highboot dance, chuckled, winked, and said, “Blue Hills.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Woods Beyond the Wood

  “I’m needy … No, not needy. Not needy … not needy. Speedy! Yes! That’s it! You’re going to have to … to … perch on my shoulder or you’ll be left … behind. Silly Kar! Ridiculous! Ha! Hop on now. I’m in … in a flurry of hurry. A flurry of hurry! Yes!”

  “Bek, you are the Chronicler. Your melon should not be cracked. Are you thinking? Are you sane? What are you doing?”

  “Blue Hills! Good idea! Let’s sw
im!”

  “Wet hair? Again?”

  “Bek, are you …?”

  “How strange it is, Kar, to see the mighty Greenwilla so such still. How odd that magic entire has drained away. How proper that it is up to me to restore things, set ‘em right. I, Bekka of Thorns, Chronicler of the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined, possessor of the Carven Flute, this sad Jo Bree I hold in my hands. Kar, dear strange ridiculous feathery fluff with a mallet head Kar, trapped not as marvelous jrabe jroon Rakara or as delightful Queen Jebb of the Acrotwist Clowns or as what I would have desired, simple bendo dreen Karro of Thorns, to you and to Jo Bree and to the waterwizards gathered by the Well of Shells and to all of the other creatures all, I pledge a vow of resolve. The river shall flow. The waterwizards shall conjure. Jo Bree shall sing. You, silly jark dweg Kar, shall shift to whatever itch calls to you, be it Striped Racing Dragon, winged cloud or any so such other.

  Flutter, friend, to my shoulder. For us, a day of silent march

  on our journey to find the Blue Hills lies ahead of us.”

  “Are you …?”

  “Silence, Kar. We’ll allow the stiff silence to reign while it may.”

  “Bek.”

  “You may speak if you whisper.”

  “I see the crown of the Redgalla Tree.”

  “Truth. We are crossing the boundary between Danken Wood and the Woods Beyond the Wood.”

  “Is this where you were sent through time?”

  “Near. The Urplinth was off over in that direction. I completed my task, as I always do. The Gwer drolleks of Rindle Mer and her descendants were secured. Hush now. Allow the stiff silence its temporary triumph.”