by Rebecca Rupp
Tad lay awake. He was thinking about what Branica had said, sounding so superior and amused: “To stay in one place, then that place comes to own you, no? When you find a place you can no longer leave behind, that is not to be whole.” To travel, free as the wind. It sounded gloriously exciting. But it would be lonely if I had no place to come home to, Tad thought. It’s not that a place owns you — it’s that the water smells sweeter there and the wind blows gentler and your feet know the feel of the grass. You need to have roots, Tad thought.
From somewhere far away, deep in the forest, came the hooting cry of a hunting owl. Hoo-oh! To-hoo-oh!
A last thought flickered before Tad fell asleep again. Who is Ohd?
The morning dawned clear, cloudless, and sunny with a light breeze blowing out of the west. They crawled out of their blankets with much yawning and rubbing of eyes. Branica was already bustling about, directing the packing of the caravan and shouting at Bodo and Griffi. After a cold breakfast of sweet rootbread with blackberry butter, the families prepared to go their separate ways.
Bodo shouted saucily to Birdie, “We’ll play another pebblehop at the Gathering! We’ll see who wins then!”
Kelti, peeking between the wagon’s skin flaps, waved a fat fist.
Ditani, scarlet skirts swirling, called to Tad, “I’ll see you at the Gathering!”
“Until the Gathering!” Uncle Czabo bellowed, sounding more than ever like a bullfrog. He pointed a long finger at Tad. “I teach you my tricks,” he shouted, and winked.
“Until the Gathering!” Pondleweed echoed, raising his hand in farewell. “On the ninth day of the Shrinking Moon!”
Nobono and Branica lifted the wooden handles of the caravan and bent forward, straining to start the wagon rolling. Uncle Czabo followed. Slowly they trundled away through the underbrush. Pondleweed, Tad, and Birdie stood on the stream bank, waving until the last scraps of scarlet, yellow, and green had vanished from sight and the sound of the wagon’s creak and jingle had faded away.
“They were nice,” Birdie said, still looking after them.
“Best to be cautious with Hunters,” Pondleweed said. It was his teacher voice, the same voice he used for pointing out the dangers of diving off lily pads in the dark, running across open ground, and interfering with wasps. “Their ways are not our ways, and too much togetherness leads to trouble. Birds don’t live with beavers.”
“Well, I liked them, anyway,” Birdie said.
She paused.
“But I’m not going to let that Bodo win at pebblehop,” she added.
“We should be on our way too,” Pondleweed said after a moment. “We still have a long way to travel.”
They launched the little boat again and paddled determinedly onward. Birdie chattered excitedly about Bodo and Griffi and the Hunters: “How many days is it until the ninth day of the Shrinking Moon? Will we really go to the Gathering? All of us? Can we camp near Bodo’s family?”
Tad dipped his paddle in silence. He had a lot to think about. What would it be like to live like the Hunters, traveling from place to place all the time? Do Hunters ever want to settle down? What would it feel like to be traded? Did Ditani like me? Would Nobono want to trade for me — that is, if I ever get better with the spear? Or do Hunters think that Fishers are never good enough? Did I look really stupid trying to eat that firepepper?
Hours passed. The sun rose higher in the sky. The streambed gradually widened and then merged with a broader stream — once, Pondleweed said, it must have been a river. The river now was shallow and drying, a mere thread of water among tumbled stones. Many of the rocks that had once lined its bottom were exposed, bare and whitened in the sun. On either side of them the banks rose up higher and higher, until soon it seemed that they were paddling along the bottom of a deep canyon. The rocky walls cut off the sun.
Goosebumps formed on Tad’s arms, even though the day was warm, and he shivered. Something was wrong here. There was something hateful up ahead. He could feel it. Even the water smelled different here. Wrong. Tad glanced worriedly over his shoulder at his father, but Pondleweed was staring over his head, studying the sides of the canyon walls.
As they rounded the next rocky curve, Pondleweed gave a startled exclamation, then thrust his paddle sharply into the water, driving the boat to the side of the shallow stream. Its birchbark hull scraped along the ground. Pippit, jolted awake, croaked in alarm.
“Why are you stopping?” Birdie asked crossly. Her nose was pink with sunburn and she was thirsty. “What’s the matter?”
“Look,” Tad said in a stricken voice. “That’s what happened to our water, Birdie.”
“What is it?” Birdie finally asked in an awed whisper.
Pondleweed answered, “It’s a dam.”
“A . . . beaver dam?” asked Birdie uncertainly.
Pondleweed silently shook his head.
“Beavers don’t build dams like that, puddlehead,” Tad said. “They build dams out of sticks.”
The dam stretched solidly across the mouth of the stream. It was massive, wide and tall, built from layer after layer of roughly shaped and chiseled stones. The cracks between the stones were wedged with twigs, leaves, and muddy clay, creating a watertight seal. Across the top of the dam, a row of sharply pointed stones had been set on end. The stones loomed ominously above them, black against the sky, looking like jagged teeth. A Remember jolted Tad. I’ve seen stones like this before, he thought. Stone towers. Where were they?
“What could have built it?” Birdie asked, craning her neck to gaze upward.
“I don’t know,” Pondleweed said slowly. He pulled off his broad-brimmed hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know.”
Tad was feeling more jumpy by the minute. He felt as if something were watching him, holding its breath, waiting to pounce. Even the air felt different here. It was heavy, menacing. But wherever he looked, all was empty and silent. Nothing stirred, not so much as a beetlebug or a riffle of wind. Birdie’s eyes were wide and dark and she was biting her lip.
“I’m scared,” Birdie said in a small voice.
Pondleweed laid down his paddle and stepped out of the boat, splashing into the shallow water. He seized the boat by its bow and shoved it firmly out of the stream, up onto the dry rocks of the shore. Then he stepped back and looked up consideringly at the stream bank high above his head.
“I’m going to climb up there,” he said. “I want to see what’s on the other side of the dam. You youngers wait here. You’ll be perfectly safe, Birdie. I’ll try not to take too long.”
“I want to go with you,” Tad said quickly. He didn’t want to see what was on the other side of the dam. But he didn’t want to stay behind either, not with this creepy feeling of eyes on the back of his neck.
“Me too,” said Birdie. “I don’t like it here. I don’t want to stay and wait all by myself.”
Pippit rolled his eyes back and forth, looking from one to the other, and bleated piteously.
“He wants to go too,” Tad said. “Look at him begging.”
Pondleweed sighed in resignation. “All right,” he said. “All of you follow me. But be very careful. Once we get up near the top, it’s a long way to fall down.”
He dug his webbed toes into a narrow ledge in the side of the bank and grabbed an overhanging root with both hands. He pulled himself up, then fumbled with his toes for another foothold. Tad and Birdie followed close behind him, Pippit clinging clammily to Tad’s back. Fishers were quick and agile climbers. Their webbed toes could grip the tiniest cracks and crevices. They climbed like tree frogs scrambling up the rough bark of trees. Hand over hand and foot over foot they went, clinging to rocks and roots and tufts of dried grass. Finally they heaved themselves, one by one, over the top of the bank. Pondleweed and Tad bent to help Birdie, who was last. Then they turned and stared. Pippit gave one horrified croak, closed his eyes, and huddled behind Tad’s back.
On the far side of the dam was a broad lake
— but a lake like nothing Tad had ever seen before. The water was utterly still, thick, motionless, and black. Nothing green grew near it. The grass beside it was brown and brittle; the bushes bare and leafless. Shriveled blossoms and berries dangled from blackened vines. At the lake’s edge, shattered stumps of dead trees and twisted branches poked above the water. There was a withered thicket of dead reeds and cattails, their stems cracked and brown. Broken fish bones and dead dried fish with flat staring eyes were washed up along the shore. A dead sparrow, its beak wide open, was half buried in black mud. Birdie gave a frightened gasp. There was the skeleton of a squirrel, its bones bleached white, its eye sockets gaping empty, and beyond it the curled white fingers of what looked horribly like a Fisher hand.
“What a terrible place,” Birdie said in a trembling voice.
“An evil place,” Pondleweed said. His face looked pinched and angry — and frightened, Tad realized with a shock. He had never seen his father frightened before.
Tad’s mouth was dry, and his knees felt weak and strange. Something awful lived in that lake. And it was watching them. He knew it. Who’s there? he shouted in his mind, but nothing answered.
He turned to tell his father about the feeling — could Birdie and Pondleweed feel it too? he wondered — but Pondleweed was no longer standing beside him. He was heading toward the dam.
“Where are you going?” Tad called. His voice sounded high and thin. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What are you going to do?”
“This dam is trapping our water,” Pondleweed said tightly, without slowing his stride. “And I am going to pull it down.”
Tad and Birdie hurried to catch up with him. Tad tripped awkwardly over Pippit, who, in an effort to keep Tad between himself and the black lake, was hopping nervously and closely underfoot. Pippit squawked.
Birdie tugged at Pondleweed’s tunic sleeve. “But how can you pull it down?” she protested. “It’s so enormous.”
Pondleweed paused for a moment. “We don’t have to pull the whole dam down,” he said gently. “I’m just going to try to make a hole in it. Just enough for the water to come through.” He put a hand on the top of Birdie’s head and ruffled her hair. “Like the story of the Busy Muskrat, remember?”
The Busy Muskrat had been a favorite of Birdie’s when she was little. She nodded. “There was a flood that filled the muskrat hole with mud, and all the little muskrats were trapped inside,” she said. She sounded brighter and more like herself. “But the Busy Muskrat chipped and chipped away at the mud, and dug and dug, and pretty soon there was a hole, and the little muskrats all swam out into the big pond . . . .”
“Exactly,” Pondleweed said. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “And that’s just what we’re going to do. We’re going to chip.”
He continued determinedly toward the dam, with Birdie close at his heels. Tad trailed behind them, still entangled with an agitated Pippit. He had never liked the Busy Muskrat. It was a dull stickmud story. All that chipping until one little muskrat swam free, then more chipping and another little muskrat, and on and on. Chip. Dumb little muskrat. Chip. Dumb little muskrat.
Tad paused, gulping nervously. Muskrats . . . He shook the thought away. There was real danger here. What was the matter with Pondleweed and Birdie? Couldn’t they feel it?
Pondleweed and Birdie had clambered onto the top of the dam. Tad followed reluctantly, threading his way cautiously between the black fanglike stones. Now that he was closer, he could see that the stones were carved, each with the image of a swimming fish. At least they might have been fish. Monster fish. They all had round bulgy eyes and big grinning mouths full of wickedly pointed teeth. The teeth were inlaid with little pieces of silvery mica that made them glitter.
Tad edged away from the hideous fish-monsters and gingerly peered down over the edge of the dam. On one side was the lake with its frightening black water; on the other, a steep drop to the rocky bed of the drying river. If I had to jump, Tad decided grimly, I’d jump off on the river side. I’d rather smash onto those rocks than dive into that black water. The very thought of touching the lake water was somehow horrible.
Pondleweed and Birdie, in Busy Muskrat fashion, were scrabbling determinedly at the packing between the stones of the dam wall, scraping away at the mud, tugging out twigs, flattened brush, and crumbled leaves. A handful of pebbles, yanked free, bounced and clattered, then vanished with a scattering of dull plops into the dark water. Pondleweed gave a grunt and a great heaving shove and managed to dislodge a stone. It tottered, toppled slowly, then splashed heavily into the black lake and sank from sight. Birdie waved her arms in the air and gave a piping cheer.
Tad winced. She shouldn’t, he thought. We should be really quiet. We shouldn’t make any more noise than we have to.
He poked Birdie in the back. “Hush,” he whispered. “Don’t be so loud.”
Birdie turned to stare at him in outraged surprise. “I don’t see what difference it makes,” she said. “There’s nobody here. And that hurt. You don’t have to poke at a person like that.”
Pondleweed began to chip away at another stone. Tad stared at the heaving black spot where the first stone had fallen. The lake below him roiled and bubbled. It looked like an oily black cauldron, a dark and evil-smelling witch’s brew. The feeling of being watched was almost overpowering. There is something here, Tad thought in a panic. And it’s coming closer. It heard Birdie yelling.
And then the scene before his eyes changed. He felt as if an enormous wave had washed over him, tumbling his mind around and around like a pebble caught in the current of a stream. He floundered, blinded and gasping. When he opened his eyes, he was standing on a polished tile floor. He was in the middle of a great room — a throne room — and he was underwater, in the dark depths, far beyond the reach of the warming sun. Three doorways led out of the room, each hung with bead curtains of glimmering black pearls. He strode forward, naked sword in hand, moving slowly through the water.
At the far end of the room was a square stone chair, its back and arms richly studded with amethysts and aquamarines. On its seat lay a glimmering white crystal, shining softly with an inner light. There was no one else in the room. Then someone spoke to him, mind touching mind, in a clear silver voice edged with anger and fear.
You shall not have it, Sagamore!
In two more steps he reached the throne and bent to pick the crystal up. Tad watched as his hand, looking strangely disembodied and distorted through the dark water, closed around it. And then the voice began to sing. The song was infinitely sweet and seductive, a heavy drugging music like enchanted honey or poisoned strawberry wine. He looked down at the gleaming crystal clutched in his hand and struggled to remember: Why did I want this? What is it? What am I doing here? Slowly he raised his sword. . . .
Somewhere, far in the distance, someone was shouting his name.
“Tad!” the new voice shouted. “Tad! Tad! Tad!“
An urgent hand tugged at his arm. The throne room vanished.
Birdie, her face pale, was yanking on his elbow and pointing desperately toward a thick tangle of dead brush and withered cattails that stood in the black lake’s shallows. Something was moving about inside it. There was a slithering sound and ripples began to fan out through the dark water. Several of the innermost cattail stalks began to thrash wildly back and forth. Pippit, on the shore, croaked frantically.
“There’s something wrong with Father!” Birdie shouted.
Pondleweed was gazing blankly out across the black lake, his eyes round and wide. His face wore a strange expression, an intent listening expression, as if he were straining to hear someone calling to him from very far away. His ears tilted slowly forward, then back.
Pippit croaked furiously.
“Father?” said Tad uncertainly.
“Do you hear it?” Pondleweed said. His voice was slow and blurred. “Do you hear the music? The pearl-shell harps and coral pipes? And the singing? Can’t you he
ar her singing?”
And Tad could hear it. It was the same song he had heard in the blue-lit throne room, but fainter now and less compelling. She’s no longer singing to me, he realized.
The Witch can catch but one fish at a time.
The phrase leaped into his brain as if he had known it all along.
Else she would not need servants.
Pondleweed began to walk rapidly across the top of the dam, moving back toward the shore. He brushed by the children as if they were invisible.
“Father! Where are you going?” cried Birdie in alarm.
Pondleweed never paused. He strode past, unhearing, climbed off the dam, and skirted the cattail thicket, heading blindly toward the black water. He walked stiff-legged, as if he were a puppet pulled on strings. He splashed right into the dark lake. Black ripples sloshed over his feet.
Pippit’s croaking rose to a wail.
“Father! What are you doing!” screamed Birdie.
“Father! Stop!” shrieked Tad. “Come back! Don’t go in there!”
Pondleweed never faltered. Steadily he continued to walk into the black lake, his face slack and empty of expression, his eyes staring. The black water reached his ankles, his knees, his waist. In the cattail thicket, something rustled slyly. A thick black bubble rose to the water’s surface and broke.
Tad, dragging Birdie by one arm, flung himself off the dam and raced across the black shore. Bones and dead branches snapped under his feet. He was shouting his father’s name. He threw himself forward, splashing madly into the inky water. Behind him, he heard Birdie sobbing.
“Tad! He’s gone!”
Pondleweed had disappeared. Not even a ripple showed on the thick black surface of the water to show where he had been.
Tad took another step forward.
“I can save him!” he shouted, turning back to Birdie. “I’ll swim out —”
Birdie screamed.
Her scream was echoed, long and louder, in the sky high above them. Plummeting toward them, lethal talons open wide, was the monstrous form of a hunting bird.