Princess Juniper of the Hourglass

by Ammi-Joan Paquette

  The cliff they were scaling did not wind gently upward like the one on the South Bank. This was a straight, hard climb. Yet, rugged as it was, there was definitely a rough path leading them up the slope. At some time in the past, this route had seen a good deal of foot travel.

  At last they crested a rocky lip and, quite suddenly, the river was before them once again. They must have gotten turned around in their climbing, or the water took some fancy turns, for Juniper had thought they’d left it far behind. But they were now on a ledge that stretched balcony-like over a breathtaking expanse of deepest blue. The rock was carpeted in delicate green moss, and Leena called out to Filbert and Roddy to set down the heavy picnic hampers they had been carrying. The boys did so, then joined the crowd clustering around Cyril as he puffed out his chest and gave the tour.

  “Down the way here is a sort of rocky stair,” he said. “This vantage point is good for observing, but just below is a shallow chamber of a use for changing garments. And there is a ledge I rather fancy for diving into the pool below.”

  There was a shocked gasp at the very idea.

  “Why not?” he challenged. “That is the deepest part of the pool. The water is clear, and the sun is hot as a fiery draco’s den. Who wants to go in?”

  “For myself, I came prepared to swim!” cried Root, pulling his tunic over his head and shedding his trousers to reveal a bathing costume beneath. Cyril quickly joined him, while the others stood looking hesitantly around.

  Juniper grappled to keep hold of the group. “That is a marvelous idea! I shall retire to change my garments at once. Who is with me?” Several of the other girls followed her into the changing cave, where she took off her long gown and folded it neatly in a pile, tucking her waist-pouch carefully among the skirts. In minutes, she was dressed in her long swimming costume, with its thick drapey fabric and loose bands around each ankle to keep the dress from billowing up. This had always seemed a vaguely ridiculous precaution in the palace’s shallow, sedate pools, and she’d wondered how the seamstress had thought up that design.

  A memory came to her mind, something her mother had said on one of their late-night adventuring expeditions. On that hot summer night, they’d crept out to the fountain to make mischief under the full moon, with no one to look on but a trio of solemn white doves in the nearby persimmon tree.

  “It’s tame and well behaved, this water here,” her mother had murmured, gripping Juniper around her little waist and twirling her around. “We’ve got to churn it up if we want any fun at all. But someday—oh, someday I hope you’ll get to experience the rush of water that has been left to its own true, wild nature. Water like that is a force all its own. It’s a presence you meet on its own terms. It can’t help but change you, if you’ll let it.”

  Those thoughts ran through Juniper’s mind now, as she paused on the rocky ledge jutting over the crystal water far below. Several kids were gathered in the shallows, edging their way out, while others already splashed in the depths. Despite Cyril’s challenge, no one had stepped up to dive into the pool—not even, she couldn’t help noticing, Cyril himself.

  Well, here she was. Juniper stepped forward and curled her toes over the rim of the sun-baked stone. This was like nothing she’d ever done before. Yet it did not feel odd, or awkward, or even a bit dangerous. It felt right.

  Juniper flung her arms wide and stepped off the ledge.

  And dropped.

  The air rushed past her in a torrent, ballooning inside her suit and flinging her hair wild above her. Then, like an icy thunderclap, the water took her in and the world exploded in a vortex of bubbling, foamy glee. Her teeth chattered, and her muscles strained, and the glory of the plunge seized her like a heartache, like a memory long forgotten. For a single moment, her hands were in her mother’s and she was spinning in a wide arc over the fountain, with the dark crescent of the sky beaming approvingly overhead.

  Then she kicked up hard and her head broke the surface, and all around her were the cheers and applause of a satisfied audience. Alta had taken her place on the ledge, and Juniper pushed against the water to move out of the way.

  “Come on in!” she yelled. “The water’s clear as a bell and twice as fine!”

  • • •

  The day was an overwhelming success. Cyril’s swimming hole was all that had been promised, and the kids alternated between swimming, eating day-old cheese crackers and long strips of preserved meat and handfuls of sweet-salted apple crisps, and lying about on the superheated rocks, soaking up the midday sun. After a while, Juniper decided to push her exploring further. Quite a number of others had wandered off in various small groups, but she and Erick decided to climb the rocks around the edge of the pool. At the highest point, they sat on some flat stones and gazed out toward the horizon. They couldn’t see much beyond the crags and bulk of the surrounding mountains. But the view they did have was breathtaking.

  “That’s the direction of home,” Erick said, pointing. Off in the distance, a greenish-brown line on the horizon, was the warm, familiar soil of Torr.

  “It looks so close,” Juniper said. “Well, not actually close—but doesn’t it seem like we might vault over this rock and touch down there just as easily as doing a forward roll?”

  Erick smiled wistfully out at the horizon. “Do you miss it?”

  “We’ll be back home before long, and then we’ll see how much our missing was worth.”

  Erick started to reply, then narrowed his eyes. “What’s that?”

  Far down the slope toward Torr’s eastern flank, Juniper could just see a dull haze of smoke. “Something’s ablaze out there!”

  “A house fire?” Erick asked.

  Juniper scrambled up on a boulder to see if she could get a better look. She couldn’t. There was just the faint cloud massing in the distance, pale but somehow threatening, even from this distance.

  “It’s awfully big to be a house fire,” Juniper said. And the red flashes they’d seen the other night—were those house fires, also? She kept trying to make excuses, telling herself that all was well back home. Yet every day began and ended the same way: with no word from her father. It was growing increasingly hard to just continue on as they had been.

  Juniper squeezed her arms tightly together and followed Erick down the ridge to rejoin the others.

  They headed back toward the settlement in the late afternoon. The far-off smoke wasn’t visible from their swimming hole, and twice Juniper opened her mouth to tell the others what she and Erick had seen. But each time she stopped. She remembered the fear and anxiety that had followed the first night’s disturbance, not to mention last night’s strange attack. The kids walking beside her now were hot and sticky and sun-scorched, but they bubbled over with giddy delight. Even though—or maybe because—Cyril, Root, and Jessamyn hadn’t returned with them, there was a new closeness to the group that hadn’t been there that morning. Juniper didn’t have the heart to break that up.

  Still, her own thoughts were dark and tangled. Her father had sent them here, had commanded them to stay until they heard from him. But were they really supposed to just sit by if Torr was under a proper invasion? Yet what could they hope to do, in any case, their ragtag little group? It was a quandary with no solution that Juniper could see.

  “I’ve a surprise for you all,” Leena said, cutting into Juniper’s thoughts as they filed down the grassy bank toward the river. “Is everyone hungry?”

  There were mutterings of enthusiastic assent, and Leena danced in response. “My lips are sealed. I shan’t breathe a word. But I think you’ll be impressed.” She took five or six more steps, then twirled again. “I hope you’re hungry, and that’s all I’m saying.” She looked eagerly from one face to the other.

  Juniper took pity on her. “Oh, do tell us more?” she suggested.

  “Very well, if you do keep insisting. It’s a plan I’ve been developi
ng, to make the food preparation easier. I first thought of it on account of how the Hourglass stone holds and carries the heat so well. I had Roddy line it into my stovetop, and before we left this morning, I built up a raging fire. Hemmed it all around with stones and coal and clay, I did, and left a big pot of beans and salt pork on to stew.”

  “It won’t have scorched?” Alta asked.

  “That’s the beautiful thing—the fire itself will have burned right out, but left all that heat trapped inside. If I’ve done it right, my stew has been slowly cooking all the day. This will be our best meal yet!” She sniffed the air. “It’s almost as though I can smell it right now!”

  Juniper did the same, though honestly she couldn’t smell a thing.

  As they neared the bridge, Leena broke into a run and dashed on ahead, doubtless eager to inspect her special meal. Unfortunately, that was not to be. For just minutes after she’d vanished from sight, a piercing wail rose from the kitchen area.

  Juniper and Alta exchanged glances, then broke into a run. They had to slow down when crossing the bridge, still not wanting to burden the structure with more than one body at once. So Juniper was the first to come upon Leena standing, frozen in place, hands over her mouth, gazing at the complete wreckage of the dining hall. The circle was in full disarray, its stones overturned and scattered. A few boulders had even been rolled down the slope and lay half submerged in the river. In the kitchen, the new cooking stove had been smashed to rubble. Ash and coal were strewn everywhere. And over and through and among it all was a wide splatter of hard, undercooked brown beans. The empty pot lay upside down and dented on the far edge of the clearing.

  Juniper heard more than one shocked gasp as the rest of the group came upon the scene.

  “Who would do this?” Leena cried. Then, more softly, “I was really looking forward to that bean stew.” She sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands. This was about more than just the dinner, Juniper knew. Something very personal had been invaded, some budding sense of self yanked away when it was only just starting to grow.

  As Juniper swept her eyes over the mayhem, a shimmer caught her eye. “No!” she whispered.

  All the stones had been overturned. All of them—including the flat-topped surface that had lately held the timepiece. Juniper ran to inspect the tangled wreck of glass, sand, and polished wood. It was no use. The precious device had not only been smashed, but apparently trodden on, too; nothing was left but twisted bits of crushed material.

  For a moment, Juniper’s eyes filled. How would she keep everybody on track, run a proper schedule—how could she manage her country without a timepiece?

  Breathing deeply, she fought for composure. What could she do? She would have to work harder, that was all. She’d gotten distracted by the delights of the Basin, slipped into play mode when she should have stayed focused on building the country. But no more. For the sake of her kingdom, of her people, she had to be strong.

  Juniper turned and waved her hands to get everyone’s attention. The summer holiday feel was gone; now their faces, like her own, were set and hard and all business. “Roddy, Filbert, Alta—can you manage to put the stones back in order? Toby—this mess here? Oona and Tippy, let’s see about getting something for dinner.” On she went, parceling out jobs so that in a matter of minutes, everyone was busy with a task; and in less than an hour, the tired group gathered around a dinner of dried meat and fruit and potatoes charred in the fire, topped with the onions and fresh sage that Sussi had picked on her way home.

  The kids huddled in a tight circle around a hastily prepared campfire, preferring the closeness of other bodies against their own to the more formal structure of the sitting stones. And Juniper thought that, all in all, this was not so very bad an end to this most disastrous of evenings. Far from destroying them, the attack had only served to drive them closer together.

  This was tonight.

  But tomorrow would be for fighting back.

  Queen’s Basin Guard Duty:

  Rotation

  Head Guard in Constant Vigilance: Alta

  Night Patrol: Gloaming to Moonpeak

  (day 1) Erick & Tippy

  (day 2) Filbert & Oona

  Night Patrol: Moonpeak to Dawn

  (day 1) Toby & Sussi

  (day 2) Paul & Roddy

  “WE SHALL HAVE TO SET UP A GUARD,” ALTA said at breakfast the next morning. The response was a chorus of unhappy groans.

  “Yes,” Juniper cut in quickly. She and Alta had talked earlier, agreeing that the scouting expedition should be set aside in favor of camp safety.

  “What kind of a guard? And who’s going to do it?” asked Filbert.

  “I’ve made a schedule,” said Alta, but she didn’t look as confident as she had a moment before.

  “We haven’t come here to do guard duty,” said Paul in alarm.

  “Yes, what about all that grand adventure you promised us?” Oona added. “‘Summer of a lifetime,’ wasn’t that on the flyer we all saw?”

  A low mutter of agreement followed, and Juniper spoke quickly over it. “We’re here to set up our country, that’s the most important thing. Adventuring is a lot of things, and certainly there’s time for fun. But what do you think, that your country is just going to fall into your laps, fully formed? That you should never have to work for it, never have to put out an effort?”

  “Oh, we’re putting out effort, all right,” muttered Oona, to scattered laughter.

  Juniper fought for composure. Cyril wasn’t even here this morning, and still she struggled. “Look,” she said. “You’ve seen what we’re facing with these attacks. What about the theft of our horses? What about yesterday’s destruction? Do you really want to wait and see what happens next? This is our kingdom, and we’ve got to do what it takes to keep it safe.”

  The silence was not an encouraging one, but it wasn’t derisive, either. Juniper pressed her small advantage. “We are citizens of Queen’s Basin, but more than that, we are all children of Torr. We might be young, and we are only few, but we will not be pushed around. Should we take these threats lying down? I say no!” She scanned the rapt faces around her. She had their attention now. “This is our settlement. Queen’s Basin will be what we make it—as much or as little as we have it in us to give. And I say we give it everything, and make it epic. A kingdom for the ages!” Juniper took in a breath. “This is our heritage—and this is our time. And so I say . . . What will you give your country?”

  In the subsequent roar, the matter was settled.

  From there, everyone moved on to warm peppermint tea, fire-roasted eggs, and stewed apricots, but all eyes stayed on Alta as she unfolded her plan: She’d split the night in two segments and assigned each a pair of guards, which alternated every other day. “I’ve left Leena off the rotation,” Alta explained, “for she’s got her hands full aplenty with cooking every meal. And Juniper, of course.” Cyril, Root, and Jessamyn were also absent from the list, but Juniper doubted that would surprise anyone; in any case, they weren’t there to notice. Still, the schedule was a good one, and Juniper told Alta so.

  Then something occurred to her. “Have you given any thought to training?” she asked. They were sending these guards out to patrol the grounds . . . and then what? Raise a fiery holler upon any creature sighting? That wasn’t good enough. “If we should come upon any beasts, or other unsavory elements, our guards must have some basic fighting skills.”

  Alta considered this. Juniper knew that the other girl was the only one with any real arms training, and since their arrival in Queen’s Basin, Juniper had told her to keep her sword packed away. Now it looked as if the time had come to pull it back out. Several faces around the circle brightened.

  “Yes,” Alta said at last. “I’ve set myself the task of patrolling the whole round-about of the Basin all day long, as well as whatever specific guard duties might b
e needed in Your Highness’s care. But your point is an excellent one. We should first hold a thorough training session for all guards.” She looked over at Leena. “And anyone else who wants to join in, of course.”

  “Erick?” Juniper asked. “What do you say?”

  Erick startled, dropping the heavy leather volume he was flipping through. This clearly panicked him still further, and he spent a full minute dusting and stroking and generally treating the abused object like a baby dropped on its head. Juniper waited until he composed himself and looked up. “So . . .” he said. “Er, I’ve had this thought at the back of my mind, and it kept me up all night. I think we should set up a guard duty.”

  Juniper stared.

  Erick looked around at the ring of impassive faces. His eyes fell on the parchment in Alta’s hand, and he scanned it quickly. “Oh,” he muttered. “You’ve all been talking about this already?” He waved a hand. “Good—we’re on the same page, then. Er . . . so to speak. But I’ve got more. Here’s what I was searching for just now.” He opened the book and pointed to a spot.

  “Dagnite?” Juniper read doubtfully. She glanced at the cover. “This is a compendium of plant life in the Hourglass Mountains. What is that to do with guard duty?”

  Erick puffed out his chest. “In The Legend of Riotous Jayke, our hero becomes lost in the wilderness and faces down wild beasts galore, but he fortuitously happens upon a grove of dagnite saplings. And that’s all he needs to save the day!”

  “And what’s Riotous Jayke got to do with us, then?” Alta asked.

  “Simply this: Dagnite is the toughest wood in the kingdom. And there’s a treatment you can do—I learned this from another book, Lorde Belcher’s Alchemistry and Its Many Uses—that will render the wood hard as steel and quite near impossible to burn.” He paused. “Guards will need weapons, won’t they?”