Janna had always felt so frightened at the sight of the Stalker that she’d sat up in bed, wide awake and gasping for breath. The dream had been mercifully short. Nevertheless, it was not a pleasant memory to have deep in the darkness of an underground tunnel. She gasped for breath. Her skin prickled, and every muscle in her body clenched.
A thought fluttered on the edges of her mind.
She had experienced these same feelings not long ago, hadn’t she? Something had helped her. Someone—“Help me,” she begged frantically.
Before the words were out of her mouth, she could feel the Maker inside of her. It was more than a gift of quiet this time. She was not alone with a nightmare for company; the Maker was with her, and his presence drove away fear.
Collapsing onto the path, she rested for several minutes while her heartbeat slowed down. I’ve still got the padding.
It had been too much trouble to take the pads off her knees and hands. When she’d reached the stream, she’d cupped her hands, dirty pads and all, and brought water to her mouth. Now the cloth would protect her hands and knees once more.
Make another effort.
The summons was clear, but she hated to move. It was much more pleasant to lie on the path and think comforting thoughts. I’ll get some water. It’ll give me energy. However, after a prolonged drink, there wasn’t another reason to delay.
Grimacing, she crawled forward, and hard as it had been to start, once she was on her way, she didn’t want to stop.
The top of the tunnel lowered until it hovered barely an inch above her back. She was hungry; she was exhausted; and her mind was past the point of reason. All she wanted to do was get out of that darkness, and all she could think of was the end of the tunnel.
She pictured it quite clearly. A pinprick of light would appear in the distance. The closer she got, the bigger the light would grow. Then she’d reach the end.
Her head was hanging. Every now and then, she forced herself to lift it so that she could search the darkness ahead of her for that distant pinprick of light. It was never there though, and when Janna ran into a bush, she was taken completely by surprise. She stared at it a full minute before realizing what she was doing.
She was seeing leaves. There was light coming from beyond them, not very much, but enough to make her body lunge into action. In a few seconds, she had squeezed past the bush’s scratchy branches to discover a whole clump of bushes in her way. It didn’t matter. Nothing could stop her now. She pushed and fought her way through as if those branches were deliberately trying to hold her back.
A sudden rush of daylight was what brought her to a halt. For several minutes, she had to kneel in place, shielding her eyes while they adjusted to the brightness of ordinary light. Finally, she couldn’t wait any longer. Tears ran down both cheeks, but Janna squinted stubbornly through her fingers to discover where the tunnel had brought her.
She was halfway up the slope of a mountain. Beside her, the stream she had been following leaped merrily from its dark birthplace to sparkle in the sunlight as the swiftly moving current ran down the slope and entered a thickly wooded ravine at the bottom of the mountain. Shrubs and scattered trees were growing on the side of the mountain, but there were more rocks than vegetation. This was definitely a wild, uninhabited area.
Janna rose unsteadily to her feet. She’d hoped that once she got out of the tunnel, there would be something to indicate which way Mount Pasture was. Nothing—there was nothing. She had no idea which way to go.
“I made it out,” she reminded herself and stepped forward, but her legs wobbled and she fell onto a patch of wild grass. The grass felt unbelievably soft after the tunnel’s hard-packed dirt. Janna turned her head to one side and lay motionless. A breeze moved gently over her face, and the heat of the sun massaged her back.
She watched a tiny bug crawl down a blade of grass and wondered if anything would ever smell as good to her as the rich, deep smell of sun-warmed grass.
Chapter 5
A Guide
When Janna awoke, the sun had slipped behind a mountain, leaving behind the gentle light of early evening.
The first thing she did was untie the strips of material on her knees and hands. Dropping the filthy things to the ground, she stretched her arms and legs, groaning with each movement. The vision of a table spread with one of her mother’s huge meals drifted through her mind, but it was too much food. It didn’t seem real.
“How long has it been?”
She knew she’d slept more than once, but she couldn’t remember how often or for how long.
“I know one thing. I’m hungry,” she said and then wondered if her new habit of talking out loud would last the rest of her life.
She was thirsty too. Crawling to the edge of the stream, Janna drank. Then she got to her feet and balanced while the world went crazy for a few minutes. When the dizziness passed, she tried to decide what to do. Blinking rapidly to keep from crying was not her first choice, but it seemed she had no control in the matter.
“I’m not alone.”
However, Janna wasn’t feeling the Maker’s presence the way she had in the tunnel. She would have given anything to see a familiar face.
“Wouldn’t Benk love to come along right now and rescue me! Alland says he has an uncanny sense of direction. Never gets lost.”
Her blinking was accelerating.
“I wish he would come. I need rescuing.”
A tear rolled down one cheek, then another. There were a lot more ready to follow, but before they could, grass rustled behind her, as if someone were tiptoeing through it.
Janna spun about so quickly she almost fell, but there was nothing behind her except the patch of grass near the stream and the rocky slope that took over where the grass ended. Staring wildly in every direction, she finally located a small gray lizard perched on a nearby rock. The lizard was watching her with its head to one side.
Janna gave it a wobbly smile. What a relief! I thought—
“Hello,” she said quickly to interrupt her thought.
The lizard bobbed its head, turned rapidly in a circle, and scurried over the ground to a rock ten feet away, where it perched and faced her once more.
“Wait, don’t leave.”
Walking as quickly as her aching legs allowed, she headed toward the little animal. She expected it to hide when she got too close, but it didn’t. It merely dashed to the top of another rock.
Limping forward, the girl and the lizard stopped and started, stopped and started, until the stream was no longer in sight when Janna glanced over her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around herself. Being lost was bad enough, but being lost without water would be worse, and she didn’t have Benk’s sense of direction.
“Is playing a game with a lizard more important than staying near the stream?”
Evidently, the lizard thought so. It bobbed its head and darted its tongue in and out, as if it were saying, “Hurry up, you.”
Janna started forward again. Loneliness had won. She might not be thinking straight, but she wasn’t thirsty now, and she didn’t want to leave the first companion, of sorts, that she’d had since falling into the tunnel. For fifteen more minutes, they made their way across the side of the mountain, until they reached a group of big rocks haphazardly heaped together. The lizard whisked over to them in obvious satisfaction, then disappeared into a hole between two of the ground-level rocks. Before Janna could feel deserted, its head leaned over the top of the pile and bobbed encouragingly at her.
“You have got to be kidding,” she protested but forced herself to start climbing, feeling like an idiot all the way up. Why was she following a lizard?
“I’ll be able to see farther at the top of these rocks,” she said, pleased that her excuse was probably true. “Maybe I can figure out where I am.”
But as soon as she reached the highest rock and sat down, everything about her began to swirl around and around. Holding on with both hands, she lowered her head. In a f
ew minutes, the dizziness passed again, but she didn’t know where the lizard had gone.
Then there was a clinking noise directly in front of her. Squinting intently, she spotted the little gray body, perfectly camouflaged in the shadow of a rock. The lizard was busily moving thin slabs of rock off what appeared to be a nest of gray twigs.
Janna caught her breath. Inside the nest lay three of the most beautiful eggs she had ever seen. One was blue, one was yellow, and one was green, but what colors!
“Like jewels!” she whispered.
Her troubles were forgotten. This was a high-home lizard! These were jewel eggs of a high-home lizard!
“They guided people. Where has my brain been?”
She watched in breathless delight as the small animal moved the last rock. Immediately, it spun about and stared at her. She didn’t know what it wanted, unless it was telling her to—
“You’re not thinking I’d …”
Janna couldn’t finish the sentence. She lifted her chin. “I won’t do it,” she stated flatly. “You might as well forget it. I don’t even want to touch one. I might hurt it.”
It was noble to refuse. Janna felt a surge of inner satisfaction.
The lizard was not impressed. It whipped back around and went to work, edging the bright yellow egg out of the nest, then across the big rock toward her. The egg rolled this way and that, as eggs will. Quick as it was, the lizard was having difficulty directing it. The little gray body suddenly stopped. Its tongue darted in and out, and it gazed fixedly at Janna, daring her to disobey the silent command.
“Oh all right,” she said.
By then, the egg had rolled within reach. Leaning over, Janna picked it up, but she was determined to keep it safe. She’d return it to the nest in a few minutes, but she might as well examine it first. Close up, the egg resembled a jewel more than ever. Its yellow shell shone brilliantly even in the soft evening light. At the same time, it wasn’t as hard as a stone. It was an egg.
The lizard had started making choking sounds. Tearing her gaze away from the jewel egg, Janna eyed it curiously. There was a small rock in its mouth. What—
Without warning, everything went in circles again. She swayed and grabbed the rock with one hand, clutching the jewel egg determinedly with the other. When her vision cleared, she realized that the lizard couldn’t dart its tongue in and out with a rock in its mouth, but it wouldn’t quit trying. It was gagging on its own tongue.
“Silly, why don’t…”
As Janna spoke she unconsciously lowered the egg to her lap. This must have been what the little animal wanted, for it ceased its useless efforts and hopped into her lap. Before she knew what was happening, it had tapped hard on the yellow egg with the end of its rock.
She jerked the egg away in horror, but not before a hole had been cut in it.
“What have you done?” she cried out.
The lizard dropped the piece of rock from its mouth. It retreated to its nest and sat facing her. Then its head bobbed.
Janna was getting better at interpreting lizard body language. This time the bobbing seemed to say, “Get on with it.”
Slowly, she lifted the brilliant egg to her lips and sipped. The liquid inside wasn’t egg-like. It wasn’t like anything she had ever tasted. Rich, smooth, and satisfying, it trickled down her throat. There wasn’t much of it, but she made it last as long as possible.
Then she rested for several minutes, feeling her body strengthen until the weakness and dizziness were completely gone. She was no longer the slightest bit hungry. Janna could only sit and marvel. The history books had talked about the jewel eggs’ amazing effects, but the actual experience was so much deeper, so much more—
She was awakened from these musings by the lizard, who had started leaping from rock to rock, and making short rushes at her.
“I guess it’s time for me to go,” she said in amusement.
Not knowing what to do with the eggshell, she stuck it in one of her pockets. Then she scrambled down the rocks, noting as she went that though the jewel juice had taken away hunger, it hadn’t done a thing about aching muscles.
“I don’t care.”
She had met a high-home creature. With her own hands, she had held a jewel egg and sipped its juice.
“I’ll never complain again,” she vowed and chuckled at the likelihood of that happening.
When she reached the ground, Janna backed up until she could see the top of the rocks and waved. She wished she had given the lizard a hug—but how do you hug a lizard?
“Thanks,” she whispered.
The little animal was sitting very still now, watching her. Its head bobbed once, up and down, as she began walking away.
Janna knew she needed to return to the stream, but she didn’t try to retrace her steps. Instead, she went straight down the mountain.
“I haven’t been thinking straight. Benk and Alland may know more about woods because of their stupid sheep that are always getting lost, but even I know a stream will flow along the bottom of a ravine, especially a narrow one like this. If I keep going down, I’ll reach it.”
The slope was steep, and Janna had to watch her step, but her spirits stayed high until she got closer to the trees at the bottom of the ravine. Murky darkness lay beneath their branches, a thick murky darkness that wasn’t at all inviting and made her want to climb right back up the hill again. She stood her ground, which was quite brave of her, she couldn’t help thinking. However, her bravery didn’t extend to going into the darkness beneath those trees.
“OK, I’ve changed my mind,” she said to the person who wasn’t there, but who had obviously not gone away either.
“When I came out of the tunnel, I saw the stream run down the mountain and into the wood. If I walk in that direction, I’ll reach it eventually. Then I’ll have water to drink, but I won’t have to sleep under those spooky trees.”
A cool wind began to blow as she started walking along the edge of the wood. Janna went faster. Summer evenings in the mountain world lasted several hours, but this one was on the verge of ending. Fortunately, it wasn’t long before she reached the stream.
A small pool of water had collected to one side right before the stream ran between the thick roots of the trees. Janna didn’t like those roots. Were they moving? The light was really fading now, making it hard to see, especially under the darkness of the trees.
Janna made herself turn away. The pool was pretty. A maple tree leaned over its surface as if posing for its reflection. There, that was a nice thought about trees. They weren’t all spooky. Quickly, she got a drink of water, then searched for a place to sleep. The best option she could find was a cleft in the ground under two young oak trees that were growing away from the wood. It wasn’t as sheltered a nook as she would have liked, but it would do.
Besides, she’d always liked the way oak trees kept hold of the leaves on their lower branches throughout winter. They whisper to each other when it’s windy. Sociable, that’s what they are. The old leaves only fell when new ones started to grow in the spring.
Last spring, the old leaves from these two trees had wound up in the cleft in the ground. Some must have fallen directly in, while the rest had been blown about until the low place caught and held them. The mound of leaves was musty and crumbly, but the partially decomposed ones on the bottom would serve as a mattress, and the looser ones on top would be her blanket. It wasn’t the cleanest bed, but it would keep her warm.
Janna picked leaves from a conveniently low branch and piled them at one end of the cleft for a makeshift pillow. Then she burrowed under her leafy blanket, yawning heavily and sure that she’d fall asleep within seconds.
Her body disagreed.
“Relax,” she told it, but every muscle stayed tense, even a few she hadn’t known existed. Her eyes kept popping open, and her arms and legs twitched at every night noise. She was too sleepy to think clearly but too uneasy to go to sleep.
“Help me,” she whispered fina
lly, wondering how many times in her life she’d have to say those words.
A distinct image appeared in her mind of the little lizard trying to roll its wayward yellow egg. Janna smiled, relaxed, and sank into a deep sleep.
Chapter 6
Singing
Late the next morning, Janna woke under a canopy of leaves framed by a blue summer sky. She lay watching the leaves move in a light breeze. Her bed felt soft and warm about her, and the jewel egg was still having its effect because she didn’t want food.
Neither do I want to get up.
Once she was up, the decision of where to go had to be faced. Heights above, she had crawled through a tunnel and practically starved to death. She deserved a few minutes to relax and put off difficult decisions.
Half an hour.
Closing her eyes, she stretched her legs out under the leaves. Then something wiggled on her left leg.
Janna’s eyes shot open. Erupting out of her leaf bed, she frantically brushed herself off. Then she walked away from the scattered leaves without a backward glance. There was no need to see what had wiggled, no need at all.
Heights didn’t bother Janna; neither did small, closed-in places as a general rule, but she had never cared much for animals that wiggled in the dirt.
“Who would?” she asked loftily, but the lofty stance didn’t keep her from wondering if she’d brushed everything off. Maybe some wiggly thing had clung—
Hurrying to the small pool of water, Janna kicked off her shoes and jumped into it, clothes and all.
A gasp was the result, a very loud gasp.
The water was cold, cold as only a mountain stream could be. It was the same stream that had wet her repeatedly inside the tunnel, but her body had been warm then from all the walking. This morning, she’d done nothing but get up, and dramatic as that had been, it had not warmed her.
Captives of the Fern Queen Page 4