Hopskotch and the Golden Cicada

by Martin Vine

  And of these traitors, nothing was heard for years.

  “Follow That Duck!”

  At first, Hopskotch thought it must be a floating sculpture. The illusion shattered when the sculpture moved, gliding silently across the water toward their position. A bolt of fear shot through him and he felt his chest tighten, the raven’s assault fresh in his mind.

  Controlling his breathing, the wary youngster forced himself to relax. They were in no danger. This was something as different to the raven as the cicada is to the roach.

  Its body head-to-tail was of the purest white, silky wings folded flush across its back. The way the light reflected off the smooth feathers gave the impression they were channelling some brilliant inner light, radiating through each slender quill. The bird’s head was elegantly formed, from the curve of its slender neck to the unique facial markings: a mask of black around a butter-yellow beak. Its watery eyes glistened dark and soulful, free from fear or caution.

  Floating less than fifteen yards off their port bow was the most beautiful animal Hopskotch had ever seen. A feeling of calm washed over him as he stared in stunned silence. In all his life, Hopskotch Pestle never imagined he’d get to see a real live swan.

  For a long while, Dobbin forgot to breathe. His fingers failed him and he dropped his makeshift paddle over the side. The swan’s spell was broken and he gasped for air. His head began to feel light; tiny stars danced across his field of vision. Drawing the cool lake air into his lungs, he retrieved the oar from the lake, lest it drift away.

  Dobbin took a moment to shake the water from his hand, consciously reminding himself to breathe slow and deep. With his head and vision cleared, he returned his eyes to the swan.

  Though swans remained a popular choice for tavern signs throughout the historical quarters of Bridgetown, no one had seen a live one since the great flood, Year of Foundation: 825. Dobbin had been but a babe at the time, but his mother would often reflect on their rare beauty, specifically the breeding pair that used to live near their old property on the lake south of Leveetown. They’d both disappeared following the flood.

  Gosh, I wonder if this is one of them?

  He recalled that birds were supposed to be long-lived. As the mystery stewed inside his head, Dobbin continued to stare at the swan, uncharacteristically silent. Even Bindy Sandstep had never had such an effect on him.

  Eventually, the swan slowed its momentum, coming to a halt less than ten yards from the glide-boat’s bow. There it remained – perfectly still, perfectly silent – for a good minute before turning away with a look of dignified boredom. Showing the spellbound crew its tail, the water-bird began to drift away in the direction from which it had appeared.

  “Follow that duck!” yelled Grandpa Rand.

  Hopskotch didn’t know whether to laugh or panic. Spurred into action by the thought of losing the swan, he crossed to the stern bench alongside Dobbin and lunged for his makeshift paddle. Dobbin stubbornly resisted.

  Bartrem looked on with a bemused half-grin, completely lost on Hopskotch, whose attention was given over to wrestling Dobbin.

  Following a heated discussion, following a particularly nasty contest of elbows, the boys finally came to an agreement of sorts as to who got to paddle. Both would share the task, side by side in the stern bench seat. Dobbin would take two strokes to starboard, then hand the paddle to Hopskotch to do likewise to port (Hopskotch had learned never to use ‘right’ and ‘left’ while out on the water with ‘Captain’ Dobbin).

  The two Syltlings quickly adapted the timing and technique of their stroke to keep up with their unlikely guide, and the system, though far from ideal, seemed to work.

  If the swan was nervous about being tailed by a zigzagging glide-boat, powered by a couple of noisy boys with a jimmy-rigged paddle, it certainly gave no indication. The bird kept a steady course aloof from the clamour following in its wake, a clamour that increased considerably when Grandpa Rand pointed out the foot-long crack between the bow and middle bench.

  Hopskotch, for one, found the pooling water rising around his bare feet quite motivating, and increased the rhythm of his stroke with great enthusiasm.

  “The packs!” screeched Dobbin, in between paddles. “Bartrem, get them off the ribbing!”

  Brows furrowing, Bartrem turned and hauled the gear to the bench seat vacated by Hopskotch. He kept a nervous eye on the waterline licking at his ankles, but kept his primary focus on the swan.

  Hopskotch was left to wonder if it was concern for the map behind Dobbin’s words, or the desire to protect the remaining snacks his teammate had stuffed into the bottom of his rucksack.

  By the time the first glimpse of land came into view, Dobbin had revised his opinion of large birds. Keeping its distance from the glide-boat, though never so far as to lose them in the mist, the swan appeared to have led them directly to shore.

  “Land ahoy!” the Syltling hollered, echoing the thoughts of the entire crew. Smiles appeared all round, enduring even as the swan disappeared into the rushes crowding the entrance to a narrow inlet beyond the bow. It was disappointing to lose sight of such a magnificent creature, but the sight of land did much to raise Dobbin’s spirits.

  By his reckoning, they were looking at the western shore of Lake Whispermere, but so long had they been adrift there was no way to tell with any great certainty. The banks ahead grew thick with wild-looking, partly-submerged shrubs: a tangle of leafy, twisted branches that put any thought of coming ashore out of the question. Dobbin shifted his eyes back and forth between land and the water-filled hull and begun to wonder whether they were all going to have to swim for it, after all.

  Much to his surprise (and mild annoyance), it was Bartrem who discovered suitable landfall. A short distance beyond the skiff’s stern, the observant youngster pointed out a horizontal band of colour, noticeably lighter than the surrounding mist. When the fog parted, the mystery revealed itself: a grey-sand beach surrounded by, and peppered with, smooth black boulders of varying sizes.

  The immediate question was how to get there.

  If the hull had not been filling so rapidly with water, the momentum might have carried the glide-boat to shore, but the crew had brought their vessel in starboard-to-land, and it now floundered stationary. Unsettled by the fact that his feet were now submerged to the ankles, Dobbin put his strength toward pointing the bow toward the beach.

  With disastrous results.

  Against the weight of the sinking glide-boat, his makeshift paddle fell to pieces. Instinct kicked in, and he managed to save the wooden handle (Hopskotch’s walking stick), pulling it out with a yelp when he felt the cord untangle. Not so lucky was his slingshot, which drifted beyond his reach to float, ironically, toward the beach. A deep shiver rattled Dobbin’s body, beginning in the tips of his semi-frozen toes and travelling north to torment every nerve ending in his body. He wondered what Basalt Thundergull would make of his nautical skills.

  “Some captain you are, Dobbin Butterfeld.”

  Some captain, he sighed.

  For want of a better idea, Hopskotch leaned over the port-side rail and began furiously paddling with his forearm. Following a drawn-out sigh, Dobbin mirrored the move over the opposite rail. Hopskotch heard a groan from Bartrem, followed by a splash. The boat rocked a little, and then the sound of three Syltlings paddling to their armpits filled his ears.

  It was no wasted effort. Gritting his teeth against the ice-cold water, Hopskotch settled into a rhythm, and the glide-boat began its slow, inelegant journey toward the beach.

  In contrast, Grandpa Rand kept his sodden rump firmly planted on the skiff’s bow bench. With the youngsters’ attention diverted, he slung his fishing jacket (still soaked) back over his shoulders and removed a small item from the tear of cloth in his right hand. The speckled brown gemstone – a semi-smooth piece of unpolished amber that would have impressed no one in finish or setting – was fixed to a plaited leather thong via a metal clasp.

  Rand bound th
e strap tightly to his forearm. With the amber shut inside his palm, he closed his eyes, separating himself from the world around him. A familiar warmth surged through his veins, directing welcome relief to his shivering extremities. Riding its tail echoed the whispers of a long-lost people of a long-lost realm. Rand forced himself into a state of intense focus, pulling away from their dark gravity.

  Once his mind was free, he mouthed a silent prayer and tried something he had not done in a very long time.

  The excitement made his bones tingle.

  Hopskotch’s face hovered so near to the water that his left cheek almost kissed the surface. The cold was inescapable, penetrating his skin through to bone and marrow, and causing his teeth to chatter with a life all their own.

  Curiously, it was not first among his concerns. Memories of Bartrem’s colourful tales about what actually lived within Lake Whispermere filled Hopskotch’s eleven-year-old brain. It didn’t take long for his imagination to fill in the shadows swimming below the surface, drawing in fins and tails and great, toothy jaws.

  Never did it occur to him the dark waters might actually spring to life.

  When the first air bubble rose, Hopskotch backpedalled with such force he almost ended up on Dobbin’s lap. Clambering back onto his side of the stern bench, he stared at the water, bubble after bubble, convinced that a giant serpent was going to follow them out of the black.

  Bartrem and Dobbin were similarly affected, all Syltlings now having abandoned their paddling to gape, open-mouthed at the water surface. So distracted was Hopskotch by the eruptions, he failed to notice that Grandpa Rand appeared to have fallen asleep up front.

  Though it seemed to go on much longer, less than ten seconds actually had passed before the bubbles began to subside, leaving in their wake a series of ripples expanding in great circles around the glide-boat. When the last air pocket broke the surface, Grandpa Rand came out of his trance with a prolonged coughing fit. Hopskotch vaulted the packs on the middle bench, brushing Bartrem’s shoulder on his way to the bow (the water now halfway to his knees).

  The old Sylt stopped his grandson with an open hand. “I’m all right,” he said, between coughs. “Musta swallowed a frog, as they say, eh, Syltkin?”

  Grandpa Rand attempted a smile, but the reality of his pain could not be masked. Taking a deep breath, he braced his left arm against the skiff’s hull for support. “You lot, wait here, that’s good fellows.”

  He paused for a moment, wrinkled his nose as if suppressing a sneeze. Quite suddenly, he slapped his palms together. Grandpa Rand flashed a smile at his grandson, winked once at Bartrem, then launched himself straight over the side of the glide-boat.

  Hopskotch could not believe his eyes. Instead of sinking like a stone, Grandpa Rand stood upright. Dead upright.

  On water.

  All three Syltlings rushed to starboard for a glimpse of Grandpa Rand’s feet, and the sudden movement tipped the rail perilously close to the waterline.

  It didn’t seem to register. Hopskotch’s mind wrestled with the impossible. From boat to beach, a curving path of stepping-stones had appeared, each barely a whisker’s width beneath the lake surface.

  Grandpa Rand stood casually on the nearest.

  “Boats are all fine and good, you know,” the old-timer said, bending to tap the outside of the skiff’s hull with his right knuckle, “but there’s nothing like having solid stone beneath yer feet!”

  A Light Through the Darkness

  Both hands on the mooring line, Grandpa Rand pulled the skiff close to shore to allow the youngsters room to disembark. Bartrem was the first to follow, cautiously stepping over the starboard side of the hull and onto the mysterious stone pathway. Hopskotch went next, and finally, Dobbin, both stragglers awash with relief to be spared what would have been a most uncomfortable swim.

  No one took the time to question the miracle, nor puzzle over the bubble storm that preceded it, though Hopskotch did notice the unsettling way Bartrem’s narrowed eyes remained fixed on Grandpa Rand’s back. Hopskotch was not the type to waste thinking time on things beyond his understanding, but it crossed his mind that Bartrem would not so easily forget.

  Sure as day gives way to night, the interrogation would come. Hopskotch knew Bartrem would have questions, as he knew his grandfather would sidestep them. Hopskotch also knew something of his grandfather’s secrets.

  Of course, Grandpa Rand had been right. There was nothing like having something solid beneath their feet.

  If only it were a little more solid.

  The beach’s soft grey mud could barely support even Hopskotch’s slight weight, and it took much wading toward the tree line till the youngster felt confident his next step wouldn’t see him sunk to his neck.

  In spite of the sinking ooze swallowing his feet to the ankles, Dobbin was in a buoyant enough mood to immediately begin bossing everyone about. First order was for Hopskotch and Bartrem to properly secure the glide-boat. The larger Syltling had already hauled the bow end out of the water, but the sinking sand was so unpredictable there was no telling whether it would hold.

  Hopskotch promptly relieved his grandfather of the mooring line, and with some assistance from Bartrem, hauled the damaged skiff clear of the slipperiest, suckingest mud to a pile of black rocks, which were in abundant supply.

  Once satisfied the boat was secure, Dobbin announced his intention to vacate the beach for the safety of higher ground. As he explained (in far greater detail than was necessary), the plan was to lead them into the forest to a distance of not more than twenty yards from the shoreline – allowing for terrain and obstacles – and then, keeping the lake to their right, follow it all the way back to Saddleslip Gorge. Or with any luck, Witherness itself.

  Hopskotch shrugged his approval for the idea, but Grandpa Rand was not so easily convinced. Following a short, heated argument about whether his remaining wad of Jellysoy putty could plug the leak in the glide-boat (Dobbin was furious he hadn’t suggested using it when they were actually out on the water), the old man eventually backed down. But he did put on quite a sulk at being bested by a Sylt half his size.

  Hopskotch was left to worry over what to tell Bellows about the damaged vessel. Testing the mooring line one last time, he made a silent promise to return for it as soon as he could.

  If we can ever find it again, he sighed, glancing nervously skyward.

  The forest still hummed with the cicadas’ song, but curiously, it seemed less of a racket than when they were out in the middle of the lake. From the base of the western hills, long shadows were already stretching across the beach and beyond the water’s edge. Light was fading fast and the cool of dusk was already laying its caress upon Hopskotch’s exposed skin. He needed no reminder that night was looming.

  Dobbin, meanwhile, appeared to be grappling with the reality that his plan was not so easily implemented. Inland, a wall of black boulders and mangroves cut the forest off from the mud-sand they were standing on (or more accurately, in). Grumbling loudly about the filth travelling up his legs, the bossy Syltling led the party up the beach to a point where a narrow opening appeared.

  It turned out to be a tight squeeze for Grandpa Rand – after becoming hopelessly wedged between rock and branch, the old fellow acknowledged that transferring his rucksack from shoulder to hand would solve the problem – but eventually they were all safely off the sand.

  The four travellers walked into a world ravaged by time.

  It looked to Hopskotch like an ancient garden someone had forgotten to tend. Of below average height, he was used to feeling smaller than everyone – and everything – else around him, but in the face of such a landscape, the perception was greatly amplified.

  The bowl-shaped valley rose steeply about like a great amphitheatre hosting an audience of soaring trees. Their canopies blocked out much of the remaining sky light. A faint smell of musky flowers drifted across Hopskotch’s nostrils, only to be overpowered by the damp, earthy scent of rotting leaf litter
and stagnant rock pools.

  Hopskotch observed an unmistakable sense of order to the forest, as if every plant, tree and shrub had been placed deliberately. Confirming his suspicions, Dobbin pointed out the slope before them was actually man-made.

  Through the tangle of sword fern and star ivy, rows of tightly-packed rock walls divided the slope into terraces that spilled groundcover like a cascade of leafy waterfalls. The remains of an ancient stone staircase divided the great garden down the middle, its purpose long since undermined by the work of giant fig roots. Erupting from the earth, they smothered and splintered the stonework as if it were nothing stronger than brittle toffee.

  While the boys paused at a shallow brook to wash the mud-sand from their legs, Grandpa Rand sought a navigable path leading out of the valley. The shadows were deepening over and around the crumbling terraces, each row punctuated by great black wedges where the stone had crumbled and the top soil collapsed to the lower level. It was a sober reminder of the perils awaiting any Sylt foolish enough to dare a night-time exit.

  Rand turned his priority to seeking out a suitable campsite to overnight in the valley. On its extreme left, beneath an unbroken section of terrace stonewall, he discovered a sheltered clearing and wandered over. The grass was soft and free of surface rocks, if a little damp.

  From the terrace above, the old Sylt grabbed some twigs that had fallen onto the groundcover.

  Dry enough, he concluded.

  Rand kept one eye on the youngsters, but deliberately positioned his body so they would have trouble seeing him. Preparing himself mentally, he reached out with his mind.

  “Dapple?”

  It took much longer than he’d hoped, but eventually Rand felt the familiar brush of another’s thoughts. Without hesitation, he opened himself to them.

  “Where are you?”