Time out of Time

by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

  The hole was almost deep enough. She would be able to hide in the cool soil while the fire passed over. Hunger was again stabbing at her belly, but there was no time for food, only for digging and finding shelter.

  When the burrow was deep enough, she curled into a tight white ball. The tip of her tail stood out like a small black eye. Then another noise penetrated her burrow: not the dreadful noise of the trees marching into battle, but something that resembled human singing. It came closer and paused nearby. Stiff fingers pried into the soft dirt. It didn’t take long for the fingers to find her. She drew her head back and bit as hard as she could. Her teeth cut into stiff bark fingers. The fingers scooped her wriggling body up and dropped her into a dark hole.

  The hole was a dry space, lined with leaves. It smelled of the forest, not the dangerous scent of humans. And then her new hiding hole began to rock with a steady rhythm. Her exhausted body quieted. She felt safe, and that was enough for now.

  THE BIRDS

  ARKNESS ARRIVED WITH the eagles, as if they pulled night in with a flap of their great wings. Below them, flames were bright exclamation points in that darkness, and behind them was the rain.

  Fat drops sputtered from the sky. When the first drop landed on her forehead, Jessica glanced up from tending a deer that had been wounded by an enemy’s claw. Humans, animals, and trees, injured and dead, surrounded her on every side. Despite the carnage, Jessica wanted to cheer. The rain had come and would extinguish the fire.

  “It’s raining!” she called out to Cerridwyn, who only nodded and smiled once in response before again taking aim, this time at a target in the battlefield.

  Soon the raindrops were falling faster, splattering on the ground and sizzling in the flames. And amid the sound of the rain was another noise: Jessica looked up at the beating of hundreds—no, thousands—of wings.

  Birdcall pierced the night. Andor and Arkell were in the front line of the advancing birds, followed by others of their kind: bald eagles from the north, golden eagles from the west. Hawks, kestrels, owls, and sweet-tongued blackbirds flew in a great, sweeping band just behind. Unruly crows and magpies were the rear guard, while sparrows and other small birds darted in and out of the ranks. Only the yellow-eyed starlings had refused to come.

  The birds swooped down in formation, pecking and clawing at snakes, toads, and boars. Darkness hid their descent, and as the rain fell harder, its patter covered the noise of their wings.

  But Andor and Arkell had another mission in mind now that they had left the ferret-boy behind in the nest guarded by crows. They searched for the one-eyed man who rode the serpent, and for any sign of the boy wearing the crown, the boy they had watched for so long.

  The man on the crested snake was not difficult to spot. With his long-handled axe, he hacked wildly at a great stand of oaks. Andor dropped swiftly, as if he were targeting a fish in a river, but the one-eyed man was fast with the axe. It was arcing toward the eagle before the mighty bird could reach the man’s face. Arkell saw his chance and followed quickly, talons extended. He managed to grab the axe with one talon, but the man held on with two hands, and, try as he might, Arkell could not part the axe from the one-eyed man’s grip.

  With both hands occupied, the one-eyed man was unable to protect his face. Andor swooped in, raking with his talons.

  Boars, spiders, and toads that battled for the Dark retreated to the forest with the onslaught of the birds. They fled in confusion, looking for places to hide. Some burrowed into the ground; others dispersed into the wilds of the forest. The fires were smoldering now, thanks to the rain. Jessica hurried among the wounded. She was bitterly cold, and weariness hung on her like a heavy cloak.

  As she stumbled over bodies—animal, tree, and human—there was one Jessica recognized: a woman with fair hair and a ragged scar on her neck.

  It was Peter’s mother, Fiona, the baker. Her breathing was labored, and her leg was twisted at a strange angle, but at least she was able to speak.

  “Have you seen my son?” she whispered frantically. “Do you know if Peter’s alive?”

  Motioning her to be calm, Jessica carefully placed her hands on the twisted leg and felt an icy numbness travel up her arm. She kept her hands wrapped around Fiona’s leg as she considered how to answer.

  “The last time I saw him, he was alive,” she said finally. “I think he’s escaped the worst of the battle.” She thought it better not to mention that the last time she had seen him, he was also in the form of a ferret—and a prisoner of Balor.

  The answer and her touch served its purpose. Fiona smiled and stretched the twisted leg. With Jessica’s help she was soon able to stand and even walk, though with a limp. “To die in the service of the Light is not a bad thing,” she said, “but I’d rather have my boy back.”

  Jessica dragged herself onward. Now birdcall eclipsed the sound of sluicing rain. Their noise was deafening, and she flinched when a hawk dove too close to her head. The rain had long since soaked through her thin cotton clothing. The number of wounded seemed endless. Many were beyond Jessica’s ability to help. She mourned for a large alder, fallen on the edge of the battle. It had been a magnificent tree, tall and broad. Now its leafy branches lay splayed on the ground, blocking her path. A rustling in the leaves caught her eye, but it was only a small rabbit startled by her presence. She stepped carefully among the branches. Her foot thumped against something solid. It was the body of a boy curled in the vee of two limbs, his face hidden in his arms. Jessica bent over to feel for a pulse. A gleam of gold was caught in his curly hair. Her fingers rested on his pale neck. She bent closer. What was that . . . a crown?

  “Timothy!” Jessica cried out.

  The tousled head barely moved. The boy gave a soft groan.

  Quickly she ran her hands over his body. Something sticky coated his right side. Blood. The blood wasn’t fresh; the wound had closed, and the blood had stopped flowing. He was breathing deep, regular breaths, like someone asleep. Again she called his name, but this time he made no response. The sticky puddle by his side was large.

  Jessica bit her lip, praying he hadn’t lost too much blood. She called to Cerridwyn, who was tending to the wounded just a few yards away. “I found Timothy, and he’s hurt!” Then, very gently, she began to press her hands over his wounded side. Cerridwyn picked her way over severed tree limbs and toppled trunks.

  “The wound’s closed.” Jessica sat back on her heels, hugging herself for warmth. “But he won’t wake up!”

  Cerridwyn bent her head low and sniffed Timothy’s breath. “The animal that attacked him carries a poison of the spirit,” she said finally, straightening. “It works as a depressant. While the body may recover, often the spirit remains wounded.” Her expression was serious, and Jessica felt her throat tighten.

  “But he has to recover!”

  “Timothy is sleeping safely for the time being, and there is little else we can do for him now except keep him warm.” Cerridwyn removed her shawl and wrapped it around him. “Meanwhile, there are others who still need our help.”

  “We can’t just leave him!” Jessica glared at Cerridwyn. Anger and fear warred within her. She was exhausted, and she had expected more than this from the older woman.

  Cerridwyn laid her hand on Jessica’s neck. Warmth spread across her back and into her clenched shoulders, and when Cerriwyn spoke, her voice was gentler. “Sometimes waiting is all we can do. It can be harder than doing battle. Timothy’s spirit is strong, and there are others who need me.” And with those words Cerridwyn turned and walked away.

  Jessica crouched by Timothy’s side a few moments longer. He looked peaceful. She thought about the time he had taken her place when she was the prey of the Wild Hunt. She could still hear the hounds’ excited cries, their snapping jaws, feel their warm breath. And Timothy had let the hounds hunt him instead. Now it was her turn to help him, and she didn’t know how.

  When she had imagined adventures, she hadn’t foreseen all this sadness. A
dventures were supposed to be about intrigue and mystery, excitement and danger. Now, as she removed Timothy’s glasses and tried to clean them on her crumpled skirt, what she wanted most in the world was to see them all safely home! She gently replaced Timothy’s glasses and swiped at her own eyes.

  As she stood, she felt as if eyes bore between her shoulder blades. Jessica rotated slowly, and only then did she see the girl just a few yards away, watching her. “Star Girl!” Jessica called out. The girl didn’t move, but her eyes locked with Jessica’s. Before Jessica could go to her, she heard a groan. Just a few feet away, a merchant lay wounded in the mud. Jessica bent to tend to him.

  Arkell and Andor would not give up easily. They had come to turn the battle, to lead the charge of the birds. Arkell had managed a few ragged scores on Balor’s hideous face, but no more than that. After one last failed attempt to gouge Balor’s Evil Eye, without becoming a victim of its deadly glance himself, he changed tactics. He dove at the head of the crested snake that Balor rode. This time his talons drove home, blinding the creature in one eye.

  Andor, too, was having a difficult time finding a target while avoiding the Evil Eye. A poisoned arrow, shot by forces of the Dark, whistled by, and Andor swept sideways as it grazed the edge of his feathers. Again and again he flew at the one-eyed man but could do no real damage.

  As animals of the Dark retreated, and the birds continued their attack, no one noticed a small ferret who dodged the smoldering fires and ran toward the great serpent that carried Balor. Peter reached the snake as a group of crows circled in to attack. They dove like arrows aimed at a single target. Sitting on the back of the great crested snake, Balor twisted this way and that but still managed to cling to the serpent’s back.

  Peter leapt onto the snake’s tail and ran along the crest of the twisting body, digging his claws into its flesh to keep from falling off. The crows were relentless. Balor’s cloak hung inches above the reptile’s back. The ferret leapt and dug its claws into the fabric. In seconds Peter had scrambled to Balor’s shoulder. As Balor swiveled his head to see what clung there, the ferret bit into his neck and hung on. Balor roared with pain. The axe fell from his grasp as he slipped, arms flailing, from the snake’s back. He fell in a heap, the ferret still attached to his neck. The flap of skin covering his solitary eye folded back in fury, and the eye’s light struck Andor in mid-flight as he wheeled to dive.

  The eagle fell to the ground with a heavy thud, his great wings still outstretched. From behind, Arkell swooped down. Balor rolled to his side, protecting his face with his arms. With all his strength, Arkell struck Balor squarely at the base of his skull, opening a deep gouge where neck and skull joined. A long and harsh cry reverberated into the night, and the earth trembled. The ferret let go and ran.

  The serpent slunk away to the open fissure. It disappeared into the ground like a long green tongue drawn in by lips of earth. Only the end of its tail protruded and twitched across the packed earth until it bumped against Balor’s body. Wrapping itself tightly around Balor’s waist, it dragged him down into the ground.

  The many-clawed toad leapt into the fissure. The crack closed over the group, mending like a ragged scar, sealing away snake, toad, and man.

  As suddenly as it had come, the rain stopped. But the birds still wheeled, cawing and calling.

  Except for Andor, who lay motionless on the ground, Arkell by his side.

  It was the mournful cawing of the birds that startled Sarah awake.

  PETER’S RETURN

  N THE SANCTUARY of the tree, voices pulled Sarah from her sleep. They were not the voices of humans, which made little sense to her now, but the speech of birds that brought images into her mind—images of battle, of attack and victory. She also sensed the wind blowing, for her hiding place rocked as if a storm had begun.

  The ermine poked her head out of the hole in the tree, where the hard fingers had placed her, and sniffed. The scent of fire, animals, man, and, above all, danger still hung heavy in the air. But there was no storm. Night was approaching. The world was darkening.

  One voice stood out among the cacophony:

  “Andor, watchman and noble friend of the Light, I send your spirit skyward, beyond the mountains of the north, beyond the sun and moon.”

  An eagle lay prostrate on the ground, and beside it mourned another of the giant birds. The words and image rumbled like a dirge through Sarah’s mind. She crept farther out from her hiding place until only her back legs and tail remained in the hole in the tree. The tree swayed.

  And again the tree began to walk.

  Sarah dug her claws into the rough bark as the tree moved across the battlefield.

  The Greenman strode on in the dusk through what was left of the Travelers’ Market. What had been a busy, colorful pageant of people and goods was now a ruined battlefield. The snake and toad had fled back into the depths of the earth, Balor the One-Eyed with them. They were not destroyed, he knew, but they would be held back for a time. Now he must find Timothy.

  When he came to the fallen alder, he stopped. Curled in the middle of its branches, like a large and sloppy bird, Timothy slept, covered by a shawl. He looked peaceful in his sleep, but the Greenman sensed that poison had worked its way deep into his system. It would require something more than ordinary medicine to rouse the boy, something more than Jessica’s or even Cerridwyn’s healing touch. Not far off, Star Girl watched as Timothy slept.

  The small ermine still clung to the Greenman’s side, half in and half out of the knothole. Her curious nose twitched, and her bright eyes shone. Stiffly and slowly, the Greenman bent his twiggy arms. His fingers, now thick and knobby, had difficulty gripping small things. He closed them as carefully as he could around the lithe body of the ermine. She immediately tensed, and he could feel the rapid heartbeat, the taut muscles. Gently he lifted the ermine between his rough fingers and placed her in a crook of his own branches that formed a vee. She clung there, trembling.

  Then the Greenman reached up through twigs and leaves until his fingers closed around one of the slender branches above his head. It was, like all his branches, full of new growth and sap. His strong fingers circled, then snapped the limb. A hot flame of pain sent a shudder through his trunk to his roots. Sticky amber sap welled up at the rough wound and then dripped slowly onto the fur of the white ermine.

  Sarah found herself sitting in the veed branches of a tree. She had no idea why she was there, or how she had gotten there. Dusk had turned to night. And something had dropped into her hair. Her fingers explored the thick, sticky substance on the crown of her head. Why couldn’t she figure out where she was? Her memory was confused, as if she were waking from a sound sleep, while fleeting images of dreams still clung to her. The last thing she remembered clearly was being with the Animal Tamer and a crow held by a chain.

  She looked down. The ground wasn’t so very far away. Before she could jump, however, a familiar, raspy voice stopped her.

  “Child”—the voice was deep and unmistakable once you’d heard it before—“your brother needs something only you can give him.”

  “Greenman!” Sarah cried, looking around in the darkness. “Where are you?” And then she looked up at the tree in which she sat and began to laugh.

  Her laughter was joined by a deep, rolling laugh from the tree. Sarah wrapped her arms around the scratchy trunk. Only then did she think about the Greenman’s words.

  “I don’t know where Timothy is,” she exclaimed. “And my mother’s very sick, and—”

  “Peace, child. Your mother is well, and your brother is at your feet.”

  Sarah climbed down. The moonlight revealed Timothy curled at her feet, and Sarah dropped to her knees. He was breathing regularly, his lips slightly parted; a golden crown perched askew in his curly hair. He clutched a sword in one hand. By his side, pipes protruded from a canvas bag.

  Gently she shook her brother’s shoulder. “Timothy, it’s me . . . wake up!”

  But Timothy slept
on. She shook him more roughly now. “Timothy! Get up!” When he still didn’t stir, she looked up into the face of the Greenman, her heart beating faster. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He was injured in battle. The wound is healed, but his spirit is weakened.”

  Sarah pressed her hand against Timothy’s cheek. His flesh was cool to her touch.

  “Do you have the gift I gave you?”

  Sarah knew right away what the Greenman meant. The last time they parted, he had given her a slender core of wood from his side. She now wore it in a vial attached to a leather string around her neck. Nom had used a sliver of that wood to trap the rat that had bitten their mother. She drew the vial out from under her blouse and held it up toward the Greenman.

  “Take the wood, break off a small piece, and put it to Timothy’s lips.”

  Carefully, she broke off a small portion of the wood and bent toward her brother.

  But when she touched the wood to Timothy’s lips, nothing happened. At least nothing that she could see. She looked up at the Greenman, who loomed over the pair in the dark.

  Sarah anxiously, silently counted to thirty.

  Still nothing happened. The night all around them was quiet, as if it, too, was watching and listening.

  “Can’t you heal him?” Sarah asked, looking up at the Greenman again. After all, the core of wood had come from his side.

  “Yes, but this is your part of the story. Your task. It’s always a gift to be part of healing someone else’s hurt. It changes you, too, not just Timothy. Even when things don’t work out the way you expect.”

  Sarah was not sure she understood what the Greenman meant. It would be so much easier if he would just heal Timothy. She thought about the time they had sat together on the roof of their house, outside her bedroom window, talking about wishes. Timothy had wished to be brave, to be wolfproof.