Key to the Journey (The Chronicles of Hawthorn, Book 2)

by Rue

  Understanding seeped through the ether; the man had called someone “Cap’n.” Maybe that’s a form of the word Captain. Am I on a ship?

  The man called Cap’n entered and Flynn’s breath caught in her throat. His shining black hair, his intense golden-brown eyes, and the curve of his lip—a mirror couldn’t have provided a better reflection of her features.

  Dunedin stroked his great wings through the damp night air and departed in satisfaction. He had gifted her from birth and now the strands of the web were connecting. The winged-horse belonged to an ancient magick that stood outside of time. He had linked Flynn to this power, but she could not wield a thing she could not accept. Today, Dunedin had witnessed her understanding of her magick expand, and he knew it was time to offer her this key to her past—and her future.

  She would rise or fall. He would not stop the tides of time for this one human.

  Flynn peered from behind the barrel and watched this man—her father. She looked at the bandage carefully wrapped around his head and stiffened. Her hand reached for the edge of her cloak and she felt the rough fabric where a strip had been torn away.

  The Captain turned and looked toward her hiding place.

  This astral journey felt more real than any other she had experienced. She tucked herself behind the cask and rubbed the frayed edge of her cloak.

  The man called Captain took out his quill and wrote passionately on a sheet of parchment. The ship rocked and lurched; several times he lifted the tip from the page and waited to complete his writing.

  Flynn watched him fold the paper, drip a bit of wax, and press the ring on his right hand into the warm blob. He stood and steadied himself on the table.

  She wondered if the dizziness came from his wound or the rocking boat. She felt an unsettling sloshing in her own belly.

  He reached for something at the neck of his shirt. “Jaysus! Three good lads and my feckin’ key, all swallowed by the sea tonight.” He walked over to a trunk and patted the top. “Well then, hav’ ta pick ya in the mornin’, lass. I feel like boiled shite.”

  Her hand flew to her own neck where the key from Kahu now hung. It couldn’t be, it couldn’t be. Something in her heart told her—it was.

  He glanced at the folded paper on his table, rubbed his head, and eased himself into his bed. He barely had time to doze before the ship crashed into something and the timbers shivered from bow to stern.

  Flynn panicked. She felt the ship rolling dangerously and heard the men’s shouts throttled by the angry sea.

  The Captain rolled out of his hammock and onto his feet in a smooth instinctual motion. He raced out of the cabin, shouting orders and epithets as he went.

  Flynn wanted to leave the astral plane, or whenever she was, but she didn’t know how. She looked at the letter on the table—she ached to read it. She had never been able to touch anything in her travels, but she had never been tossed around at sea and gotten a stomachache either.

  She slipped from her hiding place and stumbled to the table. She stretched out her hand and felt the crisp smooth parchment between her fingers. The wax held the impression of a crescent moon supported by a large beast with wings on one side, and a beast with a fish’s tale on the other.

  The ship rolled violently and everything in the room that wasn’t secured smashed to the floor.

  Flynn ran to the trunk and took out the key around her neck. She frantically looked for the lock, but saw nothing. There had to be a lock, the Captain had been looking for his key—she touched the figure of a woman with a fish’s tale and it moved. She twisted it sunwise to reveal the hidden lock and slipped in the key.

  CLICK!

  The trunk opened.

  Her heart thudded.

  The wooden planks of the ship moaned as they strained against the sea.

  She slipped the letter into the trunk and secured the lock. It’s what her father wanted, and it felt wrong to read his private thoughts when he didn’t even know she existed.

  A thundering crash engulfed the ship. Water poured into the cabin. The trunk floated out of the room.

  Flynn desperately swam after it.

  Can I breathe underwater? Can I die in the astral plane?

  Time sped up. The trunk popped above the ocean’s surface.

  Flynn wanted to go back to the ship and make sure her father survived, but she could not control her journey. The scene shifted and the sinking ship drifted beyond her reach. Her body felt light, like the sensation of floating on water, but she could see the water below.

  She was flying.

  The trunk bobbed up and down in the storm-driven sea. She watched it disappear into the mist.

  Before she had a chance to worry about being lost in the mist, she flew over a young girl seated next to a falcon.

  That’s me! Now she could be sure that this was more than mere astral travel. She had been in the past—touched her father’s letter and trunk—and somehow returned to her own present. Her physical form sat below, anchored on Mother Earth, while some other part of her communed with the Sky Father.

  She flew past her earthly form, toward the coastline, and down to the sea.

  Her gaze scanned the surf and finally discovered the trunk surging back and forth. She watched it slip into a deep crevice in the rocky coast and she took every detail of that section of the shore into her mind.

  Now what? How can I get back to my body? She struggled with a thought, but it slipped away when she heard Oturu’s cry.

  Flynn opened her eyes and gazed at the dying embers of her fire.

  She felt the thought of Oturu and replied, “Yes, I’m all right. Dunedin must’ve had some part in that journey, Oturu. I went into the past and I saw my father—there’s a trunk—and a letter.”

  Oturu sent her an image of the sun rising.

  “Yes, tomorrow. I have to sleep,” the words barely escaped her lips before her head flopped onto her satchel.

  Oturu took to the air for one last scout.

  Flynn sat up slowly in the early morning light. A thick fog lay across the ground, like the mist had crept closer in the night, threatening to swallow the whole island. She rubbed the blurred dream images from her eyes and looked to Oturu’s perch. The falcon blinked her yellow-lidded eyes at Flynn and bobbed her head up and down.

  “I need you to help me find something today, all right?” Flynn said.

  Oturu tilted her head sharply and waited.

  Flynn thought back to the vision and sent the image to Oturu—up and over their campsite, down the coast, and into that crag in the cliffs. She held the image of the trunk and pulled the chain up to show Oturu the key around her neck.

  The falcon flapped her brown and white flecked wings and rose high into the air. She circled once and dove toward the Cliffs of Tapu.

  Flynn scrounged through their dwindling food supply and found enough dried taro to pound on the rock and make a little flour to mix with the water and a bit of rabbit fat. She formed two thin fire cakes and laid them on the hot stone at the edge of her fire. She pushed their last two seagull eggs into the hot embers and waited for Oturu’s return.

  The only images the falcon sent consisted of dense fog and more dense fog.

  Disappointed, Flynn called Oturu back to camp.

  They ate a lazy breakfast and waited for the late spring sun to gather enough heat to chase back the haze. Flynn carefully stashed everything that wouldn’t assist them on the trunk hunt.

  “I don’t have any rope!” She paced back and forth wondering how long it would take to find some flax—

  An image from Oturu interrupted her calculations.

  “Your leash?” Flynn chewed her lip. “It’s pretty light, but it might work—we can always go back tomorrow, I guess.” She coiled the leash and shoved it into her pocket. She also took her belt knife, a waterskin—and the key.

  The haze still clung to the cliffs.

  “I can’t wait any longer, Oturu. Let’s walk down the coast a bit and maybe the fog
will lift.” Flynn put on her sandals and headed south. Oturu led the way.

  The golden sun won the battle at last and several images flashed through Flynn’s mind as the falcon swept along the coast. Nothing looked familiar, until…

  She picked up her pace, eager for the next image.

  Oturu sent a picture of the crevice in the cliff face from Flynn’s dream.

  “That’s it!” called Flynn. Her heart raced as she ran toward the circling bird.

  The particular section of cliff from Flynn’s astral journey was near the southern end of the Cliffs of Tapu. She decided it would be easiest to go around to the beach and climb up, rather than climb down from above.

  The rocky shore still hung in the mid-morning shadow of the cliff and the wet rocks were cold and slick. Huge waves broke with deafening crashes over the rocky shoreline. Flynn slipped twice and Oturu circled lower and let out an anxious screech.

  The astral image became reality.

  The tide slowly advanced, but she estimated it would be past midday before it reached its highest mark. She pushed her concern aside and wedged into the crack between the looming stone walls.

  She inched forward, but couldn’t see the trunk anywhere.

  As she straddled the gap she had to force her gaze away from the frothing waves below. The massive granite cliffs pressed on her shoulders, her breath came in short shallow gasps, but she continued to worm her way into the rocky labyrinth.

  If she slipped she could fall to her death, drown in the rising sea, or become inexorably stuck in a stony prison. Again, she swallowed her fear and pushed her shaking limbs deeper into the cliffs.

  Oturu sent an image of the surf creeping up the sandy shore.

  Flynn ignored the image and pressed on. The crevasse narrowed and she had to shift her shoulders to continue.

  A shelf of rock came loose and her foot slipped into nothingness as her head clacked into the craggy wall. She clawed at the granite cliff and her fingers found a hold. Her heart thudded in her chest and her gaze shot down to the hungry waves spouting into the fissure.

  Everything hung in shadow and details faded into the dim chasm. The sound of the crashing waves grew louder and Flynn felt despair clutching at her heart.

  The falcon circled overhead, the bird’s keen eyes barely able to make out the small shape of Flynn swallowed by the cliffs.

  She checked her next foothold before she transferred her weight and moved deeper into the rocks.

  A curved shape caught her eye.

  She wiggled upward, toward the shape.

  In the dimness she couldn’t be sure…

  “I found it!” cried out Flynn. She sent the image to Oturu and heard the falcon’s answering screech.

  She slowly made her way to her father’s trunk.

  Time slipped away rapidly and the tide surged higher. Flynn could feel drops splashing on her feet and legs as each new breaker battered the cliffs.

  Her outstretched hand brushed the weathered wood.

  Success!

  Flynn gave the trunk a tentative tug. The crevasse held it tightly in its stony grasp.

  She balanced her weight between her two footholds and slipped the falcon’s leash from her pocket. She thought about fastening it to the leather handle on the end closest, but she worried that the handle could break.

  Time had been surprisingly kind to the old box. The raging seas of the storm, almost fifteen years ago, had tossed the trunk high into the crack in the granite cliffs and Flynn doubted if the water had ever reached that height again. The narrow gap did not allow sunlight to penetrate deep enough to deteriorate the wood. She hoped that the chest had been well made and the contents had somehow been protected from the angry brine during the storm that set it free from her father’s ship.

  She crept closer, stretched the leash around the trunk and tied a bowline knot, like she had seen the men on the docks tie to unload cargo. The other end got fastened around her belt with three half hitches. Flynn tested the knots and reached for a higher handhold.

  She carefully tested each handhold. If falling unencumbered had been dangerous, this new plan felt suicidal. Her heart pounded, sending a mixture of anticipation and dread through her limbs.

  Once she had gotten herself up above the trunk, she reached down and tugged on the leather handle. The wood screamed in protest against the unforgiving granite and the handle snapped in two. Flynn’s back cracked into a sharp point jutting from the cliff face and one of her feet slipped. She landed on the chest like a child riding a moa and heard a clatter of rocks tumbling down the stone walls and into the rising ocean.

  She scrabbled at the rocks and found new handholds a moment before the trunk gave way beneath her.

  The wooden chest slipped and her belt cut into her waist as the heavy pendulum swung below like an anchor seeking the deep blue.

  Flynn steadied herself and held her breath. If the leash broke the trunk would plunge into the brine and it would be smashed to pieces before she could ever get down the crevasse and attempt another rescue.

  She moved with the patience of a witara hunting a rabbit and bit-by-bit made her way upward.

  The weight of the sea chest tugged at her strength. Her fingers ached and her feet burned as the salt air and dampness seeped into the abrasions.

  She moved upward and back toward the breakers, because as she climbed the gap narrowed and she had to allow room for the dangling trunk to follow her.

  The sun finally kissed the top of her ebony head and the warmth filled her with courage. Her hair and her skin absorbed the heat and her fingers regained a bit of the strength that had been stolen by the dank chill.

  Heaving her arms and torso onto the warm plane of granite, Flynn pulled herself out of the chasm. She turned to retrieve the trunk and saw the leash stretching to the breaking point.

  Her safety forgotten, she dove into the crack to grasp the trunk. Her arm clutched the wood and her face smashed into the torn leather handle. She inched her body backward, like an earthworm, and pushed against the opposite rock face with the trunk. Infinitesimal progress rewarded her, but she felt the chain around her neck slipping.

  Both of her hands were invested in recovering the trunk. She twisted her head to fight the pull of gravity, but it was too late. The chain—and the key fell.

  “No!” she screamed through lips that were smashed into the wood.

  A single cry rose above the surging waves and Oturu dove into the narrow crevasse.

  Flynn closed her eyes and wished she couldn’t feel the tears burning in them.

  She rolled backward and yanked the trunk out of the abyss. Her heart thudded in her chest and her breath came in ragged sobs. The key had fallen and Oturu would crash into the granite cliffs and be lost to her as well.

  She recovered the trunk, but had lost everything.

  A puff of air near her face pulled her red-rimmed eyes open.

  Her heart burst with pride and she heaved a sigh of relief.

  Oturu perched on the trunk with the chain in her beak and the precious key clutched in her left talon.

  “Thank you, again, my friend,” she said.

  The falcon bobbed her head and almost smiled.

  Flynn reached for her waterskin and her hand found nothing. “I left my waterskin and my sandals back on the beach.” She looked at Oturu and said, “I hate to ask…”

  The falcon carefully dropped the key into Flynn’s hand and winged away toward the beach. Two trips later she had retrieved the forgotten items.

  They began the painfully slow trip back to camp. Flynn dragged the trunk behind her by the good handle and Oturu flew circles overhead.

  The procession reached camp by dusk and Flynn served the last of their dried meat. The cohorts shared a meal and stared in awe at their hard-won treasure.

  After their scanty supper Flynn pulled out the golden key and rubbed her finger over the intricate design. “I can never thank you enough for saving this, Oturu.”

 
The falcon transmitted an image of a Vignan falconer in fancy robes, teasing her with a raw piece of meat—laughing uproariously each time she fainted.

  Flynn shook her head in disgust. “All right, but we’re not balanced. I still owe you.” She turned the key over in her hand. “Should we open it?”

  Oturu replied with three quick chants.

  “Here we go.” Flynn reached out to twist the fish-woman, but the rusted metal stuck fast. She reached for her adze and banged firmly but carefully on the side of the raised metal image. Eventually some of the rust flaked away and the piece slid sunwise with a scraping screech. The faint odor of camphor reached her nostrils. She pushed the key into the lock and wiggled it back and forth. “I don’t want to break—”

  CLICK!

  “It opened!” Flynn creaked open the lid and looked inside. There were a number of papers; some rolled tightly, some flat—and the letter. She gently picked up the folded paper and looked at the symbol in the wax. The same symbol she had seen on her father’s ship. Somehow she had actually placed that letter in this trunk fifteen years ago.

  Oturu flew over and perched on the edge of the trunk.

  “I’m going to save this letter for my mother.” Flynn looked at the falcon, “It’s exciting, don’t you think? Let’s see what else is in here.”

  The trunk contained two thick leather pouches filled with gold discs, a book with lines on the paper and words Flynn couldn’t read, a small silver box, a set of leather arm bracers, loads of papers, and what looked like maps.

  Flynn pulled out several of the maps and stared at the squiggles. She ran her fingers over one of the sheets and thought she saw the squiggles move. She leaned closer and the words “Kiore Moana Grove” formed right before her eyes—her pulse quickened.

  “I think I can read this now, Oturu,” she said in awe. Flynn turned the map and scanned over the words. Her eyes could decipher the marks. She thought back to that moment when she had heard the voices on her father’s boat and couldn’t understand, but slowly the words had made sense.

  She smoothed out the map and her eyes found a series of large letters: SOUTHEIL, she could read. Southeil? “I have a map of Southeil,” she announced to the ruins. Flynn didn’t know how or if a map could help her mother in the fight against Magdelana, yet she dared to hope. “Oturu, we have to get home, but I’m going to need help. We can’t carry this thing all the way back to Moa Bend.”