by Renee Duke
Stout hearts. Was his stout enough for the task ahead of them? He wasn’t sure. But he knew they had to try.
“It’ll be all right, Granddad,” he said. “We’ll watch out for each other, and Skookaweethp’s animal spirits will watch out for us, too. They have so far.”
Grantie Etta motioned to Uncle Edmond and said something in a low voice.
Uncle Edmond nodded. “Give us a minute,” he said and signed off.
It took longer than that. Over fifteen minutes passed before contact was re-established.
“I’ve persuaded them you should go,” said Grantie Etta, looking as though it had taken some doing. “But it required a compromise. Under the current circumstances, you are not to set one toe into the past until Uncle Trevor gets there. He’s going too.”
Chapter Twenty
“Drat! I know they’re worried, but I hate being put on hold,” an irritated Paige said after signing off. “Even if Uncle Trevor gets an early flight, he isn’t going to be here until tomorrow night. And probably not until Wednesday.” She emitted a sigh of pure frustration.
Jack echoed it.
So did Dane, but his was only half frustration. The other half was relief. “We wouldn’t have been able to do much until then anyway. I doubt Mum and Dad would take us back to the mission today, and tomorrow, well, I don’t even know where we go to school now, but if ours aren’t near water, we’ll be back in class tomorrow.”
“We don’t have to go from the mission,” said Paige. “The mission was just a convenient starting point for the general area Skookaweethp must be in. We’re in it, too, sort of, so our back yard will probably work just as well. We could go right now if we didn’t have to wait for Uncle Trevor.”
“Well, we do.”
“Unless something else happens before he gets here,” said Jack. “Grantie said we couldn’t go on our own under current circumstances. If circumstances change, I’m sure she’d think we’d be justified in doing something.”
“Maybe,” Dane said doubtfully, “but with luck, they won’t change.”
When they got upstairs, a look out the living room window showed it was still raining heavily. The creek had risen dramatically while they’d been Skyping, and its tempestuous waters were now positively swirling into people’s yards. It was already more than halfway up the slope on the Marchands’ property, and there were worried frowns on the faces of Mr. and Mrs. Marchand, Cousin Ophelia, and the man and woman from next door, all of whom were in the back yard standing under a jumbo-sized umbrella Cousin Ophelia was holding.
Paige suggested they go out for a closer look, too. Still not sure where everything was kept in this unfamiliar house, she rummaged around in several cupboards before finding the family’s own large umbrella.
As they approached, Mrs. Marchand had to shout to make herself heard above the roaring water. “You children shouldn’t be out here. Especially you, Paige. Not after yesterday. You—”
“Mum, I’m fine. We just wanted to see what was happening.”
“What’s happening is nature on the rampage,” said Cousin Ophelia. “Magnificent, in its way, but nonetheless disturbing. I’m glad you’re feeling better, Paige. I was quite concerned when I heard about your run-in with those wasps.”
“She’s okay now,” said Dane. “Hey, look, a beaver.”
He pointed to where a large beaver was valiantly swimming against the raging current.
“A beaver? Where?” queried Jack. “Oh, there he is. He’s bigger than I thought they were, but I’ve never actually seen a real one before.”
“I don’t see one now,” said the woman from next door.
“Neither do I,” said Mr. Marchand.
Paige waved her hand toward it. “He’s just up there. He’s huge.”
Her father shook his head, as did Mrs. Marchand and the neighbours.
“The water’s very murky,” said Cousin Ophelia. “And very turbulent. That might be why you can’t see him. Oh, my. Any beaver trying to go upstream in that must be quite committed to whatever task he has in mind. But then, they are very determined creatures. First Nation people consider them wise as well. Seeing one, especially at a time like this, is a sign you should be using both wisdom and determination to rise above adversity.”
“At the moment, it’s the adversity that’s doing the rising,” said the man from next door. “That water’s really moving. Good thing we packed up yesterday. Soon as the evacuation order comes, we’re out of here.”
Paige looked at her mother. “Evacuation order?”
“This area is now on official alert. We received warning after you went downstairs. The Trents and Cousin Ophelia came by to ask if we’d heard. I’ve already rung Mémé, and was about to go in to pack up some clothes and other necessities in readiness for flight. You can help me and make sure I don’t overlook anything you and the boys are likely to want at Mémé and Pépé’s.”
“My parents and I will be taking refuge there, too,” said Cousin Ophelia. “We’ll all be under one roof for a few days. Won’t that be fun?”
To keep her husband from responding in what she thought might be a less than gracious manner, Mrs. Marchand hurriedly said, “Yes, I’m sure it will be very nice. And definitely more comfortable than a community shelter. Come on, Paige. Bring the boys in with you, Alan. They can help you gather up photos, documents, personal treasures, and other items it would be hard, if not impossible, to replace.”
“But—” Paige began.
“Come along, dear. We haven’t got a lot of time. Give me the brolly. Remember the brolly rule—tallest person holds it.”
“I’ll help, too,” said Cousin Ophelia. “Get under this, boys.” She handed her umbrella to Mr. Marchand and scuttled after Mrs. Marchand and the still protesting Paige.
“We’ll be in shortly,” shouted Mr. Marchand, who hadn’t finished conferring with the neighbours.
Dismayed by the turn of events, Dane made a sudden decision.
A few minutes later he turned to Jack. “It’s too crowded under here. Let’s wait by the shed. Its roof’ll give us shelter.”
He pushed Jack over to the shed and, keeping hold of his arm, edged him around the farthest corner of it.
“Quick, say the rhyme,” he urged. “Once this area’s under an evacuation order, we won’t be able to get back in, with or without Uncle Trevor, and Mémé and Pépé live too far away from here for us to do a time transfer from their place. Like it or not, circumstances have changed. We have to go back to Skookaweethp’s time now. Right now.”
Jack’s eyes went wide. “Without Paige? Are you mental? She’ll kill us.”
“And going back could kill her. It almost did yesterday. If the sorcerer’s little wasp friends are planning another ambush, she might not be so lucky a second time.”
Jack gave a slow nod. “Well, I’m all for going, but I doubt he’d use the same tactics twice, and Paige—”
“Isn’t coming. I’m not willing to chance it. Now say the rhyme.”
Jack fished the medallion out from under his shirt and began to recite.
As the mist engulfed them, Dane felt something encircle his right ankle.
When it cleared, he saw the something was his sister’s hands. Though they had materialized in early morning, with the sun still in the process of coming up, it was light enough for him make out her sardonic smile.
“Thought you could leave me behind, did you?” She got up and tried to brush off the mud she’d acquired while landing face down on the ground in their own time. “Thought you were the only ones who could figure out we wouldn’t get another opportunity for a time transfer if we had to leave the area? Well, I did, too, and I knew you’d try to go without me. For my own good, of course.”
“It was for your own good,” Dane protested. “What if we run into wasps again?”
Paige shrugged. “Occupational hazard. And I came prepared.” She patted a bag she had slung round her shoulder. “I packed this last night. I’ve
got three adrenaline pens and a can of wasp spray in here. I grabbed it as soon as Mum’s back was turned. Then I snuck out the door and made my way—stealthily—to you. Not that I had to be stealthy. The grown-ups were too busy talking to notice me. Though I probably did give them a start when I lunged round the corner of the shed to catch your foot in what was, I have to say, a brilliant tackle. Especially for someone who’s never made a tackle before.”
Dane looked disconcerted for a moment, but then allowed admiration to replace exasperation. He grinned. “Yeah, it was pretty good. You should try out for girls’ rugby.”
“Not my thing. So, now we’re all here, let’s get our bearings.”
She scanned the area. In contrast to their own time, the creek beside them was flowing gently, with trees, bushes, and grass on either side. They were farther down it than they had been when they had made their time transfers from the mission, and no longer as close to the mountains that were now starting to come into view beneath the rising sun.
Paige frowned. “Last time we were in this time, the natives told us to go downstream from where they were to get closer to Skookaweethp. That might not hold now we’re in this location. So, do we go upstream or downstream?”
“Up,” Dane said decisively. “Like the beaver. He was showing us the way. And telling us to go on with what we’re doing, even though it hasn’t worked out yet.”
Paige considered this. “Okay, but how will we know when to leave the creek and start climbing?”
“Same way we knew before. If it hadn’t been for the wasps, we would have gone up when the deer did.”
“You think there’ll be another deer-guide?”
“I think there’ll be something.”
They walked for some time without speaking, and it was almost fully light out when they came across a large turtle on top of a rock.
“Well, there’s something,” said Paige, “but I doubt it’s going to sprint off in the right direction. We’d better keep looking.”
A short while later, they saw a rabbit nibbling grass. Upon seeing them, it leapt in the air and streaked up the incline a short distance from the creek, stopping halfway, just as the deer had, to see if they were following.
“That’s more like it,” said Paige. “Come on. Let’s go. And this time, I’ll be watching for wasps.”
There were no wasps, but as they left the creek and moved into the foothills of the mountains, there were an increasing number of trees. When the rabbit disappeared into the undergrowth of what looked to be the beginnings of a heavily forested area, Dane stopped and put out a hand to bring the other two to a halt.
“We shouldn’t go any farther,” he said, his voice tense.
“Why not? You’re the one who said animals would show us the way,” Paige reminded him.
“Not this one.”
“You mean it’s just an ordinary rabbit?”
Dane shook his head. “Not ordinary. I’m pretty sure it wants us to follow it, but I really, really don’t think we should.”
“Dane, it’s a bunny. What’s it going to do? Wriggle its nose at us?”
“I don’t know. I just know we shouldn’t follow it. There’s something not right about it.”
Paige gave a slight snort. “Are you the one getting insights now, instead of Jack?”
It was Jack who responded. “He seems to have been getting animal ones. And that’s good, because I certainly haven’t been getting a lot of insights lately. It’s hard to think of anything except Daddy, and my birth parents, and everything that’s gone wrong.”
“Which is just what the guy Uncle Edmond called the villain of the piece wants,” said Dane. “It works in his favour if Jack can’t divine as well as usual because he’s upset.”
“Yeah,” said Paige, conceding this. “I guess the present-day distortions are worse for him than for us. I’m surprised the guy didn’t target Grantie as well.” A sudden thought occurred to her. “Actually, I think he might have. Years ago. Remember what Great-Gran said about Grantie’s fiancé, Daniel, pushing her out of the way of that cave-in? The sorcerer could have been targeting her. Disposing of a diviner would work even better than upsetting one. Put a permanent stop to all those inconvenient feelings about things.”
“That’s possible, I suppose” said Dane. “So, are we going to go with my feeling about not following this rabbit?”
Paige nodded, and they turned back the way they had come.
They had not gone far when the yowl of an angry cougar came from deep inside the section of forest they had just left.
Glancing back apprehensively Paige said, “Sounds like you were right, Dane. If we’d gone on we could have wound up as that cougar’s breakfast. We still might. There’s nothing to stop him coming after us.”
“Yes, there is,” said Dane. “Our bear’s back.”
Paige and Jack followed his gaze. The grizzly stood by some bushes a little ways off, regarding them solemnly.
“Well, that’s good. If it is our bear,” Paige said carefully. “On the other hand, it could just be a regular bear with the same meal-related designs on us as the cougar.”
“No. It’s ours,” Dane assured her. “And he’s not alone.”
At a higher point on the foothill they’d been tramping along, a deer stood looking down at them, apparently unconcerned by the presence of a large grey wolf sitting on its haunches only a few feet from it.
Paige remained cautious. “So, the deer’s back, too. The wolf’s new, though. You sure it’s on our side?”
Dane nodded.
The buck tossed its head and moved off, climbing. After a brief exchange of glances, the children followed. So did the wolf and bear, the wolf flanking, the bear trailing, their proximity eerily reassuring rather than alarming.
The strange group walked thus for some time, climbing steadily. The sun was climbing steadily too, but at some point had become obscured by a large number of increasingly dark clouds. As a wind started to blow up, there was an ominous roll of thunder and the wolf and bear both vanished. One moment they were there, and the next, they were not.
There was another roll of thunder, closer this time.
“Think a natural storm’s coming, or something more sinister?” Paige inquired.
“More sinister,” Dane said shortly. “We’ve got to hurry.”
The deer seemed to agree, increasing its pace so much they were hard pressed to keep up with it. Scrambling uphill was a challenging task, so the top of the foothill was a welcome sight, promising at least a short run on a more even surface. But just as they got there, they heard a sudden screech, and a golden eagle swooped down at them, startling them so much that all three children overbalanced and tumbled a short ways down the slope they had just climbed. Seconds later, lightning struck the hill, two bolts, one of them splitting a tree from top to bottom. Both halves crashed to the ground, a section landing on the exact spot they had been standing.
The deer allowed them no time to dwell on this narrow escape. Swinging back, it snorted impatiently and pawed the ground.
“Just a minute,” Dane called out to it.
“Lose a contact again?” asked Paige, getting up minus her shoulder bag, which had flown she knew not where.
Dane shook his head. Having come on impulse, he was wearing his contacts rather than his glasses, but, fortunately, this fall had not dislodged one. He directed her attention to Jack. In the slide down the hill, the boy had run into a small bush and the medallion had become snagged on it. It was not caught tightly enough to choke him, but the imprint of the chain was visible after Dane unwound it.
“Want me to wear it for a while?”
“No, I’ll keep it.”
Looking up, Dane saw the deer spring forward. “Come on,” he yelled, struggling to his feet. “We have to stay with him.”
Back atop the hill, they found Paige’s shoulder bag. Or what was left of it. One of the lightning strikes had pretty much totalled it, and its contents. Abandoning i
t, they skirted round the smoking remains of the tree. Dane looked down at them uneasily. In hot, dry conditions, smoke could quickly become fire, and a small fire in an area filled with trees and grass could soon become a fully-fledged forest fire.
“That could be trouble,” he told the others. “If fire gets started up here we’ll never outrun it. Maybe we should say the rhyme and get out of here.”
“We can’t keep doing that,” Jack protested. “We’d be miles away from here again, and have to start all over.”
“If we even could start over,” said Paige. “If these mountain burn, the place we’re looking for will too. And, look, it’s starting to rain; that might help.”
Within minutes, rain was lashing down, making it hard to keep the rapidly moving deer in sight. And with the rain came stronger winds, assailing them with enough force to knock Jack, the lightest, off his feet. In trying to help him up, the older children lost their own footing. All three were forced to lie flat and throw protective arms over their heads as both wind and rain pounded at them.
“Get up. Keep on. Come to me.”
Though the voice sounded faint against the howling gale, they were all able to hear it.
“Who said that?” Paige demanded, momentarily daring to raise herself up into a crouching position.
The boys managed to do the same.
“She did!” Jack yelled.
Struggling to point upwards, he drew their attention to a small ridge, the ridge they had seen in their dreams. Then they had been viewing it from afar. Now, they were almost at the foot of it, and the figure of the girl was much more discernible. No dream this time, she stood, arms folded, looking down at them, unperturbed by the heavy rain, and unmindful of the wind tearing at her clothing and long, braided hair.
Chapter Twenty-One
The deer that had served as their guide had gained the ridge and was standing behind the girl. The bear and the wolf were there too and, perched on a sizeable rock, a raven, forming a tableau at which, for a few moments, they could only stare.
