Pathfinder

by Julie Bertagna

  Mara stops. What’s the use? He can’t understand a word. She looks around the cathedral, at the mess of junk and debris the urchins have littered everywhere.

  “Are you hungry? Have you eaten?” She gestures to her mouth and rubs her stomach to show what she means.

  Wing holds out a dead pigeon that he has torn apart. In disgust, Mara sees the tiny head the child grasps in his other hand, the blood and juices that run down his chin and chest. He’s eating the bird raw. But an even worse horror is her own hunger, so strong and vicious it overpowers her revulsion at Wing’s barbarity. Mara turns away before she rips the bird from his hands and begins to tear into its raw flesh herself.

  Screams erupt behind her and Mara spins around to see a girl of about ten attacking a younger child, trying to pull a green plastic bottle out of her hands. Bright litter is the urchins’s playstuff; it’s gathered in little piles all over the cathedral, sorted into colors. Groups of children play and fight and squabble over it. But this girl’s attack is ferocious.

  “Hey!” yells Mara.

  She pulls the girl off the younger child and now finds herself fending off an assault of bites, punches, kicks, and vicious, tearing fingernails. Mara’s own temper gets the better of her and she fights back, inflicting her own stinging wounds. A crowd of urchins gathers to watch, Wing among them, curious and excited but unperturbed at what is happening to Mara. And it’s the shock of his carelessness, along with the sudden fear of the savagery of these wild children, that chills Mara’s fury and sends her running to the door of the cathedral. She wrenches it open and bursts out into the storm, then races down to the water’s edge to find Gorbals waiting for her. He is holding a flickering lantern high so that she will see him in the gathering gloom.

  Mara runs up to him, shocked and shaken. Gorbals takes her hand and helps her onto the raft. His sullen mood is gone and he eyes her with deep concern.

  “What happened?”

  Mara’s mouth trembles in her effort not to cry. She can’t answer.

  “I came to row you back because the storm is making the water wild,” he says, then sighs. “Mara, those ratbashers are wild and dangerous!”

  Mara nods, shaking. He is tactful and doesn’t ask about the ragged, burning wound the wild girl has torn across her face. But he picks a large dock leaf from the grass and gently places its healing coolness on her bleeding cheek. Mara murmurs her thanks. Shock has replaced the bright surge of hope and energy she felt such a little while ago; now the netherworld feels dark and alien once more.

  “I hate that place. It’s full of necrotty,” Gorbals mutters darkly as he places the lantern on Mara’s knees and begins to steer the raft out from the gravestones and the cathedral, back through storm-chopped waters. He steers it expertly through a succession of poles that stick up out of the water. The flickering lantern light just picks out the shapes of a fish, bird, bell, and tree attached to each pole. “You should stay away from there. So should I,” he adds.

  “What do you mean? What’s necrotty?” says Mara, staring at the strange twig-woven lantern that Gorbals has set upon her lap. It’s full of huge moths. They glow like moonbeams and cast a gentle, fluttery light.

  “Dead stuff is necrotty—all the drowned, rotten things. The cathedral hill and the waters are full of it—look, you can see it at night.”

  Mara looks down into the water and once again sees the luminous glow of the drowned city.

  “That’s the Foss.”

  “Foss?” says Mara wonderingly.

  “It’s the ghost light that comes from all the necrotten things. Never touch it,” Gorbals warns her. “It’s full of death.”

  A high-pitched, blood-chilling noise pierces the air behind her. A fat black creature swoops down and flaps in her face. Mara screams and tries to beat it off, then sees the vicious little face, with such nasty, tiny, ravenous teeth, trying to poke through the gaps in the twig lantern to get at the moths.

  “Get off, you rodent!” Gorbals whacks the creature with his paddle and it surges high into the air. Mara hears a satisfying plop in the gloom as it hits the water.

  “Bats,” says Gorbals crossly. “They’re always after the moonmoths.”

  “That was a bat? I’ve never seen a bat so huge and so vicious,” gasps Mara. There were bats on Wing but they were tiny, harmless creatures that lived quietly in the church and the farm buildings. That one was as big as a winged cat.

  Gorbals is frowning at the storm-fretted trees as they approach the Hill of Doves. “No sundown tonight. The storm will kill our fire—but we’ll still have stories. You must tell us yours. We’re always hungry for stories.”

  “My story?” says Mara as they disembark. She doesn’t think she can bear to tell her story.

  She helps Gorbals drag the raft out of the water’s reach. Three sheep are running nervously through the stunted apple trees on the hillside. Large wet drops splatter her face and Mara looks up in surprise at the sudden clangor above her head: the percussion of the rain on the sky city.

  Gorbals grunts as he hauls rocks onto the raft as an anchor against the wind.

  “You must have stories,” says Gorbals. “Stories are the world’s heartbeat. That’s what keeps us all alive. But Mara, about the ratbashers—Broomielaw is right. They live like animals. They have short, wild lives and they breed too fast, too young. They have no language and yet they move together as one, in flocks like animals. They’re not human like us.”

  “But they’re more like us than not. And they are human beings, children—wild children, maybe—but they’ve been abandoned by the world and they deserve kindness, not hate.”

  Gorbals looks at her thoughtfully. “I never thought of it like that. But …” in the glow of the moonmoths she sees him smile, “do you really feel kindness for the savage creature who ripped your face like that?”

  Mara smiles back ruefully. “Not right at this minute.”

  She follows the glow of his flickering moth lantern up the Hill of Doves into the thicket of trees. There’s no sign of the Treenesters. The clearing is empty.

  “Where have they all gone?” Mara wonders, as a single metallic beat rings out somewhere in the netherworld. That strange, lonely sound amid the gusts of wind makes her uneasy.

  “They’re already nesting,” says Gorbals. He nudges past a goat and springs up a ladder that hangs down the side of a chestnut tree, then disappears inside one of the human-sized nests that Mara spotted earlier. A host of owl eyes stare down at her from the storm-tossed branches of surrounding trees. The Treenesters are all snug inside their enormous nests, each one dimly lit by the fluttery glow of a moth lantern.

  “Come on up,” Gorbals calls down softly. “There’s room in here.”

  There’s a smothered burst of laughter from the other nests. “I’m fine down here,” says Mara, awkwardly. She huddles into the wrinkled base of the chestnut tree. Two roots stretch out on either side of her like an armchair. A couple of chickens nestle in a nook of the tree next to her.

  “She doesn’t want to share a nest with you,” she hears Candleriggs rebuke Gorbals. “Mara!” the old woman calls down through the rising moan of the wind. “Please come up here and share the greatnest with me.”

  So Mara climbs a ladder made of tough grasses that hangs down the side of the huge oak and pulls herself up into Candleriggs’s roomy nest. By mothlight she can see that it’s woven securely into the branches and thickly lined with moss. Overhead, twigs and branches are meshed into a roof.

  Candleriggs hands her something warm wrapped in a leaf package. Mara sniffs it then ravenously unwraps the leaves and bites into a thick potato pancake filled with herby vegetable stew. It tastes like the most delicious food in the world. When she’s full, she lays her head down and ever so gently a moss quilt is tucked around her. She curls up in bliss. Then jolts back into guilty wakefulness. The wind has increased to a ghoulish howl that echoes through the netherworld. A huge gust hits the trees and Mara thinks of Rowan and
all the others, starved, sick, and dying in the misery of the boat camp, in such a wind. She tries to block out a mind-picture of the storm smashing the boats up against the great wall. The image shifts to another: that of a single mountainous wave about to swallow up a small fishing boat. The wave looms over the helpless boat, then crashes down with the weight of a falling cliff. All that remains is the heaving blackness of the ocean.

  Mara cries out for her lost family. The wind takes her cry and hurls it across the netherworld.

  The eager rustlings of the Treenesters, anxious to hear her story, stop. Candleriggs leans over to grasp Mara’s hand and, tucking the quilt around her, insists that her story will keep, that she should sleep now.

  Yet exhausted though she is, Mara fights off sleep, afraid that the nightmare of what has happened to her family will come back to haunt her dreams. To keep herself awake, more than anything, she begins to tell the story of her island home swallowed by the ocean. She tells them all about Tain, her lost friends, and of the nightmare of the boat camp that clings to the other side of the great wall. She tells them how she got into their world and how she could never have done it without Wing, the wild urchin.

  She doesn’t tell them what happened to her parents; she can’t, not yet. And she senses the gentle Treenesters will hear what she doesn’t say and know why.

  When Mara finishes, all she can hear is the storm. The Treenesters say nothing, and she wonders if they have fallen asleep during her long story—or perhaps they couldn’t hear her through the noise of the wind. Beside her, old Candleriggs has her eyes shut tight, her mouth set in a grim line. Then Mara looks out of the greatnest and sees all the eyes gleaming among the mothlit branches of the trees, brimful of the unspeakable hurt the Treenesters feel for her.

  “Gorbals,” says Candleriggs, opening her eyes at last. Her gnarled voice shakes with emotion. “Spin Mara a good, strong story to hold on to on such a stormy night in this harsh world.”

  “Won’t we get blown away?” Mara asks, as another great fist of wind grabs the trees and shakes the nests with a fury.

  “Of course not,” says Candleriggs gently. “We’re as safe as birds’ nests. And on nights like this the spirits of the drowned ones rise up from the waters to guard us and keep us safe. Can’t you hear them sing loud and strong among the branches?”

  Mara hears only the wind and the hoot of an owl. But as she listens the ghoulish sound of the wind seems to change until it does sound like a strong, invisible choir among the trees, and she feels comforted as she imagines the guardian spirits of her family here among the branches, watching over her and singing her to sleep.

  “Once upon a time,” Gorbals begins, “there lived a girl.” And he tells the tale of the girl who is whisked out of her world by a great wind and flung into a strange new land where she wanders lost until she spies a rainbow. Not knowing what else to do, she follows the rainbow to its end; she doesn’t know why, only that she must.

  “And when at last she reached the end, there she found a crock of gold,” Gorbals says.

  “Crock of gold, crock of gold,” the Treenesters murmur contentedly, and at last Mara falls asleep, cradled by the sound of the words and the wind and the rocking of the nest.

  Deep in the night it’s not the storm or a nightmare that wakens Mara but a silent presence near the foot of her tree. Instinct tells her it’s there. She wakens with a start and, looking down out of the nest, finds herself locked in the amber gaze of a fox. The fox doesn’t blink or move, just sits as still as a statue and stares up at her. Mara stares back, goosebumps prickling her skin as she remembers the cyberfox and the magnetic pull of its eyes. I’ll find you again—somehow I will, Mara vows, as her eyelids drop and she falls back into sleep.

  In the morning it’s all the sun can do to graze a white patch in the clouds; but the storm has passed and the netherworld lies in a pot of soupy gray mist. Dove calls and birdsong waken Mara and she wonders how they manage such carefree joy after last night’s vicious blast. She stretches out her limbs, feeling rested and new. Today, she will scrub herself from top to toe, wash her clothes, and plait her long hair to help keep cool in this heat. Then she will explore the netherworld and try to think what she will do next.

  “Candleriggs.”

  “Clyde.”

  “Molendinar.”

  “Springburn.”

  “Firhill.”

  “Parkhead.”

  “Ibrox.”

  What on Earth are they doing? Mara peers over the side of the nest. The Treenesters sit in a circle on the ground below. One by one each stands up, shouts out their own name, and points toward a part of the drowned city.

  “Gorbals.”

  “Cowcaddens.”

  “Trongate.”

  “Gallowgate.”

  “Possil.”

  “Pollock.”

  “Partick.”

  The ceremony continues until it reaches Broomielaw, who holds up her baby.

  “And my precious little Clayslaps.”

  The others laugh as baby Clayslaps waggles his arms and legs. Then they burst into song. Mara flops back in the greatnest and laughs too. It’s ridiculous. The Treenesters are a bunch of walking place names, the living limbs of the lost city.

  Gorbals brings Mara’s breakfast up to the greatnest. A woven grass mat is her plate, a bird beak her spoon, and a bird claw her fork. Mara decides she’d rather use her fingers. She tastes a morsel of what looks like a mushroom omelette. The mushrooms taste and smell of the netherworld—of earth and trees, darkness and salt.

  Now Gorbals offers her a clay cup of some steaming, aromatic drink. “This is rosehip tea but you can have nettle or dandelion or mint. I put some honey in it.”

  “No, this is good,” Mara tells him. “What were you all doing just then?”

  “At sunup and sundown we remember our lost name places,” Gorbals explains. “Each year we lose more of the old city to the waters and each year our island shrinks until one day soon there will be nothing.”

  “Just like my island!” Mara exclaims.

  Gorbals nods. “Yes,” he says heavily. “This year the water rose more than ever. If that happens next year we’ll have no land left. Just like you.” He looks at her intently. “We believe that’s why you are here now. The stone-telling must happen soon or we will drown. But now we know the signs will all come together and we’ll be saved. You’ll make it happen.” Mara shakes her head helplessly at him but his large eyes are full of faith. Shyly, he touches her face. “Molendinar will heal this wound with a tree sap cure. Oh, and Candleriggs asks if you had a dream last night.”

  “A dream?” Mara fingers the sore rip on her face and tries to remember. “I’m not sure. Why?”

  “Dreams are full of signs. Candleriggs says if a dream visited you it might tell you something useful.”

  Mara sighs. Then she remembers.

  “There was a fox,” she exclaims. “But I don’t know whether I dreamed it or not.”

  “A fox!” Gorbals relays down to the others, who, Mara now sees, have gathered underneath the greatnest in expectation. “She might have dreamed a fox but she’s not sure.”

  He waits patiently as Mara tries to remember more.

  “Well, it—it just stared at me. That’s all. No, now I’m sure it was real, a real fox.”

  Once again she remembers the cyberfox and wishes she could reach him. But maybe she still can. Mara looks around the greatnest, finds her backpack, and checks that her cyberwizz is safely sealed inside.

  “I once knew a fox,” she tells Gorbals. “Not a real one but he felt like my friend. He had the eyes of a friend.”

  Gorbals settles himself on a branch beside her and waits expectantly, as if for a story.

  “On your island in the great ocean?” he prompts.

  “Not exactly.” Mara tries to think of a way to explain about cyberspace to a plastic-clothed boy who lives in a nest in the trees. She can’t.

  “I suppose it was
like a dream, or a game. Real but not real. The fox was in another world.”

  “You have been to another world?” Gorbals stares at her in astonishment.

  “Sort of,” says Mara. “But my body was still in this one. Only my mind was in the other one. It’s done with a machine called a computer. A cyberwizz.”

  “A magic machine!” Gorbals cries.

  “No,” says Mara, and she leaves the cyberwizz tucked away in her backpack for now because if she shows it to him and tells him about the Weave and how she got there using her globe and halo and wand then it does sound like magic. And it was a kind of magic, she realizes now, as she climbs down from the greatnest. A magic that was so much a part of her ordinary life she took it for granted.

  “Maybe the fox is a sign,” Gorbals says, later, once Mara has scrubbed herself clean in a bath full of rainwater in the tumbledown ruin at the top of the hill.

  “A sign of what?” Mara asks. Her skin glows and tingles from the cold water. She feels fresh and clear-headed again.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Wait and see.”

  “I don’t want to wait and see. My mother used to say patience was not one of my virtues.” Mara smiles tearfully at the memory. “Is that all you people do around here,” she teases Gorbals, “wait for something to happen?”

  “Yes,” Gorbals says simply. “We live our lives and watch for the signs of whatever will happen. It’s all we can do.”

  “Haven’t you ever tried to break out of here? Did nobody ever want to see what’s beyond the city walls? Or try to get up into the city? Or take a boat and just sail out into the ocean? Didn’t you ever wonder about the outside world?”

  Even as she says the words Mara feels shame because she sees there’s no great difference, really, between the Treenesters and the islanders of Wing.

  “In the beginning, yes,” Gorbals says darkly. “Then we learned not to. Too many of us died, or disappeared. We saw that the only way was to live quietly and try to keep safe and believe that one day we would be saved. We have put our faith in the stone-telling,” he says simply. “And it’s happening. Now you are here, the signs are gathering, and something must happen soon.”