“Do you know where we are?” Ellie asked the raven hopefully.
He cawed again and cocked his head to the side at the question.
“I didn’t think so,” Ellie said.
Ellie put her head in her hand once more and pursed her lips in disappointment. While she was no longer strictly alone in the woods, she was no better off. A bird could not direct her toward town; it did not know the way. A bird was still a bird, no matter how it had come into being.
“How is that you can do such strong magic?” a voice asked her.
Ellie stared at the raven in confusion. Had it spoken? She had not meant to give it a voice, but sometimes her craft did not go the way she planned. The raven looked equally as confused by the question. He had not been the one to speak.
Ellie heard a twig snap behind her and realized she was not as alone as she had thought. She jumped off the log and raised her hand to attack. The darkness was almost complete in the woods, but she saw a shape next to a tree.
“Step out where I can see you!” Ellie commanded.
The figure moved closer, and she saw the familiar shape of the boy she had rescued. She did not lower her hand right away. His expression was curious but not welcoming. They were still enemies.
“I thought we agreed to go our separate ways?” Ellie asked suspiciously.
“I have to go this way to get back to my family,” he pointed out.
“I thought you Coopers could just appear wherever you wanted,” Ellie said still suspicious of him.
“What gave you that idea?” he asked.
“The way you and your kin appeared last night. It was like you weren’t there, and then you were,” Ellie said.
“My cousin made light magic as we were sneaking up on you because he’s scared of the dark, and it gave us away. We had cloaked ourselves in darkness is all. We parked our cars away from your house and walked fifteen minutes to keep you from noticing our approach.”
“Oh,” Ellie said.
Ellie finally lowered her hand. She did not trust him, but his explanation was logical. It put to rest some of her fear. Their craft was not so foreign after all.
“So, how can you make such strong magic? Aren’t you just a little girl?” he asked returning to his original question.
“You’re only a year older or so older than me, I reckon,” Ellie said.
“Yeah, but at least I’ve seen town,” he said.
Ellie blushed at his words and lifted her chin haughtily, thinking he was calling her simple.
“I don’t know what you Coopers call strong crafting, but with my kin, what I do is nothing special,” she lied.
The truth was that she had always had an affinity for craft. Her momma had always said she was naturally gifted in that way. Craft was something Ellie had been born knowing how to do well. Things other Bumbalows saw as a challenge, she understood instinctively. Learning craft had not been the ordeal it had been for Careen and Neveah.
“If that were true, we’d have a lot of dead Coopers on our hands,” he said.
“My kin chooses not to kill for no reason,” she said, her chin still haughtily lifted in the air. “We only kill if a fight is instigated and there’s no other choice.”
The boy’s expression switched to anger. Ellie took a step back from the radiating power of his emotion.
“Tell that to my cousin Sally!” he said. “She was the one they snuck up on and killed with their attack in town yesterday.”
His expression of anger changed with the words. Ellie could tell he had loved his cousin. He was sad at her death. He was angry Sally had never gotten the chance to fight for her life. There was no way he was lying about the attack. The Bumbalows were not innocent.
Ellie was horrified at the idea. Her first instinct told her he was telling the truth. His expression and anger were sincere enough, but her head was telling her that Coopers were skilled at lying. She did not want to believe such a horrible thing about people related to her.
“They killed somebody yesterday?” Ellie asked.
“As if you didn’t know!” he scoffed.
Ellie had thought the party had been for setting a place on fire, ruining Cooper business, or something that had not resulted in actual casualties. She wanted to believe the Bumbalows were above such brutal retaliation. Her family had shared in their own deaths and had been forced to pick up the pieces of the Coopers’ brutality. Surely they would not return such pain on the Coopers, no matter how much they hated them.
Ellie realized her hope had been a lie. Her gut told her Neveah and the others had gone searching for a life to end. They had wanted to make sure the Coopers understood the repercussions of attacking Cousin. Ellie knew in her heart they killed as often as the Coopers killed. She had always known it, even if she had trouble admitting it. Now, she could no longer ignore the truth. Her family killed.
Ellie could understand the Coopers’ actions better now. It was no wonder they had come to her house. One of their own had been murdered by her family. Ellie knew her kin would have had the same reaction if one of her family had been killed. Neveah would not have rested until she had the heart of a Cooper as payment for the bloodshed. While Ellie’s family saw justification in what they had done to Sally, Ellie only saw murder.
Ellie sat down again. She felt her heart sink at the idea of her family killing someone in cold blood. She could not meet the boy’s eyes. The cost of the knowledge was heavy.
“I swear I didn’t know!” Ellie said. “They don’t tell me nothing, especially about the feud. I’m just ‘a girl’…someone too stupid to understand what they’re on about. I just gotta do all the chores, put up with Neveah’s bullying and eat crow.”
The raven she had made out of dirt cawed once at her words. She petted it without thinking, taking comfort in the touch. The boy looked at her with curious understanding in his eyes. Her confession meant something to him.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
Ellie found his eyes. She did not answer right away. Her mind worked overtime to understand. He acted as if knowing her name would erase their animosity. Was it a trick? She wanted to believe that he was genuinely eager to lay aside their differences. The dark was a convincing reason to be indifferent to whatever opinions she held in the light. Being lost in the woods was another reason to allow for a moment of peace between them. It was the only moment of peace that would ever happen between a Cooper and a Bumbalow.
She answered him slowly, her doubt circling her mind. “Ellie. What’s yours?”
“Thane.”
“Thane?” Ellie repeated.
She giggled at his name. She did not consider that her giggles might make him angry and the feud would flare back up between them. She could not help the laughter. His name was too funny. Thane frowned at her, silently demanding an explanation.
“Sounds like something someone would say if they were cursing!” she said around her giggles.
Thane wrinkled his nose and stepped closer. He sat down facing her. His expression suggested she was not far off the mark. “It does when my dad gets hold of it,” he said dryly.
Ellie stopped giggling at the admission. His words reminded her of Neveah. Neveah had a way of turning Ellie’s name into a curse as well. Maybe they were not as different as Ellie had assumed.
“I reckon I know what that’s like,” she admitted.
They stared at each other for a minute. Ellie was uncomfortable. She could not help but wonder what mischief he was dreaming up as he looked at her. He had to be planning something. Why else would he bother to stop and chat with her? The fact that she had seen very little of the outside world did not mean she was stupid enough to trust someone she was supposed to hate. Her books had taught her enough of life to be weary of a sudden change in character that came out of nowhere. A Cooper purposefully searching out a conversation with a Bumbalow was definitely out of character. She was not sure when the last time the Coopers and the Bumbalows had words that were not some
kind of threat or curse.
“What do really want?” Ellie asked finally. “Why’d you stop?”
Thane shrugged casually. It was as if he was admitting to his hair being brown instead of planning to one day use their conversation against her.
“I figure you’ll be the only Bumbalow I’ll ever get the chance to talk to. It’s best to know the enemy, so I can fight you better in the future.”
“Seems that’s a sad way of looking at things,” Ellie said.
Thane shrugged again and looked around at the darkness pressing in on them. Ellie also looked around at the night. It moved against her and made the monsters of her nightmares crawl to the surface of her mind. What kind of evil was hiding in the dark? Were more Coopers waiting around the trees to attack her and take back their kin? Was it possible the monsters she had read about in her books were real?
She had trouble sorting fact from fiction in the dark. There were just so many things she did not know about in the world. She knew her books were not real, but some of them had mentioned magic. Though they distorted craft from what she knew it to be, it was enough to know that some things in her stories were based in reality. It was enough to fear the monsters in the dark. The dark scared her more than she was willing to admit to a Cooper.
She wanted company, no matter the source. She was also insatiably curious about him. His reasoning was not far from hers. He was also the only Cooper she would ever meet who seemed friendly, if only temporarily. He was talking to her, at least, and not trying to kill her or ignore her. Ellie thought of a compromise that would sate her fear of the dark, the fact that she was lost and her strange curiosity for the boy she had saved.
Ellie eyed him carefully. She took in the way he was eyeing the dark and the way his body was full of tension. He did not seem to like the dark any more than she did. Only, he managed to hide his fear better. The thick woods would have scared anyone with common sense.
“How about this?” Ellie asked. “We treat this forest like neutral ground. In here, the feud doesn’t exist. Since you gotta go this way to get to your folks, and I gotta go this way to get to town, let’s just act like the feud isn't there 'till we get where we’re going. It’s only two days after all.”
Thane stopped eyeing the dark to look at her. For the first time since meeting him, he did not try to blame her for having ulterior motives. He was willing to agree to a tentative peace between them. The dark made it easy.
“Okay,” Thane agreed.
“Okay,” Ellie agreed.
Ellie turned her attention back to the raven. He was staring between the pair of them with curious eyes. She decided, because of the questioning sounds he made, to name him Caw. It seemed to fit his curious nature. She rubbed Caw’s head with gentle strokes and felt a renewal of her excitement. She had a real guide to take her to town. Determined to start her journey, for a second time, Ellie decided she was done with chitchat and acquaintance-making. She was ready to go.
Ellie held her hand out to Caw. The bird jumped up on to her hand and allowed her to place him on her shoulder. Ellie stood up and, with a flick of her wrist, crafted a warm amber light out of the darkness to keep the monsters at bay as she walked. She did not care if anyone saw her light. She just wanted to feel safe. Thane, seeing she was determined to walk the night now that she had a guide, stood as well and directed their feet in the proper direction. He did not need Ellie to tell him she had no idea where she was going, or that she had been incredibly lost. He had known it when he had stopped to talk to her. He had seen her wandering in circles. He was still questioning his reasons for stopping to talk to her. He couldn’t explain it, even to himself. The fear of the dark was not his only motivation. Ellie was not the only one to feel the inexplicable connection between them.
They kept a large gap between them as they walked in the forest. Thane created his own light in front of him. They did not speak. Their lifelong distrust of their respective families did not make it easy to be close to one another, even though they had promised to set the feud aside. They both distrusted an agreement made by someone who was not in their family. Ellie doubted a Cooper could remember a promise a minute after it was made. The excitement of where she was headed was the only thing that kept her from fearing the worst of her guide.
Caw occasionally cawed out as they walked. His voice was the loudest in the night. Ellie was comforted by the gentle sound of his caws. It made the night and her journey more bearable. She had never tried to forge a friend before, mainly because her sister had a way of destroying everything Ellie loved. Caw could not be touched by Neveah in the forest, however. They were too far away from her. Her friend would stay safe as long as they were walking. Caw’s presence also made Ellie feel that Thane would not attack her. Though Caw was only a raven, and could not do much against craft, she looked at the bird as a good luck charm. He had brought her a guide when all hope had seemed lost. He had brought her hope in the middle of hopelessness.
Ellie walked with Thane until she could not fight her exhaustion any longer. Her excitement in the face of an epic adventure was nothing compared to a whole night spent cleaning and a whole day without rest, worrying if Thane’s presence was going to get her in trouble or get him killed. It was dawn when Ellie gave up on fighting her exhaustion. She could not pretend any longer. Her head was weighted down by the exhaustion. Her feet dragged along the pine needles of the forest. Her whole body trembled with her sleepiness. She could not go any farther. She stopped walking.
“I'm tired,” Ellie confessed to Caw and Thane sleepily. “All I want is a big, fluffy bed.”
Ellie waved a tired hand, and a big, fluffy bed appeared on the forest floor. It was the most comfortable-looking bed ever made. It was a sleigh bed, complete with pillows and a lightweight blanket. It was as long as Ellie’s entire shack. It was a vast improvement from the sofa she normally slept on.
“Wake me up when I’m not tired,” she told Thane sleepily.
Ellie crawled under the white blanket of the bed without waiting for Thane to answer and promptly started snoring. Caw hopped up to the large headboard of the bed, to keep an eye out as she slept, his beady eyes careful and alert. Caw watched as Thane looked at Ellie in shock. He was surprised at her sudden disregard the feud between them. She actually meant to set the feud aside while in the woods. He could not believe a Bumbalow had meant what they said. He could not believe how easy it was for her to forget that their families had been killing each other for generations. The innocence of her trust threw him off guard.
Thane shook his head at her foolish trust and picked a spot a good distance from Ellie to craft his own bed. His bed was not nearly as neatly forged or fluffy but it was good enough to sleep in. It kept him off the hard ground at least. He rolled onto the bed, on top of the covers, and settled on his side, so that he could watch her. He wanted to make sure she did not try to attack him when his guard was down. He wanted to be sure she was not trying to play him. It was not long, however, before sleep called him under as well. His eyes slid shut reluctantly.
Caw was a steady sentinel as he looked out over the forest for signs of approaching danger. He would know if Ellie and Thane were in danger; he would alert them.
Around him, the snores of Ellie and Thane filled the air.
Chapter 4: Town
Ellie only slept for a few hours. Even in sleep, she was eager to see town. Her dreams were full of dazzling buildings and amazing sights. Her excitement did not allow her to rest long. She awoke with a yawn and stretched out as far as her body would allow on the fluffy bed. She smiled up at the blue sky and sat up, energized and ready for the day of adventure ahead. She rubbed at her eyes to make them fresh and looked around at the trees surrounding her.
Bright daylight filtered down through the trees, casting thin rays of light on the pine needles. Squirrels scampered around, searching for food in the underbrush, and birds sang carols to the day. Caw was on the floor of the forest searching for bugs, pecking his beak
into the dirt in sporadic spurts of movement.
Ellie enjoyed the sight of nature so close, feeling as if it was a great way to start the day. Then she remembered why she was in the middle of the forest instead of in her shack. She remembered what had set her on her journey: Thane.
She searched him out against the more idyllic scenery and saw that he was fast asleep in his bed. Drool was falling out the side of his open mouth and he was snoring heavily. She breathed a sigh of relief, not only because he had not killed her in the night. She was glad to have her guide. He had not left her to the elements. He had not left her to wander the forest aimlessly in search of town.
More at ease with the sight of him than she ever thought she would feel about a Cooper, Ellie decided she was hungry. In the spirit of the neutral ground the forest had become for her and Thane, she crafted them both a large breakfast, complete with furniture and decorations. She set two chairs at the rectangular table she had crafted with a flick of her wrist, made sure the eggs, bacon, grits, biscuits, and gravy were perfectly warm, and then called out to Thane. He woke up with a snort, jumping a little as he did. His eyes immediately went to her and the food she had crafted. His stomach rumbled hungrily at the sight but he was suspicious.
“Are you trying to poison me?” he asked.
While he could certainly craft his own food to eat, his food never smelled quite as good as Ellie’s. It was the sort of food craft he associated with his grandparents and his mother.
“A Bumbalow doesn’t resort to poison,” Ellie said.
“No, just stabbing in the back,” he said.
Ellie shook her head at him, but she did not argue. She knew it would be pointless and cause a fight she did not want around her good mood.
“It’s a sin to be so ill before breakfast,” Ellie said. “How’s about you be nasty when my belly’s full?”
“I can do that,” Thane said dubiously.
He rolled out of the bed and sat down across from Ellie at the table she had crafted. He gingerly sniffed the food, his expression suspicious. After the first bite of eggs, he forgot his suspicion. His hunger was king. He started shoveling food into his mouth – food flew into his mouth faster than he could chew it.
Craft Page 6
