by Sharon Hinck
His grin widened. “Stay here.”
As if I had anywhere to go. The shore was distant in all directions. Navar’s instincts had kept her near the center of the lake.
Brantley sprang up, scanned in all directions, then crouched. “I don’t see him. None of the villagers are moving.”
I feared the Gardener had taken out his frustration on the people along the shore. Instead of numbing them, had he decided to end their lives? I shuddered. “He said he isn’t allowed to give them death. At least not yet.” But uncertainty wavered in my throat. The harbinger had arrived. And I was the one who had asked Brantley to call her. What worse powers did the Gardener now possess?
“Let’s check on them.” Brantley gave a low whistle, and Navar craned her neck, then glided toward the edge. We eased in slowly, scouting for any sign of our enemy. At the rim, Navar chirruped nervously. Brantley frowned, stroking her neck. “She hasn’t been acting like herself. The presence of the Gardener upset her.”
“Good instincts.” I patted her withers. “It’s all right, girl. He’s gone now.” I couldn’t stand the sight of all the unmoving bodies another moment. I slid from the stenella onto the tangleroot, then found my footing and shook the closest moss-covered shoulder.
Brantley sprang to the land as well, sending ripples through the tangleroot.
I stumbled, but then limped to another still shape. “Wake up. The convening is over.”
No response.
Brantley poked at a few people with his foot. “Carya, there’s nothing we can do here. I think we should—”
Woosh. A swirl of loose daygrass spiraled upward and coalesced into an angular shape. In the dawn light, the Gardener’s features were even more harsh than in the darkness. Sharp brows, jagged chin, bony arms, long gnarled fingers, tattered green-and-brown clothes that looked like a diseased tree with flaking bark.
I drew in a sharp breath, throat too tight to speak. Brantley and I both backed to the very edge of the shore.
Oddly, the Gardener’s focus skimmed past me, zeroing in on Navar. “The harbinger,” he said, repeating what he’d said the night before. His bony shoulders hunched, and he chuckled darkly. “The light yet burns me, but her presence means it is time for me to do my work in every place. Night and day. Here and everywhere.”
I didn’t want Navar’s presence to be a symbol for him. Perhaps that legend was simply another lie, like those that pulled villages to the convenings. Yet the Gardener stood before us in the light of the rising suns and didn’t retreat.
He turned his gaze toward us and snarled. “My time to rule this island completely may be brief, but there is yet time to repair you interferers.”
A tree limb sprang up from the earth, which he lifted and aimed at Brantley. Under the brightening sky, there was no place to hide.
Time slowed.
Each heartbeat burned vivid as lightning.
The spear flew.
Navar squealed a high-pitched sound I’d never heard before. With her body against the tangleroot, her neck lunged forward. She knocked Brantley aside.
He fell on top of two green-covered people with an oomph. I waited for the splash of the spear hitting water. Instead a gurgling moan filled the air. I dropped beside Brantley but saw no wound on him. He pushed himself up and blanched white.
Following his gaze, I turned my head.
Navar!
Her gentle muzzle arched toward the sky, floppy ears hanging back. The spear pierced her throat from front to back. Pale, mottled fluid gushed from her wound. Pain blazed across her huge limpid eyes before long lashes lowered to hide them.
Brantley scrambled past the bodies on the shoreline and reached her only seconds after her cry, but she was already sinking. He threw his arms around her. “No! Hang on, girl.” Her broad back was barely visible under the surface. He felt for his longknife, perhaps to cut off the branch. When his hand found an empty scabbard, he tugged at the spear instead.
Navar reared and shrieked. She worried her head side to side.
Brantley cast me a desperate, wide-eyed plea. “Do something.”
I’d once danced beside her to heal a gash in her hide. But this weapon was still impaled through her. I closed my eyes and embraced Navar’s panic, her pain. Forsaken! The impression rocked me.
“No! You are beloved.” I touched her neck.
She calmed but sank farther. Now only her head and upper neck were visible. The ugly branch only slightly above the surface.
Her violet eyes dilated. My soul quivered with the sensations she felt. Confused, wounded, and something more besides—worry for Brantley. “Yes. You have to hold on. We need to take care of him,” I whispered in her ear.
Brantley gave another tug on the branch, but it refused to move and only caused another groan of pain from both of them. He let go, and Navar’s eyes cleared for a precious second. Her long muzzle pressed against his heart and she chirruped a rasping call.
Then cloudy emptiness swam over her eyes. The shimmer of her fins flattened to dull gray. Her body sank, my hope sinking into the depths with her. I reached out a hand in mindless desperation.
Then her face slipped beneath the surface, and she was gone.
Brantley’s body heaved with rage.
I stared at the water as shock sent tremors through my body. A lavender slick of Navar’s blood coated the water, the only evidence of her existence . . . and her death.
A wheeze sounded behind us, reminding me that danger still stalked us. I spun, ready to fight the Gardener to my last breath.
He gawked at the empty space where Navar had reared only moments before. Instead of gloating, he howled. “No!”
His body expanded, arms raised, gnarled fingers splayed. “Return, harbinger! You cannot leave. I am only loosed while you remain. It is my time!”
Brantley gave a feral growl. “Oh, your time has come all right.” He leapt over mounds of people, right at the skeletal man.
“Stop!” My plea caught on a gust of wind and dissolved. I stumbled forward. I couldn’t watch Brantley’s destruction, but I couldn’t turn away either. I would fight by his side no matter how many thorns or vines or numbing spores our enemy conjured.
Instead, the Gardener slid backward, still staring at the lake in horror. His arms swung side to side, and the trees along the hilltops shuddered, their branches rattling like dry bones.
Just as Brantley reached him, dead leaves and grass swirled around the Gardener. The dust drove us back, our eyes stinging from the assault. I pulled up the neck of my tunic to cover my nose and mouth. Wind and chaos built to a frenzy, then suddenly stopped.
Sound ceased. Air stilled.
I raised my head, blinking against grit that had invaded my eyes.
The Gardener was gone.
“Why did he leave?” I choked out. He had the means to destroy us. We had no weapons—other than our shock-fueled wrath. Yet the Gardener had fled. And that strange expression. He’d seemed shaken, even dismayed that his spear had killed Navar.
Brantley’s fists flexed, his whole body rigid. “What does it matter?” The bleakness in his voice chilled my soul. Had spores infected him again?
I turned to the lake. “Can you dive down? Maybe she can still be saved. Maybe I can dance healing—”
Brantley aimed his rage toward me. “I’m a herder. Do you think I don’t know what a stenella’s death looks like? She’s gone.” There was no arguing against the finality in his words.
Hot tears rolled down my face. I loved Navar but had only known her a short time. Brantley and Navar had been partners for years. I stepped toward him, arms open, but he turned away.
Rustling drew my attention. A yawn, a stretch. One by one the people along the lakeside sat up and brushed off moss and vines. I watched for signs that they’d escaped the Gardener’s poison. I dashed away my tears and approached one of the women. “How are you?”
She tilted her head, eyes glassy and vague. “I be fine.” Then her gaze glide
d past me, and she ambled away.
All along the lakeshore the pattern repeated. Gradually people moved apathetically toward the trail to their respective villages. The ache in my heart threatened to consume me. The people of this world were still trapped in the wisdom of the Every, still numbed by the lies of the Gardener. Still unaware of the Maker who longed to save them.
We hadn’t made a difference.
I wanted to pound the earth with my fists, to scream, to sob. But Brantley stood alone by the shore staring at the lake. He needed me. I swallowed my pain and approached him. There were no words to ease his loss. Yet I remembered the comfort his presence had been the night my mother died. So I settled on the grass near him, waiting quietly.
As the rising suns hovered above the tree line, his stiff stance sagged. Eventually he sat beside me. Plucking blade after blade of daygrass, his jaw worked, as if he were testing and rejecting words.
He crumpled leaves in his hand. “She didn’t deserve such an ignoble death.”
“No, she didn’t,” I said quietly. I wanted to add more, to tell him how much I blamed myself for coming to the island, for being called to impossible risk by the Maker, for involving Brantley and Navar. I wanted to give him permission to hate me. But I pressed my lips together and hugged my shins.
“I raised her from a calf, you know. I was a youngling myself when our village herder told me his stenella had birthed.” Now that the tendons in his jaw had loosened their lock on him, Brantley’s words flowed. “You’ve never met a boy more proud of the honor. As soon as her mother allowed it, I swam with Navar every moment I could. She was so clever, I never really trained her. It was more like she trained me.” His voice broke, and he sniffed.
Tentatively, I touched his back. When he didn’t stiffen, I rubbed small circles, praying my hand could offer a measure of comfort.
“We grew up together.” He turned toward me, and his face hardened again. “And don’t tell me I’ll find another stenella.”
The words bit, and I recoiled. “Of course not. I mean, one day you might, but no one could replace Navar.” Tears welled in my eyes again. Even the remote hope of another stenella was impossible while we were trapped on this forsaken island.
When he saw my pain, he relented. He reached out and traced the path of a tear down my face. Then he noticed the movement of the villagers. “The people? Are they free from that . . . are they free?”
“No change. We accomplished nothing.” Now the hard edge sliced through my voice. My mouth tasted bitter.
His shoulders lifted and fell in a heavy sigh. “We survived. That’s something.”
“Is it safe?” Morra called from the top of the hill.
We turned and waved. He emerged from the forest, followed by Harba and Wimmo and their baby. As they made their way toward us, more figures peered from behind trees and walked down the slope.
Those we’d pulled away. Those of the remnant who had no village home. And our friends. Even in my grief, Morra’s round, open face coaxed a small smile from my lips.
“We be watching.” He waved his plump arm over the shoreline. “You spoke truth. We be seeing how the Gardener made the people change.”
Wimmo embraced me, and the downy head of her baby brushed my chin. “And the sea lord. We be seeing what he did. The Gardener harmed the sea lord. You were right. He be evil. We won’t ever come to a convening again, grand or otherwise. If enough of us refuse, the Every can’t punish us all. And if they cast us out, then we be a happy remnant.”
I squeezed her and nuzzled the infant, drawing comfort from the smell of sweetness and milk and new beginnings.
Harba crossed ample arms over his broad chest. “And we be telling them all to stay away. Only”—he scratched his chin—“how will we be doing our making without the help of the numbing?”
A tiny kernel of faith remained in my chest and helped me speak. “Refusing the convening won’t cripple your art. It will free it. The Maker will inspire new things.”
Wimmo repositioned her baby against her shoulder. “And we be caring for what matters. We be naming her Makah. To help us always remember our Maker.”
Harba beamed at her.
In the glow of the morning, those who had hidden in the trees drew closer.
“Tell us more about the Maker. We can be hearing now,” said Morra.
Wimmo tossed her cloak onto the grass and settled, babe in her arms. “You said you be seeing the time before. All that we’ve forgot. Tell us again.”
The others gathered around, full of new questions.
I smoothed a tangle of hair away from my forehead and looked at the dozen or so faces. Eager, awake, free. Moments ago I’d despaired, believing we’d accomplished nothing. I’d been so quick to despise this small beginning, the miracle that the Maker had done already. No, I hadn’t delivered the whole world. But that was His work. I’d done what He’d asked—prepared the way.
Oh, but the cost.
Nearby, Brantley searched the withered vines until he found his longknife. With the blade back in his sheath, he braced his shoulders. I couldn’t read his expression. Navar’s death could rekindle all his old resentment toward me, toward the Maker. Building a new life on this island would be miserable if he hated me.
But he came and stood near me, head canted to one side. Waiting. Watching me.
“What was the world like in the time before? Please be telling us all you know,” Morra asked. As much as I longed for time alone with Brantley, this duty—this privilege—required me. I talked myself hoarse recounting again what I’d learned about the Maker back on Meriel, and what I’d seen in the vision of their world’s founding. The listeners’ eyes sparkled as I described the early villages that used their gifts joyfully. They grieved as I told of the jealousy and conflict that drove their forebears to accept the Gardener’s offer.
“But the Gardener’s hold on people was limited. He only controlled those who came to the convenings. He was not given the right to control the entire island except when the harbinger arrived.”
“The sea lord.” Morra cast a wistful gaze toward the lake. “But she be gone.”
“Yes.” My voice broke. “She be gone.”
Morra met my gaze. “So she saved us.”
“What do you mean?”
“She came as foretold, but her sacrifice means the Gardener will not rule all. Tell us the rest.”
My jaw gaped. Morra was right. I’d mourned Navar’s ignoble death, but her death was everything noble. I looked up at Brantley who still stood nearby. Could he draw any comfort from knowing what Navar’s selflessness had given this world? His jaw clenched, but he gave me a tight nod.
I continued telling all our friends about the vision in the willow tree. When I again shared that the Maker was planning to walk among them, Wimmo clutched her tunic with a happy sigh. “We must be telling the others.”
Harba’s head bobbed on his thick neck. “I be thinking we’ll get more folk to avoid the convenings. When the good Maker comes, we be having more people ready to greet Him.”
I plucked a small flower and stroked the petals. “It won’t be easy. Not only because the others may oppose you. As you allow love, you’ll face the pain that your people sought to avoid. Longings unmet. Heartache when those you care about suffer.”
Brantley’s features softened, and his gaze met mine. “The pain of loss.”
I returned my focus to the eager faces around me. “But it will be worth it.”
Sunlight glinted off the lake. No sign remained of the fog that had protected us through the night, or the enemy who had prowled in the darkness, or the gallant stenella who’d given her life to protect us. As the surface rocked gently under us, the glimmers off the water spoke to me of hope. Brantley took a few steps toward the edge. Did he see the light, or only the loss? My heart ached for him.
“Will you?” Morra asked.
I pulled my attention back to him. “What?”
“Will you be coming b
ack to our village? We be needing your help to tell these stories to the others.”
I glanced toward Brantley. Would he want to make our home there or somewhere else on the island? “I’m not sure.”
He faced me. Bleakness still shadowed his eyes, but he lifted and dropped one shoulder. “For a time. But later I’d rather live closer to the water. I’m still a herder.”
I nodded. “Of course.” He was a man of the ocean waves, and as long as the rim barrier kept us from seeing that expanse, the lake was his last connection to the life he’d always known. Provided that we stayed far from the shore when the star rains fell, I’d gladly settle nearby. Besides, when the Maker did arrive to defeat the Gardener, this lake would likely be where He would first appear.
“We best be going.” Wimmo offered the baby to Harba, then lurched to her feet. “How be your leg?”
Throbbing as always. “Fine.”
Morra frowned. “Where be your walking stick?”
Lost in the turmoil of the night before. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll help you up the hill.” Brantley put an arm around my waist and guided me toward our old campsite.
Morra followed. “And I’ll carve you a new one.”
Various freed villagers returned to their own paths. The remnant scattered. Brantley and I filled our packs, and with a new walking stick in my hand, we set out, following Harba and Wimmo toward the green village.
Brantley’s silence covered him like a shield, so I walked beside Morra. He chattered amiably, and I was grateful that it took little effort to respond during his occasional pauses.
With each stride of my good leg, I fought to kindle the tiny flame of hope. But each time my weight came down on my bad ankle, the pain mocked my efforts. This was our life now. Brantley and I on this odd world, surviving, waiting for salvation. I cast a look toward him. Every hint of playfulness had fled his features. He walked with a new heaviness. Even more than me, he’d truly lost everything. Brantley was a herder. That was his life. Now his mount was dead. The sea unreachable. And we had failed to bring valuable supplies to Meriel.
