by Tara Omar
“Where was that during the fight with Faerkbërde?” asked David.
Natalie turned toward the cave’s opening and fired the bazooka over the cliff face. The missile exploded outward in a billowing cloud of orange plastic. As David looked over the edge, he saw a cheerful, two-person tent hanging peacefully next to the rock, fully-assembled. It was attached to the bazooka via a strong bungee cord. Natalie jumped to the thin ledge of rock between the pool and the open sky. David’s heart leapt to his throat. Natalie secured the tent and lowered herself down the cord.
“Come on,” she called.
“It will never support both of us,” said David.
“Yes, it will,” said Natalie. “This tent was made for climbers. We’ll be fine.”
David swallowed. He knew sitting in the middle of a flesh-burning acid pool surrounded by hungry dragons was not a long term option. Still, he had no desire to fling himself over the cliff face. David looked in her direction, but his feet remained firmly in place.
“I can’t, Nats,” said David. “I don’t like heights.”
“You’ll be okay, David,” said Natalie. “I promise. Just follow my eyes.”
David nodded and hopped to the edge, nearly falling into the pool as he landed. Natalie grabbed him by the legs and pulled him back but overcompensated; David stumbled downward, nearly tumbling off the edge of the mountain. He gripped the cord as he fell, his arms shaking. Natalie hung from the cord on the opposite side, her shoulder touching the rock. She touched his cheek, holding onto the cord with her other hand.
“You’re doing great, David. Just look at me. Don’t look away.”
“Don’t let go of the cord,” shouted David.
“Okay, okay,” coaxed Natalie. “Now, here’s how this is going to work. Put your feet on the rock, and keep holding the cord. I’m going to start counting, and with each number, whoever’s fist is on top is going to lower it to the bottom and take a step backward, okay?”
David shut his eyes and shook his head, his arms still trembling. The trees below were small and distant, like the brushy hairs of a rug.
“We’re going to be okay, David,” said Natalie. “It’s just like walking backward. Ready?”
“Yeah,” said David.
“Just look to the sky and count with me,” said Natalie. “One.”
Natalie moved her fist down the rope and took a step down. David winced as she let go. “Two,” she said, but David didn’t move.
“Come on, baby, two,” said Natalie. David pried his fingers away from the cord and placed them beneath hers, taking a step back down the cliff. Natalie moved her fist and took a step.
“Three.”
David did the same.
“Four.”
“Five.”
“Six.”
“Seven.”
Natalie and David counted and climbed down the face of Lion Mountain until their thighs brushed against the plastic top of Sasha’s tent. Natalie slid to the side and unzipped the tent’s door before guiding David’s feet through the opening. With a final bit of encouragement, David let go of the cord and slid inside. As soon as his body dropped to the plastic, he hurried to the corner away from the door and sat huddled, holding his knees. Natalie pulled a pair of scissors from her backpack and readied to cut the tent, but David caught her arm.
“What are you doing?” he shouted.
“I’m going to cut an opening here, and see if we can turn this into a glider.”
“Are you out of your mind?” shrieked David. “You can’t do that.”
“But I have to,” said Natalie. “How else are we going to get down from here?”
David shook his head.
“No offence, Natalie, but I’ve seen you draw. If anyone’s going to do any cutting, it should be the art teacher.”
“Hmm, perhaps you’re right,” said Natalie. “Do you have a plan on what it should look like?”
“No, but I think we could figure something out,” said David. “Do you have a piece of paper?”
Natalie tore a page from a notebook inside her backpack and handed it to him. She eyed an empty glass test tube in her sack.
“You know what? You work on that; I’ll be right back,” said Natalie, grabbing the tube.
“Where are you going?” asked David.
“I’m just going to collect some acid, in case we need it,” said Natalie.
“You’re going out there again? Are you mad?” asked David.
“It’ll only take a minute,” said Natalie, unzipping the door. “Start folding.”
David needed only to see the blue expanse beyond the door to quiet his protest. He stared at the paper intently as he creased and folded. Natalie climbed back into the tent as he finished, a glass tube between her teeth. She tossed it into her backpack.
“Here it is,” said David, handing her the folded paper. Natalie looked it over.
“Great. Let’s see how it flies.”
She unzipped the tent and threw the glider, hanging outside the tent as she watched it soar over the carpet of trees. David gritted his teeth.
“Please stop doing that, Nats.”
“It looks like that’s a winning design,” said Natalie. “Let’s get cutting. I’ll tell you what lines to draw and where to cut. You can do the cutting.”
David took the pair of scissors and cut according to Natalie’s instructions, while Natalie bent the frame outward to form the glider’s wings. The wind howled and beat at them as they moved around the glider. David struggled to keep the flapping plastic in place as he worked. He focused on his hands to avoid seeing the distant trees below, hanging onto the frame tightly with his knees. Natalie patted his back.
“Almost finished,” she smiled.
The wind picked up, nearly taking the glider off the mountain. David and Natalie hugged the frame as it swung around, almost crashing into the side of the cliff. Natalie grabbed the scissors from David and put them in her pocket. “I think it’s time to go now,” she said.
She sawed at the cord holding the glider-tent to the rocks above, using the scissors’ blade.
“Get ready,” she shouted.
The last thread of the cord snapped. Natalie dropped under the glider to the spot next to David as they fell downward. She bent her feet and pushed off the side of the cliff; the glider soared forward, flying peacefully over the trees. Natalie sighed.
“It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is,” said David, glancing around. “So how are we going to land this thing? Are we just going to put it down in the trees?”
“We can’t land in the trees. It’s too dangerous,” said Natalie. “We have to aim for the eula grove.”
Natalie steered the glider toward a grassy clearing covered in thick mist. As they neared, David could make out the dilapidated stone cottage near the river that hid Raphael’s mansion underneath. It was surrounded by glowing hibiscus flowers and a patch of eucalyptus trees. Natalie aligned the glider with a cascade of tumbling, blue orchids below, readying to land.
“See that wasn’t so—”
A sudden updraft forced the glider upward and violently to the left. Natalie struggled to level out but managed to do so at the last moment. She circled around, preparing for a second attempt to land. Another gust of wind hurled violently from behind, sending them spiralling over the river. David put his hands over Natalie’s arms, helping her regain control.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
Several more puffs of wind sent them bouncing up and down like a truck on a rocky road. Natalie scanned the skies.
“I think we might be caught in a practice session,” she said.
“What?” asked David.
“The cloud constructors,” said Natalie. “I think the newbies practice over the forest where there aren’t a
ny people.”
Beyond the hazy edge of the sky, David knew that there existed a hard layer of rock, ice and water, where mers like Natalie’s father used mechanical spider crabs to sculpt clouds over both Aeroth and Larimar. David thought of his first day in cumulus construction, when he had accidentally caused a major lightning storm and a flash flooding incident. He suddenly became very, very nervous.
“Nats, we have to get down from here,” said David. “It’s not safe.”
“I know. I know. I’m trying.” She threw her bodyweight into the glider as the wind forced them sideways, nearly slamming them into a clump of trees. David could feel the temperature and pressure dropping—dangerous signs for people flying in a metal glider. He eyed the scissors in her pocket as Natalie circled around, aiming for another landing.
“Nats, we have to land this time,” said David. “It’s getting too dangerous”
“We’re still too high up,” said Natalie.
David glanced at the dark cloud gathering overhead, which was beginning to spark with electrical current. He grabbed the scissors from her pocket and, seeing a large bush underneath, knocked Natalie off the glider and into the bush just as the sky cracked with lightning. David drove the scissors into the plastic wing; the glider dropped like a rock, plummeting into the moat just as another bolt of lightning snapped through the trees.
Sasha, who had been sitting near the window in Raphael’s library, fell back as David barrelled into the water, watching as the crumpled glider sank to the bottom of the moat like a serrated orange. David dried himself off and joined him inside, with Natalie following closely behind.
“Had an eventful morning, I see,” said Sasha.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about the…uh, tent,” said David.
“Why am I not surprised?” grumbled Sasha.
Natalie glanced at her computer, which was displaying a rough model of Paradise Island. She leaned closer, looking at a nearby book.
“How’s the search going?” she asked.
“I’ve checked every crack, crevice and fissure we have on file,” said Sasha. “None look like a promising entrance.”
“How about climbing over?” asked Natalie.
“The outer layer of rock is too soft to support hooks, and the sea too rough to get near enough to anchor.”
“And flying over?” asked David.
“The winds are too strong and unpredictable,” said Sasha.
“But can’t your dad help us with that?” asked David.
“I don’t think so,” said Natalie. “The wind’s characteristics are more a result of how they bounce off the rock formations than any influence from above.”
“There has to be a way in,” said David. “How did the mers manage before?”
“That’s just it,” said Natalie. “Sasha said Paradise Island is a caldera, a collapsed volcano. The formations that seemingly bar us from entering didn’t exist before the eruption.”
“But I’m here,” said David. “If the island were completely cut off, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Maybe there’s a way out but not in,” said Sasha, “a sort-of one-way valve in rock.”
Natalie shrugged. “It’s possible.”
“And yet Gabriel Silbi seems to know a way,” said David.
“We don’t know that for sure. Maybe he just came from there but is not dealing with the mers now,” said Natalie. “Maybe he’s an expat like you.”
A door opened along the other side of the library. Raphael stopped, his eyes darting from David to the glider outside and back again.
“What, may I ask, is this monstrosity doing in my moat?”
“I…thought the fish might like it,” said David. “It’s the least I could do after you so thoughtfully warned us about the dragons and the pool of sulfuric acid in Lion’s Mouth.”
Natalie whacked his arm.
“David,” she whispered.
Raphael shook his head.
“I should have let that tree send you into Silence when I had the chance,” grumbled Raphael, turning to leave. “Supper is at eight.”
“Thank you,” called Natalie. She made a face in David’s direction. “Really, you should try to be nicer to the mer. He is our host.”
“That’s it,” said David, snapping his fingers. “Raphael’s a genius!”
“That…was unexpected,” said Natalie. David grabbed her hand.
“Come on. There’s not much daylight left. We have to leave now if we want to be back before dark,” said David.
“Where are we going?” asked Natalie, nearly skipping to keep pace. David grinned.
“We’re going to visit a friend.”
C h a p t e r 8 0
David tiptoed through the forest in front of Natalie, a ballpoint pen outstretched like a sword. The air was growing cold as evening crept nearer; shadows stretched across the foliage and shifted as a rustling wind fluttered through the bushes. David spun around, but the branches kept still. He sighed.
“What’s with the pen?” asked Natalie.
“We’re going to see a screeving willow,” whispered David. “They’re in charge of telling humans all the needs of the plants in the forest. They basically write grocery lists, although sometimes—”
David fell backward as a vine grabbed him by the ankle and snapped back with the force of a stretched, elastic band, sending David flying through the bush. An ancient willow tree with deep roots and bristled thorns stretched out its vines like hundreds of hairy claws ready to strike. David covered his face and held out the pen.
“Bellecris?” he called.
The tree relaxed the thorns on its vines, poking inquisitively at his stomach and arms. David chuckled.
“It’s me, Bellecris. It’s Daweed, and I brought my friend…Nettle.”
The willow wrapped him in vines and pulled him nearer the trunk as though examining him. Natalie tiptoed nearer, holding out a notebook. Bellecris took it along with David’s pen in her vines and began writing with the furious, dramatic flourishes of a highly upset tree. David read.
Oh, Daweed, yew should not visit now. There’s EVIL in garden. So much EVIL.
“What’s wrong?” asked David.
Someone attacked garden with FIRE, wrote the willow. Fire makes Bellecris very angry. Bellecris want to DESTROY nasty fire.
As the willow wrote, Bellecris forgot David and Natalie. She held the notebook close to her trunk, her vines tightening around David as she scribbled. David tried to move but was held firmly in place. He groaned.
“Uh, Cree,” asked David, but Bellecris ignored him.
Nasty, nasty fire, she wrote.
“Bellecris,” called David, but the vines continued to wrap around him and tighten, covering his throat.
Bellecris don’t like fire.
David pulled desperately at the vines around his neck. “Choking…please stop.”
Bellecris HATE fire, scribbled the tree.
“Bella, I have some nice magic for you—something very nice that will make fire go away,” said Natalie, opening her backpack. “Would you like to see?”
Bellecris relaxed her grip on David but still held him, shaking a clump of her vines as if nodding. Natalie pulled the baking soda and the packet of liquorice root from her bag and mixed them together in an empty water bottle. She held the bottle away from her, with a glass tube in the other hand. The willow watched.
“Nettle is going to make magic now. Are you ready?” asked Natalie.
She poured the contents of the glass tube into the bottle, which immediately erupted in an explosive shower of foam. Bellecris dropped David and clapped her vines, grabbing the bottle as she shook out the last of the contents like the spray of a champagne bottle.
Natalie ran to David.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,
” said David, rubbing his throat. “What was that?”
“It’s a homemade fire extinguisher,” said Natalie. “Sulphuric acid and sodium bicarbonate make carbon dioxide. The liquorice root is the foaming agent.”
Bellecris continued to clap her vines and toss bits of foam into the air, while writing with another vine.
Oh, and it smells so nice! Thank yew, thank yew! Nettle makes Bellecris very happy.
As the tree played with the foam, David stepped nearer to the trunk, a glint of mischief in his eye.
“Bellecris, I was wondering about the other half of the garden in Paradise Island,” said David.
The willow stiffened.
“Nettle and I were discussing the other day how Bellecris’s half of the garden must be so much prettier than the rest of the garden because Bellecris is so pretty,” said David.
Yew true. Bellecris is very pretty, wrote the willow.
“I bet Bellecris is even prettier than…the Tree of Knowledge,” improvised David.
Natalie glanced at him, confused. David shrugged.
Endie? Oh, Bellecris is much prettier than Endie. Bellecris is very pretty.
“Is Endie nice like Bellecris?” asked David.
Maybe, but Endie talks too much. Even elders say so. Bellecris is much better. Endie’s okay. Endie’s my friend.
“Do you still speak with Endie?” asked David.
No, no, not since…
Bellecris paused.
“The eruption?” asked Natalie.
The willow’s trunk heaved up and down as though sobbing, while small beads of sap formed along the bark. David patted a branch.
“There, there, Cree. You can still talk to Endie if you want to. You can be pen pals. You can write Endie a message, and we’ll deliver it. Then Endie can read it and write back.”
Bellecris wiped her trunk with a vine.
Oh, that’s a wonderful idea. Yew very smart. Bellecris would like that very much.
“Daweed would like very much to do that for Bellecris,” said David. “Will Bellecris tell Daweed how to get to Endie?”
Endie in garden. Daweeds don’t belong in garden. Daweed can’t take Bellecris’s letter to Endie.
“But Daweed used to live by Endie. Daweed wants to go home.”
