by Joni Sensel
“So we won’t have to reel it in and start over,” Scarl said. “Here.” He braced Nace while Ariel wrapped her body and soul around the boy. “That means you have to let go of him, Ariel, once you’re across. Keep your eyes open. Don’t let go too soon or too late and slip off the edge.”
“I won’t.” Steeling herself, she turned her gaze toward the gorge.
“Keep her safe, Nace.” Scarl’s hands dropped.
Nace grunted as he pushed off. Ariel squeaked, crushed Nace in her arms, and prayed that the rocks at the bottom wouldn’t hurt much. A heartbeat later, earth rose beneath her again, not the black-and-white river but brown duff and moss. She let go and thumped to the ground.
Nace swung away and landed safe on the other side once more. Adrenaline hit Ariel, sour in her stomach.
“Perfect,” Scarl said. “Another just like that, Sienna.” He drew the cable into position. “Be ready to catch her,” he called to Ariel. “I’ll come back for the pack, and then Nace and I can both swing together.”
Poor Sienna shook hard enough for Ariel to see it across the gorge. “Don’t worry,” she called. She started to add that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, but decided that might be a lie.
Scarl hoisted Sienna and she clung to his chest, eyes squeezed tight. Her shriek lasted even once she’d reached the other side and Ariel grabbed her.
“Let go!” Ariel cried. “Sienna, let—” All three of them were dragged back toward the edge. Ariel dug in her heels. Her boots slipped. Scarl’s feet, too, scrambled for purchase, and he yelped as his lame one skidded over a tree root. At the last moment, he released the cable and all three dropped to the ground on the brink of the gorge.
Ariel flopped back toward safety. “Oh, oh,” she panted. “That was bad. Why didn’t you let go?”
“Are we alive?” Sienna raised her head.
“Barely!”
Scarl shoved her farther from the edge and wiggled out from beneath her. Wounds tore his palms where their combined weight had jerked the cable through his grip.
“Oh, I’m so terribly sorry!” Sienna began to cry. “I was just too, too frightened!”
“It’s all right.” He rose, wincing when he weighted his right foot.
Ariel looked anxiously toward Nace. Slowed and lacking momentum, the cable had not swung back far enough for him to catch it. Instead he was hauling it down off the branch.
“You’re going to have to bring the pack yourself, Nace,” Scarl called. “Sorry.”
Nace flapped his hand disdainfully, shouldered the pack, and threw the free end of the cable back over the branch.
Ariel hustled Sienna out of the way. Her smile rose to greet Nace as he swung.
Two-thirds of the way through his arc, the branch cracked.
A startled look flashed in Nace’s eyes. His body jerked several feet lower. Ariel watched in disbelief as the tree branch gave way and tumbled into the gorge. Still flying toward her, Nace vanished below the cliff’s edge.
“Nace!” She heard a sickening thud as he slammed against the stone face below. A dreadful scraping followed. The cable flopped down against the far side of the gorge, empty and limp. Its twang echoed.
“Nooo!” Ariel screamed and scrambled toward the edge.
Scarl tackled her. He flung her to Sienna, who fought to keep Ariel from the brink. By the time Ariel clawed free, Scarl was staring over the cliff and cursing under his breath.
He grabbed her as she raced to peep over the side. “Stop!” he hissed. “He’s alive! Let me figure out how to help him!”
“He can’t be!” But fate had supplied Nace a chance, and surely only his experience on swings had allowed him to grab it. He clung by one hand and one foot to the slats of the dangling bridge deck. It swayed with his impact. His head drooped and what Ariel could see of his face was bloody and cramped with pain.
“Hang on, Nace,” Scarl called, his voice more reassuring than his expression. “We’ll get you.”
Ariel moaned. “How? He’s got the rope in the pack.”
Scarl shook her. “Hear me,” he whispered fiercely. “You are going to kneel on the edge and keep talking to him. He’s got to hold on until I can get him, and you’ve got to believe it yourself to convince him. Understand?”
“I’ll help.” Sienna crawled up and began speaking to Nace as if encouraging him to do nothing more desperate than hang on to a kite in a boisterous wind. Her breath coming in sobs, Ariel joined in.
On a second viewing, it didn’t look quite so bad. Nace dangled no more than eight feet below, his left fist clenched over a bridge slat. His chest rose and fell in jerks, but they were reasonably steady. And the blood in his hair was already clotting. Ariel chattered about how they’d stitch up his wounds, if need be, and perhaps create a song about his most daring trick yet. Her heart leaped when his lips parted and he opened his eyes. Praising that effort, she whirled to see what was taking Scarl so long.
He’d found a sturdy tree branch, and now he wound his sore hands with swaths ripped from his shirttail.
“We’ll have you up in a minute,” Ariel told Nace. She prayed it would be true.
Scarl gave Ariel and Sienna quick instructions. Then he lay down and extended the branch over the edge. Nace’s weight pressed the floppy bridge tight to the brink, but with Ariel’s help, Scarl worked the branch between the stone and the bridge cables to put a few inches of space between them.
“Good,” Scarl puffed. “I think I can get my fingers around those slats now.” He sat up and braced one boot sole on each of the anchors. He bent forward and hooked his swaddled hands over a slat.
“Wait, can’t Sienna and I pull, too?” Ariel asked.
“Do you see room for more hands? You’ll just be in the way. I’d give a lot right now for a rope and the horse. But I’ll have to do.” Raising his voice, he called, “This might jounce you, Nace. Hold tight. Almost done, though. Here goes.”
Scarl took a deep breath and pulled backward as if he were rowing a boat. His whole body strained. When he could not tip back much farther, he flashed one hand forward to a new grip, pulling hand over hand from one slat to the next and reeling the bridge, and Nace, upward. The tendons in Scarl’s hands and wrists strained tight. He looked much like a Fisher hauling a net from the water—a net filled to bursting with fish.
Ariel alternated between clutching Sienna and encouraging Nace. As a loop of bridge coiled on the ground beside Scarl, she jumped to haul on that slack, trying to take a little weight off him.
“Leave it!” he growled through clenched teeth. “If I lose it, it’ll catapult you into the gorge.”
Wailing in helplessness, Ariel flopped on her belly at the edge. She exclaimed. Nace had risen nearly to the top. His face tipped up and his desperate gaze found hers.
“I can almost grab him!” She reached down. A grunt flew from her as Sienna sat on her legs to serve as an anchor.
A few scrambling hands, kicking feet, and awkward groans later, Nace spilled onto firm ground again.
CHAPTER 26
Dog Moon and a Loan
While Scarl lay panting in the dirt, Sienna and Ariel tended Nace. He managed a feeble smile. Scrapes and bruises marked his skin, but the cut on his scalp wasn’t so bad. His right shoulder, on the other hand, looked so wrong it made Ariel’s knees weak. She avoided it, digging carefully in the pack for a jar of water to wash the blood from his face. Although several jars had busted, a few were still whole.
Scarl took one look at Nace’s shoulder and groaned. He hunkered next to the boy.
“Your arm’s out of joint, Nace. This is going to hurt at least as much as it did coming out, but we’ve got to pop it back in.”
Nace nodded miserably. The Finder eased the pack off Nace’s arms, ripped his collar open, and probed the injury gently. Ariel winced at the unnatural lump under the skin. Then Scarl gripped Nace’s shoulder with one hand and his upper arm with the other, long fingers reaching over the lump.
“On
three, all right?” he said. “One—”
Scarl’s hands jerked. Nace convulsed. He cried out, too, but only with a raspy huff. Ariel whimpered for him.
“I’m sorry.” Scarl cupped his hands over the injury, rubbing. “I needed you off guard so your muscles might not be so tense. But it should feel better than it did. Ariel can bind it up for you.” He glanced at her. “And we can all probably use a few pain-numbing plants.”
She nodded, already making a sling from her sweater. Once Nace caught his breath, some of the tension leaked from his face, and color began flowing back in. He grabbed Scarl’s hand with his good one. The boy glanced toward the tangle of bridge on the cliff’s edge and pressed Scarl’s hand to his heart, gratitude on his face.
“You’re welcome,” Scarl said. “I’m just glad you survived the slam on the rock, so you were still hanging on there to save.”
Nace patted the backpack, twisting his body to show that it had taken most of the impact.
“But what happened?” Ariel tucked Nace’s sling into place. “Why did we make it, but he didn’t?”
“The friction on the branch?” Sienna suggested.
“It may have worn down with each swing,” Scarl said. “Or he may have been less careful about how far out from the trunk he threw the cable than he was the first time.”
Nace glanced ruefully across the gorge at the tree.
“Or it could have been that cursed bridge story,” Ariel muttered. She fingered her necklace.
“We are very, very lucky that he didn’t cross this one out of the world,” Scarl replied. “Are you ready to take that off yet?”
She gave him an agonized look. “Do you really think it will matter?”
He hesitated. “Honestly? No. I think your hunch that they’re linked to the map is correct.”
“I’ll wear it a while,” said Sienna. “If you like.”
Ariel snapped her head around, a denial sharp on her lips. It never departed. Once she got past her reflexive reaction, the idea was strangely attractive. And Sienna had earned her respect by swinging over the gorge despite her obvious fear. Ariel owed her for not putting up more of a fuss.
Her conflict must have shown on her face. “Not to keep,” Sienna assured her. “Only until you want it again. I promise.”
Timidly Ariel asked Scarl, “Would you feel bad?”
“No, I’d feel better. Not that I don’t care about your safety, Sienna,” he added hastily. “I’d just like to believe that its power might wane in the possession of somebody else.”
“I’m not worried,” said Sienna. “No offense, but I think you’re both seeing ghosts in the shadows.”
Ariel didn’t argue. She merely reached to untie her satin cord. She had to admit that the necklace looked lovely on Sienna’s long neck. Ariel could see the beads better, too. Still, she missed its weight on her throat. She didn’t think it would be long before she asked for it back.
Everyone was anxious to get away from the gorge, so Ariel led them on right away, keeping a lookout for healing herbs she knew. Scarl limped worse than usual, and Nace’s chirps had been silenced by aches. Although the responsibility for those pains gnawed at her, an immense relief buoyed Ariel, too. Her sense of urgency wasn’t so desperate as it had been that morning, and their heading felt right. She fervently hoped the river crossing would be the only penalty she would pay for straying before.
After several miles, Sienna asked, “Does anyone know a song? I could use cheering up.”
“Oh, forget that,” Ariel said. “Scarl, you promised the stories today.”
He made a face. “I was thinking earlier that it might be better—safer, somehow—if you don’t know them. But after the gorge, I’m changing my mind. Maybe hearing them all could help us avoid another disaster.”
He told two more stories that day, both of which Ariel had already heard. The first told of a Flame-Mage who went in search of a dragon, hoping to steal his fire. Though the dragon she found wasn’t friendly, her bravery so astonished the beast that he didn’t eat her. In the end she charmed him into sharing his flame and they lived happily ever after together.
“I’d love to see a dragon breathe fire,” Sienna said. “That would be almost as good as lectrick.”
“What’s lectrick?” Ariel asked.
“You’ve never heard of it? It’s this special fire, almost like lightning. Supposedly it doesn’t burn anything up. That’s the trick.”
“Oh! Fire through a string?” Ariel and Zeke had once tried to make it, with alarming results.
“That’s what some people call it.” Sienna’s voice held a hint of disdain. “They say people had it before the Blind War, but, frankly, it’s easier for me to believe in dragons. I mean, alligators are real, so dragons might be, too. I don’t want to marry one, though!”
“The babies sure would be ugly.” Ariel giggled. “But I doubt we’ll meet a dragon.”
“Sienna’s quest might turn up something even more hostile,” Scarl said.
“The Flame-Mage story has a happy ending, though,” Ariel retorted. He’d already told her several that didn’t, but the second story he told that day ended well, too. In that one, a man with a selfish heart became stuck in the same day of his life. Every morning, when he awoke, he was horrified to discover that everyone around him said and did exactly the same as they’d done the previous day. Eventually compassion, friendship, and love released him back into the proper flow of time, as well as a better life.
“Stuck in a loop,” Ariel said. “And I walked in a loop yesterday. Think that’s how this story echoes to us?”
“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Scarl replied. “You said yourself that your map is not just a map to a place. It’s a map to a time.”
“Yeah, but not Groundhog’s Day. It’s summer, not the end of winter.”
“Groundhog’s Day is a cross-quarter day, halfway between winter solstice and the spring equinox. Just as Lunasa falls midway between summer and fall. It’s a turning point, where winter gives way to spring, or it doesn’t, and winter appears to continue. A crossroad. That might be echo enough. But this is not the only story in your necklace where time goes awry.”
Ariel scowled, afraid to ponder their own evidence of a disturbance in time. “He gets unstuck, though,” she said. “Happily ever after. I bet that’s what counts.”
Happy endings occupied all of their minds as the day dwindled without sign of Willow. Since Scarl believed the ford must be fairly distant downriver, Nace remained reassuring when they hadn’t seen the horse by nightfall. By late the second afternoon, though, unspoken worry kept pace with them all. The Kincaller frequently cast puzzled expressions over his shoulder, and Sienna muttered under her breath.
“I’m starved,” Sienna announced finally. “It’s bad enough that I’ll probably never see my tools again, thanks to Nace. But what are we supposed to eat?”
“Let’s pause here, and I’ll find something,” Scarl said. At Ariel’s expression, he added, “We’ll move faster with food in our bellies. You can’t starve them and drive them, Ariel.”
Her own hunger gnawed, too, but did not argue as loudly as her restless feet. She felt fine as long as they kept moving, but she could hardly bear the anxiety that burbled into her during even brief stops.
Nace caught their attention. Nobody understood his gestures this time. He rolled his eyes and ran off.
“Wait!” Ariel cried.
“Let him go,” said Sienna. “I mean, I’m glad he’s not dead, but he’s not my favorite person right now. Or ever.”
Ariel bristled. “What is your problem with him, Sienna?”
“I know him better than you do, that’s all.”
“What, did you ask him to marry you, and he laughed?”
A bark of outrage left Sienna. “Never! Not if—”
“Stop it,” Scarl said. “Let’s not get at each other’s throats. We’ll all feel better with some food. Give me a chance.”
Sienna slumped on a log, and Ariel soon regretted her cranky outburst. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I can’t blame you for being worried about your tools.”
After a struggle for words, Sienna said, “I’m sorry, too. But, Ariel, he spies on people. Follows. This is not the first time.”
“I don’t think he means anything. He just—”
“No. It’s more than shyness or not being able to talk. It’s disturbing. I know you like him, though. I’ll try to keep my mouth shut.”
Scarl directed them toward a berry patch he suspected lay not far ahead.
“What about Nace?” Ariel said.
“He tracked us for days, remember?” Scarl replied. “He’ll catch up.”
“Just like Willow,” grumbled Sienna.
She ate her words not two hours later when Nace ran up behind them. His arm sling bulged with walnuts and gooey clumps of honeycomb.
“Ooh, I take back half of the mean things I’ve ever said about you, Nace.” Sienna gave Ariel a pointed glance. “Not all of them, but half.”
While they cracked the nuts, Ariel played Too Many Questions with Nace to learn how he’d gathered the food. The eventual answer impressed her: he’d goaded a squirrel so intensely that she’d flung most of her larder at him. By nightfall, Scarl was wishing aloud that Willow had listened to Nace as well as the squirrel had.
CHAPTER 27
Dog Moon and Lightning
The threatening clouds rolling overhead bore more than rain.
“You know the August moon as Dog Moon,” Scarl told Ariel as he watched them that evening. “To me, it’s called Lightning Moon. I’m sorry to see that my name is right.”
Ariel admired the flashes and nudged Sienna. “The lectrick is coming.”
“I wish,” said the Flame-Mage. “We’d better find somewhere to hide.”
The discovery of cozy bedding spots did not seem to be among Ariel’s Farwalker instincts, however, and the scrubby slopes where they now traveled offered little shelter. Too soon, raindrops pummeled them. They huddled like wet sheep in the twilight while Scarl worked to find somewhere decent to sleep.
