by Sarah Jaune
After the meal was cooked over the open fire, and they had the second deer cut, Pablo said, “There are men out there.”
Eli grimaced as he took a bite. “I think we can expect that.”
“We’ll need to be extremely careful not to run into them tomorrow,” Pablo told Pak, who bobbed his head in understanding.
“We’ll need to confront them, eventually,” Oliver pointed out shortly. “What does it matter if it’s tomorrow or another day?”
“Tomorrow they might be able to get back up,” Eli retorted. “If we get done what needs to get done, then we have a chance of succeeding.”
Oliver shrugged and took another bite. “How many more rivers are there?”
“Two more,” Pablo told him while Pak thumbed his palm twice.
“So potentially at least two more days of being out here,” Oliver said slowly. “Mom is going to be a basket case. We’ve already been gone like a week.”
Eli didn’t think it had been that long, but it was probably pushing a week at this point. The moment the second deer was done, he pulled off some meat for Ivy, who woke with a start and barely had the energy to open her eyes enough to sit up and eat.
“Get some more rest,” Pablo told her gently as soon as she’d eaten. She took one of the skins back away from the rest of the group and made a pallet to sleep on.
Eli didn’t stay awake much after that. He was exhausted as well, but hunger had trumped exhaustion in the end. Now that he was full and warm, all he wanted was to close his eyes and sleep for twelve hours.
He managed six, or at least he thought it was six. There was a fire still burning, but the light wasn’t bright enough for him to make out what his watch said. Then he noticed his watch wasn’t on his wrist, and Eli realized he hadn’t seen his watch in at least a few days. Sighing, and slightly annoyed at having lost the watch, he sat up and stared around him. He didn’t know what had woken him, but something felt off to him. Eli squinted into the darkness that lay heavy outside the cave and saw something moving. His heart leapt into his throat as his stories of the wendigo flashed through his mind, but then he saw the white fur and felt every muscle relax.
Eli glanced around, but no one else was awake, not even the Bigfoot who was supposed to be on guard duty. He rose quickly, and silently made his way to the entrance of the cave. He needn’t have bothered. No one moved, and somehow Eli knew that he could have screamed and nothing would have happened.
That should have been alarming, but it felt familiar.
Eli waited for the massive white wolf to materialize before him. It seemed bigger this time, though. It definitely appeared better fed. “Why did you leave us?” he asked it.
It cocked its head to the side and let out a small woof that almost sounded like amusement. The big ones do not like seeing me.
“Why is that?”
They think I bring death.
“Do you?”
The wolf shook its head sadly. I am a creature like you, like they. I am one of a kind here.
Eli had no idea what that meant, at all. “How come they aren’t awake right now?”
Magic.
He nearly rolled his eyes in frustration. It was such a stupid answer. Of course it was magic. “Why me?” he demanded. “Why do you want to talk to me?”
It didn’t reply, which didn’t shock Eli. Instead it sat and sniffed the air.
“What’s up?” Eli asked him. “Why are you here tonight?”
You must not go to the next river tomorrow.
“Why not?”
They will know. Go to the third.
Eli didn’t know what to say to that. “By ‘they’ you mean Ivy’s father, right? Or the men who work for him?”
The third.
It was probably an extra day’s work to skip the second and go to the third. “I can’t exactly tell the Bigfoot that the white wolf, whom they fear, told me to skip the next river that’s in our path. They aren’t going to like that.” Frustration, which Eli was sure a normal wolf would never have as an expression, flickered over the great, white face as his eyes glowed even brighter.
Your female will help you.
Eli stared in confusion. “What?”
The wolf nodded its head to the back of the cave.
“Ivy?” he questioned.
Yes.
“Right,” Eli muttered as he ran his hands through his midnight hair. He blinked, it couldn’t have been more than a moment, but the wolf was gone.
Annoyed, and more than a little exhausted, Eli padded back into the cave just as a light mist began to fall. He walked silently over to Ivy and sat down next to her. The bruises under her eyes stood out against her pale skin. Except for some sunburn on her cheeks and forehead, she was almost translucent. The day’s magic, while impressive, hadn’t been all that much. If they hadn’t been on the run for two weeks, and she hadn’t been poisoned, Eli knew she’d have been fine. He didn’t want to wake her. He knew she needed to sleep, but he couldn’t risk talking about it the next day when there would be others listening.
Also, Eli had to hope that whatever had put everyone to sleep, would last for a bit longer. He touched her shoulder gently and was ready to clap a hand over her mouth if she was going to scream, but Ivy’s eyes fluttered open and when she saw him, she smiled. He put a finger to his lips so she wouldn’t speak. Ivy simply waited.
“I saw the wolf,” he whispered. “He wants us to go to the third river tomorrow. We’re to skip the second. I need you to come up with some reason why.”
Ivy closed her eyes briefly, then nodded slowly. “Okay,” she breathed out the word, so lightly that if he couldn’t read her lips, he might not have heard it.
He glanced down and found that he’d taken her hand. Odd. He hadn’t meant to. “Are you all right?” Eli asked her softly.
She took a moment to consider him, before nodding. “Just tired. We need sleep.”
The Sasquatch who was guarding the cave snorted loudly. Eli watched him for a moment and saw the telltale signs of someone about to wake up.
Eli squeezed Ivy’s hand gently, and moved swiftly over to his own sleeping mat. He was asleep in minutes, and this time it lasted all the way through the night.
Ivy’s excuse the next day was easy to come by. The moment they reached the next river, Eli knew exactly why the wolf wanted it put off. To put it simply, it was massive. He’d had no idea that a river this large flowed through their zone.
“Where does all this water go?” Eli asked Ivy in amazement.
She studied it, then closed her eyes and stood there silently. They all waited for her, man and Sasquatch alike, transfixed as she worked her magic. “It used to go down to the city. It was the main water supply. It would have fed into the ocean whatever the people living there didn’t use up. I think there’s a water processing plant at the base of it.”
“How do you know?” Oliver demanded as his blue eyes flashed with curiosity.
“I have been in Portland a few times,” Ivy reminded him. “We would go in by bus, and I remember now about the water plant. It always felt weird to me. Like being churned in a bucket.”
“This is a lot of water to divert,” Pablo said slowly. “I don’t even see where they dammed it up.”
Ivy pointed downstream. “It’s a mile that way, but we can’t do this one now. We need to move on to the other river first, then double back. If we reroute this river first, they’ll come immediately and figure out what we’ve done. This is a huge feed of water.”
“What I want to know is how Portland is getting its water without this,” Eli said as he pointed to the giant river.
“I’m more curious about how we’re going to get across,” Oliver told them. “There are no trees big enough.”
Ivy took a step down the bank and slid on the muddy leaves until she was at the water’s edge. She held out her hand and the water parted away from her, forming a dry wedge that went out four feet. “It isn’t deep. I think at the deepest it’s may
be five feet. I think I can divert the river around us to walk, but the Bigfoot should be able to wade through.” She glanced to Pak, who nodded. “It’s slow moving.”
“You’re going to be too exhausted to help with the next river,” Eli said with the shake of his head. “We need you for this.”
“The next river is at least a day’s walk,” Ivy informed him. “I’ll be okay by then.”
He didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much he could do to stop her. She’d made up her mind, and she’d done as Eli had asked. They were following the wolf’s instructions.
The Sasquatch had some trouble getting through the river. They had the advantage of height, and mass, to plow through, but more than once Eli watched them slip and slide on the mucky river bottom. Pak, who had gone first, waited at the edge, barking encouragement to his fellows.
When the last Bigfoot made the bank, Ivy let out a sigh of relief. It was only then that Eli noticed the river’s speed pick up.
“You slowed the river?” Eli asked as he rounded on her, furious. “Ivy!”
She ignored him and stepped up to the bank.
“She can’t do this,” Eli said to Pablo. “She’s going to pass out. She shouldn’t have tried to hold back all of that water for them!”
Pablo opened his mouth to stop Ivy, but she’d already stepped in, creating a triangle of air where there had once been water. The water rushed around her, like she was walking in a bubble. “Move it,” Ivy ordered and without any other choice, Eli, Oliver, and Pablo fell in behind her.
Eli understood immediately why the Bigfoot had slid so much. The bottom of this river was coated in slime that was thicker than any oil Eli had ever seen. Twice he lost his balance and nearly toppled into the water. Eli was only saved by his dad’s quick reflexes. He ended up having to hold Ivy steady with his telekinesis, so that when her feet started to go, his magic kept her upright. They worked silently as a team, step by step. Pablo watching Eli, and Eli watching Ivy. Eli had no idea what Oliver was doing, but as his brother kept up a repeated litany of swear words, Eli had to assume he was still behind him.
Ivy’s shoulders began to shake ten feet from the opposite bank. At five feet her whole body was shaking, and the water around them was starting to close in. Four feet, then three, then two, and he saw that she was going down.
He made a split second decision as he threw out his hands and launched the others up onto the bank with all the force he could.
CHAPTER 22
INFERRED CONCLUSIONS
The water would have swept him down instantly if Pak hadn’t been paying attention. The alpha reached out and snatched Eli from the water, wrenching him up onto the bank. Eli dropped down to the grass and wheezed as the breath was knocked from him.
The world spun for a moment as words filtered in. “Unconscious.”
He wasn’t unconscious. Eli was a lot of things, but that wasn’t one of them. He coughed and gagged as he rolled sideways to see Pablo leaning over the prone figure of Ivy.
She wasn’t moving.
Fear clenched his gut hard, twisting him up in a vice as he tried to crawl over to her. Pablo glanced over his shoulder and waved Eli off. “She’s okay, Eli. She’s just knocked out. Stay put.”
He didn’t want to stay put. He wanted to be next to her and see her breathing. Eli forced himself to lay back and breathe in what breaths he could. She was fine. Eli had to keep telling himself that. He’d seen her pass out before. He’d passed out before, when he’d killed the wolves. It happened.
Finally, his lungs cleared, and he gasped in a giant gulp of oxygen as the blood stopped thundering in his ears and the sound of the bugs turned back on.
Unfortunately, it was only then that Eli realized he was soaked. Great. At least it was a warm day and he’d dry fast.
Eli moved again, but this time he was able to stand up and walk over to Ivy. She was still out, still pale, but at least he knew she was okay.
“It was a good trick throwing us up on the bank,” Oliver told him with a grin. “You’d have been toast without Pak, though.”
“Yeah,” Eli agreed as he turned to Pak. “Thank you.”
The Sasquatch grunted and pointed to Ivy, clearly unimpressed with Eli’s gratitude.
“We’ll carry her,” Pablo said after a moment.
Pak then looked at Eli and waited.
Eli stared back, unsure of what was going on. Eli glanced to Pablo who looked simply dumbfounded. “I mean… I can carry her, that’s fine.”
“No…” Pablo’s voice trailed off as shock continued to play over his features. “That’s not what he’s…”
“Dad?” Eli asked him hesitantly as a bird flew overhead.
Pablo cleared his throat and addressed Pak. “It isn’t what you think it is.”
Pak snorted, and let out a grumble.
“That’s not the way it works with us,” Pablo tried to argue, but the Sasquatch cut him off with a series of growls and grunts.
Unbelievably, Pablo seemed to get it. “Okay, I understand.”
“Well, I’m glad you do,” Oliver muttered, clearly annoyed. “What is going on?”
“Nothing,” Pablo told him. “Eli, do you want to carry her or would you like one of the Sasquatch to do it?”
They all stared at him, waiting. Eli glanced around nervously. It felt monumental, like he was about to pronounce someone the ruler of the whole world. “Uh, I’ll carry her for a while. I might need help later on.”
That seemed to decide it. Eli scooped and picked up Ivy’s limp form, and they began to walk. She wasn’t heavy to him, but it seemed like he’d agreed to something much bigger than he could understand. Whatever it had been, it bothered him.
Eli had to work to keep Ivy’s head on his shoulder. She was seriously worn out.
“What was that about?” Oliver demanded from Pablo as they walked through the trees.
“Nothing,” Pablo told him sharply. “Drop it, Oliver.”
Oliver stewed, right along with Eli, who wanted to know what was going on, too. “They can’t hear us,” Eli told him.
“They absolutely can,” Pablo retorted. “They’re not even fifteen feet ahead, and they have much better hearing than we do. Let it go, Eli.”
He wanted to be petulant, but could see by the stubborn set of his dad’s jaw that he wasn’t going to get anywhere.
Around lunchtime, Ivy woke up again. Eli felt her move a bit, but didn’t bother to stop. He kept hiking.
“What…”
“You and the river,” he reminded her as he tried not to let his fear turn to anger. “You did too much.”
“I can walk,” she tried to protest, but her head dropped onto his shoulder.
“We’ve been here before,” Eli replied as he thought about their trip to San Antonio. He grinned, despite himself. “Next time maybe don’t move the whole river, okay?”
“Mmm,” she mumbled and fell back to sleep.
He couldn’t fault her. Eli overdid it often as well, and this had been a critical situation.
They managed to get some food in her when they stopped for a break. Eli ate as though he hadn’t eaten in years. He was starving, and ate more than Pak did. Eli wanted to give the Bigfoot a larger ration, but when he offered, the alpha waved him off with a grunt.
When they set out again, Eli continued to carry Ivy. She didn’t protest that she could walk, which Eli took to mean she felt worse than she was letting on. Within five minutes, Ivy was asleep again.
The whole situation gnawed at Eli. The curiosity kept his mind spinning as he chewed through the possibilities of what it all could have meant.
They stopped in another cave late in the afternoon. It wasn’t dark out, but from their cave, Eli could hear the roar of a river not too far away. They would be able to get started first thing in the morning.
Eli placed Ivy towards the back of the cave and balled up his sweatshirt as a pillow. She barely stirred as he pressed a hand to her forehead. She felt cool
to the touch, but when she didn’t react, fear started to eat at him.
“We’re going hunting,” Pablo said from behind him. “She’ll be fine.”
“Is anyone else coming?” Eli asked as they headed out from the cave where Sasquatch were preparing wood for a fire. It was interesting to Eli that this pod knew how to create fire, whereas the pod in Yellowstone hadn’t. But the pod in Yellowstone had access to fire sources from the volcano. That wasn’t the case up here in the Portland Zone. The pods would have to learn to create fire in order to survive.
