Tara blinked at her. “I thought you would want it tame.”
Reina turned away from the cliff. “I’m tame because I live in a tame little world where everything is provided for me. I don’t have to struggle for anything. I wish I did. I hate being so tame all the time.”
Tara brightened up. “Well, if that’s the way you feel.....”
Reina fixed her with glittering eyes. “Could you teach me how to jump from that cliff? Could you show me how to land in the water the way they did?”
Tara hesitated. “I don’t know if your father would want me to do that.”
“He would never have to know,” Reina told her. “Show me how to do it.”
Tara looked around. Taig and the others were nowhere in sight. “Well, all you do is go back there by that tree and run. That’s all there is to it.”
Reina studied the terrain. “How do you know where to land? How do you know if you’ll hit the water?”
“You just run,” Tara told her. “If you run from there and jump off where Aria and Aeifa jumped, you’ll hit the water. You can’t miss it. The pool is enormous, and you’ll fall straight down into it. You just have to make sure you run as hard and fast as you can so you get far enough out from the cliff.”
A shadow crossed Reina’s face. “Hmm.”
“Would you like me to show you?” Tara asked. “We could run together, and I’ll hold your hand. Just don’t lose your nerve and quit at the last minute or we could crash on the rocks.”
Reina drew back. “Well, maybe next time.”
Tara smiled. The weight of responsibility lifted off her shoulders. “Everybody has a first time. Think about it. Maybe we can do it tomorrow or the next day. You’ll be here a week. We can come back another time.”
Reina smiled in relief, too. “Okay.”
The two girls started through the trees after the boys. After a moment, Reina murmured. “Thanks.”
Chapter 2
They followed the path along the cliff edge, into the trees where it dropped downhill. The sound of rushing water grew stronger until they found the river rushing over stones at the bottom of the canyon, through large pools and over waterfalls.
Reina gasped at the scenery. “The river’s so big! It sounded so small from up there.”
Tara pointed. “Look how high we were. We’re a long way down.”
Reina arched her neck to look at the cliff towering overhead. “And you jump from there? You’re crazy.”
Tara shrugged. “We’re used to it. That’s all. We’re used to running a lot, too.”
“You’re born to it,” Reina countered. “Our people don’t run everywhere, and we don’t jump from cliffs like that to go swimming. We live on flat land.”
“Every faction is different, I guess,” Tara remarked.
Reina gazed at the river. “It’s so wild and free and beautiful. I never imagined anything like it before.”
“What’s your territory like?” Tara asked. “I’ve never been outside ours.”
“I guess that’s the whole point of the peace agreement,” Reina told her. “Soon we’ll all be able to travel and see all the parts of our world.”
“That would be nice,” Tara agreed. “I’d like to visit the other factions and see how they live.”
Reina made a face. “You wouldn’t like our territory. It’s flat and boring compared to yours.”
Tara cocked her head. “How can you think your own territory is boring? It’s your home.”
“My mother says I’m a throwback,” Reina replied.
“A throwback?” Tara repeated. “What’s a throwback?”
“She says I must have inherited a longing for something different from her side of the family,” Reina explained. “She says I inherited a connection with Earth from her.”
Tara frowned. “I guess that makes sense.”
“She says I’m not like any Felsite,” Reina went on, “and I’m not like an Earthling, either. I’m somewhere in between.”
“That must be hard,” Tara exclaimed. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Why should you be sorry?” Reina asked. “You didn’t do it. Besides, my mother says once I grow up a little, I’ll be able to find the place that suits me. She says if I don’t want to stay in Felsite territory, I don’t have to. She says everyone goes through a process of growing up where they have to find the place and the work and the people that make them feel at home. She says everybody goes through it.”
Tara stared at her. “Really?”
Reina burst out laughing. “She drives my father crazy when she talks like that. He gets mad and says she putting ideas into my head. He says I would be content to stay with my family if she wouldn’t fill my head with nonsense.”
“I guess I can see both sides of it,” Tara replied.
“What about you?” Reina asked.
“What about me?” Tara asked.
“Do you dream of a world outside your own territory?” Reina asked.
“Not really,” Tara replied, “except sometimes I dream that I never had to go back to the village. I dream me and Taig and Ari and Aeifa just keep on running forever, that we keep living in the forest, hunting and sleeping in piles of leaves, and we never have to go back and behave ourselves around our families.”
Reina nodded. “I can understand why. If I lived here, the way you do, I wouldn’t want to go back, either.”
Tara turned away. “Well, we have to go back sometime. That’s the way it works. Besides, you’re not ready to stay out here. You would have to learn everything we’ve learned all our lives about how to survive.”
Reina fell in at her side. “All right.”
Tara shot her a smile. “Now that you mention it, my mother sometimes tells me she never wanted to live in the village, either. She told me, when she first came to live with the Lycaon, she and my father spent their first year together running through the woods. They only came back when she got pregnant, and they went back up to live on the mountain as soon as Taig and I got independent enough to move around.”
Reina sighed. “That sounds wonderful. I don’t blame her.”
Tara laughed. “The rest of the family had a fit.”
Reina giggled. “I’ll bet they did.”
Tara became serious again. “All except Caleb and Marissa. They understood, and I think secretly Marissa was jealous.”
“So why did your parents come back to the village in the end?” Reina asked.
“Politics,” Tara replied. “Caleb needed my father too much, and my mother and Marissa got involved with communicating with the other human women in the other factions. It just didn’t work anymore for them to live on the mountain.”
“All this business with the peace process takes up so much time and energy,” Reina remarked. “It almost seems like a waste of time.”
“But when you hear the stories about the way it used to be,” Tara pointed out, “with the wars and the misunderstandings between the factions, you understand why we need it. You and I wouldn’t be talking right now if our parents hadn’t worked for a peace agreement.”
“I know all that,” Reina replied. “I just don’t think I could sacrifice my life for something like that.”
Tara stopped walking. “Maybe you just haven’t found something you care about enough to dedicate yourself to.”
Reina studied her. “Have you?”
Tara turned away. “No.”
A screech interrupted them. Reina spun around, and Taman jumped off a high rock above them to splash down into a big pool. Ari and Allen waited their turns, and the sun sparkled on their wet skin. Aeifa paddled through the water, and one breast flashed above the water when she lifted her arm. She called out, “Come on, Tara. What are you waiting for?”
Tara started forward, but Reina held her back. “Are you sure....?”
“What’s the matter?” Tara asked. “You wanted to stop being tame. Now’s your chance.
Come on. It’s perfectly safe.”
“It’s not that,” Reina murmured. “It’s those boys. My father says....”
Tara waited. “Your father says what?”
Reina blushed. “He said I should be careful around so many boys.”
Tara frowned. “Don’t you have boys in your city?”
“Of course,” Reina snapped. “But they would never....” She waved her hand toward the pool, where Allen took his turn crashing into the pool in a shower of sparkling droplets.
Tara snorted. “Boy, you really have been sheltered, haven’t you?”
“I’m the Alpha’s only daughter,” Reina explained. “No boy would dare to look sideways at me. But here, with these boys....My father wouldn’t want me to.....”
“I see,” Tara replied. “You mean your father wouldn’t want you to show your body around them. These boys might not treat you so gently. Is that it?”
Reina dug her toe into the gravel at her feet.
Tara started untying her waistband. “If you don’t want to swim, you don’t have to. Just sit here if you want to.”
Reina clutched at her hand. “You aren’t going in there, are you?”
“Why not?” Tara asked. “We came here to swim, and I’m swimming.”
Reina opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Tara tugged her arm free from Reina’s grasp. In a twinkling, she shucked off her clothes and dived into the pool. Allen jumped from the rock, and when his head broke the surface, Tara splashed water in his face. Everyone shrieked with laughter.
Reina sat on a rock next to the pool. She smiled, but she kept quiet and watched from a safe distance. Tara and Aeifa and the boys played and wrestled and ducked each other under the water. Their hoots and screams rang off the canyon walls long after the sun passed behind the western cliff.
Tara stole a glance at Allen’s flushed face. Blue tinged his lips, and Taman’s lips quivered when he spoke. Both boys shivered with cold. Tara pulled herself up on the rocks. “Come on. It’s time we went back to the village.”
“Just a little longer,” Allen stammered.
“Not yet,” Ari called from the top of the rock. “Just one more jump.”
He jumped and curled into a ball in mid-air before falling with a thunderous splash. Tara brushed the water off her arms and legs. “One more splash each, and then we’re going.”
“Let’s spend the night out here,” Taig suggested. “We’ll hunt up a skidhopper and cook it. We can sleep over there in the ferns.”
“Do we really have to go?” Taman asked.
“What’s the big deal, Tara?” Aeifa asked. “We just got here.”
“Look at these two.”Tara pointed to the Ursidreans. “They’re freezing already. They won’t last out here, and I don’t want two frozen kids on my hands. Do you?”
“Hey!” Allen called. “Who are you calling kids? We’re older than you are.”
“You are not!” Tara yelled back.
Aeifa got out of the water. The water ran down her naked body. “Tara’s right. These kids won’t last the night out here. Come on, kids. We’ll take you home to your mama.”
Taman smacked the water and sent a jet of spray pounding against Aeifa’s back. “Hey!”
Tara slipped into her clothes. Reina stood up and smiled at her for the first time since she took them off. Aeifa got dressed, and Reina relaxed still more. She wasn’t used to this kind of fun.
The smile evaporated off Allen’s face. Shivers racked his body. He tried to warm his arms by rubbing them with his hands, but he only succeeded in spreading the ice-cold water over his skin. “I’m freezing.”
Tara extended her hand to him. “Get out of the water. Hurry.” She pulled him onto the rocks. “Get out of the water, Taman. Now. You’re freezing.”
In an instant, the fun was over. The two Ursidrean boys stood in front of Tara, dripping dry. They couldn’t move or speak through their shivering. Tara used her own shirt to rub them dry. Then she helped them get dressed.
Taig and Ari still jumped and splashed in the water. They hooted and laughed, but no one paid any attention to them. Aeifa rolled her eyes, but Taman and Allen didn’t even turn around. They submitted to Tara’s hands dressing them like children, and they followed her when she moved off down the path. “Come on.”
Ari called one last time, “Aw, come on, Tara.”
Tara and Aeifa led their guests into the trees, where the foliage closed out the last light of the day. “We better hurry. It’s getting cold fast.”
The others didn’t argue. Tara led the way up the path. Her feet found their way in the dark, and Aeifa brought up the rear to make sure no one got lost. By the time they climbed to the top of the cliff, Taig and Ari joined them. Their hair dripped and they smiled with the flush of pleasure, but said nothing to disturb the silence.
Tara paused at the top of the cliff and scanned the horizon. The sun sank in the west, not behind the horizon, but behind a bank of cloud. It blocked the colors of sunset and obliterated the stars.
“Where should we go?” Aeifa asked.
“Let’s head down the other side of the ravine,” Tara murmured.
Reina glanced back over her shoulder. “The village is that way.”
“There isn’t time,” Tara told her. “Take a look at the clouds. We’ll get caught in the storm.”
“So we’ll get a little wet,” Allen broke in. “We’ll dry off when we get back.”
Tara shook her head. “We wouldn’t make it in time, and there’s nowhere to shelter between here and the village. Come on. We’ll show you a place where we can spend the night.”
The Ursidreans didn’t move. “Do we have to? What if we run for it?”
“Not even Ari and Aeifa and Taig and I could run that fast. You three definitely couldn’t, and you’re already chilled. We have to find a place to spend the night, and down the ravine is the only place. Now stop stalling. If we wait much longer, we’ll be soaked when we get there.”
The boys looked at Ari and Taig. Taig shrugged. “Tara’s right. That storm is moving in fast, and the village is a long way off at a walking pace. Come on.”
He set off ahead of the group. Ari and Aeifa fell in behind him. The newcomers tarried a little longer. Tara took Reina by the hand. “It’s going to be all right. We know a cave in the hillside where we can stay dry tonight, and we’ll take you home to your parents in the morning. Trust me.”
“What about your parents?” Reina asked.
Tara chuckled. “They’re used to us staying out, and when the storm hits, they’ll explain everything to your parents. Come on.”
Reina hesitated, and her hesitation made the Ursidreans hesitate. They kept looking back toward the path leading to the village.
Tara took a step closer to Reina and murmured in her ear, but she spoke to all three of them. “I won’t let anything happen to you. You can trust me. Follow me.”
At last, they broke out of their trance and followed her. At first she walked slowly. They didn’t want to move away from the village. After a while, though, the clouds covered the sky. She walked faster. She kept hold of Reina’s hand and tugged her along. The path sloped downward into dense forest where no light penetrated. The strangers tried to hang back, but Tara urged them onward. “Just a little farther.”
A clap of thunder rumbled across the sky. Taman and Allen jumped, and Reina clutched Tara’s hand. “It’s okay. It’s only thunder, but we have to hurry.”
She hauled on Reina’s hand and broke into a run. The boys crashed through the undergrowth. They broke branches and tripped over fallen logs, but Tara continued murmuring, “Come on!” They followed the sound of her voice.
The first spattering of rain bounced on fallen leaves, and a misty smell rose from the soil underfoot. Tara ran faster. The others barely kept up, but she couldn’t slow down now. She barreled down the path, through a stream bed, and up the other side to a massive tree trunk blo
cking the path. She jumped over it and dragged Reina with her.
She let go of Reina’s hand to pull Taman over. Allen scrambled down after them, and Tara pushed all of them into a hole in the ground behind the tree. Aeifa, Ari and Taig waited for them in the cave. No sooner were they all inside than the storm broke with deafening fury. Lightning streaked down to the ground, and the noise of thunder and rain made conversation impossible.
Taig and Aeifa squatted near the back of the cave. Reina and the Ursidreans stood at the opening and stared out at the tempest. Ari laughed, but his voice fell hollow on their ears. “Haven’t you ever seen rain before?”
“I’ve seen rain,” Reina replied, “but never like this.”
Tara touched her shoulder. “Come inside and get warm.”
The newcomers turned around and saw for the first time the fire Taig and Aeifa kindled deeper inside the cave. The light dazzled Reina’s eyes. “Where did you get the wood for that?”
“We keep it here in case of emergencies,” Tara told her. “There’s food, too, if you’re hungry, but the most important thing is to keep warm and dry. You’re all frozen to the bone.”
Chapter 3
The cave filled with warmth and the group filled their bellies with food stored in the cave. Everyone started to relax. “How long do we have to stay here?”
“The storm will be over by morning,” Ari replied. “Then we can go back to the village.”
“Have you stayed in this cave before?” Reina asked.
“All the time,” Aeifa replied. “That’s why we keep it stocked with everything we need in case we get stuck out overnight.”
“We even stay here when we don’t get stuck,” Taig added. “Sometimes we stay here just for fun.”
“So we don’t have to go home,” Tara chimed in.
“Who wants to go home?” Ari asked.
Everyone laughed. Tara turned to Allen. “Tell us about your home. What’s it like? Is it true you live in caves all the time?”
He looked around. “Our caves aren’t like this one. They’re enormous. The cave at Harbeiz is as big as that cliff you jumped off at the swimming hole.”
The New Angondra Complete Series Page 2
