by Barb Hendee
My mind slipped to the exact words Marika had spoken.
You must listen to me, and you must do what I say. Soon, the people of Tetovo Village will beg for your help, and whatever you do, you cannot refuse. No matter what it costs, you must help or they will be lost. Do you understand?
Without even realizing I’d made a conscious decision, I believed her. I believed she had seen into the future.
I assumed her saying the village would be lost meant that without their young men to help with the heavy work and the harvest, the village would soon lose its livelihood and the people would begin to suffer, and then finally to starve.
At the same time, I had no wish for Cooper to cross some “veil” into the “other world” and face something called the “horned one.”
Still, Marika said that she could not give me more details because she feared changing the future, so she’d seen that somehow, we had saved the village. She’d given no indication of whether or not we had survived, but if I believed her… and I did, we could not refuse these people.
“Several other barges have come through,” Alma said, “and we’ve asked for help. But as soon as the barge masters heard we had few grapes harvested, they left, as if we were already forgotten.” She stepped closer to Cooper. “You’re different. You always have been. We knew you’d help us when you came.”
Cooper’s expression of discomfort only grew more pronounced. “Let me speak to Werner alone.”
The expectant villagers seemed confused by this request, but Cooper didn’t wait. Reaching out, he nudged Werner off to one side.
Werner hopped with his left leg and dragged his right. The leg seemed intact, but he couldn’t put much weight on it.
Without asking permission to join them, I followed, and the three of us were soon a short distance away, near the side of a dwelling.
Almost instantly, Cooper’s expression of discomfort vanished. His eyes went hard and flinty. “Where are they, Werner?” he demanded quietly. “And what really happened to you?”
Werner’s eyes went wide with what appeared to be shock. “I wasn’t lying! We went to the veil. I can show it to you. We went through, all eight of us, and we began to search the forest there. The horned one found us and he took us to his encampment… among the little people, the gnomi. He said that we would stay with him and be his sons. Bronson refused, but there were so many of them, and they had weapons, bows with arrows. They wouldn’t let us go. A few nights later, I saw a chance and I ran… I told you what happened.”
Cooper breathed softly through his teeth, and his hard eyes turned regretful. “I can’t help if you won’t tell me the truth.”
“Cooper…” I began. “What if he is telling the truth? We cannot just leave these people without their young men. I only see three young women among the group, and the older people can’t bring in the harvest with so little help.”
Cooper looked down at me. “You can’t possibly believe this?”
His tone suggested that I’d better answer in the negative, so I didn’t answer at all. Instead, my mind raced for a way to make him stay and help.
“Please,” Werner begged. “I’ll take you through myself. This is all my fault. I urged Bronson and the others to go through. I wanted to find gold, wealth, anything that would change our lives.”
My husband shook his head slowly and turned away. He walked back to Alma and the others.
“I am sorry. Werner won’t tell me anything of use. I suggest you get the truth out of him, but I can’t help.”
The villagers, even the children, stared at him with bleak eyes.
“Do you have any grapes to sell?” he asked.
Alma shook her head. “We’ve already sold what little we were able to harvest. We’ll have more in a few days.”
“I can’t stay.” He motioned to me. “Elena.”
With that he started back toward the river.
I cast a helpless look at Alma. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said quietly, and then I nearly ran after him.
·····
By the time we reached the barge, I could tell he was angry. I knew he’d expected to load up on grapes here—to sell at our next stop—but more than that, it went against his nature to abandon people in need. How could I get him to change his mind?
“Wait!” I called as he strode ahead of me to the barge.
“Don’t start,” he said, and then he called to Harlan. “Untie the ropes. We’re casting off.”
“What?” Harlan asked in confusion. “Where are the grapes?”
I caught Cooper’s arm and tried to hold him. “We must help these people. They know you well enough to know you’re a good man. We can’t leave them like this.”
He glanced at my hand on his arm and then down to my face. “I can’t help if Werner won’t tell me the truth. Bronson and the others are most likely long gone. Did you hear a few grains of truth in Werner’s story? That they wanted… more? Something happened, and they set off on their own. Werner was injured and had to come back, and he made up a wild tale.”
While his assessment certainly sounded rational, I had seen many impossible things in my life, and I had learned there was more in this world than what most people viewed as rational.
“Can’t we at least go to this veil and look?” I asked. “Let him take us and show us where he claims they went?”
Cooper and I stood on the dock beside the barge. Slowly, he pulled his arm from my grip, reached down, and gripped my waist. An instant later, he lifted my feet off the ground and set me on the barge. Then he stepped after.
“Push us off,” he called to Gregor.
I had lost this battle
But I’d not lost the war.
·····
We passed much of the day in silence, drifting down the river.
At one point, Harlan did ask, “If we’ve no grapes to sell, is there any point pressing on to Golognè?”
It seemed Cooper had already considered this, as he answered readily, “Some of the wine merchants will be expecting us. We should at least explain what’s happened.”
While that made sense to me, I hardly listened.
My mind was on other things.
First, a childhood memory surfaced to the front of my thoughts. Although I knew nothing of any mythical being called “the horned one,” I had heard stories of the little people, sometimes called the gnomi. Before my father had become captain of the guards for the Pudúrlatsat manor, he had served in the regular military for house of Äntes and had traveled all over the country.
When I was a girl, he’d told me a story of his own youth, in which he and several soldiers had been patrolling a thick forest in the north. Upon making camp at night, they were set upon by small men—only the height of my father’s thigh—with long hair and long noses and strange wizened or deformed features.
“They were the gnomi,” he said.
“What did they want?” I had asked him.
“Apparently, they wanted our food,” he answered. “We were outnumbered and that is what they took from us.”
He said these gnomi had seemed frightened, as if they wanted nothing to do with human men but had little choice in the moment. He also told me that some of the older soldiers knew more about them and called them a “superstitious lot.”
My thoughts kept returning to that phrase.
More, I mulled over and over the exact words that Marika had spoken.
No matter what it costs, you must help or they will be lost.
She never once mentioned Cooper or Harlan or Gregor. Only me.
The day wore on and by the time we reached Golognè in the late afternoon, I had constructed a plan.
Cooper appeared somewhat relieved that I’d not continued to press him about helping the villagers we’d left behind… who we seemed to have forgotten. Had I thought any continued efforts on my part would have swayed him, I’d have kept on with my campaign.
But I knew better. Once he’d made up his mind
, there was nothing to be done.
Instead, I worked on making camp while he walked into the town to speak with several merchants. As he would not need me to keep the accounts for transactions, there was no point in me going with him.
Harlan and I built a fire on shore while Gregor set up our tents. When no one was paying attention to me, and I was gathering things from the barge to make supper, I crouched behind some crates and packed a small bag. Then I used my piece of charcoal to write a short note, which I folded and put into the pocket of my cloak.
Then I continued on with my normal evening work.
We’d eaten the last of the bread, but I had stored all the leftover lentil stew, and I simply re-heated it. Then I sliced some cheese and apples.
When Cooper came back, he glanced at me a few times, almost as if he expected an ambush. I only asked him how his talks went with the wine merchants.
“They were disappointed,” he said. “And I think a little worried. Tetovo supplies a good deal of this town’s grapes.”
He said this matter-of-factly, but his words made me more aware that the tragedy in Tetovo could have further reaching ramifications. This only steeled my decision to follow through with my plan.
It was dark by the time we finished supper. The men were tired, so we cleaned up, put the fire out, and went to bed a little early.
Inside our tent, Cooper held me up against himself. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll hook up a set of mules and start back up the river.”
Traveling upriver would be more difficult than drifting down. A team of mules would have to pull us. Harlan and Gregor would spell each other to lead the team on one side of the river, while Cooper and whoever was left on the barge would work the poles, keeping the vessel from being pulled too close to the shore.
Almost every village all along the Vudrask River kept a small shed near the landings, large enough to house at least four mules, and the villages paid for their feed and care. However, no village had the same mules for very long. These animals were necessary for pulling goods up river, so if a vessel came though with exhausted mules, the barge master was welcome to trade out for fresh ones. This system served everyone.
A large town like Golognè often hosted twenty or more mules.
Narrow paths had been cleared on both sides of the river as some villages were built on the south side and some on the north side. Sometimes, if a team of mules was pulling on the north side and an upcoming village—with a mule shed—was on the south side, a barge master had to lead the weary team onto the barge and ferry them across in order to trade them out.
Lying beside Cooper, with my face pressed into his chest, I nodded. “Tomorrow, I can spell Harlan and Cooper on the shore. I don’t mind leading the mules.”
“We’ll see.”
My ability to lie so easily almost shocked me. I had no intention of being anywhere near the barge by tomorrow.
Still holding me, he fell asleep, and I waited for his breathing deepen and grow even. Then I rolled out of his arms, as I sometimes did in the night to get more comfortable, and I waited for him to stir.
He did not.
Carefully, I crawled from the tent and left him sleeping. I removed the note from my pocket, unfolded it and used the side of the cooking pot to hold down a corner of the paper. I made sure it was in plain sight. It read:
Dear Cooper,
Forgive me, but I had to go back to Tetovo to try and help the villagers. I have a plan that should work. Please pick me up on your way through.
Love,Elena
It was a ridiculously simple note given the circumstances, and I knew it, but there wasn’t anything else to say. I’d tried for his help in this, and I’d failed.
After securing the note, I went to where I’d hidden my packed bag between two crates, and I retrieved it.
Then I stood at the edge of the barge, looking down at the dock, and a wave of indecision passed over me. I wondered about the personal repercussions of what I was about to do.
I did not even know the people of Tetovo. They were nothing to me.
I could hide this bag again, pick up the note, crawl back into the bed with Cooper, and do nothing to endanger my marriage or my life. But… I believed I had a solid plan and that I could save an entire village from ruin.
It would be wrong to put my own needs first. Everything inside screamed that remaining here and doing nothing would be wrong.
I stepped off the barge, carrying my bag.
Moments later, I was hurrying east, at a trot, down the narrow cleared path on the north side of the river.
·····
Even after trotting all night, it was nearly mid-day before I reached Tetovo, and I decided it might be best for now if I was not seen. Cooper would be coming behind me, and even though I had a full night’s head start, for now I thought to keep my presence here on a need-to-know basis.
Slipping inland, I passed through a vineyard and then came up at the back of the village, and I pressed up against a dwelling, peering out into the main path. Looking further east, I saw a few of the villagers out in the east-side vineyard, picking grapes, but it was clear there were many more grapes than these people could harvest before the frost set in.
My resolution only grew.
A dragging sound caught my attention, and I saw Werner coming in my direction, hopping on his left foot and dragging his right. His expression was pensive.
After waiting until he’d almost reached the dwelling that I hid behind, I leaned out.
“Pssssssst! Werner.”
At the sight of me, he stopped in disbelief. Then he hopped-dragged himself over and looked around. “You’re here? Where’s Cooper? Did he change his mind?”
I let him run out of questions before I spoke. “I came alone, but I have an idea, and I think I can get your men back.”
The growing hope on his face faded. “It’s just you?”
That stung, but I ignored the insult. “Trust me. I have a plan and I’m willing to help.” Glancing toward the forest behind us, I said, “Can we hide among the trees and talk?”
He hesitated for only a breath or two and then nodded. As of yet, no one else had spotted me, and we hurried for the trees. He could move surprisingly fast over a short distance.
Once settled out of sight and crouched behind some bushes, I relaxed a little.
“Elena,” he began. “I can’t let you go through the veil. You have no idea what’s over there. I need strong men like Cooper and Harlan and Gregor.”
Though somewhat surprised he remembered my name, I was undaunted. “Aren’t your friends all strong, young men?” I asked. “It didn’t do them much good, did it?”
His gaze dropped to the ground. “We should not have gone with the horned one. He asked us to come with him, and we did, thinking we’d find treasure. Instead, he took us to his camp, and we were surrounded by the gnomi.”
Perhaps without meaning to, he’d hit on the proper topic.
“Did the gnomi want you to stay?”
In some surprise he raised his head again. “No. There was an argument. They wanted to send us back. But in the end, they did as the horned one wanted… and he wanted us to stay.”
This was the answer I’d expected, but I still knew nothing of this horned one.
“Why would he want eight human men?”
Werner’s expression waxed thoughtful behind his eye patch. “In truth? I think he was hungry for other company. I think he had long grown tired of the creatures… the little people in that camp. He looks more like a tall man, only with antlers.”
I absorbed that and nodded.
“Listen to me,” I told him. “We will not get your friends by force. The gnomi must want to let them go. For that, I think they will need to be frightened, and you’ll have to help me.”
“Frightened?”
Nodding again, I began to speak, and I told him everything I had mulled over on the previous day. I spilled out my plan in detail, and as I spoke I watched his
interest grow.
When I finished though, he eyed me almost warily. “Why would you do all this to help us?”
I had no answer. I could hardly tell him that a gypsy had looked into the future and told me that I had to.
“Are you willing to try this or not?” I asked finally.
He rocked back on the heel of his left foot. “Yes. I’d try anything.”
“Good. Take me to this veil.”
·····
The walk through the forest took longer than I expected, and by the time Werner related we were getting close, I realized I was hungry and growing tired—as I had traveled all night, and long since eaten the few food supplies I’d thought to pack.
Still, I pushed such things from my mind and tried to ready myself for what would come next.
Besides, my curiosity was piqued.
“It’s just through those trees,” he said.
I heard the sound of water before I saw anything, but then we stepped into a clearing. A wide creek rushed to one side of us, but directly ahead, I saw a waterfall behind a wide stone ledge. There was no foam or violent spray. The fall itself was calm with only a sheer line of water running about the width of two men lying head to foot.
“The veil,” Werner said.
Suddenly, the name made sense to me. When I thought of a veil, I pictured fine lace over a lady’s face. The thin line of water reminded me of a lady’s veil.
And yet, now that we were here, Cooper’s sensible voice began to penetrate my belief—causing me to waver.
“So,” I asked. “We step through that line of water, and we’ll find ourselves in another world?”
Werner turned to study me. “I don’t know if it’s another world. It looks different and those who live there are different.” He paused. “Oh… and I forgot to tell you something else. I was only there for two days by my reckoning, but when I returned, a half moon had passed. Time must flow differently as well.”
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. Cooper would most certainly come to this village after me. How long would he wait?
Werner seemed eager to get started. “Now what?” he asked.
“We need to get ready. I’ll have to change my clothes.”
