by Maureen Bush
“Shouldn’t a mountain spirit be big and solid, like you?” Maddy asked.
“Oh, no,” said Keeper. He thought for a moment, struggling to explain. “Do you feel like this,” and he gestured to himself, “when you look at a mountain? Big and slow? Of course not. Your spirit soars, like an eagle. That is why eagles like mountains – they dance with the mountain spirits.”
I became quiet, letting magic fill me, and I began to feel the spirits all around – in the trees, in the air, on the mountainside. They were intriguing but eerie, and I decided I was glad they weren’t usually so noticeable.
“The glaciers did not come,” said Keeper, his voice sombre.
“What?” I asked.
“Glacier spirits feel too threatened, more than any of us. They do not like to travel far.” He sighed. “They used to be great travellers.” Keeper looked sad for a moment, and then shook his head as the crows began teasing the wolves again.
When I started to call them off, Keeper said, “They will be fine. Once a Gathering is called, none can harm any magic folk arriving, at the Gathering, or departing.” I could hear a resonance in his words as if the magic world agreed, as if his words literally rang true. It felt like old magic.
“Not even Gronvald?” Maddy asked, glancing around and looking nervous.
“No, not even Gronvald. Although he never comes. He would be welcome if he did. A Gathering is for all magic folk.”
Keeper guided us to the side of the Gathering, near the buffalo. Then he walked towards a large rock, a centre point for the crowd. As the magic folk noticed, they turned towards him and slowly became quiet.
Maddy poked me. “Josh, the buffalo are singing!”
I turned with a laugh, to tell her not to be silly, when I heard the song:
Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight,
come out tonight, come out tonight?
Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight,
and dance by the light of the moon.
The smaller buffalo sang softly, her voice low and rumbly.
The other buffalo stepped closer and said, “Dear one, the Gathering is about to begin.”
The singing buffalo stopped, and they stood still, huge heads together, facing the centre of the Gathering.
Maddy and I stared at each other. We’d seen a lot of strange things in the magic world, but this...this was just weird. We started to laugh, and then struggled to be quiet. We leaned against each other, shoulders shaking.
Keeper cleared his throat in an eh-hem that shook the ground, and everyone became silent.
He cleared his throat again, a little more softly. “We, the magic folk of this place, have come together for a Gathering. We are only of this place, but we must act for the entire magic world. This weight is upon us.”
As he spoke, it was as if this was another magical invocation. I felt the importance of the decision to be made descend on us all.
Keeper continued. “The nexus ring has torn the veil. This has happened before, but now the tears are not healing. The nexus ring has been destroyed, but we have not found a way to repair the veil.” He pointed at the doorway. “Magic is leaking into the human world.”
All the magic folk stared at the tear, as if together they should have enough magic to repair it.
The larger buffalo snorted. “I cannot see a thing,” he said. “I never did get the hang of seeing magic.”
Maddy walked to his side and held out her ring. “Look through this,” she said.
He peered through the tiny ring and gasped. “Ah. This is a wondrous ring, indeed! Look, my dear!”
The other buffalo leaned in and squinted through the ring. “Oh, my. This is terrible!” She shook her head and woofed softly.
The first buffalo said, in a firm voice, “Something needs to be done!” But he didn’t offer any ideas.
Keeper had continued talking. I tuned in to hear him say, “Not only the otter-people are suffering. All magic folk are suffering, and we will suffer more as more magic leaks out. It must be stopped.”
Keeper looked around, spotted me, and gestured for me to join him. I closed my eyes and groaned. I had to stand in the centre of them all?
Maddy slipped in beside me and held my hand.
“Maddy, you’re not in this,” I said.
“Of course I am.”
I would never have guessed how much strength I could draw from holding her small hand.
As Maddy and I joined him, Keeper continued. “This human boy, Josh, has magical strengths that grow beyond anything we have seen. We ask the Gathering to support him in trying to repair the veil.”
The magic folk were silent. I wondered if they were simply shocked at the absurdity of what Keeper proposed.
Then a bear stood on its hind legs and growled out a long phrase. Keeper translated. “A human boy cannot do this. He is too weak.”
A porcupine added, “He cannot feed himself. He must warm himself with fire. He could not survive one night without help.”
“I could understand the porcupine,” whispered Maddy, “but not the bear.”
Softly, Keeper said, “Some animals can manage human languages better than others.”
A moose called out, a strained, creaky sound. Keeper translated. “Our weak ones drown.”
“Or we eat them,” said a wolf, her teeth gleaming.
“A human boy could not possibly have the magic we need,” roared a voice from deep in the crowd. It sounded like another giant.
Maddy growled and held up her ring. “If you can’t see his magic, you are welcome to look through my elven ring.”
No one took up her offer. They all stared at me. I could feel magic radiating from me and I knew they could see it too.
Then Aleena stood. Her black cloak swirled behind her as she walked, swaying like she was moving under water. Staying away from Keeper, she gently moved Maddy back so she could stand at my side.
“He is just a boy, you say, and yet he kept the nexus ring from me, and he kept it from Gronvald. He can cross the veil without tiring. He can use firestone. He can water travel. He has travelled deep into the earth. There are some here who can do some of these things, but not one of us can do all of them. Not one of us has the power this boy has, and he is just beginning.”
Arguments broke out all across the meadow, in a chaos of noise.
Then Greyfur staggered up, still weak and pale. “Sssst! This talk is useless.” He had an intensity that filled the valley, and the magic folk honoured it with their silence. “This boy, this human boy,” (there was that scorn again, in the way he said human), “can do what no human should be able to do. Tss. He can touch our magic. He can use our magic.”
The crowd hissed.
“That makes him magic folk.”
More hisses, and a cry, “But he’s human!”
“Yes, human and magic. Tss. We have not had one before. We have had humans live in our world in happiness, hnn, like Maddy, but none who were strong in magic. Only this boy.”
The crowd booed and hissed.
Greyfur held up a hand for silence and continued. “Veil was created by Ancients Ones. There are no Ancient Ones now. Only veil and tears. Sssst! And this boy. Only this boy has hope of fixing tears.”
I choked on that.
“Only this boy, this magic human boy, can repair veil between human and magic worlds.”
But how? my brain was screaming. No one else seemed to care about that. They listened and thought and then the larger buffalo spoke. “Let the boy do it. The boy will fix the veil.” And they believed it, like the problem was already solved. They yelped and howled and cawed; I just felt incredulous. What did they think I was going to do?
Keeper raised a huge hand and the magic folk grew silent again. He called out, “Is it the Will of the Gathering to support Josh in his effort to repair the veil?”
The magic folk shouted their approval, the birds cawing and trilling, gruff hurrahs from the buffalo. I heard some grumbles,
but once it was clear that most magic folk approved, the grumbling stopped.
“Then this is the Decision of the Gathering, and all are bound by it.” Keeper’s voice resonated with power again, with the old magic of the Gathering.
“What does that mean?” I asked Keeper, as he turned to Maddy and me.
“It means we all must help you, whatever you need, so use it carefully.”
I felt burdened by this task, by their trust and support. They would give me anything I asked? That was too much! This was all too much. But when I turned to tell them, everyone was leaving. The Gathering was over.
Chapter Four
The Ancient Ones
I stood staring as creatures left – running, flying, or simply vanishing into the forest. Aleena walked to the lakeshore, ready to water travel, to become water and flow as water, but Keeper called out to her. “Aleena, we may need your help.”
She stood, one foot in the lake, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else. But something in Keeper’s face held her. She closed her eyes for a moment, nodded and stepped back from the water’s edge.
When the buffalo walked past, the larger one said, “If there’s any way we can help, let us know.”
“Thank you,” said Keeper.
As they walked down the shore of the lake, I could hear a low, rumbly song drifting back on the breeze:
Land of the silver birch,
home of the beaver...
“There are buffalo in the magic world?” asked Maddy.
“Of course,” said Keeper. “There always were. Then, when the buffalo in the human world were being hunted and we realized humans were going to kill them all, we opened doorways and rescued whole herds. Some have absorbed more magic than others.” He nodded at the buffalo walking down the valley. “They came from the human world. As they soaked up magic, they found their voices. They love to talk and sing.”
Maddy giggled. I thought it was oddly sweet and a little comforting that something human wasn’t despised.
We joined Greyfur and Eneirda beside the lake. Aleena sat on the opposite side of the group from Keeper. The crows joined us, Corvus strutting on the ground beside me, the others perched or flying nearby. The little girl crow leaned against my knee.
“Beloved of crows,” Maddy muttered.
“Shush,” I said. But I gently petted the crow’s soft back.
When we were all settled, Maddy said, “No one else is going to help?”
“We called the Gathering,” said Keeper, nodding to Greyfur, Eneirda and Corvus. “Now we know the Will of the Gathering. The others will help if we ask. That is enough.”
“Now it is up to Josh,” said Eneirda.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “How can I fix the veil?”
“Tss. If you cannot, we all will die,” said Greyfur.
“You must find a way,” said Keeper.
Corvus cawed in agreement.
But how? I borrowed Maddy’s ring and walked over to the doorway. Through the ring, I could see a gold line marking its edge, and a gash stretching across it. Magic poured out, golden as honey. All around the tear, magic was pale and thin, as if it had been drained off.
I touched the edge of the veil and hung on as magic poured up my arm. I could feel the veil stretching around the world, woven of threads as fine as spider’s silk. I could feel the tears in all the doorways the nexus ring had been through, and feel magic flowing into the human world.
I grabbed both sides of the veil and pulled them together. They touched and light flared, but I couldn’t get the edges to connect. Frustrated, I muttered, “To fix something, you need the right tools, like a needle and thread to sew up a hole. I don’t know what I need, or if it’s even possible to repair it.”
“You’ll find a way. We’ll all help you,” Maddy said, nodding towards the group beside the lake. Then her eyes widened. “Maybe breakfast will help!”
She had a huge grin on her face as she checked out the meal Keeper and the otter-people set out for us. Keeper had lit a fire – he was heating water for mint tea and grilling meat. Buns were lined up at the edge of the fire, warming. A small bowl full of dried berries sat nearby.
“You have buns?” Maddy asked.
Keeper nodded. “Usually I bake my own but these are a gift from a park warden, a friend of mine.”
When I looked surprised, Keeper laughed. “I have many friends.”
Starving, we settled in to feast. Once I was full, I sat back and started to think again. “How was the veil created?” I asked.
“Aleena is the best storyteller,” said Keeper. I could hear disapproval in his voice, as he remembered the trouble she’d created before she understood the damage caused by the nexus ring.
I could tell that Aleena heard it too; her pale skin grew even more pale and her eyes darkened and snapped in anger. But she stayed – perhaps the Will of the Gathering held her.
“Long ago,” she said, “the Ancient Ones helped the earth grow. They taught living things magic, and embedded it in the rocks, in water and ice, in the very air we breathe. They drew it from sunlight and moonlight and stardust.”
Aleena spoke in her beautiful voice like she was weaving a story. She was a natural storyteller, her voice soft and fluid. She was beautiful to watch, too, if you didn’t know how scary she could be.
“They worked to keep magic in the world, as humans multiplied and learned to build. Some humans remembered magic, but more forgot, enamoured with building, making and doing. Eventually the Ancient Ones gave up on humans and divided the world in two – one for magic and one for humans – and set the veil between.”
Eneirda nodded her approval.
“Where are they now?” I asked.
“They are no more,” said Aleena.
“What happened to them?” asked Maddy.
Greyfur answered. “No one knows, hnn. When the veil was, they were not.”
“But what happened to them?” Maddy asked again, sounding stubborn.
Keeper shrugged.
“Maddy, come with me,” I said.
She followed me back to the doorway.
“Hold up your ring.”
She slipped her ring off her finger and held it up for me to peer through.
Watching through the ring, I grabbed both sides of the tear, hung on past the initial shock of magic, and settled into the veil. I could feel every gash. When I settled deeper I could feel time moving along the veil. I went even deeper, until I could hear the veil singing. I knew I was hearing the song of the Ancient Ones. But I still had no idea how to fix the tears.
Maddy and I walked back to the shore of the lake. “I need to know what happened to the Ancient Ones,” I announced. “I must know more about them.” I’d been expecting arguments, but when I said must, magic came with it, insisting.
“I don’t know any more about them,” said Aleena.
“Nor do I,” said Keeper. “There are few who would know such old stories.”
“None of us know,” said Greyfur.
Corvus cawed, and Keeper interpreted. “Giants are not old enough. The spirits are too old – their time sense is too large. They cannot focus on little details like this.”
“So who is older than the giants, but not as old as the spirits?” I asked.
Everyone looked uncomfortable as the Will of the Gathering pressed upon them.
“Gronvald is not old enough,” said Aleena, uneasy at even mentioning his name. “But he has a long memory, especially for anyone who harms him. He hates the veil – it slows him down. So he hates the Ancient Ones.”
Keeper nodded. “Trolls know many stories. They pass on knowledge of caves and metal and jewels. They remember every detail.”
“So, what do we do?” I asked. “Just go visit him?” I shuddered.
Maddy said, “Let’s go for tea. I’m sure he’ll be overjoyed to see us.” She laughed, but it sounded a little hysterical.
“He will not want to see us. But he will, if
it is the Will of the Gathering.”
“I need to talk to him,” I said.
Keeper and Corvus conferred – it looked like they were arguing. Finally Keeper repeated, “It is the Will of the Gathering.”
Corvus squawked in response. He cawed to two crows and they flew to Keeper’s cave. Then Corvus chose two others, and left with them.
I was getting frustrated with not being able to understand crow. I could feel his disagreement, but not catch the words. Maddy and l looked at Keeper, waiting for an explanation.
“Corvus and his friends have gone to inform Gronvald that it is the Will of the Gathering that he speak with us.”
But I really don’t want to talk to him, I thought. Maddy slipped her hand into mine. I glanced down – had she become a mind reader?
“Will they be safe?” asked Maddy. “What if Gronvald hurts them?”
“They fly at the Will of the Gathering,” said Keeper. “He will not harm them.” Then he smiled. “Although he will do everything he can to scare them!”
“And the others?” Maddy asked, pointing towards Keeper’s cave.
Keeper watched for a few moments, and nodded as the birds flew out of his cave, carrying something between them.
“They bring gold for Gronvald,” said Keeper. “His fee. He will not want to speak to us, even with the Will of the Gathering requiring that he help us. The gold will make it easier for him.”
The crows dropped the bag at Keeper’s feet. The small canvas sack clanked as it fell. Keeper untied it so we could see in – it was filled with shining gold coins.
“So he’ll help us?” Maddy asked.
“No. He will not want to tell us anything,” said Keeper, smiling.
“Then why are we going?” I asked, still hoping to avoid Gronvald.
“He will not want us to repair the veil. The tears make it easier for him to travel to the human world to steal gold. But he will talk to us. We may be able to learn something useful from him.”
Keeper stood and dropped the bag of coins into a huge jacket pocket. When Greyfur and Eneirda moved to join us, Keeper shook his head. “No, you must rest. You have done enough. Aleena will come with us.”
