by Maureen Bush
The twins stared as we peeled off layers of clothes, curiosity and horror in their eyes. Maddy laughed and held out a mitten. Hesitantly, they touched it. She slipped it on her hand, took it off again, and gave it to them. They took turns trying it on.
While they played, I let magic fill my body and radiate throughout the cave. As I thought of warmth, the air temperature slowly rose, until a gust of wind from outside blew past it. I walked to the entrance to the cave and drew a barrier of magic just thick enough to stop the wind.
When I turned back the twins were staring at Maddy, eyes huge, mouths open. Maddy was kneeling beside them, coaxing the elastic out of her ponytail. Slowly, she ran her fingers through her hair, working out the tangles. Drenba and Dreylac crept closer, fascinated.
While they stroked her hair, Maddy studied the cave. “Josh,” she said, “they have baskets. That’s a kind of weaving.”
“Yes,” I said. I ran my hands around a small basket filled with berries, and then over a woven mat, feeling the vertical and horizontal lines weaving around each other. Then I studied the weaving through Maddy’s ring. “This has a different magic than in the veil. It’s plain, purposeful, solid. It doesn’t have any of the delicacy of the veil.” I turned to Greyfur. “Can you weave anything finer than this?”
“What for?”
“For the veil. To repair the veil.”
“No, tss. Veil far beyond our skills, hnn.”
The baby woke and stretched, and then scrunched up his face and cried. Reynar nursed him while Greyfur watched, her face tight.
“Folens sick,” she said. “I will make his medicine, hnn. But it will not be enough.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Maddy asked.
“Sssst! Not enough magic,” said Greyfur. “Our babies grow well with magic. Without it, they struggle.” She sighed. “Tss, will be difficult winter for many families.”
When Reynar had finished nursing Folens, Greyfur took him and rocked him gently. “Chrrr, check on others,” she said. Reynar nodded and slipped out of the cave, looking relieved to be away from us for a little while.
When Folens started to fuss, mewling softly, Greyfur handed him to me and began to rummage in the baskets along the back wall of the cave. I stared at the baby in shock. He stared back, equally surprised. He opened his mouth to wail, and then sighed instead, and nestled against me.
“He likes your magic, hnn,” said Greyfur, smiling slightly as she laid a shallow basket on the mat in front of me. Several kinds of dried leaves lay in the basket beside one shriveled, dark muskberry. We’d eaten fresh muskberries last summer, before we realized they were a source of magic that magic folk didn’t like to share with humans. Fresh, they were a deep purple-red, and tangy. Dried, they looked almost black.
She placed the leaves in her mouth and chewed them into a small lump. Then she added the muskberry, chewing lightly and carefully. She scooped the paste out of her mouth and touched a finger to Folen’s lower lip. When his mouth opened, she slipped in the paste, and held a finger to his chin to force his mouth closed. He grimaced and sniffed, but slowly sucked on it.
Greyfur watched him carefully. “There is enough for one muskberry every day, tss. To make up for magic fading. But there is not enough to last until fresh berries grow.” She looked at me “Running out will not matter, if you fail. He will not live that long.”
Folens finally swallowed, relaxed and drifted into sleep. I held him out to Greyfur, but she shook her head. “He is comfortable with you. Your magic is good for him.”
So I held the baby while Greyfur tidied, and Maddy and the twins played. When Reynar returned, she was horrified to see me holding Folens. She rushed over, but Greyfur stopped her with a sharp, “Sssst! Folens likes his magic.”
Folens woke and shifted; a little four-fingered hand reached up and grabbed the edge of my shirt. Then he slept again.
Maddy studied him through her ring. “Magic is flowing from you into him,” she said. “Just a little, but he has so little.”
When it was time for bed, Greyfur settled me in my fur blanket with Folens still cradled in my arms. Reynar hovered, but Greyfur chased her off. “Chrrr, tonight you can sleep. Folens will be well.”
The twins cuddled in with Maddy, like puppies in a tangle.
I lay awake holding Folens, his hand tight around one of my fingers. I wondered if I was going to be able to save him, or if he would die this winter, while his family grew colder and weaker without the magic they needed.
Chapter Seven
To the Rockwall
Greyfur woke us before dawn, shifting sleepy children so we could stand and pull on our boots and jackets. The storm had cleared, leaving an icy world coated in white. Slowly the sky began to lighten as we ate a breakfast of grilled fish.
“They must think we’re total pigs,” said Maddy, looking at the piled skewers of fish they’d cooked for us.
Brox insisted we eat it all. “We cannot provide lunch, and what Keeper packed must last.”
So we ate everything. Then we washed our hands in the stream to clean off the smell of fish, and splashed our faces. The icy water shocked us fully awake.
The crows sat quietly, lined up along tree branches, but I could feel their anxiety, their desperate need to move. It made me twitchy too.
We loaded our bags on Brox and Vivienne and I hoisted Maddy up from a big rock. I tucked her robe around her and handed her mine to hold for a minute. Then I wrestled myself onto Brox’s back.
Maddy dug around in her bag and pulled out her fur hat. She flipped it so the fur was on the inside, and handed it to Reynar. “For Folens. To sleep in on cold nights.”
“Chrrr. Thank you,” she said softly, and smiled just a little.
Finally, we headed out, back to the river that would lead us to the Rockwall. “Thank you,” we called over our shoulders.
“They’ll be back for another night on the way home,” said Brox.
The crows flew in circles around us, restless and ready to be underway.
Riding a second day was more painful than anything we’d done the day before. Every muscle screamed, and every sore spot complained. But the view soon made me forget the pain. Everything was covered in gleaming white. The trees were dusted with snow, tree stumps looked like mushrooms with caps of white, and rocks were softened into mounds. Only the river itself was free of snow, a clear light blue except for the ice along the shore.
Sunrise lit the clouds in pale pink. It brightened as it hit the mountain peaks, and then crept down the slopes of the mountains. When the sun hit the snow, it was blindingly white.
As the sun rose, the snow began to melt. Sparkling water droplets formed on the tips of leaves and splashed to the ground. Clumps of snow fell from the trees in soft thwumps.
“Quiet, now,” said Brox.
Maddy and I looked up. I gestured to the crows to be silent.
Softly, he said, “We don’t want to wake her.”
“Wake who?” asked Maddy. I could hear the nervousness in her voice.
“The ochre monster,” said Vivienne. “We do not want to wake the ochre monster.”
“Humans call her the Paint Pots, puddles of ochre mud,” said Brox. “But she is not puddles. She is an ancient monster. She sleeps now, unless something wakes her. Humans made her very angry when they mined ochre. She does not like humans. So we must not wake her.”
I remembered hiking to the Paint Pots, a short walk above the river we were following. They’d looked like pools of mustard-coloured mud, thick and oozy. I couldn’t imagine that was a being. Or that it could hurt us. But Maddy and I rode in absolute silence, barely even breathing, until we were far down the valley.
We rode along the river on a wide gravel bed. Riding on the flat was a relief to our sore back and stomach muscles, but the rubbing continued.
The river widened and deepened, icy blue and cold. Vivienne started a new song:
My paddle’s keen and bright,
flashing
with silver,
swift as a wild goose flight,
dip, dip and swing.
Dip, dip and swing her back,
flashing with silver,
swift as the wild goose flies,
dip, dip and swing.
“But you can’t paddle,” I said to Brox.
“Ah well, Vivienne likes to imagine,” he said. “Right now, she’s probably flying down a river in a canoe, sunlight flashing on the water drops falling off the end of the paddle.” He smiled. “This is why we like to travel. Such wonderful experiences.”
As we walked, the Rockwall became visible again, slowly growing as we neared it, into a massive wall of rock blocking our path. When we finally reached its base, Brox stopped beside a stream pouring into the river. He said, “This is as far as we go. It’s too steep for us after this.”
“So what do we do?” I asked, feeling queasy. Going on without Brox and Vivienne seemed much worse than travelling with them.
“Follow the stream up the mountain,” he said, pointing one hoof into the forest above us. Then he pointed with his nose high up on the Rockwall, to a ridge between two peaks. “The path will take you to a lake. Follow the shore of the lake to the left, and around. The weavers are on the far side.”
“And the guardian?” Maddy asked.
Brox shifted his weight, uncomfortable. “I know nothing about the guardian. I am sorry.”
“What about Gronvald?” I said.
Brox and Corvus spoke, then Brox translated. “They’ve seen nothing of him yet, but Aleena has told them he is tracking you.”
My stomach churned.
Brox snorted. “He’ll wait and watch. The crows will tell you if he comes near.”
Maddy and I ate lunch, drank from the river, and refilled our water sacks. I reset the straps on our bags so they’d fit us, folded the buffalo fur blankets and tucked them under a log beneath a huge tree. Hopefully they’d stay dry.
“We’ll wait for you here,” said Brox.
“How long will you wait?” I asked.
“Until you return.”
“What if something goes wrong?”
“Nothing will go wrong,” he said.
At the same time, Vivienne said, “The crows will tells us.”
Corvus cawed in agreement.
With a cloud of crows leading the way, Maddy and I started up the path along the stream into a dark, silent forest. We hiked up and up, unable to see past the trees. Maddy spotted a chipmunk with two stripes down its back and a thin twitchy tail. It watched us hike past before it raced away. We met a young deer, all leggy and shy. Maddy let out a soft little, “Ohh,” and the deer leapt into the forest.
“Do you really think Gronvald is tracking us?” Maddy asked, checking over her shoulder.
“The crows will let us know,” I said, distracted. I was more worried about what we’d find when we arrived at the Rockwall. I began to hum again, softly:
Come, follow follow follow,
follow follow follow me.
Whither shall I follow follow follow,
whither shall I follow follow thee?
To the Rockwall, to the Rockwall,
to the Rockwall...
What rhymed with thee? And then I had it. To the Rockwall, then we’ll see. I swallowed and stopped singing.
The snow deepened as we climbed higher. Soon the slope was so steep the path cut back and forth in switchbacks. Maddy and I plodded on, eyes on our feet, trying not to think about how far we had to go. An occasional caw from a crow reminded us we weren’t totally alone, but it wasn’t much comfort.
We snacked on Halloween candy and drank carefully, until the path neared the stream again. The crows cawed, circling around us as we climbed down to the water. We ignored them while we drank and filled our water sacks.
When I turned to climb the slope back to the path, Maddy grabbed me. “Something’s not right.” She pulled out her ring and studied the hillside. “That rock,” she said, pointing to the top of the slope.
It was an odd rock, taller than it was wide, with knobby sides. As we watched, the edges shifted and softened. Then Gronvald appeared as his disguise dissolved around him.
As soon as he was visible, the crows descended in a squawking fury. I raised a hand for quiet, and they flew above us, silent.
Gronvald grinned. He stood planted in the centre of the path, towering above us, beside a pile of rocks I knew he could use as weapons.
I swallowed, and tried to speak. “I, uh...” My voice failed. I cleared my throat and tried again. “We are here by the Will of the Gathering,” I said.
He winced and took a small step back, but he looked angry. “I do not care!” Gronvald growled. “Humans have no place in our world.”
Maddy shivered.
But he didn’t step forward, didn’t reach for a rock.
We stared at each other, no one moving.
Finally, I muttered, “I don’t think he’s going to try to stop us now. He’s just trying to scare us. He’ll wait until we find a way to repair the veil. Do you think we could walk past him?”
“No,” said Maddy, whimpering slightly. “Let’s go another way. I’m not sure the Will of the Gathering can hold all that anger.”
“Stay with him,” I said to the crows.
The crows circled low over the path, blocking Gronvald from following us. He didn’t seem to care, as if scaring us was all he wanted, for now.
We turned our backs on the glowering troll, and hiked further up the stream. Then we clambered up the steep side of the valley to meet the path higher up the mountainside. Except we couldn’t find the path.
We searched from the valley edge out into the forest and back again, but we couldn’t spot it.
“Should we go back?” Maddy asked.
I shuddered.
Maddy spoke again, but crows began cawing so loudly I couldn’t hear her. “Corvus!” I snapped, annoyed.
They kept cawing. When I looked up, Crowby flew past my face, a wing smacking my head.
“Ow!” I cried.
Maddy laughed.
She landed right in front of us, muttering in a low grumble. While I was struggling to understand, Maddy laughed again and pointed to a second crow, perched on a branch a few feet away. A third waited in line a little further up the slope.
“They’re showing us the way,” said Maddy.
So we followed the crows. As soon as we reached one, cawing from a branch, and thanked him, another started cawing further up the mountainside.
“Josh, this is how the magpie parents in our garden called to their little babies to come to them.” She smiled, delighted. I didn’t find the idea as charming as Maddy did.
They led us back to the path and on up the mountain. We grew hot and thirsty, even though the air was cold and the ground white with snow. We tied our jackets around our waists, and shoved hats and mitts into our bags.
After an afternoon of pain, climbing more and more slowly as the altitude tired us, we finally crested the ridge. We could see the Rockwall looming high above us, and a clear blue lake cradled in snow below. The low sun cut across the face of the Rockwall at a steep angle, lighting ridges and triangles of rock. It was stunningly beautiful, radiant with magic. I wanted to stand there and drink it in, to hold the moment forever.
“Around the lake?” Maddy asked. She looked tired.
“In a minute,” I said. “Let’s rest a bit.”
“We’ll get cold.”
“I know. Just for a few minutes.”
I brushed snow off a fallen log. We perched on it while I dug out a wedge of cheese and one of Keeper’s huge buns. We ate and drank and rested, and once we started to feel the cold, we stood, creaking and sore, not at all ready to push on.
“Around the lake,” I said, eyeing the low sun and the narrow path. “We need to hurry.”
The sun dipped below the mountain, lighting the far side of the valley but leaving us in deep shade. I shivered – we’d die withou
t shelter. We had to find the weavers and get past their guardian. Even thinking about that made me feel weak. I sucked in a breath and kept walking.
The crows flew with us. If we paid attention, at least we’d know if Gronvald showed up. That should have been reassuring, but somehow I felt like we were being watched.
We passed some berries near the path, clusters of small creamy white balls on low bushes. Each berry had a tiny black dot on the tip; they looked like eyeballs, watching. That’s just silly, I thought. But I felt uneasy.
“Gronvald?” I asked Corvus.
He cawed casually.
I guessed that meant no. And still I felt it.
We found more berries as we followed the curve of the lake to the face of the Rockwall. I watched them as we walked by. The dark centres slowly turned, watching us.
The path narrowed, squeezed between the lake and the Rockwall. And then it stopped, blocked by a pile of snow.
I stepped closer, and the snow erupted. I gasped and Maddy shrieked as a cat leapt out, huge and totally silent. The crows flew up in a flurry of panicked squawks. The cat swatted at the crows, and then stopped and slowly licked one paw. It was completely white, large and powerful. It watched us with eyes the cold blue of glacial ice. Finally it turned and walked up the path ahead of us.
As my heart slowed its frantic drumming, I checked with Maddy. “You okay?”
She nodded, looking pale. “Is that the guardian?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” I said.
The crows settled on branches near us, Corvus beside me. He cawed once.
“Yes, we need to hurry,” Maddy said.
Corvus cawed again, still sitting on the branch.
Maddy and I looked around at all the crows clustered on nearby trees.
“This is as far as you’ll take us, isn’t it?” I asked, my voice tense.
Corvus cawed once more, one sharp caw.
Yes, he meant. I took a deep breath. “We must be almost there,” I said to Maddy. “That’s good news, right?”
She smiled weakly, but said nothing.
I nodded to the crows, took Maddy’s hand, and stepped around the curve in the path, away from the lake.
