by Joni Sensel
Neela brightened. "I never had a pipe that was all just for me."
Cassalie insisted on tending their wounds, and they circled and pitched in to bandage each other. Scarl's livid bruises took the longest to treat. As she heated water to use in a poultice, Ariel stared into Cassalie's hearth. The flames murmured to her about Elbert's knife. She hadn't needed her brimstone; a more potent fire had unmade the knife, along with the steely defiance it stood for. Now it existed nowhere but in memory, and any strengths it once had remained only in her.
She smiled. A Farwalker could carry memories and strengths without hauling the weight of an enemy with her. She'd had to walk out of the world to do it, but finally that burden had been left behind.
Later, after their bellies were full and their shivers had been chased away by the fire, Ariel and Neela shared the trials they'd faced before their friends met them at the bridge. Scarl had suggested they wait until daylight, when the horror might not seem so close, but Ariel wanted those memories out of her head so they couldn't loom so large in her dreams. In the time since they'd returned to the world, the message symbols on her hand had faded, leaving only a patchwork of throbbing scars. The cuts on her ankles and shins would soon scab. But the things she'd seen still clanged loud in her thoughts, so the story spilled. When she faltered, Neela chimed in.
It wasn't until Ariel described how the crow had plucked the spark out of Neela's papa that she realized the bird had played no part with Elbert. She hadn't seen it at all once Zeke and Scarl had appeared.
Neela described their escape from the maelstrom's current while Ariel's thoughts stayed on the crow. It may have known all along that Elbert had thwarted the natural order of things, and sought her help by bringing the bones. She could no longer remember if her nightmares had started before or after the first bone appeared, but there was no doubt her attention had fed Elbert's strength. He'd said so himself. Perhaps once that cycle had started, only she could set things right because she'd become part of the problem.
"I guess the crow is still there," she told Nace during a pause in Neela's retelling. She hadn't dragged the bird with her, but she still felt its loss. "I didn't mean to leave it behind. I'm sorry."
"I bet a grim-golly can fly back by itself, anyway," Neela said. Nace agreed.
That eased Ariel's mind. Maybe they'd see it again. "Well, if it likes to take sparks from reluctant souls in the mist, there was definitely still work it could do first."
Scarl whistled. "I'd call that a good day's farwalking work--leading a grim-golly to Hell."
"Hell?" Ariel blinked.
"What would you call the waste between the world and the pool?"
She considered. "A place to get lost."
"For a Farwalker," said Zeke, "isn't that the same thing?"
Ariel stared into the fire. "You're right, Zeke. It is."
Scarl took over as the story reached the moment of his arrival with Zeke. He shared only enough with Cassalie and Nace to explain their wounds and account for their escape. Since neither knew much of Elbert, he spared them pointless horror. Still, Ariel mused about what he left out.
She'd hedged only in relating what she'd seen at the beacon, omitting most of her conversation with a flaming spirit, whom she hadn't named. She hadn't promised, exactly, but she felt she should honor Mirayna's last wish not to mention the encounter to Scarl. She fell asleep that night wondering if that decision was right.
It didn't take long to find out. The next morning over breakfast, Scarl cleared his throat, which still sounded hoarse from his choking.
"I want to speak with you about something, Cassalie," he said. "I know you're still reeling from our arrival last night, but I'd rather not wait." His gaze flitted to both Ariel and Neela before returning to Cass.
She set down her teacup and slid into his lap. "Only if I can bite your ear if you keep sounding so serious."
His smile faded quickly. "You know I'm bound to Ariel for a while yet."
"Of course." Cassalie smoothed his shirt. "I can still be glad you're alive, can't I? While you're here?"
"While we're here--that's my point."
Drooping, she started to slip from his lap.
He stopped her, pulling her close. "Don't. Forgive me. I'm bungling this." He paused to choose better words. "I can't ask you to leave your home, Cassalie. But I hope there's some way I can--"
"Who said you can't?" At his startled look, she continued, "If you want to ask it, Scarl, ask. What's left for me here? The boats rarely sail in anymore. A few more years, and the old 'uns will all be gone, too, and Da-- Neela and I will be alone."
He tucked a loose strand of her hair into her braid. "I've thought of that, believe me. I want nothing more than to bring you back to the abbey, or near it, so coming home with Ariel would mean returning to you. But don't try to tell me you wouldn't pine for the sea."
A sad twinge crossed Cassalie's face, but she firmly dismissed it. "I will pine for the sea." She wrapped her arms around his neck. "But not as much as I'd pine for Scarl Finder. I can reap from the land, too. And couldn't Ariel bring me back, once or twice, for a swim?"
"Every year, if you want." Ariel grinned. "I have to come back anyhow. For my apprentice!"
Scarl didn't seem to know what to say. At last he asked Cassalie softly, "You would do that for me? Leave all you know?"
Ariel shot a sidelong glance at Nace, who sat next to her. He dipped his head and traced his fingers along her arm.
Cassalie turned from Scarl to the others. "Shall I bite his ear now?"
"Yes," Ariel said.
Neela asked, "What about me?"
"I haven't forgotten," Scarl told her. "Can you bear to come with us?"
Relief brightened her face. "I don't care where I go. The wind'll come with me."
"You'll like what it does in the mountains." Zeke took Neela's hand.
They shared a self-conscious smile before Neela turned to Cassalie. "But who'll help the old 'uns if we go, Cass? While they're still in the world? Can they fend for themselves the whole year?"
"I can help with that," Scarl said. "If provisions and chores twice a year would keep them."
"It would." Cassalie snuggled against him. "They're too independent to accept more help than that, anyway."
"I know someone like that." Scarl raised an eyebrow at Ariel. "Too independent for her own good. Or anyone else's. Please, Ariel. I suppose I can't cage you, but I'm not too proud to beg. Would you please keep your farwalking in the world from now on? I don't know how many more trips like this last I can take. And I can't keep my promise if I'm not alive to do it."
"You wouldn't find your way back to accompany me as a ghost?" She meant it as a joke, but she found herself hoping for a positive answer.
One of his hands flapped helplessly. "Oh, I probably would. Having seen a little of what's over the bridge, I'll be in no rush to return."
Ariel knew one thing he'd missed, though: Mirayna. She longed to share that secret with him.
Watching Scarl with Cassalie, though, she decided the time was not right. In a few years, perhaps, when looking back warmed his heart without poking old wounds. Not today.
So she told him, "I'll promise to stay in the world if you will." She thought again of an apprentice who'd been raised on a boat. "We haven't been over the sea yet."
Or under it, either. There was supposed to be a city lost under the sea.
Her feet tingled, and Ariel smiled. The guard stones were right. Today was best spent walking forward.
Epilogue
A few summers later, Ariel loaded Willow, scribed a host of messages onto paper so nervousness could not make her forget them, and went farwalking alone. She wanted to prove to herself she could do it. Both Scarl and Nace swallowed protests. Zeke merely kissed her cheek and wished her a good trip, as did Neela, Cassalie, and their Tree-Singer friends. Ariel returned exhilarated, ready both for companions and more solo work.
Not very much later, Cassalie bore Sc
arl a son. Ariel thought Scarl might burst. Between bouts of joy, he showered her with assurances, no longer needed, that she was not being abandoned.
They called the boy Reyn. The name was Cassalie's idea, and to Ariel, both of its inspirations seemed clear. Gazing into the baby's startling blue eyes, which resembled neither his father's brown ones nor his mother's sea-grey, she often imagined a spark of Essence flowing into the maelstrom and bursting back up. She had no idea what went on in that pool or prompted a spark to fly back over the bridge. Yet Reyn sometimes flashed her a small, private smile that made his Auntie Ariel wonder.
The End
About the Author
Joni Sensel is the author of several novels for young readers, including The Humming of Numbers and Reality Leak, as well as the three books of the Farwalker Triology: The Farwalker's Quest, The Timekeeper's Moon, and The Skeleton's Knife. Her fiction has been praised as a Junior Library Guild Selection, a Bank Street College of Education "Best Book," a Cybils Award and Crystal Kite Award finalist, a Truman Award short-listed title, and a Henry Bergh Honor winner. She lives at the knees of Mt. Rainier in Washington State.
Visit her at www.jonisensel.com.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
About the Author
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
About the Author
