The Dark Hills Divide

by Patrick Carman

  Malcolm looked up at me and I nodded my readiness to move on.

  “I’ll go straight to see Yipes and tell him of our progress. He will be pleased to hear you’ve come this far,” said Darius. Then, with a slight bow of his head, he added, “Malcolm, always a great pleasure. Take care of our girl now, and tell everyone I’m doing fine.” Then he walked off, and I was left with nothing to protect me but a smiling ball of fur with poor scouting skills. I felt suddenly alone and missed my father and friends back in Bridewell. I think I even missed Pervis, or at least the morbid comfort of his rude behavior.

  “You’ve grown some from what I was told about your size. It must have been quite a squeeze getting down that tunnel over at Lathbury,” said Malcolm. “The next one’s not so bad.”

  “The next one?” I said.

  “Sure, the next one. Didn’t Darius tell you? We’ve got a big meeting over in the forest tonight. Lots to discuss.”

  We walked — or, I should say, I walked and Malcolm hopped toward the Turlock wall. We arrived at an odd-looking hole surrounded by stone on all sides. It was slanted at an angle, and it looked as though it ran under the wall.

  “This is a strange-looking tunnel, Malcolm,” I said.

  “That’s because animals didn’t make it. Humans did, and humans are always doing things in very strange ways. No offense to you, of course.” He seemed flustered now that he’d said it, as if he wished he could take it back.

  “No offense taken,” I offered.

  “This is a culvert,” Malcolm continued. “They appear every few miles along the walls. In the springtime the water runs off the mountain and then through these tunnels to Fenwick Forest and out into The Dark Hills, where it creates something of a marshland in the early months of spring.”

  Malcolm went on to explain that the culverts were encased in stone, running down five feet under the huge stone blocks of the buried part of the wall, then gradually rising back up into Fenwick Forest and The Dark Hills.

  Malcolm easily fit inside. I followed and found that it was a very tight fit. I could move slowly forward on my belly, but the stone walls of the culvert were all around me and it was rough going all the way. I continually grazed my shoulders and elbows along the walls. This tunnel descended faster, leveled out, and then began to rise again slowly, presumably on the other side of the wall. Pretty soon I saw light streaming down, and shortly after that we were outside again in an open field. We were in Fenwick Forest.

  “Who are Odessa and Sherwin?” I asked, turning my head to the side and shaking the dirt out of my hair.

  Malcolm didn’t answer at first, but then he stopped hopping and looked at me. “Odessa is Darius’s wife and Sherwin is his son.”

  I knew there had to be more to the story, and soon Malcolm was telling it. “Darius was off hunting for several weeks,” he explained. “They put the wall up so fast, and there were so many humans about, he got caught on the mountain side. Like so many animals, he’s far too big to fit through a culvert, and there’s no way to dig deep enough to go under the buried part of the wall. He can’t walk around the wall, because both ends lead to jagged cliffs that drop off into The Lonely Sea. The water and walls keep them apart. He hasn’t seen his family in quite some time.”

  I thought a moment, trying to consider the consequences of what Malcolm had said.

  “Are there other stories like his?” I asked.

  He turned on the path and began hopping again, his floppy back feet kicking up tiny storms of dust as he went.

  “More than a few,” he said.

  We continued to make our way deeper into the woods. It was turning dark and cooling down. Fenwick Forest was vastly different from where I had just spent two days. The terrain around Mount Norwood had been far more open and arid, with tiny streams crisscrossing and connecting all over. Twenty minutes into our walk away from the wall put us deep in a forest of fir, pine, cottonwood, and aspen trees. The lush forest floor was alive and danced with shadows cast from an endless parade of swaying trees. As we approached early evening it was cool and peaceful. The sound of the trees moving in the wind high above seemed like a friendly traveling companion, calling us farther and farther into the depths of the forest.

  As we walked, I kept thinking about the face of that suspicious man with the C on his forehead. How these men had escaped into The Dark Hills remained a biting question I couldn’t get out of my mind.

  I began to have a creepy sense that we were being watched and I started to hear what sounded like whispers all around me. I kept shaking the cobwebs loose from my head, trying to refocus, but the strange whispering sound persisted, and I reasoned that it was the wind in the trees playing tricks on me.

  “Malcolm, do you hear anything strange?” I asked.

  Malcolm stopped and sniffed at the air with his front legs up. “Oh, yes, we’ve got quite a procession going already. You’re famous, Alexa. Every animal within twenty miles is hiding behind a bush or a tree limb trying to get a peek at you.”

  Things were getting stranger all the time.

  We wound through the forest for another five minutes and then came to a stop where the trail split off into two directions, one straight ahead and one veering off to the left and down toward the Lunenburg wall; both were covered by a thick canopy of low-hanging tree branches.

  “It looks like we’ve arrived, Alexa. Go on now, go straight ahead up that trail and don’t stop until you see Ander.”

  “What’s an Ander?” I asked.

  “You mean who is Ander,” chortled Malcolm. “Go on then — you’ll get all your questions answered once you reach the end of that path.”

  I did as I was told, too tired to complain or argue with a rabbit. A few minutes later the path widened into a circular area about forty feet wide, bordered by large rocks and dead tree trunks. The rocks and trees were covered with animals, more animals than I had ever seen before — squirrels, rabbits, mountain lions, bears, wolves, beavers, badgers, porcupines, skunks, and a smattering of wildlife I could not identify from my own limited knowledge. It was a frightening sight, made worse by the swarm of whispering I continued to hear buzzing in my head.

  Straight ahead, right up the middle of all the animals, was a ferocious-looking grizzly bear. Its head was like a boulder on its massive shoulders, and it swayed back and forth as the beast walked toward me. The whispering stopped. I was about to turn and run for my life when I spotted Yipes sitting on a rock to my right. I was so happy to see him again, I couldn’t keep the big smile off my worn-out face. I read his lips as he mouthed the words “It’s okay, stay calm.”

  The grizzly stopped so close in front of me that its wet nostrils sent a gentle wind through my hair. I looked down and saw where its enormous paws smashed the mossy green grass at my feet. It stood on four legs, its head a foot above my own. I knew from what I had read about grizzly bears that one quick swipe from his paw would break my bones and shred my skin. I remained perfectly still, breathing in and out in choppy waves.

  “We have waited for you a long, long time, my dear,” said the grizzly. His voice was deep, sorrowful, and slow in my head. He seemed old, though I had no idea how old by the looks of him. “I am Ander, the forest king, and I have a lot to tell you.

  “Bring the food!” he commanded, and a parade of animals came out of the woods with offerings of nuts, fruits, and fresh water. “Now, let’s sit down and have a nice long chat, shall we, Alexa?”

  We walked to the center of the grove and sat down. I drank until I thought I would throw up, and then I pulled some leftover meat out of my bag to eat with the nuts and the fruit.

  “If you don’t mind, Alexa, could you get by without the meat for now? Mixed company, you know. It sets them off.” Ander looked around at all the animals. They were all staring at me with wide eyes, and some of the larger animals were dripping saliva and acting strange.

  I put my food away and began eating a pear, which suited me fine. Ander proceeded to introduce me to a
number of important animals in attendance.

  I met Murphy, a lively squirrel who kept zipping back and forth and twirling around in circles after his name was called. It took a while to get him calmed down, and he continued doing backflips and whirling spins every time Ander introduced another animal. There was Beaker, a raccoon. Ander said he was “scientific for a coon, a problem solver.” A badger named Henry was complimented on his fierce fighting skills. Picardy was a beautiful female black bear who had not seen her mate in a very long time; he had been off in the mountains looking for a den when the wall came rising into existence. I met Boone, a crafty bobcat, who often came up with outlandish ideas that, for some unknown reason, actually worked most of the time. There was a quick and sneaky fox named Raymond, and a nervous woodchuck named Vesper. Chopper and Whip were an agreeable pair of buck-toothed beavers.

  The sun was beginning to set and I was getting cold. It must have shown, because Ander took a break from his introductions to call Yipes over, who presented me with a blanket out of his pack. I draped it around my shoulders and curled my legs up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my knees. Soon it would be night, but for now dusk coated the grove with a soft blend of velvety gold and green. It was heavenly.

  Ander finished the introductions with Odessa and Sherwin, the wife and son of Darius. Sherwin approached me cautiously, swaying his head back and forth. He was every bit the powerful beast his father was, but his features were more juvenile and his coat was a lighter shade of gray.

  “You’ve met my father?” he questioned me.

  “Yes, I’ve met Darius. He’s impressive,” I said. I felt a wave of compassion for Sherwin, wondering what it must be like to lose your father in such an unjust way. I added, “When did you last see him?”

  “I don’t remember ever seeing him. I was only a few months old when he was caught behind the wall, and by the time I was old enough to travel through the culvert I was already too large. I probably could have done it as a child, but I was too afraid. When I was smaller I thought many times about sneaking under to find him, but I never did. Now I’m so big I can barely get my head into the tunnel.”

  He paused and looked off toward the Turlock wall in the distance.

  “At night, my father howls at me, and I howl back at him. We dream of hunting together and of he and my mother being side by side again. He often sounds sad and, in recent times, even a little old, like the long lonely nights are beginning to wear on him. Sometimes he howls at me and my mother for hours and hours, until his voice is shredded and cracking. On those nights I often go to the culvert and I put my front paws in, imagining I’m small again. Then I look to the wall and beat my head against the same spot until blood is oozing out of my fur and into my eyes.

  “My story is not so different from what many of these animals here would tell you. Most of the large animals have lost a son or daughter, a mate, a close friend, or a parent. Others feel the terrible loss of the mountains and the lush wild streams lined with fruit trees and blackberry patches. The smaller animals, the ones who can use the tunnels, have maintained a relatively normal life after the walls.”

  “What makes you think dragging me out here will make any difference?” I said. “I’m only a child, and I command no special importance in Bridewell. I create more bad than good back there. Ask anyone.”

  Sherwin looked down for a long moment, then straight into my eyes with a heartbreaking look on his face. “Then we have clearly thought wrong, and we should send you back. You’re small enough to use the tunnels and you have the right breeding, those things are true. What you lack is belief. If bringing down the wall would require you to fly, you must believe that you can fly. Otherwise, when the decisive moment comes, you will surely discover you have no wings.”

  He turned and walked back to stand at his mother’s side. The whispers and the sun were both gone. The sounds of owls, crickets, and frogs blended together to form a thick soup of mystifying night music. The full moon rose out of the trees from the east, pouring a bucket of soft white into the grove. And again I felt the discomforting loneliness that so often haunted me.

  “I see you’ve got quite a scratch there on your arm,” said Ander, his deep voice jerking me out of my self-pity. “I do apologize. Domesticated animals can be rather pesky at times. That’s not to say Sam and Pepper are bad cats — they’ve actually been helpful in our attempts to get you out here. But they can be, shall we say, spirited.

  “Now then, I believe you have a stone in your possession, which I must now ask you to produce. That is, if you don’t mind. It may be that you are not the person for the job at hand, even if I’m quite convinced that you are. In any case, the stone will tell us a lot about what your future holds.”

  With all that was going on, I had completely forgotten about the stone hanging around my neck in the small leather pouch. I clutched it under the blanket, afraid at first to give it up. What if I never got it back?

  I wiggled open the string at the top and removed the stone. When I held it out to Ander, the feathery green glow illuminated the space between the two of us, and the crowd of animals let out a meandering collection of oohs and ahs. I set the stone down on a large flat rock that sat between us, and it continued to throb liquid green light like the steady time of a beating drum. Boom, boom, boom.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Ander as he gazed at its strange throbbing radiance. Boom, boom, boom.

  “This entire area, including the forest, mountains, and hills, was at one time full of Elyon’s enchantment. It was a marvelous place indeed. The stone you chose is what allows you to communicate with us, just as we communicate with one another.

  “At one time there were six stones like this in the pool. Yipes found the first, then another was taken, then the convicts came and took all but this one.” He nodded toward the pulsating green mass sitting between us. “In these stones lie the answer to why Elyon created us, why he created this place, and where he’s gone.”

  Ander sat silent then for a long time, his heavy breathing filling the air. It seemed as though he was searching for something in the silence he couldn’t quite find. And then he came back to life again.

  “Unfortunately, we haven’t the time to talk about all that right now,” he said. “Elyon is on the move, his plans are unfolding in this very age, and we shall all be witnesses to his triumphant return in the days to come. One thing I can tell you: Someone known to you was responsible for bringing the stones here, but that is about all we have time for.”

  “Thomas Warvold,” I said, without the slightest hesitation.

  “An excellent guess. He is responsible for a great many things that, in his death, we are all left to consider. But he did not bring the stones. They were placed in the pool by his wife, Renny.”

  Ander looked at the sky and sniffed at the air, then continued.

  “When things settle down, you can come see me again and I’ll tell you all about the mysterious Warvolds. For now, we really must be getting on with things.”

  I started to protest. I asked about Elyon, whom I had never thought of as more than a legend. But at every turn Ander insisted we stay on his choice of topics, that the time for those answers had not yet come. I wasn’t about to have it out with a thousand-pound grizzly, but his comments left me terribly curious to learn more about Thomas, Renny, and in particular, Elyon.

  “All magic runs out sometime, Alexa, and this place has been running out for some time now. We used to be able to communicate with the birds; now they understand us but we do not understand them. We can send them off to do things, but we cannot be sure if they have done what we asked them to. Oh, they can tell us a little by the way they move and the sounds they make. But it’s as if we speak completely different languages now.

  “Some of the animals are beginning to experience the same problems,” Ander continued. “We can comprehend one another most of the time, but occasionally our voices become garbled for a morning or an afternoon, only to return
again some hours later. This process accelerated after the wall went up.”

  Ander touched the stone with the edge of his paw and gently pushed it two or three inches along the flat rock. The fluid green light continued to pulsate between the two of us.

  “With humans, the stone gives you two important things,” he continued, putting his paw back on the ground. “The ability to communicate with animals and a glimpse into the future. In other words, it gives new insight in two ways: present and future. Just like any magical effect, this one comes with its own set of rules. For instance, the ability to talk with animals works only if you stay in the wild. As soon as you leave, the power begins to drift away. Once this process starts, it cannot be reversed, and there are no more stones to be had. Once you leave the wild, the stone will start its gradual descent into dim regularity. It will throb more slowly — and with less intensity — over a period of undetermined time.

  “As you can probably imagine, Yipes has never left the wild of the forest and the mountains, and so he continues to enjoy the questionable benefits of speaking with animals.” Ander took a moment to look over at Yipes with a nod and a wink, and then he continued.

  “I said before that a stone was taken by someone other than Yipes or the convicts. That person set a stone right where you’ve just set yours, and it glowed like a small but glorious orange sun at the tail end of a hot day. Can you guess who might have sat where you sit now, Alexa?”

  I thought for a moment about the possible answers to the question, but I was sure I knew whom Ander was talking about.

  “Warvold,” I said.

  “Absolutely! It was none other than Mr. Warvold himself, the great adventurer. Would you like to hear what his stone revealed about his future?”

  I nodded and he leaned forward over the table, the green glow from my stone wafting through his bushy fur with a watery glow.