I SAT AWAY from everyone, my back against the Shiny Stone, gazing up at the darkening sky. I could hear the branches creaking above as the cats shifted their bodies and awaited nightfall. The snow was still coming down, but I was more concerned with the sun now. It was getting well past its peak in the sky, and dusk was not far off.
Echo walked over to me. “Hey,” she said, “I never got to thank you, in the cave earlier.”
“Oh,” I said, “it was Mam who saved us.”
“If you hadn’t stepped in front of me, I’m not sure how things would have turned out.”
I looked up at the treetops. “It won’t matter much if we can’t scare those cats away before sunset,” I said.
She leaned in and gave my cheek a kiss.
I got all tingly and jumped up—banging my head on the Shiny Stone and nearly knocking myself out.
“You okay?” she asked.
I rubbed my head and took a deep breath. “If only there was something that scared the cats like that!”
“Yeah,” she said, glancing up at the sky. “Especially in the dark.”
I stared at her. Her words seemed vaguely familiar. I closed my eyes and tried to remember. “Especially in the dark,” I muttered. “Especially in the dark.” My eyes snapped open with a sudden memory. “Of course!”
“Lug?”
But I was already darting across the clearing—no time to explain. Clambering onto Woolly’s back, I whispered a few quick words in his ear. He nodded and headed for Mount Bigbigbig as fast as his legs could take us.
“Strange, isn’t it?” I whispered to Woolly as we stood in the snow and watched the mouth of Crag’s cave flicker with light and shadow. “Last time, Echo and I thought it was a trick of the eye caused by the falling snowflakes.”
Woolly eyed the entrance warily.
“Crag?” I shouted into the cave. “Crag, you in there?”
There was no answer but the howl of the wind.
I took a few cautious steps into the cave. The first thing I noticed was the warmth of the air. It felt like I’d stepped back in time—into the balmy jungle I’d known for most of my life. The farther in I ventured, the warmer the air became, and the brighter the flickering. Soon I heard the sounds of branches being broken and the strains of a scratchy voice, singing softly:
Peeking around a bend into a large circular chamber, I saw Crag sitting in the center, cracking sticks with his hands. He was next to something so strange and bright that I shielded my eyes for a moment. It seemed almost alive—hot and moving, glowing orange and yellow—as if a wild little piece of the sun had escaped and been trapped by him. The hot, glowing thing seemed to emanate from several crackling pieces of wood below it. A pungent gray cloud also arose from the wood and floated out through a crack in the ceiling. Eerie flickering shadows danced on Crag’s bald head and on the cave walls around him.
“Now, you be good and stay right there,” he said, his scratchy voice full of feeling.
I was about to reply when I suddenly realized that Crag was talking to a dark gray rock he’d just put down.
He looked up as if he’d been expecting me. “He always used to follow me around the cave,” Crag explained, gently petting the rock. “But I’ve finally trained Cole to stay. Look how well Cole stays now.”
“Um, yes … that’s … impressive.”
“Don’t tell me, tell Cole!” Crag sighed. “He’s a lonely fellow and could really use some company.”
“Ah,” I said, inching backward. “Good rock … Cole. Good rock.”
Crag stroked one of his luxuriant squirrel-tail-like whiskers, his blue eyes gleaming. “So you’ve come for my storm light,” he said, gesturing lazily toward the hot glowing thing.
I nodded. “You said it makes the beasts fear you. Especially in the dark.”
He suddenly grabbed the rock again and raised it up high.
But he brought it back down again after peering at it, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “How did you get the storm light in here?” I asked.
He silently picked up a small branch and stuck the tip into the storm light. Soon the tip crackled and had its own dancing glow. My eyes must have bulged with amazement, because Crag chuckled. “You do a fair imitation of a stunned squirrel,” he said, holding out the branch to me.
I stayed where I was, watching the orange-and-yellow flame slowly consume the wood. “Is it eating it?” I asked.
“Do squirrels eat nubnub nuts?”
“I … don’t know.”
“Me neither.”
I didn’t find this particularly informative, but I stepped forward and took the branch from his bony, gray-smudged hands.
“As long as you give it wood, the storm light lives,” he said. “But no matter what, keep it away from water. Don’t try peeing on it, believe me.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling the intense heat of it on my face. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I gave him a grateful nod and began to back away.
“Seriously, don’t mention it to anyone,” he said. “Well, besides your other banished friends, of course.”
“Oh,” I said, “we’re not banished anymore. Now there are these giant cats threatening the village, so—”
“Not banished?” He snatched the branch back, quick as a snake.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
“Taking what’s mine,” he said, tossing the branch into the storm light. “Feel free to let yourself out. And have a marvelous day!”
“What? Wait! Don’t you … don’t you want to help your own people?”
“My people?” He let out a soft, mirthless chuckle. “My people banished me.”
“But you offered me the storm light when I first met you!”
“I overheard you talking to your friends that day,” he said. “You said you were banished. Like me.”
“I was.”
Crag’s bright blue eyes narrowed quizzically. “You mean … you’re helping the same people who banished you?”
“If no one does anything, giant cats will eat them alive!”
“You know, Crag, I used to kind of envy you. I wished that I could do whatever I wanted without anyone ever bothering me. But now I see what you’re like.”
The man gazed silently at the storm light, his eyes narrowing.
“Look,” I said, “what if I told you that all the other human clans have been wiped out by the cold?”
Crag glanced up at me. He suddenly looked very tired.
“The mammoths said they haven’t seen a single human settlement that’s survived,” I added.
“Then,” he whispered, “it’s probably too late.”
“Why?”
“Because the problem has gotten too big. Nothing can be done.” He resumed breaking branches in the woodpile.
I cleared my throat and tried to speak calmly. “Why did they banish you?”
“Why do you care?” he snapped, cracking another branch in two.
“I thought I’d been banished because I couldn’t catch a macrauchenia for the Big Game,” I said. “But it was really because our Big Man didn’t want me vying for power with his son.”
Crag looked up. “So Boulder hasn’t changed much, eh?”
I stared at him, dumbfounded.
“Now, that’s more of a stunned dodo look.”
“Did Boulder … banish you too?”
Crag shook his head. “Not exactly,” he said, gazing back into the flames. “Boulder and I are about the same age. When we were kids, I was very curious about the world. I would go exploring and invent things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Useful things,” he said, pointing at some funny-looking objects in a dark corner, “like the feather fluffer and the rock holder.”
“Never heard of them.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll be huge one day,” he said. “But don’t get me wrong—not all of my inventions were useful.” He pointed at a strange thing with no corners lying abandoned against a wall.
“What do you call that?” I asked.
“The wheel,” said Crag. “Completely useless.”
I nodded.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I also liked to go exploring. I was fascinated by storm light. I’d seen it strike the mountain and always wondered what happened when it did. On every stormy day, I would sneak up the mountain and look for it. One morning I got lucky and saw the storm light strike a tree. And it made this happen,” he said, pointing to the flaming branches in front of him. “I called it fire.”
“Fire,” I repeated, watching it consume the stick he’d snatched back from me.
“Unfortunately, Boulder did a little sneaking of his own that day. He saw me going up the mountain and tattled to his Big Man father. They both wanted Boulder to be the next Big Man, and they somehow got the notion that I’d be his main competitor. They were wrong. I just wanted to invent and discover things. But they managed to get the council to banish me. And … well … now I talk to rocks.”
“Glad that cheered you up,” he said.
“I have some good news for you, Crag. Boulder has left the clan.”
“Really?” he said. He picked up the dark gray rock he called Cole and stroked his magnificent whiskers with it. “So, Lug, if you don’t catch jungle llamas and bash heads, what do you do?”
I noticed that the rock was smudging his whiskers a dark gray. “May I?”
“What?”
“Um … hold Cole?”
Crag suddenly looked protective. “Be gentle with him. He looks scary but he’s really very sweet.”
I took it. Cole didn’t feel like a rock at all—it was much lighter, like dried wood. I walked over to the nearest cave wall and began using it to draw a picture of Crag.
He watched in silence.
Crag stared at the picture of himself at his fire, while the real firelight and shadows danced over it. I glimpsed two tears travel down his cheeks and disappear into his whiskers before he turned away and looked at his woodpile. After a moment’s thought, he pulled out a strong and sturdy stick the size of my arm and pushed one end of it deep into the blaze. It lit with a great crackle. “Here,” he said, handing it to me. “Here is your fire.”
I took it and peered at the flame. “I wish I could give you something in return.”
“You already have,” he said. “Now get out of here before Cole gets cranky!”