Chapter Thirty-Seven

The Tree Cave

The next day I found my own way to Nellie’s house. I knocked and she let me in.

“Come look,” she said, leading me to the big table by the window.

Our blue feathers and shells lay scattered across the wood. Next to them was a half-filled sheet of thick paper. It wasn’t a picture of a thing, just colors and shapes. A sphere swirled with silver-blue light. Beside it, three stripes—just lines, but somehow they carried both the stillness of the shell and the swiftness of the stroke. The space between the pearl and the stripes felt alive. Like whispers were passing back and forth. I drew in my breath.

“Don’t stand there gawking,” barked the walrus.

Nellie and I jumped and turned around.

“I need rough,” he said. “Rough you can see and rough you can only feel. As many kinds as you can bring me. Well, what are you waiting for? Go!”

This time Nellie led me inland, in a direction we hadn’t gone before. We ran through a thick fir forest and across a meadow. We skirted a house with peeling red paint; it looked deserted, but Nellie kept us out of sight anyway. She didn’t even need me to remind her.

The ground began to climb. Now we were hiking up a steep hill, with rocks and scraggly grass underfoot. We crested the top.

“There!” said Nellie, proudly.

Spindle Island lay spread out below us. There was the harbor, with miniature boats bobbing at the pier. The buildings looked like tiny boxes. The bigger one must be Jane’s store. I was surprised how few other houses there were. From the dock, in the dark, the town had seemed much bigger. A single black road wound inland like a snake with a yellow stripe down its back. Here and there, ribbons of dirt road branched off toward solitary houses.

I could have stayed looking for a long time, but Nellie was pointing down to the bottom of the hill. “See that creek? That’s where we’re going.”

She took off down the hill. I followed, and when she spread her arms and started leaping, I did the same, my arms as wide as wings. The slope got steeper and a breeze pushed me from behind and my feet barely touched the ground. I’d never gone so fast on land!

At the bottom we skidded to a stop, panting, our hands on our knees. Nellie looked up at me, her eyes sparkling, and grinned. I couldn’t help it: I grinned back. At that moment a kind of weight lifted from me. I felt I could run forever without getting tired.

We wandered along the creek. I didn’t know plants could grow like this, so dense and green. Fir trees towered overhead, and the ground was a sweep and tumble of ferns, their long arms draped over rich, black earth. Everywhere I looked there was brilliant green moss, growing on rocks, coating tree trunks in soft, thick pelts. Swaying branches swallowed up sound, muting our footsteps, hushing even our breath. Where were we going to find rough in a place like this?

Nellie was bending down with her pack open. I ran ahead, jumping from rock to mossy rock across the creek. On the far side, the soil was even softer. It gave a little with every step.

“Wait up!” called Nellie, bounding toward me. And then we were racing and chasing each other through the trees.

It was late afternoon when we ran out of the woods and onto a new stretch of shore. The sun lit the madrone trees sideways, painting their bark red.

“Where are we?” said Nellie.

I pointed to the rocks out in the strait, where I’d carried her, and then to the jut of land that led to Maggie’s. “So we’re halfway between your house and mine,” I said.

As I lowered my arm I saw, barely above the high-tide line, what looked like a bright green dome. Nellie followed my gaze, and then we were running over to investigate.

A short tree, only shoulder high, leaned toward the water. Its branches draped down to shelter a broad rock at its base. We pulled a branch aside and crawled in. It was like a cave woven of leaves and sparks of light.

“It feels like magic,” I said.

Nellie nodded. “But better, because it’s real.”

The space was just big enough for us to sit and examine what we’d found. Fern fronds and tufts of yellow-green lichen. Some stones from the hillside. Fragments of bark that looked like they’d fit together if you could only figure out the pattern.

Nellie picked up a fern frond and ran her finger along the jagged edges, then turned it over. On the underside were two rows of tiny bumps.

“Those are the spores,” she said. “That’s what my mom studies.”

“Your mom?” I hadn’t pictured her with anyone but the walrus.

Nellie nodded. “She’s a biologist. So is my dad. They’re working in the rain forest. I wanted to go, but Mom said if I was running loose around all those snakes and germs, she couldn’t concentrate. Dad was going to stay behind, but then Grandpa said I could live with him. Mom said there’s no school here”—she gave a little smile—“but Grandpa said I’d learn plenty from the plants and the animals. Which was a pretty good argument since they’re scientists. And he said I could read his books.”

I caught my breath. Read. Was that how they gave her their songs? I started to ask, “How—”

“Mom said he didn’t even get a decent internet signal, and Grandpa said, Who needs the internet when you’ve got the sea and sky? That’s when Mom said yes. So I get to live with Grandpa for now. Mom and Dad send letters, and Grandpa checks for email when he goes to places with decent reception, and once in a while they call when they can get to a phone.”

Nellie leaned back. Her face was hidden in the shadows.

She’d said a lot of words that I didn’t understand, but I knew the feeling in her voice. “You miss them,” I said.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I do.”

A breeze rustled the branches, and drops of sun rippled across the rock like light through water. And then the light seemed to thin, and I saw Mam swimming under a layer of ice—her determined eyes, her powerful tail. She must be heading back to me by now. A thrum of excitement ran through me, but then it got muddled up with a longing so deep it hurt.

“I miss my mother, too,” I said.

I knew Nellie understood because she didn’t say a thing.

When we got back to Nellie’s, smoke was rising from the chimney. This time I walked right in without hesitation. We spread everything out and the walrus leaned forward in his chair with a grunt.

“Hmm.” He held the bit of yellow lichen up to the window. “That might do it.”

“Grandpa?” said Nellie.

He picked up the bark and rubbed it between his thumb and fingers.

“Grandpa, shall I get the cookies?”

He set the bark down and pulled the pipe from his pocket. “Ah, yes, a story. What would you like today?”

“What’s the one you didn’t tell us yesterday?” said Nellie. “About the man who follows a selkie?”

I looked up eagerly. Of course she wanted the same story I did.

The walrus sniffed his cold pipe with obvious longing. “‘Westwood Pier’? I won’t be keeping you up with nightmares.”

“We don’t get nightmares, do we, Aran?”

“Never,” I lied.

The walrus leaned back in his chair, looking thoughtful. Then his eyes lit up and he gave a quick nod. “Right, then. Get the cookies, Nellie. I know just the story.”

This time I took a cookie. And then another. I decided to ask Maggie if she’d heard of cookies; they were much better than cornflakes.

The walrus cleared his throat. “In the old days,” he began, “there was a king who had ruled for fifty years of peace and prosperity. . . .”

A king: Was that like a chief? I leaned forward, eager to catch every word. But the story droned on and on, and there wasn’t a selkie in sight. There wasn’t even any ocean. My feet started jiggling; I sat cross-legged to keep them still. Finally I slumped over, chin in hand. This story had nothing to do with my folk, or me. It didn’t even make my heart beat faster.

What was the tale the walrus wouldn’t tell?