Chapter 18
Two mornings later, they were awakened by the song of a bird. At least, they assumed it was a bird. They found themselves awake and on their feet, listening intently with hearts stirred to an almost unbearable longing.
“What was it?” asked Alissa, who was in tears.
“I think that it must have been the call of a blueflame bird. What else could it have been?” King Luff told her.
Janna nodded. Evidently, she wasn’t the only one who had read the old stories in their library at home. Petten was studying the nearby trees.
“It must be somewhere in this valley,” he said.
“We won’t see it,” Janna announced flatly. “Don’t you remember? Very few people get to see a blueflame bird. I read somewhere that a sighting only happens when the Maker particularly wants to encourage a person. I’ve always longed to see one, but I never have.”
“I wonder how many people have missed the experience by keeping their eyes closed,” said Alissa.
Everyone kept their eyes wide open for the next few minutes, but they didn’t see anything unusual; neither did they hear anything except for the by-now familiar bird songs.
“I wish it would do it again,” Cook finally said wistfully, but the bird was silent.
They were left with the memory of a song so beautiful it made their hearts ache. In later years, they rarely spoke of it, but the oddest things would remind them. The dark blue sky in late evening, stars over a distant mountain peak, a tree branch etched against the sky—something would suddenly stir their depths and revive the aching longing. It was painful, that longing, but they would not have wanted to live without it.
“Perhaps in the high home,” Alissa once mentioned to Janna.
“Yes,” Janna agreed.
Neither said anything more. Some things were too deep for words.
****
That morning was their last in the valley. Five horses trotted out of the woods onto the grassy area beside their fire and stood facing them. The humans were finishing a breakfast of mashed roots cooked with blueberries, which looked horrible but tasted good.
For the second time that morning, they jumped to their feet. Nobody knew what to say. Then one of the horses calmly stepped forward. It was Madow, though it was hard for the humans to tell the horses apart if they were the same color and gender. The two stallions were both cream-colored, one of the mares was also cream-colored, and the other two mares were brown.
“It is time for you to return to your people,” said Madow.
Finding his tongue and remembering his manners, Luff answered with deep sincerity, “We are honored by our stay here. Thank you for your courtesies to us.”
There didn’t seem to be anything further to say. Janna spun about with the confused idea of packing her things, but she didn’t have anything to pack.
They doused the fire and put the blackened stones into the stream. Then they covered the shallow hole with dirt. Grass would spread over the small circle of dirt, filling in the bare place which looked remarkably insignificant now. It was hard to believe something so important to them had been contained in that minuscule bit of ground. The ring of stones had held fires that not only cooked their food, but cheered them with pops, sizzles, and important-sounding roars.
Janna stared at the bare spot forlornly.
The stallions trotted over to Luff and Cook as soon as they were ready to go. Janna had wanted to be on Madow so she could talk to him, but it was one of the brown mares who came up to her. According to the history books, only the cream-colored horses could talk. Janna felt deflated. Could this morning get any worse?
It could and it did.
Alissa was the first to mount. Gracefully, the golden princess swung herself onto her horse’s back. Then Petten mounted with obvious ease. Janna muttered under her breath. How in the mountain world had they done that? These horses were not as large as the ones in Mount Pasture, but that didn’t mean she could simply hop onto the brown back in front of her, which was as high as her shoulder. This was going to be humiliating. Petten would laugh the whole way home.
As of yet, she didn’t think anyone had noticed her dilemma. Their attention had been distracted by Caramel Brute, who had started whining when Luff boosted Cook onto her mare. The big dog snuffled at one of his friend’s feet. Cook leaned down toward him, but Janna didn’t see anything further because her father arrived at her side.
“We’ve neglected your education,” he whispered as he boosted her up. “When we get home, you’ll have to learn how to ride.”
“Okay,” she said, clutching at her horse’s mane.
The only other time Janna had ridden a horse had been the day they’d been captured by the Fern Queen, and that had involved sitting behind Petten and hanging onto him. Now she was by herself, and why had she ever thought these horses were small? She felt ten feet off the ground. At least, she hadn’t been embarrassed, thanks to her father.
Janna managed to smile at him.
“That’s a good idea,” she said with more enthusiasm. She’d always meant to learn how to ride. Everyone in the old stories knew how, so when she got back—
She interrupted herself as they moved off. The last thing she wanted to think about now was going home and what that involved. Ugh. No, she wanted to absorb every last impression of this wonderful valley they were leaving. They would never return. She knew they wouldn’t. Their stay had been a gift offered in response to a desperate need.
The grass waved goodbye under the influence of the valley breezes, and Janna wanted to wave back. She would have if she’d been alone. The stream next to their sleeping place gurgled and splashed. It would gurgle and splash after they left too. Janna was glad it would. Anything else would have been totally wrong, but she still hurt to think of it going on without her.
The last thing she saw as they entered the woods below the waterfall was a group of mares and foals in a nearby meadow. Sunlight shone on the babies’ bodies as they frisked over the grass. The mares lifted shaggy heads and watched the humans leave.
When they reached the waterfall, they had to climb a steep staircase of jumbled rocks, but the horses sprang up nimbly, Caramel Brute scampering after them without a problem.
Janna bit her lips anxiously. She wasn’t worried about her mare missing a step. What she was worried about was the possibility, the very real possibility, of sliding down the rump of her horse onto the head of the horse directly behind her, who was being ridden by Petten, naturally.
She gripped her mare’s mane with both hands and squeezed her legs as hard as she could, but her body slipped another inch down with every jump. Fortunately, before anything mortifying could happen, the horses angled away from the waterfall. One by one, they went between two large boulders that led to a passageway of sorts.
Janna exhaled in relief. They wouldn’t have to climb to the very top of the mountain, nor would they have to go through another underground tunnel. The passageway resembled a tunnel with huge rocks that often touched overhead, but the air was fresh. There would have been a panoramic view from the open places if thick moisture-laden clouds hadn’t settled around them, making it hard to breathe.
“I think we could jump off and swim our way down,” Petten said to Janna when his horse crowded next to hers at a wider place.
She nodded.
“What’s the matter, Janna?”
“Nothing,” she said automatically, but Petten wasn’t having any of that.
“Yes, there is; now what is it?”
Janna was usually the blunt one, but she was having difficulty saying what she really felt now. Just do it. “You laughed at me. I don’t like being laughed at.”
“Neither do I,” he said, his forehead wrinkled.
Janna shook her head pityingly. Petten was too young to have the memory problems of an average adult. Maybe the trend started earlier than she’d realized.
“When—” he began to ask.
“When we were getting away from the Fern Queen and you were being pessimistic and gloomy.”
“Oh yeah,” Petten said and had the nerve to smile at the memory.
She scowled, and he quickly tried to explain.
“I was tense. When I laughed, it helped me handle the stress.”
“Everyone was tense,” she said severely.
“That’s true, but I was your scout. I felt responsible, and we were moving too slowly to have a chance of getting away. I was amazed they hadn’t caught us already.”
“Humph.”
“Besides, you’re cute when you scowl!”
Janna’s mood underwent a sudden and remarkable transformation.
“Your bottom lip pokes out like a two-year-old’s and your eyes—” Petten stopped when he saw her outraged face.
“Cute,” he backtracked quickly. “Real cute.”
Their horses were parting now. Janna said, “Humph,” once more, but since she couldn’t hide a grin while she said it, the exchange ended well. It was good to be friends with Petten again. She didn’t have so many friends that she could afford to lose one.
By then, cool cloud moisture had soaked through everyone’s clothes. The horses with their thick coats didn’t mind the extra moisture and neither did Caramel Brute, who merely shook it off, but the humans were glad when they broke out of the clouds into warm sunshine. Their clothes began to dry and they gazed about with interest, not that they could see much. They had entered a wood now. The trees were scrawny at this altitude, but they still blocked most of the view.
None of them, except perhaps Petten, could have found the way back to the valley they had come from, and all of them, including Petten, were glad to let the horses pick the best route through the trees. Whenever they could, the horses moved into a steady jog.
Midday, the group came out of the trees into what Luff and Petten identified as one of the uninhabited lands to the southeast of Mount Pasture. Craggy peaks and narrow valleys had never encouraged settlers. They didn’t encourage Janna either, and the others seemed to feel the same way. Nobody talked during the last part of the day.
It was long past Janna’s internal supper clock before they stopped for the night near a stream. She slipped off her horse and staggered a few steps. The old stories had not been kidding when they talked about a beginning rider’s sore muscles. In fact, they should have used more descriptive words such as “excruciating pain” and “inflamed nerve endings.” Cook was staggering too, she noted. Alissa and Luff were stiff though they didn’t seem to be in pain, and Petten was as limber as ever, but what would you expect from a scout!
Janna did not complain. Cook didn’t complain either; however, not talking was normal for her, so it didn’t count. Janna did not complain for several more minutes. Wasn’t anyone going to notice?
Madow broke the general silence with his usual emotionless words.
“We will rest with you through the night. Tomorrow, Hayla will carry the older human girl north to meet people from her kingdom who are searching for her.”
“How do you know they’re there?” asked Janna, bristling at the thought of Alissa leaving that soon.
“The Maker told us last night,” said Madow.
“Then why didn’t you say something before now?”
“Janna,” scolded her father, but Madow only answered calmly.
“You did not need to know before now.”
Before Janna could respond to that, Petten entered the conversation. “If it’s okay, I want to go with Alissa. I can keep her company and it will be a more direct route to my kingdom.”
Madow nodded his head. “One of us will take you.”
Janna could have burst with conflicting feelings. She didn’t want Alissa and Petten to leave. She had been counting on them coming to Mount Pasture for a short visit, maybe only a day, but long enough to show people that she had friends. Forget about the noncomplaining stance, which nobody had noticed anyway. Right now, she wanted to complain big time.
On the other hand, Alissa was smiling warmly at Petten, who was smiling back. Finally! Janna wanted to smirk her pleasure at the historical romance budding in front of her. The urge to complain battled with the urge to smirk, but the contest was over almost before it began.
Janna smirked widely, and any lingering vestige of annoyance with Petten vanished. No one but the scout paid any attention to her grinning face, and he winked at her, which made her spirits rise further. It’s a done deal!
“Let’s get some supper,” Luff said, interrupting an imaginary conversation his daughter was having with Alissa, which basically went along the lines of I was right and you were wrong, though Janna was quite humble in her victory, while the golden princess was full of admiration over her keen foresight.
Cook had brought what was left of their roots and berries. Petten caught the usual fish. Everyone knew what to do, making supper a comfortingly familiar routine.
That was good, since as soon as she started her job of gathering wood for the fire, Janna’s high spirits wavered. Keep busy, stay positive. Most of the fallen branches and twigs were on the ground near the stream. As she walked toward them, she saw how fast the current was going. It was going very fast. In fact, it was hurtling past, and she couldn’t help but realize that the time she had left with her friends was hurtling past too.
She tried to distract herself by focusing on a motionless pool on the far side of the stream. However, the more she focused on the pool, the more her spirits followed the example of every rock she had ever tried to skip across a smooth surface of water.
Plop. Always, one wet-sounding plop, and down the rock sank. It was hopeless. She couldn’t stay positive.
Alissa and Petten were leaving in the morning. Romance might be going to happen, but she wouldn’t be there to see it. She would be back in Mount Pasture, where nobody liked her and Benk made up humiliating songs about her.
Supper was a quiet affair. Everyone was tired after the long day. As soon as she finished eating, Janna trudged over to the stream to wash her hands.
During their stay in the valley, they’d used large leaves for plates, but forks and spoons had been too much trouble. With shrugs from a few shoulders, they’d accepted the ease of fingers. Alissa hadn’t shrugged; she had been far too well bred to shrug, but Janna had known without asking that the golden princess had never in her life eaten with her fingers.
“I’m shrugging on your behalf,” she’d said, and Alissa had thanked her with a merry laugh.
Janna washed her hands dejectedly, barely noticing how cold the water was. Good memories, she thought, trying to bolster herself. Be grateful. It didn’t work. The only thing she could feel was sadness. Then footsteps sounded, and her father knelt beside her to wash his own fishy hands.
“I predict it’s going to rain tomorrow, but, as far as I can tell, we’re less than a day’s journey from Mount Pasture. We’ll be home before you know it!”
“Wonderful,” Janna said in a voice that indicated anything but happiness.
Luff was startled. “Don’t you want to go home?”
Janna winced with guilt. Her father had gone to a lot of trouble and risked his life in an attempt to rescue her from the Fern Queen. She hadn’t even thanked him.
“Dad, you’ve been great. It’s just—I don’t have any— nobody likes me in Mount Pasture.”
Luff’s mouth dropped open and his face registered deep shock. “That’s not true. Everyone likes you.”
“Not the kids. And nobody believed me when I told them the old stories were real. Well, that’s one good thing. I was right and they were wrong. Ha! They’re all wooly brained—”
“Janna,” Luff interrupted. He wasn’t thundering anymore, but she knew that tone of voice. It meant business. “If you want people to like you, you have to be likable. When you always put other people down—”
“They’re the ones who put me down,” she said, her voice choking. “I’ve tried to tell you, but you always blame me and never consider the fact that anyone else could have done something wrong.”
Luff stared out over the stream. “I think you’re right.”
“You do?”
“Yes, and I’m sorry. Let’s make a pact. I’ll quit blaming you for everything, and you start being nicer to people.”
Janna nodded doubtfully. “I’ll try.”
Then she wiped her eyes and followed her father back to the others. It was much colder at night away from the valley of the high-home horses. They lay as close to the fire as possible. Janna and Alissa slept huddled together, but even so, everyone was cold and bleary-eyed the next morning.
“The sun will warm us in an hour,” Petten said, and Janna believed him, but that didn’t keep her teeth from chattering right then.
“We will return to our home now,” Madow calmly announced.
Janna whipped about toward the stallion, tripping over her own feet in the process and almost falling down. Somehow, she hadn’t considered that angle. She’d have to say goodbye to Madow and the other horses this morning too, as well as Alissa and Petten.
Someone said, “Thank you,” then everyone was saying it, but nobody came up with anything else to say.
We’re always tongue-tied around these horses, Janna thought, frantically trying to come up with something to say, anything.
The horses seemed quite comfortable with silence. They gazed at the group as if in benediction, then turned to leave. Caramel Brute whined.
“Goodbye, we’ll always treasure the memory of you,” Janna called out frantically.
Madow paused and turned. “Memories will bear fruit in the high home and goodbyes turn into greetings.”
He and the other cream-colored horses trotted off, leaving behind the two brown mares.