Gawion stood on an outcrop in the forest above the village, gazing up at the Great Bear in the sky. It hung upside down directly above Polaris.
Papa ought to whistle soon. Gawion could not wait to speak with him. Papa would be astonished, when he learnt how Gawion’s human friends had tracked down the elf hunter, and worked out where it kept Maeg captured.
Waves of heat prickled under his soles, when he remembered how the elf hunter had just appeared out of nowhere, while he stood next to that big tree, exposed. He had wanted to rush after it, into the human habitat, and force the monster to reveal where it held his sister.
Tessa had seemed to be as shocked as he was, while Felix had taken charge and held Gawion back.
“Professor Bahne?” Tessa had repeated. “But…”
“Professor Bahne is the elf hunter, and he’s here. That means Maeg’s here. Somewhere. We’ll find her,” Felix had said, patting his shoulder, calming him.
Tessa’s eyebrows had scrunched together, rippling its forehead.
“Take the printout. And wake us when you find the van.” Felix had rolled the strange flat image of the vehicle into a hollow cylinder, and Gawion had dropped it in his beard pocket.
Tessa had nodded slowly, but still said nothing, while he agreed with Felix to return the following evening, if they did not find the van during the night.
When Gawion had set off, bouncing from foot to foot up through the forest, there had been a new lightness to his step. Felix had made it sound as if it was only a matter of time before they found Maeg. Perhaps it was. They only needed to locate the vehicle. Papa would be so relieved! He might even admit that he had been wrong to doubt Gawion’s judgement.
Finally, Papa whistled. He was in the same forest as Gawion, farther down in the valley, and it did not take long to find him. But the moment Gawion said he had talked to the two humans, Papa exploded in a stream of hissed reprimands. Rebukes for not going straight home and for talking to humans and dogs segued into a general scolding for trusting humans.
“I suppose it is our own fault for living in a place with no other children,” he hissed.
“I am not a child,” Gawion said, before he told Papa about the elf hunter, and showed him the image of the new-snow-coloured vehicle.
Papa frowned and shook his head, muttering: “A human has abducted your sister, and you want me to trust human children?”
At least he did not send Gawion home.
Staying by the edge of the forest, they glided past villages and empty fields, far down into the inhabited valley. They stopped and sneaked closer to investigate, whenever they saw clusters of human vehicles. But their search yielded no result. The only vehicle they discovered that resembled the flat image was as dark as a starless night.
When dawn broke, and they returned to the cave, Gawion’s hope of finding Maeg had shrunk to something smaller than a blackberry at the bottom of a gorge.
Throughout the morning, Maman kept nagging him. And Liel, with her constant background chant of “never, ever trust a human”, really got on his nerves.
“You know nothing of humans,” he finally shouted, and kicked the big ice cooler, knocking a third off it. “Potzblitz! I cannot wait to get my own cave. I am sick of—”
Papa whistled so piercingly then that lumps of snow fell from the ceiling, and the tunnel entrance to the cave collapsed.
“You can build one right now,” he bellowed. “And take your sesquicentennial hormones with you.”
Seething with anger, Gawion marched into the resting cave.
“And this!” Papa sent the piece of broken-off ice cooler spinning across the floor after him. Gawion jumped out of the way, and it continued into the soft snow, making a barbegazi-foot-deep hole.
“Thanks for the help,” he muttered.
Behind him, Maman said, “Oh, Aeglosben, the humans might have heard that whistle.”
For the rest of the day, Gawion worked hard. He started by digging a long, long tunnel from the resting cave. Next came his very own exit. He needed to get rid of the excess snow, and he shovelled it up to the surface with his feet. Papa surely had not considered that he would now be able to leave unnoticed, he thought, when he broke through the surface into a downpour of wonderful white pellets.
Every time Gawion scooped powder snow out, he hoped to see the sky had darkened, so he could return to Tessa and Felix.