“Thaddeus,” Rue said, and her sharp face was softened by a new warmth. She stood and embraced the man. “It has been too long.”
“Too long indeed. I have not seen you since you were a girl fighting Order in Fork. I never knew you had become the Mother to whom I sent my secret messages. The fairies I brought here told me. Do you know, it was you who originally made me begin to wonder about the provinces? All your endless questions. I was just now on my way to Wildwood, having escaped the blackshirts, when I met a witch who told me that the long-planned meeting was to take place. I hastened here with her, thinking I would speak of what I had seen in the provinces, but I am told you have a more important voice than mine to testify to what is being done to the natural beasts.”
“No less than Hermani. I did not dare hope he would be brave enough to come to this meeting.”
“He is not a coward. He found himself in an agonizing position, having to kill natural beasts for the High Keeper.”
“He continued to support the High Keeper though he knew him to be evil,” Rue said coldly.
“He was not evil in the beginning,” Thaddeus said.
“Few are, but his nature was clearly flawed. It was madness to name him High Keeper.”
“Peace, dear one,” Thaddeus responded gently, and he kissed her palm. “He was brilliant and full of zealotry and bright ideals. He made us feel that we were doing something worthwhile and beautiful in keeping Order. Something necessary and honorable.”
“How some people do love to control the worlds they live in,” Rue said with sudden bitterness. “Ever does it lead to repression and pain.”
Thaddeus shook his head. “Rue, at the time he seemed the answer to our lost sense of purpose.”
“It is a pity you could not simply live,” she said coolly.
He sighed. “People can change. Even keepers. Am I not proof of that? But tell me, how is your brother?”
“Sweet-hearted and stubborn as ever. He would be glad to see you. Come and eat. You have missed the meeting but not the picnic.” All at once the plates were piled with food again, only there was more of it, and even a cake with cream and strawberries.
“A magic tablecloth!” Mr. Walker sighed ecstatically, and reverently took another iced cake.
“I am pleased to see you have come to safe hands,” the man said to Rage. He looked back at Rue. “Is it true what they have been telling me? This child and her companions are our only hope of reaching the wizard?”
“What you have been told is true, but let us leave speaking of these things. I am weary with speculating most of all.”
“I don’t understand about the animals in the provinces,” Billy said. “The ferryman said there was sickness among them.”
The renegade keeper gave him a sorrowful look. “It is true, but it is not magic’s fading that hurts them. It is nothing more than that they are natural beasts and do not thrive while penned away from one another, protected, sterilized, and controlled. It has been so since the provinces were created, I am afraid. It was thought they would adjust in time. But natural animals must be wild, and things grew steadily worse. They breed badly and do not thrive in captivity. This was why the High Keeper’s practices found favor.”
“I don’t understand why the High Keeper just went on pretending it was the witches’ fault that magic was fading in Fork. He must have known that wiping out witches and wild things wouldn’t save Valley,” Billy said.
“I don’t think he was capable of reason by the time Fork began to be affected,” Rue said. “You heard Hermani. In the beginning the High Keeper was no more than a zealot. Once he drank the shining waters, I doubt he was able to see beyond his hatred for those who opposed him.”
Rage wanted to ask where the keepers had come from and why they had been given charge of natural animals in the first place, but Rue stood. “They are ready. Let us return to the clearing.”
Rage’s heart thumped as she followed in the Mother’s wake. If the folk of Valley voted not to help her find the wizard, she would never see Mam again. But if they voted to help them, then she and the others faced a terrifying journey into the unknown. And what if they got to the Endless Sea and the wizard was not there?
There was silence as the Mother walked to the center of the clearing to stand by the fire. “You have made your decision. Is it unanimous?”
A chorus of voices confirmed that it was.
“Who shall speak for you?” she asked.
“I will,” the centaur said in his deep, thrumming voice. He stepped forward. “It has been agreed that Rage Winnoway and her companions shall be given the means to travel down the River of No Return in search of the wizard.”
A group of wild things and witches appeared, carrying what looked like three enormous soap bubbles. Rage stared at them in disbelief. Surely these were not the invulnerable vessels whose creation had reduced the life span of Valley to mere days!
Rue ordered that the bubbles be set down by the cavern wall. Everyone gathered to examine them.
“This is what the magic produced?” Thaddeus asked worriedly.
“It is,” Rue said. “I asked for a mode of travel that would survive the journey and keep those within safe.”
“Perhaps there was not enough magic,” Hermani murmured.
“There was enough. But Valley has only two days remaining.”
Rage looked around at the people of Valley, understanding that it had taken great courage to agree to help them. She and the animals were about to undertake a possibly fatal journey, but in a way all of Valley would share the danger. Their sole hope was for her to find the wizard and convince him to return to Valley. And it had to happen within two days.
Rage ran her hand over the surface of the nearest bubble. It gave beneath her fingers, and she quailed inwardly at the thought of facing the savage River of No Return in such a flimsy vessel. Beside her, Goaty was as pale as his ringlets and trembling visibly. She could not think of a thing to say to comfort him.
Elle went to him and put her arm around his shoulders, looking as fearless as ever. She whispered something in his ear and, surprisingly, he ceased shivering and gave her a shy smile.
“They don’t look very strong,” Mr. Walker muttered.
“No more are they,” Rue said tartly. “The raft boats are strongly made, but they are smashed to pieces. The secret of the river is that one cannot fight and master it, for it is too powerful. One must accept its strength and bend to it. One must face all of its magnificent power with humility. These bubbles are the humblest of crafts, and they will carry you safely with the flow of the river. There is magic in their making that will allow them to bear your weight and keep upright. You will have to ride two apiece.”
Looking at the transparent spheres, Rage thought of how fragile they were to carry such a weight of hopes. Yet Rue’s words made sense: one could not oppose violence with violence. Rage had only to remember Grandfather. He had fought the sorrow of losing his brother with a harshness that had only driven his son and daughter away.
The tops of the bubbles were lifted away. Rage watched as Elle, Mr. Walker, and Billy tried them out. Bear watched Billy, her expression impossible to read. After some rearranging, it was decided that Goaty and Elle would go in one bubble, Mr. Walker and Bear in another, and Billy and Rage in the last. Rage got in when the others were settled. The bubble felt hard and slippery, like a glass in soapy water.
“Will you magic the bubbles to the river from here?” Elle asked Rue when they had climbed out to say goodbye.
“There is no need,” Rue told her. “The river passes on the other side of this wall of stone. I will open the wall with magic.”
“Won’t water pour into the cavern?” Mr. Walker asked anxiously.
“Will it be dark under the river?” Goaty asked in a tremulous voice.
“What if the bubbles hit something?” Billy asked, moving closer to Rage.
“You will see,” the witch said. She looked at Rage. “Are
you ready?”
Rage swallowed a lump of fear lodged in her throat. “I’m ready,” she said.
“Then I will open the way.” The witch knelt and pressed one hand to the earth.
Rage heard a loud ripping sound as the stone wall opened in a wide seam and out of it came a deafening roar. The lanterns flared, and all at once she could see the river thundering by, cloudy with froth and debris. But it was not flowing horizontally. It was flowing downward.
It took some seconds for Rage to realize the water was falling rather than flowing. Then she understood. They were looking out onto the underside of the waterfall.
The witch woman came to stand beside her, and the wind from the falling water blew her hair into a dark halo as she turned. “Thank you,” Rage said.
“It is I who thank you, Rage Winnoway,” Rue responded serenely, and that was all.
Rage had half expected a speech. “I will do my best to find the wizard and make him listen,” she promised, wishing that she had been able to speak of the hourglass and the firecat. “I will tell him everything that I have seen and heard.”
“Let us hope it does not take long,” Rue said. “Make yourselves ready.”
Rage and Billy settled themselves as best they could in a shape with no bottom or sides, and Rue motioned for the top to be replaced. As it sealed seamlessly with the rest of the bubble all exterior sound was cut off, including the roar of the river.
“I hope there is enough air in this,” Billy said to Rage. His voice sounded thin and strange in the enclosed space.
“I wish it were over already.” Rage felt half suffocated.
All three bubbles were carried carefully to the brink of the opening. Rage experienced a moment of pure mindless terror as she looked down into the black abyss.
“It will be all right,” Billy said. He smiled reassuringly at Rage, and she struggled to match his pretense, seeing that it was another kind of courage.
The bubble containing Mr. Walker and Bear was the first launched. With her heart in her throat, Rage watched Thaddeus and the ferryman push it over the edge. Immediately the water bore the bubble down and out of sight. Billy squeezed her hand so hard it hurt.
Then it was their turn. Their palms were slippery now, but they held on tight. Rage looked back at the Mother, and their eyes met for a second before there was a lurching sensation. Then they were falling, and the river was falling with them and around them.
Rage fought against her fear, knowing that if she gave in to panic, she would go mad. She wanted to stand up straight and stretch out her arms and legs and breathe freely. She wanted to scream.
Suddenly there was a great thud and they were under the water with bubbles and debris.
And darkness.
Now they were swept forward. The bubble stayed upright, but they were thrown violently from side to side. Finally, Billy put his arms around Rage. They pressed together, bracing their feet against the bubble to stop themselves being battered.
Rage discovered that she was no longer afraid. It was as if she had felt all the fear she was capable of feeling. A numb dullness stole over her and, incredibly, she began to fall asleep. She tried to stay awake, but her eyelids felt as if they were weighed down with lumps of steel.
“Billy,” she muttered, surprised at how loud her voice sounded in the silence of the bubble. Maybe she was getting sleepy because the air in the bubble was being used up.
“Sleep,” Billy said, kissing her forehead. “I’ll hold on to you. I’m not tired.”
She knew he was lying, but she did not have the strength to resist his kindness. And so, in all that flooding darkness, she slept. Her last waking thought was that perhaps it was the river that was endless, and not the sea.
Rage dreamed that she was on a roller coaster. Billy was with her, in his human form, and she could smell popcorn and hot chips and hear the sound of music and the screams of people behind her.
Then she heard her name being called.
“Ra-age!”
“Who is it?” she asked, and suddenly she was standing on the ground and there was no sound but the wind, and nothing but a dark rise in front of her. It took her a moment to recognize the hill above Winnoway. It was night, and the stars were so bright they might have been pressing themselves toward her.
Rage should have been frightened, but she wasn’t.
“What do you want?” she called. Looking around, trying to see who had cried out, she saw a falling star.
“Help…,” the voice called. It was quite loud, but there was a violent crackling that made it almost impossible to hear. “Break…”
It was the voice she had heard in the forest, urging her to break the spell that held it prisoner. “Who are you?” she called.
“Break…,” the voice begged.
“I don’t know how,” Rage cried.
The dream shattered into pieces around her, and she fell through it into another.
Now she was walking through a strange house. A strong wind blew. Her cotton nightie flapped and fluttered against her bare skin. There was no furniture in the rooms and nothing on the walls. The floor was made of some kind of pale, knotty wood with a bluish tinge, and the walls were all white. There were no doors, only open doorways. There was no glass in the windows, but long white curtains coiled and flagged wildly in the wind. One of them brushed Rage’s cheek. It felt like someone’s fingers touching her face.
She heard her mother’s voice. “Mam?” she whispered eagerly.
“Rage!” Mam called, and somehow the wind was in her voice. “Sammy?” She sounded like a little girl. “Sammy?”
Now Rage was standing on the deck of a ship. The sound of the sea filled the air. Again it was night. A full moon hung among the glittering stars. A man was staring up at it. Rage saw that it was the man with the black, shaggy hair whom she had seen in the jungle. He was not wearing dark glasses now, and she was amazed to see that his eyes were the same color as hers. Winnoway eyes. She reached out to touch him. He started and looked her way, but it was clear that he did not see her.
He reached into his pocket and took out a letter. He stared at it for so long that Rage became curious. She peeped over his arm and was stunned to see her own address written there in a scrawled and childish hand.
The ship hit something, and Rage was thrown hard to the deck. She lay there with her eyes closed, finding it curiously hard to open them or to move. She knew she was lying still, but at the same time she felt as if she were rolling over and over.
Is the ship sinking? she wondered, dazed.
Someone shook her arm, and the world behind her eyelids grew red and bright, the air warm.
“Rage!”
It was Billy calling her. Rage forced herself to open her eyes. She was sitting on a white beach, facing a perfect blue sky. An endless blue ocean unrolled heavy and gleaming onto the shore before turning into froth that was so white it glowed as it sank hissing into the hot sand.
“The Endless Sea,” she murmured.
“It’s an endless beach as well,” Billy said. “There’s nothing in either direction but sand and more sand.”
Rage turned and saw the graceful undulation of sand dunes. The beach all around them glittered with shards of broken glass.
“The bubbles exploded just before we hit the shore,” Billy explained. “Mama and Mr. Walker saw us land, but Elle and Goaty haven’t come yet.”
Rage noticed that Bear was sitting behind them, licking her paws. Mr. Walker was standing by her, staring out to sea with a dazed look on his face.
They heard a call, and she turned and saw two dark specks approaching. “It’s Elle and Goaty!” Billy said in relief.
“What now?” Mr. Walker asked when they had all got over hugging one another and exclaiming about their incredible journey. Even Bear suffered being hugged by them all, and Rage was astonished to see her sit down and rest her head on Billy’s lap of her own accord. He stroked her brow with reverent tenderness.
“We will wait,” Rage said, taking the hourglass from her pocket. There was a single grain left. It fell very slowly, even as they watched.
“If this means the wizard’s life is nearly over, he’d better hurry up,” Mr. Walker said.
“Wasn’t it strange how we couldn’t talk about the firecat or the hourglass to the witch Mother,” Elle said. “The firecat must have cast a spell on us.”
“I guess it didn’t want anyone to know about it or the hourglass,” Rage said. “Maybe it was scared the witch Mother would take it from us.”
“How much time do you suppose it took us to get here?” Mr. Walker asked Billy.
“No more than a few hours, but maybe Valley time is different from time here,” he answered.
“Like in Narnia,” Mr. Walker said eagerly. “You might be away for only a little while, but when you return, any amount of time might have passed. Even years.” His face fell as he heard what he was saying.
“It might work the other way,” Billy said. “Years might pass here, but only a few minutes there.”
“Or maybe no time at all,” Rage said. “Remember how the witch Mother told us that the wizard took Valley out of time?”
“We have to do something!” Elle declared. “Shouldn’t we search for the wizard?”
The air popped and buzzed. A bright orange creature shimmered into existence on the sand nearby.
It gave off such an intense, hot light that Rage was forced to step back. Squinting against the brightness, she saw the flaring eyes and sharp teeth of the firecat.
“No need for worrying. Firecat being here.” The smoky voice of the creature insinuated itself into the bright air.
Rage realized she had been half expecting it to appear. “Where is the wizard?” she demanded.
“Only a little more doing before finding him,” the firecat promised.
“We are not doing anything else or going anywhere until you answer some questions,” Rage snapped, fed up. “You’ve lied to us and you’ve kept things from us, and then you cast a spell so we couldn’t even talk about you. Why did you choose us to bring the hourglass here, and what is it for, really?”