Emilie clearly read dejection in the way those blossoms hung loose. “It’s stuck.”
“What do we do?” Efrain hesitated. “Do we have to leave it?”
“No.” The word was out before Emilie completely formed the thought. The idea of leaving it, or anyone, stuck out there to die was horrible. It could have easily been one of them.
She stepped back from the edge, looking up and down the bluff. They needed something to reach the floating fragment. “Didn’t you have rope in your pack?”
Efrain leaned on one of the trees to steady himself and pulled his pack around. He rooted through it and dug out a coil of climbing line. “We could tie a rock to the end and try to throw it, but Hyacinth would have to jump and we’ll have to pull it up, and it’ll hit the side of the cliff.”
That was true. Even if they tied their end of the rope to a tree, there was nothing to secure it to on the fragment. And that was if they could manage to throw the rope out far enough so Hyacinth could grab it. Efrain could throw further than Emilie, but she had never noticed him being particularly accurate.
The tree Efrain leaned against creaked alarmingly, a small avalanche of dirt and pebbles sliding down from around its roots. Emilie grabbed for his arm and they hastily scrambled back. A little unsteadily, he said, “These trees aren’t as stable as they look.”
“No. No, they aren’t.” It gave Emilie an idea. It was probably a bad idea but it was still worth trying. “Come on, this way.”
She led the way along the bluff’s edge, scrambling in the clumps of dirt and rock. She could see scooped-out scars in the edge where other trees must have finally pulled loose and fallen. After a short search and some wandering back and forth, she found a tree that seemed to be tall enough and that was leaning at the right angle. Efrain followed her, his expression reflecting increasing consternation as he realized what she was doing. He said, “It could crush him! Though I guess that’s better than starving to death.”
“Maybe it lives off sunlight, like a flower. It might be out there forever.” Emilie climbed carefully around the selected tree, examining the roots’ grip on the edge of the bluff. She pushed hard on the trunk and heard an encouraging crack underfoot. Efrain yelped and scrambled away, dragging on her pack strap.
“This one is perfect.” Emilie told Efrain, “Take the rope and tie the end to one of those trees upslope. Make sure it’s a good solid one.”
Efrain nodded sharply and started up the slope. Emilie felt a start of surprise that he was listening to her. It felt very odd to be doing something constructive with Efrain again. The last thing they had actually cooperated on was the aborted construction of a tree fort. It had been a deathtrap of a tree fort due to rotted lumber. She only hoped they were better at this.
Hyacinth had stood up again and appeared to be watching them. At least, when Emilie looked at it again, it waved its blossoms. She waved back, and pointed significantly at the tree, then toward the rock island. Hyacinth waved its blossoms again.
Efrain slid back down the slope, leaning his weight on the rope to test it. Emilie shrugged off her pack and hooked it over some tree roots upslope, and they tied two loops in the rope, one for each of them. The first set of loops didn’t allow for enough slack between them, but once they got that sorted, they were able to pull the loops over their heads and up under their arms. “Are you sure the rope is tied off securely?” Emilie asked.
“Of course I am!” Efrain bristled.
“We’re both going to die if it isn’t, so I won’t be around to say I told you so,” Emilie pointed out. Her heart was thumping a little at what they were about to do. It wasn’t so much that she was afraid of heights as she was terrified of falling from heights, having come very close to it a time or two.
Once they had the rope loops secured around them, they slid down to the base of the tree that clung insecurely to the edge of the cliff. It was a very tall tree but slender, and they sat in the tumbled dirt clods at its base and pushed with all their strength. The tree creaked and Emilie heard dirt and pebbles rattling below it, but it didn’t fall. “Use your legs,” Efrain advised, and they twisted around to push with their feet. Roots popped and tore, and Hyacinth must have figured out what they were doing, because it was now huddled on one side of the fragment, making itself as small as possible.
“It’s working,” Emilie said, breathing hard from the effort. “Just not as fast as I imagined.”
“Get closer, here, like this.” Efrain dug his way further into the roots. “And push up!”
“I think…” Emilie lost that thought when the tree jerked forward and started to fall, the roots tearing free in a shower of dirt and the edge of the bluff dissolving under them.
Emilie clawed frantically at the sliding dirt before the rope caught her. She banged into Efrain and they both dangled down the edge of the cliff. The rope was so tight under her arms it squeezed the air out of her lungs. Struggling to find a hand- or foothold in the bluff, she was barely aware that the tree was still held in place by its lower roots, that it hadn’t toppled all the way down, so the top of it must have hit the rock fragment as planned. But as Efrain tried to use the roots to drag them up, they tore out of his hands and the tree slipped down.
Then something wrapped around her upper arm and yanked her up, flinging her forward. She landed facefirst in loose dirt, Efrain landing heavily on top of her. She scrambled up, half dragging Efrain, until she felt rock and sparse grass.
She spit dirt out and pushed herself up enough to look around. Crouched next to them was Hyacinth, its blossoms shaking with agitation, or maybe reaction to their extremely close call. Efrain, still face down in the dirt next to her, groaned. “That hurt.”
Emilie twisted to look and saw the very top of the tree had struck the fragment and lay delicately poised there. That was close, she thought, her throat dry. It was lucky Hyacinth must be as light as a feather; a person of any weight whatsoever would never have been able to cross that tenuous bridge. And she and Efrain might not have been able to climb back up the cliff, might have strangled themselves in the too-tight rope, if Hyacinth hadn’t been strong enough to lift them. Then the last of the tree roots gave way with a crack and another chunk of the cliff went with it as the tree dropped away.
Hyacinth tugged at her arm again, urging her farther up the slope. Emilie grabbed the back of Efrain’s jacket and dragged him up. Once they were farther up on more solid ground, she and Efrain managed to struggle out of their rope loops. Efrain tried to brush the dirt off his shirt and pants without much success. He said, “I’d better go up and try to get the rope loose. We might need it again.”
“Cut the knot if you have to,” Emilie told him. She retrieved her pack and sat for a moment, contemplating Hyacinth. “Thank you,” she told it. Her upper arms and chest still hurt, she was fairly sure the bruises were going to be terrible, and breathing still felt like a luxury. But she was very glad they had taken the chance. Walking away with Hyacinth trapped on that fragment would have been impossible.
Hyacinth fluttered its blossoms inquiringly. The next step was obviously to figure out how to talk to it so they could make plans. It must know more about the situation here – wherever here was – than they did. And she couldn’t keep calling it Hyacinth. It needed a real name. “I’ve been calling you Hyacinth,” Emilie said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Hyacinth fluttered its blossoms again. If it could understand her, it didn’t appear to mind.
Efrain came back down the slope, moving slowly, coiling the rope up. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, “Before something else happens.”
Finding Hyacinth had told them that Emilie was right about where Miss Marlende and the professor must have ended up. She pushed to her feet. “We need to go back this way.” She turned to motion to Hyacinth to follow but it was already beside her, flowing easily over the rough ground.
Emilie and Efrain moved much more slowly, though the next set of hills wasn’t nearly so st
eep. It wasn’t so much from caution as from aches and pains and a growing tiredness. Emilie just didn’t think they were going to make it much further without a rest. Hyacinth didn’t seem tired, but its body seemed so light and it had four legs to walk on. They both had water bottles in their packs, but Emilie was relieved to encounter a stream flowing down one of the rocky slopes. It flowed down through the forest, narrow but fast-moving in a wide gravelly bed that ran to the edge of a bluff and dropped away. At least if they were stuck here for any length of time, they wouldn’t die of thirst.
They stopped to rest by the stream by common consent. Once they drank and refilled their bottles, and Hyacinth had drooped some blossoms in the water, they sat on the smooth rocks on one side and looked out over the valley. Efrain said, “It’s funny that there’s no insects. That doesn’t make sense.”
Emilie had noticed that, too. “Why doesn’t it make sense?”
“Because there are flowering plants. You can’t have flowers without insects and bees. Or, most of the time, anyway. The bees carry the pollen around from flower to flower, and if they didn’t, there wouldn’t be any flowers.”
Emilie frowned at him. It was more erudition than she had ever heard Efrain show on any subject that didn’t involve throwing balls and being contemptuous of sisters. “How do you know that?”
Efrain glared at the water and nudged pebbles around with his boot. “I read.”
“I’ve never seen you read.”
Efrain’s chin grew even more stubborn. “I don’t show you and Emery everything. I have secrets, too.” He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “Erin knew I read.”
Emilie eyed him. Regardless of that, he was right about the lack of insects. They were both sweating and even Hyacinth smelled more flowery; surely they should be attracting midges. There weren’t even any beetles or stinging bugs around the water.
Then she looked at the stream, at the wide channel and the narrow trickle of water. The stone she was sitting on was still damp. No insects, no birds, no sign of animals. She looked around at the hill and thought of the gap and the fragments where Hyacinth had been trapped, the strange mountains, so oddly shaped and so different from each other. “Uh-oh.”
Efrain, still frowning, stared. “What?”
Emilie hesitated. She was a little worried Efrain would panic, but… She had to say this to somebody, and Hyacinth wouldn’t understand the words and couldn’t answer in any way she understood. “I think… What if we weren’t brought here, to this place, by the aether current? What if the aether current brought all of this here? These hills, the ground, the mountains. That’s why it’s in clumps, like this, and why there was a section missing.”
Efrain’s eyes widened. Then he shook his head. “But there’s water here. This stream. Water has to come from somewhere. And the trees…”
Emilie grimaced. “The water is running out. This stream should be three times as wide. But the lake or spring or whatever that was brought here with it isn’t connected anymore, and it’s slowing down to a trickle.”
Efrain looked down, then pushed to his feet and looked up and down the stream. Emilie looked at Hyacinth. She thought she had figured out where its eyes were, buried among the blossoms roughly in the center of the area that was probably its head. There were several small round bumps there that she caught occasional glimpses of, and they were dark and shiny like eyes. Now they appeared to be regarding her soberly, or at least she thought so. I bet it came to the same conclusion, she thought. I bet that it knows what this place is, and what happened. It just can’t do anything about it.
Efrain said, unsteadily, “But… What… What do we do?”
Emilie pulled her pack strap over her shoulder again. She said, “We walk faster so we can find the others.”
Efrain rubbed his eyes but didn’t sniff. Hyacinth flowed to its feet. It looked from Emilie to Efrain and back. Then its blossoms rustled and it drew something out of them and held it out. Emilie stepped close to look.
It was a little ball of the metallic folded paper, just like they had seen on the ship. Emilie leaned closer. The tiny folds were moving, just a little. It looked like a miniature version of the globe they had seen in the control area… Emilie lifted her brows. “It’s your version of an aether-navigator, isn’t it? It moves when the currents move?”
Hyacinth waved its blossoms gently and tucked the little device away again.
“Can he get us back to the airship with it?” Efrain asked, suddenly hopeful again. “After we find all the others?”
“Not if it works like an aether-navigator. But it should be able to tell when the current changes again, and what direction it shifted to, and that sort of thing.” Emilie wondered if Hyacinth could understand something of what they said. Or maybe it was just much better at interpreting their expressions and actions and gleaning information from it than they were about it. She said, “We’re looking for our other two friends.” She gestured, and held up four fingers and then two, and tried to pantomime the absence of Miss Marlende and the professor. “We think they must be over that way. That’s why we’re going in this direction.” As she pointed, they all turned to look.
Three hills away, over the tops of the trees, a thin column of smoke was rising. Just enough for a small campfire. “A signal!” Efrain bounced happily, pointing. “They’re signaling us!”
“Of course they are,” Emilie said in relief.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It made sense, Emilie thought as they hurried through the forest. Miss Marlende and the professor must have decided to wait where they were and build a signal fire. On reflection, Emilie could see it was the most sensible course of action and that she and Efrain should have done it as well. But Miss Marlende must have looked for one from them, not seen it, and decided to do one of her own so they didn’t miss each other while running around through the woods and up and down hills. Maybe Dr Marlende and Lord Engal and Mikel and Cobbier had found them as well. With everyone putting their heads together, and Hyacinth’s device for showing the aether currents, they could find a way out of here.
That was what she was telling herself, anyway.
The slopes and bluffs allowed them views where they could spot the signal again and keep to the right direction. “It’s getting thinner,” Efrain pointed out after they had walked about an hour and were only one hill away.
Emilie shaded her eyes to look. The smoke column did look wispier. “Maybe it’s just the angle we’re at, or the wind.”
“Or they need to get more wood,” Efrain added practically, and they moved on again.
As they came down through the thick trees on the last part of the hill, Emilie tried hard to hear voices ahead. She supposed Miss Marlende and the professor could just be sitting around quietly resting, but it must mean the others hadn’t found them. She couldn’t imagine Lord Engal being in this situation and not talking about it.
She could think of a dozen reasons for it to be quiet, but it still filled her with dread. Something’s wrong.
They emerged from the trees above a clearing, studded with a few white boulders. Emilie saw the camp immediately. A spot among the boulders had been cleared roughly of grass, and a fire had been built. A heap of sticks had been piled nearby, ready to feed it, but the fire had almost burned out. There was no sign of anyone.
Emilie’s throat went tight. She hurried down the last slope and among the boulders, Efrain and Hyacinth following. The area around the dying fire showed no signs of a struggle or fight. The grass that hadn’t been pulled up to keep the fire from spreading was flattened a bit, as if two people had walked or sat on it. Then she saw a pack leaning against the base of one of the boulders, its white canvas blending into the gray-white stone. She ran over and snatched it up.
Efrain said, “Where are they?” He flung his arms out. “They aren’t here! It’s not fair; we thought they were here!”
Emilie, sitting on her heels to look through the pack, paused to stare at him incredulousl
y. Efrain sniffed and rubbed his nose, and admitted miserably, “That didn’t sound so whiny inside my head.”
“I don’t know where they are,” Emilie said under her breath. In the top of the pack, she found the professor’s notebook. Everything else seemed as it should be. Her water bottle was still there, the packets of food, and a collection of items that were probably for magic, such as little bottles of minerals. There were also some instruments that might be for navigation or drawing that Emilie couldn’t identify. One she recognized from descriptions in the Lord Rohiro books and from glimpsing one on Dr Marlende’s work room bench. It was a combination clock and aether-compass, with a pocketwatch face on one side and the other a miniature aether-navigator with a tiny bit of aether in a glass bubble, floating a compass needle atop it.
She stood up and looked around again, then walked around the perimeter of the camp. Miss Marlende’s pack wasn’t here. “If they left on their own, they wouldn’t have left the professor’s pack here.”
Efrain looked around uneasily. “If they left on their own. You mean someone made them leave?”
Emilie couldn’t think of any other reason they would build a signal fire to draw them here and then go away, especially without the professor’s things. If Dr Marlende or any of the other men had found them and required help urgently, they could have torn a page out of the notebook and left a message to that effect. She realized she was pacing in a tight circle and made herself stop. “Someone else found them before we did. Someone made them run away or took them away.”
“What someone?” Efrain rubbed his eyes again, clearly fighting back tears. Hyacinth waved its arm blossoms in agitation. There was no telling if it understood just what had happened, but it clearly knew something was wrong. Efrain continued, “What do we do? How do we find them now?”
Emilie drew breath to snap at him, then let it out. Efrain might pretend to be a mature young man around Uncle Yeric, but he was a year younger than she was and he had never been through anything like this before. Standing there, she became aware of how much her feet ached from walking on sliding rocks, how dry her throat was. She should be hungry, but she just felt queasy. It had been a long time since either of them had slept, and the unchanging light of the aether had kept them from noticing. They would have dropped from exhaustion if they hadn’t been so afraid. None of that was going to help her find the others.