Cavern of Secrets

  “We’ve been over this before, more times than I can count.” A different man’s voice. “Those are my orders—to watch the house, and bring the girl in if she comes here. The reason why is of no concern to me. We’re leaving, but we’ll be back. If you hear from your niece and don’t report it to the Commons, you’ll regret it more than you can imagine.”

  After those ominous words, a door slammed. Raffa scooted around to the side of the house, where he could see the path that led to the road. The man leaving the house wore a guard’s uniform. He mounted his horse and joined three other guards, including the one who had queried Raffa. All four trotted away on the road toward the ferry landing.

  Kuma pointed toward the nearest part of the hedgerow. She and Raffa ducked behind it.

  “They were guarding the house when I first got here,” Kuma whispered. “That’s why I was taking so long—I had to wait to see what they’d do. Finally the one at the back went into the house, just before you came, and said they were leaving. You heard most of the rest.”

  If the guards had been here ever since their escape from Gilden, why were they leaving now? Raffa pondered, frowning. It was no longer winter, but that couldn’t be the reason. What else was different? What else had changed?

  Garith.

  Raffa stared at Kuma. “Garith must have reached Gilden,” he said slowly, “and—and for some reason, that’s made a difference, and they’ve called the guards away.”

  Two possibilities occurred to him, almost at the same moment. Garith could have deliberately misled the Chancellor. He might have said that Kuma and Raffa were hiding Roo in the Forest of Wonders, with the result that the guards had been ordered to search for them there.

  Or maybe . . .

  Raffa glanced away from Kuma. He didn’t want her to read the worry in his eyes over the second option: Garith could have told the truth about Roo’s whereabouts.

  But even if that’s so, there’s nothing I can do about it right now. Raffa turned his thoughts to what he could do. He scanned the sky quickly. No sign of Echo, but as long as Raffa stayed in the area, the bat would find him.

  “Come on,” Raffa said, as he rose out of his crouch.

  Kuma tugged at his sleeve in alarm. “Get down! Someone might see you!”

  “We’re going to see your aunt and uncle.”

  “Raffa, no!” Her eyes grew wide with alarm. “If they know I’m here, it could get them into terrible trouble! And us, too!”

  “Kuma.” He squatted down so he could look straight at her. “The guards are gone now. This might be our only chance. They’re your family. You thought maybe they didn’t care about you? I know what I heard just now. It’s worth a whole quake of trouble for you to see them again.”

  He saw her eyes fill with tears. “You really think so?” she said, her voice barely audible.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Raffa replied. “I know so.”

  He took her by the hand, and they walked toward the house.

  Raffa was more than right. He saw Aunt Haddie, who was wearing a blue headcloth, step out the back door, her face dark like Kuma’s, with the same high cheekbones. Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened when she caught a glimpse of her niece. She quickly raised her hand and indicated that Kuma and Raffa should stay where they were, hidden again behind the water barrel.

  Then she disappeared inside, and immediately Raffa could hear sounds of urgent activity. It seemed that Kuma’s aunt and uncle had had a plan in place for her return.

  There was a jumble of voices for several moments, and then the door slammed again. Raffa heard Haddie’s footfalls inside, quick despite the generous girth of her body.

  Then she reappeared at the door and pulled them both inside.

  “The loft,” she said. “Kuma, if they come back—the roof. You know.”

  Kuma nodded. She and Raffa scrambled up the ladder into the loft. Raffa listened to the sounds of Haddie busy below, all the while straining his ears for hoofbeats.

  It seemed like a long time before he heard the door open, then the uncle’s voice.

  “The guards—they’re well and truly gone.”

  Raffa and Kuma were sitting under the trapdoor to the roof, ready to climb out at the first sign of the guards’ returning. Now they moved to peek over the edge of the loft floor into the room below.

  Kuma’s aunt and uncle stood in the unsteady light from the fireplace. All the shutters were closed.

  “Come!” Aunt Haddie said. “Come here to me before I take another breath!”

  When Kuma stepped off the ladder, Haddie hugged her so hard that she started coughing. Uncle Elson laughed and embraced Kuma, too. Then she introduced them to Raffa.

  Elson held up his hand so Raffa could match palms with him. He was not a tall man, but still gave an impression of strength, with a sturdy neck and powerful shoulders. He wore his black kinked hair short and neat, and there was a plait in his beard.

  “Oh, Kuma,” Haddie said in a choked voice. “Did we not pay you enough mind? We were always grateful that you asked so little of us, but we never meant—”

  “No, Aunt Haddie, please! It’s not like that at all. I couldn’t come home. I’ll explain everything—but where are—”

  “They’re with people we trust,” Elson answered.

  Raffa noticed how Kuma and her aunt and uncle finished each other’s sentences. He had done the same with his own family, and suddenly felt a surge of homesickness.

  “The Abduls have the older ones, and Missum Yuli took the babies,” Elson went on. He turned to Raffa. “Our children—the oldest is only nine. They’re not to know that Kuma is here. They might let something slip.”

  Raffa swallowed. “What about your neighbors?” he asked. “Will they . . . give us away?”

  Elson shook his head. “Not Kuma,” he said. “And we’ll spread the word that you’re with her.”

  “No more talk for now,” Haddie said. “You both need a wash and a hot meal.”

  She had prepared huge basins of steaming hot water, one in each of the two smaller chambers flanking the main room. Raffa stripped off his clothes and sat down in the basin. The heat from the water soaked into his bones. He couldn’t remember ever enjoying a wash as much as this one.

  Haddie had left worn but clean clothes for him, a tunic and trousers and some underclothes. He did his best to ignore the realization that the garments, which fit him quite well, must have belonged to Kuma’s nine-year-old cousin. After he dressed, he went back into the other room, where Kuma was just sitting down at the table. Bowls of hot corn mush awaited them.

  Kuma tasted her mush. “You made this,” she said immediately, looking up at her uncle. He nodded with a grin.

  “Uncle Elson makes mush with honey and a little salt,” she explained to Raffa. “Aunt Haddie makes it with butter.”

  “Bit of butter, much the better,” Haddie said.

  “No, mine’s the better. Isn’t that right, Kuma?” Elson teased in turn.

  “I like them both,” she said tactfully. Her next words were mumbled so softly that Raffa could barely hear them. “I’ve missed them both.”

  Raffa and Kuma ate heartily and scraped up every bite of mush. Haddie poured mugs of tea and handed them round to Elson and Raffa, but held the third mug in her hand and stared at Kuma, her mouth a straight line.

  “Well, then!” she said, her eyes fierce. “You’re warm and fed now, so suppose you tell me what gives you the right to leave us worried for—for months! A whole winter, Kuma, of not knowing if you—you—” Her hand began to tremble; she set the cup down so hard that tea sloshed out. “Tremors, now look what I’ve done!”

  Kuma’s eyes had grown wide at her aunt’s display of emotion. Then she dropped her gaze to the tabletop for a long moment.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt,” she whispered. She looked first at Haddie and then at Elson; when she spoke again, her voice was a little louder, but thick with unshed tears. “Truly I am. And I’ll tell the children sorry
, too, when I see them.”

  “Oh, you’re sorry, is it?” Haddie was wiping up the spill with a rag, scrubbing so hard that the table rocked. “I’m afraid that won’t do, my dear. I know you’re not one for talking, but it’s going to take a good few more words than that to set things straight with us!”

  Raffa saw Kuma swallow. She tried twice to speak, but nothing came out of her mouth. Finally she gazed pleadingly at Raffa.

  “You start,” she said.

  The four of them talked long into the night. Raffa and Kuma took turns in the telling; Elson and Haddie asked questions, wondered, marveled.

  There was so much to say. Echo and the scarlet vine. Roo and the baby raccoons. Garith, Ansel, Trixin, the Chancellor. The shed compound, the animals, the escape. The winter in the Suddens, the journey here. Raffa did not reveal Echo’s speaking ability; still, he had never talked so much in his whole life, and he was sure that the same was even truer for Kuma.

  When at last they finished, the silence around the table lasted a long time.

  Elson sighed so deeply, it was more like a groan. “Either it’s the truth or they’re mistaken,” he said.

  Kuma glared at her uncle, her fists clenched. “You don’t believe us?” she demanded.

  Elson looked at her steadily. “I said mistaken, not lying. No one would invent such a tale. The question I keep asking myself is, Could there be a reasonable explanation?”

  “Please,” Raffa said. “I thought the same myself. For the longest time. Because of my uncle. I didn’t want to think that he . . . But even if there is an explanation, what they’re doing to the animals is bad upon worse.”

  “Surely you can see that!” Kuma pleaded.

  “I do,” Haddie said.

  “I do as well.” Elson leaned forward, his hands clasped on the tabletop. “I wonder, though—”

  “You’ll keep your wonder to yourself for the moment,” Haddie cut in. “These two are for bed now and now.”

  She stood and moved behind the bench where Kuma was seated. Then she put her hands on Kuma’s shoulders and gave the girl a shake that finished as a hug. “You’re not forgiven,” she said, “but at least I’m beginning to understand. Give me a bit longer, and I might get around to forgiveness.”

  Kuma turned and wrapped her arms around her aunt. Elson joined in to hug them both, and Raffa decided it would be a good moment to leave them alone.

  On his way back from using the outhouse, he searched briefly for Echo. But the bat was still hunting somewhere; he would return in his own time.

  Tiredness flooding through him, Raffa staggered to a pallet on the floor near the fire. His eyes closed even before he lay down.

  He didn’t know how long he slept before he began dreaming. In his dream, a dog was barking. Then another, and still another—sharp, frantic barks that went on and on. Raffa scowled in his sleep. He was so tired. . . . The dream-dogs were so loud. . . .

  “Raffa! Raffa, wake up!”

  Kuma was shaking his shoulder. Raffa opened his eyes. His whole brain felt bleary. The noisy barking continued, even shriller than before. Was he awake, or still dreaming?

  “Outside!” Kuma shrieked. “Hurry!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  RAFFA ran to the door, his shoes unlaced. He looked around in utter confusion.

  It was the darkest part of the night. Clouds shielded the moon. People were running everywhere, many carrying torches. Others held pitchforks or rakes or shovels. The torchlight threw shadows that leapt and jerked constantly, adding to the chaos of noise and motion: people shouting, dogs barking, chickens squawking, sheep bawling.

  Kuma had dashed away and now came running toward him, holding two torches.

  “Foxes!” she gasped out as she handed him a torch. “Everywhere—they’re after the sheep!”

  “Torches! To the sheepfold, quickly!” Elson shouted, his deep, full voice cutting through the din.

  Raffa followed Kuma as other torches ahead of them bobbed crazily in the darkness. At the sheepfold, people were forming a line circling the fence.

  “All the way around!” Elson thundered. “Space yourselves—they could get in anywhere!”

  Foxes appeared out of the darkness. They jumped and lunged, snapping their jaws, trying to get to the sheep. Inside the fence, the sheep screamed and stampeded in terror.

  Raffa heard astonishment in the voices around him.

  “What in the name of the Quake?”

  “Foxes don’t hunt in packs!”

  “Where did they all come from?”

  Again and again, Raffa thrust out his torch, waving it and yelling as fox after fox leapt toward him. The darkness and the flames, the people and foxes and sheep—it felt like a nightmare, and he wished fervently that he were still asleep.

  Then a shout of panic: “They’ve broken through!”

  The line of torches wavered as someone turned to climb the fence. Raffa watched in horror as at least half a dozen foxes streamed through the gap.

  “Shepherds into the fold!” Elson shouted. “Everyone else, stand steady! Keep the line firm!”

  Three people—whom Raffa could make out only by their torches—hopped the fence and began chasing the foxes inside the fold. The foxes stayed low to the ground; they were all but impossible to see among the panicked sheep.

  Swinging his torch around, Raffa saw a blur of rust streak by, with white feathers flying everywhere.

  “The chickens!” he screamed. “They’re getting the chickens!”

  The line of torches at the sheepfold shifted and stretched out as the people nearest the henhouse ran off, including Raffa and Kuma.

  There are too many of them and not enough of us, Raffa thought.

  The henhouse was easier to defend than the sheepfold. While Raffa and Kuma joined those keeping foxes away from the entrance, Haddie and three other people went inside. They chased out two foxes, but each fox carried off a chicken.

  Raffa soon realized that he was no longer seeing purely by torchlight. The sky had shaded from black to dull gray. As he glanced up, he saw in the distance a small cloud much darker than the rest.

  A chill shook him, and his body realized what it was before his mind did.

  He had seen a cloud like that before.

  “CROWS!” Raffa screamed. “Our eyes! We have to protect them!” The memory of the crows attacking him and Kuma during their escape from Gilden made fear boil up inside him. “Everyone, listen!”

  But in the turmoil, no one seemed to hear. He had to find Elson; somehow the farmsteaders were attuned to his sonorous voice. Raffa ran back toward the sheepfold and saw Elson’s silhouette against the wavering torchlight.

  Elson listened to his urgent warning. For the first time, his staunchness wavered.

  “What are we to do? We can’t stop fighting the foxes, and we can’t do it with our eyes covered!”

  Before Raffa could answer, he was calling out again.

  “Ears, everyone! There’s a flock of crows approaching. If they get near you, duck and cover your eyes! You hear, give a hoy and pass the word along!”

  A chorus of Hoys sounded.

  Elson’s strategy was a sensible one, but Raffa’s dread deepened. He could not have expressed how terrifying the crows’ assault had been. It took all his resolve not to throw himself on the ground that very moment, with his head buried in his arms.

  The dark cloud drew closer. Raffa kept looking at it as he ran back toward the henhouse. The chickens were shrieking, and the din was brain-shaking. Then he saw to his horror that the foxes had been joined by stoats. Quicker and more agile than the foxes, the stoats seemed unfazed by the torches; they danced and dodged and did not retreat.

  One more glance at the sky: The crows were nearly overhead. Raffa could wait no longer. “Everyone, cover your eyes!” he yelled.

  He crouched down and buried his face in the crook of one arm while holding his torch up with the other. Maybe the fire would keep the crows away. . . .

&n
bsp; He risked a quick peek to see that several other people had followed his example. Their eyes were protected—but at dreadful cost. The stoats now had unimpeded access to the henhouse.

  Raffa lowered his face again and waited for the painful strike of a crow’s beak. Several agonizing moments passed.

  Nothing.

  No sound of craw or flap of wings.

  Puzzled, he lifted his head and saw that the crows were circling not over the henhouse or the sheepfold but above the storage sheds—where there were no people. Several at a time, they dropped down and flapped under the eaves.

  “Kuma!” he shouted. “What’s in those sheds?”

  “Grain!” she shouted back. “Mostly wheat, some corn and oats—”

  She looked as baffled as he felt. Were the crows eating the grain? There weren’t enough of them to make a serious dent in the stores. The stoats and foxes were a far greater problem.

  With one last look at the crows, they turned back to the henhouse.

  Suddenly it was over.

  The crows flew off. The stoats and foxes ran away from the settlement, vanishing as quickly as they had arrived.

  In the thin light of daybirth, the farmsteaders gathered around the big barn. The toll was sobering. Four sheep were dead, another two badly mauled. Three chickens had been carried off. Worse still, more than thirty had been killed with a single bite to the head: the work of the stoats. Dozens of eggs had been smashed.

  The younger children, including Kuma’s cousins, were kept away from the grisly scene. A few of the adults took them on a morning walk away from the settlement. The other steaders worked with quiet diligence. Some tended the wounded animals; others butchered the dead sheep. Several teens went into the henhouse to sort the smashed eggs from those that were still whole.

  Haddie led Raffa to Missum Yuli’s home, where there was a small stock of botanica. Although the settlement did not have its own apothecary, Missum Yuli knew a little of healing. The city folk in Gilden were often mystified by or even a little afraid of apothecaries, but in the countryside, people were familiar with plant life and had great respect for the art of working with botanicals.

  “This is Raffa,” Haddie said. “He’s Kuma’s friend, and he’s a pother. He might be able to help with the injured sheep.”