Emilie and the Sky World (9 page)

“But you know everything…” Efrain began, then looked at her. “I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant… You’ve done this before.”

Emilie swallowed her first knee-jerk acerbic comment. Maybe he really hadn’t meant it that way. “Yes, but I had help.”

Efrain pressed his lips together and didn’t say anything.

They reached the copse of trees and found the going far more difficult. The trees were tall, and the light beneath them was gloomy and tinged with violet. The ground was spongy with dark-colored moss which was soft enough, but it was growing over rocks and lumpy clumps of dirt. This hill was much steeper too, but at least the trees gave them something to steady themselves on. They struggled to the top of the hill and then had to be extra careful on the way down, their boots sliding through the moss and losing purchase on the rounded stone. Emilie managed it by half-sliding from tree to tree, and Efrain copied her. This would be a very bad time for a broken ankle for either of them.

They couldn’t see much of anything ahead except more trees, and Emilie started to call out for Miss Marlende and the professor. Efrain tugged on her sleeve. “Are you sure you should do that? What if there’s…”

“What?” Emilie asked. She dug her heels in on the next slope, half-sliding down and stopping herself on a tree at the bottom.

“I don’t know.” Efrain gestured in frustration and almost lost his grip on the tree he was using to keep from falling. “Aether monsters.”

Normally, Emilie would have scoffed. But after everything else she had seen, she supposed it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. “I just don’t know how we’re going to find them otherwise. Even if we’re right about where they landed, they probably started running around searching, just like we did.” Through the trees ahead she could see more light and thought they might be coming to the edge of a bluff.

“That’s true, but…”

“Wait. Be careful here; the ground’s all torn up.” The dirt and moss and rock were disturbed and the trees leaned forward, their roots half-ripped out of the ground. Emilie stepped carefully, trying not to put her weight on the unstable trunks. The ground did drop away ahead, and as she reached the edge, she saw “drop away” was exactly how to describe it.

There was a bowl-shaped section missing from the hilly forest, at least a hundred yards wide. Emilie looked down the rough side of the cliff to see clouds and, miles below, a misty dark-blue mottled area that might be distant land.
Or it might be the colors of the aether current
. It was like whatever had been here had just fallen away. It had left a few fragments behind, irregularly shaped chunks of rock and dirt, floating on thin air – or thin aether – in the empty space.

Emilie’s whole body prickled with unease, and the ground underfoot suddenly felt delicate and apt to dissolve at any moment. Efrain whistled in awe. “What happened?”

“The aether current. It took the land somewhere else, just like it did us.” It had to be.

“But it wasn’t our current. It happened a while ago. You can see how the trees roots are all dry. They’ve been out of the ground a while.” Efrain pointed along the side of the bluff.

“Oh. Well, that’s good.” It was good. It meant it might be a fluke that wouldn’t happen every time an aether current fluctuated. And maybe Efrain was good for something after all. “We’ll have to go back and around–”

Movement on one of the small fragment-islands stopped the words in her throat. What she had thought was a bundle of dead vegetation rippled and stood and turned to face them. It was Hyacinth, trapped on a chunk of rock and dirt barely ten feet wide. It was floating somewhere between fifteen to twenty yards from the bluff.

“Uh oh,” Efrain said, low-voiced.

Emilie felt a little sick. “The aether current must have dropped it there.” It meant they had veered a little off as they had made their way through the forest. Miss Marlende and the professor must be further to the left. She lifted her hand and waved.

Hyacinth lifted its four arms and waved back, then drooped again. After a moment, it sat back down.

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 steep. 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.