Seeds of Discovery (6 page)

This was it. Quinn took a deep breath as she searched for a rock to tuck her car keys and cell phone under. Finding a smooth, flat piece of granite, she lifted it and propped a small stick underneath, both to keep the weight of the rock off her items and to make the place easier to find again.

After the incident in the library today, she had decided that she was absolutely done waiting. She was going to follow him this afternoon, and if he went to the bridge again, she was going to follow.

And that’s exactly what had happened. She had watched William climb up the broken steps of the old bridge from a hiding spot behind a boulder on the riverbank, and again he had somehow just disappeared. She had seen him climb the first two steps, and then a pine tree had blocked her view. Now, he wasn’t anywhere. Her eyes scanned the entire length of the riverbank and the shallow running water. She was alone.

Fully feeling the weight of her stupidity, Quinn climbed the four crumbling stone steps, toward the end of the broken-off bridge. This time, she did not hold back or hesitate. She closed her eyes and stepped forward. Expecting only a loss of balance and the resulting short drop into the cold water below, she was surprised when it didn’t come. There was solid stone underneath her right foot. Maybe she had missed. When a second attempt with her left foot also failed to produce an icy-cold plunge into the stream, she opened her eyes.

*          *          *

 William had never been so freaked out — or irritated — in his entire life.  He had known the girl was paying attention to him after that stupid accident – had known that she had been following him at school and watching him in the library. That was obvious. However, he had never dreamed that she would follow him closely enough to see him going through the gate.

He was used to the curiosity, of course.  That had plagued him off and on ever since he had first started staying with Nathaniel in Bristlecone, and had enrolled in the third grade at Bristlecone K-8. This was not the first time someone had tried to learn more about him.  

There had even been a time, in eighth grade, when Allison Rivera had imagined she had a crush on the strange boy she barely knew.  He had seen her watching him whenever they were in the same room together. He had noticed her attempts to sit by him in classes or choose him for partner work. She’d come up with silly excuses to start conversations with him, and twice, William had returned from his time in Eirentheos to find several missed calls on the caller ID from her number.  

His intentional ignoring and paying zero attention to her had taken care of the issue quickly. She had moved on to Victor Marks, who had been happy to have her notice.  The deliberate ignoring strategy had always worked, even on the inquisitive third graders, back in the days when William was a new phenomenon, a novelty in the small town, although it had taken awhile at first.

It had never been that difficult for William, to keep his distance from everyone. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t have been allowed to make an acquaintance or spend time with kids his own age while he was in Bristlecone – sure, it would have been difficult to maintain both a good friendship and his enormous secret, especially when he disappeared every weekend, and would never have been around to attend birthday parties or snowboarding trips.  It would have been difficult, but probably not impossible.

The thing was – he had never wanted to. He could never wrap his mind around the kids in Bristlecone. They weren’t like him, or maybe he wasn’t like them.  Most of them were only interested in such ridiculous things — television shows and video games.

William didn’t understand any of it, couldn’t join in with the conversations. He always spent most of his time in Bristlecone studying, reading, and missing his home — always missing home.

How had he not noticed how much the girl had seen?  Maybe he had just never perceived that kind of persistence being possible coming from her. Quinn Robbins had always been a quiet girl herself. She was a year younger than William was, so he had never been in class with her, but he knew from things he had overheard that other kids and teachers considered her smart.

Her mother was the town’s second grade teacher, so he had heard a lot about the family, though he’d started living in Bristlecone a year too late to have experienced being in Megan Robbins’ class himself.

Quinn had always had friends among the classmates she had grown up with, and everyone seemed to like her, though William had often seen her group of friends congregate in places around town without her.  

She was close to her family; he had noticed, a few times when she was out with her younger brother and sister, how she smiled and laughed when she was with them.

Honestly, Quinn Robbins was the last person he would have ever expected to find him at the bridge, let alone to follow him closely enough to see him going through.

It had been stupid of him not to be more careful, more secretive around the gate.  It had been the first thing drilled into him, when he had started living with Nathaniel in Bristlecone, to always be careful, never act suspicious, never even to approach the gate if there were signs that anyone was around. He guessed he had grown complacent.  He had never even come close to being caught. He hadn’t been watching. Stupid. Now, the girl had seen him.

Just as he had climbed up the second step of the bridge, he had seen her, caught a glimpse of her watching him, almost hidden by a boulder, about halfway up the riverbank. There he had been, exposed, one foot already invisible. It hadn’t been a decision, really. There wasn’t time, and he was too stunned to be rational about anything. He had just done it: stepped through the gate and disappeared.

Once through the gate, William, heart racing, sat down by the wide riverbank, trying to catch his breath. What had he just done? How much had she seen? What would she do? How could he have let this happen?

She was bound to freak out. She might even start searching for him. What if she called the police? Even if she didn’t, what was he going to say when he went back to school and she started asking him questions? He sat there for a long moment. When he was finally calm enough to manage it, he let out a low whistle.

Immediately, there was a rustling sound from the leaves of a nearby tree. A moment later, a large bird swooped toward him, folding in her massive black-tipped wings as she glided to a stop a few feet from him.  He rummaged in the front pocket of his backpack, pulling out the treat he’d saved: beef jerky from Art’s Pump n’ Stuff. He broke off a small piece, pinching it between his fingers. The bird strutted straight toward him as he held out his offering, allowing William a quick pat on her snowy head before she snatched up the snack.

“Hello, Aelwyn.  I’ve missed you.”

The bird responded by poking her beak into his hand, looking for more beef jerky.

He chuckled, and broke off another small piece for her. Suddenly, a small movement in the corner of his eye made him freeze in place. Of all the possible consequences of the girl seeing him disappear through the gate that had been running through his mind, this was beyond his worst imaginings.

 There, above him on the bridge, the girl had just materialized. She had followed him. She was here. Fear flooded through him. What was he going to do now? He scrambled through his backpack for a scrap of paper and a pencil, quickly scribbling a short note.

He whispered a quick command to the bird, and offered her the remainder of the beef jerky. There was a quick flutter of wings, and in the next heartbeat, she was soaring above the trees.

*          *          *

Quinn gasped. The broken end of the half-missing structure was no longer broken, and it no longer ended. Instead of the disintegrating, broken concrete-and-stone edge, a wide stone walkway arced across the entire river. Cautiously, she put her other foot forward. The stone and mortar that should not have been there held firm. She spun around, ready to run back down the stone steps, but the sight stopped her cold.

The sun that should have been directly in front of her had moved, and now dipped below the tree line far to her left, casting strangely long shadows that cut obtrusively across the landscape. Even in the fading light of the irregular dusk, she could see that everything was different. Where the rocky riverbank should have sloped up to the highway, there was now a vast expanse of trees and open fields. Lights from unfamiliar buildings glimmered and sparked to life in the distance.

Slowly, Quinn let her eyes scan the area around her. The river was no longer a rocky, mountain creek underneath the bridge. Now, a wide expanse of water flowed lazily between the bush-covered banks on either side.  Downstream, the river continued uninterrupted to the southwest but seemed to widen significantly just past a break in the tree line. The view upstream was the most shocking. Instead of sloping up into the familiar peaks of the mountains she had seen all her life, a long valley spread out before her, sparsely populated by stands of trees and varieties of grass and wildflowers. In the distance where the horizon began to merge with the night sky, Quinn could just make out the outline of a thick forest.

“Now you’ve done it.” The sound of the voice below her jolted her like an electric shock. In the same instant that she registered the frowning face of William Rose, Quinn stumbled and fell down the steps at the end of the bridge, right into the bushes.

“Fabulous,” William muttered, bending down toward her to assess the damage.

Her mind reeled as she tried to reason with herself. The rational part of her that had decided that she was dreaming was at war with the side that could see the strange landscape, hear the unfamiliar calls of strange birds and feel the blood seeping into her jeans from the gash on the inside of her right leg. She let William help her out of the shrubbery. He sat her down at the end of the bridge, and she leaned back against the steps as he pulled up the leg of her jeans to examine the source of the bleeding.

“It doesn’t look too bad; a little deep, but I’m going try to patch it up without stitches, at least out here,” William told her, removing a small pouch from his bag. He worked quickly and methodically, cleaning the wound with a bit of clear fluid from a glass vial, and spreading on some kind of thick, yellow goo.

Quinn stared, watching his steady, practiced movements and trying to clear her head. Suddenly, a stinging sensation brought everything sharply into focus.

“Ow!” She jerked her leg out of his grasp.

“Sorry. That will be the gauna root; it stings at first but accelerates healing. Don’t rub it.”

She scowled, pulling her hand back.
Gauna root
? “Where are we?” she demanded.

William looked down at her calmly, his eyes meeting hers for the first time. Gray eyes, deep gray, nearly the same color as her own. He studied her face, looking as if he were trying to decide something as he wrapped her leg in a long bandage, and then began re-packing his supplies into the compartments of his leather pouch. A look of determination crossed his face, and he finally spoke. “Can you stand? It will be dark soon and we still have a fair distance to walk.”

Quinn coughed. The shock and strangeness of the situation combined were becoming too much for her. Her mind screamed for something – anything familiar. Part of her began to sincerely hope that this was a dream and she would awaken in a few moments in the safety of her own bed.

My mom
! She thought suddenly. She needed to be home before her mother called in the morning.

“I’m not walking anywhere, except back to my car and home.”

He sighed, studying her face again. When he answered her this time, his tone was resigned, but sincere. “There’s no way back to your home tonight.” He finished storing the pouch back in his bag and stood, hoisting the heavy backpack onto his shoulders. “The gate is closed. You’re just going to have to come with me and we’ll get this sorted out later. Do you think you’re okay to walk?” He offered her a hand.

Gate? “What? Wait.” An edge of panic was rising in her voice. ”Go with you where? Where
are
we?” She quickly pulled herself to her feet, refusing his hand. The pain she felt when she first put weight on her leg only served to heighten her anxiety. He had wrapped it very tightly. Wincing, she turned slightly, pretending to look at the river, hiding the sudden moisture at the corners of her eyes.

“Try taking some deep breaths,” he suggested.

His calm, almost disinterested demeanor finally got to her. “Oh that helps, William. Like saying ‘don’t panic’ ever helped anyone stay calm.” Ignoring her still-stinging leg, she stormed at the foot of the bridge, looking in every direction as if somewhere amidst the trees she would see the path back to reality. When that yielded no answers, she turned back to William. “You didn’t answer me. Where are we?”

“My home.” He turned and gestured toward the forest in the distance.

“Excuse me? Your
home
? You live with your uncle on Bray Street.”

“You were following me there as well?”

She blushed slightly at the accusation, but she was still angry, and she didn’t relent. “Well, if anything about you made sense – first you run in front of my car, and I almost hit you, then with the accident, and then you just
disappearing
all the time. What was I supposed to think, William?” What had started as curiosity was quickly becoming something she had never imagined.