The Song of the Winns (14 page)

“Would you like to come see them off ?” Solomon Honker was asking Ebenezer and Beezer, who nodded gratefully.

Their teacher led them to the long tree-lined road they'd come up when they had first approached the school.

“Where are we going?” asked Alex as they started down the road.

But Solomon Honker merely raised a finger in a “You'll
see” gesture and, pushing back branches, turned down a secluded path partially obscured by shrubs. Exchanging mystified looks, his pupils and their aunt and uncle followed.

9

The River's Source

A
s Alistair was dragged to his feet he thrashed against the grip restraining him, kicking out with his legs and squirming in his captor's arms.

“Alistair, stop, it's okay.” The voice was familiar and Alistair paused in confusion. “It's me: Feast Thompson.”

Feast Thompson? As a wave of relief surged through him, Alistair's legs grew weak and he sagged against the FIG operative. He peered into the gloom and saw that Tibby Rose was hugging the slim form bending over her. “Is that you, S-Slippers? Are we . . . are we near the source?” His throat felt thick with emotion as it began to sink in that he and Tibby were safe—well, as safe as they could be on the run in Gerander.

Slippers Pink lifted her head. Her eyes shone in the dim light. “It's me, Alistair,” she said softly, as if she, too, was finding it hard to speak. “And the source of the Winns isn't far away.”

“What happened to you two?” asked Feast urgently. “Why did you arrive on foot? Where's Oswald?”

Tibby made a small, unhappy sound and Alistair's voice was low as he said, “So you haven't seen Oswald?”

“Not since he dropped us off here nearly forty-eight hours ago,” said Slippers. “We didn't know if the mission had been aborted, or if something terrible had happened, or . . .” She shook her head.

“Something terrible did happen,” Alistair told them, and he described the eagles' attack. He heard Slippers's sharp intake of breath when he recalled how Oswald had dropped them in the icy reaches of the Crankens. “And we have no idea what happened to him after that,” he finished, feeling once more a pang of guilt and sadness as he contemplated the brave owl's fate.

“Oh, poor Os.” Slippers put her hands to her mouth, clearly distressed. “I think we'd all better sit down to hear the rest,” she said. “Feast, some hot tea is called for.”

Slippers Pink fetched the pair's rucksack from a thicket of bushes on the other side of the clearing as Feast Thompson hobbled toward the trees.

“What happened to Feast?” Tibby gasped. “Is he hurt?”

“He twisted an ankle when we landed the other night,” Slippers said.

Alistair and Tibby rushed to help Feast forage for kindling among the trees surrounding the clearing, and soon a small fire glowed within a circle of rocks. Slippers filled the pot from the spring and set it in the embers, then threw a handful of needles into the simmering water.
“Spruce tea,” she said. “Full of vitamin C.”

Soon they were each sipping at a tin mug of hot liquid.

“So what happened next?” Slippers prompted as Alistair breathed in the mild scent.

Tibby took up the story, explaining how she had hit her head and Alistair had pulled her on the sled he had built, all the way up to their narrow escape from the Queen's Guards on the same sled just a few hours before.

“That was very good thinking,” Slippers said as they related how they had covered their tracks and fled into the forest while the guards went after the sled. “But,” she added, “the Sourians now know that two ginger mice have crossed the border. We'll have to be extracautious.”

“We're always extracautious, Slips,” Feast pointed out. “But I agree that the sooner we find those secret paths and put some distance between us and the guards who are looking for Alistair and Tibby Rose, the better. Before anything else, though, these two need some sleep.”

Alistair woke to sunlight filtering through the leaves and sat up immediately. The others still slumbered on beside him: Tibby, curled into a ball around her rucksack; Slippers Pink, her shiny black boots lined up neatly at her gingery pink feet; and Feast Thompson, stretched out on his back, one hand clutching a stout walking stick Tibby Rose had found for him when looking for kindling the night before. Alistair stood up and walked to the edge of the copse of trees. He knew it was useless trying to go back
to sleep. Not with the fluttering of anticipation he felt.

He gazed down the slope into the valley below, still in shadow. Somewhere down there was the Winns. That was where their mission would finally begin, where they could finally start to solve the mystery encoded in his scarf. There, he hoped, he would find the first of the secret paths that crisscrossed Gerander—and might one day be used to set her free. Unbidden, the melancholy refrain sung by Timmy the Winns floated into his mind, and he sang it under his breath:

“Wherever the Winns takes me, that's where I'll be,

For me and the Winns will always flow free.”

But however much Alistair wished to see the Winns flow free, more than anything he wished to see his parents freed. As the sun cleared the trees above him to send the first rays of light into the valley below, he glanced behind him impatiently.

They had a light but nourishing breakfast of berries and nuts, then the four mice walked in single file along a path, which led downhill from the clearing and meandered through flower-strewn meadows before re-entering a forest of oak and chestnut trees.

After a few minutes' walking, Slippers Pink, who was in front, stopped. “Here's the source of the Winns,” she said quietly, reverence in her tone.

Alistair moved forward. There, in the center of a cool green glade, was a pool. The silence was absolute except for the whisper of leaves in the trees above and a single note of birdsong. Alistair perched on a rock and gazed into the pool's depths. The water, which was the deep green of moss, was clear and clean and fathomlessly deep. When he put a hand in, it was as cold as ice.

Just below the pool, water sprang from a rock and trickled down the hillside. Alistair stared at in wonder. It was hard to believe that this would become Gerander's principal river.

They followed a path alongside the trickle, which had become a stream by the time they passed a small stone cottage. Tucked into the green hillside, it looked as worn and weathered as the rock itself. Though they proceeded warily, there were no signs of life as they hurried past. Vestiges of crumbling stone walls were visible here and there among rampant weeds, and the trees nearby were groaning with fruit. What had once been a well-tended garden had grown wild.

They walked further into the valley, with the river, now broad and lined with reeds, on their left, and a high, forested ridge to their right. Across the river was a dense canopy of plane trees. Apart from the distant clatter of cicadas, the landscape through which they walked seemed to be deserted.

“But we mustn't relax,” Slippers Pink warned. “The Queen's Guards have set up checkpoints along all the roads of Gerander, and patrols are roaming the countryside too.”

Slowly, so that Feast and his injured ankle could keep up, they followed the river for several miles, but by lunchtime, when the path ahead entered an avenue of plane trees, they hadn't seen any landmarks to match those they had found on Alistair's scarf.

While Slippers Pink and Feast Thompson produced the makings of simple cheese sandwiches from their rucksack, Alistair and Tibby Rose sat on a rock and studied Alistair's scarf.

“We must have come too far,” Tibby said. “I'm sure we passed this bend in the river ages ago.” With her finger she traced a small curve in the stripe of blue bisecting the scarf. It was definitely below the burst of orange and speck of yellow they'd shown Tobias back in Stetson. “We'll have to go back.”

And so after lunch they retraced their steps, but as the afternoon wore on, Alistair began to feel increasingly despondent. He had seen hundreds of trees and rocks, but none had looked like a burning tree or a rock of gold. He walked faster and faster, until he was almost jogging along the path, scanning the surrounds with an increasingly desperate eye.

“Alistair, slow down,” Slippers called from some way behind. “We have to stay together.”

Reluctantly Alistair slowed his pace, matching it to the lazy meander of the river. And soon, although his eyes were still scanning the rocks and trees, his ears were tuning in to the river, the way it gurgled and burbled over and around stones and branches. After a while he noticed
that his feet seemed to be following the rhythm of the river of their own accord. He felt as if he were moving in a trance, hardly aware of moving in and out of the shadows of the plane trees that lined stretches of the river, or the buzz of cicadas, or the slow sinking of the sun, which set the sky ablaze.

A gentle breeze set the reeds rustling and the ends of his scarf fluttering. When he rounded a bend and saw, beneath a tall ridge of rock, a tree whose leaves seemed to have caught flame, his heart skipped a beat. He turned to see if the others had spotted it too. Tibby Rose was right behind him, but Feast and Slippers were still out of sight around the bend.

“Tibby,” he breathed, “can you see it?”

Tibby nodded, then pointed. “Over there: look how that rock is glowing where the sun hits it; it looks like—like a rock of gold.”

Alistair recited the words slowly.