Wooden Bones (8 page)

He was still alive, not by much, perhaps, but Elendrew said a little alive was all that mattered.

The healing was all done in the great chamber. After some women had tended to Geppetto's wounds—cleaning them with steaming water, applying a salve that looked and smelled like warm mud, then affixing bandages made from large, leafy ferns—he was spoon-fed a bubbling broth that Elendrew herself had created.

Well, not her exactly, of course, since she couldn't add the ingredients or do the mixing herself, but she had personally overseen its creation. She told her attendants the specific roots and spices she wanted in the cauldron. She told them exactly how long it was to boil, and how much to give him when it was done.

The green sludge looked awful, like something scooped
out of a pond, but it smelled as sweet as chocolate.

When she finished with Geppetto, he was hauled away on the litter to gain his strength in another place. Standing behind the workbench filled with all the wood and all the stone tools he'd asked for, Pino watched him leave. He'd taken to keeping his right hand, with its partial wooden finger, slightly behind him so as not to raise more questions. He also didn't want to look at it himself. It scared him and he hoped it would just go away.

“But I want to be with him,” Pino insisted.

“Oh, no,” Elendrew said. “He needs peace and quiet, and the sounds of you working would not help at all. You
do
want him to get better, don't you?”

Pino nodded.

“Well, then,” she went on, “he'll need at least a week of rest before he's well enough to walk again. Besides, you have much work to do. I would not want you to be distracted. You will work and sleep here until you're done.”

“It might take a while,” Pino warned.

“How long?”

In the dim light of the chamber Pino surveyed the spread of wood and tools. The truth was he really didn't know how long it would take, or even if he could do it at all. He'd been Geppetto's apprentice for less than two months, and there was still much about wood carving he did not know.

He also didn't know if he'd be able to bring it to life as he'd promised. He remembered his failure the second time he'd tried to bring a tree to life.

What he really needed was a chance to escape before she realized he couldn't do as he'd promised, but he needed Geppetto to be better first. If he couldn't even walk, they wouldn't get far.

“Maybe a week,” he said, thinking how long Elendrew had said it would take for his papa to heal.

She shook her head. “You have five days. You better work quickly.”

*  *  *

Working quickly was the one thing Pino
didn't
want to do. Much as when he made the puppet of Antoinette, Pino found that working with wood came naturally. The tools they'd brought him weren't at all like the ones he'd used back home—these were made mostly of stone and glass—but he took to them just the same. In fact, the work was going so well that he had to force himself to go slower.

If he finished the suit in a day or two, it was doubtful his papa would be well enough to travel.

And Pino also needed time to plan his escape.

Unfortunately, since he worked right beside Elendrew, it was difficult to work
too
slowly. Food was brought to him when needed—delicious food, tender bird meat glazed with honey, fruit so succulent it burst with juice when he bit into it, and a kind of bread that was so soft it dissolved in his mouth and tasted like cake. He would have tried to stretch out the meals, but the food was so good, and he was so famished from working, that he couldn't stop himself from devouring it.

All the while Pino studied Elendrew. He watched the way her attendants tended to her needs—feeding her, adjusting her in her chair when she complained of being sore, even carrying her off to the toilet room at the back of the chamber when she said she needed to relieve herself. At first Pino felt sorry for her, not being able to do any of these simple things herself, but this feeling didn't last too long. Soon he watched her more with awe than pity.

Three or four times every hour someone came to her asking her to make a decision—sometimes big ones, sometimes small ones, but always she had an answer. Where should they hunt for deer today? “Try the east side of the lake,” she would tell them. What should a mother do about a daughter who couldn't sleep? A certain herbal remedy was suggested. With winter coming on, were there any special preparations they should make? Yes, this year they needed as much Gaslin root as they could find, for there was going to be an awful virus that would sweep through the people.

She always had an answer. It was like she just knew things. Important things. It truly was a special gift.

Carving one of the arm joints, wood chips flying, Pino began to wonder what it would be like to be her—to be so smart, and to have every need fulfilled. Maybe having arms and legs that didn't work would be a small price to pay for such a life. Someone was always watching her, so she knew that no harm would come her way. Even when she slept, she slept in a glass house so that the people outside—for there were always people praying outside, it seemed—could see if there was anything wrong.

Mostly, though, Pino worked. His hands became cramped from gripping the tools for so many hours. Wood dust clouded his eyes. At night he slept in a cot behind his workbench. When he ate, he ate there as well. After a while he complained about not getting any fresh air, and Elendrew permitted him to take a couple breaks each day outside, but only for five minutes at a time.

Pino was on one of these breaks, standing in the middle of one of the rope bridges in the foggy morning air, when a girl about his age came bounding toward him. He'd been
staring at his wooden fingertip—the stupid thing still hadn't gone back to normal—and he whipped it behind his back at her approach.

The girl was riding a fake wolf, one made out of wood, with a carved wolf head and a pole for a body. Each time she bounded, the whole bridge shook. Her hair, nearly white, seemed to glow in the fog. The moisture in the air glistened on her dimpled cheeks. She stared at him so intently that Pino became uncomfortable and looked over the rope rail. Somewhere far below, a bird darted through the fog. It was the only bird he'd seen in all the time he'd been standing there. He figured birds just didn't fly that high.

“You're Pino,” she said.

“That's right,” he said warily. He fidgeted with the sleeves of his shirt, the same one he'd given to Papa to stop his bleeding. The woodsfolk had cleaned it, and now it was as good as new.

“I'm Aki,” she said.

“Hello.”

She stepped off of her pretend wolf and leaned on the rope railing. “I heard you was once made of wood,” she said.

“Um, yes,” Pino said. “That's right.”

“Were you a table?”

“No.”

“Were you a chair?”

“No.”

“Well, what were you, then? Were you a tree? If you were a tree, you must not have been a very big tree. A little sapling, I think.”

“I wasn't a tree. Or maybe I was once. I don't remember. I was a puppet.”

She giggled. “That's so strange. I have a puppet. Lots of kids here have puppets. Her name is Kelty. Did you have strings? Did people make you dance? I can make Kelty dance.”

Pino shrugged. “I don't know. I don't remember much from then. It's all kind of foggy.”

“Do you have strings now?”

“No, no. I'm a real boy.”

“How did you become a real boy?”

“Um, well, I just wished for it.”

“You just wished for it and it came true?”

“Yes. Eventually.”

She sighed. “I wish for lots of things and they don't come true. Yesterday I wished to be an eagle. I wished and I wished so I could fly high in the clouds and look down on everything so small. But it didn't happen.”

“I'm sorry,” he said.

She shrugged. “I'm used to it. Like how I wished for Mother to come back. But she didn't. That didn't happen either.”

“Oh. Where did she go?”

She grew thoughtful, her glistening forehead wrinkling. “Well . . . Father told me she went on a trip. A very long trip. But I know that's not true. I know she died last winter when lots of people got sick. Father just says she went on a trip so he's not sad. And that's okay. I don't tell him the truth because I don't want him to be sad. It's no fun being sad. Are you sad sometimes, Pino?”

“Sometimes,” Pino said, nodding.

“I think it's normal to be sad.”

“I think so,” Pino agreed, though he still wasn't sure what was normal. He wished he hadn't been forced to tell them all about his past. Now, no matter what he did, they would always
treat him differently. He would always be the boy who was once a puppet.

He vowed that if he ever ended up in another place where people didn't know him, where he could start fresh, he would keep his past a secret.

Knowing Elendrew would be irritated if he delayed any longer, he turned to head back inside—then realized that he might be able to learn something from this girl to help him escape.

“Aki?” he said.

She smiled. “I like it when you say my name.”

“Oh. Um, can I ask you something?”

“Green,” she said.

“What?”

“I thought you wanted to ask me what my favorite color is,” she explained. “It's green. I know that's not very interesting. That's what lots of kids say, because green is so pretty here.”

“It is,” he agreed. “No, I want to ask you, um, well—is the ropefloat the only way down?”

“Why? Do you want to go down?”

“No, no, I was just curious.”

“It would take a long time to go down.”

“I don't want to go down. I just—”

“I could ask Father to take us down. It would be fun. We could go exploring and have a picnic.”

“No!”

Pino hadn't meant to yell, but Aki was getting so carried away that he was afraid it wouldn't be long before she was marching straight in to Elendrew to announce that Pino would be going down to the forest floor. The little girl looked
quite taken aback, blinking rapidly, a flush in her cheeks.

“Well, you don't need to
shout
,” she said.

“I'm sorry.”

“I'm standing right here, after all.”

“I know.”

“If you don't want to go, it's not really a big deal. I can always go with someone
else
.”

“Yes. That's true. I was just—I was curious about getting down, that's all.”

“Well,
of course
everybody knows the ropefloat is the only way down.”

“Oh.” Pino's heart sank. If he needed to escape without being seen, it would be hard to do it when there was only one way down. Everybody would be looking in the same place.

“Except in an emergency,” she added.

“What?”

She sighed, drumming her fingers on the rope railing. “We practice it all the time. After you're here a little while, you'll practice it too.”

“What do you mean?”

“The featherwings, silly! What do you think I mean? After the great shaking a few years ago, when some of the tall trees fell, Elendrew ordered us all to make featherwings. They're not wings, really, that's just what we call them. If they were real wings, maybe we could fly and I wouldn't have to wish for it anymore. These just kind of let you float gently to the ground. So in case the ropefloat isn't working, like if it was broken during a great shaking, then we could get down.”

“Where do you keep them?”

She shot him a look. “You can't use them
now
!”

“I know, I know! I was just curious.”

“Well, we keep them under our beds, of course. Everybody does. Where else should we keep them?”

“Oh.”

She shook her head. “Pino, you really don't know very much, do you?”

“No,” he said with a great sigh of his own, “I guess I don't.”

F
ive days later not only was the wooden suit finished, but Pino also had his plan of escape.

It was a simple plan, but it required everything to go exactly right. When he showed Elendrew the finished wooden suit, he told her that in order for it to be brought to life, his papa would have to be present. He'd always brought wood to life with Papa in the room, he insisted, and he didn't think he could do it any other way. He also told her that it couldn't be done inside her chamber. It had to be done in the open air, because wood did not want to be brought to life inside other wood.

If Elendrew was suspicious, she didn't show it. If anything, she looked giddy with anticipation.

She ordered that Geppetto be brought to the Great Platform, what they called the central area with the ropefloat. She told Pino that all of the People of the Tall Trees would gather on the platform and the adjoining bridges to witness her putting on the suit for the first time.

“It will be a momentous occasion,” she said, “and I want to share it with everyone.”

Pino's plan was to create some kind of distraction so that he and Geppetto could flee into one of the dwellings, find a
pair of featherwings, then escape to the ground. It needed to go exactly right or someone would just grab them and prevent them from leaving.

It rained heavily that morning, a crackling downpour on the leafy branches, but it was over within an hour, and the sun was doing its best to pierce the trees. By the time the woodsfolk began to gather on the platform around noon, it was unusually warm for a fall day, and the air smelled heavy and rich with living things.

When they saw his suit, people began to murmur excitedly. It wasn't perfect by any means, but it was still a far cry from anything even the most experienced wood-carver could create.