Chapter the Fourteenth,
The Day Before the Last,
In which the children stop to play a game.
I. The Last Hour
The pink boat sailed out of the tunnel into warm daylight. There were no more mountains ahead of them, only rolling plains as expansive as the open sea. At any other time Jai and Ceder might have jumped out and ran barefoot through the grass, but now they took comfort in their close and silent quarters and thought only of Why, and what it meant to die.
Sorid had sung of death every day, yet the children’s lives had been bleaker than that eternal sleep of which their master spoke. For them, life had promised more suffering than death, but now the concept took on a new dimension. They stared into the sky where he had disappeared. The King and Queen were dead too, they knew, but it was more painful to watch their friend fade into the distance—though he was just a butterfly—than to hear about the untimely fate of two unicorns from afar.
Jai cleared his throat, intending to say a word on Why’s behalf, but he could not think what to say that would live up to everyone’s satisfaction. Astray came to Jai’s rescue and let out a low, grave roar to commemorate the passing of the butterfly. The children thought it was a fine tribute. They said no more.
Tail by tail, their grief began to go numb and they looked to the plains with brighter eyes, yearning to stretch their legs and explore; however, here where the earth was good—fed by endless water and unimpeded sunlight—the grass grew higher than their heads with edges as sharp as knives. Wherever the serrated stalks curved down over the river, Jai and Ceder prudently leaned away.
The fisherman whistled a quiet tune in harmony with the hush of the wind moving through the fields. Something darted through the grass to their left, a shimmering lavender bolt.
“Did you see that?” Ceder asked. Jai nodded. They looked back to the Dangler. He hastened the tempo of his tune. The wind running through the grass took on a life of its own.
Green clouds billowed on the horizon—a forest stretching as far north and south as the children could see. The Dangler’s eyes widened and he stopped whistling; it was several moments before Jai or Ceder realized that the wind was mimicking the same song the fisherman had been piping, even now that he was silent.
A blur flew through the grass to their right, but faster still the Dangler whipped his pole and sent the watery line zipping after; the blur jerked to a stop; the Dangler flicked his wrist to snap what he had caught back to his open hand. Like a spool of thread, there was a small songbird wound up in the line of water, yet unharmed by his hook. The Dangler quickly untied her. The bird shook her feathers dry, sending water everywhere. “Why, what have we here?” the fisherman murmured to himself. “A little whistler.”
Jai and Ceder drew back as from a ghost—the songbird was the same color as Why. The bird notched her head to one side and whistled a short phrase from the Dangler’s despondent melody. Astray lifted his head to greet her, but she flew away from the cub in fright.
The forest snuck up on them quickly, though the trees were tall as mountains. A pea soup fog crept out to welcome them, shrouding the river. “In the woods,” the Dangler said deliberately, as if he had taken all of the last hour to choose his words, “be careful what you say.”
II. One of a Kind
The pink boat passed under the canopy into the fog. The tree trunks were covered in green moss, their roots growing into the river like humongous caterpillars. The river was wide and calm and here reflected the greens of the foliage rather than the deep blues of the open sky. Thistledown and cottonwood tufts drifted lazily through errant sunbeams. A seldom leaf floated down from above, spinning like a snowflake, each a different shape, as if every tree in the forest was one of a kind.
Looking around curiously, Jai thought he saw a stone wall far behind them, crossing over the river, but the fog closed in before he could be sure what he was seeing. If there was a wall around the forest, we would have seen it when we came in! he told himself, but he was unsettled nonetheless.
Summoning all his derring-do, Jai reached to grab Ceder’s hand, but just as their fingers touched, Ceder began to say, “I don’t like it here,” concerning the forest. Jai heard only the first few words and pulled his hand back, embarrassed, and Ceder finished her thought in a surprised garble. She was too bashful to reach for his hand again. Her cheeks turned as pink as the boat.
Vines and hanging blossoms trickled down from above, some within reach. On the riverbank a rainbow of toadstools and ferns carpeted the ground. Despite the tremendous variety of life in the forest there were no birds, rodents, or bugs to be seen. Or heard.
“I think we can forget about finding any people here,” said Jai, hoping Ceder was not upset with him for touching her hand.
“I don’t see anything except the trees,” said Ceder, “but it feels like we’re being watched.”
Both children slowly turned around—the fisherman was staring at them, as usual, with an unreadable expression.
Around a bend in the river a bridge came into view. It was a simple, attractive structure. In a way it resembled the boat, for the bridge was carved all of a single piece of wood. It spanned the river from side to side, gracefully tracing a third of a circle.
The Dangler stopped the boat by anchoring his pole in the riverbed.
“Why did you do that?” asked Ceder.
“There’s more than one way to cross a bridge,” said the fisherman, eyeing the water underneath it suspiciously, “and you never know how long it will take to reach the other side.”
Jai looked at him askance. “What does that mean?”
“Let’s ask him, shall we?” The fisherman cast a lanky finger at the middle of the bridge. There on the handrail sat a fat, green frog.
III. Around a Bend
The frog had bulging eyes and an engorged throat. Its skin was mottled yellow-green. It stared at the boat unblinking until the Dangler lowered his arm, and then it spoke. “Grrreetings!”
“Silence, you two,” the Dangler warned the children in a low hiss. He addressed the frog, “Greetings to you, bridge-crosser.”
“I do not cross the bridge,” said the frog.
“Well then,” said the Dangler, much louder, “Greetings to you who have built this fine bridge.”
“I am not he who has built this bridge,” croaked the frog forcefully, like he was trapping flies with his words.
“Well then, Greetings!” the Dangler fiercely bellowed, “ye guard of the bridge.”
“Welcome, ye who go beneath me.” The frog licked his lips. “But I do not consider myself so much a guard. Guarding is hard work.”
“Then who are you?” asked the Dangler, in unfamiliar territory now.
“My name is Eany,” said the frog. “I am a player of games.”
“Ooh! What kind of games?” asked Ceder before the Dangler could shush her.
“Would you like to play, pretty girl?” asked the frog.
“What kind of—” Ceder started to say, but the Dangler clasped a hand over her mouth. Eany’s eyes flashed furiously. Righteous anger rushed though Jai’s blood as he realized that the fat, green frog had tried to trick Ceder into something—whatever it was—and so he said boldly, “I’ll play your game, toad.”
“No!” gasped the Dangler. “Silence!”
“Gooood,” said the frog in a low voice. “Grrrand. Come here then, brave boy.”
“Fine. How?”
Eany twitched impatiently. “It doesn’t matter how. Swim! Jump! Fly!”
“I’ll have to climb around. Can you wait?” asked Jai, feeling both his anger and his advantage slipping away.
“Jai, don’t go up there,” said Ceder. “This place has ‘evil enchantment’ written all over it.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t read,” Jai replied defiantly, wishing inside that he could take back his challenge to the frog. “It’s just a game,” he added a moment later without conviction. Now that he thought about it, the frog and the bridge were beginning to scare him. “Actually,” Jai said to the frog, trying to sound in charge of things, “I think I’ll stay here. I’m too old to play games.”
Eany stared at him with a hungry grin and Jai knew his change of heart was being rejected.
“Do as he says,” said the Danger.
“What?” said Jai, looking back twice at the fisherman. “Why?”
“He will never let us through if you do not play, now that you have given a pledge.”
“Can’t we just cut through the forest,” asked Ceder, “and leave the boat behind?” But as soon as she said it she knew it could never happen; somehow, in a way she could not define, they were tied to the boat as surely as the boat was tied to the river.
Jai looked at Ceder but she would not meet his eye. He looked at Astray. The cub was gazing at the bridge. The only one who would look at him was the frog.
The Dangler grabbed Ceder by the top of the head—as he had done to pull her out of the water in the cavern—and leapt high into the air. When he and Ceder landed in the stern of the boat, Jai, who had advanced to the prow when he challenged the frog, was bounced up like a rock from a catapult.
Jai inhaled sharply as he soared through the air. He landed precariously on the handrail of the bridge, circling his arms for balance like a tight-rope walker. He climbed down at once and stood next to the frog, adjusting his satchel nervously.
“Are you quite ready?” asked Eany.
“How do we play?”
“This is a friendly game we call river sticks,” said the frog. “From this side, here, to that side, there. We drop them in, you see—the sticks, that is—and the first one to the finish line wins a prize.”
“What prize?”
“Smart of you to ask, little boy. From me, my flute. From you… an egg.”
Jai gulped and put one hand on his satchel. “No.”
“You do,” croaked the frog, “not have—” his eyes bulged freakishly, “—a choice.”
“I’d cut your fat throat if I had my knife,” said Jai, meeting Eany eye to eye.
“And where is your knife?” Eany asked smugly.
Jai looked back to the boat.
“Go find a stick, little boy, or you and your friends will die of old age trying to find your way out of our forest.”
Jai gave the frog his most menacing stare, which had absolutely no effect on the sinister amphibian. He turned and stalked to the edge of the bridge to look for a stick.
“Don’t step a foot off that bridge!” the Dangler shouted.
“Peace, old man,” said the frog, “I would not let my prize disappear without me.”
Jai picked up a long stick that he imagined would slither through the river like a snake in the grass. He returned to the frog.
Eany opened his mouth and began to wretch and convulse until Jai thought he was about to choke to death, then a wooden flute popped out of his throat. The flute was a fin in length with three holes of scaled sizes.
“On the count of three,” said Eany, “drop your stick. One!”
“Where’s your stick?” asked Jai.
“I play with my flute. The day I lose is the day I stop playing. Two!”
“And that’s not against the rules?” Jai asked meekly.
Eany grinned sadistically. “Three!”
Jai dropped his stick, Eany dropped his flute, and they both raced to the other side of the bridge to watch and wait. The frog grinned as though he had already won. Jai tried to look confident, but he felt queasy all over. He was supposed to safeguard the enchanted eggs at all costs; he wondered what the King and Queen would do if they knew he had squandered one of them all because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
It seemed that endless minutes passed with no sign of either stick. Eany began to whistle, guttural and ugly, a melody in fits and starts. The flute appeared below them, clearly in first place. Jai’s stick never crossed the finish line.
“Give me my egg, stupid boy,” demanded the frog, turning to Jai and fixing him with bulging, bloodshot eyes.
“You wish!” cried Jai, holding the satchel firmly behind his back with no intention of relinquishing anything.
“Funny you should say that,” grunted the frog before jumping off the bridge into the river below.
“Ha!” barked Jai, triumphantly, but he immediately felt a tingling in his hands and discovered that one of the eggs was no longer in the satchel—it had vanished into thin air. “Hey!” he shouted after Eany, but the frog was gone.
III. Around a Bend
“Jump!” called the Dangler. “I will catch you.”
Jai looked down doubtfully, wondering if the fisherman intended to catch him with his line and hook or with his hands. Confused, angry with himself, and worried that Ceder would be mad at him, too, Jai tossed caution to the wind and jumped off the bridge to the boat, twenty fins below.
The Dangler caught him effortlessly. “I have the feeling,” he said as he set Jai down, “that is a game which no one can win.”
“He cheated!” said Jai. “My stick never even made it to the other side.”
“Your stick sank right away,” said Ceder, stone-faced. “It looked like you picked the heaviest one up there.”
“Oh,” said Jai, his cheeks on fire.
The Dangler removed his pole from the water and the boat sailed forward. They passed under the bridge without incident, although Jai noticed Ceder rubbing her forehead as they did so.
They sailed in silence but for the occasional chirp from the purple songbird, who sat nested on Astray’s head as comfortably as if she were up a tree. The cub made no move to dislodge his new acquaintance.
A narrow wooden dock appeared ahead, stretching through the fog a third of the way into the river. At the end of the dock was a squat fisherman in a green tunic swinging his legs over the languid water. He held a sleek, black fishing pole in his clumpy hands. By the look of it no fish were biting. The squat fisherman eyed the pink boat charily, dry-wringing his hands on his pole. He licked his lips.
The Dangler placed a hand on each of the children’s shoulders and whispered, “Speak not.”
Without moving a muscle the squat fisherman’s eyes followed them. He uttered no greeting. When the boat had passed beyond the dock, far enough that there was no chance they could turn back, the stranger said, “Nice weather, isn’t it?”
The Dangler eyeballed the other man’s black fishing pole like a chef inspecting spoilt meat.
“Caught a big one, an hour back,” boasted the squat fisherman.
“Did you,” said the Dangler with no tinge of it being a question, no hint of wanting to banter.
“Sure did. Biggest I ever caught. Reckon you ain’t never seen so big.”
“You might be right,” said the Dangler.
“Hmph,” grunted the stranger.
The boat traveled on, leaving the dock far behind. The Dangler looked ahead, concentration carved into his face.
Around a bend a bridge came into view. Atop it a fat, green frog peered down at them.
“Is this the same bridge as before?” asked Jai.
“It can’t be,” said Ceder, “the river doesn’t run in a circle, and we didn’t see any tributaries along the way.”
Jai raised an eyebrow. “Tributaries?”
The Dangler anchored them with his fishing pole.
“Grrreetings,” croaked the frog.
“And greetings to you,” the Dangler said deferentially, “game-master of the bridge.”
“Ah, so you have met Eany, have you? No doubt you played with him, or you would not be here.”
“This is so,” said the Dangler.
“No doubt you lost!” sneered the frog.
“You cheated!” cried Jai. “I know you did!”
“Silence, confound it!” hissed the Dangler.
“Nonsense,” said the frog, “we have never met before. Eany is forthright and fair in all matters, as am I. My name is Meany, but on Eany’s behalf I am offended by your gutless accusations, stupid little boy.”
“What of it?” demanded the Dangler, abandoning his complacent pretense.
“Another game, of course,” said Meany, “for another egg. I know you have one. Denying it will only vex me further. Will you play, you ungainly abomination of a man, or will you send these puny flies to risk in your stead?”
“I will play,” said Ceder, stepping forward.
The frog eyeballed her with an obvious appetite. “Then get yourself up here.”
Ceder knew what to do—without a word to the Dangler she stepped to the front of the boat, ready to be launched to the bridge. Jai had his back turned the last time around and was quite startled at having his head gripped like a melon and at being pulled upward into the air with the Dangler’s mighty jump, only to land a second later and see Ceder fly up and away, her arms spinning like windmills. She landed gingerly on the handrail of the bridge and climbed down at once, turning to the frog with her arms crossed.
The frog inspected her up and down, then belched and said, “You know the rules, you ugly little girl. Go fetch a stick before I spit on you.”
Ceder forced herself to remain calm, to display confidence when she said, “As a matter of fact I’ve already got one picked out.” She reached into her tunic and pulled out a twig that was small enough for a butterfly to carry—Why’s cane.
The frog turned to the river, unconcerned by Ceder’s ploy. He shook with a violent spasm, coughed—his tongue wagged limply out of his mouth like a tar-covered snail—and regurgitated the same wooden flute that Eany had used. “On the count of three, we drop. One!”
“And no cheating,” said Ceder.
“Hmph!” croaked the frog. “Two! Three!” He dropped the flute. Ceder dropped Why’s walking stick, which hit the water a split-second sooner than the flute. They rushed to the other side of the bridge to wait.
“I hope that ridiculous twig wasn’t special to you,” said Meany, “because you’re never going to see it again.”
“Jai was right! You did cheat—”
The frog cut her off by whistling a harsh, choppy melody.
Ceder’s heart pounded. Is he calling the flute back to him? Is that how he wins? “Stop it!” she screamed, but below them the flute had just emerged.
“So sorry,” grinned the frog. Ceder swung her arm out to punch Meany in the throat but he jumped off the bridge before she could strike him. From the river he shouted back, “Ugly, stupid, little girl!”
Ceder watched him sink below the water and disappear, her blood boiling. Now I know why Jai likes that knife so much! She stalked back to the other side of the bridge.
The Dangler held his arms out and Ceder jumped. He caught her smoothly and set her down. She turned to Jai and with her eyes asked what she could not bring herself to voice. Jai answered with a curt nod: the second enchanted egg had vanished from the satchel. With her failure they had lost both unborn spirits of Syn, as well as the silver fish the Dangler had caught. Ceder turned to the fisherman. “I’m sorry. I know that was the only fish you ever hooked.”
“I will catch it again,” said the Dangler. His voice was grim. He lifted his pole out of the riverbed and the boat floated underneath the bridge.
Jai found himself yawning. They could not see the sun through the canopy and time passed without measure. From out of the fog another dock stretched into the river. “Keep quiet, now,” the Dangler reminded them.
Another lumpy man sat on this dock, idly kicking his skinny legs in the river. He also held a black fishing pole and wore a tunic the color of slime. He watched the pink boat shrewdly, waiting until it was well past the dock before jeering, “Nice boat, fisherman! Very pretty shade of pink! Did your mother make it for you?”
Jai and Ceder kept silent. Astray stood at the side of the boat on his hind legs, growling from the back of his throat.
The stranger on the dock laughed snidely to himself. “I just caught the biggest thing you ever wished to see, fisherman!”
“I waste not my wishes on fishes,” the Dangler coolly replied.
The man grinned to expose his runty teeth. “You can’t catch anything, fisherman. You stink! We all know it!” He peeled into fits of rotten laughter.
The Dangler tightened his grip on the children’s shoulders but they waited it out, clenching their teeth, and in another moment the dock vanished behind them. The Dangler unhanded Jai and Ceder and sat back as calm as a glass of water.
Hours passed in the span of minutes and minutes passed in the span of hours. They rounded a bend and the Dangler stuck his pole into the water. A bridge stood before them.
III. Around a Bend
“Grrrrrrrreetings!” roared the green frog, fatter than ever. “I am Miney! Would you like to play a game?”
No one said a word.
The frog’s eyes bulged in surprise. “You—you would?” he stammered, darting his eyes back and forth as if considering a hasty retreat into the woods.
Jai and Ceder and the Dangler all looked at one another, bewildered—none among them had spoken.
Astray turned to them and fixed the Dangler with his piercing green eyes. Instantly the children understood. The Dangler nodded. The cub turned back to the bridge. The children braced themselves to be grabbed by the head and sure enough, up they went; when they landed, sinking the stern of the boat low enough to let water in, Astray went flying toward the bridge. He landed delicately on the handrail next to Miney.
The fat, green frog did not look well. His eyes nearly popped out and beads of sweat trickled down his body in every direction. He licked his lips compulsively. Astray looked at the frog, but Miney could not muster the will to meet the cub’s commanding gaze.
“Yes, yes, I know the rules,” the frog croaked under his breath, his voice shriveled to a weak tremor. “It is my game, after all.” He opened his mouth and vomited the wooden flute into his tiny, webbed hands.
Astray bit a green petal free from his necklace.
“One,” said Miney, extremely slowly. No one moved on the boat or the bridge. “To three!” cried the frog, throwing the flute down before he finished saying ‘two’ and immediately hopping to the other side of the bridge where he sprang up to the rail and began frantically whistling the same melody as Eany and Meany.
Astray dropped the green petal casually into the gentle breeze. By the time it touched down to the river, partially hidden by swirling eddies of fog, Miney’s flute was halfway through the race.
Ceder grabbed Jai’s hand nervously. They could only guess what prize might be at stake this round—anything in the boat, any one of them, might simply disappear as soon as the flute won.
The frog’s harsh, spit-spewing whistle grew more and more frenzied. The sweat leaked from his skin like melting ice.
What happened next was very sudden. A sound splintered up from the river like a voice cracking high to low. Astray was launched through the air in a great arc, propelled by something crashing through the underside of the bridge. The cub landed in Ceder’s ever-ready arms, but they both went tumbling backwards from the sheer force of his flight.
A tree had thrust its way up from underneath the bridge where no tree or sapling or seed had stood before. It slammed into the bottom of the bridge, sending Astray into the air, and then the bridge and the tree both shimmered at the same time and the tree grew up and the bridge grew with it, conjoined. Soon the tree was as tall as any in the forest, but it was fundamentally unique in one regard—there were three holes in its trunk.
An impossible sight met the children’s eyes: where the new tree grew out of the water, the river forked both left and right. Both streams ran their own course into the distance as if they had been flowing separately since the Dawn of Time.
A gust of wind made its way into the holes of the miraculous tree, filling the forest with a reedy melody that was eerily similar to the tune the Dangler had been whistling when they first entered the fog.
The fisherman was spurred to action by the momentous outcome of Astray’s game with Miney. “We have to get the El fish back!” he cried, pointing down the right fork of the river where the children saw one last glimpse of the fat, green frog receding into the forest at a mad pace. “After him!”