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Authors: Steve Shilstone
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alert.
âWhat?â I responded.
âWeâve wasted an entire day standing on this hill!â she said with a good measure of alarm.
I shook my head. I even slapped my own cheeks. It was so such difficult to completely escape the blissful torpor we had been lulled into by the gently moving hills. But escape it I did with a final slap.
âKar, yes ⦠Kar ⦠the next ⦠Blue Hill ⦠That one with the ⦠the ⦠blanket of ⦠of â¦smoky ⦠yes ⦠smoky blue grass. The second tier. Letâs ⦠go,â I managed to say.
Hand in hand, we clumped down the hill, keeping our eyes lowered to watch the carpet of pale blue grass. We did so such in order to avoid being mesmerized by the motion of the hills. The slope leveled. I lifted my head and calculated the distance to the smoky Blue Hill. Not so such far, but between us and it stretched a low standing dark blue hedge.
âLook,â I informed Kar, âa boundary hedge. A boundary ⦠hedge ⦠for true. Oh! Two of âem!â
There were two. The one closest to us moved with the hill we rode. The barely higher one just beyond moved in opposition with the smoky Blue Hill. We were about to cross the boundary between the first tier of Blue Hills and the second.
âIâll fly us over,â said Kar.
âI would rather ⦠hop,â I said.
âWhy?â asked Kar, giving me the wary look.
âI ⦠donât ⦠donât know,â I explained, grinning like a lackwit.
âItâs too much for you. You canât jump that â¦,â Kar argued until she was cut off by me suddenly breaking into a sprint and speeding for all I was worth and a mound of thorns more for the low moving hedges. I cleared âem both with a tremendous leap of joy, and mid-flight I looked down between the hedges at a fracture filled with blue shifting sand. I landed whump on smoky blue grass. I grinned madly back at Kar, who gaped at me. She shimmered to cloud with green wings, one of her favorite shapes, and floated serenely over the hedges. She swirled and emerged as the jrabe Rakara, hanging upside down in the air.
âYe be an oddment, Bek,â she said, blinking her sightless milky white eyes.
âI ⦠know. There was ⦠blue sand in the fracture ⦠blue sand,â I said, so such haunted by something hiding among the wisps of fog in my mind. âKar ⦠please be ⦠Kar. I need you ⦠to ⦠to be ⦠Kar.â
Rakara whirled her dark green mantle and spun to sit next to me on the smoky blue grass as Kar, my bendo dreen Karro of Thorns.
âWhy?â she asked.
âBe ⦠cause,â I answered dimly. âDark.â
By this time, dusk had crept all around us. I pointed to the top of the smoky Blue Hill. I was waiting for night. Kar shrugged like we do.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Waiting
âWhat are we waiting for, Bek?â
âA raft ⦠no ⦠a shaft ⦠of silver blue ⦠night ⦠no ⦠light.â
âI supposed so such. Bek?â
âYes?â
âI wonder â¦â
âWhat? What do ⦠you ⦠you ⦠blunder ⦠no ⦠wonder?â
âThere! Like that. Why do you stumble in speech likeâ¦â
âThe witch? So said. I ⦠know. Such has become ⦠so. I do ⦠know. I fly ⦠no ⦠I try ⦠yes ⦠to fill ⦠spill the ⦠the words quicker, but I ⦠canât. And itâs getting ⦠nurse ⦠verse ⦠curse ⦠worse!â
âSettle, Bek. It canât be a bad thing, Iâm thinking. Such. Every time since we started, when you swim, something strange happens, and you lose the memory of it. Truth. I may be known throughout the hedge as a cracked melon, but true as true, I believe that your strangeness has something important to do with finding the Babba Ja Harick and returning with her to Fidd
âWhat?â I responded.
âWeâve wasted an entire day standing on this hill!â she said with a good measure of alarm.
I shook my head. I even slapped my own cheeks. It was so such difficult to completely escape the blissful torpor we had been lulled into by the gently moving hills. But escape it I did with a final slap.
âKar, yes ⦠Kar ⦠the next ⦠Blue Hill ⦠That one with the ⦠the ⦠blanket of ⦠of â¦smoky ⦠yes ⦠smoky blue grass. The second tier. Letâs ⦠go,â I managed to say.
Hand in hand, we clumped down the hill, keeping our eyes lowered to watch the carpet of pale blue grass. We did so such in order to avoid being mesmerized by the motion of the hills. The slope leveled. I lifted my head and calculated the distance to the smoky Blue Hill. Not so such far, but between us and it stretched a low standing dark blue hedge.
âLook,â I informed Kar, âa boundary hedge. A boundary ⦠hedge ⦠for true. Oh! Two of âem!â
There were two. The one closest to us moved with the hill we rode. The barely higher one just beyond moved in opposition with the smoky Blue Hill. We were about to cross the boundary between the first tier of Blue Hills and the second.
âIâll fly us over,â said Kar.
âI would rather ⦠hop,â I said.
âWhy?â asked Kar, giving me the wary look.
âI ⦠donât ⦠donât know,â I explained, grinning like a lackwit.
âItâs too much for you. You canât jump that â¦,â Kar argued until she was cut off by me suddenly breaking into a sprint and speeding for all I was worth and a mound of thorns more for the low moving hedges. I cleared âem both with a tremendous leap of joy, and mid-flight I looked down between the hedges at a fracture filled with blue shifting sand. I landed whump on smoky blue grass. I grinned madly back at Kar, who gaped at me. She shimmered to cloud with green wings, one of her favorite shapes, and floated serenely over the hedges. She swirled and emerged as the jrabe Rakara, hanging upside down in the air.
âYe be an oddment, Bek,â she said, blinking her sightless milky white eyes.
âI ⦠know. There was ⦠blue sand in the fracture ⦠blue sand,â I said, so such haunted by something hiding among the wisps of fog in my mind. âKar ⦠please be ⦠Kar. I need you ⦠to ⦠to be ⦠Kar.â
Rakara whirled her dark green mantle and spun to sit next to me on the smoky blue grass as Kar, my bendo dreen Karro of Thorns.
âWhy?â she asked.
âBe ⦠cause,â I answered dimly. âDark.â
By this time, dusk had crept all around us. I pointed to the top of the smoky Blue Hill. I was waiting for night. Kar shrugged like we do.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Waiting
âWhat are we waiting for, Bek?â
âA raft ⦠no ⦠a shaft ⦠of silver blue ⦠night ⦠no ⦠light.â
âI supposed so such. Bek?â
âYes?â
âI wonder â¦â
âWhat? What do ⦠you ⦠you ⦠blunder ⦠no ⦠wonder?â
âThere! Like that. Why do you stumble in speech likeâ¦â
âThe witch? So said. I ⦠know. Such has become ⦠so. I do ⦠know. I fly ⦠no ⦠I try ⦠yes ⦠to fill ⦠spill the ⦠the words quicker, but I ⦠canât. And itâs getting ⦠nurse ⦠verse ⦠curse ⦠worse!â
âSettle, Bek. It canât be a bad thing, Iâm thinking. Such. Every time since we started, when you swim, something strange happens, and you lose the memory of it. Truth. I may be known throughout the hedge as a cracked melon, but true as true, I believe that your strangeness has something important to do with finding the Babba Ja Harick and returning with her to Fidd
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