Read Online The Riverman (The Riverman Trilogy) by Aaron Starmer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Aaron Starmer
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layers of undulating feathery quilts. Whenever she jumped from the treetops, wings cushioned her. For fun, she would summon the rain and ride the feathers like a waterslide.
When she dug into the ground, she unearthed mint chocolate chip ice cream. When she called out into the wind, a giant flying squirrel would scoop Fiona up and let her ride on his neck and survey her creations.
Sometimes while soaring, Fiona would look into the distance, over the ocean as far as the light reached, and she would see a haze. At first, she thought little of it, assumed that when she built a bigger world, the haze would move farther away, like the skin of an expanding balloon.
But that didn’t happen. As her world got bigger, the haze got closer, and by the time Fiona was ten years old, she began to worry about these unknown hinterlands. One day, she called out for the squirrel, and it scooped her and Toby up. And as the squirrel dipped and barrel-rolled, Fiona pointed out past the ocean and commanded, “Fly us into that haze!”
The squirrel refused. It flew no farther than the coastline. This was beyond shocking, because it was the first time that the squirrel hadn’t followed her instructions. It was the first time that anything in Aquavania hadn’t followed her instructions.
Rightfully upset, Fiona decided to solve the problem the way she solved all her problems: by thinking the answer into existence.
The flying squirrel could speak, and it could tell Fiona why it refused to fly into the haze.
“I don’t know why I can’t fly there,” the squirrel said. “It’s simply beyond my abilities.”
The squirrel continued to glide along the coastline as Fiona pondered the mystery.
“Is it the edge of Aquavania?” she asked Toby.
“It is an edge,” Toby replied.
“I should have known better than to ask you. Why do you always speak in riddles?”
“I speak all that I know. I have never been there. I have only been here.”
“If you weren’t so darn cute, I’d throw you off this squirrel,” Fiona said, and then she had a thought that would open her world up in a way she could never have imagined.
There was a bridge that was as long as a bridge could be, and it reached from the island into the haze and to what lay beyond the haze.
A gleaming spout of water shot out from the island as if it were a fountain, and the spout stretched all the way into the haze. It froze in place, a gentle translucent arch with a pathway wide enough for a girl and her bush baby. Fiona asked the squirrel to set them down, and the two began their hike toward the haze.
Hours later, they weren’t even a fraction of the way there.
“Am I an idiot, Toby?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
The bridge had a conveyer belt so that Toby and Fiona didn’t have to walk anymore.
A conveyer belt made of milky quartz started churning and moving them forward, but the haze was still a long way off. Fiona knew that it didn’t matter how much time it took, how many days she stayed in Aquavania; she would always return home to the basement at the exact moment she left. She was ten years old and had already spent six weeks of her life in Aquavania, six weeks that didn’t exist back in the Solid World.
Still, the journey to the haze was taking far too long.
And the conveyer went faster, and faster, and faster …
The world blurred. The only thing she could see was Toby’s face, which shuddered from the g-force like a fighter jet pilot’s. Any faster and she would have made herself sick. For all the things she could create, Fiona could not change herself. That was one of the restrictions of Aquavania. She couldn’t make herself prettier or taller or more accustomed to Mach 2 speeds.
For three days Fiona and Toby zoomed along the conveyer belt, holding hands and surviving off of ice cream.
“You told me I can’t age here,” Fiona said to Toby. “But can I die here?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Can you … die here too, Toby?” Fiona
When she dug into the ground, she unearthed mint chocolate chip ice cream. When she called out into the wind, a giant flying squirrel would scoop Fiona up and let her ride on his neck and survey her creations.
Sometimes while soaring, Fiona would look into the distance, over the ocean as far as the light reached, and she would see a haze. At first, she thought little of it, assumed that when she built a bigger world, the haze would move farther away, like the skin of an expanding balloon.
But that didn’t happen. As her world got bigger, the haze got closer, and by the time Fiona was ten years old, she began to worry about these unknown hinterlands. One day, she called out for the squirrel, and it scooped her and Toby up. And as the squirrel dipped and barrel-rolled, Fiona pointed out past the ocean and commanded, “Fly us into that haze!”
The squirrel refused. It flew no farther than the coastline. This was beyond shocking, because it was the first time that the squirrel hadn’t followed her instructions. It was the first time that anything in Aquavania hadn’t followed her instructions.
Rightfully upset, Fiona decided to solve the problem the way she solved all her problems: by thinking the answer into existence.
The flying squirrel could speak, and it could tell Fiona why it refused to fly into the haze.
“I don’t know why I can’t fly there,” the squirrel said. “It’s simply beyond my abilities.”
The squirrel continued to glide along the coastline as Fiona pondered the mystery.
“Is it the edge of Aquavania?” she asked Toby.
“It is an edge,” Toby replied.
“I should have known better than to ask you. Why do you always speak in riddles?”
“I speak all that I know. I have never been there. I have only been here.”
“If you weren’t so darn cute, I’d throw you off this squirrel,” Fiona said, and then she had a thought that would open her world up in a way she could never have imagined.
There was a bridge that was as long as a bridge could be, and it reached from the island into the haze and to what lay beyond the haze.
A gleaming spout of water shot out from the island as if it were a fountain, and the spout stretched all the way into the haze. It froze in place, a gentle translucent arch with a pathway wide enough for a girl and her bush baby. Fiona asked the squirrel to set them down, and the two began their hike toward the haze.
Hours later, they weren’t even a fraction of the way there.
“Am I an idiot, Toby?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
The bridge had a conveyer belt so that Toby and Fiona didn’t have to walk anymore.
A conveyer belt made of milky quartz started churning and moving them forward, but the haze was still a long way off. Fiona knew that it didn’t matter how much time it took, how many days she stayed in Aquavania; she would always return home to the basement at the exact moment she left. She was ten years old and had already spent six weeks of her life in Aquavania, six weeks that didn’t exist back in the Solid World.
Still, the journey to the haze was taking far too long.
And the conveyer went faster, and faster, and faster …
The world blurred. The only thing she could see was Toby’s face, which shuddered from the g-force like a fighter jet pilot’s. Any faster and she would have made herself sick. For all the things she could create, Fiona could not change herself. That was one of the restrictions of Aquavania. She couldn’t make herself prettier or taller or more accustomed to Mach 2 speeds.
For three days Fiona and Toby zoomed along the conveyer belt, holding hands and surviving off of ice cream.
“You told me I can’t age here,” Fiona said to Toby. “But can I die here?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Can you … die here too, Toby?” Fiona
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