The Water and the Wild (28 page)

Adelaide had been strangely quiet all this time, and when Lottie looked her way, she quickly turned, eyes downcast.

“It's okay, you know,” Lottie told her. “I'm not mad at you for running away. We were all confused back there.”

Adelaide shrugged and said nothing.

“Right!” said Fife, clapping his hands. “It's over, and everyone's safe. That's what's important.” He turned apologetically to Lottie. “I know you've had a scare, but do you think you could keep walking?”

They were losing time, Lottie realized. She did not know how long she had been unconscious, and part of her was afraid to ask. She nodded groggily and tried to shift her knees up.

She had to think of Eliot. She had to picture his ceiling, covered in fresh-painted stars and swirls. She had to think of the days they spent on the roof of the Barmy Badger.

“You and I, we understand each other, Lottie Fiske.”

“We've got to—to save Eliot,” Lottie struggled to say, “and Mr. Wilfer. Got to—got to keep going.”

“All of the above,” Fife encouraged.

He offered Lottie the support of his shoulder, which she took with a wobbly smile.

The oblivion may have worn off Lottie's tongue, but a fuzziness still hung over her mind and she occasionally got the strange urge to shout “Badminton!” The webbings were as stable underfoot as before, and they sprawled under the shelter of pine, over the babbling river.

Fife stayed back with Lottie, steadying her muddy-minded stumbles until she walked with greater surety. In the lamplight, Lottie saw that Fife had a long, ugly weal running down his cheek.

“Did you get that from trying to save me?” she asked.

“What, this beauty?” Fife ran his finger along the red mark. “I consider it an improvement, don't you?”

“I'm glad you came after us,” Lottie said quietly.

“Yeah,” said Fife. “You had me and Ollie pretty freaked out when we found you. And Ada? You should've seen her when we pulled you out of the oblivion. She couldn't make up her mind about whether you were a rotten thief or her savior. She called you both.”

“She did?”

“Look,” said Fife. “I know that Adelaide doesn't act like it, but she was really torn up about what happened back there. She wouldn't leave your side until you woke up. I think she's just too embarrassed to admit she was wrong.”

Lottie looked ahead at Adelaide's proud, swiftly striding figure.

“I think she has a hard time apologizing,” Lottie said.

“She's
never
apologized to me,” Fife said cheerfully.

“Fife,” Lottie said, “how did you and Oliver get to be friends anyway? It's kind of hard to imagine how you made friends with any of the Wilfers.”

“You mean, I seem a little too
unrefined
for their lot?” Fife snorted. “Sheesh, Lottie, that hurts.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean.” Fife sighed. “Well, you saw what it's like in Wisp Territory. I hated growing up there. The Tailor despised me, of course, and so did all the other wisps. I'd go out of Wisp Territory every day, into the fens and Southerly grounds. One day, I found Oliver wandering around the wood like a Mad Hatter, book of poetry in hand, quoting to the trees.”

Lottie smiled. “You helped him shake a lot of that, didn't you?”

“Yeah,” said Fife, “I guess. But he helped me out, too. We started exploring together. Oliver was fascinated by wisps, and I wanted to know everything there was to know
about sprites. Then he introduced me to Mr. Wilfer and Adelaide. We would've made it a trio, but Adelaide, well—”

“She told me,” said Lottie. “Exploring isn't a refined activity.”

“Decidedly unrefined,” agreed Fife. “Anyway, when I was born, the Tailor ordered my mother to banish me from the wood. She bargained with him to let me stay until I turned ten—that's when wisps learn how to float. So on my tenth birthday, I left. Mother promised protection if I ever returned and blah, blah, blah. But I was ready to go.”

“And you're going to be Mr. Wilfer's apprentice, right?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Fife nodded. “But he thinks I'm not ready yet. Wants me to wait a few more years. He says that I don't understand the ‘great weight' of the healing profession, et cetera, et cetera.”

Lottie guessed she could understand that. After all, Mr. Wilfer's profession had gotten him imprisoned by the Southerly King.

“I think you'd make a good doctor,” Lottie said. “You always seem to know the right thing to say to make a person feel better.”

An impish smile notched up Fife's cheek. “I should hope so. That is my keen, after all.”

“What? Oliver said your keen had to do with taste. Tasting words, something like that.”

“It does,” said Fife. “How do you think I know the right words to say? I taste them first.”

Lottie stared.

“Think of it this way,” Fife said calmly. “Everything that you and I say is just one big, soupy concoction in the air. Depending on how you feel, the soup tastes different. If you're having a bad day, it's bitter. You've run into your worst enemy, it's sour. You've fallen in love, it's sweet! All those emotions leak out in your words. Dramatic examples, but you get the picture.”

“Um.”

Fife waved his hands impatiently. “It's not that I can taste the words themselves, really. More like the
moods
behind the words.”

“So,” said Lottie, “you could taste if I was angry, even if I said that I wasn't?”

“Mm-hm,” said Fife. “The moment you say a thing, I'll taste exactly how you feel. Which, if you think of it, would be a lame excuse for a keen by itself. But here's
the better bit, the bit that I'm still sharpening. I call it
flavoring
. Say I taste someone's words, and they're bitter, or off—bad somehow. Well, all I've got to do is add my own words, and the mood changes—presto!—just like that. It's like adding sugar to cake batter or spices to a soup. I can figure out what added ingredients would switch things up.”

“You mean, you can change anyone's mood just by saying the right words?”

“Close enough. It's still a wishy-washy business. Sometimes I mess up, choose the wrong word, end up throwing off the mood altogether. But I've still got three more years to sharpen it, so I'm not too worried.”

“Wait.
Wait!
” Lottie stopped in her tracks. “Does that mean you've been changing everyone's moods this whole time?”

“Does it?” Fife arched a brow.

“How do I know that you haven't been flavoring
my
soup, or whatever?” Lottie demanded. “That you haven't been saying just the right things to change
my
mood?”

“You
don't
know, do you?” Fife said, that impish smile still on his face. “That's the fun of it!”

Lottie had begun to feel queasy, and she was certain this had nothing to do with the aftereffects of the oblivion.

“It's not fun,” she said. “You can't just go mixing up words and changing people's feelings. How am I supposed to know if I really like you or if it's just you adding sugar and spices?”

“Why? Do you
really
like me, Lottie Fiske?” Fife's eyes were shining with amused curiosity.

“You're making fun of me.”

“No,” said Fife. “I just knew you'd get all weird when I told you. No one likes having their emotions read. That's why Ollie makes such a good friend, you know. He's used to
everyone
reading his emotions. It's nothing new to him.”

“Well, I don't like it, so—so stop, please.”

“I can only do that if you stop talking,” Fife pointed out.

So Lottie did just that; she stopped talking, folded her arms, and walked on. It wasn't that she didn't trust Fife. Or was it? If only he could just say things straight, with no blurs along the edges. But Fife
was
a blur: a wisp and a sprite, but neither entirely, bursting with enthusiasm and also with anger. She was in a strange place, Lottie reminded herself, and in strange company, with girls who could hear through six stories and boys who could taste her words.

The night wore on, the hours drumming out one by one. As the nip of deep night snagged at Lottie's skin, she began to understand what a tragedy it had been to lose the satchel back in the Sweetwater swamp. Her feet and back begged for the comfort of a blanket, and her stomach groaned for food—even simple bread and cheese.

No one had spoken a word for a good two hours into the morning when the wood began to change. It was growing lighter, and the webbings were dipping lower. In the dimness, Lottie thought she saw the flash of a bird's wings just overhead. Then, unmistakably, she heard a low chirp. It wasn't until a yellow kingfisher had alighted on Lottie's shoulder that she realized what was happening: the others had released their gengas and were letting them fly free.

Spool chirped once more in Lottie's ear and then swooped off to fly a merry circle, like a dance, with white-feathered Keats. Adelaide's lavender finch, Lila, kept close to her owner, flying at a respectable height and gliding with grace.

Lottie brushed her fingers against the small, warm bundle of feathers in her pocket. Carefully, she tugged out Trouble and held him aloft in her cupped hands.

“Well?” she said. “Are you going to ignore me again?”

Trouble tilted his head at Lottie. He tweeted once. Then, in a great jump, he swooped up above Lottie, flapping his wings in what Lottie knew, though she couldn't say
how
she knew, was a very satisfied way.

They walked on like this for an hour more. Trouble bobbed ahead of Lottie, joining in the merry circle-dance with Spool and Keats and then fluttering back to Lottie, as though afraid she might run off if he strayed too far. The others said nothing, but Lottie caught a glint in Oliver's blue eyes and a smile on Fife's and then Adelaide's lips. Lottie had begun to forget just how hungry she was. She felt warmer, too, though she wasn't sure if that was due to the rising sun or Trouble's happy tweets.

The webs drooped lower still, and soon, stones and grass—brown grass, not wisp white—peeked through the gaps in the webs, then intermingled, and then Lottie was not walking on webs but on hard ground. There were no more webs, just a stony path that flanked the River Lissome.

“That's that,” Fife said. “The webs have all run aground, which means we're out of Wisp Territory. And
that
means the Southerly Court can't be far off. Half a day at most.”

Fife gave a low whistle and raised his forefinger in the air. Spool fluttered to a perch there, and Fife tucked him back into his pocket. Oliver and Adelaide, too, collected their gengas and put them away. Lottie squinted up at Trouble, who was still flying in low, wide circles above their heads.

“Here, Trouble!” she said, cupping her hands up in the air.

Trouble twittered but made no attempt to descend.

“Trouble,” Lottie hissed. “Come
here
.”

Trouble released a low, whiny note, but after a few more swooping circles, he alighted in Lottie's hands. As she placed him back into her pocket, she noticed the others watching her. Fife had covered his mouth.

“What?” she demanded. “What's funny?”

“Nothing,” said Fife, though his voice was full of stifled laughter.

They moved on.

Lottie had not realized just how accustomed her feet had grown to walking along the webbings until now. The rough path felt foreign and unwelcome against her feet. A breeze blew the collar of Lottie's tweed coat up against her face and sent her into a round of sneezes.
Then a strange thing happened: her sneezes echoed. She looked up.

Oliver and Adelaide had stopped walking. Fife floated down to ground level. A great stone doorway arched overhead, and that doorway led into a greater, round stone building—or what had once
been
a building. Lottie squinted up at high stone walls, now crumbling on all sides. The roof of the ancient place had long since disappeared, but some sturdy columns still remained, and thick vines curled out of crevices and underfoot. Its inhabitants may have abandoned this place long ago, but the wood itself had not. Branches of taller trees swayed above, in place of a roof; still others reached their leafy hands through wide chinks in the walls.

“They're ruins,” said Lottie.

“
Southerly
ruins,” said Fife. “Look! The mark of the Southerly Court, it's everywhere.”

Fife pointed to a weathered stone column, where a painted white circle peeked through the ivy. There was another circle like it on the next column over, and on the next, and the next, and through the center of the columned circle the River Lissome flowed on as steadily as ever.

“They were not prepared,” Oliver murmured, running his hand down a column, “for silence so sudden and so soon. The day was too hot, too bright, too still, too ever, the dead remains too nothing.”