In a few minutes, the owl returned, soaring low. Her feathers brushed flowers. Petals flew like confetti. Cassie saw the grass sway in front of the owl. Cassie stood on top of a hummock for a better view. With wings spread a full five feet wide, the owl herded rabbits. Lots of rabbits. Politely, the owl called to her, “Would you like to kill one, or may I?”
She felt a twinge of pity for the hares being hunted by a superowl. The owl, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying herself. “Please, be my guest,” Cassie said.
Cassie set her stove as the owl neatly killed a hare.
Seconds later, a live hare appeared beside the corpse. He hopped from paw to paw. “Filthy predator!” the new hare shouted. “Return the soul you stole immediately.”
The owl ruffled her feathers. “You did not come to claim the soul. It was free for me to take. You would not have wanted it to be lost, would you? It is better for it to become an owl than for it to be lost.”
“I am here now!” the hare munaqsri cried. “Return it immediately.”
“As you wish,” the owl said. She opened her beak. Mist, the soul, drifted across the grasses. The hare chased after it. It melted into him.
The owl dropped the carcass beside the stove. “Thank you,” Cassie said. “Sorry for causing problems.”
The owl shrugged, an interesting feat with wings. “The hare has no sense of humor,” she said.
The hare munaqsri returned. “Disgusting predators.” The irate rabbit fixed its eyes on Cassie. “You are an omnivore. Why must you eat my hares?”
“Find me some wild tofu, and I’ll eat that,” Cassie offered.
The owl chuckled. Sputtering, the hare disappeared into the grasses.
Cassie smiled. How strange that she could now joke with talking birds and rodents. Months ago, Bear had said he could show her a new world with wonders she didn’t know existed. She certainly had never imagined she’d be out on the tundra with a magic lemming, owl, and hare.
“Are we close?” Cassie asked.
“I will bring you to the end of my region,” the lemming said, “and the owl will arrange for a guide to bring you into the forest. You will be with Father Forest by tomorrow afternoon.”
Cassie felt her heart leap. She could see Bear tomorrow! Finally, after the ice and the sea and the tundra… Cassie ran her fingers through her hair, and her fingers snagged a few inches from her scalp. She hoped he didn’t mind that she smelled. Cassie laughed out loud and shook her head. Her hair flew around her in a red cloud of tangles. “I’m coming, Bear!” she said. She’d bring him home. She touched her stomach. And then? She didn’t know.
CHAPTER 22
Latitude 64° 04’ 50” N
Longitude 124° 56’ 02” W
Altitude 1281 ft.
She’d be met by a guide, the lemming had said before he’d left her, but Cassie didn’t see anything that looked like a guide. She was alone at the foot of a hill. Spruces studded the low rise, and an aspen grove blocked her view over the top. The air crackled with birds and tasted faintly of evergreen. “Hello?” she called. She wondered what kind of creature she was supposed to meet. Rodent? Bird? Mosquito?
One of the aspen trees halfway up the hill began to shiver. Aspens, northern aspens, quiver in a breath of wind. She remembered one of Dad’s lessons: Populus tremuloides, they were called. Quivering aspens. But this was the only tree in the grove that was moving. She walked up to it. Its trunk was as thick as her arm, with bark a peeling pale green. Thin branches jutted out at uneven intervals.
It jiggled harder, as if it were doing a belly dance.
And then suddenly it laughed. Or, more accurately, a girl perched in the branches laughed. Cassie squinted—the sun was directly behind the tree and, oddly, made the girl appear greenish.
“Hellooo!” The girl waved. She swung out of the branches and landed lightly on the ground. “I am the aspen.”
Cassie blinked at her. She was green. Her skin looked like layered leaves, and her hair looked like twigs. “You’re the aspen munaqsri?”
“Yes,” the girl said. Her voice was high, whistlelike, and cheerful.
“You’re a tree,” Cassie said.
Again, the green girl laughed. “Yes!”
Cassie decided that she’d seen stranger things than this. Or maybe she hadn’t. She tried to imagine describing this creature to Owen and Max. They’d never believe her. Gail might. If Cassie went back to the station now, maybe she and her mother would have something to talk about.
Following the aspen, Cassie climbed to the top of the hill, and the view banished all other thoughts. All Cassie could do was stare. “Wow,” she whispered. It was gorgeous. Far in the distance, she could see mountains, the Mackenzies. Dark purple with streaks of glacial white, the mountains crowned the horizon. Max had always wanted to fly his Twin Otter in the Mackenzies. Now she could understand why. Rivers cut through the foothills. She saw enormous rock faces. And the green… oh, the green. Spruces, thick and tall, dominated the landscape for the hundreds of miles between her and those foothills. Pale green tamarack and the slender spines of aspens stood out like lights against the rich spruce green.
“Father Forest is within the boreal forest,” the tree-girl said. “We will ride there.”
“Ride what?” Cassie asked.
Seeming to ignore her, the aspen pointed. “I like that one,” she said. She was pointing at a nearby caribou, a young buck. His back was to them. He had shed most of his winter coat, but remnants hung like rags on his broad neck and back. He lowered his head into a thicket and thrashed his antlers against the branches. It sounded like a dozen snare drums; it drowned the chirps of birds. Finishing, he lifted his head. His antlers were tinted red. Cassie could hear larks and thrushes again. The tree-girl sprinted to his side, as fast as a blur.
Grinning, Cassie followed her. This was even better than traveling by lemming. The aspen-girl sprang onto his back and beckoned to Cassie. Grasping the caribou’s mane, Cassie pulled herself onto his back. The length of her pack forced her to lean toward his neck. His vertebrae stuck into her legs.
“Run!” the aspen commanded.
He broke into a gallop, and the other caribou scattered. His tendons clicked with the unique caribou sound, like rubber bands snapping. Cassie bounced on his bony back as he accelerated to munaqsri speed under the aspen’s power.
She knew the moment they left the taiga and entered the boreal forest: The light changed. Shadows surrounded them as conifers blocked the sun. The caribou ran over needles that crunched, and he leaped over fallen trees. Spruces were swathes of dark green punctuated by the white flash of an aspen. Finally, she was almost to Father Forest!
The aspen shouted a command, and the caribou stopped. Cassie was tossed into his neck. “Ow!” Her stomach squished. She scooted back behind his prominent shoulder blades. “Why did…,” she began to ask, and then she stopped.
Ahead was a picturesque cottage nestled in spruces. It looked as if it were part of the spruces. The bark of the trees bled into the wood of the walls. The roof was made of mossy stones. Cassie smiled—the cottage defined “quaint.” Wild roses curled appealingly around the door and windows. The air smelled of rosemary and mint. Smoke curled invitingly from the chimney. Ferns covered the tiny yard, and wide slate stones made a path to the door. Cassie slid off the back of the caribou, and the caribou trotted away.
Opening a wooden gate, Cassie stepped on the first stone. She heard a chime like a chorus of birds. Passing her, the tree-girl skipped, laughing, down the path. Each stone sang out under her feet. It sounded like a bird-call xylophone. Cassie tested another stone. It chimed for her. Grinning, she went down the path toward the cottage door. She could smell bread baking. She inhaled deeply.