"It's tingling again," I said.
"It is? Let me see." I handed the sword back, and Shiara touched the hilt. "I don't feel anything. Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure." I reached out and put my hand on the hilt, next to Shiara's.
"Ow!" I said, and Shiara went, "Oh!" and we both dropped the sword.
We looked at each other for a minute.
"What did it feel like to you?" I asked finally.
"Like something pulling at me." Shiara eyed the sword warily. "You can have it back now. I don't want to look at it anymore."
I picked up the sword and put it back on. I still wanted to know what it was doing, but I wasn't going to mess around with it in the dark.
Shiara and I talked a little, but we were both tired, and finally we decided to just go to sleep. We would have plenty of time to experiment in the morning if we still felt like it.
Spending the night in the Enchanted Forest sounds awfully exciting, but it isn't really. Either you stay up all night so the wolves and nightshades and things won't get you and they don't, or you fall asleep and they do, or you find someplace safe and sleep there and never know.
We slept all night-at least, I did-and when we woke up in the morning the hedge was still there.
By that time I was really hungry, and since there wasn't anything to eat inside the hedge I was ready to leave. So was Shiara. She was still worried about the Society of Wizards. We brushed most of the moss off our clothes, and I checked the sword, just to be safe.
"Will you quit fussing with that and come open this stupid hedge?"
Shiara said.
I walked over to the bushes. They looked very dense and very prickly.
"Excuse me," I said to the hedge. "I would like to thank you for keeping the wolves and things out all night, and I would very much appreciate it if you would let us through now."
"That's the dumbest-" Shiara began, and the bushes rustled and parted.
I grinned and stepped through. The branches shut behind me with a snap. "Ow!" said Shiara. I turned around. She was still on the other side of the hedge.
"What happened?" I yelled.
"What do you think happened? And you don't have to shout. I'm not that far away."
"Sorry."
"Make it open up again!"
"I'll try," I said doubtfully. I addressed the bushes again. "Excuse me, but you seem to have a friend of mine inside, and she can't get out. Will you please let her through?"
The bushes rustled smugly and didn't move apart at all. "I'd really appreciate it if you would let her out," I said. "She's nicer than you think."
The bushes rustled again. This time they sounded skeptical. They still didn't open.
"Well?" said Shiara's voice.
I sighed. "They won't open up. I'm afraid you'll have to apologize."
"Apologize? To a bush?" Shiara sounded outraged. "I won't! I'll burn this hedge to cinders! I'll-Ow!"
"I really think you'd better apologize," I said. "Otherwise you probably won't get out before the wizards come."
There was silence for a while. Finally Shiara said, "Oh, all right.
I'm sorry I said you were a stupid hedge." She paused. "Now will you please let me through?"
Reluctantly, the bushes pulled apart. Shiara sighed with relief and stepped through.
She almost didn't make it. The bushes closed again so fast they caught a piece of her tunic.
"Hey!" she said. "Stop that!"
"I hate to mention this," I said as I helped Shiara work her tunic free, "but you really ought to be more polite."
"To lizards and bushes? Ha!" She jerked her tunic free and glared at the hedge.
"I mean it," I said. "It only gets you into trouble when you're not."
"I'm a fire-witch," Shiara said sullenly. "People are supposed to be polite to me."
"I thought you didn't like having everyone scared of you," I said. I turned to the bush. "Thank you very much."
The branches rustled politely. I turned back to Shiara, who was watching me with her mouth open. "If you act that way all the time, I don't think people would like you much even if you weren't a fire-witch. Good-bye." I turned around and started walking.
"Wait!"
I stopped. Shiara ran up beside me. "I-I'm sorry. I guess I'm not used to being nice to people."
"That could really get you in trouble in the Enchanted Forest," I said.
Shiara looked back over her shoulder at the hedge and shuddered. "No kidding. Well, I'll try."
"All right. Let's find something to eat."
That was easier to say than do. We found a bush that had some berries on it, but half of them were blue and half were red. I wasn't quite hungry enough to take a chance on them, and neither was Shiara.
"If my fire magic doesn't always work, my immunity to magic might not always work, either,"she said. "I'd hate to turn into something awful just because of a few berries." I thought that was very sensible. We kept going.
Eventually we found a clearing full of blackberry brambles. It was so ordinary that it looked very odd sitting there in the middle of the Enchanted Forest. The berries were full of seeds, but we ate a lot of them anyway. I picked some extras and tied them up in my handkerchief for later. When we finished, we started walking again.
It wasn't a very exciting walk. The trees didn't get any smaller, the moss still covered the ground, and every once in a while there was a peculiar bush growing next to one of the trees. It would have gotten boring if Shiara hadn't been there. It was nice to have someone my own age to talk to. I'd never had any friends. Most people don't want their children getting close to the Enchanted Forest, so Mother and I had never had any visitors except the princes and heroes and so on. I told Shiara about living at the edge of the forest, and she told me about the town she lived in. I thought it was very interesting.
By the middle of the morning we were both hungry again. Blackberries don't stick with you for long. We stopped and ate the berries I'd saved in my handkerchief. They were squashed and messy, but they tasted fine.
When we finished, we walked some more. It was a warm day, and by the time we saw the stream we were both very thirsty.
"Water! Oh, great!" Shiara said as we reached the bank. It was a small stream, ankle deep and a little too wide to jump. I could see the pebbles on the bottom. Shiara knelt on the bank and reached down.
"Wait a minute?" I said. "You shouldn't just drink that. You could turn into a rabbit, or lose your memory, or disappear, or something."
Shiara looked at me. Then she looked at the stream. "I don't care," she said finally. "I'm thirsty." She leaned toward the water again.
"But what if-Watch out!" I grabbed Shiara and pulled her away just as a huge swirl of muddy water came rushing down the stream. She scrambled back and stood up, and we watched the stream for a minute.
It was now almost a river, deep and fast and angry.
Shiara looked at me. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. I guess we'll have to go back-" I started to turn back toward the woods and stopped. There was dark water on that side of us, too. We were standing on an island. A very small island. It was getting smaller every minute.
I stared at the churning water, and my hand went to my sword. I don't know why-most swords aren't any good against floods. As soon as I touched the hilt I knew that it wasn't in the nature of this particular stream to do this sort of thing. I didn't know how I knew, but I was sure someone was creating the flood.
Right about then I heard a chuckle. Not a nice chuckle. I was looking around for the chuckler when Shiara grabbed my arm. "Daystar! Over there!"
I turned. A man was leaning against one of the trees. He had blue robes and black hair, and he held a wizard's staff in one hand. I didn't like the way he was watching Shiara.