She said, “I’d better get a fire going.”
Anna came to my side. “Can I try?”
It took her three tries before she landed a fish, and Emma wanted a turn. Flier tossed aside his string and hooks. With a laugh, he said, “I guess we just need one pole.”
We hadn’t eaten in a full day. Nobody tried the shriveled apples. When we had a fish for each of us, we started on the second ones. Two fish would fill us up. Emma squealed softy with each one she caught, while Anna cut green willow branches to use as skewers to cook the fish. She used a knife almost expertly to gut each but left the heads on to support the fish while on the skewers. More than once, as the meat softened, the body of the fish fell away from the stick, but the head and mouth held it from falling into the coals.
We ate with our fingers, blowing on the hot fish flesh to cool it enough to place in our mouths. We drank our fill from the river, trusting it wouldn’t make us sick. Fast water is usually safe, but not always. Standing water will make you sick every time. We should have dug a hole in the bank next to the river and allowed the water to filter through to it. We could have also used the medicine from the backpack if we had a pot to put it in.
When the sun finally set, I kicked dirt over the fire until the coals were covered. It would have been nice to sit around, but a fire at night can be seen from as far away as the next mountain. Since we had slept so late, we sat around what had been our fire and looked from one to another.
Emma made funny faces. Anna scolded her, so when Anna wasn’t looking in my direction, I made a face at Emma. When Anna turned away from Emma, she returned the funny face. Flier laughed and drew a nasty look from Anna, then Kendra made a face. Yes, it all sounds silly but when thinking back on those early days, that night beside the dead campfire always returns as a favorite memory.
We woke early, which was no surprise. Just after dawn, we began walking up the mountain pass, or as I recall the trek, the side of a mountain. Before midmorning, my calves cramped and my thighs burned. We paused for many breaks, but always continued after short rests.
“How long to get over the pass?” I asked Flier.
“Two days. Tonight will be cold. The air will be hard to breathe.”
I panted my retort, “Thanks for the warning.”
Without pause, he shot back at me, “I didn’t want you thinking you were getting sick. Crossing here is no joke.”
The river was again somewhere off far to our right, and it flowed down the center of a canyon with walls too steep to climb even if we wished to spend another day returning to our path after catching more fish. All five of us panted for enough breath but kept on. The ground underfoot grew harder, packed dirt and rock covered with sand and gravel that started making our feet slip.
Flier said we would stop early for the night, long before dark. We needed the rest, and there would be no Trager patrols that high up.
Another thing I remember about that part of the trip was that every time I looked at Flier, he wore a grin. He was going home. I watched for a limp or signs of him slowing, but it seemed that removing the arrowhead had healed him in more ways than just taking away the pain.
When expecting a halt to come soon in the late afternoon, I raised my eyes to above his back. Up the trail ahead of him, a faint blue shimmer appeared in the clear mountain air. It grew more intense, the brightness of the image stopping all of us as much as if it was the flash of a falling star striking the ground. It was the Blue Woman. She floated a few measures above the ground as she had before, but this time the intensity of the blue light was darker, stronger.
She looked down at us, stared at each of us in turn, not speaking. Then she threw her head back as if laughing uproariously, mockingly, but no sound came forth.
Little Emma had been walking in single file right behind Flier. At the appearance of her, Emma had darted behind Flier’s leg and peered out from behind. None of us said a word.
In a move too quick to prevent, Emma stepped out and around Flier, moving several steps closer to the laughing woman, where she pulled to a stop on the path, placed her hands on her hips, and shouted, “No.”
The Blue Woman’s laughing antics ceased as she lowered her head as if noticing Emma for the first time.
Emma raised her fists to her chest, held them clutched there for a moment, and threw them wide, palms open, as she did. She said again, softer but with more force, “No.”
The Blue Woman disappeared as if she had never existed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
W e stood in shock. All of us. The Blue Woman had disappeared on cue as if in reaction to do so when ordered by little Emma. She had waved her arms, and the apparition vanished. However, first, there had been an instant of disbelief in the Blue Woman’s expression as if she couldn’t believe a child was banishing her. She was no more surprised than us.
“What did Emma do?” Flier asked me without turning his head away from the front where the Blue Lady had been, as if expecting her to return.
Kendra ran to kneel in front of Emma, who now looked as scared as me. She hugged the girl, speaking softly to her as we watched in awe where the Blue Woman had stood. Not a trace of blue light remained.
Flier was concerned with what Emma had done—no, scared would be a better description, like me. He hadn’t yet thought of what the blue light wrapped around the woman meant, or wondered who she was or why she appeared. That would come later.
I placed an arm around Anna and patted her shoulder because I didn’t know what else to do. For someone who didn’t like children, my affectionate action surprised even me. When Kendra turned her attention my way, she nodded in understanding and silent approval.
Flier’s expression remained one of confusion and fear. We couldn’t continue without providing at least some information to him, a few brief explanations. That posed two distinct problems for me. The first was how much to share, and the second was that I knew so few answers—so much of what he wished to know was impossible to share. Then there were Kendra’s feelings to consider. She might not wish to share everything. Or anything.
He was looking at me, waiting for an answer. I said, “The blue image?”
“Her too,” Flier shouted, his arm waving in the direction where the thing we called the Blue Woman had been. “And that little girl. What did she do?”
We knew the Blue Woman was a manifestation created by an unknown mage, that it somehow always knew where we were, and it sometimes spoke in riddles and lies. Flier didn’t appear to be of a mindset to allow me to deflect his questions. Under my hand, I felt Anna tremble at the growing tension between Flier and me.
I said, “Flier, we’ve encountered that blue thing before. I don’t know if what Emma did was coincidence, or if she managed to banish it, but either way, we’re better off. The Blue Woman has never hurt us directly, but we believe she has tried. At the very least, she has lied to us.”
“How? How can an image of a woman hurt you?”
I said with a shrug, “We think of her as a rogue mage who appears to us in that female form now and then to scare us or drive us into danger. She might also listen to our conversations and perhaps passes that information on to others. Anna must have disrupted the mage’s spell if that’s the right word.”