12

WATERFALL LUNCHEON

PART II

🙜

"We're going to be walking together all day," he pointed out, "so you might as well tell me something."

There was a lull in the conversation, and while Ky thought, he watched the sunrise turn from golden to a beautiful lurid pink. Then she reached down into her jerkin and withdrew the small glowing stone she had set on his stoop two nights ago.

"This comes from the mountain," she said.

"I know. Hunter brought a stone like that back from his travels once."

"A hunter?" She smiled.

Ember faintly returned her smile, in spite of himself. "Of a sort, yes, I suppose he is."

"He must be courageous." Ky held the stone up to the sunrise glow, and Ember watched the amber light swirl within it. "These are plentiful, but the mountain paths are very sly."

"It doesn't look like mountain rock to me," Ember said skeptically, reaching out to touch it. The coolness of it under his finger woke him up a bit. "This is polished river rock."

Ky handed it to him and he covered it with his fingers, marveling at the ruddy light that shone through his skin.

Dim, but noticeable.

"These are polished by hand," she explained, "but there are many more inside the mountain. They grow there."

"They grow there?" Ember frowned and handed her the stone, and she tucked it away again. "That sounds a bit far-fetched."

She shrugged. "This is what I am told."

"What if we open the door and there's nothing there?" he posed. "Then what?"

The silence that followed was so long that he realized she must not have even considered it a possibility. He kicked a pebble down the road, waiting.

"Then I am told many lies," she said at last.

They walked in silence until the sun reached its noonday height, Ky swiping everything edible from the roadside and occasionally sticking her hand into Ember's basket for another leaf, and Ember entertaining himself with glimpses of wildlife and the changing of the scenery. He thought of his cabin now and then, but eventually shoved it aside in favor of other, more important concerns—primarily what he would do and where he would go once this odd adventure was over. Did Ky have other plans for him, or was he merely here to open the door in the mountain? Once his usefulness was ended, what would she do with him?

What if I fail? he thought, momentary panic rising in his throat.

The further they walked, the narrower the road became. At the hottest part of the day—when sweat began to drip off Ember's nose and the buzzing choir of insects was nearly unbearable—they reached a point where it became more of a trail than a road. They were just beginning an upward climb when Ky veered off and ran up a little deerpath, branches swaying in her wake.

"Come, this way!" she called excitedly.

He was parched and his feet were already aching, but her voice drew him onward and upward with renewed vigor. He doggedly followed her through a copse of birches and up a small ridge that overlooked the path. It wasn't long before he could hear running water, and the summer foliage grew lush and green underfoot. Ember swept aside a curtain of needled branches and emerged into a tiny paradise of white spray, jagged grey stones, and a thick bed of flowery moss.

A little clearing sprawled out before him, bordered by a wall of rock and sideways trees. Rays of sunlight streamed through the branches, glistening on wet foliage, and a wide tumbling waterfall splashed over boulders and rocky ledges. The garden of moss dropped off into a steep downward slope to his left.

Ky was gone.

"Hullo?" Ember said cautiously, setting the basket down and unslinging his fishing spear.

He heard a splash and glanced at the waterfall, but saw only frothing white water and a rocky ledge. It was then that he noticed a pair of brown breeches draped over a shrubby bush. Her jerkin lay a few paces away in the moss, as if she had carelessly tossed them aside and dived in.

Turning bright red, Ember set the spear down and looked away, rubbing a hand across his stubble and trying to figure out where to rest his eyes.

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Splash.

Cold water droplets sprinkled his arm.

He glanced at the ledge and saw a blur of motion: Ky had plopped herself down on one of the rocks directly under the torrent, hidden by the spray except for an occasional flash of black hair or a pale elbow. Dirt and dust and tree needles rolled away in the falls, and when her hands flashed into view the water added a luster to her skin that Ember had never seen before—it shimmered in lovely rainbow hues, reminding him of an abalone shell one of the villagers had brought back from the sea.

She stuck her head out of the downpour and grinned at him before disappearing entirely. He heard her bare hands and feet pattering on wet rock but she always remained just out of sight, a shadow under sunlit water, darting here and there with a startling quickness.

Forcing himself to look away, Ember hurried to the rocky ledge and clambered onto one of the less slippery-looking boulders, cupping his hands under the running water. The first sip was delightfully cool and set him tingling from head to toe. Never had he taken a drink that tasted so good and pure… It had to be summer runoff from the mountain peaks. He drank until he was sated and his cracking lips were soothed, and then retreated across the glen to fill his empty stomach.

Not long after, he noticed Ky Veli slinking behind the bank, eyeing her clothes, and he tactfully glanced down at the bread he was eating. She snagged them with a thin wet arm and disappeared.

Moments later, she scampered across the clearing, now arrayed in her jerkin and trousers. She sat down a few paces away—water still dripping from her chin—and set about arranging her thick wet hair so that it hung evenly over both shoulders.

He swallowed, and then reached for the last loaf of bread with a wince. It wasn't going to last as long as he'd hoped.

She watched in silence as he tore off a large piece, plopped it in his lap, and uncorked the jar of honey; her ears twitched with each new sound and her eyes followed every movement of his hands. Sighing, he stuffed the bread into the jar and scraped some of the remaining honey off the glass before shoving it into his mouth.

"Mmmh…"

It was too much to chew politely, and he had to swallow it in pieces, but there was no one here to impress. Ky had set a precedent of very little etiquette and the barest modicum of modesty (which was, no doubt, very decent by siren standards).

"I wonder," she murmured with a stealthy glance at his provisions, "what it is that makes your honey taste so sweet?"

"You'll have to ask the bees," Ember grunted, digging a little more honey out of the jar with his half-eaten piece of bread. "They're the ones that made it. And it's too sweet to eat plain. It's best for stirring into porridge or spreading on breads."

"I prefer to lick it plain," Ky said bluntly. "It does not taste too sweet to me."

Ember stopped chewing and looked up at her. "Did you lick it out of this jar?"

She smiled and drew her bluish tongue across her lips. "I tell you. It is delicious."

With an effort, Ember swallowed the rest of the bread and stared down at the fresh coating of honey in dismay.

Ky patted a stray lock of hair back into place and glanced up at the branches overhead. "What?"

"Never mind," he growled, tossing the defiled bread in her direction and reaching for an un-honeyed piece.

"Oh!" She widened her eyes at him. "You will not be eating the rest of the honey?"

"I suppose not," Ember said, glaring.

Ky popped his unfinished piece of bread into her mouth, snagged the jar, and uncorked it with a little sound of delight. "I will finish it for you."

And Ember could not tell—for the siren's emotions and manners of expression were still so foreign to him—whether she had been truly ignorant of human niceties or whether he had been cheated out of his bread and honey luncheon.

❧

By the time evening shadows stretched across the path and the drone of a thousand insects had dwindled to a few cheeping crickets, the way had grown much steeper. It wound around little hummocks and thick patches of woodland. A few much smaller waterfalls trickled down rocky outcroppings and occasionally Ember stopped for a drink. Ky stopped at each one, flinging water over her bare skin and combing it through her hair.

He heard something very faint echoing down from the mountain twice that evening—almost a birdcall, but not like any bird he knew. Shivery and strange, it echoed around the foothills far longer than it should. Yet each time it died away, he immediately questioned whether he had really heard anything at all.

As the first stars began to appear above the trees Ky drifted a bit closer, glancing up at him frequently as if she wished to say something.

"Ember," she ventured at length, "I do not know much of your kind, but you are not solitary."

"No," he agreed, bemused. "Not by nature…"

"You are," she continued, "very fond of your nests."

And Ember slowly understood.

"I think most people are. In this valley, farms are usually passed down among families." He glanced down at her. "Do your people not have homes?"

At last, she said, "I wander."

And that was the end of it. Though he waited for her to make some mention of his loss, there was none forthcoming. She merely walked, and thought, and hummed now and then. Each time she hummed it eased the tightness in his chest a little more.

A few straggling fireflies appeared as dusk began to settle and the trail they followed faded in and out of the woods alarmingly often. Had the siren not been there, Ember knew he would have lost the way altogether. Her slinking presence was far less frightful than the unfamiliar shadows that lurked in the underbrush and rustled along the path, and he chose to walk with his spear in hand rather than slung across his back.

The simple townsfolk he had left behind and their fireside tales of sprites and specters weighed heavily on his mind.

They were in wilder country now.