Secret Places and Hidden Things

Chapter Eighteen

Jain looked around her, taking in the colors and smells. The earth was moist and spongy—more like rotten wood than dirt—and there was an abundance of mushrooms. This forest was old. The breeze was cool, but not uncomfortable, as they made their way carefully over fallen logs and bramble, their pace relaxed after the scene they'd left behind. There was no danger here. Occasionally, the fox would reach out its long neck and snap at the red mushrooms coming out of the sides of stumps.

After some walking, the darkness between the trees began to brighten, and in a moment, Jain found herself on the edge of a cliff. There was no land below or on the other side, just distant cloud tops layering over a deep, translucent blue. The trees were leaning out over the edge precariously, some with great strands of roots hanging down into the wind like inky lines scrawled over the clouds.

The fox climbed up onto a stump beside her and strained its neck, looking down around the edge of the cliff. It stood very still, and she wondered what it was trying to see. Suddenly, it jumped. She gave an involuntary yell, reaching out after the fox. As it fell, another landmass came into sight far below, drifting lazily out from under the edge of the cliff. After a long time in the air, the fox landed daintily, in spite of the drop, then turned to look at her, a small speck against the light rocks. A quiet bark made its way up to her when the fox saw she wasn't moving.

"There's no way I'm doing that, you crazy animal!" she yelled. The fox just barked again.

Jain tried to estimate the drop. It must be thousands of feet down—it had taken the fox a long time to fall. The landmass continued to move, and she could see the edges getting closer together. Soon it would be too late to jump. "Oh, I hope this doesn't hurt," she said, then closed her eyes and leapt out into the open air. She didn't fall half as fast as she thought she would. There was no sudden rush of wind, just a light breeze. She opened her eyes, and while she could see she was falling, it wasn't anything like she'd experienced before. In fact, her initial jump had carried her forward with more momentum than the fox had used, and she was almost flying. She could see the fox coming closer and closer, and when it came time to land, she set down right next to it. It gurgled merrily, its jaw moving slightly in rhythm.

"You can laugh, but I did it," she said. The fox butted its head against her thigh, then trotted off into the woods before them. She followed slowly, watching the other landmass drift away. It was only a small section and the helm was nowhere to be seen. This island seemed to be the same kind of forest as the one she had just left, though the island above was smaller. She wondered where the helm had disappeared to.

When the branches obstructed her view overhead, she had to start climbing around roots and tree stumps. The ground was dense with mushrooms, and some of them were glowing faintly in the dim light. As she walked her feet sank into the ground slightly—the dirt so soft and springy it leapt up behind her foot when she lifted it.

From above her, she heard scratching, and the fox poked its head out through a clump of leaves. "That's ridiculous," Jain said. "Foxes don't climb trees."

The fox clicked its tongue and disappeared back into the canopy. Jain looked around for a hand-hold but couldn't find a good one. After a bit of searching, she positioned herself under the lowest branch she could see and leapt upward with all her might. To her surprise, she flew into the air at great speed and had to dodge around the branch she'd intended to grab. As she began to fall back, now much higher than she'd intended, she reached out impulsively and her hand stopped her downward motion in a smooth, slow way, setting her adrift like a piece of loose ribbon. Even her clothing floated around her.

The fox appeared from around the other side of the trunk and bounced along the top of the branch she had grabbed. It stopped a moment to sniff at her hand, then walked out to the very edge of the tree and pushed off. It drifted up into the air in a wide ark, moving its haunches around in front of it, then pushed off another tree and out of sight above.