Listen, Move, Hide, Repeat
“What is this?” I asked as my teeth navigated a violet niblet that was almost impossible to chew.
“The best of the travel foods,” said the broad man I’d clung to for so many hours. My hands were red and thick with the pressure of grasping his cape for so long. I could hardly make a fist and I still felt the rolling motion even though my feet were on the ground. “It’s dense with nutrients for long trips. Best for you to get it down if you can.”
I tore off a piece and gnawed it quietly while the shy young person led the animals to some water and greens nearby.
We’d stopped at a small clearing in the trail with a few scattered trees. Sitting places were well worn into the front of each tree and the man settled into one of them with a familiarity of an armchair. They stopped here often. I walked over to one and placed myself in the groove. It was very comfortable.
“What are you called?” I asked.
“Name’s Grent.”
“I mean, what are you all called? What is the name for what you do?”
“Ah, we’re the Messengers. Usually, we bring news from one place to another and sometimes we bring people.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Oh, my dear, I really couldn’t tell you. Day slips on by day. I have no need to record time. I am always on the move.”
Grent’s face was lined with wrinkles, his hair pulled back severely and bound together, his fingers white and chaffed as they worked with the covering for the animal he rode.
“Is that a Welchefarbe?” I asked, pointing toward where the animals were drinking.
A smile flickered at his lips. “Oh, yes. The greatest beauty in the land, I can tell you.”
I couldn’t see the Welchefarbe from where I was sitting.
“Your first Welchefarbe I gather?”
“Yes. My father would read from a book of fairytales when I was little and there was a picture of some Welchefarben galloping together. So colorful! I’ve always wanted to see one.”
“Well, now you’ve ridden on one. Smooth, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, I guess.”
The rough man of the road considered something while pulling a tie with his hands and teeth and then he spoke.
“Would you do me a favor? Would you be willing to wear my pack? It’s chaffing me something terrible and I think it would fit better on your back. It’s not very heavy.”
“Certainly.”
It was a strange request. I hadn’t noticed that it was chaffing him or that he’d seemed uncomfortable. And why was he even wearing it on his back? It could easily be tied on or carried another way. However, there was no reason to refuse.
Grent stood up and tied the covering over the Welchefarbe. He returned and handed me the bag that he wanted me to wear. It was very light and just my size like it was made for me. I slipped my arms into its straps and cinched it across my waist. We stepped back to the trail and the others did likewise without being asked. Grent got on the grand beast and offered his hand to pull me up. I took it, putting my foot into a notch in the covering and pulling myself up with my own effort.
“Very good,” Grent murmured as I settled behind him.
“Will we be there today?”
“No,” he said.
The trail through the woods continued. There were four of us. Grent and I were on the Welchefarbe and there was a young person, a girl or boy, I couldn’t decide, who never spoke and rode a small, brown animal. And there was a wide, squat block of a man who also didn’t talk. This was their life: to ride and transport. They didn’t seem to have a lot of joy in it, which surprised me. To get to ride through the woods day after day sounded like a good life, but maybe it was only so from the outside. When you’re really doing it, maybe it becomes something different. Adventure for me, drudgery for them.
It seemed we’d ridden for hours when we were struck from all sides by beings who were glowing! There were so many of them and everything was so fast. They pulled us down and the animals made terrible crying sounds and ran off. And I ran, too. Some of the glowing things followed me, so I had to run and run deeper and deeper into the woods and farther and farther from the trail. It seemed there was no end to the trees and then they opened to a lake and I ran through the trees above it looking for any place to hide. I thought about rolling down the hill to the lake, but then I’d be even more exposed. There had to be a place where I wouldn’t be seen. There was a hole in the ground near a tree big enough that I could go into it, so I grabbed some large boughs with big green needles and crouched in the hole with the boughs covering it, hoping that it looked like a natural part of the woods and they wouldn’t even think to look for me there.
I could hear the pound and scrape of the glowing beings for a few minutes and then it was quiet. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to move for a long time.
There were stories about the Glowing Ones. Frightening stories told among children to give them nightmares. Mindless, they killed without mercy. I wondered if remembering the stories would help me know what to do. I didn’t like scary stories, so I hadn’t paid attention very well. There was a story about a Glowing One on a mechanical beast and its arm threw firey holes into the core of the father in the story and he stopped living. And another about someone who became friends with a Glowing One only to have it slowly poison her food.
I’d always wondered what made them glow. Did their skin light up? Did they have to be charged so they could glow? Or did they wear some kind of glowing clothing or covering?
I heard rustling. Someone was there. I wanted to look, but it was too risky, so I didn’t move and tried not to breathe loudly. There was more rustling and it sounded like something was being ripped apart and thrown.
“You found him,” said a voice and I jumped and then made up for it by keeping extra still.
“Yes. Shame, really. I’d grown fond of him in all our encounters. I’ll miss him as an adversary.”
“I’d think you’d be glad to have done with him at last. Perhaps now they won’t be able to bring their young ones to learn lies in the Library. They had a young one with them. Do you know where it went?”
“No. No sign. But no matter. It won’t be able to survive long in these woods.”
“Once you’ve finished with him, go looking for the young one. I’d like it captured and brought to me. Alive or dead, it doesn’t matter, just bring it to me.”
“I will.”
“Don’t get weak like the last time when you let it go.”
“It wasn’t my fault. It got away from me.”
“Don’t let it happen again.”
“I won’t.”
There were more terrible sounds and I became convinced that Grent was no longer alive. I kept still for hours and hours. It was difficult, but fear made it easier. Everything was deeply quiet, but I didn’t hear the Glowing One move away, so I waited and waited. It was dark and I imagined I was sleeping even though I was too afraid to sleep. The light came up and I still didn’t move. At home, they would be waking up now, wondering if I’d made it to the Library and what I was learning. I imagined I was home with them and Mother made tea and eggs and we ate them together around the table and I looked out at the trail to the woods and the yellow house and birds flying among the branches and the breeze raking the grasses and flittering the leaves. I kept my eyes firmly on this scene in my mind, remembering each tree, each bird, making up stories for the animals, games played by rolling nuts along rooftops and branches, helping adjust another’s wing, preparing for a bird wedding only the bride flew away at the last minute, consoling the groom the way birds console with their beaks. I keep my mind in this world while I waited and the time passed and passed until I realized I was very hungry and thirsty, so it was time to move.
I sat up and had to force my lips to grip together to keep from screaming. An arm. Spread further, fragments of clothing. Everywhere. It was Grent. The sleeve of Grent’s shirt was close enough to touch, but I didn’t. His shredded cloak was right in front of me. It was so gruesome. I stood up and walked away as quickly and quietly as I could.
There were some trees growing tightly together, so I slipped in among them to get my bearings. I’d need some food and water. They’d probably be waiting for me at the lake. What could I do?
And then I remembered that I had a bag on my back, so I untied it at my waist and slipped my arms out of it and opened the bag. Inside, there was a flask. I opened it and smelled. Water. I drank, just a swallow. Waited a moment. Then another swallow. That was better. And there were more of those colorful rubbery things for food. Quite a few of them, actually. And there were some tools.
Hiding and waiting didn’t seem the smart thing to do. They’d surely find me eventually that way. I had to get out of the woods.
There were some gadgets in the bag that I didn’t know. One had some arrows going different ways depending on how I pointed it.
And there was something very lightweight that didn’t have any color at all and made my hand disappear when I put it underneath. Was this a garment that could make me invisible?A plan. I needed a plan. I would keep moving until dark. Moving slowly, listening constantly. I would stop often to listen, looking around always for hiding places just in case. At dark, I would find a group of trees and put myself and the bag completely under the light garment. I’d eat one rubbery thing and drink two swallows. I’d sleep until light, focusing on the scene from the window of my house and the imagined dramas of the birds in the trees. I would do everything I could not to remember Grent’s torn clothing and especially not his dismembered arm. At light, I’d eat a rubbery thing, drink two swallows, and peek out from the light garment, looking around slowly around. That was the plan. Listen, move, hide, repeat.