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Picking out a path past rocky outcrops and over mossy stones, Elliot worked his way around the base of the tower until he found a passage that disappeared into darkness beneath an overhang that almost hid its opening.
This can’t possibly be the main entrance, he assured himself. It must be a vent or a back way nobody uses. But because it was the only way in that he’d found, he approached with caution.
“Hello?” His timid call couldn’t have carried beyond the bend in the tunnel.
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Elliot had followed her willingly, enchanted by her flowing stride and silent confidence. Her feathers shimmered with iridescent sparkles that bound him to her just as surely as ropes and chains. The little warning voice he’d learned to heed whispered — nothing.
Without reason, without thought, without common sense, he’d trusted her, and now, facing a massive structure of stone and wood built against a hillside of the oldest trees he’d ever seen, he had no idea where he was.
“I thought you were taking me back to the bower. Where are we? And don’t say, ‘here’!”
Her answer was to throw back her head and release a trilling note that filled the woods like wind. From the treetops all around, a whistled melody replied.
She cocked her head. “We’re in the heart of the Ancient Forest,” she said as if that explained everything.
“But what is this place? Why did you bring me here?”
Her warm laugh rippled through him. “So many questions. I’m sorry, Elliot, but I’m not the one to answer them. In fact, I have to leave you now.” He started to object, and she placed the tip of a single feather on his lips. “Go inside. You’ll be in good hands, my friend, and we may yet meet again.”
It was only as she flew beyond the tangled canopy that he realized he hadn’t even asked her name.
Shaking regret out of his head, he began his search for the entrance.
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Elliot tried to press on Vernon’s stitched chest with his tentacles, but instead of compressing, they slid off the hard shell that was the wasp’s skin. After the third attempt, he stared at Clifton.
“You have to do this, Clif.”
“But I don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I’m trying to make his heart work again, but I can’t push hard enough.”
“If I push on him,” Clifton warned, “I’m afraid I’ll break him. Besides, what is that stuff? It looks like he’s leaking.”
“I think his cut is infected — he’s burning up. But if we don’t get his heart started soon, he’s gonna be cold and dead.”
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Quivering his way to the spot where Vernon vanished, Clifton tried to ignore the tickle of doubt in his chest. Elliot believes in me.
Taking a deeper breath than his lungs had ever held before, he kicked his chubby back legs as hard as could and dove into oblivion.
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Photo credit: Michael Johnson
Vernon’s eyes flickered in recognition just before his arms broke through the water and he disappeared beneath the surface.
“Vernon!” Elliot called again.
Only bubbles answered.
“Ohmigosh! Ohmigosh!” Clifton buzzed in swelling panic. “We can’t let the Queen’s Liaison drown!”
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Accepting that Clifton would be his constant companion for the foreseeable future, Elliot followed him to the Baths. The splashing of ruffled feathers and exuberant bathers triggered memories of deep water panic, and Elliot hesitated entering the pool.
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In his dream, Elliot reclined on a bed of rose petals in a field of jasmine. He could feel Cassandra’s kisses on his lips.
He woke on the floor of the bower in Fen to find her wiping the last of his regurgitated breakfast from his mouth. The scent of jasmine drifted in and gagged him. Rolling onto his side coughing more violently than the ancient wasp, he caught a flashing glint of brown surrounded by feathers in the doorway.
Shifting impatiently from foot to foot, Pierce, the hawk who’d brought them back, preened a chunk of glistening, ocher something from his shoulder, and fixed a smoldering one-eyed stare on Elliot.
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Photo credit: Christina Lihani
With a skyward lurch, Elliot’s breakfast threatened to return for lunch. Only the soft comfort of Cassandra pressed against his side kept him from taking his chances and diving for the safety he’d left behind when he climbed onto the hawk’s back.
“Don’t you just love flying?” she asked, her eyestalks waving gently in the slipstream.
Trying to make eye contact put his gut into a spin. He focused on the horizon, the only fixed object in the world, and confessed, “I love you more.”
“Everything is so clear up here,” she effused. “The ground just rolls away and takes every bit of trouble with it.”
He didn’t want to contradict her, but he was sure he’d brought some of the trouble with him, and it was about to erupt.
“Look at that, Elliot, my love — we’re soaring with the majestic Travelers!”
He looked. The sky and earth blurred just before they went black.
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“Arturo, son of Miguel and Valeria, regarding the charges that you are responsible for the return of the rebels and the devastation they spread throughout our people’s homes in the Freelands, we find it is possible the rebels would not have come back if they had achieved their goal to begin with. Therefore, we find you are inextricably connected to the massacre.”
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Leaving his post at the Box’s door, the guard became the ancient wasp’s support, speaking quietly into his ear as he led the speaker to the platform to deliver the verdict.
Arturo’s whisper shook. “What do you think he’s saying to the old one?”
Elliot’s attention snapped back from the unanswered question still hanging in the air. “No matter what it is,” he assured Arturo, “you have our support. We can ask Queen Lilian to—” A concussive blast of coughing cut Elliot off.
Space, Time, and Raspberries 
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