The Waterstone (13 page)

“Wait . . . I see . . .”

It was an immense snow-white owl. Around its neck it wore a heavy silver chain from which hung a silver medallion as big as Tad’s head, studded with polished moonstones. Its hooked beak and huge gnarled talons looked black in the dim light. It stared, unblinking, at Tad. Tad staggered backward, raising his right hand to make a circle — Great Rune’s sign — in the air before his face.

The Owl laughed.

“His sign will not help you here,” it said. “Those who come to me leave Rune behind. Rune cannot give them what they seek.”

“What do they seek?” Tad whispered.

“They come to me for wisdom,” the Owl answered. “Though wisdom is not always the gift that it appears. Still, those that would have it must pay the price, in blood and sacrifice and pain.”

It took a shuffling step closer.

“What would you give for wisdom, boy?”

Tad took another step backward and found himself against the wall of the lair.

“Who are you?” he rasped.

“You know me,” the Owl said. “All know me. I am the Destroyer. I am Death. I am fear and pain; I am rot and wither and despair. I am winter and midnight; I am the empty black behind the stars, and I am the dark of the moon. You know me, you little fool.”

The talon slashed out again and Tad screamed.

The Owl said,
“I am Ohd.”

There was blood in Tad’s mouth, and he was shaking. He had bitten his tongue. Birdie was clinging to his arm, and on his other side, Pippit, croaking in distress, was clinging clammily to his leg.

A bell was ringing. Witherwood had reached over his head and was pulling on a length of greenbrier vine from which hung a hammered-metal bell. It rang with a high chiming sound that echoed through the clearing. Moments later there was a thrashing in the bushes and a tall gangly boy — really a young man — appeared, running. He was dressed in a short belted tunic over silkgrass breeches, and his hair — in a single bright orange braid — hung down the middle of his back. Beneath the flaming hair, the young man’s face was peppered with orange freckles. He looked hot and harassed.

“I regret that I was not here to greet you,” he panted. He pulled a wisp of mullein leaf out of a tunic pocket and mopped his hot forehead with it. “We were not expecting guests.”

He stopped in mid-mop and gaped nervously at Blackberry, the weasel, crouched watchfully behind Birdie on the grass.

“It’s all right,” Birdie said reassuringly. “He’s quite tame.”

“I do hope so,” the young man said in disbelieving tones. “Perhaps . . . if he could just move back a bit and stop staring at me —”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Birdie said firmly. “You’re perfectly safe.” She patted the weasel soothingly on the nose. “He’s a friend, Blackberry. Stop staring at him.”

The weasel and the young man exchanged identically suspicious glances. Finally the young man sighed, shrugged, and stuffed the crumpled scrap of mullein leaf back in his pocket. At the same time, Blackberry stopped staring, nuzzled Birdie’s shoulder, then rolled over onto his side, curled up into a tight furry ball, and fell asleep.

“Weasels,” the young man said unhappily.

“I think he’s cute,” Birdie said. “Look at him, with his paw over his nose.”

“‘Cute,’” the young man repeated. “I’m sure many would agree with you, of course. Briefly. In their last moments.”

He cleared his throat and edged gingerly away from Blackberry. “And how may we help you?” he asked.

“We came —” Tad began.

“Treeglyn sent us —” Birdie said.

They both stopped and started again.

“Treeglyn said —”

“We came —”

The young man flapped his hands helplessly.

“Perhaps one at a time,” he suggested.

“Are
you
Witherwood?” Birdie asked. “Because we came to see —”

“Oh, no,” the young man said. He gestured toward the old man, who sat silently watching them from his wooden bench in the sun. “That is Witherwood. And I am Witherwood’s Voice.”

Tad and Birdie looked at each other in puzzlement.

“Witherwood’s
voice
?” Tad repeated. “How can you be Witherwood’s
voice
?”

The old man moved his hand, gesturing toward the terrible scar across his throat.

“My master cannot speak like other people do,” Voice said. “Instead he uses a language made of signs. He speaks with his hands. Every movement of his hands is a word or a name.” He made a fluid rippling motion with one palm. “That means
water.
And this” — he put both hands together, raised them high over his head, and let them fall open —“means
tree.
My master —”

Witherwood’s hands were moving, weaving rapid patterns in the air.

“He wants to know who you are,” the young man said.

“I’m Tad,” Tad answered. “Tadpole of the Fisher Tribe. And this is my sister, Birdie.” He paused, waiting.

“He can hear you,” the young man said patiently. “He understands everything you say. It is only his voice that is lost.”

Witherwood regarded Tad with his single yellow eye, a long measuring look. His hands moved, tracing invisible figures.

“Why have you come to me?” the young man murmured softly.

Tad didn’t take his eyes from Witherwood’s face.

“We need your help,” he said.

Carefully Tad began to tell his tale once more. He told about the pond and the Drying, the trip up the dwindling stream and the meeting with the Hunters, the stone dam, the strange and terrible singing, the loss of Pondleweed. At this last, his voice quavered and broke, and Witherwood reached out and touched his shoulder with one wrinkled hand. At a signal, the young man vanished into the cottage. Soon he reappeared carrying a wooden tray heavily laden with acorn cups of cold mint tea, a towering pile of seed cakes, bowls of pea tomatoes and wild onions, a sliced yellow mallow-cheese.

“My master says you are to eat and drink,” the young man said. “You are hungry, thirsty, and tired.”

Tad and Birdie ate and drank, then ate and drank some more. Food and drink had never tasted so delicious. Blackberry woke up, ate three helpings of seed cakes, and lapped down two brimming bowls of tea. Then he curled up and fell asleep again, purring contentedly, with his paws folded over his nose. Birdie looked at him fondly.

“Do you think I’ll be able to keep him?” she asked wistfully. “I mean, after we get back home again?”

“Certainly,” said Voice, too quickly. “And the sooner you take him there, the better, wherever your home is, of course . . .”

Pippit gave a protesting croak, and Tad almost grinned in spite of himself. Then the grin faded.

“I don’t know, Birdie,” he said unhappily. “I don’t even know when we’re going to
get
back home. Or how.”
Or if
, he added silently to himself.
And anyway, how can there be a home without Pondleweed?

The red-haired young man had cleared away the empty cups and bowls. Now he returned and settled himself on the ground beside them. Witherwood’s hands were asking a question.

“Please go on,” Voice said.

Tad resumed his story. He talked on and on into the afternoon. He told about Treeglyn the Dryad and what she had told them of the Nixies, about his mysterious visions and Remembers, about his first hearing of the name Sagamore. At the sound of the name, Witherwood went even stiller than still, and his yellow eye gleamed. But his hands said nothing.

“Go on,” Voice said, as Witherwood closed his eye.

Tad told about the Grellers and their dark stone circle, about the sudden change inside his head, about the mind voices and the weasels. At last — taking a deep breath — he described what had happened when they first arrived at Witherwood’s cottage: the frightening meeting with the Owl in his dead tree hung with bones.

“Oh, Tad!” Birdie cried in a horrified voice. “How
awful.
How did you get away?”

“I don’t know,” Tad said. “It’s one of the things I don’t understand. I was just back here all of a sudden. It happens that way. It’s like waking up out of a dream, but each time the dream is realer and longer, until I can’t tell which is real and which is just the dream.” His voice wavered uncertainly. “It was a dream, wasn’t it?” he asked Witherwood.

He paused, frightened all over again. It
must
have been a dream. The Owl had clawed him and nothing had happened; he was still here, unclawed, and all in one piece.

“Who is the Owl?” he whispered. “Witherwood, who is Ohd?”

Witherwood had sat with his single eye closed throughout most of Tad’s recital, leaning against the stone wall, looking as if he were asleep. Now the yellow eye opened, and the old man’s hands began to move.

“Ohd,” Voice said slowly. He made the name sound low and long and eerie, like a hunting owl’s hoot. “Ohd is the other half of Rune.”

Witherwood leaned forward on his wooden bench, and his old hands flashed and flickered, weaving patterns in the air.

“Nothing exists without its other half,” Voice said, his eyes fixed on Witherwood’s moving fingers. “There can be no light without dark, no truth without lies, no life without death. No creation without destruction. Everything” — he paused as Witherwood spread his hands out, palms flat, and moved one up and the other down —“balances,” Voice said. “It’s the way the universe is made. Rune and Ohd, Life and Death, Making and Unmaking, Being and Nonbeing.”

“But” — Tad frowned, puzzled —“everyone knows about Rune.” Birdie and Voice together raised their right hands and drew a circle in the air. “I never even heard of Ohd.”

Witherwood’s fingers flickered.

“You have,” Voice said. “The gods have many names and faces. But it is Ohd all the same, though the Diggers have a tale of a Checkered Snake; the Hunters, of a Ghost Weasel, the Fishers —”

“The Winter Fox,” Tad said suddenly. “He’s the Winter Fox, Birdie. Don’t you remember?” It was one of Pondleweed’s stories.

“A long, long time ago, our father said, back when the world was young, it was always summertime and nobody ever grew old or died. But then one day a strange animal came to the Ponds, a huge white fox with eyes the color of ice. The Fox called all the Fishers together and said, ‘I will make a bargain with you. Each moon bring me one of your kind to eat so that I will not be hungry, and I will leave the rest of you alone.’

“But the Fishers wouldn’t do it. ‘How can we choose someone to be eaten?’ they said. ‘If we did that, no one would feel safe. Friends would no longer trust friends, neighbors would be afraid of neighbors, and even families would turn against each other. We must make another bargain.’

“‘So you shall,’ the Fox said, ‘but you will all be sorry for it. From this day on, then, you will grow old and die, just as the year will die each autumn with the falling of the leaves. You think that you have saved yourselves, but you have chosen a path of heartache and despair. Now,’ said the Fox, ‘sooner or later I will eat you all.’ And with that he turned into mist and vanished.

“So from that day on, our father said, people grew old and died, just as every sun turn, the year died, too, and became winter. But the Fishers were never sorry for the bargain they had chosen, because all through the Ponds, friends and neighbors trusted one another, and inside each home tree, love of family was always strong and warm.”

He stopped, out of breath.

“I remember now,” said Birdie. “The Winter Fox lost and the Fishers won.”

“I don’t think anybody
won
,” said Tad. “I don’t think the story’s supposed to be about winning.”

“They faced the Fox,” said Voice, watching Witherwood’s hands. “They learned what they valued, and chose death rather than lose what they cherished. That is what it is to grow.”

So it was with the Owl.

Tad glanced up quickly and found Witherwood’s yellow eye upon him. Witherwood’s hands moved again, a quick cupping gesture, and then pointed toward the cottage doorway. Voice scrambled to his feet and disappeared inside. He returned carrying in both hands a flat bundle the size of a big dinner plate, carefully wrapped in a silkgrass cloth. He laid the bundle reverently in Witherwood’s lap. Slowly the old man undid the wrappings, folding the cloth back to reveal a thick gnarled brown slab, roughly four-sided. It looked like a chip of old bark or an odd slice of stone.

Birdie drew in a startled breath. “It’s a piece of a turtle’s shell,” she said. “A really old turtle. Why . . . ?”

Witherwood held the fragment of shell toward Tad, gesturing for him to take it.

“Take it,” Voice said softly beside him. “You have seen the Owl. Now take this, Fisher boy, and tell me what you see.”

Tad stretched out his hand. His fingers closed around the fragment of shell. It felt warm to the touch, warm and heavy and ringed and creased with little ridges. Tad ran his hand across its surface, puzzled. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What am I supposed to see?”

Witherwood held out a hand, palm up, and then touched his index finger to his eye.

Wait. See.

And Tad saw.

He stood beside a pond — but a pond like none he had ever seen before. Wide white stones formed a ledge all around it, and white stone cliffs towered high above him on all sides. It was as if the pond lay at the bottom of a huge white bowl. There was a scattered litter of fallen white pebbles and toppled boulders. The water of the pond was clear turquoise-blue.