Craft (9 page)

“Okay,” Thane agreed.

“Okay,” Ellie agreed.

Ellie turned her attention back to the
raven. He was staring between the pair of them with curious eyes.
She decided, because of the questioning sounds he made, to name him
Caw. It seemed to fit his curious nature. She rubbed Caw’s head
with gentle strokes and felt a renewal of her excitement. She had a
real guide to take her to town. Determined to start her journey,
for a second time, Ellie decided she was done with chitchat and
acquaintance-making. She was ready to go.

Ellie held her hand out to Caw. The
bird jumped up on to her hand and allowed her to place him on her
shoulder. Ellie stood up and, with a flick of her wrist, crafted a
warm amber light out of the darkness to keep the monsters at bay as
she walked. She did not care if anyone saw her light. She just
wanted to feel safe. Thane, seeing she was determined to walk the
night now that she had a guide, stood as well and directed their
feet in the proper direction. He did not need Ellie to tell him she
had no idea where she was going, or that she had been incredibly
lost. He had known it when he had stopped to talk to her. He had
seen her wandering in circles. He was still questioning his reasons
for stopping to talk to her. He couldn’t explain it, even to
himself. The fear of the dark was not his only motivation. Ellie
was not the only one to feel the inexplicable connection between
them.

They kept a large gap between them as
they walked in the forest. Thane created his own light in front of
him. They did not speak. Their lifelong distrust of their
respective families did not make it easy to be close to one
another, even though they had promised to set the feud aside. They
both distrusted an agreement made by someone who was not in their
family. Ellie doubted a Cooper could remember a promise a minute
after it was made. The excitement of where she was headed was the
only thing that kept her from fearing the worst of her
guide.

Caw occasionally cawed out as they
walked. His voice was the loudest in the night. Ellie was comforted
by the gentle sound of his caws. It made the night and her journey
more bearable. She had never tried to forge a friend before, mainly
because her sister had a way of destroying everything Ellie loved.
Caw could not be touched by Neveah in the forest, however. They
were too far away from her. Her friend would stay safe as long as
they were walking. Caw’s presence also made Ellie feel that Thane
would not attack her. Though Caw was only a raven, and could not do
much against craft, she looked at the bird as a good luck charm. He
had brought her a guide when all hope had seemed lost. He had
brought her hope in the middle of hopelessness.

Ellie walked with Thane until she
could not fight her exhaustion any longer. Her excitement in the
face of an epic adventure was nothing compared to a whole night
spent cleaning and a whole day without rest, worrying if Thane’s
presence was going to get her in trouble or get him killed. It was
dawn when Ellie gave up on fighting her exhaustion. She could not
pretend any longer. Her head was weighted down by the exhaustion.
Her feet dragged along the pine needles of the forest. Her whole
body trembled with her sleepiness. She could not go any farther.
She stopped walking.

“I'm tired,” Ellie confessed to Caw
and Thane sleepily. “All I want is a big, fluffy bed.”

Ellie waved a tired hand, and a big,
fluffy bed appeared on the forest floor. It was the most
comfortable-looking bed ever made. It was a sleigh bed, complete
with pillows and a lightweight blanket. It was as long as Ellie’s
entire shack. It was a vast improvement from the sofa she normally
slept on.

“Wake me up when I’m not tired,” she
told Thane sleepily.

Ellie crawled under the white blanket
of the bed without waiting for Thane to answer and promptly started
snoring. Caw hopped up to the large headboard of the bed, to keep
an eye out as she slept, his beady eyes careful and alert. Caw
watched as Thane looked at Ellie in shock. He was surprised at her
sudden disregard the feud between them. She actually meant to set
the feud aside while in the woods. He could not believe a Bumbalow
had meant what they said. He could not believe how easy it was for
her to forget that their families had been killing each other for
generations. The innocence of her trust threw him off
guard.

Thane shook his head at her foolish
trust and picked a spot a good distance from Ellie to craft his own
bed. His bed was not nearly as neatly forged or fluffy but it was
good enough to sleep in. It kept him off the hard ground at least.
He rolled onto the bed, on top of the covers, and settled on his
side, so that he could watch her. He wanted to make sure she did
not try to attack him when his guard was down. He wanted to be sure
she was not trying to play him. It was not long, however, before
sleep called him under as well. His eyes slid shut
reluctantly.

Caw was a steady sentinel as he looked
out over the forest for signs of approaching danger. He would know
if Ellie and Thane were in danger; he would alert them.

Around him, the snores of Ellie and
Thane filled the air.

Chapter 4:
Town

Ellie only slept for a few hours. Even
in sleep, she was eager to see town. Her dreams were full of
dazzling buildings and amazing sights. Her excitement did not allow
her to rest long. She awoke with a yawn and stretched out as far as
her body would allow on the fluffy bed. She smiled up at the blue
sky and sat up, energized and ready for the day of adventure ahead.
She rubbed at her eyes to make them fresh and looked around at the
trees surrounding her.

Bright daylight filtered down through
the trees, casting thin rays of light on the pine needles.
Squirrels scampered around, searching for food in the underbrush,
and birds sang carols to the day. Caw was on the floor of the
forest searching for bugs, pecking his beak into the dirt in
sporadic spurts of movement.

Ellie enjoyed the sight of nature so
close, feeling as if it was a great way to start the day. Then she
remembered why she was in the middle of the forest instead of in
her shack. She remembered what had set her on her journey:
Thane.

She searched him out against the more
idyllic scenery and saw that he was fast asleep in his bed. Drool
was falling out the side of his open mouth and he was snoring
heavily. She breathed a sigh of relief, not only because he had not
killed her in the night. She was glad to have her guide. He had not
left her to the elements. He had not left her to wander the forest
aimlessly in search of town.

More at ease with the sight of him
than she ever thought she would feel about a Cooper, Ellie decided
she was hungry. In the spirit of the neutral ground the forest had
become for her and Thane, she crafted them both a large breakfast,
complete with furniture and decorations. She set two chairs at the
rectangular table she had crafted with a flick of her wrist, made
sure the eggs, bacon, grits, biscuits, and gravy were perfectly
warm, and then called out to Thane. He woke up with a snort,
jumping a little as he did. His eyes immediately went to her and
the food she had crafted. His stomach rumbled hungrily at the sight
but he was suspicious.

“Are you trying to poison me?” he
asked.

While he could certainly craft his own
food to eat, his food never smelled quite as good as Ellie’s. It
was the sort of food craft he associated with his grandparents and
his mother.

“A Bumbalow doesn’t resort to poison,”
Ellie said.

“No, just stabbing in the back,” he
said.

Ellie shook her head at him, but she
did not argue. She knew it would be pointless and cause a fight she
did not want around her good mood.

“It’s a sin to be so ill before
breakfast,” Ellie said. “How’s about you be nasty when my belly’s
full?”

“I can do that,” Thane said
dubiously.

He rolled out of the bed and sat down
across from Ellie at the table she had crafted. He gingerly sniffed
the food, his expression suspicious. After the first bite of eggs,
he forgot his suspicion. His hunger was king. He started shoveling
food into his mouth – food flew into his mouth faster than he could
chew it.

Ellie was amused at the sight. She
felt some of her preconceptions of him drop away. Not all Coopers
were snobs who ate their meals off silver platters and lived with
no lust for life. Some ate like the pigs Cousin kept. It was proof
that Thane might have not been as different from her family as she
had thought. One eyebrow arched in amusement as she watched him. A
smile played on her face. Ellie gestured at him when he looked at
her with a frown.

“I thought the Coopers were supposed
to be all fancified,” Ellie said.

“I thought we were saving the insults
for after breakfast,” Thane said. Eggs hung down to his chin, as he
replied. He did not seem to care about the mess he was
making.

“The way you’re eating made me
forget,” Ellie said.

Ellie started taking modest bites of
her food. She was content to enjoy the taste of her food, unlike
Thane who seemed more concerned with filling his belly as quickly
as possible. Ellie avoided looking at Thane as he ate, but she was
curious about him. She wanted to know his story.

“So, how’d you get to be at the fight
the other night?” she asked him.

Thane swallowed another mouthful of
food and shook his head. He waved his fork at her to reiterate his
point. His expression was serious. “Oh, no, we’re not doing the
backstory thing…” he said. “You’re a Bumbalow, and I’m a Cooper.
That’s all we gotta know.”

“Why?” Ellie demanded.

“That’s the way it is,” Thane said.
“That’s why.”

“‘
The way it is!’” Ellie
mocked. “Everything is always ‘the way it is!’ You’d think people’d
come up with a better answer to something they don’t understand!
You’d think they’d take the time to figure out why things are the
way they are.”

“You love your family, don’t you?”
Thane asked.

“Yeah, I do,” Ellie said, “though I
don’t like them most of the time.”

“Well, I feel the same way, and two
people who love their families, even if they don’t like them, and
whose families happen to hate each other, simply should not get to
know each other. You catch my drift?” Thane asked.

Ellie was not convinced by his logic.
She thought he might have been afraid of seeing her as a person. It
would challenge his worldview. He was not prepared to see her as
anything beyond a Bumbalow. Fear had him refusing to talk to her,
not logic.

“Seems like a simple way of
complicating things,” Ellie said.

Thane didn’t seem to know what to say
to that. He focused on his food again. His enthusiasm for the food
was less at her words. Sensing he did not want to talk anymore,
Ellie turned her attention to Caw. She started feeding him bites of
her bacon and petting his slick wings. Caw did not speak, but Ellie
thought he said more with a look than Thane did. At least Caw was
not her sworn enemy; an enemy who kept throwing the feud in her
face every chance he got.

When they were finished with their
meal, Ellie made their breakfast table and her fluffy bed disappear
with a flick of her wrist. She did a brief craft on herself, to
make herself clean and change the color and style of her dress. She
crafted a black dress with red around the edges and fabric that
swished around her legs as she walked. It was more elegant than the
simple dresses she usually wore. She hoped it would look fancy
enough for town. She did not want to stick out. She was worried,
though. She was afraid her country roots would show, and the people
in town would know she did not belong. They would know she had
spent her life confined to two miles and would scorn her for it.
Worse, they would turn her in to the Coopers. Her worry on her
mind, Ellie followed Thane as he left the clearing. Thane did his
best to ignore her new dress and her excitement. It was impossible
to ignore both.

Again, Ellie and Thane kept a large
gap between them as they started walking. Ellie was content with
admiring the scenery and lavishing attention on Caw, but Thane
broke the silence between them. Her words had changed his mind. His
curiosity went beyond the logic that urged him to keep his mouth
shut. He looked down at Ellie’s feet, which were naked to the
elements.

“Why don’t you craft some shoes?” he
asked, looking at her bare feet.

“Because I couldn’t feel the ground
under my toes,” Ellie said. “I thought we weren’t asking the
personal things?”

Thane dared to close the gap between
them a little. “I was just wondering if your feet ever hurt walking
around like that,” he said.

“No more than the rest of me,” she
said.

“My dad would kill me if he saw me
wandering around without shoes,” Thane said.

“Neveah, my sister, hates it. She’s
called me stupid on account of it a whole heap of times…it’s what
she picks on me with when she doesn't have anything else to make
fun of me for,” Ellie confessed.

“She sounds like a ray of sunshine,”
Thane said.