Sunlight and Shadow (15 page)

I walked for what felt like hours, though, as I had no real sense of where I was going, I also had no real way to gauge the time. The passage twisted and turned, sometimes narrowing so abruptly that I had to slide sideways, my back against one wall and my skirts brushing against the one opposite. Eventually, though, it always widened out again, a thing which made me glad. For I discovered that I did not like to be so closely confined.

When it wasn't widening, narrowing, or twisting, the passage climbed until my breath labored and my heart pounded in my head, then plunged so steeply my legs ached walking down the incline. Sweat first gathered, then cooled on my skin, causing me to pull my cloak close around me. But no matter what direction the tunnel took, two things remained constant:

The dust and the dark.

The first was simply an annoyance. I found I was unable to rid myself of the fear that I might sneeze and give myself away, in spite of the thickness of the stone walls with which I was surrounded. Had Gayna not warned it was better not to risk a light?
But, as the moments slipped by and still my journey continued, I discovered a strange thing. One I had never thought to learn.

I discovered how it is that people come to be afraid of the dark.

Until now, the dark had never been an enemy, for it had never been, nor had it contained, anything unknown. Everything about the dark had been comforting and familiar, and so it was little more than a change in my ability to distinguish my surroundings.

But all of that was different now.

Now, for the first time, the darkness brought no comfort, for I did not know what it might hold. And the longer I moved through it, the more uncertain I became. The longer I walked, the more the dark seemed to be a living, breathing entity. A thing with a will that might set it against mine.

Or perhaps it was nothing more sinister than this: In the dark, I began to doubt the course that I had chosen.

What if Gayna has played me false? I wondered. Wouldn't this be the perfect way to get rid of an enemy? To guarantee an escape that led instead to a dead end, no way out, and an endless journey in the dark? Almost at once, I was rewarded for this ungenerous thought by stubbing my toe against the wall.

I leaned for a moment against the passage wall, wiggling my stubbed toe in the air, waiting for the pain to subside.

It does no good to think that way, I chastised myself. Either she's false or she isn't. And either way, it's too late to worry about it now. You made your choice. All you can do is keep on going. Unless you'd like to go back and give yourself up.

I tried to imagine what might happen then. Just for an instant, it seemed the Lord Sarastro stood in the passageway beside me, so clearly could I picture his anger in my mind. I could see his golden eyes cloud with it, furious that I had escaped from him in the first place, completely disregarding the fact that I hadn't gotten very far.

“You will be married to Statos right this instant!” the lord would no doubt thunder.

So all my running away would have accomplished would have been to land me right back in the place from which I'd run. Except this time, I'd be married to Statos, and the chains which bound me would be even tighter.

No! I'm not going to let that happen, I thought. I put my foot back down and kept on walking.

Moments later, I found the door. I did this by quite literally walking straight into it, a thing which made me take two staggering steps back and sit down, hard, on the dusty stone floor. It then took me several more moments to determine that it really was the door and not simply another wall. But Gayna had told me to continue straight. To turn to neither the left nor to the right. And, as turning was the only way
I could continue, I could reach but one conclusion: At long last, I had come to the way out. Now all I had to do was open the door.

Push in the very center with both hands, Gayna had said. And I remembered that this was the same way she had opened the door in the back of the wardrobe. But it is one thing to find the center of a door when you can see it clearly. It's quite another to do so when you can't see anything at all. So I did the only thing I could. I began to explore the stone with my fingers, hoping to discover the seams that marked the outline of the door.

My fingertips were raw and bleeding before I was through. And, in the end, much to my surprise, I found that I was smiling. For the door was small, shorter than I was. In all likelihood, not much taller than Gayna herself must have been when she'd first come here as a child. In order to push in the very center, I would have to kneel, then crawl out as quickly as I could before the door swung closed. It would probably also help to roll to one side as I did so, the better to prevent my skirts getting caught in the door.

I could just imagine the looks on the faces of the Lord Sarastro's soldiers when they found me, sitting on the ground with my skirts trapped in solid rock.

Stop being foolish, Mina, I scolded myself. You've come this far. You'll do what needs to be done. Now stop procrastinating and get this over with.

And so I knelt, put my hands side by side in the
center of the door, and pushed with all my might.

I think that, in spite of Gayna's assurances, I expected some resistance. This couldn't be an exit used very often, after all. But the door gave way so suddenly I tumbled straight out. Then, as it happened, rolling to one side to avoid catching my skirts proved to be a totally unnecessary precaution. The door opened onto a steep slope. My own momentum propelled me forward and out.

For one terrifying moment, I stared straight into open space. Then, after giving one great cry of dismay, I somersaulted down the mountainside.

It was the scream that got our attention. A scream in the forest is pretty hard to ignore. One moment, we'd been climbing silently, yet steadily, our breath moving in and out the only sound. In the next, a great cry split the air, and then there came a great rustling and scraping, as if the top of the mountain lost its hold and was sliding toward the bottom.

“This way,” Lapin said, his tone urgent. Together, we began to run. We hadn't covered much ground at all before Lapin stopped so abruptly I ran right into him. The two of us tumbled unceremoniously to the ground.

“Thanks a lot,” he whispered as soon as he'd cleared the leaves from his mouth.

“Thanks yourself,” I whispered back, hoping I hadn't broken anything useful in the fall. “You might
give a fellow a little more warning next time. Why are we whispering, by the way?”

Lapin nodded his head in the direction in which we'd been moving before wed come to our sudden stop.

“See for yourself.”

I looked. “I see what you mean,” I said.

“I thought you might.”

In front of us, across a rocky space of ground, stood the largest bear I had ever seen, reared up on its hind legs, its muzzle peeled back in a snarl, though it made no sound. A short distance in front of it crouched a cub. And, in between, lying flat and unmoving on its stomach, was a figure with hair as golden as the sun.

“That's the Lady Mina,” Lapin whispered.

“I know.”

“Well, don't just lie there. Go and rescue her.”

“Lapin,” I sighed. “I can't go charging in front of that bear any more than we could go knock on Sarastro's front door. We have to be clever. We have to have a plan”

“I'd think of something quickly, if I were you,” Lapin said. “I don't think that mother bear is going to give us much time.”

“Maybe we can distract it, lure it away,” I said. Slowly, I began to ease myself to my feet. But, even as I spoke, I knew such a plan was hopeless. No mother bear alive would leave her cub if she could help it.

No mother bear alive, I thought.

At that moment, as if sensing my intentions, the she-bear swiveled her muzzle toward me, glowering at me with dark brown eyes. And now, at last, she made a sound. A growl in her throat that caused the very marrow in my bones to quiver. I reached for my sword. Yet, even as I drew it, I paused. She was only doing what any mother would. Seeking to protect her child.

“It's a pity my grandmother isn't here,” Lapin murmured as he eased to his feet. “She summoned bears when she played the bells, and not one of them growled. But then music soothes the savage beast, or so they say.”

“Idiot! Lamebrain! Peahead!” I suddenly exclaimed in a loud voice, a thing that caused the she-bear to give another growl and turn more fully toward us.

“There's no reason to get personal about it,” Lapin said.

“I'm talking about myself, not you,” I answered. “Here. Hold this.”

I thrust the sword in his direction.

“Now wait just a minute!” Lapin protested. “I'm just the sidekick around here, remember? Besides, I'm no good with anything sharp. I always end up cutting something I'm not supposed to, usually some portion of myself.”

“I don't want you to use it,” I snapped.”! want you
to hold it. I have something with me that may work better than a sword. You were the one who said we didn't have much time. Suppose you just shut up and do as I ask?”

“You're as grouchy as the bear,” Lapin complained, but at least he took the sword. Moving quickly now, I reached inside my tunic and brought out the flute that I had carved from the heart of the King's Oak.

“A flute,” Lapin said. “You're going to tame a bear with that?”

I pulled in a breath. “I'm going to try.”

At that exact moment, the Lady Mina lifted her head. The she-bear swung around. From her throat, there came much more than a growl. She took two menacing steps in the Lady Mina's direction.

“Any time would be just fine, I'm thinking,” Lapin said.

I put my lips to the flute and began to play.

I was dreaming. That had to be it. What other explanation could there be for what was going on?

I remembered walking through the dark for an endless amount of time, then light so bright it was blinding. A vicious tumble downhill. And after that, nothing for I had no idea how long. But, at last, my slowly returning senses began to tell me many things.

First and foremost, that every part of my body was bruised and aching. Secondly, that I was lying, facedown, upon the ground. The cold, damp ground.
Lastly, that I wasn't alone. I could hear whispers, couldn't I? And wasn't that something that sounded distinctly like a growl?

You'll think me cowardly, though I'll remind you that I never actually claimed to be all that brave. And even if I had, considering all I'd been through in the last several hours, it might be that my bravery was all used up. Perhaps that is why, for a moment or two, I was tempted to simply lie where I was and not even bother to open my eyes. If I was going to be captured or eaten, what could I do?

You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mina, I thought. You didn't get away from the Lord Sarastro only to give up now.

That was when I heard the voices again, louder this time. I distinctly heard the word flute.

That is Lapin's voice! I thought.

I lifted up my head. There was a bear standing right in front of me. The largest I had ever seen, though any bear looks large, I imagine, when you, yourself, are lying flat upon your stomach on the cold, damp ground. It was certainly the angriest bear I had ever seen. Of this there could be no question. Angry with me. There wasn't much doubt about that either.

That was the moment two separate things happened: I discovered just how much I didn't want to be eaten, after all, and the song of the flute began to weave through the air, tantalizing as a whiff of smoke.

How I wish that you could see into my mind! Or
better still, into my heart. For it seemed to me that this was the flute song's intended destination. The bear was just a convenient excuse for the flute to play. My ear, my mind, just convenient conduits for its song to reach my heart. I suppose I could tell you that, with the sound of the flute, the world changed. But the truth, I think, is that it did not.

I was the one who did the changing. For, as the song of the flute wove through me, I realized that I wanted it there, forever. I wanted to make it mine, to not ever let it go.

And this is a very remarkable thing, if you stop to think about it. In fact, as I realized some time later, it's precisely the same as falling in love. For, to do this, your whole being must accept something new, a thing that starts out as foreign, but ends up so much a part of you that your imagination, which is pretty good, fails utterly when trying to imagine life without it.

Still waters run deep, my mother had said, speaking not of my heart, but the heart of some other. But the flute spoke both to my heart and of it, its song pouring into me straight and true, finding its way to where it belonged as surely as any waterfall finds the pool into which it flows. And no sooner had the flute song reached my heart, than I was changed. For it seemed to me that I was now complete, whereas something had been missing before.

“Mina!” I heard a frantic voice whisper. “Stop daydreaming! Get up!”

And it was only then that I remembered my danger Remembered Lapin and the great, angry she-bear. I pushed myself upright and saw an astonishing sight. The bear was dancing among the trees, crooning to herself. The song of the flute, or so it seemed, had won her heart also. I couldn't see the one who played it clearly. He—I thought it was a he—moved in and out of the trees, as if trying to draw the bear off.

“Move, Mina,” Lapin said again. “You have to get away from the cub.”

“What cub?” I asked as I got to my feet and began to move toward him. Lapin was about as far away from the bear as he could get and still be close enough for me to hear him, I couldn't help but notice. At my question, he pointed, and I turned around. Just behind where I had fallen, a bear cub lay curled up, fast asleep. For it, the song of the flute had been as sweet as any lullaby.

“Things should be all right now,” Lapin said as he took me by one arm. “You're no longer between the mother and her cub. What are you doing out here, anyhow?”