The Crimson Skew (The Mapmakers Trilogy) by S. E. Grove (42)

41

Reunion

WHEN SOPHIA WOKE, Minna and Bronson were gone. At first, it struck her like a blow, and she wanted to return to sleep to forget how irrevocable was their departure. But then she realized, to her surprise, that the sense of comfort and security she had fallen asleep with was still there. Yes, Minna and Bronson were gone, but they had left her with that unshakable stillness that was the heart of the grove.

She stepped tentatively out of the Red Wood shelter and found Theo sleeping outside it, curled up among the ferns. She smiled. Instead of waking him, she sat beside him and waited, letting the morning light filter in through the trees. In the east, the sun rose over the hills and reached them in the clearing, slowly igniting the red trunks with orange light. The grove itself was awake. Sophia could feel its watchfulness, its steady purpose. She listened to it with all her senses, awed and profoundly glad that she had been so fortunate to find her way to such a place.

When Theo woke, he sat bolt upright. Then he groaned. He eased his arm out of the sling and stretched it gingerly. “Are you okay?” he asked anxiously, searching her face.

She smiled. “I’m fine.”

“Are they gone?”

Sophia nodded. She glanced at the two trees. “Yes. Though not entirely. Their memories are there. And they will be—always. I will get to spend more time with them that way, at least.” She turned back at him. “Thanks for waiting with me.”

Theo drew one of Smokey’s food packets out from under him and unfolded it, revealing a flattened piece of bread, a squashed apple, and crumbled nuts. “I saved you this delicious meal,” he announced.

Sophia laughed. “Thank you.” She took it, grateful for anything to put in her rumbling stomach. As she ate hungrily, she asked, “Where are the others?”

“They camped out by the river last night.” He smiled at her sideways. “We have company.”

“Company?”

“When you’re done, we’ll go join them.”

She glared at him. “I can walk and eat!”

Theo put his arm back in the sling, pulled himself to his feet, and took up his stick. Sophia followed him along the path, eating hurriedly. The luxuriant ferns were still, and the clover seemed damp with dew. Sophia gazed at the foliage and the fibrous trunks of the trees with new eyes, imagining how all of it contained the memories of people like her parents. They had, indeed, created a perfect place.

When the trees parted and the valley came into view, Sophia saw an astonishing ship on the riverbank: a ship built around the roots of a living tree, its broad sails, made of leaves, tightly furled. It was out of place here, far from Nochtland: a boldevela. At the base of the boldevela’s steps, Nosh was happily eating grass. The pigeons were pecking at the ground nearby, keeping their safe distance from the larger bird that now perched on his antlers. Sophia squinted. Not a pigeon, she thought.

A falcon! Seneca!

Goldenrod, Errol, Bittersweet, and Datura sat nearby, talking quietly.

Sophia raced toward them. “Goldenrod! Errol!”

They rose and hurried forward, both of them embracing her so tightly that she had to fight for breath. She drew back, a little laugh of happiness escaping her. “I am so glad to see you well!” Then she realized that Errol’s shoulder was wrapped in bandages.

“We are well now,” Goldenrod reassured her, taking Sophia’s hand. “Though there were some difficult moments. And we have heard a great deal from Bittersweet about all the difficulties you have overcome.”

“Did you find them, Sophia?” Errol asked, with intensity.

“Yes. I was even able to talk with them before they had to go.”

“We have been speaking of this grove, and how it was made,” Goldenrod said, looking up at it wonderingly. “Though I know it cannot amend their loss, to have been a part of making such a place . . .”

Sophia nodded. “I know.”

Datura, Bittersweet, and Theo had joined them. Theo yawned. “Where do all the memories in the grove come from? In the trees, even the ferns. I still don’t totally get what the grove is.”

“A living memory map,” Sophia told him.

“But there are lots of memory maps.”

“Yes. But they are difficult, if not impossible, for most people to read,” added Goldenrod. “These are fully manifest. Anyone can experience these memories.”

“It’s like the difference between talking to someone in person and reading about them,” Sophia continued. “To read about them, you have to know how to read. But when you actually talk to them . . . they are there—right in front of you, obvious and alive. The grove is like that, but with memories.”

“It will change everything,” Goldenrod said gravely. “Imagine the power of the garnet map that you brought here—but everywhere, in everything. When the past is so visible, so present, it counsels our actions—it makes us considered and aware.”

A sound aboard the boldevela drew Sophia’s attention. “How did that boldevela come to be here? And what has happened to Calixta? And Burr?”

Errol smiled wryly. “Oh, you will find them quite well. In fact, I advise you to speak to the others before the pirates wake, or else you will not get a word in edgewise.”

“Others?”

As if in reply, a figure appeared at the tree-ship’s railing. “Hello!” the old man cried, cheerfully waving a cane.

“Martin?” Sophia exclaimed. She took a step forward.

“And Veressa,” Theo said. “Oh, and Miles.”

“And Wren,” Errol added.

Sophia shook her head in wonder, hurrying to meet Martin at the base of the stairs. “My dear Sophia,” he said, embracing her warmly. “How good it is to find you—older and wiser, I can see, but safe and sound.”

She smiled up at the familiar bright eyes and wrinkled cheeks, feeling a surge of affection. “Martin, I cannot believe you are here.”

Martin Metl laughed happily. “Nor can I! Here with you! At the foot of the greatest botanical wonder of the world!” He raised his cane triumphantly. “We have a great deal of catching up to do.”

• • •

AND CATCH UP they did. All of Sophia’s fellow travelers—with the exception of Casanova, who had left the day before to assure Smokey of their safe return from the Eerie Sea—were in one place. She could not stop being astonished, as the happy day wore on, to see her beloved fellow travelers together in one place: Miles and Theo, Calixta and Burr, Martin and Veressa, Goldenrod and Errol, Bittersweet and Datura, and Richard Wren, who was looking more like himself now that the Indies tattoos had faded.

It touched Sophia deeply to see so many people of diverse Ages, many of whom had never met, folding into one another’s company as if they had known one another forever. The only person who was missing, she reflected, was Shadrack. As she looked around at her gathered friends, she committed the sight to memory—so that she could record it in her notebook and describe it to Shadrack when she returned home. They filled the deck of the boldevela: Miles standing at the mast, gesticulating wildly as he argued with Theo, who looked quite content with the argument; Calixta in her linen skirts, eating blueberries with her feet propped up on a chair; Burr snoozing under his hat; Martin, with his pant legs rolled up, engaging in enthusiastic conversation with Goldenrod, who examined his leg of wood and leg of silver with interest; Veressa, her thorned arms relaxed as she leaned out over the deck, describing to Errol the route they had taken from Nochtland; and Richard Wren, creating a sculpture out of paper for Datura’s entertainment. She and Bittersweet watched the Australian captain as he folded and unfolded, cut and clipped, until a miniature moose appeared in his palm. Datura laughed, enchanted, and Wren smiled in satisfaction. Sophia realized that despite their disparate origins, varied dress, and oft-incompatible senses of humor, they also had a great deal in common. They acted on principle; they were courageous; and they helped fellow travelers. With such friends behind me, she thought, it is no wonder we did not fail.

When Burr finally awoke from his nap, Goldenrod and Errol began the story of what had happened to them in Salt Lick Station. They were interrupted by Calixta, who insisted that they were telling it wrong. “I saw a giant troll come out of the mist,” she said. “And he was holding Errol’s sword.”

Errol rolled his eyes. “A troll,” he scoffed.

“Naturally, I shot him,” she continued.

“And what a good thing that you are such a lousy shot, or we would all be attending my funeral in Salt Lick.”

“I was aiming to disable you,” Calixta said defensively. “Not that your aim was any better.” She raised her injured leg. Being Calixta, she had managed to find new linen skirts that complemented her bandages.

Sophia had already come to the conclusion that the knight she had seen was Errol and the dragon was Calixta, but she had very deliberately failed to mention the illusion to the pirate captain. She leaned forward. “But then what?”

“Then,” Errol said grimly, “we all fought for our lives.”

“And when the fog finally cleared, all the Encephalon agents were gone,” Wren put in.

“Gone?” Theo asked. “Or dead?”

Burr was blunt. “Quite dead. And no one”—his voice was a trifle peevish—“has mentioned the fact that I managed to emerge—unscathed—with my hands still tied. Which I believe deserves notice.”

“Well done, my dear brother,” Calixta said dryly. “We have taken notice. There must be a prize of some sort, awarded to the valiant soul who emerges unscathed from the fog in the most unlikely way, and you would no doubt be the happy recipient.”

“Actually, I believe I would,” said Wren as everyone laughed. “If that fog hadn’t struck, I would be aboard a vessel to Australia right now, on my way to serve a life sentence.”

“Do you see?” Calixta said, patting Datura on the knee and beaming at her. “Your fog did us a great service.”

Datura looked scandalized. “But it also ruined and ended many lives!”

“And it’s exactly what Broadgirdle intended,” Miles growled, frowning at no one in particular. “He knew the moment he found you that he would be ruining and ending many lives, all in the name of his dream for westward expansion. That was exactly what he wanted. You never had a chance against him, my girl.”

Datura considered this in silence. “Consider that he also got the best of Mother and Grandfather,” Bittersweet reminded her gently.

“Not to mention me,” Goldenrod said.

“And me,” Theo added quietly.

“We had the best of him in the end!” Miles exclaimed, pounding his fist against the mast.

“But did you know all this about Datura already when you left Boston?” Sophia asked.

Miles shook his head. “Not a bit of it. Well—we knew about the existence of the fog, and we knew, of course, that Broadgirdle was pressing westward. That’s all. We had no idea what the fog was. Shadrack wrote to Martin and Veressa, urging them to come north to investigate it, and I headed west to meet them. We had just found one another in the Indian Territories when Shadrack sent us a message by iron pigeon to say that you were here, in New Occident, and headed to Salt Lick.”

“But we arrived in Salt Lick too late,” Veressa said, speaking for the first time. “We found not only the destruction wrought by the fog, but also the second wave of destruction brought about by the New Occident troops. They had burned much of the city.”

“And where were you by this point?” Sophia turned to Goldenrod, Errol, and the pirates.

“We,” Burr said grimly, “were nursing our wounds. Or rather, I should say I was nursing Calixta’s wounds and Goldenrod was nursing Errol’s. You can imagine who had the better bargain there. I heard not a word of complaint pass Errol’s lips. Meanwhile, Calixta . . .” He made a flourish with his arm, as if his sister’s complaints were too many to enumerate.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Calixta said indignantly. “I have a great tolerance for pain, and I did not even wince when you sewed my stitches.”

“Oh, naturally. You did not wince. But you complained something terrible about how crooked the stitches were, and how they were going to leave the wrong kind of scar instead of a scar you could boast about, and how your new raider dress was stained with blood, and on and on.”

“Every one of those things is true!” Calixta cried, to general laughter. Even Datura had to smile.

“We,” Errol said, “were camped outside of Salt Lick. We had seen the wall of bittersweet, and Goldenrod assured us it meant that you, Sophia, were safe. Then we had confirmation of it from Seneca, who flew ahead.” Sophia thought of the sprig of goldenrod, pressed in the pages of her notebook. “It would have been impossible to catch up with you, because of our injuries. Several days went by, and we managed to avoid the troops only because Seneca warned us that they were coming.”

“And then we arrived!” Miles said, throwing out his arms.

Calixta picked up the thread. “Miles, Veressa, and Martin arrived in the boldevela, and not a moment too late, for I was running out of clean clothes.”

“Will Shadrack know that we are all safe?” asked Sophia.

“Iron pigeon,” Miles said matter-of-factly. “He will know.” He smiled at Sophia and put his arm around her, pulling her into a rough hug. “Of course, he will be much happier when he sees you in person, little explorer.”

Sophia pulled herself free of Miles with difficulty, laughing. “I will be happier when I see him, too,” she agreed.