Chapter Twelve: A Game Lost

Evie sat up with a start. She had been listening to the noise in front of her all night, but these voices came from the woods. They sounded muddled and hard to hear because of all that went on in the clearing. She leaned back on her rock and listened carefully. She knew she shouldn’t eavesdrop, but she felt too curious to think of that. When she had filtered through the noise, she heard two boys talking.

“I do not think it is a good idea. If we are caught we could get into trouble.” The voice said.
Another boy’s voice answered, but Evie couldn’t make out the words. It sounded like a whisper but it hissed as if angry. She thought she heard “…ghost can destroy…to find…back before…revenge at last!” He bit off those last words as if to drive the point home.

Evie listened as closely as she could manage without moving closer to the voices. What in the world were they talking about? She felt pretty sure Trevor was the boy who she could hear well, which made the muffled voice that scary boy he’d been hanging out with all day. But what were they up to?

After a few minutes pause, Evie heard Trevor’s voice again, a little louder. “I am just worried about people knowing where we have been. What if someone follows us or suspects that we are gone?”

The answer of the mumbling boy never reached Evie’s ears because at that moment, Bridget stumbled over to her, laughing and clapping her hands. She threw herself down on the ground next to Evie and giggled, “Now these people know how to have a party!” Her smiled faded when she noticed the intent look on her cousin’s face. Evie gestured for her to be quiet and pointed into the woods with a meaningful look..

Bridget caught the mood and quickly fell silent. They both listened to Trevor’s voice answer again, “There is not much time, then. If we are doing this, let us get going.” He added in a little louder voice, “I think everything is in order.” They heard a laugh from the other boy and then shuffling as they started moving away from the clearing.

Bridget didn’t hesitate a second. She swivelled around and started moving in a crouch toward where they’d heard the voices. Evie shrugged and followed. She really couldn’t do much else when Bridget set her mind, besides, she was curious.

Full dark blanketed the outside and they struggled with the task of moving quietly in the light of the moon. The boys didn’t seem to notice, however. They continued chatting as they moved further into the wood. Away from the noise of the party, Evie and Bridget could hear both boys clearly. They talked pretty loud, as if they had gotten used to having to fight to be heard over the throng of people in the clearing.

“How far is it?” Trevor asked.

“I am not sure,” the boy replied. “It moves around. Very few people know the magic to control it, but it still moves to avoid people most of the time. There are other ghosts in the forest, too, so we have to be careful.”

She certainly wouldn’t have admitted it if asked, but Evie’s skin began pebbling with goose bumps caused more by fear than cold. The forest fell into an ominous silence after the noise of the party, and all this talk about ghosts had her looking every way at once. She inched closer toward Bridget, and would have grabbed her arm if she wasn’t trying to make her cousin think she was brave. The woods oozed with creepiness. She felt sure some horrible, slimy creature crawled up her legs and it seemed like she caught the sight of glowing yellow eyes staring at her from the forest every few minutes. Something watched them.

Trevor spoke the next line through a clenched jaw, as if irritated, “Do you not think we had better hurry?” In a quieter voice he added, “We have to get running if this is going to work.”
The boy answered in a shout, with his head turned to face where the girls were hiding, “You are right, let us go!” The last word sounded very loud and clear. Evie paused. It almost seemed like that boy knew they were following and wanted them to hear. She turned to tell Bridget, but everything happened too quickly.

The boys burst into a run, not trying for silence anymore. Bridget shot up right behind them and Evie had to leap to catch the group. The girls weren’t fast enough. Evie lost sight of one of the running boys within minutes, but Bridget kept right on running. It occurred to Evie that she had no idea where they were going and the boy she could still see dodged trees and rocks as if he had walked this way before. Of course it may have just been that both the girls wore dresses. Bridget always insisted they made playing difficult. But, truthfully, the tomboy didn’t seem to get hers stuck between her legs and tangled the way Evie did. She tried to be cautious but found it increasingly difficult not to pitch forward, face first. The boy she could still see disappeared from her view now. She couldn’t even hear the footsteps ahead of them anymore. But Bridget didn’t slow, or stop to wonder if they were getting hopelessly lost.

Evie still had the memory of running as a fox fresh in her mind. She could not believe how much more difficult it seemed with only two feet on the ground. The sun shined during her flight from the coyote, too. In the darkness she saw even worse than she had through the blurry eyes of the fox. She tried hopping around the way she had before, but almost fell for her trouble.

A bright light flashed somewhere behind them and Bridget let out a startled yell. Evie felt her mouth clench, too afraid to scream. Wherever those boys led them, that ghost of theirs had come up from behind. Bridget started running faster then before, if that was possible. Evie tried to catch up. The light flashed again and Evie felt a surge of fear. Her heart would certainly beat out of her chest, but the fear gave her new strength. She could hear the footsteps of the ghost behind her. Lengthening her stride, she even managed to pass Bridget.

Suddenly she heard a shriek behind her and realized that she was running alone. Panting, she slid to an abrupt stop. She tried to, at least. The energy from her run wouldn’t quit that easily and she tumbled down, with her legs tangled hopelessly in her skirt. She folded into a ball to protect her head and waited out the spinning. After a moment, she sat up with her legs pointed out in front of her. Her head still spun, but she turned around to see what happened to her cousin.

In her panic, she almost didn’t hear the hysterical laughter. Bridget hung upside down from a tall tree, swaying back and forth. She had her arms stretched out, flailing wildly. She seemed to be trying to figure out what had happened. Behind her that strange boy stood, holding a rope. The rope reached up over the high branch of the tree where Bridget hung, the other end looped around her left foot.

Accompanied by the rustling of leaves Trevor jogged up from the way they had come, grasping the handle of a lantern. He tossed a shiny piece of glass on the ground next to him. Once he stood close enough to see Bridget clearly, he hunched over, clutching his knees with his free hand and giggling madly. Everything became clear. There was no ghost. Trevor made the ghostly light by reflecting lantern light through a prism. They had planned this out carefully. The boy they did not know had managed to hide so that Evie ran right past him. Meanwhile, Trevor looped around behind them to be a ghost. And she and Bridget simply walked into it! I wasn’t happenstance that she had overheard them. How could she have been so dumb?!

Rage welled up in Evie worse than any fear she had ever felt. She got to her feet as dignified as she could manage, brushed off her now filthy dress and started marching over to beat Trevor into next week. But somewhere in the process she noticed that Trevor wasn’t the only one laughing. Bridget, still high in the air, had stopped flailing around and noticed the prank for what it was.

She looked ridiculous with her mostly destroyed braid seeming to have sprouted lengths of hair fuzz pointing every which way. Her face looked painted bright red as she tried desperately to push her dress up to cover her boy’s trousers. Evie should have known she was wearing those things underneath. But, somehow, she hadn’t even noticed them when Bridget hiked her dress up to run. Evie must have been really scared. Despite everything her cousin’s flushed face split into a lovely grin and she laughed gleefully along with Trevor.

Evie couldn’t help herself. Bridget looked so absolutely and totally silly. All the anger melted away and Evie laughed too as she headed slowly toward them. Every once in a while bits of words would come out between giggles, but mostly, they all just laughed. Everyone, that is, except for the strange boy she didn’t know. He didn’t laugh or attempt to lower Bridget to the ground. He just stood there, holding the rope, looking off into the trees.

She thought she might be getting ahold of herself enough to demand that the boy put Bridget down. Her head must have been aching terribly from being upside down for so long. Before she could say anything though, the boy holding the rope screamed “Ghost!” and began to run, dropping the rope.

Evie reacted quickly. She leaped toward Bridget, knowing it was too late. She had some vain hope in the back of her mind that she might save her friend from falling to her death, but she simply ran from too far away. Another thought came to her, but not in words. She had the distinct impression that she should call to Bridget to stop falling. She shook off the feeling quickly. This was no time to be ridiculous. A logical head seemed her best chance to save her falling cousin.

Trevor reacted faster. His hands reached to grab the rope, but it slipped ahead of his fingers. In the next instant he took two steps toward Bridget and raised his arms to catch her. But Bridget fell too quickly. Lamely, helplessly, Evie knew there was no hope for either of them to get to her before she hit the ground. Time seemed to slow. All three of them screamed. But Trevor’s scream formed into a word. He hollered, “STOP.” Evie squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to see this. She fell forward catching her face in her hands just before she hit the rocky ground. Choking back tears of horror, she waited for the sound of Bridget hitting the ground from an impossibly high fall.

The crash never happened.

Barely allowing herself to breath, Evie forced her eyes open. Her skin crawled and stung from her own fall, but she barely noticed. Her heart leapt into her throat when she realized what she saw. Bridget hung limply in the air, as if frozen in clear ice. Her head still pointed toward the ground and one leg extended up into the air. The rope was still tied around the ankle of that foot, but the end that had been held by the strange boy had fallen to the ground. Bridget should be laying there beside it. She should have hit before it did.

Trevor stood nearly underneath her, his hands in the air, as if something invisible connected him and her frozen form. Indeed, there seemed to be. As he lowered his hands Bridget floated down as well. Once his hands fell to his sides, she lay on the ground as if carefully set there by a gentle giant.

Evie pushed herself up to her knees and crawled toward Bridget, who sat up with a hand against her forehead. She sat there for a moment, frozen as if too stunned by what had just happened to move. Then, all at once, she began laughing. It started as a quiet, relieved giggle. It quickly turned into a full, loud laugh. Evie’s heart leapt and tears burned behind her eyes. That laugh sounded more beautiful than any other noise Evie had ever heard. Within moments she and her beloved cousin hugged each other tight, laughing and crying.

Trevor stumbled backward a few steps after lowering Bridget to the ground. He stared at the two of them. They must have looked silly, crawling around in the dirt, laughing uncontrollably, but unable to stem the tears that poured down their filthy faces. Evie didn’t care. Bridget was safe.

Once she had control of herself, she glanced up at Trevor. He wasn’t staring at them anymore. He looked down at his hands. His mouth gaped half open and his eyes bulged out of his head. After squeezing Bridget one more time, Evie stood up and brushed off her dress. She didn’t bother to try and look dignified. She raced the few steps to Trevor’s side and threw her arms around his neck. Trying to make it sound like she wasn’t chocking back tears, she whispered, “Thank you.” Her voice quivered. She knew she couldn’t say anymore without bawling. Her pride still told her she did not want his boy to see her any more unhinged than he already had.

Bridget acted more gracefully. She stood up, beaming. Without waiting to approach Trevor, she shouted, “That was amazing!” She spun in a circle before continuing, “I had no idea you knew how to do that. I thought I was dead for sure. Wow! And you told me you didn’t know any magic. Where did you learn that?”

She smiled with anticipation, but Trevor hesitated. He stepped away from Evie before speaking. “I did not…I mean I do not…I…I…I have got to go.” With that, he turned and ran in the direction the other boy had gone, leaving Evie and Bridget shrugging. Evie didn’t really care that he was behaving so oddly. He always did. She felt so pleased that Bridget stood there whole and unharmed, she wouldn’t have cared if he had sprouted rapton wings and flown away.

Bridget put her arm around Evie’s shoulders. Together they started walking back toward the bonfire. Bridget stilled giggled. “Well, that’s the second time he saved my life. Do you suppose I owe him?”

Evie stared at her in amazement. “He wouldn’t have had to save your life if he hadn’t lifted you to the top of that tree in the first place.”

“Oh Evie,” Bridget laughed, “Lighten up. We played two pranks on him. He owed us that.” She smiled and her eyes sparkled, “Besides, you should have seen how dumb you looked leaping through the forest away from his camp light. You screamed ‘ghooooost.’ It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Evie didn’t bother to explain that it had been Bridget who played those pranks, not her. Nor did she point out that Bridget looked just as silly running away from the imaginary ghost. Instead she pulled what was left of her cousin’s braid and said, “It fits you to talk to animals. You look like you’re wearing a lion’s mane. Or maybe you’re just a rat’s nest.”

Bridget smiled even more broadly, though she also began running fingers through her tangled mess of hair. “Seriously, Evie, it’s so exciting. I can’t tell you what it was like soaring through the air today. I think maybe I was meant to be a bird.”

It struck Evie that the two of them were finally alone. She could talk to Bridget about anything here. “Do you….talk?...to birds?” She made the word talk sound like a question by itself.

Bridget’s brow furrowed. “I don’t talk to any animals. They don’t understand language the way we do. They can communicate, though. I understand what they are feeling more than what they are saying.”

Evie gasped, “You mean you hear their thoughts?”

Bridget shook her head. She still looked confused, as if she’d never really thought it through. “No. They don’t think either. At least when I was a hawk I didn’t think. They don’t know words so they couldn’t think like us.”

Evie nodded, she remembered what it had been like as a fox. She hadn’t thought a single logical thing. It was all feelings and instinct. But she still didn’t understand, “Then how can you communicate with them?”

“They have their own signals. When a squirrel chitters, it isn’t saying, ‘I’m very angry,’ but it is telling you that it’s mad. They use body language and the pitch of their sounds. There are a million little things they do to talk.” They walked in silence for a moment while Evie thought about what Bridget said. “When I was a little girl, I thought everyone knew what the animals were saying. I thought everyone could tell what animals meant by the way they stood or the motions they made, or the sounds that came from them, or even the way they smelled. As I got older I realized that it was just me and I started wondering if it was my imagination. But I could get animals to do what I asked them to sometimes. People looked at me so odd when I mentioned it, that I stopped telling anyone. I wanted it to be a secret. Master Oilreid made me feel a lot better. I want to learn my talent, now. I wish there were others to teach me.”

Evie felt a sudden stab of guilt. It was time to tell her cousin the truth. That would be the noble thing. She wouldn’t be able to think of her as a cousin anymore. Evie took a deep breath before she continued. “Bridget, look, there is something I have to tell you.” She hesitated again when she saw Bridget looking intently at her. “I’m not…well, we’re not…cousins, you and I, not really.” She finished in a rush.

To her surprise, Bridget smiled. “Ya, I know.”

“What? If you knew why didn’t you ever mention it?”

“Evie, what does it matter if we’re related? I think of you as my cousin, so you are. We can be sisters if you want to be. I love you like a sister.”

“But how did you know? I only know because Elder Banied told me on the trip to this place, before you joined us. I always thought we were cousins.” The last sentence came out a little sullen, but Evie didn’t care. Why did everyone else know everything about her before she did?
Bridget seemed to be thinking hard again. “I can remember, when I was a little girl, you and your mom lived somewhere else. We were still friends, but I didn’t see you that often. One day Mom sat me down and said I was getting a cousin and I needed to be good friends with her. Well, when I got older, I thought about that. Obviously, you can’t just become someone’s cousin. You have to be born a cousin. So, I figured you and I weren’t really cousins. Besides, we look nothing alike. And there’s really no chance your mom and mine were blood sisters.”

Evie nodded, slowly. She felt a bit embarrassed to tell the truth. Now that Bridget had said it, it seemed obvious that their mothers could not have been sisters. It wasn’t possible. The worst part for Evie was that she’d always thought of herself as the smart one and Bridget as the pretty one. She supposed Bridget’s reasoning abilities outstripped her own after all. How could she have been so blind?

“There’s more though,” Evie continued, hurriedly. Bridget listened. “My mother was a souray. So, there’s a good chance I am too.”

Bridget’s reaction to this news shocked Evie even more. She panted excitedly, “You’re kidding? A souray? What was she doing in our village? Of course, now that you say that it seems obvious. After all, you were the only one in the village who had school lessons.” She nodded as if confirming the obviousness to herself. Then her face broke into a smile, “You mean you can do what Trevor did back there? That is awesome. You’ll have to learn how, of course. But how wonderful! My cousin the souray! Who’d have thought? Sister. I forgot. My sister the souray. Wow! You need to learn to use magic. Think of the team we’ll make!”

Evie’s eyes bulged, stunned by Bridget’s excitement, but she fell silent for another reason. Something else tickled the back of her mind since they began walking back. That feeling she had during Bridget’s fall, that impression that she could stop her if she just tried. It came so fast and had been dismissed so efficiently. Was it possible that she could have done what Trevor did? Had she almost let Bridget die when she could have stopped it if she’d only trusted her instinct?

In the silence of Evie’s thoughts, Bridget started looking concerned. Evie smiled weakly at her cousin...sister. She wanted to turn the mood happy again. “I was a fox, you know. I ran through the forest faster than you could even imagine. A coyote chased me, but I escaped. It was amazing.”

It seemed to have worked. Bridget got excited, “A fox! No kidding? They are beautiful.” She nodded her head, “It suits you.”

Evie’s face reddened. Of the two of them, Bridget had a monopoly on beauty. But her new sister continued, “Foxes are smart, you know. They have to be clever to survive. I bet that’s why you were a fox. You deserve to be the cleverest of all animals. I think of them as elegant and noble too, just the way I think of you. And I should know! I’m an aniray.”

Evie only half heard the last of that. She saw something, a silhouette, a man. She realized she stood still and Bridget, who had taken a few steps past her, turned around peering at her quizzically. Evie just scanned the trees in silence. She felt sure she had seen it. Maybe it was her imagination? No. It had looked like a man talking to a bird. It had been there! But she must have imagined it. Bridget was the only aniray left. She had seen… something.

She realized that Bridget stepped back to her and grabbed her arm. “Evie! What’s the matter with you? You’re acting really odd.”

Evie shook her head. She told Bridget what she saw, but Bridget still looked confused. “I would think that if there was another aniray in the spritested, Master Oilreid would know about it. He knew I was one before I did. It’s really dark out here. Maybe…” She hesitated with a shrug. It irritated Evie. If Bridget thought she was imagining things she should just say so. But she still felt so glad that her sister survived that fall, she let it go.

Evie shrugged her shoulders in imitation of Bridget and began walking again, “You’re probably right. I am just imagining things.” She looked down at her dress and started wiping dirt off the front. It didn’t help. Mud and dust caked the thing from the hem on up.. Her leg began to sting where she skinned it when she fell. Bridget reached over and wiped her cheek. Her hand came back covered with dirt and they both laughed. “Do you suppose they’ll let us have another bath?” Evie giggled. Bridget returned the laugh and started straightening her hair again.

When they had finally walked back to the clearing the bonfire was nothing but smouldering cinders. A dozen or so scraggly-looking people and as many sprites wandered the clearing, cleaning up. The minute the girls emerged from the wood, Mabel hurried over and put an arm around each of them. “There you are,” she gasped, “I have been looking all over for the two of you.” Seeming to notice their filthy state, the woman laughed. “It looks like you’ve had a good time anyway. Well, let’s get you home and washed up. I’m sure you’re both tired again.” She ushered them forward.

Evie felt confused and grateful. Aunt Abby would surely have skinned them alive for soiling new dresses. The girls were definitely ready for bed. They walked back to Mabel’s house in a zombie-like silent stupor, too tired to say much of anything. Soon enough, though, they cleaned up and changed into night-dresses Mabel pulled out of a closet. They probably belonged to the woman, herself, because they dragged on the floor when the girls wore them and the sleeves bunched around Evie’s arms. Neither girl cared. They hadn’t even muttered a word of complaint at having to wash out of a basin full of cold water. As Evie laid her head down onto the pillow, she barely had time to hear her new sister whisper, “Today was a great day.” They both fell quickly into deep, pleasant sleep.