The Serendipity of Flightless Things by Fiadhnait Moser

Author:Fiadhnait Moser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: little bee books
Published: 2019-09-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

WOLVES.

I had hardly scratched the “y” of Darcy’s name into the aspen when the low howl sounded.

I ran. Blood thundered in my ears.

How had I even gotten in here? Everywhere I turned, a crop of identical trees popped up, and the forest seemed only to thicken the farther I ran. Sweat sunk into my Sunday dress, dripped down my legs. My vision swirled and gibberish chanted—wait … It wasn’t gibberish. Was it? Through the pounding in my head, the words find her, find her, find her reverberated endlessly.

A gnarled sycamore root caught grasp of my shoelace, and I collapsed to my knees, the carpet of evergreen needles cushioning my fall. The world looked like a view from a merry-go-round. The sycamores melted and the aspens waltzed. The evergreens turned into baobabs, roots reaching for the sky instead of the ground. I squeezed shut my eyes to stop the dizziness, but still the words pounded relentlessly: Find her, find her, find her.

“FIND WHO?” I cried aloud, but I already knew.

AH-WHOOOO!

The howling was close, and I curled into a ball, twigs and thorns jabbing my arms, and I crossed my arms over my face—but wait. It wasn’t a wolf. It was a whistle. It was—

WHOOSH!

Something thin and sharp whizzed past my cheek, the rush of cool air stinging my sweat-drenched forehead. I froze, held my breath.

I peeked open one eye. The swirling had stopped, but old greyman’s mist had thickened, and with it came … train tracks. Smooth silver tracks running far as I could see, and in the distance, a scarlet train rumbled, smoke billowing out the engine’s top. The whistle blared a low howl that didn’t sound quite so wolflike now that I could see the train for what it was. But where was it coming from? I didn’t remember seeing a train station anywhere in town, and the valley was surrounded by those odd thorn trees—the ones that had sealed up after I entered. Even the taxi driver had said there was no way in.

Something was falling. Through the gold-spattered treetops it tumbled, bouncing over branches and screeching a song akin to that of a banshee mourning at her wash pail. I squinted as the thing plummeted toward the tracks, and then went still, lying limp on the silver tracks. It was a white thing, a trembling thing, with a stick of sorts protruding from its middle.

My vision flicked from the train to the creature. Move! I wanted to shout, but there was something about the creature’s shaking that told me it couldn’t. I had to save it. The train blared closer as finally my feet caught up with my mind, and I snapped upright. My legs felt like jellyfish, but I stumbled over the roots and branches, closer to the silver tracks. Mist thickened with every step I took, but the train’s fog light shone through like a beacon, and I followed it until I met the tracks.

There. The white creature was only a few paces off. I stumbled along the tracks as the chugging of the train grew louder.

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