supper roasting, and all sitting side by side in the friendly light and welcoming warmth and smells, everyone felt safe and at peace for the first time in several days. Elli and her friends joked about roasting marshmallows, with each of them using a different part of Thorn’s body, and they laughed. They laughed louder when one of them suggested that, in this case, they could eat both the marshmallows and the sticks! And they laughed louder still when Thorn said that, from what he could gather from the conversation, the marshmallow idea sounded tasty and they could count him in!
The children stopped laughing when Thorn announced that supper was ready. They ate with a slow savoring of the meal, not certain when they’d eat like that again, and all surprisingly were satisfied. Following supper, as was the case during their meal together, they remained pleasantly silent, listening to the strong happy sounds of the still-blazing wood crackling and spitting as if in an unconstrained private celebration on which the children were eavesdropping. Each was lost in private thoughts and emotions, some experienced for the first time.
Elli puzzled over Thorn’s statement about her being the one to release the land from evil apart from any apparent knowledge of either their mission to liberate the Queen or the role of the key in it.
She was also surprised that she was not homesick and that she didn’t miss her parents. She had known she was adopted since she was very young—really, for as long as she could remember. But that never bothered her. Her parents talked about choosing her, which was special, they said, by comparison with other children who, without election, had simply been born to parents who, therefore, were virtually obligated to love them. But Elli’s parents had indeed elected her, and so that, they said, made her more special. But she didn’t feel more special than other kids—quite to the contrary, at least as far as other kids were concerned. And even with respect to her parents, she had to admit to herself that she never really felt as if they knew her and loved her for who she was. And while she always felt cared for and safe, she never quite felt that she was at home with her parents in the way that other kids seemed to feel at home in their families, including others she knew who also had been adopted. And now this—this thing she was living right now that at times seemed more like a dream than reality and that at other times seemed far—no, truly—more real than reality itself.
Now Alex? Well, he was mostly just tired. He missed his family for sure, however: his mom and dad—and sister and brother, both of whom were older than he. And he missed his music that he listened to on his ear buds, seemingly all the time and with the same songs holding their excitement for him. And he missed the special attention he got from his mom and dad, and even from his sister and brother; but he also felt better about himself somehow since being with Elli. Truth be told, he felt less special with Elli, but he also felt more confident in himself, and more like everyone else around him. Here in Bairnmoor he was expected to be like everyone else around him; and that was new, and kind of scary, but also kind of good. He liked how he felt when he was protecting Elli, and he wasn’t sure if he had ever felt better than that. He didn’t really know why, but, then, he didn’t really ask that question. For now, he was homesick, for sure. But he was also okay—for sure, for now.
Beatríz was thinking about how absurd and amazing it was that she was on a journey like this with her disability; it wasn’t really reasonable, or even remotely rational, that she was doing this. The picking of someone else among millions and millions of others would have made so much more sense; even she knew that. The liabilities of having her along would far exceed anything she could contribute. It wasn’t that she didn’t have a genuinely large and valuable role to play in the world, but this wasn’t the sort of role that would ever come to anyone’s mind—except Elli’s! And Mr. P’s! She smiled and laughed under her breath at the absurdity of it all. And yet . . . and yet, she couldn’t imagine any experience in life in her normal world that could match in importance and drama and meaning the experiences she had already accumulated in her brief time in Bairnmoor. Indeed, she thought, if it all came to an end tomorrow, happily or not, she felt she had lived a far more purposeful and courageous existence than anyone she knew, and a more purposeful and courageous an existence than any she would have been permitted—much less have attempted—back home.
Ever since she volunteered to face the Death Eyes, it was as if she had come into her own, timid no longer. She was proud of that—not in the way that says, “look what I did,” but in the way that says, “even I am able to do something significant, and I’m not worried about whether I’m able to do it or not, or whether I get credit for it or not—or even whether anybody else knows about it or not.” Thinking about the future was hard, though. She had become accustomed to having to focus on the immediate. But, here, she was being asked to think first about the future, and only secondarily about the present. And that wasn’t easy—or comfortable. Yet it seemed necessary. And she wondered whether, or how, she would be up to all that might be asked of her in the coming days. She was beginning to think there existed far more wonderful things than anything she had ever wanted or wished for, or could even understand.
Jamie was wondering what his role in all of this was supposed to be. It didn’t seem that the group needed him; if it had been just Elli, Beatríz, Alex, and Thorn, the mission would be just fine without him, he thought. So . . . why him? He certainly had no special abilities—or even notable qualities. Even Beatríz had the unusual qualities of a heightened sense of smell and hearing. And Alex? Well . . . he had that passion for loyalty that existed beyond questioning and understanding. He was going to hold fast, no matter what. But he—Jamie? Would he hold fast no matter what? Would he remain loyal and brave? Could he handle any greater pressure than what he had already experienced? And did he want to? Probably not. After all, he was not even a true believer in the mission. And if he could go back now, would he? Probably, he thought. Probably.
Thorn was convinced that Elli was “the one,” given the key and her mere presence as a child in Bairnmoor. But Elli, it seemed to him, wasn’t convinced of her importance. In fact, she didn’t place much value on the key and suggested that her purpose for being in Bairnmoor was far less crucial than the one he was suggesting for “the one with the diamond key.” And, of course, there was nothing diamond-ish about the old black key that Elli was wearing. But something big and wonderful was afoot and, in his view, worthy of his attention, and even worthy of his life—and worthy of his life whether this “something” amounted, in the end, to anything at all. Of that much, he was certain.
As the fire quieted down, the soft flicker of light on their faces suggested to each of the children that all the others looked somehow older, perhaps even a bit different. And the odd thing was, it was as if each one looked to all the others as if he or she was more of a child, but yet a more mature one, whatever that meant. Thorn, who was staring the entire time into the fire, appeared the same to the children, reflecting what might best be described as a soothing quality of changelessness and permanency that provided the children an abiding source of comfort.
Thorn added more wood to the fire, stirred the coals and took his place of watch, sitting against the large stump. He sat facing the slightly older part of the forest and away from the light of the fire, hidden in the shadows and so able to see without being seen. The others rolled their skins tightly around them and drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, following a pleasantly chilly night, the sun rose and awakened the children early with light through the trees, prompting them to rise. They ate what remained of their bread and berries, and packed up for the next leg of their journey that would lead them east to the edge of the forest and to—they knew not what.
They walked with increasing ease as the woods became thinner, the vines less frequent, and the ground less cluttered by dead limbs and branches. None of them felt any need to stop, except for water, and by the time the woods was coming to a scraggily end toward the middle of the afternoon, the five missioners found themselves facing a long, steep hill that was treeless and covered with a carpet of knee-high grass. The final three hundred yards of their climb to the ridge would be the first time since their journey began below the stone stairs that they would be easily
