The Author

Chapter Six

         Alice walked over to the large tree trunk lying on the forest floor and knelt down in front of it. Suddenly, Alice again had the sensation of being observed, and not by Bo. She felt an intruder’s eyes watching her every move, but she pushed those thoughts aside. She would need every ounce of concentration she could muster for the spell she was about to work. As she performed more and more spells, it became easier to do this. She took her knife in her hand, as though it were a pen and pushed the tip into the hard wood of the base of the tree. However, the wood was too hard, so she grasped the knife with her palm in order to put more strength into the cutting. Concentrating on each word, she carved the sentence “Yam woþ on yamam cascals cinem benem e treivarc arc ya Þwal Walo.[1]” As she carved, her concentration grew stronger, as did her grip and she barely noticed when the knife blade sliced into her flesh and blood trickled down into the grooves of the letters.

            When she carved the last letter, she closed her eyes and imagined, in turn, the cattails, the dead tree, the component parts they were to become, and finally the finished bridge. She opened her eyes, almost in a trance and directed her gaze to each item. When she looked at the cattails, their stalks split and twisted around one another, and then the tree, as though maneuvered by her eyes, lifted from the ground. The bark stripped away and three foot long 2x4s peeled off like string cheese. She could feel the spell knitting inside her mind and by the time the last pieces of the bridge came together, she felt it click and knew it was finished.

            In a matter of minutes, Bo and Alice were staring at a simple wooden bridge stretched across the river at the highest point of the bank. The first plank of the bridge bore her inscription like a dedication plaque. The words were painted crimson.

            “Your own blood, the most powerful writing tool there is. That’s what gave the spell enough magic to work. Amazing, I never would have thought…,” Bo said with awe and wonder and trepidation, looking at her bleeding palm.

            With her knife, Alice cut a strip of fabric from the shirt she had put in her bag.

            “C’mon, let’s get across before the whole thing falls apart,” she said as she wound the cloth around her hand. She winced at the sting and worried that the injury would get in her way or, worse yet, become infected.

            Even though the making of the bridge was impressive, the bridge itself was not. The planks were thin and the middle sagged dangerously close to the rushing water below. There were no hand rails, so the journey across was almost like walking a loose tight-rope. Bo scampered across easily, but Alice did not have cat-like reflexes and balance. She shuffled slowly over the boards with her arms outstretched for extra balance. Twice she almost tipped over into the river. Once on the other side she let out the breath she had been holding.

            “Come on, slow poke!” Bo said.

            “Just because I’m not as graceful as you—”

            “Stop whining and learn to take a joke!”

            Alice shut up abruptly, partly because of Bo’s comment, but also because the sensation of being watched had returned to her. She said nothing to Bo, because she wasn’t sure yet if she was just being paranoid. As they walked through the forest every snap or rustle made her jump. For the next day and a half she felt eyes following her every move. She felt them still when Bo pricked his ears and came to a stop so abruptly that Alice almost tripped over him.

            “Shhh! I hear voices.” Bo crept along as if he were stalking a mouse. Alice followed him on tip-toe.

        After a couple of minutes they came across a group of five short men. They were very dirty and their clothes torn and frayed. They had red eyes and very burly features and Alice thought they looked mean. She and Bo dove behind the nearest tree.