Secret Places and Hidden Things

Chapter Seven

It was a long time before the moving island left the forest. Jain waited patiently, watching curious animals watch her. She didn't feel any need to hurry now. There was no urgency when life had no ending. She watched the days pass by, sometimes slowly, sometimes in bright flashes. She watched the stars fade in and out of the sky and the trees change from pine to leaf. The winter and the spring and the fall had merged into strange combinations, with flowers popping out of the snow and leafy trees turning red and bronze as the snow melted away and mushrooms crept up the trunks. The Weaver—as she had come to name the strange creature—was always there. Sometimes it would take its many-legged shape, and other times it would exist as the moving island itself. Every now and again, the island would split off from itself, and a piece of it would move away in another direction. The first time this happened, Jain's heart had leapt into her throat.

"Do not worry," the weaver had reassured her, "we are many, and we take the easiest way through. There will be no end to this island, though it may exist in many places."

"Why did it split apart?" Jain asked.

"The stillness is a single point, we did not split, everything else did. Try walking over there." The weaver pointed one of it's long, knobby fingers to the east. Jain got up, her legs unsteady beneath her—it had been a long time since she used them—and made her way slowly over the rocks. The sky and land around her warped and bubbled, and she felt as if she was traveling a great distance with every step. When she made it to the other side, she could see a mirage of herself sitting on another island moving away to the west.

"Are there two of me now?" she asked the weaver. It examined her carefully.

"There are an infinite number of us," the weaver responded after a time, "but we are always singular. Perception is never the truth, it is just light making its way into our eyes."

As they rode onward, grasslands replaced the forest. At first the land was flat, starting suddenly at the end of a tree-line and stretching out to the horizon. Then, minutes later, the trees came rushing back and a new tree-line formed. Each time a patch of forest would breach the island, roots would scrabble over the edges of the rocks, tossing the landmass like waves. Trees and shrubs would fly out into the grasslands behind like great splashes from the prow of a ship, following behind in the wake like flotsam.

"Are we changing the landscape?" Jain asked.

"It seems so," the Weaver responded. "The trees are getting caught in our webs. We have never seen such open places before. The world is newer here."

"I felt that too," Jain said. The air had warmed a bit and dried out. It was early fall here, with dry grasses rustling their seeds. Clusters of giant tragopogon seeds were set adrift as the island moved through them.

"If this place is new, and we are changing it, does that mean the changes are real? If I stepped off this island would they stay the same?"

"We are not sure," the Weaver said. "You could try."

Jain thought about this, her mouth moving side to side as the pollen itched her nose. "I don't think that's a good idea. I have somewhere I need to go. This is the fastest way there."

"It is," the Weaver agreed, "but there is no fear of losing the island. This is as much a part of you as anything else. You could find us again in a moment."

"Oh."

With that, she leapt lightly off the rocks, her hair flashing brightly in the sun, and watched the island bob off into the distance. A grove of tall pines rushed in around her in its wake, then stood still as if they'd been that way for millennia. Threads of translucent silk were stuck in their branches, reflecting the sun in long lines, illustrating the wind.