12:14
The door opened to an impossible scene. Again Kim questioned using the term since nothing was really impossible in ARFA. But still it was fucking weird to open the door to snow. Sunlight bounced off it, blinding bright so she had to raise a hand to shield her eyes.
“Snow.”
Gwen pushed up next to her and looked out at the snow. “Snow.”
“There was no snow when we entered. There was grass. Flowers. Warmth.” Kim hugged her arms around her middle to trap the heat escaping from her core. She was not dressed for the cold. None of them were.
Gwen grabbed the zipper of her hoodie and zipped it up to her collarbone. For all the good a hoodie was going to do against the cold that came with snow.
“Why are we standing in the door?” Ben’s voice came from over Kim’s shoulder. “And by we I mean the two of you hogging the door.”
Gwen turned and looked at Ben. “Snow.”
“Okay?” Ben tapped the sides of his leather jacket with his hands. “I’m good.”
“I’m not.”
“Well, then let me out. I’ll scout around.”
Gwen stepped back into the relative warmth of the castle and let Ben slide out the door and into the snow. He’d walked maybe three steps when he sank to mid-thigh in the snow, very effectively stopping his forward motion.
How did it get deep so close to the castle? Stupid question. ARFA.
Ben shot a look back at Kim still in the doorway. “A little help?”
“Oh,” Kim shook her head and sent a quick call out. MF formed itself next to her and then bounded across the snow to Ben. It sank a little bit with every step until it was standing in a pool of water next to Ben. The space it cleared was only a few steps across, but it was enough for Ben to make his way back to the castle.
“Anyone got snowshoes?”
Patti made a show of patting herself down. “Nope. No snowshoes.”
Ben shifted his attention to Dempsey. Or more specifically Dempsey’s bag. “Warden?”
Dempsey gave a long suffering sigh. “No. I don’t have any snowshoes.”
“Too bad. Would have been useful.”
“If only I’d thought about being stuck in snow before we left.”
“If only. So,” Ben turned to squint back at the snow outside the castle. “We need to get out of here.”
“We do.” Ivan walked over to tower behind Kim and look at the snow. “Guess we’ve got a cold walk ahead of us.”
“I sank to my thighs in it,” Ben said.
Ivan slanted his friend a glance. “Well, you are pretty short.”
Ben growled. “Not short, except next to giants like you and Dempsey.”
“Is the snow packed?”
“No.”
“So, you could walk through it.”
“Probably.”
Ivan turned his attention to Kim. “Did Air give you another exit, maybe one without snow?”
“No.” Kim sent a request out on the air. It came back quickly. “This is the only exit.”
“The only exit in a castle?”
Kim shrugged. “I don’t make the news. I just report it. This is the only exit Air found.”
“So, we have to walk through the snow. We’ve done worse.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” was Ben’s dry response.
Gaze still focused out the door Ivan frowned. “I think I see something over there.” He pointed somewhere to the left of the exit. Kim leaned her head to the side to follow his gesture.
“Some kind of animal?”
“Some kind of animal. Maybe we don’t have to walk.”
“Yes!” Ben pumped his fist then stepped out the door. He almost immediately sank back thigh-deep in snow. MF trotted up next to him and melted the snow again but this time instead of revealing ground it revealed nothing. A nothing that Ben dropped into. MF didn’t because it was Fire and Fire didn’t actually walk the earth so much as exist in vicinity to it. If Fire could look startled MF definitely did as Ben disappeared below the snow line.
“Ahhh!” Ben’s voice rose out of the snow, suggesting he hadn’t plummeted into nothing, just maybe into a hole.
Ivan, being taller, was apparently able to see what had happened because he sprang into action immediately, striding out the door. The snow rising to his knee barely stopped him. Instead he lifted his knees high and stomped towards where Ben disappeared. Rather than hold up the doorframe Kim asked Air to form a shield to the cold a short distance from her body and then hurried out after Ivan.
She started to sink but felt a rush of Water energy and then she was walking on the top of the snow, buoyed by the water making up the stuff. Neat. She didn’t know she could do that. Or that Water could.
Without stopping to consider it more she hurried across the snow to stand next to Ivan. With her on the top of it and him knee-deep in it they were almost the same height. Not quite. The guy was seriously tall.
She peered down into the hole in the ground and Ben’s hands clinging to the edge of it. The hands tightened and then Ben’s head cleared the edge, revealing eyes wide enough to show the whites around the brown irises. “A little help?”
“Oh,” Ivan squat down and held out a hand to his friend.
When Ben grasped it with one hand while keeping himself suspended over the hole with the other, Ivan yanked. Ben came flying out and collided with Ivan’s chest. It was a testament to Ivan’s strength that he only rocked back under the force of Ben’s hit. Kim knew she’d have been on her ass if she’d taken that impact.
Once Ben was settled on his feet he turned an accusing look at Kim. “What the fuck?”
Kim’s eyes widened enough they hurt. “Me?”
“No.” He shifted his gaze to MF who was sitting panting and staring down into the hole. “Just what the fuck?”
Kim lifted her shoulders on a deep shrug. “I’m not sure. Give me a moment?”
Ivan stepped back from the hole, Ben right next to him and MF trotting along happily. They retreated to the wall of the castle but didn’t enter it. Instead they leaned against the wall and stared at Kim, both of them wearing an expression that said “what?”
Oh. Yeah. Kim turned to the circle of cleared snow then focused on the ground under her feet.
Earth?
The prismatic jewel formed faster in her mind now. It pulsed. Kim read that as a ‘what?’
She conveyed her question about the hole to Earth. Almost immediately she got an image of an infinite drop, culminating some distance deep in a hard slab of earth. Permafrost. She’d never seen it but she’d heard of it. Ground that remained at or below freezing for at least two anos. It could be about the height of her hip or go down fifteen hundred times that. It usually only existed in high latitudes or altitudes.
And none of that really mattered here, did it?
She turned and looked back at Ivan and Ben. “Its a hole.”
“No kidding,” Ben shot back.
“The snow is stupid deep.”
“Define stupid?” Siobhan asked from the door.
“Uh, three Dempsey’s or Ivan’s deep? Maybe more.”
“So, no melting it so we can walk over to those animals?”
“No.”
“But we can walk in it? How is that possible?”
“It gets packed harder a bit down. That’s why Ben was able to walk but slid down to his thighs and Ivan to his knees.”
“We can still walk then?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem to be sinking.”
Kim shrugged. “Water.”
“Water?”
“Snow is made of water?” She tapped her foot delicately against the snow she stood on top of. “Look, this is new to me too!”
“Can you do that for others?”
“New?” She focused on the water in the snow. “I don’t know.”
“Scientific method.” Siobhan hoisted her skirts and stepped from the castle. She made it the same three steps Ben had then sunk to her hips. She shot Kim a look. “I said scientific method.”
Kim frowned. “I’m sorry. Not a scientist?”
“Test it to see if you can help me stand on the snow. Or water can.”
“Oh. Dur. Got it.”
Kim focused on the water in the snow. Asked it to lift Siobhan. She got the equivalent of a shrug back and Siobhan remained up to her hips in the snow.
“No. I guess not?”
Siobhan planted her hands on her hips. Or moved to do so but, of course, her hands smacked into the snow. “Worth a try. And melting it is out?”
“There’s no earth under the snow. Well, there is. But its permafrost. Ther eis a lot of snow before you hit it. I melt the snow and you fall a long way then hit something very hard.”
Siobhan’s mouth quirked up at the corner. “You just like seeing me up to my butt in snow.”
“I–” Kim lost the fight to not smile. “I do.”
“Funny?”
“Hilarious. Your skirt is kind of floating on top of the snow.”
Siobhan looked down. Shrugged. “It is. Anyhow, guess we’re wading then.” Siobhan turned and looked at where Prairie and Patti had moved into the entrance to peer out into the snow. “What are you waiting for?”
“Spring?” Was Patti’s reply.
Ivan pushed away from the castle, sinking to his knees in the snow as he stood next to Siobhan. He looked back at Ben. “Coming?”
“Not even breathing hard.”
“That’s my line!” Patti protested.
“I stole it.”
“You stole it? I guess it makes sense. You being you.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Ben grinned and then waded into the snow. He shot MF a look as the snow started melting around him. “I don’t want to die.”
MF tilted its head at him. Sparks formed a nimbus around it as it considered. Sometimes Fire was pretty literal. Kim hurried to explain. “You’ll melt the snow. He’ll fall to the permafrost layer.”
MF looked at Kim. Then looked at Ben. Then dashed over to Kim and climbed on the top of her boot.
She stooped down and scooped it up. She was pretty sure it wouldn’t melt the snow under her, but why risk it?
Raising MF to the level of her head, she murmured. “You were very helpful.”
It woofed in sparks, then blinked out of existence. Well, it disappeared from human perception. She still felt its welcome warmth somewhere near her chest. Loyal little thing.
Everyone else filed out the door and sank into the snow to the level of their height. Dempsey was free beyond the knee, like Ivan. Dan split the difference between Ben and Ivan, the snow rising to just above his knee. Abe giggled as they sank almost up to the hip. Patti sank that deep too but her response was a curse not a giggle.
“Cold!”
“Well,” Gwen said, sinking down to the hip next to her. “It is snow.”
“It’s snow in ARFA. You’d think ARFA would take pity on us and make it be warm.”
Prairie chuckled next to Patti. She was up to snow somewhere close to her ribs. She lay her arms on the surface of the snow and swished them around, making an abbreviated snow angel. “Fun!”
“Yeah, fun,” Patti drawled. “So fun.” She looked at Sass on her shoulder. “You having fun, Sass?”
Sass peeped and waved. Kim translated that as a, ‘yes, such fun!’.
Once everyone was free of the castle, Ivan turned toward the cluster of animals which hadn’t moved at the group’s incursion into the environment. Maybe they were too far away to sense the possible threat.
Kim kept pace with Ivan at the front of the group. The others followed at a slow pace, making their way against the restriction of the snow. Ben clearly was burning energy to keep up with Ivan’s longer stride, pumping his arms as he pushed through the snow. Every third step he shot a look at Kim, walking on the top of the snow. The third look was disgruntled. The fifth was downright snotty.
Rather than focus on that she looked at the clustered animals.
“They aren’t moving.”
“We aren’t close enough?” Ivan suggested.
“Sure. Maybe? Okay.” Kim kept to stepping until they were seriously within shouting distance of the unmoving creatures.
They were close enough to see details of the animals. She’d never seen their like but she thought maybe they were reindeer?
They didn’t look like deer. They were thicker. More like cows? She’d grown up in an area with dairy farms and had walked past pastures with cows every day after school. They were sweet creatures. They let you pet them.
And there went her brain. Seriously it should not be let out alone!
But, yeah, the creatures were shaped like cows. But they had thick coats of fur with tufts at the chest that would have been beards if they were higher. They all stood at least as high as her shoulders, maybe a few were a little shorter, but their antlers, which they all had, made them seem taller.
They also had really big hooves. Big like dinner plates. They seemed to be adapted to let them stand on the snow. Or the creatures had a relationship with water too. A very quick probe of her Magick said, nope, the hooves were why the creatures stood on top of the snow. Planted as they were on top of the snow it was easy to see tufts of fur, like the beards on their chests, sprouting from the base of the hooves.
The most impactful thing about the creatures though was their dead stillness. Not dead as in they were dead. More like they were in stasis?
“They aren’t moving,” she repeated.
“They aren’t.” Ivan waded through the snow, coming to a stop next to the closest reindeer. It didn’t move. Didn’t even twitch.
“Huh.” Surprise radiated from Ivan’s single exhalation.
“Huh?” Kim wandered across the snow to stand next to him. For all the attention he gave her, she might as well have not been there. Instead, he focused intently on the reindeer. His expression was blank. She was coming to read that as his focusing his Magick look. This was confirmed a moment later when he blinked, shook his head, and laid a hand on the creature.
“It’s mechanical.”
“What?” Ben waddled up next to Ivan.
“Mechanical.” Ivan didn’t stop probing the creature. He ran his hand over its fur. A look of wonder transformed his features. “Amazing.” He blinked hard then looked at Ben. “They aren’t alive.”
“You don’t say.”
“But they could be.”
“That sounds like some next level fuckery.”
“Not fuckery. Magick. Amazing. I’ve never seen anything like them. Or even really imagined it.”
By now the others had made their way through the snow and were clustered in a loose half-circle behind Ivan, Ben, Kim, and the reindeer.
“So,” Dempsey ventured. “Can you make them go?”
Ivan turned to Dempsey, his expression a mixture of his earlier wonder and a little confusion. “Go?”
Dempsey jerked his chin to indicate the reindeer. “We can’t walk through this stuff forever. It’s too cold. And they don’t seem to sink in the snow. So, if you can get them going we could ride them.”
“Oh.” Ivan looked back at the reindeer. He slid his hand down its chest, his fingers filtering through the chest beard. Then he moved it up to probe the antlers and the head beneath. He studied it long enough that the others behind Kim started shifting. Only for Patti to curse again. “It gets colder when you move.”
“Then don’t move,” Siobhan replied.
“I’d say cool, cool, but that’s redundant in this case.”
This startled a giggle from Prairie. Then Gwen snorted. And maybe it was the cold effecting them but soon everyone except Kim and Ivan were expressing some form of merriment.
Probably a bad sign.
“You got anything?” Kim asked Ivan.
Ivan looked at her. Blinked and then focused his gaze. “Needs fuel.”
Kim looked around the bleak environment. Nothing but snow and the drop-off of the cliff a short distance to their left. “What?”
“Not sure. But I do know they are dormant because they don’t have fuel. Fuel them and I think we can ride them.”
“Then we need fuel.”
“Yes.”
“While this is a very exciting conversation,” Ben’s words were a bit slurred. He wrapped his arms around his middle and hunched his shoulders. “I’m not sure how much longer we can stand around. Figure it out.”
Ivan stiffened and looked at his friend. At the very uncharacteristic snap in his tone. He dropped his shoulders when he saw the state Ben was in. Then he slid his gaze behind Kim to the others. She turned to look too.
Siobhan was visibly shaking from the cold. Her expression remained determined but her trembling lips robbed it of some of its punch. Dan had an arm around Prairie, lending her some of his warmth, but he was trembling from the cold too. Abe bounced in place. The movement was probably keeping them a little warmer but it was bound to tire them out faster than standing still would.
Dempsey was Dempsey. Big and looming and steady as a mountain, so who knew how the cold was effecting him. Gwen and Patti were huddled close and Sass was hugging Patti’s neck with its little arms.
It felt redundant to say they were not doing well and it was only going to get worse the longer they were half buried in snow. Hypothermia was a real threat. Kim wasn’t sure how long it would take to set in but based on the condition of her friends she thought it was sooner not later.
“You should go back to the castle. Get warm.”
“It’s gone,” Patti said.
“What?”
Patti waved back the way they’d come. To the castle. Only Patti was right. There was no castle. Just a field of snow, kicked up by a cold breeze to dance over the mesa.
Kim’s shoulders fell. Her attention was drawn to Dempsey as he pulled a bundle of cloth out of his weird bag and high-stepped over to where Gwen and Siobhan huddled.
“Here,” he thrust the cloth at Gwen. “Put this on.”
Gwen gave the cloth a dubious expression.
Again Dempsey thrust it towards her. “It’s a warming cloak.”
Siobhan didn’t show Gwen’s hesitation. She took the cloth from Dempsey and wrapped it around herself and Gwen. It was big enough to cover the both of them the way they were huddled tight to each other.
Patti rubbed her hands together and eyed Dempsey. “You have another one?”
Dempsey shook his head, his expression regretful. “I don’t.”
“A warming sweater? A heating blanket?”
“No and no.”
“Bummer.”
“Agreed.” He moved over to Prairie and held out his hands. “Can I?”
Prairie looked at his hands then his face. “Can you?”
“Pick you up.”
After Prairie bit her lip and nodded, Dempsey put his shield down, stooped, and scooped her up, lifting her against his chest.
She gave a weak smile. “Thank you.” Her chattering teeth made it sound like more “Th-th-th-thank”.
Patti looked at Ben and held her arms out. He eyed her then shoved himself through the snow and turned his back. “Get on.”
Patti didn’t hesitate a mikro in awkwardly climbing on his back and locking her legs around his ribcage. He staggered a moment then righted himself before locking his arms under her legs.
After hefting Prairie a little higher so she was well clear of the snow, Dempsey turned his attention to Ivan. “Any thoughts as to what they need? Maybe I have something that will help.”
“I can tell they are mechanisms. And they need fuel. But there’s no hints to what.”
“Maybe,” Abe’s voice bounced with their movements. Or maybe it was the chatter of their teeth. “They are animals. Maybe fuel is something a reindeer eats?”
Ivan turned to look at Abe. “What? All I see is snow.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about reindeer. Maybe it was a stupid idea.”
“No. It’s worth a try.” Ivan looked at Dempsey. “Got anything a reindeer would eat?”
“I also have no idea what a reindeer would eat. Also food isn’t something that’s in the bag.”
“Well, damn.”
Ivan turned to look over the snow. “There has to be something.” He squinted at something a short distance away and stiffened. “Something is coming.”
Everyone turned in the direction he looked.
“What?” Ben asked.
“I–” Before Ivan could speculate Patti tilted her head.
“Do you hear that?”
Before Ivan could say more than “hear?” Kim did in fact hear something. Faint. Carrying on the breeze. She looked at the air and an Air Lady resolved from it with a question in its milky eyes. She indicated the direction the sound came from with a jerk of her chin and the Lady flowed that way. A moment later she came back carrying two mice, one in each hand. The one in the left was playing a banjo. The one in the right was vigorously clapping and singing. “Feed the machine!”
Other Ladies came, unbidden, carrying more mice. One mouse played a mandolin. Another a guitar. And at least six others clapped and sang and pranced in Air’s hands.
Kim cast a quick glance to the sky then shifted to look left then right. Message received? Sort of? They knew they had to feed the machine. Or machines in this case. What they didn’t know was what to feed them. So the mice only emphasized the problem. Not the solution. So, why bring them back?
The Air Ladies lowered the mice to the snow. The mice, like Kim, remained on the surface of it without sinking in. They trooped around Kim’s boots, dancing and singing and in the case of the ones with the instruments playing their tune.
The rest of the group stared, transfixed. Well, except for Prairie. She just looked bemused.
Oh, right. They’d been in the mice the last time that song was played. Only Kim and Prairie had witnessed the bluegrass mice.
“What the heck?” Gwen muttered.
Patti planted her chin on Ben’s shoulder and leveled the mice with a stare. She frowned. “I think they are trying to tell us something.”
“You think?” Ben swayed then righted himself, tightening his grip on Patti’s legs. “Can you tell what?”
Patti was silent a moment then she picked up the tune, harmonizing with the mice. They turned and looked at her. The guitar playing mouse strummed harder. The banjo player plucked the strings of its banjo with more vigor. The dancing mice all stopped their feet and started swinging their hips as they leaned towards Patti and really laid into their singing.
When Patti petered off, Siobhan asked. “Did you get anything?”
“Just feed the machine.”
“Which we already know. No hint as to what?”
With Patti’s attention, and possibly Magick, off them the mice went back to dancing around on top of the snow. They move around the mechanical reindeer, singing the song on repeat. It was a good song. Catchy. It was probably going to stick in Kim’s brain for a while unless Patti did that thing she’d done earlier for Prairie and removed it.
The mice came dancing back into view from around the far side of the reindeer. One stooped and picked up something. It looked like a cross between a coral and a plant. It was white with a silvery sheen which was likely why it had gone unseen against the snow. Then the mouse stopped, struck a dramatic pose, then started to do what could only be called a fan-dance with the plant. Front, held to just below its chin. Shake, shake, shake in time with the song the other mice sang. Back, held so it jutted above its head. Shake, shake, shake again.
“Feed the machine!” The mouse piped. Then it moved the plant to the front. Held it out at the side. Slid it to the back.
Okay. Cute but—
Two other mice picked up pieces of white foliage. One had two pieces. The other had one. They jived over to the first mouse and then all three of them started a synchronized dance of waggling mouse asses and flashing foliage.
It was hard to get a good read on mouse expressions, but Kim got the sense the intense gazes they leveled on Patti were meant to convey some message. Patti frowned then sang the chorus along with the mice. The three with the plants put more wiggle in their asses and flare in their waving of the foliage, like they were waving semaphores instead of greenery. Whitery. Plants.
The rest of the clapping mice wove around the legs of the stationery reindeer then came back bearing plants. They lined up to either side of the three mice already fan dancing and then it was an oddly mesmerizing line of seven dancing mice flashing and flaring coral-like plants while singing about feeding the machine.
For a moment, a long moment, Kim just stared transfixed. Then she cocked her head and looked to the sky. Message maybe received?
Kim directed her gaze to Ivan. “The plants!”
“The plants!” He echoed, expression showing excitement as he divided his attention between Kim and the reindeer.
“The plants?” Patti asked.
Siobhan nodded, her gaze fixed on the flashing foliage. “The plants.”
“Animals eat plants,” Ivan said.
“So, we need the plants?” Patti eyed the mice who’d stopped their dancing and were now staring intently at the members of Kim’s group.
“Maybe?” Ivan eyed the mice. “Worth a try.”
With that he moved towards the mice, hands held out with fingers splayed. “Not going to hurt you little–”
Before he finished the words the mice as one stiffened and then scattered, scampering over the snow. Sadly they retained their hold on the plants rather than leaving them behind.
“Well, crap!” Kim’s head went this way and that as she watched the mice run between the legs of the reindeer.
Like they felt her attention, the mice all came to a halt in the shelter of the reindeer. They peered at Kim. Kim peered at them. She tried a reassuring smile. The mice seemed unimpressed. Then the mice with instruments started playing again and the mice with plants began singing and flashing their plants again.
Now the mice were just taunting them. Seriously?
“Get them!” Siobhan cried out. Ivan, Abe, and Dan, free as they were of the responsibility of keeping others warm or free of the snow, dived for the reindeer and the mice underneath.
The mice didn’t stop singing and playing but they did a very effective job of eluding capture. It was kind of impressive, really. Kim watched the chase with a bemused expression for a moment, but when Abe fell face first into the snow and didn’t immediately bounce back she realized the three chasing were moving with a lack of grace that was alarming and likely due to the cold.
Rather than let them exhaust themselves, she called on air, asking to snag one of the mice with the plants. She made a strong image of a mouse with a plant in her mind so they didn’t grab one of the musicians.
Two Ladies resolved from the air and started weaving among the reindeer. Based on the giggle that flowed back to her Air was having a fun time hunting the mice. It was the most whimsical of the elements so that made a lot of sense. Air was always up for a bit of fun and chasing bluegrass mice was apparently exactly that.
Air made quick work of snagging one of the dancing mice. A Lady, smiling from ear to translucent ear, brought it back to Kim.
Kim held her hand out, palm up. “Thank you.”
The Lady booped Kim’s nose then dissipated.
The mouse in Kim’s hand stood up on its back legs, fanned the plant in its paws, and sang “We’re all gonna die!”
“Not today, mousey,” Was Kim’s reply. “Not today.”
She pinched the edge of the plant in the mouse’s paws between her pointer and thumb and tugged. The mouse tightened its grip and leaned back to add its weight to its resistance. She tried again. Again the mouse fought her grip.
She shot a look at Ivan. “It won’t give it to me!”
“Make it?”
“How?” Kim met the mouse’s intense black stare. “Gimme?”
The mouse not only did not gimme but it jerked hard enough on the plant it slipped from between Kim’s fingers.
“I’m not a mouse-whisperer!”
Everyone turned to look at Patti mounted on Ben’ back. Or really at Sass clinging to Patti’s neck.
“Can Sass ask?”
Patti looked down at Sass and sang a quick note. Sass looked over at Kim then flared its hands before bumping Patti’s neck with its head. Then for good measure it reached up and poked Patti in the ear. To which she started and poked Ben in the ear.
Ben clapped his hand to his ear and twisted his head so he could give Patti a wounded look. “What?”
“Sass needs to get down.”
“And you couldn’t have just, I don’t know, said that?”
“Poking you was infinitely more fun.”
Ben made a point of clicking his teeth at Patti then stooped so Patti and Sass were closer to the snow. Once they were close enough, Sass released its grip on Patti’s neck and scampered down her arm.
Sass ran across the snow then stopped within a short distance of Kim’s boot. It planted its paws on its hips, or in that region, and gave Kim a pointed look.
“What?”
Squeak!
Kim looked over at Patti and mouthed “What?”
Patti shrugged then sang a few notes. Sass turned, looked at Patti, then looked back at Kim and stared at Kim’s hand. Or, more specifically the mouse in Kim’s palm.
Patti repeated the notes. Sass continued to stare at Kim’s hand. Then Sass sang back in its high trill. The mouse in Kim’s palm sang something else. Or at least it sounded like something else. Again, no mouse-whisperer. One squeak and fa-la-la-la sounded like another to her.
Sass took off across the snow, joining the mice winding around the feet of the reindeer. It picked up the song about the machine and started gyrating in a similar way to the other mice. Butt out. Tail a’waggin’. Left. Right. Shake their ass. Shake it real good. Lean forward so their butt protruded and really shake it. Their tail waved like a flag behind them.
After the mice, including Sass, ran the entirety of the song, they rolled back to the start. The musician mice played with flourishes and leaps, kicking their feet to the side as they leaned into their instruments. The mice with plants flared them and flashed them and otherwise did a great job of matching the time the musician mice played.
The mouse in Kim’s palm gyrated and shook its ass and flashed and flared along. And she just stared. At first her lips curled up in confusion but eventually she found herself mesmerized by the mouse’s movements. How long she stared, she wasn’t sure, but she could say for sure what broke her almost trance was Patti’s triumphant “Ha!”
Kim switched her attention from the mouse to where Patti was looking. Sass came scampering across the snow, dragging a piece of plant behind it. It slipped and slid up to Ben and held the plant up to her mama. Ben stooped enough for Patti to take it with a smile and effusive praise.
“Such a smart mouse!”
Sass preened at the compliment then pantomimed shoving something into its mouth.
Ben nodded then shuffled through the snow towards the reindeer closest to him. He looked over at Ivan. “Any idea?”
“Sass seems to think you insert into mouth. Worth a try.”
“I mean, anything is worth a try, I guess.” Ben tilted so Patti could reach over and shove the piece of plant into the reindeer’s mouth. She yanked back her hand as the reindeer closed its teeth around the plant and started chewing. It lifted its head and stared at Patti. She stared back, then from the side of her mouth asked, “What now?”
“Here.” Ivan high-stepped it through the snow to lay a hand on the side of the reindeer’s neck. He pulled back a rein which had previously gone unnoticed there. Then he lead the reindeer a short distance away before running his hand along its side with an intent look. After a moment he walked back to Ben and Patti and offered the rein. Ben released one hand from around Patti’s legs and took the rein.
“One down. Nine to go.” Ivan looked down at the mice dancing around the still reindeer. “I don’t think there’s enough of the plant to activate all of them and I think maybe we’ll need more than one piece each.”
“We need more plants,” Dempsey said and turned to look at Siobhan who blinked and returned his look.
“What?”
“Plant. You. Plant.”
A look of dawning understanding suffused Siobhan’s expression. “Oh. Yes. Plant. Me. Plant. Sorry, the cold has me thinking slowly.” She frowned and then focused on the plant in the paws of the mouse that seemed pretty content to remain in Kim’s palm. “It isn’t a plant. It’s lichen.”
Kim gave Siobhan the stink eye. “Explain for those without horticulture degrees or alchemy Magick?”
“It’s not a plant. It’s a symbiotic combination of fungi and algae,” Siobhan said in her teacher-voice.
“Fungi? Like mushrooms?”
“Yes.”
“So, still a plant?”
“No. Lichen.”
“It grows from the ground.”
“It doesn’t really. It sort of does and sort of doesn’t. More like moss than a flower.”
Ben made a big point of shifting from foot to foot. “Yeah, yeah. But can you detect it with your Magick?”
Kim walked over to stand close to Siobhan and Gwen and held the mouse in her palm out. Siobhan’s expression went inward. She focused on the plant the mouse held. Then she nodded.
“Yes.” The slur in Siobhan’s voice drew a frown from Kim.
“Where?”
Siobhan closed her eyes and slowly turned her head from side to side. She stopped when her chin was pointed at where the mesa dropped off over the side of the cliff. “There.”
Rather than pull her arm out from under the warm cloak to point, she indicated the direction with a jerk of her chin.
Kim eyed the distance to the cliff then looked over her friends. “I’m concerned that the cold is going to make it hard for us to climb down that.” She looked at Siobhan again. “Can you call the plants to you?”
“Lichen!” Siobhan corrected in a distracted voice, then added, “They don’t have legs!”
For a moment Kim just blinked as her brain tried to process what Siobhan meant then she realized, probably, that Siobhan meant the plants couldn’t walk to them. Or climb. Or whatever.
A soft breeze blew across the mesa, picking up some of the snow so it drifted artistically above the surface and shrouded the dancing and singing mice in a fine mist. Kim watched an Air Lady flow up from the edge of the cliff and chase the snow, trailing her fingers over the surface and kicking up the substance more.
Then the Lady looked at Kim and grinned.
Well, damn, she hadn’t thought the cold was affecting her, but it must have been because Kim realized she hadn’t been thinking. The answer was literally right there in front of her.
“Air can gather it.”
Even as she said it another Air Lady flowed up over the edge of the cliff, a clutch of lichen in its transparent grasp. It sometimes astounded her how much the elements responded to her needs, often before she even realized what she needed.
“Well,” Ben said, gaze fixed on the lichen, “That’s helpful.”
“Better than trying to climb down the cliff face in this cold. Faster for sure.”
“Faster is good.” Ben gave a patented Ben grin. “I think my d—uh, parts are freezing.”
“Hate for that to happen,” Patti quipped. “But, yeah, my tits are definitely about to fall off.”
“True shame.” When Ben turned and waggled his brows at her, Patti laughed.
Kim shook her head at their silliness then asked Air to collect more lichen. Three Ladies flowed up to her, arms full of the stuff, then laid their harvest at her feet before gliding away to wind around the reindeer and kick up more snow so it became hard to see the mice at the base of the reindeer.
The mouse in Kim’s palm squeaked then poked her palm with its plant. When she looked down at it, the mouse poked again then looked over the side of her hand. Oh, it wanted down.
Kim stooped and held her hand close to the snow. The mouse stepped off then scampered across the snow to disappear in the mist flowing around the legs of the reindeer. Rising from her crouch she looked at her friends.
“Feed the machine?”
At her suggestion the mice piped up, louder, “Feed the Machine!”
Ivan was the first to grab some lichen and head for one of the reindeer. Dempsey walked over with big steps and dipped down so Prairie could grab some as well. Once she had it, he righted himself and walked over to a reindeer so Prairie could stuff lichen into its mouth.
Siobhan and Gwen waddled over, still swathed in the cloak. Then they stooped and Siobhan poked her hand out from the cloak and grabbed a bunch of the lichen. She held a small piece out to Gwen, who extracted a hand from the cloak to take. Then Siobhan slid the rest of the plants under the cloak before they rose and headed toward the reindeer.
Several more Air Ladies came over the cliff with more plants and dropped them near Kim’s feet. Dan and Abe came over and each grabbed a piece before heading to the reindeer. Kim gathered up the rest of the plants.
It looked like clusters of coral. The stems were round and densely branched with three or four tips on each. The color was somewhere shy of white, more of an silvery-grey while some of it was pale green. Still pale enough it practically disappeared against the snow cover.
Most didn’t know but coral was not always red by nature. It was brown or green or other hues due to the symbiotic algae living in its tissues but at its base its skeleton was white. And most often harvested coral was that color. Like this plant was.
A vision of an ocean and a vibrant coral reef flooded her mind. She frowned, realizing the image was coming from the snow beneath her feet. Wild. It was one thing to know snow was water and the ocean was water but to feel that collective memory, spurred by the coral-like plants in her hand, felt almost sacred.
And there her mind went again. She’d blame the cold for it.
Letting the beauty of the image Water shared with her linger a moment more, Kim shook herself and then joined the others at the reindeer. By the time she got there each of the ten animals were animate. She counted quickly. Yes. Ten animals. If she needed any more evidence that the reindeer had been put there for them the count, ten of their party and ten reindeer, made the argument.
Each of the animals had reins. All but one of those sets of reins was in her friends’ hands. Kim approached the one animal with loose reins and gathered them up before looking around the group.
“Anyone know how to mount a reindeer?”
Enter The Woods 