In a Strange Land

They walked for hours. Annabelle made Bettina and Gerhardt hold her hands, glaring suspiciously at the underbrush for signs of attack. On the opposite bank Claire was anxious.

“What shall we do when it gets dark?”

“We need to all be together,” Mirabelle said. The river was wider here, but they could not see through the water.

“I’d like to know when it will get dark,” Adolphus said, staring up again. “I can’t see the sun! The whole sky is the same; there’s no bright point.”

“It must be behind the trees,” Claire said. “Oh! I wish we hadn’t lost all the rope!”

They trudged on. The river broadened, and from time to time they lost sight of each other. When they did they called out to reassure their siblings on the opposite bank. It was nerve-wracking. Whenever they shouted the forest around them became silent, as all the unseen clicking, chirruping, and trilling creatures hushed to listen.

“Are those birds or bugs?” Gerhardt asked. “I don’t recognize any bird calls I know.”

“Nor I,” Annabelle said. “I don’t think we’re in Europe, the Americas, India, or China.”

“I wouldn’t rule out the center of the earth,” Gerhard said, nodding towards the suspicious cloud cover. “We should be on the lookout for dinosaurs.”

“Boat!” said Bettina.

The river took a turn, cutting deeply into Claire’s side, leaving a sweep of sand on theirs. There, washed up on the sand was their mushroom cap, overturned (which is to say right-side-up for a mushroom, but upside down for a boat).

They called out the news, then checked the bank for vines before climbing down to it. It is a kitchen myth that mushrooms absorb water like sponges. Despite its time in the water the mushroom was still light enough for the Annabelle and Gerhardt to set right, with little Bettina’s help hardly slowing them down at all. Bettina jumped in and crawled around, patting the gills.

“Good boat,” she sang, “boat, boat, boat. Lantern!”

Wedged in the mushroom’s gills was their algae lantern, still glowing. Further exploration discovered a geology pick.

“That’s some luck, at least,” Gerhardt said. He threaded the lantern on his belt then reached for the pick, but Annabelle had already claimed it. He sighed. At least he still had his crossbow.

“Shall we push off?”

“Where are the others?”

They scanned the opposite bank, calling halloo. The unseen forest creatures instantly hushed, but all was not as silent as before. The children heard a rustling whisper over the sound of the gently flowing stream. The steeply cut bank across from them was alive with waving, seeking, hungry vines. Their siblings were nowhere in sight.

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This story began with On Grandmothers. The previous episode The Variegated Strangler and the next is Hand over Hand.