Ayla's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Ayla had promised twelve wanderers a home, and she still owned nothing but a rented hut by the river. She stood on its porch at dawn, counting the bundles of dried herbs that hung from the eaves. Each bundle was money she did not have. She wanted to build a commune, a hidden place where tired, gentle people could live far from the kingdoms' soldiers and their old laws. But a commune needed land, and land needed a deed, and the landlord wanted her out by the new moon. She sold her remedies in the market that morning. She traded two jars of salve and a sack of seeds to a trapper who knew the back country. He drew her a map on bark. "There's a hollow upriver," he said. "No lord claims it. No tax man walks that far. But folks say the valley makes you dream things that aren't real." Ayla followed the river north for two days. The map ended at a wall of fog. She pushed through it and stopped. Two marijuana plants stood ahead of her, each as tall as a barn. Their trunks were thick as oaks. Dense green leaves spread into wide canopies that shaded the whole clearing. No fence marked the ground. No road led in. The hollow sat quiet and warm, hidden on every side by steep hills. A dragonfly landed on her wrist. Its body shimmered with swirling colors, pink and green and gold, like oil on water. Its wings pulsed with light. Ayla had never seen such a creature. It sat still, watching her, then lifted off and circled the giant plants three times. She laughed out loud. This was it. This was the place she had dreamed of. She knelt and pressed her hand to the soil. It was black and rich. Water ran clean nearby. She could already see the cabins, the gardens, the firepit where her wanderers would sing. She would send word down the river tonight. By spring, the hollow would hold a dozen people. Then she heard wood crack behind the fog. She turned. Pushed against the base of one giant trunk sat a couch of red velvet, its cushions sun-faded but whole. Someone had dragged it here. Someone had sat in this clearing and stayed. Beside it lay a cold firepit and a child's wooden cup. The hollow was not empty. Someone already lived on the land she meant to claim. And the trapper's warning turned over in her mind. People who entered this valley saw things that were not real. She looked again at the glowing dragonfly, at the trees too tall to be true, and she could not be sure what her eyes had shown her. Ayla had found her land at last. Now she had to learn who else called it home.