Delphine Fernside's Arc

Chapter 3 of 11

Della walked on with her hands free and her basket light. She kept telling herself she was still hunting for a bigger container, but the trees had changed. The trunks were wider here. The moss grew thicker. She did not remember passing the big split oak behind her, and she could not see the valley through the branches anymore. She stopped in a small clearing and turned a slow circle. Every direction looked the same: green, green, and more green. A crumbling stone tower leaned through the trees ahead, wrapped in vines, its windows dark. Della had never seen it before. Grampy had told her once that the old tower marked the far edge of the deep woods. If she could see it, she had gone too far. Her chest tightened. The light through the leaves had turned gold. Dusk was coming. She sat down on a root and pulled the carved whistle from her pocket. Grampy had given it to her last winter. He had notched it with the calls of every bird in the valley and told her to listen for answers if she ever lost her way. She had never needed it before. She lifted the whistle and blew the chickadee call, two clear notes. She waited. Nothing. She blew again, harder. A small black-capped bird dropped onto a branch above her and tilted its head. It hopped once, chirped back, and flicked its tail toward the trees on her left. Della almost laughed. She blew the call a third time. The chickadee hopped two branches in the same direction and waited for her. She followed. The bird led her between trunks and over a fallen log, stopping each time she fell behind. After a while the ground began to rise. Stones appeared underfoot, flat and worn, half-buried in moss. It was a path. Someone had cut steps into the slope long ago, and the forest had nearly swallowed them. Della climbed. At the top she came out above the trees and saw, far below, a bright patch of red dotting the green: the strawberry patch, smaller than her thumb from here, but unmistakable. The chickadee chirped once more and flew off. Della scrambled down the mossy steps with her basket bumping her hip. By the time she reached the patch, the sun was low and the berries glowed. She was not lost anymore. But she was also empty-handed — no bigger basket, no plan, and now she knew the forest could swallow her if she wandered wrong. She knelt by the strawberries and pressed her palm flat to the warm dirt. Tomorrow she would come back. Tomorrow she would bring Grampy, and she would ask him how a girl was supposed to carry a whole patch home.