Delphine Fernside's Arc

Chapter 9 of 11

Della crawled back to the patch and stood over the crates she had already filled. Three were packed and tucked in the cool hollow. Six more rows waited, and one of them could not wait at all. She walked the length of it and her stomach tightened. The plants there sagged under their own weight, berries piled thick as fists, some already bruising where they leaned on each other. If nobody came by morning, that row would turn to mash in the heat. She needed Grans. She needed Grans and every pair of hands Grans could round up. And Grans was a full day's walk away through country Della could not cross alone. She sat down hard on the moss and thought. Grampy had gone home for more crates and would not be back before dark. The chickadee whistle only led her out of the woods; it did not carry words. She turned her pockets out looking for an idea and found only the empty seed tin and a bit of string. Then she heard the soft scrape of dirt from the grass behind her. A fresh mound had pushed up beside the ferns since morning. The soil was still dark and crumbly at the top. Della knelt beside it and waited. A pink nose broke the surface, then a round black head. She knew him. Every gnome in the valley knew him. "Moe," she said. "I need to send word to my Grans. Today. Can you carry it?" Moe Tunnelworth blinked up at her. "Depends. How far." "Her garden. The one with the copper trellis and the sweet peas climbing up it. She'll be tying them this afternoon." "I know the plot. Long run. Costs eight worms." Della went straight to the log where she had scraped grubs for the salamanders and started turning stones. She found four worms fast, then two more under a rotting board, then a fat one curled in the wet moss. Seven. She dug with her fingers until her nails hurt and pulled the eighth from the clay wall of the hollow. She dropped them one by one into the dirt at Moe's feet. He counted them with his nose and ate three on the spot. "Message," he said. "Tell her the patch is bigger than anyone thought. Tell her the ripest row will rot by tomorrow noon. Tell her to bring every basket and every cousin she can wake up, and follow Grampy's cairns from the old stone tower." She paused. "Tell her Della said please." Moe repeated it back once, flat and exact. Then he pushed his nose into the mound and was gone. The dirt settled behind him as if he had never been there. Della stood alone in the patch with the heavy row bending at her knees. Help was coming, or it was not. Either way, the message was out of her hands.