Junie Lovebug's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Junie walked into the trees with her stomach growling. She had left the yellow house with a cloak, a dagger, and two strange guardians, but no food and no water. The forest ahead looked huge and dark. She knew she couldn't reach her mother on an empty belly. The black dragon nosed her elbow. The brown horned creature trotted ahead and stopped, waiting for her to catch up. By midmorning her legs ached. She sat down on a root and tried not to cry. Then the brown creature bleated and pulled at her hem. It wanted her to follow. Junie stood and went after it, through a curtain of ferns, into a small clearing she had not expected. A weathered tree stump sat in the middle of the glade. A perfect ring of red-capped mushrooms circled it. The air felt still, like the inside of a held breath. Junie stepped closer. Then a branch cracked at the tree line, and a man walked out with a bundle in his arms. It was her father. Same light brown hair as hers, same crooked smile, though the smile shook at the edges. He wore his old flannel and carried a blue cloth pack tied with rope. Junie froze. He had not spoken her mother's name in two years. She had not told him where she was going. "Junie-bug," he said. His voice was rough. "I knew you'd come this way." She wanted to be angry. She wanted to run. She did neither. He knelt in the moss and set the pack down between them. He opened it. Inside were bread loaves wrapped in wax cloth, dried apples, a water skin, a small tin cup, a folded map, a lantern, flint, and a striped wool blanket sized for a child. Everything a small hero would need. "I packed it a year ago," he said. "I was waiting to be brave enough to give it to you." "You never looked for her," Junie said. "I looked every night in my head." He touched the pink cloak at her throat. "I never gave up on your mother. But I can't be the one who finds her. This road is only wide enough for you." Junie's throat hurt. She pulled the pack strap over her shoulder. It was heavy in the right way. Behind her, the mushroom ring began to glow. The air above the stump split open into a spinning circle of light, pink at the edges, deep as a well in the middle. The black dragon growled low. The brown creature pressed against her knee. Her father stepped back. "Go. Before it closes." Junie climbed onto the stump. She looked at him once. Then she stepped into the light. Her guardians leapt after her. The portal snapped shut behind them, and the glade was quiet again.