Whisperwind Wilma's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Wilma climbed east with her scent packed tight inside her, held like berries in a sealed jar. She had trusted the children behind her to spread word west. Now she needed to reach the next porch. But a mile on, her speed dropped. The grass below her stopped bending. The air thickened around her edges the way water thickens before it freezes. She pushed harder and moved slower. Ahead, the prairie had gone flat and quiet, and she could feel it pulling the motion out of her. She found what had stalled her. A long red brick wall ran across the field, taller than a barn, weathered at the seams. Someone had built it as a windbreak years ago and forgotten it. The bricks held the heat of the sun and threw it back up in a thick, still cushion. Nothing moved on the near side. No grass twitched. Her scent stayed locked inside her, pressed against her like a cork in a glass jar. If she stopped here, the berry smell would sour before it reached anyone. She had to break the stillness or lose the whole eastern half of her route. She searched the flat air for anything that still moved. On the far side of the wall, past the dead zone, she saw a thin metal pole with a faded windsock hanging limp against it. Beneath the pole, a girl sat cross-legged in the dirt, chin tipped up, watching the sock for a sign. The girl had stopped waiting for fireworks and started waiting for the wind itself. Wilma understood then that she could not go around. She had to go through, and she had to arrive with enough left to lift that sock. Wilma dropped low and ran herself along the base of the wall, gathering the small warm currents the bricks pushed off. She braided them into herself, thin strand after thin strand, until she had weight. Then she rose and drove straight at the wall's top edge. She scraped over it, tore loose on the far side, and fell toward the pole in one hard gust. The windsock jerked. It filled halfway, then full, and swung out level. The cork of her held scent broke. Saskatoon smell poured across the girl's face. The girl stood up, both hands on the pole, and shouted east toward the next house. Wilma kept moving, thinner than before, her supply cut by half. The dead zone was behind her. So was most of what she had left to give.