Yellowhair: An Elf Hollow Prequel

EIGHT | Grit

CHAPTER EIGHT

Grit

Qello listened for sounds of the trader through distant brush, but only the 'roark, roark' call of ravens and whispers of the voices of the forest returned to her. Oh, Muma. Where might you be now? She lifted her legs and put her bruised, cut feet onto the ground. Pain stung through them both and climbed up her body, but she forced herself up. She could see across the distance, that the trader had left two leather bundles with ties attached and wrapped around them. It took a while to adjust to the pain, but she tiptoed and hobbled her way to the stump.

Another chunk of the cake was hidden inside one of the wraps and a little wood carving inside the other. Qello stared at its face, then unwound the shoe ties. She examined the shape of the leather wraps, then hobbled back to her shelter. She laid the patches out on the ground and piled the moss and dry spongy wood, that the trader had left, thick into the centre of the leather. Then, putting her feet onto the moss piles, she stuffed more padding around them and wrapped the hide up round her ankles and legs—cords criss-crossing in expert precision from years of knotting and twisting grass twine.

It still hurt Qello to walk, but the pain was gradually lessened through numbness and from wearing new wraps. She needed a spot for relieving herself. She was extremely thirsty and she crouched in the trees, then made her way to the river for water. After she drank and threw spray onto her face she limped back to the deserted camp made by the trader. It was silent, with only the roar of River behind her. It was odd now that All seemed so silent and empty. Qello gathered her things.

By late in the day when the trader returned, the yellow-haired girl had long disappeared.

Qello had since gone to look for her new path, continuing southward up the mountain. She gave no thought to the man. She simply looked up at the hawk circling above. You are a saving. Thank you for coming back!

Qello's course went nearer to River and the hawk landed on a higher tree that hung out over the water. He twisted his head and watched her. She wondered if he knew how precarious his perch was now, so close to becoming part of the debris down below. Her insides ached as she re-visited the horror and clenched herself tight to block it. Have to find a way, Muma. I'll come.

The hawk's eyes were intense. He took the girl in with an intelligent thought or was it as much as contemplation? He fluttered down to sit on a smaller branch, nearer to Qello. They watched the direction of River together for a moment. Something upstream in her mind seemed to pull at her.

Hey! She turned to the serious bird. Look at me, she said in her mind. He did look—so Qello thought—or had the bird, upon hearing her noise now as she moved, turned his head to simply look for what made it? Say you want to join me—I gotta go on, now.

Qello's hike up the river was much more difficult. It helped, if she didn't pause at all, for then the pain didn't have a chance to return so soon to remind her—exacting its vengeance for stopping.

By mid-afternoon sun, Qello had eventually reached a natural clearing and was mostly upon it, when something seemed somehow familiar to her. She cried out and abruptly sucked her breath in. "Ahhh-uggah!" With horror, she realized she had backtracked only as far as she and Luu had already climbed two days before.

Visions of churning water filled Qello's mind, things went grey and then black, her knees began to buckle. She fell forward and threw up—collapsing, at last, onto her side. She found herself in the bleakest remnants of Luu's partly built camp. The dark forest waited. A mouse scuttled by.

When she revived, Qello saw she had churned up undigested fruit bread. She felt it hadn't been long since she fainted. She got herself up, feeling still dazed, but as if some other force now owned her; she scrambled nervously the short way above her high rock island, again, and peered down onto the very last spot where her mother had been unlacing her boots. She remembered the scene, mere days before. Even now, retracing her memories, knowing the outcomes, she couldn't see that there had been any warning. In all she felt and reminded herself they had been happy and tired—naively unaware of such a close danger. The roar and the water had hit them from nowhere.