Blue Hills Read Online Free PDF Page B

drollek. After she collected the rings and her sister flew down the Well,” mumbled Kar, who, in truth, had been napping, mallet head under wing.
    â€œA path … runs from this … tricklestream up the … the … hill to her … clearing,” I said, slowing down and surveying the wall of trees to my right.
    I brushed Kar from my shoulder, fell to my knees, and dunked my head through a screen of feather ferns and into the cold stillness of the tricklestream. A chill surge of happy slapped me, and I drank, gulping with glugs. I sat back laughing and shook my full wet head of coppery hair.
    â€œWhat are you doing? What was that?” screamed an upset, so such angered Kar.
    â€œSettle,” I giggled. “Watch. I will close … close … my eyes and count one … one hundred paces. I will count. Yes! That’s it! One hundred … paces with my … my … eyes closed. Then I will turn to the right and march up the … the … the …hill and enter the cottage clearing. Yes!”
    I sprang up, slapped my shoulder, and waited for Kar to settle there. Without a word, she did. I was so such that impressive, commanding and strange. Off I went, eyes closed, counting. I stayed on track by the feel of the tricklestream ferns brushing against my left highboot. I stopped short at one hundred, pivoted right, and opened my eyes. The moons lit the way up a hill through a rising corridor of tall, black-shadowed, stiff standing trees.
    â€œHow did you …?” Kar began.
    She snapped her mallet mouth closed when I rushed stumbling up the slope and into the clearing atop it. The witch’s cottage hid blackly there in the shadows. I felt for its lemony doorknob, found it, turned it and pushed open the door. The silence was stiffer than ever, and I heard my heart pounding. In I went, feeling the clutch of Kar’s webbed feet digging into my shoulder.
    â€œBuckletar and … and a … flint. Yes. That’s it,” I whispered gleefully, finding first a lamp, then a flint.
    I struck the lamp live, and yellow light made shadows jump. Kar fluttered to the table where the crystal ball of Babba Ja Harick usually rested. The table was bare. I broke off and ate a corner of it. Kar stared at me, amazed.
    â€œWhat?” I laughed. “It will be whole in the morning.”
    â€œNo magic,” she gasped.
    Stricken momentarily empty with guilt, I saw what she meant. The edible table would not be whole in the morning. Magic was gone. I waved a hand.
    â€œNo matter,” I blustered. “I’ll get it back.”

Chapter Fifteen
    Return to the River
    I believed in myself. Four waterwizards waiting by the Well of Shells believed in me. More even. Others, all of ‘em, were gathering there so such to stare at that beeketbird stuck midair five spans above the roof of my hut. Kar believed in me. A truth. As always. She slept peacefully, mallet head shoved under yellow tuft wing in spite of earlier saying she wouldn’t. She stood on one flat red webbed foot with the other tucked up tight like as a fist under her green feather belly. She balanced on the table where the witch’s crystal should have been. I tried to find comfort, sitting up, back against wall, hugging my shins, chin resting on knees. The flicker of the buckletar lamp next to ridiculous Kar entranced me. My mind vapored into a nightmare sleep. Such. So.
    In the dream I found myself sitting outside the witch’s cottage and looking down the hill at the tricklestream. The stream, constantly changing color, writhed and wriggled by like a beddysnake. Blustery winds shook the trees. The sky lit up a menacing green. My feet and legs up to my knees were bootless and clad in long purple and black striped stockings. I held my hands in front of my face and watched ‘em transform from plump yellow green bendo dreen to bony pale lavender. My fingers grew long and twisted. Rings began appearing,