and the first green shoots of the new remained. From atop the
spine of the ridge Wren could look back across the land for
miles, her view unobstructed. There was nowhere that their
shadow could hide, no space it could traverse without being
seen. Wren looked for it carefully and saw nothing.
Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was still back there.
Nightfall brought them back along the rim of a high, narrow
bluff that dropped away abruptly into the sea. Below where they
rode, the waters of the Blue Divide crashed and boomed against
the cliffs, and seabirds wheeled and shrieked above the white
foam. They made camp in a grove of alder, close to where a
stream trickled down out of the mountain rock and provided
them with drinking water. To Wren’s surprise, Garth built a fire
so they could eat a hot meal. When Wren looked at him askance,
the giant Rover cocked his head and signed that if their shadow
was still following, it was also still waiting. They had nothing to
fear yet. Wren was not so sure, but Garth seemed confident, so
she let the matter drop.
She dreamed that night of her mother, the mother she could
not remember and was uncertain if she had ever known. In the
dream, her mother had no name. She was a small, quick woman
with Wren’s ash-blond hair and intense hazel eyes, her face warm
and open and caring. Her mother said to her, “Remember me.
Wren could not remember her, of course; she had nothing tO
remember her by. Yet her mother kept repeating the words over
and over. Remember me. Remember me.
When Wren woke, a picture of her mother’s face and the
sound of her words remained. Garth did not seem to notice how
distracted she was. They dressed, ate their breakfast, packed,
and set out again-and the memory of the dream lingered. Wren
began to wonder if the dream might be the resurrection of a
truth that she had somehow kept buried over the years. Perhaps
it really was her mother she had dreamed about, her mother’s
face she had remembered after all these years. She was hesitant
to believe, but at the same time reluctant not to.
She rode in silence, trying in vain to decide which choice
would end up hurting worse.
MIDMORNING CAME AND WENT, and the heat grew oppressive.
As the sun lifted from behind the rim of the mountains, the
breezes off the ocean died away completely. The air grew still.
Wren and Garth walked their horses to rest them, following the
bluff until it disappeared completely and they were on a rocky
trail leading upward toward a huge cliff mass. Sweat beaded and
dried on their skin as they walked, and their feet became tired
and sore. The seabirds disappeared, gone to roost, waiting for
the cool of the evening to venture forth again to fish. The land
and its hidden life grew silent. The only sound was the sluggish
lapping of the waters of the Blue Divide against the rocky shores,
a slow, weary cadence. Far out on the horizon, clouds began to
build, dark and threatening. Wren glanced at Garth. There
would be a storm before nightfall.
The trail they followed continued to snake upward toward
the summit of the cliffs. Trees disappeared, spruce and fir and
cedar first, then even the small, resilient strands of alder. The
rock lay bare and exposed beneath the sun, radiating heat in
thick, dull waves. Wren’s vision began to swim, and she paused
to wet her cloth headband. Garth turned to wait for her, im-
passive. When she nodded, they pressed on again, anxious to
put this exhausting climb behind them.
It was nearing midday when they finally succeeded in doing
so. Ihe sun was directly overhead, white-hot and burning. The
Clouds that had begun massing earlier were advancing inland
rapidly, and there was a hush in the air that was palpable. Paus-
ing at the head of the trail, Wren and Garth glanced around
sPeculatively. They stood at the edge of a mountain plain that
Was choked with heavy grasses and dotted with strands of