That day she ate the last of her bread and cheese, and later stepped hard on a sharp stone, earning a bruise on her right heel. She slept hungry that night beneath another hemlock. And in a dream, Curtis Macurdy found her, and held her in his arms.
In the morning she spelled a grouse to her hand, and after begging its pardon, wrung its neck. She considered eating it raw, but couldn’t bring herself to. Instead she broke dead branches, lit them with a pass of her hand, and half roasted the bird. She ate most of it on the spot—there was little more to it than breast—and stashed the greasy remains in her shift. She also took time to heal her bruised foot sufficiently for swift walking. Then she hiked again.
Toward midday she became aware of magic about her, a spell of invisibility, and saw through it to the source. In the fire-hollowed base of a great-boled golden birch stood a tiny, furry man, a tomttu. She’d seen one in a cage once, when she was a girl traveling with an embassy. This one was larger, perhaps thirty inches tall. Their eyes met, and after a long moment it was the tomttu who broke the silence.
“Good mornin’ to you. I didn’t realize it was a Sister comin’ up the trail, or I wouldn’t have cast my spell. I’d but to crawl up my hollow here, and you’d never have seen me.” He shook his head. “Betrayed by my own magic! Embarrassin’!” Doffing a non-existent cap, he bowed. “I’m called Elsir.”
“Do you live here?”
“Here? My no! ’tis but a place to shelter on the way. I travel, you see, short though my legs are. Like more than a few of us, I’ve a wanderlust.” He paused, cocking his head as Everheart had. “And what are you doin’ out here alone, girl? With the hair on your head no more than a copper-red cap. A runaway, I don’t doubt. Your people will be worried.”
She looked at him and saw a chance for help. “I’m not a girl,” she said. “I’m a married woman, stolen from my husband and returning to him. Do you ever cast spells to mislead?”
He laughed. “Perhaps a small one now and then. To lead the troll away when he’s near, or the great cats.”
“And what of men? I’ve heard they sometimes capture you for sport, or steal a girl from you.”
He scowled. “You’re ill-advised to speak of such things to me, if it’s favors you want.”
“I didn’t say it to offend. And as for being stolen and misused by men, I know more than you about that. Can you cast a spell to throw someone off my trail? Something beyond a net of confusion?”
He stared at her for an endless minute, gnawing his lip. Finally he spoke. “You’re a Sister, are you not? Who is it you’d have me mislead?”
“A tracker named Tomm.”
“I know of him by reputation. It wouldn’t work.”
“Could you cast a spell that would hide me from birds?”
Again he stared a long moment before he spoke. “Ah! The birds. Yes, I could that.” Varia stood unbreathing, while Elsir squatted, thinking, frowning. “But I won’t,” he said at last. “I dare not meddle in affairs of the Sisters.” Then, reading the depth of disappointment in her face, and the underlying desperation, he added: “We’re a careful folk, bein’ small as we are. And if Tomm sensed my spell, he’d know by its nature that it was one of us cast it. Your Dynast would hear of it then, and she’s a vengeful woman.”
Varia bowed her head. “Thank you for considering it. Is there any advice you can give me?”
The small man shook his head. “Only to hurry. Travel as fast as you can. The pass north of here is called Laurel Notch; take it and you’ll be in the drainage of the Tuliptree River, the East Fork, which is only a brook at first. It will lead you north into the Kingdom of Indrossa. They might hide you there, or send you on and interfere with the tracker. It’s possible.”