Previously: Bahr was given permission to leave the hospital once his injury had mostly healed. Then Bahr, Marie, and Valentina left the village in the middle of the night to find the person who may have last seen Henrique alive.
We met Valentina, wordlessly, at the edge of the village. We walked in a line down the thin trail created only by usage and time with Valentina in front, myself in the center, and Bahr at the end. The only noise was the hum of creatures like insects and the calls of animals like birds, until I broke the silence with a question, when I felt we were far enough from the village that we could speak aloud without being heard. Or without angering Valentina by risking our being heard. "Do you know where we are going?"
Valentina shook her head, an almost useless gesture in the darkness. "Not exactly. The notes say which mountain the teacher lives near and nothing more."
"What if he's not there?" It was a softer version of the question I wanted to ask — 'What if he's dead?'
"Then we go back. I think it’s still there, though."
"Why?"
"My father described it as ancient. What's fifteen years to a creature like that?"
I blinked. I thought we were looking for a 'he' not an 'it'. "What's a human to a creature like that?"
"Who are we going to see?" Bahr asked.
"My father left to see a -----. The ----- told him about it. Have you heard of a ----- that lives near the mountains?"
"I don't think so. I don't know the stories from ---- ----- -----."
The air began to chill as the day's warmth left it. At some point Valentina stepped off the path — it turned and she didn't. We walked on through tall grass and undergrowth, plants brushing our boots and pants. It made little noise, but more than enough to alert anyone who happened to be listening for such a sound. As the tree canopy grew thicker and my vision grew darker I became more aware of the noises, both ours and the others. I glanced back often, at every rustle and bump, and saw nothing but darkness. How Valentina found her way, I had no idea.
"How far are we going tonight, Valentina?" I asked, after hours of walking.
"There's a stream up ahead. I'd like to cross it tonight. I can't hear it yet..."
"I hear it," said Bahr. I listened closely but like Valentina, I heard nothing but the same hum of nature that we'd heard for hours.
"Well, of course you can," Valentina mumbled. She did not elaborate.
It was another thirty minutes before I could hear it, when we were almost on top of the thing. Steep banks hugged its edges and rose at least a meter above the waters. I wouldn’t have called it a river, but ‘stream’ felt like a bit of an understatement
Valentina took something like an orb out of her bag and shook it. It lit up with a green glow, light barely making it's way out of the thick casing. "This is about an hour of light. More than enough to get us across." She held the orb up, illuminating only a bit of the area around us. There was a fallen tree not too far from us stretched across the body of water.
"We'll use that."
"Is it safe?" I asked. Valentina held the orb down to the ground near the base of the tree. The roots cast shadows all around us, crawling up our legs and the nearby foliage.
"There are animal tracks nearby." She gave it a kick. "It was safe for them." She swung one leg over it, sat down, and begun the slow process of scooting across the tree trunk. An unglamourous process, but stable.
"Should we go one at a time?" Valentina hesitated.
"No. I only have a few glow lights and I want to save them. If we go together no one has to go in the dark." She nodded to finish off the statement. "We go together."
I climbed on after her. Bahr climbed on after me. As I placed my hands down on the trunk it felt less solid than I would have expected and more hollow than I would have liked.
The temperature dropped further as we moved over the water. Small branches poked out from the tree, which we had to lift ourselves over and around when they were too thick to break off. Despite the light Valentina held aloft in her right hand I could see almost nothing. My hand fell into a gap in the bark. Something sticky and wet covered my palm. I warned Bahr of it.
"There shouldn't be ---- on this tree. It seemed like it had fallen a while ago. It only produces ---- when it's alive," said Valentina.
"It's on my hand," I replied.
"That would mean that this tree..."
"Has not been here long." Bahr finished her sentence. We were over halfway to the other side. There was nothing to do but keep going.
Valentina moved faster than I could, despite not being able to use one hand. "It's not very ----- on this side."
"It's not what?"
"It's not very secure." Valentina reached the other end of the tree, with leaves and branches. It was these smaller branches, much thinner than the trunk, which stopped the tree from falling into the river.
Valentina started to stand, holding onto the branches for balance. The leaves rustled and the wood creaked. Her hands moved from one branch, to another, then to a third.
It was the third that snapped. I could see, in the dim glow, the rot at it's base. Valentina stumbled forward a step as her support fell away. She dropped the orb but regained her balance on another branch. It was further from the tree's center, so now so was she. The force pulled the hollow tree slightly to the right. A branch that had been supporting the makeshift bridge was now over water.
The rest of the tree went with it, with Bahr and myself still clinging to it. The tree skidded across the two banks, catching itself just above the water's surface.
Bahr and I were less lucky. The water was deeper than it had looked, but just as cold as I'd feared it would be.