Coracle, Chapter 7: Marda Floats to School (Patreon)

The stream carried Marda under trees that were woven together overhead like a leafy hall, and the late summer leaves cast cool shadows on her head and shoulders. She tugged her shawl more tightly around herself and checked her coracle. It rocked gently in the water, but for such a small craft it didn’t wobble as much as she expected. It wasn’t leaking either, which was something that had worried her while working on it. The flowers woven through it were still blooming; some of them had even wedged sprigs onto the inside surface. Her first pansy had turned into an entire ladder of pansies, their bobbing purple and yellow faces seeming to smile at her.

For hours, the coracle carried Marda. Sometimes the forest crowded overhead and her progress was so slow she could have walked faster; sometimes the stream broke out from under the trees and took her past the green hills and then the coracle bucked like an excited pony and surged over waters that seemed to laugh. There was always a breeze, and it smelled like the flowers on the brim of the coracle.

When the sunlight was starting to slant, Marda spread Mama’s napkin and broke off a piece of the bread. She nibbled it, and a chunk of cheese, and a couple of the sweet peas, and she watched the world go by. She hadn’t known what to expect of the world past the borders of her family farm and the village, but she’d imagined that it would be different. Instead, it looked a lot like where she’d grown up, just a lot more of it. And wilder, she thought, because there were no people. It felt full of possibilities, and it was exciting because of that. It was also relaxing, because all those possibilities… someone else would be handling them. There were no chores waiting for her in that wide wilderness. Her job, right now, was to ride her coracle and trust the Savior’s Breath to take her where she needed to go.

She did wonder how she was going to get to the Outremers, though. She hadn’t thought to ask where it was because all the stories said that any coracle could take you. Was she supposed to be steering?

Sunset found her still floating down the stream, though she’d left the forest behind by now. Marda was beginning to worry that she’d be floating forever, or at least, for long enough to make her regret not bringing more changes of clothes, or food. “Um,” she said aloud finally, “is it okay to ask what comes next?”

The rush-hush-hush of the water under her craft answered, and the sound of the wind in her ears. In the distance, Marda heard the kaw of a crow. Sitting up, she braced herself on the back brim and called, “KAW AW AW!”

Which was ridiculous, because while she’d greeted dozens of crowd for days and days and days, for years! She’d done it in a human language. She was probably saying something ridiculous in crow like ‘upside down cloud yes ha’. Her cheeks burned and she sat back. “Well, that was silly.”

And then, closer: “Awk awk.”

Startled, Marda sat up. Again, she tried calling, and the crows answered, nearer. A few minutes later, she saw their silhouettes in the sky. Not big pearly crows, like the ones near her house, but normal black crows with their glossy black feathers. They winged down to pace her, their wings beating.

“Am I glad to see you!” Marda said, hastening to her basket for the old bread. She broke it and scattered it into the stream, giggled as the crows dove into the water for it and came up dripping. “Hi, crows! I feed your cousins all the time. Thank you for keeping me company. I’m beginning to feel a little weird out here by myself.”

The crows ate half her old bread and then soared alongside her coracle. They talked to each other and sometimes to her, and Marda did her best to talk back… sometimes in human, and sometimes, probably badly, in crow. They didn’t seem to mind; something about the way they tilted their heads to look at her made her think they were laughing, and it made her grin.

“I wonder how long this is going to take,” Marda murmured as the sun’s rim burnished the horizon. “And where the school is. Do you know, crows?”

They called to her and then almost as one darted upward, heading higher.

“Oh, wait!” she said and then gasped as the coracle shivered under her. She grabbed its edge and squeaked as a gleaming curl of…smoke? Built under the brim. Except the smoke was purple and opalescent blue and another coil of it raveled near the wall of her coracle.

Beneath Marda’s weight, the craft shuddered and then lurched free of the water.

“Ohhhhh I can’t watch I have to watch ohhhhh my….gooodnesssss!” Marda squealed and covered her mouth. The cloudy curls were frothing around the bottom of the coracle and bearing it up, up into the darkening sky. She peered over the edge as the forest dwindled and made another noise, choked by surprise. Pressing a fist to her heart, she waited for the pounding to stop, only to realize… her heart wasn’t racing. She wasn’t scared. Something in her seemed to be whispering that this was normal, and she would be okay.

“Maybe this is what I was waiting for when I prayed for an answer,” she said to herself, and then laughed as the flock of crows hove into view alongside her, diving through the glimmery Breath so that it broke around their feathers and left long sparkling trails. “Oh, look at you! Just don’t mess up the Breath under me, I need that!”

They seemed to laugh at the idea and she giggled. “Right, you’re too clever for that.” She went into the basket for some of the remaining bread and tried launching pieces of it at her corvid escort. It was fun when they caught it, and funny when they missed and had to fall through the Breath to chase it down. But eventually they skidded away and she waved. “Thanks for the company!”

That left her to watch the island grow smaller and smaller as the Breath washed her higher. She knew what the islands looked like, of course: there were paintings of them in the post office. But she’d never seen them from above like this. Soon she was high enough to see the entirety of her own island, with its forests and plains and the big freshwater lake. And though she wasn’t flying toward the other islands, she could see them hanging in the space between stars. 

There was a hole between her island and the others, and even from a distance it made her shiver. It looked no different than the rest of space, except maybe to seem darker somehow, and yet she knew in her heart that the Adversary’s fist had passed through it when he’d broken the world into pieces. Fortunately, she was flying away from it, so it soon vanished behind her.

Now Marda was high enough that she’d left the night-time sky of her island and was into the true space between worlds. The Savior’s Breath here protected her from cold and airlessness, but it couldn’t disguise how strange it was. She could no longer smell her flowers unless she bent close enough to brush her nose against them, and the wind was thin and chilly. And it was no longer quiet, like nighttime, but silent, like emptiness.

Or it was until she’d left the island far, far below. At first she thought she was hearing a memory of Mama’s song to the trees, but it was no song she’d ever heard, and it had no words, and it was so, so faraway. And yet, it was coming from every direction? She turned in the coracle, holding the shawl close around herself against the chill, and then gasped.

It was the stars. The stars were singing.

Marda didn’t know how long she sat awake, enrapt, listening to the lullabies of distant suns. She cried, and didn’t care that she was crying because it was beautiful and she felt so lucky to be hearing it. “How did I ever think I was alone,” she said softly, and the stars sang back their wordless agreement.

With her mother’s coracle beneath her and the song of the universe to lull her to sleep, Marda cuddled into the bottom of her craft and closed her eyes. Her afghan from home felt just right, rolled around her, and she slept.

When she woke in the morning, the coracle was approaching a new cluster of islands, just large enough for a few towers and buildings. She’d already passed into the daytime sky of the largest of the islands, and the Savior’s Breath was kicking up great, excited arabesques of glitter as it carried her toward a grassy field. Marda hurriedly tucked the napkin back around the basket and folded up her afghan, then leaned into the edge of her coracle to watch the field come closer and closer until with a bounce and quiver, the coracle beached itself on the grass. She had arrived! Excited, she jumped out and slung her bag over her shoulder and picked up her basket. Should she leave the coracle? Maybe there was a place to store them? She could ask, surely, once she reached the school.

Turning, she found a path.

She also found a dragon.