For some reason, today felt longer. Maybe it was because she started earlier, but Brina felt like time was going too slow, or maybe it was the wobble in the world from the Feywild veil, she wasn't sure. Ro-Ro said that could stretch time out.
There was no more food to find. There was no more dew to drink. Brina was afraid to drink anymore river water, she knew the high water was dirty and she didn't care this morning but she cared now. She wept to think about it. If she hadn't been having a poison magic day, she'd be sick and probably dying right now.
That was too easy to imagine, too. Just falling into the leaves, surrounded by the trees, Little Brina in her purple dress with the puffy sleeves she liked so much, curled up small and cold and throwing up and falling asleep.
Walking was so slow…
She had no idea how far down she'd washed, and she couldn't see that well over the fog of noise across the river, but she couldn't hear or see any noises from her family, and she was more and more sure that Ro-Ro hadn't come home and they didn't even know she was at the river yesterday at all, let alone that she fell in and got washed down. Or maybe they did and they were already trying to find her body in the ocean, they didn't know she got washed up. Would they check both sides of the river before they started looking in the ocean? Would they really look in the ocean for her? Did they need her whole body to get her raised from the dead? Could you raise a drowned corpse?
That didn't matter, really. She wasn't a drowned corpse. She wasn't sure if you could raise an eaten corpse, either. She didn't think so. She was too tired to think about it.
Why was thinking so hard? Did she poison herself for real and it was just taking this long? Did being hungry and thirsty and tired make it hard to think? She'd never felt this bad before.
It felt like forever. And ever. Brina wept off and on, but no amount of weeping was long enough to finish the journey. She got bored and ran out of tears every time. She tried to sing, but all the songs and more, all the time she spent singing them between weeping spells, and she was still just walking upriver.
The day was going on and on. Brina kept being sure it was almost nightfall, but every time she looked, it was only midafternoon. The trees changed but Brina hardly noticed anymore. She hardly noticed anything anymore. She watched the ground in front of her and trudged on. She didn't want to get lost from the river again, and if she kept walking, she'd get to the inlet and find her family there, or get to Tinian. She wondered if she'd passed the inlet already and hadn't noticed.
The wolves were either gone or waiting and she couldn't hear them anymore. The sky was clear, still, and the river was loud and the songbirds sang and Brina was so hungry and so tired. Her legs felt like jelly. Her feet were numb, and she remembered all the stories about people losing their toes and fingers to cold weather. She thought about tying her ribbon around her toes, but she wasn't sure that would help at all. She sat down twice but decided that it wasn't going to get her anywhere, especially if Ro-Ro hadn't come back yet.
Where were they? Why weren't they looking for her? They were, right, and she just couldn't find them, either? Did they give up? Did they forget? Were they punishing her now by letting her be lost? Would they do that? Like this? Even now?
She had been so sure Aunt Eupa or Ro-Ro was following her. She was so sure she'd wake up and they'd be here, and they'd take her home, and she could go cut wood all day and take a bath and go to bed, warm and safe and full and tucked in, she would never whine about eating broccoli again, she would never whine about being stuck in the house when it rained, she would never whine ever again.
She couldn't remember anymore good stories. Or long stories. She could hardly hear her guardians 'talking' to her anymore. She had stopped saying the things they said to her, and so she wasn't hearing them. No more 'you got it', no more 'you can do it', no more 'it's hard, not impossible'. Just Brina stumbling along in the forest, wishing she had something besides her family to wish would save her. She knew they were trying, but she'd never seen their limits before, and getting washed down the river was bringing everyone's limits into painful focus.
She still never found any more food, but she felt the hunger again. Brina wondered if eating dirt would make her feel less hungry before she got to the part where it hurt again. She wondered if she could eat trees, Ro-Ro said there were kinds she could eat but she couldn't remember. The water had washed away a lot of the things that bugs would hide under, she guessed.
Ro-Ro was gonna be mad. Aunt Eupa was gonna be happy to see her. Daddy was gonna do both. If she ever saw them again. She was starting to think that it really wasn't going to go well for her, that she really was lost forever and just gonna die here.
Nah. She couldn't die.
Oh yes I can. I can, and I've finally gone and done it, that's what I did. Stupid Brina.
Nu-uh, kiddo. You don't get to call you stupid. You're not stupid. You fucked up is all. It happens. Keep going.
Huh. She could still cuss herself in Aunt Eupa's voice.
Brina walked. And walked. Her legs hurt, her feet hurt and were numb at the same time, which wasn't fair! And she walked. And she walked! It was forever! And ever!
And she'd already found where she washed up! She hadn't even gotten back to the inlet, yet! How far was Tinian?! Did the river curl funny?!
Where was Ro-Ro?
Maybe Ro-Ro was in the feywild and had no idea she needed to come home. Maybe she was wrong about Aunt Eupa and Daddy looking for her? Would they look in town? Could Aunt Eupa track well enough to find her again? Aunt Eupa wasn't that good at tracking…
She imagined Aunt Eupa and Daddy and Daemon all in the woods, calling for her, looking, sniffing. Daemon said she smelled very strong to him, in the way her magic smelled, but she didn't leave scent trails.
The more she walked, the more sure Brina was that her family had given up looking for her. She wished she still had her school bracelet, but she was too big for it, now, and it would only have told the grown-ups that she was in trouble, not where she was.
Well, no, she couldn't use it.
But at least then Ro-Ro would know to come home, they could use theirs….
A cold wind blew and Brina whimpered as she curled herself against it. Her feet were going to fall off, she was sure of it. She wasn't even sure she still had her nose, and her lips hurt, and so did her cheeks, how could anyone be so cold and not be hurt? She was just hurt, that's what it was, and she was too cold to feel it.
Well. Her red little toes were still attached. Her legs were still going. Her hands were all red, now, too. How cold was it? How cold could it get? How cold could she get?
The wolves howled in the distance, and Brina ran until she couldn't. Her "couldn't" was getting worse. Her legs were barely moving anymore, she was shuffling faster, and she could get to a run but it took so long… the wolves were winning…
At least she was warm again….
Where was Ro-Ro? Where was Brina? Tinian couldn't be that far, could it? A whole day of walking? It didn't even take them a whole hour from the cottage to the gate, where could she be that she hadn't even found the inlet? How far did she get washed down the river? How far did she go backwards?!
They were never going to find her.
Brina could already imagine it. Daddy swimming out into the ocean and being a buoy for Ro-Ro. Uncle Peck's entire flock flapping out over Tinian en masse. Aunt Eupa's agitated pacing in the forest. They had stopped looking at the river and started elsewhere. Ro-Ro vanishing to and from the feywild and the swamps on the other side of the veil that Ro-Ro guarded.
Brina's heart grew cold as her feet when she realized how far she could have gotten and where her family could be looking for her. She knew where she was, but they didn't have any ideas. The last thing any of them knew, Daddy had just told her not to go to the river, and she went to Ro-Ro's hovel, which was toward the veil, which meant they might even have started in the feywild until Ro-Ro found them.
But if she got to Tinian, it would be okay. Right? She could get to Tinian, even if her family didn't find her. That's probably what Ro-Ro was waiting for before they rescued her, they were waiting for her to save herself, to see if she could. That's something Aunt Eupa and Ro-Ro would do, too. Uncle Peck wouldn't, though. Daddy wouldn't, either.
Brina kept going. And going. Her feet stopped picking up off the ground. She couldn't pick them up anymore, her legs were getting stiff, now.
Oh no.
It was getting dark.
Brina took too long to notice the fading light, and only realized how late it was getting after the orange light made her hair a funny color from behind. She looked eastward at the orange and dipping sun, and dread filled her. How had she not even gotten back to the inlet? How could she have been so far away? If she wasn't at the inlet yet, she was at least an hour from Tinian, and that was if the river didn't curl funny...
She needed to find somewhere to sleep again…?
She needed to get home. She got lucky today, she got really lucky today, she had a poison day today, but she couldn't trust that tomorrow. She was going to lose her toes to this cold because she didn't have the magic from yesterday, she was going to make herself sick and die if she tried to go tomorrow without poison magic to help her.
She couldn't wait 'til tomorrow. She had to get home.
The wolves howled again. Brina ran, following the river and beyond hope. She tried to stretch her hearing as much as she could. That wasn't something the magic could do, she just imagined it was, and sometimes it would help. This time, it didn't. This time, Brina just felt more alone and hunted.
Cold wind escorted evening, and Brina was too cold to feel it anymore. She could feel her skin starting to sting as her own blood warmed it after the cold hit it like that.
The sunlight had faded to pink when, finally, Brina saw the familiar tree that she'd fallen from yesterday. She wasn't sure that was it, but then she saw the Sunning Rock, and when she climbed onto the rocks on this side, she could see the path going from the river into the trees on the other side--she finally found the inlet!
Brina called squeakily across the river, her voice squawked uncontrollably as she tried to get louder, tried to put the power into her lungs to make her shout so she could be heard over the water…
But no one was there. Nothing. She saw nothing moving, she heard nothing but roaring water, she saw no voices filtering through the fog. They weren't there. They hadn't even left anyone there to wait for her if she returned there, not even Uncle Peck.
No one?
Brina wasn't going to make it to Tinian. She barely made it back here. She was going to freeze tonight. She hadn't found anywhere safe, she hadn't found food or water almost all day, everything hurt so much and she was so tired. And none of her family had any idea where she was, not even a little, not if they didn't put someone at the inlet to wait and see if she came back to it.
