The Unfinished Land

England and No Home

THE ISLAND looked completely different. The sun spread itself over green rolling hills, dotted with sheep and small stone houses and fences, and the fall weather was chill, but there was not yet snow in the air, so he and Calafi hiked over the hills, following the sun until they had to rest.

They found clean hay in a loft in a vale that smelled of the sea. “It is that way, I think,” Reynard said, but Calafi could hardly stand and they were too tired to finish the journey this day, so they hid in the barn and piled hay over themselves to try to keep warm.

“No childers anywhere!” the girl said, then clung to him and instantly fell asleep.

As exhausted as he was, he could not sleep yet. He seemed to be taking count of all the ways he had changed since he passed through the disk—but could not, nor could he remember what had happened in the great maze, or who had led him there and what they had given him.

But when he closed his eyes, he saw a field of green stars radiating all around, and knew that something had happened, something had changed him.

And he had to return home.

The next morning, an older woman found them in the barn while she was bringing feed to chickens, and without saying a word, she left some bread and closed the door on the barn, for she knew their times had been hard and did not feel right to disturb them.

They awoke and ate the bread and drank from a stone trough green with moss, and resumed their walk to the shore, which was only a few miles away, through the vale.

Calafi said out loud, “Fortune to those so kind.”

Reynard wondered what the girl’s blessing would bring for the generous giver of bread.

Calafi held his hand like a sister. “We have many lives now,” she said as they crossed a boulder-strewn beach.

“How do you know?” Reynard asked.

“I remember someone gave us time. I remember not who it was, but they gave all they had, and so now we have many lives. And so much time to ponder them all!”

“Memories,” Reynard said.

“We are too new to have such memories,” Calafi said. She looked across the beach to waves on the shore, and squinted. “Who is that?”

A young woman walked on the beach, white-blond hair streaming in the ocean breeze, her black gown pulled against her legs, and her eyes, brilliant green eyes, saw them, and they slowly approached one another, filled with caution. Then they began to remember a little. Who they all were, if not what they had all been through.

“I have been given my freedom,” the woman said.

“I see that,” Reynard said.

“Hel gave me my freedom.”

“Who is that?” Reynard said, and Valdis smiled.

“Someone I once knew,” she said, a little puzzled. “Along with others who served.”

A boat was out on the water, caught in a patch of bright sun, and Valdis waved, and curious fishermen from the far north brought their old boat to the shore, gently nudged its bluff bow onto the sand, and asked them what they were doing here in sheep country.

Clearly, they were charmed by Valdis, and she was charmed by them. And so they carried their strange passengers to a fishing village in Norway, and Valdis said this was where she would stay.

Somehow Calafi came upon a purse filled with silver coins, and they paid for a coach to take them to the south, to a larger city, where that same purse bought their passage to England.