Chapter 11

Violet awoke in the stillness of the shelter. Crickets chirped, and a cool night breeze wafted over her, carrying with it a hint of spruce and woodsmoke. Violet stretched her arms above her head and sat up, blinking. She'd had the strangest dream. It was as if the dream were a memory of when she was very small. But they hadn't all gone camping together when she was that age, had they? Not that Violet could remember much about when she'd been two. Just images, really. Impressions of being with her family or tucked into a cozy bed. She shook off the remainder of the dream. Probably best not to remember it all. Parts of it seemed embarrassing, although she didn't recall why.

Violet blinked again and surveyed the shelter in darkvision. Zaknafein breathed evenly in the bedroll beside hers. Mum and Kel'nar were likewise quiet at the far end near the entrance. Everything was as it should be. She pushed her blanket aside and swung her legs out. She froze. Well, maybe not everything was as it should be. What on Toril had happened to her leggings? They were gone.

"Zak. Zak!"

Someone was hissing his name in his ear. Zak groaned and pulled the pillow over his head. "Too loud," he muttered, half asleep.

The pillow was pulled away. "Then open your eyes, and I'll use the hand code." If it was possible to exclaim something in a whisper, Violet was doing just that.

"Violet," he grumbled, "let me—" His eyes flew open as his groggy mind caught up. "Violet! You're—"

"Shh!" She clapped a hand over his mouth. "You'll wake Kel'nar and Mum."

Zaknafein glanced toward the end of the shelter.

"Hand code," Violet signed insistently.

He stared at her in darkvision, and a grin took over his face. "But Violet, you're back to normal!" He was the one exclaiming in a whisper now.

"What are you talking about?" She frowned as she signed that.

"You don't—"

She clapped a hand over his mouth again.

Zak rolled his eyes and pulled the hand away, but he switched to the hand code. "You don't remember?"

She squinted at him. "Remember what?"

His eyes widened. "You drank a potion and turned into a two-year-old!" He flicked his hands at the end of the sentence to emphasize the words.

"I did? I thought that was a dream!" Violet had spoken out loud this time.

At the far end of the shelter, Kel'nar stirred. He raised himself on one elbow, and his eyes glinted purple in the darkness. "Violet." The whites of his teeth seemed to glow in darkvision. "Thank Mielikki."

Mum rolled over beside him. "Drizzt? What's going on?" She squinted too, but she couldn't see in the dark.

Kel'nar's grin widened. "Violet's back to normal. Hopefully for good this time." He pushed his blanket aside and started toward her.

Violet pulled her blanket more tightly around her. "I—I'm not dressed. I don't know what happened to my pants!"

Zaknafein snorted a laugh beside her and thumped her good-naturedly with his pillow. "I could tell you that, little sister, but I don't think you really want to know."

Much later that night, they all sat around the fire sipping sweetened tea. Violet was clad in Zak's spare pair of deerskin leggings, the cuffs rolled up twice and the top cinched with a piece of rope as a belt.

Mum and Kel'nar had finally decided no one would get any sleep until the whole story was told. Kel'nar and Zaknafein had put some logs on the banked fire while Mum and Violet figured out her clothes. Then they all took turns filling her in on the events of the past long day. The retelling was interrupted many times as Violet groaned, laughed, or exclaimed that she couldn't believe the antics of her two-year-old self.

By the time the story was finished, a pale strip of light was just showing on the horizon. Zaknafein looked at Kel'nar across the flickering embers of the fire. He asked the question that had been burning in his mind ever since he realized Violet was truly back to normal. "Are we going to finish our camping trip?"

Kel'nar said yes at the same moment as Mum said no. They looked at each other.

"We'll talk about it, Zak," Kel'nar promised. "But for now, we're all going back to bed."

Violet glanced at the line of light illuminating the horizon.

Zaknafein watched her face. Two years ago, when they'd found the stray kitten, Violet had complained about having to go back to bed when it was almost sunrise. Would she say the same thing now?

His little sister surprised him. She just got to her feet with a yawn and said, "Yes, Kel'nar."

They got to stay! It probably had something to do with the fact that, when they got up late the next morning, Violet helped make breakfast without being asked, and she started washing dishes afterward before anyone mentioned cleaning up.

Zak figured Violet just did it because she knew they'd be expected to do dishes anyway, and she'd far rather wash than dry. Still, he was grateful when Kel'nar and Mum returned from a quiet talk at the edge of the clearing and announced that they'd stay for the entire tenday as originally planned.

Relief and excitement rose in Zak's chest like two soap bubbles carried high on a warm summer's breeze. It hadn't seemed like it would be possible, but Mielikki had answered his prayer after all.

Zaknafein looked at the gently swaying trees in the forest and smiled.