Bow was alone sometimes— ok, most of the time, these days— but it was the kind of alone where there were still a ton of people around… just none of them were paying attention to him which was a very different kind of alone than this.
And now? He was ALONE. Like, actually alone. No grown-up peeking in on him every few minutes, no siblings playing somewhere nearby. And, OK, Dirk was pretty close by if he really needed help… but not THAT close by, which made it kind of exciting. Honestly, he was pretty sure you were not even supposed to be left this alone when you were eight years old and it made everything he was doing extra exciting.
He still didn't really understand what exactly Dirk was doing. If you were going to go to the trouble of making up a whole cover story and trick your whole family, shouldn't it be for something really cool like fighting bad guys or changing the world? But as far as Bow could tell, his brother was sneaking out every day to… work at a mill?
He'd peaked in once, to spy— because, come on, he HAD to— but the mill wasn't very exciting. Interesting to watch for a few minutes, the way the wooden gears fit together and the grains got smashed up into flour but only for so long before it got boring. Same with the wheel out back, the one seated in the same water that probably traveled clear across the woods from the stream by his house to here. The river snaked alongside the side of the mill and then in the front there was the storefront where they sold baked goods.
The bakery was where his brother spent most of his time, carrying boxes and bags of flour in and out. Mostly talking to the girl who worked the counter who looked sort of familiar in an All Grown Ups Kinda Blend Together kind of way. He didn't get a good look at her anyway. Staying away from the bakery was their agreement. His brother said he could tag along every day if he wanted as long as nobody from the mill knew was here and he stayed out of Dirk's way. This was fine because besides being boring, there were too many grown-ups milling around the bakery, most of which looked like the sort who'd have questions about why an eight-year-old was wandering around without any supervision.
And ultimately, the mystery of Dirk's double life was nothing compared to the fact that it was a beautiful day and he'd suddenly been handed more freedom than he'd ever had in your life.
Bow took a deep breath and surveyed his new workshop. And then promptly sneezed because the place was mostly cobwebs and dust. He was calling this his workshop because it sounded a lot fancier than "wrecked old shed." According to his brother, it had been here forever, quietly rotting and abandoned for decades, well before the current owners moved in. Apparently, the owners had tried to tear it down years ago but they'd gotten orders directly from Queen Angella that it wasn't to be touched.
Bow liked that detail. It felt like a connection to Bright Moon, like the kindly queen had saved this place just for him. It had been almost a year but he still thought about that place constantly, like it was calling him to come back. Which of course he could never do.
He loved his dads and he trusted them but every day he wondered if all the things they said about the war between the rebellion and Horde was really true. The rebellion, Queen Angella, even the magic. It had all seemed so… good.
And, even if it wasn't why did he have to give up his friend? It was silly because he'd only known Glimmer for a single afternoon, but he missed her all the time. The two of them, they'd just… clicked. He still scanned every crowd hoping for her, his heart leaping with every flash of pink, thinking he saw her everywhere even though he knew he'd probably never see her again.
It was on his mind as he cleaned up his new workshop. It was a lovely day which was good because the roof had more holes than a cheese grater. Probably would be a problem on a rainy day… one he'd have to find a solution to, but right now it meant he had plenty of sunshine to work by.
He'd collected all the rusted farm tools, stacked them carefully in a corner, and covered it all with a rotted blanket he found just so it didn't look as deadly. Then he stacked up a few of the old crates lying around to make himself a little table. He'd found a metal urn that made a pretty good stool once he flipped it over.
He slid the whole set-up around the tiny room a few times until he was satisfied with the position, somewhere where the light hit it so he could see enough to work, but not directly under one of the bad spots in the roof so he could still use it on rainy days.
There! Now he had a desk. He smoothed his hands across his make-shift workspace, his clothes completely covered with dust but feeling incredibly light and pleased with himself.
A few minutes later, he had the whole surface covered with bits of wire and gears from his backpack, anything he'd been able to scavenge from his dads' workshop or the old wrecks he and his siblings always found in the woods. He'd realized a while ago that a lot of the busted-up tech bits he found in the woods were probably Horde-made, leftover from old battles with the rebellion. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that.
He grabbed his latest project out of the backpack and gave each of the rotors a final tighten before he carefully folded them back into the slot, where they caught with a click. He was trying to build something like that signal he'd see at the market last summer, but simpler. The rotor blades were supposed to take the little sphere up and then it would release a small parachute to let it back down gently. The trickiest part had been the parachute, finding thin enough material to fit into the tiny release chamber and not weight it down too much, but strong enough to actually slow decent. Many handkerchiefs had given their lives in the process but he was pretty sure he had it now. He pushed the small square of white cloth inside. It took him a couple of tries to get the little hatch to stay closed, it was temperamental, but then everything was ready for the first test run.
The whole device was small enough to fit into his palm but represented months of work, mostly done by flashlight under his covers when everyone else was asleep because his dads still didn't understand why he was messing around with "all that junk" instead of concentrating on his studies. But if could manage to make something useful, something that could do good? It would all be worth it.
OK, here goes. Wait, should he be taking notes? Was that an inventor thing? Gosh, he really wished he actually knew another inventor so he could ask this kind of stuff. He had a moment of panic that he shouldn't be doing this when he had no idea what he was doing and how did he think he could possibly be a real inventor and he should just stop this right now and go home and get ready to run the library for the rest of his life like his dads wanted but he took a deep breath and ignored it.
OK, Bow. Focus on the target. There was a bent nail sticking out of the wall by the door and he'd hung a rusted bucket from it. If all went to plan, his gizmo would rise up and then release the parachute and gently lower itself into the bucket. Easy.
Here we go. He pressed the tiny release and watched with excitement as the rotors sprung to life, the little sphere rising into the air.
Yes! It was working! The thing rose higher, pitching toward the door. Go over there, little buddy. The bucket!
It didn't listen. Instead, it careened directly into the ceiling, the impact releasing the parachute. But instead of spreading open like it was supposed to, the parachute hung off the bottom edge like someone's wrinkled laundry. Now unbalanced, the whole sphere careened wildly around the shed, banging into walls hard enough it splintered a rotted plank. It dipped low, dragging the failed parachute across his makeshift desk, scattering his precious gears and wires.
He rummaged frantically in his bag for the emergency kill switch he'd rigged. Just a simple shock emitter that would fry the whole mechanism and stop it dead if he needed to but he didn't want to use it if he didn't have to because it would wreck the bot and he'd have to start all over again. He was starting to think he'd have no choice but to press it when the parachute finally snagged on the edge of a rusted saw peeking through a hole in the rotted blanket and he could grab it.
Well, so much for that. He sighed, trying not to let his frustration turn to tears. The parachute part was torn beyond repair. The rotors were pretty banged up too but he managed to click them back into place so it wasn't a total loss. Still, disappointing.
Why hadn't it just gone where it was supposed to? He picked up a long splinter of wood from the rotted plank and flung it forward, like a spear. With a metallic clunk, it pierced the rusted hole on the side of the bucket.
See, little guy? Not hard at all. He exhaled and put the battered sphere into his backpack. Maybe if there was a way he could just aim the thing himself, that would be easier. Then he'd only have to worry about what it did on impact.
He started collecting the bits and bobs all over the floor. Wait. Where was his screwdriver? He did another panicked scan of the floor. Technically it belong to his sister, Spear, who was away at university but also, just as technically, he hadn't actually asked to borrow it and if he lost it he was pretty much dead.
Whew, there it was! Just when he was about to fully freak out, a flash of metal glinted in the sunlight. The thing had slid between a particularly large gap in the floorboards. He got down on his hands and knees, working his fingers into the gap to try to get it out but the thing was jammed in pretty tight. He must have stepped on it without realizing when he was chasing the device around the room because it was wedged down in there pretty good.
After several frustrating minutes of trying and failing to get the thing unstuck, he got back to his feet, planning on grabbing something from the worktable to help him pry it out. But, to his surprise, the floorboard shifted under his feet. In a second, the tiny gap was twice as thick and his precious screwdriver had slipped down into the darkness. He heard it clunk somewhere far below.
He could get his whole hand in the gap now and he reached down but there was nothing, just air touching his fingertips that was strangely cold.
Huh, that was weird. Now that he thought about it, there shouldn't be anything underneath this tiny shed except dirt. But the screwdriver sounded like it had fallen several feet before touching the ground.
He stepped back, considering the gap. That's when he realized it wasn't just the one board that had moved, it was an entire section of the floor. Four of the floorboards that had been perfectly straight before were now tilted, uneven compared to the rest.
Hold on. He knew what this was! Getting excited, he followed the edge until he found the end. He slid his fingers across the old wood until he found an indentation. It took all of his strength and he ultimately had to use an old shovel for leverage but he finally pried the boards up and send them slamming backward onto the shed floor with a loud slam and a cloud of dust.
A hatch! A whole door right in the floor like something out of his pirate books. Maybe it led to a secret passage full of treasure! The feeling of being in a proper adventure took over and he forgot all about his invention.
He stretched his arm down into the darkness experimentally but his fingers touched only the cool air. How far down did it go? He dashed outside and grabbed a rock. He dropped the rock into the opening, listening for it to hit bottom. Not too deep. Well, too deep to just jump down there but at least he knew it wasn't a bottomless well or something.
Maybe another day he could come back with a light and rope and explore it properly. But for now, he really needed his screwdriver back. He lay on the floor and stretched as far as he could, moving his hand slowly (because the last thing he wanted to do was scare some animal living down there and get bit) but he couldn't come anywhere near to reaching the bottom. Finally, he waved his arm around desperately, trying to see if there was something down there he could touch but there was nothing.
He shifted himself forward so his head was peeking over the hole and pulled back in shock. The hole was... glowing. The whole space, and he could see it all now, a rectangular space no bigger than a closet with a dirt floor, and walls that looked like they were made of roots. There was a wooden ladder nailed into one side. It looked old but sturdy enough. And there, looking almost like it was glowing in the blue light, was his wrench.
Well, that was easy. He'd just climb down the ladder, grab his wrench, come back up. No big deal.
He almost went right down before he realized a good adventurer shouldn't set off without some tools. Plus he didn't want someone else showing up and messing with his stuff while he was gone. He collected everything back into his backpack, swung it on his back, and started down the ladder.
He landed on the dirt floor of the little space with a thump and could only stare, open-mouthed, at what was around him. The walls were so thick with roots he wondered if the ground the mill was on had once been part of the Whispering Woods and the trees had never ceded the underground.
Now that he was down here, he could see that the blue light was coming from a plant, something like a cross between moss and a mushroom, but with sharp angles instead of rounded tops like you'd expect from a fungus. It grew everywhere down here, coating the roots that twisted and curved over the walls, its stalks dotted with what looked like tiny chunks of blue crystal. Had it always grown that way or had the crystals been in the dirt first and the fungus had just absorbed them and their magic as they grew?
The blue light gave everything a strange hue. He probably should have been afraid, but something was soothing about it. It was magic. Not just any magic. Bright Moon magic. Which didn't make sense, because what did he know about magic and they were miles from Bright Moon anyway, but he recognized the feeling of it all the same. He was just wondering what that meant when the blue glow went out and he was plunged into darkness.
He startled, spinning around and tripping over a root. The fungus lit back up immediately, the glow extending a little farther this time.
It wasn't a room. It was a tunnel!
He got back to his feet and experimentally took a step into the darkened space ahead of him. It lit at once like he'd flicked a switch. He took another step and then another, the strange glow moving alongside him almost as if it were following him.
Or… sensing his motion. He stowed his screwdriver in his pack and grabbed his magnifying glass. He settled next to one of the roots, waiting. He stayed perfectly still, not daring to breathe, watching as the tiny pinpricks of light at the end of each small stalk closed up after a few moments of stillness, only to open again when he moved.
The moss extended all the way down the tunnel as far as he could see. As long as he kept moving, there should be light enough to explore. He hesitated, the call of adventure weighing against his dads telling him to be careful, his brother telling him to stay close.
Though, if you thought about it, technically he hadn't even left the shed!
He'd just go down a little way. See if there was anything interesting. It was a straight line. It's not like he could get lost! Maybe he'd find some amazing historical find and his dads would be so impressed they'd give up on this while library thing and he could at least be out like the others, digging around in cool ruins.
He started down the tunnel, the light following. It liked big motions. He had to swing his arms to make sure it saw him. If he forgot or walked too slowly, the light went out.
Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be anything down here but roots and dirt. He kept moving forward, hoping there'd be something cool in just a few more steps but there was nothing. Apparently, the tunnel just went straight on forever. He sighed, disappointed the adventure was over so soon, and turned to head back the way he came.
But he couldn't. What had been the way back was now a dead-end, roots woven as thickly as if they'd been there for years. But that wasn't possible! He'd been so careful, been paying attention to everything! He'd never taken so much as a single turn!
He pulled at the roots desperately but the wood was unyielding. He spun around, hoping maybe he'd just gotten disoriented but what had been a single corridor ahead was now a branch off, two pitch-black corridors extending in either direction.
No. Oh, no no no. This wasn't possible! A terrible thought occurred to him then, freezing his blood. If these roots and this tunnel were part of the woods then could it move around and change itself like the woods could? If that was the case, he might never find his way back home!
He'd started worrying his nails between his teeth, trying to figure out what to do next when he heard it. Footsteps, coming fast. He turned towards the sound in time to see the end of the rightmost corridor flash blue as someone small ran by at a full tilt.
Wait a minute. Was that—
Another figure, much larger, followed in pursuit of the first. He barely had a moment to make sense of what he'd seen when he heard her scream. Not playing or pitched in laughter but in absolute terror. The girl he'd been absolutely certain he was never going to see again in his life.
Bow didn't stop to question why or how, he tore in the direction of the sound.