Free Watersmeet by Ellen Jensen Abbott

realized Haret and Hoysta were dwarves: What are you going to do to me? she had cried. Did she look as terrifying to Hoysta now as Hoysta had looked to her then? What kinds of stories had the dwarves heard about humans?
    “I won’t hurt you,” Abisina promised, trying to sound calm and soothing. “It’s as you said, I’m a creature of the surface, and I need the sun, the wind. Anything.”
    “But there is no way to the surface from here. This is our rootfield— Wait, I’ve got an idea!” Hoysta studied the ceiling again and prodded it with a crooked finger. “No,” she murmured, moving to another spot. “Try this one.” She poked again and then in a third spot. “Ah!” Hoysta raised both hands to the roof, pulling so hard that for a moment she hung from the ceiling, kicking her short legs and grunting until whatever it was gave way. She tumbled to the floor in a shower of earth and snow, with a root the size of a pumpkin on her chest. “Hee, hee, hee!” came her wheezy laugh as she stood up and wiped her eyes. “There!” she said, pointing toward the ceiling.
    Abisina glanced up, not knowing what she was supposed to find, and saw only the dirt roof. Then, looking closer, she realized that the loamy black was broken by the thinner darkness of night. She stood up and held her face to the opening left by the root, letting the air rain its coolness on her. She smelled the sharp odor of firs and felt the stab of frost in her nose. “It’s night,” she murmured.
    “Sorry, dearie,” Hoysta said, “I can’t sense when it’s day and night like Haret can.”
    “No, it’s fine.” Abisina fixed her gaze on the small patch of sky. The darkness shifted above her, and she recognized tree branches moving in strong wind. And as she stared upward, a pinprick of light twinkled and was gone, was there, then gone, then there again. “A star,” she said, afraid to blink in case she lost the tiny spark.
    Hoysta let her stand there while she gathered more roots. Abisina didn’t know how much time passed before the dwarf said, “Dearie, must go now,” laying a hand on her arm. “Haret will be wanting his supper. Don’t know day and night, but I know supper and breakfast,” and she chuckled.
    I’ll be up there soon, traveling toward Watersmeet , Abisina thought, her worry eclipsed by the freedom of seeing the outside world again. She followed Hoysta to the entrance of the rootfield and touched the old dwarf’s shoulder. “Thank you,” Abisina said softly.
    Hoysta smiled, exposing her few teeth, the skin crinkling around her eyes. There was no fear in them now. “Have to think of something to tell Haret about this .” She raised her basket laden with the root she’d pulled down to expose the sky. It was four times larger than any of the other roots. Abisina answered Hoysta’s smile with her own, and they trooped back to the cave.
    Haret said nothing about the root. He just raised his eyebrows as Hoysta tried to hack into it with a large knife, and then he regarded Abisina suspiciously. But Abisina didn’t care. That pinprick of starlight gave her new energy. Every stitch she sewed in a sleeping roll, every loaf of flatbread she formed, every smoked mole she stowed in the leather travel bags got her closer to the outside. Still, her stomach clenched the night she overheard Haret say, “We leave tomorrow.”
    She had been lying in bed, waiting for sleep. She knew Hoysta and Haret were sitting by the fire in the great room. She could hear the soft tap of Hoysta’s knitting needles and see Haret’s shadow as he paced.
    His words brought a cry of protest from Hoysta. “Not yet, Grandson! She’s still weak! And she’s just a child.”
    “She is not as young as you think. I would guess fourteen or fifteen winters.”
    “A baby!”
    “They don’t live as long as we do. It’s as if she had more than twenty winters!”
    “Still! Not so old,” Hoysta said grudgingly.
    “She is not your pet,