Free The Radiant Road by Katherine Catmull Page B

she—”
    â€œWait and see for yourself what she is,” said Finn. “Now watch. You should know how to do this, too.” He placed his hand onto a knot in one of the yew roots at their feet. “Here, here, here,” he crooned, stroking it gently. Whispered, to Clare: “I am thinking and asking and feeling only of where in the two worlds I want to go.”
    And just that moment the space around them got larger; or perhaps they got smaller. And the wood grew less solid—Clare couldsee again the many veins, twisted together, veins and shoots where the thick sap moved slow. And the tree got larger still, or they got smaller still, and she followed Finn as he stepped inside one of the roots.

    Now they were in a new and dangerous place. The wind was angry, where they were; the wind was mad.
    Clare sat astride a high rock pinnacle, thrusting out of a wild ocean at the base of an enormous cliff. Clare’s own home stood on a cliff above the sea, but that cliff was doll-sized compared to these dark, towering crags. It was as if the edge of a continent had been ripped way by a raging hand.
    Clare bent low over the rock like a rider on a runaway horse, clinging to the sides so as not to be blown off. It was a wind like anger, raging and changeable, a hand that slapped your hair against your face, snatched the sock from your foot and blew it—where? Clare watched her gray sock sail out over the vast ocean. How slow the sea moved under the angry wind, until it reached the rocks and rose up to slap them hard.
    â€œWhere are we?” she said, her voice shaking only a little, so little she hoped he couldn’t hear, though she hoped he could, as well. She didn’t like it here. She put her hand to the silver star at her throat to slow her pounding heart.
    Cool Finn, cold-fishy Finn, straddled the narrow rock ahead of her, legs dangling, looking out to sea. He said, not turning, “That is the Cliffs of Moher behind us, a great spot of ours, great with beauty, I mean, but also great with my people.”
    â€œI don’t like it here,” said trembling Clare. “The wind doesn’t want us here. If I fell, I would die.”
    The wind whipped his long black hair up and around and down again. He said, “Clare. You are here to know that you are in danger.”
    â€œFrom the wind?”
    He pointed up. “See that bird,” he said.
    Clare saw a white seabird riding the wind, up, down, its wings still, serene.
    Finn said, “You feel the wind is a bully, beating you. But that is your seeing. That is your story, not the wind’s. To a bird who rides it, that wind is only a kind hand. Because the bird rides the wind’s power. Do you understand?”
    Clare, bitter, cold, and wind-battered, frowned stubbornly. “But a bird can fly. I can’t fly.”
    He turned to look at her, and his face was troubled. “If you cling to the safety of the rock, indeed you can’t. To fly, you open your arms and fall, heart first, trusting the wind to bear you up. That’s what the birds do.”
    â€œLike you know how to fly!” said Clare, then wondered—well,after all, maybe he did. She watched through the tangle of red hair across her face, the tangle of dark hair across his.
    He looked abashed. “Well,” he said. “Once I did. I trusted, and I leaped, and I flew. It is hard, though, the trusting. It’s hard, hard—and hard every time, the trusting, or so I’ve heard. I was a boy then, and it was easier. I never could again.”
    â€œWell, I’m not a fairy, so I’m not going to try. Also because I’m not insane .”
    Finn smiled, but the smile faded. “You should not make Her wait,” he said. He turned his back again. “Climb down.”
    So Clare climbed down the side of the rock ledge, one bare foot and one socked foot, clinging with cold hands to the salty-wet rock, finding small painful