Free Crow Boy by Maureen Bush Page A

see,” I said, and held out a hand for Maddy’s ring. Moving slowly, I leaned into the roots over the lip of the callus, and peered through the ring into a crack in the trunk wall. Sap was slowly flowing up the tree. I touched it – it was sticky, too sticky. It would be impossible , I thought. We’d get stuck in it, or not be able to breathe. But when I relaxed into magic I could feel myself slipping into it.
    When I nodded, Aleena stared. She shook her head. “I can’t,” she murmured.
    “I can,” I replied. “I’ll take you. We have to get out now, before the callus grows higher.”
    She shook her head again, fearful. But when Maddy and I took each other’s hands and looked at her, she sighed and reached for us.
    As we shrank, the roots tightened around us, and the tree groaned and creaked, but it couldn’t hold us. I became water and moved into the sap, drawing Maddy and Aleena with me.

Chapter 10
    Into the Earth
    M oving down, against the flow of the sap, was almost impossible. The sap was a thick syrup, sticky and dense. I imagined being water, as tiny as possible, tightly attached to the other drops of Maddy and Aleena, and it became a little easier to move, to ease around and through the sap.
    We moved deeper into the bark, where the sap was thinner, more like water. Still it tried to pull us upwards. But I was stronger, and slowly we flowed down the trunk of the tree while it groaned and shifted around us.
    I wanted to travel through the ends of the roots into the soil near the surface, but I discovered that the cedar spirit’s roots stretch far into the earth. We travelled deeper and deeper before reaching the tip of a root and then into the finest root hair. Finally, we slipped beyond the roots into damp soil.
    As soon as we were free of the cedar tree, we were pulled into the earth, caught in a current of magic. We fought and tried to swim against it, but we didn’t dare let go of one another. We were pulled deeper and deeper, down into the earth into old, thick magic.
    Finally we slipped free of the earth and stopped in a long, narrow rock cavern. It was warm and dry and very dark.
    As we reached air we began to grow, slowly, as the sap covering us contained us, clinging, stretching and finally breaking, leaving little pockets of sap all over us.
    Maddy reached up to push her hair out of her face.
    “No, don’t touch,” I cried, but I was too slow to stop her.
    Her hands and her hair clung to each other, connected by sap. Maddy pulled her hands free, leaving her hair a tangled, sticky mess.
    In all the growing and stretching, I didn’t feel my normal size. I glanced at Maddy and Aleena and realized we were all the wrong sizes.
    I was the tallest and the strongest. Maddy was the smallest as usual, but Aleena wasn’t much taller than Maddy. She was oddly diminished here.
    Light glowed off the walls, an eerie blue-green – the rocks themselves were glowing. I could see patterns in the rocks, layers that shone more brightly than others. Our faces were lit by the pale light, making Maddy and Aleena look sick.
    When I checked on them, I realized they really were sick. Maddy was struggling to breathe, her chest heaving in and out as she strained to draw in enough air. Aleena’s skin was thin and dry, her eyes dull, her cheeks sunken. She looked gaunt and old.
    I felt wonderful, strong and powerful. Magic flowed through me, filling me, making me part of the stone surrounding us. When I stood still, I could feel the earth breathing.
    “We have to get out of here,” gasped Aleena. “I am a water woman. Without water, I will die. We will both die. First me. Then Maddy.” She touched Maddy’s chest with a thin, dry hand.
    I remembered how she’d described herself to me once, born of raindrops on moss. And I knew she spoke the truth, that she and Maddy would die here.
    While Maddy and Aleena rested, I explored the cavern. It was large, long and narrow. The ceiling rose and fell, sometimes close