Free The Veil Weavers by Maureen Bush

think he’s going to try to stop us now. He’s just trying to scare us. He’ll wait until we find a way to repair the veil. Do you think we could walk past him?”
    “No,” said Maddy, whimpering slightly. “Let’s go another way. I’m not sure the Will of the Gathering can hold all that anger.”
    “Stay with him,” I said to the crows.
    The crows circled low over the path, blocking Gronvald from following us. He didn’t seem to care, as if scaring us was all he wanted, for now.
    We turned our backs on the glowering troll, and hiked further up the stream. Then we clambered up the steep side of the valley to meet the path higher up the mountainside. Except we couldn’t find the path.
    We searched from the valley edge out into the forest and back again, but we couldn’t spot it.
    “Should we go back?” Maddy asked.
    I shuddered.
    Maddy spoke again, but crows began cawing so loudly I couldn’t hear her. “Corvus!” I snapped, annoyed.
    They kept cawing. When I looked up, Crowby flew past my face, a wing smacking my head.
    “Ow!” I cried.
    Maddy laughed.
    She landed right in front of us, muttering in a low grumble. While I was struggling to understand, Maddy laughed again and pointed to a second crow, perched on a branch a few feet away. A third waited in line a little further up the slope.
    “They’re showing us the way,” said Maddy.
    So we followed the crows. As soon as we reached one, cawing from a branch, and thanked him, another started cawing further up the mountainside.
    “Josh, this is how the magpie parents in our garden called to their little babies to come to them.” She smiled, delighted. I didn’t find the idea as charming as Maddy did.
    They led us back to the path and on up the mountain. We grew hot and thirsty, even though the air was cold and the ground white with snow. We tied our jackets around our waists, and shoved hats and mitts into our bags.
    After an afternoon of pain, climbing more and more slowly as the altitude tired us, we finally crested the ridge. We could see the Rockwall looming high above us, and a clear blue lake cradled in snow below. The low sun cut across the face of the Rockwall at a steep angle, lighting ridges and triangles of rock. It was stunningly beautiful, radiant with magic. I wanted to stand there and drink it in, to hold the moment forever.
    “Around the lake?” Maddy asked. She looked tired.
    “In a minute,” I said. “Let’s rest a bit.”
    “We’ll get cold.”
    “I know. Just for a few minutes.”
    I brushed snow off a fallen log. We perched on it while I dug out a wedge of cheese and one of Keeper’s huge buns. We ate and drank and rested, and once we started to feel the cold, we stood, creaking and sore, not at all ready to push on.
    “Around the lake,” I said, eyeing the low sun and the narrow path. “We need to hurry.”
    The sun dipped below the mountain, lighting the far side of the valley but leaving us in deep shade. I shivered – we’d die without shelter. We had to find the weavers and get past their guardian. Even thinking about that made me feel weak. I sucked in a breath and kept walking.
    The crows flew with us. If we paid attention, at least we’d know if Gronvald showed up. That should have been reassuring, but somehow I felt like we were being watched.
    We passed some berries near the path, clusters of small creamy white balls on low bushes. Each berry had a tiny black dot on the tip; they looked like eyeballs, watching. That’s just silly , I thought. But I felt uneasy.
    “Gronvald?” I asked Corvus.
    He cawed casually.
    I guessed that meant no. And still I felt it.
    We found more berries as we followed the curve of the lake to the face of the Rockwall. I watched them as we walked by. The dark centres slowly turned, watching us.
    The path narrowed, squeezed between the lake and the Rockwall. And then it stopped, blocked by a pile of snow.
    I stepped closer, and the snow erupted. I gasped and Maddy shrieked as a