Free Blue Hills by Steve Shilstone Page B

mind all the while being snarled some such how with gathering cobwebs.
    â€œShall I tell you about this time down in the lake? I’ll tell you,” continued Kar. “Well, so, we splashed there like as before, and you rolled your eyes back like as before. You floated, seemingly content. But I raced around. I webbed my fingers and made a whip tail. I swam so such fast that my nose was pushed flat. I made bubbles burble out of my mouth. I collected moonplums and fetched ‘em up here in this pile. Then I dove back to collect you. I wonder why you smile and roll your eyes back when you’re under deep in the lake. Do you know?”
    â€œGo ... row ... sew ... flow ...NO!” I answered.
    â€œWitch speak again, Bek. There it is. Shall we march to the third tier of Blue Hills?” said the unconcerned Kar.
    â€œNot until my nose ... my toes ... my clothes ... yoss, that’s it ... are ... are ... pie ... dry!” I said, accepting for the first time without frustration the witch speak so such flowing from my lips. Truth, it seemed to me a triumph to search out and find the right word.
    I stood up, spread my arms, and slowly turned, inviting the warmth of the sun to dry me. A few drops of water slithered like snaves down the back of my neck.
    â€œOh, let’s flow. I feel like ... larching ... no ... marching! Yoss! That’s it!” I sang, so such positively lively with joy for no known reason and changing my mind about waiting to dry.
    I strutted highstep up the hill, and Kar hurried up beside me. We smiled at each the other like lackwits. We shrugged like we do. We sang out loud bendo dreen tunes and fell into fits of giggles whenever I blurted a wrong rhyming word, which of course was more than constantly. We giggled up and down the pale blue grass hill. We giggled leaping across the hedge boundary. We giggled up the smoky blue grass hill and down it. We drew near the boundary hedges between the second Blue Hill and the third, which bristled with dusky blue grass.
    â€œThird beer ... tier,” I said, giggling.
    â€œRight. Third beer,” laughed Kar.
    I waved my jark dweg best friend forward. She likes to be first. She thought for a moment and shimmered to Rakara with dark green mantle, lavender skin, huge ears, sightless milky eyes, and tumbling mass of orange hair. She glided over the hedges and landed on the dusky blue grass of the third Blue Hill.
    â€œI wanted to sense it sightless,” she called back to me. “That be why I shifted to Rakara. The blue sand be strange. It glowed in my mind.”
    The blue sand. So. Such. Is there blue sand running in all of the fractures between the tiers of Blue Hills? I asked myself. There across from me was Kar as Rakara slowly drifting left with the hill. There she was at pause. There she was drifting right. I gathered myself for a run and a leap over the hedge boundary. My highboots pounded the ground. I grinned wide. I leapt, looked down, saw the running blue sand, cleared the fracture and the far hedge, landed rolling, and tumbled to my knees on the bristly stubble of dusky blue
    grass. Rakara floated close, shimmered, shifted to Kar.
    â€œDo we wait for night?” she asked.
    I frowned. All the giggles were gone, high spirits evaporated. I tapped at the scratchy bristle tufts of dusky blue grass with the tips of my fingers. Blue sand, I thought. Blue sand.
    â€œThe ... new ... blue ... the blue ... hand ... sand ... means ... means ... something,” I said.

Chapter Twenty-Nine
    Waiting on the Dusky Blue Hill
    â€œWhat does it mean?”
    â€œIt ... I ... can almost ... almost remember.”
    â€œSo such, whatever it means, we’ve made it here to the third tier of Blue Hills. We’ve seen snaves of Annek and snaves of Ennek. Which snaves will these be, Bek, and what color?”
    â€œA ... then E ... now ... I ... They will be raves ... snaves of ... of ... Innek. The Annek were ... fed ... no ...