Free The Wolf Tree by John Claude Bemis Page B

recently melted. He nearly knocked Buck and Si from the steps as he dashed up.
    “Slow it!” Buck barked, grasping the railing.
    Noah sprinted past calling out, “Okay, Buck. Excuse me, Si.”
    Sally was about to return to hoeing when she saw Buck and Si go over to Carolyn. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but in a moment the two passed by the garden plot, heading for the trail.
    Si’s black braid hung tight and sleek across her shoulder, and she wore a bulging haversack. Her eyes were still darkly rimmed, but she seemed to be recovering from her injury.Buck clamped his wide-brimmed cowboy hat over his rowdy black-and-silver hair. He hoisted a pair of waterskins over his shoulder and adjusted them to rest behind his holstered pistols.
    “Where are you going?” Sally asked.
    Buck kept walking, but Si stopped. “We’ll be up at the Clingman’s Dome for a few days.”
    “You’re seeing Mother Salagi?” Sally asked curiously.
    “Carolyn’s in charge,” Buck said. “She’s the oldest.”
    “What about Mister Nel?” Rosemary asked.
    “Leave Nel be,” Buck grunted over his shoulder as he continued toward the trail. “He’s got tonics to make to trade for a new wagon.”
    Si began following him. “Don’t cause any trouble.”
    “We don’t cause trouble,” Sally said with a huff.
    “Don’t let Noah and George cause trouble,” Si said. “We’ll be back within the week.”
    Sally watched them go. As she returned to the garden, her eyes followed a circle around the yard. All the children were busy with tasks: Felice and Naomi hanging up laundry, Dale and Adam cleaning out the chicken coop, Carolyn boiling lye and bear fat in a big cauldron for soap, Preston and George carrying in wood to the kitchen stove and the fireplaces.
    “Why’s Si and Buck always thinking we’re going to make trouble when they’re away?” Sally grumbled to Rosemary.
    “We can handle things without them, can’t we?” Rosemary said, scattering seeds over the damp earth.
    Sally brought her hoe back to the soil with a quick swipe. “They keep us too busy to do anything we want to do.”
    Rosemary laughed. “You just want to get back to your room so you can read that book from your pa.”
    Sally frowned as she brought the hoe down again and again.
    When supper was over and the dishes were washed, Sally sprinted up to her corner of the loft and lit a candle.
    She set the candle on the windowsill and pulled her chair close to it. With
The Incunabula of Wandering
in her lap, she opened the book and the page fell to the Verse of the Lost. She had not had a chance to read it again since Ray had left. The poem mentioned the Elemental Rose, whatever that was. It would not normally have made her curious. The
Incunabula
was filled with strange references: the Haymaker’s Flute, the Toninyan, Marse Turnage’s Due, and all manner of bizarre names.
    But the Elemental Rose. Why had Father needed it? Sally tilted the book to the candlelight and began reading it once more:
    When the storms of winter billow

at the coming of the night
,
Memories shall be harvested

like the fruits of day’s long light
.
Lost is the potent passage
.
Gone the stick of yew
.
Forsaken is the wanderer’s compass
,
until spring returns anew
.
    Sealed in gold or silver vessels
,
yea the taken goes
,
Until the placing of the four

creates the elemental rose
.
But even restoration might

in time extract a cost
,
As the vessel can be made

a beacon for the lost
.
    In the margin, Sally saw her father’s scrawling script.
The lost will be restored
. She looked up at the cobweb-cornered ceiling, thinking hard.
    What was lost? she wondered. Her eyes drew up to the fifth line. “Lost is the potent passage.”
    She knew vocabulary well enough, and
potent
meant “powerful.” What’s a “potent passage” mean? She blinked hard with the inkling of an idea forming.
    A passage. Like a path someone follows. Like the Rambler path. Potent passage. Yes, she