“Surely not,” Robin said. She gestured to the pink clay brother in the bows of the boat. “Think of Gull.”
At once it was certain that Duck, Hern, and I were all settled on going to the sea. “I do think of Gull,” said Hern. “I want to see that magician—if there is a magician. I’m going to flood him out with real things. I shan’t believe a word he says. That’s the only way to deal with magic.”
“I’d have thought more magic would be better,” said Duck. “But I’ve got to go there, too.”
My thought was that we would find a magician by the sea and he would prove to be Tanamil. I growled like a dog, I was so angry—angry with Tanamil and angry with myself for believing anything he said. “I’m going to see that magician,” I said, “and I’m going to rescue Gull.” I knew I had not the power to do that. I took up the One and shook him, I was so angry. “He’ll help,” I said. “He’d better!”
“Tanaqui!” said Robin. “You mustn’t threaten the Undying! I think you’re all mad or—or something.”
“Don’t you start on about being the eldest and knowing best!” said Hern. “We’ve all decided.”
“I wasn’t,” Robin protested. “I don’t know best. I don’t know anything anymore. All I know is that it’s dangerous. If I didn’t know it was quite as dangerous in Shelling, I’d ask to go home.” She bent her head, and tears dripped. Hern sighed.
“We’ll find a really nice home when we’ve been to the sea, Robin,” I said.
It took us four days to come near the sea. It might have taken longer if the wind had not backed to southwest and come hurling over the plains of water, bringing ruffles like gooseflesh. With that we made speed even when the tide turned and flowed up the River. Each day it flowed more strongly, until we came to expect it, as we expected the sun to rise. We found it useful, for it showed us where the River truly ran. There were no more trees to mark the River after the first day. Instead there was a very confusing landscape.
I think more people had lived in that part of the land than I knew existed before. It rose into humps and lumps everywhere. The flooded River flowed round them in lakes, in strings of shallow pools, and in a multitude of smaller rivers. Often the first sign we had that we had missed the main River was that we found ourselves sailing beside the posts of a fence. There were houses on nearly every hump of land and more houses half underwater. Not all these houses were burned, but there were no people anywhere. We risked staying in an empty house one night, but none of us felt comfortable there. Even when we put our Undying in the empty niches by the hearth, it still felt like someone else’s house.
Many of the humps had animals on them. We have three cats now, Rusty, and Ratchet, and Sweetheart, who came from the island where the gulls were. I love cats. Robin named them. There was one island full of dogs, but they were wild and hungry and barked at us so fiercely that we did not go near them. Most of the humps were full of sheep. They had lambs, because it was Spring. We wondered whether to catch some to eat, but we were not that hungry yet. We had plenty of dried fruit and pickled fish, and there were cows stranded on every hillside. Once we had got used to the way things were, we did not hesitate to milk those cows.
By the fourth evening in that confusing landscape, the mountains we kept seeing in the distance drew in around us, in the form of low, empty-looking hills. They were dark, stony, and infertile. But the island we landed on was grassy and covered with bushes. There little black Sweetheart came running to meet us, purring and mewing. Never have I seen a cat more glad to have human company.
That morning I was woken by melancholy crying. I got up and found the waters covered with white floating birds, and more flying, catching the sun in a way that had me blinking.
“What are these large mournful birds?” I said.
Hern laughed. “Haven’t you seen seagulls before?”
“She may not have done,” Robin said. “They stopped coming to Shelling years ago. They used to come and cover the field when it was plowed, Tanaqui, and Father said they came inland to get away from the Spring storms.”
“But I remember them,” Hern protested. “She’s only a year younger than me.”
“Please, Hern,” said Robin. “I’m much too tired to quarrel about seagulls.”
“They used to come after the floods,” Hern said. “Does that mean the River’s going down, then?” He scrambled to test the height of the water. He tried a different way nearly every day to see if the floods were over, but the tides grew stronger and steeper the nearer we came to the sea and defeated all his methods. That day Hern hung a piece of twine with knots in it from a bush. But the end of it floated instead of sinking, and Sweetheart came along and played with it. Hern roared at her. It was very odd: Hern, of all of us, was the one who was determined that the One should go in his fire at the proper time.
Duck picked Sweetheart up. “Don’t make such a fuss, Hern,” he said. “When the floods go down, it’ll be quite obvious.”
“But we don’t have a bank to measure by!” Hern snarled.
“Then we’ll find out some other way,” said Duck.
“Stop maddening me,” said Hern. “Take that cat away.”
Robin was very quiet as we sailed that morning. I should have noticed she was not well, I know, but I was thinking of other things. The gulls followed us. They made a noise like sharp misery, and I was afraid of them. They watched us with hungry eyes like beads. When they floated on the River, they seemed lighter than was natural. I was not sure they were really birds. There was a new light in the air, bleached and chalky, like bones, or Hern’s eyes when he is angry, and the gulls wheeled about in it. The hills on either side of us were low and rocky, with no trees to speak of, and they seemed to come together in front of us into a bank of mist. The wind hissed over them. The River filled the wide space in between, gray now, and covered with angry shivers in all directions. Where the water met the land, it rose into high waves with white tops. These waves went riding landward, growing taller as they rode, until they were too tall for themselves, whereupon the white top fell over and smashed on the land. Everywhere was crash, crash of falling waves, and the seagulls crying out. I kept looking at Gull to make sure he was safe. I was frightened.
/> Hern and Duck became frightened, too, when we found we were not masters of the boat any longer. None of us understands the mass of contradictory currents in which the water flowed to the sea. Sometimes we were racing forward, sometimes we seemed hardly to move, and then, around midday, we were taken by the tide and borne back toward Sweetheart’s island. We kept the sail up and tried to beat on, but we found we were taken more and more toward the left. After a whole morning we had gone barely two miles.
“I think we’d better keep leftward,” Hern said at last, “and try to land somewhere over there.”
“Oh, yes, do let’s land!” Robin said. She said it so desperately that we all looked at her and saw that she was ill. She was shivering, and her face was an odd color—almost like the lilac flowers in Aunt Zara’s garden. I think we did wrong to bring Robin to the sea.
Hern said, “I’ll land in the first possible place.”
Duck picked up a blanket and wrapped it round Robin. “Would you like the Lady, Robin?” he said. I confess now that I felt jealous at how kind they both were to Robin. I found it hard to be kind to her, and I still do. She looked so ugly, and she kept shivering for no reason. I hope I did not show my feelings. I put the Lady in Robin’s hands, but Robin seemed to forget her, and she dropped to the boards.
“Have the Young One,” said Duck.