Nineteen

"What are you talking about?" Edeline said. "We're right where we were."
"No, we're not," Ember replied, getting up to her feet, "Look around. It does look the same, at least the parts we can see, but come over here and I'll show you."
Ember dashed off down the path back the way they had come, and skidding to a halt some fifty feet on, she shouted "Aha!" and pointed out off in the distance.
"We're up by the caves, do you see?"
Edeline caught up to Ember and couldn't believe her own eyes. Yes, the path they were on, looking back, seemed the same, but the view from where they stood now was completely different from what it had been just a short time before. She could still see the lake, but from the wrong side. They were also much higher above it.
"How does this happen?" she stammered. "It just isn't possible."
"Not possible, eh?" Ember chuckled. "It happens, though, yes, it does happen. The men, by the way, are still over there."
She gestured toward the far side of the lake.
"I can see Baudry now in the map. They stopped where they were, probably looking for us. Neither of them have the sight so they'll never know."
"How long will it take to get back to them?" Edeline asked.
"That depends on whether we want to," Ember said slyly.
"We're supposed to all work together," Edeline reminded her.
"Who knows what the old lady meant," Ember shrugged. "All I know is I'm sick of that boy. I don't mind a day off without him."
"How long?" Edeline repeated her answer.
"If you're thinking of going alone," Ember said, "be my guest. Of course you'll get lost. You won't have any idea where you are."
"Am I anywhere, really?" Edeline shuddered. "What does it matter? I want to go home. You're walking along and the whole world changes? One moment you're here and the next you are not? I don't know how it can be."
"It's all in the mind," Ember said thoughtfully. "Something that's just in the brain. At least that's what most people think. Perceptions. We see things and then we believe in them. Like right now. We walked through a web, that's what I think, some kind of teleportation. Invisible. Can't smell it or feel it. It's like when you're walking and you keep your eyes closed, and then when you open them you see that you've moved. The only thing different is time. We were walking and our eyes weren't closed but we took some kind of a shortcut without knowing it. They've rigged the whole place up like that."
Edeline gritted her teeth, and said,
"There just isn't anything like that. Nobody knows how to do it. If they did, do you think they would just do it here? They'd make money on it. You'd see teleportation stations everywhere. They wouldn't still drive around in cars. Okay? Do you see you're not making sense? You've been trapped here too long, that's what I think!"
"Oh, you do, huh? Now you're an expert? Three days and now you know everything!"
Ember stomped off, leaving Edeline behind. Edeline looked over where Baudry and Barque were supposed to be now. Ember was not heading that way. For a long moment, Edeline was tempted to go on her own, but she wasn't ready yet. She hurried after Ember, but Ember had taken off running and it was hard to keep up. Edeline kept catching glimpses of her as she ran along the edge of the hill, streaking past large boulders and pines, stumbling now and then on loose gravel. Ember was keeping a strict distance between them. Edeline guessed it from the way the girl slowed whenever she came close to falling, and sped up as she recovered her footing. Edeline resented this game, but also she felt she deserved it, at least for a time. She was tiring, though. She was not used to running, and as she rounded an especially large rock she stopped to lean up against it. Suddenly, a giant man leaped onto the path in front of her, his face dripping blood. He was waving his arms in the air and shouting some noise very loudly. Edeline fainted.
When she opened her eyes moments later, she found she was lying on the ground staring up at the face of the giant. Ember was standing beside him.
"Is she hurt?" the giant was asking in a soft, quiet voice.
"She'll be fine," Ember was shaking her head and rolling her eyes.
"You okay?" she added, to Edeline.
"Who is that?" Edeline wanted to know as she inspected her body for damage. There was blood on her hands and she stared at it.
"It's just paint," Ember informed her. "They do that around here."
"Paint?" Edeline didn't believe her. She struggled to sit up, refusing the huge paw that the giant reached down to offer.
"This is Ralph," Ember told her. "Ralph? Edeline."
"Please to meet you," said Ralph.
"Likewise, I'm sure," Edeline murmured. She got to her feet and wiped her hands off on the ivy, which soaked it all into its stems, and didn't change color at all.
"Ralph is a Face Painter," Ember related.
"No, really?" Edeline snapped.
"I'd invite you into my cave," Ralph said, "but I'm afraid that it's not allowed."
"Their very particular," Ember translated.
"Because of the nest," Ralph continued.
"What nest?" Edeline asked.
"I can't tell you," he said. "I'm sorry. Truly, I am."
"Right," Edeline sighed. "Well, goodbye then, I guess," and she started to walk in the direction they'd been going before.
"Hold on there," Ember called after her. "You can't go like that. You have to make it up to him now."
Edeline stopped in her tracks, and turning around, she said through clenched teeth,
"Make it up to HIM? Make WHAT up to him? I swear, you people don't make any sense."
"You frightened him," Ember s told her. "Can't you see that? The poor man is suffering now. He's terrified, he's worried, and on top of all that, there's this nest thing going on too."
"Do you even have any idea what you're saying?" Edeline wanted to know. "I think you're just messing with me. You're just playing one of your games. Well, I've had enough for one day. Changing places. Running away. Face Painters popping up out of nowhere! Stupid incomprehensible nests!"
Edeline threw up her hands and walked off. She really had had enough. She was going to go back down this hill, back to the lake, find that man Gowdy and ask for directions. He seemed like a decent sort, unlike this Ralph thing. She hadn't gone very far, however, when Ember caught up to her, and blocked the path.
"Let me go," Edeline barked, trying to get past her. She almost said something insulting about people of certain sizes and ages, but gritted her teeth, remembering that Ember had treated her decently up until now.
"Look, it won't take a minute," Ember said. "And it's easy. All you have to do is go where he tells you and do what he asks."
"Are you serious?" Edeline could scarcely believe it. "And what is you think he's going to ask?"
"Nothing bad," Ember said, tossing her curls. "Trust me. I know."
Edeline took a deep breath. The thing seemed important to Ember somehow, and if she was right, if it was easy and wouldn't take long and then they could be on their way.
"Oh, okay," she relented, and they turned back to where Ralph remained, standing, half bent, as if still concentrating on where Edeline had fallen.
"Here I am," Edeline announced. "Now what?"
"Would you come see my cave?" Ralph was pleading. His big eyes looked sad behind the dripping red paint.
"Sure, but I thought that it wasn't allowed," Edeline said.
"Now allowed to go in," Ralph corrected her. "But you can see."
"All right then," she held out her hand. "Lead the way."
Ralph turned, but not toward the path. Instead, he lumbered straight up the hill behind the huge boulder. He scrambled up on hands and knees, and Ember and Edeline followed. The hillside was steep and covered in patches of brambles with small thorns that scratched and tore Edeline's skin in small stripes. The cuts healed quickly, however, and didn't hurt much. Rather, they tickled, and she had to keep herself from giggling, while at the same time panting and beginning to sweat. After what seemed like much more than "a minute", they came to rest on a narrow ledge formed of loose yellow rock that seemed extremely precarious. Above them the hill went up even steeper, impossibly so, it seemed to Edeline, nearly ninety degrees going straight up, like a cliff. There was no way they could possibly scale it.
"Now what?" Edeline asked. The three of them stood on the ledge looking out over the valley. The view was magnificent, she had to admit. It seemed they could see the whole forest from there. Below lay the shimmering lake, and beyond it the trees went to stretch on forever. To her right, Edeline saw more hills and valleys, and to the left an endless descent.
"This is my cave," Ralph said, turning around. Edeline looked, but didn't see anything cavelike.
"Where?" she asked, puzzled.
"Right here," he replied, and stuck his finger into a hole in the side of a slab. The hole was only as deep as his fingernail.
"That's a cave?" Ember too was bewildered.
"No one could fit into that," Edeline muttered. "Even if they were 'allowed' to."
"See the nest?" Ralph went on.
"No," Ember said.
"No," Edeline agreed.
"Ralph heaved a big sigh.
"That's the problem," he admitted., "Nobody sees it but me."
"Wait," Edeline said, "Let me have another look. Could you move over?"
"Okay," Ralph said, getting his hopes up. He stepped aside and Edeline gingerly made her way over to where he'd been standing, praying she didn't fall of the ledge and roll straight down that brambly hillside. When she got there, she stuck her left eye right up to the hole in the rock and studied the darkness closely.
"I see something blue," she said softly.
"Yes!" Ralph leaped up with excitement and when he landed the ledge crumbled a bit. For a moment he teetered and Edeline thought he might slip, but he didn't.
"Kind of a diamond-shape," Edeline continued.
"You see it," Ralph breathed, "You really do see it."
"I do," Edeline had to admit, and she wasn't making it up. There in the deepest recess of the crack, she did see a blue diamond shape. She wouldn't have called it a 'nest', but if that's what he wanted, well, hadn't she gone where he told her and done what he asked?
"Thank you," Ralph said. "Thank you so much. Now we go down."
He turned, and using his toes and his fingers like claws, he made his way backward the way they had come. Edeline and Ember did likewise. When they reached the path once again, Ralph bowed several times, thanking Edeline over and over again, until finally they made their escape.