The sun slid slowly down the dome of sky and touched the treetops. The five rather lost and confused youths walking along the riverbank cast long shadows ahead of them, shadows that were lost in the shadows of trees more and more often. The forest was not as silent as in midmorning. There were noises; Zack would sometimes jump unexpectedly at a tree and climb it, then follow the river along the treetops for a short stretch and come back down seeming slightly less tense. He wished they could move faster, even though he had no idea where they’d end up; he kept feeling as if he could have outrun Ethan by crawling along on his belly. Scott seemed impatient too; the only thing that kept them from hurrying Ethan was that he had begun to pant slightly with exertion, as though he were hauling a great weight. Several times they were forced to follow the bank of one tributary or another as it joined the original stream, adding depth and width, to find a place to cross. The banks grew wider as well, allowing all five of them to walk on the same bank. To get to the opposite one now required swimming, or at least wading.
All of them were keeping a worried silence partly from their situation — walking the edge of a strange forest with the day failing — but also because they were watching their companions and themselves change, subtly, slowly, but steadily. Zack had acquired a habit of walking on his toes and moved with increasingly feline fluidity, aside from the sparse golden-red fur covering his body on which coin-sized black circles were more evident. Scott’s own pale hair had taken a distinct silvery sheen and spread down to his arms and shoulders; like Zack, he was concerned about the way his fingernails were turning black and sharp. Some time ago he had doffed his moccassins before his toenails poked holes in them; moreover, they were beginning to feel tight as though his feet were, of all things, longer than before. Ethan’s dark, slightly fuzzy bulk was becoming perceptibly stooped over, giving the impression that he would be more comfortable walking on all fours. Colin, his analytical mind unable to produce a reasonable explanation for why all this was happening, nevertheless noticed that his arms were definitely too long, elbows swinging just below his hips and wrists near his ankles, his fingers grown long and slender with patches of thin membrane stretching between them. The most dramatic change went to Alexander: his spiky dark hair had gained distinctly white tips, and like Scott it now covered his shoulders and upper back — but this was obvious because it was growing through his shirt, having poked holes in the fabric. All five of them were determined not to let their fright through unless someone else broke down first, so it speaks well of them that none of them did anything but walk bravely on until Colin’s brows rose, saying, “Listen. A waterfall.”
“Hey, that’s great,” Zack exclaimed. “We might find a place to spend the night there.”
“If we keep following the river we’ll eventually find an ocean, or a really big lake,” Colin added. “But I’m just guessing.”
“We’ll see,” Zack said. “Let’s just get to that waterfall before it gets totally black.”
They continued along the bank. Colin wrapped his too-long, thin arms around himself, slim hands on his shoulders, which kept his fingers from brushing the grass but threw off his walking balance. Before long he began falling behind even more than Ethan. They stopped one more time so Colin could catch up; when he did, Alexander asked him, “What’s the matter?”
“I’m cold and I’m hungry,” he answered, because he was. “And I’ve been walking all day. I’m totally drained.”
“So what do we do?” Zack wondered aloud. “I really think we should sleep at the waterfall, but at this pace we might not get there before dark.” By now he had proper claws; he drew one along the bark of a tall straight tree, thinking. “Scott, you and I could carry him — ”
“I’ll carry him,” Ethan offered. “I’m not too tired. I’ll keep up.”
“Would you?” Colin asked gratefully.
“Sure. Climb on.” Ethan lumbered over to Colin, who climbed up onto Ethan’s back. “You won’t fall off?” Ethan asked him.
“If I do, it’ll be my fault,” Colin answered, but hooked his slender arms around Ethan’s thick neck. “Let’s go.”
They only walked for a quarter hour before the sound of the waterfall was joined by the sight of it; five minutes later they had reached the plateau from which the river dropped seventy meters straight down into a huge bowl-shaped pool. Strangely enough, despite all the water pouring down the cliff, only a thin trickle peeled away from the pool and meandered on through the forest. The forest stretched away below them, the dark green trees almost black from lack of light, the water of the pool a clear dark blue that hid the bottom from sight. Zack crawled agilely out along a tree branch overhanging the cliff, searching for a good place to stop; he decided that a large, smooth clearing at the base of the cliff, where the edge of the pool met the rock face, would be a good place to spend the night. He swung himself down and said, “Let’s climb down; I see a great place down there. Come on.”
He received groans from all sides.
“Oh, come on. I know; I’m tired too, but once we get down you can rest all you want.”
“How am I going to get down?” Scott pleaded. “I can’t stand heights.”
“What if —”
“I’ll carry you down,” Ethan offered. Scott looked anguished. “I know it doesn’t make it any better, but …” Ethan leaned close to Scott and whispered, “Misery loves company, eh? I’m not too thrilled with heights either, but if I can do it, and I will, so can you. Just hang on very, very tight.”
“I’ll go first,” Zack said. “I don’t mind climbing, and once I’m down, I can call up where the handholds are.”
“Assuming there are any,” Scott kibitzed.
“I saw the wall,” Zack reminded him. “It’s sedimentary rock. Very sedimentary. It’s practically a ladder, to me,” he qualified.
“If you insist.” Scott let him go stand by the edge and suppressed a shiver. Zack for his part was wondering how he was going to pull this off: climbing cliffs was nothing like climbing trees, but there was (he supposed) at least a bit of shared theory. Boldly, as if he knew what he was doing, he swung himself over the edge and felt experimentally for footholds.
To his relief, the cliff face did turn out to be, as far as traction went, quite a bit like a ladder. The layers of rock had broken unevenly, creating a rugged surface with plenty of grip. Zack’s climb down was a little jerky, but steady, and he was down in less than ten minutes. From there he called up to the others still on top — and realized the sound of the waterfall was going to drown him out completely. Seventy meters above, Colin realized this as well and thought of something. Several minutes of pantomiming and gesturing followed. In the end Colin turned and said to Ethan, “As you can see, we can’t hear him up here. He tells me that the climb down is as good as a ladder, but it’s long going, so take it easy. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding places to put your feet,” Colin mimed a man hopping from foot to foot while moving downward, “but if you find yourself stuck, look up and I’ll relay where he says to move. How does that sound?”
“Complicated!” Scott replied.
“I agree,” Ethan said, “but it seems functional, so let’s give it a try.”
It took a few more minutes for Scott to work up the nerve to climb onto Ethan’s back. Once he was on, Ethan wasted no time moving on to the cliff edge, moving as steadily as he could manage. To his relief, most of the climb down was straightforward, footholds practically throwing themselves underfoot and changing to comfortably spaced handholds as he passed them. Only once did he have to look up to Colin, who relayed Zack’s instruction to shift his weight just a little farther to the right than he had been, in order to find a foothold. Ethan was panting heavily, his fingers feeling raw, when he heard Zack’s voice below and behind him.
“The wall’s been worn smooth about four meters from the bottom,” he said. “You have about six steps left to go. Step down … step down … step down, stop.” A pause. “Scott, you"ll have to let go. You will fall about four meters straight down. Try to land overbalanced so you fall backward. Ready?”
“No.”
“Scott, let go.” Scott did not let go. “Scott …”
“Scott, let go,” Ethan panted, desperately wanting to get back on solid ground and rest his hands and shoulders. “Please.”
“Scott!” Zack called.
“Scott!” Ethan begged.
It took both Zack and Ethan yelling “SCOTT!! LET! GO!” Zack imperiously and Ethan pleadingly, twice before Scott let go at last. By this time Zack was standing directly underneath Ethan, ready to catch Scott if he toppled forward on landing. But Scott, who had spent all this time steeling himself and not simply ignoring them, did fall backward after what he felt was far too short a drop and did a complete ungainly flip onto his hands and knees, where he theatrically kissed the grass.
“Ethan, just jump down, but not straight down,” Zack instructed. Ethan pushed with his right hand and foot, swinging to about perpendicular, then hopped out away from the cliff face. He landed flat on both feet with a ground-jarring THUMP.
Colin and Alexander were already scaling the rock wall, making good progress. Alexander managed about as well as Zack, perhaps a little more jerkily. Colin took a different tack: with his long arms, he could take hold of a solid handhold, dangle himself down to find a foothold, then hand-over-hand down to find a new handhold about chest level, and so on down. It was not very energy efficient, and he had to stop a couple of times to catch his breath, but he made it down. By this time the hollow was quite dark, the sky above star-dusted black tinged with the barest hint of blue.
By what little light they had, they set about making preparations for a camp, or as much as they could make of one with what the clearing provided. Food turned out to be no problem for all but Zack; Ethan found some berries on a bush at the edge of the clearing, ripe for the picking; there were a few edible plants scattered about the perimeter that he, Scott, and Alexander could eat. Colin ate a berry and nearly spat it out; but it was not a good time to be picky, so he ate them. Zack paced uncomfortably outside the proximity of his friends — for they were already more than acquaintances — and did not partake of their conversation, feeling slightly disgusted each time one of them offered him a berry or a handful of herbs; he had a definite and ravenous craving for meat, the only thing not readily accessible. There were fish in the pool, to be sure; but Zack did not feel like fishing.
Without quite knowing how, Zack found himself in the treetops, leaping lightly from one tree to the next at the bottom of the canopy. He was careful not to lose sight of the clearing, which was not too difficult given the roar of the waterfall. At one point during his search he realized that the waterfall itself, and the pool it fed, actually limned the air with a very faint bluish luminescence, visible from a considerable distance into the forest, where he roamed for a while before his nose found what he was looking for. He returned to the clearing, on the ground, carrying a pair of freshly killed rabbit-like animals by the ears. He flourished them grandly when the other four looked in his direction. Sitting nearby, he set one down and fell to, drawing one claw along the skin of the other with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel, carefully tearing out the meat inside, savoring its taste. He ate the meat raw, without gorging himself, and neatly, licking his claws and newly grown whiskers clean after each small bite. Still, he had only taken a few nibbles before he looked up and saw Alexander watching him, an odd expression on his shadowed face.
“Yes?” Zack queried politely.
“That looks … really sick,” Alexander admitted.
Zack frowned. He tore a small scrap of meat off and held it out to Alexander, gripping it carefully between two claws. “Here, try it.”
Alexander recoiled physically, his face twisting itself into a mask of mixed disgust and horror. Looking smug, Zack popped the piece into his mouth, chewed slowly, and swallowed. Alexander somehow managed to look even more disgusted. Zack commented calmly, “I think eating grass is sick.”
“Hey — ” Alexander began indignantly, and stopped. “Okay. Ah get it,” he sighed.
“Thank you,” Zack replied, and finished half the rabbit without another word. Once he offered to Ethan some of the rabbit and was pleased when he accepted. When Zack was through he used a thin, flexible branch to lash the two carcasses together by the feet and carried them up with him into a tree near the face of the cliff. “If it’s okay with you guys, I’m going to sleep now,” he called down.
“Up there?” Scott asked.
“Yeah, why not?” Zack answered cheerfully. “Anyone else?” He looked down to see Alexander curl himself up into a spiky little package at the foot of his tree. Ethan heaved himself up into another tree, while Colin — after some deliberation — climbed up into Zack’s tree with his help and went to dangle himelf upside-down from a low branch across the trunk from Zack. Zack stretched himself comfortably out on his branch and relaxed.