“Second, the cavern is said to sparkle. The problem is that though all rocks reflect light, not all of them sparkle when light shines on them. Since opals are in the nonsparkling group, how could a cavern full of them sparkle? Something else in the cave must respond to light with that kind of brilliancy, but not one of the stories bothered to explain the phenomenon.”

  Mindik shook his head at such a widespread inattention to detail.

  Lacht opened her mouth, but the lecturer wasn’t finished.

  “The stories might have agreed on those two points, but they contradicted each other on everything else. Some said the cavern’s huge; some said it’s tiny. It sits at the top of a mountain or down at the base. It’s full of polished rocks or semi-rough ones, and either Keshua created the cave that way or some craftsman put it together. Sunlight pours into it or you have to take a lantern to—”

  Mindik would have happily continued on and on with his favorite topic but Lacht interrupted him. “I know. I’ve heard the stories too.”

  “Yes,” her guest responded, staring vaguely at her as if she were a bug that had flown in through the window.

  Lacht corrected herself. No. He would be more interested in a bug.

  At least she’d succeeded in stopping the unending flow of words.

  Mindik summed up, “Storytellers agree with the old written accounts on two points. The Opal Cavern is full of color, and light makes it sparkle. I have got to find it!”

  “Yes, but what did you find in the archives that would direct you to Rosehip Mountain?” a voice from behind Lacht asked, repeating her initial question.

  Lacht started, spilling her tea on the floor this time. She hadn’t noticed Ploddin entering the cottage, though her husband was leaning against the counter as if he had been there several minutes.

  “And why haven’t you told us about Rosehip before now?” another voice scolded reproachfully from the other side of the room.

  This time when Lacht jumped, she didn’t have anything left to spill.

  When did Chera come back?

  The two men entering the cottage didn’t startle Mindik. Once he had focused his mind on the Opal Cavern, very little else mattered.

  “This morning, I was studying my notes from an old explorer’s journal. He said, ‘On the pink tooth’s gum it was, all glittering colors. There ain’t nothing to compare it to. Nothing at all.’” He paused, overwhelmed by his desire to see the beautiful place.

  “What does he mean by ‘the pink tooth’s gum’?” asked Curl, who had listened in unusual quiet to the lecture. She wrinkled her nose with distaste.

  Mindik explained, “One person called the mountain Rosehip because its peak was more round than other peaks and reminded him of the hip of a rose. Rosehips are round, aren’t they?” he asked to verify his facts.

  “Yes,” Lacht and Curl answered at the same time, though Curl spoke louder and with a marked air of authority.

  Mindik grinned. He knew Lacht had taught Curl how to garden over the past few years. He also knew the Wassandra girl considered herself an expert on the subject.

  Curl batted her lashes at him and copied his lecture style. “A hip is the fruit of a rose, forming under the bloom and containing the flower’s seeds. It is edible. That means it can be eaten,” she elaborated with an insulting glance at Chera.

  Mindik grinned again, but Chera just shrugged in an elegant “who cares” statement.

  “Most of the time the hip of a rose is quite round. However, it isn’t pink, and it doesn’t look anything like a mountain peak,” Curl added critically but Mindik had a ready answer for her.

  “I suspect that whoever gave the mountain its name saw the peak at sunset when everything became a rosy pink. It needn’t have been perfectly round to have reminded him of a rosehip. However, another person may have looked at the same thing and seen a different picture,”

  “A tooth rising out of a gum,” Ploddin said, getting his point. “Gums are sort of pink so—”

  “Ugh!” Curl commented loudly.

  Mindik told her, “You don’t have to like the old explorer’s description. All that matters is that he’s directed us where to go. We should leave right away. Rosehip is one of the highest of the Stalli Mountains, with permanent snow on the rosehip— or the tooth. We should take advantage of summer’s easier conditions.”

  Curl squealed with excitement, and even Chera nodded enthusiastically. “We need to contact the Stalli Mountain horses. They’ll take us to the snowline on Rosehip, but we’ll have to walk from there.”

  “I’ve made a list of the equipment we’ll need. We have to prepare not only for walking in the snow but living in it,” his older brother announced, delving into the pile of papers on the table.

  Curl ran up on one side of him, while Chera went to the other.

  Ploddin and Lacht stayed back. Lacht was slowly wiping up her spilled tea. Chuckling at the excited threesome, Ploddin turned to include his wife in his smile and noticed her tense expression.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked in a low voice.

  “I don’t feel good about Curl’s going. She ought not to go,” she whispered.

  Ploddin put an arm around her shoulders. “Ten years ago, you rescued a nine-year-old girl trapped in a panotka cave. Now you find it hard to let her grow up, but think how restless she’s been lately. This trip might settle her down. It’s no wade through the shallows to navigate a high Stall! Mountain, even in the summer.”

  Lacht’s lips twitched briefly and she leaned against him. “Maybe you’re right. Where’s Winkin?”

  “With his grandparents. Frenne and Winnel said they appreciated our letting Mindik and Chera stay here, but they want everyone to come to their place for supper. They say the maps in this cottage don’t leave room for food.”

  “They’re right. Let’s get these people moving,” Lacht said.

  Wrenching attention away from maps was difficult, but finally they herded Mindik, Chera, and Curl out the door and down the street. Lacht hung back to walk with her husband. Ploddin didn’t limp noticeably anymore, but he couldn’t walk fast.

  “Catch up with the others, if you want,. I don’t mind,” he told her cheerfully.

  “I’d rather stay with you. They’re too noisy,” she answered with careful casualness.

  He studied her. “You’re still worried.”

  “Will you quit peering into my mind? A nice quiet walk is what I need,” she said, trying not to snap with limited success.

  Ploddin quit talking, but he could see the lines on her forehead.

  Worry lines, he thought but didn’t say anything.

  Two

  They’re Off

  Two big pots covered the top of Frenne’s stove. Chicken smothered with gravy bubbled in one of them, while green beans crusted over with toasted walnuts and onions stayed warm in the other. A bowl of ripe strawberries sat in the middle of the table. On one side of the bowl was a platter of hot biscuits, flanked by butter and strawberry jam. On the other side was an enormous apple pie warm from the oven.

  Good smells were everywhere—too much so, Lacht thought, rubbing her stomach, which felt queasy. She moved to open the windows, but they were already open.

  Did I eat lunch? she wondered and was suddenly starving. Nevertheless, she made herself limit how much she took. Too many company meals had already made her waistline widen. At least her face didn’t feel tense anymore, even if all it wanted to do now was droop.

  She had just learned that her sister’s family couldn’t join them. Two of Irsht’s children were sick.

  “Someone’s always sick in that family,” Lacht grumbled.

  “With five young children, what can you expect?” her mother pointed out.

  Lacht’s face drooped further. She and Ploddin had wanted a big family too, but it had been six years before Winkin arrived, and there hadn’t been any other children. Maybe Wet Ones could only have one child. At least Winkin was a Wet One too. They could go as a family into Wasso Lake to visit their Wassandra friends.

  The group gathered in the cottage couldn’t all fit around the kitchen table. They crowded into the sitting room, bringing in extra chairs and holding plates in their laps. Lacht sat in a comer as far away from the noise as she could get.

  Ploddin’s brother, Crispin, on the other hand, settled in the middle of things on the sitting room sofa. When Curl brought her plate into the room, she perched on the arm of the sofa next to the handsome Stalli man.

  “Have you heard about our trip?” she asked.

  He assured her, “Not enough. Tell me about it.”

  A groan tried to escape Lacht’s throat, but she stifled it successfully enough that one barely audible moan was all that squeezed out. When Ploddin immediately glanced her way, she glared at him. He needn’t react to every single sound she made. Her husband looked away quickly and Lacht squirmed in her chair. She even thought about smiling an apology, but Curl had started talking about gathering supplies. Lacht didn’t think she could smile with that kind of talk going on.

  “You sound as if your trip will take a long time. How have your parents reacted?” Crispin asked his Wassandra friend.

  “Nobody in Wasso Lake has the slightest interest in traveling but me. I can’t understand it,” she confided, making Lacht brighten.

  “Won’t they let you go then?”

  One light-brown eyebrow lifted, and two golden eyes lost their normal warmth. “I am nineteen. I can make my own decisions.”

  “Yes, well, the last time you ran off, you got into a lot of trouble,” Lacht reminded her, the words darting out of her mouth, though she knew Curl wouldn’t appreciate them.

  The young woman responded sharply. “You’re right. Ten years ago, I ran away without telling anyone and got into a lot of trouble. I learned my lesson. As soon as I heard of Mindik’s exploration plans, I told my parents about them. No one can say I’m running away this time. I’m not running away; I’m planning a trip.”

  Everyone in the room nodded agreement. Lacht nodded with them. Curl was right, of course. She was old enough to make her own decisions, and she had joined the exploration team perfectly openly.

  Without warning something heavier than a groan entered Lacht’s throat, threatening to choke her.

  “I don’t feel good about your going. I wish you wouldn’t,” she blurted out.

  A whole roomful of eyebrows lifted this time, and Lacht deliberately avoided looking at Ploddin. If he wore a sympathetic expression, she knew she would throw whatever was left of her food at him.

  Curl put her plate down on a side table. Then she crossed the room and knelt in front of Lacht. “You are my closest Stalli friend.”

  “Hey,” Crispin complained, and the Wassandra girl revised her statement.

  “You are my closest female Stalli friend,” she stated with a toss of her head and a flirtatious flutter of her lashes toward the sofa. The face that turned back toward the comer of the room, however, was serious. “I love you, Lacht.”

  Lacht swallowed hard, remembering a nine-year-old girl trapped in a golden pond who had said the same thing. “I love you too. Curl,” she whispered, repeating her own words of ten years ago.

  “I’ve always wanted to see other parts of Tarth. Can’t you understand that?” Curl asked.

  Lacht could understand perfectly well the desire to travel. It was just that she didn’t want Curl to have it. That heavy something rose once more in her throat, but this time she squelched it with more success.

  “I’m sorry. I hope you have a really great trip,” she managed to say.

  The brown flecks in the eyes in front of her began hopping sideways. “Why don’t you go with us?” the young woman suggested.

  Ploddin snorted and Lacht forced a smile.

  Crispin couldn’t stand to be left out of a conversation. “I would volunteer if you were going to the Root Forest. Those huge leaves are spectacular, and it’s always warm there. I don’t like the idea of living in a high mountain altitude for the next few months, however. It means skipping summer.”

  “Oh but it will be exciting,” squealed Curl, standing and throwing out her long expressive arms. “We’ll visit villages I’ve never seen on the trip to Rosehip Mountain, and then we’ll make camp in deep mounds of green snow, and after that we’ll find one of the wonders of Tarth—the Opal Cavern.”

  Everyone in the room laughed and had a comment to make. Lacht watched Curl spin gracefully about as she responded to each of them. She had certainly grown into a beautiful woman. Nobody objected now to the Wassandra people’s unusually long arms and fingers. In fact several of the young men in Burkin Village softened into mush, as Ploddin put it, whenever Curl’s lashes fluttered in their direction.

  When Crispin laughed loudly, Lacht gazed thoughtfully at him. If he were younger, he and Curl might have made a match. Both of them loved people and parties and traveling.

  Why hasn’t Crispin married? Will he ever marry?

  Lacht and Ploddin left the dinner party well ahead of Mindik and Chera, who wouldn’t go to bed for hours yet. Under a sky filled with twirling Tarth nightlights, Lacht asked Ploddin her questions.

  He chuckled over the top of his son’s sleeping head and admitted, “I don’t know. Crispin’s older than I am and better looking. He has settled down more than I would have thought possible at one time. His carpentry work is in high demand, but a wife and family—I can’t imagine it.”

  Lacht pointed out, “He loves children—and he certainly enjoys the company of women. What about Camela?”

  She didn’t know why Camela had popped into her mind. The healer was Crispin’s age and unmarried. That had to be the reason.

  Even in the dark, she could see Ploddin’s head shake.

  “How can you think such a thing! Camela is a sensible steady woman. She’s one of the best healers in Stalli. People come from all over the mountain range to get her advice. I can’t think of anything less likely than Crispin and Camela together.”

  “Well, I can,” disagreed Lacht, whose mood had taken a sudden downswing. “And I’ll tell you something else you’re wrong about,” she continued in an irritable rush that was very unlike her.

  Her husband agreed gingerly, “All right. What is it?”

  “Crispin is not better looking than you,” she informed him, storming ahead into their cottage.

  Ploddin grinned. He didn’t think he would argue that one.

  R

  Burkin Village worked hard over the next two weeks. Most people found themselves involved in getting the expedition underway, a few to their great surprise.

  Now that he had decided where to go, Mindik didn’t want to take the time to return to his own village. He wanted to leave right away, and that meant enlisting the help of the village he was visiting. Why not? His exploration was for everyone in Stalli, really everyone in Tarth. Burkin Village should feel honored.

  Some of the honored inhabitants of Burkin Village went to work filling bags with lumps of coal—sacks of lump, as Curl disdainfully called them. The Wassandra had never had to rely on coal for heat— wood either, for that matter, but Curl preferred fires made out of wood because they crackled pleasantly and made picturesque flames.

  Mindik ignored her comments. He didn’t want to rely on wood since his team would have to carry the wood from the tree line, well below where he planned for them to live. No, they needed coal to keep them warm, and they needed plenty of it.

  Another group of villagers filled bags with dried food. This was Mindik’s idea again, backed by much the same reasoning. He didn’t want his team to take the time to hunt or fish.

  He explained his reasoning to Chera, who didn’t like this part of the plan. “We’ll eat meat, vegetables, and fruit. They’ll simply come dried, no big difference.”

  Chera groaned loudly in response, but Mindik ignored him too. He was the leader of this expedition after all, not his little brother.

  In the midst of the chaotic bustle, someone had to prepare Curl for a prolonged stay in freezing temperatures. As a Wassandra, she’d lived her whole life in a fixed climate under Wasso Lake. She didn’t have boots, sweaters, mittens, scarves, hats, or an extreme weather coat.

  Burkin villagers were able to supply the cold weather items, but it was Ploddin and Crispin’s sister, Meddy, who found herself ripping the hem out of an old pair of winter leggings and adding wide swaths of material to make them long enough. Curl, who stood fully as tall as Mindik or Chera, needed the extra length.

  “Remind me, how did I get involved in this?” Meddy dryly asked Lacht and Curl one morning

  “It’s your name,” Curl answered before Lacht had time to say anything.

  “My name,” echoed Meddy blankly.

  “Yes! Leave out the ‘m’ and what do you have? ‘Eddy,’” the girl said, brown flecks hopping sideways in her eyes.

  Meddy and Lacht both looked blank now.

  Curl explained as if talking to infants, “You could easily be Wassandra because your name has to do with water. Of course Eddy has two syllables, and we don’t use names with two syllables as a rule; however, an exception could be made.”

  “But ‘Curl’ doesn’t have to do with water,” Meddy objected.

  Curl looked at her with pronounced pity and talked slowly, obviously hoping that would help these older women grasp the meaning behind her words.

  “Haven’t you ever watched the mists swirl and curl above Wasso Lake? Mists are made out of water, you see, so that’s why ‘Curl’ is acceptable. It has a double meaning. Wassandra love double meanings.”

  She sighed. “My name is very common. I’ve always hated it. Maybe I could talk my parents into changing it to ‘Eddy.’ With you to back me up—”

  “I have sewing to do,” Meddy told her and stared pointedly at the door.