For a while, the river was smooth. Except for the occasional bump of dream debris coll iding with the raft, we slid through the water with hardly a ripple. More strange objects f loated by us: love letters and wristwatches, stuffed animals and limp ball oons. Once, Puck reached down and snatched up a faded copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, grinned like an idiot and tossed it back into the river.
How long we f loated down the river, I didn’t know. The night sky, both above and around us, never lightened. The Wolf lay down, put his head on his enormous paws and dozed. Puck and Ariel a spoke quietly in the center of the raft, catching up on many years of separation. They sounded at ease with each other, comfortable and content, and Ariel a’s laughter f loated up occasionally, something I hadn’t heard in a long, long time. It made me smile, but I didn’t join them in reminiscing. Things were still shaky between Puck and me; I knew the dark, lingering memories of the hollow had pushed both of us to the edge that night, and we had, temporarily, put it behind us again, but I didn’t trust myself just yet. Besides, I was lost in my own thoughts. Ariel a’s previous question had reminded me of the girl I was doing this for. I wondered where she was, what she was doing at that very moment. I wondered if she thought of me, too.
“Prince.” Grimalkin’s voice suddenly drifted up from near my feet. I looked down at the cait sith, standing beside me. “I suggest we stop for a bit,” he said, waving his tail to keep his balance as the raft bobbed up and down in the current. “I am weary of sitting in one place, and I am not the only one.” He nodded to where Ariel a and Puck sat together on the planks. Ariel a was slumped against Puck’s shoulder, dozing quietly. I felt a tiny twinge of anger, seeing them like that, but Puck glanced back at me, offered a tiny, rueful shrug, and I squashed it down. It was ridiculous to be jealous, to feel anything. That part of my life was gone. I might regret it, I might wish it were different, but I could not bring it back. I’d known that for a long time.
100/387
I steered the raft to the bank, toward a sandy bar beneath ancient, moss-covered trees. As Puck and I pulled it to shore, Ariel a woke, gazing around blearily.
“Where—”
“Relax, Ari. We’re just stopping for a bit.” Puck released the boat and stretched, raising long limbs over his head. “You know, it’s always rafts and skinny little pole boats that you have to suffer through on these types of trips. Why can’t we travel to the End of the World in a yacht?” The Wolf leaped off the raft and stretched, baring his fangs in an enormous yawn. Shaking water from his fur, he looked around at the enormous trees and panted a grin. “I’m off to hunt,” he stated simply.
“It shouldn’t take long.” He glanced back at me, wrinkling his long muzzle. “I’d advise you not to venture into the forest, little prince.
You’re in the Deep Wyld now, and I’d hate to come back to find you all eaten. Well, except for the cat. He can get himself eaten anytime he wants.” With that, he turned and bounded off, his black form merging with the shadows.
A few seconds later, we realized Grimalkin had also vanished. He’d probably slipped away into the forest as soon as the boat had touched ground, with no explanation and no hint to when he’d return. That left the three of us, alone.
“You know, we could just leave them,” Puck suggested, grinning to show he wasn’t completely serious. “What? Don’t give me that look, Ari.
Wolfman is probably right at home, and we couldn’t get rid of Furbal even if we wanted to. We’d be halfway to the End of the World and find him sleeping at the bottom of the boat.” 101/387
Ariel a continued to frown disapprovingly, and Puck threw up his hands. “Fine. Guess we’re stuck here until their furry highnesses deign to show up again.” He eyed each of us in turn, then sighed. “Right, then. Camp. Food. Fire. I’ll get right on that.” Not long after, a cheerful fire crackled in a shallow pit, trying valiantly to throw back the darkness, failing to do so. The shadows seemed thicker near the River of Dreams, as if Night itself had taken offense to the f lickering campfire and was crowding the edges of the light, seeking to swallow it whole. Light was an intruder here, much as we were.
Ariel a sat cross-legged in the sand, idly poking the fire with a stick, while Puck and I attended to the business of finding food. Puck had somehow fashioned a pole from glamour, a stick, and a tangle of string from his pocket, but fishing in the River of Dreams was proving to be a strange and frustrating affair. He managed to pull a couple fish out of the river early, but they were odd, unnatural things: long and black like eels, with oversize teeth that snapped at us when we tried to handle them and bit through the sticks we tried to spear them with.