“It is time for you to depart and I want to make some food for your journey,” she said, smiling at him.
Breister began to protest that he did not want to leave, but Sareth put a finger to his lips, silencing him. “Don’t want to leave!” she exclaimed, giving him a look of mock outrage. “What kind of a father would you be if you were fit, healthy, and fully able to travel, and yet you laid around here like a rug?” she asked, grinning at him. “Why, your Helga might be at the mercy of thugs and thieves! Or she might be wandering lost in the wilderness! What a fool I would be to have such a lazy fellow laying around my house while his daughter perished!” she continued, shaking a spoon at him. “Don’t want to leave, indeed!” she sniffed playfully. “Why, you are commanded to leave. You must go find her! What do you think this is, a resort?” As the big Wood Cow’s nose turned red with a deep blush of embarrassment, Sareth could see that she had succeeded in teasing Breister sufficiently for him to know he could leave without offending her. She put her arm over his shoulder and added, “But you have to promise that when you find Helga, you will bring her back here!”
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” Breister stammered happily, “Yes, ma’am, you can count on it.”
Later that morning, Toshty, Annie, and Breister caught the weekly running-wagon bound for the Drownlands Cutoff. “I have no way of knowing where Helga might be,” he explained, as the three comrades said goodbye and got ready to board. “She could be anywhere. But I can’t believe that Helga would have left me at the river. Either she was forced to leave, in which case I have no idea where she is; or she returned to the riverbank to look for me, and found me and our boat gone.” He looked knowingly at Annie, who could not meet his eyes. “Thus,” he continued, “the only possible lead I have, as opposed to just wandering around in all directions looking for her, is to return to the WooPeace. If she tried to follow me down the river, if she survived—” His voice trailed off and he covered his eyes. “If she survived,” he continued with a thick voice, “she is a Woonyak in the WooPeace. I at least have to see if she is there.” Breister was grief-stricken to think of such a fate befalling his beloved daughter. It was horrible to contemplate.
“That’s why going to Toshty’s cabin is the only thing that makes sense,” he concluded. “The unused entrance to the WooPeace that Toshty says is near his cabin—what he calls the ‘Mountain That Moves But Stands Still’—I’ve seen it from the inside. The WooSheep call it the LuteWoo. I don’t care if it is forbidden to enter the WooPeace there. The fact that folk are afraid even to go near it is actually a good thing in this case. I hope to slip in there without being seen and without having to swim!”
“And no way am I going to leave you two to face WooZan alone,” Annie declared, as she said goodbye to the Abblegurts and climbed onto the running-wagon. Annie reflected on how much she had enjoyed being welcomed into a loving family group. It was something she had never fully enjoyed in her life. It felt good. She looked at Toshty, who was sitting next to her in the running-wagon. “Toshty, do you ever get lonely?...I mean, living all alone and having no family?” she asked.
“My only family is my art,” Toshty replied. “I used to have family, but some are in the WooPeace and others are at the Bottoms. They all act like the others don’t exist. I don’t need a family like that.”
“But Toshty,” Annie continued, “art is not a family. Even if it makes you feel good, I think a family is creatures loving one another and caring for each other.”
Toshty looked kindly at Annie. “You’re right, Annie,” Toshty replied. “A family is an unbroken circle of friends.” He covered the Cougar’s paw with his wing. “We aren’t exactly an unbroken circle, but we are friends, and that’s a place to start.” Annie squeezed his wingtip and they grinned at each other. Breister, seeing this, reached across from where he was sitting and said, “I join myself to this circle, and now there are three.”
The friends smiled broadly at one another. “Family is an unbroken circle of friends,” Toshty said softly. “So even folks without family can be family!” Tears filled his eyes. “Even a crazy old Owl, with mixed up relations who hate each other can have a family...Thank you, friends. That is a wonderful thought.”
Stupid Frog Shallows
As the running wagon began its journey to the Drownlands Cutoff, Breister reflected that this very running wagon had played a role in bringing Helga back to O’Fallon’s Bluff three years before. After seven years apart, they had been reunited. Replaying in his mind the story Helga had told so often, gave Breister hope that perhaps once again this running wagon might play a role in reuniting him with his daughter...