The Crow Girl blinked, once. Avery, on the other hand, looked bewildered—and alarmed. Unlike Zib, he did not like it when things he thought to be rules were broken.
“How are you here? You should be somewhere else,” he said.
“The road moved,” she said. “I have the lock.”
“Let me see,” said the Crow Girl. Zib solemnly surrendered her prize. The Crow Girl turned it over and over, studying it thoughtfully, before she broke into the biggest, brightest smile either of them had seen from her. “It’s a skeleton lock, all right! We can go right to the protectorate of the Queen of Wands and not have to meet the King of Cups at all. Where did you find it?”
“The Queen of Swords gave it to me if I would promise to stop screaming and leave as quickly as possible,” said Zib.
Avery stared. The Crow Girl beamed.
“Clever, clever, and no mistake of that! Come, come, come.” She started walking toward the nearest tree, lock in hand. “We have to hang it high if it’s to work, but not so high the key can’t reach. Challenge, not impossibility, you see?”
“No,” said Avery. Then: “I thought we were supposed to be afraid of the Queen of Swords.”
“She was very beautiful, and very frightening,” said Zib. “I don’t think I liked her.” But she had almost gone to her all the same, hadn’t she? Another few steps and Zib’s part in the story would have ended. This would have become Avery’s story, and Avery’s alone, the brave little boy who climbed over a wall and found a friend and lost the friend and learned important life lessons before returning home sadder, wiser, and better prepared to become an adult, with adult thoughts and adult concerns. It was an unsettling thought. Even more unsettling was that the shape of it felt true and right and dangerously close, like so many stories had been told that way that this story wanted to be rid of her, to narrow itself to one child, one destination, one destiny.
It wasn’t right or fair, that stories should play favorites like that. Zib decided, then and there, that she would see this one all the way to the end: she wouldn’t be shaken off. No matter what, she wouldn’t let go of what was hers.
The Crow Girl ignored them both as she reached up and hung the lock on a high branch, not so high as to be outside her reach, but very nearly. Then she stepped back, cocking her head this way and that before she reached up and adjusted the angle of the lock, ever so slightly, tilting it toward the brambles.
“There,” she said. “All we have to do now is open it.”
The tree shivered. The tree shook. The tree stretched upward, until the lock was well above any of their heads, placed impossibly high.
Avery gaped at it. “Trees aren’t supposed to move,” he said. “Now no one can reach the lock.”
“I can!” Zib snatched the skeleton key from his hand before he could protest. She ran for the tree, flinging herself into its lowest branches like she trusted them, implicitly, to catch her—and they did, they did, they cradled her close, holding her like she was the most precious thing in this or any other world. Her bare feet found easy purchase on the bark, and her hands traded the key between them, now here, now there, as she grabbed and pulled and climbed higher and higher and higher still, until she was on the branch where the lock hung, silent and closed, until she was inching toward it with the key still in her grasp.
She reached down and slid the key easily into place. Avery held his breath. She turned the key in the lock, and there was a sharp clicking sound, and the hasp fell open, and the lock fell away from the tree, tumbling into the hole that had opened where the ground should have been.
“Here we go!” shouted the Crow Girl. She grabbed hold of Avery, having long since figured out that some things were easier for him, and better, if he had help, and dove into the hole, carrying him with her. He screamed, once, as they plummeted down into the misty depths, and then they were gone.
“Whee!” shouted Zib, and swung herself away from the branch, dangling for a moment before she let go and fell after them.
The hole closed once she was through it. Overhead, the white owl watched, and whatever he thought, he did not say.
EIGHTIN THE HOLE
They fell quickly through what felt like a layer of mist or fog, something cool and clammy that chilled the skin and saturated the clothing, leaving all of them damp and somewhat bedraggled. Avery screamed. Zib shrieked, which is not the same thing at all. The Crow Girl laughed and laughed, a sound that was suspiciously like the cawing of a flock of birds, and kept hold of Avery, who might well have found his way to a bad end if permitted to fall without someone holding on to him.
They were in a tunnel, that much was plain, for their fall brought them periodically into contact with one wall or another, bouncing back and forth like balls in a machine. Finally, their backs settled into a groove that seemed to have been carved for that very purpose, for it was smooth and polished, like a playground slide made of ice or chilled granite. Zib’s hair grabbed at the stone, in its usual, uncivilized manner, until several strands were pulled out and left behind, and the rest of her hair retreated to the safer tangles near her head. Avery howled, slapping the Crow Girl several times in his panic, so that she lost her grip on him and fell away. Almost immediately, Zib’s hand found his in the darkness, and they held each other tightly, not letting go.
Down and
