River of Secrets Page 6

  It would be a lovely moment for a post-feast nap. But she had no plans to nap.

  It didn’t take very long before she heard Plum’s breathing slow and change into soft, contented snoring.

  Rain waited another few breaths, then stood up, shaking off the sleepy warmth.

  You’ll be all right, she thought, looking down at Plum. You’re a resourceful panda. I hope you find your real family soon. I hope you understand why I had to do this.

  Very quietly, Rain snuffled around until she found some leftover bamboo, and made a neat little pile beside Plum. She wasn’t sure if it was an apology or a thank-you.

  Then she walked away.

  She didn’t know exactly where she was going, but if she kept heading downhill, eventually she would have to find the river, and then she could find a way across it, and then . . .

  Then I face Sunset.

  The worry she’d felt on the mountain returned, squeezing her in its jaws. What’s happened to Mother? What about Pebble, and Maple? Has Sunset hurt them? They must think I’m dead. What about his plan, whatever it is, and what about his deal with Brawnshanks and the other monkeys?

  Anything could have happened. She picked up the pace, clambering over rocks and sliding down slopes that Plum would have had to go around.

  I’m coming home. I just hope I’m not too late.

  Chapter Seven

  GHOST HELD AS STILL as he could, trying not to even breathe hard in case he rustled the grass in front of his nose. Beside him, Shiver crouched, every muscle in her small body tense.

  Over her shoulder there was a flash of bright red and gold: a bird that Ghost had been told was called a pheasant, pecking in the undergrowth at the base of a tree trunk. Shiver took a quiet step forward, and then another, closing the distance between them, her whiskers twitching as she tasted the air. Ghost knew she was making sure they were still downwind of the creature—up on the mountains, the wind blew clear across the snowy slopes and changed direction only every so often, but here in the forest you could never tell when a gust would bounce off a rock or swirl around a tree and give your position away.

  Shiver’s back swayed from side to side as she prepared to spring, judging the distance, shifting her balance . . . and then she leaped, silent and strong, and her large paws found the sides of the bird and bore it to the ground. It struggled and screeched, flapping its long wings in Shiver’s face. She recoiled, but tried to keep her paws on the bird—and one of them slipped off.

  “Ghost!” she yowled. Ghost burst from his hiding place, thudded across the grass to her side, and used his front paws to grip the bird tight. Then he bent and took the bird’s neck in his teeth and bit down hard. The creature stopped moving immediately.

  He licked his muzzle, tasting the bird’s blood. It was strange—he still remembered when that taste had meant it was time to eat, when it had made his stomach rumble and his mouth water, but now he felt no particular draw to share Shiver’s catch. He sat back on his haunches as Shiver looked up at him with her tail twitching happily.

  “We’re still a good team,” she said.

  “You did all the hard work,” Ghost told her. “Your stalking’s getting better and better, and your leaps are more accurate too. You’ll be as good as Mother soon. . . .”

  They both fell silent and still for a moment. The memory of Winter’s fall crept up on Ghost again, but he tried to push it away and think of her hunting instead: the way she always outsmarted her prey, the power in her strides as she pounced.

  Shiver’s ears twitched, and she pawed at the ground. Then she looked up and smiled, blinking at Ghost. “Well, maybe not that good—but thank you.”

  She put a paw on her prey and shut her eyes.

  “We thank the Snow Cat,” she said, “for giving us this prey. May you leave your paw prints in the snow, that we may follow them.”

  Ghost bowed his head respectfully, but he couldn’t help wondering if Shiver should have asked the Snow Cat to leave its prints in the mud instead. Could the Snow Cat even find them down here?

  “Do you want some?” Shiver asked him. He shook his head. Shiver’s tail twitched excitedly again. “All right. More for me!” she mewed, and bent her head to start biting into the pheasant.

  “I’ll see you later,” Ghost said. He looked up at the sky, trying to find the position of the sun. “I think it might be feast time again—I’m going to go and see.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Shiver said through a mouthful of brightly colored feathers. Ghost chuckled and turned to go. He sort of wished that Shiver could come to the feast with him, but he guessed that the other pandas wouldn’t want to watch her eat her prey. And anyway, even though prey was plentiful and competitors were few here, Shiver would probably stick to the routine they’d learned in the mountains: guard your prey, and eat a little at a time over the course of days, to make it last as long as possible. It seemed like being a panda was the complete opposite—they ate as much as they could, but only at certain times. . . .

  Sure enough, when he arrived in the feast clearing, he found it full of pandas happily munching on bamboo canes and chatting to each other. Sunset waved to him, and he waved back a little awkwardly. He had eaten some bamboo not long ago, by himself—was it okay to join a feast if you weren’t that hungry? Maybe he should go away and try to be in time for the next one. . . .

  “Hello, Ghost,” said the female panda called Peony. “Why don’t you join us?”

  Ghost walked over and awkwardly sat down next to her. He liked her, but she was sitting with Blossom, who hadn’t warmed up to him even a little since their clash over the bamboo den.

  Peony pushed a cane toward Ghost, and he smiled nervously.

  “I, um . . . I ate a little while ago,” he said.

  “At the Feast of High Sun?” Peony asked. “This is the Feast of Long Light; you can have some more.”

  “No . . . in between,” Ghost said. “I’m still learning when the feasts are. I’m sorry,” he added quickly. “In the mountains we had to eat whenever we had the chance.”

  “Sounds like a terrible way to live,” said Blossom, rolling her eyes.

  “Why don’t you practice saying the blessing?” Peony urged. “You can just take a mouthful.”

  “All right,” Ghost said. He picked a pawful of leaves from the cane. Eating them wouldn’t exactly be a hardship; they still smelled so delicious. He held them in front of him, and began the blessing. “We thank the Snow Cat for giving us this—oh.” He felt the fur on his neck prickle with embarrassment as he realized his mistake. The pandas all around were staring at him.

  “Great Dragon,” Peony prompted kindly.

  “Great Dragon,” Ghost repeated. He searched his memory for what came next, but his heart was beating fast and he couldn’t seem to find the words.

  “Humble pandas . . . ,” whispered young Frog, climbing up beside him.

  “Right! At the Feast of Long Light, your humble pandas bow before you. Thank you for the gift of the bamboo, and the . . . uh . . .” Oh, Snow Cat, what was the virtue for Long Light? Was it bravery? Maybe cleverness?

  “Endurance,” said Peony.

  “The endurance you bestow upon us,” Ghost said in a rush, and then stuffed the leaves into his mouth, just relieved to have made it to the end of the blessing at last.

  Several of the assembled pandas nodded at him in satisfaction, but a few gave each other significant glances and shook their heads.

  “What is this Snow Cat?” Blossom said. “Sounds like a rival to the Great Dragon to me. Did you mean to insult the Dragon, white cub?”

  “Wha—No!” Ghost swallowed quickly. “No, not at all. It’s just what Mother—what the leopards used to say.”

  Even as he said this, though, he felt a little stab of regret.

  The Snow Cat is real. I saw its paw prints in the snow. I shouldn’t pretend it’s just something Winter invented. . . .

  “Wait,” Blossom said, peering closely at Ghost. “Is that blood on your muzzle?” She reeled back in dramatic disgust, and all the pandas turned to stare at Ghost again.

  “It—it might be,” Ghost said, though he knew for certain that it was. “I went hunting with Shiver. We caught a pheasant.”

  The looks of dismay on the pandas’ faces made Ghost’s stomach twist with anxiety.

  “So casual about it,” Blossom said, in a voice that sounded a bit as if she was going to be sick. “What will the rest of the Bamboo Kingdom think, if we have a panda walking around spattered with the blood of his fellow creatures?”

  I’m not “spattered,” Ghost thought. “I—I only helped Shiver, right at the end,” he said. He looked up at a movement from across the clearing and saw that Sunset had stood up and was making his way over. Ghost panicked just a little bit. “She needs to hunt,” he added. “I didn’t actually eat any. I prefer bamboo now.”

  “So you say,” Blossom said, shaking her head. “But your fur tells a different story!”

  “What’s this about, my friends?” Sunset asked as he came closer.

  “Dragon Speaker, I don’t want to cause trouble . . . ,” said Blossom.

  But you will, Ghost thought miserably.

  “But the white cub doesn’t seem interested in fitting in here. He kills creatures, disrespects the Great Dragon—and he has come to a feast with blood on his muzzle!”

  Sunset listened calmly as she said this, then turned his steady gaze on Ghost. Ghost felt himself shrink back, but tried not to look away.

  “I understand that Ghost’s appearance may be jarring for some of you,” Sunset said. “But I beg you to be more tolerant. Ghost has led a very different life from ours, and I’m sure he has much to teach us, as we have so much to share with him.”

  There was a muttering between the pandas, but to Ghost’s relief, he also saw nodding and some of their expressions change from judgmental to thoughtful.

  “Ghost, why don’t you come and sit with me for a while?” Sunset said. “I’d like to speak to you.”

  Ghost nodded and got up to follow Sunset to the spot in the center of the clearing. He felt worried and excited at the same time—he was being given a great honor, but he might also be about to hear a harsher judgment than Sunset had wanted to give in front of the other pandas.

  Sunset sat down and patted the grass beside him, and Ghost sat too.

  “Might I give you some advice, young Ghost?” Sunset asked.

  “Of course,” said Ghost.

  “You must be patient. I can see that the others still have a little way to go before they get used to you, and you to them. Don’t be discouraged—but it might be wise for you not to go hunting with your littermate anymore.”

  Ghost nodded slowly. He felt guilt gnawing on him as he thought of how he would tell Shiver that he’d agreed to that, but Sunset was right. He needed to try to be more like a panda, at least for a little while.

  He looked up at Sunset, and the guilt faded. It was such a good thing he had the wise Dragon Speaker for a friend. The least he could do to pay him back was to try to follow his advice.

  The young male panda called Pebble approached them with two long bamboo canes clutched in his jaws. He presented them to Sunset, as Ghost had seen the pandas do before, as a mark of respect. But then, after casting a questioning look at Sunset and getting a nod back, he pushed one of them toward Ghost.

  “I thought you might want to share,” he said.

  Ghost smiled at the other panda—he was still not very hungry, but being surrounded by all this delicious-smelling bamboo was making him think perhaps he could have a bit more. And it was very nice of Pebble to offer, in front of all the other pandas. Maybe he was showing them he wasn’t scared or disgusted.

  “Yes, please,” said Ghost. Pebble sat down near him, and together they picked the leaves from the cane.

  “I wanted to come and talk to you, because I, um . . . I heard that your mother died. Your leopard mother, I mean.”

  The bamboo in Ghost’s mouth suddenly seemed to lose its taste. He chewed carefully for a moment longer, then nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Well, lots of us lost family in the flood, but . . . I also lost my best friend, just a few days ago. So I just wanted to say, I understand.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry,” Ghost said. He paused, a little awkwardly, but at the same time it was strangely good to look at Pebble and see some of the same dull pain looking back at him. Now I’m wondering how his friend died—and I bet he’s thinking the same about Winter.

  “What was your friend’s name?” he asked.

  “Rain,” said Pebble. “She was Peony’s daughter, about the same age as us.”

  Ghost cast a glance over at Peony. She had been one of the nicest to him, ever since he’d joined the Prosperhill pandas. Was her daughter’s death part of why she’d been so accepting?

  “My mother was called Winter,” Ghost said. “She died saving my life.”

  “That must have been awful,” Pebble said quietly. “The river took Rain. We all told her not to go too far out, that the currents were too dangerous. She never made that mistake before, but then . . .” He shook his head. “It was terrible. Speaker Sunset saw the whole thing. She was trying to find a way across to the other side, and she just . . . swam out too far and lost control. She always loved the river. It doesn’t feel fair.”

  Ghost nodded, his heart aching for Pebble.

  “Winter was a brilliant climber,” he volunteered at last. “She could leap up to—up to the branch of that tree over there, or higher, in one bound. She was incredible. But she was trying to climb up the side of a crevasse, and the earth quaked, and the ice broke. . . .” He stopped and swallowed, the vision of Winter’s fall flashing in front of his eyes again. “What I mean is . . . she was doing something she was good at. Great at. It wasn’t her fault that this one time, something went wrong. You know?”

  Pebble’s eyes lit up a little as he looked at Ghost. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

  He picked up the bamboo cane and split it with a single bite, then passed one half over to Ghost. Ghost took it and they sat together in comfortable silence for a while, peeling the soft green insides and chewing on them.

  Pebble and I have more in common than you might think to look at us, Ghost thought. Maybe I can learn to be a better panda from him. Maybe we can be friends.

  Finally the feast seemed to come to a natural end, with pandas wandering away or lying down where they had been feasting for a Long Light nap. Ghost stood up and started to walk off, thinking he should go and find Shiver, and tell her what Sunset had advised him to do. But before he could leave, he found Sunset beside him once more.

  “Will you come with me?” the Dragon Speaker asked. “I have a special task that I think you would be particularly well suited to help me with.”

  “Me?” Ghost stood up a little bit straighter and his ears pricked up. “I mean, yes, of course! How can I help?”

  “Walk with me,” said Sunset, and led the way out of the feast clearing and into the forest. Ghost followed him down the panda path for a little way, curling around the feast hill, and then off the path and into the undergrowth. Ghost didn’t know the Prosperhill very well yet, but he was pretty sure they were heading away from the river, deeper into the green forest. Sometimes the trees opened up, and he found himself looking up toward a rising series of hills and crags, thickly forested and wreathed in mist. It was a lot like the shape of the Northern Forest, but where those hills had been sparse, these were lush.

  At last they reached the top of a hill and Sunset paused. “We’re here to meet the golden monkeys,” he told Ghost.

  Wow. Ghost felt a burst of pride and excitement. The Dragon Speaker wanted to introduce him to the other creatures of the forest! Maybe he was doing it so they could go back and tell Blossom, and the others, that they knew he wasn’t a threat?

  Except . . .

  Ghost sat down heavily and licked at his paw. He’d almost forgotten—he still had some flecks of blood on his white muzzle!

  “Wait, Ghost. Why are you doing that?” said Sunset. Ghost froze, his paw half raised to try to clean the blood away.

  “Um—I thought—the other pandas wouldn’t like it if I made the monkeys think we might eat them,” he said.

  Sunset chuckled, low in his enormous chest.

  “I think you should leave it as it is,” he said. “This will be an opportunity for us to learn from you.”

  Chapter Eight

  LEAF LEANED HER BACK against the mossy rock, and gazed over at the big fir tree that grew in the middle of the clearing below. It looked a bit like it had suddenly sprouted hundreds and hundreds of brown nuts. Except they weren’t nuts—they were bats, roosting in every crevice and on the undersides of the branches, with their soft wings folded at their sides.

  Leaf wondered what it must be like, to travel through the sky with a family so large you couldn’t even count them all. She wasn’t sure if there were as many pandas in the whole world as there were tiny bats sleeping in this one tree.

  There was a faint squeaking still coming from the colony, even though most of the bats were resting for now. It had been going on ever since Leaf and Dasher had reached their roosting place, but Leaf wondered if now it was growing a little louder, as the sun sank toward the horizon and the shadows fell over the valleys of the Northern Forest. The bats would wake up at dusk and then, if today was like yesterday and the day before that, they would feed for a while before they took to the skies and moved on to another roost.

  It hadn’t been too hard to catch up to them, using the scent of their droppings and the sound of their squeaking, which had just made Leaf more certain that this was what she was supposed to be doing. It was as if they’d wanted to be found.

  “Where do you think they’re taking us?” Dasher asked, rubbing behind his little white ears with his front paws and looking up at the big fir tree.