Chapter 6 - What's Golden
6
What’s Golden
There had been few signs of civilization since Bobby and Zibby had left the last town. They had been walking for three days now through a thick forest. Occasionally, they would stumble across a sunny clearing, and Bobby would gather fruit or nuts while Zibby played. For the moment, they had found one such clearing right at the edge of the forest. Zibby was safe in the meadow-like clearing, and her brother was hovering in the nearby treetops. Bobby sighed and pulled another brownish, shriveled-looking berry from a vine. He was severely starting to wish he had learned to hunt. He straightened back up on the branch where he stood, looked around him to see that he’d harvested all that was in reach, and jumped. There was a sound of beating wings as he descended, and he landed on bare, dirty feet on the soft grass.
“Bobby!” The little girl ran up to him. “Bobby, look what I found!” She held out her prize to him. Bobby dropped the bag full of bitter berries on the ground at his feet, and crouched down to inspect it.
It looked like a gold coin of some sort. It was soft and smooth, and slightly more oblong than round. Bobby took it in his hand and turned it over. “No markings,” he said, his sharp eyes thoughtful. “I wonder where it’s from. Some traveler must have dropped it.”
“Is it money?” Zibby looked hopeful. She’d never had money of her own, but she knew that it was something good, and that it pleased Robert.
“It’s gold, which is just as good, if not better.” He smiled fondly at the little girl and rumpled her hair. “Maybe we can buy you a real dress.”
Zibby wrinkled her nose, looking much like her brother for an instant. “No. I like my McRae.” Her fingers went to the edge of the makeshift dress and fingered a soft fringe.
Bobby ran a hand through his own spiky hair and looked to the northeast. “We’d better get going.”
Many little children, after travelling most of the day and only having rested for fifteen minutes, would have thrown a fit. But Zibby was used to walking and moving and changing. She never quite got too used to one place, but since it was what she’d done her whole life, the constant urgency of it all never bothered her. So, she stood up, shook the bits of grass and leaves out of her pink feathery wings, and started walking. Bobby put the little leather bag of berries in his knapsack and slung it over his shoulder. He turned to follow his sister, still fingering the bit of gold she had found. He was starting to think of things that he didn’t want to think about.
Bobby found it quite easy to take care of himself. He didn’t really have to eat much, and he didn’t mind sleeping outdoors. And in a number of years, he could find a rich girl to marry and then he wouldn’t have to worry anymore. Zibby was a little more trouble. She was a happy child, but she sometimes struck people as awkward or different. She had been raised so differently from all the other children her age that she did not get along with them. She wanted to be with Bobby at all times, and that was simply not possible. And it was going to get harder for that to happen, especially if Bobby had to find new ways of bringing home money for them.
The soft metal of the coin had warmed to his hand, and it was a good feeling. Perhaps this would help. Perhaps he could give it to someone in exchange for taking his little sister. Surely someone would be able to care for her and provide for her until she was old enough to be on her own. The thought was not a happy one, though. Ever since the death of his mother, there hadn’t been anything more constant in his life than the little girl. She was his only family and the most important thing in the world to him. He didn’t want to leave her with someone else. Then again, it was not the life for a child to live. (Bobby no longer thought of himself as a child.) She would have to stay somewhere, with a good family. And Bobby would send her money when she could, and visit every once in a while. Perhaps the little gold coin would be the deciding factor.
Bobby had been treading purposefully through the field toward the forest and soon caught up with his sister. But Zibby wasn’t walking anymore. She was staring up at something, frozen in her tracks.
Bobby looked up too, and swore. There was something enormous in the trees above them. It was a great winged creature, and it bowed the trunks of the oak it was perched on. The beast was stony gray, with hands and feet like a man, but a build like a bulldog. It had colossal curving horns and crescent claws on each digit. The thing had no variation of color; it was all granite gray, with occasional flecks of a darker shade.
Zibby did not scream. She continued to stare at the stony gray thing with the stony gray eyes. It was staring at them. It was staring at Zibby. And it was growling. Bobby’s dragonfly wings were a blur as he leapt off the ground, pulling a small knife from his belt. He flew at the monster, and it turned its gray eyes away from the small girl on the ground. In fact, the thing seemed rather surprised that Bobby was there, as if it hadn’t even noticed the lithe winged boy before he was darting in front of his face. The thing glared at Bobby, spread its jaws wide, and hissed at the new annoyance. Bobby was not surprised, for some reason, to see that the teeth were as gray as the rest of the beast, and he was blown back a bit by the creature’s breath.
Zibby watched from the ground. The expression on her face was not one of fear. It seemed that she had complete faith in her brother to win the fight. But she rather looked like she didn’t quite know what to do, and was itching to get involved. The small girl looked around her for something to throw.
In the meantime, Bobby flew back toward the creature. He was frightened, but at least he had drawn the thing’s attention away from Zibby. He raised the knife threateningly. He didn’t think that it would do much, but it was worth a shot. The monster glared at him. Deep furrows were forming on the beast’s brow and around its nose. It hissed again and raised one enormous clawed hand. Bobby was barely able to dodge the swipe. A rush of wind caught him and he reeled across the sky. Zibby shrieked from the ground.
The beast snorted and looked down at the little girl. He stretched his wings and flapped them hard. Bobby was carried even further away, but fought the current. The monster lifted itself from the tree, and a mighty groan sounded as the trunk regained it proper stature. The thing crashed down through the branches and they snapped and flew about every which way. Zibby screamed and turned to run, but a second later she was held tightly in its claws as the monster heavily flapped back into the sky.
Zibby struggled to get loose, but once she could see the river as a small ribbon that wound through miniscule trees, she focused her efforts on trying to catch her breath in the rushing wind. Behind her she could still hear her brother yelling. Bobby was fast. Bobby would catch up to this heavy, lumbering thing, wouldn’t he? After a while Zibby wasn’t so sure. She couldn’t hear her brother’s yells anymore, and she began to lose her fear of being dropped. The animal’s grip was quite tight, and its knuckles felt hard as solid rock. She started to expect the thing was made of stone. That was certainly strange, but probably not the strangest thing she’d ever seen. So, with a resolved crossing of her arms, Zibby decided to relax and enjoy the scenery.
Bobby was breathing far too fast, and he didn’t seem able to fly fast enough. He would have been crying if the wind rushing against his face hadn’t dried up all his tears. He had to find her. No doubt the creature was taking her to a nest somewhere to feed to some half-pint baby monsters (which, he judged, would be roughly the size of a buffalo). That wasn’t going to happen. Bobby needed Zibby. They were a team; she was his life. He couldn’t let her die now - certainly not after all he’d sacrificed to keep her alive. So he flew. His wings were vibrating so fast that they were completely invisible, and were making a humming noise that filled his ears with sound.
He could still see the giant gray monster, and as long as he didn’t lose sight of it, he would find it. And I’ll kill it if she’s… He didn’t finish the thought. They were flying so high above the earth that it was easy to keep track of the flying creature above the treetops. There were mountains up ahead, but Bobby decided to cross that bridge when he got to it. (There actually was a bridge, by the way. But that is another story, for another time.) He flew faster and faster until his back and wing joints burned with fatigue, but he did not stop. After a while, the boy’s wings decided that they were going to give up, with or without their owner’s consent. They beat slower and slower, no matter how hard he tried to will them to keep the pace. He was so tired and so sore that he felt he was going to fall from the sky, when he saw the great beast (which seemed a very tiny beast in the distance) swoop suddenly downward into a clearing in a patch of trees.
Bobby felt the adrenaline surge through his body, to the very tips of his wings. He kept his eyes fixed on the place where he had seen the monster disappear, below a line of trees, and flew as fast as he could to what he could soon see to be a thinner area of forest. The trees were much more spread out, and as Bobby drew nearer, he could start to see the ground. It wasn’t all green. There were splotches of gray, blue, and even pink, and some objects seen from the sky looked like enormous pearls. Finally, he could clearly see the place. It was not a monster’s nest at all. It was a great expanse of beautifully cared for land. And, encircling it all, Bobby saw a thin, shining line that twisted and turned, angled and curved into one enclosed shape. It was a wall. It was a wall of solid gold, and just within its boundaries on the southwest side, the monster was closing its immense wings.