Chapter Thirteen

                                    

                                              
Mr. Beetle's raft ahead of them slowed and a quiet thud told Derol that it had come to rest against another dock. Amina angled their boat to go around the raft, and it slid up alongside it, coming to rest against a grassy bank. If it hadn't stopped the boat, Derol would not have been able to tell the bank from the other thick stands of grasses that concealed water beneath them.
                          
"You'll have to backtrack a little," Rogelio was saying to the group of Senemi on his raft as he helped them ashore, "but you have to get to the wagons as quickly as you can. Tell them they must leave immediately. You don't have much time before the mages awaken."
                          
"What do we do if they do wake up while we're still there?" asked Derol.

                          
"Mrs. Beetle and I will take care of them, don't you worry." Rogelio stepped back to the empty raft and pushed himself away from the dock. "Good luck!"
                          
Amina, who had never left her seat in the boat, pushed herself backwards with her paddle in the shallow water.
                          
"Wait, where are you going?" Astrid ran to the end of the dock. Derol followed her and put a hand on her shoulder.
                          
"She's going back to help the rest get here," Derol said. "She'll be back."
                          
"Just like Eriya? And Gypsy?" Astrid turned to him and looked up with wide eyes.
                          
Derol nodded. "They'll be here soon. But we have to get to the wagons so we're ready to go."
                          
The group of Senemi who had been on Rogelio's raft had already begun hiking up the hill in the narrow path. Fenn stood where the dock met land, watching the Senemi leave, but waiting for Derol and Astrid to be ready. With a hand on her back, Derol guided Astrid ahead of him, and she ran to catch up with Fenn.
                          
They hiked in silence through the grass. All Derol could see were the grasses, they were so tall. After the initial incline of the land that brought them up above the marsh, it seemed to be flat for a long while. When they finally topped a gradual rise, Derol's heart leapt in relief to see the wagons lined up. Behind them, the farmhouse stood tall atop an even bigger rise, the light from the mages' spell visible even from here.
                          
When they reached the wagons, the Senemi seemed to know who to talk to right away. Derol remembered that the Onami and the Senemi were related peoples, if not the same. He wasn't exactly sure he understood Fenn's explanation. Whatever they said, the wagon leaders seemed to take it seriously, for the wagon camp came alive within moments.
                          
"They already have a wagon ready for us," Fenn said, and led Derol and Astrid to a wagon near the back of the train. Fenn climbed up on the back of it and Derol hoisted Astrid up after him, then climbed up himself.
                          
The bed of the wagon was full of the bags of wool except for a narrow gap down the middle where they could walk. A wooden shelf was built onto the sides of the wagon all around. It was at about Derol's eye level, and in the back of the wagon a small wooden ladder afforded the means for them to climb up onto the shelf. Thin sewn cushions padded the shelf and in one corner there was a stack of folded blankets.
                          
"It's kind of neat, isn't it?" Fenn said with a smile. He had climbed up onto the shelf and sat with his legs swinging down, heels hitting the sack of wool below him. "Cozy, anyway."
                          
"Lift me up there," Astrid said. She grabbed Derol's sleeves for him to pick her up.
                          
"Climb up yourself," he said. "You're big enough."
                          
She giggled and ran to the ladder. She climbed to the shelf on the side of the wagon opposite Fenn, then crawled on hands and knees to the back, by the door where they had entered. Small windows on either side of the door, at shelf level, afforded her a view.