Blue Hills by Steve Shilstone

...”
    â€œYaaaaaaaaa ...”
    â€œI lost count, Bek. Is this the last?”
    â€œIt is. From here to the lake where my mind will go blank and you will gather moonplums. Such will truly be so. Show me the lens. Good. Don’t lose it. Truth, it must be important. Wait. The tunnel should almost be ... Go!”
    â€œYaaaaaaaaa ...”
    â€œYaaaaaaaaa ...”

Chapter Thirty-Six
    The Wispy Pink Windwhirl
    I swam up from a gray sort of silent gloom to feel the sun’s warmth on my face. I opened my eyes. I felt a bead of water trailing down my cheek. I sat up in my drenched clothing. Alone on the familiar slope of pale blue grass I sat. I looked across the lake to the Charborr Forest heights. My mind was dull, numb. I blinked my eyes. No thought disturbed my empty head. Blankly I stared at the lake until its smooth surface was shattered by the thrashing rise of a three-headed Dragon. It rode low through the air gliding and landed at my side. Shimmer shift. There was Kar, proudly holding out both hands filled with moonplums.
    â€œYou woke up earlier than the other times,” she said. “I did the three-headed Dragon underwater. You saw so such. I would have flattened the snaves with it, don’t you think? Have a moonplum. Should we go right away to the Unnek? I’ve got the lens. See?”
    She dropped one handful of moonplums in my lap and reached into her jacket pocket and brought out the lens. In the palm of her yellow green hand it flashed brightly, reflecting the sun. I nodded and began to gnaw on a moonplum. My mind remained fogged. I felt the movement, the pause, and the movement back of the Blue Hill tier. So such I gripped pale blue grass tufts with both of my hands and shook my head, trying to clear my mind. Spatter drops of little diamond pearls of water were flung from my hair. Some quivered and clung to the grass. Some ran down the pale blue blades.
    â€œBek? Bek?” said Kar with a level of worry in her voice.
    She looked up the slope. I followed her gaze to the top of the hill and saw what she saw. There, thin at the bottom and thickening wispily upward, was a rapidly spinning windwhirl. Pink! My mind of a sudden was swept clear of fog and replaced by a frantic scramble of thoughts. Pink windwhirl! From the oldest Gwer drollek. The Babba Ja Harick and her sister Semma in the Chack Tree Forest as younglings. The creation of the Well of Shells. Pink windwhirl! It disappeared into the Harick’s crystal ball, never more to be seen. I see it! I’m seeing it. Kar’s jaw dropped. Mine, too. Kar darted a glance at me and mouthed ‘Gwer drollek’. She knew so such as well as I what it was we saw. The windwhirl descended the hill and spoke in a whispery whooshing way.
    â€œSsshheeeooo you have arrihhhhhhvved. Ssshhheeeooowww me the lensshhhh,” it said, wobbling ever closer.
    Kar quickly placed the lens on the grass and stepped back several long and respectful paces. I, too, shuffled backward, away from the lens. I felt my own silly fixed grin. I saw Kar’s.
    The windwhirl in graceful spinning dance approached the lens, and something other began to happen. The lens itself started to twitch, flip, stretch, bulge. It puffed out until it was no longer a lens. Instead, it ballooned in shape to a perfect globe, a crystal ball! Kar’s hands trembled. I saw ‘em. Mine were fisted, and thrills raced up and down my spine. The pink windwhirl swirled around the globe while crackling with white zags of brilliance. Crash of lightning! Karraakkk! Zag of blinding light! The pink windwhirl was gone. The globe nestling in the grass was no longer crystal clear. It glowed a steady blue, and in it a tiny whirl of wispy pink smoke evaporated.
    â€œPink windwhirl,” said Kar in awe. “From the very truly so such first Gwer drollek story ever. It went into the crystal ball. Bek, the lens was a crystal ball. We saw the creation of a crystal ball. Bek, this