Blue Hills by Steve Shilstone Page B

That’s it! ... portal?”
    â€œNo stage. Merely steps, and only on one condition. I must have in my grip forever Jo Bree,” said the snave, raising high all of its tentacles.
    Jo Bree? Jo Bree. It wants me to give it Jo Bree! I thought in panic. Mine! Mine! Mine! My only magic! Jo Bree! Kar elbowed me in the ribs. The snave waited. It stared. I couldn’t speak, and then I could.
    â€œPie? ... Fly? ... Cry? ... High? ... Shy? ... Dry? ... Why?” I agonized.
    â€œSometimes why can open gates if greed is gone,” said the snave.
    I understood in a flash. I nodded. Kar looked astonished when I grabbed her hand and began to lead her down the aisle. We ascended the few stairs to the stage. The snave reached forth a tentacle.
    â€œFold ... hold this,” I instructed Kar, handing her the crystal ball.
    I pulled Jo Bree from my belt and felt its flush yellow pink coolness on my fingers for the final time. I released it from my grasp to the wiggling tentacle of the snave. I was struck with a so such certain sort of hollowness. The snave turned and slithered across the stage, down the steps and up the aisle. Kar softly placed the glowing blue globe into my cupped empty hand. The floor sagged beneath us and opened down to a tunnel, bright with yellow light.

Chapter Thirty-Eight
    To the Nook
    â€œBek, you did it! Look. Yellow walls. Gold, do you think? And such a path of white ... They’re flat rocks, Bek. Strewn. Smooth. Something seems ...”
    â€œLemony.”
    â€œSuch! That’s exact! Like as on Lemon Day in every Acrotwist kitchen. The scent of lemons smacks your face with every pie thrown. Lemons. I smell ‘em.”
    â€œFollow the bath, Kar.”
    â€œYou mean the path, Bek. Bek, wasn’t it hard for you to give up Jo Bree to that snave? You had to do it, though, didn’t you?”
    â€œYoss.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œTo show I was not ... not ... not ...”
    â€œNot what?”
    â€œNot ... greedy.”
    â€œOh, that. You aren’t. You never were ... much. Oh, there! This tunnel is so such a short one. Good. Things are moving fast, aren’t they? What’s out there, do you think? It looks like a full bright sunny day.”
    â€œThe ... nook.”
    â€œNook again. You tried to break my ribs when I asked you before about the nook. I’m going to ask. Don’t jab me. What about the nook?”
    â€œThe Babba Ja Harick is ... is rare ... there.”
    â€œAnd soon we’ll bring her and magic back home?”
    â€œYoss ... Ohhh!”
    â€œBek, Bek. It’s like as winter white in the Woods Beyond the Wood, but frosted with yellow.”
    â€œA closed valley, deep and narrow. Lemony. Yoss. That’s it. The book ... cook ... nook! Yoss!”
    â€œA fizzy tricklestream, Bek. It’s cold ... Mmmmmm.”
    â€œMmmmmmm ... lemony.”
    â€œWell so, Chronicler Bekka, which way should we go? Down that aisle of yellow-frosted white trees or along the white path we followed from the cave? Both of ‘em look so such to me like as if they’re calling us. Mmmmmm, did you try one of these yet? They’re more lemony than the stream.”
    â€œMmmmm, yoss, and the white are more ... lemony than the ... pillow ... yellow. The bath, Kar. We’ll follow the bath.”
    â€œYou said bath again and didn’t correct yourself. Why?”
    â€œYou knew what I bent ... meant.”
    â€œSuch. Bek, do you notice that the ground isn’t moving? Are we past the Blue Hills? Are we past ‘em?”
    â€œYoss, maybe.”
    â€œPast the Blue Hills. We’re past a place we never even knew existed. And now we’re in a place past that.”
    â€œThe nook.”
    â€œNook. Right. The Nook. Here we are in the Nook, which is really so such to me a splendid valley of lemon and white. The Lemon White Valley! That’s what I’ll call it when I bring this Gwer drollek tale to the