Beyond the Endless Sky

Chapter 22

Clarissa couldn't get an answer for Tonya's clue. Despite the discomfort drinking the brine had caused after several cups, none of the others were willing to give up that information. Even using puppy eyes on Yannick ended fruitlessly.

A few hours and entirely too much pickle juice later, Clarissa had gone to bed with an unsettled stomach, and a smile on her lips. Her magnetic boots — the clingy boyfriends as Mercy called them — stood upright on the floor in front of her bed. With the door closed and the electric light turned off, she fell asleep almost as soon as she slid inside the sleeping bag.

No one woke her up. No alarm, no frantic cry, and most disappointingly, none of Leslie's kitchen wizardry. Clarissa slid out of her sleeping bag, and this time put her feet into the magnetic boots before she did anything else. She got dressed, clumsily but safely tethered to the floor by one foot, and made her way out.

She poked her head into the kitchen, hoping to see food being made there, but the pots and pans were all safely ensconced and the counters bare. Clarissa chuckled to herself, as she recalled the mess she made of trying to boil water, and suspected it might just be ship policy to not cook in the air beyond the pull of the isles.

She went to the bridge instead, and found herself witnessing a new wonder.

Giant, snow-capped peaks rose from forests still so distant Clarissa couldn't tell the trees apart. Lakes — so blue they rivalled the endless sky — littered the shallow spaces below the forests, and massive winding rivers drew lazily twisting lines across the isle. Much of the forest was dusted with snow, and mist clung to the mountains.

Clarissa stepped slowly past the bridge, barely noticing she was making her way closer to the Child's massive window. She rested her hands on the rails and stared at what had to be the most beautiful thing under the sky.

"Don't drool until we dock with the Roost, it's easier to clean up," Tonya said, in a sardonic imitation of a reprimand. Though when Clarissa looked back, the Child's pilot wore a solemn but happy smile. "Though if I mock ya for gawking, it won't have a lot of bite. I tear up a little every time I see this place."

"It's beautiful," Clarissa agreed.

"It is. She's the jewel of the outer isles. The Wayfarers, Mercy's people, claim Idlewind wasn't a part of the endless sky a thousand years ago," Tonya said. She was staring at the glass ball tied to her hand as she spoke, with her other hand resting on one of the propeller levers rather than the wheel. "She drifted in from the void beyond the sky, a bare and blasted rock. Water from the slipstream carved her rocky skin, seeds snatched from the other isles took root, and the wayfarers themselves took to tending her growth."

"Is it true?" Clarissa asked.

"You'd know better than I," Tonya said. "Monastery has healers and teachers here, and I always remember them being keen to make sure the story was told. They say it was the first time we ever made things greener than they were."

"We made that? It almost doesn't seem possible," Clarissa said.

"The novelty might be why they're so keen for us to remember," Tonya agreed. She lifted one boot, and tapped it with her hand. "You won't need those boots in another twenty minutes or so. The pull of Idlewind is soft and gentle compared to Volante, Olencia, or what you lived with at the Monastery, but it'll keep you grounded."

"Yeah," Clarissa whispered. She looked for cities on the island, but only saw small, scattered settlements, most near the lakes. To her surprise, though, she could just make out the markings of rail lines that wound through the forest, as well as docks built on the peaks. The docks, strangely, extended up and beyond the peaks, some nearly half again as tall as the mountain they were built upon.