The Wittering Way by Nat Burns Read Free Book Online Page A

go now? Leave it?” Yewsy said. She was wringing her hands together nervously. “I don’t like holding another living creature this way.”
    I wrapped one arm around her shoulder and pressed my palm to Memo’s hand to reassure them both. Afton dimmed and darkness fell but for the moonlight through the trees and the glow of the dying fire.
    “We’d be harming it more now, leaving it defenseless in the wild,” I told her. Neisi didn’t have fammies for protection as we did and would wander aimlessly if left alone. Or perish from being too far from their watery home.
    “I can’t sleep now,” Talew said loudly. “Not with that...that thing here with us.”
    I understood his sentiment but knew we might get lost if we moved forward at night. Stunned by indecision, I jumped nervously when Afton connected with me. “Afton says we light our own path and move on. Upstream, so we can release the Neisi back into the water when it’s time.”
    “That’s a good plan,” Talew agreed.
    “Lem, will you look after the Neisi, please? Just make sure it doesn’t get hurt until we let it go.”
    Lemon nodded slowly as he watched the Neisi. “So beautiful in the water but so clumsy on land,” he said.
    Yewsy moved closer to me. “Why do we need the Neisi? I don’t understand.”
    “It’s not malice, Yews. It’s for our own protection. We don’t
    need it telling its tribe that we are here,” I answered. “Do you really think they’d hurt us?” she asked. She
    stumbled and her fammie lit dimly.
    I shrugged as I glanced at her pinched face. “I don’t know for certain but I don’t want to chance it. At least after the binding, it shouldn’t remember us except as a very faint recollection.”
    “I’m really tired,” Capel said. “Can we rest?”
    “We can’t,” RoseIII answered. “Here.” He lifted her onto his shoulder. Her fammie lit and the higher light helped brighten our path more thoroughly. “We have to keep moving. We want to be far upriver when we let the Neisi loose.”
    “You know, Neisi can be a nasty lot,” a piping voice said, just above our heads. A new light flashed into being and I could see an all too familiar Jana.
    “Tsisi?” I asked.
    “I heard that they take dead Meabs below the water. You know, to soften them, then they suck out the insides,” Tsisi said.
    Yewsy shuddered. “Eww,” she whispered.
    “Why aren’t you looking after your father?” I asked her.
    She flashed away once. “And miss this adventure? You jest. Father should be just fine on his own. Once he gets out his sopore, he forgets I exist anyway.”
    “Doesn’t it affect you, the sopore?” I asked curiously.
    The Jana flew rapidly to one side. I got dizzy trying to track her with my eyes.
    “No, Janas seem to rise above it. Honey water makes us giggle though. And tell secrets that shouldn’t be told.”
    “Secrets? Secrets? Tell us all your secrets,” Memo said, clapping her hands together. Higen lit happily, increasing visibility further. Tsisi also flashed repeatedly, causing my vision to blur as light overlaid dark and vice versa.
    “I don’t think so,” Tsisi said. “Telling secrets for Lore join is like shouting it from the top of Ziv Mountain.”
    “Hey,” Memo objected, frowning. “That’s not true!”
    RoseIII turned and he and Capel eyed Memo disbelievingly.
    “Just walk on,” Memo muttered, shooing their stares away with both hands, her fammie bobbing merrily.
    I was increasingly disoriented by all the bobbing lights around me, so I turned and looked ahead into the darkness. The Jana was chattering on as Janas are wont to do, the Neisi was stumbling blankly next to Lemon, and my fellow travelers were tiredly conversing.
    I hated that we’d had to move on with so little rest, but I felt the urgency of my sister’s fate. Time passing was an unknown danger. Normally, I would not have felt this fear but, after seeing the tragedy that had befallen my join, I realized that anything could