The Map to Everywhere by Carrie Ryan

“So where we headed?” Fin repeated. Down on the forecastle, Ardent’s hands flew left and right as he explained something or other. Marrill stood with her arms crossed, looking skeptical. Neither of them seemed to miss him. It felt familiar to be forgotten, as though the world had tilted back into place again.

  Coll shrugged. “Don’t know. Bird’s taken us far up-Stream, farther than I’ve ever been before. Would never have found this way without her. Wonder if anyone ever has—certainly isn’t on any of the maps. I’ve had the pirats checking.”

  He kicked off a shoe and scratched at where his tattoo tangled around his pinky toe. “Wherever we’re going, it’s old. Real old.”

  As Coll maneuvered the ship around a cluster of trees blocking the way, a massive island heaved up from the water in front of them. It was covered by a thick jungle more tangled with plants than Fin had ever imagined a place could be.

  Tall cypresses stretched their branches overhead, choking the light, while thick mangroves fanned their roots to either side. Ferns and moss grew on limbs and vines, which stretched out and around and above them.

  “Shanks,” he whispered.

  The ship shuddered to a halt unexpectedly. Fin scrabbled for the railing to keep from toppling down the stairs.

  “Well, I think we’ve arrived!” Ardent announced, carefully unhooking a cat claw from the hem of his robe. The cat in question yanked his paw back, looking offended. “Now, does anyone see Rose…?”

  “Bledgeblisters,” Coll cursed. Fin followed his eyes upward. A tangle of leafy green creepers snaked around the top of the mainmast, and a huge branch pierced the fore-topsail. That explained the sudden stop. “No going anywhere until those are cut away,” the sailor grumbled.

  “There she is!” Marrill pointed. “Rose is up in the canopy!” Sure enough, the bird perched on a thick vine high above the shore of the island. Beneath her, an overgrown trail led into the heart of the jungle.

  Fin looked from mast to bird to path. Someone would have to climb up there and cut the ship free before they could even get to shore. And then someone would have to keep track of the bird in all the tangle. And if that someone happened to find the Map first, well, he wouldn’t be stealing it so much as exercising right of first discovery.

  And that was a well-recognized right in the Quay, second only to the right of I’ve-got-it-and-you-don’t. Which that person would also have.

  Not that Fin would keep the Map from the rest of the crew. He just wanted to make sure he had first dibs on using it, before the others—including Marrill—could forget about him. Better safe than sorry.

  “I’ll do it!” he announced. Without waiting, he leapt onto the mainmast and shimmied up to the canopy.

  With the knives he’d taken from the Meressians, it didn’t take too long to cut the ship free. As he chopped away, he couldn’t help notice that the leaves on the vines looked more like big green ears, right down to the waxy goo on their inner surface. Worse, he swore he felt the little tendrils twitch against his hand. The whole thing gave him the shudders.

  A moment later, the last bit of tangle snapped free, and the ship slid toward shore. No sooner had Fin stepped back into the crook of a tree and wiped his hands with satisfaction than Rose took wing once more, heading off into the forest.

  “Hey, wait,” he said, scrambling after her. “She’s headed inland!” he shouted down to the others, pointing into the jungle. “I’ll keep an eye on her!”

  He took off, chasing the bird through the treetops. She wheeled between palm fronds that flapped like banners, and soared over branches woven together like the tops of ramparts. Fin laughed as he followed her, thick moss cushioning his hands as he leapt and climbed through the canopy.

  It was just like the rooftops at the Quay up here, but a thousand times more fun. Instead of brick and stone, everything around him was living; the whole place even smelled rich and alive!

  Granted, the beautiful blossoms looked like toothy mouths, and the ear vines were everywhere. The wood felt warm, like a person’s skin. But none of that bothered him. It wasn’t like there were forests in the Quay; for all he knew, this was what they were all like.

  Rose headed toward one of the redwood spires bent like a leaning old tower. A hollow opened up in it, and when Rose dove into it, Fin bounded after.

  Inside, the redwood seemed made out of old stones, like a room in a real tower. Vines twisted throughout it, tangling together in the canopy of a smaller tree that grew in the middle. Its trunk was gnarled and knotted, and it split at the base before joining back together again a few feet from the ground. Two large branches stretched toward an opening at the other side of the hollow, and Rose perched on one of them.

  Fin paused to gather his bearings. This place was odd. The more he looked around, the more he was positive it was a room. He moved between the creepers carefully, and when he reached the tree in the middle, he grabbed a big twisty knot on its trunk, using it as a handhold to haul himself up toward the bird.

  “Oh… someone’s there,” said a slow voice from beneath Fin’s hand. Fin yelped and leapt back. He squinted and looked closer, his jaw dropping when he realized that what he’d taken for a knot was shaped just like a nose. And beneath that was a hole that formed a mouth, complete with wooden teeth. Two eyes of polished mahogany creaked in their sockets as they turned to him.

  “I thought… you were a squirrel.” The tree’s voice came labored and rough, as if each word had not been used for a thousand years.

  Fin noticed now the way the odd split in the trunk almost resembled legs; the branches reaching to the window, arms. “I’m not a squirrel,” he offered.

  “So… I see,” the tree said. “I used to be so vigilant… and now, if you hadn’t stepped on my face, I would scarcely have known you were here at all.”

  Fin forced a grin, but he doubted it was convincing. “Don’t hold it against yourself,” he said. “I have that effect on people.” He paused before adding, “And plants, I guess.”

  The tree rumbled, as if clearing its throat. Fin waited, but it said no more. “Um, if you don’t mind me asking,” Fin said at last, “what, um, are you?”

  “Me?” The tree sounded distracted. “I’m a tree now, I suppose. Have been for quite some time.”

  Fin frowned, confused. “Were you something else before?”

  “Hm?” the tree muttered. “Oh, oh yes. I was a watchman, many years ago. A watchman for the Council. I watched and gathered secrets for them, so long ago. Secrets… hm, oh yes,” it said to itself. “Oh, that is an interesting one, yes.”

  “Wait, you used to be a person?” Fin asked. “What happened?”

  The tree sighed, a noise like a breeze through distant branches. It sounded slightly distracted. Whatever else had its attention seemed to be far more interesting than Fin. “The same thing that happened to all of them, of course.”

  Fin waited for more, but the tree only grunted to itself, commenting on something he couldn’t hear. He cleared his throat. “Which is?”

  The tree let out a huff. “Why, the whispers, naturally. All those whispers, they get to you. They get to everyone, eventually.”

  Fin swallowed. “What whispers?”

  CHAPTER 22

  Rumors and Secrets

  What is this place?” Marrill asked as she jumped from the rope ladder to the shore. The noise of the jungle hung in the air, a background buzz she recognized from many camping trips. Lukewarm water oozed up around the edge of her shoes and she made a face; it was a good thing Karnelius had elected to stay behind.

  “Unclear,” Ardent answered, turning in a slow circle with his head thrown back. Nearby, Coll checked the Kraken for damage. “Though there is a rather obscure legend that might shed some light. I found it by cross-referencing a tale in Madgaabadon’s Book of Once-Had-Beens with a number of oddly consistent folk stories from various peoples and places around the Stream. The peculiar element common to each of them—”

  “Abridged version,” Coll
coughed.

  Ardent adjusted the sash of his robe, bending toward a thicket of trees so dense they practically formed a wall. “Well, that was the abridged version,” he said. “But I suppose the point is that there are numerous references to a Council of Whispers, or some variation on it, dating back to the early days of the Pirate Stream.” He paused. “This way,” he announced suddenly.

  Without waiting, Ardent charged into the trees. Tangles of thorns and little fuzzy stickers caught on the bottom of his robe, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “What about Fin?” Marrill asked, alarmed. She craned her neck to search the canopy overhead as she trailed after Ardent. But wherever Fin had scampered off to, there was no hint of him now. An unsettling thought entered the back of her mind: What if he’d only taken off after Rose like that so he could find the Map first and take it? It wasn’t like she really knew him all that well.…

  A few steps ahead of her, Coll looked over his shoulder and frowned. “Who?”

  “Never mind,” Marrill mumbled. Clearly, the responsibility of keeping track of her new friend fell to her. Which was fine. He wouldn’t be the first stray she’d taken care of.

  She pulled up short, a thought occurring to her. She recalled Fin’s stories of Mrs. Parsnickle, the woman at the orphanage who’d remembered him, for a while at least. He’d thought it had been because she cared about little kids almost more than she cared about herself. It was a caring so fierce, he’d reckoned, it overrode even his forgettability.

  Maybe, she thought, that’s why she remembered him, too. For as long as she could remember, she’d cared for the animals that most other people overlooked—the more neglected and in need of love they were, the better. And while it wasn’t like Fin was a puppy who’d been put out on the street too young, he was still lost and abandoned.

  She just hoped she could trust him.

  Trying to push the concern out of her mind, she scampered after Ardent as he charged between two massive trees, their branches twined together. They resembled nothing so much as a gated archway, flanked by towering walls and soaring turrets. “So the Council of Whispers, huh?” she prompted.

  Ardent slowed. “Oh yes,” he said. “Fascinating story. Legend says they ruled the Pirate Stream through secrets.”

  “I think you mean ‘in secret,’ ” Marrill offered.

  “That, too. But I mean ‘through secrets.’ You’ve heard the phrase ‘Knowledge is power,’ I trust? The Council gathered secrets and traded in rumors. Their agents were everywhere, hidden among the people, listening. If they heard your secret, then one day you would hear from them. And if you wanted your secret kept, well then, you too would become their agent. And if you said no, they knew every rumor that might ruin you.…” He paused and looked at her with an odd intensity. “The more powerful one gets, the more secrets they wish to keep. Remember that, always.”

  Marrill nodded, though she really didn’t understand.

  “Also, I gather they had large ears,” Ardent said, starting off again. “That characteristic keeps coming up. Though it suddenly occurs to me that might be iconographic.”

  “Icon-o-what now?” Marrill asked, struggling to keep up. It felt for all the world as though they were walking down the twisty corridors of an ancient fortress. It even smelled like one, like old weathered stones covered with dirt and held together by moss.

  Coll nudged her shoulder. “Never ask Ardent to explain etymology unless you’ve got a nice comfy chair nearby.”

  She smiled at him gratefully. “So what does that have to do with this place?” The constant murmur of noise had grown louder as they traveled deeper into the forest, and she had to raise her voice to be heard.

  Ardent kept up his brisk pace as he spoke. “Well, there’s the thing of it, isn’t there? Little remains to say where the Council of Whispers kept their home. But there are references to a place far up the Stream, somewhere distant and hidden from all normal places. A fortress deep in a forest. Or maybe a fortress that was a forest; it’s hard to tell.”

  “And you think this might be the place?”

  Ardent seemed distracted, turning his head from side to side as though listening. “I wonder,” he said. “I do wonder…”

  Up ahead, sunlight dappled through the branches, falling down on a moss-covered glade. At first, it just seemed like a break in the woods, perhaps the gap left when a big old tree fell. But as they drew closer, Marrill realized it was enormous. Way larger than the Arizona house. Maybe even than the Kraken!

  From the edges of the glen, the trees fanned their branches overhead, weaving them into intricate shapes and casting the world in a deep, peaceful shade. Their leaves were unlike any Marrill had seen before: Brilliant purples and blues rustled against vibrant pinks and gaudy neon. Sprinkled throughout the forest floor, giant ferns grew, some of them nearly up to her waist.

  “Wow,” she said as she moved into the glen.

  Ardent had stopped ahead of her and was turning slowly in a circle. “Indeed,” he said absentmindedly. “It’s like a courtyard, isn’t it?”

  Marrill nodded, allowing herself to relax. She closed her eyes. The air was moist but comfortable, the hum of the forest rhythmic and soothing. Sunlight filtering through the leaves made red trails on the backs of her eyelids. She let her breath slide in as the sensations of the jungle overtook her.

  Right as she felt her most peaceful, someone whispered her name. Marrill’s eyes snapped open. She looked around, heart racing.

  She was sure she’d heard it. But it hadn’t been Coll or Ardent. Or Fin. Her skin crawled. No one else on the Pirate Stream knew her. No one else was even here.

  At least, not that she was aware of.

  She moved closer to Ardent and listened more intently. The forest chittered and hummed, almost rhythmically. Almost like voices, chanting. A chill stole up her back.

  “Yes, yes, that’s very interesting,” Ardent murmured.

  “What is?” she asked.

  The old man drifted off toward one side of the hollow and leaned against a vine as thick as a telephone pole. The place was full of them, she realized, twining around the trees and crisscrossing the forest floor, all loaded with the oddly ear-shaped leaves.

  “Oh, just… what you said,” Ardent said distractedly.

  Marrill swallowed. “I didn’t say anything.…”

  Someone whispered something behind her, something about youth and sailing and odd old curses. She spun around, but the only person there was Coll, examining a fern idly.

  “Did anyone else hear that?” she breathed.

  “Hm?” Ardent said. He looked up. She could have sworn she heard an echo fading away behind him:

  “Ardent,” Marrill asked, “what happened to the Council of Whispers?” Suddenly, she wanted to know everything she could about this place. Now.

  “Oh, right, as I was saying! The Council of Whispers. No one knows what happened to them, is the funny thing. Funny in wizard circles anyway… kind of an in-joke. Anyway, one version says they found a way to gather all the secrets of the Stream, and in doing so vanished from the Stream themselves, disappearing like the secrets they hoarded. Others say they are still out there listening, never leaving their fortressy, foresty homeplace. Perhaps they just died. People do that, I understand.”

  He looked sharply to the left. Marrill caught the tail end of a whisper:

  She froze. That wasn’t just random nonsense; it was about Coll! She turned to the sailor. He stood stock-still, his face ashen. “Coll?” she managed. “What’s wrong?”

  His mouth opened. “I just…” He shook his head, pressing a hand over his heart. “Thought I heard someone. Someone I hadn’t heard for a while.”

  That was it, Marrill decided, enough was enough. “Maybe we should”—she whipped back to Ardent—“go,” she finished, the word dropping off her tongue. Where the wizard had just been standing, nothing but an ocean of leaves remained.

  Marrill’s palms went clammy. “Coll, I think
something happened to Ard—” But when she spun back around, the sailor, too, was gone.

  “Guys?” she tentatively called. Nothing. She yelled louder. “Ardent! Coll!”

  Still nothing. She was alone. Alone with the whispering thrum of the forest.

  Panic took root, threatening to strangle her. She forced herself to close her eyes. Take deep breaths.

  The noise around her was almost physical now, like a pulse beating through the jungle. It tickled Marrill’s ears, vibrated her skin.

  “Who said that?” she cried. She spun around on her heel. The ferns shook with the wind of it, rustling like whispers. “Hello?” she called.

  Something tickled her toes. She looked down to find a tiny tendril of a vine creeping across her foot. With a gasp, she yanked free, and the tendril recoiled.

  “What was that!?” she yelped. But there was no one there to answer her. A wave of fear rolled over her. The whispers all around her surged, filling her ears with their words.

  She gulped. That was about her mother!

  “Fin, quit fooling around,” she tried halfheartedly. But she knew it wasn’t him. It was something else. Something she had never heard of and had no idea how to deal with.

  She couldn’t take any more. Not knowing what else to do, she ran.

  Branches slapped at her as she tore through the undergrowth. The whispers followed her, led her, surrounded her. Talking about her family, her mother, their search to find her.

  Before long, her stamina gave out, and she slowed to a jog. Her lungs heaved, and a sharp cramp stung her side. Stopping altogether, she gulped for air. But even the sound of blood roaring in her ears wasn’t enough to drown out the voices.

  They came from everywhere now, all around. New whispers joined in—a street merchant in Marrakech telling about Marrill chasing a monkey through his market; a little girl in France explaining the rules of a game to her two-legged ferret; a young boy in Arizona describing the dragon bones he’d recently discovered.