Final Fieretsi: Part I of the Fabula Fereganae Cycle
Copyright 2014 Will Davidson
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Chapter I: ‘Isn’t that a weasel?’
It wasn’t just hearing voices that made people think Stefi Valtela was a little strange. And it wasn’t just the way she often disappeared into the forest for hours on end. It was her ferrets, the slinky little creatures that looked remarkably like a drunken attempt to cross a snake and a cat.
Yet it was hearing voices that drove her to wander the Sumarana Forest near her home and eventually stumble upon the ferrets in the first place. They were the voices of breezes whispering through leaves, the childish chuckling of mountain-fed streams, and the somber groans of ancient, creaking willows older than anyone she knew.
Sometimes, but only sometimes, she thought she could hear snatches of words amongst their unintelligible chatter. No one else did, and telling others only led to polite smiles that veiled concern or laughter.
She’d first mentioned them as a young girl, when she’d burst into her classroom to announce a woman was in the forest searching for her lost son. An extensive search by the whole school had found nothing but a new wariness towards the girl with cold, unnerving eyes the color of winter starlight. Even now her old classmates, when passing her in the street, would ask if she’d found her son before laughing and hurrying off. But that wasn’t the worst part. She could still hear the same whispers from that day, almost as if the mysterious voice were taunting her.
My son… Where is he? I cannot find him. He is curious, but not very wise.
Yet she’d never found a trace of the speaker. Or her curious son.
As she wandered the forest years later, an icy breeze tugged her night-black hair until she anchored it into a rough ponytail with an elastic band. At this time of year, as the days grew warmer and longer, the melting snow from the mountains far to the east flowed into many small streams that wandered the countryside like excited children. Come mid-summer those streams vanished, leaving only dusty footprints.
She lifted her skirt above her knees, even though the tattered thing was nearly more patches than skirt, and knelt beside a stream. She dipped her cupped hands into the icy water, shattering her shimmering reflection as she took a drink. A second time she scooped up a handful, this time showering her face and washing away the last traces of sleep.
As she dipped her hands in for a third time she caught a ripple of movement on the edge of her vision. She turned to face it, the water in her hands now forgotten. It trickled through her fingers with the same ease that a fading memory slips through one’s grasp.
It was a sack, she saw, lying beside the remains of some long-abandoned house a short distance away. Only the house’s stone foundations and one crumbling brick wall still stood, like the moldering bones of someone long dead. Last autumn’s leaves lay about it in deep drifts, and a gnarled elderflower tree loomed over the wall as if quietly observing.
As for the sack, it was probably just something dropped by one of the local kids. They often came to this supposedly haunted spot, urging one another to go deeper into the trees while scaring themselves silly with tales of the Furosans and Otsukuné who would almost certainly kill and eat them if they did.
The sack spasmed and was still again in an instant.
“What the…?” Her attention never wavering, she tiptoed over and crouched beside it. “Hello?” She poked it with a stick.
In reply it squirmed and offered a dry hiss. Then silence. It was then she saw the string choking it shut. Had someone deliberately abandoned whatever was inside? She wondered why anyone would do such a thing, even if whatever it was did make strange hissing noises.
“Is someone in there?” She poked the sack a second time. Harder. It lurched again, only more violently and this time with a flurry of furious chatters that seemed almost like cursing.
“Hold on, I’ll get you out.” She was more curious than afraid as she fumbled with the impossibly tight knot. Whoever had tied it, it seemed, didn’t want the thing inside to escape. Did that mean it was dangerous? Its hisses were hardly reassuring, she thought.
She gave up on the knot and pulled the string as hard as she could. Before she could worry further, the string snapped, sending the sack tumbling a short distance. She hurried over and crouched beside it again. “Hey, come on out.”
Slowly, cautiously, a whiskered nose eased into the air and probed at its new freedom. A pointed face soon followed. Its eyes peered out from a dark mask as it surveyed the world laid open before it.
‘Isn’t that a weasel?’ Stefi thought as she stared at the creature before her.
The moment it caught sight of her it skittered from the sack with an icy shriek and puffed its tail like a bottlebrush. It bared its fang-like canines and fixed its inky eyes upon hers, its gaze never wavering as it scuttled backwards, back arched to the sky. Inside those eyes Stefi thought she saw a flash, not of hostility but fear and apprehension. And deeper still something even more unexpected glinted: a spark of intelligence, almost as if the animal was surveying her.
She got down on her hands and knees before it and gave it what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, little weasel. I’m here to help.”
The animal relaxed and the invisible supports in its tail melted away.
I’m not a weasel! a voice shouted, seeming to echo indignantly through nowhere and everywhere at once.
Stefi sprang to her feet with a gasp and, her panicked heart racing, glanced in all directions. Even towards the treetops and the old house itself. Everywhere, that is, except for the tiny thing before her. “Who’s there?” she called to the empty forest. Only her echo replied. Certainly she had heard voices before, but none so hostile as this.
It’s me! the same voice called again. It seemed to sigh. Down here, girl. The ferret!
“The ferr… oh. You?” She crouched before the animal, her pale eyes wide with shock and wonder.
Finally, she realizes! And I’m not a damn weasel, I’m a ferret. Big difference. Its voice seemed to come from within her head, mingling with her own thoughts.
She worked her mouth noiselessly for a few seconds until her words overcame the sheer absurdity of the situation. “You’re talking and your mouth isn’t moving! Is this a dream?” She pinched her arm. After what had happened in childhood, she’d begun to assume, like everyone else, that the voices were just the product of her wandering, possibly crazy, mind. It always went walking with her; sometimes it just ambled a different path towards another world. But ferrets? Those tiny animals, sometimes kept as companion pets though seldom seen otherwise, were thought to be spirits of nature by some. And pests by everyone else.
It’s not for me to say. Oh, and thanks for saving us.
“Us? You mean you’re not alone?”
The ferret didn’t answer and poked its head into the sack. After a few seconds of silence a smaller female wriggled timidly into the light.
Are we free now? she asked. Her voice trembled as much as her elongated body. Just like the other ferret she also seemed to wear a mask over her white face, though she stood smaller than her companion, little more than half his size. Stefi guessed from her quiet voice that perhaps this one wasn’t quite as pushy.
The male nuzzled her affectionately, all the while making throaty warbles unlike anything Stefi had ever heard. At first they reminded her of the societal clucks of hens in a yard. A
t a second hearing they sounded oddly like chuckles, as if they were sharing a private joke.
“Are you two okay?”
At the sound of Stefi’s voice the female flattened herself against the ground in shock.
Settle down, the male said. She saved us.
Still she lay hugging the ground as if attempting to melt away into the dirt and leaves. The mountain-born breeze, so gentle and cool to Stefi, ruffled the shivering creature’s fur.
“Don’t be scared.” Stefi scooped up the shaking ferret and clutched her to her chest. “You’re safe now.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “My name’s Stefi. What’s yours?”
Ge-Gemmie, the ferret’s voice squeaked in her head. It stammered like a spoken voice might. Are you here to help us?
“Looks that way.” Stefi ran her fingers through Gemmie’s down-like sable fur, unable to say no to something so small and vulnerable. Though she’d sought to calm the ferret, its presence, its softness, brought on her a comfort she only now realized she’d been seeking her whole life. Almost, she thought briefly, a sense of completeness. And why not? It was, it seemed, her kind that were the source of the voices she’d always heard.
“So, who’s your pushy little friend?” she asked as she continued to stroke Gemmie.
Maya, Gemmie said. Then, staring up at Stefi with her masked eyes, Wait, how can you understand us? No other humans can.
“I wish I knew.” Stefi shrugged. “Maybe I’m just weird. Everyone thinks I am, anyway.” But what was stranger, she thought: hearing voices or hearing these things, these ferrets?
That’s a given, Maya muttered.
Gemmie snuggled closer to Stefi and pressed her nose against her face. Never mind him, she said. He can be like that sometimes. Well, all the time, actually.
Stefi smiled. “I noticed that. But where exactly are you little critters from?” She already knew they might not want to answer, not after having apparently been abandoned here by their previous owners and left for dead.
I don’t know where it was... Gemmie hesitated for a moment before continuing. Maya and me were the only ferrets there. She glanced at Maya. One minute we were outside having a sleep in a nice warm hammock and the next we were thrown in a sack. Then later you came along.
“Hmm.” Stefi closed her eyes in thought. “How about you two come and live with me? I’ll take good care of you.” She’d always wanted to have pets, although her mother didn’t share the same enthusiasm. They’d once had a dog. He and Stefi’s mother’s allergies hadn’t agreed. He was gone within a month.
Maya shot her a glare, an easy feat with his eyes of depthless black. What about the last human who said that?
“I bet they couldn’t understand ferrets like me. Besides, I like you two already. Even you, Mr. Attitude!”
Gemmie planted eager licks on Stefi’s cheek with her coarse tongue.
Stefi giggled. “I guess it’s settled,” she said, unable to say no to Gemmie’s tickling display of trust and affection. With the ferret cradled in her arms, she got up and began walking the dirt path towards home.
Hey, what about me? Maya stood frozen with shock at the threat of being left behind.
“You’re coming too.” Stefi flashed a grin over her shoulder. “Even if you are a pain in the butt!”
When Stefi arrived home she smuggled the ferrets into her room and slid shut the bolt on the door. She let out a pent-up sigh of relief and collapsed on the small bed in the corner. The rusted bed springs groaned despite her small frame. She placed Gemmie and Maya on the blankets and lay down beside them.
“Welcome to your new home,” she said and swept her arm before her. “I suppose you two can sleep up here with me. Unless you want to sleep in the clothes drawers.” She eyed up their fur, suddenly remembering her mother. “You don’t shed much, do you? Or make people sneeze?”
Maya’s dark eyes bored through hers. We are very clean, thank you! he said. And rather cute, if I may say so. Well, handsome in my case.
“I won’t argue with that,” Stefi said and smiled at his confidence. “I just hope mum agrees and lets you stay, that’s all.”
What if she says no? Gemmie asked, her voice and body shaking in equal measure.
“She won’t.” Stefi gave her a reassuring pat. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”
Stefi watched as Maya slithered off the bed and sauntered purposefully around the room, surveying his new territory as his nose bobbed across the dusty floorboards.
His exploration didn’t take long. Stefi’s small room, as the ferret soon found, was almost bare except for her bed in one corner and a heavy chest of drawers opposite. The only light came from a cracked window that looked towards the forest. Dust-motes danced in the sunlight now streaming in.
Survey complete, he sidled back to the bed. But when he tried to haul himself up his paws scrabbled feebly on the blanket, unable to find a hold.
“You want help there?” Stefi lifted him up without waiting for an answer.
Thanks.
It was the second of many times Stefi would help out the ferrets. They hoped one day to return the favor.
As it turned out, Stefi’s mother allowed her to keep the two ferrets, although she shuddered every time one of the slinky things skittered past or lunged at her feet. At the very least they’d keep Stefi’s mind off boys for a while. And it worked. That, or the ferrets scared them away. She bet on the latter.
It wasn’t until nearly a year later, when the nights were still dusted with winter’s chill, that Gemmie and Maya first started acting strangely. And Stefi again found her life changed forever.
Stefi? Gemmie said as they sat on the back steps outside Stefi’s room, sharing raisins and each other’s company beneath the twilit sky. All three also shared the same appreciation for that time, when the day itself had ended and tomorrow branched out into a hundred new possibilities.
“What’s up, Gem?” Stefi glanced at the ferret’s round face with concern. Although a timid ferret, Gemmie had learned to open up, to reveal glimpses of a soul abandoned and hurt in the past. Not so Maya, who was nearly as stubborn as Stefi’s father. But it wasn’t very often Gemmie spoke that way, in a voice that was a cross between fright and nervousness mixed with a small squeak.
I… Gemmie hesitated for a moment. I feel cold. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t help feeling like someone’s looking for us.
“Looking for you?” Stefi said. “What do you mean by that? Your old owners?”
No, Maya said, not damn likely. I’ve been feeling it too. It’s like something wants to find us. Or wants us to find it.
“You never know,” Stefi said with a shrug. “It could be your old owners.” She certainly hoped it wasn’t, even though such a wish struck her as selfish. What if someone else had once loved the ferrets as much as she now did?
After they dumped us? Maya said. The sharp tone in his voice suggested the matter was now closed. I doubt it.
Gemmie shivered despite the warm air, and her next words filled Stefi with the same chill that wracked her body. I think it wants us dead…
Stefi awoke early the next morning to a small, wet nose poking her face. She pushed the last remnants of sleep away and eased open her eyes to the new day. There, almost sitting on her face, was Gemmie.
“What is it, Gem-girl?” She stretched the sleep from her body, almost knocking Gemmie to the floor.
I’m scared. The ferret’s fur stood at full attention, bristling like a hedgehog’s spines.
“Did you have a bad dream?”
No. But that feeling I told you about yesterday, it’s getting stronger. I’m really scared something bad is going to happen.
“Don’t worry.” Stefi plucked the ferret from the blankets and ran her fingers across the sable fur until it was smooth once more. “You’re safe with me.”
No! Gemmie writhed in Stefi’s grasp. We’re not safe here. We have to go!
“What does Maya think?” She placed
Gemmie back on the bed. “Is he feeling bad, too?” Maybe Gemmie was just spooked by a bad dream, she thought. After all, she did suffer recurring nightmares of being trapped in a sackcloth prison.
I haven’t seen him all morning.
Stefi hurled the blankets aside and leapt to the wooden floor. She winced at the sudden coldness on her feet. Normally Maya slept with Gemmie at the foot of the bed. This morning his usual spot lay empty except for a few stray hairs.
“Maya?” she called. “Maya?” No answer. She stumbled groggily about the room, still half-asleep, and peered under the bed and even behind the drawers where he and Gemmie liked to hide any ill-gotten loot. Then inside the drawers where a drowsy Gemmie had once vanished for a whole day amongst the socks. Nothing.
She let out a frustrated sigh. “Do you think he could’ve gotten outside?” she asked Gemmie, her thoughts already out the door.
He might have, but I don’t know…
“We’d better go look.”
As if on an invisible leash Gemmie followed Stefi into the kitchen of the small house and over to the front door. Still wearing her nightshirt, Stefi slipped her boots onto her feet and, not bothering to tie the laces, stepped outside.
Just like every other day before the sun was truly over the mountains, Sumarana still lay sleeping beneath a thin, misty shroud that hid the forest. The hardpan road snaking its way through the middle of the town and on towards the larger farms and mountain range to the east was empty. No foot traffic or dirriwan-drawn trade caravans were anywhere to be seen.
Stefi glanced along the road but could see no sign of her missing Maya. She called his name. Only her echo dared reply. As any hope of finding him again died with her echoes, so too did the will to stand. She dropped to the steps and hung her head in her hands. By now he could be anywhere, she knew, and one little ferret could easily be swallowed up by the world.
Hey, what’s that? Gemmie said.
“What?” She sniffed, unable to hold back the coming tears.
There’s something coming along the road! Gemmie said. It looks like Maya! She bounced excitedly and scampered onto the dusty road, her back arched high and head waving as if gripped by a seizure. It was a strange behavior others often misunderstood as aggression and anger, but in truth it was an expression of joy and silliness. Perhaps because, Stefi had theorized, the tiny creatures hadn’t the strength to contain the runaway emotions that sometimes descended into streams of bubbling gibberish in her head.
“It is Maya!” Stefi sprang to her feet. Indeed, the small sable ferret scampered along the road towards them, his paws kicking up spurts of dust. He came to rest at her feet.
“Maya!” she said, more relieved than angry as she fell to her knees and took him in both hands. “Where the hell have you been?”
Stefi, he said, his voice as dark as his eyes, I went to the place where you found us, to listen. The voices of the world always seem clearest there. But not today. Something doesn’t feel right.
“What doesn’t feel right? What’s wrong?” she asked as churning dread rose in her stomach. She shuddered, and not because of the cold.
Wait! Gemmie stared blankly off into space. I feel it too…
“What do you feel?” Stefi said. Her fear and impatience grew with every passing second. She placed Maya on the step beside her, where Gemmie soon joined him.
Feregana, our world, She’s in pain, Gemmie said, still gazing at nothing.
“Okay then, I guess your old owners really aren’t trying to find you.” What she’d just said brightened her mood, if only for a second. “But look, it’s not like we can do anything if the world is in pain, right?”
We could find the Furosans, Maya said. They might know more about this than two ferrets and some human girl who can understand them.
“Furosans?” she said. “Are they still even nearby?” As a child she had heard the stories of the Furosan race, a people who supposedly bore some features of ferrets. Sure, they had once lived throughout the Sumarana region on Western Feregana’s western coast. But now? All she knew for sure was that they were meant to be bad, thanks to the frequent lessons taught by her schoolteachers and hammered home in church. She had always doubted them. After all, ferrets were pretty harmless. But, she supposed, religion could make people believe almost anything.
I think so, Maya said. Sometimes I hear their voices drifting on Fairun’s winds. They’re merely hiding. If we can find them, they may be able to help us.
“Help with what, exactly? And just where are they?”
I heard no more. I have no idea.
“Neither do I.” No one knew for sure where the Furosans of Western Feregana’s Sumarana region now lived, if they still lived there at all. Rumors spoke of small settlements scattered throughout the wide-ranging forest, rumors fueled by late-night sightings and exaggerated truths. Yet nothing had been found in a long time. If indeed they still dwelt there, they certainly kept their presence well hidden from humans.
“Okay,” she said at last, then without knowing why, “if it will help you and our world feel better, we’ll go look for them. But they could be anywhere, I hope you realize. God knows where we would start. Not that He’d be any help.”
Without waiting for a reply she turned and headed back inside with Gemmie and Maya trailing behind. No more was said between them.
Back inside she ate her breakfast in silence, prodding her food and barely eating. All she could think about was what Maya had said earlier.
Finding the Furosans was a daunting enough task on its own. Then there were other problems if she actually found them. Would she get them to co-operate with her? Maybe they’d kill her? Imprison her? Enslave her? Were they nice or barbaric? She couldn’t be sure. But Maya had seemed so insistent on finding them. Lately the ferrets had been feeling strange, perhaps as a result of whatever was happening to the world outside her hometown. Even at her age, in her mid teens, she knew little of the world beyond the farming town’s borders. At least this would be a good excuse to wander further than the forest’s fringe.
She muttered a word of thanks and pushed her bowl towards her mother.
“You didn’t eat much,” her mother said. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, mum,” she said, her voice quiet and almost childlike. “I suppose I’m just tired, that’s all.” She got up from her chair and shuffled off to her room before her mother could ask any more questions.
‘Do I really have to go?’ she thought to herself. ‘I mean, if the damn world is in pain, what can I do? Talk to ferrets about it?’ She let out a half-hearted laugh. That probably wasn’t far from the truth. If ferrets really were nature spirits of a kind, could she talk to nature, to the world itself? But that was stupid, right? Crazy talk.
However she looked at it, it seemed that with this strange and utterly useless gift of understanding ferrets she was perhaps the only one who could find the Furosans and figure out what was happening to Feregana. And, most importantly to her, alleviate the ferrets’ cold feeling. Maybe, just maybe, she would also find out why she could understand the creatures in the first place.
The decision to leave wasn’t as difficult as she’d hoped. After all, what friends she’d once had didn’t want to associate themselves with someone who heard voices. Only her parents would miss her, and even then perhaps only her mother. The only thing her father could ever miss was his drink.
She fell back onto her bed. Thoughts of pained worlds and hidden Furosans had her tired out already, and it was still only morning. She still wasn’t entirely sure about what Maya had said, but what he had had scared her.
“How could he hear the Furosans’ voices?” she muttered aloud. “And why so well at that crappy old ruined house? And what the hell are Fairun’s winds?” She thumped the headboard. “I just don’t know!”
She sprawled across her bed and stared at the ceiling as thoughts buzzed through her head like the fly bashing itself against the bedroom window.
&nb
sp; What’s wrong, Stefi? a voice said in her head. Without looking around she knew who it was.
“Everything, Gem. Something’s going on with you and we need to find the Furosans to figure out what. Maya seems really worked up that you’re in danger.”
I feel something too, Gemmie said. Just not as much as he does. Then again, he’s always been sensitive to these sorts of things. Just not… The ferret hesitated for a moment. …my feelings.
Gemmie was wrong about that, Stefi knew. Sure, Maya could come across as gruff and insensitive, yet she’d met few people who were as caring or loyal.
Stefi stayed lying on her back and followed the cracks in the plastered ceiling with her eyes. Perhaps her path searching for the Furosans would be like them, meandering aimlessly across the countryside, sometimes running into dead ends or having to choose between paths. Maybe she’d even meet some nice Furosans and become friends while helping to bridge the gap between her kind and theirs. And it wasn’t like they would shun her for hearing ferrets’ voices in her head, would they?
With these reassuring thoughts she got up and walked over to her drawers.
What are you doing now? Gemmie asked as she trotted behind.
“Packing. We’re leaving now.”
To find the Furosans?
“To find out what’s going on.” She found an old backpack and put in a change of clothes and a blanket. Next she made her way into the kitchen and took a bottle from the cupboard under the sink and filled it with water. She got a loaf of bread and a small packet of biscuits for the ferrets too and added them to her pack, which she then shouldered. Finally she grabbed a kitchen knife from the bench and slipped it into her belt. ‘For protection’, she told herself. Not that she had even the slightest idea how to defend herself. Still, it seemed better than nothing.
She called to the ferrets. “Gem! Maya!”
Maya slinked guiltily from behind the kitchen cupboards.
“What were you doing there?” she asked, hands planted on her hips.
Just checking my stashes, he said. I had the feeling we’d be going. Will you be telling your mother about this?
Stefi noticed he mentioned only her mother. So even he knew her father likely wouldn’t care.
“No, I’ll just leave a note. I think it’s best she doesn’t know we’re taking off. I don’t think she’d take it too well.” Just moments before she’d heard her head out for the shops. She already knew where her father was. The pub.
She picked up a pencil from the kitchen table and scrawled a note.
-Mum
Gone for a walk for a few days.
Taking the ferrets. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.
-Love Stefi.
She put the note on the table where her mother would see it and headed for the door. Hanging on a hook were her ferrets’ leads and walking harnesses that her father, a leather-worker, had made her when she first found them, before he’d found more comfort in a bottle than in family. She knew she probably wouldn’t need them but slipped them into the back pocket of her skirt all the same.
With her heart beating nervously she pushed open the front door and started down the road and away from the house where she’d spent her whole life.
Despite the fact she could often be seen wandering off with a laden pack, she broke into a jog and headed towards the forest’s borders, hoping no one would see her. Something about blatantly lying to her mother and the thought she might never return filled her with guilt, a feeling of being almost criminal, so it felt only natural to avoid prying eyes.
The next town along the western road was Albana, nestled in the outskirts of the forest. As good a place as any to start her search, she thought. After all, someone there may have heard something. If she stayed close to the road but inside the forest she’d be fine. Or so she hoped.
Where’re we going now? Gemmie asked as she and Maya perched on her shoulders.
“Into the forest so we won’t be seen.”
She reached the forest and slipped into its shadowy fringes. She hoped to reach Albana by nightfall, but before she carried on she took a minute to turn back and reflect on her decision.
Her path would be a difficult one, she was sure of that. It was paved with uncertainties. Would she find the Furosans? And if so, were they nice? Was such a journey pointless? But she did know one thing: like the cracks in the ceiling, her journey would branch out to many places before its end.