The story was about snakes, and we loved it when he told us snake stories, because you got to eat the scary poison bad guys at the end and it was a delicious victory that tasted like chicken. Plus the heroine of this particular snake story was a fluffy entrepreneurial poodle named Gwyneth, who had made her fortune by hiring some humans to manufacture candles featuring the scent of her own ass.
That’s right.
Well, you’re not Gwyneth.
They’re all sold out, unfortunately.
Starbuck and I whimpered softly at this disappointment, but we thrilled at the adventures of Gwyneth the snake slayer and admired her courage. Atticus reminded us we’d need to be every bit as courageous as Gwyneth when we got to where the fire was.
We could tell we were getting closer because the smell of smoke got worse as we went, penetrating the vehicle. I couldn’t tell how long the ride was, unfortunately, but it seemed like a good while, and we stopped again in a town called Albury to grab some food and stretch our legs. Atticus also visited a hardware store and returned quickly with a hatchet. The driver looked at him a bit more suspiciously after that, and I wondered what was up too.
I asked him.
It’s for unnatural causes, he replied, but I think he realized that didn’t answer my question very well, and he explained.Most of thefires raging across the country right now are naturally occurring. That is to say, they got started as a lightning strike or something like that, even if the conditions that make them burn so long are a result of human action. The problem is that all these fires may have attracted some other beings that like to watch things burn, and if so, they’re making an already terrible situation just a little bit worse. That’s what the elemental is worried about.
The elemental is weak and suffering tremendously right now. A couple of years ago they had unprecedented fires during what they now call the Black Summer. The damage done was incredible; billions of plants and animals died, and their collective lives were giving the elemental life. And now it’s happening again.
Right, sorry, I forgot your difficulty with numbers. Let’s just say the elemental is very sick, and because of the sickness they’re not sure whether something is encouraging the fires or not. There could be a legitimate otherworldly threat ahead. Or it could be the equivalent of delirium, a fever dream, something the elemental imagined. They’re just not sure. Our job is to make sure.
After another long drive, during which Atticus told us some more stories about a band of noble dog rangers battling an evil council of squirrel wizards, he asked the driver if we were outside Kanangra-Boyd National Park and we weren’t quite there. They talked back and forth a lot about some specific spot Atticus was looking for, a landmark of some kind, and eventually he thought he saw it and pointed into the haze.
“There. Drop us off there, please.” He indicated a huge mountain ash tree with a boulder in front of it. I thought either or both would be pretty good places to pee.
The driver looked worried. “You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“It’s nasty here, man. Not safe.”
I agreed. The smoke was really bad and kind of burning my nose from the inside, even though we were still in the van.
“I’ll be fine, thanks.”
“You need a tank of oxygen, mate, seriously. We’re too close to the fire. I don’t feel comfortable leaving you here.”
“I have an oxygen mask for both myself and the dogs cached behind that boulder,” Atticus lied. I knew he was lying because who buries oxygen masks in Australia just in case? Well—hold on. I bury bones sometimes just in case. But that’s because they’re delicious, and as far as I knew, oxygen masks weren’t. Still, Atticus has done weirder stuff.
“Oxygen masks for the dogs?”
“Modern times, man. We have all the things for pets we could ever need.”
“Whatever, mate.” He pressed his thumb on his phone and then held it up to Atticus. “Do me a solid and put it on record that you want me to leave you here and not hold me responsible for whatever fiery death awaits you.”
Atticus basically promised not to blame the guy for anything that happened to us and we got out. The smoke made me and Starbuck hack, and Atticus suggested we hold our breath for a bit. Once the guy drove away, Atticus started speaking in Old Irish and doing his binding thing. He can bind most anything to anything else, really, as long as it doesn’t have a large iron content, and in this case he bound the smoke and ash particles in the air tostay out of our noses. He created a little bubble of clean air around us, and our eyes stopped stinging once it retreated and we could see clearly.
