The Emerald Key - By Christopher Dinsdale Page 0,29

him a perch on which to stand, but the box kept sinking until he was treading water on his own. Having the weight of a five-year-old boy on his back didn’t help matters. It was all he could do to keep his own chin above the surface.

Orienting himself, he set out, thrashing his arms, for the shore. Jamie had never had to swim through weeds. The plants wrapped around his arms and legs like hungry green tentacles, slowing Jamie’s progress toward shallow water. Less than a minute passed before Jamie was exhausted. He knew they had barely gone anywhere. His feet could still not touch bottom. This was the end.

“I’m … sorry,” he gasped. “I didn’t … mean it.…”

It was Jamie’s last breath. With his remaining strength, he held the boy up to the surface with his arms. The weight of the boy suddenly lightened and disappeared altogether. Jamie’s panicked mind could only assume that an angel had swooped down and lifted him up to heaven, saving the young Colin from any further pain. For a brief moment, Jamie smiled.

Then something gripped his extended arm. He was being pulled. Weeds tore away from his legs. His head broke through the surface! He gagged as river water spewed out of his mouth. His arm was pinned along the length of another small watercraft. He blinked the water from his eyes and looked into what had to be the face of an angel. A young woman with dark complexion and long, flowing black hair was gazing down at him. Colin was at her feet, wide-eyed and shivering.

“Give me your other arm,” she commanded, in French.

“Angels speak French?” he asked, coughing.

“Now swing your leg over the side. Be careful you do not tip all of us into the water. I will lean the other way for balance.”

Jamie threw one leg over the side of the craft and indeed nearly tipped everyone back into the St. Lawrence. The young woman threw her body over the far gunwale to help balance the boat against Jamie’s waterlogged frame.

“Quickly! Climb in now!”

With his final ounce of strength, Jamie managed to pull himself up over the side of the boat and collapse onto its bottom. Colin threw himself into Jamie’s shivering arms. Looking up into the early-morning sun, Jamie could only make out the silhouette of his rescuer against the rising sun. She was paddling hard for shore.

“I don’t know who you are,” Jamie sputtered, “but thank you.”

He then collapsed on his side and passed out.

Chapter 7

Jamie groaned as his tired mind tried to figure out why he was lying inside a giant wasp nest. His confused thoughts began to settle and he came to realize that he was in an enormous wooden structure, a building unlike any he had ever seen before. The building itself was the shape of a long cylinder cut through its length and then laid on its side. The roof was wooden, no … not wood, but made of strips of bark! At either end of the building were small rectangular doors. Unused fire pits were lined along the centre of its length on the dirt floor. The large building was completely deserted.

Jamie himself felt as if he were wrapped in a luxurious cocoon. Extending his arms, he realized that he had been wrapped in a soft pile of furs. His body lay on a bench that stretched along the entire length of the building. Jamie suddenly panicked when he couldn’t see Colin, but then he heard a shuffling sound beneath him. Peering over the edge, he was relieved to see the boy snuggled in another bundle of furs on a lower bench, still sound asleep. Jamie moved his aching body into an upright position. Next to him on the bench, a large wooden bowl held a selection of ripe berries, vegetables, nuts, and dried fish. Starving, Jamie gratefully dug into the food, being careful to leave enough for the sleeping boy.

He decided to try out his stiff legs. Getting his bearings, he quietly made his way to the nearest doorway and looked out into a sea of green. He had never seen such a beautiful, rich forest before, as the English had cut down almost all of Ireland’s once legendary forests to build their ever-growing navy of ships. It was as if he had woken up and was still living inside a beautiful dream. He glanced up to get an idea of the time, but the canopy was so thick, he couldn’t