The Namer of Spirits, page 1
The Namer of Spirits
Todd Mitchell
Owl Hollow Press
Contents
Praise for The Namer of Spirits
Part I
Warning Bells
Left Behind
A Knock in the Night
Into the Storm
The Puppy of Doom
Friend of Strangers
Dread Eggs
Lock and Keys
The Mistcat
Arrows in the Wall
Part II
Stumps in the Forest
Forest Smells
Dao Fora
The First Test
The Cave of Sorrows
To Feed the Sorrows
A Sip of Memory
Sky Vines
The Sky Tree
Seeds
Governor City
Bound
The Governor’s Peace Treaty
Flames and Arrows
Pilot
Part III
The Spear Tip
Shadows in the Tower
Named and Unnamed
Restless
The Power of Naming
The Stolen Illwen
Chains
The Trouble with Names
Transformations
Home
What Fen Became
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Discussion Questions
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading!
About the Author
Praise for The Namer of Spirits
“A dangerous town carved out of unforgiving forest, a young girl who can name spirits and tame monsters, a race against time to save the natural world: The Namer of Spirits is what readers want and the world needs.”
—Eliot Schrefer, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Rainforest
“Absorbing, masterfully crafted, and brilliantly original, The Namer of Spirits is an illuminating story about friendship, courage, and the power of words.”
—Jenny Goebel, Green Earth Book Award-winning author of Out of My Shell
“A luminous and essential story for all ages. I was swept away by the lovable characters, magical world, passionate quest, and wise guides. The Namer of Spirits reflects current ecological issues in a way that offers readers understanding, hope, and the courage to take action. Everyone should read this.”
—Laura Resau, Américas Award-winning author of Tree of Dreams
“A rich, multi-layered story with a subtle ecological message, and a cast of characters who had my heart from page one, The Namer of Spirits is simply spellbinding.
Teachers and librarians who are searching for well-written fiction to pair with environmental non-fiction need to snap this one up! Highly recommended.”
—Darby Karchut, Colorado Book Award-winning author of Del Toro Moon
OWL HOLLOW PRESS
Owl Hollow Press, LLC, Springville, UT 84663
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is coincidental or used in fictional ways.
The Namer of Spirits
Copyright © 2021 by Todd Mitchell
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Namer of Spirits / T. Mitchell. — First edition.
Summary:
The perils of deforestation and the magic of friendship are explored through a fantastical adventure involving giant mistcats, tempestuous forest spirits, and a girl with a special gift for speaking the words that shape what things become.
ISBN 978-1-945654-82-4 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-945654-83-1 (e-book)
LCCN 2021944998
For Cailin—like Ash you see the truth of things and always speak your heart.
And for Addison—for showing me the power of naming.
Part I
Warning Bells
Every child who grew up in the village of Last Hope knew what the warning bells meant.
One bell, rung from a watchtower, meant that a storm had been spotted. Usually such storms came from the west—the direction of the cloud forest beyond the wall. Storms rolled over the tops of trees in the distance like giant bulls charging toward the village.
Two bells meant that dao fora warriors had been seen, skulking among the cloud forest underbrush or racing through the trees on their mistcats. When two bells were rung, wall soldiers readied their muskets, and any workers in the fields beyond the wall hurried in through the gates as quick as their legs could carry them. Even those within the village would take shelter when two bells were rung, in case the dao fora shot poison arrows over the wall.
But three bells meant something much worse. Three bells, rung from a watchtower, was the warning signal everyone listened for, because three bells meant an illwen had been spotted coming toward the village.
When three bells were rung, soldiers left their posts and ran for the longhouse, along with all the villagers, because no wall, musket, or amount of bravery would keep a monstrous, rampaging illwen out. All that the soldiers and villagers could do when illwen attacked was take shelter within the sunken stone walls of the longhouse and wait for the angry forest spirit to pass.
That’s what village children were taught to do since they were old enough to walk. And that’s what plantation workers and squatters learned to do as soon as they arrived in Last Hope. Even if they didn’t know how to speak the common tongue, they knew to drop whatever they were doing and run to the longhouse when three bells were rung.
Which is why, on this hot spring day, when twelve-year-old Ash Narro heard a warning bell sound from the watchtower by the forest gate, she froze and did what all villagers did—she waited to hear if another bell would follow.
Ash’s father, Garrett Narro, stood nearby, holding a broom. He’d been sweeping up debris from the previous night’s illwen attack. Broken branches and leaves littered the front porch of his general store, along with dirt and rocks that had blown against the storefront. The store itself, and the rooms above it where Ash and her parents lived, had been spared. Still, there was plenty to clean up. Illwen almost always appeared during a storm, and for the past several months all the storms had been dusty and dry, bringing vicious winds but no rain to end the drought.
A second bell sounded from the forest gate watchtower. The whole village became quiet as a frightened rabbit as people waited to learn what threat had been spotted. Ash held her breath.
No third bell sounded.
The north, east, and south watchtowers soon picked up the warning, each sounding only two bells.
Ash let out her breath and looked to her father. He kept staring across the village square at the forest gate watchtower where a lookout shouted to soldiers on the ground. More soldiers ran from the barracks to the gate. The jingle of their buckles echoed across the square.
“Open the gate!” called the lookout.
“Jumping frogs,” grumbled Garrett Narro. “What now?”
“Are dao fora attacking?” asked Ash.
Her dad shook his head. “They wouldn’t open the gate if dao fora were attacking.”
“Then why did they ring two bells?”
Garrett shrugged and went back to sweeping the porch. He was the sort of person who rarely troubled himself with questions he didn’t have answers for.
But Ash wasn’t that sort of person—not in the least. She had a mind that constantly wandered into hidden places. People often scolded her for daydreaming and getting carried away by “flights of fancy,” although Ash never saw it as such. Rather than imagining things, she thought of it as paying attention to things that no one else noticed and seeing what could be—the way a weed could be a flower once you noticed its beauty. Everything had hidden possibilities, and if she listened closely enough, she sometimes heard whispers of what those possibilities might be.
Now, for instance, she heard several possibilities whispering around the gate. She couldn’t make out what the soldiers said, but they seemed excited about something. Dao fora warriors must be near—otherwise the watchtower wouldn’t have rung two warning bells. Yet the soldiers didn’t appear frightened. Maybe the dao fora came in peace. They might have even brought gifts. Ash tried to envision what sort of gifts dao fora warriors would bring. Beautiful birds? Precious gems? Tame mistcats? She watched the gate, eager for it to open.
Her father cleared his throat. “There are plenty of sticks that still need picking up.”
Ash stooped to gather broken branches, but her thoughts stayed on the gate.
Lately, dao fora warriors had shot at plantation workers and squatters who’d strayed into the cloud forest. Perhaps the lookout had called for the gate to be opened because a wounded squatter needed to be let in. But if that was all, why ring two warning bells?
She carried the sticks she’d collected to the pile by the porch and started to break the longer ones in half across her knee.
“Ouch!” One stick refused to break. Her knee throbbed. Ash propped the stick against a rock and stomped on it, but it didn’t even bend.
“Aren’t you a strong stick,” she said.
The stick hummed in response.
It was a sound Ash felt more than heard—a tingling that ran up her spine and collected at the back of her head, calling to her. The stick wanted a name. Not a common name, like the ones people used to describe things, but a true name—the sort of name that revealed what something could be. The sort of name that no one else seemed to hear but her.
Ash studied the stick. It was slightly thicker than her thumb and long enough to serve as a good walking stick. She tried digging her nails into the silver bark but couldn’t even scratch it.
Ironwood, she realized, amazed.
Ironwood trees were rare and extremely strong. The only one she’d seen in the area grew in the webworm plantation fields beyond the wall. How did the stick get here?
The more she considered the stick, the more the hum of possibilities deepened. She cocked her head and tried to listen to the wood, but all the commotion at the gate made it hard to concentrate.
Garrett Narro finally set down his broom. “Stay here,” he told Ash. Then he strode toward the crowd gathering around the gate.
Ash set the stick with the others in the pile. The moment she let it go, the hum became a whine.
“Guess you don’t want to be left behind,” she said. “Me neither.”
She glanced at where her father had gone. He’d nearly reached the crowd by the gate. Her friend, Rosa Baker, headed there as well. Ash hadn’t talked with Rosa in over a week.
“Come along.” She picked up the stick. “Let’s see what all the fuss is about.”
“Clear the gate!” shouted the watchtower officer.
Four wall soldiers pressed the villagers back, while two more lifted the heavy timber and swung open the gate door. Ash squeezed between people’s hips and shoulders to get a better view.
A skinny boy stumbled through the opening a moment later, followed by two squatters. One of the squatters held the end of a rope that had been looped around the boy’s neck. He shoved the boy forward, then yanked the rope.
Villagers gasped and stepped back, afraid of the boy even though he was tied up. Wall soldiers poured into the gap and cleared a path to the square.
The boy wore the strangest clothes. Crude leather pants covered his legs and a cloak the greenish-gray color of tree moss hung from his shoulders. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Swirls of red clay decorated his chest, and a woven leather band lifted his long black hair back from his face.
Ash’s pulse skipped. The boy resembled descriptions she’d read of the forest people who shot arrows at squatters and plantation workers. A real live dao fora!
Mayor Tullridge blustered through the crowd. “What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded.
“We caught him sneaking around the wall, trying to attack the village!” said the man holding the rope.
Ash didn’t know the man’s name. Squatters were always coming to the village, claiming they’d been granted land to farm by the governor himself. But since there wasn’t any farmland left in the village, new arrivals often had to resort to clearing parts of the cloud forest beyond the wall to farm, or “squatting” as villagers called it.
The second squatter looked related to the man holding the rope, only younger. His dark hair had white tufts of webworm silk stuck to it from walking through the plantation fields. Both squatters beamed with pride at having captured a dao fora. The younger one carried the dao fora boy’s bow and a quiver full of arrows.
The strangest thing about the dao fora boy was that he didn’t look worried about being captured. In fact, the corners of his mouth turned up in a curious smile as he looked around. Except for his odd clothing, he hardly seemed like the fierce, murderous warriors Ash had heard soldiers tell stories about. He looked like a kid, not even as old as her. He was skinnier than her too.
The squatter holding the rope shoved the boy toward the center of the village square. Villagers created a circle around him, trying to get a good look without getting too close.
“Why, he’s just a scrawny child,” said one woman.
“Don’t be foolish,” grumbled another. “Dao fora always look young, on account of them having no beards. They’re small, too, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. Ones who looked younger than this killed my brother, bless his soul.”
Soon villagers fell into arguing about what to do with the boy. Some wanted to tie him to a wall post or hang him by his ankles to scare off other dao fora. Others thought this cruel, but even they didn’t want to release him. If they let him go he’d just hide in the forest and shoot poison arrows at them. Or he’d send more illwen to attack, just like the one that had torn through their village the night before.
Eventually, Mayor Tullridge announced that they’d hold the boy prisoner until his fate could be determined. This solution led to new problems since they couldn’t decide where to keep the boy. The village had no jail. Anyone who committed a crime was forced to work without pay in the webworm plantations beyond the wall, but people figured the boy would escape if they took him beyond the wall since that’s where he’d come from.
Finally, someone pointed to the empty rabbit cage in front of the general store and suggested keeping the boy there.
Ash looked to see what her father thought of this plan. His brow furrowed, the way it did when he went over shop figures that didn’t add up, but he didn’t protest. No one else had a cage as sturdy as his, with thin metal bars that rabbits couldn’t chew through.
The two squatters shoved the boy into the cage while Ash’s dad got a padlock for the door.
The cage wasn’t large, but the boy was small enough that he could crawl around inside if he didn’t lift his head too high. At least it was better than being tied to a post in the blazing hot sun. Or being hung off the wall by his ankles.
“There,” said the older squatter. “As long as we’ve got one of theirs, they won’t dare send more illwen to attack us.”
“Unless they don’t control the illwen,” someone else said.
“Everyone knows the illwen come from the forest where the dao fora live,” argued a farmer. “They’re the ones sending those monsters here, and if they do it again we’ll show ’em what we’ve got.”
The crowd moved into the shade of a fig tree near the square to get out of the midday sun. The sweltering heat, on top of the ongoing drought and the recent illwen attack, had everyone in a prickly, fearful mood.
Instead of following the crowd, Ash crept closer to the cage to inspect the boy.
She’d never seen one of the dao fora up close before. She’d heard people talk about how, long ago, dao fora used to come into the village to trade goods at her parents’ store, but that all ended after dao fora attacked some squatters in the cloud forest. Then soldiers built the wall to keep the dao fora out.
These days, dao fora only came near the village to shoot poison arrows at people. Dao fora raids had killed several people caught outside the wall, including Rosa’s dad. People claimed that the dao fora were why the illwen attacks had increased, although no one knew for certain if this was true. And even if it was true, no one knew how dao fora managed to command such wild, destructive forest spirits. Telling an illwen where to go would be like telling the wind where to blow.
The boy sat cross-legged on the ground, watching the villagers. Ash didn’t think he looked like a killer. He was just a scrawny kid who seemed surprised that all this fuss was over him.
