Rubberband World 7 (Patreon)

Hey there, Gre7g here. Feels weird identifying myself on my own Patreon, but I guess it could be Ky now. There's no way for you to see the face behind the keyboard. Anyhow, sorry for the slow updates. Been busy with cons, and my job continues to drain my will to live. /sigh

So, where did we leave off with Gretchen? Oh yeah! She had made it to the belt in time and was realizing that was all the planning she'd done so far. Let's peek in and see how she's faring...

———

Gretchen’s breath caught, and she stared in horror as the world pulled away from them. An invisible weight pressed down on her back as they accelerated upward, but it eased and faded only moments later as the movement stabilized.

Before her, Hilldale shrank smaller and smaller until the band pulled them up into a cloudbank and obscured the view with fog. Her home, her farm, everyone she’d ever known was shrinking away down below her. Surely, this was the farthest she’d ever been from home.

“I did it,” she whispered to no one. “I really did it.”

Basil leaned over and gave her armored shoulder a squeeze. “Welcome to moonrise on the band.”

The donkey sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Well, thanks for showing me that, Basil. It was … terrifying, but it would have been a shame to miss it.”

“My pleasure, Gretchen,” said the young squirrel with an easy smile. “So, where will you start your search?”

“My search?” she repeated, confused.

Basil chuckled. “Moonrise must have really shaken you. Your brother, remember? You climbed the belt to find your brother?”

“Oh, right, how embarrassing,” she said with a blush. She’d only just made up that fib and had nearly blown it already. “Uh, I have no idea. I don’t even have a map of the belt. I suppose I could go to the nearest town to catch my bearings, and go from there.”

“The nearest town is Sweet Water. That’s where I’m from,” said Basil. He put out his hand, but when he tried hoisting Gretchen to her hooves, he nearly toppled over, and she ended up standing on her own and giving him an appreciative pat on the arm. “It’s nice, small. The tavern’s not much of a tavern since they don’t serve alcohol, but they have good food and a couple rooms to let if you wanted to stay over the night.”

“That sounds perfect,” said Gretchen as she followed him back out to the main road. “Mind giving me directions?”

Basil hopped down from the branches, landing on both feet and the palm of one hand. When he stood, he shook his head.

“No?” she said in surprise.

“Well, I could give you directions, but I don’t think you’d appreciate them much.” He pointed nearly straight up into the canopy.

“Oh,” she whispered softly. “Is Sweet Water unreachable by road?”

“Oh, there’s roads, certainly,” Basil said with a grin, “but I’m less familiar with them, so it may take us … a little wandering.”

“Us?” asked Gretchen with a smile. “Are you coming along?”

He shrugged. “Well, I could, if you like,” he said. “I hate seeing you wander off like this, and I haven’t anywhere to be. Going down to the stump to watch the moonrise was the extent of my plans, today.”

“I’d really appreciate it,” she said, heading back uphill. “It’s nice to have made a friend here so soon. Tell you what—if you can get us to Sweet Water by road, then lunch is on me.”

“Deal struck!” laughed Basil as he fell in beside the donkey. “I can always climb up over the leaves to get us turned in the right direction.”

“There’s no signs posted when the road forks?”

He shook his head. “Few people use the roads. They’re just for hauling goods, and those who own carts typically know where they’re headed.”

The two walked in silence awhile before Gretchen bumped his shoulder with her hip. She grinned at him. “So, nothing to do, today? Won’t your parents tan your hide for ditching out on chores?”

He just grinned. “You come from a small family, don’t you?” asked Basil.

“I suppose,” she said. “Mom and Pop, Steven and myself. Mom complains how empty the house is now that my brother has run off and I’ve moved out to run my own farm.”

“Figured as much,” said Basil. “I’m a middle kid in a very large family. There’s months I wander off to do my own thing, and when I get back, neither of my parents seem to notice I’ve been gone.”

Gretchen patted a hand across his narrow shoulders. “I’m sure they notice, Basil,” she reassured him. “They’re probably just happy you’re so independent.”

“Perhaps,” he conceded.

“So, how big is big?”

“Eleven of us kids,” said Basil.

Gretchen missed a step and stared at the squirrel a moment before resuming her march. “Eleven kids? Is that unusual?”

“Fairly,” he agreed. “Mom and Dad had three before she left. He hooked up with a gal who had four of her own, and since then, they’ve had four more. Hopefully, they’re done now. Between my six grandparents, aunts, uncles, and more cousins than I can count, I’d need a diary to keep everyone’s names straight.”

Gretchen nodded a moment before her eyes opened wider and she snapped her fingers. “A diary!” She turned to the squirrel and grasped both his shoulders. “Hey, would Sweet Water happen to have an almanac?”

With ears raised high, Basil stammered, “A-a what?”

“An almanac,” she repeated, walking ahead once more. “Back in Hilldale, there’s a big book that contains the time and date of every moonrise and moonset for the next fifty years. Sweet Water must have something like that, right?”

“Kinda, I guess, but it’s not a book,” said Basil. “The mayor has an orrery which tracks that sort of thing.”

“An orrery?”

“Just a fancy word for a couple brass gears with the names of towns scratched into ’em,” explained Basil. “I think most towns have one. You can turn it as far into the future as you like and see which Earth towns you’ll be closest to every moonset. It helps the traders know where the nearest market will be.”

“Perfect,” said Gretchen. “When I finish up on the belt, I could use one of these orreries to tell which belt town would be closest to Hilldale at moonset.”

“I suppose,” he said with a shrug. “Can’t see how that helps you though.”

“Well,” said Gretchen, “when I’m done, I’ll want to go back home, but if Sweet Water—or whatever town I’m in—meshes up with a town on the far side of the world, then getting off there doesn’t help me much. It’ll take ages for me to walk all the way back home.”

He turned his head toward her and silently appraised her with a squint.

Gesturing with a shovel in one hand, Gretchen explained, “Okay, let’s say that everything goes perfectly and two weeks from now, I’m done and ready to go home.”

“And?”

“And so I check one of these orrery thinggies,” she said, “then I’d know where to wait for moonset.”

He cocked his head at her. “Two weeks?”

“Well, sure,” said Gretchen. She set her shovel down and removed the silk ribbon from her neck before tying a knot in the ends. Then, looping the band around her fists, she demonstrated to Basil as Richard had done to her only the day before. “Every month the Earth and moon rotate around each other. For two weeks the moon is up in the sky and there’s no way to climb between the Earth and the belt.”

She rotated her fists so her right was on top instead of her left. “And then for two weeks, the moon is set and the belt is in the groove, allowing you to cross from one or the other.”

He nodded, and she continued, “The moon just rose half an hour back, so in two weeks, it’s going to set—”

“Hang on a second,” he said, touching his hands to hers, “that’s not how it works.”

“Pfft, of course, it does. Everyone knows that,” she snorted, but Basil was already shaking his head.

“For the donkeys of Hilldale, I suppose, but not for the squirrels of Sweet Water,” said Basil as he adjusted the ribbon looped over her hands. He slid the knot around so it was against the side of her right fist. “Okay, your right hand is the Earth, and the knot in your ribbon is where we’re standing on the belt. That’s us, looking down over Hilldale from the stump half an hour ago. Got it?”

“Got it,” said Gretchen.

Gently touching her hands, he encouraged her to rotate them until her left hand was on top. “That’s two weeks from now.” They rotated again until her right hand was on top once more. “And that’s a month from now.”

“Right,” said the donkey, staring at the side of her right fist, “and the belt is back where it was, about to rise from Hilldale again.”

“But we’re not in Hilldale,” he said calmly. “Where are we?”

Her breath caught, and she looked down at the knot that was now a little below her fist. “It’s…” she whimpered.

He moved her hands again. “Two more weeks and then two more. This is two months from now. Where are we?”

The knot was still between her fists but closer to her left hand this time. Feeling panic rising in her throat, she gestured with her flat nose between the knot and the side of her fist. “So, I need to travel along the belt from here to here, and then I can get back off at Hilldale.”

He shook his head. “You can’t,” he said. “Nobody can walk that fast or even run that fast. Maybe if you were a bird, you could fly there in time, but I doubt it.”

Gretchen started breathing very quickly, and sweat dampened the back of her neck. She rotated her fists again and again, watching as the knot made its way around her left hand before starting its journey back to her right. She lowered her fists and let the ribbon fall to the ground. “How long?” she asked, a note of tragedy in her voice. “How long will it be before the moon sets again in Sweet Water?”

Basil licked his lips. He cleared his throat. “A year … almost.”

Gretchen gasped. “There’s only a path from the belt to the Earth for two weeks every year?” she shouted.

Basil nodded, his eyes sad. “The band completes a loop every twelve months,” he said. “So, eleven and a half months from now there’ll be a chance to get off the belt, but a year from now, the moon will just have risen, and we’ll no longer have contact with the Earth.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1llTLFCftjVm7wlYbBXAHN2z0WScHH6PNA-YaSnQI3Nw/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?