Chapter 20

It began as a whispering in the air. The day had been beautiful, and the sky was like a dome of plasma blue. The clouds had looked like airy anvils drifting under the gleaming disc of the sun.

They had put a tent up just before the Reaper's autumn moon appeared over the trees. The moon seemed to turn the leaves into a flaming patchwork of colors: scorching yellows, lava-reds, and burnished browns. It added an alien glamour to a perfect scene. They heard a greedy thrush, snail a-tapping on rock; he finished his supper before fluttering into the owl light of the forest. The mournful cry of a lonely fox echoed through the vault-still silence of the trees.

A huffing wind rose then, stirring the flaps of their tent.

A tinkling sound came to the ears as the first pearls of rain dropped onto the leaves. The sound was like the glassy clinking of a champagne flute, lilting and clear. A sheet of rain passed over them, and the sound intensified. The noise in the tent was l