7. The Branchbridges

Everything else in the wagon was still there. All the content, all the parts. But Perzwa and the recipe book were missing.

Minneka exploded on her. “I told you. I told you, I told you, I told you.”

“Oh well, most recipes are safely in my memory anyway, that they are.”

She felt worse than she appeared, though. That recipe book was her only memory of home. And it surely contained recipes she did not know yet. She felt incomplete without the book, helpless and weak.

And being the victim of a scam … that never felt nice.

“Where’s that Fishfool, Chef? How will we find it now? Without a book that guides us?”

“By following our noses.”

This too was said with more confidence than Chef felt. She didn’t know what the Fishfool smelled like. She remembered it was a blue plant with a fear of water. If you accidentally dropped the plant into the ocean anyway, something big happened. She didn’t remember what. She grew annoyed at her terrible memory—something that would not improve without her recipe book.

“You were right,” said Chef as she stroked her empty windowsill. To make it worse, Perzwa had sent the wagon way off course. In the distance she spotted the Fifty Branchbridges of Slumberland. Where the sloths, well, did nothing all day and slumbered.

Chef’s voice was soft and rough. “I trust too quickly. I want too much at once. We should have driven to Traferia in a straight line and made that medicine.”

Minneka followed her gaze and, to her surprise, smiled. The kingdom of the sloths was beautiful, just like the stories said. It was also all the way in the far corner of Traferia.

If they were to continue from it, they’d reach Mateshaven, the fastest sea route to the island of Madaska. But their destination was all the way on the other side, at the Lion Palace.

“We still have time.”

Chef tilted her head sideways. Her ears picked up a high piercing sound she couldn’t place, and she searched for its origin. A beep. Some ringing. A vague rhythm on the horizon.

A bell that rang.

Chef immediately disengaged the brakes; Minneka pushed them back.

“It’s useless.”

“We can make it! We have … we have a backup wheel, almost all ingredients, a good mood, and—”

“You have a good mood. Leave me out of it.”

Chef looked up. The wagon roof was open, which bathed them both in blinding sunlight. The sloths had even built a few Branchbridges outside of their kingdom: wooden paths high in the sky to connect the treetops.

Because why go through the immense effort of climbing down, when you could also not do that?

“I have an idea. You steer the car, I climb the trees.”

“You know what happened last time!”

“Yes. And it won’t happen again. Maybe your demigod power is steering wooden wagons!”

“Hmm. That would be severely disappointing.”

Chef climbed into the tree and reached a bridge. She placed the sketch of the Fishfool front and center in her mind, then started the search. From here she had a great overview of the ground below. If there was any blue plant there, she’d spot it.

And she was faster. Half the time she could run over bridges, and half the time she swung from branch to branch using thick vines. It quickly gave her a lead over Minneka, who desperately tried to keep the car on something resembling a path.

Blue. Blue blue blue. Was it the shape of a water droplet? Or am I confusing it with the Dawndoris?

She wasn’t a good chef at all. Without her recipe book she was nothing! Why did she have to let Perzwa in? Why did all the other animals look up to her? She wasn’t worth it.

Don’t think about that. Find a Fishfool.

The bells kept ringing. With every jump towards the sound, it became more piercing and annoying. Not a distant ringing, but a reminder, with every hit, that she would be too late.

She felt like she’d jumped and searched for an entire day now. And it felt as if the color blue did not appear at all in the whole of Traferia!

What if that plant didn’t even grow here? Wat if the recipe book would have told Chef that the darned thing only grew on Madaska, or the Nordic Ice Sheets? Then this was useless from the start.

And sure, it started raining. Oh well, rainforest, was to be expected.

Minneka kept losing control of the wagon. The wheels slipped in the dirt pools that appeared and the rain made it hard to look any further than an arm’s length.

“But wait!” said Chef. She froze halfway a swing, which meant she now dangled from her tail high above the ground. “If the Fishfool is afraid of water … then it also tries to avoid rain, won’t it?”

“What did you say?” Minneka yelled at her. As she steered, her tail tried to pull on the rope to close the roof.

She turned away from the path and helplessly drove over the many dead branches that lay scattered on the rainforest floor. The wagon was destined to meet the abyss around the Saursea again. But this time they approached it from the other side, as opposed to when they searched the Dinodear a few days ago.

This was a rainforest, yes. That meant rain was to be expected. If she wanted to find the Fishfool here, she had to look for places that would never receive any raindrops.

Chef swung and ran, but wasn’t able to catch up with the wagon anymore. In times like these, she noticed the advantages of having a weak, ragged tail. Her wagon—containing a demigod—was about to tumble into an abyss, and she felt powerless to stop any of it.

“Jump out of it! Minneka!”

“I can save it!”

She found a new group of Branchbridges, but these had not been made by animal paws. The trees here were so densely packed that their branches had weaved around each other. This wooden hug made horizontal bridges, which felt wide and solid enough to step on.

“Save yourself! Minneka!”

“I can do this!”

Chef grabbed any vines and lianas she passed. The rough plants grew everywhere, like a spiderweb of green-brown ropes to connect everything.

“Wiehaaaa,” screamed Chef. She jumped from the final tree holding at least twenty lianas in her tiny claws.

The front wheels of her wagon dangled over the abyss. Minneka tried to climb out through the window. Even if she freed herself, the ingredients inside the wagon would surely be lost.

Chef could not let it happen.

She landed on the roof; tiles shot away like sparks. The lianas wrapped around the two back wheels. With every rotation of the wheel, the ropes grabbed them tighter and tighter, restricting movement, until the wagon slowed down, and slowed down, and slowed down even more.

The entire wagon teetered on the edge.

Minneka held onto the windowsill as her final hope.

Chef very carefully stepped over the slanted roof.

Far below them, the Saursea raged. Chef enjoyed the fresh water scents that arose from it. Insects buzzed around her and she noticed many exotic flowers, but no Fishfool.

She took another step. The wagon angled further forward, staring into the abyss. Only the handful of lianas kept Chef and Minneka alive.

She reached down with her half-grown paw. It was just enough to grab Minneka tightly. She wanted to pull the fox onto the roof, when she realized the abyss was hollow. The wall of stone and dirt bent backwards the further you went down, like a pyramid turned on its head.

That meant …

Minneka’s voice cracked. “What are you doing?”

Chef curled her tail around the left front wheel. The wagon protested, the wood croaked, but balance remained.

She turned herself upside-down and looked underneath the wagon.

Just as upside-down as she, hidden by the flat layer of stone that supported the entire weight of the wagon now, grew an entire patch of Fishfools.

Her tiny arms reached forward. Too short! She had to lean forward more, and more, and more, until her fingertips finally touched the first Fishfools.

Luck had to run out at some point.

Liana after liana snapped. Minneka tried to reach Chef, but the wagon already started moving again and started its fall. This launched the desert fox until she had to snatch Chef’s tail to save herself.

Chef desperately jumped forward and plucked as many Fishfools as possible. She tried to protect the plants from the drops of rain. Through the open window, she threw them into her wagon.

One got wet anyway and exploded into fifty neatly cut leaves before her eyes.

“You are truly insane,” Minneka yelled, as the wagon descended with them stuck to it.

Her voice was distorted by the fall and the gusts of wind pulling at them. Together they fell, further and further, faster and faster. Minneka held on and held her breath already.

Chef threw down a handful of Fishfools.

When the flowers touched the Saursea, they exploded into a pillar of water and leaves. Minneka, Chef and the wagon dove straight into the heart of that explosion. Chef’s body tingled from the hit against the water surface. For ten heartbeats, maybe many more, she found no air.

Then they were spit out and flew, including the wagon, back into the sky.

Chef landed back onto the stone, a few meters away from the edge. A soaked Minneka landed beside her with a grunt.

“Yes, you are truly insane.” She coughed and spit waterfalls from her mouth. “One might say you are … a Fishfool.”

The wagon rolled past them as if nothing had happened. It creaked and squeaked, and one of the front wheels had broken in two again.

Chef really had luck on her side. She still blamed it on Karma.

Water slowly left her ears and returned her hearing. She could her the bells ring again, and it gave her new determination.

As Minneka attached their backup wheel, Chef checked the inside of her wagon. A few Fishfools had exploded or disappeared anyway. Some of them had landed inside a jar and survived the adventure.

They had all the ingredients now. But without a recipe book, how were they supposed to combine them?