“Is it letting up at all?” Teofil asked, his breath warm against Thaddeus’s ear.
“Not really.”
“Thinking about your dad?”
“Yeah. It’s going to take us days to get back.” Thaddeus sighed and dropped a hand to the canteen on his belt. “I hope he’s doing okay. I mean, I know your mom is doing everything she can to keep him well, but….”
“I know.” Teofil kissed his neck and pulled him closer. “We’ll figure something out.”
Thaddeus felt Teofil’s chin shift from one shoulder to the other. “Not even a break in the clouds yet?”
“Not yet. Don’t worry, your Faux Flora is still up there waiting for you.”
Teofil chuckled and turned Thaddeus to face him. “Are you mocking my admiration of Faux Flora?”
“Are you sure it’s admiration?” Thaddeus asked with a grin. “Sounds a bit obsessive at times.”
Teofil leaned in for a kiss, then whispered, “You’re the only one I’m obsessed with.”
“Ugh. This is what I wake up to?” Astrid sat rubbing her eyes. “And Thaddeus has a point, Teofil. You do go on about Faux Flora an awful lot.” She yawned and stretched and got to her feet. “All you do is talk about Flora making the fake likeness of herself from sticks and leaves and getting blown up into… the… night… sky.”
Astrid’s voice slowed as she spoke, and she stood completely still. Her eyes widened, and a bright smile bloomed, softening her grief-sharpened features and putting a rosy blush in her cheeks. Thaddeus knew Dulindir would have fallen in love with Astrid in a heartbeat if he’d seen her like this. But Dulindir was still curled on his side, sleeping soundly near the fire, blond hair lying over his shoulder like a shawl.
“Oh my Flora, that’s it,” Astrid whispered. “Do you see?”
Teofil and Thaddeus looked at each other, then back at Astrid. “No,” Teofil said. “We don’t. Tell us.”
“What are you thinking?” Thaddeus asked.
“We build Floras,” Astrid said. “Not her, exactly, but something like her. And we take them up to the tops of the trees and fly back to Mum and your dad.”
The peaceful dream of flying with his father over the trees of the Lost Forest slipped through Thaddeus’s mind. He wondered if his subconscious had been trying to tell him the solution before Astrid had come up with it. Either way, it didn’t matter, as long as they got back quickly.
And safely.
Thaddeus looked at Teofil and found him smiling at Astrid. “What? Would something like that work?”
Teofil looked at him, back at Astrid, then at him again. “I think it might.”
“Might?” Thaddeus repeated. “We’re going to need to be a bit more definite than that. We’re not going to be able to help anyone if we plummet to our deaths.” He shuddered at the thought.
Teofil laughed and pulled Thaddeus into a quick hug. “We’re not going to plummet to our deaths. This is the perfect solution. Our dad used to help me build small gliders out of sticks and leaves when he came to visit me at Leo’s. He did that with you, too?”
Astrid nodded happily. “He did! All the time!”
“Perfect. All we need to do is build bigger versions. Astrid, you’re a genius!” Teofil hurried across the room and grabbed her in a hug, lifting her up and spinning her around. Astrid let out a squeal of laughter that woke Dulindir, who sat up, fully alert, and looked at each of them a moment.
“Why the celebration?”
“Astrid came up with an idea for our way home,” Teofil replied.
Dulindir smiled at Astrid. “Tell me.”
When she had finished with her explanation, he was quiet for a moment, long enough for Thaddeus to ask, “Well? Do you think it’s possible?”
“I do. The gliders will need to be large, but the wind above the trees is strong enough to carry us.”
Thaddeus took a breath and rested a hand on the canteen fastened to his belt. “Okay. This is crazy, but let’s do it. I’ve never built something like this before, so how do we start?”
Astrid smiled. “Well, when my dad and I used to build gliders for the gnomlings, Fetter sometimes helped…” Her voice faded out, and a broken smile flitted across her lips before she turned away and palmed tears from her eyes. “Anyway, I’ve built lots of small gliders. I just need to figure out how to make them bigger.”
Teofil placed a hand on her back. “We’ll all figure it out together. Let’s start looking around in here for anything we can use.”
They scavenged pieces of walls and ceilings from the shop where they had spent the night, then Teofil and Astrid searched the other structures. Dulindir had brought the broken length of rope from the bottom of the well with him, and Teofil had gathered the rope that had remained up top, so as the rain lessened outside, they crouched inside by the fire and cut the rope into sections to be used to bind pieces of gliders together. Large fronds from the trees in the forest made up the wings of the gliders. By midafternoon, they had almost finished assembling two odd-looking aircraft.
“This will work,” Astrid said as she stepped back to inspect their creations. “I think this is going to work.”
“You think?” Thaddeus said with a nervous laugh. “Our lives depend on something more than you ‘thinking’ it’s going to work.”
She smiled. “It’ll work. I can feel it.”
Thaddeus inspected the crafts. They could only find enough material to make two gliders, so they would have to buddy up, which made him even more nervous. Would the combined weight of two passengers bring them down faster? Maybe, but it’s better to plummet to the ground with someone beside you rather than alone.
The gliders lay on the floor nose to nose, wings unattached but arranged in place where they stretched from one wall of the shop to the other. Without enough materials to create seats or a cockpit, the last of the rope had been used as looped straps hanging underneath the gliders. Each rider would be supported by the straps at their chest, hips, and ankles as they stretched out face down with grips to the side for them to hold onto. To Thaddeus, the craft looked much too flimsy to fly on their own, let alone carry them back to the plains where his father and Miriam awaited them. But they really didn’t have a choice at this point.
“Now what?” Thaddeus asked.
“Now we carry them outside and attach the wings,” Astrid said, squinting toward the doorway. “Has it finally stopped raining?”
“A short time ago, yes,” Dulindir said.
“Things are looking up,” Teofil said as he stooped to grab one edge of a glider. “Let’s move them out!”
They carried the gliders and wings out of the shop and set all the parts on the road. Following Astrid and Teofil’s instructions, Thaddeus helped bind the wings to the bodies. When he was finished, he took a step back to look over their work. The design and sturdiness impressed him, but he was still concerned about their ability to stay aloft. What if they pushed off from the top of the tallest tree they could find only to plummet back to the forest floor? He shuddered at the thought and looked at the trees that stood around the outskirts of the village.