It was at
this point Owen started to get a bit nervous.

Ellarowan
and Cayloken followed him without question. But then, they had few other
choices. This was his world, as much as it could be, anyway. Everything was new
and unfamiliar to the two of them.

The path
was short, at least from Bray Street to the first sign of the river. Owen heard
it before he could see it. But the whooshing sound of the early summer flow
over the rocks wasn’t the only sound he could hear. There were voices. Happy,
shouting voices. Children playing, somewhere up ahead of him. Adults calling to
them.

The blood
in his veins was several degrees too cold by the time they emerged from the
path near the river.

For a
moment, he was almost convinced they were in the wrong place.

Everything
about the area was unfamiliar. Not just the people scattered about, but the
area itself. The whole shape of it was different: the river a bit narrower and
deeper, the bank built up with concrete and rock where before it had all been
the natural river basin. There were picnic tables scattered everywhere, along
with trash bins and barbecue grates. From where he stood, he could see a new,
modern parking lot, complete with lighting and bathrooms–real bathrooms with
plumbing.

What he
couldn’t see was the bridge.

He knew
where it was supposed to be. And once he accepted that they were, in fact, in
the correct spot, he could even see where it had been. The new construction
along the riverbank hadn’t quite hidden the ancient rock structure that had
once formed the foundation of the bridge. That foundation was there, or a small
part of it was, anyway. The bridge simply wasn’t. 

“Why
are we stopping here?” Ellarowan asked. “There are people everywhere.
And I don’t see a bridge.”

“That’s
the problem, isn’t it?” Cayloken said. “Owen, how long did you say it
had been since the last time you were here?”

“Fifteen
years.”

Ellarowan
frowned. “How long is a year?”

Owen took
a deep breath, trying to pay attention to the questions floating in the air
both inside and outside his own mind. “It’s not the same length of time,
at all, but time works differently here. A year is what we call a cycle, sort
of. It’s not as long as it is in your world, but…it’s long enough.”

Cayloken
let out a long, low whistle. “We’re at the gate, aren’t we?”

“Well,
if we were fifteen feet up in the air, we’d be close. That is, if my stones
will for sure open it.”

There was
a sound of approaching footsteps behind them. All three of them moved out of
the way to let the people through–a young man and woman both around Owen’s
age. The man had a toddler strapped to his back, while the woman held the leash
of a large golden retriever.

They both
frowned as they passed Owen, Cayloken, and Ellarowan.

“The
closest campground is a few miles from here,” the man offered helpfully.
“Inside the National Forest. I have a good app for finding all the spots
around here if you’d like?”

“Thanks,”
Owen said, shaking his head. Every part of him was grateful Ellarowan and
Cayloken both still wore their sunglasses, despite the fact that the sun was
now lower in the sky and they didn’t need them for protection from the light.
“We’re good, though. We just hiked down from camping last night. I just
wanted to stop and see what this spot was like now. It’s changed so much.”

“It
has,” the woman agreed, looking a little less nervous after his
explanation. “They’ve done a nice job rebuilding it after all the flood
damage.”

Flood
damage. That was right. Four summers ago, there had been a massive flood here. A
one-hundred-year flood. Most of the homes in Bristlecone had been unaffected,
thanks to the mountain terrain, but the whole of the river basin and the
surrounding roads had been wiped out in massive flash flooding. Owen hadn’t
been in Bristlecone at the time, though he’d kept up with the news
obsessively. 

He’d
worried about the house on Bray Street, but he’d never given a second thought
to the bridge. Surely, the ancient bridge had seen other devastating floods.
There was a one-percent chance of a flood like that in any given year. The old
stones should have stood the test of time. But they hadn’t. Whether the bridge
had been taken by the flood itself or the subsequent renovations, it didn’t
much matter. It was gone now.

He needed
to get a closer look, though he didn’t know why. It wasn’t going to change
anything. Ellarowan and Cayloken followed him, neither one saying anything.
Maybe there wasn’t anything to say.

Water,
wind, and time had worked on the old stones, rendering them smoother than the
rest of the stones along the riverbank. Even Cayloken and Ellarowan could tell
these rocks had once been the base of the bridge; Owen saw the understanding as
Cayloken felt along the edges and Ellarowan glanced up into the sky, staring at
the spot where the gate once opened to Eirentheos.

For one
panicked second, Owen feared a new, magical bridge would appear in the spot
where Ellarowan stared, but nothing happened, and she looked back over at Owen.
“Even if I could, I shouldn’t,” she said simply, as if they’d been
talking about it.

Some
things didn’t need to be said aloud, Owen supposed.