The Bridge of Whispers
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The Bridge of Whispers
Despite her insistence that the slope wasn’t dangerous, Maeve held her breath as Declan began his descent. Seeing him wedge his feet into the slope and hang on to the grass for balance, she realized the bank was steep indeed. She began to regret pressuring him to attempt it. Finally he reached the clump of sea asters and – hanging on to a boulder with one hand – picked the flowers. Maeve would have cheered him on, but she didn’t want to distract him. He still had to climb back up.
She sidestepped her way across the clearing until she was directly above him. The least she could do was give him a hand up when he got near the top.
With her gaze fixed on the ground, she inched forward, and then – suddenly – she was over the edge.
She screamed and hit the ground so hard the air rushed from her lungs.
Thud. Bump, bump, bump. She began to tumble down the bank.
The ground was harder than it looked, even without encountering any rocks. She was moving quickly, and yet it felt like time had stopped. She could see everything before it happened. In another moment she would crash directly into Declan and the cluster of boulders beside him. That would likely kill them both.
Acting on instinct, she twisted her body so she rolled to the right. She couldn’t slow herself down, but at least she wouldn’t collide with Declan.
A mass of boulders rose up in front of her. They were too close to avoid. Maeve squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the impact that would surely kill her. And then the bottom fell out of her stomach. Instead of crashing into the rocks, she dropped into a gully in front of them.
Woomph!
Once again the breath was pushed from her lungs.
“Maeve! Maeve!” It was Declan.
She gulped for air. She didn’t want him to panic and risk his own safety. “I’m fine,” she gasped, hoping that was the truth. She tested her body. All her parts seemed to work.
“Stay where you are,” he said. “I’m coming to you.”
By the time he arrived, Maeve had righted herself. Declan still held the bouquet of sea asters, and her heart tightened in her chest.
“What happened?” he asked, his face awash with concern.
“I don’t know,” she replied, though it was a lie.
She looked toward the clifftop. Grass, trees and sky – that was all. But it changed nothing. As sure as she was sitting in the gully, she knew her fall hadn’t been an accident. She hadn’t tripped or slipped. She hadn’t lost her balance.
She’d been pushed.
Fourteen-year-old Maeve’s seer training is going better than ever after helping to expose the treasonous Queen Ailsa’s plot and saving the kingdom from war. She is starting to feel at home in the druid camp, making more friends, and learning to use her gift of sight to help people. Maeve and Declan are even starting to think about courtship. Everything is going so well that, when Maeve takes a walk in the woods and finds a mysterious bridge, with an even more mysterious woman who disappears without a trace, Maeve worries that she is losing her mind. Maeve’s mentor Bradan helps her learn that the bridge is called the Bridge of Whispers, and that it is a place where spirits come to visit.
Upon Maeve’s visiting the bridge again by herself, the mysterious woman whispers a warning to Maeve, and, after this happening, Maeve begins to suspect her life is in danger. Following being pushed off a cliff and nearly crushed at the local market, Maeve goes back to Bradan wondering who the mysterious woman is and why Maeve’s life is being threatened. Bradan tells Maeve the truth of the matter: the woman at the bridge is Maeve’s birth mother, Ciara, who angered Queen Ailsa with her own gift of sight, telling the Queen she would never have a child. Because Ailsa vowed to get revenge on Ciara by killing Maeve, Bradan made sure to hide Maeve in the village as a child of the blacksmith. In the wake of all this, Maeve goes to visit her sister Dierdre, who is pregnant, only to find that she has disappeared. Instantly, Maeve has a bad feeling, and, when she is looking for Dierdre, she is kidnapped by men working for the Queen who has escaped her prison and is going to kill Dierdre’s baby so that Maeve suffers. Maeve has to once again foil the Queen’s plans, this time to save herself and her family instead of the kingdom.
The Bridge of Whispers does everything one would want and expect from a sequel. It builds upon The Druid and the Dragon, answers questions that were left unanswered, and gives more character development. Maeve’s story is continued and developed in a way that brings readers further into her world and her mind, and the best part of this novel is seeing how Maeve grows and develops into a young woman with a true sense of self. Kristin Butcher has created a sequel that is both satisfying and exciting to read, a difficult feat that she has executed beautifully. Readers will love this next installment in the trilogy and anxiously await the next one.
Deanna Feuer is an English Literature graduate from the University of the Fraser Valley. She lives in Langley, British Columbia, and is currently studying Library Sciences.