Clove & Moose 16: The Great Gorge

Clove and Moose is a serial fiction story. While there is an overarching plot, each episode can be enjoyed on its own without reading what came before. However, if you want to get caught up, click one of the buttons below.

Previously, on Clove & Moose: After the mysterious Cataclysm dried up the earth and its magic, Clove and her cat Moose travelled to find and repair pools of corrupted magic left behind in the Cataclysm’s wake. Along the way, she has picked up three travelling companions: Marissa, Jasper, and his trusty horse Miss Delilah.

“We’re almost there!”

Marissa had been saying this for a week now, ever since the first billboard had appeared. A hasty paint job barely covered the original car advertisement, but capital letters in bold black paint read BONE GORGE AHEAD. With no indication of distance, they’d assumed they were on the brink of the gorge, but for kilometer after kilometer they kept driving and no gorge appeared, only more billboards with slogans such as See the Bones, World’s Biggest Bones, Trade Marketplace Ahead, and even Hot Apple Pie!

The current billboard read Last Stop before Bone Gorge! Given the smaller letters underneath that proclaimed “Only 3km to the big bones!” it appeared that Marissa was correct this time.

“Should we stop?” Jasper asked, deadpan. “It’s the last place before the gorge.”

“No!” Marissa practically came over the back of the cart to get at him. “We’re almost there!”

“Alright. Just checking.”

Marissa settled back to her seat in the cart, where she was trying to read Moose a bedtime story. 

“Don’t antagonize the poor girl,” Clove admonished Jasper. 

“Thought she might want to stop.” His mouth quirked in an almost smile.

“Was that a joke? Are you joking right now?” Clove was astonished. She and Jasper had both started to open up a bit more, but she hadn’t expected humour from him.

“What? I joke.”

“Since when do you joke?”

“I’ve always joked. Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

“Maybe.” Clove didn’t like that line of thought. Though she’d hardly admit it out loud, she’d come to like her travelling companions, and the thought that they would soon be parting ways was causing her some level of distress. “Are you excited for the Gorge?”

Jasper shrugged. “Should be an adventure. Can deliver some of this stuff I’ve been hauling around. What about you?”

Clove was more excited by the prospect of hot apple pie than anything else Bone Gorge had to offer. It was one thing to know in theory that mysterious massive bones existed out there somewhere, but the prospect of seeing them with her own eyes was somehow disconcerting. 

“Yeah. An adventure,” was all she said.  

Marissa, on the other hand, had grown increasingly excited as they approached the gorge. She was sure that her family would be waiting here for her, and she was practically vibrating with anticipation. Clove couldn’t blame her; after the Cataclysm and their long travels she could only imagine the joy a familiar face would bring. She forgot sometimes that Marissa was still young, and had barely gotten used to living on her own before the whole world went sideways.

Sure enough, as this last stretch of road ticked by, Marissa abandoned her storytime and held Moose up so he could see over the cart’s side. “Look boy, we’re almost there. You can climb on the bones and meet my family. My mom loves cats, so she’ll just adore you. If you play your cards right you could get away from Clove and come with us.”

“Hey!” Clove yelled over her shoulder. “No cat-napping.”

“Eh, it was worth a try. Still, he can at least meet my family. I can’t believe I’m finally going to see them!”

“I’m so excited for you.” It was true, even if Clove wasn’t ready to part ways just yet. She was concerned, though, that Marissa was going to be disappointed. “But it might take a while to find them. Just look at all these people!”

Traffic had been increasing for days. Carts like theirs, people riding horseback or on bikes, even people on foot. There were big campsites set up all along this stretch of the route for visitors to rest overnight. Clove could only imagine how busy the actual gorge must be.

“We’ll find them,” Marissa said. “Won’t we Mr. Moosey?”

Moose jumped out of her arms and crawled up to the driver’s seat, climbing over Jasper to get to Clove. She scratched him behind the ears. “You’re staying with me, aren’t you bud?”

He bumped his head against her chin as if to agree. 

“Lookoff point over here,” Jasper said, pointing to a sign indicating a turn-off. “Want to take a look?”

“Let’s just go down,” Marissa said. “There can’t be that much to see.”

“I vote for the lookoff,” Clove countered. “We’ll get the lay of the land.”

“Agreed.” Jasper guided Miss Delilah to the turn-off. “I want to see what we’re dealing with.”

The crest of the hill was ahead, and the land came to an end just beyond that. They couldn’t yet see down into the gorge, but the tops of the trees on the opposite cliff were silhouetted against the sky.

Anxiety squeezed at Clove’s insides as they crossed the last stretch of road to the top of the hill. She was practically struggling for breath by the time Jasper guided them to a free space in the look-off area and they got their first glimpse of the gorge below.

A sheer cliff face plunged straight down, but the ground below was green and vibrant with life: trees blew in the wind, birds flitted through their branches, and a stream ran through the bottom of the gorge. More than anything else, though, the whole place was teeming with people. Clove had expected it to be crowded, but she hadn’t expected this. There had to be tens of thousands of them down there. Some of the structures looked permanent, and many of the tents and trailers and other habitations had clearly been there for some time.

“Oh,” Marissa breathed, sitting down. “Shit.”

“That is… a lot of people.”

“Beautiful place,” Jasper said. “Look over there.”

Clove followed where he pointed and got her first look at the bones of Bone Gorge. “Holy hell. I didn’t think they were that big.”

The bones protruded from the opposite cliff face, and had clearly been partially excavated for better viewing. She had expected the bones of a human giant. Ten, twelve feet tall. But these had to be at least forty feet high. And there were multiple of them. Clove counted fifteen before she lost track where the cliff face curved away further down the valley.

The anxiety didn’t go away, but there was something else mixed with it. Awe, maybe. The wonder of a true marvel, of a mystery beyond comprehension, of the possibility of the divine. She thought she might be sick.

Marissa barely seemed to notice the bones. Her eyes were still scanning the crowd below. Her voice only barely trembled when she asked, “How will we ever find them?”

“Hey.” Clove tore her gaze away from the bones to turn and look back at Marissa. She reached out and took one of her hands. “It’ll be okay. We’ll search for as long as it takes, alright?”

“Okay.” Marissa nodded. Her eyes shimmered with tears, but she blinked to stop them from falling. “Thank you.”

“It’ll be alright,” Jasper said. “Look at this place. If a miracle’s going to happen anywhere, it’s here.”

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Katie Conrad is a speculative fiction writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. You can find her on bluesky, instagram, and tumblr.