by Moira Young
Now he belongs with us.
I realize he’s said somethin. Sorry, I says, I missed that.
A little smile curves his mouth. Was there … somethin else? he says.
My face flushes hot. I bin starin at him all this time an he’s half-naked. He’ll git the wrong idea fer sure.
No, I says. Uh … no no, that’s all. See you later.
I git to my feet an head back to the yard. Aware that he’s watchin me go. If that had bin anybody else, I’d say he was flirtin with me. Albeit in a bashful, not sure of hisself kinda way. But Tommo don’t flirt. He’s way too serious.
An he’d never play such a mean trick. Still. I gotta use my head fer this, not jest my heart an gut. We’ll go to Edenhome tonight. I’ll watch how he is. Drop a few hints. See what happens.
I follow the sounds of a hammer on metal an find Peg bangin some bit of a car into shape fer a washtub. She barks at me she’s busy, she’s promised it to some Steward fer quick delivery. But I ask her anyways. Could she hold off ridin her junk circuit fer a day or two an stay with Emmi while the rest of us go off? I ain’t hardly finished when she’s gabblin, Yes yes, why didn’t you ask me in the first place? Which don’t make no sense, but Peg rarely does. An quick as a wink she’s downed tools an rushed off to the field on top of the hill. Any excuse to mess about with that aircrate of hers.
I fill my tin from Slim’s never-stop stewpot. Then I climb the ladder to Peg’s ropewalk. I sit myself down, hemmed in by birdcages, an look out over the Lanes. I’m dog-hungry. I shovel it down. But fer all my hunger, I’m done with it after a few bites. My belly’s too jittered to eat.
I know not everythin is about me. But, when you git right down to it, I’m a uneasy sun fer anybody to be circlin. Particularly them I depend on most. Creed. Ash. Tommo. Molly. Mercy. Slim. Even Emmi an Lugh. Somehow or other, my actions have scorched the souls of every last one of ’em. So far, I’ve jest about managed to keep ’em with me. But maybe not fer much longer.
Tommo an some nettlecord twine.
Don’t rush to judgement. Things ain’t always what they appear to be. Somebody could of borrowed the cord. Whoever’s guilty could be settin the cord maker up to be the fall guy.
Who’d set Tommo up fer the fall guy? Who’s bin hostile to me all along? Who’d love to see me fail? Who thinks we’d all be better off if he was in charge?
Be who we need or stand aside.
Creed is who. An, after all, it was Creed I sent in search of Nero. Creed who claimed he couldn’t find him, even though a few minutes later Emmi found him in the burrow. Creed could of easily planned it an used Tommo’s cord without his knowledge. An that look he gave me afterwards. Jest a flash an then gone. Like he was holdin a knife to my throat.
Who do I know least of everybody? Creed. Who would I trust least? Creed. Who does Nero go to least? Creed, Creed, Creed.
My thoughts turn an twist. I poke a bit of biscuitroot through the bars of the cage next to me. The little wallafinch prisoner flits about, chirpin.
If Peg’s birds feel dismay at their jail-cell life, you’d never know. They sing jest the same. I got a strong desire to set ’em free, like in my dream. But Peg would boot us from the Lanes an that ’ud be our sanctuary lost. The finch don’t want the food. I lift the latch an open the door. One bird. I’ll chance the flack.
Off you go, I tell it. She’ll never notice.
It hops to the door, then away agin, then back. Its head cocks this way an that. Its bright black eyes consider the new possibility in front of it.
Go on, I says. I’m doin you a favour. Do it. Go.
With a chirp it’s off on quicksilver wings. To blaze out its fire of a life. A bird knows what to do with freedom. It’s born knowin. I watch till it’s gone from sight. Then I stand up an throw its metal prison. Fling it to the air with all the strength of all my hate fer cages. I watch as it tumbles, end over end, to land smash on the nearest junkheap.
One bird. One cage. It ain’t nowhere near enough. But it’s somethin. It’s somethin.
NIGHT FOUR
I SET EMMI TO WORK CLEANIN AN OILIN OUR WEAPONS. IT ain’t necessary. We keep our gear in good nick. It’s jest what you do. What everybody does, unless you got yer attic to let. But, keepin in mind what Slim said, it’s good fer Em to feel useful somehow. She sure cain’t be trusted with no more than this. I tell her to count our stock, oil the shooters, try makin a few new arrows if need be. I don’t intend us to hafta use none of it, but better to be ready than not.
I leave her settlin into her task with good cheer. Peg keeps her company, warmin her gnarled root toes by the stove an puffin on a long clay pipe. Tracker’s mad keen to come with us, but he’s the best patrol fer the Lanes while we’re all away. Slim an Molly made a quick start to Nass Camp.
As night begins to gather, me an Lugh an Tommo prepare to ride fer Edenhome.
I’m convinced now that Creed’s to blame fer that trick with Nero. He was angry at me fer the mess at the bridge. Wanted to shake everybody’s confidence in me jest that bit more. Look, she runs a sloppy ship, she let her sister off guard duty an the Tonton got that close to us we could of all bin dead. She ain’t no leader. I am.
It all makes sense. It all fits. But I’ll test Tommo. Jest once, jest a little. So I can say I did if Slim asks. Do one thing an see what happens. Action. Reaction.
I pretend I’ve mislaid my cord. I ask Tommo to borrow his. He hands it over with a smile. The very coil that a piece was cut from to tether Nero. I put it back in his pack right away. Tommo cain’t ever hide how he feels. His big dark eyes always tell all. As he hands me the cord, they tell me that he’s honest an true. That he ain’t got nuthin to hide. Tommo didn’t do it.
Creed did.
We ain’t gone more’n a league from Starlight Lanes when a caw caw cracks the dusktide. It’s Nero. He’s a wide-winged blackness, coastin down towards me. My heart drops to my boots. I completely fergot. I sent him with a message fer Jack to meet me tonight. I bin frettin an thinkin about who might of tethered him an never gave a thought to my crow hisself. There’s bin so much gone on, with the fights an all, an I’m so used to him bein around but not always seein him that he went right outta my mind. He’s bin gone fer ages.
He surfs in to land on my shoulder an I hustle him into my arms. I quickly slip the bark roll from his leg. I shove it in my shirt without lookin. No need. Jack’s returned the roll I sent him, but tied to Nero’s left leg. That means he’ll be there. At Edenhome.
My stupid stupid head. I don’t believe it. I got Lugh an Tommo with me an Jack’s gonna show too. The three of ’em. Together. With me. At Edenhome. No way, no no no. They mustn’t find out about Jack. Slim was right. I was too tired. I must still be. No sleep means I make mistakes. Bad mistakes.
I’d stop right now an send the boys back if it wouldn’t make ’em suspicious an cause ructions. What to do, what to do, what the hell am I gonna do?
Brazen it out. That’s what. Or, as Jack would say, I hafta wing it.
Emmi had to move quickly. If she didn’t hurry, the songs of their passing would fade and she’d lose them. She was going after them. She didn’t have a plan, not yet. But she would.
So far, she’d been nothing but a trouble and a let down. A child when they needed a warrior. More than anything, she wanted to be worthy of being Saba’s sister. She needed to honour the sacrifices of Pa and Maev and Epona. And Ike and Bram and Jack. Auriel’s grandfather, Namid the Stardancer, was a warrior and a shaman. That’s what she wanted to be.
Warriors proved themselves in the fight. She had everything to prove. She’d been working with her bow till she couldn’t lift her arms for tiredness. Between that and the earthsongs to ground her feet, she was on her way to becoming a good archer. But Saba said they weren’t fighting with weapons anymore. They were fighting with cool heads. Thinking, then planning, then taking action. There had to be something she could do that nobody else could. That would allow her to stand tall among them,
the living and the dead.
She and Peg were cosy sitting next to the stove, with the stack of shooters to be oiled and all else Saba asked her to do. Enough work to keep them busy into the great beyond, said Peg. We’ll have a song, a song to sing us along.
She wound the key of the magical music cage. They watched and listened as the tiny finch sang. Then she told Peg she couldn’t keep the cage. With a shrug, Peg gave her back what Tommo had traded for it. He’d be hurt, but not surprised. They’d argued back and forth since the night of her party. He knew what she thought and she was right. He couldn’t give away something so precious. He’d thank her for it one day.
She started yawning. Not too much, just enough. Peg soon said, nighty night little bird. The old gal was yawning herself. With any luck, she’d doze off. She surprised her with a goodnight hug.
She went to the boys’ sleepshed and left Tommo’s bracelet inside his pack. On top of his things where he’d be sure to find it. He’d kept it hidden away for too long, like his memories. He should wear it. If you bring a hurt into the light, in time the light will fade it some.
Then she hurried to the girls’ shed. She’d made her scanty arrangements earlier. As soon as she heard that Lugh and Tommo would be going with Saba to Edenhome. She didn’t think Peg would check on her, but still. In the shadows, the blanket over her pack would pass for a girl curled up asleep. She’d packed the pockets of her coat with the necessaries, nothing more. Flint and steel, red gizmo knife, her birthday comb from Molly and a lump of nettlecake. She grabbed it and ran to the stables.
She’d be in serious trouble when they found she was gone. So she’d have to prove herself big. She couldn’t fail.
Tracker stuck to her. He could smell adventure. He wanted desperately to come. But with everybody gone, he had to stay and be watchdog for the Lanes.
She woke Bean. She slipped a rope bridle on him and they rode through the sleeping junkyard. She moved quietly now, thanks to the songs. They sang her along the silent ways. Tracker saw them off, quivering nose to tail tip with desire.
Once she was outside the gates, she paused for a moment to listen. The ground still hummed of their passing. Good. They’d left a clear trail for her to follow. With sure hands, she guided Bean along it.
She was learning from the songs—earthsongs and stonesongs—spending her days with them, listening and studying, but there was so much she didn’t understand. She needed to find her teacher. With all the messages she’d been sending Auriel, surely, surely she’d come soon. She was the only one who could help her.
The first starfall of the night caught her eye. Burning bright, some starsoul racing back to earth on urgent business. Or maybe, just maybe, it was Auriel. She could be travelling to her the quickest way possible. Hitching a ride on a shooting star. Streaking across the sky to land in New Eden in a perfect dazzlement of light.
No one could stop a shooting star. No one. Not even the Pathfinder or the Tonton.
We leave the horses in a mossy dell an move in on Edenhome by foot. As we softpad through the trees, my whole body’s tuned fer any whisper of Jack. The skin an the blood an the bones of me listen. To the creak of a branch. The pass of a breeze. The sigh of the ground unnerfoot. Is he nearby? Is the heartstone slightly warm? No, jest wishful thinkin.
All the way here, I kept two bark rolls curled in my fist. In the hope that I might git the chance to send Nero with ’em. One of the rolls we ain’t never used before. All it’s got scratched on it is X. Which means we gotta axe our meetin. The other tells him to meet me at noon at High River Gorge in Sector Six. It’s our closest meet spot to Starlight Lanes. A V with waves in the bottom. A small square box perched at the top of the V’s right leg. Full sun directly overhead. But Nero never touched down. He kept to the sky. I couldn’t call him to me without suspicion.
I’m desperate to find out how Jack’s gang is doin. To hear that everythin’s rollin out fast like it needs to. It ain’t that I don’t trust him to hold the line. He will. He’ll do the right thing, he won’t blow no chances. So I do trust him an I believe, truly, that this is the only way we can possibly win, but …
But. This whole thing sits uneasy in my nature. So little in my control. So much to go wrong. So much to lose. An not usin bows or guns. The fact is, we live in a sticks an stones world. It’s the only way that any of us knows. I fear that if we come unner pressure, somebody’s gonna pull a trigger an that’ll be it. Endgame over.
Nero plays the night sky above the treetops. He lofts an banks an scoops the chill winds, always circlin back to keep track of us.
Saba! hisses Lugh.
We bin halted by a fierce corral of barbwire. It hems in the grounds an buildins of Edenhome. A high, weak fence. The worst kind. Impossible to climb, even if you padded yer hands to the barbs. Only way through would be to cut our way.
Lugh’s scopin the place with the long-looker. Guards, he mouths, an holds up two fingers. In a moment, two Tonton come into view. They approach from opposite directions. Must be on a loop patrol. They each got a armoured boar-hound strainin on a short chain leash. They pass each other with a nod an continue around. Me an the boys look at each other. Their eyes a white gleam in their night faces. There ain’t no gittin in there. Fence, guards, an dogs bred to kill with snap-trap jaws. We’re stuck on this side.
Follow the fence along, I says. Check it out. Meet back here. Don’t let them hounds catch wind of you.
Lugh splits right into leafy darkness an Tommo sifts away to the left. I prowl along the centre bit, back an forth, takin in the lie of the main buildins, the sheds, workshops, little barns an so on. It’s tidy an clean an well-kept. The kids livin here—every single one of ’em stolen from their families—they’re set to be Stewards of the Earth at fourteen. This is where they learn to not remember who they come from. Where they learn to believe their only family is the Earth, that the Pathfinder has chosen them to heal her. Where the stream of who they are is stemmed to carve another channel. An who they were dies to a trickle, then dries to dust.
Here, they’re learned the kinda things Pa learned us. How to build an mend an cobble together, how to plant an tend an grow. An all the other day-to-day you need to know to git along. There’s a junkbarn half built. The silent gleam of a duckpond. Patches of ground set aside fer crops. I wonder if they’re usin any seed from the seedstore or if DeMalo’s savin it all fer the tide of numbers on his great maps. Pushin outwards from New Eden to beyond an then beyond. They oughta be usin these woods fer a forest garden, but they’d never be able to keep tabs on the kids. Blink an they’d be lost to the shadows.
Gawdamnmit, Jack, where are you? My skin bristles, waitin fer the sound of a nightpip. If he came now, right now, I could hotfoot it, have a quick word with him an be back before the boys pitch up.
I tuck myself tight behind a tree an stare through the fence at the quiet dark of Edenhome. That woman from the Snake River camp. Her name’s gone from me. The one half-mad with grief, who wouldn’t give the body of her dead child to be burnt. Her older girl, Nell, the ten-year-old stolen by the Tonton, she might be asleep inside one of these huts. I remember sayin to the woman, to Ruth—that’s her name—I told her that wherever Nell was, she was bound to be watchin an thinkin an plannin how to git away. How to git back to her family. An she wouldn’t give up till she did. I hope I was right.
C’mon, Jack, c’mon, c’mon. Where are you?
Suddenly, I smell DeMalo. I look panic about me, breath trapped, heart caught. Where is he? Where? I flatten myself deep to the tree, not breathin. Then I’m cursin myself fer ten kinds of fool. I’m only huddled aginst a juniper. That’s the scent of DeMalo’s shirt, his skin. I found sprigs of it in the chest where he keeps his clothes. I crush a needly twig. The cool dark smell fills me. But no warmth of his body to soften its bite.
The boys steal back. Lugh first, then Tommo. Still no Jack an we cain’t do nuthin more here tonight. How we git these kids outta Edenhome is gonna be a harder nut
to crack than stealin babies or slippin Skeet into a slave gang. The setup here, with the fence an the dogs an the guards, it gives us a whole different problem to solve. An not much time to do it. We’ll need to come back in the daylight.
Fer now, we need to go. The chill wind’s bin blowin in our favour all night but now it’s restless, twitchy, on the change. I don’t fancy our chances with them boarhounds if they catch our smell. We turn around an start to head back to the horses. Once we’re at the Lanes, we’ll talk it through. Lugh’s good at unpickin complicated situations.
Nero’s bin flyin guard duty above the woods all this time. He suddenly dives. Disappears into the trees. A few moments later, a bird calls. It’s the krik of a nightpip. My heart jumps. Jack. At last. Lugh ticks his head towards the sound. It comes from forty or so foot to the left of us. The heartstone’s faintly warm. I sign to Tommo that it’s only a bird, an we carry on. A nightpip callin in the dark ain’t nuthin untowards. Nuthin to give rise to second thoughts.
Jack calls twice more. Nero caws an makes a fuss. Good. It sounds like he’s tryin to flush out a smaller bird to make a meal of it. Agin, no cause fer suspicion. So. Jack sees Nero, he knows I’m here, but I ain’t sendin no answer. By now, he’ll know fer sure somethin’s up. I hope he don’t think I’m in trouble an come in search of me. Can I ditch the boys? I only need a few minutes. Jest long enough to find him an set another meet.
Nero lands on a branch by my head. A bark roll’s tied to his right leg. I catch Lugh’s notice with a click of my tongue. As he glances back, so does Tommo. I kneel an gesture that my boot’s come undone. That they should go on, I’ll be jest a moment.