The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series)

by Trish Mercer

Eight weeks after the land tremor that shook the world, Jaytsy sat on her bed late at night with her knees pulled up to her chest. She slowly rocked, but didn’t dare go to sleep. There was a chance tonight would be quiet, but she’d had her sleep disturbed far too many times.

  She knew it was self-centered to think so, but more and more she began to suspect that the shaking she had wished for everyone else, just to “wake them up a little,” had been focused primarily on her. While the world was looking more and more normal with all the rebuilding, nothing in Jaytsy’s world was the same.

  Her grandparents were gone. And now, so was her father.

  Perrin Shin’s body came home from his enraged ride to Idumea, but it was soon apparent his mind didn’t. Where it was most of the time, no one in their family really knew. All they knew was as soon as he put General Relf Shin’s sword into his sheath, everything changed.

  It was the day after the crate had come from Idumea, the 55th Day of Planting, that he replaced his sword with his father’s. That night he tried to use it.

  Jaytsy had been sleeping when she heard shouting upstairs. Panicked, she opened her door at the same time Peto opened his. They stared at each other across the dark gathering room, hearing their father yelling and their mother trying to calm him. He came running down the stairs, Relf’s sword drawn, and looked dimly at his children in the dark.

  “Upstairs! Now! My bedroom! The only place you’ll be safe.”

  Mahrree followed him. “Perrin, no one’s here. There’s no danger.”

  “Yes there is! It’s everywhere!” His eyes flashed wildly around the room as if seeing something.

  Jaytsy and Peto searched the darkness, then each other’s faces in worry.

  “NOW!” he bellowed at them.

  “Just go,” their mother whispered, “I’ll deal with him.”

  They ran upstairs and sat on the edge of their parents’ bed, listening to their mother try to reason with their father. It was obvious by his shouting that she wasn’t getting through to him.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Peto whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Jaytsy whispered back. She pulled her legs up to her chest and hugged her knees. “Maybe he saw something in a shadow.”

  Peto crawled along the bed to look outside the new window. It was exceptionally large and clear, providing an unobstructed view to the back alley. “It’s really quiet out there, the alley is empty, and the tower doesn’t look lit. I don’t think there’s anything.”

  He crawled back to sit next to his sister, but not too close. “I don’t hear him anymore.”

  Jaytsy listened for a moment. “Me neither.”

  “What does that mean?” Peto whispered.

  Jaytsy shrugged. “It’s really . . .” she couldn’t think of a word. She had never seen her father act like that before.

  “Creepy,” Peto supplied, and wrapped his arms around himself.

  A moment later their mother came upstairs to the dark bedroom. “Just a nightmare, nothing more!” she said in an overly merry voice. “He’s asleep on the sofa. I don’t think he was even fully awake. You can go to bed now.”

  Jaytsy didn’t dare move. Neither did Peto.

  “Does he still have the sword?” her brother asked.

  They heard a heavy sound from their mother. “No, I took it after he fell on the sofa. We don’t need him mistaking any of us for someone we’re not, do we?” she laughed softly, but her voice was shaky. “It’s all right, I promise. Just . . . keep your doors closed.”

  In the morning when Jaytsy passed her father on the sofa, he opened his eyes and looked at her, baffled. “Why am I here? Did I have a fight with your mother that I slept through?” he smiled.

  “Uh,” Jaytsy stopped, unsure of how to explain. He looked completely normal, just a little tired. “Sort of?”

  Jaytsy rushed to the washing room and shut the door securely behind her. She sat in there waiting until she heard her mother come down the stairs. Through the door she heard the muffled conversation become louder and louder. She cringed when she heard her father shout, “I would never do that!”

  By the time she came out a few minutes later for breakfast, her father was sitting at the table holding his head. He gave her a weak smile which she half-heartedly returned.

  Peto just nodded at his father as he sat down to eat.

  By dinner everyone was easier again, smiling and laughing as if nothing had happened, and they slept well that night. Jaytsy thought nothing more about her father’s unusual nighttime activity, especially since the night after was also calm and quiet.

  But in the middle of the fourth night Jaytsy woke up, feeling a presence next to her bed. The light from the two full moons coming through the window bounced off the sword she saw her father holding over her.

  “They’re after you.”

  Jaytsy froze in terror, trying to see her father’s face in the night, but shadows covered him. She noticed a movement by the door and yelped in fear. Perrin spun to see what caught her attention and pointed the sword at the figure, his stance ready.

  Peto trembled there in horror.

  Jaytsy wanted to scream “Run!” but she couldn’t find her voice.

  But suddenly a voice shouted from the gathering room, “Colonel Shin, put away your sword! That’s an order!” Their mother pushed Peto out of the way and stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

  Perrin slowly lowered the sword, then looked around blankly. Jaytsy slipped out of her bed and rushed over to Peto’s side. She didn’t know which of them was shaking more.

  “That was close!” she whispered to him.

  Peto merely made a strangled sound in response.

  They watched their father walk, dazed, over to the sofa. He sat down on it and stared at the dark floor.

  Mahrree walked over to him and cautiously laid a hand on his shoulder. “Perrin? Are you all right?”

  He looked up at her. “What am I doing down here?”

  Peto and Jaytsy sighed in relief as he looked, confused, at the sword in his hand.

  “You’ve been walking in your sleep,” Mahrree told him. “I think you had another nightmare.”

  He glanced over at his children. “Did I scare you?” he asked, almost timidly.

  “Yes!” they squeaked.

  “I’m sorry,” he breathed out, then got up and trudged back upstairs.

  Mahrree stopped to kiss each of them quickly. “Everything’s fine!” she said too cheerfully. “Back to bed, now!” She followed their father up the stairs. “Perrin, give me the sword.”

  Jaytsy had never before realized just how brave their mother was.

  The next morning she and Peto got their own breakfast and ate early before their parents got up. Neither of them said it, but they both seemed to think it was just safer that way.

  Two days later Jaytsy found her father asleep on the floor by the back kitchen door, curled in a ball, with General Shin’s sword by his side. She crept away and rushed upstairs to get her mother, then waited on their bed until the shouting downstairs stopped.

  Everything was not fine. That was obvious. But no one was talking about it. Peto just looked at her that morning across breakfast with a mixture of understanding and dread. She returned it. At least, for once, they had something in common.

 

  Acknowledgements . . .

  First, I acknowledge that I’m not an AUTHOR.

  I’m barely a writer; more like a drafter with rewriting issues. (I’m pretty sure rewriting means taking out problems, not inserting new ones.)

  I dabble with stories that insist on being told, and because the characters didn’t plop themselves down in anyone else’s head (I guess God didn’t know what else to do with me), they’re stuck with whatever I can churn out about them. But oh, has it been fun!

  If you enjoyed any of this book, I’m thrilled. Thank you for sharing in this.

  (If you didn’t enjoy the book, then I take comfort
in the fact that you likely downloaded it for free or for very cheap, so you’re out only a few hours of your time.)

  I so appreciate those who served as beta readers, catching my many inconsistencies, dangling them in my face like a load of smelly laundry and saying, in the kindest of ways, “How did you manage to miss this?!” My daughters, Tess and Alexandria Mercer, and my sister Barbara Goff, my dear friends Debbie Beier, Stephanie Carver, David Jensen, Kim Pearce, Liz Reid, Paula Snyder, and Ron Snyder (not like the colonel; well, not that much).

  I also appreciate the rest of my children for allowing me to tap away for hours on my keyboard.

  (“What, another book? I thought you were done!”)

  I’m also grateful for my husband who tosses Lindt truffle balls at me when he can tell I’m frustrated yet again by my inadequacies.

  “You know, you could just quit,” he says from a safe distance.

  “But I LOVE writing this! It makes me so darn happy,” I yell back, pulling out my hair. “Once I figure out how to fix it!”

  He looks at the empty bag in his hands. “Lemme see if Lindt sells in bulk,” and he makes a hasty getaway.

  About the author . . .

  Trish Strebel Mercer has been teaching writing, or editing graduate papers, or changing diapers since the early 1990’s. She earned a BA in English from Brigham Young University and an MA in Composition Theory and Rhetoric from Utah State University. She and her husband David have nine children and have raised them in Utah, Idaho, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina. Currently they live in the rural west and dream of the day they will be old enough to be campground managers in Yellowstone National Park.

 

  Other titles:

  The Forest at the Edge of the World (Book 1)

  Soldier at the Door (Book 2)

  Falcon in the Barn (Book 4)

  Visit me everywhere else!

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  Blog: https://forestedgebooks.com