by Amber Jaeger
She reached to grab hold of it and the instant her fingers brushed the smooth wood, the nameless girl gasped and jumped from her seat, knocking her cup over. She stood, trembling, her sky blue eyes so wide they seemed to take up half her face.
Katiyana stared back in shock, waiting for the girl to explain herself. After a moment she opened her mouth to ask if she was alright but Adora minutely shook her head. Confused and a little frightened, she waited.
Finally the girl let out a huff of breath and slumped down into her chair. Her body seemed very weak but her voice was strong. “You must never hunt from the ground. Ever.”
Cidra looked between the two girls. “What did you see?” she asked.
The girl pressed her lips together and shook her head. “It does not matter because it will never happen.” She motioned Katiyana back over to the table and Katiyana complied on wooden feet. The nameless girl picked her empty cup up and ran her finger around the rim a few times before speaking again. “I am sorry if I frightened you, I did not mean to.” Katiyana could only give a little nod. “Sometimes I… see things. Things that will happen, things that could happen. I have never been wrong so please trust me on this. The boars and deer in this forest can be dangerous to us, particularly to those who are trying to harm them. So please, you will never hunt from the ground.”
Katiyana took a long, slow sip from her cup to give her mind a moment to catch up. The girl could see things? Was she serious? She could tell by the worried expressions on the other girls faces that they believed her. Finally she asked, “If I do not hunt from the ground, where will I hunt from?”
“How well can you climb a tree?” the girl asked.
“I never learned,” Katiyana said, a grin breaking over her face. “But that sounds like much more fun than hauling water.”
“You will still do that, just like the rest of us,” Cidra called as the two girls raced out of the hut.
For the first time in what felt like years, Katiyana giggled as they fled into the woods. When they were out of breath, they dropped to the ground in piles of heavily scented fallen leaves and stared up through the trees at the clear blue sky. When her chest finally stopped heaving and she had picked the perfect tree to practice on, Katiyana turned to the nameless girl and said with a smile, “I think I am going to like my new life.”
“This is stupid!” Katiyana cried, throwing the dried reeds to the floor. “What could we possibly need placemats for anyhow?”
Adora sighed and picked the mangled craft up off the dirt floor. “I suppose to give our humble abode a little style. And also to sell.” She looked over the crumpled reeds. “Did you listen to any of my instructions? This is terrible.”
“I cannot do this,” Katiyana moaned. “You twist these dried stalks into art and the best I can do is get them into a tangled, broken mess. I should be out hunting!” Though it was snowing lightly, there was no wind and the sun was bright enough to keep her warm.
Adora fixed a stern grimace on her face. “What you should be doing is finding a balance.”
“But I am good at hunting. I can get all manner of game, I can find mushrooms and berries. That is what I am good at. You make these stupid placemats and let me go stalk a deer.”
“You,” Adora said sharply, “are not even trying. And you are not refined in the least. It would not kill you to learn some of the more womanly tasks of keeping a home.”
“It is not like I will ever need them,” Katiyana retorted, her voice bordering on whining.
“Why? Because you no longer live in a castle? You will never come across a moment in life where you will need to rely on grace or creativity?”
“I will never need to rely on making placemats,” she muttered.
“Put your impatience and resentment aside! These reeds have done nothing to you, they only ask that you try to craft them into something beautiful.”
“Funny, I did not know they could speak.”
Sweet, kind Adora reached out and snatched her wrist up painfully before she could blink. “You are so bitter you cannot see gentle beauty before you. If you do not find a way to rid yourself of it, it will eat you alive. I know you think I am some bubbly former princess, full of hot air and covered with a shiny exterior. I am not. I am angry, I am sad, I am vengeful. But I do not let it harm me. I control how I feel. I am not teaching you how to make placemats, I am teaching you how to find a balance despite everything that has been thrown at you. You could go hunting right now instead of learning this. You could take down a deer and drag it back. And we could cook it over the fire, with no salt or seasonings. We could eat it sitting in the dirt with no plates or utensils. We could pull the meat from the bones with our teeth and wipe our hands on our skirts. We could pull up wild onions from the ground and eat them raw to go along with our meat. We could never bathe or make new skirts or have a real bed to sleep in that we stuffed and tucked ourselves. We could do those things, but why? Why not improve them with seasoning and shelter and cleanliness?” She arched an eyebrow at Katiyana, who could not find an answer.
“It makes life better,” Adora said quietly, releasing her hand. “Finding a balance always makes life better.”
Thoroughly abashed, Katiyana took the reeds back and gently smoothed them under her rough fingers. “I am not angry. I do not have a temper. My father always said a lady with a temper is no lady at all.”
Adora smiled. “Yes, I believe you may have told me that about a hundred times over the last year.”
“It is true,” Katiyana said, selecting new reeds to attempt to weave together. “And I am not bitter. If Sula is still in my father’s castle, then that is the last place I want to be.”
“Then what is it?” Adora asked gently.
She sighed and tucked her legs up under her on the chair. “I suppose I am… stuck. Frustrated. I always knew who I was and what my future would be. Now, I have not even a clue. I cannot return home and I cannot stay here forever. It has been over a year since I have even seen a face besides the three of yours. I just feel as though there is nowhere for me to turn.”
“Your path will fork when it is the right time. Perhaps the right thing for now is to stay safe and hidden and learn all you can. You never know, knowing how to weave placemats may one day save your life.”
Katiyana threw her head back and laughed. “Then I am doomed for sure,” she said, holding up the twisted reeds as they fell apart.
Adora chuckled and set her project aside. “Perhaps you right. Perhaps instead we should be practicing something that could help you if you ever were to truly be stuck.”
Knowing what she meant, Katiyana leapt to her feet with a squeal. “You mean it? Finally? Now?”
“Yes, finally now,” Adora said with a smile. She went to the large trunk under the window and lifted the lid. Katiyana danced around as she pulled out several drawers, finally finding a small, leather pouch.
“That is it?” she asked, disappointed in the little bundle.
“This is all you will need,” Adora corrected. “I was going to wait until your birthday to give it to you but perhaps it will bring more good cheer now.” She lifted a large cloth bag out of the trunk and its contents clunked together loudly. “We will start with the easiest,” she said, pulling out a simple lock.
“How did you ever learn to do this?” Katiyana asked as she eagerly watched Adora lay out the lock picking tools.
The girl paused and bit her lip.
“You do not have to say,” Katiyana said in a rush.
“No, it is fine,” she said, once again pulling the fine tools from the pouch. “My parents were very worried for me. They locked me away at times and I was too young to understand the wisdom of their actions. I taught myself, in secret, using little tools I had fashioned myself. Then I could sneak out and have a bit of freedom before locking myself away again. They did not notice. Soon it grew into a hobby of sorts and I would challenge myself to all means of locks and race to undo them before I was discovered.
I picked every lock in the palace,” she said with pride. Then her face fell.
“It seems a good skill to have,” Katiyana offered.
“It is,” she agreed firmly. “It allowed me to discover the reason my parents kept me hidden away. And now I am so well hidden my family and kingdom will surely be safe forever.”
Unsure of what to say and not wanting to pry further, Katiyana bent her head over the little tools and listened closely as Adora began instructing her.
She practiced in all of her free time, manipulating the locks with the tools until she was finally able to tease a satisfactory click out of each one of them.
“You learned much faster than I did,” Cidra commented one evening.
“How long did it take you?” Katiyana asked, looking up from her work.
“Almost a year.”
“And when you finally solve the last lock I have,” Adora interrupted, “we will be on to something else.”
“Like what?” Katiyana asked suspiciously.
“Like penmanship. Yours is atrocious.”
“Gah,” Cidra said with a grimace. “I have still not mastered that.”
CHAPTER FIVE
It took much longer for Katiyana to master the perfect penmanship Adora demanded but after several months she achieved it. Cidra then took over teaching her to cook and clean. The nameless girl followed up with more lessons on what was good for food or medicine growing in the woods.
Seasons passed seamlessly. Every year after her first year with the girls passed even more quickly than the last. Katiyana’s memories of her old life faded until she could only clearly remember her father’s love and her stepmother’s cruelty. The names of friends and servants were forgotten, as were the speech and mannerisms of her royal home. Adora did her best to keep them proper but even she could not reign Katiyana in.
Days were spent running in the forest, hunting or cleaning prey. Skins were scraped and stretched and dried. The garden was tended and it seemed as though her nails had a permanent crescent of dirt under them. She had long given up the pretty dresses Adora had managed to teach her to sew for the breeches the girls wore when away from the hut. Her hair had grown long and wild and she never bothered to do anything with it. When Adora managed to get her to sit long enough to braid it, Katiyana complained that it would just fall out anyway.
Evenings were spent learning something new, some things fun and some things tedious. But they were warm and safe and hidden and in a way, happy. With the four of them working together, there were enough hands to grow and find food so they did not have to steal.
They traded at times and Katiyana’s fine pelts became popular. For them, she was able to get some of the small things that made their lives nicer. But if it were not for the girl’s gratitude for things like seasonings and fresh cheese, she would not have gone into the small town to trade. Each trip was preceded by days of panic and anxiety. At the market she searched each face, jumped at every shout, sure that her stepmother had discovered she was alive and had finally come to take her life. But Cidra insisted she be the one to trade for the furs and over time her fear lessened.
Like the other girls, she dressed as a man and spoke as a man and shaded her face in with soot to mimic facial hair and heavier features. The cowl hid her hair and she eventually became comfortable enough she could raise her face to meet the eyes of those she traded with. Over time she became excited for their rare trading trips as it was her only opportunity to hear news of the world around her, even if the information was old and mostly unreliable after being passed along so many times.
Most of it was just small gossip about neighboring families or lands but some of it was useful or entertaining. But other rumors, the ones whispered about, were much darker. Katiyana did not ask about them for fear of drawing attention to herself but she was able to deduce her stepmother was a terrible ruler and the people were unhappy.
On the days she heard snippets of those stories, she left town for the hut with a heavy heart. Once upon a time she had thought she would be the queen of that land and would be the one to rule from the Forest throne. Certainly she could have made the people happier than Sula but it was not meant to be.
Six years passed and life was full and busy as she learned and explored and healed from the trauma of her old life. But when every inch of the forest had been discovered and she had learned every skill she could, the days began to seem to repeat themselves.
She thought through the years and wondered how they had passed so quickly at first then suddenly seemed to slow to such an intolerable crawl.
So lost in her thoughts, she had not noticed Cidra staring at her. “You have neither spoken a word nor stopped moving all morning long. The incessant tapping of your foot is driving me mad.”
Katiyana looked up in surprise. “Oh.”
“Oh? That is all? Tell me what is on your mind.”
A gust of cool wind cut through the warm forest and took several fading leaves down from the trees and onto the rippling surface of the creek they were fishing in. Katiyana jerked at her line in the water for the hundredth time and Cidra sighed. “I wish you would just tell me what is on your mind rather than just scare my fish away with your agitation.”
“I am sorry. I just… do you ever get tired of being stuck out here?”
Cidra opened her mouth to reply then shut it slowly. After a moment of staring out over the water, she spoke. “There are times I wish I could be somewhere else,” she finally said.
Katiyana turned to her in excitement. “So you know how I feel? You know what I mean?”
“Not exactly, I am sure. But you are young, I can understand you wanting to leave.”
“I do not want to leave,” Katiyana stressed. “I am just tired of hiding all the time. I want to see things, experience things.”
Cidra nodded and slowly pulled in her taut line. “What is it you wish to see and experience?”
“Something besides trees,” Katiyana said ruefully and Cidra chuckled. “Anything. Life, art, other people. I love it here and I know I am safe but…”
“It is not enough anymore?”
Katiyana hung her head. “No.”
“Then perhaps it is time for you to move on.”
“I cannot move on, not until my step mother is dead. But maybe I can explore, just a bit.”
Cidra finished pulling her line in and admired the large fish before throwing it in the pail. When she turned back to the other girl her face was serious but kind. “Where would you go?”
“I cannot go east, I do not want to go north, perhaps further west.”
Cidra arched an eyebrow. “King Lian is not known for his kindness towards those coming from the forest.”
“The new Sun King? Why am not surprised to hear he is unhappy with our kingdom? The only news we ever hear is about the latest rotten thing she has done. His quarrel is not with the kingdom but with Sula herself, just like everyone else. Besides, he will never even know I was there. I just want to see something besides these same woods. I want to talk to new people, I want some recent information. I have no idea what is happening in the world around us.”
Cidra added another fish to the pail. “You needn’t explain yourself to me. I am not your keeper, merely your friend. So can I, as your friend, give you a small piece of advice?”
Katiyana smiled warmly. “Of course.” Over the years she had grown to know and trust the oldest of the girls in the hut.
“Begin with a small adventure. It has been many years since you have been out in the world. Much of it will be the same, but much of it will be different, if only because you are so different now.”
The younger woman thought for several minutes, staring out over gently passing water. “Perhaps I will travel for just a few days, just to the edge of the forest. I can stay hidden that way but still see something new.”
“When will you leave?”
Katiyana grinned. “Right now.”
She packed and armed herself in
much the same way Harmen had done so many years ago when she was set out into the woods for the first time. Food, fuel, her flint and steel, line and hooks, and so on. But this time she brought several jerkins to carry water in, although she doubted the woods she had grown to know so intimately could hide streams and creeks from her like it once had. She also packed the small lock picking kit Adora had given her so many years ago.
The cloak she pulled on was much more fitted and warmer than the one she had worn on her journey to the hut. Years of practicing under Adora’s gentle guidance had finally allowed Katiyana to produce garments as fine as they were functional. Adora still urged her to make gowns and dresses but she did not see the point. Anyone who ever saw her outside the hut saw her dressed and acting as a man. Inside the hut, it was only the girls. Who was there to care if a young woman was running around in trousers?
Adora was as supportive as Cidra had been, but the girl with no name was surprisingly against her little adventure.
“I do not like this idea, why must you go out there again?” she fretted.
“I told you, I need to see something new, I need to know there truly still is a world out there.”
“You know what is out there,” she said crossly, her hands in tight little fists at her side.
“I will be fine, just a little adventure to the edge of the woods and back. A few days at most, I promise.”
The slight girl stamped her foot in frustration. In all the years Katiyana had been with them, the girl had never seemed to age. “I do not want to see you hurt. I cannot see anything,” warned ominously.
Katiyana was surprised to hear her talk so openly of her… gift. Usually she just met her at the door with a warm compress when she had been out and stung by bees or had a needle ready when she came back with a bad sliver. “I will not be hurt, it is just a small adventure.”
She was surprised by the tears in the girl’s eyes. “Hurry back, please.”
“I will. Just to the edge of the forest and back.”