Seeing how Peggs’ eyes shone, all Jenn could do was nod.
Despite better intentions, Jenn fell asleep somewhere between flounces and flowers, curled into the cushions of the settee. She roused for a little supper and tea, then did her utmost to pay attention as her sister and aunt discussed arcane subjects like households and draperies and many other things that had nothing to do with Wyll as far as she could tell and possibly were a little ahead of matters as they stood.
But Peggs glowed. Aunt Sybb was animated. Lists sprouted like spring flowers and roses nodded approvingly through the windows. So Jenn did her best not to yawn, though once the sun went down, the effort was painful.
Finally, her aunt noticed and shooed her off to bed.
Which would have been wonderful, Jenn thought with some irritation, save the moment her head met the pillow, she wasn’t sleepy at all.
Nor was Peggs, who sat on the window seat, brushing out her hair. The long black locks shone in the candlelight. They should shine. There’d been a great deal of brushing. And humming. Endless humming. Which hadn’t helped with sleeping. Jenn pulled the quilt up to her nose. “Must you hum?”
Her sister looked vaguely in her direction. “Was I? Sorry.”
She hadn’t stopped smiling, either. An introspective, full of secrets smile.
“What you are,” Jenn grumbled enviously, “is giddy.”
“I wouldn’t say giddy.” The brush paused as Peggs considered, her lower lip between her teeth. “I am, aren’t I? Oh, my.”
Jenn gave up on the bed and squeezed beside Peggs on the window seat. There was a meeting underway in the Emms’ barn. A meeting at which they weren’t welcome. A meeting she was sure should have ended by now, but their father hadn’t returned. “What do you think’s happening?”
“Maybe it’s a good sign, that it’s taking so long.” Peggs undid what was left of Jenn’s braid and applied her brush. After a couple of long strokes, she said, “About what I said in the mill . . .” a pause “I’m sorry. I was afraid for Kydd,” she admitted. “More afraid than I’ve ever been in my life. I suppose that’s the other side of love,” lightly said, not lightly meant. “The fear of losing it.”
“I told you Wyll wouldn’t hurt Kydd.” Her sister’s panic still rankled. “You should have trusted me.”
The brush tapped her lightly on the head. “You’re used to him and what he can do. It’s different for the rest of us.”
True. She’d grown up with Wisp’s little tantrums and tricks. Jenn squirmed inwardly. To be honest, she hadn’t realized he could do real harm, if provoked. The dreadful confrontation in the mill played over and over each time she closed her eyes. What if it had gone too far? What if Scourge had killed Wyll? What if Wyll had killed Scourge?
What if they’d fought, and harmed someone else? Like Peggs or their father?
She couldn’t forget Bannan either. What had Wyll been thinking, to hang Bannan from the grain pulley? “He won’t do it again,” Jenn insisted.
The brush dug in a little harder.
“He won’t. Ouch!”
“It’s not me who needs to be convinced.” Peggs put down the brush and stood to plait Jenn’s braid.
Jenn pulled up her knees and dropped her chin on top. “If they say he can’t stay,” she continued miserably, “what am I to do? I can’t leave.”
“Poppa will speak up for Wyll.” Peggs finished and kissed the top of her head. “Time for bed.” She blew out their candle and climbed under the quilts.
“Coming.” The moon must be close to full, Jenn decided. Its light shimmered in the few remaining puddles and sparked the eyes of busy toads. It coaxed memories of color from the gardens and folded velvet shadows, blue and dark and soft, around the trees and mill.
She pushed the window wide open, to invite the cooler night air.
Roses framed the window. Pale moths, larger than her palm, fluttered around the largest. One tasted the tip of her nose with its thread of a tongue. “If we were married,” Jenn told it, cross-eyed, “they’d have to let Wyll stay, wouldn’t they?”
“Which is why Aunt Sybb made all those lists,” Peggs said sleepily. “Come. Get some rest. Things are always clearer in the morning.”
A flicker across the path; a shadow grew long, then shortened. Jenn leaned forward, curious, and the moth left her for a rose. Something moved.
Someone. The moonlight caught hands, trapped a face. Bannan Larmensu. With a pack over his shoulder and walking like a man late.
No, she thought, her heart in her throat. Like a man leaving.
Peggs rolled over and hummed to herself.
She should call out and stop him. She wanted to.
And couldn’t.
Jenn turned from the window and climbed into bed.
By night, Marrowdell posted sentries. Massive toads lined the road to watch Bannan’s passing. They shifted position to keep him in view and were unconcerned by mere feet, so he walked with care. Their eyes were perfect disks of moonlight, like so many silver coins tossed in his path.
For luck, Bannan told himself, ready to claim all he could find.
They weren’t toads. Or rather they were something else as well. Like the road, silvered by moonlight, also had an amber hue, and the sky, which was mostly dark and star-filled but also shot through with vivid colors for which he needed names. When he looked closely, the toads’ loose folds of skin became coats of fine mail and their warts, rich gems. No idle gauds, he judged those, but medals of some kind. Accomplished toads. He hoped for their favorable opinion.
He hadn’t stepped on one. That had to count.
Other than the moonlight, the village was dark, porch lanterns and candles as yet unlit. What light there was sifted through the timbers of Emms’ barn and laid bright bars across the ground that flickered with the movements of those inside. Voices murmured. As he passed, Bannan didn’t try to make out words. He’d learn their decision soon enough.
If up to him? He’d let Wyll stay. The not-man had as much right to the valley as any of the villagers, if it came to that. If it came to forcing him to leave, against Jenn Nalynn’s wishes?
Bannan shook his head and bowed as he stepped around a particularly large toad. Best they didn’t try.
The toad blinked, for an instant disappearing into the shadows.
Moonlight bathed the fountain at the village’s heart. Bannan paused to touch his finger to its water, as he’d seen the villagers do, and was surprised to find it cold, which it shouldn’t be after a summer’s heat. He brought a palmful to his lips and let it slide over his tongue, ready to spit if it were foul.
Sweet as a mountain spring. Sweeter. Bannan swallowed reverently, then emptied his flask and refilled it. “I’d stay for this alone,” he assured the toad squatting on the fountain’s stone wall.
Flask at his hip, Bannan continued on his way. The gate to the commons was closed. Rather than fumble for a latch, he tossed over his pack and climbed the rails. Retrieving it, he slung it over his shoulder and set forth.
No more toads. The livestock had gathered for the night at a wide shed on the high side of the pasture. A pair of workhorses stood hipshot by one end, head to tail, deep in sleep. By the other, two more horses, their silhouettes suggesting an elegant length of limb. A great pig lifted its snout as he passed and wuffled the air; finding him harmless, it let its head drop back on its companion’s side with a hollow thud. Within the shed, peaceful lumps dotted the thick bedding, likely the calves Devins had told him about.
He’d like one or two, Bannan decided, though what he’d left to trade after donating the ox to the village larder remained to be seen. He’d a bit of coin tucked in a box under the wagon, completely against the bind’s strictures. As Tir’d eloquently put it, what barkeep or wench would serve without?
There being few such temptations on the Northward Road, much to Tir’s disgust, the coin was still there. Enough for a calf?
At the next gate, Bannan stopped babbling to hi
mself. He put both hands on the top rail and gripped. Good wood. Weathered and rough, but strong. If he looked at it, he’d see nothing beyond its purpose. To mark the end of the village.
And the start of everything else.
The road beyond sloped to the ford, marked by the great tree to his left, and the rich smell of reeds and water filled the air. The river was silvered by moonlight; the road on both sides silver and flowing to his deeper sight. To either side stretched wide fields, quiet and serene, and he spotted a dark clump of trees in the distance that must mark the farm. Beyond, the smooth hills, painted the palest blue.
Why did he hesitate?
He’d had to come. The last light of the sun had flowed across the valley and through the village like a curtain pulled across a stage, its fleet passage exposing another Marrowdell, a different shaped landscape, other life. As he’d stood by his wagon and stared in wonder and disbelief, the fields had blazed red, the hedges filled with bright eyes, and the very road beneath his feet changed to molten silver.
As soon seen as gone.
How could he ignore so tantalizing an invitation?
He’d rushed inside after Tir only to find his friend with Wyll, the pair hunched over a makeshift table with the set of nillystones and two heaps of nuts, the former guard intent on teaching the not-man the fine points of the game and, from the interested gleam in Wyll’s eye, the concept of gambling a familiar one indeed. They hadn’t so much as looked up when he’d mentioned stretching his legs, this being a such lovely night.
Bannan put one foot on the lowest rail and leaned his chin on crossed arms.
A stretch of his legs. That it was a slightly longer stretch, along the Tinkers Road to what could be Bannan’s new home, and who knows, possibly an overnight stay because once he was there why leave? Trifling details, hardly worth the mention.
He’d apologize to Tir tomorrow.
Tonight? He had to see it first for himself, by himself. Where was the harm? He could hardly get lost. From Devins’ description, the farmhouse and barn were the only structures on the far side of the river. The road was properly hedged on either side, Ancestors Blessed, he could walk it blindfolded and never trespass in the growing fields. From all accounts, he’d be perfectly safe.
So why was he still on this side of the gate?
“You’re afraid it won’t be true.”
The woman stood on the other side. Bannan hadn’t seen her approach; hadn’t heard so much as a footfall. She stepped closer and moonlight struggled through the mass of hair that framed her face and tumbled over her shoulders, revealed naked arms, long-fingered hands, and tidy bare feet. She wore a white nightdress.
No, he thought, heart pounding in his ears. She wore Marrowdell. Silver lapped at her toes and other nameless light tangled with the moon’s in her hair. The edges of her blurred between there and here until he wasn’t sure where she belonged or if he dreamed.
Tir was not going to be pleased. Not at all. Bannan found himself standing straight, hands before his chest as if to ward a blow.
Her head tilted; he glimpsed a strong chin. “Now afraid of me?” With a note of amusement.
He lowered his hands. “I mean no trespass.”
“Surely you do, Bannan of the border marches.” She laughed and swept out her bare arm, stepping aside to grant him the road. “Be welcome.”
Swallowing doubt, he shrugged off his pack, tossed it over, then climbed the rails. Once his feet were on the ground, he bowed graciously. “May I know your name, Lady of Marrowdell?” Though he thought she must be the smith’s sister, Wen Treff.
“He sees you,” crowed a new voice with great delight. “I said he would.”
“You did.”
“Wainn?” Relieved, Bannan sought any sign of the man in the shadows. “Where are you?”
“Up here!”
“Up” being in the tree. Bannan found his pack and went to stand underneath. It was shaped like a massive oak; by now, he wasn’t surprised to see something else again, something curious that moved its twigs without a wind. Wainn straddled the lowermost bough, feet a-dangle. Rather than jump down, he waited while the branch lowered itself with a faint creak of wood on wood, like an old rocker, then leapt to his feet. “This is Wen,” he confirmed joyfully, going to her side. He was shirtless, in loose string-tied pants. “We’re going to swim.”
Her moonlit smile, his sure arm about her waist, transformed them from magic and youth into something no less wonderful. Bannan grinned. “Please don’t let me interrupt,” he said with another, deeper bow.
And a twinge of envy.
“You want to see your home,” Wainn nodded toward the distant trees. “It waits for you.”
Bannan settled the pack on his shoulder. “Full of mice, no doubt,” he said cheerfully.
“The mice are gone,” Wen stated. “The truth remains.”
He gave her a searching look. She gazed back, calm and silent; a pair of toad eyes appeared in her hair, doing the same.
Wainn chuckled. “You see.”
“No mice,” Bannan agreed, shaking his head in awe. He took off his boots and secured them to his back. “I hope you’ll visit.”
Wen answered, “I will not,” and walked into the darkness.
Dismayed, he stared after her. Had he been too casual and given offense? These two had taken a journey toward that other place, the one he saw beneath this one, and would never be ordinary again. They were royalty, here. “I meant no disrespect,” Bannan told Wainn.
“Wen would like to visit,” Wainn explained cheerfully, “but before she stopped talking, she made promises to keep her mother happy. Her mother was afraid she’d forget the way home, so Wen promised to stay on this side of the river.” He added, with charming honesty, “Her mother worried about men too, so Wen promised not to receive visitors alone. That’s why we swim where there’s fish. Wen keeps her word.”
To the letter, if not the intent. Somehow Bannan kept a straight face. “Admirable.”
“I can visit you,” Wainn assured him. “I’ll ask Peggs for a pie. She makes the very best. May I come tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Bannan put his hand on Wainn’s bare shoulder and grinned. “Yes. Any time,” he said and meant it.
Satisfied, Wainn hurried after Wen, leading to an eruption of giggles from the dark, paired splashes, and more laughter. Promises kept. Bannan chuckled and stepped into the river himself.
Unlike the fountain, or this morning, this water was summer-warm, silk against his skin. The footing was secure, mostly firm sand with a few flat stones. He wouldn’t have minded a quick dip, if it came to that, but the shallow ford was well maintained and even, and the river behaved as a river should. Within too few steps, he’d climbed out the other side.
His eyes found the village as he sat to dry his feet and put on his boots. The meeting must have ended; lights were being lit throughout Marrowdell, warm yellow beacons to welcome families home and keep them in comfort.
He rose and put the river behind him, facing the moonlit road.
“Jenn.” The soft call came with a light rap of knuckle to wood.
Her father. The meeting must be over.
Careful not to disturb the motionless lump of her sister, Jenn slipped out of bed. She snatched a shawl and hurried down the ladder, trying not to jump to any conclusions.
Which was easier before she saw Radd’s too-carefully composed face. “Oh, no,” she gasped. “What did they decide? Must he leave?”
He put a finger to his lips. “Don’t wake your—”
“I’m not asleep.” The night curtain between kitchen and parlor drew aside. Aunt Sybb stood there, her hair tidy in its cap and the rest of her wreathed in ivory lace to her chin. She held a candlestick in her hand and its flickering light caught the worry in her tired eyes. “Come. Tell us both.”
In the parlor, as Radd lit the table lamp, Aunt Sybb climbed back in bed to sit as straight as if the down pillows were iron rods. She invited Jenn to joi
n her with a pat on the covers, then looked to her brother, who pulled up one of the dining chairs and turned it to sit astride. “I take it they plan to banish Wyll.”
Jenn tensed.
“Not quite,” Radd answered, giving her the faintest of smiles. She relaxed, ever-so-slightly. “Valid concerns were raised, without doubt. They’ve seen how important he is to you, Dearest Heart, but no one believes we’re important to him.”
What could she say to that?
“I explained Wyll’s been a good but shy neighbor. That the two of you grew up together and you’d been meeting him at Night’s Edge all these years with my permission. Don’t worry,” at something in her face, “I didn’t tell them about the wishing. Ancestors Dire and Disgraced. Kydd’s books.” Her father shook his head grimly. “I should have known they wouldn’t stay gone and forgotten. Not in Marrowdell. It’d be best, Dearest Heart, if the others don’t think he’s involved.”
Another secret. “Why, Poppa?” Jenn asked for her sister’s sake; she could guess. The books had been hidden for a reason.
“Remember what I told you,” interposed Aunt Sybb. “In most of Rhoth, especially in Avyo, to profess belief in wishings and magic is unseemly. Such belief harks back to a time when people sought to take from the Blessed Ancestors, instead of giving them our Beholding. Kydd and Wainn are not at fault, and Marrowdell is assuredly a place of—” she pressed her lips together, then went on, “—of novelties. But there may be some who would be unsettled by such news.”
“It’s no time to bring up old trouble,” Radd confirmed, unexpectedly mysterious. “As for your Wyll, many find him uncanny and worry what he might do. I did,” sternly, before she voiced her protest, “promise you’d be responsible for him in future.”
At her vigorous nod, he looked relieved.
“The poor child. You couldn’t take longer to tell the tale, could you?” Aunt Sybb chided. “What was the decision?”
“Wyll’s to have the abandoned farm.”
Joy filled Jenn until she could hardly breathe. What could be better? The farm was as close to Night’s Edge as could be. It needed work, but . . . her father wasn’t smiling. “It’s perfect,” she sputtered, anxious and unsure why. “I mean, it’s full of mice and cobwebs, and the well’s dry, but I can help him set it to rights. Sew curtains. Fill the larder shelves.” Domesticity flooded her with possibilities she’d never considered before. Not seriously. To avoid them, she went back to what mattered most. “It’s right beside our meadow. It’s—”
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