by Joni Sensel
“My father’s house,” she sniffed, wiping her dripping nose. “His guards will protect us. If he’s not already d—”
Aidan spoke quickly before she released that word into the air. “We’d never cross the upper meadows without being seen. They’ll get there long before we could—if they’re not there already, laughing and drinking mead at his fire.” He shook his head against the more likely scenes of pillage his mind had suggested.
“Oh! I know where we could go,” Lana declared. “Follow me.”
She scrambled back toward the cover of trees. Halfway, she cast a glance over her shoulder and stopped. She jerked her hand, not understanding why he hadn’t followed.
Aidan hesitated, feeling the weight of the decisions before them. A wrong choice, an unlucky choice, might lead to an ax in the head. He jumped after her, not to follow but to confer. She didn’t wait. The moment she saw him move, Lana was running again.
As he ran, crouched, to catch up, Aidan prayed for ideas. Lana was fleet, so they were dodging trees by the time he caught her and pulled her to a stop.
“Where are you going?” he demanded, trying to keep his voice low.
“I know somewhere safe in the woods below my father’s house. Raiders would have no reason to go there, if they weren’t actually following us, and they couldn’t find it in any case.”
“Where is it?”
“’Tis secret. I’ll show you.”
“The beekeeper’s cottage?”
“No. You’re wasting time.” She pulled from his hold and darted ahead. “You’ll have to trust me. Come on.”
Aidan didn’t trust her at all, but he didn’t have a better idea—at least, not until they had the cover of night. He did convince her to slow their pace for quiet’s sake. She led him back down the hill and roundabout through the woods. When a bird flushed unexpectedly or the forest rustled too loud, they both froze. The first time, Lana’s hand clutched Aidan’s. Even once they moved on, he kept gripping her fingers. With that physical link between them, he could spend less effort following her and more sorting the light from the shadows. Afternoon sun mottled the branches and trunks all around them, and every movement hinted of danger.
Lana stopped twice to try her divining rod, which she’d carried the whole time. The first time, the result was roughly the same as before. The second time, though, the rod pointed almost directly ahead in their path. She blanched and dropped to a squat where she stood.
Aidan hunkered alongside her.
“They’re close. I think they’re coming this way,” she breathed.
“Why do you say so?”
“I can feel it in the wood, through my hands,” she replied. She crushed the rod to her chest and her eyes darted at the trees in their midst, looking for a way to escape. Aidan could see from her jerky trembling that she was approaching a panic. He put a hand on her shoulder.
“We’re still all right,” he assured her. “Backtrack? Go around?”
“No time,” she whispered. Her eyes fixed on a large oak tree as though it were a raft that might save her from drowning. She jumped to it.
“Why don’t we just hide for a moment and see if we hear anything?” He tried not to let impatience sharpen his voice, but he thought her imagination had slipped loose.
“No. We’ve got to climb,” she insisted. When she turned her wide eyes back to him, a quake of apprehension ran through him. It was impossible not to catch some of her fear.
“All right.” He followed her to the base of the tree.
“I don’t know if I can reach the fork, though. Can you boost me?”
Aidan glanced around. “That one would be easier to climb.”
“That one’s not oak. Oak protects best. Will you help me or not?”
“Of course.” He told himself they could simply rest in the tree until she had calmed. “Come on.”
Lana braced her palms on the tree’s ridged bark and tried to plant one sole against a bulge in the trunk. Her foot slipped off immediately.
“Here,” Aidan said, forming a step with his interlocked hands. “Climb up from here.”
She obeyed, and he lifted her as she shimmied upward until his hands were as high as his chest and she’d finally found purchase for all of her limbs. He tried not to see her curved calves flashing near his face. She climbed higher onto one of the heavy branches and turned to check the direction of danger, then peered back down at him.
“Can you get up here by yourself?” she whispered, her face stricken. “You must, Aidan!”
Aidan wasn’t sure, but he vowed not to fail with her watching. Instead of trying to clamber directly into the high fork without much to grip, he jumped for the nearest branch and hung there briefly until he could swing his feet up as well. Silently cursing the length of his robe, he scrambled and pulled himself atop the branch. Satisfied, Lana climbed as high as she dared toward the top, where most of the tree’s leaves still clung. Aidan followed, the skin along the insides and backs of his legs stinging where he’d scraped them on the bark.
“Don’t fall,” he warned. “This should be high enough.” A patchy curtain of gold and brown leaves, belonging both to this tree and others, veiled the view in almost every direction. Bare spots on the branches opened windows toward the ground near the base of the tree and back the direction they’d come.
“No, it is not. Third fork or above.” Checking his place, she added, “Come up where I can reach you.” When he drew close enough, she plucked three oak leaves and passed them to him. “Put these under your robe, against your heart,” she ordered.
His face wrinkled in doubt. “You jest.”
“Do it!”
He watched her rip another three leaves and tuck them into the bodice of her shift.
“Hush now. Be still.” She laid her cheek along the branch between her arms and closed her eyes.
A nervous smile popped to Aidan’s lips. He didn’t bother to whisper that she’d be no less visible with eyes closed than with them open. The woods may indeed have hidden a threat, but they’d traveled far enough for Aidan to expect it from behind or alongside them, not from ahead.
Then he heard someone approaching.
X
Aidan’s smile vanished at the crackling coming toward them through the forest. His hand flashed to the neck of his robe and stuffed in the oak leaves as Lana had commanded. Then he held both the tree and his breath as tight as he could.
The first creature to burst into view below them was a hunting dog, limping and bleeding. It glanced up at them without interest as it shuffled past. A moment later, the unmistakable patter of human feet crunched below. Ice seemed to form in Aidan’s veins, freezing hard and stiff so he couldn’t move. Glad for his dingy gray robe in the branches and wishing Lana’s purple mantle was also colored more like a tree, he watched in horrified silence as six or eight hulking men trotted below.
Aidan blocked all numbers from his ears and his mind. That blankness calmed a sudden, irrational fear that if he heard the humming of those passing below, they would somehow hear him in return. The raiders crossed at an angle to the direction Lana had been leading, presumably hurrying back toward the river from somewhere in the heights. The tree’s leaves and branches revealed only glimpses: leather short-coats and helmets, a flash of bright breeches, thick snarls of dark hair. A bulging sack of some booty clunked against calves in tightly wrapped leggings. A blood-splattered battle-ax rested on a blood-splattered shoulder. Close behind it, one shrouded head declared a captive bound for slavery. Aidan stared, unable to shift his eyes, until the invaders had passed. Afraid his frozen muscles would fail and he’d slide out of the tree with a thump loud enough to turn them around, he pressed his forehead into the bark near his face. He could still hear the creaking of leather armor and the rattle of swords against brush.
The oak sheltered the pair, immobile, for long minutes until a ruffled squirrel chattered his irritation in the raiders’ wake. Thawing at that familiar sound, Aidan loo
ked over to Lana. She still had her eyes closed.
“I think we’re okay,” he whispered. “They must have come from Donagh’s stronghold, above. Good thing we didn’t try for that. You should have told me we’d have to cross between it and the abbey to get to your hiding place.” In fact, he realized now, she had said something like that, but in his agitation he hadn’t considered what it might mean.
She opened her eyes but only stared, her gaze far off and vacant.
“Lana?” he asked, worried.
“You didn’t believe me,” she said, after a moment. “I could see you dead in my mind because you wouldn’t listen.”
Aidan shivered. “I believe you now.”
He’d passed too many long, silent seconds with only the sound of his pulse beating in his ears, echoing the tramping of feet. His mind had been working. Now he bit his lip.
“Are you a witch, Lana?”
She blinked at him, her dazed expression falling away. A closed caution replaced it.
“Father Niall says witchcraft does not exist,” she told him. “He says it is a sin to believe that it does.”
Aidan’s eyes narrowed. She hadn’t exactly answered his question. And despite what the Father might say, everyone Aidan knew believed that evil could find humans to work through. Maybe that explained her eleven hum. The moment that idea flashed in his mind, he had to dismiss it, again. Lana’s radiant, singing eleven couldn’t be evil.
“I’m not accusing you,” he murmured. “You probably just saved our lives.”
“Stop looking at me like that, then.”
“I just wondered where you learned that trick with the hazel rod. I thought divining was only for water.” When she didn’t answer, he added, “Lana? Tell me. Are you?”
She pressed her lips tight, set her jaw, and started climbing down from the tree.
“I’ve never seen the Devil and I wouldn’t want to, if that’s what you mean,” she snapped, brushing past him with little care that she might jostle them both out of the tree.
“Would you do his work, though?” He didn’t want to inflame her resentment, but he couldn’t stop his tongue. The dread of the last few moments seemed to be shaking out of him in petty spite. Perhaps it was just another color of fear.
“I don’t even know what his work is!” She whirled her face up toward him. “But my mother is a midwife, and I’m not ashamed of anything she has taught me. She eases pain and heals sick folk and helps babies come into the world without killing their mothers on the way. Most of the time, anyway.”
“Does your mother stop babies from being born, too?” he asked. “That’s a sin, witch or not.”
The storm on her face held back her words while she kept climbing down. When they had both settled their feet again on the earth, Aidan reached for Lana’s arm. He meant to appease her anger and his own trepidation with a reminder of what mattered now.
“Listen-”
She jerked away. “No! Spare me your sermon! If you were a girl, and you had ever been raped, you would not think my mother’s work such a sin!”
Shock bound them both for an instant. Lana whirled to cover her face with her hands and then flatten them against the oak’s trunk as if borrowing strength.
Aidan drew a few difficult breaths, trying to seal his foolish mouth, but he couldn’t stand to leave her words dangling in the air between them. The look on her face was too raw. He touched her elbow.
“Lana … ?”
Her eyes flicked to him darkly, then away. Those wounded eyes answered the question in his mind. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, but it seemed the useless words would only prolong a painful blaze he wished he had never kindled.
She crossed her arms tightly and turned, her face closed. “Never mind.”
“Let’s get away from here,” he sighed, starting off. Lana did not follow.
“Wait,” she said. “This tree sheltered us without being properly asked. I need to thank it.”
Raising his eyebrows, he stepped back. “How are you going to do that?” He half expected her to launch into some deranged dance or call in some spirit. He wouldn’t stop her, because they would surely be dead if they had not climbed that tree, but a tremor of worry coursed the back of his neck.
She cast about nearby. She found a few white pebbles and a small patch of wood violet. Aidan watched while she plucked a flower and arranged it with the stones at the base of the tree. When she was done, she tipped her head to gaze into the tree’s branches and whispered, “For Aidan and me. ‘Gratitude for wood and bough, for haven given us just now.”’ She rose, casting him a baleful glance.
“Gratitude,” he repeated, nodding. He released a tense breath, relieved that a verse he’d heard before had been her only incantation.
They slipped silently through the forest again. They began more carefully than before, Lana pausing several times to work her hazel rod. But being constantly alert was exhausting, and the rod did not point out danger again. As the hour waned, Aidan hoped the raiders would either be hunkering down for the evening or, better yet, leaving before the afternoon light dwindled.
“Is this hiding place much farther?” he asked.
“Not too far,” she said. “It’ll be a good place for the night. You’ll see.”
Aidan didn’t answer. He resolved to stash her away, if her choice seemed as safe as she said, and then return to sneak up on the abbey once the sun set. He had to find out if Rory and brothers Eamon and Nathan and the others were safe. If so, he could collect Lana again and they could both slip inside the guardian wall.
“I’m sorry I made you angry before,” he said, after a moment.
“When you told me you could hear numbers,” she said, “I didn’t ask if you were crazy.”
Heat rose into his scalp. “I don’t think it is really the same,” he ventured.
“Yes, it is,” she replied. “You hear something most people don’t: the secret sounds of numbers hidden inside everything. I can feel and … and draw out the secrets hidden in trees. We both know some secrets. The only difference I can see, really, is that I have someone who can show me how to use what I’ve learned about trees.”
He watched his feet, trying to find some flaw in her comparison. “Maybe you’re right,” he allowed.
“Have you told Father Niall or the other monks that you hear numbers?” she asked.
“Only one,” Aidan admitted.
When he didn’t elaborate, Lana cast him a smug look. “I suppose he thought it was the Devil’s voice?”
“What if it is?” he said, low and almost to himself.
“Nonsense. Do the numbers you hear tell you to hurt anyone?”
Aidan dragged in a thick breath and shook his head. The humming did not direct him to do anything at all. When he had been younger, it had helped him know whom to doubt and whom to rely on, when to keep his thoughts to himself, or where to turn for advice. He had used it the same way a whiff of food told him whether a bite would taste sweet, bitter, or savory. Since becoming a monk, however, and the unpleasant conversation with Brother Eamon, Aidan had grown hesitant to even acknowledge the humming.
Though she did not appear to need convincing, he said, “I tell myself that God made the numbers and everything else, so He must make them hum.”
“Well, it certainly cannot be the Devil if it causes no harm,” she declared. “And I should know, since you have decided that I am an expert in the Devil’s work.”
A chuckle and a groan left Aidan together. He protested, “You’re angry with me for something I never said.”
“Your face said it for you.”
Unable to deny that, he stayed silent.
A few paces later, she wondered, “Do you hear numbers from trees, too?”
“In the twenties, usually,” he replied, relieved that the annoyance had faded from her voice. “Although willows hum thirty-one. Things that love water almost always have numbers with threes.”
Thoughtful, she fingered her lips
. Aidan looked away quickly. Some inarticulate force inside him persisted in wondering what those lips felt like to touch.
When her hand dropped to release another question, he expected her to ask more about trees. As usual, Lana surprised him.
“What’s your number, Aidan?”
He could not answer. The numbers spoke to him, not of him. He must also have a hum, he supposed, but he couldn’t hear it.
“Don’t you know?” she pressed.
He shook his head.
She canted her chin, gazing sideways at him. A smile played her lips. “I think you’re a five.”
He looked over sharply, afraid she was mocking.
“Is that bad?” she added, at his reaction. “I’m just guessing. Do you want to be a twelve so you’re higher than me?”
Bewildered amusement pushed a laugh from his chest.
“It doesn’t work like that.” The idea that he might be a twelve was even more ridiculous than the idea that a higher number carried more worth. Except for the unpleasant number one, which Aidan associated with turmoil, different numbers were only different, not better. They all had failings and strengths.
“Well, what are you, then?”
Aidan puffed out his cheeks, feeling pressured to answer. He stopped walking and exhaled. As the air flowed out of his body, he closed his eyes and stilled his thoughts. He tried not to inhale again for a long time, paused there at the bottom of breathing. He didn’t expect to hear any hum from inside, nor did he. But he thought of others he knew and traits common to people with the same numbers, and he tried to find himself in the patterns. Some numbers were easy to dismiss. Five was tempting, however. His father—
A cramp of dread disrupted Aidan’s thoughts. If his father was still alive, that dread whispered, and not lying cold amid a muddle of ashes and blood. He forced his mind forward past that image: His father was a five, and Aidan would be proud to share that number.