If only she were a boy. People never questioned whether a boy wandering out in the woods or traveling through market was supposed to be there. Even when he spent weeks alone in the woods, or traveling with the flock, no one ever looked at him and saw an easy victim. If Wynn looked like a boy, Elric could pretend she was his younger brother and no one would think twice about it. They’d assume there was nothing wrong as long as Wynn didn’t speak. Brothers were free to travel alone without hassle. A girl in a dress as short as a tunic, wearing men’s leggings, would attract attention that they didn’t need. Not after what just happened. But Wynn could never pass for a boy.
Unless . . .
His knife gleamed next to the fire.
There was one way to make her blend in, and he didn’t have a choice.
He limped over to the knife and picked it up.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Wynn
WYNN WAS SO HAPPY. ELRIC was standing, which meant he would be better soon. Maybe now that he was up, he could help her brush and braid her hair the way Mother always had. It was difficult for her to do it because her hands never cooperated when she tried, and she couldn’t move them the right way once they were behind her head and she couldn’t see them.
She had worked hard all night. She cleaned most of their things, but didn’t have time to clean her own things. Elric was more important. She used all her honey on his cuts, which made her sad because she liked honey, and she had been sneaking little bits of it whenever she felt worried. But Elric was more important than honey. She had carried him to this safe place and made a fire. She needed him to get better, and now he was. She did well.
She wouldn’t lose him like Mother.
Elric was quiet. He didn’t seem very happy. His face didn’t look like it normally did, and the purple spots looked bad. He didn’t say much when Wynn hummed her song. All he did was turn his knife over and over in his hands.
“Come here,” he said. Wynn was glad to hear him speak, but he didn’t sound right. His voice came out like he was angry, but he should be glad. He was getting better now. Wynn did as she was told and walked over to him, scratching the dried mud near her ear. He hung his head as if it were aching, then looked up at her without a smile. “I need to cut your hair.”
Cut her hair? Why? Mother had never cut her hair. Wynn immediately backed up. “No!”
Elric’s eyes were dark from bruises and nearly swollen shut. They looked squinting and angry. The scab on his cut lip quivered as his mouth turned down. “You ruined your skirt. Now you’re dressed like a boy. You might as well look like one so you blend in. We can’t afford to attract any more attention from people who might hurt us.”
“I don’t want to be a boy,” she said, shaking her head.
“You won’t be a boy. You’ll just look like one. It’s for your own good. Now come here.” He motioned to her, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at all their things and picking clothes up to put in his sack. He seemed worried, but she didn’t want to cut her hair.
“No.” Wynn stumbled on the rocks near her fire.
“Wynn, now is not the time to be stubborn. I know what I’m doing. Hold still. I don’t want to cut you.” Elric grabbed her by the arm. She pulled but he held on. His grip hurt her. Wynn’s heart raced as she threw her weight back. Her shoulder ached, and she twisted her elbow. She had to get away.
He let go suddenly and she fell to the ground. It knocked the wind out of her. She twisted over to try to get up, but he climbed on her the way he did when shearing a sheep. He sat on her back so she couldn’t push herself free. “Get off me!” she shouted. Chunks of moss got into her mouth, tasting bitter and gritty in her teeth. Bits of dirt went up her nose and stung. Her nose started running, and she couldn’t pull in air. “Stop!”
“I’m sorry, but you can’t even take care of it. It will be easier this way,” Elric said, sounding both frustrated and pleading.
Her hair was pretty. It was the color of the fields when the sun was shining and people were happy. Mother brushed it every night. It was hers. He couldn’t take it from her. She thrashed her head.
“I told you, hold still. I don’t want to hurt you!” Elric’s fist tightened on her braid. Her scalp stung where he pulled it.
No! No! No!
She kicked; she pushed against the ground, but his weight was too much for her.
She felt the knife like a saw, cutting. “Stop it!” she screamed.
Tears spilled out of her eyes. She reached back, clawing at his legs, wanting to hurt him. A lock of her hair fell against her cheek. It was broken.
The knife sawed and sawed.
“Stop it!” she cried, choking on her sob.
“Don’t worry, I’m almost done,” Elric said, as if nothing were wrong. The tension holding her head back released, and her face fell forward onto the damp moss. It was gone.
“There, that looks a lot better,” Elric said as he climbed off her back, but she couldn’t move. Wynn cried. She reached a hand up to her hair, but instead of the long thick braid, her hair slithered through her fingers for only a moment before her hand came away, and there was nothing.
Tears poured out of her eyes. She couldn’t speak. It was gone, and her heart hurt. Her heart hurt so badly.
“Get up, Wynn. Don’t be a baby.” His voice sounded rough. It didn’t sound like his voice. She heard Elric’s footsteps but she didn’t look at him. She couldn’t look at him. “It’s only hair. It will grow back.”
Slowly she pushed herself up just enough that she could curl into a little ball. Her stomach hurt, like she was sick. She couldn’t breathe. Her words wouldn’t come. It was gone.
“Mine,” she said through her sobs. The word rang through the clearing. She lifted her head, chunks of her now-chin-length hair falling into her face. She tried to push them away, but they fell back. In her frustration she grabbed them and pulled hard as she screamed. She shrieked louder and louder until Elric covered his ears.
“Wynn, stop it! It’s only hair!” Elric tried to force her hands away from her scalp, but she threw her arm hard and jabbed her elbow into his side. He cried out and fell away from her.
She stood. “Pretty!” she shouted at him. It was the only part of her that was pretty. Mother liked to brush it. She would brush it by the fire and say, “Such pretty hair for my pretty girl.” And Wynn felt proud. Now it was gone.
Elric’s eyes were wide, even though they were swollen. She had never seen him like this. Maybe he wasn’t really her brother at all. Maybe he had been changed into a monster. “I had to cut it!” Elric shouted. “I already told you. Your dress looks like a tunic. And if you look like a boy, no one will notice you. That will help keep us safe. Besides, it’s clean now that I cut the mud out of it. Pack our things. It’s time to go.”
“NO!” Wynn balled her hands into fists. “I don’t like you anymore.”
Her tears dripped from her chin, and water ran from her nose. She helped him. He hurt her.
Wynn turned and ran.
The trees flew past, but she couldn’t see them. She couldn’t see anything through her tears. There was no doe to lead her, only her feet. She ran as fast as she could. She wanted to run from him forever.
“Wynn!” he called, but his voice was far away already. “Wynn, come back!”
No!
She ran.
The forest streamed by with branches reaching out to scratch at her as she passed. She didn’t care. They didn’t hurt her. A pain stabbed in her heart, and it forced her to slow. Her breath came in aching bursts. When she couldn’t run, she stumbled, then found her strength and ran again. Her shorn hair fell into her eyes over and over. She brushed it away with slashing hands, feeling her nails scratch her own face.
It didn’t matter where she was going. There were no sticks to guide her. She would never find Elric again.
She didn’t care.
She no longer heard his voice. She no longer had the strength to run. She fell to he
r knees near the stump of a tree and cried.
She couldn’t stop crying.
Wynn sat against the stump and pulled her legs tight against her chest. It was starting to feel cold. She left her cloak with him. She wouldn’t go back. He was supposed to be the brother who laughed with her and played games. She wanted the brother who wrapped her in big hugs when he came home from the fields. She didn’t want this. She rubbed a hand over her bare neck. The fringes of her chopped hair tickled her palm.
This wasn’t a game anymore.
It was hard for Wynn to remember things if she didn’t think about them over and over. Things that happened didn’t stay in her mind well. Now she couldn’t brush her hair and remember when Mother did it. She would forget. She always forgot.
Wrapping her arms around her knees, she let her face press against them. Tufts of her hair fell forward in a fringe around her eyes. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and her tummy grumbled.
She was alone.
Good.
She didn’t want to be with anyone.
She was cold.
She was sad.
She was hungry.
Now what was she going to do?
She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t sing. Instead she coughed out another painful sob and curled tighter in on herself. The shadows of the trees wavered in the wind. To Wynn, they looked like a hand reaching for her.
She didn’t know how long she sat there.
It didn’t matter.
Something rustled nearby.
A little hope came back to her.
“Mildred?” she called, though it hurt to speak. Her hen always managed to follow her.
“What are you doing out here alone?” a man’s voice asked. She didn’t recognize it.
Wynn snapped her head up and scurried to the other side of the hacked-off stump.
He came closer.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Elric
ELRIC STOOD WITH WYNN’S SEVERED braid in his hand. He didn’t know how long he had been there, staring at the limp rope of hair crossing his palm. What had he done? He clenched his fist on the soft hair. He did what he had to do.
Elric dropped the braid on the ground.
Stomping around the clearing he yanked the various pieces of clothing and supplies he had gathered and shoved them forcefully back in his sack even though his bruises ached. Now he would have to go find her. It was one more bother he’d have to deal with because she didn’t understand what was going on.
He came to the empty jar of honey and picked it up. The crushed remains of the herbs she had shoved in her sack lay scattered beneath his feet. Elric sighed.
The only thing useful she had packed was the pot. He kicked it off the fire. The boiling water fell over the hot coals with an angry hiss and a cloud of white smoke curled up into the cool spring air.
Awwwk . . . bok . . . bok . . .
Mildred scratched at the trampled herbs, then peered up at him with one fiery eye.
“What are you looking at?” He shoved the empty honey jar into his sack.
The hen shook her comb at him, the curve of her beak giving her a wary frown.
“This is not my fault,” he reasoned. “Wynn gets too worked up over silly things. And she was being stubborn.”
The hen clucked low in her throat, the sound remarkably like a dismissive tut, tut.
Great. The last thing he needed was a know-it-all hen. “She makes a mess of things. I’m lucky I wasn’t killed last night. I was trying to save her and this is the thanks I get.” He pointed to his bruised and swollen face. “Now I have to go tromping off through the woods to who-knows-where to find her. Then when I do, she’ll be impossible to deal with.” Elric sat down on a rock and let his face rest in his hands, but the touch of his palms on his bruised jaw hurt too badly. He let his hands drop and sighed.
Mildred stepped over to him, her head bobbing as she did.
“It’s hard,” he admitted. “No one knows how hard this is. I remember the nights Mother cried because it was late, and she was tired, but she had to clean underclothes again and again and again because Wynn had soiled them like a baby. Mother always looked worn. And now I’m so tired. I’m trying to care for her. I’m doing the best I can.”
Elric ran his hand over Mildred’s broad back. The light caught on the deep-brown spots and streaks in her dark feathers. “Mother should have had someone who could help her. She only had me, and I had to go tend the sheep. I left them alone too much. If I had been there, I would have noticed Mother’s illness. I could have helped.”
Mother was gone. Wynn was now his responsibility. He never chose this. She wasn’t his child. He didn’t choose to be her brother. This was something that had been thrust upon him, and it had given him nothing but trouble for his efforts. His lip stung, and he dabbed at the scabby cut there that tasted like honey.
All he wanted was to return to his home—even if that life was oppressive, at least it was predictable. He could raise the sheep, take over Father’s house in the hamlet one day. He’d inherit responsibility for his father’s lands, and glean as much as he could from them. Perhaps he would find a wife and have sons that could help him work off the debts he would owe to the church and their lord.
It’s what everyone else did. It is what they had all done for generations.
He closed his eyes and tried to picture his mother. He could picture her smiling as Wynn clung to her apron until given a hug. Or her sitting near Wynn as his sister slept, softly smoothing back her daughter’s hair and singing.
Elric looked down at the severed braid near his feet. He picked it up gently. The braid began to unwind in his hand, and he quickly separated the strands so he could weave it back together tighter. He tied off the severed end with a bit of torn fabric, then brushed away the mud and pulled out the twigs that had caught in it.
He worked one of the sharp blackthorns out of the braid and held it to the light. What was he doing? He couldn’t leave Wynn alone out here. She’d never survive on her own.
He had made a promise.
Tuck . . . tuck . . . tuck . . . Mildred pecked his toe with a sharp jab of her beak.
“Ow!” Elric jumped to his feet as the hen threatened to peck him again. “Enough! I hear you!” He dodged out of the angry hen’s path and looped the severed rope of hair in the belt tied around his waist. “I have to go find her.”
He packed away the cooled pot and picked up Wynn’s empty sack. He slung it over his shoulder, then swung the heavy sack up. The strap dug into his bruises. He tried to shift it, but nothing helped. Mildred watched him intently, her beak open and ready to peck him again.
He looked up toward the surrounding trees and realized he was only vaguely aware of which direction Wynn had run.
“You wouldn’t happen to know which way she went, would you?” Elric said to the fat hen, not expecting an answer. To his surprise, the chicken fluffed out her feathers, then strutted confidently across the mossy clearing and through the strange circle of rocks. With head and tail high, and comb bobbing merrily, she marched forward.
Elric followed her, feeling completely foolish as he did so. She was a chicken—a stupid bird couldn’t find a lost girl in the woods. But he supposed it was as good a direction as any.
Mildred trotted on, hopping over large rocks with a flap of her broad wings, and striding confidently through the thick trees and deep shadows of the forest. She didn’t stop to scratch or peck at the dead leaves. Instead her beak pointed straight as an arrow down the path.
The shadows grew, casting the forest in a strange twilight beneath the branches, and Elric started to worry.
Wynn was probably so scared. He’d find her cold, hungry, and miserable. As soon as he built a fire and scavenged something to eat, all would be forgiven.
He’d have to explain to her, yet again, the dangers of wandering too far off, and hope that this time his words remained in her mind.
“Wynn!” he called.
They didn’t have anything left to eat.
“Wynn?” He tried again. “Don’t fret, I’m not mad at you.”
A sick feeling twisted through his gut, and it had nothing to do with his hunger.
What if he couldn’t find her?
His sister would starve out here alone. She’d have no way to find food, or build shelter. She could barely start a fire, and even if she had any talent at it, he had the flint in his pack.
It wouldn’t take her long to die of thirst, or illness from drinking foul water. She wouldn’t know how to tell if water was clean.
He picked up his feet as he jogged with greater purpose through the ominous woods. What if she ate berries that were poisonous?
Mildred let out a high-pitched squawk as Elric nearly kicked her in his haste. She flapped ahead, then ran, her wide body rolling with the motion of her striding legs.
Elric stopped in his tracks as he came to a high bank.
What if someone else found her first? Someone who wanted to hurt her?
“Wynn!” he shouted, his voice tinged with panic. He threw himself up the embankment, digging his sore hands into the loose dirt to cling to the roots from the trees above. Dirt rained down on his face, and he spit it out from between his lips. His shoulders strained, and his ribs ached, but he gritted his teeth and pushed hard with his legs to launch his upper body over the top of the ridge.
He landed hard on his ribs and grunted in pain. Pulling himself up, he rolled on the ground holding his middle. Mildred flapped furiously as she struggled to the top of the embankment.
Gasping, he opened his eyes. A nearby stump bore a rough-chopped wedge and jaggedly broken wood on top. The tree had been cut down with an ax.
The comforting aroma of a wood fire sent a chill down his spine. Someone lived nearby.
Elric kept a hand on his ribs as he used the other one to push himself up into a cautious crouch. He shrugged the sack off his shoulder.
“Millie, come here,” he whispered.
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