“Don’t listen to this, Wynn, it’s only stories,” Elric said.
Wynn glanced at him, then peered up at Osmund with wonder shining in her eyes. “Can we stay with you?” she asked him. He rose and closed a leather flap over the window.
“I’m sorry,” he said to Wynn. “I would love to be your knight and save you from this place. But I built this hut for me and Burghild, my goat. You can’t even stand straight in it.” He turned to Elric. “And you’ve made some enemies in the village. Don’t think for a minute they won’t talk, or rally to have you both thrown in the stocks until someone can bring you back to your own village for reckoning. If they know I helped you, they’d put me in the stocks just to see my feet dangle.”
“Then we can’t stay,” Elric said. “We don’t want to cause any more trouble for you.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be more of a help.” Osmund shook his head sadly. “I know how it feels to find yourself suddenly alone and lost in this world. Besides, it’s nice having guests, even ones who eat me out of half my stores.”
“Thank you, Osmund.” Elric hesitated, hoping Osmund could hear that he meant his words this time and they were from the heart. “For everything you’ve done for us, especially Wynn. You’re a good man.”
Osmund’s face softened. “Now you’re learning. Get some sleep.”
Wynn and Elric settled down near the fire. Elric had to push the table closer to Osmund’s bed just to get enough room to curl up into a ball. To his dismay, Burghild the goat decided to lie down right next to him. As the fire died, Osmund began to snore.
Elric had a lot to think about. They would have to keep traveling to stay away from anyone who might suspect they were breaking bonds of fealty, and hope they passed beyond the reach of their lord. Maybe they would have better luck in a faraway village and find another kind person to help. At least Osmund proved there were generous people in the world.
He looked over at his sister, her hastily sliced hair falling in uneven chunks across the soft dirt floor.
“Wynn?”
She didn’t move, but Elric knew she could hear him. She always rolled onto her back and splayed her arms and legs out if she was really asleep.
He wanted to say something to her, but he didn’t know what. He didn’t know how to explain what he had to do in a way she would understand and accept. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Things will be better in the morning.”
She took a deep breath.
Wynn remained silent, and Elric didn’t say anything more. Instead he stayed awake watching the burning embers of the fire slowly die.
The next morning, Osmund helped load their sacks with heavy bread, goat cheese, chunks of dried meat, turnips, parsnips, carrots, and a couple of onions. He also filled the honey jar and gave them two bladders, one filled with water, and the other with goat’s milk. He gave Elric a snare for birds and rabbits, and a small ax. It was rusted and the handle split down the grain of the wood, but it was a generous gift all the same.
“Good luck,” he said as he tied the second sack and handed it to Wynn. “I hope you do find a place that is safe for you.”
Wynn dropped the sack at her feet and bent to give the man a very big hug. He patted her on the back. “Stay fierce, Wynn the Dragon.”
“Come with me.” Wynn didn’t let go.
“I’m sorry, my dear, I wish I could, but who would look after Burghild?”
“She is a good goat.” Slowly Wynn let go and pulled on a cap Osmund had given her, woven from his goat’s hair.
“You take care of that hen of yours,” Osmund said. “The smart ones are worth keeping.” Mildred trotted across the garden on the trail of a fat beetle. Osmund motioned to Elric as he straightened with the heavy sack on his bruised shoulder. It ached as the strap cut into it, but there were worse forms of torture, so he’d have to bear it. A heavy sack was better than an empty one.
Osmund scooped up Mildred, and placed the hen in Wynn’s arms. “Thank you for all your help around the house,” he said to her. “That was the best rabbit stew I’ve ever had.”
Wynn giggled. “Welcome.”
He gave her a deep bow. “I hope that one day our paths may cross again, fair Wynnfrith the Dragon. Until then, go with your brother.”
Wynn looked up at him, and a stern frown drew her eyebrows down. It wasn’t an expression she was used to making, and it crumpled up her face unnaturally.
“I can take care of myself,” she insisted.
Osmund leaned in toward her. “Then take care of him. He will get it eventually,” Osmund murmured as he gave her shoulder a strong pat. “He doesn’t understand things the way we do.” He turned back toward Elric. “A word?”
Elric nodded.
Osmund led him over to the embankment behind the house. “Listen, I don’t know where you intend to go, but no matter how desperate you get, do not seek the Silver Gate. You will never find it.”
Elric stared at him. “You believe it exists?”
“Would you seek it if it does?” Osmund asked.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Elric said, gripping the handle of his mother’s spoon. “You know something. Something you’re not telling me.”
Osmund pulled Elric down so he could speak eye to eye. “It doesn’t matter if I believe. What matters is what you believe.” He patted Elric on the shoulder and turned back to his hut without another word.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Elric
THEIR PATH LED NORTH, AND it was as good as any at the moment as long as it led them far away from the village. The last thing they needed was more trouble. Wynn skipped along the path, gathering the new buds of early spring wildflowers. “Wynn, stay behind me,” Elric groused. “You don’t know the way.”
Her smile faded, and with hunched shoulders, she fell into step behind him.
With her eyes narrowed, she crossed her arms. He marched forward and Wynn kicked up leaves behind him. At least she was walking in peace through the woods without her incessant singing.
He could hear himself think, and also hear if any trouble was coming.
They walked the full day and she hardly said a word.
Mildred was also unnaturally quiet as she hunted bugs in the new spring shoots pushing up through the thick layer of dried grasses. Every time the hen passed by him, she stared at him through one red-and-gold pupil. She was thinking about pecking him, he knew it. Sure enough, she jabbed her beak at his toe every chance she got.
The second day was silent as well. While they managed to travel several miles, by the end of the evening, Elric was feeling half mad. He was used to going for days on end without anyone to speak to while tending the sheep, but this was different.
It was strange to have someone following only steps behind him without saying a word. It was unnatural, especially for Wynn, and it made him uncomfortable. As evening fell, he tried talking with Mildred, just to hear a voice even if it was only his own. The hen seemed intent upon ignoring him completely too.
On the third day, after hiking through steadily rising hills all afternoon, and as the sun was beginning to set, he finally broke.
“Wynn, I had to cut your hair. Remember when we passed that shepherd? He just waved at us without even looking at you. The disguise is working, so you have no right to be angry with me anymore.” Elric let his sack fall to the ground in a cluster of old oak trees. Their branches twisted and tangled like black snakes trying to slither into a red-and-orange sky. He turned to Wynn. She just gently let her sack down and lifted Mildred out of it, so the hen could scratch through the leaves.
But she still didn’t say anything.
“Fine, I’ll keep ignoring you then,” Elric said. “See if it makes any difference to me.” He pulled out the small pot and the wooden spoon, then took up the ax and eyed the trees for a broken limb that might be dry enough to cut for a fire.
The pot clanked behind him.
Elric turned around, and Wynn was holding the wooden spoon.
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He rushed back toward her. “Don’t touch that!”
She immediately pulled the spoon in toward her chest and twisted away from him, cowering as if he were about to strike her.
He realized he was holding the ax.
Slowly Elric dropped it to the soft ground. “Just give me the spoon.” He held his hand out to her.
“Why?” her voice sounded hoarse from lack of use.
“It was Mother’s.” Elric took another quick step toward her, but she shied away again, still clutching the spoon. “I don’t want you to break it.”
Elric’s heart pounded faster and faster. A sweat broke out on his brow. It was all he had left of Mother. He knew it was silly, but when he held the whittled shaft of the spoon in his hand, he remembered what it was like to be carefree.
He remembered the earthy smell of his mother’s dress as he pressed his face into it as a little boy while her arms wrapped around him. For a moment, he remembered how it felt to be cared for when his world was safe and warm.
Wynn looked at the spoon. “This is my spoon,” she said. “I use it for cooking.”
“No it’s not,” he said. “Give it back to me, now!”
He lunged at Wynn, but she ran with surprising speed. Elric chased her, accidentally kicking Mildred as the hen ran after them both. He looked down at the bird and stumbled over her just enough to throw himself off balance. Mildred flew in another direction, clucking angrily as her wings flapped at her sides.
His shoulder hit the dried leaves and the layer of lumpy and shifting acorns covering the ground. He scrambled to get back up, but the balls of his feet slipped on the acorns.
By the time he finally got his feet under him, Wynn had sprinted far ahead of him. Her gait was awkward but she was fast in spite of it. Elric’s lungs burned as he fought to catch up with her.
He tasted blood in his mouth, and he didn’t care.
He had to get that spoon back.
Elric bent and scooped up a handful of acorns. With a quick flick of his wrist, he hurled them at his sister.
One hit her in the back of the head.
“Ow!” She stopped running for a second and reached up to rub her head. It knocked the hat Osmund had given her askew.
Elric pushed his sore legs harder. He was gaining on her now.
She caught sight of him, let out a squeak, and turned to run. The hat fell from her head, and her short hair flew behind her as she took off again.
Elric heaved in several breaths. Wynn had never run this fast before.
Of course, she’d always been wearing a long dress before.
A cramp pinched his side. He held it as he flew past tree trunk after tree trunk. Wynn stumbled, and he was on her.
He leaped at her, grasping for the spoon. They tumbled down a small hill, the fallen leaves flying around them as they fought.
“Stop it!” Elric shouted at her, grabbing at her arms. She whacked him several times over the head with the spoon, each strike ringing in his skull and leaving a sharp, lingering pain in his scalp.
He got a hand on the handle of the spoon and used it to push one of Wynn’s hands off. She immediately grabbed it again, kicking at him. “It’s not yours, let go!” Elric shouted.
“It’s mine!” Wynn screeched, the dried oak leaves embedding themselves in her knife-cut hair.
Elric tightened his fist on the spoon and tried to peel her fingers off the handle, but she bent her short thumbs straight backward, her fingers flexing in unnatural ways. Every time he got one hand free, she grabbed the handle again.
“Enough!” Elric yanked hard and heard a loud snap.
His heart stopped in that moment.
Wynn went still.
The spoon came away from her hands cracked in two.
Wynn pushed away from him, her bright blue eyes wide with fear as she stared at him.
He looked down at the broken pieces of the spoon, one in each of his open palms. He closed his fingers over them, feeling the delicate wood across his hardening fists. He staggered to his feet.
“What have you done?” he screamed at Wynn.
She cowered beneath him, half buried in the leaves; her tangled hair covered her face as she stared up at him. “I didn’t mean to.”
“You broke it!” The words ripped out of his chest so hard they burned. Wynn covered her ears, and a tear spilled over her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Elric aligned the two pieces, watching the splintered wood come together. When he pressed, it was as if it had never broken at all. But then he let go, and it fell in two.
He threw both pieces at Wynn.
“I’m done with you.” He dusted the leaves off his heavy tunic. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m going home.”
He stomped back through the forest, the leaves and twigs crunching under his feet. He could feel each lump through the worn soles of his shoes. They hurt. He hurt. He had a deep pain in his chest, and he still was breathless from fighting.
His skin itched all over as he tried to brush the bits of leaves and dirt that had crawled into his clothes away from his skin. It didn’t work.
The fiery colors in the sky faded into the softer gray of twilight.
He reached the grove where his sack, the pot, and a ruffled Mildred still waited. He gathered up his things, throwing them into the sack, not caring what else he broke.
“Elric, wait. I want to come with you.” Wynn jogged into the clearing, her hair a wild mess tangled with leaves and twigs. She was carrying the two pieces of the spoon in her leaf-covered hat.
“No.” He slung his sack over his shoulder, leaving hers lying on the ground. “Do what you want. I don’t care. But I don’t want to see you again.”
He turned his back on her and walked away.
He couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t. It was too much.
And now she had destroyed the one thing that meant anything to him.
He didn’t look back over his shoulder. He didn’t listen for footsteps behind him. If she wasn’t going to obey him, then there was nothing he could do for her. He’d tried.
The light was fading quickly, and he wouldn’t be able to keep walking through the darkness. He needed a fire to keep foxes and wolves at bay.
The woodland shadows stretched over him as he sat down in a clearing with a patch of spring bluebells at the base of a hill. Using the butt of the ax, he cleared a space for a fire, and hastily gathered a small pile of sticks.
The fire started quickly, and Elric crouched near the dim and flickering light. Pulling his cloak over his shoulders, he tried to stave off the chill that came with the deepening night.
Wynn would be in the dark.
He let out a huff.
He couldn’t do this. It had taken too much from him. Elric closed his eyes and tried to remember the last thing Mother had said to him. Something about making sure to clean the mud from his shoes.
He didn’t get to say good-bye. He left thinking they would have endless days, and a million chances to speak with one another, to say, what?
That he still needed her? That he wasn’t ready to be grown up just yet?
Those are things he never would have said to her out loud. Even if they had another day, he would have come into the hut and not noticed the way the lingering scent of thyme and sage hung in the air from the drying herbs in the window. He would have teased his mother about the one or two gray hairs that peppered her braid, not knowing he would never see her with hair silver from age. He would eat whatever she had cooking in her pot, and it would taste like summer herbs and vegetables grown by her hand. Then he would leave the house complaining that he didn’t need her to fuss over him even though he felt loved when she did, and she would have said, “I’ll see you again soon, my boy.”
Elric sniffed, and wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve.
“I’m sorry, Mum,” he whispered to himself as he watched the flames dance in the deep shadows.
CHAPTER FIFT
EEN
Wynn
WYNN LOOKED UP AT THE gray sky through the dark branches of the oaks. It was getting dark. Elric wasn’t coming back. He was angry.
She knew how that felt.
She was still angry too. The strands in the front of her hair wouldn’t stay out of her face.
Wynn slapped it back and pulled on Osmund’s hat. The leaves in her hair made her head itchy.
She looked at the broken spoon.
It snapped when they were fighting. Bad things happened when they fought, and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like being quiet all the time either. Elric never told her he was sorry, and he was stubborn like a goat. Mother told her that if you push a goat, the goat will push back. If you want a goat to follow you, fill your pockets with weeds.
Besides, Osmund told her to take care of her brother, and she promised she would do it, even when he was acting like a goat. She just wished he wouldn’t be mean when she helped.
Wynn lifted the spoon and tried to fit the pieces back the way they were. If she turned them and pushed them together just right, they didn’t look broken and were only a little crooked. She needed them to stick.
An owl hooted.
“Mildred, come.” She stooped and motioned to the chicken. The hen came running to her. Wynn tucked her in the sack. The hen poked her head out and clucked softly in Wynn’s ear.
It would be nighttime soon.
She could mend the spoon. At least, she would try, and then Elric could be happy again. She could make this better for him, even though he couldn’t mend her hair. She would be good to him anyway, because it was right. Mother liked it when she was kind, and she would have repaired the spoon for him. Wynn was a good sister, no matter what. She needed to find something sticky to hold the spoon together.
Honey was sticky.
Wynn frowned. It made Elric angry when she used all the honey last time.
What else was sticky?
Wynn turned in a slow circle. The only things near her were trees, a lot of trees.
And trees had sap.
The Silver Gate Page 10