“I reckon, but only if you keep the insults to yourself,” Ellie said.
Thane smiled, but he did not make any promises. “I’ll be back next week at the same time,” he said.
“Alright,” Ellie agreed.
Thane stood at her agreement. Their visit was over. He had secured her blessing to come back and now he had to go home. Ellie was disappointed. She was tired and sore from cleaning the house and three days of walking, but she had hoped they could talk longer. The distraction had been kind.
“You gotta go now?” she asked.
“Yep. My brother will come looking for me if I’m not back soon. They have me on a short leash after what happened with my aunt. They all think I’m pouting somewhere…It won’t take them long to realize I’m not at Rachel’s.”
Thane gestured at his eye again, the reason behind his family thinking he was pouting.
“Oh…” Ellie said. “Alright.”
“Well…I’ll see you,” Thane said.
“I reckon,” Ellie said.
Ellie was cautious about allowing the hope she was eager to feel. She was certain he would not return. Thane smiled at her words and waved a goodbye. He disappeared into the darkness surrounding their clearing, his small light showing the way. She stared at the spot he had been sitting for a long moment, her mind whirling around what had just happened. She was not sure what to think, or even if it was okay to think those things. She was not used to the idea that adventures could continue after the exploring was through. All her stories of adventure ended when the characters got what they were after. Could there be more to her story? Had her adventure not been as complete as she had thought?
“Well, how about those strange turn of events?” Ellie asked Caw.
Caw was too busy digging for bugs to respond to her words. He jabbed his beak into a hole and rooted around for a moment. He pulled back with a beetle.
Ellie stretched out her legs out on the forest floor. She took a moment to let her body unwind. She looked up at her light and started making odd shapes with it. The light stretched, bent and formed geometrical shapes of her imagination. As she played with the amber light, she thought over her day and Thane’s strange appearance at her house.
For the first time in her life, she had met someone who wanted her friendship. He wanted to see her again. She was not certain if he had another motive. Her lingering suspicion of Coopers made her think that his father had sent him back to her, to find out information on her kin. She shelved the thought to the back of her mind.
She dared to hope beyond what the feud and her family had taught her. She dared to hope that she had made a real friend. He was a friend she was not keen to lose.
Chapter 8: Something Fair
There was no profound shift in the universe with Ellie’s agreement to meet Thane. The earth did not crumble with the neutral ground a Cooper and a Bumbalow had forged in the forest. Ellie was actually quite disappointed with how easily the world shifted back to normal after her days of excitement.
A week passed with nothing to entertain Ellie beyond chores and teasing from her sisters. There were more of the chores than the teasing, something Ellie was grateful for. She preferred to be alone with her chores.
Her sisters’ treatment of her had not changed with her adventure to town. Careen acted as if nothing had happened and went back to treating Ellie as a servant. Neveah, while also content to treat Ellie as a servant, seemed to register the fact that something had changed. She knew Ellie was not the same person. There was no denying the spark that had lit in Ellie’s soul at seeing town, no matter how hard Ellie tried to hide it.
When Ellie happened to catch Neveah’s eye, she noticed a thoughtful glint that had not been there before. The thoughtfulness had steel in it. Ellie was not sure what it meant or why it intimidated her, but she was extra careful to go out of her way to blend in to the background. The less Neveah noticed her, the better. She did not want to find out what darkness Neveah was dreaming up. Around the thoughtfulness, Neveah piled on the chores, almost as if she was punishing Ellie for her abduction.
The summer heat saw the slow, unchanging turn of sluggish days and active nights over the course of the week separating Ellie from her meeting with Thane. There was more feuding on the outskirts of the Bumbalow property but the Coopers did not try to attack the house again. They were quiet. Ellie thought it might have been Thane’s doing. There were more family gatherings at the house that Ellie had to clean up after, but the parties were the most exciting part of her week. She spent her free time in her shack, reading and dreaming up new adventures to keep her occupied. None of her dreams filled her with as much hope as seeing Thane again.
With the return of normalcy, Ellie began to believe that her time in town had been nothing more than an illusion. The only reminders were Caw and the boots she had saved. Even Caw became a familiar sight in the week separating Ellie from her next meeting with Thane. The familiarity made her start to forget the role he had played in her travels.
On the second day of their return to the house, Ellie created a door for Caw in the roof of her shack so he could come and go as he pleased. Caw was gone a lot, especially during the day when she cleaned. It had taken her a full day to teach him not to land on her when Careen and Neveah were around. If Neveah and Careen noticed him, they thought nothing of him beyond a hungry bird searching for food.
Ellie was in her shack when Caw brought Thane’s next note to her. It was near midnight when Caw flew through the trapdoor. The heat from the day was still circling her shack. The air was stagnant and strong. Her clothes were drenched with sweat. She did not try to craft a cooling draft; she was too lost in her anxiety. She had waited up for Thane. She expected him not to show. She was afraid to see him again. She was afraid that he would not be as willing to be her friend after a week of living outside their mutual adventure.
The note Caw delivered was simple. It was on the same coarse paper of his first note and was rolled into a tight cylindrical shape. When Ellie took it from Caw, she saw that the paper was larger than she thought. It was as long as her forearm. In the middle of the paper were the words, ‘Just checking.’
Ellie rolled her eyes when she saw the brevity of Thane’s note, having expected a letter from the size of the paper. She crafted a pen and wrote back on the same sheet of paper under his words.
‘Takes a Cooper to waste a whole piece of paper.’
She rolled the paper up again and sent Caw to deliver it.
Thane sent Caw back with an even longer piece of paper and an even shorter note.
‘And?’
Ellie laughed as she read his one word response. Then, she jumped to her feet. He was waiting for her. She did not want to keep him waiting for long. Caw flew ahead of her, his dark wings blending in with the night.
Thane was waiting on the same fallen tree as before. The bruise around his eye had started to heal, though there was still discoloring from the hit. Ellie’s bruise had long since healed; Neveah’s slap had not been as brutal as his father’s punch. It made Ellie think Thane’s father was not the sort of man to cross.
Thane appeared to be in a good mood when Ellie joined him in the clearing. He was not lost in reasons for the feud, at any rate. He had moved beyond trying to figure out something that had no reason.
“Howdy,” he said.
“I reckon,” Ellie said, yawning slightly in greeting.
She had been forced to do the chores twice after Neveah had invited the cousins over for an impromptu gathering. Careen and Neveah had done their best to track dirt into the kitchen when they saw Ellie cleaning, and the cousins, a messy group of people by nature, had thrown trash around the yard and house and had dirtied anything else they touched. Neveah had threatened Ellie with a week of staying with the grandparents if Ellie did not clean everything by morning. Neveah’s boyfriend, Deacon, was coming over in the morning to see her. She did not want him to see the house dirty. On top of the added mess of her cousins
, Ellie had rushed in her cleaning, so she could see Thane on time. The combination of hurrying and added work had taken its toll on her body.
“How’s your week been?” Thane asked as Ellie plopped down on the ground in front of him.
“Fine,” Ellie lied.
“You look like you’re about to fall over,” Thane said skeptically.
“If I do, just prop me up against a tree and act like I’m listening to what you’re saying,” Ellie said. “Maybe I’ll hear you somewhere in my dreams.”
“Nah, I’ll just talk to Caw. He’s probably got more to say, anyway,” Thane teased.
“Likely,” Ellie agreed easily.
Ellie yawned again and fought against her exhaustion. Her questions made it easier to focus on the moment. Her curiosity brought her strength that she would not have had otherwise. “So, what was it you were so keen to talk about?” she asked.
Thane shrugged once in a question. He did not appear to have thought that far ahead. He knew he wanted to see her again, but he did not know why. “I dunno. What do you want to talk about?” he asked.
Ellie realized there was a lot about him she did not know. They had shared her adventure to town, but she did not know much about him beyond the fact that he was a Cooper and his name was Thane. A week ago, that would have been enough.
Something she had been curious about since he had admitted going to school out of town sprung to mind. She hoped he would be willing to talk about it. She was not sure what boundaries they had to toe or what topics were off limits. Thane was a new world to her. It was one she was not sure was safe to tread on.
“What’s it like in other places? The places you get your schooling and the like,” she asked.
“It’s not anything great,” Thane said.
“Not great to you, maybe,” Ellie pointed out. “All I know of other places is what my books have said…”
“And your trip to town,” Thane reminded her. “You have that as a reference.”
“Course,” Ellie agreed. She smiled hopefully. “Still, I wouldn’t mind a story or two of the way things are,” she prompted him.
Aware that his stories were not as dull to her as they were to him, Thane started talking about his school days. He talked about the last year of school he had gone through and the year he still had left. He embellished some for Ellie’s sake, but the embellishments were not necessary to keep Ellie’s interest. He barely made it through a sentence before Ellie asked him to explain what he meant or describe something in greater detail. His impatience with her questions was obvious but he answered as completely as he could.
Her questions, though full of her lack of experience, were not stupid. They pointed out how little thought he had given to the simplest of things, things he had long taken for granted, and he realized he did not know as much as he thought he did about the world; he had not asked why as much as he should have.
Ellie kept up her questions until she could no longer resist sleep. Her eyes grew heavy and finally closed as Thane explained about his school out west. Thane noticed when he lost his audience. The questions stopped abruptly and snoring took its place. Ellie was propped up against a fallen log, her head bowed over as she slept. Caw was next to her on the log, mimicking her body language. He had his beak tucked under his wing as he slept.
Thane watched her for a moment, amused she could fall asleep in such an awkward position. He had never seen anything like it. Then, he grew worried. The forest could be as dangerous as town, given the proper circumstances. She was not safe, and he felt indebted to her to make sure she was always safe. Regretting the circumstances, that he could not leave her to her sleep, he shook her awake again.
Ellie jerked out of her dreams, startling Caw, who also jerked awake with the movement. He clicked his beak in agitation and flew a bit away from them, so he could rest in peace. Ellie blinked up at Thane and started rubbing her tired eyes. She tried to focus on him but focusing was difficult. It felt like the hardest thing to do in her life. Her eyes kept sliding shut.
“You better go home,” Thane said.
Ellie nodded in agreement. She knew it was useless. She could not stay awake any longer. “Next week?” she asked sleepily.
“Yeah. It’s your turn to share, though,” Thane said.
“I don't have such grand stories of cities and moving around the world,” Ellie declined.
“According to you,” Thane said.
Ellie smiled. “Well…if you’re interested, I’ll tell you all about me. Don’t say I didn’t warn you about it being boring, though.”
“I won’t,” Thane promised.
Ellie put a grumpy Caw on her shoulder and waved a silent goodbye. She paused once before she left their clearing. She turned to him with a smile on her face.
“I’m glad you came,” she said. “You’re not bad company…for a Cooper.”
“Thanks,” he said. “You’re not either…for a Bumbalow.”
Thane and Ellie shared a smile. It was tentative and uncertain. Their friendship was not rooted in as solid ground as they would have liked. Ellie turned and walked away from their clearing. As she stumbled back to her shack on tired feet, she felt a warm bubble of happiness settle around her heart. Everyone she knew just wanted her to do stuff, not speak her peace. He had actually asked for stories. He wanted to hear her side of things. He wanted to know more.
Around her sleepiness, she felt tense at the idea. She hoped that he would not think her silly or boring. She was worried he would not want to come back again when he realized how little she had done in her life. Ellie, like a child with a new toy, was not willing to give up the new thing she had found. Unlike a child with a new toy, Ellie appreciated exactly what she had. The newness would not wear off anytime soon.
She worked extra hard to get her chores out of the way the day of their next meeting. It was easier without the cousins mucking up the house. Neveah noticed Ellie’s hyper-focused cleaning as Ellie rushed about the house. Neveah teased her with the possibility of meeting a boy as she lounged on the sofa. Her words were mocking and sharp; they questioned if Ellie could find someone beyond her dustpan to have a conversation with.
At first, Ellie thought Neveah had seen Thane in the woods, or had caught wind of their meeting somehow, and felt a moment of panic, but then Neveah made her disdain obvious. The way she dissolved into peal upon peal of sarcastic laughter was clue enough. Neveah did not notice Ellie’s moment of panic or know how close she had come to the truth. Careen, however, did notice. She watched Ellie’s face as Neveah laughed. Careen saw the panic in Ellie’s eyes and the relief when Neveah’s teasing was made apparent. Careen’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she watched Ellie try to hide her fear.
At Neveah’s laughter, Ellie breathed a low sigh of relief and went back to her hurried cleaning. Careen joined in with Neveah’s teasing with her usual willingness to mock anything associated with Ellie but she watched Ellie with new eyes. She knew that something strange was going on. She knew it was something she could potentially use to her advantage. It was a moment that Ellie did not notice. She was too busy preparing for her meeting with Thane.
Thane was already waiting when Ellie finally finished her chores. It was past ten. He was early by a couple of hours. Ellie was surprised to see him. Her plan had been to get there first, so she could rehearse the stories she wanted to tell him. She wanted to go over her memories, so she did not mess up the telling. He was stretched out on the forest floor, his long legs searching for room on top of the broken leaves and vegetation. He waved once in greeting when she stepped into the clearing. She waved back and sat on the ground opposite from him, though she did not look nearly as casual. Caw immediately jumped off her shoulder and took flight, blending in seamlessly with the night as he swooped around in search of prey. Thane looked surprised to see her so early but he did not comment on it.
“How was your week?” Thane asked, mirroring their last meeting.
“Long,” Ellie admitted. �
��Neveah keeps inviting people over, and they keep leaving messes for me to clean.”
“Why is she inviting people over?” he asked.
“That’s what Neveah does. She maintains the family. She organizes them and makes sure everybody is taken care of the best she can. She’s been doing it since Grandpa Bumbalow got too old to fight and my momma…”
Ellie stopped talking abruptly. She did not want to start their meeting out on a depressing note and talking about her momma always depressed her. Her stories would not be fun if she dwelled on a past she could not change.
“Neveah is sort of like my dad, then,” Thane said thoughtfully. “He does the same sort of things for my family.”
“I guess,” Ellie said.
Thane shook off the thoughts of the feud and looked at Ellie seriously. His eyes were full of a secret pain. It was pain he did not feel like sharing just yet. “You want to go somewhere with me?”
“Somewhere?” Ellie asked, slightly afraid of his meaning. “Like, town?”
Was he going to take her back to his family? Would there be another adventure that would result in someone getting hurt?
“No, not like town,” Thane said. “We could go the other direction, away from the feuding.”
“What if we’re caught?” Ellie asked.
“Nobody knows us in the other direction,” Thane pointed out. “And we could sit somewhere that isn’t a log.”
“I don’t know…” Ellie said.
“Don’t be a chicken,” Thane said.
“I’m not being chicken!” Ellie said. “I’m being a person who don’t wanna get dead on account of you.”
“We won’t get dead,” Thane promised.
Ellie thought about his offer. Her stomach was in knots. She was excited at the prospect of seeing more places outside of her house, places where the feud did not exist. She wanted to go, but her fear kept her in place. The last time she had gone on an adventure, Thane’s aunt had suffered the consequences. The feud had almost escalated beyond the scope of her expectation. She did not want to face such escalation again. Thane seemed to understand her thoughts. He put a hand over his heart in a solemn promise.
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