by J. V. Jones
Effie took the reins and let Raina adjust the stirrups to her feet. Beneath her oilskins and wool coat, Effie was aware of her lore pushing, pushing, against her skin. It wanted to tell her something . . . like the day Da had ridden north to the badlands.
Effie shook her head. She didn’t want to know. Her lore told bad things. It made her feel queasy inside. Cluthing the reins in her left hand, she reached down inside her oilskin and pulled out the little rock given to her by the clan guide at birth. One sharp tug was all it took to snap the twine. Even through her dogskin mitts the rock felt alive. It wasn’t warm and it didn’t move, but somehow it pushed.
“What’s the matter, Effie? Has the rock scratched your skin?” Raina was walking alongside Mercy, looking up at Effie, her face all creased and pale.
Leaning back in the saddle, Effie reached back with her hand to feel for one of the saddlebags. When her mitt slipped under the leather lid, she released her grip on the lore and let it fall to the bottom of the bag. A tight itchiness prickled through her stomach as it dropped. She took a breath, told herself it was silly to be afraid of a rock no bigger than her nose. “I’m fine, Raina. Just . . . cold. The rock felt cold against my skin.”
Raina nodded her head in a way that made Effie feel bad. She hated to lie.
They walked in silence after that. Raina led Mercy over the ridge and into the bottomlands beyond. Old elms, basswoods, oaks, and dog birches began to spike the path, their bare limbs clutching at the sky with every gust of wind. Gobs of frozen sap shone like eyes in the places where branches split into twigs, and deep within their hollowed-out boles, wet ice glittered like teeth.
Effie shivered. Normally she liked old trees, yet today she found herself seeing only the bad things: the wood ear fungus eating into the bark, the slimy green moss growing on south-facing trunks, and the tubes of rootwood poking through the earth around the bases of the old oaks. Surely roots weren’t meant to be seen? Just looking at them made Effie feel queer, as if she were catching a glimpse of hidden things, like the pale wingless insects that lived under the roundhouse floorboards and deep within its walls.
Feeling her heart begin to patter again, Effie looked away. Fixing her gaze on the space between Mercy’s ears, she tried not to think of her lore lying at the bottom of Raina’s saddlebag or the roots of the old oaks. She wished she didn’t have her mitts on and could touch Mercy’s neck. She knew it would be warm and soft and nice. “Good girl,” she whispered, needing to hear the plain sound of her own voice. “Good Mercy.”
The Oldwood crept up on one slowly. First there was just a softening of the ground underfoot, a few bushy birches and alders, and a string of old elms. Then the ground snow thinned, revealing the broad leaves of winter ferns and stripped shoots of milkweed. A little later there were rounded boulders speckled white with bird lime and yellow with withered moss. Then every time you took a step, years of dead and frozen matter crackled beneath your feet. The light dropped, then later the wind. The smell of damp earth and slowly decaying things sharpened. And finally, after you walked a while longer past rotten stumps and needle-thin streams, you were there, surrounded by a shuddering, creaking forest of basswood, elm, and oak. The Oldwood.
Effie was glad to get out of the open spaces of the valley, pleased that she could no longer see more than a short walk ahead. Still, it was very quiet and the wind didn’t quite blow through the trees: It hissed. Effie glanced at Raina, wishing she would speak. Raina was quiet, though, her face tilted down toward the path. There was a ring of mud and snowmelt around the hem of her woolen skirt, and ice crystals had formed along the breathline of her hood.
Effie dearly wanted to say something to Raina, something funny or interesting or clever, but she wasn’t very good at talking. Not like Letty Shank and Mog Wiley.
In silence, Raina led them through the north corner of the Oldwood and onto the west fringe. The temperature had risen slightly, and the snow underfoot was no longer as brittle as it had been. A few winter birds, mostly robins and grouse, called to each other from places Effie couldn’t see. Every now and then she felt something push against the base of her spine. It was a metal buckle or a hard lump of leather in the saddle. It had to be. Her lore couldn’t push right through the saddlebags and Mercy’s rump. It couldn’t.
The west fringe of the Oldwood was best for traps. Many clanswomen trapped animals here, and all had their own territories and secret places. Effie knew Raina’s places well. Raina had exclusive rights to the stream between the two sister willows and the bluff, and to the bluff itself, where bearberries and blackberries grew high atop the ridge. Effie didn’t know much about trapping game, but she knew that the berry bushes were a good thing. All sorts of creatures came to eat the fruit.
They arrived at Raina’s trapping ground while the sun was still rising. Effie slid down from the filly’s back as Raina hiked up the bluff. Reaching the top of the bank, Raina ducked beneath a bearberry bush to inspect one of her traps. After a moment she made a pleased sound. “I’ve got one, Effie. A fox. A big one with a beautiful coat. It’s still warm.”
Effie walked a little way up the ridge, deliberately putting some distance between herself and the saddlebag containing her lore. She wished the fox hadn’t been warm. That meant Raina would stop and skin it before it froze. You couldn’t skin a frozen fox.
Raina emerged from the bush holding a blue fox by the scruff of its neck. Its yellow eyes were still open, but there was no fox cunning spilling out. “Effie. Fetch the skinning knife from my left saddlebag.”
Effie wasn’t very good at her left and rights. She needed to have both her hands in front of her to work it out. Making a little weighing movement with her mitted fingers, she frowned. The left bag was the one containing her lore. Heart beating just a little bit quicker than moments earlier, she weighed her left and rights again.
“Effie! Hurry now! I want to be back by noon.”
Raina’s voice was sharper than normal, and Effie ran the short distance back to Mercy. Eyes closed, lips pressed firmly together, she thrust a mitted hand into the saddlebag. Even as her fingers found and closed around the cool metal of the skinning knife, her lore pushed against the back of her hand. Effie jumped. Her lore wanted to be picked up and held . . . like the time in the small dog cote just before Shor Gormalin came.
“No,” Effie whispered. “Please. I don’t want to know.”
“Effie, the knife!”
Grabbing tight hold of the knife, Effie yanked her arm free of the saddlebag. She spent the next moment standing perfectly still, her face all scrunched, the knife held out at arm’s length, waiting to see if anything terrible would happen. Only nothing did. Trees creaked. An owl that didn’t know what time of day it was hooted. Breathing a sigh of relief, Effie ran up the slope and joined Raina.
Raina had already cut the trap wire from the fox’s snout and was busy brushing away bits of leaves and snow from its coat. Effie handed her the knife, but as she did so the temptation to lean in close and hug Raina was overpowering, and she wrapped her arms around Raina’s waist.
“Little one. Little one.” Raina pulled down Effie’s hood and stroked her hair. “I shouldn’t have brought you all this way. It was wrong of me.”
Effie didn’t much care that Raina had misunderstood things. The sound of Raina’s voice, gentle, good, and completely familiar, was all that counted. Just to hear it made Effie feel better. She hugged her for a bit longer and then pulled away. Raina let her go. The fox hung by its brush from her free hand, and Effie could tell she was eager to skin it and be gone.
“I know,” Raina said, making a small gesture indicating that Effie should pull up her hood against the cold, “why don’t you go and check on the other side of the bushes for those shiny stones we were talking about? Right between the two oaks, under the bearberry.”
As Effie nodded, snow and earth crackled in the bushes below. Branches moved. A jackdaw took to the air, screaming at the sky as it flew. Metal jingled s
oftly.
Raina beckoned Effie to her. She had already made the first incision along the fox’s snout, and there was a film of blood on her blade. As Effie came forward, she let the fox drop to the ground.
Mace Blackhail emerged from the bushes below them, leading his blue roan by the reins. The gelding was lathered, its coat steaming in the cold air and its nostrils frothing with mucus. Mud was sprayed over its belly and legs, and the skin around its saddle was patchy and chaffed. Mace Blackhail looked little better. His fox hood was matted with muck and ice, and his cheeks were burned red by snow glare.
“Foster Mother!” he called. “I arrived back at the roundhouse a quarter after you left.”
Raina made no reply. Her fingers dug into Effie’s shoulders.
Mace Blackhail shrugged. Coming to a halt, he tied the roan’s reins to a whip-thin birch. Effie heard metal things—weapons, she supposed—clink beneath his oilskins.
“We need to talk, you and I, Foster Mother.” Mace shot a glance Effie’s way. “Alone and in private.”
Not releasing her grip on Effie’s shoulder or the skinning knife, Raina began to descend the slope. “Effie’s but a child. She won’t—”
“She’s a Sevrance,” cut in Mace Blackhail. “She’ll go running back to that dark-eyed brother of hers, sniveling and telling tales.”
“You mean Raif?” Raina’s voice had a catch to it that Effie didn’t understand. “As you and Drey seem to get along well enough. He seemed eager enough to pledge his hammer to you the same night Bron came from Dhoone.”
Mace Blackhail pulled down his hood. His face was dark, thin from long days in the saddle. “Get rid of the child, Raina.”
Effie kept herself still. She imagined she could still feel her lore pressing against her mitted hand.
Raina took a small breath and patted Effie’s shoulder. Lowering her head, she spoke words for Effie’s ears alone. “Run along and find those stones behind the bushes like we talked about. I’ll keep watch. I won’t leave without you. I promise.”
Effie twisted her head around so she could look at Raina’s face. What she saw frightened her. “Raina?”
“Go, Effie.” Raina patted her shoulder—harder this time. “Go. Everything will be fine here. There’s nothing to worry about. It’s just me and Mace.”
Effie scrambled down the slope. Mace Blackhail watched her descend. When she drew level with the horses, Mercy whickered, and Effie reached out to touch her neck.
Push.
Snapping her hand back, Effie bit hard on her lip to stop any noise from leaving her mouth. It couldn’t be her lore. It couldn’t. Turning on her heel, she found herself face-to-face with Mace Blackhail. Before she could move away, Mace grabbed her chin with a gloved hand.
His hair dripped snowmelt onto his cheeks as he angled her face one way and then the other. He smelled of skinned animals. His voice when it came was as smooth and cold as ice. “As it is you’ll be no great beauty. Though you’re liable to end up worse if you go telling tales.”
“Leave her alone!” It was Raina, coming down the slope. Effie noticed she still had the skinning knife in her hand.
Mace Blackhail smacked Effie’s buttocks. “Don’t come back until I’m gone.”
Effie dashed away into the bushes, hardly caring where she was headed. She heard Raina call out to her, some sort of warning about not going too far, yet Effie could barely hear it over the fast beating of her heart. A finger of oak scraped along her cheek. Ferns slapped at her boots and skirt, and snow and twigs crackled beneath her feet. She hardly knew if she was running from Mace Blackhail or her lore.
When the ground finally steepened, Effie slowed. Her hood was down, but her face didn’t feel cold at all. Breath fogged as it left her mouth. She glanced over her shoulder, but all she saw were oaks and elms barricading the way. Oak roots peeped out above the snow line, pale and fat like worms.
Effie looked away. Up the slope and off to the left lay the backs of the bearberry bushes where Raina kept her traps. Effie frowned. Going that way would almost be the same as going back to the clearing. But Raina had told her not to go far. Unsure of what to do, she hesitated; her hand stole up to her neck, searching for the lore that wasn’t there. Funny how she always held it when she had decisions to make. Laying her mitted palm flat on her chest, she tried to still her heart instead. She wished Raina were here.
A light wind blew through the trees and up the slope, making topsnow ruffle like an animal’s coat. Effie chewed on her lip. She didn’t like Mace Blackhail, and it made her stomach go all tight to think of him alone with Raina.
With a small flick of her head, she started up the slope. She didn’t need an old piece of rock to make decisions for her. She was old enough to make them herself.
The back of the bluff was harder to climb than the front. Littered with loose rocks and fallen logs all slippery and green, the south slope was normally used by foxes and Hissip Gluff’s goats. The snow made everything worse, hiding brambles, sinkholes, and rootwood. Effie plucked up her skirt and held it high above her knees. Somewhere below her she could hear the willow stream running over sandstone. She didn’t look down. By the time she reached the top of the slope her skirt was black with snow and mud. Ahead she saw the line of bearberries and the two oaks Raina had mentioned earlier. Although she didn’t much feel like it, Effie turned her mind to stones. Shiny ones, Raina had said. Beneath the bushes.
“Get away from me!”
Effie stopped dead at the sound of Raina’s voice. She wondered if snow hadn’t worked its way inside her collar, for something liquid and icy slid down her spine. Raina.
Thrashing through snow and ferns, Effie dashed to the far side of the ridge where the bushes grew. One of Raina’s traps could clearly be seen on the ground beneath the densest cluster of stems, its lip open, waiting to be sprung. Swinging away from it, Effie fell to her knees and crawled the rest of the way.
No more words came from below, but she could hear twigs snapping and oilskins creaking. One of the horses stamped its hooves. A breath was sharply taken, then the clear sound of a belt buckle un-snapping chimed through the air like a bell.
Down on her belly in the snow, Effie pushed herself along by her knees and feet. Her heart thumped against the ground. She was listening so hard her jaw ached.
More sounds. Oilskins, mostly, and crunching snow. Someone or something grunted: Effie couldn’t tell whether it was Mace Blackhail or one of the horses.
Easing her head into the tangle of stems and leaves that marked the edge of the ridge, she peered into the clearing below. She saw Mace Blackhail’s roan first, then Mercy. Red bearberries, cold and almost frozen, tapped against her cheeks like glass beads. Tiny little thorns snagged at her sleeves as she moved closer to the edge.
Hard breaths sounded, and Effie’s gaze found Mace Blackhail’s back. It was moving up and down. Effie frowned. Where was Raina? That was when she noticed Mace Blackhail’s hand; it was pressed hard against Raina’s mouth. Raina was beneath him. On the ground. In the snow. Her oilskin was spread open about her.
Effie’s chest tightened. What was he doing to her? Even as she looked, she saw Mace Blackhail lean forward and kiss Raina’s face. Raina jerked her head back. Mace continued moving up and down. He was breathing very hard now.
A glint of silver on the ground near the horses caught Effie’s eye. Raina’s knife. From where she lay, Effie could just make out three blotches of blood sunk deep into the surrounding snow. Her gaze was drawn back to Mace Blackhail. He shuddered, issued a hard cry like a cough, then slumped onto Raina’s chest. Raina’s eyes were closed. Mace no longer had his hand over her mouth, but she made no move to cry out, simply lay there with her eyes closed, perfectly still.
Mace said something to her that Effie didn’t catch, then he rolled to the side and picked himself off the ground. Still Raina did not move. Her skirt was hitched up about her waist and her tunic was open, revealing her linen underbodice beneath. Effie averted h
er eyes: like the oak roots, they were things not meant to be seen.
Mace Blackhail belted and fastened himself up. His sword swung at his waist, held in place by a doeskin scabbard dyed black. As he returned to his horse, Effie saw a line of bright blood on his cheek and a second on his neck. When he approached Raina’s skinning knife, he kicked it hard, sending the silver blade shooting into a tangle of snowy gorse. He spat, smoothed back his hair, and then mounted the blue roan. The gelding shook its mane and switched its tail, but Mace pulled hard on the bit, taking command of its head.
Turning the gelding, Mace Blackhail took a moment to regard Raina as she lay on the ground. Raina still had not moved. Effie could just see the rise and fall of her chest. Her eyes were closed, but as Mace looked on she opened them.
Mace’s mouth twisted. “Tidy yourself before you return,” he said. “If we are to be wed—as this surely means we must—then I will not have my wife arrayed like a coarsehouse wench for all to see.” With that, he kicked the roan into a trot and rode from the clearing.
Effie watched him go. The left side of her face was numb, and her entire body was colder than she could ever remember it being before. Even her heart felt cold. For a reason she didn’t understand, she began naming the Stone Gods. Inigar Stoop said they were hard gods and they answered no small prayers. Never ask anything for yourself, Effie Sevrance, Inigar’s hard old voice reminded her. Ask only that they watch over the clan. To Effie, Raina Blackhail was the clan, so she spoke the nine sacred names of the gods.
As she named Behathmus, who was called the Dark God and was said to have eyes of black iron, Raina began to stir in the clearing below. Her legs came upward and her arms slid inward and her chin came down to her chest. She shrank as Effie watched, her body closing around itself like a dead and curling leaf. No noise left her lips, no tears spilled from her eyes, she just drew herself smaller and smaller until Effie thought her back would break.
Effie cried for her. She didn’t know that she was crying until the wetness reached her mouth and she tasted salt. Something bad had happened. And Effie wasn’t sure what it was, but she knew two things without question: