by Trish Mercer
But instead they heard him scream, “MAHRREE!”
Jaytsy froze. She had never heard him scream before. Now Peto’s door flew open.
“No, no, NO! I’m too late! Dear Creator, she’s dead! Mahrree!”
Jaytsy and Peto rushed up the steps behind Shem, who was already taking them three at a time. When he threw open the bedroom door, they saw Perrin standing and staring at the floor, sobbing at nothing.
Their mother was kneeling on the bed trying to turn him to face her. “I’m here! Perrin! I’m right here. Look at me!”
“I’m going to kill them!” he wailed and pulled at his hair. “I have to kill them all!”
Jaytsy grabbed Peto, needing someone to hold on to. She’d never seen her father so agitated before, and certainly had never seen him cry. She didn’t know he was even capable of it.
Peto quivered under her grip and awkwardly put a scrawny but protective arm around her.
Shem stepped up to Perrin, spun his friend to face him, and took him by both shoulders. “Perrin! Wake up! It’s not real!”
Perrin paused, focused on who was holding him, and bellowed, “YOU!”
Jaytsy and Peto cowered in the corner as their father started to go for Shem’s throat.
Fortunately Shem was faster. He hit Perrin squarely in the jaw, knocking him to the floor. When he didn’t immediately get up, Mahrree scrambled off the bed to sit next to him. He slowly sat up as Shem lit a candle and shook out his throbbing hand.
Perrin rubbed his jaw. “What was that all about?” He stopped when he saw his master sergeant towering over him. “Shem, what are you doing in my bedroom? Jaytsy? Peto?”
They just quivered in the corner.
“Tell me what you remember,” Shem demanded, standing over him with the candle. “Right now. What were you doing?”
Perrin still seemed stunned as he leaned against the bed. “Uh, I was in a house. A big house. Lots of noise. Then it became very quiet and I saw someone running through it.” His breathing grew heavier. “Dressed in black. Darkened face.” Tears trickled down his cheeks as he shook his head, trying to lose the image. “Then there was a body . . .” His eyes closed. “No . . . no . . . no! Mahrree!”
“I’m right here!” Mahrree yelled. “Perrin, open your eyes and look at me!” She straddled his legs and held his face.
Jaytsy gripped Peto tighter, but he didn’t seem to mind.
Their father opened his eyes, saw their mother hazily, and sobbed. “How’d you survive? Are you all right? Oh, my darling wife!” He wrapped his arms around her. “Not again, not again . . .”
Jaytsy silently began to weep. By the way Peto was sniffing, she could tell he was too.
That wasn’t the way their father was supposed to act. Perrin Shin, Colonel of the fort of Edge, son of the High General of Idumea, sitting on the floor sobbing into his wife’s shoulder. That man was a complete stranger.
Jaytsy had never felt so lonely or so vulnerable.
Shem set down the candle and put his hands on her and Peto’s shoulders. “Go back downstairs,” he whispered. “We’ll take care of him. I think your father is dealing with more than any of us realized. The berry has finally broken the bear,” he murmured.
Jaytsy wrinkled her nose at that odd remark, but Peto whispered, “Uncle Shem, is he going to be all right?”
Both of them watched their mother as she stroked their father’s weeping head. “Perrin, it’s all right! We’re all here. You’ve kept us safe. Perrin, it’s all right.” With tears slipping down her own face, she nodded over at her children, but she didn’t seem too sure.
“I hope so,” Shem said, sounding deeply worried as well.
The two of them walked down the stairs, close together, and Peto followed Jaytsy into her room.
“Want to sleep on my floor?” she offered, not wanting to be alone, even if it did mean her company was her brother.
He nodded, retrieved his pillow and blanket, and lay down next to her bed.
“They’ve ruined him,” Peto whispered to the dark.
Jaytsy closed her eyes, afraid he might be right. Peto didn’t specify who “they” were, but Jaytsy felt as if the whole world was out to get them. Her parents—her father especially—had done so much for the world, and this was how it was repaying them?
And what had they ruined him for? Peto likely meant for being a general, but Jaytsy was fine with that. She’d be happy to never see Idumea again, the city that let her grandparents be murdered by a dressmaker.
When they awoke the next morning it was to find their parents and Shem sitting around the table, talking quietly. Judging by their stooped postures and bleary eyes, it didn’t seem as if any of them had slept. But of the three, their father looked the worst. His eyes were bloodshot, and he had a bruise on his jaw where Shem had hit him. He tried to give them a smile, but half of his face wouldn’t move. Instead, he beckoned them to come to the table.
They hesitated before sitting down.
“I’m sorry about last night, or rather, about the past few nights, so I’m told. I’m a little . . . bothered right now. But I’m working on it. I just need you to be patient with me, all right?”
Jaytsy and Peto both nodded to him, but he still seemed so unfamiliar.
Their mother gave them a look that said she expected something more. Peto caught on and went to his father, giving him a hug from behind.
Jaytsy quickly joined him and kissed her father on the cheek. “You’ll be all right, I know it.”
But he wasn’t. Even Jaytsy knew it would take a lot longer than talking throughout the night to bring him all the way back from Idumea.
Shem stayed almost every night for the next several weeks, physically restraining Perrin when he became aggressive in his sleep. One night the two of them got into such a violent fight—Perrin sure that Shem was a Guarder—that it took the family an hour to put everything back in place the next day. It was early that morning when Jaytsy heard her exhausted mother talking to Shem after her father stormed off for the fort.
“We can’t go on like this, Shem. None of us. He refuses to give up the sword, insisting that isn’t the problem. The less sleep he gets, the more irrational he becomes. He’s so angry, but I’m not sure at whom. I’ve thought about writing Doctor Brisack for help. Surely he or the garrison surgeons must’ve seen something like this?”
Shem, holding his side where Perrin had hit him with a chair, nodded sadly. “Mahrree, just don’t tell Brisack everything. Only that he’s having a hard time sleeping. If you tell them about his nightmares and paranoia, the garrison may insist on doing something drastic. The last thing he needs is to be sedated.”
Jaytsy’s eyebrows went up.
Her father had told them about the sedation that was forced upon him after he confronted the Administrators over his parents’ deaths. The garrison surgeon and Doctor Brisack had felt it was the only way to calm him down, especially after he tried to kill Gadiman. And when he had described to them the effects of sedation, his clenched fists made it was obvious he hadn’t been too happy about it.
“Are you sure?” Mahrree’s question stunned Jaytsy. “Shem, it might be just what he needs. Even when he isn’t looking for a fight, he thrashes all night long. At this point, I could use some sedation.”
Shem sighed. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know how much longer you or he can keep this up. Just send a message. Use the Administrators’ service, but say only that he needs help sleeping.”
Three nights later, on the 2nd Day of Weeding, Mahrree stayed up late waiting for Shem to come to the back door.
Jaytsy had been waiting too, to confront them.
“What are you going to do to him?” Jaytsy asked pointedly when she saw the brown bottle Shem held.
“I’m not doing anything,” Shem said bitterly. “Your mother is.”
Jaytsy had never seen her Uncle Shem’s eyes so hard. Usually he looked warmly at Mahrree, but not tonight as he thrust the bottle and a sma
ll paper of instructions at her.
“It will just help him sleep,” defended Mahrree, taking the bottle and reading the note from Idumea. “He won’t even know he’s breathed it in. Brisack thinks it will take only a few doses for a few weeks until he’s better. His body just doesn’t remember how to function. This will get him back in a regular schedule again. And I’m sure once he sleeps better, he’ll think better.” She didn’t look at either of them before marching up the stairs.
Shem sat down with an angry huff on the sofa in the dark.
Jaytsy joined him. “What’s really wrong with him?” she asked. “I’m old enough to know why my mother wants to sedate him.”
“So am I,” said Peto from his door. He walked over to the sofa and sat down on the other side of Shem.
Shem sighed deeply. “He’s traumatized. I had to look it up in one of the old texts from the time of the kings. The surgeon doesn’t know why I wanted to see his library. It seems this was a big problem during the Great War. Soldiers would suddenly collapse during a bloody and prolonged fight. A few even went inexplicably blind after seeing so much death. Many of them had been fighting for years and simply couldn’t take any more. Some of the great leaders made it through the war, then went somewhere peaceful and took their own lives. Or, in the case of one general, just vanished.”
“A general just vanished?” Peto asked.
“Yes,” Shem said softly. “Left one afternoon, and was never seen again. His wife and son never found out what happened to him. Perhaps he was like so many others; they just saw too much death to make life worth living anymore.”
Jaytsy was grateful it was dark so that no one could see the tears streaking down her face. But the darkness couldn’t mask her sobs.
Shem groaned quietly when he heard her. “Shh, Jaytsy—don’t fret yet. I don’t think your father is at that point. I’m sure we can still bring him back.” He put an arm around each of the teens and pulled them close to him.
“Why isn’t he dreaming of the caravan fight?” Peto asked, his voice quivering. “He took down sixteen men. I know lots of them died. Why isn’t he reliving that?”
“I guess because he was successful there,” Shem suggested. “But he wasn’t in saving his parents. All of his dreams are about people coming into his home and killing his family.”
“So what do we do?” Jaytsy whimpered.
“I’ve been reading about that, too. Sit with him. Talk with him. Help him distinguish what’s real and what isn’t. The book says we need to be patient. Don’t give him anything else to worry about, and realize that maybe, maybe he just might not come back all the way,” Shem’s voice cracked. “You need to ask yourselves, can you live with that? Can you accept your father the way he is?”
“Of course they can!” Mahrree snapped as she came down the stairs. “Because he’ll be fine! Already he’s sleeping as deeply as Peto, and I didn’t hold it in front of his nose as long as Brisack recommended. So don’t go sentencing him yet, Shem!”
“Mahrree,” Shem said, standing up, “I didn’t mean it that way. They just need to know. From what I read, things like this can take a long time to come back from. And some—Mahrree, you have to know—some never come back.”
“But can’t we pray?” Peto asked quietly. “Can’t the Creator heal him? Help him still reach . . . his destiny?”
“Destiny?” Jaytsy wondered.
Peto sighed. “You know what I mean. Whatever he’s supposed to still be. We can always pray, can’t we?”
Mahrree wrapped her arms around him. “I have been, every night, every morning. And Shem, I know you’re right. I just can’t give up on him already.”
“And you may be right, Mahrree, about the sedation. Maybe sleeping will help.” Shem hesitated. “I want to see him.”
Mahrree tilted her head. “Something wrong?”
Shem’s shoulder twitched. “I merely . . . want to make sure he’s all right before I go. The assistants at the garrison frequently checked his pulse.”
Suddenly worried, Mahrree gestured to the stairs.
Jaytsy and Peto took that as a group invitation. They followed Shem and their mother up to the bedroom where a candle was burning. Their father was flopped on the bed, very still.
Shem picked up his wrist and felt his pulse.
“I gave him only half of what they recommended,” Mahrree began, mild panic growing in her voice. “He should be—”
“He’s fine,” Shem said flatly. He dropped his wrist and lifted open one of Perrin’s eyelids to peer into his unresponsive eye. “The Last Day could come and go, and he’d never know it. Pulse is slow but steady. Well done, Mrs. Shin,” his tone turned cold. “Your husband’s fully sedated.”
Mahrree folded her arms. “That’s the idea!”
Shem held his hands up in surrender. “I know. I’m sorry. I just hate seeing him like this. Again.”
Jaytsy didn’t think he looked so bad—like a sleeping baby, albeit a large and gruff sleeping baby.
Peto craned his neck. “He looks rather peaceful to me.”
“And me too,” said Mahrree, unfolding her arms. She turned to her children. “You can go to bed now.” She hugged each of them and whispered, “Enjoy the silence.”
They smiled at her, but Shem kept watching their father.
As Jaytsy and Peto started out the door, Shem said, “Nothing more for me to do here. I’ll be heading back to the fort—”
Jaytsy was at the top of the stairs when she heard her mother earnestly whisper, “Do you have to go?”
Jaytsy paused, thinking the same thing. While her father looked peaceful, he also looked defenseless.
Which meant all of them were.
She turned to watch Shem and her mother through the open bedroom door.
Shem exhaled, expelling a great deal of frustration and concern, but her mother put her arms around him.
He didn’t hug her back.
“I’m sorry Shem, about all of this. About doing what you think is a betrayal to him.”
“That’s not what I—”
“Yes, it is what you think,” said Mahrree firmly, pulling away to look at his face, but still keeping her arms around him. “We’re betraying him.”
Shem didn’t budge.
“It’s obvious you’re angry with me, and I don’t blame you. But Shem—is there any other option? Any other way to heal him?”
Shem’s jaw muscles clenched a few times before his shoulders sagged. “No other option I’ve found yet,” he conceded quietly. “But you don’t need me here, not tonight.”
“Please stay, though?”
Jaytsy was quietly pleading the same thing.
For some reason Shem looked extremely uncomfortable. He stepped back out of Mahrree’s embrace and nodded once. “Just to make sure he’s all right during the night. Your sofa and I are well acquainted. Good night, Mahrree.” He nearly ran over Jaytsy in his haste to get down the stairs.
That was only part of the reason why Jaytsy sat up late at night, hugging her knees and dreading to go to sleep. She was exceptionally preoccupied, more so than the average fifteen-year-old. Maybe her father needed only one or two nights to get back to normal again. Maybe all of his anger and odd behaviors would blow over quickly, then she could tell them her other concern.
She had planned to do so in the morning, until she heard Uncle Shem say, “Don’t give him anything else to worry about.”
She couldn’t even confide in her mother, she realized, until things got better with her father. Nor was her grandmother a possibility. Hycymum Peto wasn’t exactly the most discreet woman in the village.
Jaytsy would have to take care of this herself.
Not even Uncle Shem, who was now flopped wearily on the sofa, should be troubled by her news that Captain Lemuel Thorne, seven years older, was trying to court her.
The odd ritual began some weeks ago. School had resumed on the 56th Day of Planting, the day after Perrin’s first bad night. By the end
of that worrying week, Jaytsy struggled to stay awake in class. That is, until Captain Thorne appeared in the room.
“Please, do forgive the interruption,” he said genially to the teacher as he took off his cap. He ran his hand unnecessarily through this short-cropped blonde hair to smooth it. Every girl in the room stopped whatever unimportant thing she was doing and stared.
But Jaytsy closed her eyes briefly and held her breath.
“I’m Captain Thorne, new to Edge and second in command. You see, ma’am, girls—” he nodded to the class and flashed a grin.
There was audible sighing. But not from Jaytsy.
“—there’s concern about the stability of the building. I’m here to do one last check to make sure the reinforcements are holding.”
It took their teacher long enough to blink herself back into comprehension of what the captain was saying to be embarrassing. “Oh. Oh! But I thought the major cleared it a couple of weeks ago?”
“Oh, he did,” Thorne assured her, but turned his gaze intently to Jaytsy.
Somehow it made her skin crawl, and not in a good way.
“But now that there’s weight on every level, we just wanted to make one last inspection.”
Jaytsy was sure no one at the fort had ordered that. The next thing Captain Thorne said to the teacher solidified her suspicions.
“If you or any of the other teachers see anything worrisome, notify Miss Jaytsy. She knows where she can find me.” He shifted his gaze back to Jaytsy. “I’m always available.” He bowed briefly to her as he had done at The Dinner, then bowed at the teacher before he left.
Jaytsy barely had time to exhale before one of her classmates giggled. “Ooh, I’d love to know where to find the captain, and always available!”
The entire class laughed as Jaytsy blushed. She noticed that even her teacher’s gaze lingered at the door where the captain had stood.
For the rest of the morning she thought about him, since everyone else was. But something about the way he looked at her had left Jaytsy uneasy. Perhaps it was because she was preoccupied by other concerns, but something about Captain Thorne sent a shiver up her spine. While she’d spent a couple of hours with Thorne at the dance after The Dinner, she didn’t know much more about him except that he loved horses.