by Trish Mercer
“Hush, you! Don’t you go scaring off my best weeder.”
Jaytsy grinned. “Would take a lot more than that to scare me off. This place . . . it’s like Paradise.”
Sewzi squeezed her arm. “It’s Paradise when you come to visit us. I hope your father doesn’t mind?”
“I convinced him moons ago that you aren’t really Guarders in disguise,” she assured them.
“How’d you do that?” Cambozola wanted to know.
Jaytsy squirmed. “Actually, he came to that conclusion himself. He said that you were—” she hesitated as she looked into the hopeful eyes of Mr. Briter, “—too loud and obvious to be a Guarder. Sorry.”
His wife burst out laughing as Cambozola’s face twisted in dismay. “Too loud?! Obvious? Me!”
Jaytsy shrugged in apology. “You make him nervous. You could take that as a compliment?”
Cambozola’s dismay dissolved into despair as he watched his wife laughing.
“I make him nervous?!”
Sewzi wiped away a tear. “See? It wasn’t just people in Moorland! Ah, Jaytsy,” she said, “you come here whenever you want, on the pretense of sorting seeds—”
“But we already did that,” Jaytsy reminded her.
Sewzi blinked meaningfully. “My husband makes me nervous, and I drop the baskets. Frequently.”
“Hey!” he protested, but Jaytsy grinned in understanding.
“What about your brother? Does he have a place to go?” Sewzi asked.
“To hide, you mean?” Jaytsy said with a sad scoff. “Yes, he does. I never thought my mother would agree to let him play kickball, but when my father handed him the slips of silver, there wasn’t much she could say.”
“Kickball?” Cambozola frowned. “Still? In the snow?”
“My parents don’t know the season ended several weeks ago. Peto kept leaving each afternoon anyway, and I followed him once. Turns out he was helping Rector Yung with the peach harvest, and he still sneaks over there almost every day.”
Cambozola sat back and smiled. “So that’s why Yung said he didn’t need help with his woodpile when I offered. Said he had reliable assistance.”
Sewzi sighed. “You children are remarkable. Someday, your parents will notice again.”
Jaytsy blushed. “Thank you, but I don’t know . . .”
“Don’t talk like that!” Sewzi squeezed her again. “I saw your father at the taxation collection. He was actually smiling.”
“And laughing,” Cambozola added. “I’m sure that was him, sounding like deep bells?”
Jaytsy nodded and stared at her mug. “He was so close to being better, back in Harvest,” she murmured. “This stupid season, these stupid snows, the stupid gray sky.” She sniffed.
Cambozola cleared his throat. “So they always run that Strongest Soldier Race, he and Zenos?”
Jaytsy knew why he brought that up: to make her smile. She obliged him. “Usually they hold it later in the season, but Shem thought it’d be a good idea to hold it with the taxation gathering. Everyone had to bring their donations to the village green that day anyway—”
“—So why not turn it into a village party?” he chuckled. “Your grandmother makes excellent cake, and I’ve never seen so many different kinds of cookies. And that Hegek— Did you see the sign he put on the basket of apples he donated from the old school orchards? ‘Iris, accept these apples as a token from the schools of Edge. And those little black things in the middle? Seeds. Try planting some and see what happens.’” Cambozola laughed, and Jaytsy and Sewzi chuckled with him.
“Yeah, that race,” he continued, grinning, “Karna sure looked sheepish when they finally finished it. He ran those poor men fifteen miles through the village, and still your father had a smile on his face when he lumbered in a minute behind Zenos.”
“He was smiling,” Jaytsy remembered wistfully. “And then he kissed my mother, in front of everyone. Grandmother Peto started bawling,” she murmured. “I started to as well. To see him again running and laughing and—”
Next to her, Sewzi sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. “He seems like a very good man when he’s not . . . troubled.”
“A few more moons. That’s all he needed. But then the sky became dark again, and . . .” Jaytsy rubbed the handle of her mug.
Cambozola, uncomfortable that the two females seated with him were sniffling, said, “So Karna was responsible for all those soldiers as well?”
“The fifty he brought as additional guards for the caravan? Yes, he didn’t want any threat to the twenty-five wagons. And after they left the village green, Captain Rigoff took over command.”
Cambozola chuckled darkly. “I’m sure Captain Thorne wasn’t too pleased by that.”
Jaytsy smiled genuinely. “From the reports we got back later, he was furious! Here he’d made that droning speech all about service and duty—”
“The only reason people cheered him,” Cambozola told her, “was that he had finally shut up and was leaving!”
Jaytsy grinned. “I hadn’t realized that so many in Edge don’t like him much either. Nothing was better than knowing I wouldn’t have to avoid him for two weeks while he was taking the caravan to Idumea. But then Rigoff insisted he was in command, since he’d lived in Edge at the time we used the surplus, and he did outrank Thorne, so Thorne was relegated to the end of the line to watch for lame horses.”
“Edgers hate him,” Cambozola confided. “Thorne tried a few times to ‘motivate’ villagers to meet the donation quotas, but couldn’t understand why no one responded to his name-dropping and threats. Edgers did, however, react whenever Zenos and Yung came around with their little cheer parties. Those two were so enthusiastic and convincing that even I donated one of my better milkers, and I didn’t even eat any of the food from Idumea!”
Sewzi shook her head. “You never liked that cow, and you know it. She hated you too, and sending her to Idumea was the best thing for everyone involved.”
Jaytsy giggled.
“It’s good to hear you laugh, Miss Jaytsy. You need to have some fun,” Cambozola decided. “What about those dances they hold down in the south side of—”
The frantic head shaking of his wife shut him up, for once.
Jaytsy sighed. “Mr. Briter, my parents won’t let me attend. From what I hear they’re nothing like the dances in Idumea. There’s just loud drums with teenagers and soldiers bouncing into each other.”
Cambozola scowled. “No, not like the dances I knew in Sands.”
“Besides,” his wife said quietly, “Jaytsy told me her dance instructor in Idumea was a Guarder who later came back and . . .”
Her husband caught on. “That’s right. Heard about that. Sorry. Nothing good at the amphitheater either, anymore. Not unless you like strange contests, or plays where everyone ends up either dead or mating or both—”
“Cambo!” Sewzi exclaimed.
Jaytsy smiled dimly. “It’s all right. My parents feel the same way.”
“So Game Day not that exciting either?” he probed.
Jaytsy rolled her eyes at him. “Mr. Hegek started it up again, and playing with eleven-year-old girls obsessed with puppies isn’t exactly my idea of an interesting evening.”
The Briters nodded in grim agreement.
“But visiting us is? My, Miss Jaytsy—I wished I had something more interesting. Wait,” he brightened up. “Did you know I played the harmonica?”
“Cambo, please—no!” his wife pleaded.
Jaytsy grinned. “Really, this is wonderful.”
“Poor girl,” he sighed. “Don’t know what you’re missing.”
She spent the next hour with the Briters talking about nothing and everything. When she left she felt as if she’d been bathed in sunshine. The Briters walked her home, and she impulsively hugged them both before she went into the house.
“Thank you,” she whispered, hoping they understood that she was grateful for more than just the escort home.
Mr. B
riter only cleared his throat, but Mrs. Briter squeezed her back. “Anytime, Jaytsy. You know that. Anytime.”
---
Peto snipped the leaves with the tiny scissors and looked up to see if he’d done it right.
Rector Yung beamed at him. “Perfect, Peto!”
Peto shrugged. “But it looks like a miniature tree.”
The old man chuckled. “Well, that’s the point now, isn’t it?” He slid a box over to him.
Peto took out a dried piece of peach and examined the shriveled but tasty fruit. “Still can’t believe we got only twenty peaches from that entire orchard.”
Yung smiled. “Actually, I was quite impressed we got an entire twenty peaches from that orchard.”
“Yeah, but all that work!”
“You say that as if we did more than just an hour of tree trimming each day for a week.” Yung nibbled on a peach ring.
Peto bobbed his head back and forth. “Well, true . . . but I still hoped for a better harvest.”
“The orchard had been neglected for a decade, Peto. A harvest of even just one peach is better than nothing at all.”
Not really knowing much about reviving orchards before the past year when he spent more time in Yung’s orchard than he did playing kickball, Peto shrugged as he chewed on another leathery piece.
Yung regarded him for a moment. “How’s that taste?”
“Like a dried up peach.”
“Remember the ones we pulled off the trees fresh?”
Peto grinned. “Juiciest things. I was sticky all day.”
Yung matched his grin. “What would have happened to those peaches had we not given them a chance?”
Peto shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe . . . not get juicy?”
“Not enough sun, not enough water, and they would not have matured. But if they did, they would have been dry and small.”
“There’s another Holy Day talk in here, isn’t there?”
Yung chuckled. “There is. Now you tell me what it is.”
Peto sighed. “I swear you’re trying to turn me into a rector. All right. Peaches deserve to live and . . . sometimes others have to help them have their best shot at living, even if not a whole lot of them respond, or even if there’s not even a lot to harvest.”
Yung cocked his head. “Inarticulate, but you’re on the right path.”
“So you would have gone through all this work even if there was only one peach this year?”
“Peto, I would have been out there every day trimming branches and pulling weeds and watering roots all season even if there were no peaches this year, just to let the trees know I was there and willing to help, so that next year they’d have a bit more faith to put out a few more fruits.”
Peto stared at the little tree in front of him which he’d been trimming. “You say that as if the trees actually know you’re there.”
“Peto,” Yung whispered, “that’s because they do. Everything’s alive. We have a stewardship from the Creator to care for all living things. And yes, I believe they do know I care,” Yung said, a bit bashfully. “They just need to know they’re not alone. The harvest will come, but we can’t force it. All we can do is encourage the trees until they’re ready to dare.”
Peto examined his tiny tree, turned from a gnarled bush into a small piece of living art. “When will my father finally dare, Rector?” he whispered.
Yung sighed. “I don’t know. But Peto, he’s lasted much longer than many others like him. Without so much faith, he wouldn’t have made it this far. That gives me hope. Should give you some as well. Never give up. The Creator never does, so neither should we. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
Peto frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Yung smiled and slid the box of peach rings over to Peto. “For your father, from me.”
---
Perrin sat on the sofa before dawn, waiting for the morning to come. He wasn’t going back into that bed. Not after what he dreamed happened there.
On the side table was a small box of dried peach rings that Peto had brought home, from Rector Yung who Peto saw on his way home from kickball.
Feeling guilty for his neglect of the old man the past year, Perrin picked up a ring and nibbled dutifully on it, even though peaches weren’t his favorite fruit—that would be bacon—and felt a twinge of guilt that others gave him things, but he never reciprocated.
Perrin looked at the books lining the shelves. Useless as distractions, since he’d read most of them already. There were The Writings, but he had he neglected them too, along with his daily discussions with the Creator.
That’s when he saw them. Reluctantly he got up, retrieved the stack of messages the fort had been receiving for several moons now, and sat down. He pulled out the message from the boy at the Stable of Pools and reread it. Roak was likely fulfilling some dreary school assignment to write a letter to someone. Perrin was the recipient, now doomed to return the favor—
No. Roak had been sincere. He didn’t know the depth of Perrin’s pain, but he had thought of the Shin family.
Perrin opened another message and read it. Gizzada was worried about him. Another message. Another citizen. And again.
And then another that sank his heart.
Sergeant Major Grandpy Neeks had sent a long letter full of reminiscing about Relf Shin that twice made Perrin smile, and at the bottom of it was a note from now Corporal Qualipoe Hili, stating how sorry he was, and that he hadn’t caused any new trouble.
“Thank you,” he whispered to the messages, thirty-two of them. But that wasn’t good enough, and he knew it. He went to the study and returned with pieces of parchment, ink, and quills.
He stared at the messages before he started to write.
Roak, I’m sorry this note is coming to you so late. I haven’t been well, but I wanted you to know that I was grateful for your letter. At this difficult time in my life it means a great deal to me that people throughout the world share my pain . . .
---
Later that morning in the command tower, Perrin heard the knock on the office door, a familiar and welcome rhythm.
“Come in, Zenos,” he called.
“Perrin?” he said softly.
Perrin only glanced up from the dull reports on his desk. “What?”
Shem tried to smile as he approached the desk cluttered with piles. He managed to find a corner to sit on and casually propped himself there. “I have something I want you to try that might help with your nightmares.” He whispered the last words, even though no one in the outer office could hear them over the conversation going on out there.
Perrin sat back in his chair. “Is this really the best time—” He stopped when he saw Shem holding up a length of wool, knitted into a dense, thin chain. “Knitting? I should take up knitting?”
Shem grinned—a rare sight these days—and shook his head. “No, this is for your wrist. You wear it, like a bracelet.” He held it out by both ends, but Perrin didn’t move. “On your sword hand?” Shem shook the soft chain, but still Perrin didn’t offer his arm.
“A bracelet? To stop nightmares? This is sounding desperate—”
Shem sighed and dropped his hands to his lap. “You wear this, all the time. It’s your connection to reality. The idea is, if you see this on your wrist, especially when you hold a weapon, you’ll understand that at that moment you’re in reality. But if you hold a weapon, look at your wrist, and see nothing, then you can be assured it’s a dream. Then maybe you can start getting control of it.”
“But what if I dream that I’m wearing the woolen chain?”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know,” Shem admitted. “It’s just a tool. Worth a try, isn’t it?” He held up the length again, a pale cream color almost the same as Perrin’s skin. “Just for you to see. To . . . to ground you.”
“And who’s idea was this to tie me up?”
“The surgeon’s,”
Shem said.
“Then why isn’t Stitch here himself?” Perrin asked.
“Because I knew you’d have this attitude, and I thought I might be the best choice for getting you to try it.”
“So who knitted it?”
Shem groaned. “I don’t know! Does it matter? Please, Perrin?” He whispered earnestly.“You’ve . . . you’ve gone darker. It’s due to the weather. The fewer hours of sunshine, the bleak skies . . . we’re losing you.”
“In know. But it won’t work,” Perrin whispered back. “Nothing works.”
“Please, just try it? For a few weeks? Think of it, look at it.”
Reluctantly, Perrin raised his right arm to allow Shem to tie the length of knotted yarn to his wrist. For good measure, Shem slid it up to hide it under his jacket. “Consider it a trick up your sleeve.”
“Zenos,” Perrin said, dropping his arm, “the only length of yarn that helped a man in my situation was tied into a noose.”
Shem’s eyes flared. “Don’t even joke like that, Perrin! Don’t even joke.”
“Who said I was—” Perrin stopped, realizing he was adding even more pain to his brother’s already anguished eyes. “Thank you, Shem,” he said instead. “For trying.”
---
Late that night Zenos trudged deep into the forest to the hot steam vent and sat on the log next to the man waiting for him.
“Well? How did it go?”
Shem sighed. “Took a bit of convincing, but I finally tied it on to him. I guess I should have explained it better, but—” He shook his head, closed his eyes, and went silent.
The man squeezed his shoulder. “You’re doing well.”
Shem scoffed. “If this stupid season would just be over! We almost had him back, and then—” He clapped his hands loudly and winced, forgetting the need to keep silent in the woods. “Shin asked where it came from. Said I didn’t know. So Jothan, who knitted it?”