The Falcon in the Barn (Book 4 Forest at the Edge series)

by Trish Mercer

  “Come in.”

  Captain Thorne opened the door and beamed. It was as genuine as the light of the moons: borrowed, from some other source. “Sir, I just wanted to be the first this morning to tell you how proud I am that your name now graces the walls of the fort where I serve.”

  He was doing it again, trying to squeeze himself under Perrin’s wing to make himself appear so accommodating, so necessary, so important.

  And worse, trying to make Perrin say those ingratiating words, thank you. There was immense power in someone thanking you that elevated the receiver of the thanks, and made the speaker of the words somewhat equal—no: somewhat subservient to whom he thanked.

  But Perrin had a different strategy this time.

  “I appreciate the sentiment, Thorne.”

  He appreciated the falsity that was employed to make the captain seem sincere.

  “I look forward to seeing you someday wear the label of general, sir,” Thorne added with a small smile. “And I imagine you may want to take a vacation for a time now that you’re no longer confined to Edge. I’ve checked the files and you rarely leave the fort. You have several weeks of leave available to you, sir. Perhaps, after such a long year, and with the threat of Guarders eliminated because of your exceptional leadership—”

  Perrin really needed to find a way to keep his stomach from churning.

  “—I wanted you to know that should you feel the desire to take Mrs. Shin somewhere for some well-deserved rest, I can certainly handle things here.”

  Perrin rubbed his forehead. Smooth. Usher out the commander, take over the fort . . . at least Shem was always here. And since he was a sergeant major, they didn’t need to replace Beneff who, after weeks of searching, was still unaccounted for. They concluded he was lost in Moorland.

  “I have no doubt you could handle things here,” Perrin said heavily. “However, I feel no need to leave. Edge is my home.”

  Thorne shifted his position slightly. “Not that I’m trying to send you away, Colonel,” he simpered. “I just want you to know that you can rely on me, as second in command.”

  There is was again. That reminder. As if someone suffering from the stomach flu needed reminding of his ailment. Was the stench not enough? And in this case, the stench was . . . lavender, today. Not even Hycymum smelled as flowery as this boy.

  “Understood, Captain. Is there anything else?” Perrin asked in a tight tone.

  “Well, yes, now that you mentioned it . . . is Miss Jaytsy enjoying the kitten?”

  Anything to generate a conversation. Perrin knew the tactic: get the other side talking about something you have in common.

  He realized just then that all of the officers took a few courses in negotiations, but never had they negotiated with Guarders. Perrin didn’t know why it never before occurred to him that all of the diplomacy classes were designed for officers to manipulate other soldiers and the citizenry.

  He employed strategy number eight in avoiding a sticky question: ask a stickier one in response. “I’ve been wondering, Thorne—where exactly did that kitten come from? We don’t have cats in the compound.”

  Thorne’s eyes lit up, as if he’d been waiting for the question. “Sir, that is a strange thing, isn’t it? Why, of all places, would a helpless creature be wandering around in such a dangerous place?”

  Perrin’s hand under the cover of his desk formed a fist. If Thorne dared draw a parallel between himself and the kitten—

  And Perrin was quite sure that the kitten had never been near the fort. He suspected that Thorne employed Radan, who had delivered the basket, to snatch some kitten from its mother while he was evaluating empty barns to become storehouses.

  “Immediately I knew,” Thorne continued in a well-rehearsed speech, “when I saw it bobbling between the cots, that the only person capable of taking care of such a needy living thing was your own very conscientious daughter. I saw her once in a garden last year, carefully tending to a row of corn, and knew that she—”

  Perrin held up his hand. “Let me get this straight. Because Jaytsy flicks the bugs off of corn, you assumed she’d want a cat?”

  He blinked at that. “Uh, well, not exactly following that chain of thought, sir, however—”

  That was the thing about throwing people off their scripts, Perrin thought smugly to himself as he allowed his fist to unclench. If someone relays the truth, it’s easy to pick up the thread again. But if it’s a story they wove themselves, they frantically fuss over the sudden appearance of a rope they didn’t anticipate, and generally tie themselves up in it.

  They taught recognizing this in Command School, too, but never taught how to disentangle yourself.

  Perrin settled in for the duration. He was more than capable of an extended head-to-head with the boy who coveted his chair, his fort, and his daughter. He sat back, confident that Lemuel Thorne wouldn’t get any of it.

  “—it’s well-known, sir, that young women enjoy taking care of baby animals—”

  “Is it, now?” interrupted Perrin. “My wife’s never mentioned that.”

  “Well, uh, she’s obviously a bit different then, sir—”

  “Really? How so?”

  “Uh, not exactly knowing your wife, sir, I wouldn’t dare hazard a guess—”

  “But,” Perrin cut in frostily, “you’d guess that my daughter would want a scruff of an animal that complains in a high-pitched whine day and night which causes me to lose precious sleep again. Why? Did you think it’d remind her of you?”

  Blank eyes stared back at Perrin, and Thorne’s color faded a bit. “That . . . that wasn’t the intention, sir.”

  “It is, however, the effect.” Then, with several layers of meaning that Thorne couldn’t possibly miss, Perrin said, “The next time you find a lost creature that needs saving, do us all a favor and throw it in the river. Now, anything else, Captain?”

  Thorne took a nervous step backward, having understood enough. “No, sir. I suppose not.”

  ---

  One man sat in the dark office of an unlit building.

  It was useless.

  He couldn’t think, all alone. But he couldn’t end it yet. So much remained to be done. All of his research needed to be compiled into the greatest evaluation of the animal nature of humans that the world would ever know.

  If he decided to ever let the world know of it . . .

  But it was useless.

  Nicko Mal could only wring his hands while quietly cursing Perrin Shin, and stare dismally at the empty chair.

  Chapter 18 ~ “Please, Mahrree, please. Stay for me.”

  Edge was quiet.

  Six weeks after the attack on Moorland it, too, was quiet, as were Quake, Rivers, Mountseen, Idumea and the entire world. If there was another enemy—be it Guarders, or mountain lions, or whatever—it was either busy with planning or licking its wounds, Mahrree decided.

  And that was more than just fine with her. Ever since the land tremor she craved monotony and the sense of easy happiness that came with it which people generally dismissed as “routine”. That Weeding Season, now a year and a season after the tremor, showed real promise. Jaytsy was happy weeding the Briters’ garden each day, Peto was happy practicing kickball with some professional players who traveled looking for future recruits, and Perrin was happy because the fort was calm, he slept like a teenage boy all on his own, and Captain Thorne’s schedule was, thanks to Shem, usually opposite of his. And soon Hycymum Peto would be happy as well. She was dying.

  She’d been declining for the last year; she got up slower, moved less, and was losing weight. She even quit cooking at Edge’s Inn last season. The doctor, unsure of what was wrong, gave her until the Harvest Celebration. She was fine with that.

  “I’ve been without your father for thirty years now. He may not even want me back. Who knows who he’s met in Paradise.”

  She said that on the 13th Day of Weeding, almost two weeks after Peto’s 15th birthday. Mahrree had brought her mother
dinner again. She chuckled as Hycymum tried to fluff up her mostly gray curls, as if those would be traveling to Paradise with her.

  “Oh honestly, Mother, who would Father possibly want instead?” She set down a tray of food on Hycymum’s sewing table, still with a few unfinished projects but folded neatly and waiting. Hycymum had been too weary to leave the house more than a couple of times since Peto’s birthday, and now she sat on her lavender sofa propped up by numerous pink and yellow pillows. Even though it was a hot day, she still wanted her green blanket over her legs, giving her the appearance of drowning in a flower bed.

  Mahrree dragged the sewing table over to the sofa, positioning it so that her mother didn’t have to leave her comfort to eat.

  Hycymum, her hand wobbling, scooped up spoonful of Mahrree’s vegetable stew and analyzed it. “You know, this looks remarkably good! Mahrree, you’ve become quite the cook in your own right, you know that?”

  Mahrree felt herself blushing at the compliment from the finest cook she’d ever known. “The vegetables are straight from the Briters’ farm, picked this morning by Jaytsy. Mrs. Briter wanted you to have them, to see if they would help.”

  Hycymum sniffed the stew on the spoon, sampled a bit, and smiled. “Wonderful. Tell Mrs. Briter and Jaytsy that they’ve made my daughter into a marvelous cook.”

  “Now, stop that. It’ll all go to my head if you keep talking like that.”

  Hycymum picked up a slice of bread and examined it. “Well, then how’s this: your bread’s still a bit flat, Mahrree. You’re not letting it rise enough. Has that humbled you again?”

  “Yes, thank you!” She sat down on a blue poufy chair next to the sofa. “I mean that,” she added more soberly. “Thank you, Mother. For everything.”

  “Now you stop that,” Hycymum said, her voice shaky as she scooped up more stew. “You keep talking like that, and I’ll cry into the parsnips and make them too salty.”

  She could finish only half the bowl, and just a few bites of bread, before she slouched again. “Maybe you can leave the rest in the kitchen under a dish cloth,” she murmured. “If I get hungry in the night I can finish it.”

  Mahrree smiled sadly. “Of course,” she said, as if Hycymum would really find the energy to go looking for a midnight snack. “Let’s move you to your bed for the night, shall we? There’s a cool breeze coming from the mountains already, and that will feel nice tonight.”

  After extracting Hycymum from the flowery sofa and planting her again in her overly soft bed, Mahrree opened the window a crack.

  “A bit more, Mahrree,” Hycymum said. “I’m starting to feel the heat of the day catch up to me.”

  Mahrree adjusted the window, feeling safe in the fact that no Guarders would be coming after Colonel Shin’s mother-in-law ever again. “Anything else before I go?”

  “No, but thank you for everything.”

  Mahrree sat down on her bed to smooth a blanket and kissed her mother’s cheek. “You know, you don’t feel as cool and clammy as you have in the past. In fact, you’re rather warm! Maybe you’re improving?” She pulled a thicker blanket off her mother, leaving her with only a sheet.

  Hycymum sighed. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope not. I love you and Perrin and the children, but I feel it’s time for me to go. And I miss your father. Lately I’ve been unable to think of nothing but Cephas. I’m ready to be with him again.”

  Mahrree didn’t know how to respond to that.

  “I’m not worried about dying, Mahrree,” Hycymum told her. “I’m more worried about the pain of lingering.”

  That, Mahrree understood. “Well, Mother, I’m happy to have every day I can with you, but as much as I’ll hate to see you go, I’ll pray that you can go as quickly as the Creator will allow.”

  As Mahrree got up to leave, Hycymum called to her again. “Tomorrow, how about a nice veal chop for dinner? Do you know how to do that?”

  Mahrree grinned. “Of course, I do. I follow your recipe.”

  “Which one? I have four, you know.”

  Not realizing that she did, Mahrree pretended to contemplate that for a moment. “I’ll surprise you, all right?”

  “As long as it’s the recipe with the rosemary and salt jacket.”

  As she walked home that evening Mahrree wondered what a “salt jacket” was, and made a mental note to visit Rector Yung in the morning for fresh rosemary.

  But early that next morning, Mahrree lay in bed trying to understand what disturbed her awake. Perrin wasn’t snoring, The Cat was silently stretched out between them, and outside was still. But something had definitely had roused her. She tried to listen to the air, then felt the presence of her father Cephas.

  She needs you, now.

  Mahrree sat up. Hycymum must have fallen on her way to get an early breakfast, or was struggling to make it to the washing room. Perhaps, Mahrree considered as she dressed quickly without disturbing Perrin, they should move her to their house for a time.

  Downstairs she wrote a note for her family as to where she was going, then started out—the air already surprisingly warm—for her mother’s house. By the time she fumbled with the lock on her mother’s back door the sun had yet to rise.

  Mahrree made her way through the shelves of knick-knacks and paddy-whacks and saw that the dinner from last night still untouched under the towel. Mahrree crept quietly to her mother’s bedroom, unsure of what she’d find.

  “Mother? Are you all right?”

  Between her shallow breaths, Hycymum whispered, “Mahrree, always remember that the Creator is real. I asked Him to send you to me this morning, and here you are.”

  Mahrree’s eyes filled with tears. “Father told me to come.”

  “I know. He’s waiting over there by the wardrobe. I love you. Tell the children and Perrin I love them, too.”

  And then she went still.

  Mahrree grabbed her hand. It felt surprisingly hot to the touch, but rapidly began to cool.

  She sat down clumsily on the chair by her silent mother and stared in astonishment.

  “But I was going to make you a veal chop for dinner . . . with rosemary—”

  It was over? Just like that?

  She knew the end was coming, but just four days ago her mother had enough energy to go with the other women in her neighborhood to see the new line of hats on display in the market. How could it have happened so quickly?

  But then again, Mahrree thought as she gently replaced her mother’s hand on the bed, how could she have wished for anything else for Hycymum? Her passing had been relatively painless, swift, and with family. And Mahrree distinctly felt both of her parents, joyful, leaving the room together.

  But that didn’t keep her from sobbing by her mother’s bed.

  Had she said everything? Done everything? Was there anything Mahrree missed to share with her?

  It was now too late.

  Did she thank her mother enough for her ever-damp-and-ready shoulder that terrible last year? Did she . . . oh, there was too many things to consider that maybe she hadn’t done.

  After some time—Mahrree didn’t dare guess how long—and feeling weak from so much weeping, she dried her eyes, went out of the house, and sat on the front doorstep. All of the Cottages, with a capital C, were painted in one of four colors approved by the community. The effect was nice, but Mahrree felt a new rush of grief realizing that she’d never again have to argue with her mother about moving to the neighboring development, with grander houses and five color choices.

  The sun had risen and already Mahrree felt the heat promising to be an oppressively long day. One of Hycymum’s neighbors came out and waved as she went to check her tomato plants. But when Mahrree didn’t wave back, the older woman rushed across the road. She cradled Mahrree as a new batch of tears began.

  About two hours later, after half the neighborhood consisting of Hycymum’s old sewing club had come to her Cottage, assured Mahrree they would prepare her mother for burial, and gave h
er wet kisses, Mahrree finally accepted a ride home.

  She didn’t think she’d feel this awful but she could barely keep upright. The heat and agony kept pushing her down. All she wanted to do was put her face on the floorboards of the wagon. A few roads from her house the wagon passed Perrin walking on his way to Hycymum’s. He took one look at Mahrree’s distraught pale face, leaped on to the wagon, and held her for the rest of the way home.

  Perrin carried her up to the bedroom, but Mahrree hardly noticed. She felt so heavy, hot, and sad that nothing seemed to make sense. For a time she bizarrely thought a snowstorm had come into the house. She shivered under the blankets of her bed, wishing she hadn’t put away Hycymum’s plaid down comforter they used in Raining Season.

  Then all she could do was weep as she fell in and out of bizarre dreams.

  Perrin didn’t go to the fort that day, but Mahrree didn’t know that either. She once felt her husband kiss her forehead, and heard other voices in the room, but everything blurred together in a rush of hot, then cold, then quiet and confusing dimness.

  At one point she found herself sitting straight up in bed. Everything was dark except for a candle on the dresser. Perrin stood at the door talking quietly to Shem and another man Mahrree didn’t recognize. The three of them looked at her, and the strange man quickly approached. The motion seemed to move the air in front of her in such a powerful way that it pushed her back down.

  The next thing she remembered was shaking from cold as the sun rose. Somewhere in the back of her mind she realized her mother had died, and she started to weep.

  Her husband’s arms come around her. “Just one more day,” he whispered strangely to her. “They say it’ll pass in one more day. Just hold on. You can make it.” He kissed her cheek and his lips were so cold that she flinched.

  If it was day or night, snowing or hot, Mahrree couldn’t figure it out.

  She remembered death.

  Twice she saw her parents shaking their heads at her, pushing her away. They wouldn’t let her run to embrace them and she couldn’t understand why. They gave her sad smiles and kept waving for her to go.