by Trish Mercer
“Ask yourselves, honestly, Mr. and Mrs. Shin—what do you have to keep you here?” her husband said. “Things? Familiarity? Now consider this—what do you have to gain by leaving? What kind of future could your children have? Mr. Shin, you seem to be interested in explorers. Come on the greatest exploration of all! Come find a new life!”
Mahrree smiled dimly. “We were just planning to find Terryp’s ruins.”
“Mrs. Shin,” he grinned, “we can give you a fully guided tour of Terryp’s ruins. We send tour groups there every year.”
Mahrree didn’t know how much more she could take that night.
“Please consider what we’ve said,” the woman said. “I assure you what we have in Salem is what you’ve always looked for. We know about your family and have for years. We have what you have been looking for. It’s time to come home.”
Mahrree felt those last words more deeply than anything ever before. She was powerfully aware of the sudden presence of her father, and her mother as well, sitting on either side of her. They filled her with the same message: It’s time to go home!
The emotion overwhelmed her, and to avoid anyone seeing her eyes brimming, she glanced blurrily around the walls of her home and the rocks she loved so much. She focused on a favorite smooth, flat rock her father had placed and replaced. Tonight it looked different.
It was just a rock.
She shifted her gaze at her husband. His head was down, his fingers interlaced. She wished he’d look up and show her what he was thinking. But then she knew. As intensely as she felt Cephas and Hycymum, she also felt Relf and Joriana on either side of him.
At last he took a deep breath and released it, then raised his head and gave her a new expression.
They were going to Salem.
Chapter 38 ~ “My name is Shem Zenos. And . . .”
Shem entered the dark barn as slowly as he had approached it. While the trip to Deck’s place usually took only a few minutes, Shem wasn’t about to take any chances, not at this point of the plan.
He’d circled the area for an hour under cover of a very dark night. Not even the cows seemed to hear his footsteps. He stepped into the middle of the barn, slowly removed the bag from his shoulder, and placed it on the ground. Carefully he lit the small candle he brought and looked around.
“Perrin?”
Shem knew he was there, even though he didn’t respond. Thicker than the scent of manure was the tension that filled the barn. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Can I just start by saying, this wasn’t how it was going to be? It was supposed to be me telling you, and I’ve had speeches and thoughts prepared for years.” Shem sighed sadly. “I can’t imagine what you think of me. And let me add that I completely understand if you’re feeling a bit paranoid right now—”
“Who are you? Honestly,” the cold voice interrupted him from somewhere above.
He looked up to the rafters and cleared his throat. “My name is Shem Zenos. I was born in Salem. My mother died when I was two. I have a father and a sister that is ten years older than me. And . . .”
He hesitated. When you’re used to expressing one form of truth, finally admitting the real one tends to catch in your throat.
But he’d been waiting for seventeen years to do this.
“She’s not my only sister. My father waded through five more daughters before he finally got his son. I do have two nieces, as I’ve told you, and twenty-nine more nieces and nephews, not counting Jaytsy and Peto, and many great-nieces and nephews. The count changes every season. I really did have more experience watching your children when they were young than you did.”
“Keep going,” the voice said grimly.
Shem nodded. It felt wrong to be confessing, especially this way, but it was only fair that he experience the same vulnerability as his best friend.
“I . . . I . . . I’ve never been to Flax or Waves,” he began his ramble. “I took those names off the map in your office the first day I met you. The first time I rode south was when I was trying to catch up to you on the way to Idumea. Remember that Guarder spy in the forest the first year that I was feeding and getting information from? Well, there was no spy. I was just trying to find a way to earn your confidence and find excuses to come to your home. I was inexperienced and clumsy back then and made a lot of mistakes—”
Which he felt he was doing again, but there was no sense in holding back anymore.
“I was initially supposed to stay only two years to learn about you and to discover if we could work around you. But I found more in Edge than I expected.” He took an earnest step forward. “Perrin, I was never dishonest in my feelings toward you or your family. Yours is my second family, and I’ve never done anything to jeopardize you.”
Perrin’s tone could have frozen a fire. “Anything else?”
“I . . . I have some records in this bag that—”
“Anything else . . . personal?”
Shem looked up and around, trying to find the location of the voice. He saw a glint of steel in the faint light cast off by his candle.
“Personal. All right. The truth of everything. That’s what I’m here to give you.” He’d meant to follow that up with a tense chuckle, but it stuck in his throat. After a nervous cough he said, “Here we go. Well, Perrin, you always make me nervous when you hold that knife of yours, because no one ever seems to survive an encounter with your blades. I never cheated in the Strongest Soldier races, but I was tempted. I had a big crush on Mahrree when I was twenty-one, but I got over that when I realized it could never be. I once tried on your jacket when you were a lieutenant colonel. I loved sitting in your big chair and practicing your ‘Come in!’ voice when you were away. Fooled Thorne with it on more than one occasion. And, Perrin, I swore I’d never tell you this, but you really should know. I’ve kept this in confidence for quite a while, but . . .” He took a deep breath. “Perrin, I find the way you say ‘No, no, no’ irritating. One ‘no’ is sufficient. Really. Why three times? I never understood that.”
Then he braced for the impact.
A dark chuckle came from behind the glint of steel. “You really had a crush on her?”
“Most miserable weeks of my life,” Shem sighed heavily. “Knew I had to try to get over it the night of that Guarder attack when she thought I was unconscious and held my hand, called me her little brother, and told me the story of how she fell in love with you. I knew then it’d always be you.”
The rafters were silent.
Shem fought the desire to clench his fist in defense. Whatever would come, he would take.
“How did my jacket look on you?”
“Quite handsome,” Shem dared a small smile. “Should’ve been mine.”
Silence.
“I say ‘no’ three times because I want to make sure people hear it.”
Shem scoffed in a way he hoped sounded good-natured. “You really think people don’t hear you? Once really is enough.”
“You’re being completely honest with me tonight?”
Shem knew this was going to be a rough ride. He’d always pictured some scenario where he’d be sitting in the Shins’ gathering room and would say something like, “About those Guarders—there are a few things you don’t know . . .” He was going to relish the look of absolute astonishment on each of the Shins’ faces once he told them, after all these years . . .
But in his mind the grand disclosure never involved dark barns or his best friend holding a long knife, with Shem as the target.
“Perrin, I think confessing to someone that I had feelings for his wife is about as honest as one man can be with another.”
A body dropped out of the rafters right in front of Shem. All he saw was the flash of steel as its cold tip pressed into his throat, and a strong arm wrapped around his torso, restricting his arms.
The candle in Shem’s hand snuffed out. He sucked in his breath at the touch of the blade, but he didn’t take a defensive stance. Instead, he remained at the mercy of Perrin.<
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“So tell me this,” Perrin’s voice was low and harsh, “was I the biggest fool in the entire army that you could march hundreds of people past my fort without my notice!?”
“You were never a fool, Perrin,” the steadiness of his voice surprised Shem. Almost as much as the knife. “Quite the opposite. You were the only one we could trust. The Creator placed you there so you could be the means of saving thousands of people. Perrin, just put the knife away please. I promise I’ll tell you everything.”
“I went to Edge because I chose to, not because I was sent there.” Perrin’s tone was thick with paranoia.
“You told me once you felt drawn to Edge,” Shem reminded him. “Why do you think that is?”
When Perrin didn’t answer, Shem said, “The Creator put that desire in you, and you listened to Him. As you should.”
“Hogal wanted me to come back. He kept writing me—” Perrin gasped as a new idea came to him. “Shem, your contact told me that the rectors in the world were from Salem! Was Hogal—”
“No, he wasn’t. We had only two or three from Salem at the time of Hogal. But Perrin, Hogal knew about us.”
Perrin pulled the knife back a little. “Are you sure?”
Shem nodded before he realized Perrin wouldn’t be able to see him in the dark. “Just a few days before that first Guarder raid he took me to his office after the Holy Day luncheon. He said, ‘I know who you are, and why you’re in Edge.’”
“Maybe he thought you were a Guarder?”
“No, Perrin. Because then he said, ‘I’ve done all I could to prepare Perrin for the Creator.’”
“Prepare me?” Perrin’s tone was now doubtful and confused, with a healthy dose of cynicism.
Shem knew it was going to be a long night, and the knife still hovering near his throat wasn’t helping things. “He told me the Creator had revealed to him who you were to become,” he explained. “That was back when you were still a teenager. So he invited you to Edge and said that you grew a great deal in that time.”
“I came to Edge for Weeding Season when I was eighteen,” Perrin murmured. “Hogal changed the way I thought about everything. He fixed everything in me, too,” he added. “He and Tabbit always wanted me to come back, so I did when I was a captain.”
“The Creator has all kinds of ways of nudging people in the right directions,” Shem said gently, sensing that Perrin’s cynicism was fading. “Hogal told me he thoroughly enjoyed the last few years he had with you, but he was getting too old to keep up anymore. He told me to watch out for you, and that you were now my responsibility.”
Perrin was quiet before saying, “Hogal knew he’d be dying?”
“Yes, I’m sure he did. Rather a lot for a twenty-one year old to hear, I have to admit.” Shem chuckled sadly. “Remember, I was struggling with that crush on Mahrree at the time, too. I think I just stared at him for a full minute before he slapped me on the back, waggled those eyebrows of his, and wished me good luck.”
Behind him, Shem felt Perrin scoff lightly.
“Ah, Hogal! He told Mahrree and me to keep you close. We thought it was because he liked you. Sometimes I think I learned so much from him, but I suppose he kept far more from me than I realized. I’m beginning to realize everyone has been keeping things from me. I may have to interrogate Mahrree later just to see what she knows that I don’t.”
Shem didn’t say a word and didn’t move a muscle, but stood as sedately as he could.
“She was in the forest, many years ago,” Perrin said. “Met Yung’s wife. Did you know that?”
Shem swallowed. “Actually, I did.”
“Figures,” Perrin scoffed again. “I’ve been thinking; those two lieutenants who were found dead in front of the guest quarters where my parents were staying after that Guarder raid? Tell me the truth—they didn’t die fighting each other all those years ago, did they?”
Shem looked down at his guilty hands as if he could see them in the dark. “No, they didn’t. They were about to kill your parents. I knew it wasn’t their time to go, so I . . . I redirected their hands. The lieutenants killed themselves, with my guidance.”
Perrin let out a low whistle. “We suspected you.”
“I know you did. Your father’s interrogation is rather hard to forget. And it made me sick to do it.”
“Of course it did. Interesting cover, too, getting sick like that.”
“I promise, that wasn’t faked!”
The men chuckled quietly. Shem sighed in relief to hear the old Perrin softening. If only he’d sheath that long knife . . .
“And Perrin—the one called Heth? His real name was actually Sonoforen.”
Perrin sucked in his breath. “Are you . . . are you sure? Oren’s oldest son?”
“Oh, I’m sure. He was there to kill your father and take back the mansion he grew up in.”
“How did you know?” Perrin whispered. “How much contact did you have with the Guarders?”
“I was never in contact with them. That’s the truth. It would’ve been too dangerous. But how I knew about the lieutenants? I was guided by the Creator,” Shem explained. “Whenever I saw someone that shouldn’t be where he was, I saw plainly in my mind what I had to do to move them away. That night in the hallway, when I saw the two lieutenants plotting to burst into the guest quarters, the image of my killing them came clearly to my mind. They couldn’t be allowed to destroy Relf and Joriana—not before their time. They still had to rescue Edge years later. It was my duty to destroy two evil men to keep them from disrupting the Creator’s work. Perrin, I still don’t believe I did it. I felt a force pushing me and directing my hand. It took only seconds, and I really wasn’t that skilled. And in the end I had only one drop of blood on me, a drop that your father wiped off my chin.”
“And here I’ve been saying all these years that you could never kill anything,” Perrin chuckled darkly.
“It wasn’t really me, Perrin. I was just the instrument. And it was awful!”
“Were there any others?”
Shem nodded guiltily. “That year, at the end of Raining Season. I was on patrols along the forest with three other soldiers when I received a signal that help was needed in the forest.”
“A signal . . . how?”
“Something similar to our coded messages to each other, tweaked a bit. Salemite scouts always hide in the trees above the fresh spring in case I need to drop a message to them. A quick glance was all we needed.
“That night the message was that they required help in the forest. I faked an illness, told the soldiers on patrol I wouldn’t be able to make it back to the fort before I’d need to change my trousers, and asked them to do a few circuits without me while I stayed at the fresh spring.”
“They agreed to leave you?” Perrin exclaimed. “At the fresh spring alone?”
“And at night. They really didn’t think anything of it. I’m not sure if you remember, but the entire fort was out that night looking for some strange noise gallivanting in the forest?”
“And I always thought I had everyone trained so well . . . never leave a man alone, always look up into the trees—”
“You did, Perrin. I promise!” Shem chuckled.
“A noise in the forest?” Shem heard Perrin scratch his stubbly chin with his knife hand. “We didn’t find out what it was, did we?”
Shem shook his head. “No, you didn’t. And for that, I owe you an apology. Perrin, it was my fault.”
“This night’s just going to get longer, isn’t it?”
“My fault because I . . . trained Barker.”
“Wait, my dog Barker? The dog that never barked?”
“Yep. I’d come by late at night and train him to follow me, to leave my side running, then return when I made a noise like a crow cawing or a squirrel chirping. In those early years we used him to throw Guarders off our trails. They’d go running after him, leaving alone the expecting mothers and the families we were trying to move. Barker blended into
the forest, made a lot of noise, but never barked. That’s because his parents and grandparents didn’t bark either. Do you remember how you got that dog?”
“He was found near a canal, abandoned—”
“Or so I told you.”
“Now that I think about it, Shem, you were the one who brought me that puppy!”
“All the way from Salem. Not all of those dogs are silent. Barker was the only one of that litter that appeared to not bark, and I knew you wanted a dog, we needed an animal to use as a diversion . . . it just all worked out.”
“Amazing,” Perrin breathed. “My dog was a Salemite! The Cat’s not from Salem, is he?”
“No, he’s not,” Shem chuckled.
“So tell me about that third life you ended,” Perrin reminded him.
Shem sighed. “Once the soldiers left me at the fresh spring, I headed up into the forest and received word that four Guarders had ventured far past our defenses. We always had about a dozen men in those days, sitting in the forest, watching and encouraging the Guarders to go in other directions away from our route. But that night we were bringing out a large group. Three expecting women, their husbands, six children, and one grandparent. Thirteen, not including the escorts helping them. Everything was going well until they made it into the forest. That’s when one of the expecting women felt her waters break and gush.”
“She didn’t, right?” Perrin must have been cringing. “Didn’t birth in the forest?”
“She did! We have ways to deal with that, but usually we try to get them to a secure location, first. Well, this baby wasn’t about to wait. They had no choice but to stop and help her birth. It was the noise that attracted the Guarders’ attention.”
Perrin shuddered behind Shem. “I was always pacing the fields when Mahrree birthed. But I can imagine the noises.”
“It wasn’t the mother, but her children! They were so frightened of the forest, of what was happening with their mother—it was all too much for them. They started wailing despite everyone’s assurances that soon they’d be a big brother and big sister.”
“Did the Guarders find them?”