by Dylan Farrow
“Then you understand why we must ask you to leave.” Hugo nods as Fiona reappears. She sets my old rucksack of possessions in front of her, carefully avoiding my eyes.
Complete silence has fallen on the store. I let out a shaky breath, realizing acutely how much I took Fiona sticking up for me for granted.
“Fiona, please, you have to believe me…” I begin, but she moves away.
I take a deep breath. Maybe her father will listen. “Hugo. Sir. I have concerns about the safety of Aster. There’s been a cover-up, a mur—”
“I will tolerate no such words in my establishment!” Hugo’s face is red and his fist shakes at his side. “Shae, it would be wise of you to leave immediately, before I am forced to report your behavior.”
Stunned, I take the rucksack. The last thing I see as I back out of the store is Fiona’s face, terror brimming in her eyes. Fear hammers through my chest.
No one wants to listen. The truth is too great a risk to take over stability.
The sun is high in the sky, and people go about their day, busy and purposeful. It’s almost impossible to believe that only a few short hours ago the street was dark and deserted. The noise from the bustle of town makes it difficult to think through the haze of hurt that’s settled uncomfortably on my shoulders.
I need to get to Mads. Part of me would rather disappear into a hole in the ground for the rest of my natural life than face him, but he’s the only other person left who I can trust. Surely he’ll understand if I explain.
The closer I get to Mads’s home, the tighter the knot in my stomach becomes. My ears begin to ring from nervousness.
The mill stands beside the dried-up riverbed and looks like a large house with no walls. The creaking of the apparatus that moves the enormous shafts of wood through the saw reaches my ears long before I see it. I make out Mads’s father up on the platform, so Mads must be out back, manually turning the mill. Without the flow of water to work the wheel, they have to do it by hand. When he’s not needed at the mill, Mads and his elder brother go hunting to provide for the family.
A different choice last night would have made this my new home. I swallow the thought, which turns heavy in my throat.
I pick my way down the side of the riverbed. Mads is at the bottom, rotating the large wheel by pulling the slats that would normally be caught in the current of water. A ring of sweat around his neck darkens the collar of his linen shirt.
I stay rooted in place, mutely grappling with saying hello or running away. I don’t want to see the disappointment in his eyes. Images of last night flash through my mind—the look of hopeful uncertainty on his face. His eagerness as he knelt before me. The way his shoulders seemed to crush down on him in the darkness after I took that hope away.
I don’t know which of us was more disappointed in the end. I had believed he went to the Bards to expose the truth about my mother’s death, to bring justice to my family. He had wanted to help me, but not in the right away. I ache to think this means he never understood me—not the way I needed him to.
Mads shifts his position at the wheel and spots me. He hesitates, using a hand to shield his brow from the sunlight. He must see the state I’m in, because he calls up to his father, “Taking a quick break, Pa!”
“Five minutes,” his father grumbles.
Mads straightens his collar before facing me. The hurt is plain as daybreak on his face. I bite my lip, trying to keep from running away as fast as possible. He’s my last hope.
“What do you need, Shae?” He swipes sweaty hair out of his eyes. His voice is blunt. Direct.
Shae. Not Freckles. I wonder if that part of our lives—our friendship—is gone forever, along with his nickname for me.
I take a deep breath. “I need your help. I’m sorry, it’s just … I don’t know where else to go.”
His eyebrow twitches, but the rest of his face remains impassive. “Are you serious?”
“Of course I am. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”
A rueful laugh escapes him. The sound he makes when he doesn’t quite believe what he’s hearing.
“No, are you serious?” he repeats, his blue eyes narrowed at me, flashing with cold light. “You remember last night, right? Why in the world would you…” He sighs, running a hand through his hair in frustration. He mutters to himself, “Should have known better.”
“I have no right to ask anything of you, I know that,” I say, “but something terrible is happening to the town, and Fiona doesn’t believe me, and Constable Dunne refuses to hear reason, and I think it could mean that he—”
“Look. I understand that you’re hurting, Shae. I really, really do. Believe me. I just wish…”
He thought I was here to reconsider his proposal, I realize with a sharp pang. He has loved me a long time. This hurt is not fresh.
“Mads—”
“No, let me finish. Chasing answers and not liking what you find doesn’t mean you can uproot my life,” he says.
I blink, taken aback. “There’s more to it than that. A lot more. Constable Dunne—”
“Shae. Stop. I understand your search for meaning in life is all-consuming, but I have work to do.” He scoffs, a wounded animal lashing out. An excruciating silence stretches between us before it dawns on me: He might believe Constable Dunne. He might think I’m crazy. Or making this up. That her death was a tragic accident—terrible, yes, but not a crime.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I care about you,” I say, trying hard to keep my voice from trembling. “You’re important to me. You’re still my friend.” He flinches at the word like I poked an open wound. “You have to understand. This isn’t something I can ignore. I can’t settle down with this hanging over me.”
“There are factors you don’t understand, Shae. I have other obligations. And I think we could both use some space right now.”
Other obligations. His family. His farm. Until two weeks ago, these were my first loyalties as well. I can’t fault him—or Fiona. I never saw before how loyalty can do this—keep people living in a fog of lies, separated from the truth, from what’s right.
A tear hits my cheek. All I can do is watch silently as he turns away from me and goes back to work.
* * *
My feet lead me out of the riverbed and back to the road. I don’t know what to think anymore. Everything that’s ever been important to me is gone. Not just my family and Fiona and Mads, but my beliefs: that if I kept my head down and followed along, everything would turn out okay. The Bards would bless us. That the world was not safe or easy, but … right.
I walk aimlessly at first, but once I catch a glimpse of the path leading into the mountains, I chart my course more decisively. Thoughts of death and darkness fade, and I focus on putting one foot in front of the other.
I reach the edge of the landslide I saw from the constable’s tower. With a deep breath, I climb atop the rubble and keep going. The walk is more arduous here, and I nearly fall several times—each stumble, picturing my mother cascading to her death. But that never happened.
A cold breeze blows through the mountain pass and I shiver. My hands dive into my pockets, and I feel a jolt of surprise when my fingers connect with a familiar item. Happy tears sting my eyes as I pull my embroidery hoop free. The small handkerchief I couldn’t bring myself to start.
I set down my rucksack and sit on the ground, turning to the comfort of my needlework. My fingers move of their own accord, threading my needle, and pulling the colors through the fabric. I work slowly, with purpose, my body relaxing into the movement. Small red flowers bloom like beads of blood, one after another.
If no one in Aster will answer my questions, I’ll find someone somewhere else who will. The thought scares me. Everything I’ve ever known is in this town. I may disagree with them, but I have people I love here.
Even if those people have turned on me. Whatever course I take now, I must accept that I’ll be taking it alone.
I think back to what I learned
at the constable’s tower.
The Bards come here clandestinely every few months to collect contraband from Dunne. Ma was killed with a dagger inscribed with writing—a forbidden item—and a contraband Gondalese ox figurine was stolen from our home. The murder, and the constable’s memory of it, was replaced with this landslide—covered up, the same way the mud and rubble have covered the tiny shoots that had begun to peek up from the small garden at the base of the hill.
Only one place exists that possesses the kind of powers that have been at work here.
High House.
The Bards will know who killed my mother.
A thought, far more sinister, follows closely, like a snake in water: What if it was one of them?
When I finally look up from my embroidery, the pass has been filled with red flowers springing from the dead, brown earth. I watch the blossoms tilting in the breeze beneath the warm glow of dying sunlight, identical to the image in my embroidery hoop.
How fitting that it all circles back to my curse.
I never found the answers I need about that either. And I sought them from the same people.
That settles it, I suppose.
If High House is the only place that has answers for me, then that’s where I have to go.
10
I’ve never set foot outside of Aster. Few ever do, except to hunt or engage in trade with neighboring towns. We know to stay in place. And the back-breaking demands of our work mean we can hardly imagine leaving anyway. One day of lost labor could cost us our livelihood, or even our lives.
But I have nothing to lose.
I glance around town as I make my way through, wondering if it’s the last time I’ll ever see it. The late afternoon is waning into sunset as I pass the mill and then the general store where Fiona lives. Mads is probably finishing up his work. Fiona is sitting down for dinner with her family. I feel a stinging pain deep in my chest. I’m going to miss them.
I hope they miss me too.
I double my speed, making my way to the watchtower for the second time today. The sun casts the tower’s long shadow over the street. The large wooden gates leading out of Aster loom intimidatingly before me. My whole life I imagined those gates keeping the rest of the world out—now it feels like they are trapping me in.
I dig my nails into my palms to keep my hands from shaking. The guards eye me sternly as I draw close to the gates. I force myself to look the nearest one in the eye.
“What do you want?” the guard asks. He clearly recognizes me in some capacity, which will make this easier.
I take a deep breath. “It’s your lucky day,” I say, surprised by how even my voice is. “I’m leaving.”
The guards share a look of confusion. “What do you mean ‘leaving’?”
“Are you crazy, or do you just have a death wish? There’s wolves and bandits out on the roads,” the second guard admonishes.
I plant my feet and refuse to let my glare falter. “If you recognize my face, then surely you know I’m cursed by the Blot. I have decided to sacrifice myself for the betterment of Aster.” It’s not exactly untrue. Aster probably will be better off without me. And if my hunch is correct, the town will be better when the truth is exposed.
If I am able to expose it.
The second guard glances at his companion. “She’s that shepherd girl, the one whose brother got the Blot.”
“I know who she is!” the first guard hisses. “And never mention the damn thing by name, you idiot.”
I never imagined leveraging the villagers’ fear of me against them, and it gives me a small rush of satisfaction. I watch them shift nervously.
“You know…” I smile. “I bet as soon as I leave, there will be a downpour. Rain for weeks. You two will be heroes.”
The second guard concedes first. “This one’s probably the reason we’ve been suffering.”
“It’s your own fool head that’s made you suffer,” the first chimes in. “But,” he sighs, “not like anyone’s going to miss her.”
“Right. Thanks, I guess.” I grimace, watching as they step to either side of the gate and in tandem begin turning the wheels that open it. The gates groan apart, revealing a long stretch of road that disappears into the darkening horizon.
The guards cast me a look of pity as I give a small shudder and step across the boundary of town.
So this is what it feels like, I think. To be free.
* * *
I did not account for the night becoming dark so quickly. It’s as if a great breath of wind snuffed out the sun as soon as I lost sight of Aster. The gray-black blur of land, air, and sky opens like a hungry mouth around me. The faint canopy of stars looks so distant. It reminds me of the stories of Gondal—a land where the stars each have a name. People follow the shapes they form in the darkness and never get lost. Maybe, in some other form—a breeze or a sprinkle of rain or starlight—my family found their way into that other realm. A place without danger or fear.
The stars overhead have no story and do little to illuminate the path. I have barely enough light to see a few feet ahead of me. It’s as if I’m constantly on the brink of walking straight off the edge of the world. From what I’ve heard, the nearest village is far enough that you wouldn’t see it from the narrow mountain road anyway, even in daylight. In between are open fields—littered with rocks and low trees, skeletal in the darkness.
High House is impossibly far. Days, even a week on foot. I move forward only because there is no going back. The only option is justice. I’ll have the truth even if I die trying.
My legs are aching, my jaw clenched against the cold. A howl in the distance echoes across the barren land. I shiver, pulling my vest a little closer around my chest, as another follows. Soon it has become a cacophony. Coyotes? Wolves? I pause to gauge how close the sound is.
They say the only thing faster than wolves is the wind, and the only thing that ever traveled faster than the wind was the First Rider, who rode his black stallion across the empty world and spoke it into existence, tree by tree, mountain by mountain, until there was Montane.
Hurriedly, I crouch and fumble in the dirt for a rock large enough to use as a weapon.
Like Mads taught me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the image of his face and the hurt in his eyes away. After another moment of grappling in the darkness, I find a jagged stone slightly larger than my fist and grip it tightly at my side.
I really could have planned this better. Or at all.
That’s your problem, Shae. You never think things through. I push away Fiona’s voice. Hearing it only brings me more heartache.
Another howl sounds upsettingly near. I consider finding shelter—a large boulder or tree to climb—to keep me at a safe distance from whatever predators might be lurking in the sloped plains. But there’s nothing.
Then: a movement of shadow on shadow. I start to run.
My breath is coming heavy, and the howling has gone strangely silent. Are they on the move? The road curves near the jutting ledge of a steep cliff, and as I hug the side of the road, I see it: a wink of brightness.
At first, it looks like a fallen star, tiny and trapped in the underbrush of the slope. I quicken my pace along the road as it continues to bend, heading downward again, feeling the decline under my feet, and wary of stumbling on loose dirt and losing my balance.
I didn’t imagine it. It’s a small cluster of buildings. A little town, even tinier than Aster. More of an outpost, from its look of abandonment. There are no town guards, and I realize, crestfallen, that it is likely a deserted army station. I wonder if Bards ever camp here. But the squat little lean-tos look like they’re about to collapse, and I nearly choke on another gasp when a mangy-looking animal—it could be a cat, but is so bony and damp-looking it might be a weasel—skitters across my path.
At the end of the grouping stands a somewhat larger building. Unlike the others, a light emanates from inside. A single burning candle. Hope and dread wag
e a war inside my chest as I creep curiously forward like one of the moths battering into the windows.
There is no marker, but it must be some sort of inn; it appears to have a chimney poking out the top, and it’s too large to be a store or home. With a panicky sense of hope raging through my shaky arms, I try the handle on the door and it yields, opening into a dusty entry hall. I squint to make it out. The floor is lined with a weathered rug, woven in patterns of horses and swords. Off to one side is a dormant fireplace, charred black like a burnt-out wound in the wall. And there, around the corner, behind a table littered with stained, empty cups, sits a man.
I startle before realizing he’s upright, but asleep in his chair, a stream of drool trailing down his chin. The candle I’d seen from afar burns low at one end of the table. It’s an odd sight, as if the man has been waiting years for someone to arrive. I suddenly have the chilly, irrational thought that he’s been waiting for me. Like some kind of savior.
“Sir?”
The man gives a snort and settles back into sleep, and I wonder if I even spoke aloud.
“Hello?” I try again, as much to test the reality of my own voice as to wake him. But he’s an even heavier sleeper than Ma ever was.
Behind him are rows of shapes against the wall—hooks, each bearing a simple iron key hanging in its shadow. I move away from the sleeping innkeeper—that’s what he must be, I reason—and toward the wall. It would be so easy to take one and sneak into a room … maybe I’d find one with an actual bed. I could leave in the morning before anyone was the wiser. My limbs and head feel heavy. If I could only rest for a few hours. Just until dawn …
I reach up and feel the dulled points of the hooks, plucking down one of the keys. It slips into my palm with a tiny jingle, when …
Howling breaks through the silence. It’s right outside the door.
I spin around in alarm and freeze, my back to the wall, the hooks pressing into my neck.
It’s not howling. Not exactly. Howling and hooting … and raucous laughter.