Soldier at the Door (Book 2 Forest at the Edge series)

by Trish Mercer

Mahrree was getting breakfast ready when she saw the flashes of blue come over her back fence and run toward the kitchen door. Immediately she knew there’d be no announcement that night at the amphitheater about the new taxation. Something bigger would be occupying the Army of Idumea.

  “PERRIN!” she called, and went to open the door for the two soldiers.

  “Ma’am! Major Shin here?” said one of the corporals breathlessly. In the alley Mahrree saw a third soldier arrive on horseback with an additional saddled horse ready for her husband.

  “I’m right here!” Perrin announced as he hurried through the door, his sword ready at his side. “News?”

  “Something moving in the forest, sir!” the soldier told him, and Perrin jogged out the door without a word to Mahrree.

  Jaytsy toddled into the kitchen, her long tunic bed clothes nearly tripping her as she rushed after Perrin, but the door was already closed. Disappointed, and with her wild brown hair in disarray, she said, “Where Fodder go?”

  Mahrree waved halfheartedly and unnoticed at the windows as Perrin rode off in a puff of dust. “Had to go to the fort early, Jayts. Something’s come up.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.” Mahrree smiled at her. “I rarely do. Guess it’s only you, me, and Peto for pancakes.”

  “Only you and me, Mudder,” Jaytsy said. “Peto sleeping. He can’t eat. He’s messy wif pancakes.”

  Mahrree chuckled. “Your brother gets to eat too, Little Lady. Even pancakes.”

  “No, just keep the pancakes a secret. Give him apples.”

  “Jaytsy, we don’t keep secrets from your brother.”

  “Why not?” Jaytsy asked, her big Perrin-brown eyes looking up at her.

  “Why we don’t keep secrets? Because . . . it’s not nice.”

  “Why?”

  Mahrree sighed. “That really was an inadequate answer, wasn’t it?”

  Jaytsy nodded soberly as if she understood what ‘inadequate’ meant.

  “Because people deserve to know. Because even if we don’t like watching Peto eat, with his mouth all open and syrup dribbling down his chin, he gets breakfast too, even if you don’t think he deserves it—”

  Mahrree stopped, ideas flashing in her mind too quickly for her to keep up with them all. “Even though you think he doesn’t deserve to know the truth, he does,” she said slowly, trying to put all her thoughts in some kind of order as if they were more obedient than her children and the dog. “Every person needs to know the truth of everything.”

  Jaytsy just blinked at her.

  But Mahrree was looking past her. “And it’s up to us to find out that truth. We can’t expect someone to give it to us, we have to go out to find it. Even take risks to find it, if necessary. No . . . no, that’s it exactly! The truth brings great responsibility because it takes great risk to actually find it! Few people dare to take those risks, but there’s no great reward without a great struggle. Oh, Jaytsy.” She looked out the wavy window at the large dark smudge that was the forest and mountains.

  A plan was forming in her mind.

  A most ridiculous, incredible, and brave plan.

  And the timing was absolutely perfect.

  “We have to find the truth ourselves!”

  Jaytsy blinked again. “So I hide Peto’s pancakes. If he finds them he eats them?”

  ---

  All day long Mahrree felt like a rebellious child sneaking out of school, but she tried to convince herself there was nothing wrong with what she was going to do. Yes, her plan was daring and risky, but it was also completely legal and didn’t break any rules of the Army, the citizenry, or the village.

  So why did she keep feeling the need to relieve herself in the washing room every fifteen minutes?

  At midday meal she boldly walked up to the fort, her children in the wagon that she pulled, to see what was going on. She stopped about a hundred and fifty paces away from the tree line and gazed at the action across the barren strip of land. Extra soldiers patrolled along the forest’s edge, but the movement back and forth from the fort to the trees wasn’t frantic. While there wasn’t a direct threat, something unusual was definitely happening.

  She heard a familiar voice. “Mrs. Shin!”

  “Zadda!” Jaytsy called back, and Peto began to squirm in his seat to get out.

  Staff Sergeant Gizzada always meant that two little children would be given sweets from a hidden pocket in his uniform. If they noticed the lint stuck to the morsels, they didn’t care.

  Sergeant Gizzada started patting himself down as he approached Mahrree. Every disappointing pocket in his blue uniform etched a deeper line of apology in the large man’s face. He pulled out bits of papers, a long knife, lengths of string, and finally eyed an unusual bulge in his jacket pocket that he didn’t retrieve because he couldn’t immediately identify it.

  Worried, he bit his lip. “I’m so sorry, Small Ones. I wasn’t expecting to see you today, so I’m not prepared. Actually, I’ve been on since late last night.” He looked at Mahrree remorsefully.

  “It’s all right, Gizzada.” Mahrree smiled, but her children hooting at the staff sergeant told them it wasn’t acceptable to be without treats for them. “I didn’t bring them up to steal your sweets again. Or your afternoon snacks.”

  Gizzada bravely fished out the bulge from his jacket—a shriveled piece of aged jerky—and wrinkled his nose at it. “A bit tough for the Small Ones,” he said, trying to bend it. “Barker would appreciate it, though. Where is he?”

  Mahrree rolled her eyes. “Probably visiting another small dog to once again further his parentage. Ever since he discovered how to climb over the fence, we can’t contain him.”

  Gizzada smiled. “He followed me to the markets a couple of weeks ago. I think I made him a permanent friend by giving him a sweet roll. Sorry about that.”

  “Next time, let him follow you to the fort and keep him here!” She looked up toward the forest. “I was just wondering what’s going on,” she said, trying to keep a careful balance between sounding casual, and not sounding as if she were trying to sound casual. “Perrin left without his breakfast.”

  Gizzada shook his head sadly. “That is a tragedy,” he said in all seriousness. “I’ll see to it that sandwiches are brought up to him.”

  Mahrree squinted at the trees. “Exactly where is he, Gizzada?”

  “Not in the trees, Mrs. Shin,” he promised. “Look down toward the west and you’ll see him on the brown mare. Already tired out the bay gelding. Been riding up and down all morning.”

  “Why?” Mahrree asked, hoping she sounded relaxed enough that he would tell her.

  “Not sure, ma’am.” He shrugged and patted himself down again when he saw the pouty faces of Jaytsy and Peto looking up at him, still hopeful. “Just a great deal of movement deep into the trees. Not wolves, not bears, just . . . odd. We can’t even see up to it, but we’re hearing lots of crashing about.”

  “Maybe some lost livestock?” Mahrree suggested.

  Gizzada shook his head. “We thought that at first, too, since the cattle fence isn’t completed yet. But cattle, pigs, sheep, or goats would all be crying and calling. We don’t hear anything like that.”

  “So,” Mahrree said as nonchalantly as possible. “Guarders then?” She watched the large staff sergeant from the corner of her eye as she pretended to observe the forest.

  Any sign . . . any sign at all . . .

  He shrugged helplessly. “But Mrs. Shin,” he lowered his voice and looked around to see no one near, “it’s driving your husband nearly to distraction. He’s just staring into the forest, longingly, as if he sees a . . .” he searched for an appropriate comparison, “a luscious, giant pie just out of reach, and he’s a starving man on his last legs. And the pie is bursting with berries, still steaming from the oven, juices dribbling down the crust—”

  Even Mahrree found herself so distracted from her questioning that she began licking her lips. If only Gizzada we
re a few years older, she thought to herself, as she had dozens of times, or Mother were a few years younger, they could be very happy together.

  “—and he can’t reach it. It taunts him, beckons him, he smells it, hears it—”

  Mahrree stopped licking her lips and wondered exactly how one hears a pie. But by the faraway look in Gizzada’s mournful black eyes, it was obvious all kinds of foods spoke to him.

  “Staff Sergeant?”

  “And he’s forbidden to touch it,” Gizzada’s arm began to rise, his chubby brown hand making a grasping motion. “He can do nothing but dream and long for it, his heart ready to break—”

  “Gizzada, have you had midday meal yet?”

  “No.” He sighed sadly, the longing in his eyes intensifying to true anguish. Mahrree was sure she heard his great belly rumble.

  She put a comforting hand on his arm. “As the wife of your major, I have special privileges, or so I claim. And, as the woman with the ear of your commander, I order you to the mess hall to make my husband two sandwiches, and take along three for yourself.”

  Gizzada’s mouth turned into the heartfelt smile of a man who had just been rescued from an execution squad. “Truly, Mrs. Shin, you are an incredible woman,” he said with great feeling. “Major Shin is lucky to have found such a thoughtful, deep, and compassionate woman as you.”

  Mahrree suppressed her laugh, and it showed up instead as a sweet smile on her face. “Thank you, Gizzada. And thank you in advance for taking care of my husband.”

  He looked down at the children who gave him one last try with their lambs’ eyes. “Next time, Small Ones, I promise I’ll have extra treats, all right?”

  He patted their heads gently, tipped his cap at Mahrree, and took off in a lumbering jog back to the fort.

  Mahrree sighed and looked again toward the forest to distantly see Perrin kick his heels into his mount and head off again toward the east, yelling something. It wasn’t his panicked yell, Mahrree noticed. Only his, I’m-getting-very-frustrated-with-the-situation yell, which meant there wasn’t anything dangerous, just maddening.

  Truly a massive pie just out of his reach.

  “We need to get some berries,” Mahrree decided.

  “Fodder?” Peto asked, pointing at the fort.

  “I’m sorry, sweety. Your father is busy right now. See over there? The horsey? That’s Father. He’s not too happy right now. Let’s make him a pie for later to cheer him up. On to the market.”

  ---

  It was past dinner time and Perrin still hadn’t returned, nor had Shem been by with a message. That was all right.

  In fact, it was better this way.

  Mahrree rubbed her hands as she stared at the lovely blackberry pie with two small slices and one large slice already cut out and eaten for dessert.

  “Fodder!” Peto sang to the back door, as if his voice would bring Perrin.

  “I’m sorry, Peto,” Mahrree said as she picked him up. She pointed out the thick glassed window toward the back fence. “No Fodder, I mean, Father tonight. He has to work late.”

  Peto sighed sadly and wriggled to be put back down. “No Fodder,” he moped as he toddled back to the eating room.

  “That means something is still going on,” Mahrree said to herself, wringing her hands. As much as she wanted something to keep going on, a small cowardly part of her didn’t. She had made a deal with herself that morning, and hoped against herself all day. But now as it grew to be evening, she realized she was going to have to—

  No, she was grasping the opportunity. She desperately wanted to, but strangely, she hoped someone or something would stop her.

  The evening dragged on at a curiously fast rate as Mahrree bathed her children, dressed them for bed, and told them stories until they dozed off.

  Each hour she watched to see if Perrin came home, and each hour that passed upped her heart rate. She was going to have to do it. She had to know, and she’d forever be ashamed of herself if she let this chance pass. There were more secrets in the world than just that of the thirty-three servants held by the Queruls.

  The biggest secrets were held only a couple miles from her house, and those secrets dragged away her husband, threatened her in-laws, and . . . well, she was just tired of it. Tired of secrets, of unknown variables, of surprises in the night—it was enough.

  There was only one more way her intentions could have been thwarted, but two hours after sundown the last part of her plan came to the door.

  “Mrs. Shin!” Sareen giggled. “I can’t tell you how excited I am to tend your children! I realize Corporal Zenos usually watches them—”

  “He won’t be by tonight, Sareen,” Mahrree warned her and put a bracing hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  Sareen’s glow dimmed. “That’s all right. Of course that’s why you asked me to come. But you can tell him that you trusted me!”

  Mahrree didn’t feel like dousing her passionate fire just then. “I will, Sareen. Should be rather easy tonight. They’re already asleep, so feel free to relax and take a nap on the sofa until I come home from my mother’s.”

  “Oh, I won’t sleep on the job, Mrs. Shin. I’ll stay up for as long as it takes—”

  “You know,” Mahrree said with a small smile, “Corporal Zenos naps on our sofa quite frequently. He says that end is the most comfortable for his head. And that over there is his favorite pillow.”

  Sareen flushed red. “Oh, oh!” she eyed the pillow as if it was Shem himself beckoning her to sit on his lap. “Maybe I will take a little nap, if you’re out too late, that is.”

  “I really don’t know how long I’ll be gone,” Mahrree said. “So make yourself comfortable, and later you can give me a report on how comfortable it was, and I’ll be sure to tell Shem.”

  In a small way she felt guilty for feeding Sareen’s desperate hope, but she really didn’t want her to know how late Mahrree might be coming home. Sareen fairly danced over to the sofa, picked up the pillow and gave it such a thorough fluffing that Mahrree was surprised it didn’t burst open at the top forcing out the goose down feathers in a white snowstorm.

  “This is a wonderful pillow!” Sareen giggled as she sniffed it.

  Mahrree looked away, unable to watch anymore. She took her cloak from off the hook by the front door and put it on. “Well, Sareen . . . Sareen?”

  Her face was buried in the pillow, and Mahrree thought she may have heard a kissing noise come from it. Sareen’s head popped up, flushed with embarrassment.

  “I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone,”—and Mahrree worried briefly about in what condition the pillow would be when she came back home. “So keep the doors locked, and if you hear something at the back door, it’s likely Barker.”

  “He’s not here?” Sareen appreciated the smelly beast even less than Mahrree.

  “Yes, his daytime wanderings have turned into nighttime ones as well.”

  “Well, with all the female dogs in the neighborhood,” Sareen giggled.

  Mahrree groaned. “Most of the neighbors don’t mind his presence. They seem to think his size means he’s actually a guard dog. But that litter of puppies down the road?” She shuddered, and so did Sareen. “Tragic.”

  “Maybe as they get bigger they won’t look so much like drowned rabbits,” she offered in a giggle.

  “I hope so. We promised to help find homes for half of them. Anyway, just leave Barker outside. And don’t open the doors, whatever you do. If it’s me or Major Shin, you’ll know us by our secret knock.”

  Sareen nodded soberly. “And if the major returns before you, I’ll tell him that your mother is ill.”

  “Yes, please do,” Mahrree smiled. Her lie would be better coming from Sareen anyway. “Feel free to read anything in the study, and Sareen, thank you again.”

  She hugged the pillow close to her chest. “No, thank you!”

  ---

  If she were a more honest woman, she would be feeling more guilty about telling
Sareen a lie so that she could find out the truth.

  “Yes, Perrin—I know,” Mahrree muttered in resigned annoyance as she walked as quietly as possible down the darkened road. “Sometimes lies are necessary.”

  She glanced up at the tower as she passed it, purposely waving to the guards so that they knew she was a villager and not something worse. She couldn’t tell if they noticed her, but the towers remained dark and bannerless. Even with the activity in the forest, no warning banners had gone up anywhere in the village. Only those with farms adjoining the forest knew anything was happening, and even then it looked more like a full exercise rather than a possible threat.

  Mahrree headed east, away from the body of the soldiers that were in the west. Should anyone see her she could say that she was on her way to her mother’s, but she had put up her hood hoping no one would recognize her.

  The roads were quiet, as they usually were for this time of night. She didn’t feel her stomach go queasy until she had passed the turn for going to her mother’s. Now she really did feel like a teenager skipping out on school, sure that at any moment she was about to get caught. But she wasn’t doing anything wrong, not breaking any rules, and she was even doing Sareen a favor, who was undoubtedly hugging Shem’s pillow with a passion no one should be around to witness. Everything was just fine.

  So why did she feel so dreadful?

  “I need to stop the secrets and find out the truth,” she whispered to herself. “Just to know that at least I tried! I’m the brave wife of the major, after all.”

  She cut between two houses without fences and headed north toward the darkness. Passing the last road on the rings that surrounded Edge, she made her way across a farm and slipped between the still-standing dried corn stalks. The cold wind coming down from the mountains rustled the crinkly leaves, making a surprisingly loud and disquieting noise. She picked up her pace to get through the corn field as quickly as possible. Seeing the end of the row, she ran to reach it, stopping only once she was several paces beyond the stalks. Then she paused and oriented herself.

  She was gripped with a sudden panic that nearly dropped her to her knees. To her left, further to the west than she anticipated, was the fort, brightly lit with torches to illuminate the activity. And directly in front of her, across the canal, was the forest. She took several deep breaths, creating little clouds in front of her, and calmed her pounding heart.

  Still doing nothing wrong, she reminded herself. Still legal. Still safe. She took a few steps back to conceal herself in the rows of corn stalks and watched the perimeter of the forest.

  The soldiers rode so silently she was impressed, but of course, they’d been trained to do that. Even the horses’ bridles and saddles were muffled with bits of rabbit fur so as to not rattle or jingle. The soldiers rode in twos, threes, fours, and occasionally as a lone soldier along the border.

  She hadn’t anticipated seeing so many—the patrols seemed to be tripled, probably because of the action in the forest—and she hadn’t considered how to avoid them. She watched for a moment to see a pattern before remembering that Perrin purposely devised irregular distances and times for their movement.

  “Very clever, Major Shin,” she whispered. “Not only can Guarders not get in, villagers can’t get near. I’m just going to have to chance it,” she decided, looking up at the sky that was cloudy. “Rather dark tonight—”

  She groaned as the clouds quickly passed, revealing two half moons and more than adequate light.

  “Thanks,” she muttered. “Thanks a lot. Now if a soldier sees me, he might recognize me and not believe I was a relative from Scrub who got lost trying to find her aunt’s house again.”

  But she also knew if she just stood there, she’d likely wet her drawers like Jaytsy did when she was nervous. Mahrree exhaled and started walking directly toward the canal.

  Act like you belong there, she thought to herself, and they might believe you do. Behave as if you’re trying to get away with something, everyone will suspect you.

  She glanced up and down the canal looking for one of the many footbridges that led across it. She found one further to the east and started for it, keeping her hood well over her head. Only once she dared to look up for any nearing soldiers. She saw one that rode past her a few dozen paces away, but his eyes were solely focused on the forest, not the fields behind him.

  Mahrree smiled confidently, stepped quietly across the footbridge even though she could’ve walked through the canal since it was dry this time of year, and took one last look at the patrols. She had a clear shot for perhaps ten seconds . . .

  “Do it!” she told herself, and took off in a dead run across the barren field. The trees loomed larger as she neared them until suddenly she was at the very edge. She took one last look either way, then . . .

  . . . stepped in.

  “I’m in the forest,” she panted and slumped to the ground. She stretched to the side and reached her hand out to the front of the tree she leaned against.

  “But not all of me. I can still reach the field, therefore I’m not completely in the forest, therefore I’m not breaking any rules,” she babbled to calm herself. “And besides, Grandfather Pere Shin’s law first law is, ‘No officer, enlisted man, or citizen of the world . . .’ But I’m not an officer, I’m not an enlisted man, and I’m not actually a citizen. As a woman I have no vote, therefore I’m not truly a citizen, and I can’t be breaking any law,” she declared, more as a reminder to herself than anything else. “Right, Grandfather Pere?”

  She released a tense giggle and looked around. “Only trees, isn’t it? Perrin was right,” she whispered. “Now, how do I go about putting an end to all of this nonsense?”

  She never thought she’d get that far. That’s when she started to feel cold.

  “What in the world do I think I’m doing?” She forced herself to her feet, smoothed down her cloak, and took a few steps tentatively forward, still with the ability to jump out again. Her hands shook and she found it difficult to swallow.

  “Just find someone or something,” she muttered, turning to head east away from the majority of the soldiers. “If I’m meant to find something, then I will.”

  It occurred to her then, as she crept along, that she hadn’t once asked the Creator if this was a good idea. The night of the raid when she ran to her mother’s, she was first on her knees pleading for guidance and protection. But not once this entire day had she done that. Maybe it was because she dreaded the answer would’ve been, “Get Back Home!”

  The same gnawing feeling overwhelmed her belly again, and now she knew why.

  She shouldn’t be there.

  She wasn’t honest—not with Sareen, who had absolutely no hope in ever getting Shem to fall in love with her.

  Not with her husband, who would be livid to know she was there.

  Not with her mother, to whom she gave a fake illness for a cover story.

  And not with herself, for believing she could find a way to end all of this. Exactly what was she hoping to prove out there? That she was brave? Defiant? Something to be feared? Was it all just pride that propelled her out there and made her think she was something special?

  She swallowed hard at her self-doubt and continued slowly along, skirting the leafless trees and shrubby bushes. She wondered what it would be that would finally force her to her senses, out of the forest, and back to her house. In a way she felt like she had come so far it would be pointless to go back now, with nothing to show for it.

  Besides, she’d be all right. She had to be. Bad things happened to other people, not her. And there was that old man she remembered, the one who last year asked the Creator to preserve them. Mahrree nodded confidently to herself. If the Creator wouldn’t honor the request of a sweet old man, then who would He honor?

  Mahrree would be preserved. Of course she’d be.

  Then again, she realized she could still go back home and no one would ever know what foolishness she commi
tted that night in the name of annoyance, aggravation and yes, maybe pride. She could just—

  No.

  No. She would succeed where no one else—no man—had. She was Mahrree Peto Shin. The daughter of the most intelligent teacher the world never knew, the wife of a commander, the daughter-in-law of the most powerful officer, and therefore, in her own right, quite possibly the most dangerous woman in the world.

  Women could be just as determined, brave, and strong as men. Even more so. She would do what her husband couldn’t—

  Mahrree sighed as she picked her way through the underbrush. She hated to admit it, but there were moments during the past season that she considered her husband to be . . .

  Well, take that night weeks ago, when he told her that the High General wouldn’t let him back into the forest. Mahrree had started to say she had never known him to be “cowardly,” but then he started to say it himself, with such ashamed anger tingeing his voice that she immediately changed it to “cautious.”

  But that wasn’t what she meant, and she secretly still suspected him to be something worse than “cautious.” When he first came to Edge he wanted to know the truth; that was the excuse he gave her for going into the forest that first time with Karna.

  But not anymore. Every time they talked about the Administrators, she could see it in his eyes: a wall went up, and he scurried to hide behind it. There’s twenty-three of them, he’d remind her, and only two of us. She’d never met any of them, and never intended to, but they were only older university professors, and slow-witted ones as well. Perrin had one hundred fifty men under his command, and his father had 15,000. Those were very good odds, indeed! But they never used that power. Relf Shin was as intimidated and hesitant as his son.

  This was where she was different. She would find that truth, reveal those secrets, and show the world what it meant to be brave. Courage wasn’t killing your enemies; it was looking them in the eyes and proclaiming, “I am here to know you.”

  Then she would—

  “What are you doing so far over here?”

  The voice, barely louder than a whisper, was strong, sharp and—shockingly—female. It came from another black cloak right in front of her and completely took her breath away. All Mahrree could do was stare and tremble.

  “I told you to go over—Oh. Wait. Who are you?”

  Mahrree could only lick her lips because no answer came to her blank mind.

  The cloaked woman abruptly reached up, grabbed Mahrree’s hood, and yanked it down. “Oh, no.”

  Before Mahrree could think, the woman gripped her by the arm and led her north, deeper into the forest. She took about ten clumsy steps before her frightened mind caught up to her.

  I’m going into the forest, deeper into the forest . . . Dear Creator, I’m heading into the forest!

  Just as suddenly as she pulled her, the woman stopped, shoved Mahrree to the ground behind a large boulder away from the view of the tree line, and pushed back her own hood.

  Later Mahrree realized that was her opportunity to run away, but the thought didn’t occur her until hours later. All she could do was look up into the woman’s face. She had long graying blonde hair pulled into a ponytail and, judging from her lightly wrinkled, pale skin, was at least in her fifties.

  “Miss, what in the world do you think you’re doing out here?” Her tone was sharp and cutting, like a dagger.

  “I . . . I . . . don’t really know myself.” At that moment Mahrree’s answer was honest.

  “What, you simply thought you’d take a late night stroll along the most dangerous piece of land in the world?”

  “I . . . I . . . ,” Mahrree stammered stupidly. Then it came to her. “I got lost trying to find my aunt’s house.” As soon as the words came out, they sounded dumb.

  And they sounded dumb to the middle-aged woman, too. “Try again, miss.”

  It came back to Mahrree, everything. She’d told herself she’d find someone, and now she did! Here she was, dressed like the night, strong, determined, and obviously familiar with the forest—this was it.

  “I’m tired of all the secrets! I want to know the truth!” Mahrree declared, getting to her feet to face the woman who was only slightly taller than her. She said it with conviction, with strength, and with a tone that said she wasn’t going to leave until she knew it all.

  But that’s not what the older woman with the ponytail heard. “No, you don’t,” she said dismissively. “Go home, dear. Quickly now.” She turned and headed deeper into the woods.

  Insulted, Mahrree ran up to the woman, grabbed her arm, and spun her around. “Yes! Yes, I do! I took tremendous risks to come here tonight. I could tell something was going on in the forest, and I’ve lived here my entire life always afraid and suspicious, but also knowing that it never added up! Something else is going on. I need to know what it is, so tell me!”

  The woman patted her on the arm. “Lovely speech, my dear. Truly. From the heart, I can tell. But you really don’t want to know. You think you do, but what you want to hear is something scandalous to share with your little friends, or something secretive that you think will give you power, or something shocking that you can expose for a large amount of gold nuggets. But you don’t really want to know. No one does, although they think they do. They aren’t ready for it, because the truth can change everything we’re sure we already know.”

  “I’m not like that!” Mahrree insisted, furious with the woman’s patronizing manner. “I don’t want gold or power or anything else—I only want to know. Why the raids? What do you want? Why so much fear and terror?”

  “I don’t bring terror,” the woman said earnestly. “All I do is save lives, but you wouldn’t understand that. Maybe someday, when you have enough faith in the Creator.”

  Mahrree was growing impatient. “I believe in the Creator! I read The Writings! What do you mean, maybe someday?”

  “When you can answer this question, my dear,” she patted Mahrree on the shoulder as if she was three years old. “What color is the sky?”

  Mahrree looked up to take the easiest test in the world. “Black with white dots, two half spheres of the moons, and patches of dark gray clouds.”

  The woman stepped closer and peered at Mahrree. “Very good,” she whispered. “Very good, indeed. I may have been wrong about you.”

  “You were,” Mahrree declared. “Now tell me!”

  The older woman gave her a genuine smile. “You’re simply not ready, Miss. The truth will change all you know, and you don’t want that.”

  “I do! That’s the whole reason I’m here.”

  “All right,” the woman said slowly. “I can not only tell you the truth, but I can show it to you. But not here. You’d have to come with me—”

  “I’m ready!”

  “—and never come back.”

  Mahrree stopped and blinked. “What do you mean, never come back?”

  “There’s no going back from the truth, Miss. Once you know it, you have to live it. You can’t know the truth and live a lie. It will drive you to despair or insanity. So ultimately, it’d kill you,” she said simply. “You can’t live here and know it all. Are you ready to make that commitment? Ready to leave it all, for all the answers you’ve ever wanted?”

  Mahrree’s mouth went dry at the unthinkable offer. This was the real test. Not the color of the sky, but the willingness of her heart. “Why?” she whispered. “Why does it have to be that way?”

  “Nothing costs more than the truth, my dear. It demands everything. And I have a feeling you’re not ready to give it all. Look at you—you’re quite young still, and probably have so much here you shouldn’t leave. Do you have a husband?”

  Mahrree nodded, unable to speak, the thought of leaving Perrin tying her tongue.

  “A child?”

  “Two,” Mahrree’s voice cracked.

  “Two? That’s becoming unusual. How old are your children?”

  “Daughter’s two, son’s o
ne,” she whispered, imagining for just the shortest of agonizing moments leaving their sweet little faces.

  The woman’s face froze in place. “Two and one?”

  Mahrree nodded, tears filling her eyes. The truth at any cost—

  The cost was far too high. She’d thought she could find out the truth to help Perrin, to resolve these mysteries, to put an end to all of it—

  No. That was just another lie she told herself.

  The woman was right. She wanted power, and she was doing this for herself, to prove something to the world. It was her haughtiness that sent her there, her growing frustration with the Administrators to whom this school teacher thought she should teach a lesson. Deny her more children? Send her only form letters? Change the way children learned about the world? Let the Guarders become so powerful that they take her husband away, again and again? She’d show them she knew a thing or two! She’d expose everything—whatever it was—and disgrace them!

  But she couldn’t.

  When faced with the actuality of doing anything courageous, she couldn’t do it. Even if she didn’t have a husband and children, Mahrree knew she’d never follow this woman one step further into the forest.

  She always thought herself to be brave, especially when she stood on the platform in the amphitheater loudly proclaiming her opinions for all the world to hear, but deep down she knew “the world” didn’t hear her. Only a few hundred, occasionally a few thousand, in the insignificant village of Edge, and even then no one took her seriously. She knew that, and that was the only reason she dared say anything. Before she was married she frequently walked the edges of the forest, but nothing bad ever happened on the edges. It wasn’t nearly as daring as it appeared.

  And neither—Mahrree realized with humbling force as she stood a mere thirty paces in—was she.

  The woman stepped closer to her and took her arm. Initially Mahrree was alarmed, but the touch was kind.

  “Someday will come for you,” the woman promised. “There’ll be a day when you’ll be ready to leave it all behind and embrace the truth. But not for many years still, I suspect. Until then, think of this night never again. Should your mind ever find itself surprised by this memory, tell yourself it was just a vivid dream, for that’s all it really is. You can practice looking at the world in different ways, preparing your mind to realize you know really nothing at all, looking at the sky and realizing it changes minute by second, but until that someday comes, nothing will ever quite make sense. That’s all right,” she said, almost genially.

  Mahrree only gaped at her.

  “But when that day does come,” she continued with a sharper edge and firming her grip on Mahrree’s arm, “everything will hit you with such finality and power that you’ll never again be able to forget it or deny it. You’ll find the truth and run to it. But not tonight. Now, you need to get back to that empty field below us, and run home to your husband and babies before they miss you.”

  No—

  No, she couldn’t let it end like this, with a lecture in the trees as if she were some thirteen-year-old child with a rebellious streak!

  She needed something—some hint or number to plug into Perrin’s equation. Just something more than what she knew this morning.

  One last stupid flash of defiance gripped Mahrree, and the most irrational part of her mind screamed, Look—you’re standing in the forest against all laws and logic speaking to a real Guarder! No one’s done this before, so DO SOMETHING!

  By the time all that audacity reached her mouth, though, it had diminished to a whimper. “But I’ve come so far.”

  “Not as far as you think, dear. Only about twenty paces.” The patronizing tone was back, along with a firm pat on the cheek that felt more like a mild slap.

  That did it.

  The very last of Mahrree’s impudence boiled up and filled her with dangerous courage. “I have! You have no idea who I am, or what—”

  “Oh, yes I do!” the woman interrupted her sharply. “I know you have a very ill-named dog. It never barks. Now, GO HOME, Mrs. Shin!”

  Mahrree couldn’t even breathe as she watched the woman march hastily away, swallowed up by the forest, leaving her completely alone in the trees with one horrible thought.

  She knew a little bit more, got her one truth, and revealed a secret: she, her children, and even her barkless dog, were known to the Guarders.

 

  Chapter 23 ~ “And whose side are you on, anyway, Quiet Man?!”