Daughter of Two Worlds: Book Three of the Aun Series

by Lee Bezotte

  “What’s yer name and where do you live, sweetie?” the smiling old man asked. He was seated behind a cluttered table just in front of the inn.

  There was something about the man that made Maren nervous. He had long, dirty, gray hair and he reeked of smoke. Her enthusiasm waned considerably, and she turned back to look at Micah.

  “It’s okay,” the boy assured her. “They just want to know who you are so they can invite you back to celebrations in the future.”

  This explanation comforted the girl somewhat, and she spoke up, “Maren. I live at Gale Hill Farm.”

  “Very good!” the man behind the table said as he scribbled the information on a parchment. “You’ve come on a good day. There are pastries and cakes across the square and outside of the pub, and fresh roasted meat next to that. Also, there’s lots of music and dancing all day.” He then stood up, reached across the table, and tied a small red ribbon around her wrist, saying, “You’ll need to keep this on.”

  Maren liked the way the ribbon looked. She smiled and then did a little jig to show her fondness for dancing.

  “Wonderful!” the man applauded, clapping his hands. “I’m sure the two of you will have a splendid time.”

  “Uh huh!” the girl agreed, and met eyes with her new friend once more. “I think I’ll start with some sweets.”

  “Great idea!” Micah cheered. “Let’s go. They have a delicious cream pie.” He then began to skip in that direction with Maren in tow.

  When they arrived outside of the pub, there were several people crowded around tables filled with the most gorgeous desserts the girl had ever seen. She approached one of them and eyed a fresh blackberry pie. Standing behind the table was a plump, drained-looking woman who smiled wanly at her and asked, “What can I get you, darlin’?”

  Maren smiled and pointed at the pie she wanted. Her mouth watered and she swallowed in anticipation.

  “Right then,” the woman said as she set a generous slice onto a tin plate, heaped fresh whipped cream on top, and handed it to her with a spoon that looked big enough to feed a large man.

  The girl nodded in gratitude and turned around toward Micah. “There are tables over there,” the boy told her, pointing to an area at the edge of the town square. He then began walking in that direction.

  Maren followed him, half watching the ground and half watching to make sure nothing slid off of her plate. The tables were full of festivalgoers but the boy found one with two empty seats across from each other.

  From where she sat, the girl could see most of the goings on in the village. She watched as folks ate, laughed, and mingled, and was once again astounded by her good fortune to have wandered into town on such a day as this. She then took her spoon and scooped as much pie and whipped cream onto it as would fit and stuffed a surprising amount of it into her mouth.

  The pie had an unexpected taste on her tongue. Though it seemed to promise to be the best dessert she had ever eaten, it was average at best. It was not bad, but not exquisite either. At first, she was disappointed, but she continued to eat it anyway.

  “How’s the pie?” Micah asked her with an amused expression.

  “Okay,” she answered before devouring more whipped cream and blackberries.

  “I’ve eaten loads of sweets today,” the boy proclaimed as he puffed out his chest. “No one can eat more than me!”

  Maren laughed through a mouth full of dark-purple berries, then forced another bite.

  “What sort of things do you like to do?” Micah asked as his eyes followed her spoon.

  The girl’s eyes lit up with his question. She grinned with pie-smudged teeth and answered, “Draw pictures, play with my mule, and read pirate stories.”

  “Pirate stories. You don’t say!” the boy replied. “What’s so special about pirates?”

  Maren’s excitement grew as she began talking about pirate adventures with an interested listener. “I read all the books, and I pretend my mule is Smarmy Kidd Black. He’s the most treacherous pirate on the nine seas! His ship has a crew of a hundred and fifty men and thirty trained dogs! Each of those dogs is named Typhoon, and their tails have been cut off so that they don’t smack anyone when they’re wagging them. Also, the ship has never been boarded by a child or a woman. Did you know that?”

  Micah’s eyebrows raised as the young girl carried on with enormous amounts of information about life on the sea, swashbuckling, and the various minutia of ship rigging. When she finally stopped talking for a moment, he complimented, “You sure know a lot about pirates.”

  “Uh huh!” she agreed. She then continued on with the names of all one hundred and fifty crew members, and how they are able to call the dogs to them, even though they are all named Typhoon. It was a long, drawn-out presentation, but it was worth it to educate her new friend on the ways of buccaneering in the world of her favorite books.

  “Well,” the boy eventually broke in. “Um, did you know that there will be a book reading near the inn in just a wee bit?”

  “I read books all the time,” she answered plainly, surprised that he hadn’t already picked up on that.

  “No, I mean that someone will be reading a book out loud to everyone,” he said.

  Maren’s cheeks raised at the thought of hearing a story told to the festivalgoers. Reading to herself was nice, but there was something special about being read aloud to. Her mother used to spend endless hours reading to her when she was younger, but that was a very long time ago. “Let’s go then!” she crowed. She then stuffed the remainder of the pie in her mouth and stood up to walk across the square.

  As the afternoon progressed, it was more fun than the girl could have imagined. The stories were riotous and exciting, the food was rich and plentiful, and she had a friend who seemed interested in all she had to say about her favorite books and characters.

  As the townspeople were making their way out of the square for the night, it dawned on Maren that she too had to make her way home. Lanterns around the town were being lit, and the shop windows were filling with the warm glow of fire from inside.

  “Leaving?” asked Micah, still accompanying her through the thinning crowd.

  Nervously massaging her ear, the girl replied, “Uh huh. I have to go to bed.”

  “There will be more festivities tomorrow,” the boy informed her. “Will you be coming back?”

  With that news, some of the nervousness dissipated from the girl’s shoulders. “Okay,” she replied with a half-smile.

  But Maren didn’t feel so well as she walked away from Micah and untied Earl from the post. Her belly was too full of sweets and rich foods and her head had a dull ache from the sights and sounds that overfilled her senses all day long. Despite how she felt, she still planned on returning the next day.

  She walked her mule away from the village and toward the road leading home. As she did, the firelight that burned in the square faded into the distance and her surroundings became engulfed in a deep, black night. She wrung her hands as she stood in the road, mostly sure that she was facing the right direction. She hefted herself onto Earl’s back, gave him a little squeeze with her legs, and instructed him to move along.

  The animal ambled slowly, stopping often to sniff the ground along the way. Maren’s slight uncertainty that they were traveling in the right direction, and the occasional sounds of animals in the distance, made her feel vulnerable and afraid.

  “Why did you bring me out here?” she asked Earl in an accusatory tone.

  You didn’t have to stay as late as you did, she imagined him answering, matching her mood.

  “They kept giving me pie,” she said in her defense. “And the celebration just wouldn’t end!”

  Earl let out a hrmph before moving on to the next patch of ground that interested him.

  Somewhere in the darkness behind her, two raccoons erupted into a violent skirmish. The sound startled Maren and she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Earl’s neck the best she could. She then rapidly tapped
his sides with her heels, saying quietly, “Move on. Move on. Move on.”

  The beast walked forward more quickly, and she listened to make sure that the sound of the raccoons grew faint in the distance.

  As the night grew later, the young girl’s heart beat in her chest with crushing anxiety. The black was so great that she couldn’t even see her mule. It was only the steadiness of his steps and the sound of his hooves against the pressed-down earth beneath them that assured her they were still on the road. “Get us home. Get us home,” she whispered to him.

  Just when tears were beginning to form in her eyes, Maren saw a light in the distance. As Earl took them closer, she recognized the window that it shone from. They were approaching the farm. “Maren!” she could hear Son yelling from the doorway of their home.

  As her guardian’s voice rang out, her anxiety turned to dread. She knew that he would not be happy with her for sneaking off, and she hated being scolded more than anything. So much so that she decided to travel down the road just a little further so she could make her way around to the barn without being seen. She got down from her donkey, used one hand to hold his rope, and groped through the darkness with the other hand until she had made her way around to the front of the building.

  The girl quietly opened the barn door and led Earl inside. Wanting desperately to remain unnoticed, she felt her way to the back and found a pile of hay to lie down on. Lying there, her tummy uncomfortably full and her neck itching from the hay, she listened to Son continue to call out her name. Each time he did, she wished he would be quiet so she could go to sleep.

  She had spent the day feasting on only the foods she enjoyed. She was entertained for endless hours. She danced, talked about things that interested her, and made a new friend. Even though the journey home was dark and frightening, she could only think about one thing, and that was going back to the festivities the next day.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Nothing is Free

  “Maren! What are you doing out here?” Son asked in a loud, clear tone.

  The young girl sat up in the pile of hay and wood shavings and tried to blink away the sleep from her eyes. Her fingers were stained with blackberries and she used them to massage her right ear. She knew she had done the wrong thing by sneaking off and she heard a ringing in her head as her surroundings began to spin. She swallowed hard and answered quietly, “Um, I went into town.”

  “What?” the boy asked with wrinkles quickly forming on his forehead.

  “Earl took me into Laor,” she answered, sitting up a little taller.

  “What do you mean by that?” Son asked. His neck pulled back as if to join his forehead in concern.

  “I was riding Earl, and he wandered down the road,” she explained.

  “Why didn’t you stop him and lead him back?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “I was just reading a book, and that idiot mule took me all the way to Laor.” She hoped that by placing the attention on poor Earl, it would move the boy’s focus off of her.

  He exhaled, clearly exasperated by her story. “If you would have been doing your long-overdue chores, you wouldn’t have ended up in the village.”

  Maren continued to squeeze her ear. It helped to ease her nerves. She stared off in the direction of Son without meeting his eyes with hers. As she did, she remained speechless.

  Squinting, the boy asked, “What’s on your fingers, and around your lips?”

  “Um, blackberries,” she answered, swallowing again.

  “Blackberries?”

  “From blackberry pie.”

  “Where did you get blackberry pie?”

  “In town,” she answered, wondering how Son could miss such an obvious deduction.

  “But how did you get it?” the boy pressed. “You don’t have any money.”

  “My friend Micah,” she answered with deliberate vagueness.

  Son raised one eyebrow and cocked his head to the side. “Friend Micah? How do you know him?”

  “I met him yesterday,” she answered, still wondering how Son could miss such conspicuous details.

  “How old is Micah?” he continued to probe, obviously not ready to let the matter go.

  Maren stood up, brushed the hay from her dress, and held her hand level just above her head. “He’s about this tall,” she explained. “He invited me to come back today for sweets and music.”

  The boy furrowed his brow and took a deep breath. “Well, I don’t want you to go anywhere until your chores are done,” he said. “Get caught up the best you can, then you can clean up and go. And you must be home before dark,” he added. “No exceptions.”

  Maren’s eyes betrayed that she was hiding a smile. She quickly grabbed Earl’s rope and made her way past Son, rushing toward the barn door. Before she could leave, her guardian gently put his hand on her shoulder and said, “I was very worried about you last night.”

  Glancing back toward him, the girl said simply, “I know.” She then skipped out to the garden to catch up on her work.

  As Son stood at his workbench in the barn, he was deep in thought about Maren’s story. When he’d discovered her alone on the road to Blackcloth more than two seasons ago, he knew it was the right thing to take her in and care for her. However, he himself hadn’t even reached adulthood yet, and he struggled daily to be patient with her. Even more so when it came to her graymind.

  It’s like I am speaking a language she doesn’t understand, he thought to himself. And she is speaking a language I don’t understand. I only wish there was a way…

  As his thoughts trailed off, he worked diligently at his bench to make toys to sell in Laor. He often brought his creations into the village to earn extra money. His favorite was the miniature trebuchet. He loved to see the looks on the children’s faces when he demonstrated it for them. Their eyes would light up when the device’s arm would swing around, flinging a pebble into the distance. They would laugh and run to their parents to beg them to purchase one for them. He sold more of the little hurlers than anything else.

  He toiled the morning away shaping branches, twine, and stones. It was an activity he could easily lose himself in. When he came to a place in his work that required him to stop and search the barn for more materials, he came across Maren’s stash of adventure books. He picked one up and examined it. As he did, a nagging thought weighed on his mind.

  Son had been going in to the village regularly ever since they moved onto Gale Hill Farm. He had sold many of his trinkets and gadgets and, in the process, had gotten to know the children in the area quite well. As their faces flashed through his mind, it occurred to him that he had never met a boy named Micah.

  This troubled him, so he decided to go outside to ask Maren a few more questions. “Maren,” he called out, but there was no answer. “Maren!” he called out again. He walked out to the garden and noticed a large pile of rocks that the girl had pulled from the soil. There were also some seeds scattered about haphazardly. She had done her chores and rushed back into town with Earl.

  When Maren and her donkey arrived at the village, the square was already full of revelers and partygoers. She looked around for Micah but couldn’t find him so she tied up Earl and made her way over to the sweets tables outside of the pub. Once again they were filled with decadent desserts of every kind. She slowly walked past the puddings and cakes and found that there was a fresh blackberry pie in the same place she had found one the day before.

  She looked at the busy woman arranging the sweets and asked sheepishly as she licked her lips, “Excuse me. May I have a slice of pie, please?”

  There was no answer from the harried worker, who continued to shift the desserts around and serve them up to other people.

  Maren cleared her throat and spoke a little louder, “Excuse me. I need a slice of pie.”

  The woman glanced over at her and smiled. “Oh hello. I didn’t see you there. What would you like?”

  “Some pie, please,” the little girl said curtl
y, and her eyes grew bigger.

  “Okay, can I see your ribbon please?” the helper asked.

  Believing the woman was wishing to admire the thin strip of red cloth, Maren held out her wrist with a proud smile.

  “That’s a red ribbon,” the helper said plainly. “Today you have to have a blue ribbon.”

  The girl’s face fell, and she was confused about what the woman had just told her. Then she remembered how she saw the man in front of the inn and that he gave her the red ribbon when she gave him her name and where she lived. She could see the man at his table from across the square so she walked over to him with a quickness, though she didn’t want to appear to be running.

  “May I have a blue ribbon please?” she asked as she approached the man. He was poring over a stack of papers and apparently didn’t hear her. A moment later she asked again, “Do you have any blue ribbon?”

  The man looked up and greeted, “Oh hiya, darlin’. What can I do fer ya?”

  “I would like a blue ribbon,” she said as she held out her red-ribboned wrist.

  “Oh, I see,” the man said. He shifted the papers aside and fetched a small spool of thinly cut fabric. Cutting just enough to tie around the girl’s wrist, he announced, “That’ll be two coppers, sweetie.”

  Maren froze. She had no money with her and none at home that she knew of. Her shoulders sank and she massaged her ear. “I don’t have any coppers,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, honey. It’s two coppers to be a part of the festivities today,” the man explained.

  The young girl glanced back toward the desserts, and all the people dancing and laughing. She felt pulled toward the food and revelry. Thinking fast, she asked, “Will you be here tomorrow?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  “Can I pay you tomorrow?”

  The man wrinkled his forehead. “I have to take something today. Is there anything you can give me now?”

  Maren thought for a moment as she fixed her eyes on the papers strewn across the table. Then she had an idea. “I can draw you a picture,” she declared. She loved to draw and was very good at it.