“Keep it,” she snarled and turned toward her cottage.
Lily and Cera ran around a corner and froze when they saw her, unsure of what they beheld. Meadow ran past them, yelling, “Kala!” and collided with her. Kala put an arm around her, and the fire in her winked out. She swayed slightly, and her friends surged forward to prop her up. They helped her walk, and she felt at home in their arms.
12
Kala
Kala awoke in a fog. As her vision cleared, it revealed her grandfather sitting on the edge of her bed. She bolted upright, hugged him tightly, and bit back tears.
“You’re home,” he said, wiping away his own tears.
“I’m home,” she repeated, the words seeming foreign to her tongue. “I feel… clean?” She looked down at her pink arms sticking out of her white nightgown.
“The girls refused to lay you in your bed in the state you were in. You don’t remember them pouring you a bath and detangling your hair?”
“Not a moment of it.”
“Calix lugged so much water back and forth from the fire that he was here late into the night.”
Kala suddenly felt very self-conscious.
“Oh, don’t worry, the girls kept him outside.”
Despite herself, Kala looked hopefully at the closed door of the back room.
“He’s gone,” her grandfather confirmed sadly.
“I don’t want him gone.” Kala teared up.
“I know. He braved the woods, again and again, to spend time with you.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected,” he replied, “and I was grateful to him because so long as he kept disappearing, I knew you were still… okay.”
Kala rubbed her arms against the cold seeping through her. “You knew he’d leave, and you let me fall for him anyway,” she accused him.
“You have to love to truly live,” he replied. “And to truly love, you have to risk loss. I don’t regret loving your grandmother for a moment, despite the pain of losing her, and I hope you never regret loving Skye.”
Kala lay wallowing in her loss.
Her grandfather broke the silence. “You made quite an entrance last night,” he said, trying to get her mind off of Skye. The village will speak of it for generations.”
“I wasn’t aiming for celebrity.”
“Well, that’s what you’ve achieved.” He looked her over to gauge her readiness before adding, “The girls have been hovering outside our door all morning. I keep having to shoo them away. Are you up for company?”
“Yes,” she replied, wiping away the traces of her tears as the door exploded inward.
“We were listening!” Meadow exclaimed and launched herself at Kala, pinning her to the bed. Cera and Lily entered and sat beside her. She hugged each in turn.
“Calix is outside,” Cera told her.
“Tell him to get in here!” Kala demanded.
He peeked in, and Kala waved him over. She hugged him too, and he surprised her by hugging her back.
“I’ve missed this merry band,” Kala said.
“I’ll put on some tea,” her grandfather said to himself and headed to the kitchen.
Everyone found somewhere to sit that wasn’t Kala’s bed.
“You smelled like cat pee,” Meadow said, wrinkling her nose at the memory.
“I didn’t notice, but I did spread it around the base of my tree.”
“Gross,” concluded Meadow.
Kala ran her fingers through her freshly washed hair, “I suppose I have you three to thank for this?”
Cera and Lily beamed, but Calix turned bright red.
“I’m so happy. Thank you.”
“Things went to hell with you gone,” Meadow said.
“Meadow!” Lily rebuked her sternly.
“You say ‘hell’ all the time,” Meadow protested. “An airship came when you were in the woods. It had an open compartment, and the Council wanted to send Cera!”
Kala was shocked and looked to Cera to make doubly-sure that she was really there. “How did you know?”
Meadow looked bashful. “I kind of broke into my dad’s office, and I may have looked at the papers on his desk.”
“Shame on you,” Lily reprimanded her out of obligation but hugged her tightly so she knew she didn’t mean it.
“Let go of me,” Meadow complained.
“Claudius never liked me and practically jumped at the chance to separate me from his daughter,” Cera said.
“What about that dimwit Cade?” Kala asked.
“He’s Torin’s nephew, and while he’s good for nothing else, he doesn’t mind standing around all day as a gate guard,” Cera replied.
“So, what happened?”
“Skye happened. He barged into the Council hall, all packed and ready to go, and announced to the world, ‘When do I leave?’ The Council was furious,” Cera said.
“Mostly, my father,” Lily interjected.
Cera continued, “They ordered the guards to throw him out. Before they could, though, he tossed a necklace of hideously large teeth on the Council table and said, ‘Kala sends her regards.’ That got their attention. They thought you’d snuck back, but Skye told them that if you couldn’t come to the village, the village had to go to you. Sayer was beside himself, checking the record to see if Skye had broken any rules, but he hadn’t. That just made Sayer as angry as Claudius.”
“I think that was Skye’s goal because they decided right then and there to send him away in the airship,” Lily added. “I asked him later why he’d done it, and he just said he had a promise to keep.”
“The next morning, he went into the ship whistling. The guards didn’t know what to do. They looked foolish standing around,” Cera said.
“I’m sure he was sorry he didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to you,” Lily offered.
“I think he did,” Kala replied quietly.
Meadow broke the awkward silence with, “I slept in your bed!”
Kala raised an eyebrow at Lily.
“Just putting some distance between her and her father. It was nothing,” she responded and looked down.
Kala decided not to press the point.
“You’re welcome to stay with us anytime, Pumpkin,” Kala’s grandfather chimed in as he handed out steaming mugs of jasmine tea and cookies that he’d made appear out of thin air. “We have a spare room.”
“Can I?” Meadow implored Lily.
“I don’t see why not,” Lily decided but looked a little unsure.
“Goody,” Meadow announced, “I’m moving in!”
Lily looked at Cera. “Is now a good time?” she asked her.
Cera nodded and got up to approach Kala. She stood in front of her. “Hold out your right hand,” she instructed, and Kala complied uncertainly. Cera pulled a bracelet out of her pocket and began tying it around her wrist. It was delicate and made from five strands. “Lily made it with one thread for each of us.” She looked around the room. “We are your community.”
Kala just stared at it, unable to speak.
“Do you like it?” Lily asked nervously.
Kala blinked to clear her eyes of tears, nodded, and pulled Cera into a hug, motioning with her free hand for the others to join in. Soon, they were smothering her, and Kala felt like she’d reclaimed her place in the world.
They broke apart sniffling, sat down, and talk turned to idle gossip. At Kala’s first yawn, her grandfather sent everyone away, including Meadow, to fetch the rest of her things. When they had left, he turned to Kala and told her, “I think he left you something,” nodding toward Skye’s former room. Then he left her alone as he departed to run an errand. “Apparently, we have a deer head or some such thing,” he said on his way out.
Kala got out of bed slowly, pulled the nightgown over her head, and looked at herself in the mirror. A different girl than she remembered stared back at her. She was thinner and more muscled. The entire right side of her torso was an ugly bruise. She traced the spi
derweb of dark lines across her skin, wincing as she did. She slid her nightgown back on, deciding that she didn’t want to leave the house today.
She stared at the door to Skye’s room, wishing he’d step through it, but he didn’t. She cracked it open and peeked in to see that it was perfectly tidy. The only thing amiss was a small package on his bed. She walked over, sat down, and put a hand on the pillow where his head would have lain. She wiped away a tear and picked up the package. She unwrapped it to reveal a book, which she turned over and opened. Skye had transcribed all of his notes and drawings from his journal into it. Kala leafed through it to the end. There were plenty of blank pages, but on the last one, he’d written, “Come find me.”
13
Meadow
Kala felt Skye’s absence like a heavy weight and moved through her days like she was treading water. Meadow was a pleasure to have around, and her boundless enthusiasm was an antidote to Kala’s sadness. She filled the void in Kala’s heart like a rubber ball bouncing off its walls. Kala slowly began to feel reanimated.
Kala laid the leopard pelt on the floor of the main room, which was starting to feel cold in the mornings, and Meadow immediately dubbed it the cat’s room. She’d lie on the pelt and listen raptly to everything Kala told her.
“You should be a teacher,” her grandfather told her.
“Of nothing the Council would approve of,” she replied, but gradually warmed to the idea when it came to Meadow, and took her under her wing. She gave her a smaller bow that she made just for her and brought her to the same spot where her grandfather had taught her to shoot. Kala placed a target in front of a pile of hay bales, which reduced the time she had to spend chasing errant arrows. Meadow was a diligent pupil, and her accuracy improved daily. Kala had her shoot standing, crouching and even lying down, although she abandoned the last position after every arrow needed hunting down.
Kala let her try throwing the stranger’s dagger with promising results. Meadow had a surprising well of aggression simmering below her bubbly surface, and she drew upon it for deadly effect.
Every day, Meadow would implore Kala to take her into the woods, but every day Kala would reply that she wasn’t ready yet, but that she would be in time. At night, Kala taught her to make arrows, sharpen blades, tie knots, and set snares around the cottage. On the nights that Meadow helped Kala’s grandfather bake cookies, Kala was reminded that she was still a wide-eyed child and not an apprentice hunter.
Lily visited most days with tales of how livid Claudius was that Meadow had moved in with Kala. The village was quite communal, so he couldn’t show his displeasure publicly without raising questions and perhaps compromising the high esteem in which he was held. To the outside world, Claudius seemed to support Meadow’s ‘little adventure,’ but behind closed doors, Lily bore his rage. Cera would comfort her, but she avoided Claudius like the plague he was, as she feared being sent away from Lily more than anything in the world.
Calix would come by occasionally, and it usually led to a mock sword fight between himself and Meadow. It always ended with him dying theatrically and her standing triumphantly over him. Calix had no end of choice last words, and they often involved regretting all the pie he wouldn’t be able to eat now that he was dead. Meadow would stab him a final time to keep herself from giggling. One day he procured her a knife, and he instantly displaced Kala as her favorite person in the world.
On their days in the fields, Kala would catch Meadow staring into the woods the same longing way that she often found herself staring into the clouds thinking of Skye. The village felt increasingly small, and Skye’s words tugged at her. She pushed them aside and focused her attention on Meadow.
Kala would still go out every few days to hunt and trap. She preferred hunting to trapping because she had to check the traps daily, as any animal unfortunate enough to be caught in one wouldn’t survive the night. There would be nothing to collect the next day. She tried not to be gone overnight if she could help it because she knew it made Lily anxious.
One morning, while Kala was hunched over a steaming cup of kai, Meadow walked over, nibbling a cookie impaled on the end of her knife. “I’m ready,” she said. Kala couldn’t disagree and promised that within a few days, she’d take her beyond the tree line.
Before Kala would take her into the woods, she taught her an elaborate sign language with words for ‘danger’, ‘poison’, ‘look’, ‘wait’, ‘listen’, etc. Despite the fun they had together, Kala was deadly serious about the forest.
A few days passed, and the time had come for Kala to take Meadow into the woods, as promised. They went over their supplies, and Kala explained how to pack for the unforeseen. As they walked through the fields, Kala quizzed Meadow on every item they’d packed and why they’d packed it. Finally, they stood at the forest’s edge. Kala made the sign for ‘quiet,’ and Meadow used an eye roll as her own sign for ‘obviously.’
The first few times in the woods, Kala didn’t bring her very far. She entered only far enough to find something new to teach her. Her first lesson was to have her sit still and listen to the birds. Then she’d sign for her to keep listening while she stood and moved cautiously forward. Meadow signed that she’d heard the difference in the birds’ chatter. They repeated this lesson until Meadow could tell from the birds whether anything was amiss.
Kala showed her which plants were poisonous and which could be eaten if she were desperate enough. There weren’t that many near the forest’s edge, so a complete lesson had to wait. Kala was impressed by Meadow’s focus. She was a bubbly child, much like Lily was at her age, but in the woods, she followed Kala’s every instruction.
For days, Kala showed her how to pick a tree if she wanted a vantage point to scout from, or if she needed to spend the night off the forest floor. She showed her how to suspend herself from a sling high above the ground. Lily, with incredible reluctance, even sewed one for Meadow. Kala showed her how to set warning lines and played a game with her whereby Meadow would to set the lines and perch high in the tree with her eyes closed while Kala tried to climb past her warning lines without disturbing them. When it came to climbing, Meadow lacked Kala’s strength, but she had a sharp mind and often found routes up a tree that Kala didn’t see.
One chilly evening, on their way back home, they were met by Claudius at the gate.
“The season for silly games is ending,” he said.
Meadow took hold of Kala’s hand.
“These games fill our bellies in the cold of winter,” Kala replied.
“It’s not the responsibility of women,” he said with disdain.
“Women get as hungry as men.”
Claudius gave up on Kala and turned to Meadow. “You should come home, Meadow.”
“Kala’s not done teaching me,” Meadow protested, tightening her grip on Kala’s hand.
“Well, finish up then,” he retorted and stormed off.
Meadow didn’t release Kala’s hand until they were back inside their cottage. That night, the two of them lay on Meadow’s bed, chatting. Her bed was larger than Kala’s because it had been Kala’s parents’ bed, so naturally, it was where they’d often find themselves talking into the night by candlelight. Usually, the conversation was about details from their day in the forest that their sign language wasn’t rich enough to convey at the time. Tonight, Meadow spoke about Claudius.
“He hits Lily sometimes,” she started.
“I’m sorry,” Kala replied.
“He’s angry a lot, but not all the time. Sometimes he’s nice to her. He gets her things that are hard to get.” She lay silent for a while. “He goes to her room at night, sometimes. He thinks I’m asleep, but I’m not.”
Kala’s blood ran cold.
Meadow continued, “He sometimes stands in my doorway watching me when he thinks I’m asleep. It scares me. Lily sees him sometimes, and that’s often when he gets mad at her.”
Kala’s heart went out to Lily as she understood why she had Mead
ow staying with her. Kala was one of the very few people that Claudius couldn’t bend to his will. He didn’t fear her the way many of the village did, but found her distasteful and avoided her. Kala could tell that Meadow was nervous at the prospect of being returned to him.
“You don’t have to go back there, ever,” Kala assured her. “You have a home here.”
Meadow was emboldened to continue her confession. “Our mother left us. She didn’t love us.”
Kala’s heart broke further. She remembered nights when she was Meadow’s age pining for a mother’s love. She made a decision.
“I have a secret for you and you alone,” she said, leaning closer, despite their being alone.
Meadow turned her face to look at her.
“Promise to keep it, even from your sister?”
Meadow nodded.
“I met a man once, in the woods, far from our village. He knew your mother, from after she left our village.” She waited to let the implication sink in. “He told me that she loved you very much and not a day went by that she didn’t think of you.”
“She still left us,” Meadow said bitterly.
“She had her reasons, but you were loved.”
Meadow just lay staring at the ceiling.
“Would you like me to sleep in here tonight?” Kala offered.
Meadow just snuggled into her by way of reply.
The nights grew incrementally longer and colder, and the leaves started to change color. Meadow and Kala overnighted a couple of times in a tree on the very edge of the tree line. It was close enough that they could still see the village from their tree. She’d taught Meadow all she knew, and Meadow even joined her on hunts for small game.
Raven's Wings Page 11
