I ran my finger along the road that led between the two. Our village and his. The path that would take me to him, if he truly existed. A few days’ ride, I guessed. I folded the other two papers and returned them to their place, then snatched the map up and got to my feet. Papa wouldn’t need it before I returned. I hoped.
My basket for market sat on the table, waiting, and I stared down into it. Fruit, cheese, bread. I removed one of the loaves and took the rest, throwing it into a pack. In went a portion of dried meat, a few candles, a waterskin. I retrieved my cloak and pulled it on, and, after a second’s hesitation, slipped a knife into my boot. I didn’t know what I might face out there.
I about left, hand on my pack, but stopped. My gaze fastened on Tobin’s bow and quiver, lying nonchalantly at the end of the table where he’d left them. Neither Papa nor I had dared touch them. My heart raced at my throat and fingertips as I stared. I could almost see him strolling into the room to retrieve them and go hunt. The casual smile he’d give me as he asked if I wanted to go with him.
“Hania?”
Papa’s voice broke me from the spell, and I turned to him, swallowing the lump in my throat. He stared at me with a tired, fearful kind of gaze; he understood what I was doing. “Papa.”
“Don’t go,” he said, crossing the room. He took my hands, and they were engulfed in his, rough from hard work. “They’ll take you too.”
The lump didn’t go away. “I have to.”
“I’ll go instead. I’ll bring Tobin home.”
I shook my head. He couldn’t. “The farm needs you.”
“You can’t face them, Hania. They’re monsters.”
“I can,” I lied. “I will. I’ll be alright.” He couldn’t talk me out of it, whatever he tried. Unless Tobin walked through that door, I was going. Tobin had taken care of me all my life, it was time I returned the favor.
I knew he saw that, and he nodded once before hugging me. I closed my eyes against the push of tears that threatened to spill. “Come back home, Hania.”
“We’ll both come back home. I promise.”
I never wanted to leave his embrace, but I tore away, wiped at my damp cheeks, and lifted the pack. “There’s coin for market set aside,” I said, working hard to keep my voice from wobbling. “And apricots for Edrick. He’ll give you our bread for them. And tell him…tell him I said thank you, and goodbye, when you see him next.” Just in case. He gave a solemn nod but didn’t speak. Maybe he couldn’t.
I glanced to the bow again. My fingers itched to be around it, to feel the taut string pulled back, ready to loose an arrow. It was Tobin’s, I had no right to take it. But if it helped me survive, helped me get to him—and he would be so happy to see it when I did.
I’ll keep it safe for you, I vowed, and grabbed it before hurrying out the door.
I ran across the fields as quick as the weight would let me. I found Inka grazing alongside the other horses. She came to my calling her name and trotted at my side to the barn, never faltering. I prayed she would continue to be so cooperative.
She let me throw the bridle around her, but I stopped before I dared get on. “Will you let me?” I asked, running one hand along her soft, strong neck. My voice was a whisper, tight with fear. “Please, Inka. It’s important.”
Mama had been the only one to ride Inka. When I’d been small, she’d taken me with her, but I’d never ridden Inka alone. Tobin and my father were right, she was a stubborn horse and no help to the farm. But that was why I needed to take her.
Inka didn’t shy away from me. She didn’t move at all. I held my breath and hoisted myself up, bracing myself for the fall to the floor of the barn. But she stood quiet and unmoving. I settled atop her, staring across the fields and breathing in the scents of hay and leather and wood. And Inka, for the first time, didn’t throw me off. Didn’t protest. She waited. As if she understood.
I checked that my supplies were safe, the bow and quiver secure across my back. I snapped the reins, and she took off.
“Come on, Inka,” I murmured, ducking to avoid a branch. The mare’s pace slowed by the hour, but my heart sped up. Images of Tobin and that terrible woman—that monster, whatever shape she took—flashed through my mind again and again. We didn’t have time to pick our way through the forest, but we didn’t have a choice. The deeper we went the thicker the forest grew, the trees closer together, the path tight and overgrown.
I craned my neck, trying to get a glimpse of the sun through the woven net of branches, but I saw only filtered light and a few scraps of blue. I had never been so far from the village, even when Tobin and I hunted we stayed close, where the forest was sunny and loose, friendly.
Once it wouldn’t have been like this, I knew. Once it would have been clear, allowing for passage between the villages. Once I wouldn’t have been alone in traveling through here. But now underbrush had crept in to lay claim to the path, so effective I couldn’t see it beneath Inka’s hooves. I wasn’t sure we were treading the right path anyway; all I could do was continue in the direction it had begun in, following the map half-blind, and hope we weren’t circling back home.
A twig cracked, and I jumped, my skin crawling. I fought down the instinct to push Inka to hurry, knowing any sudden movement might startle a waiting predator into attacking, and looked around us. No sign of leering yellow eyes or flashing fur among the trees. A squirrel perched on a branch met my eyes before scurrying on its way. Inka continued, slow, sure. But her ears swiveled with every soft step, huff of breath, and indistinct sound I couldn’t catch, wary for danger.
Whatever might have lurked in the forest didn’t worry me as much as what we were heading toward, but if we were attacked by a wild animal before we reached the village, my mission would be even worse of a failure than I expected it to be. I didn’t know what the chances of the selkie helping me could be—I had a feeling slim at best—but I needed the chance.
When the shadows were stretching across the ground and deepening, the trees to either side of us turning into looming figures watching our every move, I nudged Inka to a stop and swung down to the ground. I rolled my neck, rubbing at stiff muscles, and looked around again. The forest grew darker by the minute as night set in, the sky above a slightly bluer black than the shadowy leaves; it would be no use continuing much further. My stomach was growling, and my eyelids felt dangerously heavy.
“Let’s find a place to rest,” I said aloud, if only because it was a comfort to hear a voice, even my own. At home I would be preparing for bed right now, or perhaps finishing another silent meal with Papa. Lighting the lanterns to keep the night at bay and listening to the animals outside settle. What did I do here? I hadn’t thought about the details.
The dark crept closer, watching and waiting, and I swallowed a cold lump in my throat and closed my eyes. The wind was soft, gentle, cooling the summer air. It smelled like summer here, like the spots Tobin and I had laid in wait for hares, or like the outer edges of the farm at sunset. Like fresh grass and leaves, woody earth, sweet night-blooms. I could almost fool myself into thinking I was there.
Inka nickered and brought me back to the dark forest, and I took a deep breath and started walking. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. We’ll be at the village soon.” I didn’t know how soon, perhaps late tomorrow, if we were going the right way. People had once travelled often between the villages for trade and communication, so it couldn’t be too far. “For now we’ll find a safe place to rest and keep going in the morning.”
The dark pressed into me as we continued, and I searched the shadows for somewhere that looked safe. Nowhere did: there was only twisted undergrowth, reaching branches, and fallen, moss-eaten logs. The loud, sudden cry of a night bird above us made the hairs on my arms stand on end and Inka shuffle. I pressed a hand to her neck, speaking in a whisper. “Don’t be scared, Inka. We can’t be scared. If we’re scared we might turn around and go home, and we can’t have that. Tobin needs us.”
And because she appea
red to settle when I spoke, and because my heartbeat did as well, I kept talking. I said whatever thoughts ran through my head—there was nobody but Inka to hear them—and continued walking, searching through the dark. I kept my voice low, scanning around us for any sign of prowling night animals, but the forest appeared empty of life. It had all day, I knew, but it struck me hard now. It wasn’t the peaceful quiet of slumber, it was as if so few animals dared tread this deep that there was barely any life to slumber at all.
Inka nickered again and stepped over a log, swerving in a different direction. “What is it?” I asked, ducking beneath a low branch to follow. I blinked as the trees thinned ahead of us, letting in moonlight that cut through the dark my eyes had adjusted to. I took each step with care, watching for roots and tangles of plants that would trip me, but Inka trotted proudly ahead of me. The looser the path became the faster she went, and I had to hurry to keep up with her.
My breath caught an instant before she broke through the trees into a tiny, uneven clearing. I paused at the edge of it, staring. It wasn’t large, a little shed of a house was in the center and a strip of clear ground surrounded it, but I thought I’d never seen anything as welcoming. The house was rough, tilted as if the recent storm had battered it, and decorated with a few bits of moss clinging here and there to it. The one window I could see was dark, and no smoke curled from the little chimney, but it was shelter from the night, and every muscle in me sighed with relief.
Inka was already seeking out a spot of grass to rest and graze, so I left her to enjoy herself and crossed to the plain front door, cautious. Nobody came jumping out at me. I raised one hand and knocked.
No answer.
“Hello?” My voice, raised enough to be heard through the door, seemed too loud. But still nothing, not even the sound of movement inside.
Perhaps whoever lived here was asleep. I knocked a bit harder. “Hello? Is anybody here?”
No sound. I tested the doorknob—unlocked. The door swung open without a creak, and I poked my head inside. Light came through the windows, making it dim but visible inside. I saw a rocking chair, a tiny table, a cold fireplace with a pot hanging above it. In a far corner was a small, choppy bed, empty. A makeshift cottage deep in the forest, certainly a place somebody lived or had once lived. Abandoned?
Maybe. Maybe there was nobody to mind if I took the bed for the night.
Maybe there was, and they would return soon. Maybe they weren’t fond of strangers.
I retreated, closed the door behind me, and circled around the house. A pile of firewood beneath a small shelter sat to one side, near a garden ravaged by the storm, but otherwise the clearing was empty. I sat down at the side of the house, back against the coarse wall, and stretched my aching legs. I’d stay a few moments, long enough to rest.
I pulled my pack open and rifled through it for the food I’d brought. Some fruit and a bit of the dried meat became my supper and was all I dared to eat. I didn’t know how long I’d be out here or how things would go. If worst came to worst, I could hunt a hare or two to cook, but I didn’t know how much chance I had of finding something to catch here.
I took a long drink from my waterskin, soothing my parched throat, and let my head fall against the wall and eyes close. So far to go, and I was already so tired. So sick for my bed.
The woman’s face forced its way into my mind. The way she’d looked at Tobin, the terror in his eyes. The rush of fear and confusion and blinding light she’d taken him in.
If our places had been reversed, Tobin would’ve set out sooner than I had. He would’ve ridden through the night. I owed him the same.
Just one moment of rest, then.
“Girl.”
A gruff voice whispered through my murky dream, and I felt something push at my side. “Girl, wake up.”
My eyes burst open to stare at a sea of summer-green stretched out before me, at the twisted dark legs rising out of it in the distance. I blinked once, twice, adjusting to the blinding light and making sense of the strange view.
Grass. Trees, sideways as I lay on the ground. In daylight.
I bolted upright, fighting against the wave of dizziness that spun my head with the sudden movement. When it faded, I looked around again to get my bearings. The clearing. The cottage. I hadn’t rested a moment, I’d fallen asleep.
“You hurt, girl?”
The voice jolted me out of my thoughts and to the person standing above me. I looked into waiting hazel eyes, tired wrinkles creeping around them, and got to my feet. He was an older man, older than Shiral, with thin white hair tied at the nape of his neck and a face like it had once been handsome, but it had been beaten and worn by the years and the world. He leaned on a gnarled walking stick, but there was no small amount of fire and challenge in his gaze as he studied me.
“You live here,” I managed. Inka waited near the edge of the clearing, nosing at a clump of overgrown, weedy flowers.
“Yes, and what is a girl like you doing here?”
“I’m—” I broke off, searching for words. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to intrude on your home, I was just looking for a place to rest.”
“You found one alright, now be on your way.”
“Yes, sir.” I bowed my head and grabbed my pack, checking to be sure my supplies were in place before I headed toward Inka. His voice stopped me a few steps from her.
“Where are you headed, girl? You look like you should be safe in a village, not riding around in these woods on your own.”
My belly twisted at the way he said it, the subtle danger in the words, but I forced my answer to come out steady. “I’m going to the waterfall.” Better than saying the selkie’s village.
“Why the waterfall? Dangerous up there.”
“I have business with someone.”
I hoisted myself onto Inka’s back as he scoffed, shaking his head and muttering, “I’ll be no part of some foolish girl running up there to meet her lover and get themselves killed.”
My cheeks flamed. “I am not meeting a lover, and I didn’t ask you to be a part of it. I’m sorry I slept in your clearing. Let’s go, Inka.” I clicked my tongue, and she started toward the way we’d come.
The old man hobbled after us. “Girl!”
“My name is not ‘girl.’”
He ignored me. “If you want to reach the waterfall alive, you’d do best taking your horse on the path. I’d hate to see her break a leg because of your recklessness.”
“The path is overgrown.”
“Not from here.” He pointed in a different direction, a quarter-circle from me. When I craned my neck to look, I saw the beginnings of a thin dirt path. It wasn’t smooth, but it was better than picking our way through the forest blind. I turned Inka in its direction. “Take the path, do your business, and head home before you get yourself into trouble. This forest is no place for anyone with sense in their head.”
“You’re out here, aren’t you?” I asked.
He braced both hands on his walking stick. “I didn’t claim to have the sense I should, did I?”
I couldn’t help a half-smile and murmured my thanks before Inka set onto the path, leaving the strange old man and his cottage behind.
We rode in silence, the only sounds the muffled clomping of Inka’s hooves and the occasional chirp and call of the sparse birds in the trees. We rode as the sun blazed overhead, leaking heat through the leaves, and I wondered if the old man had intended to set us on a path away from our destination.
I heard the rush of flowing water in the distance, and my hopes soared, my heart leaping into my throat. I urged Inka a bit faster, and she obliged, the rush becoming a roar, and we raced through the trees toward it.
My insides felt like lead, heavy with anticipation and anxiety, but my head felt light and airy with relief when I saw the river through the trees up ahead. Inka stepped over rocks and fallen branches as she followed along it, to where the water dipped out of sight with the craggy cliff edge.
The sound of it was deafening, mist stirring up into the air and cooling us. Inka slowed to a stop and let me climb down. I knelt at the edge of the river and cupped my hands, lifting the water to my lips. It was cooler and sweeter than what I carried in my waterskin, and I splashed a second handful onto my face, dragging damp fingers through my hair. A laugh burst from me.
“We found it,” I said, grinning as I got to my feet and turned, drinking in the sight. “We found it. It’s here.”
The village was on the other side of the river. Not far at all. I thought I saw the shadows of the first sparse buildings, tiny dots in the distance, but it might have been my imagination. I took a deep breath and clucked my tongue to get Inka to follow as I started upstream. “Now all we need is the bridge. We’re almost there, Inka. This time we’re really, really almost there.”
It was as if there was an invisible barrier around the village. Inka paced it, snorting her displeasure at being here, and my bones burned the longer we circled. There was nothing physical, nothing to stop us from crossing, but every instinct in me screamed not to. Around us, the moss-eaten remains of trees fifty years past fallen lay scattered like bodies after a battle. Not a single animal treaded here—not a bird perched in the trees around us, not a squirrel scuffled through the underbrush. Not even bugs were willing to approach. The air hung heavy with something dark and lethal. A stain of fear and violence.
This was it. I knew it with every inch of me. Whether or not he was still here, the selkie had been held here at some point. I could feel fury and restlessness radiating from the village, indignation at the defeat. Terror floating in the air like a ghost. My hands shook clenched around Inka’s reins.
What would I be walking into?
A nasty death seemed likely.
But turning around and running home would be worse. Much worse.
So I took a deep breath of air that felt cold and stale even on this side of the border, where it should be warm and clean, and urged Inka on. She whinnied and tossed her head, stepping back. “I know,” I managed, my throat tight. “I don’t want to either. But we need to. Come on. Be brave, Inka. Be brave.” Be brave, Hania.
Tide Page 7
