The Scourge

by Henley, A. G.

  “Ready for your lesson?” I ask.

  “Ready.”

  “Let’s start with floating on your back—that’s what all our toddlers learn first thing,” I tease.

  “Watch it, Groundling, or I’ll drag you up into the trees and make you stay there.”

  I laugh, holding up my hands. “Anything but that! Okay, lie back in the water with your arms and legs out, like this.” I demonstrate. “Don’t worry, I’ll hold you. You won’t sink.”

  I stand to his side and slide my hands under him as he tries it. The lean muscles of his back tense at my touch. “Try to relax.”

  “Easier said than done,” he mutters.

  I know what he means. As my fingers slip across his bare skin, heat spreads from the soles of my feet to the roots of my hair like I’m in a pot of boiling water instead of a sun-warmed water hole. By the time Peree stands again, my heart is pumping unevenly, and my legs feel strangely disconnected from the rest of my body.

  I struggle to keep my voice normal. “Good job. Now try again, and this time I’ll only help if you need me.” My hands itch to touch him again as he tries to float on his own, but I rest them on my hips instead. When he stands, water cascades down from his hair and torso. I don’t let myself imagine for too long what it might feel like if my arms were around him.

  “I can float,” he says proudly.

  I smile at him. “And now if you get in over your head, you know what to do.”

  He steps closer. “What if I am already?”

  “If you’re already what?” I ask.

  “In over my head.”

  My heart thumps again. “Then you, um, float, and kick your legs and move your arms, until you reach a safe place.”

  Another step closer. “But what if I don’t want to be safe? What if I want to be reckless?”

  “Then you . . . drown?”

  “Exactly,” he murmurs.

  We’re almost touching, the water trickling down our bodies. My skin explodes in goose bumps, and not from the cold. He slides his hands down my arms from my shoulders to my fingers, smoothing my skin. I can’t breathe, fearing what I might do if I gave my hands free reign—and fearing not having the chance again if I don’t.

  A bird swoops across the water beside us, breaking the spell. I step back. A few moments pass. When Peree speaks again, he sounds almost normal. Almost.

  “Let’s check out that waterfall. I like to get a good look at the things that almost kill me.”

  After several deep breaths to compose myself, I follow him. We skirt along the outside of the water hole. It isn’t that deep—at least at the edge—or very far to the waterfall. Peree finds a narrow pocket in the wall of rock behind the falls, big enough for two. He climbs in, and helps me up beside him.

  The water careens down in front of us, battering the surface of the pool. It’s magnetic, exhilarating, undeniably powerful. I lean toward the spray and thrust my hand into the freezing column of water, but it’s slapped away. So I reach for Peree’s hand instead. He wraps his cold fingers around mine.

  I consider all that’s happened since we came to Koolkuna. When we survived the waterfall, it was like we emerged into some other world. Somewhere not quite the same as the one we knew before. A magical place, out of one of Peree’s mother’s tales. The valley of death? I live there. I know all about it. But here I’m a stranger. A lorinya. As I hold Peree’s hand, I wonder if there’s a possibility we could find our own space. Somewhere we both belong. Somewhere between the ground and the trees.

  Peree and I make our way back to shore, and lie down in the sun to dry out. Something’s changed between us. The air around our bodies feels charged, like the forest before a storm. I’m excruciatingly aware of him: his slow, even breath, his face turning an inch toward the sun, his hand twitching at his side. And I can tell he’s equally aware of me. It’s stirring . . . and scary, like the dangerous pull of the waterfall.

  I unpack the lunch Kadee made. Peree digs in. I pick at a thick slice of bread.

  “Nerang wasn’t kidding about your appetite,” I say, trying to lighten the mood.

  “The food is good. Different, but good. I could get used to it.”

  “Anything tastes better than days of dried meat.” A familiar pang cuts through my chest. What is Eland eating now? Are he and Calli and Bear still in the caves? What challenges is Aloe facing on the Council? I long to hear their voices and know they’re safe.

  “I wish you could see the color of that water. It’s half green and half blue. Beautiful, like . . .” he thinks about it, “like Moonlight’s eyes. Not like our dirty brown water at home.”

  I’m surprised at the flare of resentment I feel when Peree compares the “beautiful” blue water to another girl’s eyes, even if she is pretty much family. Especially considering he also described brown, the color of my eyes, as dirty. I keep my face smooth, to hide my hurt feelings.

  I’m still nursing my pride as we finish our picnic lunch and walk back to the village. We stop in front of Kadee’s door, and Peree takes my hand.

  “Did I do something to make you angry?” he asks.

  “No, I’m fine,” I say quickly.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course.”

  “Okay,” he says doubtfully. “Thanks for the picnic, and the lesson. Maybe next time I’ll be brave enough to put my face in the water.”

  I force a smile. He pulls me in for a hug . . . and the hurt feelings dwindle as my body surges with that bewildering energy again. I tighten my arms around him, crutch and all.

  Voices come toward us through the trees. Sounds like Nerang and–

  “Kadee!” I take his hand, pulling him toward them. “Come meet her . . .”

  I trail off as Peree jerks to a stop beside me.

  “I don’t believe it,” he says.

  “What?” I ask.

  “It’s you.”

  “Yes, it’s me,” Kadee says. “Hello, my son.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  My mind spins. Kadee is Peree’s mother?

  “What are you doing here?” He sounds like he’s seeing a ghost. I guess he is.

  “This is my home.” Kadee’s voice is quiet.

  “Since when?”

  “Since I left the trees.”

  He doesn’t respond for a moment. “All this time you’ve been here? We thought you were dead! Or worse.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kadee says. “I know I have much to explain, but I’ve been waiting until you were stronger. Will you come in and talk with me now?”

  “Oh, is it a convenient time for you, then? Are you sure you don’t want to wait a little longer? It’s been ten years, what’s another day?”

  “Please, son–”

  “Don’t call me that. You gave up that right when you left us.” The astonishment in his voice is gone, replaced by a barely controlled rage.

  Kadee takes a step toward us. “Peree–”

  “You know what, don’t bother explaining now. It’s too late.”

  He’s gone, into the forest.

  “Peree, wait!” I move to follow him, but Nerang touches my shoulder.

  “Let him go, young one. He’s had a shock. He may need some time.”

  I turn on him. “You knew about this, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me, so I could prepare him? And Kadee—I thought you were my friend! Were you using me to get information?”

  “No!” She sounds miserable. “I planned to tell you both. I was waiting for the right time.”

  I shake my head. “Well, somehow I don’t think this was it.”

  I wander around for a while in the forest, listening for Peree, but I don’t hear him. I literally stumble onto a knee-high, flat rock in a quiet patch of grass, and I stop to sit. A small stream bubbles nearby, but the sounds of the village are faint from here. I’m not sure where else to look for Peree. Maybe Nerang was right; maybe he needs to be alone. Nerang is usually right—except about this. He should have told me about
Kadee.

  She must have found Koolkuna somehow after she left the forest. But why didn’t she go back, or at least let her family know she wasn’t dead? I know her well enough to believe she’s not cruel or uncaring. She must have had a reason. What could it be? What would drive her to leave her child like that, without a word?

  A few nights ago, when Kai came to tell me Peree was awake, Kadee was going to tell me about her family. So maybe she wasn’t deliberately trying to keep me in the dark. I guess there isn’t a good time to spring something like this on someone. Poor Peree.

  When the heat becomes unbearable, I cross to the shaded stream and step in. Flies dance around my head as I wade across the slippery stones. I think about our swim, and touching Peree as he floated in the water. The stream isn’t particularly cold, but I shiver. If the recent electrical current between us is permanent, things are going to be a lot more interesting from now on. A stick cracks in the forest in front of me.

  “Peree?” I call.

  Something—something not human—moans. I clamber back out of the stream and stand on the opposite side from the creature, poised to run.

  “Is someone there?” I say, my voice shaking a little. Whatever it is moves through the underbrush toward me. It sounds too heavy to be an animal. I turn and rush back to the village, not waiting to find out if the creature follows.

  I'm curled up in a chair in Peree’s shelter, shivering in my soaked dress. I wasn’t sure where else to go. I’ve been listening, but everything in the village sounds normal. At one point I heard Kora asking after me, but I didn't go out. I don’t want her to see me like this.

  I’m not sure why I’m so unsettled. I knew the flesh-eaters were still out there. No one said they weren’t. I guess I’d let my guard down a little, stopped listening for them. Hearing one again brought back memories I’d as soon forget. The smell of rotting flesh, and the sound of agonizing hunger. Memories of Rose and Jack and their unborn child. Even after I begin to breathe easier, I stay curled up in a ball. It feels safer this way.

  Eventually I hear Peree’s uneven steps outside, and Nerang’s serene voice. Kai’s with them, too. Is she always around when I’m not? The door opens and something solid raps my head. I yelp.

  “Oh, sorry Fenn, I didn’t see you there,” Peree says.

  I rub my scalp. “What was that?”

  “My crutch—I tossed it at the chair when I came in. Are you okay? You look . . . strange.”

  I tell him what happened, and he wraps me up in his arms. “I’m sorry you were alone.”

  “I’m better now,” I mumble into his shirt. “How are you feeling?”

  He flops onto his bed. “Angry. No, furious. I can’t decide if I’m angrier that she left, or that she let us think she was dead.”

  I sit on his bed, too, and gently lift his bad leg onto my lap. “Did you talk to her?”

  “Why should I? The situation’s pretty clear, isn’t it? She left us to come here. What else is there to know?”

  “Why she left? She must have had a good reason.”

  “Like what?”

  “You said she was restless in the trees, that she wanted to have more freedom. Maybe she found that here, because Koolkuna’s protected.”

  “We protected her!” For a moment I hear the wounded ten-year-old boy Peree was when his mother disappeared. A moment’s enough—it’s painful. “She liked it here. She didn’t like it at home. Either way, it doesn’t change anything. She didn’t love us enough to stay.” He thumps the wall with his fist. “Whatever. I’ll probably find out, whether I want to or not. Nerang says she’s all broken up, and I should give her a chance to explain. He wants us to meet them at the water hole at dawn.”

  “The water hole? Why?”

  “Who knows? Something about seeing clearly there. It’s Nerang—the man can’t just say what he’s thinking.”

  “But the water hole is less protected in the morning.”

  His laugh is short and sharp, like the rap of a woodpecker. “Maybe they’re planning to get rid of us now that we know the truth about her.”

  “I’m sorry, Peree. I mean, I’m glad she’s alive, but I’m sorry you found out the way you did. I don’t know if this will help you, but she seems lonely. And I think she was going to tell me about you the night you woke up. I don’t think she meant to keep it from you for long.” I reach for his hand and find his knuckles are wrapped in cloth. I hold them up. “What happened here?”

  “I couldn’t see straight for a few minutes after I took off. A couple trees are a little worse for wear.”

  “I didn’t know you had such a bad temper,” I say, and I’m only half teasing.

  “I don’t, usually. I think it’s . . . everything. My leg, Koolkuna, and now my moth– Blaze, Kadee, I don’t even know what to call her. But you’ve been through at least as much as me, and you seem to be handling it a lot better.”

  I shrug. “I’m a Groundling. We learn to expect change. Especially me, being Sightless. Things surprise me all the time. I’m used to it.”

  He slides his fingers between mine, braiding them together. “Will you stick with me a little longer, bad temper and all?”

  In answer, I brush my lips over his bandaged knuckles. I want to say we’ll be like the fish people in his story, and stay together no matter what. But then I think of Aloe’s warning before I left home, and I remain silent. If I’ve learned anything since I became the Water Bearer, it’s that what I want and what I have to do rarely coincide.

  We spend the afternoon in Peree’s shelter, avoiding mothers, healers, and nosy dolls. Hungry and thirsty, we venture out as evening falls, but discover someone left food and water for us outside the door. I wonder if it was Kadee.

  While we eat, I think about where I should sleep. I don’t feel right going back to Kadee’s, considering how Peree feels about her. But picturing spending the night with him makes my stomach clench. Things have evolved between us since that first night in the trees, and the freezing nights in the caves. The swim today only confirmed it.

  His thoughts aren’t far away. “If you want to stay here tonight, I’ll sleep on the floor and you can have the bed.”

  “Not with your leg,” I say. “I’ll take the floor.”

  “I won’t be able to sleep, knowing you’re uncomfortable.”

  “I won’t stay at all if you don’t take the bed.”

  He chuckles. “Hmm, what to do? I suppose we could share the bed . . .”

  I hesitate. I don’t know if there are rules about unpartnered boys and girls spending the night together in Koolkuna, but there sure are at home. I cringe at Thistle’s shrill accusations of impropriety, then I push her out of my head and slam the door shut. “We could.”

  Peree takes his time cleaning our dishes, while I wash my face and hands with the last of the clean water. I try to detangle my hair with my fingers, but I give up halfway through when I realize he’s waiting by the bed, probably watching me.

  “After you,” he says.

  Thanking the stars that I’m relatively clean from the swim this morning, I climb in. He joins me, holding his breath as he eases his leg up, and pulls his bedroll over us. We lie on our backs, no part of our bodies touching. Not easy to accomplish in a narrow bed. I don’t move a muscle, ultra-aware of the length of his limbs beside me and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. Locks of his wavy hair mingle with locks of mine. A hot, prickly feeling slides over my skin.

  He snickers. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep like this, either.”

  I laugh too, fighting the urge to giggle like the girls in the garden this morning. Peree turns on his side and gathers me into his body, sending jolts of energy through me again. Surprisingly it feels more natural this way, though—like I belong here. We lie quietly for a few minutes, getting used to the feeling of being together. When he finally speaks, his breath tickles my ear.

  “You know the story of the cassowary woman?" I nod. “I think my mother
was trying to tell me she was leaving, with that story, without really telling me. And to tell me how she felt.” His voice is tight. “I want to hate her for going away. But I can’t, not completely. I’m not the little boy anymore; I’m the hunter. And a part of me understands and forgives her, even if the boy doesn’t want to.”

  I hug his arms with my own. He draws me in even closer.

  “Sleep well,” he murmurs, as if reassuring me he is planning to go to sleep. It takes me a long time, but I finally do.

  I wake to the sound of scraping. It’s early, still dark, and I’m alone in the bed.

  “Peree? What are you doing?” I whisper.

  “Making a bow. If the flesh-eaters might be at the water hole, then I’m going armed.”

  I tuck the bedroll around me against the chill, and listen to him work. “Need help?”

  “Untie a few feathers from my hair?”

  I slide my fingers through his tousled hair and find the sleek feathers. He tells me how to attach them to the sticks he’s gathered, while he strings the bow. I do the best I can, but I have him check my work, afraid the arrows won’t fly straight if I make an error.

  When he finishes, he slings the bow across his back. “I’m going out to practice. Want to come?”

  We stumble through the predawn to a nearby clearing. I lean against a tree, shivering in the cold wind that snakes through the branches, while he sets up a target. There’s no sign of the sun, and the birds are silent. The air around us feels heavy and tense, as if it’s holding its breath.

  “A storm is coming,” I mutter.

  Peree notches the first arrow and releases it. It slices through the air, but skitters across the ground somewhere beyond the target. He adjusts the bow then shoots again, releasing each arrow in turn, making small modifications after every shot. The last few drive into the target. He retrieves the arrows, then stands in front of me and brushes a few wind-blown locks of hair back from my face.

  “It’s time.”

  People leave their homes, moving in hushed groups toward the water hole. I hear the platforms drop slowly in the trees, carrying others to the ground. The sun doesn’t penetrate what must be dense clouds overhead. My hair flaps around my shoulders, then clings to my face, buffeted by the wind. I wish I had something to tie it back.