by A. G. Henley
He doesn't answer right away. "Then stay with me in the trees while we figure this out. You and Eland. Let me keep you safe."
"How long before your people find out you've got us stashed in a shelter up here? A day? Two days? What will that do?"
"Fine. I'll sleep on the ground with you."
I scratch my neck uncomfortably. This isn't the first time we've had this conversation. "The Three and the Covey want us to get permission to visit each other. What are they going to say if they catch you in my shelter some morning? And you know how good we are at actually sleeping when we're together." Which is to say not very.
He brushes his lips across mine, making them tingle. "I can be good, I promise."
"You can't even be good while you're promising to be good." I laugh, inching his hands back up from where they were straying. "Anyway, even if you can control yourself, I can't."
He groans. "I can tell I'm going to hate your plan. Go ahead and spit it out."
I hold his hands in mine. "Nothing that happened today really changes anything. No one was hurt. We already knew pretty much everyone hated the idea of us being together. Now they confirmed it. I think we need to keep trying to show them there's no threat in us being together. In any of us being together. How else can we get them to live peacefully in Koolkuna?"
"I think the animals nailed to your wall would disagree that no one was hurt," he points out. “Right now, I could care less if we ever get this bunch of ingrates to Koolkuna. They can't see a good thing when it's right in front of them. Clearly . . . or they would be worshipping the ground you walk on by now."
"You might be a tiny bit biased, but thank you." I kiss him again. The scary intensity has been replaced with what feels like surrender—for now. "Can we please go find Eland?"
"He's safe with Petrel. And I'm not ready to let you go yet. Stay with me for a few more minutes."
He leads me to the edge of the walkway. We sit and dangle our legs; the early evening breeze tickles my feet. I lean against Peree, and his fingers weave through my hair.
"I keep thinking about a story Wirrim told us the night after the Feast of Deliverance. The night you left Koolkuna," he says. Kadee learned many of the stories she told Peree, and that he told me, from Wirrim, Koolkuna’s aged Memory Keeper. "He said this one came from one of those books you were telling me about. I think it reminded him of you."
"What was the story?"
Peree settles in, like he always does before telling a tale. "It’s about a man who gets lost, deep in the mountains. He's lost for days, cold and hungry, until he stumbles on a place where all the people are Sightless. He's the only one who can see. At first he kind of thinks that makes him special, better than them. He thinks he can be their leader. But no matter how much he tries to describe the way things look, or what it's like to see, the Sightless don't believe him. They have no way to understand. In fact, they think he’s slow in the head. So he starts to doubt himself.”
My mouth twitches with the irony. “I can relate to that.”
"The man slowly gets used to living among the Sightless, in their world of brilliant darkness, but he can't quite bring himself to forget that there's a whole sighted world out there. He pines for it. The elders try to convince him to let them take his eyes. If he didn't have them, he'd feel better."
Peree pauses; I can tell he’s thinking of what the Three did to me.
"What happens?” I nudge.
"He almost agrees to let the elders have his eyes. Then at the last minute he changes his mind and escapes. He doesn't make it home, but at least he dies able to see the beauty of the mountains around him."
I let that sink in. "Okay . . . that's sort of a horrible story."
"I think Wirrim was warning me, Fenn. About how hard it would be for our people to believe us about Koolkuna and the Scourge. They've been blind all their lives. No way to relate to what we're telling them. I was, too, before we went to Koolkuna and I saw for myself. How can they suddenly believe the truth?"
How indeed.
I shake my head. "I didn’t like that one. Next time tell me another animal story. Let’s go find Eland. I need to get to the ground so I can stop feeling like I'm going throw up."
Peree helps me stand. "You two sleeping down there alone isn't a good idea."
"I thought you said he was lethal with a spear?" I tease.
"Not that lethal. And do you realize how dead to the world twelve-year-old boys are when they're sleeping? Shrike had to blast me out of bed when I was that age."
I wince. "Please don't use the word dead when you're talking about Eland."
"I won't let anything happen to him, or you, if I can help it. But that's just it. I'm helpless when you're on the ground and I'm up here."
My hands find his shoulders, where his wavy hair ends. "I can’t think of any way around it for now. We knew this wasn't going to be easy, but I won’t leave without at least trying to persuade our people to go with us.”
He presses his fingers to the carved bird against my chest. "Stay safe, Fennel. I don’t want to go back to living without you."
"You won't have to."
But we both know I can't promise that. None of us can. That's the rub when you love someone.
CHAPTER THREE
Run.
I'm being chased through the forest. I stumble through the trees as hands grasp at my back and arms. But these hands are warm, human, unlike the flesh eaters. They close around my throat just as I start to scream.
I wake, gasping for air and clutching my blanket. I listen for Eland. His measured breaths are audible from his pallet across our shelter. My fists start to open, until I realize Eland isn't the only one I can hear breathing. There's a low rumble near the door.
Is that . . . a snore?
I rip my blanket off and tiptoe over until I stumble into something solid. "Peree! What are you doing here? You have to go! If someone catches you—"
"Leave off with the kicking, will you?" a muffled voice says. And it's not Peree's.
"Bear?" I crouch, feeling around by my feet. He's sprawled across the floor in front of the door.
"Yeah.” He yawns. “Sorry to disappoint."
"Get out of here!" It might look bad for Peree to be in my shelter, but at least we're intended. I can only imagine the reaction if Bear is found in here. "What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking that I don't want to see you or Eland nailed to the walls next."
I can’t decide if I should hug him or throttle him. "When did you come in?"
"I watched until your light went out, then I ducked in a little later."
It took me forever to relax enough to extinguish the torch last night. The metallic odor of animal blood still clung to the wall over my bed. Bear must have been sitting out there in the dark for hours.
"Thank you for looking out for us . . . I mean, I know it's not your responsibility."
"I had to make sure you were safe," he says softly. "I heard they weren't going to let your Lofty Keeper down here. Thought you might stay with him."
"I'm not allowed up there anymore, either. Not without permission. But either way, I'm not going to let whoever did this scare Eland and me out of our home. He's lost enough." I sound more resolved than I feel. "Still, you have to go. If anyone sees you in here at this hour of the morning . . . it would be bad. And Peree wouldn't be too happy, either."
He lies back again. "You know, I think I'm still tired."
"Bear! Go!" I shove him. It's like trying to roll a downed tree.
"Okay, okay. Help me up?" I haul him to his feet. He holds my hand for a long moment. The door creaks open, and he's gone. He can be surprisingly quiet.
I listen, but all I hear is the feverish early morning chatter of birds—no humans. I let out the breath I was holding.
"He loves you," Eland says, startling me. I didn't know he was awake. So much for twelve-year-olds having to be blown out of bed.
I busy myself with tidying my pallet.
"He's just being a good friend."
"No. It's more than that."
I stop and frown at him. "How do you know?"
"The look on his face."
"Don't you start, too," I mutter.
Eland trudges off to work after breakfast, complaining all the way. I try not to worry about him. The gardens are well trafficked these days.
People greet me along the way as I follow the opposite path to the caves. Most are as friendly as ever. It's only when Peree is around that we get the pointed silences or angry mumbling. Ridiculous.
I've returned to my duty of restocking the caves. I hate feeling like I'm reverting to status quo, but I had to do something productive while the Confluence was being totally unproductive. I spent the last few mornings pushing armloads of logs into the storage room in the caves, then pulling the resulting splinters out of my hands. Peree wants to help, but so far I've refused. He has his own work to do: patrolling the Lofty perimeter; repairing damage to the walkways with Petrel; checking the animal traps. And keeping watch for the sick ones.
I’ve taken to using the term for the Scourge that the anuna, the people of Koolkuna, use. I’m trying to think of the creatures as ill people, like they do. Of course, the anuna drink the pure water of the Myuna, the underground river we called the Hidden Waters, which protects their minds from the "madness of many."
Peree and I discovered that the soil and water was deliberately poisoned during war many years ago, causing huge numbers of people and animals every generation since to die or become ill. The toxins make the rest of us believe the creatures are terrible flesh-eating monsters—the Scourge—when in reality they are merely sick and desperate people, sometimes driven to kill other humans due to their hunger and confusion.
The Myuna is far away. We have no choice but to drink the poisoned water from our water hole, and Peree and I don't know how we'll react when the creatures are near. Will we be able to remember they're mostly harmless? Or will we once again believe they have the power to overwhelm and consume us? I don't have any answers.
One thing I do know: another extended internment in the caves and trees would be far more than our communities could deal with right now. I hope the sick ones stay away.
I enter the caves, already breathing more shallowly. The smell is still terrible; my people were stuck in here for weeks with inadequate hygiene and toileting areas.
Footsteps echo close by, and arms trap me from behind. I stiffen as a mouth presses against my neck.
"Morning . . ." Peree says. "Did you sleep okay?"
My heart pounds unevenly, but I can't quite bring myself to tell him not to grab me like that. Instead I twist around and hug him. My fingers get hung up on the bow slung across his back. "Hey, Lofty . . . did you get permission to come down here?"
"Moon gave me permission. Well, it wasn't so much permission as an order to get out of the house. She was sick of me pacing the floors. I missed you." His lips search out mine.
"I missed you, too." I consider telling him about Bear and immediately reject the idea. Why make things more difficult for him? Or for myself? This is all hard enough.
"I guess there's no way you'd think about not working in the caves today?" he asks.
"The caves are probably the safest place for me. Everyone hates them. Everyone avoids them. I might as well get some work done. And there are so many people in the gardens all the time—Eland should be safe."
"I thought you'd say that. And you're probably right. But I'll come in with you if you want."
My intuition jangles. He folded way too easily; I was expecting a fight. "No, I'll be fine. So . . . what are you going to do today?"
He chuckles. "You see through me already."
"Amazing, isn't it? Considering I'm Sightless and everything?"
"Right. Bad choice of words. But . . . now that you mention it . . . a hunting party is forming, and I thought I'd join them."
"Why am I not surprised? Never miss an opportunity to shoot something," I joke. "What are you hunting, though? I thought you Lofties got most of your meat from traps you set in the trees—possums and birds and things?"
He slides his hands slowly up and down my arms.
"Big Lofty secret," he whispers, his lips brushing my ear. "We hunt on the ground sometimes. Without permission."
I gasp in mock horror, but truthfully I am kind of shocked. I'm sure the Three would not be pleased to hear that bit of intelligence. Not that I'd be the one to tell them. My conscience pokes at me like a child with a stick. Inviting a Lofty into my life might require me to keep a lot more secrets than I'm used to.
"Please be careful. Don't let anyone see you down here," I say.
"Oh, we're always careful. And well armed. Don't worry, Groundling, we only do this when our meat supply is depleted, and we don't feel like haggling with your lot for more."
"Did Aloe know about this?"
"Doubtful. Shrike trusted her, but not that far."
"Are you sure you trust me that far?" I tease.
"I trust you with my life," he says simply.
He shatters me sometimes with how easily he shifts from frivolous banter to absolute, sweet sincerity. My eyes fill with tears.
"What?" He cradles my face in his hands.
"Nothing. I love you. Be careful."
He kisses my cheeks, my eyebrows, where my jaw joins the tender skin of my neck. I’m breathing a lot faster by the time he touches my necklace in farewell.
"You be careful,” he whispers. “I'll be back this afternoon, in case you want to check out our shelter way out on the perimeter again . . . or spend a little time by the banks of the water hole . . ."
I push him away playfully. "Go hunt."
The morning passes quickly. There was more wood to move into the storeroom in the caves this morning, new stores of salt meat and dried beans to deliver, and our herbalist, Marjoram, told me she has some poultices and teas she wants me to bring in. Marj was underprepared for the accidents and illnesses resulting from such a long confinement last time. She won't make the same mistake again.
There's plenty of space in the storeroom—it was almost empty by the time we left the caves after the Reckoning. It's an easy job to stow the supplies neatly along the natural stone shelves. My stomach rumbles, anticipating a midday meal, as I cross the cavern to the storeroom carrying the second-to-last load of wood. Even the lingering stench of crampberries doesn’t deter my appetite.
"Fennel." The word whispers across the cave, coming from behind me.
I whirl. "Who's there?"
"Stay away from the Lofty. Groundlings and Lofties aren't meant to be together. You've been warned."
I can't tell anything about the speaker—man, woman, their age. But quiet as the person’s words are, it’s hard to miss the implied threat. I drop most of the wood, keeping one thick log as a potential weapon. The person is between me and the exit.
I hold the log firmly in front of me, trying to tame my wild breathing so I can hear. Fear strangles my thoughts. An indefinable amount of time passes. Finally wrestling the courage to move, I step forward, keeping the log at the ready.
And I cough.
The air is wrong, and not simply human-waste wrong. Something else. There's light where there shouldn't be. And . . . smoke. That's what I'm tasting and smelling.
There's a fire in the passageway, and it's blocking my way out. Terror doesn't steal through me. It rips my head off.
Every instinct spurs me to run, but I resist. Fall and injure myself and I may never escape. I don't even know if the whisperer is still in the caves.
I step closer to the fire, trying to figure out exactly where it is. It spits and hisses at me like a beast straight out of one of Kadee's darker fables. One thing's for sure, I can't go this way.
Smoke creeps into my lungs. I crouch down, seeking clean air, and double back into the cavern. I know the honeycomb of passages that spread off the main cavern as well as I know the paths of the forest.
> Thinking quickly, I choose a tunnel that meanders deeper into the cave system, but eventually leads back to the exit Moray pushed me out of not long ago. The fright of that moment shoulders its way through the confusion in my head, making me shudder.
I hurry forward, running my fingers along the chilled walls to stay oriented. The smoke dissipates the farther I go, receding gradually, but the threat replays over and over again in my memory. Plucking identifying characteristics from a whisper is as frustrating as trying to name a flavor I know I've tasted before but can't identify.
I give up, but I commit the words and timbre to memory. If I hear the whisperer again, I'll know.
It was probably easy to start the fire. The final pile of logs and kindling sat inside the cave mouth, waiting for me to store it away. We keep torches by the entrance, too. Every Groundling—and probably Lofty—learns to start a fire from an early age, although I never really mastered it. Too much potential for turning myself into a smoking pile of ash.
So was the whisperer a Groundling or a Lofty?
If it was a Groundling, I don't think the fire was expected to kill me. We all know there are multiple passages leading out of the main cavern, even if the rest of my people can't find their way around them with a map and all five senses. A Lofty, on the other hand, couldn’t possibly know that.
It's hard to believe any Groundling, with the possible exception of Moray, would start a fire only to scare me. Especially when Jackal, Rose, and their unborn child were so recently killed after Jack set a Lofty tree alight. Arson can be destructive in more ways than one.
I stop, coughing deeply. I smell like smoked meat.
Peree was right. The whisperer preyed on my inability to see. I need someone sighted with me. And he'll insist he should be that person. Which isn't going to go over well with anyone.
I start moving again. Whoever set the fire must be the same person responsible for the dead animals. And now there's no doubt at all what they want. I smack my numb palm against the wall. What is so terrible about Peree and I being happy together? How are we hurting anyone?
