by Terah Edun
“You know those relatives are my family too, right? All I’m saying is…there’s nothing like a sister or brother when you’re in a jam. Believe me.”
Mae rolled her shoulders. “Yeah, sure.”
Uncle Brandon grunted. “One day, you’ll see.”
Then shouting began, and their uncomfortable conversation ended. It was mostly loud clangs sounding off the walls down the corridor.
“What in the world?” Uncle Brandon muttered, stroking his chin.
“It wasn’t us!” Mae announced gleefully. He couldn’t blame them with Mae and Ember standing practically underneath his feet.
“Then who was it?” their uncle asked. No one had time to do more than shrug before there were more clunking thuds and the distant, delighted screams of a toddler that had managed to get into more trouble.
“Gareth!” three people shouted down the hallway.
His happy yelling was the only indication that he’d heard, and judging by the sounds of adults running after, they weren’t catching up to him.
Uncle Brandon sighed. “I’d better go see to my son before he brings the holding down about all our heads.”
He didn’t seem to expect Mae to answer, because he walked off after the distant sounds of his son thudding on those damnable wooden clogs and left Mae and her sister to their own devices once again.
But Mae didn’t miss the slight look of affection, even anticipation, on his face as he went in search of the terror on two chubby legs.
Apparently grumpy Uncle Brandon was a softy after all.
8
After he left, the two sisters alone in the corridor exchanged glances.
“Like father, like son,” said Mae.
“Always have to get the last word in,” replied Ember.
As they looked at each other, a comfortable silence fell. Ember’s face was fixed, although she was still covered in blood. And Mae’s hands and sleeves were wet from her cleaning adventures, but aside from that, it was as if nothing had happened.
The fight that had caused all this commotion in the first place felt like it was a thousand years past.
“So…” said Mae.
Ember bit her lip. “Maybe we should just talk like sisters.”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” Mae said, shuffling awkwardly.
She really didn’t want to bring up her activities again, but she was seeing even less of a way around it than before.
Before she could figure out how to reach out with an olive branch, though, the choice was taken out of her hands.
A loud voice came up the stairs and down the corridor. “When I said ‘take responsibility,’ that was a hint, girls. Now!”
“But I thought he said by tonight,” Mae said.
“You know adults—they say one thing but mean something entirely else,” Ember said with a roll of her eyes as she tried to wipe her face with her sleeve. It didn’t work. The blood on her lips and chin had already dried into what looked like a tacky matte.
Mae gave an angry sigh, but they began to walk away in unison. There wasn’t anywhere else to go but back down the hallway from which Gareth and his father had come racing, if only to avoid the commotion coming from the other end.
As they passed the shadowy corner where Mae had stored her loot, she looked at it with longing but didn’t pause. Of course Ember noticed, but for once, she didn’t say a word.
As they exchanged glances, though, Ember’s knowing eyes said that this wasn’t over.
“So are we okay and you’re not going to poke your nose in where it’s not wanted?” Mae said, giving her sibling a weak smile.
Ember sniffed loudly and upturned her now perfectly repaired nose—an unspoken answer if Mae had ever seen one.
Mae let her shoulders droop. Ember was still Ember, even in a ceasefire. Which meant Mae would have to outsmart her.
Mae rubbed her tense shoulders, but there was nothing more to be done. Talking had gotten her into this mess in the first place. Subterfuge would have to get her out. She would just have to get back up here and to the tome before her sister did, but for now…they were at peace.
Which was a good deal more pleasant than being at war.
* * *
Halfway back to where Mae had last seen their parents, Ember decided to split off and clean up her face. Which was fine with Mae—seeing as her sibling covered in dried blood standing beside her wasn’t exactly how she wanted to explain the situation. Besides, if she somehow got to their father and stepmother first, maybe she could explain everything her way. Just enough that they didn’t come down like a ton of bricks after finding out she’d broken someone’s nose…and Uncle Brandon couldn’t be a tattletale if she had already disclosed the pertinent details.
Yes, Mae thought. That’ll work just fine.
She watched Ember branch off to hit another wing of the holding to cut her distance to their nearby quarters in two. Meanwhile, Mae did what she had to do.
She steeled herself first, because she knew exactly where they would be and with whom.
The girls.
Head raised high and hands at her stomach, Mae quickly walked to her destination while holding a running argument in her head as to what to explain first and just how far she would go.
When she finally reached her parents, her breath caught in her throat. She had proceeded through the corridors as fast as her legs could take her precisely because she didn’t want to lose her nerve.
Too late, she thought bitterly as she rounded a corner and was met by the backs of four individuals. It looked like they were consulting in the corridor, whispering in hushed tones about something she didn’t want to hear about. Didn’t want to acknowledge.
She hadn’t come here to think about what was to come or what was happening on the other side of the door that her father was leaning unhappily against. She was here to confess her sins, albeit minor ones, and move along before someone thought to grab her and assign her a new task. This was her day off, and she would spend it how she pleased—even if that meant hiding in a backways corridor trying to read an illicit text.
Or, at least, that was what she’d woken up this morning determined to do.
But now?
She stood at their backs, waiting for them to notice her, and she felt the grim tidings of the morning easing over her like a shroud. She couldn’t fight back or refuse it. She could only acknowledge what it was—unease and misery.
As she took cautious steps forward, her feet dragged like lead and her mouth went dry. Mae had to wonder if the worst of the worst had happened, if the girls had passed overnight and the news had not yet been dispersed. Mae knew it was a silly thought because Ember had already told her they were fine, but the mind did silly things when it was afraid. It didn’t help that she couldn’t hear any of the ever-present cries of pain. But neither did she hear the bellows of grief that someone else had passed.
So it has to be something else, she determined.
She just had to be brave enough to ask what that something else was.
You could have heard a knitting needle drop to the floor as Mae finally unfroze her feet and made enough noise to garner attention. As one, the adults turned to her with grim faces.
Mae looked from face to face with increasing desperation. When she got to the third, her aunt, she was put out of her misery.
“They’re fine,” Aunt Charlene said. “They were just under such strain—”
Her voice cut off with an emotional cry, and Mae’s father took up the conversation.
“They were in pain, Mae,” he said weakly. “So we gave them an extra dose of sedatives. They should be at ease resting for some time now.”
No need to ask who “they” were. Instead, Mae hurried on to the pertinent details.
“Extras?” she asked in a croak.
They had never done that before. She would know…it was Mae’s job to help keep the medicines in stock for the sickroom and run to the local headwoman for more when stores were low.
Her aunt and grandfather exchanged worried glances.
“It’s gotten worse, not better, Mae,” her father said, barely keeping his composure.
As he finished his sentence, they all heard a mild disturbance—a mewling cry. The kind a newborn made. One that you should never hear from a child that was almost in their teens. It was painful, to the stricken and those who heard it.
Singing began to rise from inside the room, a lullaby Mae hadn’t heard in ages, and that, above all else, almost broke her. Mae worked her jaw as the mewling subsided. But now she was upset, and Mae wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry out in unison with her siblings or vent her anguish some other way. With Mae, there was only one other way. By avoiding the situation and running as far as she could. To the fresh air of the forest. To the complete serenity of the sunlight dimpling through the branches. To a part of the holding where no one and nothing questioned her—they only met her with acceptance and quietness.
Her father must have had seen the desire to run on her face, because he said, “Hold for just a minute, Mae.”
Mae’s eyes looked up, startled. She wasn’t used to being the center of attention.
He turned to the side and said hesitantly, “If I could have a moment alone with my daughter?”
“Of course,” her aunt said.
She spoke for all three individuals, and they melted away to give the remaining two some privacy.
Clearing his throat, Mae’s father hiked up his pants and knelt down. He didn’t need to, he was tall, but his position now made it so he was looking up at Mae. It was a comical sight and brought a brief smile to her face.
That was apparently his intention, because he smiled back, and for a second, all was right in the world as she rushed in to hug him, and he hugged her back.
Stepping back, Mae looked at him in confusion.
“You know, Mae, it’s all right to be upset.”
“No, it’s not,” Mae said. “I’m not the one ill, and I won’t be some kind of burden while my sisters waste away.”
“Even if that means you’re not taking care of your own needs?”
“Even if,” Mae said with a shrug.
“That’s my Mae-bird,” he said. “Always direct and to the point.”
Mae crossed her arms. “Father, there’s something I have to tell you.”
“Oh?” he said with a cocked eyebrow.
She’d spent the time journeying from the old holding to figure how to explain what she’d done, but she realized in that moment that it didn’t matter. What mattered was the solution she’d come across that could change all of their lives for the better.
Emboldened, Mae began to speak about what mattered most—a solution.
“Yes,” she said, her eyes widening in excitement. “I was just—”
He interrupted before she could tell him about the text and the casting.
“I already heard about your fight with your sister,” her father said.
“Oh?” Mae said, immediately shrinking into herself.
“Yes.”
Mae’s mind raced. Had Uncle Brandon raced through the hallways to get here first? Had Gareth? That was a silly thought. Neither had been heading in this direction, and they would have to pass Mae and Ember to get there first.
Then Mae’s thoughts backtracked. Ember! It would be just her sister’s style to go behind her back and race through the back routes to get to their parents first. Not that Mae hadn’t been doing just the same as she planned the softest way to tell them. But this felt like a personal affront. It had happened to her, after all.
But her father didn’t seem too angry, even though he hadn’t heard it from her first. So Mae relaxed a bit, still figuring that she would deal with her sister’s betrayal later.
Meeting her father’s eyes, Mae figured it was now or never. He already knew that she had been involved in a fight with her sister, so she didn’t have to dance around the topic. She just had to be brave enough to take the blame for it. Or at least some of it.
Matter-of-factly, the second-eldest daughter of the Darnes line said, “It was my fault…sort of.”
“Go on,” her father said.
“It wasn’t…it wasn’t my intention to get into a scuffle,” Mae said. “You have to know that. But I was trying to do some good for our family, and Ember just came along at the wrong time.”
Her father blinked and rubbed his temple. “Do I really want to know what you mean by ‘good for our family’?”
“Well—”
“Wait,” her father said. “Did you blow anything up?”
“No.”
“Did you steal anything?”
“Yes, but—”
He held up an imposing hand. “Return it. I don’t want to know what it was unless it’s a danger to yourself and others.”
Mae hunched her shoulders.
“Well, it might be a bit,” she admitted guiltily.
That was enough to change her father’s composure from understanding to upset.
“Maeryn Darnes,” her father demanded. “What have you gotten yourself into?”
“Well,” Mae said, backing up a step and looking for cover. She found none. So she continued gamely with her chin raised and head held high.
If her voice shook a bit, she couldn’t help it—her secret was finally coming out, and she wouldn’t be Mae if that didn’t thrill her, just a bit.
“I think I’ve found something that could help us all—present and future generations of the Darnes line,” Mae said proudly—just waiting for her father to jump up in excitement.
He was just as much a thinker as she was. Before he’d been subsumed by the girls’ illness, that was. Maybe this, though, would bring her old father back! And they could prepare the casting together—a true mage of the Darnes line and his apprentice.
But the look on her father’s face said otherwise.
He was struggling to control his emotions as thunder rolled across his face, and eventually, he settled into weary blankness.
“I can’t deal with this now, Mae, whatever it is,” he said grimly. “Whatever you’ve done, undo it before it impacts anyone else.”
Mae’s eyes welled up with fresh sorrow. He hadn’t even heard her idea!
But the cutting glance he gave her was clear—he was done with her silly games, and so was she.
So Mae turned away to do what he asked. Return the illicit tome and interfere no more. Even if that meant her sisters’ wasting sickness would progress and she would just be another bystander watching them die slow, cruel deaths in the process.
9
Mae tried to keep her composure as she turned away from the sickroom and headed blindly in the opposite direction. Luckily, many paths led to the sickroom, and so she was able to aim toward one of four branches heading off the hallway to stumble away in peace.
As she passed the other individuals who had politely stepped aside so she could talk to her father, Mae was briefly angry at the sense of shame that welled up in her. They didn’t know that she had done anything wrong, and she’d like to keep it that way. So she tried to regain some composure and keep her head down.
If they noticed her wiping away angry tears, they said nothing. Meanwhile, she made sure to actually speak to them as she rushed past. “He’s finished with me. You can go back.”
Apparently, her attempt to keep them in the dark didn’t work, because her grandmother reached out to touch her shoulder, perhaps to soothe her, but Mae didn’t want to be touched, and she didn’t want to be soothed. Not right now. No, she wanted to be alone, to sulk, and to mourn the eradication of her grand plan. Her duty done, Mae picked up her feet and her pace, quickly transitioning from a hurried walk to a jog to a run. She was flying through the corridors before long, hurtling down steps, and finally made it out into the front yard.
Her first breath of fresh air was like stepping into her comfort zone. Smiling a bit through the tears still streaming down her face, Mae tried to set a
side the hurt she felt. Her father hadn’t yelled at her. Not really. And he certainly hadn’t hit her. But she was and always would be close to her father, so the sense of rejection felt more stinging than even the harshest of punishments to Mae.
Wiping her cheeks to hide the wetness from the stable boys walking about the yards, Mae made a beeline for the paddocks off to the right. She wanted to do something “normal,” something that wouldn’t attract attention or cause anyone to walk up to her asking if she needed assistance. She didn’t need any help, and she didn’t need anyone seeing that she was crying, of all things. She just needed some solitude to gather her thoughts…and get over her father’s rejection. Head down, Mae walked toward to the kind creatures that would see her through this. Precisely because she was known to enjoy spending time with the horses, and it wouldn’t be unusual for her to mingle with the herd.
But as she walked up, she noticed something curious. Her family’s “herd” consisted of six mares, one impish stallion, two geldings, and a filly that had yet to be weaned. Leaning on the worn grey wood of the fence, Mae was careful to avoid the bits that had splintered off and were threatening to make her hands bleed. Instead, she stared at the strangers in the herd, which stood out like a sore thumb. The holding herd never really had any additions, unless it was visitors. Any other stock born to the herd year after year was sold at the annual spring fair as a way to help with household expenses and buy supplies. Which they needed more this year than ever, with her two youngest siblings taking ill and most of the adults taking shifts at their bedsides so neither was alone morning, noon, or night.
The funny thing was that this wasn’t visiting season for outsiders. It was too early for travelers for the spring market and too late for stragglers who came to reside during the winter holidays—as long as they brought provisions for the whole holding to feast on. And yet here they were: four new, strange horses she was unfamiliar with. Mae got up from where she was leaning on the paddock fence and lifted her foot to climb over the side. She could have walked the yard or over to the gate, but why go all the way down there near the stables when she could enter here just as well?
