Meek

Eli refused to listen to her secret. He didn't care. He'd left her tied in a room when he should've trusted her, so fine. They were even.

"I have to tell you," she said. "I have to."

"Let me get this straight. First you did this terrible thing you've been keeping secret. Then you shot a dart into my eye. And now you don't care what I want, you're going to tell me anyway?"

"Yes?" she said, but less confidently.

"I can't handle one more thing right now, Lara. I just want that 'lazy stretch of time' you promised."

She gave him a mulish, tearful expression, but stopped trying to confess.

So of course he was immediately consumed with curiosity. What in the Dream had she done? He should've kept his mouth shut and listened to her secret.

She ate roast badger that evening while he ate chicory root and acorns and sorrel. Then she spent twenty ridiculous minutes telling him about her day, covering everything except shooting him in the eye. 'Ridiculous' because she'd been within twenty yards of him the entire time. But despite that, it was like she'd experienced a completely different forest, and her enthusiasm made her litany of plants and animals almost interesting.

Then she wiped her mouth and said, "So you have two sisters?"

"I had two," he said. "What about you?"

"A sister and three brothers, and I still have them--I think--I pray--if the Mother wills it--but we're talking about you. You said something about ..." She frowned, remembering. "You're not a farm boy."

"My parents were servants on a small country estate. My father was the butler, my mother the gamekeeper. I came as a surprise to them, late in life. My sisters were both about your age when I was born and, uh ..."

He trailed off, and Lara looked toward the light of the setting sun seeping through the leaves, like she didn't want to startle him with her direct gaze.

"There's a concomitance every seven, eight, ten years, right?" he continued. "When all three moons are in the wrong phase at the wrong time. I don't know if dryns feel the full brunt."

"The Glade mostly protects us, but I know that terrible things happen."

"Yeah. The last bad one was seven years ago. We're about due. Before that, it must've been the year you were born. I was a kid." He looked at the donkey, happily munching on underbrush. "It's the most common story in the valley. Nothing special. When the moons weaken the Ward, the brood--the angelbrood--seeps through. Bloated monsters, possessed by Celestial spirits from beyond the valley. Some are animals. Rats, wrens, oxen. The worst are people. Spines cracked with spikes, hands fused into cleavers or hooks ... and humming. Humming that song the whole time. That's the worst part."

She watched him with her grave gray eyes.

"It's the same old story," he said, trying to ward off her sympathy. "Nothing special about it. Nothing special about me. The brood don't often posses anyone in hallowed ground, or if there's too many faithful nearby. Not often. So on the estate, everyone knew to take shelter in the Dreamer shrine. And the squire treated us like family. She taught me to read along with her nephew. She was good woman but that night ..."

"You don't have to tell me," Lara said.

"The bell rang, but I wasn't paying attention. Could've been sounding for a wolf or a funeral. I didn't know anything was wrong until my mother scooped me up from where I'd been hiding from my chores. She dragged me into the shrine. Everyone was there. Except my father'd gone looking for me--him and my sisters and one of the gardeners and they--eventually they realized I must've been in the shrine with my mother. So they came running but by that time, there were brood in the yard. Two of them. They'd been woodcrafters once, but not anymore. Humming that hymn, like ..." He shuddered, then touched his core with his mind to calm himself. "There was a flock of wrens, I remember that, the whole flock was a single brood, flying on broken wings with beaks like needles ..."

Lara touched his arm and watched his face.

"So the squire started shouting to close the doors, bar the doors. And yeah." He shrugged. "That's what happened. We closed the doors. My mother helped. One of my sisters made it inside but my father and other sister, the gardener ... we locked them in the yard with the brood."

"Oh, Eli," she said.

"I hated the squire for a long time. Her and my mother both. You know why?"

She didn't say anything, she just squeezed his arm.

"Because even then, I suspected that the squire did the right thing. The only thing. If she hadn't locked those doors, they would've killed all of us. My sister told me that, but it took years before I could admit it to myself. As soon as I could manage, I left. Apprenticed myself to a cooper and never looked back."

"Maybe it's time you do," Lara said, after a silence.

"Look back?"

She nodded.

"My sister's still alive, last I heard," he told her. "But right now, with me like this? Better to stay away."

"There are ... other things to look back at, Eli."

"Like what?"

She wrinkled her nose. "I don't want to ruin your lazy days."

"Have I mentioned that you're a brat?"

"You're feeling better," she said loftily, "so whatever I'm doing is working."

He called her a rude name in Rinican, the coastal dialect, and she responded in dryn. Probably a swear, but her words sounded so musical that he just thanked her.

She laughed, then crossed to the branch where she'd tied one of the waterskins. She reached overhead, popped the nozzle, then caught the down-pouring water in her cupped palms and splashed her face.

"That's got to be the least efficient way to wash," he told her.

"It reminds me of home."

"I've heard stories of dryns frolicking in waterfalls."

She shot him an impish smile. "There's no better place to frolic."

"What's the Glade like?"

Her smile deepened and her gray eyes gazed into the past. She talked about tree houses and hanging walkways, about huge leaves channeling rain into spouts that turned mill wheels, about dawnsong and family and colorful birds that spoke with human voices.

That last one he refused to believe.

And she talked about the Mother Glade. She talked like the Mother was a real person who really knew her, who responded to her. Who protected and loved and judged her. From what Eli had read, a tiny minority of scholars claimed that the Glade wasn't simply a religious concept or a cultural touchstone but an actual spirit, a forest diety who bargained with her people, who bound herself to them, and bound them to her, not unlike--

"Wait," he said, interrupting her rapturous description of fruit.

"But I haven't told you about rambutan yet!"

"When you live in the Glade, do you give the Mother your word about how you'll live in the Glade?"

"Yeah?"

"And honoring that promise isn't optional. It's who you are, it's what makes you a dryn?"

"Mm-hm."

"So when you pledged yourself to Chivat Lo, that was effectively the same thing? Except no ..." He frowned in thought. "He forced you to make your vow."

She plugged the waterskin. "Our vows can't be forced. If we're made to vow we can't vow. If Chivat Lo threatened my family for the purpose of making me pledge to him, the pledge wouldn't have taken root. He was gathering herbs in the Glade. He was a genius herbalist and--" She wiped her hands on her vest. "He was going to kill them, so I made the offer of my own free will. Which surprised him. If he'd known it was possible, if he'd threatened them to pressure me, instead of just for fun, I don't think it would have worked."

"So shouldn't you tell everyone that it's possible? Then it won't work anymore."

"They'd still try," she said.

"Oh." 'Trying' would mean a lot dead dryn. "Right."

"Yeah."

He considered her for a moment. "Go home, Lara. Go home to your family. Surround yourself with the people you love. The people who love you. And after that? Then you can focus on redemption."

"That's not how this works."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." She touched her chest. "My heart knows. This is going to sound silly."

"Sillier than birds talking with human voices?"

"You hush." She exhaled. "I can't return until I'm willing to share every shameful thing I've done. To let my people see exactly what I've done."

"Like I did with you, after Chivat Lo drugged me."

She nodded. "I--I'm too ashamed to face them, now. I'll return when I'm strong enough to hide nothing."

He almost told her that she didn't need to wait, that whatever she'd done, she'd done to save her family. As if he knew her people's ways better than she did. Fortunately, he managed to keep his mouth shut about that--and didn't even ask about the terrible secrets she was keeping from him.

He washed his face like she had, then said, "One day, you'll shed your shame like a snake sheds ... well, like I shed my skin. You'll find your way home."

"When I do return, I'll cross the canopy with my head high. My father will sing to guide me, and my cousins will swirl like a flock of birds. When I return, I'll kneel in the hollow to greet Her ... with you beside me."