Chapter 9 #2
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Elara says, fiddling with a ring that encircles her little finger. “I think I have a lot to learn from Hazel, from both of you.”
She looks so unsure of herself. Where there is relief in Hazel and me, all I can see in Elara is fear.
“You have good instincts,” Hazel says. “That’s the best place to start.”
I take a deep breath as I close Hazel’s front door behind me, letting the slivers of afternoon sun land on my skin. It almost feels as if the gods are shining down on us.
Those people who think the gods don’t exist would call me silly, would say I’m delusional. But I think it’s lonely to live a life thinking that there’s nothing out there, no one watching over us.
My mother told me the story of the gods when I was young. That they had power over the elements, and they control how we perceive our world. There is a god of water, earth, air, and fire, and they all work together to keep our world the way that it is.
She said they used to walk the earth among us hundreds of years ago.
That their power used to be revered, but people got greedy.
I don’t remember the rest of the story, but I do remember the part where the gods disappeared.
They took shelter in whatever place gods disappear to, and they’ve been there ever since.
Some people believe that story, some people don’t.
Some people merely find comfort in thinking that there is something more than this.
But ever since the whispers of witch hunts reached us, any talk of the gods has been hushed.
No one has dared to speak the words power or magic any longer. It’s not admired anymore—it’s feared.
As I walk through the chunk of forest that separates Hazel’s house from mine, the rays of sun shine on the purple flowers of ground-ivy lying in droves across the forest floor in front of me.
I smile to myself, grateful I have my basket with me so I can harvest some and take it home with me. Not that I wouldn’t stuff it down the top of my dress if I had to, but the basket is slightly more convenient.
I break the stems off at the base, silently apologising to the plant and only taking what I need.
There’s something special about finding ways to heal people through the gifts the earth provides us, even if they are nothing more than weeds.
A dragonfly zooms over the top of the ivy, hovering as it spins every which way, almost as if it forgot which way it came from.
His wings beat at a pace the eyes cannot comprehend, creating a smooth buzzing sound before it lands on the handle of my basket, the sound easing as it settles.
This still, I can see the red colour striking down its back. It feels like it should be a warning, but all I can see is beauty.
In some ways, I think animals are just like us. If you watch them for long enough, you can create a story in your head about them, imagining their lives. And in other ways, I believe they are so much smarter than us.
The insect darts from my basket and into the forest so fast I don’t even hear it go. I catch only the whizz of red after it.
I smile as I pick up my basket, and I cannot help thinking that was a small sign from a higher power, maybe even from the gods—if they can see us from wherever they are hiding. That even though it was almost a tragedy, today was a good day. That I did good today.
Sometimes I think maybe it’s not a sign from the gods, but instead a sign from my parents. That wherever they are, they can see me, that they’re proud of me. I hope they are.
“So you’re an apothecary.” I jump, and a stem of ivy falls from the basket.
That voice.
I turn around, but I cannot see him. I almost wonder if I imagined it until a whistle cuts through the trees. “Up here.”
I look up to see Rylan, lying with his legs long on a branch high in the trees, his back leaning against the dense trunk. He looks as comfortable as ever, twirling a daisy between his fingers. It reminds me of his manner that night outside my window, any doubt that it was him quickly falling away.
“You know,” I start as my heart begins to resume its normal rhythm, “you really shouldn’t be lurking in the woods. It’s not a good look.”
“Who says I’m lurking? I’m just admiring the view.”
Once again, I feel my cheeks go red as he stares straight at me, and I don’t know why. I try to tamp it down internally, but I fear the colour is only deepening.
“Relax, Rosie. I get a good view of your lake from up here. You should really see it.”
I blow out a breath in an attempt to rid myself of the sudden heat in my body. I’m not sure why it is present in the first place. “I think I’m okay here on solid ground, and it’s Everleigh.”
“I know.” I just stare up at him, my eyes narrowed as I will my cheeks to return to their usual shade. He picks at the petals of the daisy, letting them float down to the ground from where he sits high in the tree. “Don’t you want to see it from up here?”
“Not particularly,” I say, running my hand down my skirts, as if to mask the flustered feeling inside of me, the one I can’t decipher, its existence unwanted.
“Are you scared?” I hear the lilt in his voice, the challenge. And I see it in his eyes when I drag my gaze back up to where he’s sitting ever so casually on a branch so high that if he fell, he would surely die.
Scared? I just stared death in the face not even an hour ago. Climbing up a tree isn’t scary.
Nearly watching someone bleed out is scary. Being the person who nearly bled out is scary. Being branded as a witch and burning alive is scary.
Trees? They aren’t scary.
They’re not scary at all.
I drop my basket and shrug off my cloak before hiking up my skirts with one hand and using my other to give me leverage as my foot finds a notch in the tree’s trunk. I push myself up and suddenly feel enveloped by green and brown and the sweet smell of sap.
My hand reaches for a branch, and I shake it, testing how much it can hold before I put the weight of my body on it. I take a quick breath before pushing myself up to find the next branch.
It’s like decoding a riddle, ensuring I make the right move every time unless I want to hurt myself.
I hiss as the end of a small branch nicks the skin on my cheek, but I don’t let it stop me, not now that I’m nearly at the top.
I climb higher, branch after branch, until my eyes meet Rylan’s. A small smirk forms on his face as he takes in my dishevelled appearance. A few branches are tangled in my curls from when they reached for me on my way up.
“You made it.”
“Did you doubt me, Smithy?”
His tongue finds the inside of his cheek. “Cute. And no, I didn’t doubt you.”
“You doubted I would even try. That’s why you baited me into it,” I puff.
He raises his brows as he pulls another petal from the daisy. “Maybe, but I didn’t doubt that if you tried, you would make it.”
“Hmm.” I find a perch on the branch opposite his, finally looking out past the tangled branches, and then I see it. The lake.
“Wow,” I breathe mindlessly.
“I didn’t lie,” Rylan says, his pleasure with himself evident in the cadence of his voice.
He didn’t lie. The lake looks like a mirror. The sun shines over the smooth surface, giving it a glow you would barely notice from down on the ground.
A swallow swoops down from a tree not even half the height of this one and skims along the surface of the water.
He dips his toes in as if to cool off before he carries on with his journey, his contact leaving ripples in the glass surface.
I watch as those ripples travel all the way to the water’s edge before the shoreline absorbs them.
From this height, you can see the weeping willow that hangs over the edge of the lake. It looks so small from up here. When down there, it feels as if it consumes the space. As if it owns it.
“I had secret spots back at home, but nothing quite like this.” Rylan’s eyes are glued to the view. His attention is captivated by its beauty, just as mine is.
“Where is home?”
He doesn’t dare tear his gaze away, not even as he talks to me. “A small village called Ashewood. It’s about three weeks by horse and cart east of here, on the other side of Eldermoor.”
“Ashewood,” I mutter. I’ve never heard of it, though I don’t know much about Eldermoor, even though the border isn’t far from here. Only that many of the king’s guards have hailed from there, the province having a training facility run by his own men.
“It’s a small village,” he says, as if reading my line of thought.
“It’s where my mother lived. But when she died, my father didn’t like it any longer.
We stayed there until now, until we came here.
” All the humour and wonder has left his voice, giving way to sadness that he believes he is masking with a bored tone.
“What does your father do here? Would I know him?”
He has picked all the petals from the daisy now, leaving it with nothing but the yellow disk at the end of the thin stalk. “He’s no one worth knowing,” he says, letting the remains of the flower fall to the forest floor beneath us.
I go quiet, all of a sudden feeling lost for what to say to him. I have quickly gotten used to his sharp charm and irritating smirk. This Rylan I don’t know yet—I don’t really know the other version either, I suppose, only what he shows me.
His gaze finally meets mine once more, and I see the moment his eyes jump to the small scratch on my face. I see the way his posture tightens. “Did that hurt?”
I raise my hand, feeling the raised scratch that feels bigger than I thought it was. “No, uh, not really. It’s okay.”
He searches my eyes for a moment before he slumps back against the tree. “You should try calendula on it. It will help, but I’m sure you know that already.” I simply look at him, unsure of what to say. “Are you stocking up for the cold season?” he asks, his gaze stuck on mine.
“Sorry?” I can understand his words, but not how he knows such things.
He nods to my discarded basket below us. “The ground-ivy. It is good for coughs and sicknesses that tend to appear in the colder months, no?”
I tilt my head, following his change of subject. “You know a lot about plants' medicinal uses for a blacksmith.”
“What can I say? I’m a man of many talents.” That insufferable charm is back without a second to spare.
I just shake my head, trying to swallow the smile fighting to bloom on my face.
“All the apothecaries I know are old, and knowledgeable,” he says. “You are young for the profession.”
“Two and twenty,” I say, with no response for the point he is making. I am young to be doing this, starting out at only seven and ten when my parents died and Finnick became a healer.
“And all the blacksmiths I know are wrinkled and have black fingertips. You are young for the profession also,” I argue, bringing my focus back to where I am now.
“Six and twenty,” he says before glancing at the tips of his fingers.
“The same age as Finnick,” I mutter beneath my breath.
“And who is Finnick? Another stableboy after your heart?”
I grin, shaking my head at the notion. “He is my brother.”
“Your brother?” I just nod. “And does he like the stableboy?”
That pulls a laugh from me that I cannot hold in. “Yes, in fact he does. Or he did.” The smile on Rylan’s face fades at the change in my tone.
“He did?”
“Yes.” I tuck the hair that escaped in the wind back behind my ear. “He did.”
“What changed?” he asks.
It feels precarious talking to him about myself. Talking to him about anything, really. As if I am tiptoeing along the edge of a cliff after drinking too much of my father’s ale. I could slip any moment into uncharted territory and not be able to find my way back.
“Well, he is gone now,” I say plainly, trying to eliminate any emotion from my voice, though I fear it’s impossible when talking about my brother.
“I’m sorry,” he says, not pressing for more information than what I’ve just given him. His gaze is soft as he looks at me, his eyes sorry like his words.
I just nod, tearing my eyes away to look down at where my fingers are fiddling with the fabric of my skirts. It seems both of us need something to occupy our hands in the quiet moments.
“Thank you,” I say, my eyes only flicking to his before I look away once more. “For showing me this.”
He tips his head in my direction. “Anytime.”
I look down over the side of the branch and suddenly feel sick. “Now, would you mind enlightening me on how in the gods’ names I get down?”