38. Penny #2
Another look divided between us, then the Symbiarch shook her head. “Not that I’ve seen, no. I’m sorry.”
I didn’t want sorry. Sorry was for bad things, and I couldn’t bear the thought of my family being lost. They were the reason I began this journey in the first place, to secure their future and care for them the way I promised I would.
To not see them happy and safe at the end of it would make a failure out of my success.
“No, it’s…” I swallowed hard. “I’m sure it’s fine. They’re probably at home…” I glanced at Kit, and he pulled me in and placed a kiss on my temple.
Sybil bobbed her head, and I wished for a bit of her insight. An assurance that I wouldn’t return to find my family’s farm in ruin.
“Where’s home?” Sybil asked gently.
“Eastcliff.”
“We’re headed there now,” Kit added.
Drawing back, I peered up at him with a furrow in my brow. “I thought we were going to stay the night here?”
The last week had been strenuous, near sleepless, and even now he looked so tired. We needed rest, but Kit knew I needed something else even more.
“I think you’d rather go,” he said.
It wasn’t a question, but I felt the need to confirm it anyway.
“I would.”
He nodded. “We’ll ask around town a bit, then be on our way.”
We exchanged a few further pleasantries with Sybil, then did just that. We passed through Wendwood, stopping at the tavern, the inn, and briefly dropping by to say hello to Elise and Margot.
No one had seen any visitors, so we made it our mission to get out of town and back on the road before supper, prepared to try to make the two-day trip to Eastcliff in one and a half.
We stopped to sleep that first night, but Kit insisted on driving through the second.
Rosie slept easy in the back, but my rest was fitful, and Kit refused to sleep at all.
I feared he would fall unconscious on the driver’s bench, having finally run out of whatever had fueled him since our encounter with the gods.
But, come sunrise, he was still awake, though bleary-eyed, and when he spotted the farm cresting the horizon, a weary smile crossed his face.
“We’re here, Pen.”
I pushed up from where I’d been laying with my head in his lap and peered across the sun-drenched landscape.
It looked right. Safe and serene in the wee hours of morning.
A low fog blanketed the ground, slowly burning off as it was touched by beams of golden light. Rows of crops spread across the low hills behind the tiny house, the fruits of our efforts from months prior.
I wanted to wake Rosie but didn’t dare. If bad news awaited us—death or destruction or, perhaps worse, nothing at all—I wanted to process it before having to put on a brave face. Kit was here; only he was allowed to see me fall apart.
We pulled the horse and cart up in front of the house and climbed out on wobbly legs. I held a finger to my lips, then indicated Rosie curled up and lightly snoring beside the cats’ crate while waiting for Kit to come alongside. He took my hand and, together, we approached the door.
It must have been faith in the gods that compelled me to knock.
A distant but definite belief that members of the cult wouldn’t open the door and seize us.
Eeus’s judgment couldn’t have been confined to Ashpoint.
Surely, it had to have extended all the way here.
Because we were unarmed. I’d given my dagger away in defense of Forstford, and Kit left his in Ashpoint, in the grave with the Vessel and the dead.
So, we stood, hopeful and vulnerable, and waited to see who came to the door.
It opened, the first of a few miracles. When I glimpsed my mother’s face, my knees buckled, and I went down on the packed dirt, hands pressed to my face as sudden sobs overcame me.
I was wrecked—physically, emotionally—and I didn’t dare peek between my fingers and find I’d been mistaken or dreaming. I stayed on the ground, shaking and sniveling until my mother’s body descended on me, then another, and one more.
Mother, Sayla, and Kit all crowded around, barely speaking, mostly crying, and surrounding me with a love I’d feared lost.
After a while, Kit threaded his arm under mine and eased me to standing. Mother was ready with another embrace, and I sagged against her while she kissed my teary cheeks.
Kit went back to wake Rosie and fetch the kittens while Sayla took her turn fussing over me.
“I did it,” I finally sputtered. “Father. And you. And…”
And it was over.
I wasn’t sure I’d sat with that fact before now. The work didn’t feel done until this very moment.
Finally, they shooed us inside, where Warren was waiting, and Thoma too. We offered a brief introduction for Rosie before she was wrapped up with us.
Then it was hugs again, all around, and enough tears to damn near flood the place.
I was limp and hiccupping by the time our hunger forced us to pause for breakfast. We gathered around the kitchen table while Mother and Sayla rooted through the cabinets for enough food to accommodate a crowd.
We were short on chairs, so I piled into Kit’s lap, arms ringed around his neck and head on his shoulder while the kittens skittered around beneath our feet.
I felt like I could sleep for years.
“…They all dropped dead,” Sayla explained while slicing a block of cheese. “It was the strangest thing.”
“The most fortunate thing,” Warren added from his spot across the table. “I was afraid we’d be the ones dead soon enough.”
“What did you do with the bodies?” Kit’s voice rumbled against my ear.
“We buried them,” Sayla chirped, cheery as could be. “And if what you’ve said is true, we need never burn anyone again.”
Kit had explained this time. I was too wrung out and hoarse for much talking. He told the story better anyway. More succinct; less meandering. And he left out the part about both of us dying.
Rosie and Thoma listened intently from the foot of the table. Thoma must have been here when it happened, but he didn’t contribute, content to let Sayla carry on.