CHAPTER TWO
Doesn’t Want to be Found
Liv
“Are you sure you want to do this?” my mother asks.
I cross my arms over my chest and try not to glare at her. Yes, godsdamn it, how much more certain could I possibly be? I’ve already sold everything I own, down to the pretty white dress I wore on our wedding day. Seems like it’s a little late to back out now.
My mother shakes her head and waves her hand in the air, almost like she’s trying to blow out a candle. Or push what she just said out through the window.
“It’s just—” she begins. “If you’re doing this, you need to be certain—”
“That he wants to see me,” I finish. “Mom, I know.”
She huffs an irritated sigh, then turns to the window.
The last light of the setting sun makes the clouds look like spun gold.
The last of the light catches on her silver hair.
I open my mouth to tell her to stop worrying, that the man I married is nothing like my father, who left on a river barge right after my little sister was born and never came back.
But I stop myself. I’m leaving as soon as our neighbor shows up with his cart, and I don’t want to spend what could be my last night at home fighting with my mother. The gods know we’ve spent enough time fighting already.
I turn to my bag, which I’ve already packed, unpacked, and repacked a dozen times. It’s all I have left in the world, and hells, it doesn’t look like much. A change of clothes. A warm cloak. And coins sewn into the padding, where hopefully no one would think to look for them.
My chest pulls tight as I look at that sad little bag. The years of saving to buy a place of our own. Pytr working in the fields for anyone who would take him, leaving before the sun rose, coming home by the light of the moon. Moaning in his sleep as his muscles protested.
I shake my head. It’s no good to think about that now. The past is an empty field, buried under snow. All I can do now is keep moving forward.
A man’s voice calls from outside, and my mother comes to her feet. She acts like she’s not crying as I pull the door open, pick up my bag, and turn around to give her a hug.
“You can always come home,” she whispers as I embrace her. “You know that.”
My eyes sting as I pull away. I pat her on the shoulder.
“I will,” I tell her. “We’ll both come home.”
She nods, but I can tell from the tight set to her lips that she doesn’t believe a word of it. No one ever comes back here. Not when they leave for Silver City.
“You coming, girl?” our neighbor, Old Rae, calls from the road.
I leave the door to my mother’s cabin open behind me and turn to face the road. The sky is a brilliant dark blue, and the first of the stars are winking from that deep velvet. I’d like to think it’s an auspicious night for journeys, for new beginnings. And why not? Who’s going to disagree with me?
I’m grinning as I pull myself up next to Rae and hand him the coin I promised for the journey.
His cart is filled with pigs, squealing and snorting behind us.
He clucks under his breath, and the cart lurches forward as the horse turns his head toward the Ever-Reaching River.
We’ll travel through the night and arrive at the port of Deep’s Crossing by first light, in time to catch the barges. Or at least that’s the plan.
For the first few hours of the journey, as the cart sways and jolts and the pigs cry out in protest, Rae snorts, coughs, and spits over the side. He doesn’t actually speak to me until I pull out the biscuits I saved and offer him one. He takes it, chewing slowly.
“So,” he finally says. “You’re off to find your husband, then?”
I nod. “He said he’d be back in a year.”
And it’s been almost two since he left. I don’t bother to add that, because I’m sure Old Rae is well connected to the gossip machine that hums below every small town along this road. And everyone, even as far away as Deep’s Crossing, knows that Pytr left me.
“Sometimes,” he continues, “a man that leaves his wife doesn’t want to be found.”
I snort and cross my arms over my chest. It’s not like that with Pytr, but the gods know I’m not about to have that conversation with Old Rae. I don’t want to risk getting thrown out of the pig cart and having to walk all the way to Deep’s Crossing.
The cart rolls on. An owl calls from somewhere nearby, and wind rustles the leaves above us. I pull my cloak tighter around my shoulders.
“Shame about your husband,” Rae says suddenly. “Now, just saying, if you’d chosen my grandson instead—”
Rae’s grandson has flipped the skirts of every girl from here to Deep’s Crossing. When he got me alone behind the barn during the Harvest Festival, I punched him in the gut. He doubled over, wheezing, and then called me names that would make a stone god blush.
“Maybe I should have,” I reply, through gritted teeth.