Chapter 19
Gryphon allows me only a moment to collect myself before calling an end to the gathering and pointing me toward the village.
“I’m due on patrol this evening and the next.
You’ll start training the day after tomorrow.
For now, I recommend you hurry back. My mother will be home from her own shift soon. ”
Any trace of his earlier good cheer is gone.
I’m not so foolish as to think he and I are close now. Gryphon’s aversion to me is planted too deep, and mine has grown in kind. Yet, as I rush back to the village, I feel hopeful. I’m not so alone as I was this morning.
It’s almost enough to make me forget Misia’s threat.
And you’ll have the midday meal ready for all of us, unlike yesterday. Keep us waiting at your peril.
I spot thyme and oregano growing in an open patch near the edge of the creek and grab some sprigs on my way, cursing myself for not even glancing inside the cupboards before I left this morning.
But how could I have known what the day would bring?
I hope the Tzus have wild rice, at least, and onion, garlic, and celery.
With the herbs I’ve just plucked, I can make a quick, tasty congee by cracking the rice before boiling it.
The dish is extra delicious with a dash of sweetness to counteract the grain’s density, but I cannot hope the Tzu kitchen has honey.
I race through the trees, aching to talk to Jonas about my day, to tell him what I’ve learned and that I might soon have friends. My goal is still to discover who murdered my mother and clear my brother’s name—that hasn’t changed—but maybe I won’t have to carry it all alone.
After running several minutes in the direction Gryphon indicated, the homey smell of woodsmoke hits my nostrils, the muffled clank of the relocated Blacksmith’s hammering reaches my ears, and ahead, I spot a break in the forested darkness.
I’m nearing the village. Thank the Wall.
I can only imagine the petty horrors Misia would inflict on me if she arrived home and I wasn’t there.
I’m feeling proud of myself for what I’ve just accomplished, maybe even a little puffed up. I may not recognize the person I’m becoming, but I think I could grow to like her.
I’m about to break out of the forest when a sound twenty or thirty feet to my left freezes me in my tracks.
Albert, following me again? But then I spot a flash of gray followed by young Wendy of the Plumber House stepping into view.
I duck behind an elm tree to watch. I don’t know the girl well, just that she’s nine or ten, small for her age, and seems shy.
Like me, she has no business being in the woods.
She stops, sniffing the air like a prey animal, then spots something that makes her squeal in terror. I follow her gaze, thankful I’m hidden by foliage. My blood runs cold when I spot Jarek trotting toward her on horseback, his expression like thunder.
If Wendy hadn’t walked out of the woods first, I would have stumbled right into his path! I’d be whipped and likely kept under lock and key. My legs grow wobbly with relief. That’s why it takes me a moment to notice the basket of apples the Plumber girl is carrying.
Curse the clouds! What has she done?
I’d attended Wendy’s birth with Gran. The child was breech; Gran was thankful for my help. The birth took many hours, and when Wendy finally appeared, she was blue. Gran slapped her until she cried. We all wept tears of joy.
Wendy is a wanted child, a loved child. A child who knows the rules.
She shouldn’t have those apples.
I melt further into the bark.
Jarek blows the whistle around his neck. It’s a shriek that brings Leonidas to his side within seconds, the younger man’s horse snorting and lashing its tail. I don’t know why I’m relieved that Gryphon wasn’t in a position to answer the call.
“Bring me those apples, girl!” Jarek shouts, dismounting. There’s no need for him to raise his voice. He’s ten feet from her.
She drops to her knees, not out of defiance but fear. She’s shaking so hard that I can see it from my hiding spot. She glances over her shoulder. The movement seems involuntary. I follow her gaze. My chest tightens as I spot the brother and sister from the Glassworker House hiding in the foliage.
It must’ve been a prank, a child’s silly dare to sneak into the forest and grab the fruit. They’re all three braver than I was at their age. Actually, they’re braver than I was forty-eight hours ago.
“I’m sorry,” Wendy’s saying. “I was fetching them to share, I promise.” Her voice trembles. “We haven’t had anything sweet since—” She’s about to say the wedding, my wedding, but catches herself.
Jarek’s fury grows. I see it in his face, but his voice is soft.
“Bring them here,” he repeats, the measured gentleness of his tone embroidering my skin with unease. “You weren’t foolish enough to take these from the evacuated orchard, were you? If so, you could be contaminated with the Vex.”
She shakes her head, and I can tell she’s struggling not to glance back at her friends again.
Don’t give them away!
Wendy stands, legs wobbly, and closes the remaining distance between herself and Jarek. Her head is bowed, like she’s approaching a king of old.
That doesn’t sit well. We’re all equal in the Valley.
Wendy places the apples in front of Jarek.
“Choose one for me,” Jarek says. “The sweetest you have, child.”
Her back is to me and Jarek’s face is shadowed, so I can’t see their expressions, only Leonidas’s, still on horseback. His mouth twists into a bitter, secretive smile.
It takes everything in me not to run out there and scrape the smug expression off his face.
But me stepping out of the woods right now won’t lessen her punishment, only ensure mine.
What could the penalty be for her, in any case?
She’s a child. She’s made a mistake. Someone her age certainly won’t be beaten.
In fact, maybe this incident will force Jarek to bring back Circling.
That was our old method of justice—what we did before the whipping posts.
We’d surround an offender, speaking, singing, and sharing why we love them, leading them back to the person we knew they could be.
It was a response to wrongdoing that sought to restore harmony, not inflict suffering. How nice it would be to return to that!
My stomach slides sideways as I realize in horror what I’m doing.
I’m talking myself into living small and within the rules again.
The habit is ingrained so deep, it’s like muscle memory.
If I’m to be worthy of my new companions’ trust, I must stand by those who need me, no matter the personal cost.
I square my shoulders.
I’m stepping out of the trees when a hand clamps around my wrist. Eero has my arm, his face pale, pointer finger over his lips. Ssh.
I shake my head. We can’t leave her alone!
But Eero won’t release me. I’m trying to silently wriggle free and watch Wendy at the same time. She’s rummaging around in her basket, searching for the best apple for Jarek. My heart breaks at her innocence.
When she holds it up, it is indeed a perfect red globe.
I’m reminded of an ancient fairy tale. I’m trying to remember how the story goes when Jarek moves, faster than a breath.
One second his mother-of-pearl-handled knife is at his waist, and the next it’s glinting in the afternoon sun as he slices off Wendy’s finger.
The child screams in agony and drops the apple, blood gushing from her hand and drenching the parched soil.
My legs give out, my struggle with Eero forgotten.
“An eye for an eye, rulebreaker.” Jarek’s voice is unsettlingly soft. “You will tell everybody that you were stealing from the Valley and that’s why you lost your finger. They’ll see what it looks like to break the rules.”
Jarek wipes his knife on his cloak before leaping onto his horse to ride away. Leo follows, the two Guardians cantering off toward the horse stables.
It happened so fast that my brain hasn’t yet made sense of it.
Jarek mutilated a child.
Eero releases me, his face slack with shock. “I was just trying to protect the others back at the caves.”
It’s good he let me go, because now that there’s an injury, an army couldn’t hold me back. My body’s in motion, not waiting for my senses to catch up. Wendy’s cries are a torment to my ears.
“Wait until you no longer see us to leave the forest in case they return,” I whisper-yell to the two Glassworker children still hiding. They jump. They didn’t know I was here, but they’re smart enough to stay put.
“Come,” I say, when I reach Wendy. I wrap her severed finger in an oak leaf and tuck it into my pocket, glancing the direction Jarek and Leo rode off in. “If we hurry, my aunt can save it.”
Her eyes are cracked eggs in the ashen pan of her face.
“I’m sorry,” she gasps, “I’m sorry we took the apples.
The three of us were playing and found a tree over by the flax field, just inside the woods.
We shouldn’t have gone in, but everyone’s been so hungry.
We were bringing them to the Bakers to make tarts,” she whimpers. “I wasn’t stealing.”
“I believe you,” I say fiercely.
What have we come to in the Valley, cutting the fingers off children? I untie the apron from her waist, using its string to make a tourniquet and its cloth to stanch the blood.
As I do, a single thought rolls through my brain.
Maybe Jarek’s the one who should be Harvested.
I recoil at the violence of it, but my anger scarcely cools.
I may not be able to inflict equal horror upon him, but there is one thing I could do to make him blessedly uncomfortable.
I spare a half second to pocket a small apple and a strip of slippery elm bark before propping the girl up and leading her toward my former home.
.
Aunt Florence stands at the stove preparing lunch when I charge in with Wendy. I sit the child at the kitchen table and offer up her severed finger.
“I can’t stay,” I say, but I ache to.
“Opium tincture, then go,” she orders.
In an emergency, an Apothecary doesn’t waste time with needless questions.
Aunt Florence’s eyes are focused behind her thick glasses as she surveys Wendy’s wound.
My field tourniquet has stanched the worst of the bleeding.
The whimpering girl appears miserable but detached.
She’ll come back to her body when Aunt Florence cleans the site.
While not as precise a stitcher as me, she’s good. She’ll be able to save the finger.
Still. It’s hard to leave. I hand her the tincture. “I can prepare hot water.”
“I’ve got some boiling for porridge, as luck would have it.” Aunt Florence takes the finger to the sink to clean it. “And you’ll be punished for practicing your old trade, so go.”
And there it is. I’m not an Apothecary anymore, nor am I a Guardian yet.
I feel dangerous in this liminal space.
.
I’m out of breath when I reach the village square, pausing only to yell through the Baker window that there are apples on the ground near the flax fields. I charge into the Tzu cottage and find it drab, unwelcoming, and empty.
Inhaling raggedly—I’d have had a lot of explaining to do if one of the Tzus had been home—I bustle around the kitchen, tearing open cupboards and wrinkling my nose at the weird smell inside.
The tablet has been moved. I’m curious about where it charges and what instructions it needs to raise and lower the Harvest basket, but for now, I’m focused on finding enough stores to scrape together a meal by lunchtime.
Every home is given the same allotment per person: wild rice, rolled oats, fresh fruits and vegetables delivered every Friday by the Crop Farmers depending on the season.
Bread, when it was regularly available, was dropped off by the Bakers on Tuesdays and Sundays.
Cricket flour and mealworms are delivered by the Insect Farmers on Wednesdays.
The Tzus have shoved their stores into the cupboards with no rhyme or reason.
That’s the rotten odor. Carrots gone limp, tomatoes melted into a furry black pile, herbs that’ve become one unrecognizable swamp.
What have they been eating? It’s shocking, the waste, but I can’t address that now. I must get food on the stove.
To my great relief, I spot a jar of wild rice, and nearby, a stalk of celery that can be resurrected.
The droopy carrots will be fine once they absorb water, and the onions I locate are in good shape.
I even find a jar of usable mealworms shoved into the cool space beneath the sink.
They’ll add protein and a nutty plumpness to our meal.
First, I scrub my hands with soap and hot water. Then, I set a pot to boiling and use a dusty mortar and pestle to crack the rice before chopping the vegetables, plus the thyme and oregano I’d gathered near the creek. I toss it all into the boiling water alongside the rinsed mealworms.
Then I use a smaller pot to boil a second batch of water for the slippery elm tincture.
My father called this recipe “poop soup” when he taught me how to make it. Once the mixture is strong and dark, I peel and chop my apple, tossing it in to mask the bitterness of the strongest laxative available to us. Then I pour the tincture into the rice pot.
Let the Tzus choke on it.
I pace the kitchen for a few minutes, waiting for them to arrive, before realizing I’m being foolish. I’m alone in the house. There’s no better time to dig back into Mom’s journal.
I take the steps two at a time and fish the notebook out from beneath the mattress, relieved to find it’s still there. I turn to the page where I’ve scribbled the letters I’ve found so far, minus the V-E-X.
That leaves HAROTIS.
I start back at the front of the journal, skimming what I’ve seen so far to confirm the pattern was real. It is, and once I get to the pages I haven’t yet examined, it’s not long until I find the first new error.
The note on mint describes it as having a natural magnetic field capable of attracting metals. Ridiculous. And I barely need to squint to spot the darker letter n in mint. I add it to my list. I now have HAROTISN.
My blood starts buzzing. I expect to find more letters quickly, but the next few entries are more obscure, the plants less familiar.
Like the entry on pipsissewa that says it should be avoided in treatment of the kidneys, or the one on spikenard that claims it’s a front-line treatment for external fungal infections.
Without knowing if these entries are true or not, it’s impossible to guess whether the slight variations in the darkness of certain letters is meant as a clue.
My heart sings its grief—if only my mother had had time to finish my training!
That’s when I hear the front door open downstairs.