Chapter 4
‘You need to make sure they’re not too green, but not too brown either,’ I explain, but the girl’s not listening, not really. There’s a pond in the middle of the grove, tremendously still, and she’s staring into it. I’m about to snarl, instead I take a moment to watch her when she’s unaware.
Curls lifted by a spring breeze that’s still got the echo of last winter behind it, eyes bright, hands at her face, touching the skin briefly – then she shakes as if waking.
And I’m suddenly certain it’s not vanity, this gazing at her own reflection.
It’s wonderment that she’s still alive. Her hide’s intact.
She’s not been hanged or burned, drowned or pierced so many times her outside cannot keep her innards where they need to be.
Perhaps she’s thinking of how the all-too-insistent suitor turned so quickly crisp.
I clear my throat, am glad I didn’t simply snap at her.
We’ve gotten on well today thus far. There’s nothing worse than living with someone whose breath you want to stop, and if I can’t bear her, nor she me, she’ll have to find another fostering, another teacher, and frankly most of my kind look askance at one who’s been passed on, especially when so much depends on it. I remind myself to be patient.
‘Rhea?’ Yet I can’t resist a little sting, no matter how gentle my tone. ‘Kindly do me the courtesy of paying some attention.’
She startles guiltily. ‘I’m sorry, Mehrab. I was just…’
Rhea chooses not to explain, perhaps thinking there’s nothing she can say that won’t sound bad; instead she clasps her hands in front of the fine fabric of her skirts, setting her chin at the slightest of angles, and doing her best to make me believe she’ll follow my lesson.
I stare for a few moments longer, knowing the weight of my gaze is burdensome, bright green and penetrating, then shift sidewards so she can more clearly see what I’m doing.
‘You need to make sure they’re not too green, but not too brown either,’ I repeat, and she nods.
‘Too green means weak and whippy; too brown means inflexible, already on the way to half-dead.’ She nods again.
‘The choosing takes time, or it should, if you wish to avoid an unpleasant season. Indeed, a series of them if you keep choosing poorly.’
Pointing to the sapling which is on the edge of my favoured grove – they’re well watered and get just enough light through the canopy – I continue: ‘This one? Right here? Too thin. To the untrained eye, it looks elegant, slender, but trust me, it’s naught but frail.’
Rhea leans closer, fixes her gaze to where my fingers direct.
I do my best not to notice how many age spots litter the backs of my hands; hers are so white, plump.
I hate her just a little, though I try not to, truly I do.
I swallow it down, bile-bitter. ‘See this bend, this angle? Note how the crook is a little too deep; too easy for fractures to begin there. Once they start, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Things will grow out of true, and it’ll always be feeble. ’
I step away from the reject, move further in, slipping between the bigger trees with their rough bark, spreading branches well above my head.
Too old, these, too well established, too much themselves, unlikely to be bent to another’s will or be reshaped, at least not without consequences.
But I’ve taken most of my previous harvest from this copse (not the other, not any longer), and the feel of them is right.
They’ve served me well more times than they’ve failed.
Just need to find the correct one for this season.
Behind me I hear Rhea stumble and swear.
Her dress will be catching on outstretched branches, the smooth soles of her city shoes not finding grip on uneven ground; rocks and pebbles and roots are hazards for her.
I’m sure she can dance a carola like a princess, catch the eyes of lords and earls and god-hounds with such leanings (at least until they realise what she is), but she cannot walk a steady line in the woods.
This amuses me far too much and I don’t like my own meanness, it feels like acid and I’ve never been partial to things that burn, inside or out.
Pausing, I wait for her to catch up. A fresh breeze wings through the boughs, rustles leaves, makes the trees loom almost as if, well, alive, but more human-alive, I suppose.
I feel like our presence has been noted (yet not in a malign fashion).
‘You need to watch where you’re going, Rhea.
At least at first. It’s not like city streets, friendly to your feet. ’
‘Lodellan cobblestones aren’t in the least bit friendly,’ she snaps.
‘Never been there myself,’ I answer lightly.
It’s true, I was born elsewhere, far across the sea, in another great city, had a life there until it became too dangerous for a variety of reasons.
I remind myself that criticism isn’t helpful, that I’ve lost the habit of being around others, of softening myself for them.
‘Watch first, feel with your soles; eventually you’ll learn how to balance. It’ll come as naturally as breathing.’
‘Thank you, Mehrab.’ Her tone’s a little forced; the effort of being gracious is telling. For both of us, I suppose. I wonder once more how long she’ll last here.
We step into a patch of light and savour it; the warmth is wonderful after the cool shade.
Both of us raise our faces like flowers.
The moment passes when a cloud covers the sun.
I shiver and Rhea follows suit. This is another clearing – several clearings in the one large grove, turned into compartments by the walls of trees.
The opposite side is where we’re headed; I point. ‘That looks promising.’
When we’re standing in front of the next sapling I nod and smile. It’s the right height, too; I have my requirements.
Rhea tilts her head, slits her eyes at me. ‘It looks the same to me as all the others.’
‘And so it will, for a while, but you’ll learn.
’ You’ll learn or it’ll be lonely, hard-working summers and cold, cold winters for you.
‘You’ll recognise them when you see them.
’ I gesture. ‘Now, this one is different. Not so elegant, no, nor so slender, but see? Joints all sturdy, no places where hairline fractures might easily occur; certainly not as pretty as the other, but what use is pretty when strength is required?’ I couldn’t help that one, so I smile to soften the edge.
I remove my backpack, lay it on the ground, then roll my shoulders slowly, feel them warm up, windmill my arms, loosening the muscles.
When a sweat breaks beneath the bodice of my faded green dress, I pull the hatchet and a blue whetstone from the pack – even though the blade is already sharp enough to split a hair.
I slide the stone over the metal a few times for form’s sake, hopeful that Rhea will take note of the habit and adopt it.
‘I’m careful with my tools; I know if I take care of them, they’ll take care of me. It’s the same with all witching.’
‘This is witching? I thought we were getting firewood – a long way from home.’
Home. I think we both pause at that slipping from her lips.
I put the stone away, lean forward and run my fingers down the sapling, thrill to the feel of not-quite-smooth-not-quite-rough bark (Skin, I think, and my heart beats a little faster).
‘This one. Green enough to bend, brown enough to be stable; biddable, tractable; ready to withstand any kind of weather, but the worst of gales.’
‘It seems a lot to ask,’ Rhea says, a smile in her voice.
‘My demands are not unreasonable,’ I say and we laugh. ‘It’s just right.’
I take my hatchet, shiny and silver, swing back for leverage, then forward, aiming at the base of the young tree, just below where the feet will be.
* * *
It’s slim still, and relatively light. Easy enough to hoist onto my shoulder and carry home, switching sides when I need to.
I could make the girl do it, but she’s not sure enough in those shoes.
No point in having her drop it. It’s not like it’s a delicate thing, but still.
I like to work with the best materials. Needless to bruise it before the time’s right.
And no point in making either of us think I’m getting too weak for physical burdens. Still, I make her take the backpack.
These trails are narrow and Rhea has to follow behind, no space for companionable conversation.
Her chatter has died off anyway; she’s getting tired, I can tell.
It’s been a long walk, and not a restful stroll for which she’d hoped.
Or perhaps it was what she needed – time outside not spent running for her life.
Possibly she’d not expected it to take so much of the day, the there-and-back of it, and the meal I’d packed to be too small between two.
Still and all, we’d found a blackberry patch, some wild raspberries, and cherry plums which added a sweetener to the bread, cheese and salted meat.
Not a huge meal, no, and her stomach’s growled latterly.
So has mine, and I think longingly of the pot of stew I left on the hob for dinner.
We talked for a while about what I will do with this sapling.
We talked too about the process of scrying because we’ve seen no trace in our wandering of a small lost girl, no sign or indication that she might have passed this way.
We talked about what I’ll need her to do for me when I’m done with the dark mirror, and I warned her of what might happen.
She grew silent then and changed the subject soon after.
I asked about her parents, and while she would speak of her mother, she baulked at mentioning her father, which lends weight to Fenna’s belief that he would have sacrificed his daughter to save himself.
I think Rhea knows it now but had no inkling before – that she was a father’s darling until she acted on her own will, did not obey his wishes, put his plans at risk.
Not the first woman to find out the hard way that a father’s love can be very conditional.
Not all fathers, no. Didn’t know my own, dead before he had a chance to disappoint, although others have told me theirs were not entirely awful.
It’s getting darker but even beneath the trees the light stays a little longer on spring days.
Still, I’d like to be home before dusk nips too greedily at our heels, so I walk faster.
Rhea curses under her breath, but she won’t like being stuck in night’s forest any more than I do.
When the path begins to broaden, she comes abreast once more and surprises me by saying: ‘We should keep searching for the girl.’
I shake my head.
‘But we’ve hardly done anything!’
‘You’ve hardly done anything. I’ve kept my eye out all day, seeking broken twigs and disturbed underbrush, footprints in damp earth and dry, for some flash of pale skin or red cloak in places they don’t belong!
’ I stop, exasperated. ‘Darkness is falling. There are rivers and lakes unsuspected, deep and wide, rock-filled and so cold they’ll steal your life between one breath and another.
There are wolves and bears and worse – how do you think it will help anyone if you stumble into a den or a pit or a hunter’s snare?
Do you think I haven’t also been checking for traps like the one I was already caught in?
Don’t be an idiot, child, your death aids no one, nor does mine.
Self-sacrifice without purpose, without caution, is sheer stupidity. ’
We glare for a few moments, then I set off again.
I expect her to hang back and sulk, except she doesn’t.
She catches up again and keeps pace. I wonder if she’s considering what I said or plotting revenge.
About ten minutes later, from the corner of my eye I see her arm lift, hand outstretched, fingers pointing.
‘More berries!’ she cries, as if I’ve not recently snarled at her, and scampers forward. Stops.
Upon reaching her, I see what she mistook for a solid patch of cowberries or raspberries, perhaps.
Up close, it’s clearly none of those. A scrap of fabric, the length and width of my hand, not overly large, a darker red limning the jagged edges.
Ripped from a cloak of fine crimson wool, perhaps, something knitted by a loving grandmother for a granddaughter who liked to draw the eye.
I’d brought us back a different route to teach Rhea another way, and in hopes we might, perhaps, find something of Ari’s passing or fate – and lo, here it is.
Or rather, here is an artefact. Can we be certain it’s Ari’s? Yet how many fragments of scarlet wool might be here in these woods? So distinctive?
A sign, then?
No more story to it than a broken twig – it might show a direction, but it tells no true tale, no details. It might as easily have been dropped from above, from a bird’s claws. Still I nod at Rhea. ‘Gather it up and bring it home with us. It’ll help with what I need to do.’