Chapter 1 #2
Ferin sat beneath the oak with his carving table pulled into the shade.
He was there every year before the Turning, hunched over rounds of ash wood while shavings collected around his boots.
When I was little, I used to sort the finished charms by symbol until he discovered I was taking the ones I liked home.
He still claimed I owed him six. I slowed near his table. “Good morning.” Ferin grunted. That counted as a greeting. His knife worked carefully around the edge of a protection mark. “How many have you made?”
“More than enough.”
“That means he doesn’t know,” Irelia said.
“I can still hear you.” Ferin pointed the carving knife toward her without looking up. “And I still remember who knocked over my drying rack last spring.”
Irelia continued walking. I stayed. Several finished charms lay in neat rows across the table. Small circles of pale ash wood, each carved with the same protection mark that hung above nearly every door in Edenlo during Turning.
One of them had split cleanly through the center. Then I noticed another. And another. I picked one up. “Don’t steal that.”
“I haven’t stolen from you since I was nine.”
“You stole one at twelve.”
“That was different.”
“You put it in your pocket.”
“I was borrowing it.”
“For nine years?” I turned the charm over.
A hairline crack ran through the back. “Ferin.”
He kept carving. My thumb brushed the mark. The wood snapped in my hand. I jerked back. Half the charm struck the table. The other fell into the grass. For a moment, neither of us moved. “I didn’t—”
“I saw.” Ferin took the broken piece from me. He turned it once. The crack had gone directly through the protection mark. His eyes shifted toward the basket beneath his table. I followed them. Broken charms filled the bottom.
Far more than I had noticed. “All of these have broken?”
“Yes.”
“Is the ash bad?”
“No.”
“Then why are they breaking?”
Ferin’s thumb moved across the split wood. “Wood breaks.”
“Not like this, it doesn’t.” His eyes lifted to mine. There was something in them I had never seen before. Fear.
It vanished almost immediately. “Go help with the festival, Lyra.”
“Ferin—”
“Go.” Maia had stopped near Nara’s ovens. She was watching us. I looked from her to Ferin. Neither looked confused. That bothered me more than the broken charms.
Irelia was waiting beside the garland tables when I joined her. “You’re doing the face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you’ve decided something is suspicious and intend to make it everyone’s problem.”
“I don’t have a face for that.”
She looked at me. “Fine.”
Nara saved her from continuing. “Lyra!” She stood outside the communal ovens with flour up both forearms and a look suggesting several people had disappointed her already. “There you are. Tell me you still know how to shape a sunwheel.”
“I think so.”
“Good, because Tomas doesn’t.”
From behind the ovens came an offended, “I can hear you.”
“Then hear me better and stop making them so fat in the middle.”
Tomas appeared with a lump of dough stuck to one palm. “It tastes the same.”
“It looks like a pumpkin not a sunwheel.”
“It looks rustic, it fits the theme perfectly.” He spotted me and held up the dough. “Lyra, help me out.”
I looked at it. “I don’t know what that’s supposed to be, but it is not a sunwheel.”
Nara pointed at me. “See?”
Tomas grumbled about betrayal and disappeared inside. Irelia had already stolen a honey roll from the cooling rack.
Nara caught her before she took the second bite. “Irelia.” She froze. Slowly, she lowered the roll. “You’re going to tell me this one was damaged, aren’t you?”
“It was damaged.”
“Oh really, where?”
Irelia examined it. “I kind of already ate that part.” Nara held out her hand. Irelia surrendered it with a look of profound suffering. I laughed. It felt good. Normal.
For the next few hours, I let Edenlo convince me nothing was wrong.
I sat beside Irelia beneath an awning and wove ivy through lengths of twine until my fingertips smelled green.
Children brought us flowers and lost half of them before reaching the table.
Someone’s dog stole a sausage and spent the next quarter hour being chased through the square.
Elder Rina complained that the blue banners were hanging lower than the yellow ones, prompting three adults to become suddenly fascinated by work elsewhere.
Fenric and Tomas built the fire tower in the center of the square. Nara burned herbs I didn’t recognize. Ferin carved beneath the oak. Maia sorted herbs. The sun climbed. Edenlo carried on. But every time I looked west, another pair of eyes was already fixed on the trees.
Ferin. Maia. Once, Elder Rina. By midday, I had stopped pretending not to notice. Irelia tied off another garland and reached over to undo mine. I slapped her hand away. “My knot is fine.”
“Your knot is an insult.”
“You sound like Maia.”
“Take it back.”
I tightened it myself. She watched me for another moment. “You’re still thinking about the woods.”
“The charms too.” Her fingers slowed. I told her what I had seen beneath Ferin’s table.
She didn’t make a joke this time. “Maybe the wood wasn’t sealed properly.”
“He said the ash was fine.”
“He was afraid.” Irelia looked toward him. Ferin sat exactly where we’d left him, but his carving knife wasn’t moving. He was staring toward the western road. Maia approached his table. Neither greeted the other as she placed one of her sage bundles beside his hand.
Ferin picked it up. Even from across the square, I saw his eyes change. He tore one of the leaves free and rubbed it between his fingers.
Wet.
Maia spoke too quietly for me to hear. Ferin stood so abruptly his chair scraped against the tree behind him. I started to rise. Irelia caught my wrist. “Wait.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.” Maia looked toward us. Her eyes found mine immediately. Then she turned back to Ferin. He gathered the broken charms into a cloth and carried them toward the meeting hall.
I pulled my arm free. “I’m asking her.”
“Lyra.”
“She knows something and she isn’t telling me.”
“I know.” That stopped me. “She’ll tell you when she’s ready.”
“That’s what everyone says when they don’t intend to tell me anything.”
“I didn’t say she was right.” I looked across the square again. Maia was gone. I didn’t see her for the next hour. By the time she returned, the sun had started sinking toward the ridge.
Turning officially began at sunset.
By late afternoon, ribbons hung between the rooftops and every table in the square had disappeared beneath bread, roasted vegetables, fruit preserves, honey cakes and enough cider to make Elder Rina pretend not to notice what half the village would be doing after dark.
Maia found me near the fountain. She carried two narrow braided cords. “Give me your wrists.”
I looked at them. “What are those?”
“Your wrists, Lyra.”
“I know what wrists are, Maia.”
“Then give me one.” I held out my left arm. She tied the cord around it. Salt and crushed mint had been sewn into a tiny scrap of linen, with a strand of yarrow root tucked beneath the braid.
I turned my wrist. “You haven’t made me wear one of these since I was twelve.”
“It was easier then. You complained less at twelve.” She tied the second around my other wrist. I watched her hands. She pulled the knot tight. Too tight.
“Maia.” Her fingers paused against my pulse. “What happened with Ferin?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Stop doing that.” Her eyes lifted. “Something happened in the woods. His charms are breaking. You lied about the sage. You and Nara keep looking west, and now you’re tying protection cords around me like I’m six.”
“They’re traditional.”
“You haven’t cared about tradition in years.” Her jaw tightened. Around us, Edenlo prepared to celebrate. Children ran beneath the ribbons. Nara shouted at someone carrying a tray crooked. Tomas was already pouring cider he had absolutely not been given permission to touch.
No one seemed afraid. Except the people old enough to know better. “Tell me what’s happening.”