Chapter 17
"—you are! Poor Gerta can't even peck at the grain at the bottom of her cage. You are absolutely pulling too hard."
The spotted female bleats. The cart settles. Behind me, every animal goes quiet for one breath before the rooster starts screaming again.
I turn.
She's standing there with her chin up, arms crossed, fingers stained purple from the last batch. Half my size. Telling me how to walk. In front of my sister.
I said no. Said it clearly. She shoved the handle at me and said protect my arms and my sister wheezed from the ground and somehow I'm here. Straps over my shoulders. Chickens behind me. Goats fighting every step.
One of the chickens is named after me.
Her mouth is set. Her voice has that edge. Sharp. Certain.
My eye drops to her mouth.
Snaps back up.
"They're livestock."
"Stressed livestock don't produce good milk. Pull smoother."
My eye twitches. "The cart is not the problem."
"The cart is definitely part of the problem. You're jerking them around."
"I'm walking."
"Aggressively."
"I don't walk aggressively."
"You do everything aggressively."
Right. Again.
I face forward and start walking. Smoother. Behind me, the male goat lunges sideways and head-butts the cart wall.
The whole thing jolts. I stumble half a step. Catch myself. Don't turn around.
"He's testing you," she calls.
"The goat."
"He wants to know who's in charge."
"I'm in charge."
"You have to establish that. With the goat."
I stop. Look at her. Then at the male goat, who is chewing on my strap with total contempt.
I have killed men with my hands.
I am being taught to communicate.
With a goat.
"How do I establish dominance over a goat?"
"Push his head down when he butts. Firm, not rough. Hold it for a second. He'll figure it out."
"I'm not wrestling a goat."
"You're not wrestling him. You're communicating."
"With a goat."
"Yes."
"Using my hands."
"That's generally how it works."
Kestria sits down on a log. Not even trying anymore. Face in her hands, body heaving. Wheeze that keeps breaking into something worse. I can hear her breathing through her fingers. I can hear everything—the goats' hooves on packed dirt, Melori's footsteps, the low murmur of her voice.
My sister. Losing her composure on a forest trail while I pull a cart full of fucking livestock.
I'm going to remember this. She's going to remember this.
The male goat butts the cart again. Harder.
The rooster screams.
Three hens panic at once, flapping and squawking. Their combined weight shifts the cage, which slides on the cart bed, which startles the spotted female, who yanks her lead rope so hard the knot pulls half-loose from the rail.
"Mel—"
"I see it." Already moving. Already there, hands on the rope before the goat can bolt. "Hold on, hold—there. Okay." Retying the knot, fingers working fast. The goat presses her nose against Melori's arm. Not aggressive. Just scared.
"You're fine," she tells the goat. "Everything's fine. The rooster is insane but he's contained."
The rooster hurls himself against the cage to prove her wrong.
"Mostly contained."
The male goat gets his head through the cart slats. Just shoves it through—horns catching on the wood, body stuck on the other side. Bleating with more annoyance than panic.
"Don't pull him—" Already jogging back. "If you pull him, the horns will—"
I'm already pulling him.
"I said don't—"
The slat cracks. Not all the way. Enough. The goat wrenches free, ripping a chunk of wood loose. Now there's a hole in the side of the cart. One of the hens immediately tries to escape through it.
Melori shoves the hen back. It pecks her hand. She shoves it back again. "Kestria, can you hold this board up while I—"
Kestria is on the ground. Not sitting. Lying. On her back. Hands over her face.
Melori doesn't turn. "Really helpful. Very glad you came."
The hen makes another break for it. I catch her—one hand, no hesitation, scoop her right out of the air mid-flap and put her back in the cage.
Melori stares at me.
At my hand. Her lips part. Her breath changes—I hear it, I hear everything about her now, when did that start—and her eyes drop to my fingers and I know where her brain goes because mine goes there too. The tree. Her back against bark. My hand—
I put the hen in the cage. Don't look at her.
"That was—nothing."
It wasn't nothing. Kestria is five feet away. If I look at Melori right now my face is going to say things my mouth won't.
"You tied the goats wrong," she announces.
I turn. Slowly.
"What?"
"The lead ropes. You used a fixed knot. If one of them panics and pulls, the rope tightens and doesn't release. You need a quick-release hitch."
"I've been tying knots for thirty years."
"You've been tying wolf knots for thirty years. Goat knots are different."
"There's no such thing as a goat knot."
"There absolutely is. Goats chew. Goats pull.
Goats get their heads stuck in things, as we just saw.
You need a knot that holds under steady pressure but releases when you yank the tail.
Otherwise you're cutting rope every time one of them does something stupid, and they will do something stupid, because they're goats. "
Muscle under my eye pulls.
"You're going to teach me to tie knots."
"I'm going to teach you to tie goat knots. Yes."
She steps closer. Her shoulder brushes my arm when she reaches for the rope.
Her fingers work the rope. Quick, practiced, sure.
The rope. Watch the rope.
She's explaining tension and release. I'm not hearing the words. Body gone rigid.
The rooster chooses this moment to lunge at the cage bars, beak snapping toward my shoulder. Misses by inches.
"That rooster," I say through my teeth.
"Is perfect and I love him."
"That rooster is going to end up in a pot."
"You wouldn't dare."
"Try me."
Kestria wheezes from the ground.
"Are you going to get up?" Melori asks her.
"No."
"We have moonbright to pick."
"I know. In a minute." Kestria drags herself upright, leaves in her hair, tears on her cheeks. "Give me a minute."
"You're both useless."
Neither of them looks up.
I adjust the strap across my shoulder.
"The goat bit my strap."
"Which one?"
"The male."
"Did he get through?"
"He's chewing on it right now."
"Push his head down."
"I am not—"
"Push his head down, Keer."
I push the goat's head down. Firm, not rough. Hold it for a second. The goat bleats once—indignant, short—and stops chewing.
I will never speak of this.
"See?" She grins. "He respects you now."
"The goat doesn't respect me."
"He stopped chewing."
"Because I shoved his face."
"That's goat respect. Take the win."
I face forward. Start walking. Smoother. The goats settle. The cart steadies. The only sound is Kestria behind me, still making that controlled wheeze, and Melori's footsteps, and the chickens roosting in their cages.
Her stride. It changes when the path narrows. The soft sound of the basket bumping her hip. Her breath catching when she laughs at something Kestria whispers.
I track her with my ears.
The forest closes in. Older trees. Thicker undergrowth. The path narrows until we're single file, cart barely fitting. She's behind me. The back of my neck knows it.
Then the smell hits.
Sharp. Green. Moonbright. Thick enough to taste. It burns in my sinuses the way it always does—that low ache wolves feel near the flowers. We avoid these fields.
I pull the cart into the clearing. Stop.
Acres of pale blue-white flowers stretching to the tree line on every side. Melori has gone still behind me. Her breathing changed—the catch, the tightness. Her cottage was in this direction. Through those trees. Everything she built.
"Mel?" Kestria's beside her. Hand on her arm.
"I'm fine." She steps forward. Her voice is steady. I can hear the effort. "We need to work fast. Petals lose potency after six hours."
I secure the animals. Goats to a tree. Chickens in their cages. Hands working while I listen to her move through the flowers behind me. Crouching. Picking.
I go to her.
"Show me."
She looks up. Eyes dry. Face arranged. Fingers in the dirt already.
"Show you what?"
"How to pick them. Which parts matter."
"The petals with purple edges. Those are the ones I need. White petals are weaker but I'll use them too. Separate piles. And the leaves—" She holds one up, turning it in the light. "Dry these and they bring fever down in about an hour. Don't mix them with the petals or you'll ruin both."
I crouch beside her. My knee almost touches hers.
"These?" I hold a stem. Careful with the base.
"Yes. Good. Drop it in the—" Her eyes snap to my hand. "Wait. Your fingers."
"What?"
"They're red. You're—of course you're burning. Why didn't you say anything?"
I look at my fingers. Red. Starting to throb, now that I'm looking.
"It's fine."
"It's not fine, it's moonbright. Here." She's already pulling cloth from her basket, tearing a strip. "Wrap this around your hand. Pick through the cloth."
We work.
Kestria joins us. Three sets of hands moving through the field.
Sun on my shoulders. Sinuses burning. Hands aching through the cloth.
Pick, check the edges, sort, drop. My hands learn the rhythm.
Her knee is right there. Close enough to feel the warmth.
Every time I reach for a flower my arm passes hers.
"You're fast."
"I've been doing this for a long time."
"How did you find it?"
"Got lost." Another one into her basket. "I was trying to find a creek I'd heard about, took a wrong turn, and ended up here. Stood at the edge for probably ten minutes just staring."
"Alone?"
"I was always alone." Her hands keep moving. "Nobody was going to come looking for me if I wandered off. So I could go as far as I wanted."
Alone.
"And the cure?" I ask. "Also an accident?"