Chapter Twenty-Two #2
She nods, her eyes sharp. “Then I leave you to learn your lesson.” She turns to Anna, the blunt edge in her voice only slightly softer. “Make sure the children bring their dishes in, washed and put away, if they wish to have them ready for their morning meal.”
Anna smiles, despite the tension making it feel tight. “Yes, of course. Sleep well.”
Eira doesn’t return the sentiment. She’s already walking the short distance to the cottage. The sound of the door shutting is so sharp, it echoes. Even the children momentarily stop their music making to look over, before continuing with their clumsy notes.
Anna flinches. “I’m sorry. She’s not usually so unpleasant, I promise.”
Silas chuckles, placing another log onto the fire. “Trust takes more time once it’s been broken, especially for us. I am neither surprised nor offended.”
“Broken?” Anna murmurs, turning the word over.
Seeing her confusion, Silas frowns. “They have not told you?”
The hushed laugh that leaves her is a shattered, jagged thing. She can feel its pointed edges in her throat. “They don’t tell me much of anything.”
Understanding lights his eyes, sympathy tinged with regret. “Ah.”
Anna’s not sure how so much meaning can come with a single syllable, but she can hear everything he has left unsaid. Can hear the connections he’s made between her bitterness and Khiran’s name. “He thinks it’s safer if I don’t know, and Eira respects his wishes too much to betray them.”
Silas looks into the fire, picking up the blackened stick Eira abandoned to stoke the embers. “He’s right.”
She groans, shaking her head. “Not you, too.”
“Some dangers only show themselves when we dare to look,” he says, voice soft.
“I’m not looking for danger.”
“You’re looking for answers. Sometimes, they are one and the same.”
“So you won’t tell me either?”
“It is not my truth to tell.”
Anna scoffs, bitterness darkening her words. “How honorable.”
“Not honor. Respect.” The fire reflects in his dark eyes when he looks at her, makes them warm despite the warnings they hold. “It is something we must have. Our lives are too infinite and our numbers too few. Trust takes time to earn, but can be broken irreparably in the span of a single moment.”
He breathes a sigh through his nose, eying her thoughtfully. “Eira is ancient. This land and this cottage have stood here for thousands of years, and yet only a handful of us were ever trusted enough to see it. Do you know why?”
Anna looks away, unable to hold his gaze. “She enjoys her privacy.” The words taste thin—lacking substance. She knows it’s only a shadow of the truth.
“Once, she had full control over who could come to this place. It only took one betrayal to rob her of that. It cost her more than she’ll ever admit.”
Anna meets his eyes, curiosity and dread growing in equal measure. His expression is grim. In the meadow, Anna catches the sound of some of the children bickering over whose turn is next.
“That I am here at all is a testament, Miss Anna.” He places a hand over hers, strong and reassuring. “It is a sign of how much she trusts you.”
Two weeks later, the number of children in Eira’s haven begins to wane.
Silas takes them in small groups of four or five, leading them to various places around the world.
The mornings when he’s due to depart, Anna watches him go out into the meadow from the warmth of the cottage.
With his hands outstretched, palms up and open to the sky, he looks every bit as wise and ancient as he is.
A god communing with some hidden language of the earth.
Eira still doesn’t trust him—not completely—but her edge has worn away into something more blunt than sharp.
Their alliance is tentative, held together only by Anna’s faith and the children’s best interests, but the partnership is there.
Silas listens and Eira opens her paths to whatever corner of the world he asks for.
By the end of October, most of the children they started with have gone.
Their spots in the cottage replaced by the new, starving faces Anna has gathered into their care.
When the first snow falls, it feels as if Eira’s cottage has become a revolving door.
The children stay long enough to gain some weight and gather their strength before Silas finds another roof for them to live under.
Not all the destinations are ideal. Many find themselves in the care of an orphanage rather than a family.
Silas assures her that every place he leads them offers them a chance they didn’t have before.
The chance to live, if not with love, then at least with food and shelter.
Anna makes it her mission to provide the opportunity to as many as she can.
Over the next three years, they relocate three hundred children.
Anna still can’t help but feel like it isn’t enough.
Not when the number of deaths out of the Soviet Union alone are estimated in the millions.
Still, she never regrets taking the path Eira opened for her.
Never regrets doing what she can to save who she can.
So, when the sound of children stops echoing across the meadow, Anna looks over the empty cottage with so many mixed feelings she could become dizzy with them. Eira’s time-worn hand settles on her shoulder. “You did well, Child.”
She swallows. “It doesn’t feel like enough.”
Eira’s gaze is full of such sad understanding it feels both comforting and tragic. “It never does.” She pats her back. “Come, Silas has returned, and I have an old bottle of whiskey I’ve been itching to open.”
“Whiskey?” Anna murmurs, her laughter soft despite the ache in her chest. “I’ve never known you to drink.”
Eira hums, nodding. “Only on very rare, very special occasions. And only ever with those I care for most.”
“Oh?” Anna’s smile is wide. “Does this mean you’ll start calling Silas by his name, instead of Shepherd?”
She chuckles, the sound of it as warm and raspy as dried leaves. “Not until I’ve beaten him down into asking,” she says, opening the front door in invitation. “He’s a good lad, but could do with a little more backbone. Perhaps we’ll have another drink once I’ve worn him down.”
Anna has never met anyone who embodies patience quite like Silas. She suspects they will be waiting decades, if not centuries, before he caves to frustration. She’s walking over the threshold when she comments, “I think we’ll both be ready for another drink by then.”
The three of them sit by the fire, a tapestry of stars overhead, and fill their cups.
To Anna’s delight, Eira’s gruff edge is completely smoothed by alcohol.
Two glasses in, and she becomes the happiest version of herself—laughing and smiling freely at just about everything.
Silas seems as amused as Anna is at the development, his own grin bright and full of fondness as he pours her third.
If he’s affected by the alcohol, he shows little sign of it.
His hands and voice are as steady as they’ve ever been, despite the way Anna’s vision can’t seem to keep up with the turn of her head.
She and Silas talk quietly about different parts of the world for a bit.
When Anna asks Eira her opinion, she is answered with silence.
With her chin to her chest, Eira had fallen asleep sometime between Anna’s second and third glass.
Anna smiles, her eyes tracing the familiar wrinkles lining Eira’s face. “It’s nice, seeing her like this.”
“Yes,” Silas hums. “She carries her burdens quietly. I imagine it feels good to let them rest for a bit.” His gaze meets hers over the fire. “You two are much alike in that way.”
Anna doesn’t deny it. It’s hard to combat the truth, particularly when she’s inebriated. She takes another sip, the whiskey burning as it goes down. Eira said she received it as a gift but couldn’t remember how long ago. Anna suspects it’s been at least a few decades, if not longer.
Silas’ gaze doesn’t fall away. Instead, it only seems to sharpen into something contemplative. “He asks about you, you know.”
Even with the whisky warming her veins, Anna doesn’t need to ask who ‘he’ is. Her gaze drops, tracing the rim of her glass. It feels strange to use Eira’s finer dishes after using wood for so long with the children. “And what do you tell him?”
“The truth.”
A huff of breath, threaded with annoyance. “Sometimes you’re as vague as he is.”
Silas doesn’t laugh. Maybe he knows she is at least partially serious. “You should talk to him.”
“I’m not the one who’s unwilling to talk.”
His sigh is heavy. Tired. He looks up at the sky, eyes tracing the constellations.
When he speaks, his voice is so cadenced it could be a song.
“Once, I was a man lost in the sands. I saw the past and future in the wind, a shimmering vision of everything that was and everything that could be. I thought I was dying. I was so thirsty, so hot, I would have embraced it. Then I saw a fox watching me from the dunes and whispers spilled from her like music over water. Come, they said. Nothing else. That one word, over and over, and in so many voices it felt like the desert itself was speaking to me.”
He shrugs his broad shoulders. “Maybe it was. All I know, is that I followed and the sand beneath my feet became moss and the towering dunes turned to giant roots. And where there was once a fox, was a peach.”
Anna stares, pulse racing. “Why are you telling me this?”
“You are my friend and you wish for the truth. I cannot give you Khiran’s, but I can give you mine.” He holds her stare. “You are the anomaly, Anna. The only one of us to receive the gift without the price.”
The price? The price is having to watch anyone she gets close to grow and wither. It is standing over the headstones of her son and his children, and their children, and theirs. The price is watching the world burn, over and over, and being helpless to stop it.
He must see something in her expression, a flash of hurt, because he shakes his head. “The only one you answer to is yourself. The rest of us … we do not have that freedom.”
“I don’t understand,” she murmurs, her heart a tattoo against her rib cage. “Who would you possibly need to answer to?”
“The same one Khiran would save you from knowing.”