“But I’m not ready!” Arling objected at once. “We agreed to wait until tomorrow! We haven’t even gotten any sleep!”
“We can sleep on the ship.” Cymrian was already moving into the other room where they had packed and stored their personal belongings earlier in the day. “We have everything we need. There’s nothing keeping us here. Besides, the weather is changing and not for the better. We should just go.” He was rummaging about, moving things. “Finish what you have to do and make ready.”
Arling looked at Aphen in despair. “I haven’t been to see Mother,” she whispered. “I can’t go without telling her. Without even saying good-bye? What if …?”
She couldn’t finish. Aphen came to bend close and put her arms around her sister’s shoulders. “You can’t tell Mother what you are doing, anyway. You can’t say anything to her. We agreed. None of us can say one word about this to anyone. It has to be kept secret. Mother would understand.”
“Mother would understand?” Arling’s laugh was quick and shrill. “Are we talking about the same person? Why would you say that? You, of all people!”
“I know. It sounds ridiculous.” She could feel the flush come to her cheeks. “But that just reinforces what I’m saying. There’s no point in going to see her.”
“Not for you, maybe, because she won’t talk to you anyway! But she still talks to me. She still relies on me to tell her what’s happening. She doesn’t have anyone else but Ellich, and he barely speaks to her! I don’t intend to tell her anything specific. I just have to tell her I’m leaving so she won’t worry when she finds out I’m gone.”
“But you can’t go to her now, not at this time of night! She’ll be asleep. You’ll just worry her if you show up in the middle of the night and say you’re going away!”
“Which is why I can’t go now!” Arling snapped, flinging herself away from her sister. “Don’t you see?”
Cymrian reappeared. “Quiet down, both of you. You’ll wake everyone up and down the lane if you keep this up.”
“You stay out of this!” Aphen snapped at him.
He hesitated, then turned around without a word and left the room.
“I have to tell her!” Arling’s voice was low and hard, and she stood glaring at Aphen with fists clenched against her sides. She took a deep, calming breath. “What if I don’t make it back, Aphen? What if she never sees me again, and I didn’t even say good-bye to her?”
Aphen nodded slowly, resigned. “Then I’m going with you. She doesn’t need to talk to me. She doesn’t even need to know I’m there. But I won’t let you go alone.”
Arling came to her at once and hugged her. “Thank you for doing this. I’m sorry I yelled. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Aphen replied.
They set out at once, hurrying along the pathways that led to their mother’s cottage. It was not far away, close enough that Aphen felt reassured they would be all right—especially since Cymrian had insisted on going, too, and was somewhere back in the shadows. She led the way as she usually did, the province of the oldest, and Arling trailed along silently, lost in her own thoughts. Aphen had helped her sister pack the Ellcrys seed in a leather pouch that was hidden under her cloak, fastened over one shoulder with a strap. She already regretted getting angry, was embarrassed that she had been so insistent on her not doing this. She knew Arling was still close to their mother, that she felt a special obligation toward her now that Aphen was no longer living in Arborlon. She should have just agreed in the first place and let her sister do what she felt she had to and avoided all the acrimony.
She felt a weariness seep through her. Maybe it was the stalking that was wearing her down. Maybe it was the expectation and worry over what they were about to do. Maybe it was the enormity of what she was undertaking.
And maybe she should just stop trying to make excuses.
She forced herself to pick up the pace.
It was dark and close inside her mother’s home, the windows closed, the curtains drawn, the air stale and dry, and the silence deafening. Arling’s mother was huddled on a couch set well back in the shadows, her presence apparent by little more than the rough sounds of her breathing and the dark outline of her body.
In Afrengill Elessedil’s world, inside the home she almost never left, time had stopped advancing long ago.
Arling fidgeted, searching for a place to begin. She had left Aphenglow and Cymrian waiting outside, her sister’s insistence on letting her go in alone unshakable. She knew it was meant to be a gift, a way of removing herself from the meeting so that she would not prove a distraction. If Aphen were to try to come inside with Arling, she would be refused as always, and immediately her mother would become mired in one of her darker moods. Aphen wanted Arling to be able to speak to her mother without that happening, to make this visit be something as close to pleasant as was possible.
But just at the moment it didn’t seem in the least possible. Her mother had greeted her with a sullen grunt, clearly less than happy to have her here at this hour. She had motioned Arling to her usual chair, settled herself on the couch, and waited in silence. She had not said one word to her daughter.
Arling now believed that Aphen had been right and that coming here, no matter the depth of her need to see her mother, had been a mistake.
Nevertheless, she resolved to make the best of things.
“Mother, I have to go away for a while,” she said finally. “Perhaps for as long as several weeks.”
Her mother did not respond, but simply sat there staring at her. Her eyes glittered in the gloom like tiny flecks of starlight.
“I’m sorry to have to come so late at night and with so little notice, but I just learned of my leaving. I didn’t want to go without saying good-bye. I didn’t want you to worry about me.”
She watched her mother’s eyes shift slightly, a flicker of movement, and then her mother said, “Is this your sister’s doing?”
It caught Arling by surprise, but she was quick to recover. “It has nothing to do with Aphen,” she lied. “This is work for the Chosen, a pilgrimage the order requires I undertake.”
“Your sister is a bad influence, Arling. She is not to be trusted. I wish it weren’t so, but it is. You should stay away from her.”
Arling shook her head in denial. “Aphen is a good person, Mother. She doesn’t try to influence me or ask things of me.” She felt tears fill her eyes. “And she loves you.”
“She loves herself and her Druid friends. She loves the power that being a Druid bestows on her. False beliefs and foolish endeavors are what she embraces. She betrayed us all when she chose such things over us.”
“Mother, please …”
“Stay away from her, Arling. Open your eyes to what she is, and shun her as she has shunned us.”
Arling took a deep breath. “Can we speak of something other than Aphen. I came to say good-bye. I just want to tell you …”
She trailed off. What did she want to tell her mother? What could she tell her?
Her mother gave a dismissive snort. “Well, go then. Leave me like your sister left me. Abandon me to my sorry, empty life.”
“Mother, please! I am not abandoning you.”
“By leaving me, you abandon me. Who else will come to see me? Who else will bother to look after me?”
“Uncle Ellich will come. Aunt Jera, too. They’ll keep watch over you until I return. If you will let them.”
Her mother seemed to draw farther into herself, pulling up her legs and tucking in her arms, becoming a dark, shapeless ball on the couch. “I will miss you, child,” she said softly.
The depth of feeling in her words caught Arling by surprise. They emerged sudden and unexpected from amid the anger and sadness, bright and welcome.
“I will miss you, too,” she replied quickly. “I will think of you every day until I return.”