I punch him on the shoulder, but then I describe her.
“The short hair thing’s kinda weird, isn’t it?”
I shrug. “I guess so, but it sort of worked for her. She wasn’t bad looking.”
Buff says, “You know, I felt like there were more of them, too.”
“More of who?”
“The Heaters, or Marked, or whoever they are. Although I only saw the guy with the markings, it felt like there were others watching the whole thing.”
“How many?” I ask.
“I dunno. Like I said, it’s just a feeling I had.”
We both stare off into the forest for a few minutes, thinking about everything. Finally, Buff says, “What are we going to do?”
“Find them,” I say.
~~~
It’s dark by the time we get back to the Brown District. We agree to meet in the morning, to start looking for the mysterious invaders who gave us the quickest beating of our lives.
When I push through the door, I can’t help the smile on my face. It quickly fades though when reality sets in. Mother’s in front of the fire, rocking slightly, using her hands to drum out an uneven rhythm on the floor. Wes is off to the side on the floor too, back against the wall, hand against his head, a half-eaten bowl of soup beside him. And, of course, there’s no Jolie. It’s like losing her sucked all the life out of our already lifeless family. We may have only gotten to see her once or twice a day, but that was enough to make things different, to fill in a bit of the emptiness.
I can’t. As hard as I try to think of the Heaters in ice country, I can’t. Images of my broken family flood my mind and my lips stay flatter than the floor.
“Wes,” I say.
He doesn’t move.
“This has to stop,” I say.
No response.
“I know where Jolie is.”
His head snaps up and a pair of red-veined eyes stares at me. His face is moist. He’s been crying. “That’s not funny,” he says.
“She’s in the palace somewhere,” I say.
“Cut it out.”
“I’m being serious. I’ve got a lot to tell you. I should’ve told you sooner.”
Over two fresh bowls of soup, both for me, and to the erratic sound of my mother’s ceaseless drumming, I tell him everything. What the job really was, about the Cure, how we found Nebo dead and frozen, about the “special cargo”, how I felt ill being a part of it. I wrap things up with our trips to fire country and “meeting” the Heaters.
Wes’s eyes widen at parts, narrow at others, but mostly just pay rapt attention to every word I speak in between slurps of soup. When I finish, his eyes finally leave mine, drifting to watch Mother and her incessant drumming.
“You don’t know for sure Jolie’s in there,” he says.
“I know,” I say.
He nods, like he understands. It’s a brother-sister thing. He knows, too.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I’ve been dying more and more every day.” The way he says it sounds so weary-like, as if he might die right here, right now, on the spot, if he doesn’t like my answer.
“Like I told you, they’re watching me. Or at least they were when I worked for the king. I expect they’re still watching, on account of what I know, although maybe they’re not being quite as attentive now that the trade agreement seems to be on hold, or over, or whatever. I thought if they knew I told you, they’d kill us both.” It’s the honest to Mountain Heart truth.
Wes nods, sighs. “You did the right thing.”
I close my eyes. My brother’s back. The one who decides what’s right and wrong, who always knows what to do, whose approval I’ve been desperately seeking even though maybe I didn’t realize it until right now. His words seem to wash over me like cold water, cleansing me. Every decision I’ve made over the last few months has seemed so wrong, mostly because Jolie’s still gone, but hearing Wes say those words seems to validate it all. I shouldn’t need validation, but I do.
“Thanks,” I say.
“What now?” he asks.
“I need your help.”
Light flows into his eyes as he turns toward me, as if someone’s just lit a fire, although the fireplace has been crackling since I entered the room. A purpose. Perhaps he can’t get a job, can’t provide for his family, but he can help me bring Jolie back, and that’s a greater purpose than anything.
~~~
We don’t know where to start looking, so we begin where it started, where Buff and I got our arse’s handed to us by a girl and marked man.
“The trail’s cold,” Wes says, “but it’s still here.” I smile, both because of the words he’s saying and because it’s him that’s saying them. I haven’t heard him speak like that, with such confidence and directness, since Joles was taken.
“How many do you think there are?” I ask.
Wes chews his lip. “Can’t tell just yet, but at least two. Maybe more.”
“Good,” I say. “Let’s see where it takes us.”
Wes leads, because he’s the best tracker, and Buff brings up the rear, because, well, “You’re the biggest arse I’ve ever met,” I say.
He makes a gesture that borders on rude, but slips in behind me, stepping on the back of my boots every few minutes.
We’re warm when we start, on account of our heavy clothing, but soon the trail leads us high enough up the mountain that it’s downright chilly. “The Heaters we always met at the border were dressed for hot weather, wearing only thin skins,” I say. “These ones had skins and looked ready to face the cold.”
“Do you want to be the one to warm her up?” Buff says from behind.
“Shut it,” I say. “Just because I was impressed with how she could throw a punch doesn’t mean I’m looking to hug her.”
Wes stops, looks at us both like we’re slightly crazy, says, “The trail keeps leading up, so they’d be getting good use out of those skins right about now.”
Wes keeps marching on and we follow. He stops every once in a while to inspect a broken tree branch or a shallow footprint.
When we reach the snowfields, there are dozens of prints, all clustered together, and then deep gouges in the snow where it looks like they laid down. “I can see five distinct sets of prints,” Wes says.
“They’d have frozen their stones off lying in the snow like that,” Buff says. Then, grinning, adds, “At least the Marked guy would’ve, but the girl wouldn’t have any stones to freeze off, would she?”
“Oh, she had stones all right,” I say, “just not the kind you’re talking about.”
“Don’t they know snow is cold?” Wes asks.
I shrug. “They’ve probably never seen it. You should’ve seen the look on the Heater children’s faces when we came through these parts. They were in awe of the white stuff.”
“Don’t see what the allure is,” Buff says. “I’ve had enough of it to last me for ten lifetimes.”
I bend down to touch the impressions in the snow, imagining the Heater girl in the snow, knee bent, smiling at the white ground around her. What is she doing so far from home?
“Well, whatever the case, even with their warm clothing they’d be getting pretty cold at this point, searching for shelter. Let’s see where their footsteps lead,” Wes says.
Sure enough, the trail leads off to the side, away from the snowfields and back into the forest, where the snow is thinner and there’s more protection from the frosty wind. Ahh, summer in ice country, I think to myself. Not what the Heaters would be used to.
The prints run right up to a gigantic tree, with a trunk thicker than a Yag’s chest and a huge hole in it, big enough to sleep five people, if everyone crammed together. And, according to Wes, they had to sleep five, so they were really crammed.
Inside are the remnants of a small fire, all ash and charred twigs left over, which is impressive. Fires aren’t easy to make in ice country, especially when you’re not used to doing it.
“They slept here,” Buff says.
“Thanks for the input,” I say.
“My pleasure.”