"I'm not done speaking with you," I said sternly. "And until I am, you'll stay right where you are."
She looked frightened, though of me, or what she thought I might ask her, I'm still not certain.
"You're from Sentaya, aren't you?"
All the color drained from her cheeks and tears spilled down her face. But she didn't answer me.
"The pestilence came, and everyone got sick but you. Isn't that so?" I took her hand, and though she didn't grip my fingers in return, she didn't pull it back either "Your mother and father died."
A sob escaped her
"Perhaps a brother or a sister, as well?"
"Two sisters," she whispered.
At that moment it seemed that my heart split in two. Part of me grieved for her and all that she had lost, while another rejoiced at hearing her voice, at having her trust me enough to offer even this simple answer. It was a fleeting sensation, for in the next moment she frightened me terribly.
"Please don't make me say more!" she said, throwing herself on me, clinging to me as she sobbed and sobbed.
More! How could there possibly be more? Wasn't this enough? Hadn't the gods heaped enough anguish on this child? Already they had taken too much from her; already they had forced her to endure horrors that would have overwhelmed people twice her age. I tried to tell myself that she referred only to the ordeal of watching them succumb to the disease. Surely she would have shrunk from reliving that. But I believe there really is more, something that remains trapped within her, like some terrible beast fighting to break free.
I didn't push her any further and she volunteered nothing else. We remained in the garden for more than an hour, and she cried for a good deal of that time until at last she fell asleep, her head in my lap, my fingers stroking her hair I let her remain that way another hour before shaking her gently.
When she awoke, her spirits seemed greatly improved, almost as if she had forgotten the events of the morning. I couldn't be certain whether this was genuine, or if she was acting this way for my benefit, but I decided that she had been forced to reveal enough of herself for the day, and I didn't broach the matter again.
That, then, is how matters stand tonight. She is sleeping soundly at present, though it wouldn't surprise me if the day's revelations trigger another spate of dark dreams. I'm prepared, of course, to help her in any way I can, but I have to admit that I have fears of my own. I've yet to learn all there is to know about Licaldi's past. What I've gleaned thus far is dark enough. I dread what I might learn next.
Besh laid the daybook aside and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. Glancing out the window of the old hut, he saw that the sun had sunk low in the western sky, its light shading toward gold and shimmering on the waters of the small rill that ran by the village. Another day gone, and he found himself feeling much as Sylpa did: frustrated by how little he had learned, afraid of the revelations still to come.
The fact was that these days he often thought as Sylpa did. Perhaps it was inevitable, delving into her private writings each day, but he had discovered that his mind and hers worked in similar ways. She would have been younger than he when she wrote all this about Lici, but not so much younger that he couldn't find much in common with her.
When he first mentioned to his daughter that he had become consumed with learning the truth about Lici and her disappearance, Elica had asked if he loved the old woman. Of course he didn't. She terrified him.
Oddly, though, he now believed that he had come to love Sylpa. Never mind that she had been dead for more than eleven fours, or that even had she been alive, she would have been fifty years older than he. For the past half turn, he had been reading her journal, glimpsing the workings of her keen mind, sounding the depths of her compassion for the poor girl whom fate had thrust upon her. Aside from Ema, he had never known any woman so intimately. At first he had sworn to himself that he would only read those portions of the journal that touched upon Lici and her past, but in recent days he had spent as much time reading about Sylpa's life as he had trying to learn what he could about the girl.
As Besh anticipated, he had found references to his parents in the journal. He hadn't expected, however, that Sylpa would have unkind things to say about his mother, about her pettiness and her tendency to hold a grudge. Nor had it occurred to him that, upon seeing his mother through this woman's discerning eye, he would agree with most of her criticisms. It struck him as odd that he should place so much faith in the judgments of someone he'd hardly known, and yet it also felt perfectly natural. At times, as he walked through the village, or even as he sat at Elica's supper table, listening to the prattle of his grandchildren, he would have private conversations with Sylpa, sharing his own observations and imagining things she might say.
Up until recently, it was something he had only done with his beloved Ema, and he couldn't help feeling that he had somehow betrayed her. If he had fallen in love with a living woman and allowed her to share his heart with his dead wife, he wouldn't have felt nearly as guilty as he did daydreaming about this other woman, dead so many years. He never mentioned Sylpa to Elica, unless it was in the context of something he had learned about Lici, and then he rarely uttered Sylpa's name. It was as if he were having a secret love affair with a wraith. A part of him knew how ridiculous it was-Elica herself might have found it humorous. But he could never work up the courage to tell her.
The only person who had any idea was Pyav, with whom he shared all that he learned of Lici's childhood. And if the blacksmith had noticed anything unusual in the way Besh spoke of Sylpa, he had the courtesy to keep his observations to himself.
Besh pushed himself out of the chair and stretched his back. Then he returned the journal to the old wooden box in the back room of the house, taking care to place Lici's bag of coins on top of it, so that all was just as he had found it that first day when he and Pyav searched the hut. He wasn't certain why he bothered doing this every day. He was the only
person who ever entered the house, and he was starting to doubt that Lici would come back, though he'd yet to say as much to anyone. Still, he left everything just as it had been, even going so far as to return the chair he'd been sitting in to its original place by the hearth. Only then did he make his way to Pyav's shop.
Besh had gone to speak with the village eldest each day after reading the journal. By now Pyav expected him; he was sitting out front when
Besh arrived.
"You look tired, my friend," the blacksmith said as Besh sat on the bench beside him.
Besh smiled wanly. "It's all the reading. Sylpa's hand isn't the easiest." It almost seemed that she was there at his shoulder, listening. And he added, as if for her benefit, "Though it's a good deal better than mine."
"Anything today?" Pyav asked. He already sounded bored, and not for the first time Besh wondered if the man thought him foolish for going to all of this trouble.
"Actually, yes." He was pleased to see the surprise on Pyav's broad face. "It seems that Lici's village was ravaged by the pestilence. That was how she happened to be wandering alone in the wilderness."
"Her family?"
"All of them died. Her parents and two sisters."
The eldest exhaled through his teeth. "Well, such a thing is bound to lie heavily on anyone, particularly on a child of that age."
"I agree."
"Still," Pyav said, raising his eyebrows. "I'm not certain that it explains all that we know of Lici. Such a thing might leave a person scarred, even bitter. But Lici goes far beyond this. There's a darkness in her that