The Telling Stone dangles from my free hand. I hold very still, not wanting to draw attention to it. “I don’t know,” I whisper.
Maekallus frowns and releases me. I hesitate. He says nothing, so I dab his arm with the cloth. He twitches.
“Sorry.” The word is pathetic on my lips.
“I’ve been attacked by grinlers before. It didn’t used to hurt. Not like this.”
I lighten my touch near the wound itself. It’s mostly stopped bleeding, but a freckle of corruption burgeons between two of the teeth marks. Maekallus winces, as though he feels it. And maybe he does. “The . . . soul?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I don’t understand any of this.” He looks at the thread of the binding spell, the ever-unmoving leash stemming from the center of his chest. He wipes his hand over his face. “I’m going mad.”
“You seem sane enough to me.” I press gauze to the wound. Maekallus eyes me like I’ve said something insolent. I manage to shrug. “If it makes you feel better.”
He growls. I wrap his arm.
“The gobler didn’t come.” An obvious observation, but I feel it needs to be said.
“No.”
“What next?”
He shakes his head. A piece of hair spills from the tail holding\ it. Without thinking, I brush it back.
Our eyes meet again. His yellow, demonic eyes. I almost forget the horn is there.
He looks at my lips.
My chest aches in remembrance of the lost pieces of my soul. I step away from him. My handiwork is finished.
The sun is beginning its set, but I can’t leave. Not yet. Not before I’ve put this experience to page. I pull my basket free from its hiding place behind the pine and grab my book. Open it to the new section on souls, turn the page. “Beuhgers. Tell me about them.”
He eyes my book. “Beuhgers can’t help us.”
I shake my head. “I want to know about them. I’ve never seen them documented. Never heard their name uttered in story.” Unless they had a second name. “How did you know that one was female?” I begin a sketch, trying to remember the creature’s appearance. I pause long enough to write, Cowardly, beside it. “What is their range of height? Are they docile? Do you know their diet, their intelligence, their—”
My book zooms out from beneath me, causing my charcoal to scrape a hard line down the open page. I protest as Maekallus lifts it up to his face, flipping through the pictures.
“What is this?” he asks.
I leap to my feet. “You’ll get blood on it. Give it back.”
He flips another page.
“Give it back.”
My skin tingles at my own boldness. Maekallus looks at me with a questioning gaze, but hands the book back, upside down. I pull a bit of my sleeve over my thumb and use it to blot out as much of that charcoal line as I can.
When I’m nearly finished, I say, “I like to study. To learn more about your kind.”
He snorts. “Beuhgers are not my kind.”
I pause, glance at him. “You sound like you don’t like them.”
“They’re dumb-witted carrion eaters. No one likes them.”
A grin works its way across my mouth—I can’t hide it, despite how I try. Maekallus looks at me like I’m a madwoman. Perhaps I am.
I set my notes against the grass and write down, Unintelligent carrion eaters. I return to my sketch, only to realize I’m having trouble seeing the lines. I glance over my shoulder, past the trees, to the rays of the setting sun.
A long breath escapes me. It’s edged with the residual anxiety from the arrival of so many mystings in this glade. “It’s getting dark. I need to return.”
He growls again.
Closing my book, I glance to the red thread stretching between Maekallus and the ground. Feel the sting in my palm. “I’ll . . . think of something. I don’t know what, but I’ll think of something.” I stand. “I’ll set you free, Maekallus. Both of us.”
His jaw clenches at the sentiment. Perhaps he doesn’t believe me. He doesn’t meet my eyes.
I gather my things and walk a different way back—straight west to leave the wildwood as quickly as possible, then south toward home. I clutch the Telling Stone the entire time, half expecting the escaped beuhger to return. Maekallus must have spoken truth, however, because I never get the slightest shiver of cold. Wherever the creatures are, they’re far away.
And so is the gobler.
CHAPTER 15
While grinlers hunt in packs, they attack their prey one at a time. This may be to prevent the prey from escaping, should it evade a strike. More study is needed.
While I’ve studied mystings from afar for several years now, I’m not sure what entertains them. But I try to imagine what I’d want to do if chained in a confined space for days, weeks, with nothing to pass the time. I would climb trees, or burn circles in the weed-clotted earth, or maybe weave crowns of leaves or flowers. Carve my name into a tree, perhaps. But I would grow restless, and I am a simple woman who leads a simple life. When Maekallus tells me he’s going mad, I believe him.
After I tend my mysting garden, I pack a meal for him, hoping Papa won’t notice the shortage of food in the cupboards. Meat is expensive, but Maekallus seems to prefer it. He is, after all, a predator. Then I gather some string for cat’s cradle, a few books from my meager shelf, and my father’s strategy game, fell the king. He has not played it in some years. He taught me the rules, more or less, but kept forgetting his strategy, and after so many losses, his interest in the board and its cherrywood pieces waned. I bring my usual supplies, including bandages, and belt the dagger at my waist.
Once my father is cared for and occupied, I venture into the wildwood. The sun is well out, so I head into the forest straightway. I suppose if I run into anyone who cares about my destination, I could tell them I’m visiting my grandmother. While the gossip mill delights in stories about my immediate family—my mother’s passing, my father’s mind, my infatuation with the wildwood—few even knew of my grandmother’s existence, let alone her passing. She and my grandfather were incredibly self-sufficient, and when they did need supplies, they went to the market in Crake, not Fendell.
I try to ignore the ache in my right hand, which has already begun to bleed tar again, and enjoy the beauty of the wildwood. Its trees are tall and ancient, and the summer sun against the canopy bathes everything in warm green light. Gnats sparkle over a decaying log. Crickets chirp with the rising heat. The shadow of a bird crosses my path, and the call of a jay pierces the symphony of insect and fowl.
I take a break near one of the wildwood’s slender brooks, one that will dry up before winter comes. Sitting on a short stone, I look into that water and breathe deeply, feeling the emptiness within me and trying not to dwell on what I’ve lost. On whether I’ll ever get it back. Then I put my feet under me, brush off my gray dress, and continue on my way, tucking a bit of dark hair behind my ear as I go. I pick my way over root and rock, grass and clover, admiring the fiery orange of some wildflowers.
I am some ways into the wildwood when my stone turns cold.