List of Chapters
Previous Section
“I know the angels will watch over you.” Mom’s the nicest sort. She may true and real believe that the angels are here protecting us, but if so, I ain’t never seen any, nor do I expect to.
Guess that brings us back to something I said earlier. Crys’s man, his name was Dan too, just like the son he ain’t never met. Crys was three months toward a cradle when Dan, never the whit wiser about his darling’s condition, trekked out on a hunt. Wandered a bit too far past the grove. What we found of him after was little enough that we could’ve buried him using one of his broad leather shoes for a coffin. Nah, if there’s angels that watch over us, old Dan wouldn’t have met that kind of end.
Now, what I’ve told of that story is from bits and pieces I put together over the years. I was nine when it happened, and sure as true, my mom and daddy hid what they could of it from me. But I knew back then there were beasts out past the grove. And sometimes beasts a good deal closer, which is why me and Andy are two of the fastest little sprites you’ll ever see. The slightest shadow off in the dark means, whoosh, just like that, back into doors. It’ll put the spirit of all nine hells in your lungs if you see anything more than a shadow, type of creatures live out here.
So half the night, I’m up thinking of the beasts that tear up the space between where I am and where I’m going to. The other half, I’m thinking of what’s really scaring me.
See, I went into that panic learning about my mum’s wedding dress being the tunic I’m wearing, but it wasn’t just because I imagined myself getting married in the same getup. It’s that I know my mum (and probably my daddy too) are imagining that exact same thing. The way it works in the wilds is you marry who you want. We don’t have arrangements, we don’t have promised children, we don’t do that here. We’re too free of spirit. Sometimes I just wish we were a little less free, though, because how it works is we’re expected to hitch up our skirts, tuck ‘em into our belts, and go trudging through the mud until we’ve hunted ourself a boy.
The way it works is, here in the wilds, it’s for the most part the boys who hunt, so it’s for the most part thems that don’t wind up coming back. It leaves to bit of an imbalance. That and the fact that we all live on a sort of sprawl makes partnering tricky. We’re one of the closer homesteads to Marsh, which means we’re closer to other human souls, but it’s still a ten-hour trudge each way to the outpost, and not a journey to make lightly.
Besides Marsh and the other outposts, it’s mostly just a family or two tied together by a stake of land. The nearest homestead we have to our own is about three hours walk off. They’ve a boy named Derek. He’s about the closest thing to an eligible bachelor as we have in these parts, and let me tell you, that is a depressing way of recognizing just how sad our prospects are. Derek’s got half his teeth still present and accounted for, and has a mighty summer beard. ‘Cause summer here, some are there. And the boy—well, he’s not dumb, and I’ve seen him skin a hare, and he’s a fine man if what you care about is sustenance in the wild—but he’s about as capable of conversation as your average doorknob.
Point being, who the hell do I have as prospects? I don’t like thinking about it. I’m young, and fine with being young for a long while yet. If I happen to meet my most wonderful hunter and provider on this journey, I’d just as soon give him directions to my abode and invite him to stop by in maybe five or six years. Only there’s a part of me that knows that, going away for the weeks I am, my family hopes I’ll find myself a man and come back his willing carcass slung over my shoulder. And here I am, wearing my mother’s wedding dress.
Don’t get me wrong, I hope to start a family some day. I do. The hard truth is it takes more than one woman all on her lonesome to tame these parts. It takes more than a few of us. It takes a tribe. We’ve got seven here in our little tribe, but even that is just scratching by. It was easier before Dan got torn to tiny shreds. And plus, hate to think of it though I do, Granddad’s only got so many working years left in him.
I don’t want to find a man.
Daddy comes back down the ladder maybe three hours after he went to sleep, and not long after that my mum follows. They don’t make racket, exactly, but they get to cooking and organizing a few things, and it’s enough that my granddad wakes. He comes down and nods at me, looking all grog-washed, but then he flashes those crooked teeth of his in that crooked smile and I feel glad he woke to see me off. He doesn’t say a word, though, before he steps out into the mist-covered morning of ours. It’s still that twilight haze that bleeds the color straight out of everything, turns it all to gray. It’s a peaceful hour, really.
When Granddad comes back in you can tell he’s got something lodged in that long leather jacket of his, though I’ll be damned if I know just what. He comes over to my table, shoves me by the shoulder, playful but hard. “Move your ivory seat-bonnet, you skrag. Respect your elder’s need to rest his brittle bones.” I guess I had been lounging, legs out on the bench, taking up the whole thing. I slide my legs in front of me and let him have his place. He unfolds the map that’s lying on the table, the one he gave me last night.
“Where are we?” His voice is maybe a bit stern, but not mean. He’s not talking down to me none, which I appreciate.
I look over the map and find Marsh. Teeth a bit gritting, I trace the main path that we’re more than a long ways from. I give my best guess, sticking my finger to the north and east of it. Grandpa gently tugs my hand further east and just a touch south. “Eyes closed,” he says. I obey, and he yanks my finger off the map. I hear him shifting the map a touch. “Open.” I obey. “Again, where are we?” I trace my eyes back along the geography of the map, lining up with where my finger was before, setting it right down again. “Good,” he says. “Good. Very good.”
I nod. “I’m coming back with a caravan,” I say.
“That’s the plan.” He nods. “Only when’s the last time you’ve seen a plan that happened as it promised it would?”
I smile. “Okay. Point taken.”
“So, show me your route.”
I walk him through the entire thing. To Marsh today, with Daddy, by nightfall. Getting a horse and supplies there. Then off on my own, through the Gray Wastes, down through the northern farmlands, then to the city of Worth. Southwest along the serpent—the great river, the “Green Serpent”—unless I find a caravan to ride with. Then from Kolmas, the second great city, up to Cheyvelrus itself.
“And what won’t you do?”
“Camp,” I reply. “There is no such thing as camping on this trip. Me and the open stars will have no relationship of any kind.”
“Damn right. Because you’re …” he looks at me, waiting for me to finish his sentence, but I don’t know what he’s aiming at.
“Because I’m not an idiot?”
“Because you’re coming back alive.”
“Of course. Of course I am.” I straighten out the silk a bit. Already, running my hands along the fabric settles me. Everyone sure does like to remind me that I could die if I do this trip wrong.
“And then?”
“From Cheyvelrus, I hike to a caravan and make my way to Worth,” I say. Daddy sits down and settles himself across the table from us, setting his leather satchel on the tabletop.
“Then Marsh,” I say. Mom brings plates to the table, decked mostly with the venison, but also leftovers from last night’s feast. “Then home.”
“Good,” says Granddad. “Now, tell me one more time.”
I sigh and trace my finger back through the entire journey, showing him I really do know where in the hells I’m going. Between bites of our breakfast, he has me rehearse the entire journey to him twice more. I can do it by rote, with or without a map, by the time he’s laid off me. The entire while, my mum’s come up behind me and unbraided, brushed, and re-braided my hair. It calms me more than some, her familiar hands running through the strands. She picks up the belt that came with the silk tunic and ties it in a bow at the top of my braid. Nothing fancy, just a loose bow that falls down along with my hair. Guess she figured out that I’d be using my old belt to keep the tunic tucked. I’m glad she’s so readily quiet about it.
When breakfast is done and Granddad’s satisfied that I’ve memorized the entire damned map, Daddy shoves the leather satchel toward me. It’s packed up with a few of my things—some clothes and a few basics for the road. “Thanks,” I say, though there’s something about seeing my things all packed up that makes the prospect of leaving sink in unpleasantly.
“Are you ready to go over the scrollwork?” asks Granddad.
I bulge my eyes at him, and he shakes his head, wearing that crooked smile. “Come on, skrag. Let’s chatter outside.”
When we go out, he pulls out the scroll and a small leather pouch that must contain our tribute out of his jacket. “All the work is done proper for you, Liddy,” he says. “You give this to the Councilor of Ceremony and Heritage, and he’ll direct you on anything else that’s needed. If anything at all goes wrong, you send a courier to us to tell us so. And send a courier to us once you get there. We want to know about when to expect you back. You’ve got time to explore the city, and I hope you will, but no need to get your mother losing sleep over this. Okay?”
I grab the scroll from him and give half a smile. Best I can afford, knowing how much of the weight of this falls on my family and not just me. He reaches over and rests his hand against my left ear, his fingers scratching the hair that’s tugged behind it, his hand pressed warm against my temple.
“And one last thing,” Granddad whispers as he leans in close. I can smell the stale tobacco and peppermint leaves, all filtered through that overgrown forest of chest hair that bristled up from beneath his shirt. His right hand goes into his long jacket pocket, and when it emerges he’s holding a box.
No, let me say that again. He’s holding the box.
Our family’s box. The black one, like ebony only darker. The one that’s been in our family for ages and ages. I grew up wondering what was inside, just the same as my cousins, my aunts and uncles, my mum, my granddad, his parents, and who knows how many more generations of curious children.
It’s a remarkable thing, but partly because it’s so damned dull. Maybe eight inches long, half that across, and slightly less deep. Black, all around, as pure as onyx stones. The family likes to think it contains some sort of mystery. The way Granddad tells it, generations of us have tried to look it out and under, to figure out how to open the thing. More locksmiths than you can count have tried at it and failed, and they say a mage or two have even given it the once over (though I hardly believe that, what with the costs). No one was ever able to figure out how to get the damned thing open.
It has a keyhole on it, but no seam along the top where you’d expect it to hinge. And that makes the whole mystery easy enough to dismiss as fodder, but if you rattle the box around some you can hear there’s something inside it, tinkling a little, like metal or stone or glass. Over years and years, we all made our guesses at what made that bit of a clinking sound. “I bet it’s gold,” I guessed. “Maybe it’s fairy gems,” said Andy, because she’s always been shooting at all angles for stories with fairies. “Do you know what I’d wager it is?” said Granddad. We all looked up at him, expecting his sage wisdom to reveal some even grander story. “I’d wager it’s the key.”
Granddad hands the box to me. “What”—I’m a bit lost for words—”what exactly do you want me to do with this? Do you think I’m going to solve the grand mystery while I’m out?”
“No, Liddy, I don’t.” He laughs. “But who knows? Maybe you’ll meet someone who knows about it. I figured … it wouldn’t hurt to have you ask.”
The notion of him giving me this keepsake—to hang onto, to investigate, and to (let’s face it) in all probability lose—it’s just a little boggling. I’m left there stunned for a few moments at least, until my daddy and mum step out. I hurry and tuck the box into my leather satchel.
“You ready?” says Daddy.
I try my best to smile. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready.”
And with that, he and I walk the handful strides to our fence, no one saying a word more of luck or warning or farewell. Before I step through the gateway, I pause for a moment. At the least of the scale, I won’t see anyone here for nine weeks. Maybe longer. It’ll be months before I see any of them—before I see home—again.
Next section.
The post White Silk: I.iii appeared first on Rob D Young.