Otter and her friends were in trouble again.
There were three of them: Otter, Kestrel, and Cricket, who was the only boy. They were not related by blood, but they were close in age, and they’d grown up together like wolf pups. Now they were the oldest children of Westmost, and a solid little pack.
On that day, they’d been given the work of pulling up last year’s cornstalks — muddy, messy, hard work — and they’d done quite a bit of it. But the gardens of Westmost were large, and the day was lovely: earliest spring, the Sap-Running Moon. There was a warm breeze and the sun was soft as a blessing, though snow still clung in the shadows under the pine trees. After the long winter in the lodges, such a day tempted them.
Kestrel had started it. There had been one thrown mudball, and then another — and then a storm of them, and a broken hoe. And now they were facing down the cold and careful judgments of —
“Who started it?” asked Thistle.
Otter would never betray one of her pack to one of the stiff, serious adults of Westmost — particularly not this adult. Thistle was the chief of Westmost’s rangers, one of the most powerful women in the pinch, and the person who had given them the work in the first place. And, though Otter rarely thought of her so, she was Willow’s mother, Otter’s grandmother. There was something old and broken between Thistle and Willow. Otter did not know what had happened, but without even wondering, she took her mother’s side.
She would not turn in Kestrel. And even if she had, Thistle would not have believed her. Kestrel started it? Kestrel was dutiful and upright. Only Otter and Cricket knew how mischief would slip out of that sober exterior like a turtle poking out of its shell. Only Otter and Cricket knew: Yes, Kestrel started it.
“Well?” said the ranger captain. “Speak. Cover your eyes and speak.”
The three of them each covered their eyes. Otter saw Cricket sneak a sidelong look behind his lifted hand — over Kestrel’s head, his gaze met Otter’s. His eyes were dark and bright as a chickadee’s and he had mud streaked across his nose. Otter had to swallow her grin. “Lady Ranger,” she said, “I don’t know what you mean.” A clump of mud chose that moment to slide down the front of her shirt and plop at Thistle’s feet.
“Binder’s daughter,” said Thistle, “I mean there is a hoe broken. There is a field half-done.”
“I tripped,” said Otter.
Cricket was trembling with silent laughter. Kestrel dipped her dutiful head and appeared to study the knots in the yarn that wrapped the foot of Thistle’s staff.
“You tripped,” said Thistle. “And your friends?”
“Helped me up,” said Otter sturdily. It was quite true. She left out that her friends had also knocked her down.
Thistle put up both eyebrows. Otter, Kestrel, and Cricket stood united in their silence. Mud dripped from them, incriminatingly.
“Do it without the tools, then,” said Thistle. She took the broken hoe from Kestrel; Otter and Cricket surrendered their digging sticks. “These come from the forest. Such things are not without cost.”
And off she strode.
The three of them watched her go.
“There are tales,” said Cricket, tugging on one ear, “of a woman who was never young. I think I now believe them.”
“Are there stories you do not believe?” asked Kestrel as they walked back into the squelching corn. “I didn’t know.”
Cricket was in love with storytelling. He’d been known to spin the wildest ones with a perfectly straight face.
“There’s one about a binder’s daughter,” said Cricket. “She tripped.”
Kestrel laughed her sweet and secret laugh, the one she used for them alone.
“It’s only a stick,” said Otter. She spun her yarn bracelets, making sure the mud hadn’t snagged them — a somewhat sulky gesture, in a place where yarn meant safety. Cornstalks, even the half-rotted ones of the end of winter, had a sullen grip on the earth. Clearing them without their digging sticks and rakes would not be easy. “A hoe is bit of wood and a bit of bone. How costly can it be?”
Experimentally, Otter tugged at a cornstalk. It didn’t budge. It was lifted on its little roots, standing above a small cage of shadow, and it looked fragile, but it was going nowhere without a fight. Otter braced her foot against the corn hill and pulled hard. The stalk, of course, gave way suddenly, and Otter stumbled backward.
Cricket caught her. “Clearly, Otter, you are growing into a woman of grace and power.”
“There is still mud to throw, Cricket.”
Kestrel was tugging at her own cornstalk, and she too was struggling. “I side with Otter,” she said. “Sticks” — tug — “are not” — tug — “so scarce.”
“Thistle is thinking only of your safety,” said Cricket. “I was planning a devastating surprise attack.”
Otter’s second stalk gave way then, and she fell again. The clots of earth tumbled down the little hill around her.