CHAPTER 7
“YOU’RE A LONG WAY from the Driver camps,” I say, not expecting an answer. Though Silent Lorcan came to trade with us, we never went to his home. It’s somewhere in the valleys where the rivers meet. At least, that’s what my ma always told us.
Kiran’s leaning against the plaster wall, looking towards the barn. There’s a chestnut mare out in the back that’s sleeping standing up. One of her rear hooves is cocked, and her head hangs low.
I go on.
“Ma was raised in Marhollow, one of the towns in the outskirts, where people still live the old ways.” When he doesn’t respond, I explain, “With families, I mean. All living together because they want to. Anyhow, the Magnates sent Trackers to raid the town when the census was low and took all the girls that were auction age. That’s how she came to the city.”
She was torn away from her family, her sister left behind. Not unlike I was.
“She got kicked out of the Garden when they found out about the baby—about me. They gave her a Virulent mark, and sent her to the Black Lanes. But she wasn’t having any of that, so she left.” I picture my ma’s fierce smile. The way the puckered X scar would stretch when she was mad. “The gatekeepers figured she’d be better off dying outside their city.” I shiver at the words, but that’s how my ma told the story.
“She was alone in the mountains when I came. For years it was just her and me. Sometimes Lorcan too—the Driver I told you about. He came to trade with us. I wasn’t more than hip high when he taught me how to set a trap.”
By five I was cleaning my own game while Ma cooked. Fishing on days I couldn’t hunt. Gathering the roots and plants that my ma had told me weren’t poisonous.
I look at the Driver boy and for the first time I wonder if my ma named Lorcan the way I named Kiran. It’s not like he could talk to tell us his real name. Strange that I never questioned it until now.
“When I was seven, Ma and I went down to the outskirts of Marhollow so she could visit her family. She made me stay above the tree line while she snuck in to see her parents and her sister at their farm.”
The bitterness returns to me as I say this. I’d never been to a town or met my grandparents before. I didn’t get to meet them then either.
“She came back at nightfall, carting the whiner. Salma. Her sister’s daughter, my cousin. The census in the city was low, and so the Magnates hired Virulent thugs—Trackers, we called them—to raid the towns for young girls to bring to the meat market.”
Lots of women fled into the mountains then. Some of us even became friends. But as the Tracker raids increased and more Magnates started hunting, our numbers dwindled. Soon it was only Lorcan that came to call.
“Salma was nine when we took her in. She hated my ma for what she did, for saving her life. She never really got over it. I used to tell her just to go back to town if she missed it so much, but she never did that either. She’s all bark and no bite, Salma is.”
I turn to Kiran who, when he hears me stop, motions for me to continue again. I wonder if he just likes the sound of my voice. This makes sense to me. I like the sound of the wind through the trees. I don’t speak tree language, but the whisper is soothing all the same.
“We lived that way for a while, just the three of us. My ma trained us to hide from Trackers. And when Lorcan visited, he’d teach me to fight. Salma hated that he was mute and couldn’t bring her news from the city.
“Then one day, I think I was eight or nine, I found a woman sleeping by a nearby brook.” I smile a little at the memory. “She was all swollen up with babies. Two of them.” I motion to show her belly. Her feet were thick too, and bleeding from all the walking they’d done to get away from town.
“Her son jumped out of the bushes while I was watching and he hit me with a stick, right between the eyes.” I laugh at the memory now, but at the time, I was so mad I shoved him into the stream and held him under until Metea pulled me off.
“Bian,” I say. “A year older than Salma.”
It feels better to remember him at ten than the last time I saw him.
“It wasn’t long before Metea’s labor started. We worked all night, Ma and me, cleaning her, cooling her. We made her tea from baneberry roots to ease the pain. The twins were born just before dawn. Tam and Nina, she named them. Nina after her ma. Tam after the man she loved—Trackers had raided her town and killed him.”
I take a deep breath, remembering the night of Tam and Nina’s birth as though it has just happened. Blood and sweat. Metea’s silent struggles. Bian’s crying. And my ma’s reliance on me. How proud she was of me. How proud I was of myself.
I’d never been so scared in my life. I think about telling Kiran this—but for some reason, I don’t.
My stomach begins to hurt at the next part of my story. I want to stop, but the words just keep coming.
“I was eleven when she got sick. My ma. Fever.”
My voice cracks. But this time, Kiran does not encourage me on. He’s watching me intently, mouth closed around a long piece of grass he’d been chewing.
I remember how she told me that this was the way of things. That to have life there must be death. To have joy there must be sadness. And that I must not be angry with Mother Hawk because of it.
But I was angry. I’m still angry.
“Metea and I gave her herbs for the fever, but the sickness took her eyes, made her see things that weren’t there.” It makes my heart pinch to remember my ma’s crazed words during those last hours.
“I tried to remember the fever cures, but none of them worked. And when Metea said Ma couldn’t take any more we made her a strong sleeping draught from bloodroot. So strong she didn’t wake up again. I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I finish suddenly.
I’m exhausted. The story has left me with a hollow feeling inside. I don’t care that Kiran is still here. I don’t care if he wants to kill me even. I just want to lie down and sleep. And for the first night in some time, I don’t want to dream about the mountains.
I lay my head on Brax’s neck. He’s already passed out, and his steady heart calms me. I close my eyes. I must fall asleep quickly, because I don’t hear Kiran leaving.
Maybe he stayed a while. I don’t know.