Lip still quivering, he shook his head. She watched him wiggle on a chair, and then she pointed to the bathroom door. He scooted in, and she crossed to the window over the kitchen sink, the one with a view toward town. She didn’t know if the champion and the guard would come after her again, or if they’d give up on her as too much trouble. She didn’t have much hope for the latter. Regardless, the spirits wouldn’t forget this place so fast. You know you have to leave, she told herself. Quit dithering.
Renet was standing in the middle of the kitchen, running his hands through his hair as if he were totally blindsided by this. “Naelin, be reasonable. You’re overreacting.”
She faced him finally, and in a low voice she never thought she’d need to use, said, “I’m not going to do this in front of the children. I’m not going to talk badly about you in front of them, not now and not later. You can be the sweet, doting father in their memories. But you cannot come with us now. We aren’t safe with you.” And with that, she shepherded Llor and Erian toward the door and left Renet with his mouth hanging open, his face slack, his eyes as stunned and hurt as a shot deer.
I won’t cry now.
Carrying their packs, they climbed down the ladder and hurried across the forest floor. Llor was whimpering. “Why can’t Father come with us? Where are we going? I don’t want to go. I want to go h-h-home, with Father.”
Erian clutched Naelin’s arm. “Mama, look.”
Slowing, Naelin looked up and saw a face peering at them from within the bark—its eyes were like knots in the wood, and its face was curved with the folds of the bark. “Keep moving,” Naelin whispered. It would lose interest once she had some distance.
But it didn’t.
And even more came.
An earth spirit, with a body like a badger and a face like a wrinkled man, crawled out of a hole between two roots. Three air spirits, no larger than Naelin’s palm, flitted between leaves, pacing them, above. She caught a glimpse of a fire spirit, bobbing in the distance, just at the edge of her sight so that she wasn’t certain if it was a trick of her eyes. Her skin prickled, and the air felt like it crackled, as if the entire forest were watching them pick their way toward the ladder that led to the bridges. Naelin helped Llor over a root. He was puffing from the exertion—his little legs weren’t going to keep up if they needed speed. She could carry him, she thought, for a little while, but not also the packs, and they’d need them, if they were to camp—
Who are you fooling? she asked herself. They couldn’t camp, not with so many spirits watching them. She’d been na?ve to think she could walk away from this mess and nothing would notice or follow her.
“Mama?” Erian whispered, her voice tight.
“I know. I see them.”
“What do we do?”
That was the question. They could return home, seal the house with as many charms as she had, and try to wait it out. They could flee faster and hope the spirits lost interest, but there were more now than before, and the spirits would keep following them.
Naelin forced herself to stop.
Stop her legs from striding forward faster than Llor could follow.
Stop her thoughts from tumbling in knots faster than she could untangle.
It’s too late. She’d used her power, and the spirits had noticed her. The fact that they hadn’t attacked yet was luck, and she couldn’t trust her children’s safety to luck. She needed to get the spirits to stop noticing her, and she had no idea how to do that. But she did know two people who were experts on spirits . . . though she doubted they’d want to help her after she’d turned the spirits against them. They caused this mess, she thought. They have to fix it. “We’re going to visit Aunt Corinda,” she said at last.
Llor brightened. “Will she let me play with Master Wuggles?”
Naelin stared at him for a moment. “What?”
“The cat,” Erian said.
“She named it Master Wuggles?”
“Yes!” Llor trotted happily forward now. “I said she should name him Lord Mouser the Third, because she’s always saying he acts like he’s ruler of the house, plus he catches mice.”
She shouldered Erian’s pack along with her own, after it snagged on a bush. A glitter of yellow eyes flashed from within the bushes—a wolf, she guessed, much too close. Naelin kept her voice deliberately light. “Was there a Lord Mouser the First and Second?”
“No.”
She took Llor’s pack as well, hurrying them toward the ladder to town. She shot glances at the bushes, watching for the wolf. “Then why would he be the third?”
“Because he’s not the fourth,” he said, as if she were the stupidest person in the world.
“Ahh. Of course.”
“Mama,” Erian whispered. “There’s an animal in the bushes.”
“Just keep moving,” Naelin said.
“Mama, I think it’s a wolf!” Fear shook her voice.
Just what she needed. Fate must have been very angry with her. “Shoulders back, chin up, look like a predator, not prey. Let’s make it a game. Be a bear.”
Tears were leaking out of the corners of Erian’s eyes, but she nodded and held her back straight and chin up, trying to look brave. Llor stomped and growled, “I’m a bear! Grrrr!”
“That’s it. More noise!” Naelin growled too. “Roar!” She stretched her arms up and crashed her feet deliberately on the loudest twigs and driest leaves. At least this might scare off the wolf. She had no hope for it scaring the spirits.
They reached the ladder, and she shooed them up, climbing up behind them. Below, earth spirits prowled around the base of the ladder. She felt like a target, dangling in the air, with both hands occupied on the rungs, but she focused on climbing rung after rung until they reached the bridge.
She shepherded Erian and Llor ahead of her, feeling the sway of the bridge beneath them, wondering at what moment the spirits would attack. It might not even be a direct attack. She’d heard of perfectly sound bridges suddenly fraying, ropes snapping and wood rotting beneath the feet of woodsmen who had angered the spirits. Soon, she saw the marketplace ahead of them, the bright canopies, torn and fluttering in the wind. A few people scurried between them, but most doors were shut and windows barred. She headed directly for the hedgewitch’s shop. “Stay behind me,” she told Erian and Llor, “and don’t enter until I say it’s safe.”
Ducking into the shadows, she squinted, trying to force her eyes to adjust quickly—there were figures across the shop, behind the counters. Corinda was huddled in one corner, her face buried in her arms, squeezing herself as small as possible beside a barrel. The two strangers, Champion Ven and Captain Alet, were plastered against the wall, visible as blurred figures through the translucent bodies of the spirits.
They were still here. Good, she thought.
Now she had to convince them to help, after she’d just refused them. And trapped them.
The air spirits were amorphous and had spread like jellyfish into one undulating mass, with eyes and mouths that floated in the top nodules of their bodies, and appendages that wrapped into one another. Both the champion and captain had swords drawn, aimed toward the center of the gelatinous bodies, and were speaking to each other in low voices.
“Mama, what are they doing?”
She felt every muscle tense, ready to hurl herself between danger and her child. “Llor, I asked you to wait outside.”
Erian jumped in. “Sorry, Mama! I tried—”