Across the Green Grass Fields (Wayward Children, #6)(22)
“But…” It was a reasonable arrangement. Regan could see that. It certainly would have simplified things for most of the high school students she’d known, who seemed to be constantly preoccupied by the question of who was dating who, or who wanted to be dating who, or who had a crush on who. Laurel had been starting that, and so had some of the other girls, in the months before Regan ran away. She’d never quite seen the point. When compared to spending her time playing, boys were just sort of … boring.
Regan stopped, composing her thoughts, before she said, “Where I come from, ‘husband’ means you’re only ever with your wife. Husbands and wives live together, and raise children together, and try to be happy. My father says a good marriage takes work, usually after Mom asks him to catch a big spider and take it outside for her.”
“Husbands sometimes have more than one wife, but never more than two or three,” said Chicory. “If they sire a colt, they have to be prepared to take him on as their own, and too many wives would make that hard.”
Regan blinked slowly. “This is really complicated.”
“I bet husbands are complicated where you come from, too. You just aren’t old enough to know all the ways how.” Chicory cantered to a stop in front of a line of small, brightly colored wagons. They weren’t big enough to have housed an adult centaur; instead, satyrs and fauns and more of those odd horse-legged people leaned out of their serving windows, handing bags and bowls of their wares to waiting customers. “I want baked apples.”
Regan inhaled, taking her time about it, letting the mingled aromas of a dozen types of unfamiliar treat fill her nose. Then she slid off Chicory’s back, steadying herself on the other girl’s side as she waited for the feeling to come back into her thighs, and said, “I want some of those roast nuts, and a fish pie. I have money.”
Chicory pawed at the ground, clearly uncertain. “I’ll come with you.”
“No one’s going to snatch me in the food court,” said Regan, the uneasy awareness that children had been snatched in food courts before flooding in on the heels of her words. But that was in another world, one filled with bullying, backstabbing humans, not in this brighter, cleaner world of horse-people and honest answers. She would be fine here.
“Okay,” Chicory said. “But we don’t leave the wagons, right? You’ll get your lunch and I’ll get mine, and then we’ll sit together to eat it.” There was a cluster of low wooden tables off to one side, about half with benches, presumably for the satyrs and other bipeds to use.
“We don’t leave,” Regan agreed, smiling broadly as Chicory backed up and turned away, heading for the wagon that was distributing apples.
Feeling freer, even though her friend was only a few feet away, Regan took a deep breath and approached the nearest wagon, where a faun was passing out bags of roast nuts that smelled like absolute heaven. She stopped when she reached the window, smiling at the woman with the delicate deer’s antlers growing from her temples.
“One bag of nuts, please,” she said in her sweetest talking-to-adults tone.
“That will be one bale,” said the faun as she reached back and grabbed a bag. Then she gasped, eyes going wide. “You’re the human!” she exclaimed. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize, you looked like a silene—”
“What’s a silene?” asked Regan, removing the money bag from her belt and holding it up. She hoped the faun’s obvious awe would keep her from taking advantage of Regan’s equally obvious ignorance. “I’m sorry, I don’t know which one’s a bale. Can you pick it out for me, please?”
“Of course. I’m so sorry.” The faun pushed the bag of nuts into Regan’s hand and took the coin purse, opening it and picking through until she found a mid-sized, goldish coin. She held it up for Regan to see. “This is a bale. The silver ones are sheafs, and the copper ones are grains. Ten grains to the sheaf, five sheafs to the bale.”
If that was the exchange system, these were very expensive nuts. Regan silently vowed to enjoy them as much as she could, even as she nodded and reached for her coin purse. “Thank you,” she said politely. “I heard there was someone selling fish pies? Can you tell me where they are?”
The faun looked briefly reluctant, although whether it was at the idea of returning the money or the idea of sending Regan away, Regan couldn’t have said. Finally, she passed the purse back, leaned out the window, and pointed to the left. “Blue wagon, two down. You asked what a silene was? Well, it’s a silene who’ll sell you your pie, human. Thank you for bringing your business to my unworthy stall.”
Regan took a step back, tying the coin pouch back to her waistband where it belonged, and began walking briskly in the direction of the blue wagon. Inside, one of the horse-legged people she’d seen before was lining up small single-serving pies on a tray. She stopped a few feet away, not wanting to startle him the way she’d startled the faun.
He glanced up, and nearly dropped the pie he was holding. “Human!” he exclaimed, almost accusatorially.
“Yes,” said Regan. “I’m here to buy a pie, please.”
“You came all the way to the Fair just to buy a pie?” His ears were like a horse’s as well. They twitched as he stared at her, the pie in his hand apparently forgotten.