The Poison Season(28)

She could hear Aunt Ketty’s voice in her mind. This place is not evil. It protects us. We would be lost without it.

The knot of sadness that had been stuck in Leelo’s throat was becoming unbearable. She wanted to sing, but she knew she couldn’t. There was still a chance the children were within earshot, and regardless, she wasn’t allowed to sing alone.

But there had to be some way to release all this...rage. It wasn’t an emotion Leelo had a lot of experience with, but now that she’d identified it, there was no denying that’s what it was. She was full of seething, burning rage. Tate was gone, her mother was going to die, and what would she have then? Her bitter aunt and her prickly cousin, who was being slowly poisoned by Ketty, just like the lake.

What had happened to Ketty? she wondered for the thousandth time. A loveless marriage was bad, but surely not so bad that it could permanently alter a woman’s heart. After all, her husband was long dead. She was free to marry again if she wanted, or not; she could choose happiness. But Ketty didn’t seem interested in being happy. It was almost as if she relished her spite. And Sage was following right in her mother’s footsteps.

Fiona would tell Leelo to be calm, to let her anger pass like a storm, to sit removed and watch it dissipate into the ether until she found acceptance. Her rage was of no use to anyone, certainly not Tate. And it wasn’t as if Leelo would be stuck with her aunt forever. Mama would make sure Leelo found a suitable husband, someone she liked, if not loved. Leelo could start her own household with Fiona. Let Ketty and Sage keep the house. It wasn’t important where they lived, if they had each other. Perhaps if Fiona was away from Ketty and her constant criticism, her health would improve and she’d be able to weave again.

But the rage wasn’t fading. If anything, it was building. The more she thought about Tate out there on his own, away from the loving arms of his mother and sister, the angrier she got. And the more she thought about Ketty’s indifference to her sister’s pain, never mind her nephew’s, the more she wanted to hurt someone herself.

Once again, the song—Leelo wasn’t sure what it was, not the hunting song or the drowning song, but something new and insistent—pressed against her throat. She felt almost mad with the need to release it. And so, without really thinking it through, but feeling that it was the only thing she could do to punish everyone and everything that had stolen her brother from her, she pulled her little knife out of her pocket. And, choking on her own music, she drove it into the pine tree she had fed her entire life, with sacrifices and prey and even her own blood. She drove it in again and again until her arm ached from the motion and the knife lodged so deep into the wood that she couldn’t draw it out again.

As if coming out of some kind of scarlet-stained trance, Leelo sank to her knees, exhausted. For all her effort, the tree showed little wounding, just a few patches of pale wood exposed by the blade, an errant splinter or two.

Tate was gone, and she had to accept it. From now on, she would put her mother and herself first. Fiona’s health would be her main priority, and while she would do her chores and her Watcher duty because Fiona would want her to, she wouldn’t attend the ceremonies anymore. Even if it cost her everything else. Even if it cost her Sage.

And because she still couldn’t release the song in her throat, Leelo threw back her head and screamed.



Chapter Sixteen


Jaren didn’t see Lupin after their conversation, but once word got out about their private stroll in the woods—thanks to Story, he assumed, although she wouldn’t admit it—the gossipmongers of Bricklebury made sure that Jaren and Lupin were associated regardless. Everywhere he walked, whispers and giggles followed in his wake. He hadn’t shown his face at the pub in days, not since the last time he’d gone and Lars had waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“I still don’t understand why you don’t like her,” Story said as they worked side by side in the garden behind their house. “She’s a very pretty girl. Too pretty for you, some might say.”

Jaren flicked a clod of soil at his sister. “It has nothing to do with how pretty she is. She’s just...odd.”

“Why? Because she’s from Endla?”

He shook his head in frustration. “It’s not that at all. She said the Forest there is evil. That it eats people, like it’s a wolf or a bear or a—”

“A monster?”

“Yes! And it was clear she wasn’t trying to scare me.” She had accomplished that by flirting with him. “It was like she really believed everything she was saying.”

Story carefully placed two carrot seeds in each little well she’d dug. “Why would she lie about it?”

“She wasn’t lying. That’s what I’m saying. I think she may have lost her senses a bit when she was exiled. And I don’t blame her for that. She was a child.”

“Well, you don’t have to court her. But it’s not going to look good for her, or you, if you don’t at least make a show of it for a little while. People think you two were doing more than strolling, if you know what I mean.”

Jaren rose to his feet. “And whose fault is that? If you hadn’t gone blabbing to everyone in earshot, no one would have even noticed!” He knew that wasn’t entirely fair. People had seen them with their own eyes, and he should have known well enough not to go wandering off alone with a girl in a town full of busybodies. But then again, so should Lupin. Unless she wanted people to think something had happened between them.