The Poison Season(29)

He shook his head. Girls didn’t make sense at all.

“Oh, calm down,” Story said, grabbing his hand to yank him back to work. “Soon enough another scandal will come along, and everyone will forget all about you and the honey girl.”

But later that day, when he let his sisters drag him to the pub because Father insisted they needed an escort after he heard about Merritt, it was evident that no one had forgotten. Especially not Lupin.

It was the first time he’d seen her at the pub, and her eyes found his the moment he walked in the door, like she’d been waiting for him.

She wound through the other patrons toward him, smiling. “Jaren Kask. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you in town. I was starting to think you were avoiding me.”

Jaren blushed and shook his head. “Of course not. I’m just not used to so many people being aware of where I go, or with whom. I don’t like all that attention.”

“Says the boy who fetched water from Lake Luma.” There was a hint of resentment in her voice, but she gestured to a table in the corner and he felt like he had no choice but to follow. His sisters had abandoned him the moment they arrived.

“Don’t worry about the townspeople,” Lupin said once they were seated. “They only gossip because they are safe and worry-free up here on the mountain. There’s little possibility of a plague ever reaching Bricklebury, considering how rare outsiders are, and there is plenty to eat, thanks to the mountain’s fertile soil. They’re bored, is what I’m saying. And bored people love nothing more than a scandal.”

“But surely a walk in the woods together is hardly a scandal.”

“Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but people tend to avoid me, Jaren. So it wasn’t the walk in the woods that got them talking. It was the girl.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I hope your reputation wasn’t harmed.”

She threw her head back and laughed, revealing all of her white teeth. “My reputation? I may as well be a witch, as far as these people are concerned.”

Jaren glanced around the pub. Sure enough, people were staring at them.

“Why do you stay here?” Jaren asked. “I couldn’t stand everyone judging me like that all the time.”

“People will judge you anywhere you go. I know who I am. Why should I care what they think of me?”

Jaren wished he had that kind of confidence, the kind that only came with knowing who you were. “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, Lupin. I’m not looking to marry anytime soon. I haven’t even chosen a trade yet.”

She ran her finger around the edge of her pint glass and smiled. “Oh, silly boy. Who said anything about marriage?”

Jaren couldn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Lupin’s wolfish grin. And every time he tried to find a comfortable position in his bed, a few notes of the first song he’d heard from Endla played in his mind. Jaren had never had the experience of getting a song caught in his mind before, and he thought it might be driving him a little mad. Maybe that explained Lupin and her strangeness.

Or maybe it was simply that he didn’t know the whole song, just that one little strand of notes, and some part of his brain kept snagging on it, trying to fill in what came next. If he’d had any musical inclination, he could have played the notes out on an instrument and attempted to finish the song. But he didn’t know anything about scales or melodies, and he certainly couldn’t play an instrument. So he was stuck with those same notes replaying in his mind. Yes, a person could definitely go mad from that.

Around midnight, when he was not a whit closer to sleep than he’d been when he first went to bed, Jaren threw back his covers, pulled on his trousers, and crept down the ladder as quietly as he could. As he tiptoed past his father, who generally slept so soundly that not even an earthquake could wake him, Jaren grabbed his boots from the hearth and slipped silently into the night.

An intense rainstorm had passed through this evening, leaving the air cool enough to help clear his head a bit. If he walked for a bit, he might be able to clear the song away altogether. It wasn’t the most brilliant plan to wander alone in the woods at night, but anything was better than slowly going mad in his own bed.

Unfortunately, Jaren had a habit of finding a topic that troubled him and ruminating on it until his thoughts circled around and around, like a dog chasing its tail. And if he wasn’t going to think about the music—and he wasn’t going to think about the music, damn it—there was little to think about other than Lupin.

Lupin, with her honey hair and meadow-green eyes, with her hollow laugh and her relentless flirting. With her insinuation that she wasn’t looking for marriage but was willing to do other things. Jaren knew if any of his sisters did those other things before marriage, they would be permanently ruined. But then, Lupin was already ruined in the eyes of the townspeople.

Despite the fact that he was surrounded by girls, Jaren found them predictable in one thing and one thing only: their unpredictability. One moment Story would be laughing and joking, and the next, she was angry about something. And worse still, she would refuse to acknowledge that she was angry. Tadpole’s crushes were as fleeting as a summer storm, and Summer, arguably the most even-tempered of the three, was not immune to changes in mood that could leave a man reeling in confusion. And these were the girls he’d grown up with! How could he possibly be expected to understand the motivations of a near stranger?