The Poison Season(39)

This went on for several minutes, and the idea that he was somehow communicating with a wild creature made Jaren forget just how much danger he was in. Before long, the bird landed on a branch in a tree a few yards from where he was sitting. It was an ordinary-looking blackbird at first glance, but when the sun shone on its feathers, they took on an iridescent sheen.

Jaren hummed the tune again, and the bird hopped to a lower branch, then closer, and closer, until it had landed on a fallen log just feet from where he sat. The bird cocked its head at Jaren, studying him, and this time when he hummed the tune, he remembered a few more notes than he’d sung before.

But his elation was short-lived. One moment the bird was there, innocently watching him, and the next, it was gone. Jaren hadn’t seen the long, snaking root rise up from the ground and wrap silently around the bird’s leg until it was too late. He stood, horrified, but the only sign that the bird had ever been there at all was a few shiny feathers, drifting slowly to the Forest floor.

Jaren backed up to the shack and crawled inside, closing the door firmly behind him.



Chapter Twenty-Four


Leelo tried to take a nap when she got home, but it was impossible. She was too wound up from the events of the day, and the idea that Sage might know about the outsider—Jaren—was driving her mad.

And, truth be told, she was wound up about the very fact that she’d spent time alone with an outsider. She knew his name. She’d promised to help him, when she should be gathering up the courage to kill him. And yet when she imagined wrapping her hands around his neck while he slept, ending his life as she was expected to, all she saw were gray eyes rimmed in thick black lashes, the kind Leelo, with her fair complexion, could only dream of. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected of an outsider, but it hadn’t been this. Even his leaf-strewn hair had looked soft and inviting.

Get a hold of yourself, she said to her reflection in the mirror. He was clearly using his wily outsider charms to trick her into helping him.

But she had tricks of her own. She’d already let slip that she should have killed him, so he knew his best chance of survival was doing as she said. He didn’t need to know how much her own survival depended on him.

Fiona had fallen asleep while knitting, so Leelo quietly gathered anything she thought Jaren might need: plum brandy—the only alcohol she could find—to disinfect the wound; a full waterskin; dried meat and fruit as well as a few slices of bread (anything more would be missed); and some warmer clothing, in case the night got chilly.

And then, with only a few hours until her Watcher shift with Kris started, she went to see Isola.

As usual, her friend refused to go for a walk the first three times Leelo asked, but finally, whether out of annoyance or boredom, she agreed. She didn’t question Leelo when she led them off the main trail into the Forest. Isola never asked where they were going; she never asked any questions at all. And even though by the end of their walks Isola seemed a little less sorrowful, she was always just as sad the next day.

“The lambs are getting big,” Leelo said. “You should come see them again sometime.”

“Perhaps.” Isola’s hair had grown a bit, and Leelo was relieved to see she was back to brushing it. But she had grown pale from so many days spent indoors, and she was thinner than Leelo had ever seen her.

“I’m helping my mother with a new dress,” Leelo pressed on, desperate for some inroad into the real purpose of this visit. “Would you like to learn? You could make your own dress for the summer solstice.”

Isola, who generally kept her eyes downcast or on the trail ahead, stopped and turned toward Leelo. “I’m not allowed at the summer solstice.”

“Saints, Isola. I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“Why are you being so nice to me, Leelo? You’re not supposed to visit me. I’m not even good company. I never have anything to contribute to our conversations, and I never will.”

Leelo shook her head. “But you will, Isola. If you find ways to distract yourself, you’ll be a little less sad every day. I know it’s painful, but it will get less painful, with time.”

“How do you know?” Isola asked, but there was no venom in it, only genuine fear. “How can you be so sure?”

Leelo gestured to a fallen tree, where they sat down next to each other. “I was young when my father died, but I was old enough that his death left a big hole in my life, and an even bigger hole in my mother’s. But she had two young children to care for, and she had to keep going for our sake. I know at the beginning she was just going through the motions of living, making us our meals and sewing our clothes, but eventually she started to come back to us. She’d smile when Tate made a silly face, or laugh when she spilled flour on the floor instead of crying. She wasn’t the same, maybe, but she was okay.”

Isola plucked a wildflower from near her feet and began pulling off the petals one by one. “Your mother had something to live for, though. What do I have?”

“You have your parents. And Sage and me. Aunt Ketty said she’d talk to the council on your family’s behalf.” She left out the part about Isola being ruined forever. It wouldn’t help anything, and besides, Leelo was hopeful that people would forgive her in time. “Someday you might even meet someone else you can love the way you loved Pieter.”

She dropped the ruined flower and crushed it with her foot. “No, I won’t.”