The Poison Season(49)

Leelo thought about the men in their twenties around the island. She didn’t know any of them personally. And besides, most of them were already married. But she did know what her mother meant. Perhaps because she’d known all of the boys their whole lives, it was hard to see them as anyone other than who they’d been as children, even if their voices were deeper and they could grow a beard.

Jaren was different, though. She hardly knew him, and that made him...interesting. Try as she might to keep her guard up in his presence, his candor and warmth continued to disarm her. She’d never met a boy who talked with such regard for his sisters, or one who seemed to take a genuine interest in her life. She avoided meeting his eyes because every time she did, a little jolt went through her. When she left today, she’d forced herself not to look away from him, testing her resolve. It had been almost physically painful, but in an oddly pleasant way.

“Is there someone?” Fiona pressed, apparently seeing something on Leelo’s face.

She laughed and shook her head. “No. Of course not. I just can’t imagine myself with any of those boys, either.”

“Well, not to worry. You’ve time yet. And there is someone for everyone out there.”

“Even Ketty,” Leelo said with a conspiratorial grin.

“You shouldn’t joke about that.” Once again, the tone in her mother’s voice had changed suddenly and completely.

“I—I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean anything by it. I know she and Uncle Hugo loved each other. She can just be so...contentious.” Leelo took her mother’s wrist, but Fiona didn’t meet her eyes. “Mama, what is it? Did something happen to Aunt Ketty? Sage mentioned something, about her sacrificing for you.”

Finally, Fiona glanced over. “She did?”

“Yes. She was angry with me. She didn’t say what it was. But it’s always been obvious that something happened between you two.”

Fiona sighed and leaned back against the sink. “Has it?”

She suddenly looked old and weary to Leelo, who had never noticed the strands of silver threaded through her auburn hair before. Fine lines had begun to appear around her lips and eyes. She had to look closely to see them, but they were there.

“Relationships between sisters are always complicated,” Fiona said. “Much the way your relationship with Sage is.”

“But something did happen, didn’t it?”

Fiona nodded. “Your aunt’s husband was not a nice man, Leelo.”

“Uncle Hugo?” Leelo’s memories of him were vague. They hadn’t shared a home then, but she remembered him as tall and bearded, with sandy blond hair and a loud laugh. He had never been cruel to Leelo, and if he was cruel to Ketty and Sage, Leelo had never witnessed it.

“Yes. He was jovial and loving around others, but alone, he could be very different. He yelled at my sister and sometimes at Sage. He even hit Ketty from time to time.”

Leelo gasped. She couldn’t imagine anyone striking Aunt Ketty. She was the fiercest woman Leelo knew. “Why?”

“There was never a reason for it. Of course, what reason could there have been? He had a temper, and he never learned to control it. Some men on Endla think a woman should be obedient to their husband.”

Leelo’s stomach soured. “Was Father like that?”

“No, of course not. Your father was a good man. A bit too agreeable, some would say. He listened to your uncle more than anyone. They were friends, you see, long before your aunt and I married them. Kellan and Hugo had Watcher duty together, during a particularly challenging year. A group of outsiders decided to cross the ice the winter they had just started duty. They came bearing axes and hatchets, determined to chop down the Wandering Forest.”

Leelo hung on her mother’s words. A group of outsiders? A planned assault on the island? Why had she never heard of this before? “What happened?”

“Your father and uncle were the first men—well, boys, really—to discover the outsiders. They managed to take a couple down with their arrows, but they were vastly outnumbered and made a run for it. The Forest helped in its way. One man was crushed by a tree he himself had felled; another plummeted into a pit and broke his neck. More Watchers joined the fight, and eventually three outsiders were captured.”

Leelo stared wide-eyed at her mother. “And then? The lake or the Forest?”

Fiona sighed. “It was something else, something we don’t need to speak of. All you need to know is that they died.”

Leelo steadied herself on the counter next to her mother. “And Father and Uncle?”

“They became inseparable after that. And when Ketty and Hugo married, it seemed inevitable that your father and I would do the same.”

Leelo couldn’t help but notice that Fiona hadn’t said anything about love. “What did Aunt Ketty sacrifice for you, Mama?”

Fiona’s hazel eyes were damp with tears when she turned to her daughter and said, “Everything.”



Chapter Twenty-Nine


Leelo had been tromping around the middle of the island for what felt like hours, and she’d found nothing resembling a boat. She had never seen the pond where the flowers for the ceremony were grown, and she had no idea where the council members even met once a month. It didn’t make sense. It was a small island, and she knew it like the back of her hand.