The Poison Season(52)

“I need to wash my dress. And you should probably wash your clothing, too.”

“Right.”

She bit her lip, revealing that tiny gap again. “But I’m not sure what we’ll do while we wait for it to dry.”

“We’ll just have to stay in the water,” Jaren said. “I’ll take this pool, and you can take that one.”

Leelo nodded, but the furrow between her brows remained. She went to her pool and Jaren jumped into his, still wearing his trousers. The water was cold but he adjusted to it quickly, grateful to be clean again for the first time in days.

“Thank you for bringing me here. I didn’t realize how badly I needed this.” He stripped out of his trousers and laid them on the rocky edge of the pool next to his tunic, which he’d already scrubbed and wrung out.

“I’ll bring soap for next time,” Leelo said behind him. “I’m sorry I didn’t think of it sooner.”

“You read my mind,” he said, sniffing his clothing with a wince. “Water alone isn’t enough, I’m afraid.” Finally, he unwound the bandage on his leg, wincing as the scabs pulled against the fabric.

“How is the wound?” Leelo asked.

“Better.” Jaren still had one large hole in his shin, along with a few smaller ones, but they were clean and appeared to be healing. “Thank you.”

“I think it’s all right if we turn around,” Leelo said. “As long as we’re both under water.”

“Are you sure?”

There was a short pause. “Yes.”

Slowly, Jaren turned to face Leelo. Her pool was slightly below his, but the rocks between them hid her body from view. All he could see was her sleek head, her fair hair made silver by the water. Her eyelashes were usually so pale they were hard to see, but now they were darker and clumped together into little spikes.

He was staring. He swallowed and shook his head to break the tension, sending water droplets spraying. She held a hand out in front of her face, laughing.

“I feel so much better,” he said, slicking his hair away from his forehead. “You?”

She nodded. Her dress was splayed out on the rocks like his clothing. It had to be getting closer to evening, but the sun was still bright. The days were long now, with the summer solstice approaching.

“Have you made any progress with the songbook?” she asked. “I saw you were reading it when I came in.”

“Alas, no progress. I almost resorted to reading the poetry book, but I couldn’t stomach it.”

“What’s wrong with poetry?”

He shrugged. “Nothing, I suppose. It’s like singing without the music.”

She raised a brow in question.

“Right. You don’t sing words when you sing, do you?”

She shook her head. “No. Do you?”

Jaren didn’t love the idea of singing in front of someone who clearly had a far better voice than he did, especially when he’d never practiced. But he remembered the tune and words of one of the songs his mother had crooned to him as a baby, and he sang it quickly.

Leelo’s eyes lit up. “That’s wonderful!”

“Is it?” He chuckled. “My mother used to sing it to us when we were little. I’m surprised I still know the words.”

She smiled to herself. “I would never have thought to sing about a little filly in a meadow. But I liked it. Especially the part about the butterfly.”

Jaren sighed and crossed his arms on the rocks between them. “I wish we had something to eat. I’m starving.”

“I left the berries back in the cottage. I’m sure there are more nearby, though.”

“What kind of berries?”

“Blueberries. Maybe some lingonberries, but I don’t know if they’re ripe yet.”

“Right. Turn around. I’ll go find us some.” He waited until she was looking away, pushed out of the pool, and pulled on his still-damp trousers. It only took him a few minutes to find the blueberry bushes, and he picked them as quickly as he could, using his tunic as a makeshift basket.

He moved a little farther into the Forest and was just about to reach for a branch when he realized this wasn’t a blueberry bush; it was nightshade. Poisonous, even fatal, the small, blue-black berries looked similar to blueberries to the untrained eye. He glanced around him and noticed a patch of amanita toadstools growing nearby, their red-and-white-spotted caps bright against the grass. Fairy houses, Tadpole called them. But they were toxic, too.

Jaren was surrounded by danger, from the bright purple foxglove quivering in the breeze to the diamond-backed snake winding silently through them. He decided he had collected enough and made his way quickly out of the Forest to the clearing, then froze.

Leelo was standing with her back to him, still submerged below the waist. Her hair was so long it was nearly touching the water. She was doing something with her clothing, humming to herself as she worked.

She had the most beautiful voice Jaren had ever heard. Whatever she was singing now was nothing like the Endlan songs he’d heard before. It was, he realized, the song he’d sung for her, but in her wordless, haunting voice, it sounded otherworldly. He took a step forward without realizing it, until he stepped on a branch and froze just as her head whipped around.

She dropped below the surface of the water quickly, but not before he’d caught a glimpse of her face, her blue eyes wide with fright. Her hair had covered her chest, so he’d only caught a flash of bare skin. But saints, it looked like he’d been spying on her.