Craft (24 page)

Careen grabbed Ellie’s arm and forced
her to stay in place. Ellie scowled at her sister and tugged her
arm out of her grip. Careen smiled sweetly at the scowl. She was
not deceived by Ellie’s explanation. She knew Ellie was meeting
someone. Careen had been party to enough dates behind Neveah’s back
to know one when she saw it. Ellie was hiding a boyfriend. Careen
was not as interested in the boyfriend as she was what she could
get out of the situation.

“I’ll keep your secret safe…if you do
some things for me,” Careen said.

Ellie’s eyes narrowed. Accepting her
terms was dangerous. It gave Careen leverage. It was likely Careen
would mess up and tell Neveah about the blackmail; the punishment
would then be twice as worse. Not accepting Careen’s terms could be
just as dangerous. The unknown made Ellie cautious. But there was
also relief. Ellie knew Careen would never let her meeting with
Thane slide if she knew Thane was a Cooper. It would be immediate
trouble and an immediate beating. That did not mean Careen could
not still bring a world of trouble. If Careen slipped up and told
Neveah that Ellie was meeting someone, it would not take Neveah
long to figure out who Thane was. Neveah would set up a trap. She
would kill him.

“Like what?” Ellie asked.

Careen hesitated. She had not thought
that far ahead. Her simple mind worked overtime to come with
something she knew Ellie would hate. The only thing that came to
her was chores. The fact that Ellie spent her life doing chores and
hated it was the only thing she really knew about her sister,
beyond the fact that she was meeting a boy.

Careen put her hands on her hips.
“Like any chores I want.”

Ellie’s scowl was back. She wished,
for once, that she could craft without repercussions. She wished
she could scare Careen into not spilling her secrets. The impulse
was difficult to resist.

“Fine,” Ellie said her voice full of
anger.

“Fine,” Careen said a smirk on her
face.

Careen turned and walked away from
Ellie’s shack. Her face was content, her bullying complete. Ellie
sensed her dreaming up new chores as she walked. Ellie watched her
walk away in agitated silence. Worry that Careen would spill the
beans consumed her. Careen was notoriously bad at keeping secrets.
She was what Eugenia called simple. Ellie would have to stop Careen
before things got out of hand. But how? How could she stop someone
so determined to get something out of the situation? How could she
stop someone who would not see her point of view?

Caw stopped circling the sky when
Careen was gone and landed on Ellie’s shoulder. He started preening
himself, oblivious to Ellie’s distraction. His presence made Ellie
realize again the truth she had long kept buried in her heart, the
truth that kept her from telling her family about Caw, even though
he was just a bird.

Ellie knew that her family was just as
capable of senseless murder as the Coopers. They killed for the
pleasure of it. They killed the things that endangered the family,
or things that Neveah thought endangered the family. Ellie also
knew Neveah had an instinct for bloodletting that went beyond the
feud. Neveah would kill Thane and Caw without hesitation. She would
enjoy it. She would not care about the loss of life or Ellie’s
pain. Neveah liked the violence; she searched it out.

Ellie touched Caw at the thought.
Hiding a bird was different from hiding a whole person. It would be
impossible to keep Thane a secret forever. Neveah would find out
eventually. There was no denying that now, not with Careen’s
awareness of the situation hovering over her head. There was only
one thing to do. Ellie had to make sure that no one got hurt
because of her. She had to make sure that her family did not get
the chance to take their bloodlust out on Thane. She would have to
break off ties with Thane. Their friendship had to end.

She would tell him when she saw him
next week that they could not be friends anymore. The meetings in
the woods had to stop. He would understand. He had to. She was
certain after the events at the fair that he did not want his
family to know about her for the same reason.

The likely punishment was not worth
continuing their friendship. The stakes were too high. Ellie was
sad at the idea of losing the only friend she had ever had, but it
was necessary. The dream of a world outside the feud had to end.
Her adventure had gone on long enough. She had finally found the
end of the story. And she would do what she had to do.

Thane’s life depended on
it.

Chapter 9: Feud
Again

Careen kept Ellie busy the week
separating Ellie from her next meeting with Thane. Ellie’s chores
doubled. Careen lacked Neveah’s true viciousness, so she settled
for making Ellie work twice as hard at meaningless tasks. She made
Ellie shine her jewelry until she could see her reflection. Twice,
Ellie had to rearrange Careen’s closet and clean dresses Careen
could have cleaned with craft. Ellie did the chores without
complaint. She would do them until she could get a message to Thane
and warn him not to come around anymore. She would take the
punishment for him.

On top of her regular chores, and
Careen’s added chores, Neveah had several parties. At first, Ellie
was not sure what they were celebrating, until Ellie got wind that
there had been another large confrontation between the Bumbalows
and the Coopers; payback for the attack on Ellie’s house and
Ellie’s abduction.

No one had died, but the Coopers had
lost the fight. Winning mattered more to most of Ellie’s kin than
killing the Coopers. They loved to see the Coopers lose in a fight.
‘Most’ excluded Neveah. While Ellie was cleaning up trash in the
front yard, she overheard her sister talking about upping the
stakes of the fight, being more aggressive with the Coopers. She
claimed it was the only way to put the Coopers in their place for
good. Ellie knew it was a lie; it was a way for Neveah to indulge
her craving for violence.

Neveah’s conversation made Ellie more
determined to cut off ties to Thane before things got messy and
complicated. She had been silly to think there could ever be peace
between her and a Cooper. There was too much bloodshed in their
past, present and future for absolute peace between them. There was
no changing the fact that their friendship had been doomed from the
beginning. It was time she stopped lying to herself and to
Thane.

After an exhausting week that flew by
quicker than Ellie had time to focus on, it was time to see Thane
again. Ellie was late to the meeting. Careen had forced her to
rearrange her room again and clean out every nook and cranny, until
the room sparkled. She had hovered over Ellie, making sure
everything was perfect. Escape from her knowing eye had been
impossible. Careen’s sleepiness had been the only thing to save
Ellie from the chores.

Ellie was convinced Thane would leave
at her tardiness. She hoped he would be angry for the delay and
never come back. It would be easier than the conversation she had
spent a week rehearsing.

She was not so lucky.

Thane was patiently waiting for her
when she pushed her way through the bushes. Caw had flown ahead and
was resting on his shoulder. Thane petted the bird absently while
he waited. He looked as if he was in deep thought. It might have
been the same fight she had overheard the others celebrating that
was on his mind, or something at home. She was not eager to give
him time to start in on it. She did not want to get lost in
conversation. It would make her task twice as hard.

Ellie paused for a short second when
she saw Thane. He looked happy to see her. The happy expression on
his face was difficult for Ellie to face. She allowed herself a
moment of pain, then cold determination steeled her backbone. She
could break off ties for him. She had the strength to put her own
feelings aside. She took a deep breath as she paused and did not
come any closer despite Thane’s welcoming wave.

“I can’t be meeting you no more,”
Ellie said without any preamble. “You can’t come
around.”

The happy expression on Thane’s face
fell with her words. He was worried more than angry; he knew her
words were out of character. She would never banish him without
reason. It was not Ellie’s style.

“What are you talking about?” Thane
asked. “Why?”

“Careen knows I’ve been meeting
someone and she’s threating to tell Neveah,” Ellie said in a
carefully emotionless voice.

If she let him see her hurt, she was
certain he would know how much she wished the meetings could go on.
He would demand they keep meeting, and she was not sure she could
resist that sort of demand.

“Will she tell?” Thane
asked.

Ellie nodded. “It’s only a matter of
time,” she said.

Thane’s eyes lost their worry. Hurt
replaced it. Ellie started fidgeting at the look of disappointment
on Thane’s face. The hurt expression worked on her senses, but she
was determined not to change her mind over a look. She had promised
herself to keep those impulses at bay. It was his life on the line.
Ellie took a single step closer. Her mind was on the facts they had
been ignoring. If she kept her focus there, she would not change
her mind.

“It’s not like either of us thought we
could really be friends, is it? Our kin hate each other. That makes
things between us impossible,” she said. “We will forever have the
hatred hanging over us, no matter what future we forge out of this
forest.”

Thane stood. He towered over her
despite the distance between them. His whole body radiated with his
emotions. “That’s not true!” he argued.

Ellie crossed her arms as his height
worked hard to make her feel small. She did her best to look just
as intimidating as she felt him to be. “It is, too!” Ellie said.
“No matter what, we’ll always be worrying about getting caught and
the other person getting hurt 'cause of the feuding…at least, I
know I will. It’s fun to do things I shouldn’t. It’s fun to cross
Neveah behind her back, but if I cross her to her face, people’ll
die. You’ll die. We gotta be grown up about this. We gotta be
realistic. There’s no room for friendship between us. Our story
will only end in sadness.”

Thane frowned at her words and took a
step closer. He did not like her logic. “That’s not fair. You’re
putting your fear out there as realistic, instead of fighting for
our friendship. You’re too afraid to run the risk of getting
caught.”

Thane’s words made Ellie angry. She
put her hands on her hips. What did Thane know about things not
being fair? What did he know about risk?

“No, you know what’s not fair?” Ellie
demanded. “Having to stay around this stupid house cleaning and
being bullied while you get to run off to whatever school your
daddy happens to want to pay for at the time. Getting to do
whatever you want, whenever you want, seeing the world, while all I
get is my backyard. You got it so easy, but you act as if your
whole life is horrible. Everything makes you so unhappy, even the
things that make you happy! And, let’s be honest, you’ll get tired
of my friendship eventually. Nobody likes hanging out with a maid,
no matter if she did save your life. The newness will wear off
soon. You’ll get tired of rebelling against your father and wise up
to the reality in front of us. And then, where will I be? Here.
Alone. While you fondly remember a time when you dared to befriend
a Bumbalow.”

“You don’t know me as well as you
think you do!” Thane said in a hurt voice. “You think you’re so
smart and got everything figured out, but you don’t.”

“I know you well enough!” she said
back. “I know you’re a Cooper! That says plenty!”

Ellie had not meant to bring up his
lineage as a reason for any ugliness she might find in his
personality, but it had slipped out. It was an unspoken line they
had both decided not to cross with their budding friendship. She
did not mean it, but it was too late to take the words back. They
were out there. Her words could not be undone. Thane looked
shocked. He had never thought she would say such a thing to him. He
had thought her better than that. The shocked silence hung between
them for a long moment.

“Fine,” Thane finally said in a cold
voice.

His face was angrier than she had ever
seen it. He looked more like Connor in that moment than Ellie had
ever seen him look. Ellie resisted taking a step back from him. She
kept her place and fought her emotions. What she was doing was too
important. Thane pushed Caw off his shoulder and the bird flew off
with an angry squawk.

“I was just being nice, anyway,” Thane
said. “I felt sorry for you. Couldn’t imagine being cooped up in
this place you call a house for all my life. But, it looks like
you’re a Bumbalow through-and-through. Ready to forget the past as
quickly as it’s gone. Happy to be oblivious. Happy to be trash,
with no future, beyond serving your family hand-and-foot, like a
character out of one of your books. You know what? I think you like
being stepped on…it means someone is noticing you.”

Ellie’s face filled with red color at
his words. Her anger matched his. She had never been called trash
before, but it was not the insult that bothered her. It was the way
he had said her last name: with disgust and hatred. Her hands
twitched with the desire to use her craft on him. It took all her
power to stop herself from doing something she would regret
forever.