“We’re riding circuit,” Rhiannon said, matching his controlled tone. “We’ll stay a day. Maybe sing. Help any sick or injured, then move on.”
“We take care of our own,” he said. “You can just go on.”
“We’d like to ride on down and see for ourselves,” Rhiannon replied, the look on her face betraying her surprise at the lack of welcome.
“We’d appreciate it if you’d turn around.”
Dionne was pretty sure that was a great idea, but Rhiannon had got a bit in her teeth and wasn’t letting go. She was probably right, too. No town or hold or home should refuse a Healer or a Bard. Rhiannon’s back had gone stiff, and she poured a bit of authority into her voice. “We have an interest.”
“Oh, let them come.”
Dionne turned toward the speaker, an older man with a broad back and sturdy shoulders and dark hair as clean-cut as the scout’s. He sounded and looked friendly, except that his eyes didn’t land on her or even on Rhiannon. His gaze seemed to slide sideways, as if he were lost in thought.
She swallowed, a slight chill running up her spine. “Maybe we will go on if you don’t need us.”
“Oh, no, I’m pleased to be able to offer hospitality to two of Haven’s own.” He held his hand out to her. “I’m James, and the cretin who stopped you is one of my sons, Louden.”
They finished the introductions and Louden stepped aside to clear the path. They wound through an open gate and into a small, neat compound. The corrals at the edge of the town were sturdy and in good repair, and the animals looked healthy. James led them to a neat little cottage with its own small corral attached, and bade them put up the horses. “I’ll bring you lunch soon,” he said. “We’ve no need of healing, but I won’t have you going hungry.”
The cabin looked neat enough to be part of Haven itself or at least one of the larger towns. Gaps in the logs that made up the walls were packed carefully with dried moss, and wood had been stacked by the fireplace.
“You’d think they expected guests,” Rhiannon remarked as they set their stuff inside the door. “It almost looks like someone swept this morning.
“So why weren’t they more welcoming? That was an act.”
Rhiannon shrugged. “They probably don’t see many strangers. We’d have ridden right by if I hadn’t noticed the track.”
“Something doesn’t feel right.”
“You worry too much.” Rhiannon started out to strip Chocolate’s tack. After they finished carefully setting bits and bridles across the sturdy fence, they slipped halters onto the horses and led them to the stream for water. “But then again,” Rhiannon said as they stood on the bank, “where are all of the people?”
“Good question.” Dionne looked up and down the stream. Two wooden bridges spanned it, built wide enough to handle the rush of spring water. The only person she saw was Louden moving between two cabins. “I’ve seen no women.”
A thin, childlike voice spoke up from the reeds across the stream. “We’re here. They just told us to stay away.”
Dionne blinked and tried to look busy with her horse, Lily, as she replied without looking in the direction of the voice. “Do you need help?”
“No.”
“They why are you hiding?”
“So you don’t steal us.”
“So why tell us you’re here if you think we’ll steal you?” Dionne asked.
“I don’t think you will. You’re a Healer and a Bard, and they don’t steal.”
“That’s true.” Dionne saw no sign of a person to go with the voice.
“He’s coming.”
The voice silenced, and sure enough, James stepped around the corner bearing a plate of fresh bread and some thick slices of cheese. “This is the best we’ve got right now. I hope it will please you. I already ate, so I hope you won’t mind that I didn’t bring any for myself.”
Rhiannon nodded. They took the horses and followed him back to the cabin. The three of them sat down at the small hand-hewn kitchen table. “It’s plenty for a midday meal. Thank you.”
Dionne took her plate. “What do you call the town?”
James narrowed his eyes for a second, and then laughed. “We didn’t name it. We’re just a family that got permission to settle here ’bout ten years ago. There’s a few families now, and we’ve started building for the next generation.” He waved his hand around at the inside of the cabin. “Louden will need a place to live soon, and there’re two others his age who’ll start families in a year or two.”
“So can we call it Jamestown?”
“No.” He furrowed his brow. “You can call it Paradise.”
The cheese was good, but Dionne couldn’t really do any more than nibble after hearing the voice outside. Paradise indeed. “It’s good you’re planning ahead,” she told James. “Your wall is strong. Have you had trouble with predators or bandits out here?”
“Bandits thought to take our livestock a coupla years back. Got one sheep, but that was all.” A hint of pride had crept into his voice. “We took care of them.”
Dionne decided not to ask him how. “Is there anything I can do for you or yours before we head on our way?”
“We’re all fine at the moment.”
She wanted to be on the horses and gone, but how could they leave before they learned more about the waif by the water? “No scrapes? No older people who could use some relief from stiff bones?”
James shook his head. “We’re all fine.”
“How about song? Surely your little ones would like to hear some songs. We’ve also got news from Haven.”
“Pah. Haven’s never helped me.” He looked like he wanted to spit, but he swallowed instead and went on, glancing at Rhiannon with a look that seemed half suspicion and half appreciation. “But maybe you can sing later if you stay for supper.” He stood up. “If you ladies will excuse me, there’s work waiting. Feel free to rest up, and I’ll come get you for supper.”
Once he was gone, Dionne caught Rhiannon’s eye and whispered, “We shouldn’t have come here.”
“But that girl.”
“I know. We should go back to the water.”
“We need to wash up anyway,” Rhiannon commented. “Finish up your food.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I am.” Rhiannon plucked Dionne’s bread from her plate and slapped the piece of cheese she hadn’t started yet onto it. “All this sleuthing in small towns makes me hungry.”
Dionne paced the small cabin, her footsteps quick and worried.
After a few minutes Rhiannon stood. “That’s better.” She stacked the plates by the sink and held the door open. “He didn’t tell us we can’t look around for ourselves. We’re representatives of Haven.”
“But we’re not Heralds.”
“I know.”
As cold as it had been this morning, midday was almost shirtsleeve weather. Dionne felt brave and nervous as they retraced their steps, returning to the place they’d heard the voice, talking softly. She reached down to rinse her hands in the cold spring-melt water.
No one spoke to them.
“Let’s sit a minute,” Dionne said.
A patch of grass beside the stream had lost its frost to the pale sun and showed the thinnest fuzz of light green where new shoots were just coming up. Rhiannon sat, and then leaned back, straightening her long legs in front of her. In moments, she started to snore softly.
“Rhi,” Dionne shook her.
Rhiannon didn’t move.
Dionne shook harder. “Rhi!”
Then again. “Rhi”
“He’s poisoned her.”
The waif! The same high voice, thin and reedy.
“I knew he’d do something like that. Look. You’ve got to go. Now, get out the gate. Save yourself.”
“I don’t care about myself.” She cared about Rhi. She shouldn’t have followed her down here, should have listened to the part of herself that was scared of this place.
No one knew where they were.
She shook Rhi again, then stood and splashed some of the cold stream water on her sister’s face. Rhi flinched, but didn’t open her eyes.
She’d followed Rhi blindly, maybe because Rhi’s escapades always ended up being something they could handle. Her heart pounded so hard her blood raced and her fingers throbbed. “What did he poison her with?”
“Something Henny makes up. She’ll sleep for hours.”
“Do you know what she puts in it?”
“Plants from around here is all I know for sure. Maybe there’s more.”
“Great.” She ran her hands across Rhi’s forehead. It was cool, and a little clammy. “Why?”
“He’s scared of you. Scared you’ll tell people where we are.”
“Looks like we should.” Maybe he had underestimated them, though. Dionne changed positions so she sat at Rhi’s head, cradling it in her lap. She closed her eyes, preparing to ground.
“You’ve got to go!”
“Not without my sister. Come out where I can see you or go away.” Dionne didn’t wait to see what the girl did, but reached for the grounding force of the Earth. When she found it, she pulled energy into her body, a line of power she felt even though it was invisible to her. It filled muscles and blood, strengthened her heart. It even took some of her fear, leaving only a little gibbering around the edges about how she couldn’t live without Rhiannon.
She bent over Rhi, one hand on her forehead, the other over her heart, her red hair mingling with her sister’s hair like two flames.
The poison felt deep and slow. Rhiannon had eaten the part meant for Dionne as well as the portion she’d been served.
Her life force felt thin, like fog, like mist above water.
She might die.
Dionne shook herself almost like a wet dog. Rhi couldn’t die. Not here, not in this place. Not while Dionne was alive. Dionne reached inside her twin, trying to fill Rhiannon with her love, her need, with their bond.
Rhi’s breathing grew even shallower, and Dionne’s hand barely moved up and down on her chest. Dionne burrowed deeper. Chasing after Rhiannon’s essence felt like running after a deer, the distance between them growing and shrinking but never closing.
She’d never tried anything so hard.
A voice spoke above her, the girl. “Don’t bleed out all your power.”
Good advice, the right advice. Dionne emptied her lungs and when she filled them, slowly, she pulled again on the earth, drawing on every place it touched her: buttocks and thighs, ankles, the sides of her splayed out feet.
She refocused, paying attention to the poison itself, drawing the dark tendrils away from Rhiannon’s heart and blood. She set the hand that was on Rhi’s forehead on the ground, building a link. She poured the poison slowly out of her sister into the earth.
Rhi twitched under her hand and breathed a raspy, shuddering breath. She rolled onto her side and coughed, retching up the rest of the cheese and bread.
Bushes rustled and soft footsteps moved, still out of sight.
Rhi opened her eyes. “What happened?”
Dionne told her.
Rhi sat up, squinting around the little clearing. She finally said, “Thank you, whoever you are.”
“You’re welcome. You should leave now.”
“Can we please see you?” Dionne could barely keep her eyes open. She tried to draw on the earth again, but as usual when she wanted energy for herself, she might as well have been trying to fly. “Can you come out? Please?”
A thin girl with pale skin and pale green eyes and lips the color of sunset clouds separated from behind a tree, standing with one hand on the trunk. “I’m Emma. Emma Sue Emily for all three names.”
“I’m Dionne, and this is my sister, Rhi.”
“You look like you should lie down,” Emma Sue Emily said, her voice quite serious.
“You are one very bright child.”
Dionne squinted at the girl. “Your face is bruised.”
“I know.”
“Who hit you?”
“I get hit sometimes. It’s hard around here. But I’m still alive.”
Wow. Which implied others weren’t. They did need to leave and report this. Now. “Will you go with us to get help?”
Emma Sue Emily shook her head. “My mom is here. So are my two brothers. I look out for them.”
Dionne felt like her heart was splitting. She covered her sadness by turning to her sister. “Are you okay, Rhi?”
“I think a horse just kicked me and I need something good to eat. So yeah.”
It seemed too much. Her sister almost dying and the girl, Emma, and not being wanted. Then Dionne realized what she felt—the harder a healing, the more scattered she felt for hours afterward. Or days. This had been hard. A yawn forced her mouth open against her will. “I think I need to nap.”
“You two best go now,” the girl said, her voice carrying a surprising authority given her frail body.
Even though the girl was right, Dionne couldn’t make her legs tuck under so she could stand. It had been too much.
The world blacked around her.
Rhiannon worked quickly, pulling on bridles and bits and tightening the cinches for saddles. She had to stop from time to time and take in deep painful breaths, letting them out slowly. Dionne had healed her past immediate danger, but a month of sleep would help. It felt like forever before she led Chocolate and Lily back to the river where Dionne napped. Rhiannon smiled as she came up beside the two women. Emma Sue Emily sang to Dionne, a high voice, almost like wind in trees or the first breath of spring on a mountain pass.
Dionne did not appear to have moved, or to hear the song. Rhi knelt beside her and shook her shoulder. “Come on. We need to go.”
Dionne mumbled a soft curse word and rolled over on her side.
“Now.”
“I know. I can’t.” Her eyelids twitched but didn’t open. “Maybe you should. Go.”
“Right. And leave you?” She reached a hand out but Dionne didn’t take it. Truth was, Dionne’s face looked like birch bark, and she held her stomach like she might retch any moment.
Rhi waited. Not tapping her foot was hard. She should throw Dionne onto Lily’s broad back so they could put this place behind them.
A sharp intake of breath from Emma was all the warning Rhi had before she heard James ask, “Leaving so soon?”