Nevermor (46 page)

“You cut off his
arm!”

“How did you
know to feed it to the monster?”

There was one
among them, however, who did not look so pleased.  Wren was standing there with
the little one, staring at the ground and lost in her own thoughts.  She should
have been looking at
him
.  She should have been smiling.  He would have
liked her to be happy, especially after he’d been so victorious.  Couldn’t she
be joyous for that?

He’d been
staring at her when the commotion died down, and he hadn’t even realized that
the rest of them had grown quiet.  They were looking past him, Toss stepped in front
of Wren, and Rifter didn’t have to turn before he knew what was going on.

He turned his
head to look behind him, and saw what he’d expected.  Several of the remaining
natives were there, bows and spears drawn.  The Pack went on the defensive as
well, brandishing their own weapons behind Rifter to defend if they had to, but
none of them made a move toward each other.

One among the
painted Tribals began to speak to them in a loud, threatening voice, and though
they couldn’t understand the words, the message was clear.

It was like Finn
had said before.  The Tribals did not like them as much as the pirates did not,
and despite what help they might have offered, these people wanted them off
their land.

Rifter
understood this message.  Perhaps it was rude after what he had done for them,
but he would consent.  He held up his empty hands and motioned for the others
to put their weapons away, and then he turned to go without a word.  The others
gradually obeyed and followed after him, leaving down the hill and away from
the camp.

The Tribals kept
a careful watch on them until they were gone.

1

The Wolf Pack
had retreated back into the woods, but they were still a fair distance from
home.  Rifter hadn’t asked them how they had caught up with him – either
because he didn’t think of it or because he already knew.  No one could say. 
The fact remained that they were too far from the hideaway to make it back
tonight.  They walked until they were tired and then made their camp in the
woods.

The boys were
still talking excitedly about what had happened, some reenacting the scene by
the fire for the entertainment of the rest.  Finn was narrating, playing Rifter
while Mach was acting as the Scourge, and the battle was redone.  When the arm
was cut off, there was a roar of applause, and Mach made such a flailing
display of false pain that Wren couldn’t watch anymore.  She sighed in
frustration and decided to wander away to be alone.  She needed the quiet.

Wren went off
through the trees, but not so far that she couldn’t still see the light of the
fire.  They had set up camp near a creek, and she trudged down the hill to it,
kneeling to wash her face in the cold water.  It was a frigid jolt, as if she
needed another rude awakening.

She stared down
at the stream trickling past her, feeling unusually low.  She wasn’t sure that
she could put her finger on exactly what was bothering her, but she knew it had
something to do with what she had seen today – the way they all laughed at what
had happened, how they congratulated Rifter on mutilating another person, how
the world had reacted like that!  Everyone else seemed so happy about the way
it had turned out, as if the battle had swung in their favor and no bad would
come with it.  She wanted to feel happy too, but she couldn’t.

How could they
all be so excited by violence?  She’d always thought that it was best to avoid
conflict.  Why did they seek out monsters?  And why did Rifter insist on
rushing out to step into the middle of some battle that didn’t concern him?  If
the Scourge was so dangerous, why didn’t they all stay away?  Couldn’t they
have perfectly normal lives in the forest, hiding underground, away from it
all?

As difficult as
all that was, the thing that depressed her most was seeing Henry fall in with
this way of thinking.  She’d been happy with that in the beginning, but now
that this had happened, she wasn’t sure how she could endorse it.  She’d told
herself that she could handle seeing her brothers adapt to this life, but Henry
was so much like them now that he had blended with the group.  She could
scarcely tell him apart from the rest, as if he had been here as long as they
had.

I just don’t
understand them.  They don’t think like I do.  Not at all.

It was something
that she’d just have to deal with, she supposed.  She couldn’t change them. 
They had to go their own way.

“What are you
doing off all by yourself?”  Wren looked up at the sound of Rifter’s voice,
just in time to see him drop out of the sky and land next to her.

He stared at her
a few moments, but she tried to avoid his eyes.  She wasn’t sure what she
wanted to say to him, or what was going to come out of her mouth when she
opened it, so she tried to keep herself quiet and let him speak first.

“I can’t help
noticing that you don’t seem very happy,” he said finally.  She was surprised
that he
had
noticed.  Had he figured it out on his own or had one of the
others told him?  Wren shook it away.

“Today was…” 
She tried to think of a good way to say it, but there was no good way.  She
decided to be blunt.  “It was the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen!”

He was quiet,
unsure of how to respond.  He seemed disappointed that she wasn’t as impressed
with him as the rest of them were.

“Why do you say
that?” he asked.  Did he really not understand?

“The world was
going mad!  The earth was shaking!  There were
rocks falling from the sky
! 
Yet you insisted on fighting him!  You could have died, Rifter!  We all could
have died!”

“But we didn’t,”
he said easily.  He was actually smiling!  He held up his arms so she could
look at him.  “See?  All in one piece – which is more than I can say for him.”

“This isn’t a
joke!” she scolded.

He still didn’t
seem to understand why she was upset.  She thought of holding it back, of
clamming up in the heat of the moment, but then it was all spilling out in a
flood that broke through the dam she’d built up.  Her emotion was too strong to
contain.

“You ran off and
left us to begin with!  Did you even give us any regard?  What if someone had
died today?  Would you have cared?”

His eyes
narrowed at her.  “Of course I would have cared!  I don’t want
anyone
to
die.”

“But how would
you know if we had?  You didn’t even know we were there!”

He was silent at
that, and now he had refused to look at her.  He was looking out over the
trees, chewing on his aggravation.  She didn’t want to see him getting angry at
her.  She looked at the water instead, and they stood like that for a while.

“If I die, will
you forget me?” she asked finally.  She wouldn’t look at him, but she was sure
that he was dumbfounded by her words.  She didn’t know what he’d say, still
half-expecting him to yell at her, but he was quiet.  When he spoke again, his
voice was level.

“I’ve always
sworn that I will not lose my brothers.  I don’t remember them, but I know that
I have lost some.  I guess you know by now that it’s the reason why you’re
here.  The others must have told you that I won’t talk about the fallen
afterward, and that I forget them.  Well, they’re right.  Even now, the last
one’s name means nothing to me, because I don’t even remember what it was.”

That wasn’t
true.  She knew it wasn’t, but he was not yet finished, and she didn’t
interrupt him.

 “It’s painful. 
It kills me inside.  Why would I want to live with that?  I forget because I
don’t want to remember.  I don’t want to have that burden weighing me down. 
What’s important is that I’m unwilling to lose the ones I have now, and I’ll
fight for them as hard as I can – like I’d fight for you – but if they fall,
what can I do but let go?”

He turned and
began to walk away as if their conversation was over.  This just made her
angrier.

“You could at
least say their names!” she called out.  “Don’t banish them like they never
existed!”

“It’s not my
fault that I forget!” he said, turning on her.  “It’s just something that
happens!”

He was getting
angry – defensive – but she wasn’t sure if she believed him.

“I saw the
poem,” she blurted.  She wasn’t sure what sort of reaction she would get, but
she got what she wanted.  He stopped.

“What?”

“On the ceiling
in your room.  And there were other words too.  Some of them were the names of
the ones that have died.  You can’t tell me that you don’t remember
something
.”

“I
don’t
,”
he said firmly, and the way he spoke so harshly hammered her in place.  “Those
words come to me sometimes.  I write them down, but I don’t remember what they
mean!”

He stopped as if
he’d divulged too much.  Wren was quieted at that, and they stood there looking
at each other until Rifter sighed out his irritation.

“I just can’t
handle it,” he said, his voice broken.  “I can’t stand the guilt and I won’t
have that on me.  The ones who are with me now are my family.  I know them, I
haven’t forgotten them, and I won’t lose them.  I won’t lose
you
.”

She wished she
could believe him, but she didn’t know how she could.  She shook her head. 
“You were so consumed by your fight today that you didn’t even know we were
close.  You put us all in danger because of your grudge.”

He didn’t have
much of a defense for that, but he tried.  “You saw him.  The world dies
beneath him.  What if I let him do whatever he pleased?  What would happen to
this place?  I can’t allow it.  Fighting back the Scourge means keeping
everyone safe – keeping the world safe.  It’s something I have to do until it’s
done for good.”

“But what if it
happens the other way?” she asked anxiously, stepping closer.  “I don’t want
you to get hurt, Rifter.  I couldn’t bear that.  I–”

I love you.  I
need you with me.  Forever wouldn’t be the same without you.
  She held her
tongue.

Don’t say that
to him.  He’ll never say it back.
  She knew she was right.  He couldn’t
even say that he was sorry.  How could he say that he loved her?

“Do you trust
me?” he asked, brushing her curls behind her ear.  “Have you ever trusted me? 
I know you have, so do you still?”

She wanted to
say yes. 
Then say it.
  Of course she had trusted him.  She had never
had such blind faith in anyone, except perhaps in her parents when she was
younger, but even they had let her down.

“Tell me you
care about me,” she requested instead.

He looked at
her, confused.

“Why do I have
to say it?” he asked, as if she should have already known.

“Because girls
need to hear those things,” she said reasonably.

He smiled at her
as if she was being silly – that such things weren’t important at all.

“Can’t I just
kiss you?” he asked.  He cupped her face in his hands and leaned in toward her
mouth, but she lowered her head, avoiding him.

“How is it that
you can know so much about killing and nothing about love?” she asked with a
nervous laugh.

“Because I’ve
done one and not the other,” he admitted.  “But I’m learning.”

She was willing
to look at him then, but wondered if she could believe him.  He moved to kiss
her again and she did not push him away.  She tried to lose herself in it as
she had before, but something was still bothering her.

He doesn’t care
about me like I care about him.
  The thought was birthed abruptly in
the back of her mind, and she could not keep from nurturing it.

A part of the
Vow she had taken came back to her, sticking in her mind like a fly in a web. 
Promise
never to change
.  If Rifter went by the Vow as they did, would it be true
for him too?  Could he not change?  Could he not learn to love her – to really
love her in the way she needed?

Maybe she was
thinking about it too much.  Of course he cared about her.  She knew he did.

She put her head
on his shoulder as he folded her in his embrace, but she hardly felt him in her
arms.  He was transparent as a ghost.

2

Within the
darkness of that night, the land was disturbed, attempting to heal its own
wounds as it tried to understand what had imposed itself upon it.  It felt that
the darkness had returned, and it was trying to adjust to the new balance, or
else return to the old way.

The hatred had
been renewed.  The old wars were to be refought.

The world could
not speak out against it – could not advise.  It could only accept what was
inflicted on it, for the beginning and the end were the same to the land.  As
it had begun, so would it end.  For now, there was only to wait before the next
blow shook the very suspension of the universe.