The Falcon in the Barn (Book 4 Forest at the Edge series) (17 page)

Perrin stared at his own end, and didn’t want
to be there—

Perrin.

The word came brightly to his mind, as if
lump of hot sun had dropped out of the sky. The cold blanket
smothering him skirted away, retreating to the edges of the
room.

Perrin.

Fight!

He immediately dropped the knife on the table
as heat surged around the room. Somehow it became brighter, and he
could see every detail of the room with acute clarity.

“
Get away from me!” he
ordered the darkness. “Leave me alone! I will not quit! I’ll beat
you! I’m
not
nothing. I am a son of the Creator, and I do
not obey you!”

He took a deliberate step away from the table
where the weapons lay. “Did you hear me? I refuse
YOU!
I
refuse your intimidation, and I refuse your control of me. It stops
NOW!” he bellowed to the edges of the room. “You’re nothing but a
cowardly bully, preying upon a man in his dreams. But I know you
now, and by the power of the Creator I command you to LEAVE MY
HOUSE!”

The world fell still.

Soft silence filled every sharp gap, to
overflowing.

His mind went quiet. Blissfully, mercifully,
quiet.

He glared into the shadows and crevices and
saw nothing.

It was gone. More importantly, he could
feel
it was gone. As cold and dark as the night was, the
house was as warm as if a fire was still raging in the hearth.
Light filled the room, and for the first time in seasons, Perrin
felt his shoulders relax.

Well done, my boy. Well done!

“
Hogal!” he whispered,
tears streaming down his face. “Hogal, you were right. Then again,
you always were. He’s after me. But I now I know how he works.
Thank you. Thank you for coming.”

You called, my boy. The Creator’s been
waiting for you to call. Took you a while. But then again, you
always were slow to accept help.

For the first time in who knew how long,
Perrin chuckled.

Then he collapsed on the sofa and sobbed into
his hands.

He didn’t notice his daughter watching him
through the crack in her door, wiping away her own tears. It’s
impossible to sleep when one’s father is screaming at the shadows
to leave. But it seemed that they did. Maybe, just maybe, he
was
defeating it. Whatever
it
was.

Nor did he see his son on the other side of
the room, peering through the opening of his door. He sighed in
relief and slipped back into his bed. He covered his face with his
hands just like his father, and lay there quietly until dawn.

Perrin also didn’t realize his wife was at
the top of the stairs, weeping silently.

“
He’s coming back!” she
whispered to the ceiling. “It’s him! Finally! Thank
you!”

---

Perrin stood for a while in front of the
door, finally knocked on it, and held his breath until it
opened.

“
Good afternoon, Rector
Yung. Can I have those five minutes?”

Rector Yung grinned. “You can have ten. Even
more, if you like. Please, come in, Colonel.”

Perrin stepped into the home that used to
belong to Hogal and Tabbit. While the spare furniture was
different, the house still had the same warm welcome it always had.
He took off his cap and held it uneasily in his hands.

“
Please, sit down,
Colonel.” The rector pointed to the stuffed chair that was older
than Perrin. Clean, but certainly the almost-last possession of a
man who had the habit of giving nearly everything away.

“
I won’t keep you long,”
Perrin said, still standing, “I’m actually out making my rounds,
but,” he faltered and cleared his throat. “For the past few days
I’ve felt horrible about the way I treated you on Holy Day. Rector,
I am very, very sorry.”

Rector Yung had been studying him from the
moment he opened the door. “Oh, no need to apologize, Colonel. But
I see something has changed since our last conversation.”

Perrin looked down at his cap. “Yes,” he said
quietly.

“
You had to fight, didn’t
you?”

Perrin nodded.

“
And this time, you
won.”

Perrin looked up at him.

Yung was smiling.

“
I did. For
once.”

“
I could see a difference
in your eyes the moment I opened the door. Once again the man I’ve
grown to respect stands before me!”

“
You’re far too kind,”
Perrin mumbled. “I didn’t hurt you at all, did I?”

Yung waved that away. “Merely a nudge.”

“
Well,” Perrin chuckled
sadly, “I’ve ‘nudged’ men out of my way who ended up with broken
arms.”

Yung held up his tiny arms and flexed his
nonexistent muscles. “See? Strong as ever.”

Perrin grinned. “Thank you,” he said.
“Again.”

The rector took a step closer to him.
“Perrin, you won a fantastic battle. The most decisive one you’ve
ever faced. Everything changes now for you.”

“
Battle? That suggests
a
war
, Rector,” Perrin said. Hogal had given him similar counsel,
years ago.

Perrin was really beginning to hate the army.
Fighting. Battles—

“
Yes, it does,” Yung said
solemnly. “A war in which you are one of the key players. The
battle which you just won has changed the course of the war. For
everyone.”

“
But it hasn’t
ended
it, has it?”

Yung shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. You’ll
be fighting this war for a very long time. But now you know you’re
stronger than it. You can defeat it, again and again.”

Perrin plopped despondently on the old chair
which creaked in complaint. “That’s not what I wanted to hear.”

Rector Yung squatted in front of him, his
tiny frame almost balled up. “Our entire existence is a war,
Perrin. The conflict the Creator had with the Refuser has merely
shifted to this world. But the fact is,
you
are now in
command. Your instincts and decisions are impeccable. You’ll have
far more success than failures in the future. Cling to those
successes. Keep your family close. Keep Shem close. And just hold
on. The Refuser would love to possess you. He nearly did, didn’t
he? But you won that battle! Once again, you’re on the right
path.”

Perrin sat thinking about that for a long
time.

The rector waited patiently.

Finally Perrin looked him in the eye. “You
would have liked my great uncle Hogal.”

Yung smiled. “I look forward to meeting him
on the other side. I think I already know his voice.”

“
Yes, you most definitely
do,” Perrin agreed. “You know, this may sound incredibly selfish,
but I get the feeling that maybe you’re in Edge just for
me.”

Yung looked into his eyes with
soul-penetrating power. “I get the feeling you may be right.”

Chapter 7
~
“Is that my daughter out there?”

P
lanting Season came
miraculously early in 336. Suddenly one day it was sunny, with a
promise that the cold was gone for the season. Perhaps the Creator
was making up for the late cold weather of last year, Mahrree
considered, and the terrible darkness of the current Raining
Season.

Perrin started changing a few weeks ago,
after shouting at the darkness. He slept soundly without any secret
assistance, smiled frequently, and once laughed so loud and long
that Mahrree excused herself to go the washroom to weep for joy.
When the sun burst out and the snows vanished almost overnight that
week, Mahrree wondered if it wasn’t the world responding to
Perrin’s reversal.

But Mahrree still had one concern: as soon as
the snow was gone, so was her only daughter. Jaytsy claimed she was
going to help Mrs. Briter with her massive garden, but Mahrree
feared she was still hiding from the family.

For the moment, though, Jaytsy was home.
Mahrree looked out the window at her daughter sitting on the log
bench in the yard, mindlessly kicking little stones into the spit
area.

Mahrree breathed the same prayer she had
since last Weeding Season. “Please help her to find what she’s
looking for. Please sustain her until then.”

It wasn’t fair. When Mahrree was a girl at
least there were still ways to be entertained, girls to laugh
with—or
at,
Mahrree thought guiltily. But Jaytsy was so
alone. Nearly all of the activities her friends engaged in, Mahrree
and Perrin wouldn’t allow. And now half of her classmates were
hanging around the fort at the northeast entrance, wandering off
with soldiers to secluded areas of the safer edges of the forest.
That meant that “safe” was a very subjective term.

Jaytsy had maturely distanced herself from
her classmates, but also seemed to have distanced herself from
everyone else as well.

Mahrree suspected most of her daughter’s
retreating had to do with Perrin’s erratic behavior, and Mahrree’s
neglect of her children while she tried to help him. But he hadn’t
interrogated any of them in weeks and had normal conversations
again. That is, when he could find Jaytsy.

Mahrree feared she had missed some critical
phase of her daughter’s life in the past year, and could never hope
to cover the ground lost between them. She tried hard to think of
what they could do together, but her mind was blank as she finished
packing the meal for Jaytsy to bring to Perrin.

Maybe this was how Hycymum had felt with
Mahrree after her father passed away, fearing they had nothing in
common, trying to find ways to make her happy. They had plenty in
common now.

But Mahrree couldn’t imagine waiting years to
be close to her daughter again. Mahrree had been happy as a teen
despite being alone. She loved nothing so much as her books. They
were like spending hours each day with her father.

And that, Mahrree concluded, was what Jaytsy
needed—besides a real friend
her age
—time with her father to
see that the best parts of him were back.

Perrin had changed his duty hours toward the
end of Raining Season, on Yung’s recommendation. He now went to the
fort at midday meal and stayed till nearly bedtime. Sleeping later
in the mornings, then spending an hour alone thinking, reading, and
just breathing in the sunshine in the back garden brightened him.
When he came in for a late breakfast, and Mahrree kissed him on her
way to school, his grin was as wide as ever.

Jaytsy needed to see him smiling like that.
But she’d leave early for school each day, and for the Planting
Season break she was gone before dawn. Mahrree couldn’t think of
anything more miserable than sitting in dirt, alone.

Mahrree took the pail with Perrin’s dinner
and walked it out to Jaytsy.

She looked up at her with a small smile.
“Father’s dinner?”

“
Yes. Enough for both of
you. He really enjoys seeing you every day, you know. This has been
a good system.”

“
Yes, I know.” She took the
pail without fully seeing it.

“
He’s doing quite well
today, Jayts. Again. Quite nearly his old self.” Mahrree simply
couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“
Yes, I know,” Jaytsy
repeated. “I best be going. He’ll be hungry. I’ll be home in an
hour,” and she left through the back gate to the alley.

Mahrree watched Jaytsy walk down the alley,
then turn on the main road for the fort. She may have been getting
her husband back, but somewhere along the way she lost her
daughter.

---

Jaytsy strolled along the main road that led
to the fort, glancing around to make sure Thorne was nowhere in
sight. She was sure he was still in the compound somewhere, but she
always checked. Too many times she’d run into him at the market or
outside of her school. By the look on his face, she knew their
brief and uncomfortable encounters were planned. But tonight, there
was no mountain lion in sight waiting to pounce on her.

She sighed, breathed in the cooling air, and
grinned. She didn’t mind bringing Father his dinner. It was one of
the few times she felt free. Free from her mother brooding; free
from Lemuel Thorne staring; and free from the girls at school
talking about people and activities she’d never know about.

Along the road to the fort she could smile at
soldiers and they dared to smile back. She memorized some of their
names, too. It was much easier now that Grandmother Peto had
stitched labels that decorated each of their jackets. Mother gave
Father the idea, after worrying about how anyone could identify him
if he were found lying on the side of the road, and Father sent the
idea to Idumea. Now every soldier in the world had his last name
stitched in yellow thread on a patch worn just above his heart.

By the time Jaytsy reached the fort’s
compound late that afternoon, she smiled easily and received easy
smiles back. She decided her mood had something to do with being
outside. The sun had done her father good, so maybe she was like
him in that way. Somehow she’d have to confess it all to her
mother. She seemed so worried lately, and it was time to
explain.

That she wanted to be a farmer!

Jaytsy giggled as she made her way to the
command tower. The smell of the dirt on her hands was soothing.
Planting rows of peas with the hope of what might come made her
feel connected to the world, the
real
world. Not the world
of fancy dresses and strange music, but the real world that bubbled
and quaked and grew and, if she listened hard enough, she was sure
someday she could hear it exhaling. She loved leaving the house
early every morning to see what else she could put in the dirt to
watch grow. Why her mother wanted to hide inside poring over books
when she could be outside submerging her hands into the dark soil,
Jaytsy couldn’t imagine. Mrs. Briter taught her so much about soil,
insects, seeds, sun, water—Jaytsy had no idea the ground was so
alive.