Forest Born

  When she reached the clearing of the homestead, she rested her hands on her knees, waiting for her breathing to slow. There stood her ma’s house, one room built of wood, shutters wide open in the summer afternoon, fir boughs on the roof turning brown. Dotting the small clearing were five other houses, built by her big brothers for their own families. Everywhere children wrestled and shrieked and chased. The whole place bustled, motion constant, the family like a huge beast with a thousand parts.

  Rin spotted Ma, a sobbing grandchild on her hip and a long wooden spoon in her hand. Rin’s mother was nearly as wide as she was tall and looked sturdy enough to face down a root-ripping storm.

  “Brun, your Lila there is making a ruckus that’ll scare the squirrels into winter,” she shouted as she crossed the clearing, sounding loving even as she scolded. “See to her or I will. Gren, don’t you knock over that pot I just filled if you want to live to supper! Jef, you sack of bones, get back to work. I didn’t raise you to nap like an overfed piglet. Look at you children—what pretty needle-chains you made! Now don’t go scratching each other’s eyeballs. Tabi, let go of your brother! He’s not a branch to swing from.”

  Rin followed Ma through the clearing and to the fire pit on the far side of the little house. When Ma began to stir the pot hanging over the fire, Rin took the spoon from her hand.

  “Rin, there’s my girl, only sensible person for leagues. Keep the stew from burning while I patch up Yuli’s knee, will you? I can’t think what those children meant by . . . now wait just a minute.” Ma peered at Rin’s face. “What’s wrong?”

  Rin tried to smile. “Nothing, Ma.”

  Ma sat Yuli on a bench, his sobbing more habitual than urgent, and put a hand under Rin’s jaw. “You sure? You’ve been quiet lately . . . but it’s not so much the quiet as something inside the quiet.”

  Rin shrugged, though her insides were turning to ice. Had Ma noticed these last months how often Rin ran off? Could Ma see that she was shaking inside? Would she speak the words, would she pronounce the problem and then make it right?

  Ma felt her forehead, her cheeks, made her stick out her tongue, prodded her belly, listened to her elbows for creaks, pulled down her earflaps to look for rash. “Seem fine. You not feeling fine?”

  Rin shrugged again. She’d never bothered anyone about the spiny things in her heart. It did not seem right to complain, especially not to Ma, who worked from the moment her eyes opened until she groaned as she lay down at night. Maybe everyone felt knotted like that but it just was not something spoken aloud. Or maybe only Rin was all wrong. If so, she’d never speak it, especially not to Ma.

  “Could you . . .” Rin stopped.

  “Ask me, Rinna.” Her mother rarely told her what to do. Rin was the child who never needed scolding, who heard what her mother wanted before she’d even finished speaking. But Ma commanded her now, with fists on hips and eyes almost angry, daring her daughter to stay quiet. “Ask me.”

  And so Rin was surprised into saying exactly what she was thinking. “Could you hug me?”

  Without hesitation, Ma pulled her in close, hugged her as if she were a tiny baby scared to be in the open world. Rin’s head pressed into her mother’s warm shoulder, and she breathed in wood smoke and juniper.

  “My girl,” Ma mumbled against her daughter’s head.

  “My treasure. My perfect girl. How I love you and love you.”

  Rin wished she were six and could fit on her mother’s lap, and every bad feeling or big scary terror could be drowned out by that ferocious love. There inside her arms, Rin’s ache soothed a bit, but the snarled unease did not untangle. Rin had not believed one embrace could fix what was wrong, but she’d hoped enough to try.

  “Thanks,” she whispered.

  Ma hugged her firmer still and smattered her head with kisses before letting go and returning to Yuli, whose cry had become offended.

  “Anytime you want a hug, my treasure, you just blink,”

  Ma said over her shoulder as she wiped Yuli’s knee with a wet cloth and gave him a heel of bread to chew. “Can’t think what’s the matter with me if my little girl has to ask for love.”

  “I’m all right,” Rin said, eager to hide it again. “Maybe I’m just feeling lonely for Razo.”

  “Yes, I bet that’s it. That’ll be it.”

  Rin scraped the bottom of the pot to keep the stew from burning and tried to lose her worries by concentrating on the sounds around her—Yuli’s shaky breaths, Ma’s comforting mumbles, someone chopping wood, hollers from the children’s game of owl and mouse. And the constant murmuring of the trees—wind in the high branches, pine needles clicking together, the soft knocks of cones, the creak of wood. But she could not shy away from the same thoughts grinding in her head: hide yourself, try not to be who you are, you don’t belong in this good family, even the trees think you’re all wrong, you’ve got to go away, away.

  But where would she go?

  In the yard everything quieted, then silence burst with hollers and calls of greeting. Could it be Wilem? He had not returned to the homestead since that night four months ago. Many times when she’d been running, Rin had almost turned toward his home. For what purpose? She did not understand why she’d felt so desperate for him to kiss her or why the trees now kept their peace to themselves. But surely nothing she could say would fix it.

  Rin tiptoed around the side of the house. In her nervousness, her hands rose to cover her mouth.

  A couple dozen members of her family gathered, her Ma squealing and administering hugs. In that sea of dark heads, Rin caught sight of orange. Her heart beat harder. There was only one person in all of Bayern with hair that color—Dasha, the ambassador from the country of Tira, and her brother Razo’s girl. That meant Razo was here too.

  Rin could hear Dasha saying, “It is a plea sure to return to the homestead again, Mistress Agget.”

  The Tiran girl had taken to referring to Ma as Mistress Agget, a formality that actually made Ma blush. All the folk known as Agget-kin called her Ma, including her grandchildren, who referred to their own mothers as “my ma” to avoid confusion. Even the nearest neighbors called her Ma. Only Dasha would stiffen things up like that. Apparently she was wealthy, her home in Tira a palace. “Isn’t it wonderful how she’s so comfortable here too?” Rin’s family often said. But early last spring when Dasha had first arrived at the homestead, Rin had detected shock in Dasha’s expression, even a little disdain. So why had Dasha stayed with Razo? That was what Rin wanted to know.

  At last she glimpsed her brother, just exiting his mother’s embrace. Razo looked the same—he was the youngest and shortest of the brothers, his cropped dark hair sticking straight up. Just the sight of him made her want to giggle. He was her best friend. And she had been his best friend—until Dasha.

  Rin smiled, straightened, and waited for Razo to look for her, because he always did. She was usually standing a ways back, and he would call her Rinna-girl and push everyone aside to hug her or wrestle her or challenge her to a race or just knock his forehead against hers and smile.

  His glance was roving. Her stomach tingled in anticipation. Then their eyes met, and in that moment before he could speak, a shock split her as she realized, I can’t tell him either.

  All these months she’d been planning what she would say on his return. “Razo, how can you stand to be away from the trees in the city? Or don’t you feel anything from them? I used to think with them, through them, and feel calm. But not anymore.” If she said that much, she’d also have to explain. “But then I kissed Wilem, and the trees changed toward me. I must be really bad if even the trees want me gone, and maybe if Ma knew me inside instead of out, she wouldn’t love her girl anymore.” If she could explain, perhaps he could help her make sense of it and fix it.

  Only now did she understand that she could not admit it, even to him. He would not know how to mend her or the trees, and she could not reveal her secret ugliness, not without the risk of losing his love.
That comprehension knocked her as if she’d fallen back-first out of a tree.

  Razo waved. “Rinna-girl!”

  She put her hands over her face and cried.

  Everything went quiet. She could hear one of the children whisper, “Is Rinna crying? Why’s she crying?”

  “Uh . . . ,” said Razo. “Um, Rin? Did I—”

  “What’s the matter with our girl?” her mother asked the general gathering. “Does anyone know?”

  “Kif, did you and Len do something?” Ulan asked her oldest boys.

  But for the slamming pain in her chest, Rin might have laughed. It was ridiculous, her family looking dumbfounded while she cried without reason or sense. She would have tried to shrug it off and pretend that she’d stepped on a sharp rock or something, but the sobs kept pulling out of her chest, stuck to each breath like pine sap on her fingers.

  Dasha spoke in a casual voice. “Rin and I are dying to take a walk together. It’s been months! We should be back by supper.”

  Dasha’s arm hooked Rin’s and she walked her away from the homestead, whispering directions. “Don’t trip, there’s a big rock on your left. Duck under this branch. Let me help you hop over this fern.” By the time Rin dried her face and looked around, they’d left her family far behind.

  “Is this the way to that sunny clearing with the aspens?” asked Dasha. “The one we went to last time I was here?”

  Rin just nodded. Dasha was such a happy, bouncy kind of person, and Rin did not have the energy to try and reflect her mood.

  The clearing was much smaller than the homestead, but wide enough that daylight streamed through the canopy. Aspens sunned themselves, leaves turned up and quaking. It used to be Rin’s favorite place in all the Forest. The last time she had pressed her forehead to an aspen trunk here, instead of soaking in their green calm, she had jerked back from the heart-battering ugliness.

  Dasha sat on a rock and sighed. “Now, shall we just sit or would you like me to blather?”

  “Blather please.”

  “With plea sure.”

  An hour flowed by as Dasha recounted her first sea voyage that previous spring, traveling north from her home country of Tira to a port in the kingdom of Kel.

  “Razo made friends with the whole crew, as you can imagine, and they had him climbing ropes and hoisting sails. He learned seafaring songs, a few he wouldn’t repeat.”

  Dasha described Kel, the green slopes around the seaport, the charming hats the Kelish ladies wore, and meeting King Scandlan. “He was odd, really. Perhaps I expected all kings to be as warmhearted and gallant as Bayern’s King Geric, but Scandlan was distant. Razo noticed it too, though he did not find the king’s behavior as odd as I did.”

  Rin could not resist adding, “Razo probably felt sympathy for the king, figuring he was plagued by an itch that he couldn’t decently scratch in public.”

  Dasha laughed. “Razo would think that!”

  She went on with the story of their horseback ride into Bayern, where Dasha had come to replace her father as ambassador from Tira. Rin stretched out on a bed of moss, her chin in her hands, thinking about faraway places and ignoring her ache. Maybe Dasha is a good sort after all, just like everyone says.

  She imagined asking Dasha, Does everyone secretly feel lost? Sort of shoved into a corner alone? Do you feel something different when you’re close to trees? Did they ever turn away from you? Do trees care if you begged a boy to kiss you? Have you ever felt like your home wasn’t home anymore? If you were me, where would you run?

  Soon the shadows were thick, crossing the clearing as if fleeing to the east. Dasha stared at the sky soaking up a darker blue.

  “I could stay here all night,” she said casually, without looking at Rin as if not to pressure her. “Or we can go back. Whatever you like.”

  Rin squinted toward home. She was not eager to face her family, but the day was quickly exhaling into night. She sighed. “If we head back now, we’ll get there before dark.”

  Be nice to her, Rin reminded herself as they walked home.

  For Razo. She tried.

  “Thank you. Sometimes being around family is best, and sometimes it’s not.”

  “Those are true words,” Dasha said, her eyes on the path. “I love my father, but it is nice being in Bayern without him. He is not like your mother. He is rather . . . hard. But I imagine even with a large, loving family, sometimes it would be good to get away.”

  Dasha took Rin’s hand, a sisterly gesture. Rin did not want to hold her hand—she wanted to banish her back to Tira and have her brother all to herself.

  “There you are!” Razo jogged up, slightly out of breath. “Everything all right, Rinna-girl?”

  “What? Oh, you mean earlier?” Dasha said before Rin would have to explain. “Oh yes, she’s fine, that was nothing.”

  “Oh. All right. So, while you were gone, I challenged the brothers to a slinging contest. They’re still bandaging their egos.”

  “You’re the best in the world.” Dasha kissed his cheek, and Razo shrugged to hide his gratified smile.

  Rin watched him, aware more than ever how he had changed in the past couple of years. There was a confidence in him, as if he were always dressed in armor from helmet to shielded boots. She did not know what had caused the change—his adventures in Tira, or getting out from under the shadow of five older brothers. Or Dasha.

  Razo was looking into the canopy, and he asked, “Is it going to rain tonight?”

  Dasha turned her face up, considering. “No, not to night.”

  “Excellent. We can sleep out.”

  Rin wondered why Razo would ask Dasha that, and why Dasha would know the answer, but she was not in the habit of asking many questions.

  That night at the homestead, all six houses emptied their inhabitants onto the forest floor. Rin, Razo, and Dasha lay their bedrolls on a patch of moss between two fir trees and stayed up with the moon, whispering stories and laughing into their pillows. On his previous visit, Razo had told his sister all about his year in Tira, but Rin wanted to hear it again. She enjoyed her brother’s attempts to keep his expression unaffected while he described how he’d bested two companies of soldiers at a slinging competition or discovered who had been plotting to restart the war between Tira and Bayern.

  As Dasha watched him, her smile grew so ardent her nose wrinkled. She would reach over to touch his arm when she thought he deserved some comfort; she would giggle when he said anything the least bit amusing. And when Razo looked back, he seemed ten years older. This orange-haired girl from Tira was altering Rin’s favorite brother, spoiling him for other company, the way a night left out on the table changed yesterday’s dinner.

  Razo did not seem aware of anything but Dasha until he asked, “Rinna-girl, are you really all right?”

  She shrugged, then sighed, then buried her face in her arms. She felt stripped and beaten and completely out of lies. “I don’t know.”

  “What’s going on?”

  She shook her head. “You’ll think I’m odd.”

  “Too late.”

  “Ha.” But she was too afraid and confused to try and speak the whole truth, so she said, “I don’t feel right here anymore. I’ve been . . .” No, she would not admit how often she’d run toward the deep Forest and yearned to keep going. She’d seen the hollow sorrow that still lay on Razo’s face whenever he remembered their father. “Sometimes I want to just . . . go away.”

  Dasha clapped her hands together. “Of course! You will return to the city with me and Razo.”

  “What? No. I . . . I can’t go to the city. What would I do in the city?”

  Rin had never been to Bayern’s capital, not even for market day with her brothers. She imagined it as an enormous beast crouched behind a wall, and when she walked through the gate, it would catch her in its spiked teeth.

  “You could get work in the palace, Rin, or be a waiting woman perhaps.”

  Rin expressed her doubt with a snort, and Razo s
aid, “Rin a waiting woman? That’s a laugh.”

  Rin did not see Dasha elbow Razo in the gut, but she heard his grunt.

  “Don’t you know who you are?” Dasha asked, her fists on her hips. “You are sister to Razo of Bayern’s Own, the most important group of soldiers in the kingdom. He also happens to be the chief personal guard to the Tiran ambassador.” Dasha inclined her head. “Not to mention that he’s dear friends with Bayern’s king and queen. Apparently it doesn’t occur to your brother that he has handy political connections and might use them, but politics is what I do. If you want to live in the city, in the palace, and be a waiting woman, then good gracious, girl, use your connections and do it.”

  Rin blinked. “But . . .”

  “You should definitely come,” Razo said. “It’ll be good fun, you’ll see.” And he launched into an exhaustive narrative of all the city’s charms, mostly involving apple cakes, sausage vendors, and palace banquets.

  Soon the idea was firming inside her. Leave the Forest, go to the city. Keep moving. Like with swimming. Last summer some Agget-kin had dammed the stream and made a pool. They discovered pretty quickly that if they did not keep moving in the deep spots, they would sink. Whenever Rin was alone, the world still, nothing to do but think, she felt that sinking sensation in her middle, sure her head would go under and she would drown inside her own self.

  Keep moving, she thought. The trees no longer relieved her, and running far and flirting with the deep Forest helped a little but cured nothing. She had to go farther, do something different.

  When all three began to yawn more than talk, Rin settled onto her bedroll and closed her eyes. As soon as her thoughts were her own again, she felt that gray panic rush through her, gnawing her bones crooked.

  I am going to the city, she thought hard at herself to bolster her spirits. I’ll go before my family notices anything’s wrong. I’ll get away from trees that loathe me. And I’ll be all right.