Fairy Keeper (15 page)

Six days after leaving Keeper Hannon’s, the mountains loomed close. Food had to stretch thinner already, though. Every day, Corbin ate like a mountain giant―which, thankfully, they hadn’t actually seen any of.

“Did you eat the last of the dove?” Nell asked in disbelief.

Corbin froze mid-chew and smiled like a little boy with his hand caught in the cookie jar. Nell couldn’t stay mad at him, either, though. Normally, Sierra would have teased him for his bottomless pit of a stomach, but with his odd behavior, she worried he’d take it the wrong way. Instead, she swallowed the words. She had been doing that a lot these last six days, but all those swallowed words and jokes couldn’t fill up her stomach.

Sierra did her best to ignore the rumbling and not take seconds. The food had to last. She thought of Phoebe until it hurt too much, then debated when would be best to run away with her. Clearly, they couldn’t stay with Jack forever, not if he was determined to send Phoebe to Bentwood next year anyway. Now that Sierra had met Keeper Hannon, she wondered if he would be open to helping them escape Jack, given how much the older man loathed her father.

The days passed slowly; they hadn’t sighted any fairies. No other magical creatures, for that matter. But Sierra consoled herself with the fact that they hadn’t actually reached the mountains. Surely the fairies would be there, like Keeper Hannon had said.

Two or three more days remained to reach the base. This morning, when Sierra awoke, she swore she tasted cinnamon honey nectar, but she must have imagined it. Sweat clung to her hairline despite the chilly air, and a kaleidoscope of rainbow fairies danced in her mind from her dreams. The memories of brilliant fairy lights seemed almost more real than the scraggy, cold-frosted bushes along the ground. She staggered as she walked, and Nell paused to take a closer look, following with her eyes as Sierra tilted a bit too far to one side before straightening. Okay, true, she had stumbled a lot since they’d been on this part of the journey, but she didn’t normally. She could keep up with Nell, despite being smaller. Sierra lifted her chin and pressed on.

Phoebe would love these strange dreams, but Sierra would go crazy if she thought about her too often now, which wouldn’t help at all. They’d never been apart like this. Sierra missed her little sister, a constant ache pressing her chest, a weight that never left her.

The day passed with glacial slowness. Finally, Nell permitted them to break for the night a bit early because Corbin twisted his ankle earlier in the day. If Sierra had fallen, she knew Nell would have made everyone keep walking until sunset. Nell went to scout the area around camp for any potential dangers, leaving Corbin and Sierra alone for the first time all day.

He still acted awkward and unnatural around her, like he was afraid she would start fawning over him now. She was the old stinky sock he held gingerly from his body. Sierra rolled her eyes. She loved him, but he had never made her face flush like he did Nell’s. Nor had Sierra been bothered when he’d courted a couple of the village girls, but then, she knew they weren’t good enough for him. The thing was, neither was Nell. No one was. She wondered if he knew that.

Before they got fully set up for camp, Nell returned. Corbin grinned at her arrival, and his obvious delight tripped Sierra’s heart a little. She was turning into a third wheel even as she sat there. She jerked her face away and the motion made her a little dizzy. Nell had leaned into the attention she received from him like a flower turning to face the sun.

A small part of Sierra wished for someone like that, too, but she was quick to silence the thought. She didn’t have room for that kind of liability. Jack would use anyone against her. She couldn’t help loving her sister, but even Jack didn’t know how much Sierra relied on Corbin. Since they were just friends, not courting, it was easier to hide. But someone she loved one day? He’d be a pawn for her father to manipulate. No thanks. She wasn’t ready for that kind of relationship yet anyway.

Sierra gathered wood for the evening fire and found a few sticks green enough to use as a spit if Nell could get a rabbit. Corbin didn’t hunt, but he loved a good rabbit stew. Sierra was a decent cook, but she needed to learn how to hunt, which meant really learning how to shoot a bow. To be free of relying on Nell meant being more dependent first. Asking her for help would be like swallowing rocks, but she was the only one who could help right now. Rocks definitely didn’t taste good, not in any form.

“Why do you want to learn to use a bow and arrow?” Nell’s suspicious look spoke volumes.

Sierra rolled her eyes. “Relax, I’m not going to shoot you in the back.”

Nell laughed, confidence radiating from her. The mere thought of Sierra being a danger was apparently amusing.

Sierra clenched her teeth. “Nell, if I decide to shoot you, I’ll do it to your face, and you’ll see the arrow coming.”

The words dropped like the opening spatters of a hailstorm, one at a time, each bouncing with a resounding crack on the frozen ground.

Nell narrowed her eyes, and a flush rose on her face.

Sierra cursed her own temper. Maybe Nell would refuse to help now. In fact, Sierra would say no if their situations were reversed. Maybe logic would work better and would smooth over that last stupid comment.

“If both of us hunt, we’ll get more food. Aren’t you tired of being hungry?”

It was true Nell caught something nearly every day, but between three of them, there still wasn’t enough to eat. Walking all day used a lot of energy. Sierra’s knowledge of edible wild plants and grasses was nearly useless this time of year when so much in the wild was dead already. She had collected some harvest nuts from the few sparse trees the day before, which were delicious when roasted, but right now, the only other thing she could offer was field greens. Without any kind of dressing on them, field greens were just grass on a plate, bitter and not filling at all. The purchased grain and way bread needed to last through the whole journey, so all three of them had been stingy with it.

Nell grimaced. She must have really been hungry, because she agreed to teach Sierra how to hunt.

They left Corbin sitting by the fire, working on building it stronger. Sierra followed Nell over a small rise as she looked for a good target in the flat area. They wouldn’t reach the forest, which marked the true start of the mountain, until tomorrow or the day after. A sparse cluster of trees up ahead looked like a bunch of old ladies standing around at the market, gossiping. The grass beneath them was thin and short.

“Show me what you can do,” Nell said once they entered the shade beneath the branches. She marched over to a tall maple about twenty feet away and pointed to a knot on the bark. “Hit that.”

She held out her second bow, a redwood, smooth and deceptively simple, and an arrow. Not one of her griffin arrows, Sierra noted, but she couldn’t blame her. These were simple stone arrowheads and goose feather fletching. The draw of the bow was hard, as it was built for Nell’s height, not Sierra’s, but it was all she had to work with.

Sierra ran her fingers along the bow, noticing the whorls of deeper red in the grain of the wood. Her stomach felt like it was full of fairies about to swarm. Nell’s eyes were cold, measuring, the pale blue irises looking almost silver in the low light. She quickly stepped behind Sierra. Good idea. Sierra might want to shoot Nell on purpose half the time, but it’d be really stupid to do it on accident.

Sierra widened her stance for a proper position to aim. That part had never been difficult. It was the rest she usually messed up. She wiped the sweat off her palms onto her pants, sneaking a glance at Nell. Her eyes met Sierra’s, and Sierra jerked her gaze back to the front, embarrassment curdling her gut. She held the bow up with her left arm, elbow slightly bent, locked into place to avoid ripping the skin off the inside of her arm. She’d done that before and had no desire to repeat it. She softly curled her right pointer and middle finger around the string while holding the arrow against it and began a smooth draw back. Her arms strained a bit as she held the bow in place, the tension fighting her to release the arrow. Sighting down the arrow, she tried to imagine nothing existed except that knothole.

The arrow will go where I’m aiming
, she told herself.

Taking a deep breath and holding it, Sierra let go. The arrow flew with a soft twang. Her breath rushed from her lungs, and her fingers tingled from the slide of the bowstring. She watched the knothole, but no arrow appeared. A
thawking
noise to the right drew their attention, and there was the arrow, buried in the tree beside her target. The breath whuffed out of Nell’s nose, but it wasn’t clear if she was irritated or amused. At least it hit something, which wasn’t always the case. Sierra shook out her hand. The jitters in her stomach shifted to excitement. Okay, she missed, but the power in the bow was like a song in her hands. It was safety, it was freedom, it was―

“Okay, hand it back.” Nell was clearly unimpressed. “We’ll work on shooting again later when we have more time. Now, look at these tracks and tell me what made them. You can’t hunt what you can’t find.”

Tracking. Sierra’s stomach sank. Containing her wince of frustration, she handed the bow back. Sierra frowned, though, watching Nell strap the bow to her back, hands itching to try again. They also literally itched from the vibrations of the bow string, causing her to rub her palms up and down against her thighs to get rid of the tingling.

Sierra leaned down where Nell pointed. After scrutinizing the ground, Sierra did see some tracks. Made by a small creature with padded feet, not hooves, and tiny claws on the end of each toe. Nell nodded as Sierra stated her observation.

“Great, so what are we having for dinner?” Nell waited, arms crossed, toned muscles visible.

Sierra swallowed, feeling as if she were back in school with the teacher about to rap her knuckles for not knowing the answer. She shrugged, pretending indifference, and Nell’s brow furrowed.

“Name something. Take a guess.”

Sierra hated to guess. She’d probably be wrong. She stared at the ground, as if the answer might float up from the dirt, but she was still clueless.
Forget it
, she decided. Nothing was worth feeling dumb around Nell. Sierra could teach herself to shoot. She turned and started to stomp away, but Nell’s voice stopped her.

“Squirrel,” she called, “but not like our squirrels at home. These are plains squirrels, and they’re bigger. If I can get one, we’ll be full tonight.”

Sierra didn’t turn around, but she didn’t walk away, either.

“You can watch me hunt and track this one―or not. Suit yourself. I don’t care.” The words were tossed out casually.

Sierra’s pride warred with her stomach, but the stomach won because in the long-run learning this skill would help her pride, too. She walked back to Nell, eyes downcast, hands clenched, not wanting to see her smirk.

“Let’s go,” Sierra said.

ierra watched Nell’s feet as she tracked the prints, the careful way she placed each step. She barely made a stick crackle or a leaf sigh as she moved through the group of trees, which was unnerving to watch. Someone so tall should make more noise. She reached one of the big clearings and put her finger to her lips. She motioned with her hand to freeze, and Sierra froze. This was Nell’s game now, and Sierra would play along.