The Falcon in the Barn (Book 4 Forest at the Edge series) (51 page)

Next to Mahrree’s name she had added Perrin,
his parents Relf and Joriana, Relf’s parents Pere and Banu,
Joriana’s mother Centia, her sister Tabbit and her husband Hogal
Densal, then Pere’s parents Ricolfus and Hagnos then . . . the line
was dead. So was Joriana’s.

Her own father Cephas’s line went only back
to his parents, and while he had known details about his ancestors’
lines that he had shared with Mahrree, no other names were
recorded.

But Mahrree had a suspicion. She knew of
others in Edge that might be distantly related, and she suspected
it was those families that fell ill. Something in their blood,
likely.

But Perrin, and even Shem, had something
different that preserved their families. If only more people still
had recorded lines she could test her theory and might even be able
to tell who else would fall ill, which certainly would have been
helpful to the village doctors.

However, the fact that she still possessed
those family lines—and had made family lines for her husband—was an
act that a generation ago would have been a major crime.

But now, who even remembered they had
ancestors? Who still spoke about the first five hundred families,
or the Creator who brought them to the world and taught them for
three years before leaving them? None of it had been taught in the
schools for a decade, and hardly anyone went to Holy Day services.
As far as anyone remembered, the world began with the creation of
Idumea. Rarely did anyone seem to recall that for six years before
that, the world was guided by the Creator himself, then by the
Great Guide Hierum.

The world was forgetting its roots, and
Mahrree knew enough about plants that when the roots were
neglected, the rest of it would die. But it seemed to be a slow,
agonizing death.

Mahrree slipped the family lines back
securely in the “Embellishments of the Ages,” the only book on the
shelf she was sure that Perrin—nor anyone, for that matter—would
never touch, and smiled sadly as she replaced it on the shelf.

---

“
Jaytsy? What are you doing
here?” Perrin turned from consulting the map of Edge on his office
wall.

His daughter shut the door behind her, the
weariness in her eyes obvious. “Father, the Briters have been gone
for over a week now. I’m getting worried about them.” She bit her
lip to keep it from shaking. “I can barely keep up on the weeding
and harvesting . . . I don’t want to disappoint them . . . what if
something awful happened? The farm’s so big . . .”

Perrin wrapped his arms around her. “Oh,
Jayts—”

She melted into his chest and softly cried
into his blue jacket. “They should have been back by now! And we
have to keep the farm going, or the fort won’t have food—”

“
Shhh,” he said as he
stroked her dark ponytail. “Don’t fret. I received a message from
Yordin at Mountseen just this morning. They’ve quarantined the
entire village—no one in or out—for the next few days because the
outbreak’s so bad. In fact, the message was written on paper,
wrapped around a stone, then thrown at the messenger service’s door
just to avoid touching anyone. The Briters are likely fine, just
momentarily trapped. They should be able to leave in three days, be
back to helping you in four. All right?”

Jaytsy sniffed and wiped her face. “All
right. I can keep it up for four more days.”

---

Four days later, Perrin surprised his family
again by walking into the house at midday meal, and Jaytsy felt
something black appear in her belly because the expression on his
face was grim.

Whatever she, Peto, and Mahrree had been
chatting about was immediately forgotten because the heaviness with
which he came into the room stifled all conversation.

“
Jaytsy,” he said somberly,
“the Briters’ wagon returned, about an hour ago. I just came from
their farm.”

She didn’t know why that made him so gloomy.
That was good news! “Whew,” she sighed and set down her fork. “I
was really beginning to worry about them, and the weeds are
starting to—”

He took a step closer. “Jayts—”

She knew that look on his face. “What’s
wrong?” Then she knew. “Oh, no . . . did they lose their son?”

Perrin shook his head. “Jayts, I’m so sorry,
but it was their son I found. It was Cambozola and Sewzi Briter who
didn’t make it. They arrived in Mountseen to find their son
recuperating. Before they could come back, they became ill and
passed away as quickly as your grandmother—”

“
No!” Jaytsy’s fierce
whisper cut him off. “No, that’s not right. They’re so
strong!”

Peto regarded his sister with genuine
sympathy.

Mahrree put her arms around her daughter.

But Jaytsy hid her face in her hands, feeling
betrayed by everything in the world. “It’s not right!” came her
muffled cry. “It’s just not fair! Land tremors, Guarders, Moorland,
the pox . . . all my grandparents are dead . . . friends, soldiers,
and now the Briters . . . the Briters!” she sobbed. “Who will go
next? When will it end?”

Peto looked at his plate and shifted around
his food.

Perrin closed his eyes and tried not to make
his own count.

Mahrree had no answer for her daughter but
patted her as she held her. “Oh, my dear Jaytsy. I’m so, so
sorry—”

Jaytsy pushed her chair away from the table
and ran to her bedroom, slamming the door.

“
Peto,” Perrin said softly,
“run over to the fort. Tell them I’m taking the afternoon off. The
Briters’ son is going to need a little help.”

---

Deckett Briter stood in the wide doorway of
the barn and looked toward the house. He’d put it off going in
there as long as he could. The horses were taken care of, the wagon
unloaded, the cows checked on, even each of the chickens caught and
inspected.

And even the colonel had been met.

His parents had told him about their first
encounter with him. His father summed it up in one word, which was
unusually brief for him: terrifying! But when the colonel came by
an hour ago he was very friendly,
after
he realized Deckett
wasn’t a thief trying to break into the house. When he picked
Deckett from the ground and wiped him off, he was quite
apologetic.

Deckett wasn’t sure what to say to him. He
didn’t know what to say to anyone. He knew no one in Edge, and
found the barn and house only because it was across from Fort Shin.
He had always planned to come visit them in their new home, but . .
.

He thought there was plenty of time.

Slowly Deckett trudged across the back garden
to the kitchen door. He opened it but didn’t walk in. Yet he smiled
briefly. Definitely his parents’ house. The yellow curtains from
the Moorland house hung in the kitchen window here as well.

He stepped into the room and could almost
smell his mother’s cooking, could almost hear his father scrubbing
up in the washroom. They had been here just a week before,
straightening everything up before leaving to see him, never
imagining he’d be the one to see the house next. But the plants
withering in the windows were stark reminders that the gardeners
who tended them were gone.

He pulled a chair out from the table, the one
he always used, and reluctantly sat down. The emptiness of the two
chairs across from him carved a long, deep gash in his chest.

A soft knock at the kitchen door startled
him. “May I join you?”

Deckett jumped in his seat to see again the
colonel standing in the doorway, and he quickly tried to get to his
feet.

“
No need, no need,” the
colonel said as he walked in. “Please don’t get up. I wanted to see
how you were doing.”

Deckett sat at attention, pretending he knew
what that would look like. “Fine, sir.”

The colonel smiled kindly at him. “No, you’re
not, son. I know you’re not. May I?” he gestured to the chair his
father used to sit in.

Deckett considered for a moment before
nodding.

The colonel pulled it out reverently. “Whose
was this?”

“
My father’s.”

“
He was a good man,”
Colonel Shin said, sitting down. “Helped me make a detailed map of
Moorland. He was key to our success.”

“
Yes, I know. He was very
proud, sir—” Deckett’s voice cracked.

The colonel had the decency to not look him
in the face until he could compose himself again. Then he leaned on
the table. “Deckett—that’s your name, right? Call me Perrin, by the
way. Deckett, more than anyone else, I know what you’re
feeling.”

Deckett swallowed nervously. “Everyone has
heard about
that
too, sir. Sorry about your parents.”

Shin’s dark eyes softened even more. “I’m not
here as the colonel or as anything else you may have heard about
me. I’m here because I know how much you need a brother right now.
Losing your parents—and suddenly—is not something you simply bounce
back from. I was helped, and now I’d like to try to help you.”

Deckett could no longer look into the
penetrating gaze of the colonel, and he wished there was a crumb or
something on the swept-clean table for him to examine. “I
appreciate that, sir. But I really don’t know what to say.”

The colonel patted his hand. “I didn’t spend
a whole lot of time with your parents, but your father certainly
was . . .” He paused, unsure of how to put it tactfully.

Deckett was used to that. “A character?”

The colonel chuckled. “Yes, that’s a good way
to put it. Why don’t you tell me all about Cambazeela.”

“
Cam
bozo
la.”

“
Yes,
Cambazoolo.”

---

After a couple of hours Jaytsy had no more
tears. Exhausted, miserable, and desperate for something to do to
ease her dreariness, she finally came out of her bedroom.

Her mother smiled sadly at her. “Your
father’s spending the afternoon with him, thinking he can
help
the Briters’ son.” Her forehead wrinkled in concern,
but she covered with another smile.

Jaytsy almost smiled back, not because she
felt happy in any way, but because Peto had privately pointed out
to her that some of their mother’s healing pock marks mimicked a
well-known star constellation when she lifted the corners of her
mouth. The Squashed Turnip, forever memorialized on their mother’s
face.

“
This is for the Briters’
son,” Mahrree said, putting a cloth over a large basket. “I thought
it would be a good idea if we fed him for a few days. Do you feel
up to taking it over? I’ve spent too much time in the sun this
morning and I’d rather not go out again.”

Jaytsy numbly made her way over to the table
and started to take the basket, but her mother stopped her.

“
Somehow, some year, we
will all see the reason for this. I promise.” Mahrree hugged
her.

Jaytsy nodded, not believing a word of what
her mother said, and left with the basket for the Briters’
house.

When she arrived she felt strangely unsure of
what do to next. She saw the front door—one that she was sure they
never had used and likely didn’t open—and headed for the kitchen
door instead. As she passed the window she heard male voices
talking quietly and she almost hesitated to knock.

But she did, and a moment later the door
opened. Standing there was a young man, maybe twenty-one years old,
with brown hair and eyes that were red with grieving.

Jaytsy couldn’t move her feet or find her
voice. She wasn’t sure why she felt so bashful. Shyness wasn’t
exactly a Shin family trait.

Her father appeared behind the young man.
“Ah, Jaytsy. Deckett, this is my daughter Jaytsy, your parents’
Head Weeder, or whatever she’d be called.”

Deckett smiled dimly at her. “My mother
mentioned you. Said you had quite the brown fingers. Please come
in.”

Jaytsy nodded at the compliment and wondered
if she was blushing. By the confused look on her father’s face, she
knew she would have to explain the phrase referring to natural
gardeners as ‘brown fingered folk’.

She walked into the kitchen and felt it
immediately. Or rather, felt the
absence
immediately.

The Briters had quite the presence, and now .
. . it was gone.

She glanced at the son they loved so dearly,
and the expression on his face—his not too handsome yet pleasantly
rugged face, made even more so by fading pocks—told her he felt the
room was a bottomless cavern.

Jaytsy glanced at her father. His eyes were
red too, and she worried that she’d interrupted a reverent
discussion.

“
I just . . . I just came
to drop this by. Food. From my mother. She’s still a little tired,
or she would have come herself. We’re all sorry. Very.” Jaytsy
wondered why it was so hard for her to talk.

Deckett gave her a thankful nod without
completely seeing her and set the basket on the table. “Tell her I
appreciate it.”

“
All right, um. I suppose
I’ll go now.” She looked at her father for direction. He nodded his
goodbye. “I’ll see myself out.”

Deckett sat back down at the table across
from her father as Jaytsy slid out the door.

She stood on the back step and took a deep
breath as something in her chest burned.

Suddenly full of an indefinable energy,
Jaytsy marched out to the garden, shooed away the soldier assigned
for the afternoon, and started yanking weeds.

---

Perrin came home a little before dinner time.
Jaytsy was in the washing room digging the dirt out from under her
nails when she heard her parents’ conversation.