The Falcon in the Barn (Book 4 Forest at the Edge series) (54 page)

“
I think you should keep
talking to your parents,” Jaytsy said. “Go into the house and tell
them what you planned to say. They’ll hear you. They’re still
concerned about you and they still love you. Remember what Yung
said last Holy Day? That the work of those who go to Paradise is
the work of taking care of their descendants who remain here? My
father, when he was very bad a few moons ago, called out for his
great uncle Hogal,” she told him quietly. “Something had come into
the house that night,” she whispered. “Something horrible and
black, as if the night had come to life and planned to destroy us
all. I hid in my bedroom, hearing my father yelling at it, and he
called out for Hogal. He’d died when I was just a toddler, but
Hogal and my father had been very close. Hogal and Tabbit were why
my father came to Edge in the first place.”

She smiled sadly and unconsciously twisted a
hank of Deckett’s hair again.

“
Not that my father would
ever confess it, but I suspect that he wasn’t the best young man.
So when he was 18 he spent a season with Hogal and Tabbit, and I
think they straightening him out a bit. Hogal was also his rector
here, and when my father needed him . . .” She struggled to get out
the next words, “
he came
. The Creator sent Uncle Hogal. I
could feel him come into the house, Deckett. Everything got
brighter and safer, and my father changed for good.” Now her own
chin shook too much for her to continue.

Deckett nodded awkwardly against her
shoulder. “Your father’s the one who told me to cry,” he sniffled.
“He said tears were fine for a man, and that the only time I should
be alarmed is when I no longer feel tears for anything. Or
something like that.”

Jaytsy smiled. “I know what you mean. What he
means.”

Deckett sat up slowly, and Jaytsy let her
hand slide down his back to release him, suddenly feeling
uncomfortable. She’d never before realized how much intimacy is
created when two people weep together. She suspected Deckett felt
it as well, because he moved a bit away from her as he straightened
up.

“
Thank you,” he mumbled,
not daring to look her in the face.

She didn’t look at him either. And even
though she wasn’t sure precisely what he was thanking her for, she
nodded.

She spied him out of the corner of her eye.
“May I ask a question?”

“
Sure.”

“
What did you want to tell
your parents when you went into the house?”

He shrugged. “Can’t remember anymore. Just
one of those things that I guess I’ll struggle with for a while,
learning how to live without them. I mean, the way I was used to
live with them.”

Jaytsy wanted to do nothing more than thrown
her arms around him again, but still unsure of what to do with the
familiarity they’d accidentally created, she instead just patted
his hand. “They’re still here,” she whispered. “I need to go home.
Will you be all right or would you like me to come back later?”

Still not looking at her, he smiled faintly.
“I’ll be fine. I actually feel a lot better now. Glad you forgot
your hat and had to come back.” He elbowed her gently, and it felt
almost brotherly.

Something in Jaytsy’s heart sank, and
everything about that moment became immensely awkward. She’d been
so forward, so affectionate, so
motherly
—oh, dear . . . Of
course he didn’t have any other way to respond except with an elbow
nudge.

Jaytsy got to her feet, patted him one more
time on the shoulder, and said, “See you tomorrow, Deckett,” before
trotting back home, wiping her face all the way.

---

It took Deckett several minutes before he
pulled himself to his feet. After drying his face with various
sleeves and shirt tails, he made his way up the back stairs to the
kitchen again.

Just as he had the hour before, he opened the
door and called, “Mother, Father?” He smiled tentatively at the
silent house, unsure if they were indeed there but feeling a sense
of peace nonetheless, so thick it was tangible.

“
I just wanted to tell you
something . . . I think I found her.”

And he wasn’t talking about the missing
calf.

---

Jaytsy had gone home that evening sullen and
worried, not because of her or Deckett’s grief, but because she
feared she’d crossed too many lines too quickly and she didn’t know
how to backtrack to where she’d left off. She decided by morning,
as she headed again to the farm, that she’d say nothing of their
closeness the day before.

She watched for Deckett’s reaction to her
when she found him opening the canal. He flashed her a smile.
“Before we tackle the potato section, the peppers need harvesting
again along with some tomatoes. The assistant cooks from the fort
will be here before midday meal to retrieve them. They also wanted
some onions, and I’ll need to move the cattle to a different
pasture. So where do you want to start?”

Jaytsy, in the manner that she inherited from
her mother that read too much into a situation, decided that his,
Where do you want to start?
signified asking how she wanted
to proceed after yesterday. Later, she realized he probably was
just referring to the farm, but she felt safe in saying, “What do
you
think we should do first?”

He shrugged as he turned the spigot to adjust
the water flow. “Tomatoes, then peppers and onions. Everything else
later.”

She mulled that
Everything else later
for hours, sure that he intended a double meaning although she
wasn’t entirely sure what
everything else
referred to, and
when
later
might be.

For the next few weeks they labored side by
side, never mentioning the afternoon when they sobbed together,
never becoming more intimate than an elbow bump or a hand brush.
They weeded and watered and harvested until all too soon there were
only two days before school began again and the farm was as
finished as it could be.

Much to Jaytsy’s displeasure.

Deckett seemed disappointed as well as they
stood up before midday meal and looked at the perfectly thinned and
weeded rows extending all the way to the northernmost canal before
the forest.

“
Good work,” he said with
strained brightness. “I guess . . . there’s nothing left for you to
do here now that the crops are taking over most of the dirt. It’ll
take me only an hour or so to pull what the fort wants each day.
Then again, in another week there should be some more weeds again.
Those will take a couple of hours’ work.”

“
There’s the full harvest!”
Jaytsy reminded him. “That will take
weeks
!”

“
Not for another moon or
so,” he said dully.

“
We could have an early
midday meal together,” Jaytsy suggested.

“
We could.”

But even though they ate slowly, too soon
that was over as well. Jaytsy stood uncomfortably on the back door
steps with him knowing it was time to leave. But because she didn’t
know when she’d be back, she desperately tried to think of some way
to still see—

“
Dinner!”

“
What?”

“
You should come to dinner
tonight. My mother’s been saying she wanted to invite you over. I
guess she talked to you after the congregational meeting last Holy
Day and heard some of the things you were making for
yourself.”

Deckett chuckled softly. “Mothers always
think you need something more than meat and potatoes.” His chuckle
fell away and his face contorted in sorrow which he tried to hide
by kicking at some gravel by his feet.

It was the first time in weeks Jaytsy had
seen that level of grief in him, and her arms actually rose up in a
desire to hug him, but she forced them down. They were in full
sight of the main road, after all, and a group of soldiers walked
by just a few dozen paces away on their way to patrol the
village.

But Jaytsy felt safe in gripping Deckett’s
arm. “Please join us tonight?”

He looked up hesitantly, quickly wiping his
nose with his sleeve. “Only if it’s all right with your
mother.”

“
Oh, it will be! I’m sure,”
she assured him, holding his bicep firmly and not wanting to let it
go. “My father missed chatting with you last week and I know he
wanted to see you again.”

“
He’s very . . . diligent,”
Deckett said. Nervously, she noticed.

“
Is that all
right?”

“
Oh, absolutely,” he said,
a bit more easily. “It’s just that sometimes I get the feeling that
he’s . . . watching me.”

Jaytsy giggled. “He does, but don’t worry
about him. I think he actually likes you!”

Deckett’s shoulders relaxed. “And that’s
good, right?”

“
Oh, yes!”

---

“
Jayts,” Perrin murmured,
“how long are you going to hold on to his arm? He’s going to need
it back sometime.”

He loosened the bolt on the spyglass,
realizing that they were about to walk again.

“
Farm looks great, guess
that means this is the end to weeding for a while? Oh dear . . .
maybe she’s hoping . . . Deckett, you’re right in full view of the
main fort road, you know. And me, but we won’t get into that. So if
you’re going to kiss her, then at least make some pretense for
taking her to the barn or something . . . Wait. She’s leaving. And
. . . she doesn’t look too happy about that . . . No, wait, she’s
smiling. I don’t get it.”

He readjusted the glass. “And Deckett, you’re
just watching her . . . watching her walk away . . . and . . .
suddenly you look nervous. And now you’re looking . . . up
here!”

Perrin sat back quickly, almost
embarrassed.

“
You can’t see into the
windows from where you are. I know—I’ve checked.” He sighted in the
young farmer again. Deckett was still gazing at the fort tower but
now massaging his hands anxiously. He clapped them once as if
coming to some kind of conclusion and turned to go to the
barn.

Perrin sat up again, thoughtful. “I think
it’s time we had you over for dinner.”

---

“
We really shouldn’t be
doing this,” Mahrree murmured later that evening as she and Perrin
stood in the kitchen. “I feel guilty, spying like this.”

“
It’s not spying,” he
whispered back. “Our daughter is on the porch talking to a young
man, and we need to make sure everything is . . . fine.”

“
But they’ve been saying
goodbye for the past 15 minutes, and it’s growing quite dark and I
think they know we’re here—”

“
No, they don’t,” said
Perrin confidently.

But Mahrree didn’t believe him, and she
suspected he was hoping to see something happen.

Deckett had come over for dinner, a bit
warily, and had spent the last three hours growing more at ease and
less anxious as the evening wore on. He laughed uproariously at
Peto, who he clearly thought was the funniest teenager alive—which
irked Jaytsy but thoroughly won over Peto. He listened attentively
to Perrin’s description of the attack of Moorland, commenting
occasionally about the structures he remembered, and frequently
watched Jaytsy with what Mahrree was sure was bashful
adoration.

She couldn’t have approved more heartily,
especially when Deckett grew teary-eyed that her biscuits tasted
just like his mother’s had.

And now Jaytsy stood at the back porch door
talking with Deckett who held the door open as he stood halfway out
of it. They kept finding “Oh-remembers,” and
“I-forgot-to-tell-yous,” punctuated with Jaytsy’s giggles and
Deckett’s deeper chuckles.

Perrin kept edging closer to the kitchen door
that was open a crack, allowing them glimpses of their daughter and
her
friend
on the porch, but Mahrree nudged him backward
into the shadows that hid them well.

“
I can’t hear what he’s
saying,” Perrin murmured in her ear.

“
We’re not supposed to be
hearing. We’re just watching,” she whispered back.

“
That’s not good
enough.”

“
They’ll hear you. Be
quiet!”

“
Just one step closer. It’s
darker now. They won’t notice.”

Mahrree sighed and let him noiselessly
closer. He really was very good at that, she had to admit. She
leaned forward to look at his face in the growing dark, and he was
smiling.

“
Cows!” he whispered and
shook his head.

Mahrree snuck up to him, almost as
noiselessly, to listen in.

“
I suppose you
could
help,” Deckett was saying. “I hadn’t considered using a female
voice.”

“
It would be perfect!”
Jaytsy squealed. “Divide the cows into three groups. One group
hears no voice, the other a man’s voice, the other a woman’s
voice.”

Mahrree wondered briefly who the “woman’s
voice” would belong to, then winced to realize her daughter was
the woman
.

“
I like it,” Deckett said
and chuckled. “What if we did an experiment where we said only
angry things to the cows, then another where we said only sweet
things?”

“
Sweet talk a cow?” Jaytsy
asked dubiously.

“
It’s not as uncommon as
you might think. Life for a rancher gets pretty lonely,
Jayts.”

She giggled.

Perrin groaned quietly.

Mahrree jabbed him in the ribs. “That was
funny! Not sappy at all,” she whispered to her husband.