Morrighan - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,5

could tell he was taller than when I saw him last, and his shoulders had grown wider. The shreds of a shirt barely covered his chest.

I heard Ama’s warning. Run as fast as you can if you are caught unawares. But I wasn’t exactly unaware. I had been watching him for some time and wondering why he was hiding. Hiding quite poorly.

I knew it was coming, so when he burst from the bushes, shouting and brandishing his knife, I didn’t blink or startle but slowly turned the page I had finished, settling in with the next one.

“What’s the matter with you?” he yelled. “Are you not frightened?”

I raised my gaze to his. “Of what? I think it is you who is frightened, hiding in the bushes for the better part of an hour.”

“Maybe I was planning how I would kill you.”

“If you were going to kill me, you would have done it the first time we met. Or the second time. Or—”

“What are you doing?” he asked, eyeing my book, standing on the steps like he owned them. He was just like all the other scavengers, demanding, crude—and smelly.

“Do you ever bathe?” I asked, wrinkling my nose.

He looked at me confused, and then curious, his scowl softening.

I closed my book. “You don’t have to be so hostile to me, you know. I won’t hurt you.”

“You? Hurt me?” He threw back his head and laughed.

His smile made something hot pinch inside my belly, and before I could think, I swung out my foot, catching him behind the knee. He crumpled to the ground, his elbow making a loud painful thump when it hit the steps. The fierce scowl returned, and he whipped his knife in front of my face.

“I’m reading a book,” I said quickly. “Would you like to see?” I held my breath.

He rubbed his arm. “I was going to sit anyway.”

I showed him the book, turning the pages and pointing out the words. There were only a few on each page. Moon. Night. Stars. He was fascinated, repeating the words as I said them, and he set his knife down beside him. He touched the colorful pages rippled with time, his fingertips barely skimming them.

“This is a book of the Ancients,” he said.

“Ancients? Is that that what your kind call them?”

He looked at me uncertainly, then stood. “Why do you question everything I say?” He stormed down the steps, and strangely, I was sad to see him go.

“Come back tomorrow,” I called. “I’ll read more to you.”

“I will not be back!” he yelled over his shoulder.

I watched him stomp through the brush, only his wild blond hair shimmering above the weeds until both he and his grumbling threats disappeared.

Yes, Jafir, I thought, you will be back, though I’m not sure why.

Chapter Six

Jafir

I separated the last of the meat from the skin—a nice plump hare that had made Laurida purr when I arrived back at camp. I hung the gutted animal from the tree. We’d had no fresh meat for our stew in four days now, and Fergus grew more sour each day at the few roots and marrow bones that flavored the water.

“Where did you get it?” Laurida asked.

I had cornered it in a gully not far from where I found the girl Morrighan, but Laurida didn’t need to know that. She might tell Steffan, and he would take over my hunting ground like he took over everything else.

“In the basin past the mudflats,” I answered.

“Hmm,” she said suspiciously.

“I didn’t steal it,” I added. “I hunted it.” Though in the end, it made no difference—food was food—Laurida seemed to enjoy the hunted kind more. “I’ll go rinse these.” I grabbed the intestines to wash in the creek.

“Walk wide around Steffan this day,” she called after me. “He’s in a surly temper.”

I shrugged as I walked away. When was Steffan not in a surly temper? At least tonight he couldn’t box my ears or punch my ribs. He’d be shamed by Piers and Fergus for my catch. They both loved hare, and all Steffan had brought home lately were bony hole weasels.

It wasn’t until I was halfway home that I realized I had forgotten to ask Morrighan why Harik knew her name. It was the first thing I was going to say, but then she threw me off with all of her talk. Do I bathe? I swished the intestines beneath the water. What difference did it make? But then I thought about her skin, how it seemed to glow