Morrighan - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,8

me a handful of sky when he saw me gazing up at the clouds, just to see me smile. I put it in my pocket. Other times we maddened each other beyond telling with our different ways, but we always came back, our squabble forgotten. We changed together, imperceptibly day by day, as slowly as a tree budding with spring.

But then one day, everything changed in one leap, permanently and forever.

He had stunned a squirrel that morning from ten paces with his slingshot, and was trying to instruct me how to do the same, but shot after shot, my stones went miserably off course. He was chiding me for my aim, and I was leveling frustrated glares at him.

“No, not like that,” he complained. He jumped up from where he lay in the meadow and marched over to me. “Like this,” he said, standing behind me and wrapping his arms around mine. He took my hands in his, his chest against my back, slowly pulling back the sling. Then he paused, a long uncomfortable pause that seemed to last forever, but neither of us moved. I tried to understand why it seemed so different. His warm breath fluttered against my ear, and I felt my heart racing, felt something between us that hadn’t been there before. Something strong and wild and uncertain. He let go of my hands suddenly and stepped away. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I have to leave.”

He got on his horse and left without a good-bye. I watched him ride until he was out of sight.

I didn’t try to stop him. I wanted him to go.

* * *

The longhouse buzzed with chatter, but I didn’t feel part of it. I stared at the poles and rushes and animal skins that made up the walls as I stacked the clean gourds.

“You’ve hardly said a word all night. What’s wrong, child?”

I whirled. “I’m not a child, Ama!” I snapped. “Can’t you see that?” I sucked in a breath, startled by my own outburst.

Ama took the gourds from my hands and set them aside. “Yes,” she said softly. “The child in you is gone, and a … young woman stands before me.” Her pale gray eyes glistened. “I just refused to see. I’m not sure how it happened so fast.”

I fell into her arms, holding her tight. “I’m sorry, Ama. I didn’t mean to be short with you. I—”

But I had no more words to explain myself. My mind tossed and pitched, and my body no longer felt like my own. Instead hot fingers squeezed my gut with the memory of Jafir’s warm breath on my skin.

“I’m all right,” I said. “The others wait.”

Ama pulled me to the center of the longhouse where everyone had settled around the fire. I sat down between Micah and Brynna. He was thirteen, and she, twelve, but they seemed so young to me now. The twins, Shay and Shantal, eight, sat across from me. To me, all of them were children.

“Tell us a story, Ama,” I said. “About Before.” I needed a story to soothe me, for my mind still jumped like a grasshopper of the fields.

The children called out their choices, the towers, the gods, the storm.

“No,” I said. “Tell us about when you met Papa.”

Ama looked at me uncertainly. “But that’s not a story of Before. That is a story of After.”

I swallowed, trying to hide my misery. “Then tell us a story of After.” I had heard the story before, but it was a long time ago. I needed to hear it again.

“It was twelve years after the storm. I was only a girl of seventeen. By then I had traveled far with the Remnant who had survived, but only to a place that looked as desolate as the last. We lived by our wits and will, my mother showing me how to trust the language of knowing within me, for little else mattered. The maps and gadgets and inventions of man could not help us survive or find food. Each day I reached deeper, unlocking the skills the gods had given us since the beginning of time. I thought this was all my life would ever be, but then one day, I saw him.”

“Was he handsome?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Was he strong?”

“Very.”

“Was he—”

“Stop interrupting,” I told the children. “Let her finish!”

Ama looked at me. I saw the wondering in her eyes, but she continued.

“But the most important thing I noticed about him was that he was kind. Desperation ruled the world, and