system for everything, a system that fascinated her, and she watched him accomplish a dozen daily tasks with ease and quiet efficiency. He hung the furs that lined the walls and floor on a line that was strung between two trees and beat the dust from them with a broom. She did the same with the furs from her nest, but Hod was stronger than she, and the dirt plumed from his swings far more easily, so she retrieved a basket from the cave and picked berries instead, thinking it a task he couldn’t do. But he wasn’t a bad berry picker either; he ran his fingers lightly over the leaves, popping off the little balls that conformed to a certain size, and when they were finished, he’d gathered almost as many as she.
In the afternoon, he set his traps in the forest, chopped wood for the fire, and climbed an enormous tree to fetch some honey. He had no fear of heights or the massive beehive high in the branches and began climbing back down with dripping chunks of honeycomb in his basket and a cloud of bees circling his head. Ghisla knew a song about bees and began singing it—“thank you for your golden treasure, we’ll not take more than we need”—hoping the bees would retreat. They did, almost immediately, but Hod fell from the tree, landing in a pile at her feet.
He lay on his back, stunned and gasping for air, his eyes fixed up at the branches above him, his basket of honeycomb still clutched in his hand.
“Hody!” Ghisla cried. “Are you hurt?”
“No . . . not . . . exactly,” he gasped, searching for the breath that had been pummeled from his breast. “I’ve grown accustomed to their stings and their sound . . . but I am not accustomed to seeing them swarm.”
“You saw them?”
“Only in your song . . . but . . . it distracted me. I wanted to . . . look. And I forgot I was still dangling in the tree.”
“I made you fall,” she said.
“It was worth it.” He grinned. “They should not be able to fly . . . bees. They are fat and furry! And they have such little wings. They are black and . . . what is that color? Yellow? Yellow,” he said, satisfied he had it right. “Yellow is like gold,” he recited. “Like your hair . . . and grain . . . and the sun . . . and the flowers on the tomato vines and the apples in Tonlis.”
He had his breath back, but he didn’t rise. He was too caught up in his list making.
“I will try to remember not to sing while you are doing something dangerous,” she said, looking down at him and chewing on her lip. “I was not even holding your hand. I didn’t think you would . . . see . . . my song.”
“But I did,” he marveled. “I saw the bees . . . mayhaps not the bees around me . . . but I saw bees.”
“Mayhaps . . . we are getting better at it.”
“Like finding one’s way on a well-trodden path,” he said, agreeing. “Let’s test it. Sing something else. Something simple . . . like the bee song, but not something you’ve sung before.”
She knew a song about changing leaves and harvest dances that she hadn’t shared with him. She remembered her sister laughing and twirling as she sang it, and Ghisla closed her eyes and sang along, swaying with the memory.
“Green and gold and orange and red, here and there and overhead, drifting down to touch the ground. In springtime they’ll grow back again,” she sang, moving like the falling leaves. The dance was one of turns and twists, and Morgana had loved it more than any other. Ghisla hopped and spun and dipped and bowed, and Hod lay at her feet, listening, rapt.
A roar, unlike that of any beast Ghisla had ever heard, broke their dreamy connection. A rustling and cracking accompanied the bellow, and a figure robed in black, his arms flailing and his staff swinging, rushed toward them.
Hod leaped to his feet in front of her, his stance wide, but the enraged figure was already upon them. The figure slapped at Hod’s cheeks, knocking the boy back.
“What is the meaning of this?” the incensed stranger shrieked, the sound rattling her teeth. His cowl fell back, revealing his bald head and beaked nose. A braided white beard