Page 2 of Skysong

Laughter.She and her father laughed together, of course, but Oriane had never heard another person’s laughter. She had never evenseenanother person – not outside of pictures in books. She had heard hunters in the forest once or twice, but distantly, so far away that only one attuned to the refrain of these woods would have noticed them. For some reason, though, she had not ruminated long on the fact that the other people out there werereal. That they didn’t just exist between the pages of her books and papers. That they laughed and talked and dreamed, just like her.

Once, when she was younger, Oriane had asked her father why they lived so far from other people. ‘Did you and Mama live here all by yourselves too?’

He’d nodded. ‘We built this place together, board by board. We knew we’d be safe here.’

‘Safe from what?’

‘From people who might stop us living our lives in peace.’

Oriane had cocked her head. ‘But why would they want to do that? Because of what Mama was? What I am?’

‘No, my little lark,’ Arthur said, squeezing one of her hands in his. ‘Because of what they are themselves.’

Oriane had somehow known better than to ask about leaving the cottage, but that had not stopped her wondering what lay beyond it. She’d pored over books about the lands that stretched out around them and the history of the island on which they lived. The more she read, the more questions she had for her father – and the more often she found he was unable to answer her.

‘I don’t know what’s beyond the sea,’ he said one evening by the fire, hunched over his work. He was whittling a little wooden instrument. Aflute, he’d called it. It would join the other instruments he had made over the years, the ones he hadn’t sold on his occasional trips to8distant markets: the carefully strung mandolin; the tiny harp whose strings sighed delicately when strummed. Oriane’s father could play any instrument he touched and make it sound like magic. She loved that about him.

‘Have you never wanted to go there?’ she persisted, finger marking her place in the book on her lap. It was a history volume, full of maps. Some of them depicted the lands beyond Cielore – huge masses of green in the middle of the blue-painted seas. ‘We’re anisland, Papa, and all these books say there are more islands out there, much bigger than ours! Surely you must have wanted—’

‘No, I haven’t,’ he said. There was something in his tone that made Oriane stop short. He didn’t look up from his work. ‘I’ve not concerned myself with what’s past the water, Oriane, and neither should you.’

Coming from him – her quiet, gentle father, who never raised his voice, even when he must have wanted to – the curt words felt almost like a slap. Oriane lost the page she’d been marking.

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ she asked. There was the barest, softest hint of a challenge in her voice. She hardly recognised the sound of it.

Her father sighed, dusting wood shavings off his lap onto the floor. ‘It will do you no good, my girl.’

The little seed of defiance that had come close to blooming in Oriane’s chest sank back into the earth. He spoke the words with authority, with a weight that said they must be true. Perhaps he was right. Why should she wonder at what lay beyond the waters, when she had everything she needed right here?

Now, Oriane rose from the ground, brushing leaves and dirt from her skirts, and approached the little fence that formed a barrier between their land and the woods. She unhitched the gate and let herself through.9

She should tell her father what she’d heard. He’d be upset if she didn’t. He would want to know.

But as Oriane reached the back door of the house, she already knew what she would do. The voices, the laughter, the people – the strange way it had all made her feel …

That would remain a secret between her and the woods.

Oriane tried her best to act normally over the following days. She sang in the mornings, though she transformed back almost immediately instead of flying around the woods. She sat quietly with her father in the evenings, tired after long, warm days full of work. But she was never quite able to put the thought of other people from her mind.

She did not understand what had changed. It was as if that peal of laughter had caused something in her very nature to shift. She moved around in a daze she couldn’t shake off. Several times, she caught herself staring at nothing, and could not remember how long she had stood idle.

The call of her lark form was stronger than ever. She had always liked being a bird, but now she truly realised what itmeant. Every metamorphosis was an invitation. Every flap of her wings, an offer. Her very form was freedom – freedom, she now knew, that she had never really tasted. That was why she had been making herself transform back so quickly each morning. She had strength of will enough for that, at least.

A peal of laughter. That was all it had taken. People had existed in the abstract until now; Oriane had known they were out there, but they had never feltreal. Not like they did now. The idea of them had10taken over her every waking thought, and most of her dreaming ones too, like ivy swallowing a building whole.

Oriane loved her father, and she loved her life. She was healthy and strong. She had everything she could ever need.

But she could not help wondering: what if there weremore?

11

Chapter 2

‘Oriane?’

Her head snapped up at the sound of her father’s voice. Steam curled in fragrant spirals from the bowl of stew before her, but Oriane had not eaten a bite. She’d been toying with her bread instead, tearing it to shreds on her plate.

‘Out with it,’ her father said suddenly.

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