Page 67 of Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years 2)

She said, “It’s a month now since we left the mauntery, and you dropped out of the sky perhaps two weeks before that. I’ve been nursing you as best I could, and I’ve assumed we’d winter here together. But is that a false premise? You ought to let me know. I must decide if I want to try to stay here alone through the winter, or return to the mauntery.”

“Why would I leave?” he asked, looking for a reason.

She tried to lighten the mood. “To grow a man, you must not only plant a child, but harvest it,” she said. “You’re not done yet. Are you?” When he didn’t answer her, she added, “You ask why you would leave. But I ask, why would you stay?”

“I owe you that much.”

“You owe me nothing.” She looked as if she meant it, seeming neither combative nor proprietary. “I did the job that was set me by the Superior Maunt, that’s all. Though maybe in evacuating you from that keep and bringing you here I exceeded my charge, and endangered you the further.”

“I can’t be in danger here. Look, what? Are the very elm leaves going to wreathe up by magic and smother me?”

“Something attacked you six weeks ago, and for a reason,” she reminded him.

“I had a flying broom. Of all things. No reason more than that.”

“You had the power to fly on it, too.”

“Any ant has the power to wander aboard an eagle.”

She demurred, but didn’t want to argue. “You were going somewhere. Surely you remember by now?”

“A Conference. A Conference of Birds in the eastern entrance to Kumbricia’s Pass. Though I have no way of knowing exactly when it was formally opening, nor how long it would last. It could be over already.”

She sat down. “If I understood what I picked up in the mauntery, we aren’t that far from the eastern edge of the Kells.”

“No. A few hours by broomstick, I guess. A few days, maybe, on foot.”

“There’s the donkey.”

“Two weeks on the singing donkey. He seems very lazy.”

“You’re still weak. You ought to ride.”

“You’re pushing me out of the nest?” He was relieved, in a way: someone was making a decision for him. Or perhaps she wanted to hear from his lips that he wouldn’t abandon her, he wouldn’t consider it.

Her thinking was further along than that. “I don’t know if you want to stay with me for a day, or for longer, or at all,” she admitted. “But you should choose what you want and not just fall into it. I abducted you, after a fashion. I will not keep you.”

“I’ll give myself permission to stay here.”

“You’ll settle your curiosity first,” she told him. “You don’t know why you were attacked, really. You don’t know what the Conference was for, nor what it might mean to the Birds that you didn’t arrive. You should find out that before you make any other decisions.”

“I’m not that selfless anymore. Anytime I try, I fail. I learned failure early, and mastered it.”

“Be selfish then. Ask those Birds if they have seen your friend. That Nor.”

He could hardly believe her generosity. He loved Candle already but didn’t have the perspective to know if it was as a savior, a woman, a friend, an alternative to loneliness. Or all of those together. Or if any of those were the right reason to love someone. Well, what personal experience of love had he ever had? And what testimony of love had ever been paraded before him? Precious little.

He knew in many ways Candle was right and that, also, she was giving him a way out.

“I need firewood. If you help me with firewood,” she said, “I’ll stay here the winter and not leave till spring. Between the fruits and mushrooms I’ve been drying, the potatoes growing wild in the sunny patch yonder, and what the goat and the hen can provide, I won’t starve. If I’m turned out by some landlord, or if trouble chases me away, I’ll return to the mauntery. I can be found there, by my uncle if he comes to claim me, or by you. Or there I’ll stay, maybe; it’s as good a life as most, and they’re kind women.”

He helped with the firewood, redoubling his efforts to build up the stockpile, and in so doing restoring mass to his muscles and strength to his step. By the time the first hard frost came, and the chimney was issuing its thin braid of smoke all hours of the day and night, he was ready to leave.

He wouldn’t take the donkey. She might need it.

“For what?” she asked.

“He’s better company than the goat,” said Liir at last. He took Candle in his arms on the final morning, and kissed her fondly for the first time. “I do not need to hear about goodness from any Apostle,” he told her. “You have given me more to admire than almost anyone I have ever met.”

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