Page 53 of The Poison Season

Her cousin’s hazel eyes were just like Aunt Ketty’s, giving nothing away. “Forget I said anything. Come on, I’m hungry.”

“Sage!” Leelo called after her, but she’d already disappeared into the Forest.

Leelo was certain now that she wasn’t the only one with secrets. And something told her that Sage’s were sinister. The kind that best stayed buried.

Chapter Thirty-Two

In the days that followed, Jaren’s entire world became sleeping and waiting for Leelo’s visits. Sleeping at least made the time go faster; the waiting was excruciating. He had only gone to bathe one more time, alone, and all it did was make him think of Leelo and her lips and her hair and her bare skin. He knew it was dangerous to start to care about a girl he’d almost certainly never see again, but it was also a welcome distraction from worrying about how he’d get off the island and what his family was doing in his absence. And, if he was being honest, a distraction from the way the trees surrounding him seemed to press a little closer at night, how the wind through the branches sounded like whispering voices, and when rain fell, it had a strange cadence, like a song.

But when Leelo came, Jaren forgot about all of that. He was able to coax a little more out of her each time, and he gathered those facts like a bird adding trinkets to its nest. He spent hours thinking of questions to ask her, so soon he knew her favorite color (blue), her favorite food (cake), and her least favorite chore (anything to do with hunting—they had that in common). And every time she left, he felt like she trusted him a bit more, and his odds of dying were lower.

One night, when she’d come to visit him after a late Watcher shift, she had actually collapsed next to him on the blanket instead of sitting with her back to the door.

“Sorry,” she’d said when she saw him looking down at her with a bemused grin. “I forgot this was your bed.”

“What’s mine is yours,” he’d said with a laugh. “Literally.”

If their eyes met for too long, she would grow shy and reserved, like she was remembering that she was supposed to hate him. So he never stared at her too long, though saints knew he wanted to.

Unlike his sisters, Leelo didn’t think Jaren was too brooding or boring. On the contrary, she seemed to find him interesting. He knew that was likely because he was the first person she’d ever met who didn’t live on Endla, but seeing himself through her eyes made him feel like maybe what he had to saywasinteresting. After all, he’d lived in two different places. He had a large, boisterous family, and he spent enough time gathering in the woods that he could identify hundreds of plant species.

Leelo was particularly curious about life in Tindervale versus life in Bricklebury. “What’s a pub?” she’d asked when he told her about the bet he’d made with Merritt.

“A place where people gather to eat and drink,” he explained.

“Like a festival?”

“I suppose a very small one. Indoors. With ale.”

She’d considered this for a while, chewing her lip, and then said, “I think I’d like to go to one. As long as there are no boys like Merritt around.”

“I’d say I’d protect you, but I think we both know it would be the other way around.”

She had blushed with pleasure, and Jaren had felt like he finally understood how Summer felt around her carpenter, and how Story must have expected him to feel with Lupin.

But with Leelo, things were so much simpler. He didn’t have to worry about what any of this meant. It was forbidden, which he knew added at least some element of excitement to it, but it was also pure. They both knew they could never marry, that this relationship wasn’t advantageous to either of them or their families. They were not supposed to want anything to do with each other, just two strangers brought together by dire circumstances. But instead, Jaren wantedeverythingto do with Leelo. There was attraction, yes, but it was also something else. Jaren admired Leelo, her determination, her bravery. She was unlike anyone he’d ever met. He had a feeling that even on Endla, Leelo was special.

She arrived late one blisteringly hot afternoon. It was hard to believe an entire month had passed, with the days being so long and dull, yet also so similar that they bled into each other, distorting time. He lived for the moment she knocked lightly on the door, entering without waiting for an answer. And every time she left, he knew he would be counting the hours until she returned.

“Here,” she said, tossing him a parcel of food the moment she entered. He wondered how she was managing to sneak food without anyone in her house realizing, and he hoped she wasn’t using her own rations on him.

He opened the wrapping and tore the sandwich in half, offering it to her, and was a little relieved when she shook her head no. He was famished.

“Thank you,” he said before tearing into the sandwich like an animal.

“Slow down,” Leelo cautioned. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

He drained the first waterskin she brought him. “I’m sorry. You’d think with me lazing about all day I wouldn’t have much appetite.”

“My mother says young men are always hungry.” Their eyes met, and she blushed. She was wearing a dress again today, a soft gray linen embroidered with little pale blue stars that matched her eyes. “She says it’s because they’re still growing,” she clarified.

Jaren glanced down and patted his now full belly. “Up and out, as Story says.”

Playfully, she pinched his arm. “You could stand to have some more meat on your bones.”

“Is that so?” He was tempted to pinch her own slender shoulder, but he knew it was very different for her to touch him than for him to touch her. If anything physical were to happen between them, it would only be if she initiated it.

“The winters on Endla are harsh,” she said. “We can’t hunt, so we generally eat more in the warmer months.”

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