Page 67 of The Poison Season

He hadn’t mentioned this new plan to her yet. He knew there was a very good chance she wouldn’t want to go, which was why he’d spent the past few days telling her about how wonderful life on the mainland could be. Leelo loved to listen to his stories, her head on his chest, her fingers drawing circles on his skin. She wanted to know everything about his sisters, what it was like to travel from Tindervale to Bricklebury, and she was fascinated by the idea of a forest that didn’t require anything from its inhabitants but respect for nature.

“If you didn’t have to give half your kills to the Forest, wouldn’t your lives be easier?” he asked her, genuinely curious. It was several days since she’d come to see him in the middle of the night, and their visit had to be kept short, since Leelo’s family was now suspicious of where she’d been disappearing to. Jaren felt terrible that she’d been caught sneaking back into the house and wished they hadn’t fallen asleep, but he wouldn’t change anything else about it. That night had been the best of his entire life.

“Not really,” Leelo said. “Because the Forest provides more for us than a normal forest could.”

Jaren wasn’t sure that was true, but it was clear Leelo believed it. “And the other Wandering Forests? Why does this one stay in one place, while the others didn’t?”

“Because they didn’t have us, I suppose.”

Jaren glanced out the window toward the trees. From what he’d seen of the island, it didn’t have more game or resources than any other wood he’d been in. But he had noticed that the Forest changed in odd ways from one day to the next. A fallen tree would be on its side one day, covered with moss as though it had been that way for ages, only to be upright a day later. At first Jaren just thought he was getting himself lost, but he’d taken to leaving markers for himself, and the Forest was definitely changing.

Once, when Jaren was whittling with a little knife Leelo had given him so he could skin his own game, should he actually catch anything, he’d clumsily nicked himself attempting to make a...well, it was supposed to be a squirrel, but it was turning out more like a beaver. Blood had poured from the wound into the ground by the little stump where he sat.

Before he could staunch the bleeding with his tunic, he’d watched in horror as the earth itself began to churn, consuming the blood within seconds of it falling.

Jaren didn’t want to tell Leelo all the things he thought were wrong with her home. If he did that, he knew she’d be hurt and angry, and she would never agree to leave with him. So he was gentle, listening with genuine interest when she spoke, and never pushing back when she defended something about Endla.

He kissed the top of her head, breathing in her warm lavender scent. If she wouldn’t agree to escape with him, he wasn’t sure what he would do. He knew he had to get home, but the thought of losing her was unbearable. “When is your next day off?” he asked her. “I was thinking we should go to the boat, make sure it has been repaired.”

She sat up and looked down at him. “We?”

“I know you’re worried. But I think it’s important that I know where it is, in case I need to get to it without you.”

“But you’d never be able to move it on your own.”

“I know. But what if we had to meet there?”

She looked skeptical, but she settled back into the crook of his arm, where she fit perfectly, like a piece of a puzzle he hadn’t known he’d been missing. “I have a day off in three days. But I don’t know how I’ll get away from Sage and Ketty. They’ve been watching me like hawks lately. I was only able to get away today because Sage had to go visit the Hardings with my aunt.”

“How is she feeling about her engagement, by the way? Any better?”

Leelo shrugged. “I don’t know. She won’t speak about Hollis. But she didn’t seem terribly upset about going to see him today, so perhaps she’s accepted it.”

“I feel sorry for her,” Jaren said, twining his fingers through Leelo’s silky hair. “No one deserves to end up in a marriage they didn’t choose.”

Leelo sighed, releasing a soft puff of air onto Jaren’s bare chest, and his heart clenched at the sweetness of her. “No, they don’t.”

“You mentioned that your aunt’s marriage wasn’t a happy one, either.”

“No. And sometimes I wonder if my mother’s was happy after all.”

“Really?”

She was quiet for a minute. “She was talking to me about love recently, and she seemed so happy and moony. Then I mentioned my father, and her entire demeanor changed. Isola said something strange to me the other day, and Sage is clearly keeping secrets from me. I know they’re all trying to protect me, but I don’t need protection. I need the truth.”

Her words made Jaren tense up. She wanted the truth. He wasn’t deceiving her, necessarily, but he also wasn’t being entirely honest. “Leelo, I need to ask you something.”

She rolled onto her belly, still pressed up against his side, and propped her chin in her hands. “What?”

When he sat up and motioned for her to join him, a little furrow appeared between her pale brows. “I have to go back soon. I don’t want to leave you, but I can’t put it off any longer.”

“That’s not a question,” she said.

He glanced down at his hands, then forced himself to meet her eyes. “Will you come with me?”

Leelo blinked in surprise. “What?”

“I know Endla is your home. It’s all you’ve ever known. Your entire life is here. But I can’t help thinking that if you stay here, you’ll end up marrying someone you don’t love to appease your family. Or you’ll end up alone because you refuse to settle for a life like that, and you deserve to share your heart with someone, if that’s what you want. Which is not to say I think you loveme, of course.” He started to ramble, his thoughts tangling up like string, when she stopped him with a hand on his.

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