The Forgotten Sisters (7 page)

“Come now, my lady, surely you've guessed that Jeffers would pay them more not to.” Fat Hofer scratched his bald head beneath his cap. “Write innocent love letters, they won't interfere. They're likely eager for those letters to go through and assure everyone in the capital that you're well, giving no reason to send anyone here to investigate. But a letter that alerts the capital to possibly shady dealings in Lesser Alva will mysteriously disappear—what am I saying?”

He pulled his hat back down over his eyes and shut his mouth.

“I won't tell that you talk to me for free,” Miri said.

“
Not
for free,” he said. “You will pay me back one day.”

Miri returned to the house and wrote a letter to Britta that made no mention of Jeffers or the king's allowance. Instead she told a tale of girls kept prisoner by a mean uncle and denied food. But she named one of the girls Flower, hoping Britta would understand. Miri was named for a flower that grew on the slopes of Mount Eskel.

Miri sent the letter with the traders, but even if Britta did understand her message, Miri suspected it would be in vain. She'd let Jeffers and the traders know her
intentions. Any letter of hers to the palace was bound to fall overboard on the journey back to Asland.

When Miri returned to the linder house, the sisters were just back from hunting. Miri brought out one of her books.

“It's time to study,” she called out.

Astrid did not look up from the fish she was deboning. “There's nothing you have in those books that will be a seedpod of help to us here, so quit trying.”

“I haven't been able to get your allowance for you yet,” Miri said, keeping her voice calm. “But we can't wait any longer. The king sent me here to educate you. The first step is learning to read.”

“She's mad,” Sus said, her blue-eyed stare so intense Miri flinched.

“Mmhm,” said Felissa. “Crackling mad.”

“Like fat in the fire,” said Astrid, nodding.

“What? I am not. I … I …” Miri noticed her fists were clenched. She forced them to relax. “I'm just—”

“Mad,” said Sus.

Miri rubbed her face and cursed herself. She could pretend all she wanted, but these girls would know the truth. And she'd just realized why.
Linder-wisdom
. Well, at least she could teach them
something
they might want to know.

“Felissa, how do you think Sus is feeling right now?”

Felissa squinted at her sister. “Mm, smug.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, she
looks
smug.”

“Let's play a game.” Miri blindfolded Felissa and made a quiet gesture to the other girls. Silently, she strutted in a crouch, flapping her elbows as if she were a chicken. Astrid gaped. Sus covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes smiling.

“Now how is Sus feeling?” Miri asked.

“Um, she's happy. Or something,” said Felissa.

“And Astrid?”

“She's kind of annoyed I think. What are you all doing?” Felissa took off her blindfold.

“Chicken,” Sus said, pointing at Miri.

Miri pointed back. “Linder-wisdom. That's how you know. I can't sense what you're feeling. I haven't lived inside linder for long enough. But you three can. The royal family in Asland has spent most of their lives inside the linder wings of the palace and they have this same talent. Emotions bounce back from linder, and you've gained the ability to sense that echo when you're inside this house.”

“Yes! That's true, about outside and inside!” Felissa clapped her hands as if Miri had performed a trick.

“I'd never thought about it before,” said Sus, “but it sounds true.”

“Something you didn't know, Astrid,” said Miri. “Something I was able to teach you.”

Astrid shrugged. “All you did was put a fancy name to what we can already do.”

Miri opened her mouth to answer but had nothing to say.

Astrid passed very close to Miri on her way outside and whispered, “And I'm older than you,
tutor
.”

Miri stood alone there for some time, listening to the girls' talk mix with the chirps of swamp sparrows, rude quacks of ducks, and singing from the village islands. A thousand conversations just out of reach.

She pressed her foot against the linder floor and called out in quarry-speech. The memory she silently sang was of the night she'd spent trapped in a closet at the princess academy, forgotten and alone. Everyone who would be able to detect her quarry-speech was much too far away, but she kept on anyway.

Written Autumn Week Ten

Never received

Dear Peder
,

I do not know why you think well of me. I seem to remember a time when I was passably useful. On Mount Eskel I could milk the goats and make cheese. How I would love to make cheese right now! Instead of sweating in a swamp not catching fish. Or lizards or rats or turtles or ducks
.

And definitely not teaching three girls how to be princesses
.

I would run home to you if I could. Even knowing what it would mean to our village to own the land under us, I would abandon my duty if I had any hope of making it home. Now you surely cannot be thinking well of me
.

Thinking well of you at least
,

Miri

Written Autumn Week Ten

Never received

For Miri my sister
,

I hoped to get a letter from you before winter closed the pass, but the first snows have come. No chance in sending this to you now before spring. I will write anyway. It is nice to pretend you can hear me
.

Last week, Peder and his father were arguing. The entire village could hear. Peder wanted to go back for you. His pa said Peder's place is on Mount Eskel. Time to return to quarry work and forget Asland. And forget you too, since you were too enchanted with the lowlands to return home
.

Peder ran out of the house. I joined him later on that huge, chair-shaped boulder that looks out over the cliff. He asked me if you would come home if you could, and I said yes
.

I brought out the stack of letters you had written to me from Asland over the past year. He read them all. Sometimes he frowned, but mostly he smiled
.

He said he was going to find you. I said of course. And so he packed up clothes and food in a blanket and left
.

Surely he will find you before spring, when the traders might come to take you this letter. For now, it will sit lonely here on the mantel
.

Your sister
,

Marda

The water slips, the water blinks

The water tips its tail

The water dips, the water sinks

The water shows its scales

What water unhinges its jaws?

The most dangerous kind that was

Miri was so tired of being damp. Her body itched with constant sweat. Her clothes got wet in the morning from splashing through water on the hunt and never really dried. Her feet were filthy, her hair was sticky and frizzed out around her face, pestering her forehead and cheeks with every breeze. She felt more like a scuttling rodent than a person.

And she was tired. So many dreams. The redheaded twins, doing nothing, just playing, sitting, sleeping. She was annoyed with herself for not having more interesting dreams.

Last night in addition to the twins, she had dreams
of Astrid and Felissa. They'd been younger, but she'd still known it was them in that way that dreams worked.

“Who lived here before you?” Miri asked, sloshing through hip-deep water with a net.

“Nobody,” said Astrid.

“But the house is old.”
And full of memories
, Miri thought and wondered if it were true. Could a house's memories infiltrate her dreams? “Did your mother say how she came to live here?”

“She said it was the best place for us,” said Felissa. “That it was safe.”

Miri slapped a fat mosquito feasting on her arm. She looked back toward the house and considered returning to write to Peder again, even if the letter would never get farther than Jeffers's hands. Maybe she'd just keep writing to him and Marda and Britta until this boulder in her chest rolled out and let her heart beat freely again.

“Don't move!” Astrid called out suddenly.

Miri froze. Another snake? She did not want to hold still. She wanted to scream and flail and claw her way out of the water and far from Lesser Alva. But if Astrid said not to move, then she was not in danger of a mere toothless worm.

Astrid was in the water off to her side. She had her knife out.

“I'm going to get it,” Astrid whispered.

“Miri, move slowly to shore,” Sus whispered. “
Slowly
. Astrid, a little to your left. Felissa …”

Sus handed one pole to Felissa and backed away, taking up a position on shore so the three sisters formed a triangle.

Miri slowly backed up, scanning for a snake. All she noticed was a log floating in the thick green water. Coming closer. And the log had eyes.

Miri could no longer get her legs to move. She could not even manage to breathe.

Sus's and Felissa's poles dangled loops of rope at one end. Miri had seen the girls use them to hook fowl by the neck. Felissa widened the loop. Astrid was coming closer, her eyes never leaving the not-log.

“Ready?” Astrid asked.

“Go for the neck,” Sus whispered. “Remember last time. Aim true.”

“Strike swiftly,” said Felissa.

There was no warning. The beast lunged for Miri, its impossibly huge mouth open and full of long, crooked teeth. Miri screamed and scrambled back. The beast's mouth snapped shut, just a hand's breadth from Miri's foot. And it would have gotten her too, if Felissa had not hooked its head and pulled up on the pole. Sus's pole
had missed. She kept trying to hook the beast from the other side.

The beast lunged again, but Astrid sprang onto its back, driving her knife into its soft, white throat. The beast thrashed, long, thick tail whipping. Sus managed to loop its neck just before both Astrid and the animal went underwater. The pole began to slip from Sus's hands. Miri crawled up beside Sus, grabbed on, and helped pull.

They yanked its head out of the water. It had twisted and was upside down, thrashing, blood oozing from its neck and making blackish clouds in the green water.

“Astrid!” Miri shouted.

A hand seized the beast from the water. Another followed, still gripping a knife. Astrid pulled herself on top of the beast and stabbed again. This time the thrashing slowed.

Astrid clambered up the bank, threw aside her knife, and took hold of Felissa's pole.

“Pull!” Astrid said. “Pull!”

And with each call, the girls pulled, inching the beast out of the water.

It had stopped moving. The girls all fell to the ground, muddy and exhausted. The animal lay between them, longer than Miri and Sus put together, its eyes cloudy like a struck fish's. It had dark-green, hard, and knobby
skin and four short legs with long claws. Beside its narrow, teeth-filled head and long tail, its stout body seemed tiny.

Miri stared at teeth the length of her thumb and shivered in the muggy sunlight. She felt Sus shiver beside her. Astrid was breathing hard.

Felissa giggled. She looked at Astrid, waggling her eyebrows, and smiled hugely. Astrid giggled too.

And then all three girls began to laugh. Miri gazed at them. Had they lost their minds? They'd almost been killed! Felissa put her arms around her sisters' shoulders, reaching out to put a hand on Miri's back.

“It's not every day something tries to eat you, huh, Miri?” said Felissa, laughing.

Miri smiled. The relief and the smile mixed together in her, making her stomach ticklish till she laughed too.

“That was a big one,” Astrid whispered.

“Really big,” said Felissa. “Bigger than the one the villagers brought in last month.”

“We brought in one too, last year,” said Sus.

“Yes, but they all said it was small and skinny and anybody could've done it,” said Astrid, “and that it takes a man to bag a big caiman.”

“This will show them,” said Felissa.

“Woo-wee!” Astrid shouted. “That's a lot of meat.”

“You're bleeding,” Miri said, gesturing to Astrid's cheek.

Astrid touched her face and then examined the scratches on her hands.

“Not as badly as the caiman did. I win.” She smiled wide.

It took an hour to drag the caiman back to the linder house.

“Good work, Miri,” Astrid said, huffing with the effort. “Your clumsy movements attracted this beast. We should use you as bait more often.”

“She's kidding,” Felissa said, equally out of breath.

Miri nodded. She could not find the air to respond.

When they finally reached home, Astrid scaled the house and stood on the roof. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted toward the village, “We've got meat! We've got meat!”

There was a small answering shout, then another. She made her announcement again, and more voices responded, repeating her words.

A man came running up the slope to the linder house. Miri recognized him as one she'd seen at Jeffers's house. He was holding a knife with a serrated edge.

Miri ducked behind the house and hissed at Astrid. “What are you doing? He's going to steal your caiman!”

Astrid rolled her eyes.

“This much meat would rot before we could eat it all,” said Sus, “so if you bag a caiman, you share a caiman. It's sacred law.”

“Big one,” said the man approvingly. “That'll feed forty.”

“Forty!” Astrid called from the roof. “Meat for forty!”

“One caiman alone can't feed all the villagers,” Felissa explained to Miri. “So for this feast, only the first forty get a piece.”