Nirrin (Forestfolk, Book 3)

Chapter 5

“Hey, Siena?” I rapped on the doorway of her cabin later that day.

“Come in,” she called from inside. She smiled when I ducked through the curtain. “Nirrin, what brings you here?”

I smiled back at her. Even if she hadn’t had the amazing ability to heal people with a touch of her hands, just her blue eyes and pale hair made her different from all the brown-eyed, brown-haired people of the area. Yes, envy and I were close friends.

“I wanted to ask you something.” I perched on a chair at the table where she sat weaving a basket. Or was it a hat? Or maybe it was a—I blinked away the errant thoughts and focused on my actual question. “Do the Gifted sometimes look . . . unusual?”

She set down her work. “Typically, no. They tend to look like anyone else. But I have heard stories. Are you talking about our guest?”

“Guest,” I scoffed. “They’ve had the guy tied to a chair since they caught him. Isn’t that wrong?”

Siena dropped her eyes to consider this. “Well . . .” Her mouth twisted as if undecided. “Galen is very wise because of his gift. If he thinks this is the right course of action—”

“But what do you think?”

“It’s not for me to say,” she hedged.

“They’re your thoughts. You’re free to say them whenever you like!”

She smiled at me, even as she shook her head. “You are brave in a way that I never was.”

“Me?” I squeaked, a glow from the unexpected compliment lighting me up.

“Yes. You speak your mind without hesitation. I could never do that.”

“Well, I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

“I imagine it must be pretty liberating.”

I leaned back, pondering. “I never thought about that.” Then I remembered why I came here. “So you’ve seen him, right? The guy they caught?”

“No, but I’ve heard rumors. Is he hurt?”

“I don’t know if he can be hurt. He’s covered from head to toe in . . . I don’t know, some kind of natural armor? Is that a Gifted thing?”

“Sounds like it might be.”

“It’s kind of inhumane, the way they’re treating him. Shouldn’t we say something? Or do something? They’ll listen to you.”

She hesitated, her eyes settling to the reeds on her table.

Ten years in Foresthome, and she still doubted her clout in this community. I loved her, but sometimes I just wanted to shake her.

“I’ll have a word with Galen,” she finally said.

“You will? That’s great! They shouldn’t be treating him that way just because he looks weird.”

“Nirrin, I wouldn’t discount Galen’s senses,” she said carefully. “I’ve never seen him be wrong. If they’ve tied up the visitor, it was with good reason, and not because he looks strange.”

I wasn’t so sure. Jeribo had called Fen an “it” instead of “he,” which meant they were already prejudiced against him. But Siena had a point. Galen’s hunches were always right. So what was Fen hiding?

I said goodbye to Siena and went to round up the children for supper. By bedtime, I was still thinking about how to sneak back into that cabin to talk to Fen again. Maybe this time I could get some concrete answers.

But it turned out I didn’t need to worry about that. I was tucking a particularly fussy child into bed when Bren tapped on my shoulder.

“Galen is outside to see you,” she said.

I turned around. “Galen? Wants to see me? Why?”

She shrugged. “He didn’t say. Best not to keep the man waiting.”

I hurried outside, and found him hovering near the doorway, face pensive and arms crossed.

“He wants to talk to you.” His tone indicated he wasn’t pleased about this.

I, on the other hand, was oddly tickled by this news. I didn’t have to ask who ‘he’ was. “He does?”

“He refuses to talk to anyone else.”

“Hmm, I wonder why?” I tapped my cheek in mock speculation.

Galen took a long, slow breath, as if trying to calm himself. “I would appreciate it if you could try again. And perhaps this time, you might glean why he’s here? For the safety of Foresthome. I truly believe he has nefarious motives.”

It was strange, but I didn’t get any kind of evil vibe from the stranger. He seemed . . . more frustrated than anything else.

“He could harm the children,” Galen continued. “We just don’t know.”

This got my attention. Plotting to steal something from us was one thing, but hurting the kids? That would be unforgivable.

I wiped the doubtful expression from my face. “I’ll try to find out what I can.”

“Thank you, Nirrin. That is all I ask.”

***

Fen’s face didn’t exactly light up when I entered the cabin, but his expression did seem more open than the previous day. He looked more tired than anything else.

“Hi, again.” I gave him a stupid little wave, then clasped my hands behind my back for lack of anything better to do with them. It was an odd sensation, this fluttery feeling. Was I . . . nervous? Why in the world would I be nervous? He was the one who wanted to talk to me.

Maybe that was it. He was expecting more banter from me, and here I was, needing to acquire information that he didn’t want to divulge.

“I’m glad you came back.” His voice was no longer hoarse, and instead sounded deep and rich.

“By popular demand, apparently,” I joked. My chuckle sounded weak to my ears, and then something very strange and uncommon happened: I fell silent.

Fen cleared his throat. “May I have some water, please?”

“Oh, of course!” Eager for something to do other than standing there looking dumb, I fetched a bowl of water from the bucket in the corner.

When he’d drunk his fill, he said, “You seem different.”

“Oh yeah?” I fiddled with the empty bowl.

“You were confident before. Unafraid. I liked that girl.”

I wasn’t expecting words from a stranger to warm me. “You did? Didn’t you say I was exasperating?”

A smile lit his eyes, even if his mouth barely moved. “I did. But it suits you.”

“Thanks.” I didn’t know how to be the interrogator person that Galen needed me to be. But if the children’s safety depended on it, I could at least try. “So . . . what brings you to Foresthome?”

The light in his eyes faded, and my heart sank. He sighed. “You’ve become one of them.”

“Them?”

“Afraid of me. Of what I’ll do if I’m let loose.”

I continued worrying the bowl in my hands. Was he right?

“You can go,” he said, his voice low with disappointment.

“What?”

“You don’t want to be here. I can tell.”

“No, it’s not that! It’s . . .” I rotated the bowl in my hands even faster, searching for the right words to explain my odd behavior. The burden to find information weighed on me like a boulder. As if I didn’t have enough things weighing me down.

I tossed the bowl into the bucket. “You know what? This is ridiculous. I’m not afraid of you, as a person. But I do share concerns that you might—might—have less-than-honorable intentions. I take care of children every day, and if I didn’t take threats to their safety seriously, then I wouldn’t be a very good caretaker, now would I?” I took a big breath of air. “So here I am, acting all weird, because I need to talk about something neither of us wants to talk about.”

Fen waited a beat, unsure if I was finished. “Then let’s talk about something else.”

I made a noise of impatience. “As much as I’d like to do that, I can’t.”

“I would never harm children.”

I stepped closer and peered into his armored face. “Do you promise that?”

“I promise,” he said solemnly. “They are innocents, and deserve to grow up happy.”

I heard the honesty in his voice, and as much as I knew not to take his word at face value, I believed him. “Did you have a good childhood?”

His lips thinned, and I immediately knew the answer.

“Never mind. Let’s talk about something else. Like, who this Niralessa person is. Is she beautiful?”

A glint appeared in his eyes. “Yes.”

A secret thrill zinged through me. Since he compared me to her, that meant I was beautiful too, right? I sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him, liking the new direction of this conversation much better. “So who is she?”

“She raised me, after my parents abandoned me.”

I shook my head in commiseration. “My parents abandoned me too, when I was a baby. How old were you?”

“I was five.”

“Do you still remember them? Your parents?”

“Bits and pieces. Sometimes I still dream of them, shunning me. Leaving me behind.” His eyes held a profound sadness.

My heart broke for the little boy being rejected by his parents. “I’m sorry. Did Niralessa treat you well, at least?”

His mood lifted slightly. “Yes. Very well. She loved me like I was her own child.”

I grew wistful, and wondered aloud, “Then how bad could your childhood have been?”

His features darkened again. “We were outcasts everywhere we went. Aberrations who looked like monsters.”

“You shouldn’t use the M-word,” I said automatically. “Or the A-word, for that matter.” Aberration was an antiquated term that the Plainsmen tribes used to refer to the Gifted. But that was in the past, back when Plainsmen were stupid, greedy, narrow-minded cavemen.

He gave me a quizzical look.

“Sorry. I keep telling my friend that. She thinks she’s a monster because she can burn your pants off. By accident.”

Fen leaned forward. “A Gifted fire user?”

“Yup. That would be Sember.”

“And she is your friend.”

“The best.”

“Then you don’t fear her.”

I shrugged. “She’s never given me reason to, no.”

He leaned forward. “Tell me more about her.”

I paused as a tiny surge of jealousy prickled in my chest. “Well, first of all, she has a boyfriend. A good one.”

A tiny smile played at his lips, as if he saw clear into my petty, covetous spirit. “How nice for her.”

Unwilling to show him more of my shortcomings, I began blabbering. “Sember can do all sorts of things. Light her hand on fire, throw fireballs, even make explosions. She was the one who killed that plague beast in the cave, you know.” I boasted even though these achievements were not my own.

“I’ve heard the stories. No wonder people fear her.”

“Not anymore!” I was quick to correct. “She’s a hero now.” For this, I was truly happy for Sember. She deserved to be smiled at and idolized by children.

Fen grunted, as if grudgingly accepting this, or perhaps not quite believing a fearsome Gifted could be idolized. He leaned back and rolled his shoulders, groaning a little as if sore.

I suddenly realized he’d been sitting in that stupid chair with his hands tied behind him for two days now. “Fen, I’m sorry you’re stuck here. But if you’d just tell us why you’re here, they’ll release you, and you can go home.”

“Can you really not remember my name?”

I blinked at him. “Of course I do. Fenrook. Fen is just faster.”

He tilted his head. “You really do look just like her.”

“Like Niralessa. Right. But—”

“She told me she had a daughter. That she had to give her up.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, unsure why he was telling me this.

“She said she left her baby here, in safe hands.”

I paused. “Here, in Foresthome?”

“She’d heard it was a sanctuary.”

An uneasy feeling settled on me like an itchy dress. “Why are you telling me this?”

“You have her eyes. You even have her sense of determination. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

My lungs refused to take in air. “When was this?”

“When she left her baby here? Nineteen years ago.”

I swallowed. Stared at him. Took in a breath. What was that whooshing sound in my ears?

“Nirrin.”

My stunned mind could not form words. A rarity.

“Nirrin, are you well?”

His voice sounded far away to my ears. “Um,” I managed, before stumbling to my feet and backing toward the door.

“Nirrin, wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

I didn’t hear the rest of it. I bolted out the doorway, past a startled Galen, and into the uncertain night.