5

The bird woman's home was a simple cob roundhouse. The roofing was thatched, and it gave off a haze of smoke from an admittedly cozy hearth within. The interior was a delightful surprise, its soot-brushed ceiling a great whorl of boughs, highest where the tips coalesced, enclosing a private world of spices, and of bottled cure-alls and powders and brews. 

And while it wasn't quite spacious enough to be considered accommodating to guests, its strange little occupant, who'd changed into a fresh set of clothes by that time, had the decency to string up a drying line by the fire from which they could hang their sodden belongings.

Peter parked himself on a warm pile of blankets. He upended his bag to appraise the damage done by the river. "I think I made out okay," he said, glancing. "You?"

By the fire, Ethos was working the knot of the sling, water tapping around his feet. "I don't know," he replied, and he sounded weary. "My stuff's behind you."

Kacha went to him. "Fool," she said, lightly slapping his hand. "Let me see it."

Seeing her intent, he stubbornly evaded away. "I can do it."

"Save your embarrassment. I could see you shaking from across the room." On tiptoe, she squinted to see in the firelight. "Tilt your head to the left," she instructed. "Your other left. For the love of— look at where I'm pointing."

Peter dried his knife with a loose swab of cloth. "How much farther south does the Backbone go?" he asked. "Does it go as far as Anbar?"

"Thirty leagues. It trails off before Highcliff." Tricky part done with, she guided Ethos closer to the fire and stretched the tired material of his shirtsleeve. "Pull it out slowly, now," she said. "That's good. I'll have this dry by morning for you."

"Thirty leagues," Peter griped. "We'll be well into winter by then."

"Why didn't you take the pass to Arneth?"

Ethos quickly looked over at Peter. "There's a pass?"

Peter's decision to prolong the trip hadn't entirely been deliberate, but then, the shadow of Oldden was a dismal one, as was the ultimate purpose of their venture. "Arneth's a major crownsworn city," he reasoned. "They'd have pulled us aside in a heartbeat."

"You could've at least told me." 

Shoulders drawn, Ethos stood patiently while Kacha hung his shirt on the line. She then hoisted a full metal drum from the floor —an old slack tub, from the look of it— and hobbled back to her waiting houseguest. The water buzzed into ripples when she knelt with it. "Sit, foolish one," she said. "Let's see what we can do to hasten your recovery."

Ethos didn't fight her on it. He relinquished his arm without demur and watched her remove the filthy bindings. "Why do you live so far from Azoso?"

"Convenience," she answered. "I'm better suited to the winds and the wilds."

"But don't you get lonesome?"

"It's safer this way."

"You sound like my mother."

She glanced up at him. "Your mother?"

"Shima." He studied her back. "Do you have any family?"

"Everyone does in some form or another. Dead or not." Kacha slid her nail beneath a crusty fold of cloth, dispensing water when it wouldn't come free. Once she'd stripped off the last of it, she used a towel to pat his skin dry. "Does it hurt?"

"Not right now."

"Let me know if that changes."

She started in, quietly concentrated, and her hand went agleam like a slow, subtle comet. Peter had heard of it before: the rare and coveted restorative gift, second only to the sight. In the east she was a witch doctor, but in the west they'd have called her a specialist. The light spread languidly, soft as butter; it bled right into the injured arm, highlighting shadows of bones and arteries. Curiously, Ethos chose instead to watch her face, silent to all but himself.

Kacha's gruffness intruded. "Make a fist."

He complied. "Like this?"

She nodded and said, "I don't recognize your mother's name."

It was hard to tell if his stillness was a reaction to the process or ordinary exhaustion. "I don't see why you would," he replied. "The clans didn't associate with humans."

Something he'd said must have tipped her off, because she repositioned his fist. "So you became clan," she mused. "How did you end up in the oldwood?"

"I don't know. My first memory is of the trees."

The crone withdrew. If she had more to say on the tentative subject, she didn't express a desire to share it. "That's enough for now," she decided. "I imagine you fools are far hungrier than I am."

Peter had been eyeing the simmering stew since their first step inside. In spite of himself, a grumpy question crawled out of his belly. "Do you call everyone fools?"

"Fool," she retorted. "Only fools are fools."

"Hag."

Cackling, she stood and rubbed at her haggard knees. "I might be more hospitable if I heard a good story," she remarked. "Think of it as my going rate."

Ethos examined his arm. "Peter tells good stories."

Peter asked, "What sort of story?"

"Oh, any sort'll do," Kacha said. "The ones I like most are about troublesome boys who wander the country for one reason or another. Do you know any like that?"

"Aye, if you're in the business of feeding me." He glanced at Ethos. "Is that alright?"

Ethos just gave his customary shrug and said, "I don't mind." It seemed he'd found a blanket to his liking. It was a great big white one, large enough to swallow him whole while he struggled with his pants. They made a heavy slapping sound when they finally hit the ground, leaving little wonder as to why he'd wanted out of them. 

Kacha crooked her finger at a shelf, and three earthenware cups promptly scraped from their places and sailed smoothly across the hut. They stacked themselves for her while she spooned out portions with an old wooden ladle. "The birds bring me spices and herbs from unsuspecting farmers," she said, and she extended a serving to Ethos, taking care not to spill. "Here."

He freed his good arm and leaned forward. "Thanks."

She unleashed a second cup at Peter without so much as a word of warning. Caught off guard, he dropped whatever he'd been holding in an effort to snatch it out of the air, but it roguishly eluded his grasp, playing at hard-to-get, freewheeling. "Stupid old— "

The game amused her. "Sit, coastlander, sit."

"I am sitting."

"Then play dead, you fool."

Ethos smiled into his cup. "Be nice, please."

Peter yelped when it dropped from the air and into his hands, sloshing over the sides. "Hag," he reiterated, inwardly thrilled at the prospect of a meal. "What's in it?"

Facing the fire, she saw to herself. "Crow."

Ethos violently coughed in surprise, but Peter had already started in and learned how good the foul scavengers tasted. "Hunger's a pretty compelling spice," he confessed, and he smirked to see Ethos so conflicted about it. "You're at odds, huh."

"Stop laughing at me."

"I'm not laughing."

"You might as well be, smiling like that."

"Are you upset that we're eating your friends?"

"They're not my friends. They're crows."

Kacha joined them with a huff. "Nasty things, crows," she grumbled. "Rats of the sky, screeching about in their miserable murders."

Ethos scowled. "And you call yourself a bird woman."

"Crows are crows. Always talking, never listening." She blew on her stew to cool it. "Let's hear it, then," she said, to Peter. "You have your food, so start at the beginning."

Peter's riverside tour in the woodling's company had made him an unwitting expert on the subject, so he strung the peculiar story along with most of the details intact. The small untrue parts came easiest, already worded to a measure of his liking, and the other parts, the fresh-in-the-mind parts, came easier still. Kacha had finished her meal by the end of it. Ethos was curled on his side, verging on slumber.

"It's a crazy world," Peter concluded, mostly to himself. "Like crawfish in a boiler."

"Fool," Kacha retorted. "The world is as crazy as we make it."

"Call me a fool again and see where it gets you."

She ignored him. As if it were the natural thing to do, she reached for Ethos and lightly touched his hair, inviting his eyes. She said, "I'd like to see it, if that's okay."

He didn't seem to mind the closeness. "See what?"

She smiled. "Lose the dumb fox routine."

He smiled, too, imparting a gleam of his veiled intelligence. "You don't believe him?"

"It's not disbelief." Kacha sat forward to take his unwanted cup from the space between them. "I know of another pass that can have you in the midlands within a day," she revealed. "Do as I ask and I'll gladly guide you there."

His smile languished, but he didn't argue. He exposed a thirsty patch of earth, and immediately the dirt cracked apart to forfeit a stalk and a low, glossy berry. "This is agna," he told her, bathed in the peaceful green glow it gave off. "I've been told they don't exist out here."

Peter had taught him that on their second night out. It'd become an ordinary phenomenon since then, but Kacha's speechlessness evoked a reassessment of his own first encounter with it. The rounded lens of her gaze, imbued with light— had he made the same expression?

She uttered a single word: "Beautiful."

Ethos grinned up at her. "Did you catch your reflection in it?"

"Fool," she whispered, without heart. "It's a fruit?"

"It's a nightshade, like a tomato."

"But it's edible?"

Very. "It's delicious."

Peter settled against the wall, arms folded, bowlegged. "Tell us about this path, Kacha."

She plucked the berry from its vine. "Redbeard's Throat."

"Redbeard's Throat?"

Her customary cackle. "They'd have you think it's a volcanic crater, the fools," she said. "Some say it leads to the great below. Some say deeper."

She didn't elaborate, so Peter just stared. "Does it?"

"Of course not," she replied. "It's a few hundred fathoms deep. A half league across. The caves at its deepest will lead you into the midlands, a two days' march from the clouds of Farwell." 

Peter asked, "Is it safe?"

"It's inconvenient, not without risks."

"But it's not patrolled. There's no midland outpost."

"No," she said. "I can have you there by a quarter part if we leave shortly after dawn. It's past the tree line to the west, between the laughing summits, beyond the narrows." At hearing Ethos yawn, she set down the agna and gestured for him to join her back at the slack tub. "Sit up," she directed. "I can't let you nod off until I've finished mending your flapper."

Again, he went without protest. A stranger would have thought him easily imposed upon. With the blankets bunched around his middle, he extended his arm and asked, "So what aren't you telling us?"

"Fool," she replied, turning his palm skyward. "There's nothing to tell."

"Please look at me while you say that."

It was enough to earn him a glance of surprise, but laughter quickly spread to her lips. "A fine half, aren't you," she leered, alight from below, all angles and creases. "I'll pray you don't lose any nice parts in Oldden."

Far from diverted, he said, "You're avoiding the question."

Kacha chuckled and returned to her work. "If night falls while you're still in the Throat, I would strongly advise you to wait it out," she said. "It's possessed by spirits of the past, you see. And they've grown aggressive over the ages. Hateful. It's why people avoid it."

Peter felt a chill in his blood. "Spirits?"

"Don't look so afeard, coastlander," she crowed, peering slantwise. "They can't hurt you, dead as they are. They search the darkness for an outlet, for something that might appease their infinite cycle of rage and regret."

"Oh, aye. An outlet."

"Solidarity," she said. "Stick together and you'll be fine."

Ethos drew back unexpectedly, ending the exchange, and the light slowly faded without something to nurse. Kacha held the tub steady when he unthinkingly employed its lip to rise. Water slopped and spattered. "Sorry," he said, laughing at his clumsiness, turning to go. "I'll be right back."

He was gone before she could protest. The hut seemed dreadfully still in his absence— no great shock, considering the way he'd so indiscreetly excused himself. Kacha was waiting by the tub, glaring for an answer, so Peter shrugged and explained, "He has a headache."

Her brow furrowed. "How could you tell?"

"He always has a headache."

"So why go outside?"

"To throw up." Empty cup in hand, Peter crept over his upended bag. "There's more stew, I hope," he said. "These portions wouldn't satisfy a meadow mole."

"Fool," she muttered. "You're lucky enough to get scraps with manners like that."

"I don't need a lecture on etiquette from someone like you."

She snatched the cup from him. "Fool."

"Hag." Something cold was bleeding into his knee— the sodden pants that Ethos had shed. Peter yanked them out from under him. "Why'd you attack him back there?"

"It's called a preemptive strike, coastlander."

"Aye, but he meant no harm."

"I realize that now," she said. "Instinct's to blame."

Peter could see by her face that she regretted it. "It's fine, you know," he told her. "Ethos himself said we lucked out, happening by you when we did. Gave us a place to sleep."

"You didn't happen by me."

Water dripped down his wrist. "We didn't?"

"I'd been restless for days." She sounded enormously irritated. Peter imagined her pacing the little hut, grumbling. "I knew something was out there, I just didn't expect it to be him."

"So you know who he is. I thought you might."

She stirred the contents of the iron pot: a deliberate ploy, he imagined, to avoid looking him in the eye. Absorbed in her ruse, she said, "He should ask me that himself."

"He won't," Peter told her. "And he won't say why."

Their discussion staggered into a familiar aural tapestry of night-singing insects. Kacha eventually glanced, saw him kneeling there with the dripping pants, and took them from him. "The short answer is yes," she murmured, wringing water into the slack tub. "But the longer answer is no. If you value the simple life, you'll return to your pigs."

"We don't have pigs."

She looked at him. "Go home, Peter."

Peter sat back on his heels and frowned. "But why?"

Kacha calmly saw to the washing line. She paused once she'd finished, hands on her hips. When she finally spoke again, she asked, "Have you ever seen a sow go savage?"

"I've heard of it, how she turns on her farrow."

"But you've never seen it."

"Not personally, no. Sounds foul."

She smiled wryly at that, gaze low. "An odd sort of madness," she said. "They get this wild look to their eyes, like beasts possessed." She drifted briefly, in clouded thought. It was the first he'd seen her make such a serious expression. "I wonder if they even know what they're doing."

"Is there some sort of point you're trying to make?"

With one of her throaty, rasplike cackles, she returned fireside to refill his cup. "The end of days," she mused. "You best be ready when it scales the hump. Lucky am I to be old and uninvolved." 

"It's not the end of days. You've been on your own for too long."

"Peter the wise, is it?" Kacha offered him the hot serving. She held it between them when he tried to take it and said, "Everyone's waking up again, wise one. All thanks to you. Tread lightly."

A sound from the entrance silenced them. When it came again, Peter opened the door so hard that it clattered noisily against the hut interior, prompting a scathefire snarl from Kacha. He stood motionless at the threshold, scanning the hummocks for movement. He dared a single step forward.

From below: "Boo."

What began as a harmless start of surprise quickly spiraled into a backward stumble through the inexcusably blanket-bedraggled doorsill. A singularly humiliating spill to the floor left him agape at the whorled ceiling, winded and mortified in more ways than one.

Ethos was having a laugh, the whelk. He'd been seated outside with his back to the hut, and was peering around the doorframe to take in his unplanned spoils of mischief. "Sorry," he lied, a leaf of mint partway to his mouth. "I couldn't help myself with you standing so close and all."

Peter winced. "I thought you'd wandered off again."

His eyebrows went up. "Without my duds?"

"Why are you sitting there?"

"My body's tired."

"You could've just come in."

"I was afraid it might be awkward." At the mention, he glanced at Kacha with a smaller version of his usual smile. She was out of Peter's field of vision. "I think we'll try for the pass," he told her. "It'd be really great if you could lead us there in the morning."

Again, she was quiet. "Come inside, dear fool," she said. "Can't have you catching your death out there with so much ground to cover."

Peter returned to his belongings, clearing space. "I'd rather continue south, if it's all the same," he muttered. "We have better things to do than serve as entertainment for the dead."

Ethos wrestled with the crooked door. "It'll shave a week off, maybe more," he said. "I'll go alone if you're set against it."

Peter tried to read his mood, but a turned back was hard to interpret. At most, there might have been tension in his shoulders. "Are you angry?"

He asked, "Do I look angry?"

"You know I can never tell."

"I'm fine." Ethos reclaimed his place by the slack tub, neutrally approachable. He grinned when he noticed Kacha's glower. "You're going to burn a hole in my face if you keep that up."

"Fool." She handed him Peter's cup and said, "Give this to your insolent beanstalk."

He took it. "My insolent beanstalk has a name, you know."

She waited until he'd turned to Peter before speaking again. "When did these headaches start?" she asked, purposefully. "After the fire? Before?"

Ethos stopped in surprise, arm outstretched with the cup of stew. "They come and go," he said, conveying a verbal disinterest that didn't match the turn in his bearing. He was looking at Peter when he added, "If I need help, I'll ask for it."

Peter scowled. "Are you saying that to me or her?"

"Both of you. Take your stew before I dump it in your lap."

"See, I knew you were pissed at me."

"Please just take your stew, Peter."

The cup was blissfully warm. Ethos sank to the floor, lost in the giant blanket, and was quiet until Kacha nudged him with her foot. His head lifted. "So this barhag Peter mentioned," she teased, forgoing her questions. "You let her have her way with you, right?"

He sulked, head sinking back. "Very funny."

"How sad. Peter didn't come to your rescue, then?"

"I was getting free drinks," Peter defended. "And they like to be called barmaids."

All the serious talk was put on hold after that, masking a slew of troubles unseen to. Peter was fine with it for the moment. He stepped outside a while later, into the cold, and told Lena about their seventh day afield. An innate sense of dread advised him to recount all but the incomprehensible bird woman, so he lied. His dejection grew as he gazed at the stars. 

Homesickness? A first.

Kacha was by the fire when he returned, humming off-key while she went about some mindless stitch work. Ethos was asleep beside her. Peter took it as a sign, so he fished the notebook out of his bag, settled in, and defied his exhaustion by sketching them out. Long before he'd finished, however, the song changed tune. It was one he didn't recognize, pushing him closer and closer to slumber.

He never heard how it ended.