Mire by Vivien Leanne Saunders

Author:Vivien Leanne Saunders [Saunders, Vivien Leanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-18T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

If I am grateful for one thing in my life, it is this: I never knew the man’s name.

I was picking apples from the trail-side trees when I saw him. He wore the light silks of a Mainlander but he walked as arrogantly as a Mistress. He was alone. He strolled along the path as if he owned it and stared curiously around every corner.

A thrill of panic ran through me. Mainlanders were absolutely forbidden to leave the pier. The man only needed to take another hundred steps and he would see the ugly brown stone wall of the training house. It was fever season, and the beds were filled with the old and the sick. There was nothing magical about that.

My hands went numb, and I dropped my basket onto the ground. The apples thudded out onto the soil. I closed my eyes and listened to the noise going on and on, hoping that I would open them and the man would be gone.

I peeked. He smiled at me.

“Where did you come from?”

I opened and closed my mouth a few times. I must have looked like a fish. A few frantic words reared up, and I idiotically stepped in front of him to block the way. “N…nowhere!”

“Nowhere?” he craned his head to look past me, and met my eyes when I wouldn’t budge. “The world just stops, does it?”

“It has to stop somewhere.”

“Ah.” he shook his head and knelt down in the dirt. For a moment I thought he had gone insane, and then an apple swam up into my vision. I mumbled some garbled thanks, dropped it in the basket, and then knelt down to help him gather the rest.

“I’m surprised that these apples actually grow from trees.” he said conversationally as he peeled a caterpillar away. “I was afraid to touch any of the food they offered me! It all looked so beautiful and smelled so good. Nothing that perfect can be real. I wondered if a bite would send me to the afterlife, or bind me to eternal servitude.” he turned a bruised apple over in his hands and sniffed at it. “This will make a good pie, but I don’t think one of your beautiful friends will be offering it to me. Don’t you get sick from eating that rich food?”

I sat back on my heels and tried to remember all of my lessons. None of Mistress Herry’s pretty words were suitable for peeling worms off apples.

“Um,” I managed, and after that verbal masterpiece mumbled: “We don’t eat it. It’s all for you.”

I tried to smile at that, batting my eyelashes a little the way I had practiced with my classmates. The man did not fall in love with me. He laughed loudly.

“That’s exactly how they do it! What a clever impression!”

“Impression?” I was mortified. I shudder remembering my behaviour after that, but at the time it seemed quite proper to snap at him. “Don’t make fun of us! Everything here is for you,

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