The Fairies of Sadieville by Alex Bledsoe

Author:Alex Bledsoe
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

19

The Stranger opened his eyes as Dahni bent over him. “Hello,” she said in his language. “How do you feel today?”

He stared at her, but didn’t reply.

Sixela had been called away to attend a man who’d driven a broken stick through his foot. So as long as Dahni could hear the man’s faint screams echoing from the fields, she knew the healer was occupied. She repeated, “How do you feel today?”

His eyes, clear for a moment, glazed over as he sank back into his pillow. His body had responded well to Sixela’s treatment, but his mind remained addled, disconnected from the reality around him except for stray lucid moments, like the one that had evidently just passed.

“Can’t go back,” he said weakly. “Don’t have the will…”

“Shhh, calm down,” she said, and stroked his cheek. “You’re safe here, I won’t hurt you.”

“I know the way,” he murmured, “but she won’t let them come back…”

“Do you want to find your people?” she asked as gently as she could.

“Yes,” he said, his head twisting on his pillow. It was one of the few times he’d responded directly to a question.

“I can help you. But you have to talk to me.”

“She won’t let them come back,” the Stranger continued, talking either to himself or to someone who existed only in his mind. “I know the way, but we don’t have the will…” It wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned this strange, powerful woman who inspired a soul-deep terror in him.

Suddenly he grabbed the front of her dress and pulled her close. His eyes, wide and shining, took in her face, her clothes, and the lodge. “You’re not…”

“I’m a friend,” she said, her voice calm despite her pounding heart. “A friend.”

He released her, sank onto his sweaty pallet and drifted back into his troubled sleep. She had not yet mentioned him to the Drummer, and with each passing day that decision loomed larger, and harder to justify. She had to bring it up soon, maybe even risk bringing the Drummer to Sixela’s lodge in secret so that he could meet the Stranger.

But she couldn’t bring herself to do it now. Their time together was so perfect, she wasn’t willing to do anything that might impinge on it. So she wiped the Stranger’s face a final time and left him alone in the lodge.

* * *

One afternoon in a clearing deep inside the forest on his side of the river, the Drummer suddenly said, “I can’t keep this up.”

“Not many men could, after all we’ve done today,” she teased.

He playfully yanked a strand of her hair. “That’s not what I mean.” He tapped his fingers on the drum, creating a soft, steady beat that hid beneath the natural sounds around them. “We each need to tell our people what’s going on. That there’s no need to fear each other anymore. We need to bring them together.”

“My father thinks your people are eventually going to try to drive us from the valley. Then there will be war, and many on both sides will die.

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