Weave a Circle Round by Kari Maaren

Author:Kari Maaren
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

12

Three was never far away when they jumped. Freddy spotted light glimmering beyond the scrub to what, given the position of the moon, was the north. “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” said Josiah.

Freddy watched him. Even in the bright moonlight, she couldn’t be sure of his expression, but she thought he looked oddly apprehensive. “Wait why?”

“I don’t remember this,” he said. “This is wrong.”

She shook her head. “You weren’t always there.”

“No. I can feel the time. This is wrong,” said Josiah. “It’s too early. This is before I ever met … us. Long before. This is … I don’t remember this at all.”

“We still have to deal with it,” said Freddy. “There are people over there.”

“I think we should stay here,” said Josiah immediately.

She stared at him. “We have to find Three.”

“It’s wrong,” he insisted, but when she tucked the microgun and the bork into her bag and began to move towards the light, he followed.

His apprehension had affected her. Instead of approaching the light openly and trusting that Three would explain things to whomever else was there, Freddy moved cautiously and as quietly as she could over the plain. Even before she was close enough to see what the light was, she could hear one voice speaking and the occasional murmur of other voices beneath it. The speech patterns were different from anything she had heard before. They seemed … truncated. Guttural. It was a woman speaking. “What’s she saying?” Freddy whispered.

“Things,” said Josiah, and closed his mouth firmly.

Freddy eased in behind a dry little bush and peered out towards the voices.

The light was a campfire. There were perhaps twelve people grouped around it, about half of them children. The moonlight and firelight conspired to show Freddy that these people were dressed roughly in what were probably animal skins. They had more clothes than Ban, but Ban had dressed as she had because of the heat. It wasn’t so hot here. It may have been a warm day, but the air was growing noticeably cooler even now.

The woman speaking looked very young, no more than fifteen or so, though Freddy found ages weren’t always easy to estimate in certain periods. The other people listened to her raptly. Every once in a while, one of them would say something, and the girl would reply.

“Three?” said Freddy.

Josiah said, “I don’t know. How should I know? Why are you badgering me?”

She turned to him, startled. “You know all the Threes.”

“It’s too early,” he snapped. “I don’t understand what’s happening!”

Josiah always understood what was happening. She looked at him properly. He was pale and perspiring, and his eyes had gone huge.

Freddy glanced back towards the fire. “Can you understand what she’s saying?”

“Yeeeeeesssss,” said Josiah reluctantly. “Just. But I don’t remember this.”

“You’ve said,” said Freddy. “Just tell me what she’s saying.”

He paused for so long that she turned to look at him again. To her amazement, he was trembling. “Josiah, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I … nothing. She’s telling them a story.”

He hesitated again, then went on. “I don’t think she meant it to be a story at first.

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