The Forgotten Sisters by Shannon Hale

Author:Shannon Hale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2015-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

In silence soul speaks to soul

As swans speak to the still lake

Merging swift and plunging past

No mark but the rippling wake

The next few days, Miri and the girls spent most of their time hunting for food while throwing glances toward the village. They stretched their stores of beans, peas, salt meat, and grain in case the traders did not return, but the thrown glances also took up a great deal of time. Miri could not help it. She felt as if there were a bear sleeping in the corner, and any moment it might wake up and notice them.

When Miri could stand it no longer, she put on her dirtiest and most inconspicuous silk clothes and walked into the village.

Soldiers were everywhere on the islands as well as one standing in the back of each reed boat, keeping an eye on the fishers as they cast nets and thrust spears.

But Fat Hofer was still positioned between Jeffers’s house and the chapel, his hat low over his eyes. Inside Jeffers’s house, Miri spotted a Storan soldier at the table looking over papers.

Miri sat beside Fat Hofer and set down a bundle of salt meat wrapped in leaves. He took it without looking and slipped it into the bag hanging around his neck.

“Has anyone told the soldiers who the stone house sisters are?” she asked softly.

Fat Hofer shook his head. “Few have ever known they are royal relatives. Jeffers made up stories to keep them isolated.”

Miri met eyes with a curly-haired villager. He held her gaze a moment before squinting and looking back down at the reed roots he was peeling. All it would take was one person who did know the truth willing to exchange information for favors with the occupying soldiers.

“When the soldiers came, did anyone fight back?” Miri asked.

“Briefly,” he said. “Their marshal held up his lantern and threatened to break it against the island.”

Miri nodded. Loose fire would consume the dry reeds in moments.

“I heard them talk of Eris,” he whispered. “My guess is Stora invaded Eris first and now Danland.”

“You’re not from Lesser Alva originally, are you?”

“Now that kind of information has a very high price, Lady Miri of Asland.”

“I’ll trade you my story for yours.” Miri scooted closer so she could speak quietly. She told him about a mother who’d been fat with her and working in a quarry when she fell and birthed her baby early. She’d known she was dying, but her mother still refused to put her new baby down. The telling made the story almost tangible, a screen that enclosed them in a safe space away from pacing enemy soldiers. So she went on and described Mount Eskel, the princess academy, Britta and Steffan and bandits. She told him about Asland and the Queen’s Castle and revolution. She explained how her whole self hungered to learn everything, but how all that knowledge stuffed itself between her and her home till she seemed so far away she was beginning to doubt she could ever return.

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