"He needs you. He won't ask for it."
She looks at me. Then at the clearing, where Keer is crouching talking to Axan.
"He won't let me help."
"He didn't let me help either. Didn't stop me." I nudge her shoulder. "Go. I'm fine."
"You're not fine."
"I'm fine enough. Go."
She squeezes my hand and stands and walks toward him.
I tip my head back against the wall. Close my eyes.
Nugget settles against my ankle. Warm. Heavy for a bird her size. I didn't know chickens snored but she's making a sound that's either snoring or a very quiet death rattle and at this point I'm choosing to believe the first one.
The sun is warm on my face. Not hot—late afternoon warm.
A territory full of people who just revealed the biggest secret their kind has ever kept. A handful of humans with no homes left. The settlements will be talking by tomorrow. Theron will be regrouping by the next day.
I don't know what we do tomorrow.
I don't know how we feed twenty extra mouths—
Ohh, I know!
We need more animals.
We could get cows! Maybe even pigs.
Chapter 26
I'm pinning the rail for the third time and the spacing is still wrong.
"Bram."
He looks up from the post he's hammering. He doesn't answer. He never answers. Bram's communication is forty percent silence, forty percent eye contact, and twenty percent grunts, and it works for him.
"Two inches lower on this end. Pigs are short. Pigs are also clever—they will lever. Four-inch gap at the bottom and they'll find the moonbright field, and we'll have purple bacon and dead pigs and three trade favors I cashed in for nothing. Move it."
He moves it.
"Thank you."
Grunt.
I press the rail flat against the post. He drives the peg. The hammer rhythm is steady. Working-day sound.
"And the goats are getting their own pen, don't argue with me. Goats and pigs together is—no. I tried it once. Bought two pigs at the market, walked them home very pleased with myself, put them down to meet the goats. The goats hadopinions. The goats had immediate, violent opinions. Within thirty seconds I had a fight on my hands. Within two hours I had a bite poultice on a goat and a pig eating my doorframe. Within two days I was walking those pigs back to the man who sold them. He refused a refund. Apparently it's a buyer-beware market. I'm still bitter. Separate pens. Stop looking at me."
He isn't looking at me. He never looks at me. That's the thing I've decided to project onto him.
"The market is six days. Maybe seven if Idris is being difficult about the cow, which he will be, because he is Idris, and Idris is a hoarder, but I have a small jar of paste that historically makes him reasonable—bribery is a public health intervention if the alternative is a stubborn dairy farmer—and we need two breeding pairs of pigs, one milk goat, no, two more milk goats, you can't have too many—and a young milk cow if Idris will part with her—"
"Mel."
"What."
