Esmelie folded her arms and puffed out her cheeks. ‘Why can’t Auntie collect her own firewood?’
‘She’s sick.’
‘She’s always sick.’
It was true. Tadrie had been coughing all summer and Maylie had started to feel worried. She had assumed the brighter, warmer weather would cure her aunt, but if anything, Tadrie was getting worse, her round, rosy cheeks turning grey and thin.
‘Do you like doing everything Auntie says?’
Maylie blinked in surprise. Her sister’s large brown eyes were without their usual twinkle of mischief. She was watching Maylie closely.
‘I’m Auntie’s apprentice.’
‘But is that what you want?’ Esmelie persisted. She stepped closer and added under her breath, ‘What about your Gift, May?’
Maylie and Esmelie did not often talk about the Hidden People.
‘’Tis just the Sight, not a Gift,’ replied Maylie quickly, though her voice wavered slightly. ‘Auntie says it’ll disappear.’
Esmelie did not look convinced. ‘Next time the King’s men come, you could go with them,’ she said. ‘You could leave the mountains.’ She stared off into the distance, her jaw clenched, her voice wistful. ‘I’d go if I had a Gift, the Sight – anything! I’d start again somewhere else. I’d leave Pap and Auntie and everyone.’
Maylie tried to push down a simmer of panic; her sister was prone to bold statements. ‘What about me?’
Esmelie leant forward and straightened Maylie’s ribbon. They had both been at a Sanctuary ceremony that morning, wearing their hair in matching braids tied with their precious pink ribbons. ‘I’d take you with me, of course.’
Maylie smiled in relief, but she glanced behind them at the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the mountains, and thought that she could never bring herself to leave. Occasionally Mountain folk did move away, down into the softer lands of Calestra, trading thin air for gentler pastures. Some of them sent back letters that they had prospered, but unspoken yet noticeable in their choice of words was the truth that life for Mountain folk in Calestra was hard. Calestrans deemed them provincial, a people half pitied, remembered chiefly for the grim tradition that clung to them like a stain: the Maiden Sacrifice. And Maylie suspected that most of the Mountain folk ultimately regretted their choice to leave, because how could they not? To leave the mountains was to leave a part of yourself behind.
‘Esmelie!’ yelled a voice.
They turned to see a young man striding up the mountainside, short and stocky with dark hair curling into his eyes.
‘Ravie!’ Esmelie squealed.
She ran and leapt into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist, showering him with kisses.
He laughed and raised his eyebrows.
Maylie watched with a queasy, curdled feeling. Ravie was thought to be the handsomest boy in Silicia, but his fine looks only made her nervous.
‘I’m setting traps,’ he said when he finally peeled Esmelie off. ‘I’ve a hankering to get myself a snow-fox paw. Want to come?’
Esmelie nodded, hooking her arm through his and leaning into his side. ‘Do you want to come too, May?’ she called.
Ravie’s frown made it clear he had not intended to extend the invitation, but Maylie shook her head anyway. She did not want to wander behind as they fawned over one another.
‘Auntie needs firewood,’ she replied.
But Esmelie did not appear to be listening. With a promise to return later, she strode away on Ravie’s arm, gazing up at him with bright, adoring eyes, her brown curls bouncing in the breeze.
The queasy, nervous feeling inside Maylie burned stronger. Their aunt said that Esmelie’s love affair with the Governor’s son would all end in tears and Maylie worried that Tadrie was right. But there was no use trying to warn her sister; Esmelie could be as stubborn as their pap, though she would never admit it.
Bending with a sigh, Maylie scooped up a gnarly branch and added it to her basket. She continued along the path, snatching up twigs here and there, before drifting off to better pickings further along the mountainside. She worked methodically, shuffling through crunchy, copper leaves with her gaze sweeping the ground, and she did not realize how far she had drifted until she felt the prod of a bare branch on her shoulder. Raising her head, she saw that she stood at the edge of the forest.
Instinctively, she took a step back.
The villagers of Silicia stayed away from the forest. There were parts of the mountains that belonged to the wilderness and folk respected the boundaries. Only the foolish or desperate ventured into the trees.
Maylie had never wandered so close to it before. She knew she should turn around and return to the path, but curiosity stopped her. She thought of the creature that sometimes flitted between the leaves, and she lingered longer. Unlike the other, shadowy Hidden People she saw around the village, this being had always appeared elegant, ethereal and perhaps even a little friendly.
