“What are we looking for?” the girl whispered as they strolled deeper into the woods, the sound of their gathering’s laughter growing more distant, the frosted leaves crunching beneath their boots. “And are you not scared of the Ghoul Robbers? Sir Henry Davies said they caused his hair to go grey.”
“He was already grey, the old fibber. And I suspect I will have to get used to tales of bandits on my travels.”
“We shall miss you, Lady Gwen.” Mari sighed, coltish arms flailing. “I would so like to be your travel companion, for I’d love to dance in Paris, listen to Mozart in Vienna and watch a play in Rome. Perhaps they’d allow me on stage.”
Not altogether sure that Mari understood the hard work involved in being a travel companion, Gwen nevertheless grinned for this was the ambitious girl she knew and adored. “I’m sure we’d have a wonderful time together, but you have your father back now.”
The coltish arms drifted downwards and rested at her sides. “What did you wish to borrow me for? I should return to him as soon as possible. He might…”
“Might what, dearest?”
Mari shrugged, ambled to a tree and picked at the bark. “Hurt himself or something. He’s…clumsier nowadays.”
“But you know how he adores working with wood. He might even build another boat.”
Mari spun. “No! He mustn’t.”
“Why ever not?”
“He c-could fall. Or cut himself. Mr Maglish in the village cut himself and two weeks later he died.”
“Oh, Mari dearest, is that why you also do not wish him to ride–”
“But you must remember Delwyn?” Mari cried. “The stable lad who fell from the inn’s nag and never awoke.”
“And yet you yourself rode after that? Until your father returned.”
“I… I don’t have a bad leg. Or terrible head pains. He can’t…” She slammed palms to her eyes and began to sob, so Gwen hauled her into a fierce hug. “Oh, Lady Gwen… I can’t lose Papa again,” she wailed. “I can’t.”
“Is that why you swaddle him in blankets and debone his fish?”
A nod. “I keep thinking… What if he falls off his horse. Or cuts himself. A stomach upset. Or a fever.”
Gwen patted her and just allowed Mari to cry for a while.
“I can remember,” Gwen said softly, “when my mother died and I was so very afraid of Papa dying also. I would watch him leave the house with just a satchel and a thin coat for warmth. Watch as he left to hunt for some ancient stone monument in the middle of the moors. I’d slip a compass in his pocket, sneak an extra layer of clothing into his satchel and he once found a squashed beef sandwich at the bottom and wondered how it had got there.”
Mari snorted, swiped at her eyes and looked up. “Then you know how I feel.”
“Yes, I do, but…” She sighed. “My father would always come home, Mari. Soaked. Dirty. Without his coat. But he was so very happy. Because he was doing what he loved.”
Mari sniffed. “And now your papa’s lived for ages. He’s ancient.”
“So he is.” She grinned. “All of sixty-two years. But what I am trying to say is that we can care for someone but we cannot cage them from harm, swaddle them from danger, or else we would make their lives barren indeed; the very people we are trying to care for. Do you miss riding?”
“Ever so much.”
“What do you miss?”
“The wind against my skin.” Mari closed her eyes. “The freedom and the thud of hooves. The sky and the sea. My mare who loves to dash along the beach.”
“And yet, you deny yourself and your father such life, such pleasure?”
She nodded. “I suppose, when you put it like that… But I… I’m also… I’m still so afraid he’ll return to the sea. I saw him watching it yesterday and he had that longing look.”
“If he wishes to return, you must let him, we all must let him. After all, you know your father’s middle name.”
“D-Dylan.”
