Page 81

“Boy,” he says from atop his horse, looking at the field rather than Fenrir. “You do that yourself?”

“The southern one too,” Fenrir breathes, straightening up tall. Finally, the man’s eyes land on him and Fenrir lifts his chin.

He may be a boy, but this man looks at him like he’s a man, and that’s what Fenrir wants.

He’s taller this year. Pushing past eleven and straight into sixteen.

The man kicks his heels into his horse with a nod and trots off down the path towards the barn, entering without knocking just like last time.

He leaves faster than he had last time, too.

“Boy,” the man says again as he swings up into his saddle and gathers up his reins. “You like to work, don’t you?”

“Sure,” Fenrir says, dipping his hands in the barrel they use to bathe and wiping the dust from his face. “You got a job for me?”

“Not quite,” he says, voice rough. “Your mother will explain.”

Mum does not, in fact, explain.

Days pass before she speaks to Fenrir. The hug she drags him into one evening before bed is as alarming as it is unexpected. Mum doesn’t express her emotions the same way as Dad does, preferring to keep them to herself rather than share. Same goes for her affection. So, it always feels like a treat when Mum loves on him, except this time it feels wrong—makes him feel scared.

“Mum?” he asks when she pulls away, hand on her swollen belly.

“Off to bed with you,” she says, face grayer than Fenrir thinks is right.

Five days later, he’s digging a hole at the base of the big, gnarled ginkgo tree at the top of the hill.

Mum and Dad arrive with Alina and Elise and Fenrir’s newest baby siblings, two brothers, this time…though one of them has yet to move. Dad’s arm hooks under Mum’s shoulder while she breathes through the effort of climbing the hill. She’s as gray as she has been, but her belly is gone, the wrapped bundle in her arm free of the blood they hadn’t quite been able to entirely rinse from the sheet.

“You know this can wait,” Dad says to Mum under the dappled canopy of the tree.

Mum makes no reaction. She lowers the bundle into the hole and stares into the pitted darkness. “No,” she says, “We’ve waited long enough.”

Two mornings later, Mum brings him a piece of paper to sign.

“What’s a mine?” he breathes, running a hand over the paper with the tiniest print he’s ever seen.

“You’re a man now, Fenrir, do you know what that means?”

He does, as much as he doesn’t.

“Tomorrow, you’re going somewhere.”

“Where?” he asks, “An adventure?”

“Yes,” Mum says, voice breaking. She takes a breath and continues. “You’ll be joining a team of men who dig through the ground looking for treasure. It’s hard work, but it means the farm will be ours and we won’t have to keep turning in our crops each season. We’ll be able to sell them for money or trade them and then…then…”

Fenrir waits for Mum to finish but when she doesn’t, says, “I’ll be able to come home?”

“Yes,” Mum whispers. “Then you can come home.”

“Okay.” Her eyes won’t meet his, so he takes her hand instead. “Mum, it’s okay.”

He knows it’s not. He’s not the boy he used to be, and he understands what it means when Mum gets sad or scared or upset at him. What’s coming isn’t good, but it’s necessary, and if it means Mum won’t lose another baby or Alina and Elise won’t go hungry or Dad won’t hurt himself plowing a field without a horse, he’ll do it. Because, like the men from his books, one day Fenrir will be a hero too.

He can be one now.

Chapter XXIII