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He tilts his head and absentmindedly takes my hand when I hold it out to him. Together, we walk into the busy marketplace.
“But they’re so much brighter than normal,” he ponders, finishing with “That’s not nice,” in the same breath. He scowls at the garish display.
“No.” I sigh. “It’s not.” I usher him past two men bartering loudly over an enormous hog. The market froths with more people than there have been in weeks. I stare blankly at a group of women exchanging pleasantries as if it is the most beautiful afternoon there ever was. Their gaiety seems almost comical. Are the valefolk really so fickle?
Oblivious to my mental anguish, Arvo continues to mull over the bones. “But without them, I guess we wouldn’t be able to see much. Light is a good thing.” His little mind works double-time.
I know what my parents would say to him.As long as we take a life, we will remain in darkness, no matter how much light continues to shine.But I can’t make myself form the words, because all I feel is relief that there is a place where I will no longer be haunted by the ténesomni.
A delicious aroma wafts by, causing my stomach to cramp. Arvo’s eyes go wide as he sucks in the smell and licks his lip.
“Oh, Wehna, can we get some meat pies? Please?”
His innocent request sends a dagger through my heart. I let him pull me over to a stand overflowing with golden brown pastries. He reaches out to grab one, and I yank him back before the vendor notices. Swinging my purse around, I dig inside and cringe. Only a few coins of arlum are left from a love offering my parents’ friends insisted on taking for us at the last caeruméni. They gave out of charity, and I should save the money for something more practical, like one more sack of lanuum. That’s what Mother would do. I bite my lip.
Arvo yanks his hand out of mine. I look at him in surprise. His cheeks flush with sudden anger.
“Mada would let me have one,” he practically shouts at me in a burst of temper completely out of character. Stunned, I pull back.
I fight to rein in my own anger. “Well, I’m not Mada,” I say through clenched teeth.
Here I’ve been, trying to hide all my worry from my brother, telling myself we’re managing fine, that I can provide for everything he needs in my parents’ absence.
What a liar I am.
“I wish she was here and you weren’t.”
I take a calming breath, but as I crouch down to his level, he shoves me so I lose my balance. I catch myself and look back in time to see him grabbing a pie from the counter and darting into the milling crowd.
“Arvo,” I yell, but he is gone.
Dread washes over me as I scramble to my feet. I shout his name again, my vision bouncing around the square wildly. He doesn’t respond, and I can’t find him anywhere.
Just as I am ready to rush off and chase him down, a stern voice calls me back.
“Not so fast.”
I whirl around, tears stinging my eyes. “What?”
A woman, as wide as she is tall, puckers her face, fixing me with what I’m sure she thinks is a withering gaze.
“That boy yours?” She makes a motion with her chin, causing her entire jowly face to shake.
“Spare me the lecture,” I spit out, burying a hand in my purse and pulling out the coins. I thrust them underneath her nose and hope she’ll take them before I feel compelled to apologize for my brash words.
She glares at me for what feels like forever, until I almost shriek with frustration.
“Just take it.”
With grumbled words I have no desire to interpret, she holds out a hand and accepts the payment. I don’t wait for them to clink in her meaty palm before I dart away and begin the frantic search for my brother.
The air has grown oppressively hot and humid by the time my panic fizzles out into despair.
Arvo isn’t anywhere.
Though I implore them, the valefolk are in too much of a mood for merriment to concern themselves with finding one wayward child. I enter every shop and knock on every dwelling that faces the square, but there’s no sign of him. I would search the side streets, but even as desperate as I am, I am too afraid to push back into the shadows. Near hysterical, I pass by the vendor’s stalls again and again, seeing Arvo’s face everywhere in my mind’s eye and nowhere in reality.
Where could he have gone?
