AS WE PRESS THROUGH THE DEW-KISSED FOREST, the wild song from last night trills in my mind, my heart. I catch Kane looking at me. The low brush touches our legs and hands with its drenched fingers, drawing soft, wet patterns on our leggings and skin. The trees above stretch tall with leaves that twist lazy in the morning breeze. As we walk, the beauty of the woods becomes dizzying-like one too many cups of saskatoon wine. And seeing Kane out here, beauty in beauty-
"Where are you?" Matisa's voice snaps me from my reverie. I turn my head. She's beside me, leading her horse, one eyebrow cocked.
"Here." I flush, embarrassed at being caught doe-eyed. "Just…distracted. By the…trees."
"Ah yes, the trees," she says, throwing a glance to our right, where Kane walks. "They cast a spell." Her lips twitch. "On some."
I clear my throat and look around.
To our left, Nico sits atop Isi's horse; Daniel, atop Nishwa's. Matisa's cousin and brother are leading the beasts, casting glances at each other that verge on irritation and amusement at once. The little boys are arguing over which horse is smarter.
Violet and Andre are quite a ways behind, distracted by examining the tall trees and strange new plants that are coming up through the forest floor.
"Are we losing too much time, do you think?" I ask her, in part to change the subject.
"We are slower than I thought we would be," she admits. "But the season of rains is still in the night air."
I hope she's right. Matisa made this decision so I didn't have to ask Kane to refuse his family. I don't want it to mean she's sacrificed anything more than patience, than time we can safely lose.
She notices the worry on my brow. "I have said it before: Isi and Nishwa can ride on ahead."
"Leaving you won't sit well with Isi," I say.
"We will deal with things as they come," she assures me. "For now, we are headed home, and you are with me, and it is a beautiful day." She looks to the blue sky stretching above the treetops.
I follow her gaze, taking a deep breath of the fresh-smelling air, and feel a rush of fierce love for this girl. This girl who followed her heart to find me and brought us the freedom I'd always longed for. This girl who knows so much more than me but never makes me feel foolish.
It is a beautiful day.
I risk a glance at Kane again-he's walking with the boys now.
Last night, lying in the makeshift tent with Matisa, I could feel him lying awake like me, far across the coals of the fire, tucked away in his tent. Could feel his breath, soft on the night air, winding over to me, hot on my skin that burned with the memory of that day on the riverbank.
I'll go anywhere with you.
His voice when he said those words, husky, honest. My pulse skips into my throat now, remembering.
And watching him now as he walks in that easy way, watching him throw his head back and laugh at something Nishwa says, just watching him do anything-it's unbearable.
Matisa looks over at me and squints at my face, then looks over to where Kane is walking. She shakes her head. "Still haven't found that burrow."
I flush and sigh deep. I'm not foolish; I know that getting in a family way would be a disaster. But more of those woodshed moments wouldn't be so bad.
Matisa smiles in sympathy. "There is a place, back home, where we go to get away from"-her eyes sparkle-"disapproving eyes. It is a secret place, far beyond the first spruce, back in a crevasse of the mountain. Warm water springs from the rock into deep pools."
"Warm water from the rock?" I ask.
She nods.
"And who is we?" I raise my eyebrows.
She laughs. "Not me and someone special. I meant us." She gestures between her and me. "My friends. We go to be by ourselves."
Matisa told me many things about her home over the winterkill. She described valleys teeming with animals, warm winds, a glistening lake, groves of tall trees. Surrounding that, huge walls of rocks, capped with snow, dotted with spruce. Some of those things I feel I know from my dreams. Some of them are things I can only imagine.
"I'd like to see that."
"You will." She smiles at me.
I return the smile. Being around Matisa makes me feel like I'm brushing up against the life I was always meant for. She makes me feel at ease and bold at once, like I can learn those things she knows. Like I can decide things for myself.
"Em!" Nico calls from atop Isi's horse. "Watch!" He has something clenched between his thumb and fingers-a leaf or some such-and as he snaps his fingers it leaps into the air, swirling up on an invisible breeze. It drifts, spinning, toward me-a seedpod from an ash tree. He beams. "Isi taught us!" It's the first full smile I've seen on his face since we left the settlement.
Daniel tries to do the same, but he can't snap, so the seedpod falls limp from his fingers. He furrows his brow and pulls another one from a low-hanging branch.
My eyes linger on Isi. Unlike Matisa's easy wisdom, Isi carries himself with a knowing that unsettles me. He's mayhap a bit haughty, and full of pride, which is something I've never felt and don't full understand.
I know, though, that underneath his stony surface is a softness. I've seen it when he speaks with Kane's brothers, when he's helping them do something they can't do themselves. I saw it over the winterkill with Tom's little sister Edith. Isi would sit in the common room and spin stories from nothing. Matisa told me he's like that with the young ones at their home, too.
"Teach them something useful next time!" Matisa calls to Isi.
Isi waves her off, the ghost of a smile on his lips. Nico snaps one pod after another. Daniel fails again, but his face only becomes more determined.
"He stopped their bickering," I point out.
"I am teasing him because he is teasing me," Matisa says. "I have been dreaming about a tree seed and Isi. In my dream, he follows it in a big wind, even though the places it goes are very dangerous. I've told him about it."
"And now he's playing with seedpods to show you they aren't so scary?"
"Probably," she says, a soft smile on her face.
I've only ever seen that smile when she's looking on Isi.
As we crest a hill, Kane has the spyglass to his eye. "Isi says there are people up ahead."
Isi slaps his horse's neck. The beast's ears are pricked forward, and he nickers, his neck stretched out in the direction Kane is looking.
"Can't see much. A ramshackle camp of sorts. But there's smoke, signs of living," Kane says.
We look at each other.
"Everything looks weatherworn-they have been there some time," Isi adds.
Some time. A flicker of familiar curiosity lights in my chest. Feels like when I used to look out at the woods from the Watch flats. When I finally got out into those trees and couldn't help but go farther still.
"First Peoples?" Sister Violet asks.
Isi shrugs.
"Do you think it's safe?" I ask Matisa.
"We could skirt to the south," she says. "But we would need to backtrack several hours."
We look around-the forest is climbing and dipping with little gullies. We've been pressing west with a large ravine to the south for a long while. The most direct route is straight through that little camp.
Isi says, "I'll go."
"Not by yourself," Kane says.
"We'll go with him," Matisa says, looking at Nishwa.
"What if they aren't First Peoples?" I ask.
We shift, looking around at one another. I can see what's weighing on everyone's minds: If these are newcomers, are they the rogue types Henderson was speaking on? The thought makes my skin prickle, but there's something else starting in my belly: excitement.
"Better in a group," Kane says.
"Oui," Andre says. "We go together, mais les femmes restent ici avec les enfants. And one man stay with the women."
Matisa shakes her head. She doesn't look angry, just like she has no inclination to stay back. "I go with my family."
"I'm going, too," I say, feeling bold.
"Em can ride my horse," Matisa says, "in case we need to get back here fast."
I look at my foot. It doesn't hurt me so long as I'm on that tincture, but I'm still not as quick as the others. I look at Andre, expectant.
He sighs. "Bien."
"I'll stay with my boys," Sister Violet says. "Kane?"
He looks torn. Andre pulls one of his rifles from its strap on his back and hands it to Kane. "Reste-ici." He removes the other gun and fastens it to a strap on his ceinture, close to his right hand. "We signal to Kane when it is good."
We start down the slope toward the camp. There's a fluttering in my chest. Seeing someone living outside the settlement like this feels like the day I found a young sparrow with a broken wing on the riverbank. I could cradle it in my hand, look at it up close-this wild thing I only ever saw from afar, winging along the river.
We get to the bottom of the slope. The dwellings are shabbier this close. They're hasty-put-together shacks, logs and spruce bows and bits of bison skin all stuck together like a mended cloak. There's an untended fire smoldering in the center. The camp itself is well protected, I suppose, in this gully, but they aren't exactly hidden here.
Course, they might not need to keep hidden. My heart speeds as we approach. We're a stone's throw away now, and Isi holds up a hand for us to stop. He turns to us to speak.
A child appears from behind one of the shacks.
He stops dead, his gaunt face a mask of fear. One eye is crusted over with a thick, yellow film, his hair is matted, and the bison-skin long shirt he wears is filthy, hanging off his thin form like old bark on a birch.
We all stare for a heartbeat, shocked by him appearing like that, shocked by the way he looks. He bolts. Each of us has the good sense to keep our traps shut as he disappears beneath a flap door in the nearest shack.
A chill starts up my spine.
Blond. Pale. That child isn't First Peoples. He's familiar. He's-
The flap is pushed aside, and a figure stoops low out the door. He puts a hand on one knee as he straightens, like he doesn't quite have the strength. His clothes are tattered and stained, his collarbone and shoulders sharp points through his shirt, eyes too big in his sunken face.
He puts a hand to his brow to shield the morning sun, and his face breaks into a grin, showing dirty teeth. His eyes are hard, though, and the chill wraps around my heart.
"Morning, brothers and sisters," he says.
That voice. I know that voice. I can hear it in my head, reminding me about my Stain, calling me out in front of my age-mates.
It's Charlie Jameson. We've found the outcast Jameson family.
