The Falcon in the Barn (Book 4 Forest at the Edge series) (47 page)

Mahrree’s eyes filled with tears. “Father
told me to come.”

“
I know. He’s waiting over
there by the wardrobe. I love you. Tell the children and Perrin I
love them, too.”

And then she went still.

Mahrree grabbed her hand. It felt
surprisingly hot to the touch, but rapidly began to cool.

She sat down clumsily on the chair by her
silent mother and stared in astonishment.

“
But I was going to make
you a veal chop for dinner . . . with rosemary—”

It was over? Just like that?

She knew the end was coming, but just four
days ago her mother had enough energy to go with the other women in
her neighborhood to see the new line of hats on display in the
market. How could it have happened so quickly?

But then again, Mahrree thought as she gently
replaced her mother’s hand on the bed, how could she have wished
for anything else for Hycymum? Her passing had been relatively
painless, swift, and with family. And Mahrree distinctly felt both
of her parents, joyful, leaving the room together.

But that didn’t keep her from sobbing by her
mother’s bed.

Had she said everything? Done everything? Was
there anything Mahrree missed to share with her?

It was now too late.

Did she thank her mother enough for her
ever-damp-and-ready shoulder that terrible last year? Did she . . .
oh, there was too many things to consider that maybe she hadn’t
done.

After some time—Mahrree didn’t dare guess how
long—and feeling weak from so much weeping, she dried her eyes,
went out of the house, and sat on the front doorstep. All of the
Cottages, with a capital C, were painted in one of four colors
approved by the community. The effect
was
nice, but Mahrree
felt a new rush of grief realizing that she’d never again have to
argue with her mother about moving to the neighboring development,
with grander houses and
five
color choices.

The sun had risen and already Mahrree felt
the heat promising to be an oppressively long day. One of Hycymum’s
neighbors came out and waved as she went to check her tomato
plants. But when Mahrree didn’t wave back, the older woman rushed
across the road. She cradled Mahrree as a new batch of tears
began.

About two hours later, after half the
neighborhood consisting of Hycymum’s old sewing club had come to
her Cottage, assured Mahrree they would prepare her mother for
burial, and gave her wet kisses, Mahrree finally accepted a ride
home.

She didn’t think she’d feel this awful but
she could barely keep upright. The heat and agony kept pushing her
down. All she wanted to do was put her face on the floorboards of
the wagon. A few roads from her house the wagon passed Perrin
walking on his way to Hycymum’s. He took one look at Mahrree’s
distraught pale face, leaped on to the wagon, and held her for the
rest of the way home.

Perrin carried her up to the bedroom, but
Mahrree hardly noticed. She felt so heavy, hot, and sad that
nothing seemed to make sense. For a time she bizarrely thought a
snowstorm had come into the house. She shivered under the blankets
of her bed, wishing she hadn’t put away Hycymum’s plaid down
comforter they used in Raining Season.

Then all she could do was weep as she fell in
and out of bizarre dreams.

Perrin didn’t go to the fort that day, but
Mahrree didn’t know that either. She once felt her husband kiss her
forehead, and heard other voices in the room, but everything
blurred together in a rush of hot, then cold, then quiet and
confusing dimness.

At one point she found herself sitting
straight up in bed. Everything was dark except for a candle on the
dresser. Perrin stood at the door talking quietly to Shem and
another man Mahrree didn’t recognize. The three of them looked at
her, and the strange man quickly approached. The motion seemed to
move the air in front of her in such a powerful way that it pushed
her back down.

The next thing she remembered was shaking
from cold as the sun rose. Somewhere in the back of her mind she
realized her mother had died, and she started to weep.

Her husband’s arms come around her. “Just one
more day,” he whispered strangely to her. “They say it’ll pass in
one more day. Just hold on. You can make it.” He kissed her cheek
and his lips were so cold that she flinched.

If it was day or night, snowing or hot,
Mahrree couldn’t figure it out.

She remembered death.

Twice she saw her parents shaking their heads
at her, pushing her away. They wouldn’t let her run to embrace them
and she couldn’t understand why. They gave her sad smiles and kept
waving for her to go.

Then she felt a cold rag on her head that
chilled her, heard her children asking what they should make for
dinner, heard Shem say it was his shift, and felt a strange man
lift her eyelids.

And she knew Perrin was sitting next to her,
almost always next to her. Sometimes she thought he was a log, or a
boulder, and even once imagined him as a cuddly bear, as if bears
could ever be something someone would want to embrace.

Nothing made sense. The harder she tried to
grasp reality, the more slippery it became.

Once she felt a strong hand hold hers, and
heard a deep voice whisper earnestly in her ear, “Please don’t
leave me, Mahrree. I couldn’t bear it. Please, Mahrree, please.
Stay for me.”

The odd thing was, it wasn’t Perrin, but
Shem’s
pleading.

Nothing made sense.

At some point she opened her eyes and felt,
for the first time, that she knew exactly where she was and what
was happening.

She was sick. And mucky, as if she’d been
sweating for days.

And her mother had died.

There was sunshine outside, but on the wrong
side of the house. Late afternoon.

Jaytsy was sitting by the door reading a
book, with The Cat slumbering at her feet.

“
Jayts? What time is
it?”

“
Father! I think she’s
coming out of it!” Jaytsy called and came to sit by her mother. She
touched her head experimentally and smiled. “You’re not so hot
anymore.”

Mahrree heard steps pounding up the stairs.
Perrin and Peto appeared, worry evaporating from their faces when
they saw her.

“
You’ve been one sick
woman,” Perrin smiled at her.

Suddenly she remembered. “My mother! Perrin,
when’s the burial?” She struggled to get out of bed but got tangled
in the blankets.

“
No, no, no,” he said
gently pushing her back in. “I’m sorry. You don’t remember, do
you?” He sat down next to her and smoothed her damp hair off her
face. “We buried her two mornings ago, next to your father. Rector
Yung said the blessings. We brought you there in the fort’s coach,
but you were out of it the whole time, just lying on the bench.
Afterward Rector Yung asked a special blessing for you. Mahrree,
I’m so sorry.”

She tried to swallow but her mouth was too
dry.

Perrin motioned to a mug of water on the
wardrobe, and Peto hurriedly brought it to her.

“
I
missed
it? Her
burial . . . I, I missed it?” she asked, astonished. “How long have
I been here?”

“
This is the fourth day,”
Perrin said gently, trying to give her the mug, but her hands
trembled too much to grasp it. “That seems to be how long the fever
takes to run its course.”

“
Fever?” Mahrree’s hands
flew to her face in surprise, where she received another shock. Her
skin felt rough and bumpy. Once she touched it, it
itched.

Perrin cringed. “That’s the next stage.” He
took a wet rag offered by Jaytsy and dabbed her face. “You’re a
little, uh,
pocked
.”

“
Pocked?!”

Her children nodded somberly.

“
Some soldiers in Idumea
had this last year,” Perrin said, tenderly wiping her face. “They
quarantined them, but obviously it didn’t work. We’re not sure how
the illness got up here, but it’s starting to work its way through
Edge. The new fort surgeon thinks your mother may have had it too.
That’s why she went so quickly. Not everyone breaks out in the
pocks.”

“
It’s good that you do,
Mother,” Jaytsy tried to assure her. “Those who don’t tend to . . .
not make it.”

Mahrree closed her eyes and laid back on the
pillow. “How bad do I look?”

“
Really doesn’t matter,”
Perrin said firmly.

Her eyes flew open. “That bad?!”

“
They say it should fade,
Mother!” Jaytsy gave her father a nasty look.

Peto nodded in agreement, but bit his lip
anyway.

“
Just one quiet season,”
Mahrree whispered. “That’s all I wanted. A quiet season with
nothing major happening, just time to rest.”

Her son shrugged. “
You’ve
been pretty
quiet for the past few days, not doing much of anything, just
resting—”

“
That’s not what she meant,
Peto!” Perrin snapped.

Mahrree wanted to laugh. Then she wanted to
cry. She was too parched to do anything but lay there. Perrin tried
to help her drink from the mug but she hardly had any strength to
do it.

“
You’ve got to drink,” he
told her with tender earnestness. “You’ll never get better unless
you do. You’re very dry.”

“
That’s not good for your
skin, either,” Jaytsy tried to say encouragingly, but her wince
gave her away.

For the rest of the day Mahrree couldn’t lift
herself out of bed but was well-attended to by her family. Once she
finally started to drink she didn’t think she could ever stop. She
downed mug after mug, feeling the water fill every inch of her
dehydrated body.

Shem came by at dinner time and released a
huge sigh of relief to see Mahrree in a somewhat sitting
position.

“
Mahrree? Are you actually
there?” he asked hesitantly as he walked into her
bedroom.

“
What kind of question is
that, Shem?” she said weakly.

Perrin, following him in, smiled. “You’ve
been mumbling a few odd things. More than once you sat up and
baffled us.”

Shem sat down easily on the bed next to
Mahrree, as if he’d done it many times in the past few days. He
gently touched her forehead. “Much cooler! Thank the Creator,” he
sighed. “Perrin, tell her what she did last night.”

“
Why? You’re the one who
witnessed it. I had fallen asleep,” he said apologetically as he
sat down on the other side of her.

“
But he never left your
side,” Shem told her. “Risking illness himself, he’s never been
gone for more than a few minutes. Last night you sat up, looked
around, and said, ‘I think the peach blossoms are a lovely idea.’”
Shem tried to keep a straight face, but the corners of his mouth
were twitching.

Mahrree scowled. “Peach blossoms? Since when
have I ever cared about peach blossoms?”

“
That’s what we were
wondering,” Perrin chuckled. “Another afternoon you mumbled
something about moving the rocks off of the rug—”

“
Why would we have rocks on
a rug?”

“
And then there was the
time you said you could see the flooding,” Shem said.

Mahrree stared at the two men. “What
flooding?”

Shem shook his head. “That’s too bad—I was
really hoping you’d remember that one. I’ve been wondering about
that myself.”

Perrin chuckled again, as if he couldn’t do
it enough, and put his hand over hers. “Doesn’t matter
anymore.”

Mahrree remembered something. “Wait a
minute—you’ve been here the
entire
time I’ve been ill? What
about the fort?”

He looked into her eyes. “The fort can
function without me for a while. I had some leave coming anyway. I
belong by your side.”

Mahrree blinked. “Four days? You’ve never
been away that long without being unconscious or seriously
injured.”

He shrugged. “Shem kept an eye on things for
me. So did Jon Offra. Whatever Thorne may have changed in my
absence, I’ll just right again.”

“
Oh, Perrin. I’m so sorry!”
Mahrree said, trying to grip his arm, but only managing to tug on
his sleeve. “Look, maybe you should go up there now, just for the
evening. I’m feeling much better now, and I’m sure you’ll feel
better about seeing to things—”

The change in his eyes revealed that was
exactly what he was hoping she’d suggest. Four days was a very long
time when someone like Lemuel Thorne is second in command.

“
But Mahrree, only if
you’re sure—”

“
Positive! Shem’s here, the
children are here—I’m fine. Go. Make sure it hasn’t been renamed to
Fort Thorne in your absence.”

Perrin grinned, kissed her quickly on the
cheek where there were no pocks, and stood up. “I’ll be back before
midnight. I promise.” He pointed to his sergeant major. “Keep a
close eye on her.”

Shem blushed ever so slightly. “Always
do.”

“
Remember—I’ll be back,” he
said as he removed his jacket that remained ever ready on the chair
by the bed. “Midnight.”

“
Go!” Only after she heard
his footsteps fade down the stairs did Mahrree turn to Shem.
“Really? He
never
left?”

Shem patted her hand awkwardly. “You’ve been
one very ill woman,” he said, his voice cracking. “We thought you
were going to leave us.”

That’s when Mahrree remembered one of her odd
dreams. It was someone pleading quietly in her ear,
Please don’t
leave me. I couldn’t bear it.

And it
was
Shem—she was sure of it. He
sat next to her now, unusually close. There had been only rare
moments when he’d been in their bedroom, usually wrestling with her
half-awake husband. But apparently the past few days had introduced
an intimacy she wasn’t aware of. Shem sat easily with his hand
still enveloping hers, as if he’d done that before, and Mahrree
wondered if he knew she had heard him whispering in her ear.