And no eyes could find you there. Here was the strange bit—oh she knew the other stuff was odd, but this was odd on a different level— Effie thought something without good intentions was trying to seek her out. What that might be, she would be hard-pressed to come up with. She'd once overheard Orwin Shank talking to Jebb Onnacre about Mace Blackhail's mean-spirited dogs, "They're a malevolence, Jebb. They'll watch and wait, and then they'll bite you right on the knuckle so you drop the lock and they can escape."
That was how the searching thing seemed to Effie: a waiting malevolence. For as long as she could remember, right the way back to being a toddie when Drey and Raif would toss her, squealing and happy, from one to the other, she had believed that something was trying to find her. No one knew this—though Raif might have guessed something, for he was always extra protective whenever he took her outside.
What this thing might be, what it wanted, if it really existed or was just a thought that had got stuck in her mind, like a splinter, she did not know. All she knew for certain was that the feeling was strongest when she stood on open ground. Hollows, glades, even river channels that were lined with trees were preferable to high places and open places where Effie Sevrance might be exposed.
Things had got a lot better since she'd left the roundhouse. Poor Raina, she had thought to send Effie to a better life at Dregg. It hadn't worked out that way at all, but strangely enough it had still worked out. Effie knew that when Raina looked at her she'd seen a child who was too quiet and solitary, too interested in the Hailstone and the guidehouse and the dark, damp spaces beneath the roundhouse. After the trouble with the Shankshound being burned and Effie being accused of being a witch, Raina had feared that Effie would never be able to live a normal life at Blackhail and had sent her off to live with relatives at Dregg. Raina had hoped that Dregg would turn Effie around; Effie knew this for a certainty because Raina had come right out and told her. "You'll be able to dance there and make friends. Learn to cook and sew and fight with swords if it pleases you. They have lovely gardens, Effie, with waterfalls and box hedges and roses. You need to dig in them, get some sun on the back of your neck and dirt between your fingers. Run out to the plunge pond and grab fish, roll on the grass, laugh, suck hay, play."
Effie felt bad when she thought of Raina's words, as if somehow by being here she had let Raina down. Sometimes she thought it would be a good thing to send Raina a note. Caught fish, rolled in the grass, made a friend. Still waiting to learn how to sew. That was the funny thing, you see, by getting waylaid, first by Clewis Reed and Druss Ganlow and then by Waker Stone and his father, she was changing in the very sort of ways that Raina had hoped to bring about. Effie Sevrance in a boat, camping, cooking, laughing with Chedd, wading into the river to look for mussels and skimmers: those things would make Raina glad.
Thinking about Raina made Effie's heart feel heavy. There was no way to let her know that things were all right… and no way to be certain that those words would hold true. As the first spits of rain landed on Effie's dress, Chedd did a victory wave from the top of the cliff.He was shooting and holding something up, but she couldn't make out what he was saying. Standig, she waved back. On the shore, Waker had finished cleaning the trout and was wrapping the fillets in dock leaves to keep them fresh until tonight. Waker s father had risen and was flipping the boat. Off soon then, Effie concluded. Another day on the river heading east.
What surprised her about river travel—at least river travel upstream — was how slow it was. A man could trot faster than two men could pole. The times Waker and his father got tip to their best speed was when they were in a deep, slow-moving channel, using their pad dles. Yet for some reason they usually stayed off the main river, choosing streams and tributaries that were cither shallow, frothing, narrow or twisty. And that meant using poles, not paddles.
Effie often wondered how far they'd come. She'd been with Waker and his father for many days now and had fallen into an easy routine. Up at dawn or some time before it, breakfast load the boat and float upstream until dark. The sparsest of camps would be raised, with neither tents, a proper campfire or latrines. A cold supper might be occasionally supplemented with lukewarm fish, and then to sleep, and the whole thing would start up again in the morning.
Effie had to give it to Waker and his father they ran a tight ship. Waker wasn't even especially mean to her and Chedd. Mostly he treated them like cargo. As long as they did what he told them, sat still in the boat and stayed within sight of the camp, he did not raise his voice or touch them. Waker's father was something different. Effie thought of him as an evil little marsh man who delighted in other peoples discomfort. She had noticed that when she was near him her stone lore felt muffled, as if it had been wrapped in thick blankets or plunged into water. It was alive and present just unable to get enough air.
"Boy. Hurry now" Waker Stone called out to Chedd. "We set off within the quarter." The nverman's otterskin pants were wet to the knee and the water bought out their blue-green iridescence, light bands around the tops of his mooseskin boob prevented the riverwater from pouring inside them as he and his father floated the boat. "-Girl. Cover the fire. Stow the pots aind blankets"
Effie jumped to do his bidding, Waker wasn't to be ignored when he was preparing the boat. Camp was a wooded and reedy inlet north of the Wolf. Chedd reckoned they weren't far from Croser now. Thinking about that Dhoone-sworn clan with its roundhouse of giant riverstones gave Effie a little thrill. She was a long way from home, heading into territory hostile to Blackhail. If they continued east they'd pass the Dhoone-pro-tected lands altogether and enter territory defended by Bludd. It was a long way from home, and the river, headlands, trees and rocks were all changing, becoming wilder. According to Inigar Stoop, the east was a barbarian place that the Stone Gods claimed but never wholly possessed.
"Look out." Chedd Limehouse came running toward Effie with his right hand at his shoulder as if he were about to launch a shot put. "Catch!" he cried, propelling his hand forward with force.
Effie made a little cry and ducked.
Chedd began laughing heartily, rocking back and forth at the waist as if what he had done was so funny it had caused his lungs to seize. "Got you!" he gurgled, actually becoming a little red in the face. "Never threw it." Holding up his hand he revealed the stone he had brought down from the top of the cliff.
Effie was denied the pleasure of giving Chedd a piece of her mind by Waker barking, "Here with you both. Now."
Chedd helped her carry the bedrolls and pots to the boat. Once he'd handed them off to Waker he tried to give Effie the rock—a dog tooth of yellow halite—but she wasn't having it A sharp look from Waker was enough to make Chedd drop the rock in the water.