Ann moved her belongings to the other side of the fire, leaving Gareth, Tad, and the boy on the other side. She didn’t speak or look at any of them. Gareth spread their blankets over them and allowed her to have the separation she silently demanded. Each time he woke to check the camp during the night he found her sitting across the fire, eyes glazed.
She stood and packed her bag before sunrise. He heard her and joined, but she still said nothing until Gareth took Tad by his hand, ready to walk.
“I’m not touching that thing,” her hand briefly moved in the boy’s direction.
Gareth directed Tad to stand beside her while he went to the boy and helped him up. Twice the youth snarled, and his mind weakly attacked Gareth, but they were put easily aside. However, after the second attack, Gareth lashed out with a red swipe of energy that rocked the boy back on his heels.
Gareth watched for the reaction, which was fear and puzzlement. He had never faced anyone who could hurt him like that. The explanation of fear was obvious. The puzzlement was that the red swipe of pain had been as intense as it was quick, and from a stranger. In the past, the pain had not been as violent, and it had gone on and on instead of stopping so fast.
Gareth pointed for the boy to walk ahead, but behind Ann and Tad. He did as he was told, but turned to look behind often, as if trying to figure out what had gone wrong and why he felt the pain instead of the other way around.
No explanation was offered. It was better that he understood little of what was happening for now. However, when they stopped to eat Gareth would ask for more medicine to dull his mind. He didn’t want, or need, to keep a constant mental watch on him. At least not the sort required by a mind fully alert.
But it did bring up the question of what they were going to do with him. The boy, now that he was cleaned up, his hair washed, and his clothing clean, looked like almost all other boys. But his mind was different, and he was a threat, no matter how well he cleaned up.
There were two problems. First, the boy did not appear to present a threat. Indeed, he almost invited affection with his freshly scrubbed face. Second, their options were finite. At this point, he could either accompany them and continue to present danger, or they could kill him and continue—which was not an option for either of them. Tad remained quiet and watchful.
It was not that Gareth couldn’t control him with his mind, and keep any stray thoughts from escaping, but the dual tasks of performing the same for the boy and for Tad were tiring. The secondary reason was worse. If Gareth stumbled and struck his head, he could no longer control the two minds while he lay unconscious. What would the stranger do? He feared he knew all too well, just not the details.
“Ann, we need to talk.”
“Which means that you need to talk, and you want me to listen.”
Gareth ignored her sharp tone and when she said no more but continued walking, he stopped. He stood and waited. They were in a dense forest of hardwoods, ash and oak, with a walnut tree directly ahead. The sun was hidden both by the canopy and high wispy clouds. The forest sounds were early morning, more insect than animal. The rustle of leaves brushing each other made a soft hiss as they passed. No sharp or unusual sounds or smells.
Reaching out, he found Blackie dozing in a patch of sunlight that warmed him. No people were close, and those ahead were still sleepy and just waking for the day. He hoped to reach the base of the mountain with the pass this afternoon. A single inquiry assured him that the members of the Brotherhood were still restrained and living on three separate farms.
The snapping of twigs and small branches under angry feet brought him back to the path in the forest. Ann and Tad had returned. Tad wore a tiny smile he tried to hide.
“Talk about what?” Ann demanded.
Gareth glanced at the boy attached to the hand he held. “We need to keep this one under the power of your herbs. Do you have enough or can you gather more as we hike?”
“I now have enough for two days, but I will keep a watch and expect to locate more soon.”
“Good. One more thing. You need a bow. Use mine for now.”
“There are better ways for one of the Sisterhood to hunt.”
“But your ways will not help to defend yourself, should I trip and strike my head, or be attacked and die,” he glanced at the boy again, making sure she saw the action. “If anything happens to me that might cause my mind to lose control, illness, accident, or whatever, you have one task.”
She nodded in understanding.
“Can, and will you do it? Are you able?”
She hesitated. Gareth waited her out, giving her the time to sort through the options—or lack of them. Finally, she fully understood the implications and her duty. She reached for his bow.
The medication helping keep Tad’s mind at bay was gentle and only took the edge off. He understood the conversation. His reaction agitated him as he understood the boy might hurt Gareth and Ann. He scowled at the boy. Gareth felt Tad reaching out to the boy, but not in the manner of friendship. The smile was a threat. Tad struck a mental barb that made the other boy wince. Gareth deflected most of the barb and shook his head at Tad.
Gareth examined the youth in the light of day and found that he still showed signs of neglect that a bath couldn’t clean away. A dab of white medicine covered each flea bite, tick bite, infected mosquito bite, scrape, puncture, and cut. Scars of older injuries or infections littered his skin like fallen leaves in winter.
One tooth in front was broken off in a jagged ridge at the base of his gum. The others were more green and brown than white, even after Ann’s cleaning. His breath was sour enough to curdle whole milk.
While he was older than Tad, he was near the same size because of the lack of food. Although he stood a little taller, he weighed less. His arms and legs were the sizes of Tad’s wrists. The trousers of Tad’s that he wore fit around the middle, but the length ended well above the ankles. The shirt was the same, ending half way to the wrist.
For all that, he was still a little boy, and the question of what to do with him remained. Gareth almost wished he had fought when they encountered him. An arrow back then would have settled so many problems.
Ann placed the arrows where they protruded high above her backpack for easy reach and carried the bow. She said, “You cannot save this one.”
“I cannot fail to try.”
“You’re a fool.”
“That, I am.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The trek through the forest was hard. The wet ground steadily rose, their footsteps dragging, and each hill seemed a little taller than the last. They moved quickly, one behind the other on the narrow paths, in relative silence. Ann paused twice to gather herbs and once to peel a small strip of bark off a tree. Tad asked her a thousand questions, all of which she answered without irritation. But she never gave the other boy a single friendly glance.
However, not talking and mindlessly following the many trails and paths gave Gareth time to reach out with his mind and search the endless ebb and flow of thousands of minds thinking at the same time. Those that stood out were generally those of a carpenter who hammered his thumb or a cook who sliced her finger as well as the onion. For a brief instant, each of those crackled at bright as the stars on a winter’s night.
But Gareth searched for any familiar voices. Like listening to verbal voices as people spoke, he found their minds also distinct. He wanted to reach the mind of one of his past teachers, a member of the Brotherhood; not just any of them, but one of a select few he believed cared about him when he was a child in Dun Mare, and there had been a few. One particular Brother had defied his leaders in telling Gareth information that should have been withheld, and he had treated Gareth’s childhood friend, Faring, with respect, although he was not sensitive.