“It’s too early for a visit, Tarsha.”
“He needs time to adjust to his new life.”
“We don’t want to interrupt his rehabilitation.”
“We have to be patient.”
By the time she was fifteen, she was done with being patient. Only seeing her brother again could reassure her that he was all right. There had been no communication between them, even though she had written him notes, which her father had promised he would deliver. But Tavo had never replied.
So now she would go see him on her own. She had no other choice.
It was a big undertaking for a fifteen-year-old girl. But her entire life had been a big undertaking, right from her birth, when she had emerged almost two months early from her mother’s womb weighing a little more than three pounds. She should have died. That’s what everyone told her later. She shouldn’t have survived such an early birth in such a small body. But it was clear from the first that she was no ordinary child. She was tough and resilient, and she gained weight as she grew and fought off childhood illnesses and even recovered from the bite of a neighbor’s dog that tore a chunk from her leg. She worked hard from an early age because she had to; her parents were poor and struggling with her brother. She endured beatings and advances from older boys and a few girls; she taught herself to read and write when no one else had the time; she learned to ride horses and plow fields and harvest crops; and she tended to both parents on numerous occasions when they became too sick to tend to themselves.
Her looks were striking, and not in the usual ways. She was pretty enough but not especially so. She was more exotic than beautiful, with a complexion pale as fresh cream and hair so blond it was almost white. Her eyes were a strange lavender color. She was narrow-featured, with prominent cheekbones and a spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks. When she laughed, the sound was bold and lusty and seemed as if it should belong to an older person.
At fifteen, she knew little of the larger world, but she was capable enough, in her judgment, to make the daylong journey to her uncle’s farm. She would have to walk it because she had no other means of transportation. She would have to make up a story, too—one to explain where she was going without being entirely honest about it. To her friend Albaleen’s home in the nearby village of Quenn Ridge, perhaps. She would have to cover her tracks and make certain she was back by the following day. Eventually, her parents would find out what she had done, but she hoped they would understand her reasons and not punish her for her deception.
But if punish her they did, she would accept it and not feel regret for doing something she felt so strongly about. She was not the kind to back away from a challenge.
However, her plans went wrong almost from the start. When she told her parents she was going to spend the night with Albaleen, her father insisted on driving her there in the cart. At fifteen, he said, she was too young to be out on the road alone. Young girls at that age were far too vulnerable to men whose moral principles had been abandoned long ago. She wasn’t sure she understood exactly, but she got the gist of it. So she chose to reveal the real reason for her journey, trusting that her father would understand and help her. She was mistaken. He told her flatly she would not be going—not then, and not until Tavo was better. And nothing she said after did anything to change his mind.
“You are a young girl with no real understanding of the problems of the world, let alone your brother’s,” her father said.
“Papa, I am almost grown! I have the use of magic. It can protect me against anything I might encounter. It is important that I see Tavo!”
But her father shook his head. “You must accept my decision and abide by my rules so long as you live under this roof.”
“That is so unfair!” she had snapped back in fury.
“You are entitled to your opinion. But the decision is mine and it is final.”
“Fine! Mama might see things differently. I’ll go to her!”
But arguing the matter with her mother was futile. She deferred to her husband and said Tarsha must do the same. So after several days of brooding, Tarsha decided simply to slip away without their knowledge and make the journey anyway.
That effort failed as well. She got as far as the end of the lane leading away from the house when her father appeared in the doorway to call her back. Desperate to go anyway, she tried to convince him once more of her need to see her brother, but nothing would sway him. And when she tried to run, he caught up to her and dragged her back into the house and locked her away for two days.
“I hate you!” she screamed through the door, sobbing. But he made no response.
In the end, the best she could manage was to extract a promise that sometime soon he would take her to see Tavo himself.
But that “sometime” never came. Almost two more years passed with no visit to or word from her brother. Life distracted her, as life tends to do, and before she knew it she was nearing her seventeenth birthday, and the absence of her brother was becoming comfortable in a way she increasingly found disturbing. Soon, she feared, she would forget him entirely, content to consign him to the past and leave him there—and she could not bear the thought of that happening.
So she decided to try again.
Only this time, she was older and better prepared. The confidence she had lacked at fifteen had blossomed. She was bigger and more capable by now; she was tough and ready. She had learned from old Stoll down in Backing Fell how better to protect herself, the hunter giving her lessons in self-defense in exchange for repairing and painting his cottage porch railings and the fence surrounding his yard. More important, she was continuing to develop her use of magic. She still didn’t know its origins, but her ability to create images and to virtually disappear into her surroundings was vastly improved.
So she made up her mind. She would go to Tavo. And this time, she vowed, her father would not stop her.
She left early one morning, slipping silently from the house before sunrise and setting out along the road to her uncle’s farm, leaving a note saying she would be back in a day. She crossed open fields and passed through forests, cutting cross-country to save time and to avoid the pursuit that would come once her father discovered what she had done. But by the time she arrived at her destination, she had not seen him even once during her journey and did not find him waiting for her.
Still, it was not the end of her troubles.
Her uncle was a stranger to her. She had seen him no more than a handful of times when she was younger, and not at all since Tavo had gone to live with him. He was a large, shaggy-haired man with a gruff voice and a dark look, his big hands always flexing at his sides, his words slow and rough-edged. He was restless and short of patience, and he made it clear how he felt about her arrival immediately.
“You turn around and go on home, girl,” he told her.
He did not say this in a way that suggested there was any choice in the matter, but Tarsha stood her ground. “I want to see my brother.”
Her uncle worked his jaws as if chewing on something. “Can’t allow it. He’s in the punishment shed. He’s to stay there until he learns his lesson. He’s not to see anyone until then.”
“What’s the punishment shed? What’s he in there for?”
“Disobedience. He’s bad clear through.” He pointed to a weathered shed standing off to one side of the barn, close to where the animal pens were situated. “That’s where he spends most of his time these days. His choice, for not doing what he’s supposed to. He won’t change.”