“Liar! You shut your filthy lying mouth! I know what you did! I don’t want you here!”
He sprang to his feet, his face twisting into something horrible and demonic, his scream primal. Then he lunged at her and would have had her if the chain hadn’t brought him up short and yanked him backward. He collapsed in a heap then, hunched over and beaten. But his eyes were still fixed on her, their glare as hard as stone.
His voice changed to a soft, cajoling purr. “I like it here. I love Uncle. Uncle is good to me. Uncle treats me well. When I am bad, he punishes me, but it’s for my own good. But when I am good, he lets me play those games with him, the ones he says are good for me. Uncle loves me. He does things for me that feel good and pleasant. Uncle…”
He trailed off, going silent once more. Tarsha started forward at once, but her uncle grabbed her and dragged her from the shed, slamming the door behind him and locking it.
“You listen to me, girl. He isn’t who he was. He isn’t a boy anymore. He’s a man, and he must learn to act like a man. He is finding this out. I am trying to teach him. You are nothing but a disruption, a distraction! Go home and you tell your parents whatever you choose about Tavo. See what they say. See if I’m not right. Now get out of here!”
He practically threw her down the pathway. She caught herself just in time to keep from falling and stumbled away in shock. Some part of her knew that what her uncle was saying was the truth. Tavo wasn’t the boy who had left her four years earlier. He wasn’t a boy at all. But he wasn’t a full-grown man, either, and he wasn’t right in his mind. Something was seriously wrong with him, and she knew that, whatever else had helped bring it about, it was the magic at fault, too. And his inability to control it.
But her uncle? Loathsome, terrible, vile! She hated him and she feared him at the same time. She should have used her magic against him. She berated herself for not doing so.
She continued down the path, thinking about what she could do to help her brother, and decided she must first talk to her parents and describe what she had seen. She must find out if they had indeed given up on Tavo, if they had abandoned him for good. She must know that first.
Then she would decide what else needed to be done.
—
So she returned to Backing Fell. And before her parents could get a word out to question where she had been and what she had been doing, she exploded.
“Do you have any idea what’s happening to Tavo? He’s locked in a shed and chained to a wall! Uncle said you knew of this. He said you didn’t want Tavo back. He practically threw me off his farm! What’s wrong with you?”
“Sit down!” her father roared back at her. “And don’t say another word!”
Scowling, but hesitant to say more, Tarsha did as she was told.
“Now you listen to me,” her father said, his voice gone soft again, low but still dangerous.
Her mother was standing at his shoulder. Tarsha could tell they had been expecting this. They knew where she had been, what she had discovered, and what she would say when she arrived home. She also knew, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, that everything her uncle had told her about her parents and Tavo was true.
“When we took your brother to live with your uncle, we did so knowing he might not come back to us. By then he was dangerous, Tarsha. He had threatened your mother several times and struck her, as well. He had attacked me. He had hurt some of the children he played with. He had killed animals for no good reason.” He paused and took a deep breath. “There were rumors he even killed that boy who had been teasing him. I never believed those rumors, but they kept resurfacing. They never found that boy’s body. I didn’t like to believe my son was a killer, but Tavo told us once that he was glad the boy wouldn’t ever tease him again, and I was never entirely sure.”
Her father took a chair across from her. Her mother remained standing. She was crying, her head bowed, the tears running down her face.
“Your brother is a danger to everyone,” her father continued, still speaking softly, still with an edge to his voice. “Your mother is terrified of him. The village is frightened, as well. We don’t know what’s wrong with him or what to do about it. Maybe it’s the magic and maybe it’s just his nature, but he’s better off where he is. Jorris agreed to try to help him recover. He feels your brother needs discipline and structure, even sometimes punishment. He says Tavo has started to grow comfortable with the routine of his life and familiarity of his surroundings, so I’m leaving him there for now.”
“But it’s been nearly four years!”
“And it might be more than that, Tarsha. You cannot put a time limit on these things. We have to lead our lives, too, your mother and I. We have a right to our peace and quiet. We have a right to feel safe. With Tavo here, all that would be gone. Now, I don’t want to talk about it again. I won’t punish you for going to see him, but I don’t want you doing it again. Just let things be. Let Jorris do what he needs to do to help the boy.”
Tarsha was not convinced. She rose, went outside, and walked through the woods, thinking. Tavo’s professions of happiness with his life and love for his uncle did not feel real. His condition did not seem to have improved. If anything, it had deteriorated. But she understood that, even if she wanted to help him, her options were limited. Going back now would only get her in worse trouble, and she wouldn’t be able to achieve anything. She had the use of her magic, but it wasn’t much compared with her uncle’s size and brute strength. Even if she freed Tavo from the shed or from his shackles and took him away, where would they go?
She was halfway through her wandering when she made her decision. What she needed was to find another way to help Tavo. His problems were largely the result of his inability to control the magic that he, like she, had been born with. But she was limited herself. While able to control the magic, she was largely ignorant about how to use it. What she needed to do was to find someone who could teach her to be more skilled.
Right away, she thought of the Druids at Paranor. Teaching the uses of magic to students was a large part of their mission. If anyone could help her, they could. She would have to make the journey to Paranor and speak with them. She would ask for their help and convince them to take her on as a student.
Then she could return to Backing Fell and help Tavo.
Keeping her plans to herself, she began a concerted effort to find out more about the Druids and how they chose their students. She knew from listening to stories passed around by other children that only those who possessed magic were admitted into Paranor. As the weeks passed, she gleaned more snippets of knowledge about the Druid order and its workings. Some of it was useless. Some of it seemed mostly to be gossip and rumor with little or no supporting evidence. Much of it was the speculation that goes hand in hand with a group as mysterious and secretive as this one.
But one shared point of agreement concerned Drisker Arc, the High Druid of the order and one of the most respected and skilled Druids ever to bear that title.
The more Tarsha heard about this man, the more she became infatuated with the idea of having him be her teacher. She had no idea how she would go about this. She did not know him personally; nor did anyone else in her village. She had no reason to think he would give her the time of day, let alone commit to teaching her.