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The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: Sixteen

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony Cover
This chapter didn’t turn out at all like I’d originally planned. Things happen in these three scenes that were either planned for elsewhere, or not at all. It’s the fun part of writing for me. I like it when my characters choose to go their own way.

So here’s chapter sixteen of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony.

If you need to start from the first chapter, you can find it here. If you need to read the rest of the book right this minute, there are links to purchase it in a variety of formats at the end of each chapter.

Sixteen

 

Mendleson felt put out when he discovered he could have had a warm bath instead of the practically ice cold wash-down he had suffered through. He didn’t understand. Back at the stable, she had been so warm and comfortable to be around. Now, while she wasn’t pushing him away like she had before, she wasn’t letting him close to her, either.
While Henrietta took her bath, Karl gave him a mug of mead to sip at, and then left Mendleson to sit by the fire that was now burning in the hearth while Karl prepared a meal. Mendleson had asked if Karl needed help, but Karl declined any assistance. It didn’t stop Karl from striking up a conversation, though.
“Mendleson, how did you meet my niece?” Karl asked.
“She lived across the road for about three years.”
“But that’s not how you met her.”
Mendleson took a sip of his mead. “No. The town festival, three, maybe four weeks ago. She came over to me. We struck up a conversation.”
“Did she say why she came over to you?”
“Not then, no. But later, she told me she’d had a vision of herself meeting someone there.”
“You?” Karl asked.
“She never said.”
“It must be you, if she didn’t meet anyone else.”
“How can you be sure?”
Karl laughed. “Has she not told you of me?”
“No. She never mentioned you.”
“Strange.” Mendleson heard Karl stirring something in a metal pot. “Well, I can be sure because my wife was a Seer, as was Hen’s grandmother. It sort of runs in the family.”
“Your wife?”
“Henrietta’s aunt.”
Mendleson stood up and went to stand next to Karl. “She’s not here?”
“She passed away at the same time Henrietta’s mother did. They were close.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No need to be sorry. It was a long time ago, and we knew it was coming. I’ve made my peace with it.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, how long did that take?”
“Years.” Karl turned to look at him. “Why do you ask?”
Mendleson peered into the boiling pot, avoiding the Karl’s eyes. “My wife and child died in a fire. It still…” He trailed off. He’d thought the pain would go away after he had disavowed responsibility, but it still lingered.
“Yes,” Karl said. “It still hurts. And it will. It’s no easy thing to lose your love.”
They stood in silence while Karl stirred the stew.
“Enough of this talk. I’ve banned melancholy from my life. Tell me, how did Hen manage to drag you along on this trip.” His voice hadn’t regained much of its enthusiasm.
“She didn’t drag me along. Not on purpose, at least. Something happened, I touched her hand on accident while we were talking at the festival, and she pulled away from me and fell. She got up and ran away.”
“She had a vision.”
Mendleson nodded. “I didn’t know it at the time. I thought I had offended her. When I went to apologize, I found a wraith at her door, trying to kill her.”
Karl’s eyes widened and he stopped stirring the stew. “She’s closer than I thought.”
“I stopped it and made her take me along. I wanted to protect her. I didn’t want to let another woman die because of my inaction.”
“You can’t stop it, son. Hen’s time is her time.”
“Trust me, I know.”
“I don’t believe you do. Hen’s mother tried to help my wife. They both died.”
Mendleson heard footsteps behind them. “That’s not what you told me, Uncle. That’s not what Gran said.”
Karl and Mendleson turned to face her at the same time. Henrietta was cleaner than he had seen her in weeks. Her hair had become silk again, her face had lost the smudge marks. But her brow was furled, her jaw set.
Karl took a short breath, then said, “You were so young, Hen. We didn’t want you to be afraid of your gift any more than you already were. You blamed yourself for the things that happened in your visions. We didn’t want to add the death of your mother onto that burden.”
“It might have changed some things if I had known.” She looked at Mendleson.
“I don’t think so, Hen. It can’t be changed. Your mother tried. No matter how many of those things they fought off, there were always more.”
“Why didn’t you help them?”
“I tried, at first.”
“And then you gave up?”
“What was I supposed to do? They just kept appearing. Night after night. More and more of them.”
Mendleson could feel the anger, frustration, and pain radiating from Henrietta, and he understood it. She seemed to recognize it, too. She looked at him, caught his eye. I’ll never stop, Henrietta, he thought at her. He hoped she could hear it, or at least feel it. He didn’t want to say it aloud. Karl didn’t know about Henrietta’s vision, and now did not seem the best time to bring it up.
Karl turned back to his stew, apparently unable to face Henrietta any longer. He stirred the pot a bit, and then said, “It’s done. Perhaps some food will help us all calm down.”
Mendleson didn’t think food would help at all.

 

* * *

 

Henrietta tried to decide who she held more anger for: her uncle, or her grandmother. In the dark of the night, alone in her uncle’s bed, she pondered whose offense was worse, and could not come to a conclusion. All she could think was that her grandmother, long dead, was beyond her reach, and her uncle was asleep in a chair in the front room.
Her uncle had given her his room and Mendleson the other room. Mendleson looked like he wanted to argue against it, but after learning what happened to her mother, she didn’t want her uncle to know how close she felt to Mendleson.
She had two minds on that topic, as well. She wanted him to leave on his own, she wanted him to decide it wasn’t worth it, and she wanted him to decide to save himself. He deserved to live, to find love somewhere else where that love wouldn’t die in a week. After all the pain he had suffered, he deserved better.
But, she also wanted him to stay, to protect her, to sleep beside her like they had in the barn. She wanted more touches, another kiss. She craved them every night since, but the vision stopped her. If she gave in to her desires, she knew there would be no way to save him.
What was worse, she suspected her uncle knew how to find the Oracle. She only wished she knew why he wouldn’t tell her.
Her options were growing few in number, if indeed she’d ever had many options. She wanted to talk to someone about them. She wanted to talk to Mendleson about them. They hadn’t been able to talk over supper. Despite her uncles hopes, there was too much tension, mostly from her anger. Few words were spoken at all.
The idea of sneaking into Mendleson’s room and laying down next to him crept into her mind. It excited her, and she sat up in her bed.
“No, Henrietta,” she said. “If you go, you go to talk. Not to lay next to him.”
She ran her hands down along her body over the nightgown her uncle had given her, and imagined they were Mendleson’s hands.
She stopped herself. “No. Just to talk. To figure out what to do next.”
Henrietta reached over, and turned up the lamp a bit so she could see. She swung herself out of bed and crossed the room to the door. She pulled it open with care. She didn’t want her uncle to hear, though with the amount of mead he had consumed after supper, she thought he might not wake to an earthquake.
The door at the end of the hall was shut, the hallway dark. She stepped across the hallway, her bare feet making little sound, and tried the handle on the door. It was unlatched.
She opened it and stepped through, shutting the door behind her.
“Who’s there?” Mendleson’s asked from somewhere in the dark.
“Henrietta,” she said.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I need to talk.” I need you to touch me.
“What about? You should be sleeping. We have a long day tomorrow.”
She moved toward the bed. “That’s what I wanted to talk about. Do you mind if I climb under the covers with you? It’s cold out here.” What am I doing? I’m just going to talk, get answers. But her body wanted more, and she could feel it.
She heard him move in the bed. “Climb in,” he said. He sounded nervous. She wished she could see his face in the dark, but all she could make out was a vague shadow.
She slipped in next to him, and felt his warmth. Her hand accidentally came to rest on his chest. She left it there.
“What are we talking about,” he asked.
“My uncle. I think he knows how to find the Oracle, but he won’t tell me.” Her fingers idly traced a pattern in the hair on his chest.
“Why won’t he tell you?”
“He fed me a story about how she requires payments for her advice that are often greater than the advice is worth. It seems he thinks she is a witch or something.”
Mendleson rolled to face her, even though they could not really see each other in the dark. Her hand fell from his chest, but she made sure it was still touching him.
“If he won’t tell us, then we’ll have to find someone who will. There’s got to be someone else around here who knows.”
His hand idly took hers and rubbed it.
In front of them, stood a monolith. Ancient and implacable. She walked toward it, but Mendleson pulled away. He looked around in a terrified movement. He pulled out his knife.
The wraiths descended on him like a flock of crows on carrion. Soon, he was smothered, and she could not see him. Her feet were stuck to the ground. She couldn’t move. The wraiths stood, leaving Mendleson’s body crumpled on the ground, the life gone from it.
They came toward her. She backed up, and backed up, until her back came to rest against the monolith.
The wraiths spread out around her. Trapped. They closed in, until she could no longer see anything but their hungry eyes.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she heard him say as she came out of the vision.
“No, don’t be sorry.”
“But I know it’s painful for you.”
“No,” she said, trying to comfort him. “I’ve seen it so many times. I just don’t like seeing you…”
She reached out and put her arm around him, careful not to touch his hand with hers again. “Come close,” she said.
“But…”
And then, with him so close to her, she decided she wanted to know, had to know, before the Fates brought her end. For the moment, she didn’t care what Mendleson would think. They hadn’t been able to change that vision. Not yet.
She pulled his head to hers and kissed him. This time, their bodies were warm, and she could feel him along the length of her body. She wanted the nightgown off.
She pulled her mouth from his. Her heart raced. She didn’t know if she was doing the right thing, but it felt right. Her body wanted it, ached for it. “I want to lay with you, at least once,” she whispered to him. “I want to know what it would have been like.”
“But you’ve been so distant these last few days.” He sounded confused.
She moved her hand down his back. She felt his creep tentatively on to her hip. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve just been confused—afraid.”
“What changed?”
“Please, Mendleson. Isn’t this what you want?”
She slipped her hand farther down, and discovered he wasn’t wearing anything at all. She pulled herself closer to him, so that she could feel his hardness against her.
His tentative touch grew stronger, slipped around to her backside, and he pulled her tight to his body. His mouth came down on hers again, insistent and probing. His free hand tangled itself in her hair. Her body tingled in anticipation.
His hand on her backside started pulling the nightgown up. She lifted her body a bit from the bed to help him, while their tongues still explored each other’s warmth.
Their lips parted for a moment as the hem of her nightgown slipped past her hips, and the hard length of him had unhindered access to her.
“I do want this,” he said.
She brought his head back down to hers. He slipped his fingers down from her nightgown, slipped them between her legs. She opened herself to them, and they touched her gently, and rubbed until she felt her moisture come through and his fingers grow wet.
Then, he rolled her onto her back, put himself between her legs, and slowly slid himself into her. At first, she felt pain, and she wondered for a bit if it would last, but she soon forgot it as he moved within her and other sensations spread throughout her body.
They moved against each other, and she grasped him, pulled him deep into her, again and again, until lights flashed through her mind and her body spasmed like nothing she had ever felt before. She almost didn’t feel his own spasms through the sea of pleasure that enveloped her.
He came to a rest on her, his body somehow not crushing her beneath it.
She held him close when it seemed he would roll off. She wanted him to stay there forever.
But she knew it wouldn’t last, and probably wouldn’t happen again.
And then she allowed him to roll off, and they both lay there gasping for a moment.
Tears came to her, and she had to choke them off. She couldn’t let him throw away his life for her. I have to do something.
She slipped out of the bed.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to my bed. I don’t want Uncle to find me here. It’s best he not know, I think.”
“Right,” Mendleson said. He sounded disappointed. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”
“Goodnight,” she said.
“Goodnight.”
She went through the door and shut it behind her before she whispered, “Goodbye, Mendleson.”

 

* * *

 

“Mendleson! Help!”
At first, he thought the words were part of his dream, the nightmare that he slipped into after Henrietta left his room and he fell asleep.
He had felt so good after she had opened to him. He hadn’t wanted her to leave, but he understood. After what she had learned from her uncle about her mother’s death, she hadn’t wanted to tell him anything more about the relationship between her and Mendleson. When Karl had tried to probe, Henrietta shut him down every time. Mendleson couldn’t tell if she was angrier at him for lying about her mother, or for not helping her. Mendleson had come to the conclusion that, despite the man’s strong appearance, he was a bit of a coward.
And then the dream came as he slipped into sleep. Henrietta running, then laying on the ground, then Henrietta limp in his arms while he searched through a dark forest for something he couldn’t find.
“Mendleson! They’re here!”
He woke.
“Mendleson! Uncle!”
Henrietta’s voice, screaming.
Mendleson fell out of bed, then raced for his door. Instinctively, he knew why she was screaming. The wraiths had come for her.
He yanked the door open and looked down the hallway. He couldn’t see anything.
But why did they come for her? We were going where they wanted!
He ran across the hall and opened her door. There was no one inside.
“Help!”
That sounded like it was coming from outside.
The hallway door that led to the front room opened, and Mendleson saw Karl standing there looking at him.
“She’s not here. I think she’s outside,” Mendleson said.
“Fool girl.” Karl ran back into the front room, and Mendleson chased after, ignoring his nakedness.
He ran into the room to find Karl pulling the swords from the Mantel. He looked Mendleson up and down once, but said nothing and handed one of the swords to him. “Do you know how to use that?”
Mendleson shook his head.
“Well, don’t stab me with it. Come on.”
Karl led Mendleson out the front door. It was cool outside, but not nearly as cool as it had been during the storm.
Mendleson followed Karl around the side of the house. Fortunately, the moon rode high in the sky, bathing the landscape in enough light to see Henrietta, her back up against a tree, and the three wraiths that surrounded her.
Karl shouted at them. One of the wraiths turned to face him. The others closed on Henrietta.
Mendleson raced along the uneven ground, holding his sword high. He hoped to get to Henrietta before they could hurt her. When he saw he couldn’t, he shouted like Karl had, and another wraith turned to face him.
The wraith came at him swiftly, its arms held up. Mendleson brought the sword down on its head, knocking it sideways, but it was not enough to stop them from colliding. The sword hadn’t killed it, either. The wraith clawed at him, tried to bring him to the ground.
Mendleson felt the claws tear his skin, just like the last one had. But this time, he had the sword. He pushed the thing off him, turned the sword in his hand, and swung. By luck or fate, he would never know, his blade severed the wraiths head from its body.
The body fell to to the ground and continued to twitch and writhe.
He looked at Henrietta and saw the third wraith had its hand on her forehead. Mendleson yelled, but it ignored him. It had what it wanted.
Mendleson ran toward it, sword extended, and ran it through the neck from the side. It fell away from Henrietta, and Henrietta slumped to the ground. Mendleson turned to the wraith, which was trying to get back up, and chopped at its neck until the head rolled away.
The night fell quiet. Mendleson looked for Karl and found him sprawled out on the ground, covered in blood. The wraith he had fought lay near him, twitching, but dead.
Mendleson dropped his sword and checked on Henrietta. She was breathing, but her breaths were slow. She felt cold to his touch. A pack lay near her. She had been leaving.
Why?
But he knew why. She was trying to save him. But if you were trying to save me, why call out? Why call for help?
It didn’t make any sense to him at the moment.
He picked her up and took her over to Karl.
When he got closer to Karl, he saw that Karl’s wounds were worse than he thought. Karl lay gasping, his head turned to the side, his mouth leaking blood.
Mendleson set Henrietta down and went to Karl’s side. “Karl?”
“I’m still here,” Karl croaked. “They all dead?”
“They’re dead.”
“Henrietta?”
“I don’t know. She’s breathing.”
Karl coughed, spitting out more blood. “You must take her to the Oracle.”
“What? She told me that you wouldn’t tell her how to find the Oracle.”
“She didn’t tell me…”
“Tell you what?”
“About you. Take her… Across the river. Find the path. It leads to a ravine. The ravine will lead you to the Oracle.”
“What about you?”
“I’m dying.”
“But she talked of a price…”
Karl hacked up even more blood, then spit it onto the ground. “There is always a price. I wasn’t willing to pay. But you…”
“What price?”
A spasm ran through Karl’s body, his eyes rolled back, and then a last bubble of blood escaped through his lips.
Mendleson looked around at the carnage, wondering what he should do about it, if anything, but he decided helping Henrietta was more important.
He picked her up again, said a silent prayer for Karl, and went back into the house to dress his wounds and clothe himself before trying to search out the Oracle.
He hoped he could find her in time.

 

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Read Chapter Seventeen of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: Fourteen & Fifteen

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony Cover
This week, you get a bonus, sort of. You get chapters fourteen and fifteen for Free Novel Wednesday!

Why two? They’re both a bit shorter than average (fourteen is quite a bit shorter than average), and I didn’t want to leave you with a five minute read.

If you need to start from the first chapter, you can find it here. If you need to read the rest of the book right this minute, there are links to purchase it in a variety of formats at the end of each chapter.

Fourteen

 

The storm raged on another two days. Mendleson was more than happy to spend the time with Henrietta, huddled around the fire, keeping warm. She’d put her clothes on once they were dry enough, and he lamented silently that she had done so. They never quite approached each other so intimately during those days as they had the first night and morning, and he yearned for another kiss.
But they each had their vulnerabilities, and they tiptoed around them while they talked. She didn’t push him away, like she had before, but she didn’t bring him closer, and he feared to push too much lest she change her mind. He satisfied himself with the little touches: putting his arm around her, rubbing her back, sharing their one spoon.
He’d gone looking for other utensils in the house, but could find nothing left that was useful. Anything that had survived the fire had been taken.
On the third day of their stay in the stable, the rain let up, and the wind ceased to howl. He peaked outside and found that, while the sky was still filled with clouds, they had grown light and thin.
“Do you think we should wait a day for the road to dry up some?” he had asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. The wraiths seem to stay away if we are moving toward the monolith.” He knew she was thinking of her vision. “I don’t know if they will hold off another day.”
So they let the horse graze on what he could find while they packed their few things into Mendleson’s pack. They still had a bit of salted beef left, and they packed that too. When the sun had risen to its highest point, they set off, once again, toward the fate Henrietta envisioned for them.
The road turned out to be fairly solid, despite all the rain. There was a layer of mud on top, but it was only a few inches thick. Mendleson dug down at one point and found a layer of stone underneath. It had been paved at one point, long ago.
They took turns riding the horse. They didn’t want to tire him, in case they needed to ride quickly.
They didn’t bother to travel at night anymore, either. Henrietta expressed enough confidence in her theory that the wraiths would not harm her as long as she was moving toward her fate that Mendleson agreed when she said she’d prefer to travel when she could see.
The next day, Mendleson caught his first glimpse of the mountains where, if Henrietta was right, they would meet their end. Mendleson still thought there should be a way to change it, and he kept trying to get Henrietta to work with him at trying to find a way, but every time he came up with an idea, she pointed out why it wouldn’t work.
As they grew closer and closer to the mountains, Mendleson found himself growing more and more worried. Whatever had happened between them in the stable seemed less and less real. Their impending doom cast a shadow that Mendleson believed had come to dominate Henrietta’s thoughts. As the miles disappeared behind them, Henrietta spoke fewer and fewer words, and would not talk about what was ahead of them at all.
By the time they rode into Tearing Falls, three days later, Henrietta had not made a sound for hours.

Fifteen

 

Mendleson was leading the horse, and Henrietta was riding it, when they entered a small town at the foot of the mountains. A small decrepit sign declared the name of the place in burnt script to be “Tearing Falls”. Dusk was upon them, and it would not be long before they would need to find shelter.
All of the buildings had stone walls and wore steep roofs covered in wood shingles. They lined the road like they were watching a parade. Children played in the street, despite the late hour. Men and women strolled the road, directing guarded looks toward the two strangers.
“Have you been here before?” Mendleson asked Henrietta.
“Years ago,” she said, but she didn’t elaborate.
“Is there an inn or somewhere else we can stay?”
She said nothing for a while, but just about the time Mendleson was going to try and ask someone, she said, “There’s someone at the far end of the town that might take us in, if he still lives here.”
Mendleson looked up at her and found her staring off into the distance, up somewhere into the darkening mountains.
Mendleson led the horse on through the town. It didn’t take them long to get through it. Mendleson guessed fewer than a hundred people lived nearby.
When they reached the far edge of the town, Henrietta pointed him toward a home that was a bit larger than the rest of them.
“Who lives here?” he asked.
She didn’t have time to answer before the door to the house opened and an older man stepped out, his balding head bare to the night air.
“Henrietta,” he said. “Good to see you.”
Mendleson saw as the man walked toward them that, despite his age, the old man was still in strong health. He stood straight, his shoulders back, his arms still wrapped with muscle.
“Hello, uncle,” she said. “Do you think we might stay the night?”
“Of course,” he said as he reached up to help his niece from the horse. When Henrietta was down, he gave her a big hug. “I haven’t seen you through here in years. I thought you had…”
“Not yet uncle. Not yet, but soon.”
He gave her a more tender hug. Mendleson realized her uncle knew about her future.
“It’s a shame it must come so soon,” her uncle said. Then he stepped back and turned to Mendleson. “Are you going to introduce me to this man you’re with, or do I need to run him off.”
She laughed, a sound Mendleson hadn’t heard in days. “You don’t need to run him off. Uncle, this is Mendleson. He’s my…” She stopped.
“Your what?” He stepped over and shook Mendleson’s hand, clapped him on the back, and pulled him close. His grip was strong enough, Mendleson wouldn’t have been able to resist. “I don’t care what you are,” he said. “If you hurt her, you’ll have to answer to me.”
“I’m actually hoping to prevent any hurt to her,” Mendleson said.
Her uncle clapped him on the back one more time. “Good. I’m Karl. Nice to meet you.” Then Karl stepped back. “Give me the horse and I’ll stable him. You two head inside and get cleaned up. You look like you’ve had a long road.”
Mendleson handed him the reins, took his pack from the horse, and followed Henrietta through the open door.
Inside, the home looked well kept. It had a front room that shared a kitchen area. A painting hung on one stone wall, and a pair of swords held a place on the mantle above the fireplace.
“Come,” Henrietta said. “Follow me.”
She led him through a door at the back of the room that opened into a short hallway. She led him to the end, past a pair of opposing doors, where he found a third door. She opened it and the entered a small room that had a tub. It had a water pump.
“A well inside the home?” he asked.
“The well used to be outside, but in the winter, it gets cold enough that my Uncle decided to build a room around it. The house grew from there.”
She started pumping water into the tub. Mendleson tested it and found it nearly ice cold.
“You’re going to get in there?” he asked.
“No. This is for you. I’m going to talk to my Uncle while you clean up. You smell like a pig.”
He put his hand in the water again. “I’ll freeze.”
“Look behind you. There are washrags on the shelf. Just wipe yourself with them.”
She stopped pumping, then squeezed around him so that she could leave. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have her touch him.
“Don’t take long,” she said, and then she left.
Mendleson kept watching, hoping she might poke her head back in. When she didn’t, he stripped off his clothes and resigned himself to another cold bath.

 

* * *

 

She was sitting in one of her uncle’s soft chairs, resting, when her uncle came in from stabling the horse.
“You’re not cleaning up?”
“Mendleson is going first. I’d hoped you could start the fire so I could have a warm bath.”
He laughed. “Of course. You’re going to make him suffer the cold?”
Henrietta smiled. “I guess it isn’t very nice, but he has a musk about him right now that needs removing.”
He sat down across from her. “So tell me why you are here. I had thought you left so that you might avert your fate, that you might change your vision.”
“I did. I didn’t intend to come back, but I think the fates have conspired against me. Everything I do leads me back.”
“Your grandmother told you this might happen.”
“I know. But she… she lived so long with her sight. Why am I given so little time?”
“Hen, that’s not for us to know. You know that.”
She couldn’t respond to that in any way that didn’t sound like she was a little girl again. “I met someone who told me that there might be a way.”
“A way?”
“A way to avoid my fate. She told me of the Oracle of Arabeth.”
Her uncle sat back in his chair and rubbed at his bald pate for long moments without saying anything.
“Do you know of her? It sounds like she might be a Seer, too.”
He sat forward, and leaned toward her. “Look at me. That woman is no Seer. I’ve heard a great many strange tales about her. Some say that she’s been hidden up in the mountains for hundreds of years, that she’s not even human. It is not safe to go to her.”
“Uncle, how can it be any less safe than my current fate?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. I only know that the help she offers is supposed to carry a price that is often heavier than the petitioner is able to bear.”
A silence hung between them, until he said, “Even if I knew where she could be found, I wouldn’t send you to her.”
And then he stood, looking weary for the first time. Henrietta suspected he knew more than he was telling, but she knew once her uncle decided something, it stayed decided.
“I’m going to get some wood for your fire.” He walked out and left her staring into the empty hearth. If he won’t tell me how to find the Oracle, did I come all this way for nothing? Did I drag Mendleson this far to die?
And when she thought of him, all of her worry that she’d been feeling since they left the safety of the stable came to her. She knew he was confused because she had stopped talking to him, stopped touching him, and erected a barrier that he hadn’t been able to scale. But she’d decided that, even if he would come along, and even though she wanted him with her more than just about anything else, she wouldn’t be a party to his death. She wouldn’t encourage him in any way.
If only the sight of him didn’t make my mind lose all semblance of reason.
But if I can’t find the Oracle, what then? Will all of it be for nothing?
When Mendleson emerged from the short hallway and interrupted her thinking, she almost smiled before she remembered herself. He had even shaved the beard he had grown over the last two weeks. She wanted to go to him and touch his face.
No. Not until I know he’s safe.

 

If you’ve read this far, and you just have to read the rest right now, you can get the eBook or a really awesome paperback from the following retailers.

E-Book Paperback
Amazon
BN.com
Sony
Kobo
iBookStore
Smashwords
DriveThruFiction.com		 Amazon
CreateSpace
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Read Chapter Sixteen of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony

 

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: Thirteen

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony Cover
Every Wednesday, I’m putting up a chapter from a novel that I’ve written. I’m calling it Free Novel Wednesday, and for the last twelve weeks, I’ve put up chapters of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony, a fantasy romance novel that came from a proposal I wrote in 2011 that I fell in love with.

If you need to start from the first chapter, you can find it here. If you need to read the rest of the book right this minute, there are links to purchase it in a variety of formats at the end of each chapter.

 
 

Thirteen

 

Mendleson lifted Henrietta’s arms over his head and pulled away from their embrace. It felt good to get rid of the cold damp from the clothes that were still stuck on her shackles, but he missed the closeness of her almost immediately. He got one last peek at her breasts before she covered herself with the blanket again. He could still feel them against his chest. It had been a long time since he’d been that close to a woman.
“What do we do now?” Henrietta asked.
He looked at her wrists where they held the blanket up close to her. In the orange of the firelight, it was hard to tell, but they looked like they were starting to rub raw.
“I think we need to find a way to get those shackles off of you. I wish we had the key.” He stood up.
He almost felt dizzy. His mind raced in at least three directions. How to save her from her fate, how to get the shackles off, and how to get that close to her again. But for the last, those shackles had to come off.
“How do we get them off?”
“If there was a forge here, with tools, I could get them off. But the tools are gone, and I haven’t looked outside to see if they had a forge.”
“Couldn’t you just pick the lock on them?”
Mendleson laughed. “Of course.” What can I use? He bent down to his pack and rummaged through it. The blade of his knife was too big to fit. Everything else, flints, extra clothes, was useless for the job. He looked around the stable, but he’d already searched most of it. Whatever had been of use here had already been taken.
“What about nails?”
That kiss must have addled my brain. “Good thought. There should be some around here.” Unless they shod the horses elsewhere.
A quick search of the stable turned up three nails of different sizes. There were probably more, but he thought he’d give the three he’d found a try first.
He sat down next to her, and she laid her hands in his lap. He turned the shackle on her right hand so that the keyhole was visible to him, and then he went to work with the nails. After several minutes of fiddling, he managed to slip the nail into the mechanism so that the bar of the shackle popped free.
Henrietta immediately pulled her hand free and used the other to rub at the wrist. “That feels so much better,” she said.
“Let me see the other.”
She gave it to him and it went much quicker this time. In only a minute, he got that one to pop open also. She rubbed at her wrist a bit, then reached over and hugged him properly. “Thank you,” she said into his ear.
The blanket started to slip down again, but she stopped it with one of her newly freed hands and sat back.
Mendleson fished the shackles out of her clothes, then hung her clothes up on the line next to his own. When that was done, he patted his own shirt and found it dry. He put it on. Away from the fire, and away from Henrietta, the stable was still cold.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said, about the need to move on.” He had only just started thinking about it since he stood up, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “I think I’m going to go look over that house.”
“You’re going out? In this storm?”
With everything that had happened, he’d nearly forgotten the storm. He had still heard the wind, the rain on the roof, the drips where it leaked into the stable, but the closed door had kept most of it out and Henrietta had kept his mind occupied. “Yes. I won’t go far. I need to look at it. I need to confront the memories. I think you’re right.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
He shook his head. “No, I think I should do this on my own. You stay here, tend the fire. Check on the horse and see if you can find more oats or something for him to eat.”
She looked up at him with big eyes that reflected the firelight. “Don’t be long,” she said.
“I won’t be,” he said as he turned and went to the stable door.
He opened the door a crack. Wind and water rushed in. He slipped through the opening and shut the door behind him. Within moments, he was soaked and chilled. He thought about putting this off until the storm stopped, but for the first time, he wanted to be free of the pain his memories had given him for the last four years. He wanted to be able to give himself completely to Henrietta, now that she would no longer try make him leave.
He hunched over as he walked the distance between the stable and the house. He had to negotiate the soup of mud that the stable yard had become. It sucked at his feet and made the going slow.
The burnt out house loomed in front of him, and the memories of his own home, the smoke rising from its shell, the cinders falling from the air, came back to him. He made his way to where the door of the building used to be. A stone arch surrounded it.
A strong gust of wind blew and pushed him sideways, but he refused to let it knock him over.
He stepped through the arch. Inside the stone, there was little left. Burnt timber, the broken bones of the house, lay where it had fallen, spread out on a stone floor. Fired pots lay smashed and shattered among the wreckage of the house. He stepped over each shattered bone with reluctance, expecting to see the charred bodies of his wife and son as they were when he’d found them, Mirrielle clutching Josua in a final, protective embrace.
But he never did see them. They weren’t here. This wasn’t his house. It wasn’t his life. He looked up into the rain falling from the cloud blackened sky and let the drops fall on his face. The wind couldn’t move him. The rain couldn’t beat him down.
He reached back to that day, when his boat sailed into the harbor, its belly full of fish. He’d seen the smoke. He’d known, even then. He realized, as the rain pounded on him, that he’d lost two loves that day: his family and the sea. The one would never come back, not as it was, and it wasn’t his fault.
“It wasn’t my fault!” he shouted into the fury of the storm.
But the other, the sea, he had given that up to tend his memories. I gave up the sea for something that was already gone.
He thought of Henrietta, back in the stable, waiting for him. Am I doing it again? Am I giving up my life for something I can’t have?
That he even asked the question bothered him. He pulled his eyes from the sky, wiped them free of water, and looked around the house. It was empty, burnt out, ruined. There are no ghosts here to answer my questions.
Off in the corner, where the kitchen might have been, he saw something on the floor. A ring of iron. A panel of wood that was charred but not burnt through. A large beam lay atop it. He ran over to it, and saw that with some effort, he might be able to move the beam.
It was an answer, of sorts.

 

* * *

 

When the door opened again, a blast of cool air caused the small fire to sputter. Henrietta had to dive for her blanket to cover up. She made it just before Mendleson stepped through the door carrying a large, nearly full, burlap sack. He shut the door behind him, and the fire returned to its natural dancing self.
“Look what I found,” Mendleson said as he came to the fire bearing his burden.
As he approached, the light of the fire showed his clothes covered in soot and charcoal. His hands were black with it, too. “What were you doing?”
“The place had a cellar filled with food. Much of it spoiled, but there were still some treasures. Salted meats, and a bunch of potatoes that don’t look too bad.”
“But you’re covered in soot.”
“A large beam had fallen across the cellar door. I had to lever it out of the way.”
“Let me see what you found, while you dry yourself and change.”
He handed the sack to her, and then started to strip off his clothing. She looked through the treasure he had found. It wasn’t a lot, and in the light of the fire, she could see a few of the things he had found had spoiled more than he thought. However, there was enough to last through the storm for them, if they were careful.
“I wish there was a pot to cook these potatoes in,” she said.
“Look in the bottom,” he said.
She looked up from the sack for a moment and saw him kneeling at his pack, naked but for his small clothes. She admired his shoulders and chest for a moment, until she saw his hands again, still covered in soot.
“Go wash your hands,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Go outside and wash those hands before you get your other clothes dirty.”
He looked at his hands and grinned. “Right.” He left for the door, and she watched him walk away. The farm work had been good to him.
She pulled her eyes from him and delved into the bottom of the sack. She reached a hand down to the bottom and found, to her delight, an iron pot. The idea of hot potato soup warmed her stomach without having even cooked it yet.
She had found a workbench in the corner while Mendleson was away. She took the sack over to it and emptied its contents onto the bench, setting things in order as she did. Once that was taken care of, she went back to Mendleson’s pack for his knife. She stopped by her clothes and tested her blouse. It was still damp. It would be so much easier to cook without this blanket.
Mendleson came back in, his hands, and most of the rest of him, clean. This time, she got to admire the front. And then she thought of the pot.
“I saw a well outside,” she said.
“Let me guess,” he said.
She ran to the bench to get the pot. She took it to Mendleson, and he sighed. Henrietta laughed. “You’re not even going to ask me what I want?” she asked.
“I know already,” he said, taking hold of the pot and turning back to the door.
She went back to her makeshift kitchen and began to slice up the potatoes. She looked at the other things he’d brought and decided adding salted beef might flavor the soup a bit. She cut up a portion of the beef into tiny bits. Enough to flavor, but not enough that they’d run out before the storm abated.
She turned around when the door opened again and saw Mendleson enter with the pot of water. She smiled. It looked like he’d also managed to find a couple metal rods that might serve to hold the pot off the fire. For a moment, she wondered at her earlier desire to make him leave. Of course, thinking that brought the vision to her mind, her fate, and now his. Her smile faded.
He brought the pot to her and set it on the bench. She shoveled the potatoes and meat into it while he went to the fire and worked the rocks around to support the metal rods.
She carried the pot to the firepit and the blanket gaped open, but she decided to ignore it. Mendleson was practically naked, and he’d already seen her. He’d already lain next to her, their skin touching.
She felt her skin flush as she thought of it and hoped he didn’t see. She looked up at him, but he wasn’t watching. He was using a piece of cloth he’d found somewhere to dry himself.
She set the pot on the bars, then sat down in front of the fire and closed the blanket around her. She watched him dress, and found herself wishing he wouldn’t.
“The other thing you were doing at the house,” she said. “How did that go?” She wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear.
He finished putting his clothes on and sat down next to her before answering.
“I’m not sure how to answer,” he said. “I still feel a hole within me that I don’t think can ever be filled. It hurts.”
She found herself holding her breath.
“But I think I know now that you are right, that Paulus was right. It’s time to stop blaming myself for it. It’s time to stop punishing myself.”
She let her breath out. Please don’t say that you’re leaving. “When I was young,” she said, “having just come into my sight, I would see things, and then they would happen. For the longest time, I remember thinking that what happened was my fault. No matter how many times my grandmother told me that it was not my fault, I couldn’t believe her.”
“How old were you?”
“I came into my sight when I was six.”
“You couldn’t know,” he said.
“You’re right. I couldn’t. I had to learn. But a couple years passed, I think, before I had a vision and saw a future that didn’t happen.” She looked away from him and into the fire.
“What was it?” he asked.
“A friend of mine, a young boy. I saw him crushed under falling rocks. There is a cliff near where I grew up. A lot of the children liked to try to climb it. That’s what I saw him doing in my vision.
“So I told him… I told him to do anything else in the world, but please don’t go climbing the cliff.” Talking about the memory brought back the hurt that she had buried so long ago.
“And he did, didn’t he.”
She nodded. “He stayed away from the cliff face. The rocks fell, just as I saw in my vision, but no one was hurt.
“That day, he chose to go swimming in the river. He lost his footing, his head hit a rock and split open, and he drowned.”
“You must have hated yourself.”
She reached out and stirred the soup with Mendleson’s knife. “For a while, I think I did. But I was confused. I believed what my grandmother said about the visions I had before that one—the ones where I did not intervene. They weren’t my fault. But after my friend died, I had to decide if I was responsible.
“It’s the basic philosophical problem that all Seers face. Do you tell the subject of your vision about the bad things so that they can avoid them? Do you encourage other actions? If something happens because of those other actions, are they your fault? If you don’t tell the person, do you share responsibility for what happens to them?”
“Is there a right answer?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. My grandmother told me I had no responsibility for the visions, but I had a responsibility for what I did with them. I decided that my responsibility extended only to telling the subject what my vision of their future was, and that the choice of what to do with their knowledge was their own.”
They sat in silence together for a moment. The wind outside, and the lesser sound of the crackling fire were the only things she heard.
“If that’s what you decided, why did you keep pushing me away?”
“I don’t want you to die, Mendleson. Not for me. For the longest time, there was no one in my vision but me, and then we touched at the festival and you were in it. Somehow, I had changed your future. I am responsible for you being here.”
He moved closer to her and put his arm out, as if he would put it around her. She leaned into him, and he did put his arm around her shoulders. It felt good, and comforting.
“I don’t believe you are responsible for my being here. My actions are my own, and you’ve said yourself that fates can be changed. That I’m here is proof of it.
“And if you think about it, if we can’t really change our ultimate fate, perhaps the Fates manipulated you into meeting me. Couldn’t they have left me out of your vision so that you would try to change your fate and take your journey to find me? Didn’t you say that you had a vision where you saw yourself meeting someone at the festival?”
She nodded. Could it be possible? Was I supposed to find him? Have I ever been given the complete vision at any time before I met him? Do I even have it now?
She stirred the pot a bit more and decided it was done. She would reserve those thoughts for another time.
She remembered their bowls had been in her pack. “Did you happen to find bowls on your search?”
“No,” he said, but he reached into his pack and pulled out a spoon. “I’ll share my spoon, though.”
She laughed. “It’s going to take us a long time to finish this soup.”
He put his hand to his ear and made a show of listening to the storm. “We’ve got time.”
Yes, she thought. But how much?

 

 
If you’ve read this far, and you just have to read the rest right now, you can get the eBook or a really awesome paperback from the following retailers.
 

E-Book Paperback
Amazon
BN.com
Sony
Kobo
iBookStore
Smashwords
DriveThruFiction.com		 Amazon
CreateSpace
Barnes & Noble

 
Read Chapters Fourteen and Fifteen of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony!

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: Twelve

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony Cover
This week, with Chapter Twelve of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony we pass the halfway point. It’s all downhill from here. Oh, and hey, look! It’s up before Noon PST!

I find myself wishing that some of you reading would make comments. I don’t know if anyone is reading, or if it’s just the comment spammers that come by and boost my visitors and page reads. Wait – that’s not true. I did have one person say they were enjoying it. It’d be nice to hear from others!

If you need to start from the first chapter, you can find it here. If you need to read the rest of the book right this minute, there are links to purchase it in a variety of formats at the end of each chapter.

 

Twelve

 

Mendleson liked the feel of Henrietta’s head against his back, her arms around his stomach. He wished the storm would take its leave so that he could spend his concentration on the feel of her. Instead, he pushed the horses through the gale and the sheets of water, looking to find shelter.
He didn’t want to shelter too near the city for fear the magistrate had authority outside its gates. But the storm would soon force him to find shelter, he knew, or it would kill them both.
Knowing they would need both horses, if he managed to rescue her, he had asked Perry to get the other ready and wait for him to return with Henrietta. The kid had agreed without even asking for coin when he heard what Mendleson planned. He had even wanted to come along, but Tara had heard and put a stop to that nonsense.
Mendleson rode out into the storm, praying he could catch up to them before they turned off.
When he found them, his heart had stopped. They were fighting already—fighting wraiths. He kicked the horse into a gallop, pulled out the club he’d borrowed from Tara out and swung it as he crashed through the guards and the wraiths. He pulled Henrietta up onto his horse after swinging the club down onto the head of a wraith, knocking it back, then turned the horse and galloped away.
He had to keep a hold of her so that she didn’t slide off. He didn’t want her arms around him for fear of being hindered should he need to fight.
When they stopped at the inn to get the other horse, Henrietta refused to climb down to get on it. “I’m too tired,” she said.
Instead, she put her arms up over Mendleson’s head, shackles and all, then slid them down around him. He didn’t protest.
They tied a lead to the other horse, and left Tara and Perry standing in the shelter of their stable.
Now, in the fury of the storm, the horses were exhausted and frightened. Every boom of thunder threatened to panic the horses and tumble he and Henrietta to the muddy ground.
When he felt they had passed beyond the immediate influence of Berelost, Mendleson started looking in earnest for a place to shelter both them and the horses. He needed a farm with a barn or a stable, a place they could hide for the few days that Henrietta insisted the storm would assail them.
He feared the storm would kill them. He also feared that the wraiths would appear again if they stopped.
And that, more than anything, frightened him. There were more than one. The black shadows, only outlined by guttering lamps and flashes of lightning had brought the fear back to him. They’d gone so long without seeing one, he’d begun to think they’d managed to escape.
“Mendleson,” Henrietta shouted over the sound of the wind. “We’ve got to stop. We’ve gone far enough.” Her shout sounded strained.
Lightning, and then an immediate report of thunder caused his horse to rear and almost throw them. He dropped the lead to the other horse in his effort to not fall off, and it ran into the darkness.
Once their horse settled down, he concluded Henrietta was right. They had to stop somewhere, soon.
“The next farmhouse,” he shouted, “we’ll stop and ask for shelter.”
He didn’t hear a reply, so urged the horse onward.
A few minutes later, as they came around a bend in the road, he spied a darkened farmhouse in the distance, and rode toward it. Beside the house, he thought he saw a stable, and hoped he’d find feed for the horse, maybe hot food and a mattress for them to sleep on.
As they approached, however, he saw scorch marks around the windows in the stone walls and soon discovered that the roof had burned away. The farm was lifeless, like his own farm had been when he returned from the sea that day.
The memory rushed through him to fill every nook in his mind. The pain, the sight of Mirrielle, Josua, it all came back.
He shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to push it away, but failed. Someone had lived here in this home, and it had burned, and they were gone. They were all gone.
He kicked the horse into a gallop.
“What are you doing?” Henrietta yelled over the gale.
“I can’t stay here!”
“We have to, Mendleson! We need shelter!” She sounded weak, desperate.
But the memories. He couldn’t make them go away. He couldn’t lock them back up in whatever box he’d managed to hide them in the last couple weeks.
“The house, it burned, just like…”
“Please, Mendleson! I need to rest.”
He turned around as best he could to look at her. In the dim light the storm let through, he could see she was worn out. Her hair, normally vibrant, hung limp in the rain to cover her face. She couldn’t even use her hands to brush it away, chained together as they still were around his waist. She couldn’t keep her shoulders straight. She could barely even sit up, and he suspected if she wasn’t chained to him, she would have fallen already.
He eyed the burnt out house once more, then took a breath and directed the horse to the stable. Whatever pain he felt at staying here, he would endure for her.
Fortunately, the disaster that fell upon the house spared the stable. The door was open, the animals gone, but the roof still held, and they were able to ride in, out of the fury of the storm.
Once inside, Mendleson slipped out from under Henrietta’s arms and let himself down from the horse. He helped Henrietta down and to a nearby stool. He tied up the horse in a stall, then searched for feed. He found a bucket that had a little left in it, but it wouldn’t last out the storm. He hoped it hadn’t turned. He gave it to the horse anyway.
While looking for the feed, he found a ladder that led to a loft. He tried to climb it, but his legs ached from the ride, and he found himself at the end of his energy and gave up. It can wait.
Instead, he found the cleanest stall in the barn and brought Henrietta over to it. She slid down against a wall. He went to the horse, retrieved his pack, and brought it to the stall. He delved into it and pulled out his blanket. The oiled leather of the pack had kept it mostly dry. “At least something went right,” he muttered.
Henrietta didn’t even respond.
He bent down and put a hand to her cheek. She shivered under his touch.
“Come on,” he said. “We have to get out of these clothes and let them dry.”
“What?” she said, perking up a little. “No, just let me rest.”
“No, you need to get out of them or you’ll get the chills. I’ve got a blanket. It’s dry and will keep us warm.”
Her head came up so that her eyes could look at him. “Us? What are you after, Mendleson?”
“What?” he asked. “I’m not after anything but keeping us alive.” He was so cold and tired, he hadn’t even thought of anything else.
She looked at him, and for a moment, he thought he saw disappointment on her face. But when he looked harder, he couldn’t see anything but exhaustion, and he decided it must be a trick of his mind. She’d pushed him and pushed him, and despite what Tara had told him, he saw little evidence that Henrietta had changed her mind.
“Fine,” she said. “I trust you, but we have a problem.” She held her hands out, and he realized immediately what it was. There was no way to get her clothes off completely while her arms were still shackled.
He looked around the stable, hoping to see a tool he could use to pop the pin or break a link in the chain, but he couldn’t find anything. The stable had been stripped of most of the useful items.
He came back to her, and ultimately, they decided to remove her garments as much as possible with the shackles still on. Her top hung from the shackles, but it would at least keep the moisture away from her.
He pulled all but his underclothes off and hung them from the wall of the stall.
As he came back, he averted his eyes as best he could, and in the low light, it was easy not to see the detail of her body, but he still felt stirrings within him that he hadn’t felt since Mirrielle died.
And that thought killed any of those feelings.
He stepped up next to her with the blanket, helped her to lie down on the straw covered floor, and then lay down next to her and pulled the blanket around them both. Her skin was cold and clammy on his, but his couldn’t have felt much better next to her. He wrapped his arms around her to try to speed the warming.
After a while, their bodies filled the space under the blanket with enough warmth that they both stopped shivering.
“Mendleson,” she said.
“What?” he asked.
“Thank you for coming to get me.”
“You’re welcome, Henrietta.”
A warmth moved through him that had little to do with their bodies being so close together.

 

* * *

 

Henrietta woke to the snapping sound of a fire. Around her, she could see the flickering light it threw off as it danced, but she couldn’t see the actual fire. She began to stand up, but stopped when the shackles, and the still damp clothes hanging from them, reminded her that she only had the blanket for covering—when they reminded her of what had happened, and what hadn’t.
The memories insisted that Mendleson had slept next to her, their skin touching, his warmth feeding her, the hair on his chest tickling her back, his arms holding her tight without straying where they shouldn’t. But she couldn’t see him.
“Mendleson?” she called out.
She heard footsteps, and then he entered the stall. He was wearing his pants, but his shirt was off. She had little choice but to admire his chest.
“You wake,” he said.
“Where’s your shirt?”
“Hanging by the fire with your…”
For anyone to see? She didn’t yell at him for it. They did need to get them dry. “Come help me up. I want to move near the fire.” It’s cold under this blanket without you to hold me. She didn’t want to say that aloud, either. She was grateful he had saved her from the magistrate and whatever fate he had planned, but she wasn’t going to encourage him any further.
He bent down and very carefully helped her up. They managed to get her standing without exposing too many parts he shouldn’t see. Together, they stepped out of the stall, and she saw the fire in the middle of the stable. He’d set stones in a circle to keep the fire from spreading. He had a line running across the stable, from one stall post to another, near enough to the fire to get the warmth, but not so near as to be dangerous. His shirt and coat hung from it, as well as her lower garments.
“How did you get it lit?”
“I had flints in my pack. That, straw, and a few stored pieces of wood in this place.”
She sat down near the fire so that she could feel the warmth.
“How do you feel,” he asked.
“Better,” she said. She was still cold, but much of her fatigue had bled away while she slept. “Hungry.”
Mendleson nodded and sat down next to her. He reached into his pack and pulled out a bundle of dried pork, which he handed to her. “Here, this should help.”
“Where did you get this?”
“Tara stuffed it into my pack as I was leaving. She seemed to feel guilty about something.”
Henrietta took a bite of it. Salty and dry, but it was better than nothing. “She felt guilty about turning me in,” she said after she finished chewing.
“Turning you in?”
“She sent Perry to warn me as soon as she saw the magistrate outside, I think. But I also think once the magistrate came in, she told him where I was.”
“You don’t seem upset at her.”
“She tried to help. It didn’t work out. She couldn’t risk her inn over me.”
Mendleson looked up at her, his eyes dark, but bright at the same time. “I don’t see why not,” he said.
“You wouldn’t. But then, you don’t have a lot to lose, do you?” As soon as the words escaped her mouth, she wished she could take them back. The wound in his heart spilled out through his eyes before he could look away.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that,” she said.
“What else could you mean?” He didn’t look at her. “You still want me to leave. Fine. When the storm lets up, I’ll leave.”
Dammit, Henrietta. What do you want? She wanted to reach out to him, but the shackles made that awkward. She’d have no way to keep herself covered. “I only meant that you didn’t have anything tying you to your home, that you were free to do anything. Tara, she’s got Perry to think of…”
He turned back to her. “But what about my family?” Tears streamed from his eyes. “What about them? I had them.”
On instinct, she withdrew her shackled hands from under the blanket, not caring that the blanket slid down, and put them over his head and around his shoulders. She pulled him close so that his head was next to hers, and she locked his gaze with hers. “They’re years gone, Mendleson. You only have the memories. You have to move on, go forward. Live your life.”
“The memories eat at me,” he said. “I could have saved them.”
“If you had been there, could you really have saved them? Or would you be dead, too? A fire like that, in the middle of the day, they weren’t asleep. If they could have escaped, they would have. You would have been trapped, too, or you would have watched helplessly.”
“But…”
“You were out at sea, Mendleson, where you were supposed to be. It wasn’t your fault. You have to move on.”
The tears had stopped, but his eyes were still moist. His breath on her was warm. She had a sudden urge to lean forward and kiss him, but she resisted. She had no idea what he’d think.
“I’m trying to let them go. I’m trying to leave that all behind. It’s why I’m still here even though you keep pushing me away.”
“I thought you were here because you were trying to save me to atone for how you think you failed your family.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. She thought maybe she’d said the wrong thing again. Then he said, “I was.”
“I don’t understand.”
“At first, you were right. I thought I might atone for my failure if I saved you. But then, after the second, or maybe the third time, it became…” He stopped, and then looked down.
She grew acutely aware that the blanket had fallen away to expose her breasts, but she ignored the urge to try to cover herself. “What did it become?” she asked.
His eyes came up to meet hers again. “Tara told me that you love me. Is that true?” he asked.
What? Tara told him? Is it true? Her heart fluttered in her chest. She didn’t know how to answer the question. “What did it become, Mendleson?”
He moved a little closer. Their noses were almost touching. “You keep pushing me to leave, to save myself from you.”
It’s true, but not any more. “You keep saying that. Tell me why you continue to stay with me.”
“It became about saving you for me.”
Her heart split. She pulled her hands from his shoulders and put them on his head and pulled his lips to hers. They were rough from the weather, but so warm. He seemed to want to pull away at first, but a moment later, the tension in him evaporated. His tongue probed at her lips. She let her tongue meet his, and it was so soft, gentle, yet strong. She had imagined kissing a man for most of her life, yet had never imagined this.
He put his arms around her and pulled her tight to him, so that her breasts were against his chest. The hair tickled her nipples at first, and then she forgot about it in the depths of their kiss.
Time passed, she didn’t know how much, and then their lips parted. Neither of them said a word for long moments as they stared into each other’s eyes. He seemed to be waiting for something.
“I don’t know what love is,” she said. “But I do know that I don’t want you to leave.”
“Good. I’m not leaving,” he said.
“But my vision, my fate, your fate. If you stay with me, you’ll die. I don’t want that either.”
“Henrietta. You’ve seen how I am just thinking about Mirrielle. How do you think I’ll be if I let you go, too? We’ll find a way. You can always change someone’s fate. The fact that I’m now tied to yours only proves that yours can be changed. Why do we even have to go to that place? Why can’t we go somewhere else?”
At his question, the part she’d been missing, the idea that she had just been able to touch while the guardsmen had her, finally took shape in her mind.
“Mendleson, we can’t go anywhere else.”
“Why not?”
“The wraiths only appear when I am not on the path to my fate. As long as I move toward it, they leave me alone.”
He leaned in to her again and gave her a tender kiss. “We’ll find a way,” he said. “I won’t let you die.”

 

 
If you’ve read this far, and you just have to read the rest right now, you can get the eBook or a really awesome paperback from the following retailers.
 

E-Book Paperback
Amazon
BN.com
Sony
Kobo
iBookStore
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CreateSpace
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Read Chapter Thirteen of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony
 

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: Eleven

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony Cover
With another Wednesday comes another installment of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony. This is chapter eleven.

I owe my then nine year old son some thanks for helping me out with this chapter, chapter ten, and chapter twelve. I was struggling with this section of the book. I was writing the book from an outline, except for about four chapters (which turned into six) where I had written “stuff happens here.” When I got to this point, I had no idea what happened, and I asked my son what he thought should happen, and he told me I should put a storm in it. When he said that, my brain started percolating and the empty chapters filled themselves.

If you need to start from the first chapter, you can find it here. If you need to read the rest of the book right this minute, there are links to purchase it in a variety of formats at the end of each chapter.

 

Eleven

 

Mendleson lay on the bed, his eyes shut against the stray rays of light that made it past the curtain’s defenses, and tried to sleep. Sleep eluded him, however, as his mind wrestled with his abrupt departure from Henrietta.
He repeatedly tried to tell himself that she was right, that he was better off not helping her. If her vision was true, if his fate, were he to remain with her, meant he would die, then he would certainly be better off. He’d be alive.
But fates could be changed. She’d said so. That he was now in her vision, where he had not been before, meant that his fate had changed, at the very least. Of course, if he didn’t go with her, that would change his fate.
And she would die.
If that was her fate, if she was supposed to die, was it his responsibility to save her? She didn’t seem to want him to save her. But at times, it seemed like she had no desire to die.
His eyes popped open. “And I don’t even understand why it matters to me,” he said to the wood-beamed ceiling and the memory of Mirrielle. “At first, it was atonement, Mirrielle, but now? Now, I don’t want to leave her, and I don’t even know why.”
He slammed his fist into the mattress and sat up. As tired as he was, he would never get to sleep.
He slipped out of the bed, dressed, and picked up the purse Henrietta had given him. He shoved it in a coat pocket before slipping out his door and into the hallway. He went down the stairs and into the common room, half hoping to see Henrietta, and half hoping to avoid her.
He looked around, and didn’t see either her or her friend Tara. He discovered that not seeing her disappointed him a little. The feeling didn’t stop him, though. He went out through the door and into the streets of Berelost, hoping to walk off his restlessness.
The wind had picked up a bit while they’d been inside the inn. Alone, it wasn’t enough to make him think of a storm, but a glance at the sky showed the cloud cover had grown angrier and darker. It did look like rain would begin to fall soon.
He walked, letting his feet carry him wherever they might. He didn’t really see much of the city as he walked. His thoughts remained focused on his strange relationship with Henrietta and his desire to risk his life for the woman who he’d known for so short a time. He found himself wishing Paulus was along for the trip. His friend would have advice for him. He always had advice.
But talking to Paulus was impossible now. He had to figure out whether to leave Henrietta to her own devices, or not, without the help of his friend.
He chuckled quietly to himself. It’s all Paulus’ fault I’m here in the first place. If Paulus hadn’t dragged me to the festival that night, I’d never have met Henrietta. I’d never have touched her hand.
After a short time, he found himself near the river again. The fishing boats had tugged at him when he and Henrietta had first come this way. He had wanted to go and visit them, visit the fisherman, see what fishing a river was like. One thought had led to another, though, and he found himself remembering the last time he’d docked his boat.
When he looked toward the boats, he expected them to be gone, but instead, he found the fishermen tying them up, lashing them tight to the docks. The water in the river looked rough, where earlier it had been fairly placid. The wind must be whipping down that passage at a good pace.
He looked across the river to the market and found that people were closing up shop. The square, where before it had been packed with people, had emptied. Perhaps a storm is coming, he thought.
He looked around one more time and decided it would be prudent to return to the inn. He hadn’t come to any conclusion regarding what he should do about Henrietta, or why he was so reluctant to leave, but he didn’t want to be caught out in whatever storm the citizens of Berelost thought was coming.
As he walked back to the inn, the wind pushed at him from behind. Leaflets and other bits of trash flew by him, and he picked up his pace. The storm was growing in strength almost as quickly as some of the storms that came up out on the sea where it could be sunny one moment, and an hour later, you could be hanging on to the rails of your boat for your life.
He turned the last corner before the inn, and came to a stop.
Six guardsmen stood outside its door, and a seventh man stood in front of them, issuing instructions. This seventh man, he had seen earlier that morning, and his being here could only mean that he had eventually put Henrietta’s real name to her face. This time, her life hung in the balance, and her fate had nothing to do with it.

 

* * *

 

Henrietta woke to the sound of someone pounding on her door. Mendleson, why don’t you just come in?
After a moment, and a few more thumps, she realized he couldn’t. She’d locked the door. She tried to blink the sleep out of her eyes. She still felt exhausted. She couldn’t have been asleep long.
She wondered, as she swung her legs out from under the one blanket she’d left on the bed, how she felt about Mendleson choosing not to go. A part of her wanted to sing, but another part was still terrified of taking responsibility for his death.
“I’m coming,” she said, loud enough she hoped, to be heard over the incessant banging.
She didn’t have to get dressed. She had slept in her clothes.
“Ma’am!”
That’s not Mendleson. “Perry?” She unlocked the door and opened it. Tara’s son stood there. His eyes were wide, and he quickly glanced down the hallway toward the stairs. “What are you doing waking me up?” she asked.
“Mama told me to come get you and hurry you out the back. The magistrate is here for you.”
Henrietta held onto the door as she swayed a bit. What now? What do I do? Mendleson? “Where’s my friend?”
“He left. Mama says we have to hurry.”
Left? She looked around her room and spied her pack at the end of her bed. “Where did he go?” You weren’t going to leave until tomorrow! She left the door and went to get her pack.
“I saw him walk out the front door. I don’t know where he went.”
“He didn’t take his horse?”
“No, Ma’am. Hurry, please!”
She slung her pack over her shoulder and raced back to the door. Where did you go, Mendleson? Why did you leave me?
She knew why. She’d pushed him to go. Now was not the time to cry about it.
She moved toward the stairwell, but Perry reached out and pulled at her shirt. “No, this way.”
“Where?”
He started down the hallway toward the back of the inn. “We have another set of stairs back here.”
Henrietta tried to think back to when she’d spent considerable time with Tara. She had never seen a staircase back here, and Tara had never mentioned it.
Henrietta followed him, and when they reached the end of the hall, Perry pulled open a closet door, and stepped inside. She entered behind him and found that it wasn’t a closet door at all, but a tight set of stairs. Darkness filled the stairwell, though there was a bit of light at the bottom.
“Shut the door,” said her guide.
She reached back and pulled the door closed, enveloping the top of the staircase in complete darkness. The only light was the light at the bottom.
As they descended, she kept her focus on that light, occluded now and then by Perry’s bobbing head. She felt out each step with the toe of her shoe before taking it.
As they neared the bottom of the stairs, she wondered what she’d do next. Take the horse, ride east out of the city. Go home.
Home. A word, a place, she had tried not to think about in the years since she’d left. The monolith she saw in her vision, she knew it was supposed to be only a couple day’s ride into the mountains.
Why am I even going home? Why am I not riding away from it?
She reached the bottom step. Perry had stepped out from the hidden staircase and around the corner, out of her sight.
She emerged into a small room. It had two doors, not counting the stairwell. One that led, she thought, into the kitchen. Another, she guessed, led out back to the stable. It was how Perry had managed to surprise her in the kitchen.
A hand reached out and gripped her arm as she took her second step into the room. She looked and found the hand was attached to a guardsman, one of the magistrates men.
“There you are, witch. You’re not going that way.”
She tried to pull away, but she was so tired, she barely had the strength to make the man move even a step with her.
“No, none of that. The magistrate would speak with you.”
“Just let me go. I’ll leave. I was only passing through on my way home.”
The man laughed. “Now, I can’t do that. The magistrate says to bring you to him, and that’s what I’ll do.”
She tried to pull away again, but the guardsman’s grip on her arm only strengthened, causing pain to explode from the area.
“Don’t do that again, or I’ll break it.”
She gave up her struggle and let him drag her through the door and into the kitchen, where she found Perry in the grasp of another guardsman. She could see Perry trying to fight the man.
“Let her go,” he said. “She didn’t do nothing to you.”
“Quiet, kid. It wasn’t me she did something to. Be good, and your Momma won’t get in trouble for harboring a fugitive.”
Henrietta reached out and patted Perry on his head. She wanted to tell him everything would turn out fine, but she didn’t believe it.
The guard marched her out through the kitchen and into the common room where the rotund magistrate stood waiting with Tara.
“There you are,” said the magistrate. “Your attempt to fool me earlier didn’t work, as you can see. Where is that man you were with? He’s not a very good liar.”
“He left.”
The magistrate laughed. “Why am I not surprised?”
Henrietta wanted to reach out and hit him in his mustache, but the guardsman still held her arm tight. “Why don’t you just let me go? I’m only passing through on my way home.”
“You were warned to never come back. Now, here you are. You knew the consequences, yet you flouted our laws to sew more discord among our people. If I were to let you go, how can I know you just wouldn’t try to return again?”
“Because I’ll be dead in a couple weeks,” she said under her breath.
“What?”
“I said, because I’ll be dead in a couple weeks.”
The magistrate’s eyes lit up and he smiled. “If I have my way, you won’t live even that long.” He looked at the guardsman who held her. “Take her outside. I’ll be there in a moment.”
The guard pulled at her arm and forced her to stumble as he set out to follow the magistrates orders.
“I’m sorry,” said Tara. “I…”
“It’s fine, Tara. You did what you had to.” And Henrietta meant it. Tara had risked her livelihood to send Perry to try to help her escape. It might still be at risk, since Perry had been caught.
The guard pulled her along and out the door into a blast of wind and a darkened sky. The first big drops of rain began to fall. She couldn’t take any satisfaction in being right about the storm.
Why did I think coming back through this place would be safe? Why did I go this way?

 

* * *

 

Mendleson waited inside an alcove he found and watched while the magistrate and two of his guardsmen went inside the inn. The other four stood just outside the door. He had little illusion that he could take the guardsmen by himself, but he thought if he could follow them, find out where they were taking her, he might be able to do something.
He was having trouble figuring out what that something might be.
Minutes passed while very little changed. Maybe she’s not there. Maybe she left already. He didn’t put much hope in that thought. She had to have been as tired as he was. No, she was there, and she was probably asleep. They’d find her in bed, helpless.
Unless Tara lied to the magistrate and said she wasn’t there. Would Tara do something like that for her, for someone she hadn’t seen in three years?
The door opened, interrupting his thought, and Henrietta stepped through it, propelled by a guard. She had her pack on her shoulder. They hadn’t taken it from her.
He felt a drop of water fall on him and focused his eyes closer. It had started to rain. He hadn’t noticed while he watched, but it had grown dark enough that it looked like early evening. He looked up, and saw the clouds had thickened, grown angrier, and were black with moisture.
Moments later, the magistrate walked through the door, followed by the last guard. He had a look of glee on his face. He gave instructions, and one guardsman took Henrietta’s pack while another placed her arms in shackles. The guardsmen surrounded her then, and the magistrate led them away from the inn. Their path would take them right past his alcove.
He slid back as far into the shadow as he could, hoping they wouldn’t see him.
As they passed, he saw that Henrietta had her head down. She must think I left her. He wanted to call out to Henrietta, to tell her he was coming, but didn’t. Instead, he worked furiously on a plan. He’d have to hurry, once they were out of sight.
When the procession had turned a corner, he ran out of the alcove, ignoring the rain that was now coming down even harder. Puddles were already forming where the cobblestone lay unevenly.
He burst into the common room where he found Tara standing with a look of despair in her eye.
“Mendleson,” she said. “I tried to get her out, but they were too quick.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. I need my pack and the horses, and something I can use for a club.” A sword wouldn’t be any good. He’d never trained with one. An axe would work, but he doubted they had one here.
“You’re going to try to save her?”
Her question made him stop to consider, but only for a moment. He knew what he had to do, whether it was because of his earlier need to redeem himself, or from his other surprising feelings for the Seer. “I’ll do what I can,” he said.
“Good. She loves you, you know.”
“I’ll worry about that later. I don’t have any time to waste.”
He ran up the stairs to get his pack. He heard Tara call out to Perry.
She loves me? He thought as he opened the door to his room. But all she does is push me away!
The pack was in the middle of his bed where he left it. He stared at it for a second, lost in thought. Figure that out later, you oaf. She won’t live long enough for it to matter if you don’t get moving.
He grabbed his pack, then ran out of the room and down the hallway toward the stairs and the horses. He hoped he was making the right decision. He hoped she wouldn’t hate him for it.

 

* * *

 

Henrietta could not remember a time when she felt more miserable than she did right at that moment. The shackles on her wrists chafed. The rain, while not seriously cold on its own, had soaked her through, allowing the beating of the wind to chill her to the bone. Her hair hung, wet and matted, into her face. Through it, she saw flashes of lightning light up the sky, followed soon after by the sound of thunder that crashed down and echoed off the walls of the city.
The guardsmen kept to a circle around her, but only touched her to push her along.
She wished she’d had visions of this moment, visions that might show her how she would escape to meet her fate at the monolith. Please, show me a way, she thought, but nothing came to her. She wished she had touched the hands of the guardsman that had put the shackles on her. She might have seen something that could help her.
Though, with her end so near, she might have seen nothing at all.
And with Mendleson gone, the chances of anything happening to save her were slim. No. I’ll have to figure this out for myself.
Unbidden, a snort erupted from her. What does it matter? I’ll die either way. Why did I ever come this way?
“We must hurry,” she heard the magistrate say, though his voice sounded far off through the wind. “This storm is picking up quick.”
She felt a hand push her in the back, forcing her to quicken her steps.
Another lightning flash. Thunder exploded overhead and through the streets.
She looked up and off to her left. Another lightning flash lit up the area, except for a tall, dark figure.
When the light faded, it was gone. She thought she heard one of the guards start to say something before the thunder crashed over them.
She reached up to try to brush the hair out of her face. I saw it, right? She proved only partially successful at clearing her face of hair, but it was enough to get a better look. She strained to look into the storm darkened streets as they walked.
Flash.
This time, two figures, walking with them.
Wraiths.
Crash. The thunder rattled her while fear settled into her belly. They had come for her again, after all this time. Why?
The answer eluded her. She could feel the shape of it, could touch it, even, but she was too tired and too scared.
“I’ve got two weeks!” she yelled.
The guard pushed her from behind, and she stumbled, only half on purpose. She fell to her knees. Anything to get the guardsmen to stop for a moment, so she could be sure, so she could figure out a way to run.
Why are they waiting?
A guard kicked her. “Get up!”
She looked up. They weren’t all paying attention to her. They were looking around.
Flash!
She was looking another direction this time, and saw two more black shapes. She didn’t think they were the same ones.
For a half a second, she thought she heard the sound of horseshoes striking the cobblestone. The thunder obliterated any chance of knowing for sure.
Another kick to her back, harder this time.
She stood, but not because of the kick. The time had come. She would run, if she could. The next flash of lightning.
She didn’t have to wait that long.
“We’re surrounded,” she heard a guard cry out.
The guardsmen drew their long-knives and turned away from her to face the dark.
She wanted to run, now, while they were turned away, but she knew that wouldn’t work. She might run right into the claws of a wraith. Patience. Wait until they are fighting. She could feel it coming.
The sound of horseshoes echoed down the street, unmistakeable this time.
A strong gust of wind tore through the group, almost blowing her over, and then it was time. In silence, the wraiths set upon the guards, trying to reach her, trying to retrieve the gift.
The guardsmen slashed out at the darkness, sometimes hitting their targets. Only the men screamed. One by one, they started to fall to the claws of the wraiths that they couldn’t see.
Flash!
A horse bore down on her. It crashed into the melee, trampling guards and wraiths alike. She couldn’t see the rider, didn’t know who had come to save her, if they had come for that purpose.
The horse slowed beside her, but only slowed. A hand came down to reach for her.
Another hand reached for her from behind. A shadow of a club came down on the person, or the wraith, behind her and the hand released her.
The man on the horse was strong and pulled her up behind him with little effort. He spun the horse around and urged it to gallop down the dark, storm-washed streets.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
Mendleson. He’d come back for her. He hadn’t left after all. And despite the conflict she felt over her responsibility for his impending death, she realized she was glad he had returned.
She put her head on his back and rested it there while they raced their way out of the city. It felt right.

 

 
If you’ve read this far, and you just have to read the rest right now, you can get the eBook or a really awesome paperback from the following retailers.
 

E-Book Paperback
Amazon
BN.com
Sony
Kobo
iBookStore
Smashwords
DriveThruFiction.com		 Amazon
CreateSpace
Barnes & Noble

 
Read Chapter Twelve of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony
 

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney

Free Novel Wednesday – The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony: Ten

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony Cover
So it’s Wednesday on Thursday. The Independence Day holiday yesterday destroyed my mind and I completely forgot about doing anything important, like getting you your the next chapter of Moony.

We had some good fun, though, and the weather was nice, too. Blue sky for what seems like the first time in weeks.

So here it is, Chapter Ten of The Sacrifice of Mendleson Moony. A day late, but better than forgotten until next week.

If you need to start from the first chapter, you can find it here. If you need to read the rest of the book right this minute, there are links to purchase it in a variety of formats at the end of each chapter.

 

Ten

 

The inn that Henrietta led them to looked old and weather-worn to Mendleson’s eye. Like the rest of the buildings in this strange city, it leaned out over the street, giving him the impression that it was near to toppling over on him.
When they climbed down from their horses, a dark-haired young boy, perhaps twelve, ran out from the inn and reached for the reins. “I’ll take those,” he said.
Mendleson looked to Henrietta, and saw her give the horse over to the boy. “You’ve grown, Perry.”
“Ma’am?” the boy asked, his voice breaking as he spoke.
“You don’t remember me? I suppose it has been a long time, then. Is your mother here?”
“In the kitchen,” the boy said, clearly confused by Henrietta.
“Thank you,” she said, pulling a coin from her purse and handing it to the boy, who smiled.
Mendleson handed the reins of his horse to the boy, and got a frown when he did not produce a coin, too.
“She has all my coins,” he said.
The boy glanced at Henrietta, and when she nodded, his frown flattened, but did not entirely go away. The boy led the horses away, leaving the two of them standing at the doorway.
“You’ve been here before?” he asked.
“His mother was a friend.”
“Was? Are you worried that she’s not anymore?”
Henrietta’s shoulders came up, and she raised her head and began to walk into the building. “There’s no reason she shouldn’t be a friend.”
Mendleson reached out and tried to grab her arm, but she walked forward with a purpose, and his hand slid down to touch hers.
She stopped and gasped.
Mendleson knew what he’d done wrong before she told him, and he tried to let go, but she grasped his hand tight and wouldn’t let him pull free. She turned to face him. Her eyes were open, the irises rolled back into her head far enough that he could not see them. They stood that way for only moments, though it seemed he could have planted next year’s crops in the time it took her to come out of it.
Her eyes closed, and when they reopened, he could again see the dark of her eyes. She glanced down at his hand, which still held hers, but she made no immediate effort to pull away. He was glad of it. Her hand felt small and warm in his. Soft.
“What did you see?” he asked.
She blinked, then looked out to the street. Mendleson followed her gaze and found people were watching them. Not many, but enough.
She dropped his hand. “Nothing new,” she said. She pushed open the thick wood door of the inn and stepped inside.
“Are you coming?” she asked, her back still to him.
Mendleson quickly stepped through the door, and she let it shut behind him.
Inside, he found the interior of the inn in much better shape than the outside. The wood tables were polished, clean, and in good repair. The floor was clear of debris, and the walls, where they were lined with wood, were varnished and free of the soot he’d become used to in the more run-down inns they had stayed in. It felt like a home. He wondered at the clash between the run-down exterior and the well cared for interior. Why would the owner not take care of the outside, too?
Henrietta strode through the main room, past the few patrons who had risen so early. Most of them looked well off, and certainly not the kind of patron he’d expected from the outside. It baffled him.
When Mendleson caught up to her, she had stopped just outside the kitchen door. The smell of morning cakes and sausage seeped through the door, giving Mendleson’s stomach cause to rumble. “This place is so well cared for on the inside…” he said before being interrupted as the door swung open.
A woman, a head and a half shorter than Henrietta, stepped through the door carrying a tray with the cakes and sausages he had smelled piled onto it. She looked very much like the boy who had come to take their horses.
“Out of the way,” she said, her voice powerful and commanding.
Mendleson stepped aside and let her pass. Henrietta had done the same, and the woman swept between them, leaving the two of them to look at each other. A fleeting emotion, irritation, or perhaps surprise, passed across Henrietta’s face as the woman passed without so much as a greeting. Whatever emotion had overcome her control for the moment was buried before Mendleson could say for sure what it was.
Mendleson turned to watch the woman as she moved through the common room, setting food out in front of several of the early morning patrons. She had words with each of them, but didn’t linger long with any particular patron.
After she emptied her tray, the woman returned. She kept her face free of emotion, but when she said, “Into the kitchen,” he could hear the conflict within her.
Once the three of them were inside the kitchen, she set the tray on a free table top, and then went to Henrietta and gave her a hug. Then she stepped back and said, “How dare you come back here.” Her voice seethed with anger and fear.
“I had to,” Henrietta said.
“You had to do nothing of the sort. You know what will happen to you if they find you.”
Henrietta nodded. “I know, but I truly have no choice. I’m going home, Tara.”
Tara put a hand to her mouth, and then stepped forward and gave Henrietta another, much longer hug. “Surely not so soon,” she said.
Henrietta patted the shorter woman on the back. “Weeks at most, if not days,” she said. “It is the way of things.”
Tara stepped away from the embrace. “But how can that be? You’re still so young.”
“I’ve known for a long time.”
Tara turned to face Mendleson for the first time. She looked him up and down, seeming to appraise him like she would a cow, or perhaps a side of beef. “So who is this?” she asked once she finished.
“I’m Mendleson,” he said, even though she hadn’t directed the question at him. “I’m helping her.”
Tara turned back to Henrietta. “Since when did you need help?” she asked.
Mendleson found Henrietta’s eyes looking at him now, though her appraisal was different. He thought he saw sadness in it, and something else he could not quite make out. “I didn’t ask for it,” she said. A chill had crept into her voice that he hadn’t heard for days.
There. She was still trying to push him away, still trying to protect him from whatever fate she saw for him. But I can’t let her push me away. I can’t let her die. I promised.
Henrietta turned back to Tara. “But, he has been useful.”
Useful! Anger boiled up in him, causing him to clench his fists. His fingernails bit into the palms of his hands. “I’ve saved your life more than once.”
She stepped into him, and looked up, just a little. “How do you know, Mendleson? How do you know that your interference saved my life? Until you became involved, I knew my fate, and it was not at my front door, or in the hallway of that inn, or any other place on this journey.”
“My interference? You came to me at the festival. I didn’t set this course. Before that moment, I had little interest in you.” Even as he said it, he found himself wondering how it had happened. He couldn’t keep his curiosity contained. “Did you do something to me? Did you put some sort of spell on me?”
Her hand rose up and slapped him, almost before the last word had left his lips. “How dare you.” Her voice raised only a little in her anger. “I am not a witch, Mendleson. You know that.”
“Do I?” He thought back to that moment at the festival when they had touched. His life had changed in that moment. From that point, all he’d wanted to do was protect her. “I thought I wanted to protect you because I’d failed with Mirrielle, but now I’m not so sure. We touched and my life changed because of it.”
“Keep your voice down,” Henrietta said.
“Why? You keep trying to push me away. It’s all you’ve done since that night, yet you tied a rope to me that even a typhoon couldn’t break.”
“Just how did I tie a rope to you? You’ve been free to leave me alone since that day at the festival. You’re free to go even now. I don’t need your help, Mendleson.” She was staring right into his eyes as she said it.
He tried to probe their depths, but whatever warmth he’d thought he’d seen growing there was gone. He didn’t even know what he’d done to bring about the change in her.
The thing that really surprised him was how his anger turned to ashes as she spoke. She seemed to truly mean what she said. She didn’t want him. Why am I here?
The answer that had brought him to Berelost, that he was trying to save her, no longer felt like enough.
A silence stretched between them for long moments. Tara looked back and forth between them, but said nothing. The tension Mendleson felt between Henrietta and himself seemed to hold the brash woman back.
Henrietta reached into her pack and her hand emerged with the purse. She held it out to him.
“What’s this?” Mendleson asked.
“For your trip home.” Her hand shook.
“But…”
“Don’t worry, Mendleson. I have means.”
He reached out and took the purse from her, taking care not to brush her hand again. He reached in and pulled out a silver durin, turned away from Henrietta and handed it to Tara. “Could you find me a room? I need to rest.”
As she put the coin into her pocket, Tara said, “Of course.” Her eyes still flicked toward Henrietta, as if she were asking permission.
When Henrietta said nothing, Tara said, “Come, follow me,” and then stepped out of the kitchen.
Mendleson turned to follow her, then looked back. “I’ll be here until tomorrow, if you change your mind.”
“Take care, Mendleson,” she said.
Mendleson stepped out of the kitchen and let the door shut behind him. He’d thought closing the door might cut the rope that tied her to him, but he could still feel it pulling at him. He wanted to rush back in, tell her he wasn’t leaving her, no matter what she said she wanted.
But as he followed Tara up the stairs at the back of the inn, he resolved that he would try to forget her. He hoped it would be easier than trying to forget his failure to save his family.

 

* * *

 

Henrietta watched him walk out the door, the money purse in his hand, his pack slung from his shoulder, and felt a void envelope her. She felt a desire to reach out and stop him, pull him back to her, take back every word she’d said. She didn’t want him to go. She wanted him near her.
But she steeled herself. She had to make him leave in order to protect him. She’d brought him into her fate somehow, and it was her responsibility to get him out of it. She couldn’t let him die to save her when she knew there wasn’t a chance his sacrifice would save her. The vision hadn’t changed. The wraiths would still come for her, even as he lay dying at the top of that foggy plateau.
She wanted to touch him, one last time, to see if she had changed his fate. She’d hoped their hands would meet when he took the purse from her, but he had been careful not to touch her. I should have reached out for him, she thought, then chided herself for thinking it. If I reached out, he wouldn’t have left. “Better to let him go and not know the answer,” she said aloud in an attempt to convince herself that she had made the right choice.
It didn’t work. She could almost feel the rope Mendleson described, stretching out through the closed door, pulling at her to go to him. But she stayed in the kitchen, out of sight of the patrons of the inn.
“Why are you crying, Ma’am?”
Henrietta looked around and found Perry standing there watching her. He’d snuck into the kitchen without making a sound.
“I’m not crying.”
“But the tears,” he said.
“Tears?” she asked, while moving a hand up to her face. “There aren’t any…” She stopped when her hand discovered her cheek was wet.
She scrambled to come up with an excuse while she wiped the tears away. “Oh, I’m just so happy,” she said, trying to smile. “I haven’t seen your mother in such a long time.” She hoped Perry would believe her.
Perry looked around, and then came back to her. “My mother’s not here,” he said.
“No, dear. She just stepped out to take my friend to his room.” My friend? When did that happen?
“Do you need breakfast? I can help you find a table. Mother doesn’t like customers in the kitchen.”
Henrietta did smile, this time for real. She hoped it meant the end of her tears. “I’m not exactly a customer,” she said. “I’m a friend, and I need to speak with your mother. I would like something to eat, if you have it. I’ve been on the road a long time.”
Perry smiled and went to work, gathering up a plate and dishing up pork and bread. Henrietta watched him work, remembering back to when the boy had been mostly a nuisance, getting under his mother’s feet. He’d grown up quite a bit in three years.
Tara entered the kitchen just as Perry handed Henrietta the plate. The smell of the food caused her stomach to rumble in anticipation. She hadn’t eaten since the previous evening. She went to reach into her purse to get Perry another coin, only remembering at the last moment that she’d given it all to Mendleson. “I’m sorry, Perry. I seem to have misplaced my purse. I’ll have to get you another coin a little later.”
“No you didn’t,” he said. “I saw you give it to that man.”
“So I did,” she said, surprised he’d seen that. He’d stabled their horses pretty quickly. “I promise I’ll get you another coin before I leave.”
Tara took Perry by the shoulders and pushed him out into the common room. “Go clean those tables,” she said.
Perry turned a bit to look at Henrietta, and smiled at her before leaving the kitchen completely.
“It seems he likes you,” Tara said when the door had swung shut.
“What? I hadn’t even thought of that,” she laughed. “He’s grown so big.”
“It’s been three years,” Tara said. “Boys grow like weeds.”
“Yet it seems you’ve managed to tame him.”
Tara laughed. “Mostly. He still has his days where I’m lucky to get him to feed the horses without a struggle. Come, I’ll get you something to wash down that pork and we can talk.”
Henrietta took a seat at a small table in the back of the kitchen that Tara reserved for eating quick lunches out of sight of her customers. “But it’s still near breakfast. Don’t you need to watch the room?”
“Perry’s out there. He’ll let me know if someone needs help, and I’m not letting you out of this kitchen without knowing the real story behind this man you brought with you. Water, or wine?”
Henrietta sat her plate on the table and took one of the chairs. There were only ever two chairs. “Wine, I think. I need to calm myself so I can sleep.”
Tara stepped away for a moment, which gave Henrietta time to sample the food on her plate. The bread was warm and soft, the pork, not too salty. She wished for a moment that Tara would take her time so that she could eat more of it before having to talk about Mendleson.
Unfortunately, after Henrietta had only put a few bites into her mouth, Tara returned carrying a goblet that contained a dark red wine. Tara set the wine on the table in front of Henrietta, then took a seat across from her.
“Tell me about him,” Tara said.
Henrietta swallowed the food that was in her mouth before speaking. “He’s just a farmer that lived across the road from me.”
“Just a farmer? I know you, Henrietta. You wouldn’t drag ‘just a farmer’ along behind you.”
“I didn’t drag him. Not intentionally, at least. I haven’t been able to get rid of him.”
“Until now.”
Henrietta nodded, then put another bite of pork into her mouth and ate it before continuing. “I’m close to my time, Tara. A couple weeks at most before I lose my life and my gift to another. I’ve known since I can remember how it would happen. The details have grown clearer over time, but I had always been alone when it happened.”
“You saw this in a vision?”
“Yes. Every Seer knows their end.”
“There’s no way to avoid it?”
“I tried. I came here, first, thinking that if I wasn’t where I saw the vision happen, it couldn’t happen. Others can change their fate, why can’t I?
“But then, you remember what happened. I left and went west, to a small town on the coast. Still, the vision never changed.”
“How often do you see these visions?”
“Every few months or so. They’ve grown more numerous as my time grows short. I’m seeing it every few days now, if not more often.”
“So your vision hasn’t changed?” Tara asked.
“It did about two weeks ago, right after I met Mendleson for the first time.”
“I thought you said he lived across the road from you.”
“We never talked. Before I became his neighbor, his wife and child died in a fire while he was away. He has hardly been off his farm since.”
“How did you end up meeting?”
Henrietta paused to eat another bite of pork and followed it up with a sip of wine. “The Fates brought us together at the local summer festival. I had a vision that showed me meeting someone there, though I couldn’t see who it was. So I went. He was sitting on a bench near the area I had seen in my vision, and we struck up a conversation.
“When I went to leave, he reached for my hand and touched it. I had the vision of my end again, only this time, he was in it. I tried to run away from him, tried to change it back, but I couldn’t get him to leave me alone.” And then, a little softer, she said, “He just kept saving me from them.”
“I don’t understand,” Tara said. “If he keeps saving you, why do you want him to go?”
Henrietta felt her tears start to come again, and she wiped at her eyes to forestall them, with little luck. After a moment, she gave up. “In my vision, he dies, Tara. He dies, and he still doesn’t save me.”
Tara stood up and stepped around the table to give Henrietta a hug. It felt good to have the comfort. It didn’t stop her tears, but her muscles relaxed a bit in her friend’s embrace.
“I just wish I knew why I’m crying,” Henrietta said.
Henrietta felt her friend chuckle before Tara pulled away to look her in the eye. “It’s obvious to me, Henrietta. I think that rope he complained about is tied to your heart. You don’t really want him to go.”
“That can’t be it,” she said. “The Fates couldn’t be so cruel as to give me something like that so close to my end.”
“Of course they could be so cruel. You told me long ago that it’s not in the nature of the Fates to concern themselves with the fairness of their designs.”
“I can’t…” Henrietta began.
“You don’t know what you can do. I think it’s funny, in a way.”
“Funny? How?”
“You’ve known your whole life how it would end. You’ve spent years preparing yourself for it. Now, they’ve turned your plans, whatever they may have been, upside down and you don’t have any idea how to handle it.”
Henrietta picked up the goblet from the table and finished off the last of the wine. She wished she had another full goblet. She’d drink that down, too. Her friend was right. It had a certain sort of humor to it. “It’s a cruel joke, if you ask me.”
“You don’t have to let him go.”
Henrietta’s eyelids felt heavy. She stood up and felt the weight of her travel trying to drag her down. “I can’t let him stay. I can’t let him die.”
“You once told me that the future is uncertain, that fates can be changed.”
“Not the fate of a Seer.”
“How can you be sure? You’ve already seen a change in your vision. How do you know it won’t change more?”
Henrietta shook her head. I’m not really considering letting him come along, am I? But she was. She wanted him with her. “I don’t want him to die.”
“Maybe he won’t.”
What am I thinking? I’ve seen it? “Tara,” she said, “I appreciate your ear, but I think I’m just too tired to even think right now.”
“I should stick you in his room.”
“Please, no. I need time to myself.”
“A room to yourself then. It’s the least I can do for you. I’ll put you across the hall, though, in case you decide you want to visit him.”
Henrietta felt herself grimacing. She had forgotten how forward her friend could be. “Don’t tell him.”
Tara laughed. “I promise he’ll hear nothing from me.”

 

 
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