Read Online Darkthaw by Kate A. Boorman - Free Book Online Page B

pulse doesn’t skip like it normally does—I’m too distracted. We walk, our moccasins whispering on the mossy forest floor.
    Long moments of silence. I can’t take it anymore. “Do you think we did the right thing?” I say to no one, to Kane and Nishwa both. I toss my head back toward Charlie and Rebecca.
    Kane squeezes my hand in reply. “I know why you wanted to do it,” he says.
    Again, he didn’t truly answer the question. “But everyone’s skittered, aren’t they?” I ask.
    â€œPeople were skittered to begin with,” Nishwa says. I smile at him using our word for feeling scared—sounds funny on his tongue—but his observation doesn’t make me feel better.
    When I think about Charlie’s family, with their sunken eyes and bones poking through their wind-eaten clothes, I feel like we did the right thing. But I also feel like I’m dragging my old life along with me.
    â€œDo you think we can trust him?” I look to Kane.
    He rubs his free hand up the back of his neck to his shaved head. “Don’t know. But hopefully we won’t have to.”
    â€œMeaning?”
    â€œMeaning I don’t want to get in a situation where our lives are in his hands. We keep him at arm’s reach, we shouldn’t have a problem.”
    In the late afternoon, the forest thins out in all directions and gives way to small hills with low brush. We press south, heading back to the river that winds past our settlement in the north.
    Our group splinters a mite as we traverse the hills and wander around the pockets of brush. The incline is a bit ofwork on my foot, and as I pause to take a drink of my tincture, I fall behind Kane and Nishwa. Voices drift through the scrub, coming down the hill. Charlie and Rebecca. For the moment I’m hidden from their view, and for some reason I stay this way.
    Rebecca’s voice reaches me as they approach. “—do it?”
    â€œNo,” Charlie answers as they pass by, “ain’t the right time—”
    Rebecca looks to the side and catches sight of me. “Hi, Em!” she blurts, her hand flying to her belly—a nervous gesture. Charlie cranes his neck around Isi’s horse, pulling it to a stop.
    â€œNot the right time for what?” I ask.
    Charlie squints. There’s a pause. “Just talking about this baby here.” He gestures to his sister’s swollen frame. “I’m telling her to wait until we get to this ‘Dominion’ you told us about.”
    My eyebrows raise. “Don’t think she has much choice in the matter.” I say those words, but I’m wishing they weren’t true. Kane’s ma says Rebecca will have that babe soon. She looked at me meaningful when she said it, and I know she was thinking on me helping Soeur Manon with the birthing women at the Healing House. Except I never truly helped, only cleaned up after, whether the birthing went wrong or right. And I don’t miss it. My stomach tightens looking at Rebecca; she’s so helpless out here. Never want to be like that.
    â€œSuppose you’re right.” Charlie shrugs. “Just . . . you’re helping us so much. Don’t want to be any more of a burden than we already are.”
    â€œIt’s fine,” I say. There’s something about the way they’re looking at me that sets my skin prickling. Something about this feels wrong. Feels—
    â€œEm,” he says, “we know it was you convinced the rest to help us.” He takes a step toward me. “You’re a helping sort, ain’t you? You help others like it’s second nature.” Up this close Charlie’s blue eyes are burning straight into me, showing me things I don’t want to know about: desperate cold and hunger, watching his family starve.
    I swallow. “I think everyone should get a new start, if they want it.”
    â€œThat what you’re heading