Read Online From Across the Clouded Range by H. Nathan Wilcox - Free Book Online Page A

through a sob but failed. She did not turn, but her
hands rose to her eyes, and her breaths became ragged. Her whole
body shook like she had a palsy. Her knees sagged and she collapsed
into a heap on the bottom step of the stairs. “I didn’t know what
else to do,” she finally managed to pant. “The cough just kept
getting worse, and that’s the best thing. I just wanted you to get
better.”
    “ But I’m not getting
better, Teth.” Milne rose from her chair, sat a step above Teth,
and placed a comforting hand on her damp, mud caked back. “I’m
dying. And it is time that we acknowledged it. That and a great
many other convenient lies we have been keeping.” Milne released a
deep sigh and spent a moment just rubbing Teth’s back, waiting for
her tears to pass. She wouldn’t hear anything now, so there was no
point in talking.
    When Teth’s sobs had faded to
snuffles, Milne handed her a clean rag and started again. “I think
it is time for us to be honest with ourselves. This whole life of
ours has been a lie, but I can only blame myself. I should have
never let it go this far, but after the accident . . . . Well,
after the accident, I just couldn’t say no to you.” Her tears wiped
away, Teth moved her head to Milne’s lap, hugged her knees like a
child. Milne reflexively stroked her sweat-matted hair. She
couldn’t remember a time when Teth was this compliant, and she took
advantage, had the conversation that had been needed for a long
time. “You probably remember, after the accident, you wouldn’t
talk, wouldn’t play, didn’t even cry. You just sat, staring at the
ruins of your father’s shop. If I tried to pull you away, you
screamed and clawed at me like a cat. I could barely get you to
eat. I didn’t know what to do. Finally, I convinced you to help me
gather herbs in the forest. And a transformation occurred. It was
as if the trees somehow pulled the poison out of you.” Milne looked
down at the head on her lap, saw Teth smiling at the memory. “It
was the only time you were happy, the only time you would talk to
me, so I made excuses to spend time there,
day-after-day.
    “ Then came the bow, the
hunting, and it made you so happy, so confident that I didn’t want
to stop it even though I knew I should have. When Counselor Torpy
found out, he wanted to forbid you from leaving the village, but I
begged him, pleaded, told him you needed the forest to heal. And
eventually, he conceded.” Teth snuffed, would probably never accept
that the counselor, who had opposed her so many times, ever had her
best interests in mind. Milne looked at Jael Torpy. He did not meet
her eyes, just picked at his robe. She had been so cruel to him
over the years, she realized, but he had been right all along.
Perhaps the cure had been worse than the disease.
    “ I knew where it would
lead,” Milne continued, “but I couldn’t bring myself to take that
away from you.” She paused, took a breath. “And if we are being
honest, I saw myself in you, used you to live the life I never had
the courage to live. But the truth eventually comes calling on
every lie, and make no mistake, this life you’ve been leading has
been a lie. Counselor Torpy would say that you are out of alignment
with the Order, and that may be, but more importantly, there is
simply no place for you as you are.”
    Teth went rigid. She tried to raise
her head, but Milne grasped her neck, held it in her lap. “Wait.
Let me finish. This needs to be said, and you need to listen. I
know that is a terrible thing for me to say. It is cruel and
unfair, but it is the truth. In the world outside of our lie, women
have a place, and it is not hunting, running races, fighting. It is
in the home, raising children, making meals, supporting husbands.
That is the path the Order has set, and the one we both knew you
would eventually have to take.” Teth tried to rise again, but Milne
would not let her up. She was going to hear this if Milne had to
tie her.