The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (12 page)

“—how do we know we can trust Poe?”

“I don’t,” he admitted, watching closely as
the most prolific thief of Edge eyed one of Perrin’s most prized
possessions. “But if no one does, what hope will he have? Mahrree,
he helped a great deal today. He was as brave as any soldier and
ventured into houses no one else dared to—”

“He’s had plenty of practice!” she
snapped.

Perrin ignored that. “—and he never did
anything to lose my trust. He said he came home to get a new start,
and I believe him. I really
want
to believe him. At the fort
I can watch and control him.”

“But you can’t control him when you’re asleep
in your garden!”

Perrin sighed. “He was a good boy, Mahrree.
Remember? He told me his fondest memories were of coming to our
house each afternoon for your After School Care.”

“That’s a very sweet thing to say. And you
fell for it.”

“Mahrree, give him a chance,” he said
squeezing her shoulder. “Just one. If he was our son, wouldn’t you
wish someone would take him in?”

“Our son wouldn’t be like him!”

“Mahrree,” Perrin’s tone was both admonishing
and pleading. “We’re all family, right? In that way, he is our
son.”

Mahrree closed her eyes in aggravation. It
was easy to quote The Writings to others, but was quite another
thing to have someone use The Writings back at you.

But she knew he was right. She didn’t feel
any threat from Poe. There was actually something in his eyes that
wasn’t there since he was ten years old.

“Honestly, Mahrree, what do we have of value
that he would steal? Besides the sword?” Perrin asked quietly. “And
everyone would recognize it anyway.”

“True,” Mahrree reluctantly conceded, looking
up into his dark eyes that always seemed to convince her to see
things his way, luckily for him. “Not a profitable market for our
old books either, I suppose. Besides, you and Shem are experts in
the field of Tracking Poe Hili.”

He winked at her. “I knew you’d see things my
way. As usual.”

---

No one rested well that night.

Every neighborhood in Edge had the appearance
of an adventurous fishing trip; people shared stories late into the
night as they sat around fires roasting pieces of animals until the
outsides were burned but the insides were still raw and chewy.

But Camp Edge included amenities most
families weren’t accustomed to. Smaller land tremors that the world
forgot to include in the morning’s events were tossed to the
surface as afterthoughts to rock terrified children and jumpy
adults. Unnerving crunches of shifting rock and occasional house
collapses broke the normal quiet of the night. Temperatures
plummeted to near freezing. And, in the case of the Shin family, a
long sofa appeared outside near the fire in the back garden.

The sofa moved to its new position while
Mahrree and Jaytsy carefully picked their way to Jaytsy’s room to
retrieve her straw mattress and as many blankets and coats as they
could find in the storage wardrobe. By the time Jaytsy had
maneuvered her mattress over the debris in the dark house, and
Mahrree made her way to the back garden with her arms loaded with
things to keep them warm, the sofa was there. Slumped on either
side, with their arms folded and their eyes closed, were Peto and
Perrin.

“My . . . my . . . my sofa!” Mahrree wailed,
but not too loudly as to awake her mother or to startle the
neighbors trying to fashion beds in their back gardens. “How could
you? It’ll get ruined out here, especially if it rains!”

Perrin opened one eye and looked at the cold
starry sky, without either of the two moons lighting it. “Not
tonight,” he mumbled and closed his eye.

Peto peeked open an eye in apology, glanced
at his father for his cue of what to do next, then squeezed shut
both of his eyes and pretended to snore.

Future Private Hili looked pleadingly at
Mahrree from his spot on the bench across the fire from them.
Perrin’s sword glinted in the firelight and the hilt rested lightly
in Poe’s bony hand. “I’m sorry Mrs. Shin. I was told that I didn’t
see any of it. But I promise it’s the last thing I won’t see
tonight.” His eyebrows furrowed to work out if that was actually
what he meant to say.

“But, but,” she spluttered hopelessly at her
husband. “It’s . . . my sofa!”

Perrin sighed impatiently and opened both
eyes. “And where do you propose we sleep tonight if not on the
sofa? You best get used to it. We won’t be in our bed for quite
some time. Staying in the house isn’t an option until we inspect it
further. Now, unless you have any better ideas, give me a
blanket.”

Mahrree kicked crossly at a clump of dirt and
pouted like a four-year-old.

After all they’d done today for everyone
else, now her beloved sofa was dragged outside and exposed to the
elements. It was foolish and completely irrational to be upset
about it. But she stood there obstinately, her arms full of
blankets she wasn’t about to surrender, staring at her husband who
now deliberately put a dirty boot on the armrest.

She gave him her best glower.

He reflected it right back.

Jaytsy and Peto knew what to do when these
occasional stand-offs occurred: don’t look at either parent.

There was
arguing
, they knew, which
usually resolved itself in their parents making various excuses to
head upstairs to their bedroom. Mahrree always hoped they were
subtle when they came back downstairs a little while later, but she
was sure their smirking while smoothing down a skirt or buttoning a
skipped button was obvious.

Poor Jaytsy figured out the hard way what
“arguing” meant. A couple of years ago, after Perrin had chased
Mahrree up the stairs to “settle this,” Jaytsy quietly followed
them a few minutes later. She timidly opened the bedroom door and
said, “Mother, I have another point for your side—”

That was all she got out before she emitted a
yelp of shock and slammed the door. Perrin had laughed for several
minutes, but Mahrree felt nearly as mortified as her stunned
daughter, who couldn’t look either of her parents in the eyes for
several weeks.

At least she knew they actively loved each
other.

Then, just a couple of moons ago when they
were
resolving issues
again, Mahrree heard the familiar gait
of her son coming up the stairs. “Father, I forgot. I know you’re
trying to finish your argument and everything, but I need you to
sign something for school—”

“Peto, DON’T!” Jaytsy had yelled from the
bottom of the stairs.

Perrin shook in silent laughter, but Mahrree
cringed in dread that he’d open the door, and she wondered why they
again in their haste had forgotten to lock it.

“Why not?” Peto called down to this sister
from the landing.

“If you hate seeing them kiss, then I promise
that what they’re doing right now will give you nightmares!”

Mahrree wasn’t sure if Peto fully understood
the meaning of
arguing
, but he didn’t open the door that
evening, and it gave Perrin and Mahrree something new to argue
about: who was responsible for making sure the door is bolted.

But then—
then
there was the occasional
fighting. And that never finished with a trip up the stairs. It
usually involved the two of them glaring so heatedly that once
Peto, trying to lighten the moment, pretended to warm his hands
near them, only to find their furious looks pointed to him. Not
even Jaytsy knew how to get him out of that one, so he slunk away
to the kitchen where his sister joined him soon after, and they sat
in there for over an hour while Perrin and Mahrree snapped and
growled like caged wolves.

It had been a couple of years since their
last all-out fight, but when one occurred, Peto and Jaytsy knew to
make themselves as inconspicuous as possible until the storm blew
over.

Jaytsy now looked up at the stars as if
remembering it was her task to count them, and Peto suddenly became
fascinated by a thread hanging from his jacket.

Poe picked up on their strategy and turned to
look at the dark alley behind him. Hycymum snored peacefully on her
grandson’s mattress.

But Mahrree and Perrin glared deep into each
other’s eyes across the back garden.

Realizing the stars weren’t going anywhere,
Jaytsy dropped her mattress on the ground, turned to her mother,
and slowly pulled a thin blanket from her arms and laid it on her
bed.

Peto nodded encouragingly at Jaytsy and she
started to pull another blanket from Mahrree’s arms. Mahrree
shifted her glare just long enough to stop Jaytsy in her
effort.

She gave her brother a
You’re on your
own
look and sat on the mattress, wrapping the thin blanket
around her arms that still shivered under her cloak.

Peto slipped off the sofa and snuck
cautiously past his infuriated mother into the house.

“Mahrree,” Perrin finally broke the uneasy
silence, “I’m tired. So are you. We’ll discuss this in the morning.
Now, bring the blankets over here.”

“Get your boot off my sofa first,” she said
coolly.

“After everything today, you’re really
worried about a little dirt on this thing?” He leaned forward, but
stubbornly kept his leg on the armrest, which made for an awkward
straddle only the acrobats of Idumea could have held for very long.
Perrin’s eye twitched.

Inwardly, Mahrree smiled. She was going to
win this fight, one way or another.

Peto reappeared at the door wrapped in his
heavy blanket and paused, wondering if it was safer in the house or
outside where his parents both seemed upon the verge of battle.

“Today over sixty people lost their lives,”
Perrin said heavily. “We’ll find additional bodies tomorrow, I’m
sure. Countless villagers lost their homes. Half of the shops in
Edge burned to the ground. Livestock is wandering and spooked. I
don’t know how much food’s been lost, but we may be in trouble in a
few weeks. I still don’t know in what condition the fort’s reserves
are in. The forest is more active now than ever before. And if you
happened to look beyond the forest to the mountains behind us, you
would’ve seen smoke rising from the top of Mt. Deceit. What
that
means is anyone’s guess. The smoke looks wrong for a
forest fire. I don’t even want to consider yet what the condition
of the other villages, or Idumea, may be right now. Maybe they were
hit even harder. And in the back of my mind is the awareness that
the Guarders just might be a bit more desperate than we are, and
we’re now highly susceptible to new attacks!”

Poe clutched the hilt of the sword more
securely and glanced about the dark shadows around him.

Mahrree frowned at Perrin’s list of troubles
and wondered why he insisted on adding their sofa to it—

“And you, Mahrree Shin, are fretting over
dirt on a piece of furniture? Now,” said Perrin, his tone
sharpening, “I’m tired. Morning’s going to come early, and I have a
full day of digging through rubble ahead of me. Give me a blanket
now,” he snarled, “and let’s get some sleep!”

Jaytsy immediately lay down and Peto jumped
back to his side of the sofa and curled up in a ball under his
blanket. He hastily kicked off his boots and looked at his mother
imploringly.

Mahrree refused to move.

The sofa is to serve us, he would say in a
moment, not the other way around. Don’t worship the furniture.

He would be right. And that made her
angrier.

In reluctant resignation, Mahrree looked at
the bundle she held and dropped it on the ground. She felt her
husband’s eyes still on her as she pulled out his new woolen
overcoat and laid it over her mother, hoping the thick weave and
lining would be enough to keep her warm. Next she took Perrin’s old
overcoat still sporting some of the insignias and patches, and
brought it to Poe.

“You keep this fire going, Poe,” she said as
she helped his slight frame into the coat that was several sizes
too big. “It’s going to freeze tonight. If you need anything you
come tell me, all right?”

Poe nodded to her gratefully and glanced down
at the patches. He fingered one of them in admiration before
wrapping the excess of the coat around to overlap his body.

Perrin still watched her, his eyes trying to
burn a hole into her conscience, but she refused to look at
him.

She laid another thick blanket on her
grateful daughter to supplement the thin one, and tossed Peto’s
dark blue baby wrap, that had somehow managed to come along for the
ride, on to her son’s head.

With two down blankets in her hands, Mahrree
slowly walked over to her husband who still kept his position on
the sofa. His glare had become etched in his face.

“Get that boot off the sofa, and you can have
a blanket,” she said evenly.

Perrin pursed his lips as if considering the
offer.

Mahrree knew he was fully aware of what that
look did to her, but she wasn’t about to be defeated that
easily.

She took a step closer. “I realize you spend
all day on a horse, but even when you were Peto’s age I doubt you
were that limber. You may pretend not to hear it, but I can. Your
thigh muscles are screaming in agony. Move your leg!” She finally
smiled.

Peto snorted in his blanket and Jaytsy
giggled.

Perrin took a breath and said, with his voice
tinged with pain, “I really wished I
could
move it, but
Mahrree—I’m stuck!” His face finally released the glare and twisted
into a painful chuckle. “Help me, wife—I’m getting old!”

“Forty-three is hardly ancient,” Mahrree
laughed quietly and carefully lifted his very stiff leg up and
off.

“Owowowow!” Perrin whimpered as he rubbed his
thigh. He noticed Poe smirking. “Not a word of this, Qualipoe Hili,
to
anyone
. Especially Sergeant Zenos.”