As the afternoon progressed, it was more fun than the girl could have imagined. The stories were riotous and exciting, the food was rich and plentiful, and she had a friend who seemed interested in all she had to say about her favorite books and characters.
As the townspeople were making their way out of the square for the night, it dawned on Maren that she too had to make her way home. Lanterns around the town were being lit, and the shop windows were filling with the warm glow of fire from inside.
“Leaving?” asked Micah, still accompanying her through the thinning crowd.
Nervously massaging her ear, the girl replied, “Uh huh. I have to go to bed.”
“There will be more festivities tomorrow,” the boy informed her. “Will you be coming back?”
With that news, some of the nervousness dissipated from the girl’s shoulders. “Okay,” she replied with a half-smile.
But Maren didn’t feel so well as she walked away from Micah and untied Earl from the post. Her belly was too full of sweets and rich foods and her head had a dull ache from the sights and sounds that overfilled her senses all day long. Despite how she felt, she still planned on returning the next day.
She walked her mule away from the village and toward the road leading home. As she did, the firelight that burned in the square faded into the distance and her surroundings became engulfed in a deep, black night. She wrung her hands as she stood in the road, mostly sure that she was facing the right direction. She hefted herself onto Earl’s back, gave him a little squeeze with her legs, and instructed him to move along.
The animal ambled slowly, stopping often to sniff the ground along the way. Maren’s slight uncertainty that they were traveling in the right direction, and the occasional sounds of animals in the distance, made her feel vulnerable and afraid.
“Why did you bring me out here?” she asked Earl in an accusatory tone.
You didn’t have to stay as late as you did, she imagined him answering, matching her mood.
“They kept giving me pie,” she said in her defense. “And the celebration just wouldn’t end!”
Earl let out a hrmph before moving on to the next patch of ground that interested him.
Somewhere in the darkness behind her, two raccoons erupted into a violent skirmish. The sound startled Maren and she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Earl’s neck the best she could. She then rapidly tapped his sides with her heels, saying quietly, “Move on. Move on. Move on.”
The beast walked forward more quickly, and she listened to make sure that the sound of the raccoons grew faint in the distance.
As the night grew later, the young girl’s heart beat in her chest with crushing anxiety. The black was so great that she couldn’t even see her mule. It was only the steadiness of his steps and the sound of his hooves against the pressed-down earth beneath them that assured her they were still on the road. “Get us home. Get us home,” she whispered to him.
Just when tears were beginning to form in her eyes, Maren saw a light in the distance. As Earl took them closer, she recognized the window that it shone from. They were approaching the farm. “Maren!” she could hear Son yelling from the doorway of their home.
As her guardian’s voice rang out, her anxiety turned to dread. She knew that he would not be happy with her for sneaking off, and she hated being scolded more than anything. So much so that she decided to travel down the road just a little further so she could make her way around to the barn without being seen. She got down from her donkey, used one hand to hold his rope, and groped through the darkness with the other hand until she had made her way around to the front of the building.
The girl quietly opened the barn door and led Earl inside. Wanting desperately to remain unnoticed, she felt her way to the back and found a pile of hay to lie down on. Lying there, her tummy uncomfortably full and her neck itching from the hay, she listened to Son continue to call out her name. Each time he did, she wished he would be quiet so she could go to sleep.
She had spent the day feasting on only the foods she enjoyed. She was entertained for endless hours. She danced, talked about things that interested her, and made a new friend. Even though the journey home was dark and frightening, she could only think about one thing, and that was going back to the festivities the next day.
CHAPTER THREE
Nothing is Free
“Maren! What are you doing out here?” Son asked in a loud, clear tone.
The young girl sat up in the pile of hay and wood shavings and tried to blink away the sleep from her eyes. Her fingers were stained with blackberries and she used them to massage her right ear. She knew she had done the wrong thing by sneaking off and she heard a ringing in her head as her surroundings began to spin. She swallowed hard and answered quietly, “Um, I went into town.”
“What?” the boy asked with wrinkles quickly forming on his forehead.
“Earl took me into Laor,” she answered, sitting up a little taller.
“What do you mean by that?” Son asked. His neck pulled back as if to join his forehead in concern.
“I was riding Earl, and he wandered down the road,” she explained.
“Why didn’t you stop him and lead him back?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I was just reading a book, and that idiot mule took me all the way to Laor.” She hoped that by placing the attention on poor Earl, it would move the boy’s focus off of her.
He exhaled, clearly exasperated by her story. “If you would have been doing your long-overdue chores, you wouldn’t have
