“I haven’t heard that word since I was a child,” the old woman reminisced. “And even then, it was an old word. My grandmother used it to make balm for nettle stings. It must’ve been quite an old book you were reading.”
“I think all of my ke-” Dnara coughed on the bite she’d been speaking through and quickly adapted her choice in words. “My uncle’s books were old.”
Athan’s skeptically raised eyebrow had been joined by his other eyebrow in surprise. “And you really remember all of them?”
“Sure,” she shrugged and stuffed a last bite into her mouth. “This jam is very good. What is it?”
“Oh, dear child,” the old woman said in surprise. “You’ve never had sunberries before?”
Dnara shied in embarrassment. “No, ma’am.”
The woman blinked at her. “Goodness, but they grow wild in the fields all throughout the northern hamlets. Are you not from here?”
Dnara glanced to Athan before carefully replying. “I am, but my uncle doesn’t like sweet things.”
It was then that the old woman glanced down to Dnara’s bare feet and dirty, singed skirt hem for the fourth or fifth time since opening the farmhouse door to them. “I see. Well, I will pack a jar for you then.”
“Oh, ma’am, that’s too much,” Athan protested. “That jam would fetch a fair price at market this time of year, and a glass jar besides.”
“Hush,” the old man chided. “You brought me three times the herbs I requested and asked for no more in return. Takes a brave lad to go into the Thorngrove.”
“Or someone who doesn’t believe in ghost stories,” the old woman chided.
“Not ghosts,” the man said with an air of expertise. “Spirits, leading traders and travelers astray. Travelers go into the woods just fine then come out weeks, months later, looking as bewildered as the folks that find them, and not able to speak a word about where they’ve been.”
“Drunk, too, probably,” his wife said back. “Them’s just old tales from old people meant to scare the young’uns and keep them out of the forest for fear of real threats like wolves and snakes.”
Athan scratched the back of his neck as the old married couple lovingly bickered. “Honestly, I was just happy to find someone to watch Treven. He hates the Thorngrove.”
“Smart mule,” the old man said seriously. “I’d warn you further from going back in there if I thought it’d do any good.”
“Oh, go easy on him, Hector,” the man’s wife admonished with a loving smile. “If Athan hadn’t gone into the woods, this young lady might still be lost in them. I can’t believe you were chased in there by bandits. Have people lost their minds?”
“It’s the blight, dear,” Hector sighed. “It’s made folks desperate. Not that it’s any excuse.”
“Certainly not,” the wife scoffed.
Dnara and Athan shared a glance and a small, hidden smile. Athan had come up with that story, too. If you make the story near on unbelievable, he’d said, folks were more likely to accept it as true.
“It must’ve been frightening,” the old woman said, looking at Dnara. “Are you certain you wouldn’t like to stay the night?”
“Thank you, but I need to get home.” Dnara smiled nervously through the lie.
The old woman examined Dnara with a keen eye then leaned away. “All right then. I’ll pack the jam, then you two should be on your way if you hope to make it to Rose Bridge Crossing before dark.”
“Why don’t you go get Treven ready to go,” the old man suggested. “His tack is just outside on the back porch, along with a sack of oat.”
“Hope you didn’t spoil him too much,” Athan said on a smile as he stood from the table. “Stubborn as he is, he may not want to leave.”
“He’s more smart than stubborn,” the old man chuckled. “Smartest mule I’ve ever worked with. Dang near put the plow on himself, and I didn’t have to use a bit or nothing to get him to steer. Worked hard, he did. I’ll have a nice crop of corn come fall, blight be damned.”
“Blight be damned,” Athan repeated, like a sacred vow.
Dnara reminded herself again to ask Athan what the blight was once they were alone. Secluded in the mage tower and its surrounding forest, she’d never caught wind of anything called the blight, even from the few traders allowed to pass through. Asking now would only raise more questions from the old couple, and she would hate to sour the kindness they’d shown.
It was heartening to know that there were people beyond the tower and the forest, kind people who opened their doors to a stranger and his mule, who would trade herbs for jam, and who would see a barefoot woman in a slave’s roughly hewn dress but make no mention of it.
“Dnara?” Athan stood beside her, waiting.
“Oh, sorry.” She stood with a reddening face. “My thoughts sometimes scatter with the wind, or at least that’s how my-...uncle put it.” Dnara bit her bottom lip, regretting her sudden desire to be talkative after years of being as silent as possible. “Thank you,” she said to the old man as he sat smiling up at her. “I hope your back is better and your crop is good.”
“Thank you, my dear.” His smile widened, the wrinkles of his face creating deep crevasses that marked the passage of time. “Perhaps, if you are by this way again, you can come taste my wife’s corn porridge in the fall. It’ll keep you warm through winter.”
“I would like that,” Dnara said, the truth of it felt in her heart along with the sad doubt she would ever see these nice people again. Something inside her continued to push her away from the forest, to run as far and as fast as she could. Her legs, however,
