No Fear of the Owl
Part IV: The Hurt the Reed Feels
“Etkin?”
“Yeah?”
“You okay?”
“No.”
Pause.
“Oh.”
The air was slow and dry with dust, the scratching of broomstraw over interlocking stones the only sound.
Anhol didn’t know how to form the words that would fill the empty air between them, and if Etkin did the uncertain shifting of her eyes between him and the straw in her hands didn’t show it.
They’d both been asked to do some cleaning-up by Anhol’s mother, who was talking with Etkin’s parents just down the corridor, the quiet sussurration of their lowered voices gently rippling through the still air. Anhol’s mother felt getting things in order was better than stewing in their grief, if they could help it, and though under normal circumstances he would never have admitted it the simple act of sweeping, of pushing dirt out and making order where it had been, the gentle ache in his arms from chasing (mostly imaginary by now) dirt out from the close-laid slates, the texture of the broom handle, the snag as it passed over slight irregularities…
He ground his teeth absent-mindedly.
“Um.” Anhol’s throat felt dry. “Etkin?”
“…Yeah?”
“What do you. Think, the. Uh. Have you been wondering what the-” no, he couldn’t phrase it like that, start again- “I mean do you wonder what the thing that killed Efishti was?”
The silence grew from the floor like a mist.
“I’m trying not to,” said Etkin eventually, avoiding his eyes. Anhol caught sight of her paws gripping the broomstraw white-knuckled and felt a hot, prickling rush of shame.
“Sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to know. If you’d been thinking that.”
Etkin’s broomstraw scratched as she picked at a stubborn lump of dirt in the gap between two stones. Then, without warning, she stabbed down at it, the grass seed bristles flexing violently and one coming off completely. She threw the broomstraw aside and, in the instant before she turned away, Anhol saw the sheen of tears on her eyes, slowly wetting the fur on her cheeks.
His heart froze. He dropped his broom and rushed over to comfort her but before he could wrap his arms around her Etkin took a step away, arms raised to ward him off. Anhol stopped. Dropped his arms to his sides.
Etkin squeezed her eyes shut, snout distorting. “Just- not right now, okay?”
“Sorry,” said Anhol. “I’m sorry.”
“…Yes.”
“Yes to what?”
“To your question,” Etkin said, frustration rising in her voice. “Yes. Yes I have been wondering. All the time. I can’t stop thinking about it. And it- it fucking hurts. And-” she took a deep, ragged breath. “And-” she bent, grabbing the broomstraw and dragged it over the floor furiously, using the motion to step away from Anhol.
“So what do you want to do about it?”
The question chipped at Anhol, breaking him a little out of his shrinking self-consciousness. “I mean,” he stumbled, “I think Orpek might know?”
“You know,” said Etkin, sweeping furiously, “You could just ask your mum.”
Anhol scratched at the ground with his hindpaw. “She wouldn’t want me to know,” he said. “And anyway, she- she doesn’t know anything about that. But-” he raised his gaze to Etkin, suddenly surprised by the energy in his tone. “But Orpek knows all about monsters and all of that, and besides he was actually there, and- I mean did you listen to Orpek?” Suddenly the story came back to him, the rat’s retelling of his adventure- and it was an adventure, full of mad ravens and sinister plots and slimy bounty-hunters and sword-fights on shaking boughs- filling the abscesses inside him, lensing all his pain as part of an adventure, as part of a story.
“We need to ask him,” he said urgently. “We need to ask him what he’d do. What’s gonna happen. What-” he gulped. “What we can do.”
“If it was best for you to know,” said Efishti, shaking her head without meeting his eyes, “your mum would tell you.”
“You’re not an adult,” said Anhol. “That’s- you can’t just say that, and besides, adults get stuff wrong all the time- remember when Seitip set fire to herself trying to use the kiln because she thought you could fire pottery faster if you put cider in the firebox?”
“She was very drunk,” said Etkin bluntly. “That’s allowed. And anyway she was only a bit on fire.”
“That’s still on fire, Etkin.”
“That’s not the point,” said Etkin tightly, the stillborn trace of a smile dying on her lips. “Just ask your mum if you think it’s so important.”
“I thought you wanted to know?”
“I do,” snapped Etkin. “But I’m being realistic. And my parents don’t want me asking questions. Okay?”
Anhol went quiet.
Inside, though, the ember had not gone out.
“If we go quickly,” he said, carefully, “and ask Orpek- he won’t tell anyone we did and nobody’s going to ask him, are they? Just quickly?”
Etkin slowed her sweeping. Anhol practically held his breath.
Finally, her pushing at the pile of rushes with the tip of her broom’s bristles came to a stop.
“…Okay,” she said. “That’s…” she sighed, a thin, empty whistle. “I suppose we’re doing this, then.” Her drooping whiskers twitched as she gave him a smile he guessed was supposed to be reassuring. “Even if I think it’s stupid,” she added. She leant the broom against the wall and started toward the doorway.
“Well hurry up, then,” she said, some forced levity making its way into her tone. “Let’s go ask the bloody rat, if you care so much.”
Before he scurried after her on all fours Anhol felt a stab of hesitation that froze him in place, just for a moment, though he couldn’t name the sudden feeling nor guess as to where it came from.
Though they weren’t doing anything explicitly wrong Etkin still felt the need to sneak.
Anhol followed behind her, not quite catching up.
It felt as though her half-summer’s lead on Anhol, her fourteen, him thirteen, had suddenly spanned into a gulf, like a crack traced through dry earth at the edge of a cliff had jolted a hand’s width wider, threatening to send her drifting off into the sky. Calling out, even acknowledging the crack would only force it wider, hasten that moment when the wind took her off, arms flailing against the buffeting wind, up into those hungry clouds-
“Etkin!”
A series of jabs in the side brought her back to the present. Carrying a heavy branch between them and giving Etkin and Anhol looks of confusion were Obrepet and Eilepet.
Obrepet shifted the load on his shoulder with a grunt. “What are you little people up to?” he asked.
Before Etkin could flap her mouth silently twice Anhol had already spoken. “Sneaking around,” he said confidently.
Eilepet snorted. “Okay,” she said, whispery. “Keep it up.” She gave the two a conspiratorial wink. Anhol returned the wink, unsubtly elbowing Etkin in the ribs. Etkin attempted a conspiratorial wink without wincing.
Obrepet snorted and shared a look with Eilepet. As the pair heaved their load down the tunnel, the dew on their hindpaws leaving neat footprints in the dust, a burden that wasn’t the branch seemed to weigh lighter on their shoulders.
Anhol gave Etkin a sheepish look. “I think we got away with it,” he whispered.
“I want to vanish into the floor,” said Etkin through gritted teeth. “I swear on moonlight, if you ever drag me int-”
But Anhol was waving his arms to silence her. “Shh-” He unceremoniously yanked her behind a support beam. As Anhol held his breath and Etkin, reluctantly, did the same she realised she could just about make out the sound of Fensht’s voice, and with it a deeper one, the low tones carrying through the burrow like the hot air of a hearthfire. Orpek. What was he doing with Fensht?
“They’re talking about something important,” hissed Anhol, the excitement of hearing something he wasn’t supposed to seeming to bury his sorrow for the moment. “Listen, Orpek keeps lowering his voice- come on, we have to get closer. We might not need to ask about the monster at all.” Etkin found herself pulled along again, scurrying to the next support beam. Anhol flattened himself against the time-stained oak. Etkin rolled her eyes and leant back against the tunnel wall, though the beat of heart quickened, just a touch.
Orpek and Fensht were too far away to make out what was being said and getting quieter as they made their way deeper into the burrow. This time Anhol didn’t need to jab at her to follow.
As they hurried to hide behind the next support they saw the dual shadows of Orpek and Fensht cast back toward them from the light of a ventilation tunnel. They pulled into the side. Orpek and Fensht had stopped, Fensht saying something to the Epet twins, Orpek’s shadow looming huge beside him. Anhol and Etkin flattened themselves against the tunnel wall.
Their ears pricked up to listen.
Anhol felt Etkin press into the flint-studded earth of the wall beside him as he stretched his ears to catch every slip of sound that came his way. But his heart was loud- was it usually this loud? He’d never noticed, but now it was roaring, practically all he could hear- breathe. He took a slow, silent inhale, though that sounded far, far too loud too.
Slowly, the world outside the rush of his blood resolved itself. Elder Fensht was speaking. “…and cruel and unfair as it is, there will be no justice for Efishti, though I wonder if that is what you truly seek.”
Orpek replied but his words tumbled, meaningless, through Anhol’s mind, overwhelmed by the buzzing of his heart.
His breathing was too loud. He sucked in a silent lungful, held it, and listened.
“Allow me my nail,” Orpek was saying. “I trusted you with it. Return me that trust. At worst…”
“He wants to fight it,” whispered Etkin, incredulous. “He’s going to try to kill whatever it was that killed-” she bit the last word off, swallowing the hot lump of grief that was that name.
Anhol just blinked. “Makes sense,” he whispered as Orpek and Elder Fensht made their way deeper into the burrow, out of earshot. “That story he told, about the mouse-”
“Arallai,” said Etkin. “That was her name. In the story. The one with the raven.”
“I think he’s a hero like her,” he said. “Almost definitely. Especially because he was trying to not make himself look too good in the story-”
“Unless he was trying to trick us into thinking he’s not lying by being pretend humble, like a double-bluff-”
“Unless he’s doing that, but he doesn’t have… wait, did you hear him ask Elder Fensht for anything? Payment or something?”
Etkin fiddled with her whiskers. “…I don’t think so,” she said. “Just for his nail back, and permission to go out and fight the monster.”
A chill ran up Anhol’s fur, pricking in the slow air of the burrow. “He’s probably doing it because he thinks it’s the… the right thing to do? Because he wouldn’t trick us just to fight it, would he?”
“Has to be,” said Etkin. “But then why is Elder Fensht so suspicious?”
“Maybe it’s because he’s a rat,” said Anhol, looking down the tunnel that Fensht and Orpek had vanished down. “But if he was scared of Orpek, why did he let him in?”
“…I don’t know,” said Etkin.
“You’re supposed to be the grown-up one,” grumbled Anhol. “You’re the one who’s-”
“Fuck off,” hissed Etkin with surprising force. “I’m not-”
“But I thought you wanted-”
“It’s fine,” snapped Etkin, eyes fixed somewhere else. “Just leave it.”
“Sorry,” muttered Anhol. “I-”
“Forgive my interruption,” said a weather-cracked voice, “But I believe you are talking about someone I know well.”
Anhol and Etkin looked up to the looming darkness of Orpek and froze. Someone let out a panicked squeak. It took a moment, and Etkin’s slightly terrified laughter, to realise it was him.
“If I may?” A paw was gesturing to the ground next to them.
“Uuuuuh-”
“O-okay,” said Etkin.
“Thank you very much,” said Orpek seriously, letting out a huff as he took a seat leaning against the wall.
Anhol gulped.
Orpek turned to them, brow furrowing seriously. “You have nothing to fear from me,” he said softly. “I overheard much of what you said and would like to put this to rest a little.”
Overheard how much, thought Anhol, starting to panic.
“I cannot speak to why your venerable Elder let me in, or if or why he… has reservations,” said the rat, the stubs of his whiskers setting, “But as to what Fensht would allow me to do, he does not wish to hide, and though I would rather you hear this from someone you trust… well, the woodlouse is out the sack and on the ceiling. So to speak. I will be dealing with whatever is out there. Likely through force.”
Anhol blinked. The words felt like a step too far down in the dark, a trip, the sole of his paw in the heart-lurching air, waiting to painfully slam on some hidden root or shard of flint.
“Uh,” he said, “I don’t… uh… that’s… not why we- not that we were doing anything.”
“Was there something else you wanted to ask,” said Orpek gently. His eyes raised to Etkin’s. “Or you?”
“Okay,” said Etkin, slowly. “So you’ve agreed to… what, hunt down whatever’s out there. So you have to have an idea of what it is.”
Orpek’s eyes- even in the soft morning light from the ventilation tunnel above the faint red glint to them didn’t quite leave- studied the far wall passively.
“A predator,” he said. “Unlikely to be a bird. Past that, I do not know.”
Anhol took a careful seat on the ground, grateful that Etkin was still standing between him and the rat. “Can you not… guess?”
“I could,” said Orpek. “But would that help?” His paw, perhaps unconsciously, went to the space above the beltloop at his waist where the nail’s handle would have sat.
“Yes,” said Anhol forcefully, leaning around Etkin, who seemed to be attempting to melt into the wall, to stare Orpek straight in the eye.
Orpek shook his head, seeming to be in conference with some invisible fourth party. “I know that pain,” he said, softly. “Have seen it… felt it myself… but seeking closure and digging deeper into a wound are divided by a spider thread. If it helps, poor Efishti would have died of the shock in moments. Her suffering ended quickly.”
Anhol picked at his palm.
Etkin nodded, eyes drifting to the floor. “That’s something,” she said. “…Thank you, I guess.”
Orpek sighed. “I am so very sorry,” he said. “I hope that my ending the creature brings you some measure of comfort. But for now, perhaps another story?”
Anhol looked up, befuddled, and saw Etkin doing the same. “What kind of story,” he asked, suspicious.
“Well,” said Orpek, “Parable may be the better word. It might… help you find some comfort, as it has for me.” He coughed, looking askance at the two. “That is, if you would hear it.”
“Um, yes,” said Etkin, just as Anhol muttered something similar. “Thank you,” she added.
Orpek nodded, cleared his throat into a fist, and, somewhat awkwardly, began. “At the end of last winter I was forced, by some quirks of the terrain I found myself in, to pass through an area of bogs and marshes,” he said. “It had been weeks since I had last seen a being possessed of mind. I stood at the last solid ground I could find, a log trailing down into the brackish water, fully prepared to craft myself a raft- or even a coracle, for the water stretched on past the horizon and I worried I would be a soggy creature heaving my craft between mudbanks and rivulets for some days afterwards. It was just at the point when I had decided on finding myself some sturdy branches of ash or willow to make of my oilskin a sturdy craft when I heard a cry and found myself no longer alone.
“His name was Progobroba, a toad of an age not dissimilar to my own and, as I was pleasantly surprised to find, a mirror to many of my own oddities of character. He, too, was a kind of wanderer, though the edges of this wetland were a domain he seldom left, for he had devoted himself to mapping it with an intensity that I found myself warmed by, despite the dampness in my fur and the ache in my limbs. After he led me back to his canoe- fortunately a vessel with ample space for both of us, for Progobroba was a man possessed of a desire to collect… most everything he found- and we set off on the gentle undulation of the waters, we found ourselves speaking of a great many things. At first, as we paddled, simply the things around us, and then the things we had seen, and then, eventually, we were both surprised to find ourselves opening the matters of the heart.
“Progobroba had suffered a most terrible loss some years ago that still cut him as though it were yesterday, and though I would not dare to tell of what he chose to share with me as we slipped through the quiet reeds, a singular detail lodged in my chest and I found it, in some part, healing wounds I had chosen to neglect for far too long.
“Progobroba told me that of all of the plants of the water the reed grows best because it grows together and, when the storm comes, it knows to lean on those besides it.”
Orpek let the words hang in the air.
The story hung, tangled, in Anhol’s mind.
“He then ruined the metaphor by explaining it in case I had not understood it, which we both found great humour in,” added Orpek.
“…So, just for reference,” said Etkin, “What was his explanation?”
“You are the reeds,” said Orpek, brow furrowing. “That is the metaphor. You should talk to someone you trust. Being each other. Talk to each other. About your hurt. That was what… what the entire story was leading up to.”
“Nono it was a good story,” said Etkin hurriedly. “Um. It helped. A lot.”
Orpek chuckled. “Well, make what you will of my ramblings. You have been polite young mice and I wish we had met in happier times. But now, there is business I must attend to, and if you find nothing else of use in me…” Anhol and Etkin shook their heads. “Well, I will be off,” said the rat, standing with a huff. “Please, do not worry yourselves about the predator. It will be dealt with. And my final word of advice- should you go sneaking about again, it is better to risk being seen acting casually than to act suspicious with the hope of not being seen at all.” He gave them a wink. “But you did not hear it from me.”
The pair watched as Orpek made his way back down the tunnel, chuckling a little to himself.
The burrow’s morning natter lay deep below the silence that followed.
Anhol felt Etkin sitting down next to him.
In the corner of his eye he could see her working her jaw as though trying to make her tongue form words against its will.
“…I don’t want to grow up,” said Etkin.
“I don’t want to die,” said Anhol.
Her arms were warm as she hugged him with all her strength. Underneath the fur and muscle he could feel her bone, pressing into his sides. He hugged her back, as tight as he could, until sparks of numbness lit in his arms like the floating embers of a winter bonfire.
She felt like the first solid thing in the world.