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“I’d bring her a much better one now.”
I wait until we’re past the narrow part.
“Does Mel always speak to you that way?”
Her thumb stops. She looks at me, and then it’s just her foot wraps scraping along for a few steps.
Should’ve left it alone. She was talking.
Then she comes back alongside.
“Usually. I give her plenty to work with. She used to knock my boots off her table. I’d put them up, she’d push them down, then she’d give me something to do. Sort this, hold that. She caught me pulling stems apart wrong once and made me stop.”
“Wrong?”
“There’s a bump where you’re supposed to snap them. I was pulling the whole thing to pieces. She showed me, then watched until I did it properly.”
“Did you?” Both my ears have turned to her.
“Yes. I’m capable of learning things when people bother to teach me.”
She glances at the bow in her hand, and I can’t tell whether that was a complaint or thanks.
“She didn’t know who my brother was. I told her my name, and all she wanted to know was what I’d done to the fish. Then she gave me a plate and somewhere to sleep.”
She’s gone quieter, so I shorten my next step.
“Most people at home knew Keer before they knew me. Mel didn’t have to look at him before she—”
She fiddles with the arrows, turning the points away from her knee.
“Even after she met him, she still kicked my boots off the table.”
I don’t ask for the rest of it. Jouni used to shove me into the stream. Nobody else would’ve dared.
One of her foot wraps has come loose, and she stops to tie it. I wait.
“Jouni and I used to steal dried fish.”
She straightens slowly. “Who’s Jouni?”
Nobody’s ever had to ask me that. I don’t know where to start.
“My friend. We’d been together since we could walk. We stole enough once to feed a bear.”
Her eyes come up to my face. “Why would you feed a bear?”
“We wanted to ride it.”
She stops walking again. “You wanted to ride a bear.”
“We both did.” I keep walking.
“Whose idea was that?”
“Mine. Jouni chose the tree.”
She comes after me when I start up the slope. “There was a tree involved?”
