The Dark Days

Chapter Four

 I hadn't fixed the fish cage until I was at the river the next day. Sitting on a boulder at the river's edge, I held the cage in my hands, testing the new wiring. Lord Barrow had been all too happy to take the fish from my hands just an hour before. I'd gone home, washed the mud from my face, and went straight to the river with the broken cage, and some metal wires to repair it. I'd taken Papa's cloak off and laid it on the boulder while I tinkered with the cage.

A sense of pride washed through me when eventually, the cage clicked into place and it was secure once again. I whooped when the cage held up against the pressure it felt as I squeezed the side. It didn't collapse under the pressure. For my first patch job, I had done well.

I looked up, ready to push myself off the boulder to put the cage in the river when I noticed a man leaning against a tree on the opposite side of the river with his hands clasped against his lower abdomen. His eyes were a brilliant shade of blue, his hair short on the sides and long over the top. Long enough to nearly give him bangs.

I had no idea how long he stood there or why he hadn't said anything but I grabbed my knife and crouched. If he took one step toward me, I would fling the knife right between his pretty blue eyes.

"Easy, I mean you no harm." Though he spoke my language, the words sounded different coming out of his mouth, "You helped my friend yesterday and I just wanted to thank you."

"Your friend?" Was he referring to the man that had been caught in Papa's trap? This man, much younger than the previous one, had hooded eyes, a big nose, and full lips.

Lips? What does that matter?

This man pulled an orange-stained and bloody banana leaf out from inside his tunic, "His name is Daniel. My healers say that we would have needed to amputate his leg if you hadn't helped in the way you did." He was, in fact, referring to the man that had been caught in Papa's trap.

"I don't think I should be celebrated for cleaning my own mess." I was being honest, his gaze intimidated me enough to know if I lied, he would know. No one, not even Mama, had applauded my altruism because that had been Papa's trap and I had assisted him in laying some of them. My choice to leave them out there made me responsible for every person living being that got hurt by them.

"Interesting choice of words." A small smile built on his lips.

"It is the truth. My father set those traps, for large animals of course, but your friend—Daniel, was it?—well, he was injured nonetheless. I was simply doing what I could to rectify a wound caused by Papa's inventions."

"Does that not make it your...papa's mess to be cleaned?" He pushed off the tree, taking a step forward.

I shrugged, adjusting my grip on the hilt of the knife, "He lives no longer. As I've taken over his role in my family, his messes are my own." I tracked his every movement but he didn't seem hostile at all. He just seemed...curious. In a way, Isaac would be if I did something he couldn't understand. I kept my grip on the knife and lowered myself off the boulder.

"I apologise for my insensitivity." He said as his posture sagged a bit, "Might I ask why you did it? Daniel is a complete stranger to you, you couldn't even speak to him. You had no reason to help him."

"I already told you why. My father put him in that position, it was only right that I get him out of it." I lowered my knife and narrowed my eyes at him, wondering if he was a few sandwiches short of a picnic basket.

"The right thing." He tilted his head to the side, amused, "What's your name?"

"Jane," I said quickly, my heart hammering in my chest. "And yours?"