The Dark Days

Chapter Sixteen

 "Jane," Mama shook me gently, "Jane, wake up."

"Mama...?" I moaned as I rolled my head out from under my pillow. I'd barely slept the night before. Nana's words sent me to tears and I stayed outside a while crying, before returning to bed to cry. What had started out as the best day of my life, had undoubtedly ended as the very worst.

"I think you should leave for the sea village tonight. We'll need the fish today for the Food Stocks."

I sat up on my elbows, still blurry-eyed, "Are you sending me away?"

"I think Nana needs time to cool off and so does this village. You have done nothing wrong, Jane. I cannot stress that enough. But the people here don't know how to deal with someone as...vibrant as you."

"How does one deal with someone like me?" I asked, trying to change the subject to something light. Mama must have been really worried or scared if she was willing to send me out at night, alone. She couldn't know Druig would be accompanying me.

"By unleashing you." She stroked my cheek and placed the gold piece in my hand, "Now pack. So you'll be able to leave tonight without delay."

I nodded and packed a change of clothes, underwear, and an extra coat. I packed my toothbrush and a soap bar. Then a cloth to wash and dry myself on the road. I pushed the bag under my bed and left the room for the kitchen. I needed food. Mama would salt and wrap up fish and meat for me.

Nana was quiet at the table as we all ate our breakfast. Isaac had already left, it was the last day of school before they closed for the winter. So I ate quickly and kissed both women on the cheek before I walked out the door. I picked up the fish cage and knew, without checking, that my ramshackle basket would be gone, with all my herbs and powders. Nana will have gotten rid of everything. As if tossing my things away could somehow undo the ruin we were apparently rapidly approaching, as if tossing my things away could remove the knowledge from my head.

I picked up the fish cage and walked to the river. Druig was seated on my boulder again, and when he peered over his shoulder at me and saw my face, the happiness fell from his own, "What happened?"

And so I told him everything that had happened since we'd parted ways at my garden gate. In the end, after everything washed out of me like a wave of water, I sighed, "I leave at sundown tonight for the sea village."

"After we have lunch, I'll go home to get supplies. And I'll be back here at sundown."

"Thank you," I said, settling onto the boulder.

Druig sidled up beside me, giving me space to put my head on his shoulder, and said, "So, he wants you to marry this Johnathan person."

"More like demanded it." I sighed, rolling my eyes.

Druig laughed, it seemed out of place amidst the chaos around us, but he did and said, "I must have truly unnerved him if his response to my presence is to marry you off."

He had a point. Usually, Lord Barrow would demand that the girl involved should marry the boy she's fooling around with. Why would he go out of his way to marry me off to someone else unless he felt threatened in some way? "There probably weren't even three men. I'm willing to bet that Barrow sought Johnathan out and told him that we should be wed." I hadn't thought of it in this light but I wouldn't put it past Lord Barrow. The conniving bastard that he is.

"Oh, there were definitely three men. Probably more but Barrow would have chosen the worst of the lot and lessened the number to humble you." Druig laughed again and when I stared at him, confused, he said, "You didn't see the hunger in the men's eyes at the wedding. It took all of my self-control not to carve out their eyes."