Chapter 6: On the Porch

My mother came to the cabin on the seventh day, alone, on foot, with mud to her knees.

She had walked the whole ridge road.

I saw her from the porch, a small grey figure at the tree line with her shawl clutched at her throat.

Two Ashfall wardens stepped out of the pines and stopped her.

"State your business, ma'am."

"I've come for my daughter."

"Which one?" the older warden asked, not unkindly.

"Yvaine."

The warden looked at me.

I nodded, and they let her through, and then they stayed where they were, close enough to hear.

My mother climbed the porch steps slowly.

She looked ten years older than she had at the rite.

Her hair had come out of its pins, and her eyes were swollen.

"Yvaine," she said. "Thank the moon. Are you well? Are you eating?"

"I'm well."

"You've lost weight."

"I've been splitting wood."

"You never have to split wood. Come home."

She said it as she had said it a thousand times.

"No," I said.

She did not seem to hear it.

"Melisande has been three days without sleep," she said.

"She can't lie down at all. The Healer says her lungs fill.

"Your father sits up with her, and I sit up with her, and nothing helps."

"I'm sorry she's ill."

"Then come and put your hand on her."

There it was.

I kept my face still.

"You told me the first night that it was the comfort of a sister," I said. "That's what you called it."

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