Zoku

ZOKU

He was taller than her. How had that happened? It seemed like only a year ago Restin had been toddling around the campsite, laughing, clapping, trying to catch the swishing tails of their horses. But he was thirteen now. Of age. Ready to make his own choice about his future.

“It’s not very far, less than a mile,” he told Jessa, as she pretended to clean the already spotless harness. “And the trees have loads of fruit. Betha says they’re the best apples she ever tasted, and no one’s been harvesting them for years from the look of those brambles.”

Enough, she told herself. She had to start letting him go. “Just be back by sundown, so you have time to change before the feast.”

Restin grinned. “It’s not like you can start without me. It’s my Choosing Day.”

Jessa riffled her son’s red hair, brighter than her own. At least she’d leave that mark on him, even if… But she couldn’t let herself think that way. She forced a smile. “So you’re choosing to become a thoughtless lout who makes everyone else in the caravan wait for their supper?”

Something flickered through his face, too quickly for her to name. Anticipation? Anxiety? Excitement? She bit down, before she asked him the question he couldn’t answer. She’d know by the end of the night, either way. Her chest felt tight, her stomach twisted by her own fears.

Then he smiled again, and her careless little boy was back. “Once they taste these apples they’ll understand,” he said. Then he kissed her, lightly, on the cheek, before running off to join the other children from the caravan. She watched, as they disappeared into the nearby woods. Even after all trace of Restin’s dark tunic and bright red hair were gone, still she watched.

Warm, strong arms slipped around her shoulders. Tammin’s deep voice rumbled in her ear. “You have to be ready, Jessa.”

She slid around, resting her forehead against Tammin’s chest. “Do you really think he’d leave us?”

She felt Tammin sigh, his heavy breath fluttering her own red hair. “He’s been spending a lot of time with that farmer, the one over across the brook on the edge of the village. You know he’s always loved anything green. And our people have no gardens.”

The lump in her throat had become a boulder.

“It doesn’t mean we’ll never see him again,” Tammin said. “This is a good place. More welcoming than most. We could bring the caravan back, in a few years.”

A tight sound, almost a sob, tried to escape Jessa. But she held it back. “A few years.”

Tammin’s arms tightened, but they couldn’t shield her from this.

“Averil wants to try the northern loop once we leave here,” said Tammin, “through the Wolf’s Neck Pass.”

“She wants to go back to the North?” Jessa pulled back, searching Tammin’s face. He must be teasing her. But Tammin never teased. He had as much humor as a stone, for all his other gifts. “But… the land is blighted. There’s nothing there but smugglers and a few half-wild priests!”

“And our homeland.”

“We have no homeland,” she said, sharply. “Not anymore.”

“But maybe again, one day...”

It was just like Tammin, to still dream of such things. It was one of the many reasons she loved him. She gave a small shake of her head. “And what about the Basilisk?”

Tammin snorted. “The Basilisk is a myth. Probably started by the smugglers to keep people out of their business.”

She sighed, and leaned against him once more.

“If we had a homeland again,” he said softly, “we wouldn’t need to keep traveling. We’d have land. We’d need farmers.”

Farmers. Like Restin. Jessa wished she could share Tammin’s hope. But she had heard the same words, from her own mother’s lips. And her grandfather’s. It had been generations, since their people became exiles. Sometimes, deep in the dark of night, Jessa wished she had made a different choice, on her own Choosing Day. She might be living a simple, quiet life, peeling potatoes and plowing fields and not trying to prepare herself to lose her son forever.

But that choice would have meant losing Tammin. And she knew, even then, even as a shy, gangly girl, that he was hers. That he was the one. She had made her choice, just as Restin would make his own, tonight. And they would all have to live with it.