Birch dipped his brush into the bucket of water and started to scrub at the hardened slurry at the bottom of the wooden pig trough. This one wasn’t as dirty as some of the others he’d cleaned this morning, and if he worked hard, he’d easily be finished in time to get washed up and change his clothes for the ceremony.

If things went well today, this might be the last trough he’d ever have to scrub. He glanced at the dozen or so pigs wallowing in the mud at the far end of the field. If the Sacred Oak favored him at the ceremony, he’d never have to tend them again, nor watch over the village’s flocks of sheep. He’d no longer have to sleep in the stables alongside the horses, or follow another one of Old Rush’s orders.

He took a breath. The smell of manure and rotting vegetables filled his nostrils.

Who was he trying to kid? He shook his head. Fortune didn’t run in his family. He’d been told his parents had both been declared Markless when they’d come of age. Surely the same thing was going to happen to him. He’d just have to accept it.

He plunged his brush back into the bucket and was just about to pull it out again when a familiar high-pitched laugh cut through the snorting of the pigs and the distant murmur of voices coming from the center of the village of Eldergrove. The laugh rang out again, harsh and humorless.

Birch let go of the brush and scanned the path running along the left of the field. There. Near the top gate. Vetch. Decked out in his finest clothes and flanked by his brutish friends, Ragwort and Spindle. They didn’t need to come this way to get to the clearing at the far end of the village where the ceremony would take place.

Birch washed the filth from his hands and dried them on his tunic. He stepped toward the fence and waited for the other boys to approach.

“I’m glad to see you are still here.” Vetch stopped opposite Birch, the fence between them. Ragwort and Spindle fell into line on either side of their leader. “For a horrible moment, I feared you might have decided to actually attend the Marking Ceremony.” His mouth curled into a cruel-looking grin. “I wouldn’t bother if I were you. Save yourself the heartache. Everybody knows the symbol you’re going to receive. You’ll be named one of the Markless for sure. You’d be better off staying here, at least that way you won’t have to live the rest of your life with an ugly blotch on the back of your hand.”

Birch swallowed and focused on the birdsong and the sounds of chatter carrying on the breeze. He set his face, trying to make it as expressionless as possible. Vetch’s words might have mirrored his own worst fears, but he didn’t have to make it obvious. He didn’t owe Vetch anything, not even the slightest hint of a reaction.

“Look at him.” Vetch nudged his burly companions. “He’s too stupid to even understand what I’m saying.” Ragwort grunted in agreement and Spindle smirked. “Some people, like Birch here,” Vetch continued, “are destined merely to serve their betters.” Vetch turned back to Birch. “Even the Markless have a role in Verdant. People like us need people like you.” He reached over the fence and pushed at a large wooden crate that Birch had filled with apples earlier in the day. Ragwort and Spindle added their bulk to the task, and within a few heartbeats, they’d managed to topple it. Apples cascaded out of the box onto the muddy ground.

“We need people like you to serve us, and you can start by tidying up that mess.”

Vetch smoothed the front of his embroidered tunic and rubbed his hands together. Then, without another look in Birch’s direction, he turned away from the fence and started to walk down the path toward the heart of the village. Spindle and Ragwort lingered for a moment longer and then they left too, hurrying to catch up with Vetch.

Birch waited for the trio to take a few more paces then bent down and picked up one of the apples. He narrowed his eyes at the back of Vetch’s head, imagining the fruit sailing through the air and slamming into the boy’s skull. He wouldn’t be smirking after that.

Birch cocked back his arm.

“Stop! It’s not worth it.”

The voice had come from behind him. Birch whirled around.

Holly was leaning against the gate, her long brown hair wound into intricate plaits and fastened high on her head, exposing her slender neck. Her gown was the color of meadow grass and it contrasted with her hazel eyes, making them sparkle even more than usual.

“Just ignore him. Don’t let him get to you. He’s just nervous.”

Birch tossed the apple toward the crate and walked over to her.

“Nervous? What does he have to be nervous about?”

“He’s worried that the Sacred Oak won’t give him the mark he’s hoping for. Rag and Spindle, too.”

“But they’re from rich families. Their parents aren’t Markless, so there’s little chance they will be. And even if they are, they’ll still have it easy. They won’t have to work a job like this.” He gestured to the troughs and the pigs at the far end of the field. “Their families will see to it that they are protected.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I’m the one who should be worrying. If I’m made Markless, this is me for the rest of my life.” He sighed. “Vetch and the others will probably get the marks they want anyway.”

Holly smiled. “Probably, but the Sacred Oak doesn’t always give children the marks of their parents. Were your mother and father both Markless?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think so. Old Rush told me they were, but I don’t think he knew them that well. I was too young to remember them. I can barely remember my grandmother, and she died long after they did.” Birch lowered his gaze. “As much as I hate him, Vetch probably has it right. My parents were likely Markless and that’ll be my fate too.”

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“Don’t say that.”

“It’s easy for you. All of your family are healers. You’re almost certain to be the same,”

“I do hope so.” Holly touched her plaited hair and repositioned one of the clasps holding the braids in position. “And maybe you’ll get that mark too. We could apprentice together.”

Birch shook his head. “It’s not going to happen.”

Holly glanced away and then smiled.

“If you could choose anything, any mark at all, what would you pick?”

An image of himself with a bow in his hand and a quiver full of arrows slung across his back formed in Birch’s mind.

“I don’t know.” He couldn’t share his dream, not even with Holly. If he kept it to himself, maybe there was still a chance that it would come true.

Birch nodded in the direction of the village.

“You’d better get going if you want to be there for the start.”

“What about you?”

“I’ve got to pick up the apples. The pigs will eat them all if I don’t. And I’ve still got to clean out that trough. I promised Old Rush I’d finish it before I left. I’ll be there when I’m done.”

“Let me help you.” Holly began to unbolt the gate.

“You can’t. You’ll ruin your dress. You can’t attend the ceremony caked in dirt.”

“I don’t care about that.” She tugged at her gown’s puffy sleeves. “My mother made me wear this. It wasn’t my choice. It’s really uncomfortable.”

She opened the gate and picked her way through the muddy grass over to the fence. “Help me right this crate. Then I’ll see to the apples, and you can finish the trough.”

*****

Birch joined Holly at the back of a line of teenagers that had formed in front of the Sacred Oak. The ancient tree’s knobbly branches extended high into the sky, and its leaves formed a thick canopy sheltering those gathered in the clearing from the sun’s summer rays.

On either side of the clearing, rows of wooden benches had been constructed to seat the dozens of visitors who had journeyed to Eldergrove from villages all across Verdant to witness the Marking Ceremony.

Birch kept his eyes forward. Old Rush had already told him he wasn’t going to be able to find the time to be here, so who else was he going to look for? His parents were long dead, and his grandmother too. Nobody would be trying to catch his eye to give him a reassuring nod or a wink of encouragement.

“Welcome to the Marking Ceremony.”

A tall man stood at the base of the Sacred Oak’s massive trunk. He wore long moss-green robes and his face was covered with a wooden mask carved into the shape of an old bearded man with ivy for hair. Small holes had been bored into the middle of the wooden eyes so that the man behind the mask could see out, and a fingerbreadth slit had been made between the wooden lips to allow his words to escape.

“For those who don’t know me, I am Gorse from the village of Roost. This year I have been given the great honor of serving as the Green Man. As custom dictates, all of the children from the many forest villages that make up Verdant who have turned sixteen since the last Marking Ceremony will receive a mark from the Sacred Oak. As Green Man, it will be my responsibility to interpret each mark, deciding the path that the bearer’s life will take from this day until their last.” He stepped closer to the line of sixteen-year-olds. “Do not be afraid.”

The Green Man took a seat at a table positioned to the side of the Sacred Oak and opened a large leatherbound book. He glanced down at something on one of the pages, and then he looked up again.

“Let us begin. Attendants, bring the first of them.”

An unmasked man and woman who Birch didn’t recognize, presumably because they were from one of the other villages and not Eldergrove, walked the first teenager up to the Sacred Oak.

Those on the benches started to shift in their seats, and excited whispers spread up and down the line. Holly reached back for his hand and squeezed it. Her hand was warm.

“Good luck,” she said.

“You too.”

The first boy to approach the tree had dark, straight hair and looked as if he was from Wispbrook or Sleath or one of the villages by Rudd River. With a nod from the Green Man, the boy thrust out his right hand and inserted it into a rabbit burrow-sized hole in the tree’s gnarled trunk.

After a few moments, he was instructed to withdraw his hand. He pulled it out.

Birch craned his neck. He could just about make out a mark on the back of the boy’s hand as he presented it to the Green Man.

“Ah,” the masked man said. “An easy one to start with. This is a mark I have seen many times. You are to be a hunter.”

The boy grinned, and he headed over to one of the benches on the left where he was greeted by a man and a woman who must have been his parents. They proudly examined his mark and then started to show it off to those sitting on the benches nearby.

“Next,” the Green Man said.

A girl strode confidently up to the tree, and the process started again. After flipping through the book in front of him and inspecting something on one of the pages for a moment or two, the Green Man decided that her mark meant that she was to be a cobbler.

The next child received the mark of a weaver, and this was followed by a brewer, two blacksmiths, a tanner, and the first Markless of the day.

Birch studied this boy's face as he found his family in the crowd. He didn’t look all that upset about what he’d received and Birch guessed he must’ve come from a family with a history of being Markless. He’d been expecting the worst and the worst was what he’d got. Birch screwed up his face. This would likely be his fate too.

After a few more teenagers from other villages stepped up to receive their marks, it was the turn of Vetch, Ragwort, and Spindle.

Birch crossed his fingers. Three Markless in a row. Surely that wasn’t too much to ask for. He closed his eyes and held his breath as Vetch walked up to the tree.

The Green Man cleared his throat. “Very interesting. This is not a mark we see every year.”

A hush fell across the clearing. Birch opened his eyes just as the Green Man looked up from the page he’d been studying.

“Congratulations. You are the first new reeve we’ve had for at least a decade.”

Birch slowly let out his breath. Vetch was beaming as he headed toward his parents.

How could Vetch have been given a mark like that? Why would the Sacred Oak think he’d be a good choice of person to rule after Reeve Whitebeam?

Birch grimaced. If this was the way things were going today, he’d be a Markless for sure.

“This looks like a simple one.” The Green Man examined the back of Ragwort’s hand. “Guardsman.”

The thickset boy pumped his fist but he didn’t immediately seek out his family. Instead, he waited at the front to see what mark the Sacred Oak would grant Spindle.

“Another guardsman,” the Green Man said.

The two boys embraced and then made their way to the benches.

About a dozen more teenagers took their turns before Holly made it to the front of the line.

Birch balled his hands. Please give her something she’s happy with.

Flanked by the attendants, Holly headed over to the tree. She placed her hand in the alcove. For a few heartbeats she remained still, then, with a nod from the Green Man, she pulled her hand out. She glanced at it, grinned, and showed it to the Green Man.

“Very clear,” he said. “As I think you have already guessed, you have been given a mark that resembles a chamomile flower. You will be a healer.”

Birch caught Holly’s eye and smiled. At least she was going to be leaving here with the result she wanted.

The Green Man turned his masked head. “Please would our final youth step up to the Sacred Oak?”

The smile fell from Birch’s face, and his heart began to pound. He took a breath then marched up to the ancient tree.

Better to just get it over with.

Without waiting for the attendants, Birch plunged his right hand palm down into the hollow.