Mirjam followed me out of the meeting hall, landing a hand on my shoulder. I grimaced and said softly, “Ow.” She sighed.

“Come on, let’s have a look at it.”

“It’s nothing.” I replied, but I knew better than to try to object, so got in the gondola and let her take care of rowing back. There was no one out to see it. We walked into the medicine lodge and she had me spun towards the counter on the front wall almost immediately, my hands on the hardwood next to the mortar and pestle and a bunch of half-cut herbs next to a cauldron.

She lifted the back of my shirt critically and whistled like a belligerent blacksmith at a maid. She swore softly, under her breath, “shit.”

“It was a dirty fight. In front of the elders,” I said flatly, “with an illegal move after he put me on the ground.”

“I wish I wasn’t used to seeing this on you.”

“You know I can’t keep up with the class,” I replied, trying to find my way into that subject, stifling the lump in my throat.

“You could excel in that class if you wanted to, Seth. I’ve seen you carry all of my baskets for hours in the woods and I’ve seen you train alone when no one else is watching. And then you go with the class and you’re distracted the whole time. What do you have to be you afraid of?” She replied flatly.

“You know what I’m afraid of.”

She was silent.

And I said it like she knew, but she didn’t know the half of it.

Aldin kicked me out of training. He’s done teaching me. The words stuck in my throat. I’m finished. Going upstream for sure. I’d climbed a tree into a place where the cover of branches was heavy, curled, and shook for forty-five minutes after leaving the training ground. Just to try to get whatever had just happened, what was always happening to me, out of my system. I couldn’t cry. I tried, I physically wouldn’t. I had at least a couple hours to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life, stay or go, probably not more.

She touched my back and I jerked away. It wasn’t the pain, it was that nasty, dizzying feeling. I must have tensed or even started to tremble a little, my fists balled in my shirt, because she passed me the tonic. “Drink, Seth.” She knew better than to try to get me to lie down or take my shirt off completely, I’d insist on sitting and keeping at least the front of it on. I wasn’t stripping down in front of anyone, not even Mirjam. I exhaled slowly, and after I’d had a deep swig of the painkiller, she started rubbing the numbing herbs into my back.

“I need an apprentice. You already know half there is to know about being a medicine man, you already forage with me in the woods and know how to cultivate herbs, and even a thing or two about brewing and treating beyond the average student.”

“You’d do that?” My lungs became light for a moment, I was dizzy, the pain from the caning entirely forgotten.

“We need another medic. And you’ll do no good upstream.”

“The town has never had a medicine man.” I replied, “It’s women’s work.”

“And so you can’t do it?” My back twinged as she laid the medicine on with a hard flick instead of her usual steady hand. “There’s nothing wrong with women, there’s nothing wrong with being a woman. Warriors aren’t the only people that matter, Seth—

“Of course I could do it.” I interrupted. I didn’t need a lecture on feminine virtues. “But they’d never let me, they already think I’m useless.”

“I don’t give a damn what they think on the matter, or what you do, in fact,” she replied. “And you’re already of use to me. You’d be perfect, and I’m not just saying that to soothe your ego. I need the help.” Her nights were long and her mornings were early, ever since the plague several years back. She was a preparer. Even during the thin months, her shelves were stocked even with mountain tobacco, and she hid preserved herbs in jars in the woods in case of a fire or an attack.

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“Will the council of elders allow it?”

“They’d better. If they have brains they will. Having one medic is dangerously too few. Having two isn’t enough. With the size of this village, we should have four or five. I’ll make the case in front of everyone. It will be harder for everyone to say no if it’s done in public rather than private. I’m the only medicine woman and I care for them all. They may resent it, but the elders will be far more reluctant to refuse and cause a scene in public. I’ll claim you at the festival after the rounds are done.”

“You don’t have to do this. I can survive on my own if I have to.”

“With the winters we have on the mountain? No you can’t. Not even you. That’s why they drive the failures out at the end of the warm season, because the chances of them making it into the hands of anyone who would help them in time is virtually none.” She replied chillingly. She’d never spoken outright, but I knew how she felt about the village’s practice of maiming and exiling useless foundlings right before winter. Leaving them to die for the Misfortunes, putting all the pain due the village on them.

“I need an apprentice that’s not a half-wit, I don’t care what gender they are.” Her gaze grew uncomfortably piercing, even more so than usual. She was looking right at me. “This village needs you. The village needs another medic, and they need someone who’s sharp.”

The knot in my stomach eased, but not completely. I wasn’t sleeping at night anymore. Hadn’t in a long time. Not since I’d slowly started to realize that for reasons on top of reasons, I’d never be able to keep this place as my home. Not since the plague.

Not since what I did that spring.

From there, everything went downhill, and I that’s when I’d started to fall behind the class. At Mirjam’s side, the things I was silent about would be safer than ever. If I ever found the tongue to tell the things I shouldn’t speak, if there was anyone who was able to help me bring everything into the light without being stoned in the town square, it was Mirjam. Knowing there was another option, something else, when I’d been anticipating my life to come to an end within the next few weeks was a relief.

Or it should have been.

I think I’m leaving. I’m leaving, Mirjam. And I’m not coming back.

I didn’t have time to parse my unease, the place that revelation came from—voices came from the porch outside the lodge. It sounded like Master Aldin and Master Byron. “He couldn’t have healed from the last beating you gave him, it was only a week ago.” Master Byron was saying.

“He made a spectacle today. He’s miles behind and dragging back everyone with him. He should be sent off.” Master Aldin had a smooth, sharp voice.

“It’s possible that he’s just younger than we thought he was.”

“He’s had enough training to show potential if he had it. The elders have higher expectations, we can’t waste our time with Seth. We’ll sacrifice him away after this festival.”

“Let’s see how he performs in the tournament.” Master Byron replied. “If you don’t take the trouble to check Ordin’s arrogance, he’ll continue to create small spectacles like this during training. He laughed for almost a minute over Seth’s discipline in front of the whole council. His smugness will become unregulated behavior and become a sore to the honor of the warriors. He enjoyed that far too much.”

“He’s an adolescent boy, his master will beat it out of him once or twice when he is apprenticed and he’ll learn to focus on more prescient things.”

“I’ve never known you to be so patient with a troublesome foundling who’s smug before the elders. It shouldn’t be tolerated, Percius.”

“Things will unfold as they should.”

I ducked under the work counter just in time of Master Aldin to push through the door of the medicine lodge, the bell above it jingling with his arrival. “Some tobacco for the celebration.” He commanded shortly.

“To your left on the wall, sir.” Mirjam answered. “Two coppers.”

Aldin said nothing, searching in his purse. Mirjam’s rule was that if you came dry-footed, you paid for what you took. You waded, you took what you need for free, no more, no less. It was a contentious rule that caused no shortage of spite with the wealthy, but Mirjam had stood her ground. She was a soldier, she wasn’t afraid to have enemies.

“Anything else, Master Aldin?”

“That will be all.”

“Take care, Master Aldin.”

I watched her ankles and dirty, bare feet cross as she curtsied, and Master Aldin’s feet remained planted as he dipped his head. He left, and I ducked out from behind the crates under the counter.

She looked to catch my gaze, but I had already plucked my mother’s comb from the place it was nestled behind the shelves of herbs in the wall. I crossed the room and went out the back window to scale the logs to the roof and take to the trees. I slipped through the bunkhouse, took the coat and shoes but left the blanket. I didn’t even want those two things. I needed supplies, but I needed to leave it all behind even more. I needed Aldin’s voice to not be echoing in my head.