Page 107 of A Land So Wide
The set of the grandfather’s jaw hardened. “Then I think you do not know the Fire-Eyed Ones at all. If you did, you would not trust them. You would let your beloved go and not follow after.”
Tears pricked at Greer’s eyes. “I can’t. I’m not…I’m not leaving him out here. Not with them.”
“Where is your protection?” he asked, unmoved. “What weapons do you have?”
Greer hesitated, unwilling to admit that she was alone without so much as a pocketknife. “I have wards,” she began, pulling out the beaded necklace. They inspected it with narrowed eyes, unimpressed. “And…other things.”
The granddaughter’s expression darkened. “You have nothing. The Fire-Eyed Ones are a pestilence that cannot be stopped. They’ve eaten nearly everything the land has. Elk, caribou, musk ox. Even the white bears are no match for them. They go after the sturgeon, plucking them from the waters like minnows. You cannot fight beasts like this.”
“I don’t want to fight them,” Greer said, feeling foolish and small. “I just want to save Ellis—the man you met.”
The girl made a snort of dismissal.
“Tell me about your beads. I’ve never seen anything like them,” the man said, gesturing to her necklace.
“I’m not sure where they came from,” she confessed. “I think maybe the Benevolence?”
“Benevolence,” he repeated carefully, as though it was the first time he’d ever said the word.
Greer paused, wondering what they would call them. “The ones who keep the Fire-Eyed Ones away. The Benevolence is like…their minders? Their wardens?” With curved fingers, she pantomimed a circle of protection.
The older man shook his head. “No one holds power over those spirits.”
“They do.” She explained how Mistaken’s settlers had made the truce, how the Stones the Benevolence gave them repelled the creatures but also held their people to the same stretch of earth. The strangers looked horrified. “Without the Benevolence, how do you stay safe?”
The grandfather glanced at the buildings around them. “Our people wander, following the earth’s gentle tugs. It has been many years since we were so close to these mountains. It is much changed here. The Fire-Eyed Ones have reshaped the land, reshaped everything. Patternsand rhythms that have held since the rivers were created no longer make sense. They’ve broken down, they’re breaking apart.”
“The Bright-Eyeds weren’t always here?”
He shook his head. “They arrived with the white men from across the sea. They come from your ancestors’ world, not ours.” His eyes shifted, leaving hers to study the trees just beyond the broken buildings. “I often wonder what that world must be like, to have created so many kinds of monsters.”
Greer frowned, uncomfortable with the implication. She’d always assumed the Bright-Eyeds were of this new world, part of its vast landscape, as ancient as the mountain themselves. But if not…had a settler from across the sea unknowingly brought them over?
Not them,she realized with horror.Ailie.
Ailie had been sovereign then. It would have been her on the ship.
What had prompted her mother to leave behind her homeland and venture into the unknown? She pictured her clinging to the sides of a great schooner, her wings folded into tight, serpentine lines, like a lamprey suctioned onto prey. How had no one noticed her? Perhaps she’d masqueraded as livestock, or a member of the crew itself.
Greer imagined her mother stepping off the ship, regarding the wilds before her. She could feel Ailie’s hungers stirring, insatiable appetites wakening. She glanced around Laird’s remains. This was what those appetites and hungers had brought.
“Forget the boy,” the older man advised. “Forget the monster you travel with, return home, and pray your mighty Stones keep their power.”
“What about you? You’re not safe out here. Where are your people?”
The girl began to answer but her grandfather silenced her with a sharp look.
“She’s not one of them,” she protested.
“She waswithone of them,” he hissed. “We cannot risk trusting her.”
“That’s fair,” Greer allowed. “Though I truly mean you no harm. I’ll leave now. Not for home,” she added in a rush, seeing the grandfather’s face begin to relax. “I’m not going back without Ellis.”
His expression dimmed. “Then I fear you will not be going back atall.” He placed a hand on his granddaughter’s shoulder. “Leave her to her mad endeavor.”
The girl nodded, and they turned to leave.
“Safe travels,” Greer called after them, wishing it with all her heart.
