The Wild Dead (The Bannerless Saga 2)

Teeg leaned on his staff, standing watch. Seemed to be happy to have a solid, well-defined role to play. Not the floundering around and arguing they’d been doing for the past week. On the way back from the shore he’d kept looking at Enid, considering. Silently demanding she explain herself. She didn’t, because she wanted to do it all only once. And then go home, at last.

The meeting, the great reveal Enid had planned, moved to the front steps of Bonavista. The observers hemmed Juni in, so maybe this arrangement was better. Let Juni feel trapped. This time when Enid surveyed the circle, taking count, everyone she needed was here.

Only thing left was to begin. Even though everyone already knew—the word had spread instantly.

Enid said, “I’m sure you’ve heard. But I want to lay it all out clear, so there’s no question. Most of you know a body turned up here six days ago, washed down the river. Most of you had a chance to look at that young woman and the wound that killed her. Ella wasn’t from here, but some of you knew her. The folk at Last House, yeah? Did some trading? Nothing wrong with that. It’s allowed, as long as you have the extra without breaking your quotas. Salvage doesn’t break quotas. And they do make very nice leather in the hills. I saw it.

“Should have been nothing wrong with it, but Ella was killed anyway, and I’ve been trying to figure out not just who did it, but why. But no one much likes to talk about so awful a thing. So here we are.” Enid paced, looked at each of them. They were all uneasy. Waiting, wanting to be anywhere but here. Unhappy at what such a crime said about their community.

Enid approached the folk of Last House, and she stopped. Kellan cringed. Neeve touched his shoulder. She had on a neutral expression, but she must have known what Enid was about to say. What Enid had discovered, upriver. She’d been through an investigation before, when she cut out her implant.

Enid continued. “Ella and some of the others started trading with the settlement here. Maybe Ella liked it here. Maybe there was another reason, but she visited more and more. Neeve asked Ella to join Last House. Is that right?”

“We would have taken her in, if she wanted. I thought . . . I thought she wanted it.” Neeve’s voice was soft, but she always spoke softly. She revealed no emotion.

“Kellan, you didn’t want Ella to join Last House.”

“I didn’t hurt her,” he said sullenly.

Mart stepped in, put a steadying hand on the man’s shoulder. “We know that, Kellan.”

Enid nodded, gestured for Mart to move back. “I found the knife you were looking for. She left it back in the wild folks’ camp before she came here. Before she was killed. It was another blade that killed her. And Kellan, you didn’t want her here. Why?”

The question didn’t seem to surprise him, or confuse him. He just hated it. He hunched over, hands pulled tight to his chest, and wouldn’t look at anyone. Every time Enid and Teeg had questioned him, he hadn’t wanted to talk. This time it didn’t look like a conscious decision; the words were stopped up. He couldn’t get them out.

Enid said, “Kellan, you’re not in trouble, but I need your h

elp. I’m trying to make things clear.” Not for him, not for her—for everyone else. Everyone needed to hear this. “Please tell me. I think I already know.”

“Because,” Kellan said, and his mouth twisted up, his face wrenched in what might have been physical pain. “Because, because if she stayed here, folk would see what she was. They would see.”

“See what?” Erik asked, baffled.

Enid held up a finger, a request for quiet, no more disruptions. No one spoke, but the question hung there. The question at the center of it all. “I know, Kellan. I know you were protecting Neeve. This whole time you were keeping her secret. I know. It’s all right.”

Neeve stepped beside Mart, displacing him, putting her hand where his had been on Kellan’s shoulder while the man trembled with suppressed tears. Her expression remained cold.

Next, Enid turned to Juni of Bonavista. Took a breath, and asked the thing she wasn’t sure of, that she needed most to know.

“And that’s my last question. The one thing I haven’t been able to figure out. Juni, how did you know that Ella was Neeve’s daughter?”

There were gasps. Cries. Even more so than when Juni revealed herself as the murderer. Enid made note of the reactions, who was most shocked, and who wasn’t shocked at all. Juni—she wasn’t surprised. She set her frown. Determined, unrepentant, she sat on the steps, her gaze blank, impassively bearing the scrutiny.

Mart stood open-mouthed. “What is this? What does that mean, what are you saying?” So, he hadn’t known. All this time, only Kellan had known, and he’d kept the secret. She wondered how he’d found out. If he’d covered for Neeve back then, or if she’d confided in him—he was solitary, he wasn’t likely to talk. A good person to tell secrets to. But she’d put him in a bind, if she’d told him and no one else.

“Juni, please answer.” Enid spoke calmly, even gently. Nothing to get excited about, no reason to be angry. She was satisfied to see Teeg with his hand resting on the pouch of tranquilizers, just in case. Juni glanced over Enid’s shoulder at him; maybe she was remembering this whole process from the last time.

She said, “I heard them. Kellan arguing with the girl, telling her to leave. Driving her off. I was down in the river channel; they’d not have seen me from up on the ridge. But I was there.”

Enid remembered the spot upriver where the voices from Last House carried. Pure chance that she’d been there.

“You heard them argue. This would have been maybe ten days ago. Then what?”

“I climbed up to see. Wanted to see what she looked like. Kellan was gone by then, he drove her off. And she ran straight into me.”

Enid could picture it: Juni would have followed that path along the water, the one that twisted around and climbed out of the channel when the river narrowed and met the forest. Ella likely would have been running for the trees there. They would have been surprised to see each other.

“She . . . she looked like Neeve when Neeve was young. Not just like, but close enough.” Juni chuckled. “Looked like both of us. Like my daughter would have. If I’d ever had a chance to have a girl.” She sounded wistful, lost in the moment.