The Wild Dead (The Bannerless Saga 2)

“And Ella might have thought she was looking at Neeve. Might have thought she knew you,” Enid observed. The young woman would have been surprised if she didn’t know Neeve had a twin sister. Might even have tried to talk to her, not understanding the danger. “You’re pretty good with a machete, aren’t you, Juni?” Enid said. Still calm, careful.

The air fell still, aching with the implication. No one breathed.

“I am,” she whispered.

“You’d been cutting reeds, so you had it right there in your hand. You were angry because you realized what must have happened all those years ago, what Neeve must have gotten away with—”

“She spent all that time away . . .” Juni murmured.

“Yes.”

“That girl. The moment I saw her, that young face, that long hair, just like Neeve’s . . . She smiled at me like she knew me, and she was about to say something, and I couldn’t . . . couldn’t stand it. If she spoke, that would make her real. I didn’t want her to be real. She should never have been born.”

Worst of it was, she was right. Ella shouldn’t have existed. But she did. “We’re not dealing with should-haves, here,” said Enid. “Ella was a living, breathing person. And you’re a murderer.”

Juni let out a forlorn, stifled sob. She knew very well what she was. “She didn’t belong. Neeve should be punished, not me.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Enid saw that Neeve was crying silently.

Enid had worried over this moment: When Neeve found out what had happened to her daughter, heard the story herself, what would she do? Attack? Scream, start a fight, insist on blood? Enid was ready to step between them. Hoped Teeg was ready too, and wondered if maybe she should have warned him ahead of time after all.

But the woman simply stood, quietly mourning. Now Kellan had his arm around her. They comforted each other. Mart, though, had turned away. He’d had no idea, and now he had a problem to grapple with.

Enid had already decided: she wasn’t going to lay judgment on Neeve for bearing a bannerless child. Whatever it was she’d gotten away with, or thought she’d gotten away with, was blown away like dust.

Besides, the looks the folk around Neeve were giving her now, the attitudes they’d throw at her for the rest of her life—well, that was likely punishment enough. Let the woman live with what she’d done.

Juni was another matter. There was a space around her. Even Jess had pulled away, probably unconsciously. This happened often with such cases, as if folk hoped to distance themselves from the crime, as if what Juni had become might be contagious.

There had to be consequences. Lots of investigators talked about making the guilty serve as examples, establishing deterrents. Determining which actions the community deemed out of bounds. Those were all useful conversations to have. But from some primal, gut emotion, Enid felt that people who’d committed such an act should have their life changed for it. They shouldn’t get to go back, as if nothing had happened.

If any of her colleagues called this impulse revenge, Enid wouldn’t argue.

The Coast Road communities didn’t practice executions, though Enid had an urge to drop Juni in a very deep hole and walk away. Instead, she thought of the next worst thing.

“I’m going to send you away, Juni. I’ve got a place in mind, nothing at all like this. I’m pretty sure you won’t like it. But that’s the point, isn’t it?”

“You . . . you can’t. I won’t go, I can’t go into the wild, how will I live?”

“This isn’t in the wild. Though Ella’s folk seem to do perfectly well. No, you’ll still be Coast Road. Just on the other end of it. And if you don’t go, you doom your whole household to dissolution. You already know what that feels like.”

She looked up at Enid in stark horror, eyes red, mouth open. “Jess?” she said, turning to look for him. But he’d walked away, was already on the other side of the house. She had no allies.

“You can’t do this.” Her voice was high, taut.

“I think I can.”

The silence stretched on, and on. Neeve finally shifted. Stepped forward, toward Juni. Enid almost reached out, but the Last House woman stopped. Studied the murderer for a moment, then shook her head.

They were almost a mirror of each other. Neeve had always looked older, had lived a rougher life. But the last hour had aged Juni. They looked more alike than not. What did each of them see in that mirror, that none of the rest of them would ever know?

“I’ve always hated you,” Neeve said to Juni. Then turned and walked away. The rest of her household followed her. The other heads of household left, to spread the story of what had happened.

Juni covered her face with her hands.

Erik was the last of the others to leave, and he sidled up to Enid, looking at his feet the whole time. “I’m sorry.”

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