The Wild Dead (The Bannerless Saga 2)

“The truth. Not justice, not the rules. Just truth, the very bottom of it.”

That was a grand statement. She wasn’t sure she agreed, truth with a capital T. She smiled sadly. “Tomas always said it was about being kind. The only reason any of us is here is kindness.”

“I’m not sure I know what that means.”

“Yeah, I know. Neither do I. I’m leaving at dawn. I need to get home.”

“I’m going to stick around here. Talk it over with folk, like you said.”

“All right. Well. Come say hi, next time you come through Haven.”

And Enid walked away.

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Six months or so later, Patel found Enid in the clinic waiting room at Haven. Enid was balancing sixth-month-old baby Rose on her lap, distracting her before she got her first vaccinations. If the baby started happy, maybe this all wouldn’t be too distressing. Olive refused to watch while the medics inflicted pain on their precious girl, so Enid did the deed. Someone had to.

Rose was beautiful. The most perfect baby ever. She had Olive’s dark hair, already growing curls, and Berol’s mischievous smile and bright brown eyes. Olive insisted the baby had Sam’s good sense and Enid’s bravery, but that was pure fancy. Already they could all see that Rose was who she was; she liked grabbing hair and beards and clinging to chairs. She babbled, but they could tell she listened close when anyone spoke.

“Who is this?” Patel asked, settling in the chair beside her.

“Patel, meet Rose. Rose, say hello to my friend Patel.” Enid bounced Rose, held out her pudgy hand, smiled when Rose reached out her other hand herself, grabbing for Patel’s fingers The investigator chuckled.

“I have a message for you, Enid, but maybe I should wait,” Patel said, letting Rose grip his finger. People almost always reached for babies, Enid noticed. Even folk who didn’t particularly get along with babies would hold a finger to them. The babies almost always reached back. The connection was primal.

“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s obviously grim, might as well get it over with.”

So he told her: after only a month at Desolata, Juni had walked into the desert and not returned. It happened sometimes, folk there said. Someone said they wanted to see how far they could walk. When really, they didn’t want to come back at all. The woman had sentenced herself to execution.

Enid wasn’t surprised, though maybe she’d hoped that Juni would find something useful to do with herself. Really, she wasn’t sure Juni’s story could have ended any other way. It was the woman’s choice, she told herself. She could have lived. Just not the way she’d done before. And it was her choice to wreck that as well.

“Well. Thanks for letting me know,” she said, and Patel nodded and left for the rest of his errands, giving Rose’s little hand one last squeeze.

Rose was listening to it all. Not understanding, surely. She’d be all right, sheltered from the hardships of the world for as long as Enid and the rest of the family could manage it. But Rose lived with an investigator. Enid might not manage to shelter her for as long as she might wish. After Patel left, she kissed Rose’s silky baby head, pressing her face there a long time to breathe in the scent of her, and Rose burbled happily.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////

Six months before that, when she hadn’t yet met Rose, Enid left Morada by car. Dropped off the car at Silt and continued on foot. This was the longest walk Enid had ever made in her time as investigator; the last ten miles back to Haven took forever. She kept speeding up, her feet shuffling to a jog without her realizing it, and she had to make herself go slow and steady, at a normal walking pace. She didn’t want to collapse when she got home, or worse, before she got there. Might do that anyway. But if she did, the others would worry, and she wanted to avoid that.

There’d been no point in sending a message ahead, as she made various stops at towns and way stations. In fact, she was the one carrying messages. She would be delivering her own message, telling that she was on her way and hoping that everything was well.

That last day of travel, she wasn’t going to beat sunset. Normally, dusk meant finding a way station, someplace to spend the night. But she was so close to Haven, she’d already passed Ant Farm and Potter, the outlying households that marked the edge of the region. Another hour and she’d be home. She wasn’t going to stop now. This part of the world, the road was wide and well traveled. Plenty of electric lights glowed by the front doors of houses. One thing about walking in the dark: no one much was out and about, and the ones who were were clearly on their way to somewhere else. They saw Enid and waved; didn’t try to stop and talk. She had no idea what she’d say if someone tried to stop her. How she was supposed to explain.

On the other hand, if she stopped to talk, someone might be able to tell her if the baby at Serenity had been born yet.

But no, she waved back and hurried on. Past the clinic, the original heart of the town. The pre-Fall cement building had been cared for and maintained and built onto, and wasn’t sitting on a mud bank. No chance of it falling over.

Serenity was on the other side of town, down its own path. She reached the turn, came in view of Serenity’s cottage, two stories, simple and neatly kept.

Home.

Somehow, now, at the end of the trip, Enid hesitated. Lights were on in the front room but not upstairs. This time of evening, everyone should be home. Everything looked normal. Nothing seemed out of place. Nothing told Enid what she might find inside. If her world had changed while she had gone.

She went to the door. Was about to touch the handle to open it when a sob rang out.

The sound of a baby crying.

Enid stopped, closed her eyes. Stood for a moment just listening.