I LANDED perhaps a dozen feet down, on straw, the air pounded out of me. As the bells subsided, I caught my breath and took stock.
Curious. Pit traps were generally used against foxes, wolves, or boar. The beasts landed on spikes—caught and killed in the same stroke. Here there were no spikes. I felt bruised, but that was all. The pit was so narrow I was half sitting up.
What might this mercy mean?
That the farmers thought they knew their robber. They meant to teach a lesson, not to kill.
The bells must have awakened the sleepers. My throat tightened. Soon I’d be among humans again.
And me unable to zEEn.
I heard people stirring, probably dressing, lighting lamps for eyes that weren’t sharp in the dark, combing their hair in mirrors that didn’t hate them.
Rows of dried meat dangled above me. My rage bubbled up. Food, near and unattainable.
Terror joined rage. If I didn’t return to the Fens, the band, of a certainty, would eat Master Peter.
The sides of my prison pit were packed earth. I tried to climb, but there was no purchase. I fell back, tried again, fell again.
From the house, I heard feet on the stairs, going down. In a frenzy, I attacked the dirt with my hands, digging in with my long, curving nails. A few inches loosened and dropped away.
No time to dig myself out. What else? I could hardly think over my heart.
I heard them on the path to the shed.
Ogres had strength.
I raised my arms and crouched, then jumped. Not high enough. I fell back, jumped again, and fell back.
The door swung open. “We’ve caught you, Dill, you rascal!”
In the light of a grease lamp, four people peered down at me and gaped. I gaped up at them.
Terror was stamped on their faces. In my narrow confines, I curtsied.
They stood frozen: an elderly man, a middle-aged gaunt man, a plump woman about my size, and a girl my age.
Hunger locked hands with my fear.
I tried to soften my voice, but four were too many for any ogre to zEEn. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.” I sounded like a goat with a sore throat. “I happened by, hoping for shelter on my journey to the Fens. I mean no harm.”
Their faces relaxed a little, only, I was sure, because I wasn’t leaping out of the pit and attacking.
The old man tilted his head at the plump woman, who backed away slowly. Out of sight, I heard her feet thudding.
She would return with weapons and, possibly, more people.
As soon as she was gone, I felt their emotions—each of them afraid but not locked in terror, the old man the least frightened, the most capable of thought.
Lucinda, I was close to getting a proposal!
If one of them would propose, we’d all stop being afraid. I burst into panicky laughter. I had, I guessed, three minutes before the woman returned.
The old man became preoccupied and sad and angry as his fear lessened. Angry, as if he’d been ill-used. He had dignity, revealed by his erect stance and the upward tilt of his chin. I thought he might be their leader and the owner of the manor.
The younger, exceedingly thin man had a busy mind. I couldn’t read his thoughts but I sensed their buzz. In the girl, fear mixed with exhilaration, probably because she was in the presence of an ogre and not dead.
Patients were often afraid of what I might do to them, and I had to heal their fright before I could heal their bodies.
A measured tone. “You’ve heard . . .” Too harsh. I swallowed. “You see an ogre . . .” Truth calmed patients more than promises. I managed to sweeten my voice. “You believe we’re all alike, but you know already that I’m different.”
The air around their fear grew. The other feelings—distraction, eagerness, worry—dulled, and the terror shrank into a tight fist.
Not small enough. The elf Grellon’s and Master Peter’s fright, when they’d been zEEned, had been the size of a pea. I listened for the absent woman and heard her faintly.
Why was she tarrying? Was she too afraid to come back and save her fellows?
If I could zEEn the old man, I thought the others might follow along, and the key to him was probably his melancholy and sense of ill use.
In my new, honeyed voice, I said, “There is solace for everyone.” There would be for me if I could get back to Master Peter. “For some it’s in a poem.”
No response.
“For some in a fine meal.” Not that, either, though a meat stick would relax me. “For some in a garden.”
The man’s air grew. His shoulders relaxed. Being reminded of the garden eased him. The others breathed more easily, too. As I succeeded, they seemed more edible.
I heard a muffled clatter. The woman had dropped some part of the arsenal she was carrying.
Be slow picking it up! Drop more!
I said, “My favorite flowers are roses. In our—”
In an age-roughened voice, the old man said, “I like the red rose best.”
I heard the woman’s labored breathing. She was carrying weapons for them all, and no one was with her.
“On my way here,” I said, forcing myself not to rush, “I happened across a cluster of night daisies, late for the season.”
“Where?” the old man asked. “Would you show me—us?”
Ah. “If you help me out, I will.”
The gaunt man disappeared from my view. Using my new voice, I said something about flowers. The woman with the weapons was closer.
The man reappeared with a pole, which he extended to me. I took it and planted it in the earth beneath the straw. Hand over hand on the pole, my feet climbing the dirt walls, I rose, reached the top, and hauled myself out.
The people smiled at me, which made them look even more delicious. Beautiful puppets, as SSahlOO had predicted. Offering themselves. Wanting to be eaten.
Of its own, my hand moved toward the girl’s cheek, to stroke it and feel its tenderness. I pulled the hand back and started to reach for meat sticks.
The door burst open.
The zEEning shattered.