Page 83 of Bound
Why did that hurt?
Da hummed just a little. “Some lessons are harder than others. If you decide you want help out here, perhaps I can make enquiries for you? Make sure your workers are reputable and the terms fair?”
She nodded, knowing full well that if labour cost as much as he said, there would be no help she could afford. She couldn’t create more hours in the day, more light in the evenings that wouldn’t have to be bought with yet more lamp oil.
“Would you like a special trip to the city to see my home? Or should we plan on market day?”
The prospect of another trip was wholly unappealing, but if she wanted to pay back her father, no matter how slowly, she needed to dedicate herself to more stock. Working longer hours at the market itself. Encouraging people to purchase rather than simply waiting for them to come to her.
The selling had never come easily to her. She could explain her goods well enough, but it was Mama that could draw in people with her welcoming smile, with her easy manner. Wren felt all fumbles and awkward wordage that left her anxious and uncertain after every encounter.
She needed to do better. To be better. To make sure that no other... people... could look at her and see a woman to take advantage of, that was lonely and vulnerable and easy prey for...
“Market day,” she declared, trying to ensure her voice was steady. That she could offer him a hint of a smile, fake though it might be.
And it must have looked truly pathetic, because he pulled her in for another hug. But she did not cry. But she sighed, just a little. And rested her head against his chest and managed a quiet, “Thank you.”
“Anything for you, my sweet. Someday you might even believe that.”
She hoped so.
But didn’t. Not yet.
15. Story
Braum waited longer than she’d expected. Which might have been a relief if every day wasn’t filled with the knot of tension in her belly that it might be that day. She stopped looking to her front door, expecting to see him, and that was an improvement. She even was able to stop thinking about the market on most days, except for her new determination to make sure her supplies were plentiful enough to turn a better profit than they had been.
She cringed at the thought of raising her prices. They were what they were. Always had been. And while she was certain some mothers would be desperate enough to pay what was asked, she could not bring herself to do it. Not even if it meant being out of her father’s debt all the faster.
He did not call it that. It was not a loan, and there was nothing owed. He’d ensured she was looking at him properly as he said that, handing her the pouch of heavy coins with a seriousness that did not suit him at all.
“I owe you far more,” he’d insisted, when she’d faltered and wanted to tug at her braid and avoid looking at him. “So we’ll not have talk of sneaking coins in my pack in return, all right? I am happy to help you. Always. As a father should.”
And he’d kissed the top of her head as if it was nothing, as if... as if this was a typical occurrence, something that was expected and done rather than wrenching at her heart and her pride in equal measure.
That didn’t make it wrong to take it. Maybe she’d grown a little too stubborn, a little too dogged in her determination to do things precisely as her mother had taught her. She’d want her to thrive, also. To...be happy, if she could. They’d been happy, hadn’t they? Before? There had been hard parts, also, but it was a good life.
Still was, she decided, sitting in Thorn’s field with a grimble in her lap. It wasn’t such a new one any longer, its coat turning long and curly. They’d be cut in the spring. When Thorn would pace and growl occasionally, trying to decide between keeping them in line and yielding to their pleas for aid as Wren twisted them this way and that and freed them from their long coats before the summer heats.
It was a quiet day. And she felt a little lighter than she had. More able to push her past back into its tidy compartment in her mind which left her free to pet her grimble and dip her toes in the pond water, and pretend that autumn wasn’t beginning to creep into the breeze. She’d have to pull out her woollens soon enough. Exchange split skirts and overalls for trim leggings and her waxed coat when the rains started.
She’d see little of the grimbles then. Thorn either. They’d tuck away in the burrow. Her parents had started it, but it had been finished by the grimbles themselves—digging and bringing over grasses and leaves until it was almost a part of the incline itself.
Thorn would curl up at the mouth of it, and they’d remain there until the rains stopped.
It was a lonely time. Less life about the place as Temperance and Calliope would refuse to leave the stable and preferred to lie in their stalls and munch on hay and grains for the entirety of their days.
But the rains hadn’t started yet. Hopefully, they’d hold off until winter like last year.
Another soft nose nudged at her elbow, and she pulled that one into her lap as well. There were quite a few that were interested, nudging at bits of her they could find, a few nibbling at her wings, hard enough she had to flutter them briefly and they all startled and jumped a few paces away before easing back to her.
She liked to watch her hand disappear into the grimble’s thick coat. Like the way its soft black eyes looked at her with trust as its mother watched on with a little more caution five paces away.
Which meant she wasn’t watching her front door. Wasn’t watching the pump or the fence. Wasn’t watching for Braum at all.
She startled when Thorn made a sharp bellow, his fur standing on ends as the grimbles moved as one, the little one scrambling off her lap to join its mother and the rest of the flock behind Thorn.
And there was Braum.