The Second Blind Son by Amy Harmon

1

AND ONLY

Ghisla could no longer hear the shouts of the men on the ship or the screams of the women and children who’d been huddled below deck, trying to outlast the storm. She could only hear the howling of the skies and the crash of the waves, battling the tempest as they tossed her up and down. She had climbed up the ladder, opened the hatch, and thrown herself overboard into the water. No one had tried to stop her. The chaos had served as a perfect diversion.

Ghisla wanted to die. She wanted to end her suffering and her loneliness, to end the fear. She wanted that more than anything, but when a small barrel bobbed along beside her, she clung to it, hoisting herself over it, arms and legs wrapped around it like a babe on its mother.

Death would have to wait a bit; she had lost her courage.

The storm raged and Ghisla raged back, singing the songs her mother had taught her, trying to find that courage again. There were songs for planting and songs for harvesting. Songs for supping and songs for sleeping. There were even songs for death and songs to ward it off, but she knew no songs to welcome it. So she sang the song they’d sung at the end of each day before they’d closed their eyes to sleep. Hers had been a family of singers, in a village of singers, in a land of singers.

“Open up the heavens. Open up the earth. Open up the hearts of men, close the wounds and hurt. Hear my voice and hold my hand, help me rise and work again,” she sang. “Mother, Father, Gilly,” she wailed, throwing her voice into the gale. “Help me find you. I want to be with you.”

“Your voice will open the heavens, Ghisla,” her mother had always said. “Odin himself could not deny you, should you call him.” But Odin did not seem to hear, though she begged him to come retrieve her.

“I will sing for you, Allfather, every day. If you will let me come and stay,” she sang, her arms trembling around the cask. She could not let it go. She had no desire to live, yet . . . she could not let go. So she sang, harmonizing with the wind and the waves until exhaustion took her voice and her consciousness.

She awoke to light and warmth and a presence in the shadows.

“Am I dead?” she asked. She’d fallen to sleep cold and wet, bobbing on a forever sea, throat raw with salt and singing. She’d closed her eyes and succumbed to the darkness, beyond caring whether she lived, and here she was. But she didn’t know where she was.

“No.” The voice was young and newly deep. It reminded her of her brother, Gilly. His voice had sounded like that, cracking and quivering between man and boy. She tried to see the owner of the voice, but her lids were too heavy and sleep too sweet.

When she woke again, the warmth had changed, the light too, and the sun beat down on her cheeks, and something tickled her bare foot. She kicked at it, coming awake, frightened that a creature would scurry up her skirts or nibble at her toes. She peered down at the offending touch.

The creature was a boy, squatting on his haunches by her feet, silhouetted by the sun.

“Are you awake?”

She nodded, tucking her feet beneath her skirts, but he tipped his head to the side, listening, and asked her again.

“Are you awake?”

“Yes.” Her tongue was heavy and her lips fat. She sat up, suddenly so parched she was desperate. He seemed to know, for he held a water flask in his hand and extended it toward her slightly, shaking it a little.

“Are you thirsty?”

Ghisla nodded again, but he simply waited, as though he expected her to take it from him. She did, grasping it before widening the distance between them. Then she uncorked the flask and drank until there was nothing left. She wiped at her mouth and wished for more, wished she had left a little to rinse the salt from her eyes. Her face stung.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drink it all.” She tried to hand the flask back to him, but he didn’t take it. He waited until she nudged him with it before accepting it. Then he stood, still silhouetted by the sun at his back, and she shaded her eyes so she could stare up at him, though the glare made picking out the details difficult.

He was tall and thin, his shoulders broad but bony and draped in drab brown. His dark hair was cut close to his skull like a newly shorn sheep, and his eyes were averted, clinging to the distance, and she couldn’t make out their color or intent.

“I can get you more . . . but we’ll have to walk a little ways. Can you walk?” he asked. He had a long staff that pointed up at the sky, and he kept his hands wrapped around it as he waited for her to rise.

She took stock of her condition. She was sore and her dress was stiff with salt, but she was dry, and she was unharmed. She rose to her feet and shook out her thin skirts, brushing the sand from her sleeves and wiping the grit from her cheeks. The top of her head did not quite reach the boy’s shoulders, and he reached out tentatively with one hand, his palm downward, and set his hand atop her head as though marking her size.

She jerked away from him, and his hand fell. He kept his eyes averted, looking at nothing. Now that she was standing, his body blocking the sun, she could see him better. His eyes were the color of the moss that clung to the stones, but they were coated in a white haze and they had no centers . . . or if they did, the milky white obscured them. She stepped back, wanting to run, but she had nowhere to go. The sea stretched out in front of her, cliffs and hills rose up behind her, and sand extended on each side. There was only this boy and this beach. And her.

“I heard you . . . singing in the darkness. Last night. I thought you were a nixie. But nixies are not so small,” he said gently. “I was surprised by your height.”

“A nixie?” she asked.

“A fish-tailed woman who sings and draws the sailors from their ships down into the depths of the sea.”

“I don’t have a fish tail.”

“No. You don’t.” His teeth flashed, straight and white, but his eyes did not smile. “I tickled your feet, remember?”

“I am not a woman either.”

“But you are . . . a girl?”

She frowned. “Yes. Can’t you tell?”

“I’ve never met a . . . young . . . girl. There aren’t many girls in Saylok . . . and there are no girls among the cave keepers.”

“Who are the cave keepers? And what is Saylok?” she asked, but her throat was growing tight with panic. Where was she? And what was wrong with this boy’s eyes? They reminded her of Gilly’s eyes. And Gilly was dead.

“This is Saylok.”

Saylok did not look so different from home. Trees, rocks, towering cliffs, and a white-sand beach rimmed in forest.

“This beach is Saylok?”

“This whole land. But we are in Leok, a part of it . . . though no one lives along this stretch because of the storms.”

“No one but you?”

“No one but me . . . and Arwin.”

“Who is Arwin?”

“He is my teacher.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He’ll be back. Sometimes I feel him watching. But not now. Not for days. I think he’s begun to believe I can manage without him. It is part of my training.”

“You are training? For what?”

“To live on my own.”

Why would he want to live on his own? Ghisla did not want to live on her own. Yet she did. She would forever be on her own. She swayed, already wearied, wanting to sink back down to the sand and fall back into the river of dreams that had brought her here.

“Come . . . I will take you to the stream,” the boy said, turning away. She watched him for a moment, not certain if she should follow.

“I will not harm you,” he called, but did not slow. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

She hurried to catch up, toddling along behind him. He moved easily. Uprightly. But he led each step with the butt of his stick.

“Can you not see?” Ghisla asked, the realization seeping through her addled thoughts.

“I cannot.”

She didn’t know what to say. His voice was unconcerned, and he moved with surety and even grace, aware of his footsteps but not hesitant or fearful.

“How do you know where you’re going?” she whispered.

“I have been here many times before. I live here.” He smiled toward her, as though he thought her funny, and she stared up at his cloudy eyes once more, flabbergasted.

She was not watching where she placed her feet as she climbed past him and she tripped, falling heavily to her hands and knees. A spray of rocks tumbled down the slope.

He stopped immediately and extended a hand in her direction.

“Are you hurt?”

Her hands were raw, and her right knee was scraped. As she watched, blood beaded along the deepest welt, but no real harm was done.

“I am fine,” she said.

“It might be easier for you if you follow behind. You will have time to stare at me after we’ve stopped.”

She didn’t try to defend herself but took his hand to rise and then fell in behind him, watching the path with more care.

He picked his way over rocks and up a small rise to a copse of trees where a small stream tumbled between the trunks.

“Here. The water is sweet and cold, but take care to stay on the banks—it deepens abruptly. You can wash your wounds as well.”

“I am not wounded.”

“You are not bleeding?” he asked mildly.

She frowned, caught in her lie and not certain how he could possibly know such a thing.

“Are you certain you cannot see?” She waved her arms to test his claim.

“The air moves when you do that,” he said. “I can hear you . . . and feel it. And blood has a very particular scent.”

She stopped flapping, embarrassed. “You smelled my blood?”

“Yes.”

“Where am I bleeding?”

“I don’t know that . . . but the flesh on the knees is much thinner than that on the palms. And judging from the sound of your fall, I’m guessing your knees are bleeding.”

“Only one of them,” she grumbled. “It doesn’t even hurt.”

“I think it does. Do you need my help?”

She ignored his question and moved past him to the creek. She paid heed to his instructions, though, and stayed on the bank, drinking her fill from the water that rushed over the smooth rocks. When she was sated, she rinsed the salt from her arms and legs and washed her bloodied knee, careful to do so without a wince or murmur. He waited nearby, his head tipped in such a way that she guessed he was listening the way most men watched, counting her swallows and marking each move she made.

“I will refill your flask,” she offered when she had finished. “The one I emptied.” But he approached, crouched beside her, and did it himself, his head still cocked, keeping track of her.

When he rose again, tucking the flask into his belt, she rose too, suddenly fearful she’d offended him, and that he would leave.

“I am Ghisla,” she said.

“Ghisla,” he repeated with a nod. “How old are you, Ghisla?”

“I have fourteen summers.”

“Fourteen?” He sounded surprised.

“Yes.”

“You are . . . small?” He asked the question as though he wasn’t certain he was correct . . . or he wasn’t certain she was being truthful.

“I am very small. My mother said all our people grow slowly.”

“Your mother?”

“She is dead.” Her voice was dull to her own ears, but the boy didn’t say he was sorry or ask for further explanation. He was simply quiet, as though waiting for her to tell him more. She didn’t.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“I am sixteen. We are not so different in age,” he said slowly.

“You are tall,” she said.

“Am I?” he asked, interested.

“Do your people grow big?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know because you can’t see?” she pressed.

“I don’t know because I . . . don’t . . . know my people.”

“Do you have a name?”

He seemed to think about that. “Yes.”

She waited, but he didn’t offer it.

“What shall I call you?” Her voice was sharp now. She was weary. Not scared. Not anymore. Just weary. Her bones ached and her belly growled in hunger, and the water she’d filled it with sloshed angrily against the hollows.

“You can call me Hod.”

“Hod?” What an odd name. It rhymed with toad. She wondered if he would suddenly hop away. She hoped he wouldn’t. She needed him. She had grown very tired all of a sudden.

“Yes. Hod. That is what Arwin calls me.”

“Arwin . . . Your teacher?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe Arwin can teach me too,” she murmured.

Hod frowned, confused.

“But . . . you can see,” he asked, halting. “Can’t you?”

“Yes. But I don’t know how to live on my own.”

His face smoothed in understanding.

“I am very tired, Hod,” she said. “I am very tired and very hungry. And yes . . . I need your help.”

He brought her to a cave whose mouth yawned like that of a whale carved in the rock. He entered it without hesitation, the darkness almost immediately swallowing him whole.

“It is very dark in there,” she cried, reluctant to follow. He answered immediately.

“I do not need the light . . . but I will make a fire, and you can rest there, near the opening.”

She sank down obediently, peering into the depths, trying to find him, but the darkness was complete. She waited, anxious, weary, but comforted by the sounds that emerged.

Mere moments later, twin flames bloomed, one from a torch that protruded from the cave wall, another from the pit that lay deeper in the cave. Hod stood beneath the torch, his staff set aside, and he called her name.

“Ghisla, is the light sufficient?”

“Yes.”

“Come inside, then. I will feed you.”

The interior of the cave was as big as the home she’d lived in with her family. Bigger, if the tunnels that led off the sides opened into additional rooms. She would not be exploring them today. Skins lined the walls and the floor, and shelves filled with baskets and jars rose on every side. It was like no cave she’d ever seen before. A table with carved legs and four chairs was pushed to the side. Another table, long and narrow, was lined with candles and sundry things, and yet another was bare but for a row of knives.

“Sit at the table. It won’t take me long,” he instructed.

Hod unwrapped some meat from a waxy skin and cut a chunk of bread from a loaf in a cloth beside it. He had cheese and wine and honey too, and he set everything in front of her before he pulled out another chair and sat down.

“Please. Eat,” he said, and she pounced on the offering.

She had eaten more than her share—half of the meat and more than half of the bread—when she stopped long enough to observe the boy across from her. He did not eat like her brothers. He ate carefully, neatly, chewing with his mouth closed and his elbows tucked to his sides.

She remembered belatedly that he was only blind . . . not deaf . . . and the happy noises she’d been making had most definitely been noted. She covered her mouth over an indelicate burp and set down her empty goblet. She waited for him to finish, keeping her eyes averted. He seemed to know when she was staring.

Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could see what appeared to be a bedroom through an arch to her right. A mattress on a wooden frame, fat and firm-looking, peeked out from beneath a giant pile of furs. Pillows encased in silk were stacked on top.

“Can I sleep there?” she whispered, trusting Hod would know of what she spoke.

“No. Arwin would not like that,” Hod said. “But do not worry. I will make you a nest near the fire.”

“A nest?” The words made her think of the rats that lived in the ship’s hold. She did not want to sleep in a nest.

“It is what Arwin says I do when I prepare to sleep. I like everything just so. Anything else makes me feel like I’m floating away.”

“Will you sleep by the fire too?” She wasn’t sure how she felt about sleeping in his presence. She wasn’t certain how she felt about sleeping alone either.

“I do not need to sleep now . . . but I have my own chamber. I will not be far.”

He made a small circle of rocks and inside them placed a stack of furs as high as her knees. He covered it all with a wool blanket that smelled surprisingly clean—like cedar and salt air—and invited her to lie down.

She didn’t question his rock circle or the marks he drew on their surfaces with a blackened stick from the fire. It was a simple circle with an arrow protruding out from above and below. It did not alarm her; it made her feel protected. She whispered her thanks, closed her eyes, and within seconds was asleep.

She floated for a very long time, back in the ocean but no longer cold, drifting back to her home, back to the time before, to people who existed only in her dreams.

She was thirsty. So thirsty. Her mouth was a crater filled with dust, and she coughed as she sought to fill her lungs. Her tongue lolled against the back of her throat—stiff and dry and useless. She rolled to the side and coughed again, gasping, and her tongue fell through her lips and lay against the pillow. But she could breathe. At least she could breathe, and she panted thankfully, her eyes still closed, gathering her strength to move again. She needed water. Gilly had brought water from the well just last night and filled the cup beside her bed. Or the night before. She could not remember now.

“That one is alive. What should we do?” The voice was afraid and the sound was muffled, like he held a hand over his mouth.

“Do not touch her. Do not touch anything. She will soon be dead.”

Were they talking about her?

The voices retreated, and Ghisla fought to open her eyes.

“Mother?” she whispered, but the word was no more than a moan. Then she remembered.

Mother was sick. Father was sick. Peder and Morgana and Abner were sick too. She remembered that now. They were all so sick. But Gilly . . . Gilly was not sick. Gilly had brought her water.

She tried to say his name, but her tongue lay heavy against her teeth. She pushed herself up, swaying under the weight of her head and the resistance in her limbs. The water was there, and she drank gratefully, though it dribbled out the sides of her mouth and ran down the front of her shift. It was not cold and it tasted odd—like it had sat in the cup too long.

Someone had started a fire. She felt the heat at her back and the smoke in her lungs. The wood was too wet. She could smell the damp.

“Gilly?” She could see his boots just beyond the foot of her bed. He’d slept thus for nights on end. She braced herself and rose on teetering legs. He had tried to care for them all. Poor Gilly. She would bring him her cup.

He’d pulled a blanket over his shoulders and shoved a pillow under his head, but he was not asleep. He stared up at her with glassy disinterest, not answering, not responding, not moving at all. A fly landed on his eye and he didn’t even blink.

The fire had escaped the grate. It was crawling up the wall between the rooms.

“Gilly . . . we have to go,” she whispered. The fly on his face was joined by another, but the smoke billowed and the flies flew toward the open door.

She reached for Gilly’s boots and began dragging him across the floor. His boots came loose with a wet swoosh, and she staggered back, still clutching them as she fell to the floor. She might have screamed, but the fire had begun to roll above her, popping and spitting, and she stared up at the ceiling, waiting to be consumed. Suddenly, a man was there, hoisting her up and dragging her from the room.

He set her beside the well, but he took Gilly’s boots and threw them back toward the flames, an offering to the beast that had consumed her home. Other figures—more soldiers—flickered in the orange glow of the waning day. Red skies were mother’s favorite.

But it was not the sun that made the heavens burn.

The soldiers were setting the village on fire.

Cottages and fields, barns, and wagons. Animals. People.

People were piled one atop the other, a teetering pyre of flesh and bone. They too were set ablaze.

Ghisla pushed herself up, coughing and groaning, and took two steps toward the house before her legs refused to carry her and she fell again. A long blade tickled her nose, but she could not find the strength to move or the will to open her eyes.

The voices came again, and she willed the soldiers not to spare her, but to take her swiftly. She did not want to burn, but she did not want to live. Mayhaps they could toss her into the well and let her sink into the cold darkness.

“Should we take her with us, Gudrun? She might live.”

“Leave her there. If she lives, she lives. But I’ll not be bringing her into my keep. You should not have touched her.”

“I will burn my clothes.”

“We will all burn our clothes. And then we will petition the gods that we aren’t next.”

“If she lives, she will be the only one,” another voice grunted. “The only one in the whole village. All the Songrs are gone.”

“Ghisla.”

Her name echoed from far away. She ignored it. She was ready to burn with all the others. She was not even afraid. But she would miss the nest Hod had made for her.

Hod.It was Hod who was speaking.

Memory settled as she rose from the deep well of sleep.

She was not home. She would never be home again. There was no home.

“Ghisla.” He was closer . . . or maybe she was. She was rising through the layers of sleep, rising against her will to the surface of the sea and the boy who hovered over her.

“Ghisla, you must wake now.” She felt a hand on her brow and fingertips at her lips, as though he tested to see whether she still breathed. She was not dead. Sadly, she was not dead.

“Ghisla. You must wake,” he repeated. “Your lips are dry and your skin is too hot. You need water and food. Ghisla . . .”

She raised a weary hand and swatted her name away. She did not want to wake. She did not want water or food. Suddenly, she was floating again, and she jolted, panicked, but her arms were too heavy to flail and her lids were too weary to open. Something dug into her belly, and she realized groggily that he was carrying her over his shoulder. Hod. Hod the Toad, Hod the blind boy, was carrying her. She forced her eyes open, and the ground bounced below her.

“You are blind,” she rasped.

“Yes. And you are sick. You are also very light. Which is fortunate for me. I have never carried someone before.”

She was slung over his shoulder like a lamb, his right hand securing her legs, his left hand wrapped around his staff.

“It is not yet dark . . . Could you not have let me sleep a bit longer?” she groaned.

“You have been asleep for two days. I had to use a rune to make you wake.”

“A rune?”

He did not answer but lowered her gently into the creek where he’d taken her to drink before. She gasped as the cold engulfed her, but he kept a hand beneath her head, keeping her face above water. It was not deep where she lay. She could feel the rocks against her shoulder blades and the small of her back. Her feet floated up, but she would not be swept away in the current.

“C-c-could you not just bring w-water to me?” she said, teeth chattering. “Why did you have to put me in the stream?”

“Your skin needs to cool. You need to drink . . . and you need a bath. This was the easiest way to accomplish all of those things.”

“I do not need a bath.” But she did need to relieve herself. The urge was terrible, but though the water would whisk it away, she could not do something so intimate with him looking on.

“Go away,” she snapped. “I need some privacy.”

“I cannot see you,” he reminded her.

“But you can smell me,” she grumbled.

His brows rose in surprise and his nose wrinkled. Belatedly she realized what she’d implied.

“I do not mean that!” she said. “I only need to empty my water.”

He eased her upright as he rose and then released her hesitantly. She swayed and her head knocked against his knee. He waited a moment, like he didn’t trust the creek or her strength, but she swatted at his leg.

“Go.”

“You are already much better,” he remarked, but he did as she asked, retreating downstream in search of their supper. He’d caught two shining, silvery fish before she’d summoned the strength to do anything but sit in the stream.

“My flask is on the rock near your head. A bit of soap too, if you like,” he called out a few minutes later. She muttered to herself about him “listening and not leaving” but made thorough use of both.

“Are all young girls so ill-tempered?” he called when she didn’t answer him.

“Are all blind boys so nosy?” she hollered back.

“I don’t know any other blind boys. But I can’t help it if I hear—and smell—better than others do.”

“Ha. You don’t smell any better to me.” Actually, he did. He smelled quite lovely. He smelled of honey and peat and the bark of the needled trees near his cave. He smelled clean. It was an odd thing for someone to be so clean—almost as odd as his name. Her brothers had not smelled nice. Not ever. Mother had had to coax them to wash, and they never did a good job of it.

The thought made her ache.

“Your breathing has changed. Are you all right?” he called.

“You can hear me breathing?” she gasped.

“Yes . . . Are you still unwell?”

“I said I needed privacy, Hod,” she whispered, but he heard that too. Suddenly he was back, kneeling beside her. He pressed his palms to her cheeks, checking for fever.

“I am fine,” she said. “I feel fine.”

“The heat is gone,” he agreed. “Are you finished?”

“What . . . You can’t tell?” she snapped.

“Only you know whether you are finished,” he said softly. “I can’t hear your thoughts. I wish I could.”

“I have used all the soap, and your flask is empty,” she supplied, trying to control her irritation. Beneath the prickling was a welling terror. She wasn’t tired anymore. She could not sleep away the hours ahead, and there would be nothing to distract her from her predicament. She was lost. She was alone. And she had nowhere to go.

“Can you walk?” he asked, like he’d done on the beach.

“Yes.” But she made no move to stand. “Hod?”

“Yes?”

“I didn’t want to wake up. I would like to sleep again.”

“I know . . . but a bird must leave its nest.”

“Why?” she sighed.

“To eat. To live. To learn.”

“I don’t want to live. You said you used a rune to wake me. Can you use a rune to make me sleep forever?”

He was silent for a moment. “I should not have done that,” he admitted, misgiving ringing in his words.

“Done what?”

“I should not have told you about the rune. I am not accustomed to guarding my words. There is usually no one to hear them except Arwin . . . and he demands that I share them all. And master them.”

“Master your words?”

“Yes. And the runes.” He winced. “I’ve done it again.”

“Where is Arwin?” Had she asked that before?

“He will be back. I would . . . appreciate it if you did not tell him about the runes.”

“What can I tell him? I know nothing of such things. And you have not answered me. Can you make me sleep again?”

“I do not want you to sleep,” he said. “I would like to talk to you. I would like to hear you sing some more.”

“I do not want to sing.”

“Come . . . You will feel better when you are dry and fed.” He held out his hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet. She wrung out the skirts of her dress and he waited, his head tipped, listening to her. When he turned to go, she followed him.