Tree Singer

home right now if Cather hadn’t begged to go?
Then what?
Would her mother be on this quest, leaving her home with the babies?
Mayten turned, anger, sadness, confusion and fatigue clouding her thoughts. “At least your mother was kind enough to let you decide if you wanted to go.”
She stomped off to the firepit, dropping her armload of wood with a loud crash!
“Watch it, Singer!” Adven jumped as the wood tumbled near his boot. He called her “Singer” as if the word tasted bad in his mouth.
Mayten backed away from the strange man who obviously didn’t want her there. Why didn’t he just send her home?
Ignoring Adven’s glare, she stalked to the opposite side of the clearing to gather more wood, someplace she could be alone with her thoughts.

Chapter Nine
The woodsman bagged a turkey large enough to feed them all and roasted it over the fire as they prepared their beds. Mayten ate with an appetite she hadn’t known she had, the juicy, hot meat savory on her tongue. She carefully wiped her hands and mouth with a spare cloth when she finished, leaning against a fallen log and listening to the forest around her.
Anatolian finished his meal and plopped down beside her, laying his head in her lap. She absently stroked his soft head, glad for the lack of conversation.
Cather sat about three feet away. She yanked off her boots and applied ointments and bandages to her swollen feet. It always seemed strange that healers couldn’t heal themselves using energy the same way they used it to heal others, instead having to resort to ordinary healing techniques.
Mayten almost got up to help her friend but the ring of Cather’s betrayal left a bitter taste in her mouth. She focused instead on picking burrs from Anatolian’s ears.
First her mother, then Cather—two people she had always trusted. Even her da had known. The deceit hit her like physical blows.
Tray sat close by, whittling away at a piece of wood with a small knife, humming tunelessly. His shaggy dark hair fell into his eyes and every few minutes he tossed his head, flipping his hair out of his eyes.
Adven shared long swigs from a waterskin with Hunter. The woodsman sat on his haunches, poking at the fire. She was certain what they drank bore no resemblance to water, though. She studied the pair while working loose the dog’s burrs. Hunter looked younger than Adven, more the age of Mayten’s twin sisters.
“Hunter,” said Adven, his voice raised more than necessary for them all to hear, “have you no stories to relieve the monotony of this babysitting I must do?”
Mayten glared at their so-called leader, who insolently met her gaze. Only one eye was visible beneath his hat. She drew in a breath to tell him she’d be glad to return home but Hunter jumped to his feet, waving his arms in the air. His green eyes sparkled.
“The only thing I love more than hearing a good story,” the woodsman said in an accent Mayten had never heard before, “is telling one of my own.”
Then he laughed so hard he doubled over. She felt herself smiling despite her dark mood.
Firelight danced across his face as he spoke. His rust-red hair looked like tongues of flame licking up around his knitted cap. His lilting voice took on a rhythm Mayten found mesmerizing.
“Exactly eight years ago I was in these very woods, further up the great mountain. The questers were resting while I scouted for game. I’m not bragging when I say I’m the best woodsman—and hunter—in our clan. I never come back empty-handed. But there’d been a drought that year and game was hard to come by.”
She’d only been seven at the time of the drought but the plants and trees had all felt the sting of thirst. Some of the clan blamed the drought for the sickness that took her siblings that winter.
“Finally, I heard something in the bush.” His voice grew quiet as he crouched low and mimicked drawing a bow.
“By then I was getting desperate and perhaps a tad incautious.” He drawled the word ‘tad’ and she got the sense he’d been more than a little careless.
“I tiptoed slowly toward the bush, bow ready. Then I caught the most horrible smell.” He wrinkled his nose. “A smell I knew too well and should have noticed sooner. My gut clenched and I turned to run, but a great bear rose from the bush, looming over me.”
The woodsman stood on his toes, arms in the air, fingers curved like claws. “He was three feet taller than I and twice as wide.”
A shiver ran down Mayten’s spine as he continued.
“The bear ROARED.”
Mayten’s heart jumped.
“Two rows of knife-sharp teeth dripped in that roaring mouth, teeth just waiting to rip me to shreds. His hot breath burned the skin of my face. Before I could run, I was knocked sideways by a blow so strong I could no longer breathe. The last thing I remember was flying through the air. I woke at the base of a tree.”
The woodsman leaned closer to the fire and dropped his voice to a low whisper. “They say that when you’re about to die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that’s not what happened to me. As I was flying through the air, before I hit the tree, my last thought went something like this, ‘Well at least when he eats me, he’ll get a mouth full of shat when he gets t’ my pants!’”
Hunter slapped his thigh and doubled over, laughing hysterically. He fell onto the ground and gripped his sides. Mayten couldn’t help herself; she began to laugh as well, picturing the woodsman with dirty pants and the disgusted bear.
Why was it so hard to resist laughing when someone joked about themselves? Her da was famous for that.
Cather and Tray joined in, both laughing so hard tears streamed down their cheeks. Even Adven managed a lopsided grin.
When the woodsman caught his breath, Cather asked, “But how did