Tree Singer

placed her hand on Tray’s shoulder.
“I would like to know,” Mayten said more softly.
“That story isn’t mine to tell, but I can tell you this—Adven and Hunter were arguing about you.” Tray jabbed his finger at her. “That’s why Hunter didn’t sense the mountain lion.”
“About me?” Mayten felt as though he’d punched her in the stomach. Her breath whooshed out, taking her anger with it. She sank slowly back down to the ground, knees crumpling beneath her.
Was she to blame for Hunter’s death?
“Why were they arguing about me?” Had she done something wrong? If so, what? She held her breath, afraid of the answer.
“Adven didn’t think you should have come on this quest and Hunter thought you should. He stood up for you and it made Adven mad.” Tray glanced away, kicking at the dirt with his toe.
Mayten didn’t want to fight. She wanted to crawl back in her tree and shut the world out. She’d known Adven didn’t like her, she just hadn’t known why.
“It wasn’t my idea. I never wanted to come.”
Cather cut in, her hands around Tray’s upper arm. “Look, we’re all upset about Hunter but we need to stay strong. We’re a team. And what do you mean about how hard it will be, Tray? What does Adven have to do?”
Tray and Mayten stared at each other across the fire. Finally, Tray sat back down, picked up another handful of pine needles, and tossed them one by one into the fire. Cather sat next to him, clearly waiting for an answer.
It was just as clear to Mayten that Tray was done talking. She looked into Cather’s gentle eyes.
“The questers have a rule—” she started.
“A code,” Tray broke in.
“A code,” she repeated with a sigh. “If one of their own gets hurt and they are too far from home or help and are so bad they can’t be helped—”
“And there’s no other option,” Tray added defensively.
“After two days, they have to . . .” she stopped, unable to go on.
“They have to ease the injured person’s passing.” Tray scrubbed his hands on his knees.
Mayten was sure Cather would explode. Healers fought to save lives, not take them. But Cather sat in silence, brushing a tear from her cheek.
“Healers have a similar . . . understanding, although we don’t call it a code. When someone is dying, when death is inevitable and they are in pain.” Mayten could barely hear her friend’s soft voice. “We have herbs to ease their way.”
Mayten didn’t know what to say. Was she the only one who hadn’t known that some of her people were helping others die?
Not only did she feel naive, she was embarrassed to be so naive. Was that why Adven hated singers. Did he think singers were gutless people, vomiting when they should be helping and falling asleep in trees at important times. Did he consider singers to be wasters-of-air that had to be protected from the harsher realities of life?
It looked like singers weren’t as loved by everyone as she’d thought. Perhaps singers—her entire family—were only tolerated.
For the first time in her life Mayten wondered if she really knew anything about the world.
She pulled out her blanket and lay down, calling Anatolian to her. Cather stayed by Tray’s side. Mayten turned away from them, struggling not to feel rejected by her friends. She listened to the murmur of their voices late into the night, burying her face in Anatolian’s fur to hide her tears.
She’d never felt so unwanted, unneeded, and unnecessary. Why had she even come?
The king asked for me.
But how was she supposed to help if she never really got a chance to listen to the trees?
Mayten rubbed the star-shaped rock in her pocket, overcome by the fierce need to be home.
The one place she knew she belonged.

Chapter Seventeen
The next two days passed in a blur. Mayten sank deeper into a dark mood while Cather and Tray told each other story after story. They’d spent the last fifteen years together—where did they find so many new stories?
Not only was there a nauseating overabundance of googly eyes, the pair constantly teased each other. And the giggles . . . all those giggles.
You’d think they were meeting each other for the first time.
“Come on, Mayten, walk with us!” Cather called when the trail widened and the trees opened up, letting in more sunlight.
They could walk side by side, Mayten knew that, but she hesitated. “Thanks, but I’d rather be alone.”
It wasn’t Cather and Tray, not entirely. Mayten felt as though something was sucking her soul dry. Color seemed to drain from her world, turning everything gray.
Cather’s smile faded as she turned away, walking quietly by Tray’s side.
Every now and then, Tray would drop back and attempt to tease a smile out of Mayten. She tried to give him that smile, to let him think all was well, but she could not shake off the heaviness weighing her down.
She turned in early every night. Anatolian seemed to sense her distress, staying pressed against her side except when he hunted. She fell asleep clinging to her star rock, one hand on Anatolian’s back.
On the third day, Mayten struggled awake, wrapped in the dark haze she couldn’t seem to shake. Trees and sky and ground blurred together, without color, without light. She forced one foot in front of the other, feeling more like a puppet than a person, not noticing the others had stopped until she almost ran into Cather.
Cather pointed at a long, fallen log and they all sat, sharing water as they rested. The water was refreshing and the act of drinking brought Mayten back into her body, starting to clear her foggy brain.
Tray was being his goofy self, trying to make Cather laugh. Mayten was lost in her own thoughts when Cather said, “Look Tray, that frog is red. I’ve never seen such a thing. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“You want a frog? A frog shall be yours,” Tray said in a gallant tone. He leaped from the trunk with a deep bow. A sense of