"—you are! Poor Gerta can't even peck at the grain at the bottom of her cage. You are absolutely pulling too hard." The spotted female bleats. The cart settles. Behind me, every animal goes quiet for one breath before the rooster starts screaming again. I turn. She's standing there with her chin up, arms crossed, fingers stained purple from the last batch. Half my size. Telling me how to walk. In front of my sister. I said no. Said it clearly. She shoved the handle at me and said protect my arms and my sister wheezed from the ground and somehow I'm here. Straps over my shoulders. Chickens behind me. Goats fighting every st
Ep One of the chickens is named after me. Her mouth is set. Her voice has that edge. Sharp. Certain. My eye drops to her mouth. Snaps back up. "They're livestock." "Stressed livestock don't produce good milk. Pull smoother." My eye twitches. "The cart is not the problem." "The cart is definitely part of the problem. You're jerking them around." "I'm walking." "Aggressively." "I don't walk aggressively." "You do everything aggressively." Right. Again. I face forward and start walking. Smoother. Behind me, the male goat lunges sideways and head-butts the cart wall. The whole thing jolts. I stumble half a st ep. Catch myself. Don't turn around. "He's testing you," she calls. "The goat." "He wants to know who's in charge." "I'm in charge." "You have to establish that. With the goat." I stop. Look at her. Then at the male goat, who is chewing on my strap with total contempt. I have killed men with my hands. I am being taught to communicate.
With a goat. "How do I establish dominance over a goat?" "Push his head down when he butts. Firm, not rough. Hold it for a second. He'll figure it out." "I'm not wrestling a goat." "You're not wrestling him. You're communicating." "With a goat." "Yes." "Using my hands." "That's generally how it works." Kestria sits down on a log. Not even trying anymore. Face in her hands, body heaving. Wheeze that ke eps breaking into something worse. I can hear her breathing through her fingers. I can hear everything—the goats' hooves on packed dirt, Melori's footst eps, the low murmur of her voice. My sister. Losing her composure on a forest trail while I pull a cart full of fucking livestock. I'm going to remember this. She's going to remember this. The male goat butts the cart again. Harder. The rooster screams. Three hens panic at once, flapping and squawking. Their combined weight shifts the cage, which slides on the cart bed, which startles the spotted female, who yanks her lead rope so hard the knot pulls half-loose from the rail. "Mel—" "I see it." Already moving. Already there, hands on the rope before the goat can bolt. "Hold on, hold—there. Okay." Retying the knot, fingers working fast. The goat presses her nose against Melori's arm. Not aggressive. Just scared. "You're fine," she tells the goat. "Everything's fine. The rooster is insane but he's contained." The rooster hurls himself against the cage to prove her wrong. "Mostly contained." The male goat gets his head through the cart slats. Just shoves it through—horns catching on the wood, body stuck on the other side. Bleating with more annoyance than panic. "Don't pull him—" Already jogging back. "If you pull him, the horns will—" I'm already pulling him. "I said don't—" The slat cracks. Not all the way. Enough. The goat wrenches free, ripping a chunk of wood loose. Now there's a hole in the side of the cart. One of the hens immediately tries to es cape through it. Melori shoves the hen back. It pecks her hand. She shoves it back again. "Kestria, can you hold this board up while I—" Kestria is on the ground. Not sitting. Lying. On her back. Hands over her face. Melori doesn't turn. "Really helpful. Very glad you came." The hen makes another break for it. I catch her—one hand, no hesitation, scoop her right out of the air mid-flap and put her back in the cage.
Melori stares at me. At my hand. Her lips part. Her breath changes—I hear it, I hear everything about her now, when did that start—and her eyes drop to my fingers and I know where her brain goes because mine goes there too. The tree. Her back against bark. My hand— I put the hen in the cage. Don't look at her. "That was—nothing." It wasn't nothing. Kestria is five feet away. If I look at Melori right now my face is going to say things my mouth won't. "You tied the goats wrong," she announces. I turn. Slowly. "What?" "The lead ropes. You used a fixed knot. If one of them panics and pulls, the rope tightens and doesn't release. You need a quick-release hitch." "I've been tying knots for thirty years." "You've been tying wolf knots for thirty years. Goat knots are different." "There's no such thing as a goat knot." "There absolutely is. Goats chew. Goats pull. Goats get their heads stuck in things, as we just saw. You need a knot that holds under steady pressure but releases when you yank the tail. Otherwise you're cutting rope every time one of them does something stupid, and they will do something stupid, because they're goats." Muscle under my eye pulls. "You're going to teach me to tie knots." "I'm going to teach you to tie goat knots. Yes." She st eps closer. Her shoulder brushes my arm when she reaches for the rope. Her fingers work the rope. Quick, practiced, sure. The rope. Watch the rope. She's explaining tension and release. I'm not hearing the words. Body gone rigid. The rooster chooses this moment to lunge at the cage bars, beak snapping toward my shoulder. Misses by inches. "That rooster," I say through my teeth. "Is perfect and I love him." "That rooster is going to end up in a pot." "You wouldn't dare." "Try me." Kestria wheezes from the ground.
"Are you going to get up?" Melori asks her. "No." "We have moonbright to pick." "I know. In a minute." Kestria drags herself upright, leaves in her hair, tears on her cheeks. "Give me a minute." "You're both useless." Neither of them looks up. I adjust the strap across my shoulder. "The goat bit my strap." "Which one?" "The male." "Did he get through?" "He's chewing on it right now." "Push his head down." "I am not—" "Push his head down, Keer." I push the goat's head down. Firm, not rough. Hold it for a second. The goat bleats once—indignant, short—and stops chewing. I will never speak of this. "See?" She grins. "He respects you now." "The goat doesn't respect me." "He stopped chewing." "Because I shoved his face." "That's goat respect. Take the win." I face forward. Start walking. Smoother. The goats settle. The cart steadies. The only sound is Kestria behind me, still making that controlled wheeze, and Melori's footst eps, and the chickens roosting in their cages. Her stride. It changes when the path narrows. The soft sound of the basket bumping her hip. Her breath catching when she laughs at something Kestria whispers. I track her with my ears. The forest closes in. Older trees. Thicker undergrowth. The path narrows until we're single file, cart barely fitting. She's behind me. The back of my neck knows it. Then the smell hits. Sharp. Green. Moonbright. Thick enough to taste. It burns in my sinuses the way it always does—that low ache wolves feel near the flowers. We avoid these fields. I pull the cart into the clearing. Stop.
Acres of pale blue-white flowers stretching to the tree line on every side. Melori has gone still behind me. Her breathing changed—the catch, the tightness. Her cottage was in this direction. Through those trees. Everything she built. "Mel?" Kestria's beside her. Hand on her arm. "I'm fine." She st eps forward. Her voice is steady. I can hear the effort. "We need to work fast. Petals lose potency after six hours." I secure the animals. Goats to a tree. Chickens in their cages. Hands working while I listen to her move through the flowers behind me. Crouching. Picking. I go to her. "Show me." She looks up. Eyes dry. Face arranged. Fingers in the dirt already. "Show you what?" "How to pick them. Which parts matter." "The petals with purple edges. Those are the ones I need. White petals are weaker but I'll use them too. S eparate piles. And the leaves—" She holds one up, turning it in the light. "Dry these and they bring fever down in about an hour. Don't mix them with the petals or you'll ruin both." I crouch beside her. My knee almost touches hers. "These?" I hold a stem. Careful with the base. "Yes. Good. Drop it in the—" Her eyes snap to my hand. "Wait. Your fingers." "What?" "They're red. You're—of course you're burning. Why didn't you say anything?" I look at my fingers. Red. Starting to throb, now that I'm looking. "It's fine." "It's not fine, it's moonbright. Here." She's already pulling cloth from her basket, tearing a strip. "Wrap this around your hand. Pick through the cloth." We work. Kestria joins us. Three sets of hands moving through the field. Sun on my shoulders. Sinuses burning. Hands aching through the cloth. Pick, check the edges, sort, drop. My hands learn the rhythm. Her knee is right there. Close enough to feel the warmth. Every time I reach for a flower my arm passes hers. "You're fast." "I've been doing this for a long time." "How did you find it?" "Got lost." Another one into her basket. "I was trying to find a creek I'd heard about, took a wrong turn, and ended up here. Stood at the edge for probably ten minutes just staring."
"Alone?" "I was always alone." Her hands ke ep moving. "Nobody was going to come looking for me if I wandered off. So I could go as far as I wanted." Alone. "And the cure?" I ask. "Also an accident?" "Also an accident." Her basket's filling. "The first wolf I treated was dying. Fever so high I could feel the heat from a foot away. Nothing worked. The yarrow, the compresses—nothing. He was just—going. And I'd been using moonbright for dyes and teas for years but never on wounds, because why would you put flowers on a wound? But I didn't have anything else. So I crushed the petals, mixed them with water, smeared the paste on his chest, and went to sle ep because I figured he'd be dead by morning." "But he wasn't." "Fever broke before dawn. The wound started closing by itself. I thought I was losing my mind." The rooster screams from the cart. We both look up. Back to the flowers. I pick a flower. Drop it in the basket between us. Careful with the petals. Purple past the knuckles, both of us. Her arm brushes mine when she reaches. "The leaves go here?" Kestria, from somewhere to my right. "S eparate pile." Melori doesn't look up. "Away from the petals. And check the stems for bugs—there's a beetle that eats the roots and the frass can contaminate the paste." "Frass?" "Bug droppings." "You could've just said bug droppings." "Frass is the technical term." "Frass sounds like a curse word." "It should be. Very underutilized." The sun shifts. We ke ep picking. My knees don't ache. My body heals everything. I don't have to stop. She will ache. Won't say anything about it. I stand. Stretch. Empty my flowers into the larger basket by the cart. When I come back, I crouch in a different spot. Closer. Close enough that my arm touches hers when I reach. Actually touches. "There's a field," I tell her. She looks up. "Near pack territory. Half a day's walk from the den. Larger than this one." "Larger?" "By a lot."
Her hands stop. "You said there wasn't any in the territory." "I didn't know what it was." "What?" "I ran through a clearing years ago. Air hurt to breathe. I left and didn't go back. Didn't know the name for it until today." Her eyes go wide. Then fast—moving, calculating. Her mouth opens and her whole body leans toward me and the energy coming off her is — Hands still. Brain running full speed. "Keer. If wolves avoid it naturally, that's because the plant affects your biology at a base level. Which means the potency of a larger field would be—the concentration in the soil alone—I need to test the petals. Compare them to these. If the purple ratio is higher in a larger natural field, the paste could be twice as strong, maybe more, and the processing time might—" "Mel." "—drop to a single day if the base concentration is—" "Mel." "What?" "Breathe." "I am breathing. I'm also realizing that everything I've been doing could've been twice as effective if I'd known about a field that was right there this whole time, which is not your fault, I know it's not your fault, but I might need a minute to be frustrated about it anyway." "Take your time." "Thank you." She picks a flower. Drops it. Picks another. "Okay. I'm done being frustrated." "That was fast." "Yeah well, being frustrated doesn't get flowers picked." She turns back to the basket. "Will you take me there?" "To the field?" "Yeah." "When?" "Tomorrow. Next day. As soon as the paste from today's batch is ste eping." I pick flowers. Steady. Matching her rhythm. "I'll take you." Her face changes. Soft. Open. The constant motion stalls and she goes quiet. I want to touch her face. I watch the flowers instead. "Thank you." My hands pause on a stem. "For what?"
"For telling me. About the field. That's—" She stops. Starts again. "That's really useful." "You're welcome." Stiff. "You don't say that very often, do you?" "Say what?" "You're welcome." "People don't usually thank me." "People should thank you more." No answer. Reach for another one. But my shoulder presses against hers. Don't pull away. The sun moves. We fill three baskets. Then four. Light's changing. Loading the baskets into the cart is a negotiation —goats taking up half the space, chickens in cages, supplies piled on supplies, the broken slat from the male goat's es cape making everything worse. She wedges baskets into gaps. Stacks where she can. The rooster tries to bite her hand through the bars. "Later." She pulls her hand back. "We'll fight later." He screams. "I know. I know. Life is hard for aggressive roosters." More screaming. "You're going to lose your voice." The screaming drops to a lower volume. "He bit me." She turns. I hold up my thumb. Red mark—small, already fading. "He's asserting dominance." "Over me." "He doesn't know you're the Alpha. He just knows you're near his hens." "His hens." "Roosters are territorial. You're a large male in proximity to his flock. He's doing his job." I look at the rooster. The rooster looks at me. More hostility than most wolves I've fought. "I respect it. I still want to eat him, though." "You'll have to go through me first." "That's not the threat you think it is." "It absolutely is. I'm scrappy." Kestria drags herself to standing. Petals in her hair. Dirt on her face.
She looks better than she has in days. "Are we going?" she asks. "Or are you two going to ke ep flirting over the rooster?" "We're not flirting," Melori answers, face turning bright red, at the same time I say, "We're not." Kestria's face goes very still. Then she turns around and starts walking. She's shaking again. We're flirting. Kestria knows it. Keer Jr. probably knows it. I take up the cart straps. Shoulders settle into the familiar hunch. Start walking. Smoother than before. The animals are tired now. Goats plodding. Chickens roosting. Even the rooster reduced to angry muttering. Light fading through the trees. "What's the processing time?" I haven't turned my head. Just angled it toward her. "For the paste?" she asks. "Yes." "Two days for basic potency. Three for stronger. The petals have to be crushed within six hours of picking, then mixed with water and left to ste ep." "You'll need help." "I'll manage. Always do." "Dara can help. She's been learning." "She's gotten better." The path curves ahead. "I showed her the technique for wound cleaning. She picked it up fast." "She said you're a good teacher." Melori's foot catches a root. "She said that?" "She said you explain things like they matter." Her face opens. The quiet holds. She doesn't fill it. I don't fill it. Forest sounds around us. Chest tight. "I just tell people what I know." Her voice quiet. "That's more than most do." We walk. Pack territory close now. Smoke from the fire pits. Distant voices. "The goats need shelter before dark," she announces. "I'll have someone help you build it." "I can build it myself." "You've been working all day."
"So have you." My eye cuts to her. Back to the path. "You're stubborn." "You mentioned that before." "It bears r epeating." "Well, you're—" She stops. Starts again, differently. "Also stubborn." I grunt. We emerge from the trees. Clearing opens up. Smoke and structures and people doing normal things. Heads turn at our approach. The Alpha pulling a cart of livestock. Two women beside him. Baskets of wheat on their arms. Nobody comments. They've learned not to. I stop near the ridge. "Here." "The drainage—" "I'll have someone dig a channel. It'll be fine." I'm standing here working the cart straps while she watches. Hands working leather through the buckles without looking down. "Fine. Here." "Mel." Kestria watching her with the expression that means she sees everything. "You should start on the paste. Before the petals lose potency." "Right. Yes. The paste." Gone. Basket against her chest. "I need to —the processing area. Set up by my dwelling. Crushing station, water, containers—did I bring containers? I brought containers. The clay ones with the wax seals. And the mortar, I need the—" "I'll bring the other baskets," Kestria offers. "Good. Yes. Thank you." She's walking backward now. On uneven ground. My hand twitches at my side because if she falls— She doesn't fall. "Tell Dara to find me if she wants to learn the crushing technique. And I need clean water—stream water, not standing water. And cloth for straining. And—" "Go, Mel." She goes. Walking away from the cart and the goats and me. Talking to herself already—paste, containers, processing, Dara, cloth for straining. Hands gesturing at nothing, hair come loose. Purple smudges on her forehead. I don't move until she's gone.