Riverkeep by Martin Stewart Page B

and held up a fish head. Pappa took it like a horse after hay, lips pulling at air and scale.
    â€œSame as again,” said Pappa.
    â€œThey left some of the salted trout, proper fish—why don’t you try that?”
    â€œSame as again!”
    â€œYou love salted trout,” said Wull quietly, passing him another fish head.
    As Pappa ate, Wull looked toward the boathouse. He could go back, forget this ever happened. Lantern twenty-two would be burning still—he could uproot it, take itsflame to thaw the others, bring the river back under his control, and fight the ice, as Pappa would have done.
    â€œIt that speaks,” said Pappa, voice garbled by the white meat of the fish.
    Wull looked at his milky pupils.
    Once Wull had accidentally cornered a red balgair—boxing it in against the hedgerows. The beast had gathered itself, peering hard at him, all its animal instinct swirling in its glare.
    â€œCannae be doin’ that,” Pappa had said when he’d run into the boathouse, shaking. “Ye’re lucky it din’t have its babbies on its back—would have had yer throat out for comin’ near ’em.”
    â€œI din’t mean to,” Wull had said, trying not to cry. “It was an accident.”
    Pappa had ruffled his hair and made him cocoa.
    â€œI know,” he’d said, “but they’d fight an ursa for their babbies. Be mindful o’ that. Needs respect, does that.”
    Wull had nodded and drunk his cocoa and gone to bed to wait for his story.
    Now, knees hard on the bottom boards, his cut skin shrieking in the cold, that safe life seemed to have happened to someone else.
    And, looking at Pappa’s eyes, he saw the same swirl of instinct—the same animal tension.
    Wull lifted his water pouch to his lips and took the torn pages from his pocket. He read again about the bohdan. He had to go on—there was nothing here for him. Not without Pappa.
    He gathered the oars.
    â€œEat more!” said Pappa.
    â€œSoon,” said Wull. “I don’t want to stay here. We need to get to the inn and try to find some more food. And something for my face, I need to cover it—a bandage or something.”
    â€œThere’s a bandage in here,” said a small voice from the bow.
    Wull dropped the oars and the pages. He looked over his shoulder. For the briefest moment he thought the bäta itself—its eyes as judging as ever—had spoken, then a pile of blankets shifted and a girl about his own age emerged, stretching, thick scarecrowed black hair and a high fur-lined collar around her head. She was chewing a blade of grass and smiling sleepily, her face dented by dimples. As well as a thick woolen coat, she wore heavy-soled boots and thin cotton gloves.
    â€œWhat in hells!” said Wull, mouth open and head spinning. “Where did you come from?”
    â€œI was on their boat,” said the girl, climbing onto the bow thwart. “Smelled awful, though. What’s that?” she added, seeing Wull stuffing the dropped pages into his pocket.
    â€œNever you mind! And don’t sit down, get out! Are you a bradai? Are you goin’ to rob me an’ all?”
    She tilted her head and looked at him. “Do I look like a bradai?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Wull, who’d never met a girl before.
    â€œWell, I’m not. I’m . . . Mix. I was jus’ hidin’.”
    â€œYou c’n hide on the bank then—you’re not stayin’!” Wull turned the bäta away from the current and started to row for shore. “How
dare
you sneak on here! An’ with them! Maybe I should shout them back? I bet they’d like to find out what you were doin’ on their boat!”
    â€œAh, come on, you wouldn’t do that,” said Mix, holding out the roll of bandages. “I’m on my own. You wouldn’t abandon me.”
    Wull grabbed the bandages and threw