Wild Card Run

Below me in the dark, Bathsheba moved with a dull thud of hooves. The trotters rustled on their perches and subsided. I set the lantern away from the hay and stepped out of my dress, pulling on the coveralls I’d hidden in the loft. I slipped on the climbing gloves, tightening their cling tabs.

Shadows shifted, fluttering grotesquely in the cobwebbed rafters as I crouched and sprang for the lowest bar. I kicked and swung around and onto it, then kipped for the next one, moving upward through the four scaffolding bars I’d mounted in a comer of the high loft.

They were rough and not limber enough to take the shock out of a passing grab, but once I got into the rhythm of it I was almost flying, spinning around the bars, catching, arching to the next, somersaulting and flipping, then swinging back and up again. My mind could focus to a narrow beam of concentration on reaching arms, tensing legs, and deep, laboring breaths. Working it off.

Somewhere beyond my sweating exertions, uneasiness still stirred. It rustled like the plumes of the trotters, fluttering suddenly below me as Bathsheba clomped in her stall and resettled into sleep. Questions jostled as they had through a restless night and during the day when I’d taken over Helen’s watch in the sickroom. She’d assured me that Jason had awakened last night, though he was confused and rambling. He’d been quiet again all day, under the influence of Helen’s healing elixir.

But I couldn’t erase the picture of him tumbling from the hub of the tower, slithering across the sails, crashing to the ground. The quick, bright eyes I’d known so briefly gone blank. I couldn’t quite believe he had survived. And I kept feeling that unbalanced jar in the tremor, seeing the power readouts that didn’t add up. hearing Aaron’s furious voice—

“What are you doing here?”

I gasped and jerked a startled face around, almost missed the second bar, and wrenched to a stop, hanging from it.

Aaron climbed up through the loft hatchway, holding another lantern that sent distorted shadows over his scowling face. “You should be helping Helen. What are you doing, dressed like that? Are you lost to every proper feeling?”

I took a deep breath and swung slowly, kicking over and onto the lowest bar. “What proper feelings, Aaron? Yours, when you didn’t catch him?”

He glared up at me. “You dare accuse me? You’ll never change. Casting off your maiden’s skirts! Any decent woman would be burning with shame.”

I rolled my eyes. “Come off it, Aaron! I’m just getting some exercise, since I’m not allowed in the fields. Aren’t you satisfied with getting Helen to report my violations?”

His eyes glittered in the shifting light as he stepped forward with the lantern. “I warn you, Ruth. Don’t mock the Way. Don’t mock me.”

“Why not? Somebody should. Why don’t you climb down from your high tower? Even Helen thinks you take yourself too seriously.” Maybe one of his demons did have hold of me this evening. I couldn’t help taunting him, sitting on my high bar above him, swinging my legs, free from the detested skirts for once. “Don’t think you fool me, Aaron. I’ve been watching you, too.”

“Demon! Get down from there!” He lunged forward and grabbed my ankle.

“Hey!” I lost my balance and started to fall. I kicked and twisted back to grab the bar, but he was pulling me down and my hand slipped. The side of my face cracked hard against the bar as I dropped.

I fell heavily onto the loose hay, stars swirling before my eyes. I sat up, blinking, raising a hand to my face. “Fireblood and thorns, Aaron! Do you have to be so blazing—”

I broke off when I saw his face. He’d gone pale beneath the tan, backing away from me, staring down at his hand and looking almost comically horrified.

He cleared his throat and said in a gruff voice, “Helen said I ought to apologize. That’s why I came out here.” He raised his eyes to mine and the lantern sent flickers of light and shadow across his troubled face. He started to say more, then hurriedly climbed back down the ladder.

“Hey, Aaron . . .” But he was gone. I rose slowly and let out a long breath. Finally I shrugged. Beneath the floorboards, the trotters cackled in agitation, then settled back in a rustling of plumes on their perches.