Free The Endless Forest by Sara Donati Page B

tired as she was, found it impossible to stay seated. She roamed back and forth, passing dishes, pausing to touch a shoulder or lay her hand on a head. This was not the way she had imagined Lily’s homecoming, but the most important thing was to have them all here, whole and healthy. This one summer they would have together, all of them. In the fall Luke and Jennet would go back to the city and maybe Lily and Simon would move on too. She must not let herself hope for anything more.
    It was silly to borrow trouble; she knew that. She stood to fill the teapot, and Nathaniel caught her by the wrist and made her sit again.
    “You’re as nervous as a cat,” Nathaniel said to her. His eyes moved over her face. He understood; he always did, when it came to the children. She wondered if today he had thought of the others, the sons they had lost as infants. Sometimes they talked of those boys, how old they would be now, and who they might favor. It was a comfort, that freedom to talk of children thirty years in their graves. To know that they were not completely forgotten.
    “Ethan, you must have some more soup,” she said, starting to rise. “You are too thin.”
    “No you don’t,” Nathaniel said, pulling her back down again.
    “Ma,” Birdie said in mock irritation. “You’d scold me if I kept jumping up from the table.”
    “Leave her be.” Luke winked at his stepmother. “It’s her best broody hen imitation.”
    Ethan said, “I couldn’t eat any more, Aunt Elizabeth. But maybe there is something I can do for you? Shall I trounce these louts for their impertinence?”
    “They may tease me all they like,” Elizabeth said over the laughter. “Today I can’t be ruffled.”
    That silenced them for a moment, thinking of the village and the families who had lost so much.
    “How bad is it?” Hannah asked.
    “Not good,” Gabriel said into his bowl.
    “Six missing,” Daniel said. “All three of the Sampsons, Noah True-blood, Grandma May, and the Crispins’ youngest, Alexander.”
    “One of your students?” Lily asked her brother, and he nodded.
    “Ten years old, good with numbers. Quiet boy, polite.”
    “He’s got family on the other side of the river,” Ben said. “He might be there. Could be that the Sampson brothers and all the rest of them are sitting in the kitchen at the mill house drinking cider.”
    Nathaniel said, “Let’s hope so. What we do know for sure is, a lot of stock went down the river. Oxley’s sheep and some goats too. A dozen or more milch cows.”
    “And a good lot of Callie’s trees are gone,” Daniel added. “Maybe three quarters.”
    When Daniel spoke of Callie Wilde it was always with a certain amount of warmth. Elizabeth had once had the idea that something more might grow out of their friendship, but that had never come to pass.
    For the first time Martha Kirby spoke up to ask a question. She said, “And Callie herself? Is she safe?”
    “She’s a little banged up,” Nathaniel said. “But last I saw her she was walking and talking. Becca gave her a bed at the Red Dog.”
    Daniel’s eyes had settled on Martha and stayed right there while the conversation moved off in a new direction. It struck Elizabeth then that he didn’t recognize her, or maybe he was in too much pain to take note. The lines that bracketed his mouth said very clearly that he had strained his shoulder today and must now pay the price. Anything that might distract him would be welcome.
    Elizabeth said, “Daniel, you must remember Martha Kirby.”
    He started at the name and came up as if out of a dream, already rising from his seat. He leaned over the table and extended his good right hand to Martha.
    “I haven’t seen you in five years at least. I guess I was away when you visited the last few times.”
    Martha shook the offered hand and agreed that it was a very long time since they had seen each other. She looked as tired as any of them, but she bore it well: a dignified, friendly young