Free The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) by Michael Mood

altogether, including her father. There
had been more on other days, but her father had known they would
finish the planting today, so yesterday he had sent the other men
on to do work elsewhere.
    Wren set the buckets down and the men came
over.
    “Thanks, princess,” said a tall man Wren had
never seen before.
    “She is, isn't she?” said her father. Wren's
eyes went dull at the compliment. “Hard worker, too.”
    “Can tell,” said another man she didn't
recognize. One of his eyes was totally white.
    Don't look at me with one
eye. Don't look at me at all.
    In fact, there was only one
man that Wren recognized. His name was Jon Hatfeld. He was maybe
forty years old and his face was weathered. Deep cracks and
crevices ran in his skin giving him the illusion that he was always
smiling. She didn't feel any enmity towards him. Good for Jon Hatfeld ,
she thought. He can have the trust of Wren
Hartfield, for what it's worth.
    She actually found that she had some good
memories of Jon. As far back as she could remember he had been
coming here in the spring. He had a deep voice and didn't say
annoying things. He had lost his wife, too, just like Wren's father
had. Seasonal help came and went, but Jon Hatfeld was almost always
there.
    The men took turns drinking from the dipper
and soon they had sucked down all the water Wren had brought.
    He drank the
spit-water! Wren felt excited that at
least one of her plans had worked. She felt . . . she felt . .
.
    A wave of nausea and dizziness swept over
her and she fell to her knees. The world spun and twisted around
her. Suddenly every smell was magnified. The stench of the earth,
the men, the air itself. She dry-heaved a few times, her sides
aching from the effort, tears forming in her eyes. Jon Hatfeld and
her father rushed over to her.
    “You alright?” her father asked, hauling her
up by her armpits.
    She resisted the urge to shove him away
because she didn't want to cause a scene in front of the men. “I
think so,” she managed to mutter.
    “Been workin' her too hard,” Jon said. “Wren
needs a break.”
    That was another thing she liked about Jon.
He used her name.
    “Tell ya what. We're almost done here,” her
father said, looking around and pushing his hat back from his
forehead. There was a streak of mud where it had been sitting.
“Another hour more and we might finish this. Hat, take her back to
the farm and make sure she's alright.”
    Wren started to protest, then her stomach
contorted and she vomited.
     
-2-
     
    “T here's a carnival near the outskirts of Marshanti,” Jon said.
He was slowly stirring the pot that bubbled over the fire. Tasty
smells wafted out of it. Soon the men would be in from the field
and they would be hungry. Jon had helped Wren make the bean stew,
doing all that she had asked of him.
    The bout of nausea had passed once they had
gotten near the house and Wren had been able to drink some water.
Planting time was hard on her. Hard on everyone.
    “A carnival?” she asked.
    “Yeah. If your father and the men finish the
planting, well . . . maybe we could go. You, me, and your dad. Love
to take a little vacation 'fore I have to head back to my place in
the south.”
    “Who would look after the animals?”
    “We'd find someone, Wren. It's obvious you
and your father both need to get away from here. It's the look in
your eyes, you know? Farmers know.”
    Wren almost confessed
everything right then and there to the man in the field-filthy
clothes, but something stopped her tongue. She had never been near
Marshanti. I've never been near anywhere.
Especially not the largest city in Shailand! And a carnival . . .
don't they have animals that do tricks? She'd heard stories of giant things called Graybeasts. If she
could get her hands on one of them . . .
    “Think you can convince my dad?”
    “Hell,” Jon said. “That'll be easy. Cole
used to love them things – carnivals, I mean - back in the day.
That was twenty years ago, maybe. Way