Whisper Thornpaw's Arc

Chapter 9 of 9

Whisper walked back to her caravan that evening with Melody's song still warm in her head. She pushed open the carved door and stopped on the step. A sound came from the shelf above her bed. A small dry crack, then another. The owl eggs were moving. She set her tambourine down on the rug and climbed up to look. The nest sat in a basket she had wedged between two jewel shelves. Both eggs were dark and freckled, and both had split. A wet head pushed through the first shell. Two yellow eyes blinked at her. A second beak chipped free a moment later. The mother owl perched on the curtain rod above the bed and watched. She tilted her head and made a soft sound that was almost a question. Who, who, she said. Whisper laughed under her breath. A scuffle came from under the bed. Her two raccoons crept out, noses up, tails low. They had been hers since a winter market three years back, when a trapper tried to sell them as pelts and she paid in jewels to take them home instead. The smaller one stood on hind legs and reached for the basket. Whisper caught it by the scruff and set it on a folded blanket. "Not the babies," she said. "Anything else in here is yours. Not the babies." The raccoon flicked its ears and curled into the purple wool. She pulled a stack of violet blankets from the chest at the foot of the bed and built a low wall around the basket. She tucked the corners under the shelf brackets so the cloth would hold. She set a shallow dish of water beside the nest. She tore a strip of dried meat into pieces small enough for new beaks and left it on a saucer where the mother could reach. The hatchlings opened their mouths. The mother dropped down and fed them. Whisper sat on the edge of the bed and watched. The caravan smelled of cedar and the herbs she dried in bunches along the wall. The raccoons had settled into the blanket pile and were grooming each other. Her tambourine caught the lantern light from below, jewels low and quiet. For the first time in a long season the small room felt full instead of crowded. She thought of Melody on the stage that morning, and Selune at her revived garden, and these two new beaks in the basket above her head. She had built something that ate and slept and waited for her to come home. She banked the lantern and lay down under the canopy. Tomorrow she would go to the clearing and tell Melody about the hatchlings. Tomorrow she would also count what she had left to settle, because a band with two players was still a band that needed to eat. For tonight she let the owl feed her young above her head and closed her eyes.