Chương 11: Baby Out of the Bag

Corin whispered, "He knew." The slate sat in Elna's hands with its crooked list facing the room. Door. Window. Hatchet. Road. Forest. Goblin. Tracks. Ren could not read the letters yet, but he knew the shapes Tessa had drawn beside them, and he knew what his own overeager answers had done. Elna had asked. And Ren had answered too quickly. Outside, a cart wheel struck a rut in the lane. Ren flinched before he could stop himself.

Tessa moved first, placing herself between Ren and the window as if her body could block a sound. Her hands were empty, her shoulders thin, and her wooden horse hung forgotten from one fist, but she still stepped in front of him. It was brave, it was great, and Ren was proud to have a sister as amazing as Tessa, but he never wanted her to die protecting him again. Never again. Pella saw it, and so did Elna. No one moved for a weapon. No one ran for Bren. No plan formed from the slate in Elna's hands.

Still, the room had changed. Lysa angled herself so the slate would still face Ren if Elna lowered it. Pella stopped whispering over his head and began whispering toward him. Davi leaned away from the window and closer to the rug. Corin checked Elna before speaking again, as if the circle around Ren had become something he did not want broken. Tessa sat nearest, her hand beside Ren's on the rushes. Ren had wanted messengers. He appeared to have acquired witnesses, which was harder to aim and easier to frighten.

"You saw that," Pella whispered. Corin frowned at her.

"Everyone saw it."

"No. I mean he knew Mistress Marric would speak to Mara." Elna looked down at the slate, then at Ren. Her face did not turn hard. She did not snatch him up or order the children away. She only went still, as if something small and out of place had caught her attention and would not settle back into sense. Ren kept his hand flat on the rushes. Elna's gaze moved to it, then to his face, then to Tessa. Whatever she thought, she did not say it.

"Enough questions for now," she told them instead. The children froze in a guilty cluster. Ren stayed very still. Elna noticed that too. Her gaze moved from his flat hand to his face, then to the place near the window where Tessa had stepped. She did not understand the raid. She did not know about the cellar, or Bren's blood, or the moment Ren had died without air. But she could see fear with aim in it. She could see Tessa guarding him from a sound.

She could see children looking at her baby as if he had become the center of a secret too large for them. That was the danger now. Handling that meaning. Children tended to handle meaning badly. Elna tucked Lysa's slate against her apron.

"I am keeping this until I speak to Mara." That caused the first crisis.

"You cannot keep Lysa's slate!" Corin said, with the courage of someone objecting on behalf of another person's property. Elna raised an eyebrow. Corin lost half his height. Lysa hugged her own arms.

"My father will ask where it is."

"I will send it back before supper," Elna said.

"And I will tell him I borrowed it." Lysa looked torn between obedience, scholarship, and the horror of losing notes. Ren sympathized. Data theft was serious business. Tessa grabbed a charred stick from the hearth edge and a flat scrap of bark from the kindling basket.

"We can make another." Elna gave her a look. Tessa froze with the stick in hand.

"Not on the table," Elna said. Tessa exhaled.

"Yes, Mama." The children relocated to the floor near Ren with the solemnity of conspirators granted official workspace. Lysa took command of the bark. Pella supplied suggestions. Corin supplied objections. And Davi agreed with whichever speaker had most recently sounded certain. Very diplomatic of them. Elna stayed close enough to hear. Before, she had listened while pretending not to listen. Now she stood at the hearth with her hands on the bread cloth and watched every question.

That changed the room more than the children understood. Tessa drew on bark while Lysa marked answers beside each crooked picture. Door. Window. Road. Trees. Hatchet. The hatchet looked like a sick duck with a handle, and Corin's attempt to improve it somehow became worse. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Davi studied both drawings with grave concern.

"Maybe goblins use duck-hatchets." Ren slapped the rug once. Pella gasped.

"They do?" Ren stared at her. Tessa covered her mouth. Corin pointed at Ren.

"That was not an answer. That was judgment." Ren slapped once again. Corin sat back with vindication.

"See?" Lysa wrote something down. Ren could not read the script yet, but he understood the danger of a solemn child with notes. He wanted to seize the stick and add: record observations, avoid ghost theories, ask adults about tracks, and do not start a cult around the baby. Though he had a strong suspicion that the last part would be in vain… They settled into the point-and-slap game after that. Tessa touched the drawings.

Ren answered when the link was solid and stayed still when the question tried to force certainty where he had none. Door mattered. Window mattered. Hatchet mattered. Road and forest both mattered. Exact route remained unknown. Exact day remained unknown. Goblins were involved. Tracks were involved. Elna came closer during it. She did not interrupt. She did not snatch the bark away. She watched the difference between Ren's answers and his silences until the pattern became too clear to dismiss as noise.

Pella whispered, "Maybe he knows danger, but he does not know days." Ren slapped once. The sound struck the children harder than the earlier answers. Davi's mouth fell open.

"He answered Pella."

"I did not ask," Pella whispered.

"You asked in a sneaky way!" Corin said. Lysa bent over the bark and made a careful mark Ren could not read. Elna's eyes moved to Ren. He kept his hand flat on the rushes. Elna crouched beside the group, slowly this time.

"Ren." He looked at her. She touched the road drawing. Ren slapped once. She touched the trees. Ren slapped once. She touched the little hatchet-shovel-duck. Ren slapped once. Then she touched the mark Lysa had made after Pella's whisper. Ren held still. Elna's breath changed. She had not understood the mark, but she understood that he had refused it after answering the others. Lysa whispered, "That means no."

"It means he is tired," Corin said, though his voice lacked conviction. Elna rested her fingers on the bark.

"Well, he is a baby." Nobody argued. Everyone in the room knew it was true, and none of them could make it explain what they had seen. Tessa pointed at herself. Ren stared at her. Tessa swallowed.

"Me?" Ren slapped once. The children went quiet in a way the earlier goat questions had never managed. Corin frowned.

"Why her?" Tessa opened her mouth, but no answer came. Ren slapped the rug once, then looked at the bark. Lysa bent over it.

"Tessa is part." Ren slapped once. Pella whispered, "But part of what?" Ren looked at the door, then the window, then the road drawing. Corin's face lost its practiced boredom.

"Part of stopping it?" Ren slapped once. Elna's hand tightened around the bread cloth. That was the part Ren needed Elna to see. That it wasn't just a trick, or a children's game. She had to notice the pattern. And then accept it. Tessa, the house, the road, the weapon, and the word stopping. Elna did not understand it. But she kept watching.

"Tess," she said softly. Tessa shook her head once, hard.

"He means it!"

"I know you think he does."

"No." Tessa's hand curled around the charred stick.

"He really does." Elna did not correct her this time. Ren watched that silence carefully. Earlier, Elna might have said fever, game, or enough. Now she only looked between them, caught between the impossible thing in front of her and the child she could not bear to frighten. The impossible had yet to win, but at least it was in the room now. Then Ren's head dipped. His body disagreed with the timing. It had performed crawling, speech, social command, emotional restraint, and milk processing.

The baby-him considered this grand campaign complete. Tessa noticed first.

"He's tired." I am not! – Ren tried to say, but the babbling that came out had no political force. Pella whispered, "Does knowing make him sleepy?" Corin looked alarmed.

"Can babies use up knowing?" Lysa wrote that down. Ren glared. This just made Lysa write down more. Elna gathered him up before the theories could reproduce.

"No more questions until he rests." Ren hated the policy on principle, but had to accept it due to baby logistics. Sleeping took him quickly once he stopped fighting. He gave the body its due, let the noise of children and rain blur at the edges, and woke later with Stamina returned in a thin but spendable layer. The room had shifted. The bread was half gone. The rain had softened. The children sat near the table with the bark between them, whispering under Elna's direct supervision. Pella leaned close to the bark.

"What do we call him when we tell?"

"You do not call him anything," Elna said. The children went still. Elna shifted Ren higher against her shoulder and looked at each of them in turn.

"You tell your parents that Tessa showed you drawings. You tell them Ren answered some and not others. You tell them Mistress Marric kept the slate for Mara to see. That is all." Pella's mouth tightened.

"But if they ask what it means?"

"Then you say you do not know." Lysa looked down at the bark, then carefully scratched out the mark she had made beside Ren's name. Corin frowned.

"Adults do not like that answer."

"No," Elna said.

"They do not. Use it anyway." Davi leaned toward Pella and whispered, "You know… I know lots of things I do not know." Ren approved despite himself. Elna heard it too, because one corner of her mouth moved before she smoothed it away.

"Good," she said.

"Start with those." For the first time since the loop had begun, the work did not feel like pushing against a locked door alone. Tessa believed him. The children were watching. Elna was frightened, but she was frightened in the right direction. Mara would see the slate. Bren would hear something, even if it reached him bent and incomplete. It was still not enough. But it was more than yesterday. Ren stared toward the road-facing window and let himself keep that thought for one careful breath.

Things were finally turning in the right direction. He just hoped they kept turning quickly enough to matter. [Skill Level Increased: Planning Lv. 4 -> Lv. 5] [Skill Level Increased: Interpretation Lv. 3 -> Lv. 4] The messages arrived while Elna settled him back against her knee. Ren read them, breathed through the ache in his arms, and looked toward the door. Tomorrow would need sharper questions. It would need Mara, Bren, Tessa's map, and whatever scraps the children dragged back from their own houses.

Today he had already done what little he could. All he could do now was… Grind.