Which meant I should do something nice for her first. So, that evening, while Kanik was showing her another map, I told Rymar where I was going and slipped out the back. The girl probably wouldn't even miss me. She'd been hanging on every bit of information Kanik was willing to give her all day long.
And while he was giving her a lot, none of it was the sort of thing that worried me. Their discussion was about stuff every child should know, like the landmass we lived on, the types of predators in the forest around us, and how old books were treasured for the knowledge we were still trying to replicate.
As I sauntered down the street, I thought about that. Maybe keeping her ignorant would be safer, but it also seemed pointless. Somewhere, the girl had learned things. Not enough of them, but a few. We could discuss things like wolves and oceans, which there was no way she'd seen those underground, so Moles clearly had some basic knowledge.
Then again, she'd also mentioned the sins of men and women. She'd talked about God and the Devil. Those were religious terms I knew well from my own faith, but her version sounded warped and twisted. I didn't even want to consider the implications of her marriage!
Soon enough, I reached my mother's house. Lifting my hand, I rapped on the door and then tried the handle. When it opened, I stepped inside and called out.
"Mom? Jeera?"
"Zasen!" my mother replied from somewhere deeper inside. "Your sister is out with Brielle right now."
"I actually wanted you," I told her.
"One second!"
So I got comfortable on her couch, kicking my taloned feet up on the coffee table. A moment later, my mother walked into the room, swept my feet to the floor with one hand, then claimed the chair beside me without missing a beat. She still wore her white coat, which meant she hadn't been home from work long.
"How's your prisoner?" she asked.
"Sunburned," I told her. "Severely. I was hoping you'd have some remedy for that?"
"Mm..." Standing up again, she vanished around the corner, heading back towards her bedroom. "Is she complaining of pain?"
"She doesn't complain," I yelled back.
"Right, she doesn't speak Vestrian." I caught the sound of her rummaging, and then she was back. "Well, it probably is painful, and this has a minor pain reliever in it. Should help with her feet too." Then she passed me a large jar of some kind of cream.
"Mom," I said, "she speaks English."
My mother's eyes widened and she dropped back down into her chair. "Like, from old books?"
"I think so," I agreed. "She calls it English, but she pronounces the letters all weird. The vowels are open and change from word to word, which was why we didn't figure it out on the walk here, but I think we're starting to get it now."
"We?"
"Kanik and me," I explained. "Rymar's struggling, but he never really had a reason to learn English."
"Except for middle school," she agreed. "But you can communicate with her? Has she told you why she's here?"
Yeah, that was sort of the problem. "She says it's because she stabbed her husband with a fork."
"Husband?"
"One she didn't want to marry."
That made Mom blink hard as she tried to process my words. Shaking her head proved she'd heard me, because none of that made sense. At least not without a lot of horrible things to go along with it. Then she pushed back her silver-and-black braids to scrub at her dark-skinned face.
"Zasen, did they rape her?" she finally asked.
"I don't think so. She said he kissed her and then she stabbed him with a fork."
"Good for her!"
Which made me laugh. My mother might not have a tail, but she was just as vicious as any of the warriors I worked with to protect our town. Then again, my sister and I had inherited it from somewhere, and it certainly hadn't been from our tailed father.
"Kanik thinks she was abused," I offered next.
"Clearly, if she was forced to marry a man and had to fork him to stop it." Then she paused. "Wait, does that mean she's still married?"
"I'm honestly not sure," I admitted. "We haven't gotten that far yet. See, the whole thing happened because when she woke up, Rymar, Kanik, and I were out back having tea and trying to decide what to do with her."
"What are you doing with her?"
I just sighed. "The Mayor doesn't want her in a city building. He would prefer she isn't in town, but since she's already here, we're allowed to host her as a refugee. However, if she 'gets out' and someone kills her, he says he will not press charges."
"That poor thing," my mother grumbled. "Zasen, you didn't see her in the exam room. She was absolutely terrified. I had to sedate her just to get the bandages off her feet. It took Brielle, Kanik, and Jeera to hold her down!"
"I know."
"You don't know," she snapped. "You didn't see her. Maybe you heard she struggled, but you were not there to witness the pure panic on her face. That girl is scared. She's also malnourished, covered in bruises, and tensed up when I lifted her slip-thing high enough to just see her knees! She's repressed. She's probably been abused. None of those things can you understand."
"And she's a Mole," I reminded my mother.
"She is a person," Mom shot back. "That is the first rule of medicine, Zasen."
"And I never finished the courses to become a doctor."
