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I wake up with a nightmare, and gooseflesh down my arms. It is cold grey morning, and Amras is still snuffling beside me.
Is that how I look when I sleep?
I almost prod him, but then I change my mind. I scoot along the floorboards of the wagon, past Caranthir, who looks dead, and Curufin, who opens one eye as I pass him and then shuts it again. Overhead, I can see the fiber patterns in the canvas as the light leaks through.
We all slept in the wagon last night, because Maedhros had not come back from town and Athair and Maglor went to look for him. I did not cry, but I vowed to stay awake. My nightmare and the dawn are proof that I did not. Last I remember, Celegorm was sitting up with his gun on his knee.
Celegorm is not here now. I crawl to the edge of the wagon, and on the dry ground—there is no dew here—Celegorm is rolled in his blankets with Huan pillowed under his head and Maglor sits up with his hair mopping over his brow.
“They are talking,” Celegorm says, low and disbelieving. “Talking, as if nothing happened. I do not understand them.”
Maglor makes a little sound—of assent? It is strange that Maglor and Celegorm would be in agreement about anything, but I do not stop to consider it. They must mean Athair and Maedhros, which means that Maedhros has returned. Since Mother is gone, Maedhros is the one I want for nightmares. Their hair is the same color, only a little darker than mine.
I leap from the wagon, and Maglor says, “Hsst, Amrod, where are you—”
My brothers can always tell us apart, which vexes me. Likely, he saw the birthmark on my ankle this time, because my feet are bare. The ground is cold, but I run quickly, until I come to the fire, where Athair is cooking breakfast and both he and Maedhros are drinking coffee from steaming cups.
The smoke hangs around them in ribbons.
“I do not think you should withdraw—” Maedhros is saying, as I dive into the space next to him and burrow my head against his shoulder.
“Little one, what are you—” he says in surprise, and I see him glance quickly at Athair.
Amras has said that we must not behave like children anymore, or hug our brothers, or sit on their knees—we are thirteen, and we can both put a bullet in a man if it comes to that. But Amras is not here, and sometimes I am bolder on my own.
Now, I link my arms around his waist, beneath his coat, so that Athair will have to pry me off him if he disapproves. Maedhros is thinner than the shoulders of his coat suggest, but solid and firm, like a young tree-trunk. I imagine him a maple in autumn, since that is the color of his hair. That would make me and Amras maples, too. I shall have to tell him.
Athair, I see out of the corner of my eye, only smiles. It is a tired smile, as if the light of his own being has dimmed him against the quiet silver sky, but it is a smile nonetheless. At the sight of it, Maedhros relaxes, and his arm comes around my shoulders. I feel his long fingers stroking my hair.
Athair clears his throat. “Finish your thought.”
“Oh,” Maedhros collects himself, his hand stilling on my curls. “Yes. I do not think that you should withdraw your offers. You said that the miners you met set out from Ohio. They have not been tracking us, then. They could not have known that our paths would intersect, since we have not followed the usual trails.”
“Nonetheless, we are watched even here.” Athair shakes his head. I lean against Maedhros’s neck, and feel him stiffen, as if with pain. I turn my face to look, and see that there is a bandage at his throat.
“Maedhros,” I whisper. “What did you—”
He bats my hand away. “It is nothing.” His cheeks are red, like Caranthir’s are when he is angry, and he does not look at Athair.
I frown. What hurt him? Why should he be ashamed?
“We are watched here because this is a major way-point,” Maedhros says, resuming the conversation with the even tone he spoke in a moment ago. “No doubt…she has been waiting for some time. If we had passed through Santa Fe, as we originally planned, we might have encountered others.”
“And our reputation precedes us,” Athair says ruefully, and then he winces, as if he has spoken out of turn—but how can that be so? Athair is in command of everything. “Here,” he says, and reaches almost clumsily for the skillet in the coals. “Eat, before more of your brothers wake.”
“I am not hungry,” Maedhros says, and I do not doubt that that is true. Maedhros does not eat much, except at supper, when Maglor hovers and coaxes, and he chokes down some meat and potatoes.
“I did not empty my pockets for these eggs,” Athair scolds, “To have them unappreciated.”
I crane my neck to look, and discover that there are eggs frying in the pan, the yolks very golden. My stomach mewls.
One side of Maedhros’s mouth hitches, and I remember how, when I was very small, I would poke my fingers into the dimples in his cheeks, and in Mother’s. They found this funny.
I sigh.
The three of us eat in silence. Athair slices bread with one of his beautiful knives—knives like each of us have, for he made them—and I sandwich a plump egg between two heels. I like the heels of bread best, because it always pleased Mother that someone wanted to eat them.
When we are finished, Athair rises. “I shall wake the rest of the lazybones,” he says, and standing, he looks down at us from his great height. His eyes shine hard and bright and his lips twist as if words are trapped behind them.
Then he reaches out and ruffles our hair, first mine, and then Maedhros’s, and then he goes to see to our brothers.