Threading the Needle by Joshua Palmatier Page A

“But I know Kara’s with your father, and he’ll keep her safe. That’s the only thing keeping me together. He’ll bring her back. And he
will
come back, Morrell. He always has before.”
    She stared at him, realizing he thought she was upset over her father heading to Erenthrall. She seized on his assumption. “I know he’ll be back. It just gets overwhelming sometimes. I was helping with Claye and—” Her eyes shot open in shock. “Claye! I was supposed to be fetching Sophia!”
    She turned and charged up the bank, through the trees and into the Hollow. Cory called after her, but she ignored him. She didn’t even know how long it had been since she’d left.
    She was hustling past Logan’s cottage when she heard Sophia’s voice coming from inside. But then Logan spoke and she froze just outside the open door.
    â€œI think it was Morrell.”
    â€œWhat do you mean? How could it have been Morrell?”
    â€œI don’t know. She claimed she was only cleaning the wound, draining the pus. But I checked the wound this morning and it was deeply infected. I don’t see how it could have reversed course so quickly. Morrell
must
have done something.”
    â€œWhat are you suggesting?”
    Morrell shifted closer to the doorway.
    â€œI think Morrell healed him somehow.”
    Morrell’s chest suddenly felt hollow and empty. What would the Hollowers think of her now? They abhorred the ley and anything associated with it. And it had to be something to do with the ley. She’d seen the shimmering auroral lights.
    She slid along the cottage wall to the corner, then broke for the trees behind, passing through Logan’s precious herb garden. She brushed up against one of the plants, the pungent scent of spearmint following her.
    Then she was in the trees, crashing through the underbrush. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew she had to get away, to escape, to
think
.

    Janis emerged from the edge of the trees onto the stone outcropping that overlooked the hills south of the Hollow, the sun just above the jagged peaks of the mountains to the west. The harsh colors of the distortion over Erenthrall glittered on the horizon. Sophia had found her in the cottage she shared with Allan and Morrell, had told her what had happened with Claye. She’d been concerned Morrell had overheard them and run away, but Janis had brushed her fears aside. Now dread clutched her chest at the thought that Sophia might have been right. She’d already checked all of the other places Morrell would run to when upset.
    Then she heard a muffled scratch of cloth against stone. She stepped farther out onto the rocky outcropping and found Morrell seated, leaning against an upthrust ridge of granite, staring out into the distance.
    Toward Erenthrall.
    Morrell didn’t move as Janis settled into position beside her. Tears sheened the young girl’s cheeks. Her hands lay in her lap, palms up.
    They sat in silence for ten minutes before Morrell said, “They told you, didn’t they?”
    â€œOf course they did. They were worried. They thought you’d run away.”
    Morrell’s breath caught. “I didn’t have anywhere to run to!”
    â€œOh, my dear child.” She placed her arm around Morrell’s shoulders, and to her surprise the recently willful and independent girl she had helped raise tucked herself into her side. Janis brushed her silken hair, and a sudden image of Morrell at half her current age stabbed into herheart with a sharp pain. She made soothing nonsense noises, watching the distance without really seeing it. The sun sank closer to the mountains, the shadows of the trees growing long and thin and diffuse, the lights of Erenthrall brighter.
    â€œDid you think Logan and Sophia and the others would throw you out of the Hollow?”
    Morrell snuffled and nodded, the motion against Janis’ chest felt more