The Islands of the Blessed by Nancy Farmer Read Free Book Online Page B

her.
    â€œDon’t pity me!” Thorgil snarled, shoving him away so roughly, he banged his head into a tree.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with you! I’m only trying to be nice!” Jack said.
    â€œYou’re treating me like a stupid girl.”
    â€œYou are a girl,” Jack said.
    â€œI’m a shield maiden, not a sniveling Saxon cow.”
    â€œWhy don’t you stop yowling about how awful
my
people are and look at yourself,” cried Jack, stung. “You have no more gratitude than a bog rat. You insult everyone six ways to Sunday.”
    â€œI don’t lower my standards just because I live in a pigsty,” said Thorgil haughtily.
    â€Pigsty?
How dare you say that about my parents’ house! I remember when you slept with dogs in the Northland because they were the only ones who’d have you.”
    â€œEven a Northland dog has more honor than a cringing Saxon.”
    â€œReally? Well, even a cringing Saxon dog has more honor than a half-Northman thrall!” shouted Jack.
    â€œI’m not a thrall!” shrieked Thorgil, grabbing her collecting bags. “And I’m never entering your parents’ house again!” She stormed off before he could reply.
    So much for Thorgil’s good mood,
thought Jack, rubbing his bruised head. He went off in a different direction.After a while Jack’s temper cooled and he began to regret his hasty words. But Thorgil was so infuriating! Even Olaf One-Brow used to knock her flat when she got into a snit. Of course, Olaf had knocked everyone flat, including Jack, at one time or another. It was the Northman way.
    Jack sat in the shade of a tree trying to regain that odd impression he’d had earlier, of the woodland being a creature with one mind. Perhaps it was the pooling of the life force, or perhaps—a cold finger touched Jack’s heart—the hazel wood was a corner of the realm where the Forest Lord held sway. He remembered the subtle whispering among the leaves in that realm and the way a root humped up to catch an unwary ankle.
    This isn’t the Land of the Silver Apples. I’m being foolish,
he thought. The Forest Lord would never have allowed his trees to be cut back as these were. This was Jack’s country, where folks were sensible. No Pictish gods here.
    He cleared his mind to call to the life force.
Come to me. Reveal yourself. Show me the paths by which you travel.
The wood remained as before, with birds darting to and fro, frogs cheeping, and spiders connecting the spokes of their webs in the branches above.
    The sun began to incline to the west, and Jack remembered he hadn’t collected the herbs the Bard had asked for. He began exploring along the border between the hazel wood and the oak forest. He found a bed of mint and chewed a few leaves to stave off hunger pangs. He gathered elecampane for coughs, fennel for stomachaches, and valerian for troubledsleep. He picked mugwort to use against the flying venom that traveled from house to house, bringing fever in its wake.
    Under a birch tree Jack discovered
atterswam,
a beautiful but very dangerous mushroom. It had a bright red cap spotted with white, and the Bard said Northmen sometimes used it to go berserk. “It gives them visions, and occasionally it kills them,” the old man had said. “Too bad it doesn’t work that way more often.” Jack wondered whether Thorgil had ever taken it.
    Where was she? She’d make good on her threat to stay away from Jack’s house. Once declared, a threat was as good as an oath with her. He’d have to explain to Mother and Father why she didn’t visit anymore, but they’d be pleased. Everyone was growing weary of Thorgil’s constant battles with the Tanner girls. Where would she go? John the Fletcher might put her up in his barn. He admired her skill with horses. When winter came, she’d have to move in with the Bard.
    Jack collected a few of the red