(Note: I already described the events of this bonus scene in Chapter 11: Guests, but I can't resist describing them again from Jude's perspective.)
As we cross over the snow-capped mountains and the valley comes into view, my heart pounds with sudden excitement. "This must be it!"
Heather leans gingerly over, looking down. "Are you sure? It looks like any other valley to me."
"There's the river pouring into the lake! Come on, let's investigate."
We start to make our landing gallop, our ragwort steeds circling ever lower over the forested floor of the valley. The trees become differentiated as we go lower, and I glimpse structures in their branches: bridges and railed roadways, woven from branches and leaves and vines. Tree goblins must live here. I keep a sharp eye out as we make our descent. The danger from predatory Courts has grown less as we've moved into more unpopulated lands, but they've been amply replaced by carnivorous animals. Just yesterday we had to fend off an attack from a crag eagle, swooping down on us with gray-and-white wings, talons stretched to snatch us from our steeds. The days and the nights are torn by the savage howls of wargs as they range the forests.
The wild fey too have grown both wilder and bolder: the locals here do not hide from courtiers. They drive them off with volleys of arrows, or try to ambush them, descending from the canopy with shrieks and flashing weapons. More than once, I've been grateful that Cardan insisted on Vivienne and Heather accompanying us. He's right: we would never have made it on our own. As it is, we've barely escaped several attacks with our lives.
The treetops are now brushing our mounts' legs. There's a clearing directly below us, no doubt cleared by a lightning strike, filled with berry bushes. There are three figures among the bushes, but before I can get a good look at them, they dart away, diving down under the bushes.
Maybe they can tell us something useful. I lead the others in landing in the clearing.
"Where'd they go?" Vivienne looks around.
"I think they went under those berry bushes," I say, and dismount. The others dismount after me, stretching out cramped limbs.
I peer at the bush where the three figures disappeared, but can't see any sign of them. They're keeping quiet, and have probably woven a protective camouflage by now. "Hello?" I call, trying to sound as unthreatening as possible. "We don't mean any harm, I swear. Please come out."
"Honestly, Jude," says Cardan, stretching and yawning. "After the entrance we've made, what makes you think they'll believe you?"
"Shut up, Cardan," I snap, and raise my voice again, stepping closer to the concealing bush. "Please come out. We're just here looking for our sister."
Deep in the shadows beneath the bush, there's movement. A pale hand emerges, and a shadowed face, as the person underneath crawls out. There's a split second, when they stand up, blinking in the light, before recognition hits me like a thunderbolt.
It's Taryn. It's my twin sister.
Everything goes very still and silent as I take her in. It's Taryn. Taryn. Her hair's cut short now, I notice with a kind of stunned wonder, and she wears forest clothes: pants and moccasins, and a practical shirt. A knife gleams at her hip, and a black pouch.
Taryn. Taryn.
Movement, and Vivienne steps up beside me. "Taryn?" she whispers in a choked voice, and there are tears in her eyes. "Taryn?"
Taryn's lips move, forming the syllables of Vivienne's name, but no sound emerges. Tears gather in her own eyes, burning with emotion.
"Taryn!" I choke out at last, and then I'm throwing myself on her, I'm hugging her, I'm hugging Taryn, it's my sister in my arms, my sister, after so long. She trembles next to me, and I know I'm trembling too, and sobs shake me as I hold her close, real and solid and here, the sister I thought I'd never see again.
"Taryn…Taryn," I whisper, in a voice I hardly recognize. "Is it really you?"
She hugs me tight, as she hugs Vivienne, and it's a long, long moment before we can all step back, faces wet with tears.
I wipe my eyes, my cheeks. I can't stop staring at her, can't tear my eyes away. I cannot believe this: Taryn. My sister, found so simply and so suddenly at the end of our journey.
"Taryn," Vivienne whispers. "Say something, Taryn."
Taryn's smile vanishes. Pain flashes in her eyes, and she looks down. She still hasn't made a single sound, I realize.
"What?" I demand, chest tightening. "What is it?"
A small voice pipes up. "She can't talk."
I tear my eyes from Taryn, and for the first time take in the two small figures who have crawled out from under the bush with her. Two children, two faerie children, hanging back and watching us nervously. The taller of them, a boy, looks like a tree goblin, but has black eyes rather than red, and no tail. The girl is clutching a homemade ragdoll and glaring at us with extraordinary purple-and-silver eyes. Her hair is even more astonishing: a mane of purest white, shining in the afternoon sun.
And—it strikes me immediately—she looks an awful lot like Taryn.
"What do you mean, can't?" I demand. "Who are you?"
"I'm Philomel," she says, tossing her hair back. "And that's my Mommy."
"And mine," the boy adds.
I feel like I've just been kicked in the solar plexus. "Your what?" My eyes fly to Taryn, who's smiling slightly. "Taryn…?"
She nods, still smiling, and moves to stand with the children. They cling to her, still eyeing us suspiciously. Taryn says nothing, but makes a series of strange hand gestures.
The children watch the gestures, and nod before turning back to us. "I'm Philomel," the girl says again.
"And I'm Dogwood," the boy says.
I can't stop gaping at them, but Heather seems to recover quickly. "Hi kids, nice to meet you!" she says cheerfully. "I'm Heather. I'm your Auntie Vivienne's girlfriend."
"And you can call me Connor," Cardan says, speaking for the first time. "I'm a friend of the family."
Taryn breaks her gaze away from me and Vivienne at this, to scowl at him. Her eyes are hard and suspicious as she glares, and it occurs to me that her face is so much more expressive now than I remember, her eyes so much more alive, even as she gives Cardan a long look of distrust and dislike. He squirms under her angry gaze, and looks at me appealingly.
Of course: Taryn only ever knew Cardan as a tormentor and bully. She can't know how things have changed. I pull myself together. "It's true, more or less," I say to her. She raises both eyebrows, face skeptical. I shrug. "Things changed, over the last seven years. A lot of things, including that." I take a deep breath and bow to the children. Taryn's children. I still can't believe it. "Pleasure to meet you, Philomel, Dogwood. I'm your mother's sister. Your Aunt Jude." My new title sounds bizarre in my mouth as I say it. Their aunt. I am these children's aunt.
"And I'm your Aunt Vivienne," Vivi curtsies to them. "Also your mother's sister."
Philomel stares with those amazing eyes. "Are you mortal?" she asks, voice so high, so childish and innocent.
"I am," I say. "Vivienne's not."
Philomel turns her eyes on Vivienne. "Why not?"
"Eh?" Vivienne blinks. Behind us, Cardan and Heather are both shaking with laughter.
"Mommy's mortal," Philomel says matter-of-factly, and I feel another dull shock that she is talking about Taryn. Taryn, her mother. "So how come you're not?"
Taryn steps in, making more complex hand gestures at Philomel. The little girl watches Taryn's gestures, and I can see that she understands them, though I cannot.
"Ohhh," she nods at last. "Half and half. Like me!" She giggles.
Perhaps only I see the flinch of pain, instantly hidden, in Taryn's eyes as she nods and signs some more. I stare at her movements. She still hasn't said a single word, I realize, not to me and not to the children.
"Taryn," I say, and my voice sounds strange, "can you really not talk at all?"
Taryn shakes her head, looking away. Beside me, Cardan frowns at her, and I can feel his tension and uneasy curiosity.
"Why not?" I ask. My mind's spinning. Taryn may not have talked much, before her disappearance, but she could do it. "What happened?"
"She's never talked," Dogwood says suddenly, and then ducks down behind Taryn as we all turn to look at him.
Taryn nudges Philomel, and gestures some more. "She says that we'll discuss everything back at the house," Philomel says, obviously translating, and then blinks at Taryn. "Are we really taking them back to the house?" She's signing as she talks, I realize, hands tracing gestures seemingly unconsciously.
Taryn nods, and signs some more, hands swift and expert as they fly. She seems to have a whole language in her hands, in her fluttering fingers, that the kids understand completely. Then she and the children gather up the baskets full of fruit, and Taryn beckons us to follow her.
Vivienne dismisses the ragwort steeds, and we all fall into line behind Taryn, following her through the forest. She moves lightly enough, though of course her faerie children slip silent as ghosts through the woods, and she seems to know where she's going. Taryn has lived here a long time, I realize, maybe ever since she vanished. And borne at least one child. And has been voiceless all the while. My head spins with urgent questions that I know she will not answer, at least not right away.
Up ahead, Dogwood yanks on my sister's shirt, and asks if her voice used to sound like mine. Taryn pauses, and I see tears washing into her eyes as she looks away from him. Her eyes are deep wells of pain.
Vivienne and I exchange glances, and she hurries up to our sister. "Taryn? Are you all right?"
She nods, wiping away tears, and strides onward, to where a ladder descends a tall, straight tree. Apparently we will be using the network of treetop roads and bridges we glimpsed from the air. Philomel, however, hangs back, clutching her doll.
"Why are you calling her Taryn?" she asks curiously. I can't look away from her. I can't get over how much she looks like Taryn.
"That's her name." Vivi looks ahead to Taryn, hurrying on toward the ladder. "Or…it was."
"Her name's Albia now," Philomel says with pride and cheer. "Everyone calls her that. 'Cept me and Dogwood, of course. We call her Mommy."
We all of us, Vivienne, Cardan, Heather and I, stare at Taryn's turned back as she takes her kids' hands and pulls them toward the ladder. Two kids, no voice and an assumed name. And, from what I can see, no husband. She's been living out here alone, with two children?
Great Trees. What has been going on in my sister's life?
What happened to her?