Dirt and dust mingled with the moisture in the air and lay over Rhundor, sticking to sweaty faces and eating up the energy like a ravenous lion. The glaring sun shone off the creamy clay walls of the houses. It was the sort of day on which you could roast a chicken if you lay it on the ground for a few hours, even in the early morning. It was nearly noon, so you would burn the chicken instead. It was humid too, warm droplets of water attached themselves to exposed skin, piling on top of the sweat until the victim was a mess of damp clothes, stringy hair, and sticky skin.

Yanta sat on a warm wooden bench in the shade of the house and dug her toe into the dirt. “Well,” she said, “this is fun, isn’t it?”

Maris looked at her with a tilted head. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It was sarcasm, Maris,” Yanta said. “We can’t do anything!”

The other girl raised her eyebrows. “Sure we can,” she said. “I’m sure the mothers would appreciate some help with the cooking, and I can get out the needles and we can finish the blanket we started, since winter is coming in a few months, and it will start raining…”

Yanta stood up. “But that’s boring!” She let her arms drop to her sides. When she stood up her face was hit by the sunlight and immediately the sweat began forming in beads on her nose. She yearned for the shade and breeze of the forest. It had been so long since she had been there, but on a hot, humid day like this one she wanted to be surrounded by the trees. “Let’s go exploring in the forest.”

Maris frowned and opened her mouth to object.

“Would you be quiet?” a voice behind Yanta said. Both girls turned around. Rana brushed up against Yanta’s ankles.

A tall boy was squinting at her in the sunlight, and even from twenty feet away he seemed like a giant. “Your high pitched whine is killing me.”

Kicking up dust, Yanta marched up to the boy and shook her fist at him. “You mind your own business, Draven,” she said. “And my voice is not high pitched.”

Standing this close to Draven, the difference in height and build was obvious. He was tall and broad shouldered, and now he raised his fist, twice the size of hers. “No one cares,” he said. “You’re being loud and I don’t like it. So shut up.”

Maris tapped Yanta on the shoulder. “Um…Yanta?” she said. “I…I’m going home now. See you tomorrow, I guess.”

This was the time that week Yanta had tried to do what she wasn’t supposed to do—shout, run, pick fights with boys—and the third time that week her friends had gone home early. It couldn’t be coincidence. But at the moment Yanta barely saw Maris skip off through the dust.

Rana circled Yanta’s legs, then, with a purr, darted away. Yanta swivelled around when she heard the cat go.

“Rana!” she said. “Now you’re leaving?”

She turned back to Draven. He still had his fist raised. “Hold on a moment, will you?” she said, running after Rana. “I will be right back to break your nose after I catch my cat.”

She followed Rana into the shade of the stables. A figure, unrecognizable in the shadows, bent down and held its hand out for Rana. The figure picked Rana up in its arms.

“Sikke,” Yanta said. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since last month.”

Even before Yanta was under the shadow of the stables, before she could see his face, she knew who he was. There was only one other person besides Yanta to whom Rana would willingly go. Sikke was a tangly, rebellious boy and younger than Yanta by a few years—she wasn’t exactly sure how many. He ran away from home, he told her, years before and lived like a nomad, wandering the Valley, eating what he could catch, sleeping wherever he happened to be when he got tired.

“I caught a ride with a carpet seller and spent the weekend in Dor Lorelin,” Sikke said. He stroked Rana’s head. “Would have stayed longer, but it was too crowded. Took the scenic route back here along the edge of the forest. Took a while.”

“I can’t imagine why.” Yanta held out her arms and Rana jumped from Sikke back to his master. “But Dor Lorelin? What’s it like?”

“Dusty, stinky.” Sikke shrugged. “A place I could stay for a while. But too many people.”

Yanta stepped out of the shade of the stable and looked southward. Beyond the town she could see the Great Road stretch out like a pale yellow snake and curve away behind the edge of the forest. In the flat dustiness of Rhundor, Yanta would look out her window and see the road pointing the way to Dor Lorelin. She could picture the bustling crowds, bodies wrapped in colorful clothes jostling against one another to follow the cries of street vendors. It was a world where she could meet people like her, and where girls could do what they wanted to do without disapproval.

“Yes, okay,” Sikke said. “You don’t have to lecture me about your dreams of Dor Lorelin again.”

“Never mind then, Sikke.” Yanta clutched Rana to her chest, stuck her nose in the air, and began to saunter back toward her family’s house. “When I go to Dor Lorelin, never to return to this dreary little town, you can’t come with me.”

Sikke put his hands on his hips and sent her a wet raspberry. “Like I’d want to. You can take your smelly old cat and go away. I’m better off without you.”

It wasn’t ten seconds before Yanta stopped and turned around, the sun shining on her dark hair, and said, “Actually, Sikke…you can come with me if you want.”

Sikke, too, stopped retreating. “Y’know, it’d probably be a lot better in Dor Lorelin with you and Rana.”

Under the shade, Yanta held out her hand. “Friends again?”

Sikke shook it. His grip was sticky with sweat and dirt. “Sure.”

“We do seem to make up like this a lot, don’t we?”

“If we didn’t we wouldn’t be friends, would we?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Yeah, well.” Sikke gave a little salute. “See you later.” He ran off into the forest.

When she first met him, Yanta would have called out and asked him where he was going, but she had learned over the years that he went where he pleased and did what he wanted. She knew it would be futile to try and find out where he spent most of his time. So she put Rana down and ambled back home.