The Falcon in the Barn (Book 4 Forest at the Edge series) Read Online Free

yourselves, can you live with that? Can
you accept your father the way he is?”
    “ Of course they can!”
Mahrree snapped as she came down the stairs. “Because he’ll be
fine! Already he’s sleeping as deeply as Peto, and I didn’t hold it
in front of his nose as long as Brisack recommended. So don’t go
sentencing him yet, Shem!”
    “ Mahrree,” Shem said,
standing up, “I didn’t mean it that way. They just need to know.
From what I read, things like this can take a long time to come
back from. And some—Mahrree, you have to know—some never
come back.”
    “ But can’t we pray?” Peto
asked quietly. “Can’t the Creator heal him? Help him still reach .
. . his destiny?”
    “ Destiny?” Jaytsy
wondered.
    Peto sighed. “You know what I mean. Whatever
he’s supposed to still be. We can always pray, can’t we?”
    Mahrree wrapped her arms around him. “I have
been, every night, every morning. And Shem, I know you’re right. I
just can’t give up on him already.”
    “ And you may be right,
Mahrree, about the sedation. Maybe sleeping will help.” Shem
hesitated. “I want to see him.”
    Mahrree tilted her head. “Something
wrong?”
    Shem’s shoulder twitched. “I merely . . . want to
make sure he’s all right before I go. The assistants at the
garrison frequently checked his pulse.”
    Suddenly worried, Mahrree gestured to the
stairs.
    Jaytsy and Peto took that as a group
invitation. They followed Shem and their mother up to the bedroom
where a candle was burning. Their father was flopped on the bed,
very still.
    Shem picked up his wrist and felt his
pulse.
    “ I gave him only half of
what they recommended,” Mahrree began, mild panic growing in her
voice. “He should be—”
    “ He’s fine,” Shem said
flatly. He dropped his wrist and lifted open one of Perrin’s
eyelids to peer into his unresponsive eye. “The Last Day could come
and go, and he’d never know it. Pulse is slow but steady. Well
done, Mrs. Shin,” his tone turned cold. “Your husband’s fully
sedated.”
    Mahrree folded her arms. “That’s the
idea!”
    Shem held his hands up in surrender. “I know.
I’m sorry. I just hate seeing him like this. Again.”
    Jaytsy didn’t think he looked so bad—like a
sleeping baby, albeit a large and gruff sleeping baby.
    Peto craned his neck. “He looks rather
peaceful to me.”
    “ And me too,” said Mahrree,
unfolding her arms. She turned to her children. “You can go to bed
now.” She hugged each of them and whispered, “Enjoy the
silence.”
    They smiled at her, but Shem kept watching
their father.
    As Jaytsy and Peto started out the door, Shem
said, “Nothing more for me to do here. I’ll be heading back to the
fort—”
    Jaytsy was at the top of the stairs when she
heard her mother earnestly whisper, “Do you have to go?”
    Jaytsy paused, thinking the same thing. While
her father looked peaceful, he also looked defenseless.
    Which meant all of them were.
    She turned to watch Shem and her mother
through the open bedroom door.
    Shem exhaled, expelling a great deal of
frustration and concern, but her mother put her arms around
him.
    He didn’t hug her back.
    “ I’m sorry Shem, about all
of this. About doing what you think is a betrayal to
him.”
    “ That’s not what
I—”
    “ Yes, it is what you
think,” said Mahrree firmly, pulling away to look at his face, but
still keeping her arms around him. “We’re betraying
him.”
    Shem didn’t budge.
    “ It’s obvious you’re angry
with me, and I don’t blame you. But Shem—is there any other option?
Any other way to heal him?”
    Shem’s jaw muscles clenched a few times
before his shoulders sagged. “No other option I’ve found yet,” he
conceded quietly. “But you don’t need me here, not tonight.”
    “ Please stay,
though?”
    Jaytsy was quietly pleading the same
thing.
    For some reason Shem looked extremely
uncomfortable. He stepped back out of Mahrree’s embrace and nodded
once.