“Stay where I can see you” was her mother’s harsh reply.
Thymara didn’t deign to give her a response.
But neither did she defy her. She climbed up onto the branch that was the main support for their home and walked out toward the end. That, she knew, would satisfy her mother. The branch led nowhere, and if her mother truly wanted to be sure she was alone, all she had to do was look out of the window. Thymara went farther out than she usually ventured and then sat down, both legs on the same side of the branch. She swung her feet and looked down, daring herself. If she focused her eyes one way, she became aware of the bright lights that sparkled below her. Each light was a lit window. Some were as bright as lanterns; others were distant stars in the depths of the forest below her.
If she focused her eyes another way, she saw the bars and stripes of darkness that latticed the forest below her. A falling body would not plummet straight down to the distant forest floor. No. Her body would strike and rebound and, despite all her resolves, snatch and cling, however briefly, to every branch she struck on the way down. There was no swift plummet to an instant death there.
She’d learned that when she was eleven. It was strange. She remembered that day in fragments. It had begun with an encounter at the trunk market. As she recalled it now, it was the last time she had ever brought her mother flowers from the Top to sell at the market and accompanied her there. The trunk markets were the best places to sell. Close to the trunk of the trees, the platforms were large and they were often the crossroads for hanging bridges from other trees. The traffic was good, and of course, the farther down one went, the wealthier the passing customers. The flowers she had gathered were deep purple and brilliant pink, as large as her head and brimming with fragrance. Their petals were thick and waxy, and bright yellow stamen and sepals extended past them. They were bringing a good price and twice her mother had smiled at her as she pocketed silver coins.
Thymara had been squatting beside her mother’s trading mat when she noticed that a pair of slipper-shod feet below a blue Trader’s robe had remained in front of her, unmoving, for quite a time. She looked up into an old man’s face. He scowled at her and took a step back, but his blunt, scolding words were for her mother. “Why did you keep such a girl? Look at her, her nails, her ears—she will never bear! You should have exposed her and tried for another. She eats today but offers us no hope for tomorrow. She is a useless life, a burden upon us all.”
“It was her father’s will that she live, and he prevailed in it,” her mother said briefly. She lowered her eyes in shame before the old man’s rebuke. By chance, her gaze met Thymara’s. She had been staring up at her, hurt that her mother offered so poor a defense of her. Perhaps her look stabbed a drop of pity from her mother’s shriveled heart. “She works hard,” she told the old man. “Sometimes she goes with her father to gather some days, and when she does, she brings home almost as much as he does.”
“Then she should go out daily to gather,” he replied severely. “So that her efforts may replenish the resources she consumes. Everything is dear here in the Rain Wilds. Have you lost sight of that?”
“And a child’s life is most dear of all,” her father had said, coming up behind the old man. He had come down to meet them at the end of their day’s trading. He had just come from the canopy; his clothes were bark smeared and leaf stained from his climbing. Thymara was far too old to be carried, but her father had scooped her up and carried her off with him as he strode away from the market. The carry basket on his other shoulder was half full. Her mother had hastily rolled up her mat with their unsold wares inside it and hurried along the walkway to catch up with them.
“Stupid, sanctimonious old man!” her father growled. “And what, I’d like to know, does he do to be worth what he eats? How could you let him speak of Thymara like that?”
“He was a Trader, Jerup.” Her mother glanced back, almost fearfully. “It wouldn’t do to offend him or his family.”
“Oh, a Trader!” Her father’s voice was scathing with feigned awe. “A man born to position, wealth, and privilege. He earned his place here exactly as any eldest child did; he was wise enough to be first to grow in the right woman’s belly. Is that it?”
Her mother was panting as she tried to keep up with them. Her father was not a large man but he was wiry and strong as were most gatherers. Even carrying her, he crossed the bridges and climbed the winding stairs that circled the trees’ big trunks with ease. Her mother, burdened only with her market bag, could scarcely keep pace with his angry stride.
