Enna Burning

by Shannon Hale

Enna's life was not meant to be simple. When her brother, Leifer,
brings home a mysterious piece of vellum that teaches him how to set
fires--without a spark, without flint--Enna cannot decide if this
power is one she wants for herself, or something that should be
extinguished forever.

And when Bayern, their country, goes to war, the choice becomes
nearly unbearable. Enna never imagined that the warm, life-giving
energy of a fire could destroy everything she loves, but she must
now save herself and Bayern before fire consumes her entirely.

PROLOGUE

The woman bore a scorch mark from her chin to her brow. The vision
in her left eye was still blurry, as though she were looking through
a scratched pane. She had been walking away from the burning for a
few weeks by now and so supposed the "eye" would never heal, even if
she lived long enough to give it time. Closing her bad eye, she
squinted to see where she was going. There was a patch of greenness
on the horizon that stretched into the east. A forest. Perhaps that
would be far enough away.

As the woman walked, she leaked fire unawares, and the dead river
wood occasionally smoked beside her or crackled into flame. Once or
twice, to ease the burning, the woman threw herself into the stream
beside her path, choking on the water and weeping as the stream took
away her heat. It was hard to get back up after that, but memory of
the horrors she left behind drove her on.

Her skin twitched to remember hot ash falling; her eyes roved as
though watching again and again the village in flames. She clutched
the sack containing the vellum tighter to her chest, remembered her
purpose, and walked faster.

She walked until the wet forest air enclosed her and washed the
scorched smell from her hair. She walked until she fell. Then she
dug where she fell, pulling away handfuls of soil from under a
young fir tree.

"Here," she said, talking to the fir, "keep this."

The woman unrolled the oiled cloth and took out the vellum, looking
again at the writing that had started the end of her everything. It
was still in beautiful condition, though the vellum had been made
from lambskin in her mother's time. Tight, delicate writing filled
its face, each black stroke bleeding tiny lines thin as spiders'
legs, each word stitched together in a lacework of ink. Glancing
over it again, she sobbed once at the beauty of the knowledge it
held. Her eyes stung, and the fever burned away any tears.

She loved the fire, loved it more than her own flesh now. Destroying
the vellum and the truth it held seemed a hopeless gesture. Deep
inside, behind her scorched eye, she knew she probably should. But
no, she would hide it to prevent destruction like the kind she had
caused. And she would hide it so that perhaps one day someone with
the talent to learn could read it and know its goodness. She prayed
it might be someone stronger than she.

She wrapped the vellum back in its cloth, then slipped into the slim
clay pot she had used for water, burying the tiny coffin beneath the
pine.

The woman lay down and let herself relax, deep inside, where for so
long she had trembled to hold the fire at bay. Her control broke
like a tree limb under too much weight, and the snap made her cry
out. Heat poured from her chest and pressed out against her skin,
burning her as she had burned others. Her blurred eye went dark, her
good eye saw gold, and the forest pulsed with life, then stilled
under a winding breeze.

She rested her head on the ground. The pine needles pressing into
her cheek began to crackle. Smoke rose in fragile tendrils, and she
watched them rise until she could at last give in fully and die.

CHAPTER ONE

Enna let the fire burn out.

She was not used to this duty. For the three years she had lived and
worked in the city, the hearth had been the hall mistress's
responsibility. And when Enna had returned to the Forest a year ago
at the onset of her mother's illness, her mother had continued to
tend the fire. After her mother's death in the spring, Enna had
become the mistress of this little Forest house, but with a garden
to tend, wood to chop, and a brother, a goat, and chickens to feed,
she often forgot the fire.

It was not hard to do. A fire in a kitchen hearth was a quiet beast.

Of course, Enna thought, she "would" overlook the coals on a night
when her brother and, more important, the flint in the kindling box
were out wandering in the deep woods. So she walked to the house of
her nearest neighbor, Doda, and borrowed a spade's worth of embers
in her milking pail. She struggled home, gripping the hot handle
with a rag and the "end" of her skirt.

The embers drew her eyes. They were beautiful, pulsing red in the
bottom of the dark pail like the heart of a living thing. She looked
away, and the orange coals staved before her eyes, burning its image
over the night. She tripped on a tree root.

"Ah, ah," she said, trying to regain her balance and keep the hot
pail from touching her or spilling to the ground. She cursed herself
for the hundredth time that night for being so careless, sought out
the dark outline of her house, and headed for it.

"Strange," said Enna, blinking hard to clear her vision. There
appeared to be a light in her window, and it was getting brighter.
Enna ran through the yard and looked into the open window.

First she noticed the hearth fire blazing. She was about to exclaim
when she saw her brother, Leifer, sitting beside it, his pack on his
lap, his attention taken up by something in his hands. Enna thought
he looked handsome like this, his face still and thoughtful. He
shared with Enna the black hair and dark "eyes" that had marked
their mother. At age eighteen he was two years older than Enna,
though unlike her he had never left the Forest even so far as to
visit Bayern's capital, just two days' travel from their home.

Leifer unrolled the thing in his hands, and the firelight illuminated
it from behind so that it glowed like a lamp. Enna could see it was a
piece of vellum with writing on one side. Leifer could read a little,
as could she--unusual for Forest-born, but their mother was from the
city and had taught them. Parchment was rare in the Forest, and Enna
had no notion where he had found such a thing.

A slow, burning pain in her hands reminded her what she held, and
she tottered onto the porch and through the door. She caught sight
of Leifer hastily rolling up the vellum and stuffing it in his pack.

"Hot," said Enna at a near run. She put the pail by the hearth and
brushed off her hands. "Ow, but that rag grew thinner the farther I
walked. Greatness, Leifer, I thought the house aflame from a distance."

Leifer closed up his pack and shoved it into the darkness under his
bed. "Well, had you kept the fire going...

"Yes, yes," said Enna, shooing away his protest with a wave of her
hand. "No need to remind me I'm as good as a fish when it comes to
the cookfire. Really, you're good to get a full blaze going in a
dead hearth in just the time it took me to get a pail of embers from
Doda. You did spook me corning up out of nowhere, though. Why're you
back a day early?"

Leifer shrugged. "We were done." He looked out the window, though
the night was so dark that it opened only to a view of blackness. He
seemed thoughtful, but Enna would not have the silence. He had been
gone for six days, and she had driven the chickens to ceaseless
squawking in a vain quest for conversation.

"So," said Enna, her voice expressing exaggerated impatience,
" what'd you find?"

"Oh, you know. Gebi found settling places with fresh springs about
an hour's walk from here. We found another pasturing place, brought
back some berry bushes and onions for planting, and..." He paused,
then rose to close the shutters on the night. He stood a moment, his
hand splayed on the wood. "And I found a lightning-dead fir in the
deep Forest. We, we pulled it up by the roots, dragged it to the
spring for settlers to use."

His voice hinted at more.

She cleared her throat. "And?"

"Something curious..." He looked back at her, and his voice was
edged with excitement. "There were some shards of pottery wrapped
right up in its roots, like something, maybe a bowl or jar, had been
buried there before the fir took deep root. I counted the rings,
and I think the tree was near a hundred years old."

"Hm. You find anything else?" "The vellum," she thought. She knew if
Leifer did not bring it up on his own, all the cajoling in the world
could not squeeze a secret out of him. When he did not speak, she
grabbed a boot and threw it at his backside.

"Ow," he said with a laugh, and rubbed the spot.

"Why're you so quiet?" said Enna.

Leifer snorted. "You know, Enna, you're like a baby who needs to be
constantly cuddled and cooed at."

Scowling, she scooped up the remains of an apple-and-oat stew and
shoved the bowl into his hands. "Would a baby serve you supper?"

Leifer smiled at his bowl. "Thanks," he said.

He eyed her to see if she was actually angry, so she scowled again
and ignored him for her knitting.

"I mean it," said Leifer. "Thanks for--"

"Swallow, then talk."

Leifer swallowed hastily. "Thanks for sticking around all year,
after Ma...and everything. I mean it. You know...I can tell...I see
how you look. You're not always happy here."

Enna shrugged.

"The Forest isn't exciting for you, after living in the city, I
guess." The corners of Leifer's mouth twitched. "Stay a while
longer. I think it'll liven up soon."

"What, pine nut season?" Enna smirked. "You Forest boys have heads
stuffed with fir needles. There are other things in this world
besides trees."

"I know." Leifer finished his bowl and then stared at the bottom. A
crease formed between his eyebrows.

"What does that look mean?" Enna asked.

"I was just remembering something Gebi told me. When lie was in the
city at marketday, a city butcher called him a squatter. The more I
think about it, the madder I get."

"Hmph," said Enna, knitting more emphatically, "you never step out
of the canopy's shade, what do you care what some city butcher
thinks about you?"

"I don't know." He rubbed at the tight spot on his brow. "I don't
know, but it bothers me now. Our people have been living for over a
hundred years on land the city folk thought was too rough. And
still, they call us squatters."

"There are some ignorant people in the "city," I won't argue that,
but you know that things're changing for us."

"Yes, I've heard you go on before, and I don't want to hear it now."

"Well, you're going to," said Enna, her heart beating harder at the
prospect of a good quarrel. "In the city, when I kept chickens for
the king's house, all the animal workers were Forest folk like us,
living there because our parents couldn't afford to feed us out
here. Dozens of us huddled together in our animal keeper quarters,
not permitted to mingle with the city folk."

"I know, Enna, but--"

"No, you listen. You weren't there. It was hard. Our boys couldn't
buy a drink in a tavern or court a city girl or earn a coin any
other way but tending animals. We've got rights now. I saw with
my own eyes the king bestow Forest boys with javelins and shields,
just like the city boys and village boys get when they come of age.
We're citizens. Just look at how we're clearing our own market
centers and acting like proper villages."

"But don't you care? They call us squatters, and I'm not going to
just take that."

"Of course you will, because--"

"I'm not!" Leifer bolted out of his chair and hurled his clay bowl
against the wall, shattering it to bits. Enna stood, dropping the
yarn. The ball rolled until it hit his boot.

"Leifer, what ... ?"

Leifer kicked the yarn and scowled, and for a moment Enna thought he
might break something else. Then his breath heaved and his face
softened.

"I'm sorry, I--" He shook his head, grabbed his pack from beneath
his cot, and ran outside.

Enna followed him into the yard and watched him disappear into the
night forest. "What's the matter?" she shouted after him. "You sick
or something?"

She stood a while in the yard, expecting him to mope back and
apologize, but he did not return.

"Leifer?" she called again. He was gone. Enna shook her head.
" Wonders."

It was late summer. The air felt thicker at night, the darkness full
of unspent action. The house stood in a clearing just big enough for
the animals and the kitchen garden, and then the yard was stopped by
towering evergreens--thick trunked, spiny armed, their heads blocking
the view to the scars. Sometimes, especially at night, those trees felt
like a wall.

She walked to the edge of the yard, leaned against a dark fir, and
felt her chest stretch against that familiar feeling, that yawning
bit of panic. It felt as though something were missing, but she
did not know what she was mourning.

Maybe Leifer was feeling the same way, that the Forest was not
enough anymore, that he had to find something bigger to fill his
life. But just going to the city to tend the king's animals was not
the answer now, not for either of them.

"You're not always happy here," he had said. He could see that. Enna
wondered what had happened to the girl who was content just walking
the deer paths padded with needles, her feet sticky with sap and her
pockets full of pine nuts. She pressed herself against the coarse
trunk and felt again how much she loved the Forest and remembered a
time when she had never wanted to leave.

And then there had been the city, and her best friend, Isi, who had
been an animal worker just like herself. Enna sighed homesickness,
missing her friend whom she had not been able to visit since her
mother took ill. Isi was wonderful. She had stopped a war, honored
her friends, married her love, discovered a great power. Enna could
not be content now that she had seen all Isi had done. "There could
be something like that for me," thought Enna again, "if I knew where
to look."

A hunting owl passed so close that she felt the air from his wings
brush her face. Then he was gone, as he had come, in silence.

Leifer did return the next morning, though not quite apologetic
enough to satisfy Enna. She found herself glaring at him regularly.
The glowers did not work. Leifer's easy laugh seemed hard to come
by. Once he yelled at her over some unswept ashes.

"What's the matter with you?" she yelled back. "Why're you acting
like an injured boar? Has this got something to do with that
vellum?"

Leifer gave her such a hateful look that Enna found herself wishing
for her mother. Then she grabbed a broom and pushed him out of the
house.

"You can come back when you can be nice!" she shouted after him.

Enna spent the morning glad to have him gone, then bored, then so
lonely that she wished he would come back and glare at her some more
so she could have a nice interesting fight or at least have another
try at dragging information out of him. She was thinking on Leifer
and kneading bread dough so vigorously, she did not know anyone had
approached until she happened to look out the window. Someone was
watching her from the yard--a boy of sixteen with longish black hair,
large eyes, and a mouth fixed in a pleased grin.

"Good crows, Finn, how long've you been standing there?" He
shrugged.

"Well, come in. Don't stand out there like a stranger," said Enna.
" Why didn't you speak up?"

"I was just watching you." Finn set his pack on the floor, washed
his hands in a water pail, and grabbed a lump of dough. "Didn't want
to interrupt."

"Don't be trying to help me, Finn. Sit. You must've been walking
since daybreak."

She tried to snatch the dough away from him, and he side-stepped
her.

"What're going to do, wrestle it from me?"

Enna laughed. "Well, thanks, then, and good to see you, Finn. How's
your mother?"

Finn nodded. "Good. I'm--we're ready early for market-day, and she
said I could take a couple of days to come see you."

"She said I could." Enna sometimes thought it was good for Finn to
get away from his mother for a time. If not for her, undoubtedly he
would have gone to live in the city with other Forest folk like
herself. Through their friend Isi, he had made many friends among
the animal keepers there and often went to visit when in town for
marketday. Since Enna had returned to the Forest, he had become a
regular guest at her house as well.

"Well, Finn, you came just in time to save me from screaming
craziness. Leifer's gone mad, that's all there is to it.

Finn looked concerned. "What, he didn't hurt you?"

"Oh, no, just woke up with a case of grumpiness that would scare off
any nanny goat. And I swear he's got a secret, something he found
off in the woods. What with his strangeness, I haven't spoken
to a sensible person in days."

Enna peeled the dough off the table and threw it down again. "Look
at me, Finn. When we met in the city two years ago, did you see me
in this kind of life? Kneading this dough, living out here like my
ma, tending the house and animals, and talking to myself for company?
She was married at my age, but that doesn't fit me, does it, Finn?"

"Somehow, I can't think of anything you could do that would surprise
me," he said. Enna pushed him playfully with her shoulder. He took a
couple of off-balance steps, but she suspected he did it on purpose
to make her feel tough. "What do you think you'll do?"

"About Leifer? Knock his head and listen for the hollow thunk."

"No, about you."

Enna paused. "I don't know, Finn. I need to do something:" She
flexed her hand and watched the sinews stretch. "I feel like I'm
homesick for something, maybe for Isi and the old days in the
city. When I was an animal keeper, it was hard work, but I loved the
winter nights or rain days when all us Forest-born would hole up in
the workers' hall, Isi and Razo and the rest, and play games and
hear tales and watch the fire." She smiled. "And later, too, when
stuff was happening, and we helped Isi from the louts who tried to
kill her, and she married the prince. What a wedding, huh? You in
fine cloth and holding a javelin and all? And the nights up in the
palace when you came to visit, and Isi would have a picnic on the
throne room floor and invite all the animal workers."

Finn nodded. "Times I thought I could stay there forever, and I
thought you'd never leave,"

"Me too, once," Enna stopped pounding the dough and watched it rise.
" But later, I don't know, I felt different, like I was just a guest,
you know? With all the courtiers and ladies-in-waiting and guards
and everything, after a while, it didn't seem like Isi needed me
anymore."

"But you had to leave, for 'your' ma," he said.

Enna nodded. "I know, and I stayed because I thought Leifer needed
me. But lately...it seems like all he really needs is a good kick to
the head."

"I'd miss you, Enna, if you left the Forest...if I couldn't see you
much."

"Well, thanks for that."

The ease of the moment made Enna realize just how many times they
had stood together in such an exchange, Enna talking about whatever
was on her mind, Finn listening. She thought that perhaps he had
heard more of her thoughts than any other person. She turned to look
him over. He noticed and glanced away.

"Huh, what a patient person you are, Finn," she said. "I should be
more like you."

Finn shook his head. "No. If I'm patient, then you don't have to be,
because one of us already is."

Enna did not argue. To Finn, the point seemed to make perfect sense.

They worked together until the house was clean and bread hot to eat,
then sat outside to watch the night come on. The tree shadows merged
into a general darkness, broken only by pale splatterings of moonlight.
The crackle of a pinecone underfoot startled Enna upright in her chair.
Leifer emerged from the Forest blackness.

"Oh," she said, leaning back. "It's just you."

He came up behind her and rested his forehead on the crown of her
head.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"That's the first bit of sense I've heard from you in days." She
hoped Leifer might be all right after all and gave a friendly tug to
the back of his hair. "Say hello to Finn."

"Hello, Finn. I can barely see your face. Dark, isn't it?"

Leifer walked over to the yard fire pit, his back to them. Enna saw
an orange spark, then the pit was blazing. He turned to her, his
smile lit by the orange glow.

"How'd you...That was a fast fire," said Enna. "What did you put in
there besides wood?"

Leifer ignored her question. "Finn, I'm glad you're here. I was just
thinking I needed to talk to someone like me who's always been
Forest blood to bones, someone who never ran off to live in the
city."

"I've been in the city many times," said Finn.

Leifer waved off his comment. "Yes, to marketday, and to visit your
old friend the 'princess.'" He hit that word with a touch of mockery
that immediately put Enna on her guard. "Rut it's clear where your
allegiance lies."

Finn glanced at Enna for a hint of how to respond, but Leifer did
not give him time.

"Just listen a moment--don't interrupt, Enna--because I've been
thinking. We've done all right in the Forest, haven't we? Now the
borders of Bayern have tossed a noose around the Forest and claimed
it a boon. I don't trust them, Finn, touting their cobblestones and
saddled horses and all the while enslaving Forest girls and boys."

"Enslaving?" said Finn. "I don't think..."

"There are others who see like we do, Finn, others who would join a
fight if we decided to rebel."

Enna felt her jaw lower in awe, and she waited for Leifer to laugh
and admit he was joking. But there was a hardness in his voice she
had never noted before, and he flexed and unflexed his hands as
though he meant action.

Hardcover: Today's read ends on page 14.