Taking Daisy to the campsite?
Going somewhere else?
Looking for Barry?
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Sunday, August 26, 2012
219
219
As crazy as this day is turning out to be, what I really need is to put it behind me. I need to forget all about it for a little while and just put in a little bit more time preparing for my exam next week. I take down my book and notebook from the shelf. Then I place my box of crystals on the table and lift the lid. There is an experiment I want to do to make sure that I can accurately read my flow meter and figure out how much energy is in a crystal based on measuring the flow for a certain amount of time.
We’ve only done this a couple of times at EI, actually, just so that we knew what a flow meter was and sort of how to use one. But we didn’t have enough meters for everyone, and most of our work was figuring out how to work the calculations on paper anyway. Not many students have flow meters, but I have a good one.
Once, when I was about five, a man came to visit my mother. I didn’t know it then, but he was a philosopher. I remember that he had a very kind voice and fuzzy beard. When he came in, my mother tried to shoo me away, but he told her to let me stay. And he handed something to me from his pocket and said that I could play with it.
So while they talked, I held the meter and began to play with it. It’s made out of brass and has four round nobbs. When it’s near a magical flow of energy, the knobs spin around, and you can measure the rate that the magic is flowing at. Eventually, I crawled out from behind the philosopher’s chair and held the meter near the lights, the clock, anything magical that I could find. It didn’t spin very fast, because there wasn’t anything that needed a lot of magic, but then I got the great idea of taking it out to the kitchen and setting it on the steam kettle. It wasn’t long before my mother caught me and dragged me back in, but I still remember how thrilling it was that I had figured out a way to make it spin faster.
My mother insisted that I give it back right then. The philosopher just looked at me and asked, “Will you take good care of this and learn how to use it?” I did not look at my mother, because if I didn’t look, then she couldn’t tell me no, not with him right there. So I promised that I would.
The problem is that when I open the box, my flow meter is gone.
I stare at the crystals, each in its velvet-lined space. One compartment is empty.
Mallee.
When I’m upset, I’ve learned that it pays to stomp down the stairs as loudly as possible. Wren tries to be patient and reasonable, but I don’t think so. If I start by making it loud and obvious, then it saves time. “Mallee!” I shriek. “Where is it?”
I doubt that she actually knows which thing she’s in trouble for, but it’s not hard to convince her that she’s guilty of something because she screams and runs. I have the advantage because my bare feet stick to the floorboards, but as soon as Mallee comes off of a rug, her thick socks slide, and on only the second turn, she goes flying into a bookcase with enough force to knock a decorative plate off of its stand so that it smashes on the floor. Mallee’s wail of fear turns into a wail of pain--an exaggerated wail, I might add. But since there is real blood (though only about two drops of it), she gets all kinds of attention and even an apology from me.
However, I still consider the approach successful because Mallee hands over my meter before going off to the kitchen to help mom dress for Church. Since she is already dressed, that only means that Mallee will get to borrow a necklace and look ridiculously dressed up when they go.
I head triumphantly back upstairs, finally ready to study.
To my surprise, I am not the only one. “Did you forget something?” I say to Wren just as a way of asking her what’s going on.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Wren says in a whisper. “I’ve been trying to get some time with you all day.”
“It’s been a busy day,” I admit.
“I’ll be late for Church, but I just can’t stand it anymore. Tomorrow will be just another day, and I need to tell someone.” The way she says it makes me feel like I would not be hearing this if there were any other choice. That’s probably not exactly what she means, but that’s what if sounds like.
I look at the book and box on my desk. I turn back to Wren. “Okay, what is it?”
“You can’t tell her,” Wren says. She’s even melodramatic enough to clutch at my arm as if she’s the heroine in a moving picture. I wonder if now it’s my job to tie her to a tree until the hero can get here to save her.
“You had a solicitation without Mom knowing? How did you manage that?”
“It’s not exactly official.”
“What?” If my parents knew that she had been talking to a boy without filing any paperwork, they would be furious.
“Promise you won’t tell on me?” Wren demands. I have to really think about it.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. I’m not sure exactly what I’m promising.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she insists, crossing her arms and looking stubborn. That worries me.
“What have you done?”
“You have to promise.”
“I’m not promising anything until you tell me.”
She shrugs and tries to look like she doesn’t care, but I can tell that she’s upset. As in, really mad.
“Okay fine. I promise.”
She loosens up a little. “Okay. Just remember that you promised.”
“Wren!” I’m about to kill her. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She still has her arms folded. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s feeling stubborn and pleased with herself, but also a little bit afraid. “I’m...We’re engaged.”
I stop my indulgently disapproving smile. “How old is he?”
“He’s in your year.”
“There’s only one problem.” Wren has decided to tell me everything, and now there is no stopping her. Sometimes I think it’s funny, but right now, I don’t. Of course, I don’t want her to keep quiet, not now that she started telling me. Only a part of me does. In fact, two parts of me want her to just shut up and never say anything again. The first one, what is more important to me, is the worry that she is only sixteen.
“Problem?”I ask.
“He’s not the oldest son. He needs a subsidy.”
“Oh,”I say. That is a problem. A farmer doesn’t always make enough to get proof of career, and without it, they can’t get married. A subsidy has to be paid back before“Doesn’t he want to get an apprenticeship? Then he could wait a year.”
“He knows how to farm. He offered to go into something else just for me--even though he’d hate doing anything else--but it’s no good. His grades aren’t good. He’s doubts that he’ll do well enough on the Exam to make up for it.”
I sit down and start fiddling with some loose buttons in my pocket. I wish that I had my sewing. It would calm me. But she’d be offended if I excuse myself now to go get it.
“He says he’ll think of something.” She tries to look hopeful. I can tell that she’s been crying about this before and will again.
“You haven’t even told me his name,” I remind her.
She shakes her head. “I’d better not. Of course I would tell you, but this way I’m keeping my word, and I’m the only one who could get in trouble.”
She hugs me, and she says thank you, and she goes off to be happy. I’m the one who has one more thing to worry about.
Continue on to Chapter 3
[300]
As crazy as this day is turning out to be, what I really need is to put it behind me. I need to forget all about it for a little while and just put in a little bit more time preparing for my exam next week. I take down my book and notebook from the shelf. Then I place my box of crystals on the table and lift the lid. There is an experiment I want to do to make sure that I can accurately read my flow meter and figure out how much energy is in a crystal based on measuring the flow for a certain amount of time.
We’ve only done this a couple of times at EI, actually, just so that we knew what a flow meter was and sort of how to use one. But we didn’t have enough meters for everyone, and most of our work was figuring out how to work the calculations on paper anyway. Not many students have flow meters, but I have a good one.
Once, when I was about five, a man came to visit my mother. I didn’t know it then, but he was a philosopher. I remember that he had a very kind voice and fuzzy beard. When he came in, my mother tried to shoo me away, but he told her to let me stay. And he handed something to me from his pocket and said that I could play with it.
So while they talked, I held the meter and began to play with it. It’s made out of brass and has four round nobbs. When it’s near a magical flow of energy, the knobs spin around, and you can measure the rate that the magic is flowing at. Eventually, I crawled out from behind the philosopher’s chair and held the meter near the lights, the clock, anything magical that I could find. It didn’t spin very fast, because there wasn’t anything that needed a lot of magic, but then I got the great idea of taking it out to the kitchen and setting it on the steam kettle. It wasn’t long before my mother caught me and dragged me back in, but I still remember how thrilling it was that I had figured out a way to make it spin faster.
My mother insisted that I give it back right then. The philosopher just looked at me and asked, “Will you take good care of this and learn how to use it?” I did not look at my mother, because if I didn’t look, then she couldn’t tell me no, not with him right there. So I promised that I would.
The problem is that when I open the box, my flow meter is gone.
I stare at the crystals, each in its velvet-lined space. One compartment is empty.
Mallee.
When I’m upset, I’ve learned that it pays to stomp down the stairs as loudly as possible. Wren tries to be patient and reasonable, but I don’t think so. If I start by making it loud and obvious, then it saves time. “Mallee!” I shriek. “Where is it?”
I doubt that she actually knows which thing she’s in trouble for, but it’s not hard to convince her that she’s guilty of something because she screams and runs. I have the advantage because my bare feet stick to the floorboards, but as soon as Mallee comes off of a rug, her thick socks slide, and on only the second turn, she goes flying into a bookcase with enough force to knock a decorative plate off of its stand so that it smashes on the floor. Mallee’s wail of fear turns into a wail of pain--an exaggerated wail, I might add. But since there is real blood (though only about two drops of it), she gets all kinds of attention and even an apology from me.
However, I still consider the approach successful because Mallee hands over my meter before going off to the kitchen to help mom dress for Church. Since she is already dressed, that only means that Mallee will get to borrow a necklace and look ridiculously dressed up when they go.
I head triumphantly back upstairs, finally ready to study.
To my surprise, I am not the only one. “Did you forget something?” I say to Wren just as a way of asking her what’s going on.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Wren says in a whisper. “I’ve been trying to get some time with you all day.”
“It’s been a busy day,” I admit.
“I’ll be late for Church, but I just can’t stand it anymore. Tomorrow will be just another day, and I need to tell someone.” The way she says it makes me feel like I would not be hearing this if there were any other choice. That’s probably not exactly what she means, but that’s what if sounds like.
I look at the book and box on my desk. I turn back to Wren. “Okay, what is it?”
“I’ve met someone.” Wren tries not to grin, but she can’t help it. Her face twists in that way that says she is jumping up and down inside.
“No you haven’t,” I tell her. “There’s no way. You’re not even out of EI. And trust me, if you had any kind of solicitation, Mom would--”“You can’t tell her,” Wren says. She’s even melodramatic enough to clutch at my arm as if she’s the heroine in a moving picture. I wonder if now it’s my job to tie her to a tree until the hero can get here to save her.
“You had a solicitation without Mom knowing? How did you manage that?”
“It’s not exactly official.”
“What?” If my parents knew that she had been talking to a boy without filing any paperwork, they would be furious.
“Promise you won’t tell on me?” Wren demands. I have to really think about it.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. I’m not sure exactly what I’m promising.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she insists, crossing her arms and looking stubborn. That worries me.
“What have you done?”
“You have to promise.”
“I’m not promising anything until you tell me.”
She shrugs and tries to look like she doesn’t care, but I can tell that she’s upset. As in, really mad.
“Okay fine. I promise.”
She loosens up a little. “Okay. Just remember that you promised.”
“Wren!” I’m about to kill her. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She still has her arms folded. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s feeling stubborn and pleased with herself, but also a little bit afraid. “I’m...We’re engaged.”
I stop my indulgently disapproving smile. “How old is he?”
“He’s in your year.”
“You can’t be. He can’t get engaged until he has proof of career.”
“You think I don’t know that?” she insists, and then she sags. “I didn’t mean for it to happen,”she tells me quietly. “But it was a stormy day. I had stayed late for dance class, but it was cancelled that day. I got locked out. So did he.” She shrugs. “I was half in love with him before it occurred to me how strange it was that we seemed to be running into each other so often. By then I didn’t want him to stop.”
“Well, if you’re sensible and keep it quiet then I guess you’ll be okay,” I say. I can’t stay mad at her for very long. “One more year, and then you’ll be old enough to do the paperwork.”“There’s only one problem.” Wren has decided to tell me everything, and now there is no stopping her. Sometimes I think it’s funny, but right now, I don’t. Of course, I don’t want her to keep quiet, not now that she started telling me. Only a part of me does. In fact, two parts of me want her to just shut up and never say anything again. The first one, what is more important to me, is the worry that she is only sixteen.
“Problem?”I ask.
“He’s not the oldest son. He needs a subsidy.”
“Oh,”I say. That is a problem. A farmer doesn’t always make enough to get proof of career, and without it, they can’t get married. A subsidy has to be paid back before“Doesn’t he want to get an apprenticeship? Then he could wait a year.”
“He knows how to farm. He offered to go into something else just for me--even though he’d hate doing anything else--but it’s no good. His grades aren’t good. He’s doubts that he’ll do well enough on the Exam to make up for it.”
I sit down and start fiddling with some loose buttons in my pocket. I wish that I had my sewing. It would calm me. But she’d be offended if I excuse myself now to go get it.
“He says he’ll think of something.” She tries to look hopeful. I can tell that she’s been crying about this before and will again.
“You haven’t even told me his name,” I remind her.
She shakes her head. “I’d better not. Of course I would tell you, but this way I’m keeping my word, and I’m the only one who could get in trouble.”
She hugs me, and she says thank you, and she goes off to be happy. I’m the one who has one more thing to worry about.
Continue on to Chapter 3
[300]
Friday, August 24, 2012
217
[212] Goes home, gets coat. Gets in trouble? Goes up to her room.
[2 ] Goes in through the kitchen, meets up with Wren, then can either go to Church or can try to get out of Church. Then she has to get the coat.
204
[204]
“Mom, why do I have to do it? Can’t Kestrel? She’s the one who reads all the time.”
“Now Feldspar,it’s your turn this week, as you know very well. Kestrel did the forms last week.”
“That’s right,” I cut in, not wanting any chance that I’ll get stuck with the most boring chore in the world. “And besides, I have to study.”
“Study?” He counters. “It’s only one test, but she’s been studying forever. Mom, can’t you see that she’s just doing it to get out of work?”
I glare at him.
“Your turn will come,” she says, patting him on the head. “And when it does, I expect you to work as hard as Kestrel does.”
He sticks his tongue out at me. “The only problem,” he says, “is that by the time I’m that old, there won’t be anyone but Mallee to do all the rest of the chores. And she won’t be able to do them all, so guess who is stuck with them for life--me, that’s who.”
I pick up my mathmagics book and grin at him, “I’m sure it’s very good for you,” I offer. “I’m sure that you’ll be a better person because of it.”
He just glares and unscrews the lid of the fountain pen before filling it from the inkwell.
“Oh,and try not to blot too much,” Mom continues. “I’m nearly out of compost submission forms, and I don’t have time to go get more for a couple of days.”
“At least that’s one chore that I can’t do.” Feld gives an exaggerated sigh.
Normally I like Feld. He’ll find out soon enough what it’s like to have your entire future hanging over your head with one test. Especially since it’s not just my happiness that is hanging on it.
Mom scoops up Mallee to read her a bedtime story. She sits in the kitchen rocker tonight so that Feld can listen without admitting that he is listening.
Meanwhile I have work to do. I head upstairs. As much as she wants me to do well, my mom would send me to bed if I stay up too late. The only problem is that for the last eight months, and for the next week, I can’t afford to sleep much.
I settle down at the little desk in my room, book open, pencil sharpened, paper waiting. Tonight I’m working on resistance and energy loss of medium grade crystals in a magical system. I’ve done it before, but I can’t remember all of the deatails, so I want to work through some equations just in case they have a practical application question on the exam.
I turn to the practice section. Question 1: If a D418 crystal in a copper mesh transfer pouch pulls a load of 1.8 units for a period of 4,336 hours, how much magic is lost?
I adjust the lumilamp on my desk and put my pencil down to the paper. “Lets’ see,” I mutter to myself. “A D418 crystal at maximum capacity is...” And for the next several hours, I scribble, check, twist my hair out of my face with pencils, and read more questions. I don’t even notice the getting-ready-for-bed noises from the rest of the family until it suddenly hits me that it’s very late and very quiet.
219
205
“Mom, why do I have to do it? Can’t Kestrel? She’s the one who reads all the time.”
“Now Feldspar,it’s your turn this week, as you know very well. Kestrel did the forms last week.”
“That’s right,” I cut in, not wanting any chance that I’ll get stuck with the most boring chore in the world. “And besides, I have to study.”
“Study?” He counters. “It’s only one test, but she’s been studying forever. Mom, can’t you see that she’s just doing it to get out of work?”
I glare at him.
“Your turn will come,” she says, patting him on the head. “And when it does, I expect you to work as hard as Kestrel does.”
He sticks his tongue out at me. “The only problem,” he says, “is that by the time I’m that old, there won’t be anyone but Mallee to do all the rest of the chores. And she won’t be able to do them all, so guess who is stuck with them for life--me, that’s who.”
I pick up my mathmagics book and grin at him, “I’m sure it’s very good for you,” I offer. “I’m sure that you’ll be a better person because of it.”
He just glares and unscrews the lid of the fountain pen before filling it from the inkwell.
“Oh,and try not to blot too much,” Mom continues. “I’m nearly out of compost submission forms, and I don’t have time to go get more for a couple of days.”
“At least that’s one chore that I can’t do.” Feld gives an exaggerated sigh.
Normally I like Feld. He’ll find out soon enough what it’s like to have your entire future hanging over your head with one test. Especially since it’s not just my happiness that is hanging on it.
Mom scoops up Mallee to read her a bedtime story. She sits in the kitchen rocker tonight so that Feld can listen without admitting that he is listening.
Meanwhile I have work to do. I head upstairs. As much as she wants me to do well, my mom would send me to bed if I stay up too late. The only problem is that for the last eight months, and for the next week, I can’t afford to sleep much.
I settle down at the little desk in my room, book open, pencil sharpened, paper waiting. Tonight I’m working on resistance and energy loss of medium grade crystals in a magical system. I’ve done it before, but I can’t remember all of the deatails, so I want to work through some equations just in case they have a practical application question on the exam.
I turn to the practice section. Question 1: If a D418 crystal in a copper mesh transfer pouch pulls a load of 1.8 units for a period of 4,336 hours, how much magic is lost?
I adjust the lumilamp on my desk and put my pencil down to the paper. “Lets’ see,” I mutter to myself. “A D418 crystal at maximum capacity is...” And for the next several hours, I scribble, check, twist my hair out of my face with pencils, and read more questions. I don’t even notice the getting-ready-for-bed noises from the rest of the family until it suddenly hits me that it’s very late and very quiet.
219
205
210
Kestrel leaves to go visit Daisy.
Evil father
Should she tell Daisy or listen to Daisy.
(Daisy's Confession 203)
Evil father
Should she tell Daisy or listen to Daisy.
(Daisy's Confession 203)
213
[from 208]
My breath is shaky and doesn’t come quite like I plan for it too. I count to three, open my lips. Then I close them and count to three again. I can’t say anything. Perhaps I’ll stand like this until Anen is disgusted and leaves me. Will anyone find me if I stand here for days? Or will I die here, and whoever finds me will wonder about the skull and the knuckles.
“Effro.” It feels like someone else is saying it. If I could see what I feel, it would look like a thin wisp of smoke coming out of the skull. And then I am inside.
Sometimes when I dream or even when I read, I guess, I can be the person in the story and myself watching it happen at the same time that’s what it is like now. I am myself, incorporeal and watching from behind and a little to the left, but I am also a girl sitting on a hillside. As far as I can see is purple heather. It is like resting on a purple wave, next to me is a single rowan tree.
At first I am filled with just seeing, feeling the wind blow against me as it ruffles the heather around me, bringing its scent crashing into me like waves. And then I realize that there are things I know. I love this place. I have come here often. Today I am here to say goodbye. Emptiness stretches out farther than I can see. There are years, so many years ahead and I am only on the first day. How can I keep them from crushing my heart with the weight of all those empty years knowing that I will never see this place again?
“Kestrel. Kestrel.”
For a moment I am aware of myself again--the watcher behind the girl on the hill. And then I blink, and I see the creased face of my grandmother, waves of years ride the skin of her face like rolling land covered in heather.
“It was you,” I say, discovering it as I say it. I wipe at my wet cheeks. “Where was that place? How...” I hesitate, not wanting to be rude, but unable to stop my wonder and horror, “how old are you?”
Her hand grips tightly, fingers biting into my shoulder. The nails of her other hand rub against my palm as she scrapes the skull from me. “Once again,” she says, looking upset. “I counted the cost incorrectly. Apparently there are things I fail to learn regardless of all the years I have had in which to learn them. I did not think that you would be able to call up that much. Forgive me. I have trained more than one apprentice, and it always takes a lot of practice even to see the scene clearly. There is much that I don’t know about you, my granddaughter. Be careful of your gifts. Sometimes power that is too easily won is more of a curse than a blessing.”
“Tell me how you are connected to the Outliers. Tell me what they even are. All I know are stories about revolutionaries who hurt people in order to make a statement to the government. They were never anything I wanted to be a part of.”
Anen pulls out the wooden box and tucks the skull back among the cotton padding before latching the box and stowing it in her skirt pockets again along with the pig’s knuckles. It would seem that the lesson is over.
“There are men that run these worlds,” she says, and the bitterness in her voice slices into my ears, “who are evil. Nothing but evil. They coat their deeds with fine, embroidered words, but what they do is oppression, exploitation, and violence. Kestrel, I do not always want what the Outliers must do--I certainly don’t always condone it--but we must have change. The Archipelago must find freedom or everything will wither and die. I have foreseen it. If I could tell you what I have seen--”
“There you are!” Wren calls over to us from the lane. She walks and runs over to us. Then she stops and puts her hands on her legs, bending over to catch her breath. Of course, Wren is much too lady-like to sit on the grass without a blanket. She might get her dress dirty. That would be very well if she had a dress that was worth keeping clean. But I don’t see why I should worry about grass with a dress that I use to feed chickens and milk a cow.
“What is it?” I ask, as she gulps in air. “Are we in trouble because we won’t have a full hour to dress for dinner?” Anen looks at me sharply, but it’s true. We only dress for dinner when we have company, and when that company is a greenwoman, what’s the point?
Wren shakes her head. “Outliers,” she finally gasps. “Dad says to come home right now, to make sure that you’re safe.” She looks around as if expecting to be attacked any moment. “I didn’t think that I would have to come this far to find you,” she explains. “Otherwise he never would have let me come, but Feld is still helping with dinner.”
“Outliers?” Anen asks, calm and slightly concerned. “But there has been no Outlier activity here for over a year. Is he sure?”
“He’s sure,” Wren says, “Slade Carpenter found a camp in the woods.”
“Was there anyone there?” I ask, not sure if I was worried for Barry or for what Barry could have told about me.
“Something big happened there. He found burned trees and,” she pauses to give her words dramatic weight, “and there was a dead soldier.” She pulls on my hand to get me up, then she helps Anen.
The three of us start back for home without another word. I look at Anen, wondering if I should be running away from the Outliers or toward them.
218
The button sits on the palm of my hand. Such a small thing. It’s hardly big enough to see the grain of the wood. It doesn’t have a stain or anything that would make it seem extraordinary. If this is magic, then what else is magic? My desk? A magic desk sounds ridiculous. Is a magic button any less silly?
But what if?
It’s not as though anyone is watching, so what do I have to lose? One of the words she taught me must be the right one, otherwise she would have told it to me a new one.
The only reason why I remember the words is because I like the sound of them. When I was little, before Mallee was born, when Feld was just a baby, Anen used to come visit. She’d stay for a few days or even a week. My mother was busy with Wren and Feld, of course, so Anen would take me out for walks. I was already partly fluent in Gallium because my mother thought that I should know it, so it made sense to me that my grandmother should have a language too.
We used to play a game. She would say a word, and I then I would act it out. She never wanted to play it when my mother was around. Now I understand why. She wasn’t teaching me her home language; she was teaching me words of power.
That they are words of power, from some language not spoken in the Archipelago--or at least not spoken here for a very long time--I have no doubt of any more. I don’t know a lot about languages from worlds that are more than one portal away, but I do know that Anen’s words feel different. And after what happened last night, I have no doubt that that there is power in them.
There was one word that was hard to act out, but I remember tapping my finger to my head and then trying to look like I had just remembered something. Maybe it would work to identify what magic she had put into it.
I close my eyes and try to concentrate. “Cofio,” I whisper.
Something like a spark flashes in my hand. I jump, drop the button on the floor. My palm shows no mark, which is good. I must be on the right path, though. I would never have believed that wood could conduct magic. Gingerly, I touch it to my tongue. I don’t feel anything. It must have an incredibly low charge. What did I do last night that worked so well? I can remember it clearly, not as a story, but as a series of images and sensations. I have to find that same set of emotions. I try again. “Cofio.”
Suddenly, I’m aware of my fingertip touching the top of the button. My eyes are closed, but I can see it, larger. The colors are muted, the same blues and grays that you would see if you were looking at it in semi-darkness. I can feel it farther away, but I can see it closer. The surface of the button is smooth, with the edge sticking up like a low wall. I can see the nearest two holes, even though my finger is covering them. Not that I can see through my fingertip, but I can see both things at once.
Then i see something, like a thin curl of smoke and a flash, like lighting in the clouds far away. And then I can see the other things in quick succession. Fire buring a tree. A black silouhette with a raised sword; and then, in a tent, a man lying still, the dark, wet blood reflecting the light of a lumilamp.
When it is over, the memory of the smell of smoke lingers. I open my eyes and see everything as it should be, but my head is still ringing with the sounds and images that should be all around me but have disappeared. My hand is shaking. My fingers curl around the button, and I sag to my bed, first sitting, then sinking to curl up on it, knees pulled in, arms wrapped around myself.
How did she know? How could Anen have seen that, have put all of that into such a small object. Not even a crystal. It's wood. A tiny piece of wood. How could she have pulled all of that from my head?
It's possible that she has some way of scrying that could do it, but as I think back, I suspect that I know where she got it from. When she handed me the coat, the magic flicker that I felt, that must have been it. Somehow, she pulled the memory from me that quickly. I felt the magic, but I didn't feel what it was doing.
But what was the point? She might have been trying to show me what there was to teach me, some irrefutable evidence that greenwoman magic is powerful. I believe her; I just don't know what to think about it.
All this time, so much work that I've been putting into studying and learning. Does it mean nothing? My Exam was my entire life. Now, even if I got a perfect score on it, what good would it do me if one old lady can take even my memories with only one touch? What else is there that I don't know?
[300]
Continue on to Chapter 3
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
212
212 She doesn’t see her grandmother at all
“Where is she?” I ask when I get in the door.
“Your grandmother was on a schedule,” my mother informs me. Her tone is so frosty, that I wonder who is in trouble. “She left something for you,” she says with her arms folded across her chest. That’s not a good sign. I’d bet that we are both in trouble. I wait for a minute, but she doesn’t seem inclined to continue.
“Where is it?” I ask.
She waves her hand in the direction of the visiting room. I am happy for an excuse to leave, but I’m back again in a minute.
“I don’t see it,” I tell her, “but she forgot her coat.” I hold it up, as if my mom needs to see proof.
“Yes,” she says.
I wait again. “So how long ago did she leave? Could I catch up with her?”
“That is what she left you.” She flashes me a tight smile.
“Oh.” I can’t think of anything better to say. Why would she leave it for me? It’s really convenient, but she couldn’t have known. It’s strange.
“It might be a good idea to wash it if you actually want to wear it,” my mom says.
“You could be right.” I try to look like I agree with her without actually promising to wash the coat. I will probably need it too soon. I trace a finger on the embroidery. It will look ridiculous at EI, but I still like it. If I can get my other coat cleaned up, then I’ll wear it, but if not, then at least I won’t freeze in the morning.
“Well,” I say, anxious to get away from her, “I guess I’ll take this to my room then.”
She shakes her head, not telling me not to, but just expressing her views of big, embroidered coats in general.
I put the coat on as I climb the stairs to my room. I don’t know why really, to see if it’s warm and if it fits, I suppose. It feels very heavy. My grandma must get cold easily. I’m warm, nearly too warm, right away. I stick my hands into the pockets to see how deep and warm those are. Very warm, I decide,and then my fingers close around something. It’s round and smooth. A coin?
Then I pull it out and realize that it’s a button. It’s beautiful--made of mother-of-pearl. Even in the dim stairway, it catches the light.
Once in my room, I set it on my desk to look at later. I take off the coat, and for a few seconds I feel cold until I adjust. I set the coat aside, and consider tackling the one under my bed. Really, I should be doing more studying. I only have one chance at my Exam, and I’ve wasted nearly a whole day. I’ll have time to think about everything later.
So the question is how I filtered it in the first place? When I touched Slade, did I do anything different? It was wet, but not like water--actually, it felt more like when I help cut up raw meat, from a chicken or a duck that has just been killed. That makes sense because--I can’t think about how that is the same. I just can’t. I realize that I’m rubbing my hand against my leg; I can still feel the memory of wiping my hand on my skirt without thinking about it. I lift my hand and check for blood, but I think it’s all gone.
I tap the button against my lips, and then I put it in my mouth. I wonder why my grandmother gave me the coat?
Then a tingle spreads across my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I spit the button out. It’s like my tongue fell asleep and is waking up now. It’s like magic.
The button is still white and shining, but it’s still just a button. No glowing, no warmth, no tingling on my hand. Greenwomen don’t use crystals; they use strange bits of fur and bone. I’ve always thought that it was creepy and not at all exact. They use feathers or anything that was once alive. Like shells.
I rub the smooth, iridescent button between my thumb and finger. Am I holding a spell? Maybe I was imagining it.
Greenwomen get a Class B license. They are restricted to crystals under 100 units. What could you put in a button? Nothing really. Greenwomen don’t power anything with magic. They make little charms for keeping away evil spirits or something.
Except that my grandmother’s really work.
Did she leave it for me on purpose?
If I get it to work, then what will happen to me if it’s just an accident? An idea occurs to me. I go back to the coat and reach back into the pockets. I dig my fingertips deep down into the seam of the pockets. Nothing.
To me, it seems that if she would accidentally leave a charm or a spell in her pocket, then she would carelessly leave something else--at least the normal crumbs and fluff that are in most people’s pockets. Nothing is there. They’re perfectly clean.
1) Maybe that’s not good evidence, but it’s good enough for me. I begin to suspect that I should have stayed to talk with her. But she left this for me; she knew that I would find it and be able to get it to work.
http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/08/218.html
2) It might be safe, but playing around with magic is dangerous. Look at last night; I got lucky. How much should I press my luck when it hasn’t even been a full day yet since the last close call?
“Where is she?” I ask when I get in the door.
“Your grandmother was on a schedule,” my mother informs me. Her tone is so frosty, that I wonder who is in trouble. “She left something for you,” she says with her arms folded across her chest. That’s not a good sign. I’d bet that we are both in trouble. I wait for a minute, but she doesn’t seem inclined to continue.
“Where is it?” I ask.
She waves her hand in the direction of the visiting room. I am happy for an excuse to leave, but I’m back again in a minute.
“I don’t see it,” I tell her, “but she forgot her coat.” I hold it up, as if my mom needs to see proof.
“Yes,” she says.
I wait again. “So how long ago did she leave? Could I catch up with her?”
“That is what she left you.” She flashes me a tight smile.
“Oh.” I can’t think of anything better to say. Why would she leave it for me? It’s really convenient, but she couldn’t have known. It’s strange.
“It might be a good idea to wash it if you actually want to wear it,” my mom says.
“You could be right.” I try to look like I agree with her without actually promising to wash the coat. I will probably need it too soon. I trace a finger on the embroidery. It will look ridiculous at EI, but I still like it. If I can get my other coat cleaned up, then I’ll wear it, but if not, then at least I won’t freeze in the morning.
“Well,” I say, anxious to get away from her, “I guess I’ll take this to my room then.”
She shakes her head, not telling me not to, but just expressing her views of big, embroidered coats in general.
I put the coat on as I climb the stairs to my room. I don’t know why really, to see if it’s warm and if it fits, I suppose. It feels very heavy. My grandma must get cold easily. I’m warm, nearly too warm, right away. I stick my hands into the pockets to see how deep and warm those are. Very warm, I decide,and then my fingers close around something. It’s round and smooth. A coin?
Then I pull it out and realize that it’s a button. It’s beautiful--made of mother-of-pearl. Even in the dim stairway, it catches the light.
Once in my room, I set it on my desk to look at later. I take off the coat, and for a few seconds I feel cold until I adjust. I set the coat aside, and consider tackling the one under my bed. Really, I should be doing more studying. I only have one chance at my Exam, and I’ve wasted nearly a whole day. I’ll have time to think about everything later.
There was a book by Dr. Hematite that I wanted to finish. I’ve read parts of it, but I wanted to make sure I understood what he was saying. Actually, I’m pretty sure that I don’t. It’s a theory on the use of filters to cause change with magic. He seemed to think that with the right mechanics, crystals could be used to change things without a human focusing the magic. He only wrote one book, I’ve never seen another by him, not even another copy of this book. I found it in a trunk of some things my mom brought home when her mother died. Some of them hadn’t been opened since before my mom got married. But I used to play in the attic all the time, and I opened the boxes without realizing that maybe I shouldn’t be in there.
I pick up the button and tap it on my desk. Maybe Dr. Hematite would have been able to help me make sense of what happened last night. The only thing I can think of is that I filtered my magic for change, because no filter would have meant that all of the energy was changed into light or heat. I shudder at the thought of how the night could have ended. So the question is how I filtered it in the first place? When I touched Slade, did I do anything different? It was wet, but not like water--actually, it felt more like when I help cut up raw meat, from a chicken or a duck that has just been killed. That makes sense because--I can’t think about how that is the same. I just can’t. I realize that I’m rubbing my hand against my leg; I can still feel the memory of wiping my hand on my skirt without thinking about it. I lift my hand and check for blood, but I think it’s all gone.
I tap the button against my lips, and then I put it in my mouth. I wonder why my grandmother gave me the coat?
Then a tingle spreads across my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I spit the button out. It’s like my tongue fell asleep and is waking up now. It’s like magic.
The button is still white and shining, but it’s still just a button. No glowing, no warmth, no tingling on my hand. Greenwomen don’t use crystals; they use strange bits of fur and bone. I’ve always thought that it was creepy and not at all exact. They use feathers or anything that was once alive. Like shells.
I rub the smooth, iridescent button between my thumb and finger. Am I holding a spell? Maybe I was imagining it.
Greenwomen get a Class B license. They are restricted to crystals under 100 units. What could you put in a button? Nothing really. Greenwomen don’t power anything with magic. They make little charms for keeping away evil spirits or something.
Except that my grandmother’s really work.
Did she leave it for me on purpose?
If I get it to work, then what will happen to me if it’s just an accident? An idea occurs to me. I go back to the coat and reach back into the pockets. I dig my fingertips deep down into the seam of the pockets. Nothing.
To me, it seems that if she would accidentally leave a charm or a spell in her pocket, then she would carelessly leave something else--at least the normal crumbs and fluff that are in most people’s pockets. Nothing is there. They’re perfectly clean.
1) Maybe that’s not good evidence, but it’s good enough for me. I begin to suspect that I should have stayed to talk with her. But she left this for me; she knew that I would find it and be able to get it to work.
http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/08/218.html
2) It might be safe, but playing around with magic is dangerous. Look at last night; I got lucky. How much should I press my luck when it hasn’t even been a full day yet since the last close call?
209
[From ]
[209]
My breath is shaky and doesn’t come quite like I plan for it too. I count to three, open my lips. Then I close them and count to three again. I can’t say anything. Perhaps I’ll stand like this until Anen is disgusted and leaves me. Will anyone find me if I stand here for days? Or will I die here, and whoever finds me will wonder about the skull and the knuckles.
“Effro.” It feels like someone else is saying it. If I could see what I feel, it would look like a thin wisp of smoke coming out of the skull. And then I am inside.
Sometimes when I dream or even when I read, I guess, I can be the person in the story and myself watching it happen at the same time that’s what it is like now. I am myself, incorporeal and watching from behind and a little to the left, but I am also a girl sitting on a hillside. As far as I can see is purple heather. It is like resting on a purple wave, next to me is a single rowan tree.
At first I am filled with just seeing, feeling the wind blow against me as it ruffles the heather around me, bringing its scent crashing into me like waves. And then I realize that there are things I know. I love this place. I have come here often. Today I am here to say goodbye. Emptiness stretches out farther than I can see. There are years, so many years ahead and I am only on the first day. How can I keep them from crushing my heart with the weight of all those empty years knowing that I will never see this place again?
“Kestrel. Kestrel.”
For a moment I am aware of myself again--the watcher behind the girl on the hill. And then I blink, and I see the creased face of my grandmother, waves of years ride the skin of her face like rolling land covered in heather.
“It was you,” I say, discovering it as I say it. I wipe at my wet cheeks. “Where was that place? How...” I hesitate, not wanting to be rude, but unable to stop my wonder and horror, “how old are you?”
Her hand grips tightly, fingers biting into my shoulder. The nails of her other hand rub against my palm as she scrapes the skull from me. “Once again,” she says, looking upset. “I counted the cost incorrectly. Apparently there are things I fail to learn regardless of all the years I have had in which to learn them. I did not think that you would be able to call up that much. Forgive me. I have trained more than one apprentice, and it always takes a lot of practice even to see the scene clearly. There is much that I don’t know about you, my granddaughter. Be careful of your gifts. Sometimes power that is too easily won is more of a curse than a blessing.”
“Tell me how you are connected to the Outliers. Tell me what they even are. All I know are stories about revolutionaries who hurt people in order to make a statement to the government. They were never anything I wanted to be a part of.”
Anen pulls out the wooden box and tucks the skull back among the cotton padding before latching the box and stowing it in her skirt pockets again along with the pig’s knuckles. It would seem that the lesson is over.
“There are men that run these worlds,” she says, and the bitterness in her voice slices into my ears, “who are evil. Nothing but evil. They coat their deeds with fine, embroidered words, but what they do is oppression, exploitation, and violence. Kestrel, I do not always want what the Outliers must do--I certainly don’t always condone it--but we must have change. The Archipelago must find freedom or everything will wither and die. I have foreseen it. If I could tell you what I have seen--”
“There you are!” Wren calls over to us from the lane. She walks and runs over to us. Then she stops and puts her hands on her legs, bending over to catch her breath. Of course, Wren is much too lady-like to sit on the grass without a blanket. She might get her dress dirty. That would be very well if she had a dress that was worth keeping clean. But I don’t see why I should worry about grass with a dress that I use to feed chickens and milk a cow.
“What is it?” I ask, as she gulps in air. “Are we in trouble because we won’t have a full hour to dress for dinner?” Anen looks at me sharply, but it’s true. We only dress for dinner when we have company, and when that company is a greenwoman, what’s the point?
Wren shakes her head. “Outliers,” she finally gasps. “Dad says to come home right now, to make sure that you’re safe.” She looks around as if expecting to be attacked any moment. “I didn’t think that I would have to come this far to find you,” she explains. “Otherwise he never would have let me come, but Feld is still helping with dinner.”
“Outliers?” Anen asks, calm and slightly concerned. “But there has been no Outlier activity here for over a year. Is he sure?”
“He’s sure,” Wren says, “Slade Carpenter found a camp in the woods.”
“Was there anyone there?” I ask, not sure if I was worried for Barry or for what Barry could have told about me.
“Something big happened there. He found burned trees and,” she pauses to give her words dramatic weight, “and there was a dead soldier.” She pulls on my hand to get me up, then she helps Anen.
The three of us start back for home without another word. I look at Anen, wondering if I should be running away from the Outliers or toward them.
Continue on to Chapter 3
http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/02/chapter-1.html
[209]
My breath is shaky and doesn’t come quite like I plan for it too. I count to three, open my lips. Then I close them and count to three again. I can’t say anything. Perhaps I’ll stand like this until Anen is disgusted and leaves me. Will anyone find me if I stand here for days? Or will I die here, and whoever finds me will wonder about the skull and the knuckles.
“Effro.” It feels like someone else is saying it. If I could see what I feel, it would look like a thin wisp of smoke coming out of the skull. And then I am inside.
Sometimes when I dream or even when I read, I guess, I can be the person in the story and myself watching it happen at the same time that’s what it is like now. I am myself, incorporeal and watching from behind and a little to the left, but I am also a girl sitting on a hillside. As far as I can see is purple heather. It is like resting on a purple wave, next to me is a single rowan tree.
At first I am filled with just seeing, feeling the wind blow against me as it ruffles the heather around me, bringing its scent crashing into me like waves. And then I realize that there are things I know. I love this place. I have come here often. Today I am here to say goodbye. Emptiness stretches out farther than I can see. There are years, so many years ahead and I am only on the first day. How can I keep them from crushing my heart with the weight of all those empty years knowing that I will never see this place again?
“Kestrel. Kestrel.”
For a moment I am aware of myself again--the watcher behind the girl on the hill. And then I blink, and I see the creased face of my grandmother, waves of years ride the skin of her face like rolling land covered in heather.
“It was you,” I say, discovering it as I say it. I wipe at my wet cheeks. “Where was that place? How...” I hesitate, not wanting to be rude, but unable to stop my wonder and horror, “how old are you?”
Her hand grips tightly, fingers biting into my shoulder. The nails of her other hand rub against my palm as she scrapes the skull from me. “Once again,” she says, looking upset. “I counted the cost incorrectly. Apparently there are things I fail to learn regardless of all the years I have had in which to learn them. I did not think that you would be able to call up that much. Forgive me. I have trained more than one apprentice, and it always takes a lot of practice even to see the scene clearly. There is much that I don’t know about you, my granddaughter. Be careful of your gifts. Sometimes power that is too easily won is more of a curse than a blessing.”
“Tell me how you are connected to the Outliers. Tell me what they even are. All I know are stories about revolutionaries who hurt people in order to make a statement to the government. They were never anything I wanted to be a part of.”
Anen pulls out the wooden box and tucks the skull back among the cotton padding before latching the box and stowing it in her skirt pockets again along with the pig’s knuckles. It would seem that the lesson is over.
“There are men that run these worlds,” she says, and the bitterness in her voice slices into my ears, “who are evil. Nothing but evil. They coat their deeds with fine, embroidered words, but what they do is oppression, exploitation, and violence. Kestrel, I do not always want what the Outliers must do--I certainly don’t always condone it--but we must have change. The Archipelago must find freedom or everything will wither and die. I have foreseen it. If I could tell you what I have seen--”
“There you are!” Wren calls over to us from the lane. She walks and runs over to us. Then she stops and puts her hands on her legs, bending over to catch her breath. Of course, Wren is much too lady-like to sit on the grass without a blanket. She might get her dress dirty. That would be very well if she had a dress that was worth keeping clean. But I don’t see why I should worry about grass with a dress that I use to feed chickens and milk a cow.
“What is it?” I ask, as she gulps in air. “Are we in trouble because we won’t have a full hour to dress for dinner?” Anen looks at me sharply, but it’s true. We only dress for dinner when we have company, and when that company is a greenwoman, what’s the point?
Wren shakes her head. “Outliers,” she finally gasps. “Dad says to come home right now, to make sure that you’re safe.” She looks around as if expecting to be attacked any moment. “I didn’t think that I would have to come this far to find you,” she explains. “Otherwise he never would have let me come, but Feld is still helping with dinner.”
“Outliers?” Anen asks, calm and slightly concerned. “But there has been no Outlier activity here for over a year. Is he sure?”
“He’s sure,” Wren says, “Slade Carpenter found a camp in the woods.”
“Was there anyone there?” I ask, not sure if I was worried for Barry or for what Barry could have told about me.
“Something big happened there. He found burned trees and,” she pauses to give her words dramatic weight, “and there was a dead soldier.” She pulls on my hand to get me up, then she helps Anen.
The three of us start back for home without another word. I look at Anen, wondering if I should be running away from the Outliers or toward them.
Continue on to Chapter 3
http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/02/chapter-1.html
208
[From ]
[208]
Absent mindedly I grab a handful of dry corn and settle myself on an old stump near enough to the chicken yard that I can throw bits over the fence and watch the fat ones scurry to get to the food first.
I’ve been teaching Galliun to Boron for nearly a year now. I guess I was the natural choice since it’s not a really common language here. My mother is from Galliun’s Lap, and she taught it to all of us so that she can remember it. She speaks it with us--she says that it’s so that we know another language and trains our memories. I think it’s really so that she can hear someone say the words to her. I think that sometimes she misses home. How could she not? She doesn’t talk about it, but occasionally she’ll mention something about a party she went to, about what she used to wear, and I see the look on her face. I think she loves my father. They get along well enough, but she’s never entirely belonged here.
She was friends with Boron’s nanny, though. When we were little, it didn’t seem like any big deal that he came to visit two or three times a week, first walking, then on a sleek pony with a lead rope. He and I would dam up the little stream with rocks. We hauled rockes from all over the pasture. Then he would bring scraps of paper to make into boats. I’d whittle them from kindling--when my mother wasn’t around to find out that I carried a pocket knife. We’d sail the boats over the waterfall or send them in spinning circles in the pool and then follow them downstream until they sailed farther than we were allowed to go or dipped a little too low in the water and sank to the bottom of the stream.
And then he stopped coming.
The first time my mother sent me with herbs and medicines to the House, I bounced up and down and planned what to say to him. I thought that he could show me the toys he had told me about. But I didn’t see him. Of course I didn’t. Why would he be at the kitchen door? I wasn’t even invited inside to chat and have a drink of cold buttermilk before I trudging home...not that first time. And later, when I did see him, it wasn’t at all like I had planned.
“Mom says to come inside!” Feldspar yelled from the back porch. It was loud enough to make the chickens scurry and cluck disapprovingly amongst themselves. My mother tries to train him, but he thinks that shouting is the same as going to fetch someone.
I toss the rest of the corn, which mollifies the fattest hens a little. Then I wipe off my hands and follow Feld indoors. We begin the ritual of sitting primly on sofas and discussing everyone’s school and health. My grandmother hates this part, I suspect, but it’s another thing that my mother doesn’t want to give up. I think it’s not the same without satin dresses in a room that will hold more than one sofa and an arm chair. How can you chat with people when you’re all seated in a row and have to look sideways to answer questions?
Fortunately, no one wants to try to keep up appearances with a four-year-old for very long. It’s too much work. And fortunately, there is more to do to get ready for what would normally be called supper but tonight will be called dinner. Poor Feld, the only boy, will be turning a turkey on the hearth for a while. He says he doesn’t mind as long as Mom lets him whistle. She always does at first, until she can’t stand it any more. Then he reverts to humming until she leaves the room for a minute--which is why I am willing to take my grandmother on a walk.
Wren had to go run an errand--again. And fortunately Mallee was more interested in the steamed pudding that needs to be powdered with confectioner’s sugar and topped with candied cherries and oranges.
So we’re quiet at first. Honestly, I’m thinking about last night. How can I forget it? How can I keep it from coming back to me every time I get a quiet second? The hard part is making sense of what happened, but I see flashes of little details, and I keep checking my fingernails for blood.
The other point is how I ended up in my own bed again. I’m assuming that they brought me home--Barry, and maybe one of the others. That I passed out, and they carried me all the way home. They carried me the whole way. They broke into my house and knew where my room was. They carried me the whole way, and I didn’t wake up. These are troubling facts. I’m not sure what to do with them.
“Part of the reason I came today was to thank you,” Anen says.
I look over at her, confused.
“He is my apprentice,” she says casually, as if this kind of comment fit anywhere in the normal world. “I didn’t know that they were going last night. I knew about the plan in general, of course, but not when and not where. They’re a bunch of brave fools, and it almost got one of them killed.”
I’m not walking any more. I’m not sure if my jaw is dragging on the ground or not because I’m not trusting my senses or my ability to think at the moment.
“Tell me about the words you used,” she says. “The report I got was that you used some words that they didn’t know, but of course they couldn’t remember what they were.”
Anen is an old lady. I forget that she is old. Suddenly I’m aware of her wrinkles, of the way I think of the bones in her hands and the skin on them as distinct things because one is much too loose to cover the other. For the first time, I wonder if she ever gets tired. If she’s a real person who worries when things seem impossible just like I do.
“Gwella,” I tell her. “I used gwella.”
She smiles. “Good girl,” she says. “Of course I hadn’t planned on you needing them quite so soon, but I’m glad that you knew what to do. I knew that I was doing the right thing.”
Finally I can’t stand it any more. “What are you talking about? Barry? You know Barry and the other people who were there? You know Sage?”
Anen nods. “I was going to introduce you, just not quite the way it turned out last night,” she says with a dry chuckle.
And suddenly I realize that I know absolutely nothing about her. She was always this mostly nice, kind of odd lady that showed up sometimes. My mom fusses when she’s coming, and I don’t like that. Suddenly I don’t know what’s going on.
“Crystals have hard, sharp edges. They’re good for fencing in power, I will say that for them, but that’s no way to treat a memory. Memories are pierced by crystal, they become ragged and hard to hold on to. Bones remember, though. Bones wrap around memory and hold it.” She pulls something out of her pocket. It’s a small wooden box that she unlatches. She lifts the lid and pulls out the white bone of a bird’s head. She holds the little skull in her palm and strokes it lovingly with a finger. I’m trying my best to stick with her, but all I can think is how creepy she looks. If I want to do this, do I have to go around with a pocket full of bones? I can think of so many ways that my life would not be better if I kept bones everywhere.
“Of course, it’s the magic that unlocks the memory,” she says. “It stays inside the bone, but you have to call it forth.” She reaches out and takes my hand, turning it palm upward. Then she carefully tips the tiny skull. It rolls awkwardly, slides a little way and then tips upside down. She rights it and then nods encouragingly at me. I’m wondering when the black candles and star in a pentagon are going to appear. Does my mother know about this? That her mother-in-law is a witch? They’re supposed to be extinct. Greenwomen are very different things. Aren’t they?
“For something as small and simple as this, you will be able to use your own power quite safely, but even so I don’t recommend that you get into the habit of it. If you always carry something around with you to use, then you will never wear yourself out.” She looks at me seriously. “You’ve been in EI, so I expect you know all about staying up too late and wearing yourself out that way?” I agree with her. “Well, magic isn’t like that. With sleep or nutrition, you might get sick, but you have plenty of warning before it gets too serious. Magic goes deep, deep into the bone, deep into the core of who you are. You think that you’re just getting tired, but you start to lose yourself. You can’t kill yourself or change who you are by one night’s lack of sleep or even a week’s. But with magic, it’s not hard to drain yourself dry.”
She pats my shoulder. “There, there. Don’t let me frighten you. All you have to do is take the proper precautions, and you’ll be just fine. It’s quite safe, and it’s not hard to keep a bit of bone or skin or twig around with you.”
I don’t say anything.
“You look pale. Are you up to trying this? Do you want to wait until next time?”
It takes me a minute. “No, no I’m all right,” I tell her. But it’s a lie. I’m not okay. What about last night? All of that energy, I had pushed it out of me like a rush of water. When things had gone dark...how close was I? Could I really have killed myself?”
“So,” I say as casually as I can manage, even though my voice is a squeak. I lick my lips. “So, what exactly could you do? You know, how much magic could you use before it becomes a problem?”
“Oh, are you worried about that?” she says. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want to frighten you. If at some point you need to call a memory or make a light or something, you should be fine.”
But I’ve studied energy output rates, and I know that the volume of flow needed for light is nothing compared with the amount of energy you need to move--and if you want to change, it’s even more. What I did last night...it was...I’m not sure what it was, but some of both. “So, if you were going to heal or something?” I ask.
“No, I wouldn’t recommend. I mean, in theory something small, quite small...you,” she stops and looks at me. “You did have another energy source for..You didn’t...?”
I look up at her and my head goes up and then down just once.
“What happened?”
“I passed out I think.”
“Hmmm...Jorlemtold me that you were exhausted and they helped you home. He failed to mention that you were unconscious at the time. When did you wake up?”
“Just before you came.”
Anen pinches her lip, tugs on it and then looks back at me. “Well, I thought we’d had a narrow escape on all sides, but I didn’t realize how narrow. I suspect that you should be dead right now. Why you’re not, I don’t know, but I recommend that you don’t try such a thing in the future. It’s a bad idea to tempt fate too often.”
I completely agree with her.
“Well, in that case, I insist that you learn how to call a memory,” she continues.
“What?” I had expected her to say just the opposite. Something like “That’s enough magic for you, missy,” or something like that.
“If you’re that accomplished at pulling magic from inside yourself,” she begins, and I think about all the times I’ve warmed coffee or started fires or other small things...all done the wrong way. “Then you need to at least know how to pull from other sources. And I want you to practice doing it the right way. Otherwise, some crisis comes along and you’ll throw yourself into it, and while I am very happy that Sage is alive, I prefer not to buy his life with yours. Do you understand me?”
Is she serious? Of course I do. I’m trying to keep from shaking or throwing up, and that little token of death is just sitting in my hand, waiting for me to call it, wake it, feed it a little piece of my soul.
“Now,” Anen says, “take this.” She hands me what looks like a string of pig knuckles. So now I’ve got bits of dead animals in both hands. “Now I know that you remember the words. Use effro to call out the memory.”
1) All I can think about is placing my hands on torn, bloody muscle. A human shouldn't look like something that has just come back from the butcher. I look at the dead bits of animal in my hands. Do I want to know the inside of a pig as well as I know the muscle and bone of Sage's body? I don't. I can't. There are some things that aren't right, and that is one of them.
2)I feel like a sugar girl in a glass of water. Any moment, I’ll fall apart and flow into the universe and not be me any more ever again. More than anything else, I don't want to call up the memories that have been haunting me all day. But she’s right. What would happen if I don’t do this. It feels like a long, dark tunnel that I have to choose to deliberately walk into.
http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/08/213.html
[208]
Absent mindedly I grab a handful of dry corn and settle myself on an old stump near enough to the chicken yard that I can throw bits over the fence and watch the fat ones scurry to get to the food first.
I’ve been teaching Galliun to Boron for nearly a year now. I guess I was the natural choice since it’s not a really common language here. My mother is from Galliun’s Lap, and she taught it to all of us so that she can remember it. She speaks it with us--she says that it’s so that we know another language and trains our memories. I think it’s really so that she can hear someone say the words to her. I think that sometimes she misses home. How could she not? She doesn’t talk about it, but occasionally she’ll mention something about a party she went to, about what she used to wear, and I see the look on her face. I think she loves my father. They get along well enough, but she’s never entirely belonged here.
She was friends with Boron’s nanny, though. When we were little, it didn’t seem like any big deal that he came to visit two or three times a week, first walking, then on a sleek pony with a lead rope. He and I would dam up the little stream with rocks. We hauled rockes from all over the pasture. Then he would bring scraps of paper to make into boats. I’d whittle them from kindling--when my mother wasn’t around to find out that I carried a pocket knife. We’d sail the boats over the waterfall or send them in spinning circles in the pool and then follow them downstream until they sailed farther than we were allowed to go or dipped a little too low in the water and sank to the bottom of the stream.
And then he stopped coming.
The first time my mother sent me with herbs and medicines to the House, I bounced up and down and planned what to say to him. I thought that he could show me the toys he had told me about. But I didn’t see him. Of course I didn’t. Why would he be at the kitchen door? I wasn’t even invited inside to chat and have a drink of cold buttermilk before I trudging home...not that first time. And later, when I did see him, it wasn’t at all like I had planned.
“Mom says to come inside!” Feldspar yelled from the back porch. It was loud enough to make the chickens scurry and cluck disapprovingly amongst themselves. My mother tries to train him, but he thinks that shouting is the same as going to fetch someone.
I toss the rest of the corn, which mollifies the fattest hens a little. Then I wipe off my hands and follow Feld indoors. We begin the ritual of sitting primly on sofas and discussing everyone’s school and health. My grandmother hates this part, I suspect, but it’s another thing that my mother doesn’t want to give up. I think it’s not the same without satin dresses in a room that will hold more than one sofa and an arm chair. How can you chat with people when you’re all seated in a row and have to look sideways to answer questions?
Fortunately, no one wants to try to keep up appearances with a four-year-old for very long. It’s too much work. And fortunately, there is more to do to get ready for what would normally be called supper but tonight will be called dinner. Poor Feld, the only boy, will be turning a turkey on the hearth for a while. He says he doesn’t mind as long as Mom lets him whistle. She always does at first, until she can’t stand it any more. Then he reverts to humming until she leaves the room for a minute--which is why I am willing to take my grandmother on a walk.
Wren had to go run an errand--again. And fortunately Mallee was more interested in the steamed pudding that needs to be powdered with confectioner’s sugar and topped with candied cherries and oranges.
So we’re quiet at first. Honestly, I’m thinking about last night. How can I forget it? How can I keep it from coming back to me every time I get a quiet second? The hard part is making sense of what happened, but I see flashes of little details, and I keep checking my fingernails for blood.
The other point is how I ended up in my own bed again. I’m assuming that they brought me home--Barry, and maybe one of the others. That I passed out, and they carried me all the way home. They carried me the whole way. They broke into my house and knew where my room was. They carried me the whole way, and I didn’t wake up. These are troubling facts. I’m not sure what to do with them.
“Part of the reason I came today was to thank you,” Anen says.
I look over at her, confused.
“He is my apprentice,” she says casually, as if this kind of comment fit anywhere in the normal world. “I didn’t know that they were going last night. I knew about the plan in general, of course, but not when and not where. They’re a bunch of brave fools, and it almost got one of them killed.”
I’m not walking any more. I’m not sure if my jaw is dragging on the ground or not because I’m not trusting my senses or my ability to think at the moment.
“Tell me about the words you used,” she says. “The report I got was that you used some words that they didn’t know, but of course they couldn’t remember what they were.”
Anen is an old lady. I forget that she is old. Suddenly I’m aware of her wrinkles, of the way I think of the bones in her hands and the skin on them as distinct things because one is much too loose to cover the other. For the first time, I wonder if she ever gets tired. If she’s a real person who worries when things seem impossible just like I do.
“Gwella,” I tell her. “I used gwella.”
She smiles. “Good girl,” she says. “Of course I hadn’t planned on you needing them quite so soon, but I’m glad that you knew what to do. I knew that I was doing the right thing.”
Finally I can’t stand it any more. “What are you talking about? Barry? You know Barry and the other people who were there? You know Sage?”
Anen nods. “I was going to introduce you, just not quite the way it turned out last night,” she says with a dry chuckle.
And suddenly I realize that I know absolutely nothing about her. She was always this mostly nice, kind of odd lady that showed up sometimes. My mom fusses when she’s coming, and I don’t like that. Suddenly I don’t know what’s going on.
“Crystals have hard, sharp edges. They’re good for fencing in power, I will say that for them, but that’s no way to treat a memory. Memories are pierced by crystal, they become ragged and hard to hold on to. Bones remember, though. Bones wrap around memory and hold it.” She pulls something out of her pocket. It’s a small wooden box that she unlatches. She lifts the lid and pulls out the white bone of a bird’s head. She holds the little skull in her palm and strokes it lovingly with a finger. I’m trying my best to stick with her, but all I can think is how creepy she looks. If I want to do this, do I have to go around with a pocket full of bones? I can think of so many ways that my life would not be better if I kept bones everywhere.
“Of course, it’s the magic that unlocks the memory,” she says. “It stays inside the bone, but you have to call it forth.” She reaches out and takes my hand, turning it palm upward. Then she carefully tips the tiny skull. It rolls awkwardly, slides a little way and then tips upside down. She rights it and then nods encouragingly at me. I’m wondering when the black candles and star in a pentagon are going to appear. Does my mother know about this? That her mother-in-law is a witch? They’re supposed to be extinct. Greenwomen are very different things. Aren’t they?
“For something as small and simple as this, you will be able to use your own power quite safely, but even so I don’t recommend that you get into the habit of it. If you always carry something around with you to use, then you will never wear yourself out.” She looks at me seriously. “You’ve been in EI, so I expect you know all about staying up too late and wearing yourself out that way?” I agree with her. “Well, magic isn’t like that. With sleep or nutrition, you might get sick, but you have plenty of warning before it gets too serious. Magic goes deep, deep into the bone, deep into the core of who you are. You think that you’re just getting tired, but you start to lose yourself. You can’t kill yourself or change who you are by one night’s lack of sleep or even a week’s. But with magic, it’s not hard to drain yourself dry.”
She pats my shoulder. “There, there. Don’t let me frighten you. All you have to do is take the proper precautions, and you’ll be just fine. It’s quite safe, and it’s not hard to keep a bit of bone or skin or twig around with you.”
I don’t say anything.
“You look pale. Are you up to trying this? Do you want to wait until next time?”
It takes me a minute. “No, no I’m all right,” I tell her. But it’s a lie. I’m not okay. What about last night? All of that energy, I had pushed it out of me like a rush of water. When things had gone dark...how close was I? Could I really have killed myself?”
“So,” I say as casually as I can manage, even though my voice is a squeak. I lick my lips. “So, what exactly could you do? You know, how much magic could you use before it becomes a problem?”
“Oh, are you worried about that?” she says. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want to frighten you. If at some point you need to call a memory or make a light or something, you should be fine.”
But I’ve studied energy output rates, and I know that the volume of flow needed for light is nothing compared with the amount of energy you need to move--and if you want to change, it’s even more. What I did last night...it was...I’m not sure what it was, but some of both. “So, if you were going to heal or something?” I ask.
“No, I wouldn’t recommend. I mean, in theory something small, quite small...you,” she stops and looks at me. “You did have another energy source for..You didn’t...?”
I look up at her and my head goes up and then down just once.
“What happened?”
“I passed out I think.”
“Hmmm...Jorlemtold me that you were exhausted and they helped you home. He failed to mention that you were unconscious at the time. When did you wake up?”
“Just before you came.”
Anen pinches her lip, tugs on it and then looks back at me. “Well, I thought we’d had a narrow escape on all sides, but I didn’t realize how narrow. I suspect that you should be dead right now. Why you’re not, I don’t know, but I recommend that you don’t try such a thing in the future. It’s a bad idea to tempt fate too often.”
I completely agree with her.
“Well, in that case, I insist that you learn how to call a memory,” she continues.
“What?” I had expected her to say just the opposite. Something like “That’s enough magic for you, missy,” or something like that.
“If you’re that accomplished at pulling magic from inside yourself,” she begins, and I think about all the times I’ve warmed coffee or started fires or other small things...all done the wrong way. “Then you need to at least know how to pull from other sources. And I want you to practice doing it the right way. Otherwise, some crisis comes along and you’ll throw yourself into it, and while I am very happy that Sage is alive, I prefer not to buy his life with yours. Do you understand me?”
Is she serious? Of course I do. I’m trying to keep from shaking or throwing up, and that little token of death is just sitting in my hand, waiting for me to call it, wake it, feed it a little piece of my soul.
“Now,” Anen says, “take this.” She hands me what looks like a string of pig knuckles. So now I’ve got bits of dead animals in both hands. “Now I know that you remember the words. Use effro to call out the memory.”
1) All I can think about is placing my hands on torn, bloody muscle. A human shouldn't look like something that has just come back from the butcher. I look at the dead bits of animal in my hands. Do I want to know the inside of a pig as well as I know the muscle and bone of Sage's body? I don't. I can't. There are some things that aren't right, and that is one of them.
2)I feel like a sugar girl in a glass of water. Any moment, I’ll fall apart and flow into the universe and not be me any more ever again. More than anything else, I don't want to call up the memories that have been haunting me all day. But she’s right. What would happen if I don’t do this. It feels like a long, dark tunnel that I have to choose to deliberately walk into.
http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/08/213.html
214
214
“So Mother,” I say, trying to make her happy by calling her mother. “Have you told Anen about Wren’s visit next month?”
“Oh yes!” she says, leaning forward. “Next month, Wren will go on a visit to stay with my cousin. “She’s from a canary yellow house as well, and her daughters are about Wren’s age. One is a year older; one is a year younger. I’m sure that they would have invited Kestrel too,” she says, patting my hand, “but of course she’ll be busy with other things once she passes her Exam.”
“Yes, I wanted to mention something about that,” Anen cuts in. This is bad. She has this idea that I should go stay with her for a long visit. “I was thinking--”
“Feld says that I’m a baby, and I’m not!” Mallee wails as she runs into the room and buries her face in Mom’s lap. “I’m not.”
Mom sighs and pats her hair. “Of course, you’re not,” she says. “You know that he’s just trying to bother you.”
Mallee pokes her head out, “Maybe you could send him to his room?”
Mom covers her mouth with her hand. “I’m not sure about that, but I will talk to him.”
Mallee looks relieved. The universe is fair again. I roll my eyes. I can’t believe what she gets away with. No matter how hard I try to be fair, I just can’t remember life being that easy when I was seven. Of course I’m glad that she distracted Anen from inviting me, but it’s almost not worth it.
“Your Anen has something for you,” Anen says. I keep myself from sighing. She’s seven, not two. But Anen is already pulling out a box from a bag at her feet and handing it to Mallee. It rattles as Mallee impatiently tries to get the lid off. My hands jump forward to take it from her, and then I pull back, not wanting to make my mother or Anen feel like they are doing a bad job.
But both of them seem to agree on one thing. They both smile as Mallee rips the box apart because she had a hard time untying the ribbon. She pulls out a very small clockwork doll that stands on a base.
“Would you like me to show you how it works?” Anen asks, trying to get an arm Mallee, who managed to slide away. She abruptly ran off.
The grownups just had time to exchange surprised glances and consider new topics when she ran back, followed by Feldspar. “Hi Mom,” he bursts out with. “Hi Anen,” he says, and even drops a kiss on her cheek--a sure mercenary sign from him that she completely falls for. “Mallee wanted me to help her with her new present.” His emphasis on the word “present” was less than subtle.
Anen didn’t care. “That is a very good idea,” she tells him, “and when you’ve finished figuring that out, then maybe you’d like to have your own gift?”
Feldspar whoops way too close to my ear, and then gets down to business. In a couple of minutes, the doll is twirling around on the stand while the base emits a music box song--the kind that sounds really pretty in the shop, but gets old after your little sister has played it for six hours straight. The base also glows green, then blue,then purple, red, and so on. I notice that it doesn’t have yellow. I wonder if that is on purpose, or if she really didn’t think about it.
Feldspar is holding out his hands, and soon he’s preparing to fly his tiny working model plane, and Mom is telling him to take that thing outside, before she remembers that we have company and changes from her Mom voice to her visiting voice.
“I don’t know where Wren is,” Anen says, as she pulls out another package. It’s a big, floppy one tied in paper and string. “I hope it fits,” she says. “I had to guess at Wren’s size, and that girl is growing so fast.”
“It’s true,” Mom agrees. She seems much more relaxed now that the topic is indulging her children. I notice that we have addressed three out of four children, but I try not to notice. After all, I’m nearly an adult. In fact, I’ll be sort of adult status in just two or three weeks, maybe, so I don’t really care about little things like that.
“Kestrel, I was thinking,” Anen says. I knew it. I knew that she wouldn’t forget me. “You know I would still love to have you come visit me,” she says, “and it’s so cold where I live. I worry that you won’t have a proper coat, so I thought I’d give you mine.” She holds out her coat to me. “Just so you don’t forget to stay with me soon.” The smile froze on my face.
“Thank you,” I manage. “That’s so nice of you.” And suddenly I have a gaudy patchwork monster spilling across my lap and slithering halfway down the floor. There is embroidery all over it. I lift up something fuzzy. It’s the fur-edged hood. Great, wearing a beaver will make me the envy of EI.
“But what will you do without your coat?” my mother asked in her sweetest company voice. She glanced in my direction just once, and I knew that she was trying to get me out of taking a present like that.
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” Anen said as if people passed around their coats as gifts all the time. “We’re in a warmer phase for a few days. In fact, it was warm enough to snow a couple of days ago.”
“Snow?” I was taken off guard.
“Yes, most of the winter, it’s too cold to actually snow, so the clouds just hover most of the time. It makes for very interesting gray skies--especially when the sun is up--which is only for only about four hours a day.”
I keep my face a perfect mask of pleasant interest, but inside, my common sense is screaming for me to run away right now. I thought winter meant cold and snow, not ice world.
“Even in the summer?” Mom’s expression is too sweet to be honest. I doubt that Anen or most people can read her, but I can.
“No, in summer, it’s light all day and night. It’s like having one long day for about three months.” She turns to me. “But you’ll get to experience all of that soon enough,” she says. “In fact, I was wondering if I could take Kestrel on a walk so that she could try out her new coat and we could talk about it.”
Instantly I’m sending out thought waves to my mother to get me out of this, but she doesn’t know how to overcome her good breeding enough to be bluntly rude. Besides, I suspect that she is considering that if I took Anen off, then she would be free of visiting conversation.
“It’s up to Kestrel,” she says. “Would you like to go?”
1) “Actually,” while I really wish that I could, I promised to meet Daisy, and I’m already late. I would put her off if I could, but we’re planning to study for the Exam, and she really needs me,” I say, hoping that I don’t sound like I’m babbling. Although as long as I get out of that walk, I’m willing to babble.
2)I look at Anen. She was so nice to come visit, and the other presents are very thoughtful of her. Well, okay, mine is thoughtful too, just in a strange way. I can’t disappoint her. How long can it last?
http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/08/214.html
“So Mother,” I say, trying to make her happy by calling her mother. “Have you told Anen about Wren’s visit next month?”
“Oh yes!” she says, leaning forward. “Next month, Wren will go on a visit to stay with my cousin. “She’s from a canary yellow house as well, and her daughters are about Wren’s age. One is a year older; one is a year younger. I’m sure that they would have invited Kestrel too,” she says, patting my hand, “but of course she’ll be busy with other things once she passes her Exam.”
“Yes, I wanted to mention something about that,” Anen cuts in. This is bad. She has this idea that I should go stay with her for a long visit. “I was thinking--”
“Feld says that I’m a baby, and I’m not!” Mallee wails as she runs into the room and buries her face in Mom’s lap. “I’m not.”
Mom sighs and pats her hair. “Of course, you’re not,” she says. “You know that he’s just trying to bother you.”
Mallee pokes her head out, “Maybe you could send him to his room?”
Mom covers her mouth with her hand. “I’m not sure about that, but I will talk to him.”
Mallee looks relieved. The universe is fair again. I roll my eyes. I can’t believe what she gets away with. No matter how hard I try to be fair, I just can’t remember life being that easy when I was seven. Of course I’m glad that she distracted Anen from inviting me, but it’s almost not worth it.
“Your Anen has something for you,” Anen says. I keep myself from sighing. She’s seven, not two. But Anen is already pulling out a box from a bag at her feet and handing it to Mallee. It rattles as Mallee impatiently tries to get the lid off. My hands jump forward to take it from her, and then I pull back, not wanting to make my mother or Anen feel like they are doing a bad job.
But both of them seem to agree on one thing. They both smile as Mallee rips the box apart because she had a hard time untying the ribbon. She pulls out a very small clockwork doll that stands on a base.
“Would you like me to show you how it works?” Anen asks, trying to get an arm Mallee, who managed to slide away. She abruptly ran off.
The grownups just had time to exchange surprised glances and consider new topics when she ran back, followed by Feldspar. “Hi Mom,” he bursts out with. “Hi Anen,” he says, and even drops a kiss on her cheek--a sure mercenary sign from him that she completely falls for. “Mallee wanted me to help her with her new present.” His emphasis on the word “present” was less than subtle.
Anen didn’t care. “That is a very good idea,” she tells him, “and when you’ve finished figuring that out, then maybe you’d like to have your own gift?”
Feldspar whoops way too close to my ear, and then gets down to business. In a couple of minutes, the doll is twirling around on the stand while the base emits a music box song--the kind that sounds really pretty in the shop, but gets old after your little sister has played it for six hours straight. The base also glows green, then blue,then purple, red, and so on. I notice that it doesn’t have yellow. I wonder if that is on purpose, or if she really didn’t think about it.
Feldspar is holding out his hands, and soon he’s preparing to fly his tiny working model plane, and Mom is telling him to take that thing outside, before she remembers that we have company and changes from her Mom voice to her visiting voice.
“I don’t know where Wren is,” Anen says, as she pulls out another package. It’s a big, floppy one tied in paper and string. “I hope it fits,” she says. “I had to guess at Wren’s size, and that girl is growing so fast.”
“It’s true,” Mom agrees. She seems much more relaxed now that the topic is indulging her children. I notice that we have addressed three out of four children, but I try not to notice. After all, I’m nearly an adult. In fact, I’ll be sort of adult status in just two or three weeks, maybe, so I don’t really care about little things like that.
“Kestrel, I was thinking,” Anen says. I knew it. I knew that she wouldn’t forget me. “You know I would still love to have you come visit me,” she says, “and it’s so cold where I live. I worry that you won’t have a proper coat, so I thought I’d give you mine.” She holds out her coat to me. “Just so you don’t forget to stay with me soon.” The smile froze on my face.
“Thank you,” I manage. “That’s so nice of you.” And suddenly I have a gaudy patchwork monster spilling across my lap and slithering halfway down the floor. There is embroidery all over it. I lift up something fuzzy. It’s the fur-edged hood. Great, wearing a beaver will make me the envy of EI.
“But what will you do without your coat?” my mother asked in her sweetest company voice. She glanced in my direction just once, and I knew that she was trying to get me out of taking a present like that.
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” Anen said as if people passed around their coats as gifts all the time. “We’re in a warmer phase for a few days. In fact, it was warm enough to snow a couple of days ago.”
“Snow?” I was taken off guard.
“Yes, most of the winter, it’s too cold to actually snow, so the clouds just hover most of the time. It makes for very interesting gray skies--especially when the sun is up--which is only for only about four hours a day.”
I keep my face a perfect mask of pleasant interest, but inside, my common sense is screaming for me to run away right now. I thought winter meant cold and snow, not ice world.
“Even in the summer?” Mom’s expression is too sweet to be honest. I doubt that Anen or most people can read her, but I can.
“No, in summer, it’s light all day and night. It’s like having one long day for about three months.” She turns to me. “But you’ll get to experience all of that soon enough,” she says. “In fact, I was wondering if I could take Kestrel on a walk so that she could try out her new coat and we could talk about it.”
Instantly I’m sending out thought waves to my mother to get me out of this, but she doesn’t know how to overcome her good breeding enough to be bluntly rude. Besides, I suspect that she is considering that if I took Anen off, then she would be free of visiting conversation.
“It’s up to Kestrel,” she says. “Would you like to go?”
1) “Actually,” while I really wish that I could, I promised to meet Daisy, and I’m already late. I would put her off if I could, but we’re planning to study for the Exam, and she really needs me,” I say, hoping that I don’t sound like I’m babbling. Although as long as I get out of that walk, I’m willing to babble.
(Do we want this to go to 210 or 203?)
| http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/08/203.html |
2)I look at Anen. She was so nice to come visit, and the other presents are very thoughtful of her. Well, okay, mine is thoughtful too, just in a strange way. I can’t disappoint her. How long can it last?
http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/08/214.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)