105

(105)

Barry begins walking faster. “Look,” he says, puffing over his shoulder. “I know that you know about magic. I mean the kind that we don’t learn about at EI.”

“What?” I try to sound outraged, but really, it’s all I can do to keep from croaking. How could he possibly know? We don’t even hang around the same people.

“I made it my business to know, and there were others to help me find out. Really, since your grandmother is a greenwoman, it’s not that big a jump.”

I have to grant him that, but I still don’t like it. Are all of my most hidden secrets common knowledge? My parents don’t know--or at least, that’s what I thought. “Look, Barry,” I begin.

“I’m not going to turn you in, Kestrel,” he says, not slowing a bit on the stride that makes me trot beside him to keep up. “That’s not why I wanted to find out about...you.” He ended his sentence lamely, and I wondered what else he had been going to say. All I knew was that if Barry was trying to ask me out, this is the strangest approach I have ever experienced too, but since it’s the only one, that doesn’t count for much.

He doesn’t say anything for a long minute. I concentrate on keeping up with him, even though the whole time I'm wondering if I am an idiot who should turn around and go home. “Look,” he tells me finally, “I really do need magical help. The green woman isn’t around for a few days, and I don’t have anyone else to ask. You were close, and your light is on. If I go all the way over to the village to ask someone else, he’ll be dead by the time I get back.”

“You really have a dying friend somewhere in the forest?” I say.

“I really do.”

“What happened? Is it someone I know?”

“You’ve never met him. And I’ll tell you what happened, but I can’t at the moment. It’s complicated.”

“What’s wrong with him? I didn’t even bring anything. Should we go back?”

“Come on,” he says a little gruffly. We’re almost there. I swear I’ll tell you what you need to know, but now’s not the time. I have some first aid stuff at the camp, but I promise you that if we could save his life with it, we would have done it already.”

“Magic isn’t medicine,” I tell him, stopping.

He grabs my arm and drags me forward. “Well tonight, it’s going to be.”

After that I don’t say anything. I just follow him. It’s easy to tell when we’re getting close. At first, I think that they must have bonfire or something that got out of control. And then I realize that several trees are burning as well as all the willows along the bank of the creek. Green willows are hard to set on fire, I think. What happened here?

I must have slowed a little because he turn to look at me. “It’s right over there.” He yanks his head in the right direction. “Come on.”

He holds both lumilamps while I crawl into the tent, afraid of what I’ll find. Inside, I can smell a meaty smell that reminds me of kitchens and cooking until I realize that it must be Barry’s friend’s blood. I think I’m going to be sick.

They have him stripped down. No shirt. And all the cloth is cut away from his hip to reveal a...well, a mess. A wound is a cut, a slice, something that you can put a bandage on. This is just the ragged edges of what happens when you rip a chunk out of someone.

Part of me thinks all of this quite calmly while the rest of me is busy reacting. Once it gets into my head, then suddenly my stomach is involved in a bad way. I push back out of the tent and throw up, but still, that logical part of me actually thinks about how I should go around to the side so that it’s not a problem for people coming in and out of the tent later. And once I leave my stomach behind, the calm side of me can take over, even though I think it’s weird. I should be fainting or queasy some more, or at least upset. Nothing. All of the shock has gone away somewhere.

“He should have bled to death already,” I say aloud, though as soon as it’s out of my mouth, I realize what a callous thing it is to say.

“We, um... had to cauterize it to slow the bleeding,” he tells me. “But we put off doing too much of it, hoping that he might be able to walk again some day or at least keep the leg.”

Walk? I think to myself. How can you walk without a hip?

“Well,” I say, “I don’t know what can be done, but get some hot water, and I’ll--”

“No,” he says, “not good enough.” As I open my mouth, he cuts me off. “He’s lost a lot of blood. He’s sinking every minute. I’d say he has maybe a couple of hours, maybe less. Not that I’m a great judge,” he adds.

“So what can I do?”

“Kestrel, I’ve seen you in class. You’re the best out of all of us at mathmagics, but it’s more than that,” he says as I’m about to tell him how useful equations and crystals are to a dying man. “I know about...other times. I know about what you can do.”

Suddenly I’m the one who is pale. “What do you know?”

“Enough to go get you tonight.”

“Barry,” I try to reason with him again. “Whatever you saw or think that you know, it doesn’t mean that magic is about healing. You know the five applications as well as I do.”

“No,” he says loudly. “Not as well as you. Now listen, you get over there, and you heal him. There are a lot of lives depending on what he can do. If you fail, I have no one else to ask. He’ll die. Others will die. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

(116)

"I’ve been trying to tell you, that the function of magic is not to heal. It is a method of transfer for energy. If you have the right focus, then you can move things with it. You can even change things. You can create light and heat. But you can’t heal. It’s just not one of the properties of magic

“You say that you can transfer energy?” Barry says. “Then do that. Try it.”

I stop for a moment and think through what would happen. On the one hand, he’s right, that Sage needs more energy. His body can’t keep up with the losses. He can’t repair it fast enough. On the other hand, the problem that mathmagics has had ever since Archimelion wrote the first postulates is focus. You have a source of energy, but how do you direct what it will do? “No,I say finally. I would rather use what we all know of real medicine to keep him alive, even if he can’t walk. If you try magic without knowing what you’re doing, the chances are even higher that he’ll die.”
       Barry’s face twists up, and he looks around for something to smash, but because of Sage, he doesn’t. Finally, his fists drop to his knees. “I can’t force you,” he says quietly. “But if I could, I would.”

http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/08/116-x.html

(115)

"I want to help. Does he think that it was my idea to come out here late at night to watch a stranger die? But just because I can balance an equation doesn’t mean that I can make a man with only half a hip walk. People just don’t do things like that. But he’s scooting me over to this guy, this dying man. He’s not much older than I am. Certainly out of EI, but not for a long time. What kind of a life does he have? I look at his black hair and cinnamon brown skin.

It's crazy. I know it’s all crazy. How can I possibly heal him? And even as I think it, I’m placing my hands on his raw flesh so that I can try.

http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/08/115-x.html

102

(102)

As I take one last look at the window and then move back to my desk. Love potion really is too strong of a term. I would never think of trying to change Boron’s mind. He likes me. I’m sure he likes me. If I didn’t already have some encouragement from him, then I wouldn’t have thought of it. I just think that a little bit of help getting him to make up his mind is in order. After all, he would be marrying lower--only slightly lower--down.

And I’m running out of time.

It’s all based on the idea that perception is one of the five functions of magic. We never learn about it at the Educational Institute. It’s not really useful. At least, my teachers say that it’s not really useful. My grandmother says otherwise.

I don’t bring up my grandmother at lot at when I’m at EI. Greenwomen are not exactly respected by the academic world. But they still have their own magic. My teachers think that charms and spells are...silly. They don’t say silly, but they certainly don’t take them seriously.

But I do. The problem is that greenwomen don’t use crystals. They use bone and bits of fur or maybe sticks and beetles. So I don’t know how to apply greenwoman magic to a crystal, or even if it’s possible.

The crystal lies in my hand, the facets reflecting the light. Of course, I haven’t tried it the other way around yet. If greenwomen can use a bone to do magic, then a bone would have to hold magic, wouldn’t it? Bones, beetles, sticks...they were all from living matter. They are made of cells. Can cells hold magic?

I look around my room. What do I have? Not much. There aren’t any plants in my room, because I’d forget to water them. And a quick search of the room, holding my lumicube like a candle to peer in the dark corners, shows that there isn’t a spider or a moth around when I need one. The idea of moths reminds me that I have some wool things in my closet. I could cut off a string--though I have no idea how to put magic into a piece of wool yarn. But I bet that my grandmother could do it, so there must be a way.  

When I open the door, I stare for into the gloom. Besides wool, there is something else in my closet that used to be alive. Several of those wool sweaters have buttons on them. I’ve never thought before about what buttons are made of. Glass? Wood? Bone?

in just a few minutes, I have a sweater that is now buttonless and four plain wooden buttons lie in the palm of my hand. Each one has a grain that I trace with my finger tips. After setting the others down, I sit at my desk with one in my palm. I press a finger to the center of the button and listen.

Crystals are much louder. Loud isn’t exactly the right word, but it’s kind of like a noise. There is something there, and crystals have a lot more of it. That doesn’t mean that wood is silent, though.

This one whispers in a crinkly pattern that reminds me of ferns. There is order if you know how to look for it, but it’s not as obvious as the straight lines of crystals. Of course I don’t hear noises, but it’s like hearing; it’s like paying attention. I think that this could work.

Filters are advanced and not really what this is. It’s not hard to take a crystal and put a little twist to the magic so that when the energy is released, it comes out as light or heat. Motion is a harder, but good engineers can use magic to power machines--machines that we use all the time.

I think that this is the same thing. It’s just that no one I know would agree with me. When Boron puts his hand on the crystal, or button, or whatever it ends up being, then the magic will alter his perception.

Only a little. Just enough.

If I were beautiful, then I wouldn’t need it. My hair is brown, not chestnut. I’m sort of an average height, average build. I’m not willowy, I’m not sporty. I’m just me.

But he likes me enough to smile at me when we are studying, enough that my heart beats faster when we’re alone for a few minutes. He’s even walked me home a few times when he ran into me on the way back from town. Once, I was sure that he was about to kiss me, except that the housekeeper bustled in to ask him about guests who were coming.

A kiss isn’t quite the same thing as a proposal, but it’s getting close.

I saw his mother’s ring once. I was young when she died, but once there was a midsummer party. She wore lace and jewels--and I could tell that they were real ones, not made by magic. They were beautiful. I had been playing badminton, and I was hot and sweating. She floated over like rose petals on a stream. She smiled at me and called me a pretty child. She would never wash dishes--and certainly she would never break a plate if she did. She would never reach under a hen to grab an egg and find something squishy on the shell. Someday I will be Boron’s wife and be graceful and kind and never sweaty or dirty.

But first I have to figure out how to get enough magic out of a thin slice of wood that it can power a perception long enough for him to get up the nerve to propose. After that, I can quit worrying about magic and focus on my wardrobe.

Just then, I hear a clatter on my window like tiny horse hooves on cobbles. I run to the window to look and raise the glass just in time to get a face full of gravel. “What?” I demand, shaking tiny pebbles out of my hair.

“Kestrel!” says a voice that can’t decide if it’s whispering or yelling. “Kestrel, you have to come down here.”

“Who is it?”

“It’s me.” The voice sounds impatient. “Barry. Barium Hawkins? Come on, I’m in your 10 o’clock class for ancient texts?”

“Yes, I know who you are, Barry. The question is what are you doing here?”

“Can you come down, please? I can’t keep shouting up at your window.  I’m going to wake your parents up.”

I consider, but then I shut my window. After all, I’m dressed. I’ll never get to sleep if I’m wondering what he wanted.  I head downstairs grabbing my boots and coat as I go. It’s still cold out, in spite of the spring thaw. The kitchen door is locked. I grab a lumilamp, switch it on, and open the door.

“What is it?” I hiss as I step on the porch. I quickly shove a foot into my boot because the flagstone step is cold on my bare feet.

“You have to come with me,” he says.

I don’t know what that sounds like he’s asking, but whatever it is, it’s not good. I turn back to the door.  “Oh, come on, Barry,” I say. “It’s late. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder. “No, Kestrel,” he says, his voice all quiet and serious. “Really. You have to come with me now. My friend is in the woods; he’s been hurt. I think he’s dying.”

(105)
1) “Dying?” I demand. “Who?” His voice sounds urgent, and I find myself hopping again as I shove my other foot into a boot. The handle of the lamp gets shoved between my teeth so that I can put my arms through my coat sleeves as I follow him across the yard and into the north pasture. “Barry,” I say once I’ve done the buttons and the lumilamp is swinging, the shadows it casts dances on the ground across the shadows that his lumilamp throws. “What is this all about? Who’s dying? What does that have to do with me?” My eyes narrow. “If I find out that this is just some kind of prank or...” My imagination doesn’t want to go any farther about what else he could be leading me toward in the middle of the night. “...something,” I finish lamely. “I’ll kill you myself, I really will.”


http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-chapter-1bb.html




(104)

2) I stop and look at him more carefully.  “Okay, Barry, this isn’t a joke. Tell me what’s really going on.” I try to imagine what he could possibly say that will convince me that his story is true because I don’t think that there is any way he could get me to run off into the woods with him in the middle of the night.


http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-chapter-1ba.html

106

(106)


"You really don't know me?" he says, rubbing at his face. "What do I look like?"

And now that I've heard him, I think I know who he is, but I'm not suggesting anything that he can quickly agree to. I fold my arms and keep my distance.

"It's Barry," he says finally. "Barium Hawkins."

I look to see if it really is Barry, but what I see behind him, almost a shadow, is someone else. Moonlight glints off of the knife blade he raises.“Watch out!” I yell.

He turns the way I am pointing, but doesn’t see what I am yelling about. How can he not see? He had survived the explosion, but he was still going to die. I run towards him, holding out my hands as if it will get me there faster. The wrong things are illuminated and the right things are in shadow. And then I see the orange knife, shining in the glow from burning trees like water in a sunset. But the face of the man holding it, I can’t see it. He’s not real. Just a force in the night like a wild animal, like fire.

I am hot and frozen all at once. I see the buttons on his jacket, his hair standing in a mess. And that one moment stretches out, won’t end.

Time moves again as my shoulder crashes into his side. And then there is the tangle of all three of us, and I can see limbs, but I can’t tell which ones are mine. Then there is something wet and hot and slick on my hands, dark in the dim light, and I have no idea whose blood it is. All I can do is push and kick and once, when an arm tightened around my throat, I twist and bite hard, tasting cloth rather than skin, but it works anyway. The arm jerks away, and I cough.

And then suddenly, I am pushing at nothing. I sit up, feeling foolish, grass in my hair.

Next to me on the ground is the shadowy man, and he isn’t moving. Barry is wiping a knife on the grass. “Thanks,” he says grimly. “That was close.”

I open my mouth to say a thousand things. A thousand stupid things like “he’s dead” or maybe “you killed him.” Nothing comes.

“Quick!” Someone yells, “Yarrow! Come over to the tent. Sage needs you.”

“Kestrel,” Barry says. “I need your help. Come on.”

I follow him, whether from shock or fear, I don’t know. Just yesterday, Barry sat a couple of rows behind me in ancient literature class. He answered the question about what a behemoth was. How could he have just killed someone? How could I have helped him?

Before I can think anymore, I find myself crawling into a tent that really is just a tarp draped over a rope frame, low to the ground. There is only enough room for the hurt man and me kneeling next to him. Barry crouches in the doorway, holding a lumilamp. It casts shadows from below that make him look ugly and evil rather than just worried. He raises it a little so that I can appreciate the red spreading over the lower part of the man’s shirt, and spreads across the top of his pants. The cloth is ripped on his hip, ragged edges that might be cloth, might be skin, or both. I wonder if I will throw up or pass out, but I am strangely calm. The tarp rubs against my back, and I wish it would stop.

“So what do we do?” Barry asks.

“What do you mean? I don’t know.” But he looks at me like I should be a part of this.

“Kestrel.” His face looks green-gray, and I wonder if it’s just the light. “Look at him. You have to have some idea of what to do. Your grandmother does all that herb stuff. Besides," here he pauses and puts his hand on my shoulder, "I know that you know more about magic than you let on. Yarrow is my best medic, and she can't save him. If you don't do something, he’s going to die.”

I don’t know what to do. I have no idea what to do. “Barry,” I start. “It’s not the same thing. Magic is energy, not medicine. It makes light, heat, motion...” I’m about to yell or pass out or something. I’m breathing too fast. I can feel the texture of the cloth under my hands as they rest on my knees. I avoid looking at him again, but I can’t stop hearing his breathing, his little moan of pain. "Herbs are what heal, but I don't have any." I take a small peek at the remains of his hip, "and no herbs are going to heal that. We can try to stitch it together..."

"Stitch it together? Are you crazy?" Barry looks right in my face. "There is nothing to stitch together. The whole hip is blown off. He's bleeding. He's got maybe a couple of hours left--and they will be worse hours than he ever imagined he could live through. Don't let him die like that."


113 "I close my eyes, trying to make sense of any of this. All I wanted was to see if Boron was awake. I was studying tonight. I was studying the equations about transfer of magic, about the amplitude needed to overcome resistance in gold, brass, copper. What is the resistance of bone, of muscle, of skin, I wonder. I have no idea. I doubt that anyone has ever asked. "I'd help him if I knew how to," I say. "But all I know is the transfer of energy. That's for lights, for machines, not for people."

Barry grabs my arm and gets close to my face. “Get creative, but do something. He can’t die. Not tonight.”

“Magic can’t fix everything. If I do the wrong thing, then he doesn’t even have a chance to survive.”

http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/08/113-x.html

114 "I stop for a moment, ask myself what I do know. I know how to put energy into things. In fact, I know more about it than I should. And if I can use a crystal to power a lamp, to run a clock, then maybe I can use one to heal a wound.

"What kind of energy do you have around here?" I ask him. "You must have some kind of crystals.” What I'm about to try is completely illegal, but then, that doesn't matter much at this point. I also have no idea what I’m doing, but he doesn’t have time for me to come up with a good plan.

http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/08/114-x.html

107 x

(107)
My feet beat on the ground, blood pounds in my ears, but there is also the thump of boots behind me. I try to separate the sound, to tell how close it is without turning around.
Trees thin and the small wood gives way to scrubby grass and sagebrush. They are low, and I leap over them rather than dodge around. From the noise behind me, I’d guess that he crashes straight through.
I ignore the stretch of a stitch in my side. I try to breathe. My face is a grimace as I push myself to go faster.
And then smack. I’m falling; I can’t breathe. His weight smashes my face to the ground. Something hurts; everything hurts; I can’t tell what. I twist, kick. His arms are around my waist, pulling me upright.
“Stop. Just stop!” he roars. “You have to help me. Kestrel, it’s me, Barry, from EI.”
“Let go,” I mean it to be loud, but it comes out as half cough. Still, he lets me loose, and I crawl a few steps away. As I turn to look at him, I taste the blood, gingerly prod my lip with my tongue to see how deep the cut is. Deep enough, but my teeth didn’t go all the way through. I spit blood on the grass.
The light from his lumicube is in my eyes, too bright in the darkness. At least he was telling the truth. “Barry, what is going on?”
“Come back with me. You have to, I need your help. Someone was hurt. Really hurt.”
This is a bad dream. It can’t be real. I can’t make it seem real. I should be in my room studying or sleeping. And yet I find myself following him back to where flames still licks at the trunks of a couple of trees. Fortunately there are few cottonwoods and mostly green willows.
Another young man, a dark shadow comes toward us. I tense, ready to run again if I need to.
“Grant,” Barry says, “where is he?”
As he nears the glow, I can tell that Grant isn’t in great shape either. He is holding his arm, which doesn’t look right. There is a shiny spot on his coat sleeve that could be wet.
Grant nods his head toward a low tent. “Over there. Yarrow’s with him.”
We walk over, and I see that the the tent is just a tarp draped over a tiny frame, low to the ground.
“Yarrow,” Barry calls softly. “Can you come out for a second?”
A tall, thin girl crawls backward out of the tent. She reaches out her fingers toward Barry and then turns her head toward the tent.
“Bad?” Barry asks.
Her eyes never leave him. One curt nod. There is something about the lack of emotion on her thin face that frightens me.
“Let Kestrel see what she can do,” Barry says. “Can you get bandages, water, whatever he needs?”
She glances once at me, then nods again and walks away.
“Go ahead,” Barry tells me, gesturing toward the tent.
“Barry, what do you expect me to do?”
“Just get in there, and then we’ll talk,” he says. Seeing what is in that tent is about the last thing that I want to do right now, but the tone in his voice is not a good one to argue with. I hesitate, but I already know that he can run faster than I can.
There is only enough room for the hurt man and me kneeling next to him. Barry crouches in the doorway, holding a lumilamp. It casts shadows from below that mix with the ones on his lumicube and make him look ugly and evil rather than just worried. He raises the lamp a little so that I can appreciate the red spreading over the lower part of the man’s shirt, and spreads across the top of his pants. The cloth is ripped on his hip, ragged edges that might be cloth, might be skin, or both. I wonder if I will throw up or pass out, but I am strangely calm. The tarp rubs against my back, and I wish it would stop.
“So what do we do?” Barry asks.
“What do you mean? I don’t know.” But he looks at me like I should be a part of this.
“Kestrel.” His face looks green-gray, and I wonder if it’s just the light. “Look at him. I know that you know about magic. Your grandmother does all that herb stuff. If you don’t know what to do, he’s going to die.”
I assume that he means that I’m good at school magic, because there is no way that he can know about the practical kind, the forbidden kind. And yet, why would he be so determined to get me here. I look down. Either way, I don’t know what to do. I have no idea what to do. “Barry,” I start. “It’s not the same thing. Magic is energy, not medicine.” I’m about to lose it. I’m breathing too fast. I can feel the texture of the cloth under my hands as they rest on my knees. I avoid looking at him again, but I can’t stop hearing his breathing, his little moan of pain.
“Energy? Then give him some. I don’t know. Try something. I can’t even sew him up, and if I just wrap a bandage around that, he’s going to die. I know it’s not enough. So do something.” He grabs my arm and gets close to my face. “Get creative, but do something. He can’t die. Not tonight.”
And maybe I’m scared or inspired, or maybe I just don’t want his death to be my fault. I swallow and reach over to him, gently lifting his shirt. I ask Barry for a knife, and I carefully cut through the waistband and shove my gagging back down into somewhere deep inside of me where it won’t bother me tonight, not right now--though I know I’ll have to pay for it later.
Whatever it was that cut him didn’t just slice a red stripe in his hip; it ripped part of it out. I can tell that much since a big chunk of muscle is just gone, and the skin is ragged around the edges. Even if my grandmother had taught me how to use the special curved needle and the black thread that she uses, I still wouldn’t be able to make the ends meet.
My hands are shaking, but I reach out and place two fingers on the wound. I close my eyes and feel a spark. I can still see it on the inside of my eyelids, real or imagined, I don’t know. I’ve never used magic for more than lights, for fires, for moving small things. Not like this.
I have just a bit of an idea. If I could apply the principle of Wertenhouser’s Theory to his muscles, maybe they could move close enough together that I could at least slow the bleeding. Maybe I could find the blood vessels and close them. As I start to think in terms of mathmagics rather than blood, I can calm my breathing. I can see the small tubes that are letting so much blood free. I don’t know how, but I can see them, not see really, but feel in my mind the shape of them. I can feel the pulse, but maybe that’s just a guess or what I would expect to be there.
The trick now now is to tell them what to do. That’s the problem with mathmagics in general is not harnessing the energy, but focusing it for a specific purpose. That’s what they use machines for--and as I debate with myself, more of his blood soaks into the grass beneath us.
“Close,” I tell his veins. My fingers tingle, but nothing much happens. I feel an alertness, though, as if his body is listening. “Ciro,” I try in Galliun. And the tingling spreads. “Ciro,” I say again, this time louder, willing energy to move from my center and down into my hands. “Ciro.” I feel the veins begin to tremble, and the open edges press together. The bleeding slows to a drip. I breath out. I open my eyes. The raw meat that was once his leg is still there, but the rubbery little tubes that look like straws or balloons gone wrong have pinched themselves shut. I lift my bloody hands, not knowing where to put them.
I look at Barry. He looks at me. Neither of us dares to hope. We don’t say anything aloud, but there, in the middle of the night, over what would surely have been a dead man, we say everything with just our eyes.
And then I am aware of his breathing. I am waiting for it.
It doesn’t come.
I turn to look at him, look back at Barry.
“Sage,” he says. “Sage wake up.” He tries to scramble into the tent, but there just isn’t room. He grips my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
And then we hear a shallow breath, a whisper. Not deep enough, not long enough. Just a thin sputter.
I look at Sage’s white face. “Too much blood,” I guess. But I know that it’s a good guess.
“So now what?” he demands. “Can’t you...make some more or something?”
“I”m not a magician,” I remind him. “And even they don’t make blood. Do you think that people would die if magic could save them?”
Barry’s fingers tighten, pinch into my shoulder. “I don’t want him to die--he is my friend, but tonight his life means a lot more than that. If you don’t heal him, it won’t just be him who dies. You stopped the bleeding, there has to be something else you can do.”
“Barry, you’ve read the same books I have. You know that there isn’t anything else. What can I do? I can tell you about energy transfer ratio, not blood. There’s no spell for making blood.” But even as I say it, I can see the connection. I don’t know how to make blood, but his body does. I stare at Barry for a several seconds before I realize that he’s shouting at me, some of tirade about saving lives and a noble cause. I don’t care. Right now, I don’t want this man to die.
I push my hands back into the wound. I close my eyes and think, “I need to see you. Marrow. I need the marrow...” My voice dies out. I don’t have the courage to sound that ridiculous aloud. Not with Barry there watching. What if it doesn’t work?
“He stopped breathing!” Barry yells, which doesn’t help me at all.
What I need is a way to talk to Slade’s marrow--which is admittedly a really strange thing to do--to connect to the inside of his body without thinking about how stupid and impossible it is because then it really will be impossible. And I need it to work, regardless of how stupid it is.
Barry is still shouting. I reach one red hand toward him, press a five-fingered stain across his mouth. “Shut up,” I say very softly.
And then I remember other words, words he can’t possibly know. They were more like a secret, or a remembrance, a gift from my grandmother. I could use her help now. She isn’t here. No one who can help me is here, but I have her words.
Gweler I say, pushing magic into the word as I press my hands on him.
And there they are, the long bones in his legs, above and below the knee. I don’t know what bones look like, not really, but I know the shape of his bones, know how to find the marrow inside of them.
Gwella I tell them. Gwella. I hope it’s the right word. I know so few. But they seem to understand, and red seeps into being. A little, so little. He’s too weak.
I bite the inside of my lip and feel something tighten inside of me.
Gwella I say again, only this time, instead of pushing something out, in front of me, I bring myself with the word. I flow into the marrow of his bones and stretch my fingers out through it, reaching as much of the hollow that I can.
I fill the emptiness of his hip with myself, stretching out my arms, bending my back to cover the hole, to negate the void. I don’t know how it works. If I stop to think about myself, I know that I am there, here, kneeling next to him, head bent. But then the work slows, and I have to forget about myself again, about what is real and possible and just do what needs to be done.
There comes a point when I open my eyes and wonder what is happening because my hands are still red, but they rest on pink skin. Raw, but whole.
And I turn to look at the lumilamp, but I see it as if from a long way off, down a dark tunnel. And I think that there is something about that that isn’t quite right. And I try to talk to...to the, the him there, but I can’t think of the words, and it’s darker, and my--isn’t; I’m not quite right.
“Kestrel.”
I wish that someone would stop saying my name; it’s too loud.
“Kestrel.” I want to not hear it, to not hear ringing around in my head, and my eyes don’t want to open, because it’s black, and I’m tired, and I want the voice to go away. I just want to sleep.


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Continue on to Chapter 2

103

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For the moment, I let numbers and formulae dribble out of my head. I stuff my feet into the old boots came from a relative--one of my father’s. I’ve been wearing them for two or three years, and I still have to put on extra socks, because my mother doesn’t care about fashion when it’s being worn to the barn.
Tonight is cold, so I put on an extra skirt over the leggings and heavy skirt that I already wear. Bundled up like this, I hardly look romantic, but I don't expect to actually see Boron. If his light is on, that little hope of him will be enough to see me through one more night. Tomorrow is the weekend, so after I milk and feed, I can crawl back in bed for a little extra sleep. 

Cold air always bites when I first step outdoors, and I hunch down into my coat and scarf to keep the breeze from trickling down my neck. After one look back to make sure that no one at home has woken up and noticed that I am gone, I set my boots walking over the stubby ground. I wear my lumicube around my neck, but I keep it dark. I can see enough by the waxing crescent and the stars to know where to put my feet. I’ve walked this way many times before, and the goat-cropped grass doesn’t trip me up.

Maybe I should have stayed and put something together, but my brain was getting tired, and the experiment I’m planning can wait for tomorrow. Actually, I’m not sure if it would be called a spell or a charm, but I’m quite positive that it’s illegal. Not that it’s immoral, though. In another week, I’ll have passed my Exam. In about two weeks after that, I’ll be able to apply for a Class C license, and then it won’t be illegal. So it’s a question of timing more than of right or wrong. Normally it’s not a problem since most graduating students don’t actually know any practical magic. A few know a little, but not much. 

Except for me. I’m just interested in it, and it also helps that I have a grandmother who knows greenwoman magic. My mother explicitly told her not to teach me any of her magic--but she did anyway. It’s not the right kind of magic; it’s not academic magic. But Anen, my grandmother, knows about things that have nothing to do with crystals and the normal mechanical uses of magic. She knows about spells.

I still feel a little bit guilty about the idea of trying a perception spell on Boron, but it’s not like he hasn’t shown interest. It’s just that I don’t know if he realizes that I’m running out of time. What happens if I’m forced to take an apprenticeship because he hasn’t proposed yet?

And while I’m convinced that I can make him happy, I’m not convinced that his love can stand up to a separation, especially if he would be getting engaged to an apprentice. Maybe, if I can get a philosopher internship, but since the most I can realistically hope for is an engineer novice, then that would be the end of Boron. I’m certain that he likes me, but I’m not deluded enough to think that situation doesn’t mean anything.
Lessons with him have become less often. That’s a problem. 

Just when I’ve reached the dark part of my walk, the part near the creek where willows grow in thick clumps, where foxes--and sometimes wolves--come to hunt for rabbits, I hear rustling and talking. Instantly I duck down, more from an instinct to keep from getting caught out at night than from any idea of my safety. It is only when I hear men talking that quick-beating of my heart is joined by the sinking feeling in my stomach. They talk back and forth, their words a low muttering that I can’t distinguish the individual words.

And while I am frozen, debating about if I should creep away quietly or stay put until they go away, suddenly the world is filled with light and and sound. I roll over before I know what is happening. Light and smoke roll upward, climbing along the willows and up into the night. I feel my brain straining to gather information, to piece together some kind of idea about what is happening, to decide what to do. I smell burning. People yell, and I hear a horse whinny that sounds more like a scream.

My feet don’t wait for orders. I’m still looking around while I’m running. My lungs catch up quickly, gulping cold air that stings. In spite of my heavy boots, I touch the ground lightly because the less time my feet spend on the ground, the less likely I am to catch the toe of my big, brown rounded boot on a stray root that will mean a quick twist of pain and a fast path to the ground. I leap small sagebrush and service berries.

At first I don’t hear the footsteps behind me, then I hear feet hitting the ground hard, keeping pace--then closing the gap. Footsteps match the blood I hear thumping in my ears. Fortunately, it is dark. In darkness I can probably see better than he does. In darkness, I use my ears to know who is behind me instead of turning my head to see and then losing my balance.

“Stop! Wait!” His pace drops a fraction because he spent his air on words. There is no way that I will stop for a man chasing me from the middle of an explosion "Kestrel!" he yells. "Kestrel, I need your help. Stop!"

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1) The sound of my name makes me slow and then turn. I don't recognize him, but with a soot and sweat-smeared face, that doesn't mean much."Your face is all black," I say carefully. "Who are you?"

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2) I take one quick glance over my shoulder, but I don't quit running, and neither does he. Just because he knows my name doesn't mean that I will head towards danger.

 http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-chapter-1cc.html

101

Chapter 1

My mathmagics book closes, almost by itself. It’s nearly midnight; my brain feels like mashed potatoes. I’m not going to get ready for bed just yet, though, because he is at the dinner party.

Not that I would be invited. Not this time, anyway.

But I can see the lights.

The women will be wearing colored dresses according to their rank. He is from a Red House, so there will be reds, oranges, yellows, and maybe a few greens at the party. He will be wearing a tuxedo, of course, the black jacket playing up the black curls of his hair, the red tie lying against his dusky throat.

Now I really can’t study. Everyone in the house should be asleep by now. It’s time for a little practical magic.

Quickly, I look out my bedroom door. It’s quiet and dark. Everyone should have gone to bed over an hour ago, but I never can tell for sure about my sister. Of course, what I plan to do shouldn’t make any noise, but you can’t always predict what magic will do--especially when you’re experimenting with illegal magic. If you get the power source too strong and the flow too fast, you could make quite a bit of noise, and potentially set the house on fire--which is why it’s illegal.
At least, it’s illegal for two or three more weeks until I have (in theory) passed the Exam and applied for my Class C license. But I’m not waiting; I pull out my box of crystals.  It’s a beautiful set, but it’s been giving me trouble. Of course they’re good crystals, and so they hold quite a bit of magic, but I can’t figure out how to direct the energy. If you’re going to set up a magical reaction when someone picks it up, there’s a big difference between scorching his hand and...well, for lack of a better phrase, a love potion.

It’s not a potion at all, of course, and my teachers at school would say that it can’t be done. But I can’t imagine my teachers trying to use magic to make a guy fall in love with them. So maybe they just haven’t tried.

You would think that you could set up an expected behavior, and then align the energy to it so that when he touches it, it triggers the flow of energy through the behavior filter. The problem is that the filter is unstable. Whenever I put it into a crystal, it decays very quickly. So who knows what it would do to Boron.

I bet he’s drinking something out of a beautiful glass and laughing at a girl’s joke. What if I were there, in a daring yellow dress with my hair held up by pearl hair pins instead of pencils? I’d say something witty, and then he’d laugh, and then his hand would brush against mine as he reaches for his glass...

Filters. I need to focus on filters.

But then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a new star appear low to the horizon. They’ve switched rooms.

Dinner is over, and they have gone to sit together, to chat or read or to play cards. I have heard that there are even magical pictures they cast on the wall, pictures that move, though it might be just a rumor.

Every time I have been to the Domini House, I see the back kitchen, the hallways, and the library. So I can say that I have been there many times, but I have never been a guest, not really. I tutor the Domini Son to speak Gallium.

I have never been to Gallium's Lap either, but I speak the language because my mother taught it to me, taught it to all of us. She says that it is part of our heritage. I have never seen much of anything except my father’s farm. The brown farm filled with brown animals and weathered gray wood. Brown and gray are not really colors at all.

But my mother, before she married my father, used to go to balls and dress as a Yellow. She was Canary Yellow, one of the higher ones, and she would have never married a man without a color except that her father died, and her family needed the money. I exist because of my father’s money. I love my father, but it doesn’t mean that I won’t one day wear Yellow too, or even Red. I could wear red if I marry the right person.

I gently set my mathmagics book back on the shelf; it's an expensive book, and I need it. For one more week I need it. But then of course I will hand my copy to Wren, who will eventually pass it to Feldspar, and someday Mallee will probably get the same book, because you can't pass the Exam without it.

Maybe my plans with the Domini Son, with Boron, will come to pass, and maybe it won’t matter about the Exam. But I have never believed in leaving my fate to chance or even to the Benevolent Force, though my mother would not like to hear me come so close to blasphemy.

And besides, even if I were to one day become Lady Kestrel, I would be doubly glad to have passed my Exam. It will be much easier for me to hold my head high as I mingle with Colors and with philosophers at evening parties if I am a daughter of a Yellow House who took first standing in the Exam--instead of a farmer’s girl who showed up in a red dress and who is just a little bit embarrassing to her husband.

[102] 
I walk to the window, look out for a long minute, and then I walk dutifully back to my desk. I need to work on my experiment. Not only will it help me prepare for the exam, but I don't have time left to let Boron ask me on his own. If I'm going to be the Lady Domini one day, he might need a little nudge.

http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-chapter-1a.html
[103] 
Tonight, I feel like I can afford to quit early. I have a lot of this book memorized. I have a lot books mostly memorized. I need to get out of here, just for a minute, just to see the light in his room go on when the party is over.




http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-chapter-1c.html