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

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.

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.

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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?

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[From  ]
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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


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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.
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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.

(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

221

[221]

“Mom,” I begin in my sweetest voice. “You know, it would really be nice if I could stay home and study instead of going to church today. Do you think that I could stay home just this once?”
For a minute, I think I’ve got her, and then I realize that it’s just the shock of it that didn’t register on her face.
“Blessed realm forbid,” she says, raising the eternity symbol that she wears on a chain and kissing it. She tips her head a little to the side, looks earnestly at me, and folds her arms. Definite sign of a lecture.
“Kestrel,I know that it might seem attractive to put off things of the spirit for worldy matters. Benevolance knows I’ve had to fight with your father on it for years, but there is so much in you that comes from my side of the family. We have always been pious people. I wish that you could see the little chapel that I used to pray in when I was a girl. It was made of a beautiful limestone, and--”
“Mom!” Wren yelled as she ran into the room, “Mallee got into my stuff again!”
“Oh Wren, I thought that we gave you a trunk for a reason.”
“I can’t keep everything I own locked up at every minute. My room is now free range for everyone?”
“Where’s your sister?”
“In the goat shed--with my quilt and sheets.”
“What?” suddenly Mom was interested. “The white linen ones?”
“Those are the ones.”
“Do you have any idea what the thread count is on those sheets? Linen is not a toy, it’s like fine dishes that can be passed on.”
“Mom, I know,” Wren says. So do I; it’s not the first time we’ve had lessons on how to manage a linen cupboard. “So come help me get her before she stains them.”
“Stains them?”
“Goats.”
“Right. All right, I’m coming.” Mom gives me a look that says “I reserve the right to add further lectures about this when I’ve got the time.”
Then she pats me on the head--which I hate--and says, “Why don’t you go meditate for a few minutes? If you contemplate the Beyond, I know that you will be guided do the right thing.” Then she dashes off to save the goats and the sheets from Mallee.
I should have acted sick, but it would be a little bit suspicious at this point, so an hour later I find myself in church rather than out spying like I should be doing.
“As followers of the Belevolent Force,it behoves us all to ask ourselves how our actions relfect on the community as a whole. Are we,each and every one of us, committed to being a force for good--just as the Force that drives all of us is a force for good. When you bring ill to others, you not only damage them; you not only damage yourself; but you also weaken the goodness that reaches to the space inbetween. We are linked together--”
I listen for as long as I can before my eyes glaze over, and I find myself contemplating the wood grain of the pew in front of me. It’s not that what he is saying is wrong or bad or anything, but I can’t keep any kind of focus on it. It’s just that everything he says is slippery, like a bar of soap in a bath. And every time I try to get a hold of them, my mind just can’t grab onto it. Maybe I’m not as spiritual as I should be, but I don’t know how to get more spiritual.
As everyone in the congregation over fifty resorts to head-bobbing, a movement catches my attention. Up near the ceiling,I see a face looking out from the carved wood. It ought to be solid. He catches my eye, and the center of a scrollwork quickly shuts.
So that’s where Barry has been hiding. The question now is whether I should go try to talk to him myself, or if I should tell his mother where he is.

1) I need to make sure that I really do know what I’m talking about before I even consider telling her. Besides, how do I know that it’s the right thing to do?

2) His mom must be worried sick about him. I should go tell her right away. The faster she knows, then the better the chance that she will catch up with him before he leaves.

216

[From  ]

216


I don’t know whether to hope that they’re still there, or that they left hours ago. My legs keep rushing me along, regardless of how many times I tell them to calm down and slow down. They won’t be there. How could they be there?
My father and some of the others have been searching. They must have found the spot. Barry wouldn’t have been stupid enough to stay past dawn. Maybe, though, maybe they left something, something for me to find.
Sage and I have never met, which seems impossible because I think I know him better than anyone--at least in some ways--but we didn’t really speak to each other. It might be better if it stays that way. Wouldn’t we be bound to have a connection? I have other plans, and I don’t want some strange adventure in the night to ruin them.
A tree root catches my foot, and I stumble. I’m nearly to the place. The air still smells faintly of wood smoke. Really, it’s that I feel like my life has changed. I’m not the same person today that I was last night in my room, worrying about my exam. With Barry and the others gone, though, I don’t know how to find out how I am different. Everything looks the same at home.

Then I find the trees that have been changed, blackened. Luckliy, it’s still cold, and their shade has protected deeper piles of snow around the trunks, but still, some are scorched and sooty, others now have one side that look like half-burned logs from a fireplace that have been replanted. I can see the indentations where the tents were, the footprints, and the blood.

So it really happened.

Part of me is relieved. Of course I’m relieved; isn’t it better to be sure, to let reality soak in like something spilled and red, seeping into the snow? On the other hand, I think that part of me made all of last night into a dream. Didn’t I wake up in my own bed, in my own room? How did I get there? Who carried me? And why did I faint? They must not have been worried about me, to leave me alone. If I had been in any real danger, they would have worried more, wouldn’t they?  

“I didn’t expect to see you here.”

I whip around, not screaming, but pretty close to it. Boron is there, just on the edge of the clearing. He looks completely out of place with black patent leather boots and a black wool overcoat. He should be on his way to a party or to church.

“Hello,” I manage to say. “What are you doing here?”

“I was part of the search,” he says, “and I came back because they left some things. I thought that they might wait until the main group was gone, and then double back.”

“Did you catch any of them?” I ask him, and as I do, I wonder what I want the answer to be.

“No. They had been gone for hours.” He walks over to pile that is mostly burned branches, but has cloth and a strap sticking out from the bottom. He bends down and picks up something small, and puts it in his pocket.”

“What did you find?” I ask him.

“It’s really quite amazing, isn’t it?” His voice sounds smooth, almost like the purr of a cat. “Such evil people so close to my house--well, and to yours too,” he says and waves his hand in my direction. “The government ought to do something about them once and for all.” He stares at the red-stained snow.

I don’t know what to say. Mentioning that I was here last night probably isn’t the right thing to say. Are they really criminals? It’s hard for me to think of them like that. They’re real people, not some vague bad guys. What would happen if the government does do something?  Barry and Sage in prison? Yarrow? And yet, what was it they were planning to do? I hadn’t thought to ask before. They managed enough of an explosion to leave the snow smeared with black and bits of ash. What if that had been Boron’s house? Or mine. Would they have hurt Mallee? What does an evil person look like?

“It’s unfortunate that it was only a pair of enforcers who found them. One’s dead--you knew that, didn’t you?”

I nod slowly, not trusting myself to speak.

“We’re lucky that they didn’t murder half of the zone.  I can’t believe that there were people like that in our own Terrace Hill, planning killings and robbery.” He takes a step closer to me. At first I don’t even notice; I’m wrapped up in my own thoughts, but then it sinks in how much closer he is. Could he? Would he? I mean, I want him to, but now? I wasn’t expecting him to be here, but he’s just here, and he’s closer than a person normally would be.

“You’ve proven that you’re a brave girl just by coming here,” he says gently, “but I can see you shaking. You can’t tell me that it’s just the cold.” He walks closer until he’s right next to me. “You don’t have to worry,” he says in a low voice, “I’ll keep you safe.” He slides his arm around my shoulder and pulls me to him.

A part of me is panicking, a part of me is doing a victory dance, and the rest of me gives up and goes numb--waiting to see what happens next before putting any more of my meager energy into reacting. Leaning against the front of his coat, I can smell soap and something spicy that reminds me of pine trees. My eye is squashed against one of the large buttons on his coat, but I don’t care, or at least most of me doesn’t care. His hand is smoothing my hair, and I let myself melt, just a little bit, and lean against him. I’d dreamed of this, but not so suddenly. It’s a good thing that my plans to help him on magically fell through because it looks like he doesn’t need any help.

My mind is racing, and I’m certain that I’m too confused to ever think straight again. How did this happen? How did I get here? How many times can my world turn upside down before I fall off?

On the other hand, I’m not complaining. I try to lean against him naturally without putting too much of my weight on him. If I unwittingly push against him and make him stagger back, then I will have completely ruined everything. And while I have no idea what this means, the one thing I do know is that I can not mess this up.

“It’s your fault, you know,” he murmurs. His breath tickles. “I know how improper this is, but I can’t keep away from you, not while I have this chance. Your allure has cast a spell over me.”

Allure? I have allure? I mean, not that I’m against the idea, but well, I’m not exactly dressed up, and even when I am, then I’m not...but he’s kindled a small, fierce spark in me. I hadn’t realized until this moment just how much I didn’t believe that he could actually love me.

“You have to come with me,” he says. “Now. Right now.”

“Wait, what? Come--”

But then he tips my face upward and is coming closer. I didn’t expect my first kiss to be...to be perfectly honest, I didn’t expect it to be awkward, or confusing. How do you figure out where to put your nose?

“I have my transport,” he says. “We could go somewhere warmer.”

“I can’t go driving for very long,” I tell him. “I have to be back in a few minutes to get ready for church.” I pat his arm, just because I can. “But you could drive me home.

Suddenly we’re standing about a foot apart from each other.

“Kestrel,” he says, looking serious, “you have to promise me not to tell anyone.” He smiles, and it’s like looking at sunshine breaking through clouds. “Not just yet, anyway.”

“Why not?” I take half a step closer and I lean in just a little bit, in case he wants to kiss me again.

He puts his hands on my shoulders. “As much as I want to,” he says. “My father will be angry to find out about you. He has certain expectations for me, and I don’t want to disillusion him right now.”

“He doesn’t like me?”

“It’s not you. It’s just your position.”

Oh. I’m not good enough. I’ve met Boron’s father. I really liked him.

“Don’t look like that,” he says. “I noticed you a long time ago. That’s why I wanted tutoring.”

Not that I want to contradict him, but it comes out of my mouth before I can think, “I thought you needed to speak Galliun so that you could do whatever political hobnobbing you need to when you visit Galliun’s Lap.”

He laughs, though it sounds a little bit forced. Did I say something wrong? I’m always doing that. I think I ask a reasonable question, and people think that I’m funny in that “oh isn’t she odd and cute” way that they do with little kids. I hate that.

“Kestrel! Are you here?”

I jump about a foot away from Boron and I have that sudden feeling of being caught at something. Well, I guess I kind of am. I guess Boron will have to acknowledge his relationship with me sooner than he planned. I can’t say that I’m upset about it.  “Daisy!” I call. “I’m over this way.”

I reach my hand for Boron’s to walk with him toward Daisy, but he doesn’t move. I look back to see what’s wrong, and his face looks gray.

“Are you alright?” I ask him.

“Fine.” He says it too fast, too forcefully. “But I need to get back, and you don’t want to be late for church.” He’s backing away as he says this, but then he pauses to add, “Remember what I said. Don’t tell anyone. Especially not Daisy.”

“Why?”

But he’s already gone. He dashes off through the trees. I watch after him until I catch Daisy out of the corner of my eye. “Well you weren’t exactly helpful,” she complains as she walks up to me.

“Sorry.”

She shrugs. “It’s okay.” She looks around. “I take it that no one was here.”

I hate secrets. I really hate secrets. Do I tell her? Do I not tell her? How do I technically tell the truth but not actually tell the truth? “The search party had already left by the time I got here,” I told her.

Continue on to Chapter 3