Mother Lode

by E. Rose Sabin

  “Nobody can make it rain,” Nia declared. “Where did you get such nonsense?”

  “Nia, I’ve seen her do it. You have to believe me. You have to let her do it. You’re making her think it’s bad, but it isn’t. Rain is the only way of stopping the peacekeepers from searching the grounds. It’s the only thing that will save us. Do you want the miners to come back and force us all back into the mines?”

  “No, no more mine,” Cara whined, clinging to him.

  “Now who’s frightened her?” Nia grabbed Cara away from him and picked her up. “Things weren’t bad enough already, you had to bring that up?”

  “What’s going on here?” Lina demanded, leading one of the Peace Officers into the kitchen. “I’ve told the officers they can search the house. I need you to go into the sitting room with everyone else while this officer searches the kitchen.”

  Teddy wanted to scream and shout his anger and frustration. He would have been out the back door with Cara if Nia hadn’t come when she did. If she hadn’t stopped him and refused to believe him. Now what could he do?

  He had to do something. He had to take a chance. “Cara was upset by all the noise and confusion in there,” he lied, nodding his head toward the sitting room. “Nia and I were just going to take her outside to calm her down. Can we do that?” He gave Lina a hard look, hoping she’d understand that he had an ulterior motive for the request.

  Whether she did or not, she nodded impatiently. “You can take her around to the front of the house,” she said. “Just don’t wander off anywhere.”

  “We won’t,” he promised, grabbing Nia’s arm and urging her toward the back door. For one heart-stopping moment he feared Nia would rebel and refuse to go outside. She hesitated, looking at Lina for any sign of disapproval. Getting none, she allowed Teddy to escort her out the back door, Cara still in her arms.

  Once outside, they headed around the side of the house, away from the door. As they walked toward the front of the house, two peacekeepers came toward them. “You need to go inside with the others,” one said, addressing Nia. “We don’t want anyone outside while we search the grounds.”

  “We’re just going around to come in the front way,” Nia said.

  The Peace Officer gave Teddy a sharp look. “See that you do that. Don’t stop and don’t go anywhere else.” He watched them walk on toward the front before, seemingly satisfied, he and his partner moved on in the opposite direction.

  “Set Cara down,” Teddy told Nia when the peace officers were well past them. “Let her show you what she can do.”

  Giving him a scornful look, she did set her sister down, but she kept a firm hold on Cara’s hand.

  “Now, Cara. You and I both know that you can make it rain. Show Nia what you can do. We need it to rain really hard. Don’t be afraid.”

  “We’ll get wet,” Cara said, her little girl’s voice still reflecting her fear.

  “Yes, we will,” Teddy said. “Just like we did when we came out of the mine, and the rain let us get away from the bad men. Remember that? The rain saved us. Getting wet won’t hurt us. It will save us again.”

  “You think Cara caused that rain? That’s ridiculous!” Nia glared at Teddy and he thought she might pick Cara up again.

  Cara stuck out her lower lip. “I did make it rain,” she said, anger making her voice stronger. “I can.”

  “Show your sister,” Teddy urged. “Show her how you do it.”

  “I will.” She pulled her hand free of Nia’s grasp and took a couple of steps away from her. When Nia reached out to pull her back, Teddy stopped Nia.

  “Wait,” he said. “Wait and see.”

  “She isn’t doing anything.”

  But Nia was wrong. Cara looked up at the blue sky and sang a little song. “Rain come, fall today, Wash us clean, come right away, Pour down all around, Make lots of puddles on the ground.”

  As she sang, clouds gathered overhead. In a few moments they hid the sun. Teddy felt raindrops on his arms. He grinned. “Atta girl, Cara. Keep it up. Make it rain really hard.”

  Cara sang her rhyme again, this time doing a little dance to her invented tune. And the rain streamed down.

  Cara giggled. “See?” she asked Nia.

  Nia’s mouth fell open. She reached up, hands open, palms up, as though needing to fill them with water to confirm what was happening.

  Soon there was no room for doubt. Rain drenched them even though Teddy pulled them against the house, into the semi-shelter the eaves provided. “Now she just needs to keep it going as long as she can,” he said.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” Nia addressed the apology to her sister, but Teddy sensed it was directed to him as well. “I still don’t understand how it can be.”

  “Just as I didn’t understand how I could transform into a coyote. Or how Bryte could give off a blinding light. It’s what Lina calls ‘being gifted.’ I guess Cara’s gifted just like me and Lina and Bryte.”

  “But you and Lina are shape-shifters, and Bryte, well, I don’t know what you call what she does. But bringing rain? How can a six-year-old have the power to bring rain?”

  Teddy shook his head. “I don’t know, but this isn’t the time to talk about it. I need to get Bryte. Can you stay out here with Cara while I go in and get her?”

  “Why do you need Bryte?”

  “She and I will have to feed power to Cara so she can keep the rain going. It’s something else I learned from Lina. Lina has more power than either of us, but she’s busy with the Peace Officers.” Not giving Nia time to respond, he turned to Cara. “Keep the rain coming as hard as you can,” he told her.

  He dashed to the front of the house and in through the front door. The sitting room was quiet, the games over. The children sat quietly on chairs or on the floor, while a Peace Officer stood guard. Bryte sat among them. Everyone looked up as Teddy burst into the room, dripping wet.

  “I need Bryte,” he said, ignoring the Peace Officer. “Everybody else just stay here and do what the Peace Officer says. Bryte, Nia and Cara need you.”

  She stood and came to him, looking puzzled. “They’re outside?” she asked. “In the rain? Are they hurt?”

  “Not injured, but there’s a problem.” It was all he could think of to say.

  “I’d better come and see what the problem is,” the Officer said. “Everybody is supposed to stay inside.”

  “I know, sir.” Teddy kept his voice calm and respectful. “We were on our way in when the rain started. You don’t need to come out. It’s just—the little girl gets hysterical in a rainstorm, and Nia needs Bryte to help calm her. We’ll come right back in.”

  “See that you do,” the officer growled, clearly relieved not to have to go out in the downpour.

  Bryte had to know he had lied to the officer, but she said nothing, just nodded and followed Teddy back outside, where rain almost drove them back. Teddy took Bryte’s hand and they raced through the pelting rain to where Nia and Cara huddled against the house.

  “I’m making it rain,” Cara announced proudly, rain dripping from her hair and soaking her dress.

  “That’s why we needed you,” Teddy said as soon as he caught his breath. “To feed her power to keep the rain going. It’s the only way I could think of to keep the Peace Officers from searching the grounds.”

  “Wait. Cara is making it rain?” Bryte looked from Teddy to Nia to Cara, her brow furrowed in puzzlement..

  “I didn’t believe Teddy when he told me she could,” Nia said. “If I hadn’t held him back, maybe Cara could have kept the two officers from beginning the search.”

  “How did you—”

  “No time for questions,” Teddy barked. “You and I need to feed her power so she can keep the rain going until the peacekeepers give up the search.”

  To her credit, Bryte just grabbed one of Cara’s hands. Teddy took her other hand and summoned power as he would if he intended to shape-change. But when he felt his coyote ready to emerge, he suppr
essed it and directed the power into Cara, feeling the weird sensation of something like an electric current flow down his arm and through his hand into Cara’s hand. It was almost as if the coyote-force raced through him into Cara. He guessed that Bryte felt something similar, maybe her light traveling from her to shine in Cara, though the little girl underwent no physical change. But the rain’s fury increased, pummeling the roof and walls of the house, rendering useless their shelter beneath the eaves.

  Teddy turned his face against the house to speak, trusting Bryte to hear. “If it rains this hard all around the house and grounds, it should stop their search.”

  “How will we know when it’s enough?” Bryte’s question reached him muffled by the rain.

  He didn’t know. But a short time later the answer came in the form of a poke by Nia. She pointed toward the front of the house, where, visible like a ghost vehicle through the sheets of rain, the peacekeepers’ vehicle drove away.

  Teddy understood why the peacekeepers had left when he struggled through water that reached halfway between his ankles and knees. He’d been so intent on feeding power to keep the rain pouring down that he hadn’t even noticed the rising water. “No wonder they left. That road floods badly in a hard rain. They had to leave or get trapped here. Cara, You did it! You made it rain hard enough to drive away the peacekeepers and keep us all safe.” To Nia he said, “You better pick her up now, before the water gets any deeper.”

  “See, I told you I could make it rain,” Cara said as he sister lifted her into her arms. “I made it rain lots, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  “They’ll come back,” Teddy said. “But not until the water drains off the road. Let’s hope that gives us enough time to get ready for them.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MOTHER LOAD

  While drying off and changing into dry clothes, Bryte heard Lina’s voice, her strident tone quite audible to Bryte’s ears. Lina was demanding of Teddy an explanation for why he had withheld information from her. “You knew the child was gifted, and you didn’t say a word to me about it? You knew she had a talent like that and no training, and it didn’t occur to you to tell me?”

  Bryte had heard only bits of Teddy’s admission that he had known for some time that Cara had the gift of calling rain. She pulled on her skirt, wrapped a towel around her dripping hair, and hurried to the sitting room, where Teddy stood, head hanging down, with the orphans gathered around.

  She arrived in time to hear Teddy mumble to his toes, “I wanted to tell you. I meant to, really, the first chance I got. I just wanted it to be private, and I never got a chance to talk to you alone. I watched for one. I did. But …” His voice trailed off into awkward silence.

  Lina dismissed him with a curt order, “Go get dried off. You’re dripping all over the floor.”

  He obeyed quickly, hurrying out without a word to anyone.

  Bryte understood Lina’s sour mood, but Lina shouldn’t have been so hard on Teddy, berating him in front of the orphans. His muttered explanation hadn’t appeased Lina’s wrath. Having seen Lina display this sort of anger before, Bryte knew it wasn’t truly due to anything Teddy had done. The cause was the situation in which Lina found herself, the sense of entrapment she felt at having become responsible for the fate of fifteen orphans—sixteen, if you counted Teddy. Lina was much younger than the other four adults, the Methenys and the Wilcoms, but everyone turned to her for advice and expected her to decide the course of action.

  Lina didn’t like being put on the spot. She’d feel as though her freedom was being stripped from her. Bryte felt it too, to some extent. She’d wanted adventure, and she relished facing down danger. But her desire for danger had its limits. She could confront peril to herself, but needing to protect so many others was not anything she’d wanted or expected to find on this trip. Yet here she was, and although she stood with Lina against any menace they faced, Lina was the one with the experience and the power to oppose that menace. She and Teddy could back Lina up, but they needed her leadership. Lina was aware of that, but she desperately wanted someone else to at least to share the responsibility with her. Someone like Oryon.

  Bryte was under no illusions as to Lina’s ultimate goal. Lina hadn’t yet accomplished what she’d hoped to accomplish here in Marquez, but Bryte figured that when she either found the thing she’d hoped to find here or gave up that search, they would head on to Hillcross and the shrine where it was said the Lady Kyla lay, awaiting the hour of her return. Oryon had headed there in search of healing of the spirit, and Lina most certainly hoped to reach the shrine and find him there. Not that Lina had announced that ultimate destination. She would never admit it, but Bryte had sensed when they left Tirbat that Lina’s true quest was to rejoin Oryon.

  Now Lina felt stuck here, unable to pursue her ultimate goal. Nor had she had time to search for the power net she’d come to Marquez in hope of finding. So of course having to tarry here frustrated Lina terribly, and most of the time she kept that frustration bottled up inside. Today’s events had pushed it past the breaking point. It was not surprising that it happened, but Bryte regretted that through no fault of his, Teddy had provided a target for Lina to focus on.

  Teddy had slunk off, shamed by the public chastisement, and Bryte very much wanted to slip away from the gathering and find him. She hoped to make him understand that Lina’s anger had really had very little to do with him. She watched for the chance to escape Lina’s notice and seek Teddy out.

  She might have found a chance when Torby entered the room from wherever he’d hidden while the peacekeepers searched the house, but his obvious excitement aroused her curiosity. She couldn’t leave until she learned the cause. “Miss Lina, I found something you need to see,” he announced, glowing with pride.

  Lina turned toward him. “Can you show it to me here, or do I have to go somewhere to see it?” Her brusque question, laden with impatience, may have dampened his enthusiasm, but at least Torby had drawn her attention.

  Bryte waited eagerly to hear his answer, hoping it would give at least a hint of what he’d found. Unfortunately the reply disappointed in that respect though it did give Bryte the opportunity she’d been waiting for.

  “I think I’d better show it to you privately,” was all he said.

  Lina nodded, ordered everyone else to remain in the sitting room, and to Torby said, “Lead me to whatever it is.”

  He and Lina left the room. Bryte made her way to Mistress Wilcom and said, “Shouldn’t we go to the kitchen and start supper?”

  “I thought we should wait for Officer Schuer and Miss Lina to return.”

  “He’s not an officer any more,” Bryte responded. “He’s just Torby Schuer. And he’s another person we have to feed. Unless they come right back, I think we’d better start planning the meal.”

  “I’ll help with that,” Nia offered.

  Good. That meant Bryte could find Teddy without feeling she’d abandoned Mistress Wilcom, who really should have someone help her with the daunting task. Master Wilcom was needed here, and Dr. Metheny had gone to check on Melusine. Once Bryte had her talk with Teddy, she would return to the kitchen and help with food preparation. She believed it urgent to find Teddy before doing anything else. She explained that belief to Mistress Wilcom and Nia when they reached the relative privacy of the kitchen.

  “I had the same thought,” Nia admitted. “I’m relieved that Cara didn’t hear much of Lina’s scolding. We only heard the final bit. Even so, I had to reassure her that neither she nor Teddy did anything wrong, and Miss Lina just doesn’t understand. You can probably talk to Teddy better than I could, so go ahead. I’ll stay here and help Mistress Wilcom.”

  Bryte left immediately to find Teddy, heading first to the boys’ wing of the house. Like the girls’ wing, the boys’ wing was a single long room angling off from the main house, so searching it was a simple matter of walking through the room, checking in and under each bed.
There were no closets or wardrobes. The boys’ meager belongings were kept in cloth bags on the foot of their beds.

  She heard sniffling and traced the sound to a curled figure beneath a sheet. Teddy? She went to the bed and put her hand on the figure. It uncurled, and she recognized nine-year-old Len, a frail child with a perpetually runny nose. Allergies, not an infection, Dr. Metheny had decided.

  “Why are you here in bed instead of out with the other children?” Bryte asked.

  “I’m scared of the peacekeepers,” Len responded tearfully. “I’m afraid they’ll hurt me or take me away somewhere like here, where I hafta work all the time.”

  She sat on the bunk beside him and said, “Len, we aren’t going to let them take you away. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep you and the others safe.” She meant the words, though she knew that promise would not be easy to keep. But she intended to keep it to the extent within her power to do so. “I’m looking for Teddy. Have you seen him? Did he come in here?”

  Len shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “Maybe he hid from the peacekeepers like I did.”

  “I don’t see him here, so let’s go back to the others. The peacekeepers left. The rain chased them away.” Bryte patted his shoulder and went on to check the rest of the room just to be certain not to miss Teddy. She didn’t expect to find him there and didn’t.

  She helped Len to his feet and took him by the hand to guide him back to the sitting room where the other children still remained, some gazing out the window, keeping watch in case the peacekeepers returned. Lina and Torby had not come back from wherever they’d gone. Somewhere in the main house, she thought. She wouldn’t search its rooms for Teddy until Lina and Torby returned, because she didn’t want Lina to think she was hunting for them out of curiosity about whatever Torby had found.

  Teddy might have gone outside. She couldn’t spend much more time hunting him. She was needed in the kitchen. She’d take a quick look out the back door, but if she didn’t spot him and he didn’t come when she called, she’d have to abandon her search and wait to talk to him when he returned from wherever he’d gone.