Facing the Gray

by Carol Beth Anderson

  “What about Camalyn?” Jenevy asked.

  “She wasn’t there very often,” Reba said. “She lives close to the council building, and I don’t think she wants to make people suspicious by visiting one particular house all the time.”

  There was silence for a moment while everyone mulled over Reba’s information. “Do you think Aldin or Sella would want a break?” Narre finally asked. “If they’d hire Jenevy to cook or clean, she could spend a lot of time there.”

  Reba shrugged. “We could try, but like I said, it’s a boring place to live. I think they like having something to occupy their time.”

  “There must be another way of getting you in, Jen,” Tullen said. “Maybe you could walk around peddling spices or something.”

  “If she sold them spices, they wouldn’t invite her in,” Tavi said. “Is there something she can sell that she’d have to demonstrate inside?”

  “I could drag sofas from door to door,” Jenevy said with a grin, receiving a few laughs in return.

  “They never answer the door, unless they’re expecting a visitor,” Reba said. “They have food, milk, and ice delivered, but always by the same people.”

  There was another pause, and then Jenevy leaned toward Reba with an excited smile. “Do Wrey or Sella have any issues with their cycles?” she asked.

  The room was silent. Tavi saw Reba’s expression of confusion and discomfort and wanted to laugh. Leave it to a Meadow Dweller to bring up the cycles of the female Grays.

  “Cycles?” Reba finally asked.

  “Their mother cycles,” Jenevy said. “Do either of them bleed too heavily or have bad monthly pains or irregularities? Anything like that?”

  When Reba didn’t answer, Jenevy looked around the room. Tavi followed her gaze. Pala and Tullen appeared comfortable with the conversation, but Sall, Narre, and Reba didn’t.

  “Oh, dear,” Jenevy said, “I always forget about the silly taboos outside of the Meadow. You do all realize that almost every female you meet has a mother cycle, will have one, or used to have one—right? And, Reba, you’re becoming a healer! You’ve got to learn to talk about these things!”

  Reba folded her arms and squinted at Jenevy. “Why are we talking about this? What do their cycles have to do with you getting into the house?”

  “Trust me on this,” Jenevy said. “You lived with them for a long time. Surely you noticed some things.”

  “Well . . .” Reba leaned toward Jenevy. She whispered, but every word was audible in the awkward quiet of the room. “Sella gets sick every month and has to spend a whole day in bed. I think it must be very painful.”

  “Great!” Jenevy rewarded Reba with a wide smile. “Anything else?”

  Reba’s cheeks were pink, but despite her obvious discomfort, she murmured, “Wrey has had a couple of terrible cycles. She—well, two sets of sheets were ruined one month. She was so embarrassed.”

  “Say no more.” Every curl on Jenevy’s head bounced with excitement as she smiled at Reba, then turned to Pala. “I have a marvelous idea, Pala. It will require some planning, but it just might get me into the Gray House.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I remember the first time a patient came to me with bruises on her body that had clearly been made by someone who knew her intimately. I had to leave the room to cry. When I returned, I spoke to her about it, expecting her to break down, thinking she’d be relieved to have found someone who wanted to help her. Instead, without a word, she dressed and left the midwife house with her husband, who was waiting for her in the sitting room. I tried to report the abuse to the authorities, but I found the woman had given me a false name.

  I passed her on the street a year later. She was walking beside her husband. I cried again.

  -From Midwife Memoirs by Ellea Kariana

  “I want you to hit me.”

  Evitt coughed out a laugh and gaped at Tavi, who had just joined him on the bench on the back porch. “You want me to what?”

  “Hit me. Not right now, in a minute. When my magic is active.”

  “Why would I hit you?”

  “For practicum, I’m supposed to practice my new shielding skill. They told me I could come down here and get your help. I’ll activate all my magic, and you’ll hit me. Well, you’ll hit my magic, and your fist will bounce right off. I hope.”

  “When you said you needed my help, I didn’t expect this. I figured you’d want me to do something easy, like break into the Gray House.”

  “That’s easy?”

  “Well, no, but compared to hitting you . . .” Evitt shrugged and smiled.

  “I wish you could get into their headquarters,” Tavi said. “I wish I could too. But Pala, Jenevy, and Reba are working on that. So we’re back to my original request. Hit me. Please?”

  Evitt let out a long breath. “I suppose I can help you. Better get your armor on.”

  Tavi took a deep breath of the cold, dry winter air and focused on her desire to sit in front of a blazing fire, soaking up its warmth. Magic flowed into her, spreading into her fingers and eyelashes and earlobes. She laughed in delight, then turned to Evitt. “All right, hit me.”

  Evitt opened and closed his hand deliberately, then gave Tavi a rueful smile. “I don’t want to.”

  “That’s very nice and completely unhelpful,” Tavi said. “Come on, just hit me where it won’t hurt me too much if my shield doesn’t work. Don’t cave in my skull or anything.”

  Evitt stretched his hand open and aimed his slap at her upper arm. His hand went right through the glow of her magic and made contact.

  “That was barely a tap,” Tavi said. “It didn’t even hurt.”

  “Well, it’s good I didn’t hit you harder! Your magic didn’t stop me.”

  “My magic doesn’t prevent me from being touched. It stopped a speeding iron pellet from crashing into me. From what Konner said, it was going so fast, it could have killed me. I don’t know how this shield thing works, but I’m guessing it has something to do with the level of danger I’m in.” She held her arms wide. “So give me all you’ve got!”

  Evitt’s second hit was with his fist instead of his palm, and he compensated for the choice of weapon by hitting her even more lightly. Tavi responded with a frustrated laugh.

  “I don’t think this is going to work,” Evitt said. “Can’t you ask someone who dislikes you to hit you?”

  “You’re saying you like me?” Tavi teased.

  “Well, I thought that was obvious.”

  Tavi flinched. Evitt was peering at her, his lips lifted in a small smile. Letting out a nervous laugh, Tavi stood. “I think we need to try something different. Have you ever had any fighting training?”

  That seemed to break the spell. “My friends and I used to pretend we were boxers,” Evitt said.

  “Perfect. I’ve been learning to box too. Let’s spar for a few minutes. I bet once you’re in fighting mode, you’ll be able to dig up whatever violence is buried deep inside your soul.”

  That made Evitt laugh, and he stood to face Tavi. They stepped into the yard and began to spar.

  Tavi was better than him; that much was clear. Her fists were faster, and her dodges more consistent. She kept her hits to his body and arms, and she got in quite a few. To her relief, her magic didn’t shield her ability to hit him.

  Evitt finally made contact, but it was just the edge of his thumb grazing against her shoulder, and her magic did nothing to stop it. “Keep going,” Tavi said. “You can do better than that.”

  She hit him several more times, including a blow to his gut that was harder than she’d intended and made him double over. But he recovered quickly, and they continued to spar.

  At last, Evitt found an opening. As Tavi defended her right side from what turned out to be a feint, Evitt’s right fist flew toward her left ribs, and she heard a dull thud.

  Tavi halted. “Did it work?” she asked. She’d felt nothing at all. Then she realized Evitt was standing with wide eyes,
grasping his right knuckles with his left hand. “What happened?” she asked.

  Evitt let go of his right hand and held it up. His knuckles were bloody and raw.

  Tavi gasped. “It looks like you punched a tree!”

  “That’s what it felt like,” he said, wincing, “if the bark was made of iron.”

  “Ouch!” Tavi said. “Can you give me your hand?”

  Evitt held out the injured hand, and Tavi took it and held it. She closed her eyes to prepare herself. Blood. She hated blood. She directed all her magic into her hands and reopened her eyes, looking at Evitt’s face instead of his injury. “I’m going to heal you,” she said.

  Evitt nodded. Tavi peered down at his knuckles, which looked even worse up close. Holding his right hand in her left, she placed the fingers of her right hand on his injury. Her mind cried, Blood, disgusting blood, but her touch gift sent additional messages: This cut is shallow; the edges will knit together easily. This one is deeper and includes a flap of skin that needs to be repaired in two places. And so on, all the information hitting her in a matter of seconds.

  Tavi closed her eyes again, but this time, she didn’t desire a warm fire. The fight had created enough warmth. She found she enjoyed holding Evitt’s hand. The uninjured part, anyway. It triggered a desire in her to be held by someone. Tavi didn’t want to focus on that desire, but she also didn’t want to touch bloody skin for longer than necessary, so she gave in, picturing herself being held by warm arms. She made a point not to allow herself to imagine whose face was above those arms. Healing magic, hot and strong, filled her hands.

  The healing took a little longer than Tavi would’ve expected; her magical shield had torn up Evitt’s hand. But the skin and tiny blood vessels obeyed her, reconnecting in the way she asked them to.

  When she finished, Tavi slid her hands off Evitt’s. She used a handkerchief to wipe the blood off her fingers. Evitt looked at his knuckles in wonder, stretching his fingers, then making a fist. His eyes moved to Tavi’s. “I knew you could heal,” he said, “but knowing is one thing. Seeing is another. That was incredible.” He reached both his hands out. “Can I see your hands?”

  Tavi placed her hands in his, and he gently turned them over, looking at her palms. “There’s so much power here.” He gave her glowing hands a squeeze. “Soft skin, too.”

  “And your skin feels like . . . well, like you work with rosebushes and spades all day.” Tavi returned his smile and ran her fingers along his callouses.

  Evitt said nothing. He kept watching her, giving her a smile she couldn’t decipher. Suddenly unsure of herself, she pulled her hands away and released her magic. With a nervous laugh, she said, “Let’s sit again. I think that’s enough practice with my shield.”

  “I’d say it works just fine.”

  They went back to the bench.

  “I’m surprised your magic caused me harm,” Evitt said, once they’d settled.

  Tavi thought about that. “I suppose it was for the greater good. All you got out of it were a few bloody knuckles. You had the potential of harming me a lot worse than that.”

  “So you think this new gift is immune to resistance?”

  “I don’t think any gifts are immune to resistance. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it though. I’ve stopped trying to figure out when my gifts will work and why they sometimes don’t.” That wasn’t quite true. Tavi still prayed and mulled over why her magic had failed her when she’d needed it most. But she was trying to stop thinking about it.

  It was quiet for a minute or two, and then they both spoke at the same time.

  “Do you ever—”

  “Sometimes I feel—”

  They halted, laughing. “Go ahead,” Evitt said.

  “Sometimes I feel jealous of the Grays,” Tavi said. “I can’t imagine how wonderful it must be to trust your magic. To know it’ll be there when you need it.”

  Evitt looked at her thoughtfully and nodded. “Can you imagine if Konner Burrell had never met Ash?”

  Tavi shrugged. “Konner would’ve just found someone else to convert to gray magic.”

  Evitt shook his head. “But that’s not how it happened. Ash already had gray magic when he met Konner. If they’d never met, Ash wouldn’t have gotten caught up in Konner’s schemes. Maybe the Grays would still exist, but they’d be working for good instead of following a mad banker.”

  “I always assumed Konner figured out how gray magic worked, then recruited Ash.”

  “No, I heard them talking about it in Konner’s study, the same day I heard them discussing the council. Konner said something like, ‘If you’d never met me, you’d still be wandering around the city using gray magic to steal. You would’ve gotten caught and locked away for life. It might have been centuries before anyone else discovered gray magic.’ ”

  Tavi sat back, lost in thought. At last, she said quietly, “You said once not all killing is wrong.”

  “I did say that.”

  “I’m not sure I believe it.”

  Evitt didn’t answer immediately. When he spoke at last, Tavi turned toward him, but he kept his gaze on the yard. “After Relin the Fierce won the war and saved Cormina, he began his long trip home,” Evitt said. “He and his men celebrated the whole way, dropping off soldiers in their hometowns. By the time they reached Relin’s town, there were just a dozen men left. They sang songs of victory as they went from house to house, returning men to their wives and children.

  “Finally, Relin was the only one left. He walked up to his house. It was small; you’d never think it belonged to a national hero. He opened the door.

  “Inside, a man waited. Relin had grown up with this man. He’d bullied Relin when they were boys, and now he stood in Relin’s home holding a hammer in one hand and a knife in the other. Behind him were Relin’s wife and their four children. Relin looked at every person of his family, and all he saw was fear.

  “His wife said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t have money for bread. He came, and he said if I would be his wife, he would care for us.’

  “ ‘Did he care for you?’ Relin asked.

  “ ‘Yes,’ his wife said. But Relin knew his wife well, and he heard the truth behind her words. The man had brought bread to their house, but he’d also brought fear. Just then, Relin’s wife stepped forward, and the light from a candle fell on her face. Relin saw the bruises there.

  “Relin had killed many people during the war. He’d laid down his sword once the war was over, promising never to kill again. But when he saw his wife’s battered face, he broke that promise. With his bare hands, he killed the man who’d hurt his wife.” Evitt turned to face Tavi. “He reclaimed his family, and he healed them through love.”

  “Is that story true?” Tavi whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Evitt said. “I read it in a book that claims it was translated from accounts written during Relin’s lifetime. But does it really matter if it’s true? Whether or not Relin killed that man, the point is the same.”

  “You believe it was justified,” Tavi said.

  Evitt held her gaze. “Yes.”

  Tavi stood. “Thank you for helping me practice.” She walked to the door and turned around. “And thank you for the story.”

  Chapter Thirty

  RELIN: I don’t remember the first man I killed.

  SARTIA: I don’t believe you.

  -From Relin: A Play in Three Acts by Hestina Arlo

  Tavi stormed into her bedroom, slamming the door closed behind her. She began unbuttoning her dress, but her fingers were trembling and didn’t want to work right.

  “Tavi, what’s wrong?” Narre asked.

  “Why do you think something’s wrong?”

  Narre closed the book she’d been reading by lantern light and turned in her desk chair. “Well, I hope there aren’t any new mothers resting downstairs, because you just shook the whole house with your stomping. And now you’ve been working on getting that one button undone for a full minu
te.”

  The button slipped out of its hole. “Got it!” Tavi said. Fingers still shaking, she grasped the next button.

  “What’s wrong?” Narre asked again.

  Tavi gave up on unbuttoning her dress and dragged a chair away from the desk next to Narre’s. She sat down hard and said, “Reba is still taking a bath.”

  “What do you mean, ‘still’?”

  “She’s been in there at least half an hour! She doesn’t care that someone else might want to take a bath tonight and she’s keeping them from it! I don’t know why that should surprise me, but . . .” Needing to do something with her hands, she grasped the second button again. Her fingers weren’t trembling anymore, and the task proved doable. Snapping buttons out of their holes was oddly satisfying.

  “She hasn’t even been in there a quarter hour,” Narre said.

  “That can’t possibly be true.”

  Narre pointed to the clock. “It was half past when she went in.”

  Tavi glanced at the clock’s traitorous hands, which indicated it was not quite a quarter to ten. “I doubt she’ll be out earlier than ten. I need to use the restroom so I can get some sleep. I have to work on Pala and Jenevy’s project tomorrow morning.” Tavi pulled the dress over her head, stood, and walked to her chest of drawers to get flannel pajamas.

  “We all have to work on the project, so we’re all in the same boat.” Narre’s voice and words were infuriatingly calm and logical. “There are two other bathrooms you could use. And Reba didn’t get a bath last night. It’s only fair she gets to take one tonight. She let me go first.”

  “How kind of her.” Tavi pulled on her pajama top. “I’m sure she wants a favor from you.” Her pajama pants came next, and Tavi yanked them over her chilled legs. She retrieved woolen socks from a drawer and stood on one leg to put on the left sock. Then she looked up and saw Narre standing not two feet away. Tavi stumbled in shock, nearly falling. “I didn’t hear you walk over here!”