The Winter Boy

by Sally Wiener Grotta

  “Well…” He hesitated.

  “Shall we sit while you explain?”

  They sat in the greeting room, the place of formal meetings, while the boy told the Allesha what had happened. Not everything, and certainly with details missing or skewed, but enough that she knew the taste of his fear, the shape of his confusion.

  Chapter 37

  When the young Allesha returned home from the library, she found a note from Le’a/Dara under her gatepost lantern.

  “Kiv came to my house with your Winter Boy. She found him near the Communal Hall. He awaits your judgment. If you wish to have us come to you, please light your signal candle. Otherwise, we’ll wait here for you. D.”

  Kiv! What was she doing with Dov? Why was he near the Communal Hall? And why now, just when Savah warned me to keep Kiv away from my Winter Boy?

  Whatever happened, Dara expected her to make a judgment over him. Better that it should be here, in her home, where she felt centered. Rishana lit the candle, then went into her bedroom.

  Looking through the clothes in her closet, she considered the persona she should don. Stern, almost but not quite unapproachable, would be good for this scene. Surprise the boy with an Allesha he doesn’t yet know.

  When Dov and Le’a arrived, the young Allesha was seated in a tall, straight-backed chair in the greeting room. She did not rise when they entered. Nor did she speak, smile, nod or otherwise acknowledge them. Still, the boy felt her eyes on him. Le’a took another straight-backed chair, so he sat, too, pulling a small cushioned stool from the wall to join them.

  Where had those two chairs come from? he wondered. All of Tayar’s greeting room furniture is deeply upholstered.

  The silence roared in his ears. He looked at Tayar, but was that indeed she? This stern woman had almost as many sharp angles as the Allesha who had found him. The black dress she wore sheathed her body from her neck to her wrists, down to her ankles. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun at her neck, with not one wisp escaping. She sat bolt upright, neither allowing nor ignoring his questioning search of her body and face.

  Le’a gestured to the boy, indicating it was time for him to speak.

  “They say you will judge me,” he said.

  Tayar inclined her head, not so much nodding as recognizing that he spoke.

  “Then judge and be done with it! You never really wanted me here anyway, so here’s a good excuse for you to be rid of me.”

  “I’ve yet to be told what it is I am to judge.” Her voice was low, each word fully formed before the next was uttered.

  “Whether I’m going to be thrown out of here today.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, that old Allesha who found me said this could be the end of my Season, because I saw that building that I wasn’t supposed to see until the end.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “I see that you were somewhere you weren’t supposed to be. How did that happen?”

  He looked to Le’a, but she was nearly as blank as Tayar.

  These women aren’t going to make it easy. I should just get up and walk out of this house and away from this Valley. But what if there’s still hope?

  He leaned back, resigned that his only chance would be to tell the truth. “I went to Le’a’s, but she wasn’t home. The outer door was open, so I went in, like you told me I should, but she wasn’t there. I got edgy just sitting there, not knowing what was going on. I guess it was another test that I failed, because I couldn’t just sit there like that, doing nothing, waiting, so I walked out.”

  The boy paused briefly and glanced at the black-sheathed Allesha. He thought he saw a flicker of Tayar in her eyes, but it was quickly replaced by an aloof stare. Taking a deep breath to steel himself against the emptiness, he threw his words at her like a battering ram.

  “I started walking, and I didn’t watch where I was going. Stupid, huh? And when I realized that I didn’t know my way back here, I got… well, okay, you want the full truth, I got scared. I remembered what Le’a had said about not breaking any rules, because I could never know when you’d get so angry that you’d never listen to me again. But you are listening, aren’t you? Well, that’s something. Then that other one found me, near that strange building. Damn it, what do you want me to say?”

  “I believe I now understand what happened,” the younger Allesha said in a flat, monotone. “Tell me, how do you think I can judge you?”

  “Isn’t that your job?”

  “Yes. But I must gauge not only what happened, but whether it has damaged your Season.”

  He knew he should have a smart response, something that, once said, would fix everything. “I don’t know what to say, except, I’m sorry. But I don’t understand any of this. Does everything have to change just because I went for a walk?”

  “Was that all it was, a walk? When you put it in those terms, it does seem silly, doesn’t it?”

  Was that the beginning of a softening in her eyes, a crinkle of life? “Yeah, it does,” he said.

  “But it wasn’t only a walk, was it? You were angry.”

  “Sure, I was angry. Wouldn’t you have been?”

  “No.”

  “Well, no, I guess you wouldn’t have been. But then, you’re the one in control here, aren’t you? You’ve no reason to get angry; you hold all the arrows in your quiver. I have nothing.”

  “Nothing? You had an Allesha and a mentor, two women who were devoted to you and your needs. All we asked was patience and respect. What we received was anger and disrespect.”

  “No! Tayar, please don’t believe that. I may think all kinds of things about you, about this Valley, but, damn it, it has nothing to do with disrespect. I know I’m not what you expected or wanted, but don’t think I don’t respect you.”

  “You’re unconcerned with how your actions will affect others, and consider only your own comfort and satisfaction.”

  “Hey, wait.”

  “No, you wait, boy. You need to think over what I have said. If you can learn from this experience, then there may be hope for your Season.”

  “But—”

  “Did you not hear me? I suggest that you say nothing. Go into your room. Or, better yet, go sit in the inner room, and consider all that transpired today. We’ll discuss your situation again in an hour.”

  The two Alleshi stayed as they were for several moments after the boy had slammed his bedroom door behind him. Tayar/Rishana heard the door to the inner room thud also, though the thick walls usually muted any such sounds. Only then did the pose fall from her body and face.

  Le’a/Dara relaxed, too. “You handled that quite well, dear.”

  “Dara, it’s too much. Making such a fuss over what is essentially nothing. We both know how good it is to walk off excess energy. That poor boy is a foaming sea of emotions. Emotions that I have purposely unleashed. Now I have to punish him for reacting to all that he has experienced?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  “You need nothing more from me. You already know what I would say.”

  “Do I, Dara? Tell me, what happened with Kiv?”

  Dara’s mouth contorted as though she had just tasted soured milk. “That woman tried to terrorize the boy. She threatened him and then insisted that he be punished immediately.”

  “Is my Season damaged?”

  Dara stared into the space between them, biting her lower lip pensively. “I don’t think she really learned anything about him.” Her voice was low, hesitant.

  Rishana was taken aback by Dara’s cryptic response. “What?”

  Dara shook her head, as though to clear it, then focused on Rishana. “I mean, Kiv didn’t have enough time with the boy to develop the leverage to unbalance him. But she did instill a heightened fear of the Alleshi in him, of our unpredictable ways.”

  “Then perhaps meeting Kiv will prove useful for him.”

  “Never!”

  “Dara, don’t y
ou think you’re overreacting, allowing your differences with Kiv to cloud your perspective?”

  “You don’t really know her, Rishana. All through her service, Kiv took only soft, easy boys, molding them against their own natures to make them hard, like her. How relieved I was when she decided to retire early. But now she spends most of her time in Council calling for a hardening of Alleshine ways, to prepare for an all-out war against the Mwertik.” Dara, who was usually so steady and self-possessed, was becoming increasingly agitated. “How can she be so blind to our history? It’s people like her who created the Great Chaos of the Before Times, destroying all semblance of civilization.”

  “Still,” Rishana countered. “She has a point about the Mwertik. All they understand is violence. Our ways are based on establishing communications and trade, as a remedy to war. But you can’t initiate trade with those who have no interest in listening, with those who seem to want nothing more than to destroy everything in their path. She’s right; we have been like sheep to the slaughter.”

  “Would you want us to become like the Mwertik, then?” Dara asked, attempting to sound rhetorical, but unable to mask her bitter sarcasm. “Destroy everything our Peace stands for, in order to save the Peace?”

  “Of course not.”

  “No. I’ve seen you with your Winter Boy. You are no more like Kiv than a lioness is like a shark.” She paused to take a single deep breath. “Rishana, if you ever feel seduced by Kiv’s violent ways, think about Dov, and how different he would be if he were trained by someone like Kiv.”

  “Yes, I have considered it.”

  “Oh? And what have you decided?”

  “That I prefer Jared and Mistral over Kiv Allemen like Gerard or Tevan. Still, if Jared had been more fierce, like a Kiv Alleman, would he be alive today?”

  “Would he have been the Jared you loved and believed in, if he had been trained by Kiv?”

  “No.”

  Dara leaned back into the hardwood chair. “I’m glad you understand.”

  “No, Dara, I don’t understand, not fully. Too much is going on under the surface, beyond my grasp. I wonder if it has been purposely hidden from me.”

  “Rishana, we will deal with your uncertainties later. Right now, your Winter Boy awaits your judgment, which you will have to shape before he decides he’s had enough of stewing alone in the inner room.”

  Rishana knew Dara was deliberately deflecting her questions, but she also realized that Dov was her more immediate concern. The rest could wait. “My judgment! It’s ridiculous to even think I would banish him.”

  “Of course it is. But he’s predisposed to think in terms of extreme consequences for even the smallest of indiscretions, a trait that Kiv heightened with her threats.”

  “So I have to soften the fear without weakening the lesson.” Rishana paused in thought, then added, “And I need to get him back on path somehow.”

  “Oh, he is very much on path. If he hadn’t rebelled about this time, I would have wondered what we were doing wrong. His kind need to rebel… to feel some control over situations that confuse them. They can’t allow anything to be easy for them, or for the people around them. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, of course, Dara. But I’m still stuck here, in this dark persona.” Rishana brushed the cloth of her severe, long dress. “What do I do now? I can’t be completely changed when he comes out of the inner room in an hour.”

  “Correct. But what if he doesn’t come out? What if you go in to him first?”

  “Fully clothed in the inner room? As I am, now?”

  “Definitely.”

  “To tell him of my judgment.”

  “To first let him tell you—”

  The young Allesha nodded. “Yes, that fits.”

  Chapter 38

  Stomping into the inner room, Dov threw all his anger at the door, slamming it behind him. But it gave him no satisfaction. True, it made a nice loud thwack when it crashed into its frame. Then, slowly, almost languidly, it glided on its hinges, gradually widening the beam of light that fell from his bedroom into the dark inner room.

  Everything in the room was too soft, too anchored. He wanted something to throw, to hear the crash of destruction, the force of his power.

  “Damn her!” He punched a wall, but the woven covering was so thick that he hardly felt it.

  “Damn her!” He ran the perimeter, jumping from platform to platform, throwing himself against the opposite wall.

  “Damnher… damnher… damnher!” He leaped down to the stone floor surrounding the pond, wondering what Tayar would do if she found him there hours from now, having misstepped and fallen onto the hard surface. But he landed safely on his feet.

  Wearied and bored, Dov sat on the edge of a nearby platform, lit a candle and carefully surveyed the room to make sure he wasn’t being watched again.

  He didn’t know what to do with himself. Tayar had told him to think. If he could quiet his mind, he would refuse to think, simply to avoid doing what she had commanded. Instead, his thoughts catapulted through the events of the day, of last night, of his entire stay here in this Valley, in this house, in this very room, where she had smelled him last night. Skies, that felt great! Everything she did here in this room felt incredible.

  Well, not everything. Not the way she had lain in wait, watching him from the dark, spying on him, so he could be made a fool.

  He knew what it was about. It’s how they keep us guessing, keep their control over us, with stupid rules that they never state clearly, so you can’t help but break them.

  But that didn’t make sense. Not Tayar, so gentle and generous, soft and yielding.

  Tayar had sent him here to the inner room for a reason. Of that he was certain. Was it anything more than to put him aside so she could talk with Le’a and not be bothered with him?

  “Go and think,” she’d said. Think about what? A walk that broke some stupid, vague rule?

  Damn her. Damn the lot of them. Well, no, not everybody. Not Le’a. And not the Tayar who had played with him there in the pond and tickled him over there on that platform and awakened with him there, and there, and there.

  But what about the woman who wasn’t really Tayar, that formidable, unknowable black-sheathed woman who’d sat so rigidly in that damned straight-backed chair, and was probably preparing at that very moment to send him away?

  The boy wandered the landscape of his confusion and anger. Back and forth his thoughts boomeranged, never landing anywhere.

  After some time, the door to the Allesha’s bedroom opened. The light streaming behind and around her was almost blinding, so that he was unable to see the details of her shadowed face or body. But it was obvious that she still wore that long black dress.

  The dark silhouette of his Allesha glided forward only as far as the platform nearest her door, where she sat. One half of her face caught the candlelight, and he realized that she was looking at him, waiting for him to speak. He said the first words that came to his mouth. “I should have smelled you.”

  “Oh? Why?” she asked.

  “Because you wanted me to.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “You sound disappointed.”

  “No, not disappointed.” She spoke slowly, her tone softer than before. “It’s only that I thought you were about to say something else.”

  “Something you wanted me to say?”

  “Something I thought you would be ready to say.”

  “Is that why you sent me here to the inner room?”

  “I suggested you might want to come to the inner room, because it’s a good place to think. Don’t you agree?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” She looked toward him, though he no longer felt as though she was looking at him, but at something that was far away.

  “Don’t you know that I hate that?” His skin itched with anger and irritation, a buzz of frustration that made him want to run again. “W
hen you say things like that, it makes me feel I’m not the person you were hoping to find.”

  “I am sorry to upset you that way.”

  “That sounds like a real apology.”

  “Of course, it is. I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable, if I gave you any reason to think that I was hoping to find anyone other than you.”

  “Does that mean you want me here?” he asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

  “Ah, I see. You need reassurance.”

  “I just want to know where I stand. Do I pack up and leave, or do I stay?”

  “What did you think about for the past hour?”

  “I don’t know if you really want to hear that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I was angry.”

  “What made you angry?”

  “What do you think? You made me angry.” His voice strained with the effort of not yelling.

  “Tell me.” Did her back seem to be a little less straight? She almost appeared to be settling in, waiting to hear him read another story. When he didn’t say anything further, she closed her eyes.

  Eventually, he filled the quiet with his words. “I know I shouldn’t have stormed away like that. Not from Le’a, especially after you both told me to stay away from strange paths. But, damn it, I can’t just sit and do nothing. And I can’t prattle on to a stone statue with her eyes closed.” His hands balled into tight fists. “Damn it! Look at me!”

  She opened her eyes.

  “Tell me one thing. Can I still call you Tayar?”

  “Of course, that’s the name you gave me,” she said, then retreated into herself once more, looking at nothing, certainly not him.

  He considered matching her silence with silence. But didn’t she just say that she was still his Tayar? It wouldn’t be a good strategy to put up a block right now.

  If she wants to hear me speak, I’ll talk until she can’t stand it anymore, until she calls me Dov once more.

  “So, I was angry. I know I’ve got a bad temper; it just erupts sometimes. Maybe too often. I guess you could help me with that, couldn’t you? I’d like that… to learn how to control it, so it doesn’t keep getting in my way.”