I told Clair all the stuff I’d been thinking. Then finished, “Am I dumb to even think about who’s the center of us girls? Is that being like PJ? I mean, I bet he thinks everybody respects him. But they don’t.”
“I think we all hope that what people say about us is the same as what they say to us.”
“True.”
“I don’t know ... I think you’re the center, but sometimes all the girls are centers. Irene is the center when we do plays.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“And Sherry is the center when we have a feast. She loves that so much.”
“You’re right!”
“And Diana is the center when she’s showing us woodcraft or lock picking. Well, everybody gets to be the center. Isn’t that best? Rather than one person all the time?”
“Yes, it sure is,” I said. “Now I feel as stupid as Rel.”
Her face changed. Not quite a frown, but a closed look.
“What?” Then I remembered Irene’s crack about Rel, and I said, “You weren’t there.”
“No ...”
I sighed. “Go ahead. I know I’m being mean.”
“And you’re making it a habit. Is he really that evil?”
“Well not evil. Not like Shnit, though he was on his side! So, well, yeah. Isn’t that evil?”
Clair picked a dead leaf from one of the flowering vines climbing a trellis. “Was he? Did he really say he was on Shnit’s side?”
“No.” I got madder. “They thought I was the evil one! They believed all Kwenz’s lies! I just hate that—I hate them thinking I was a big liar and some brat full of bragging about being a princess and all, when Kwenz is this wise guardian. Ugh! Argh! Ick!”
I stomped away, then went below to run around in the rain and cool off. I found the girls ready for a patrol. Now we were watching the area straight to the west, where Jilo and his pals had been centered.
“I wish I knew what they wanted,” Diana growled. “I followed them around a lot. They weren’t just looking for the Junky, they were spying around.”
“Could you understand them?” Irene asked.
Diana shook her head. “Sounded like gabble to my ears.”
“I wish they’d go away,” Sherry said, fists tight against her chest.
“Well, we’ll make things nasty for ’em if they do anything,” I promised.
We didn’t find any of them that day. The next, a few of the girls decided to go help Lina. All the kids she had there had scattered, after the Chwahir first attacked and tried to grab a bunch of them to put them to work as slubs. After the girls helped Lina, they’d go across and spy on the Auknuges, like Irene originally proposed.
I prowled around the forest, which was still dripping after the long rainstorm, and then I left my bad mood (or tried to) and zapped up to the highest tower. There, I mentally poked at my talk with Clair, wondering why it made me so mad. I finally figured that it was that business about Raneseh and Pralineh and Rel all thinking I was a lying brat. And then I remembered my promise to Pralineh: to come back when it was all over.
This was the second thing.
I knew I had to go back.
Well, maybe it was time to try the long distance transfer spell on my own.
But ... I remembered the way I’d left, and the turmoil started all over again. Suddenly I wondered if Rel went around saying As bratty as that terrible snot we had here who pretended she was a princess the way I said crummy things about him.
So I thought, well, why not go back in disguise?
Relieved by this chicken-out idea, I went down and told Clair. She agreed that I ought to go. Together we figured out what time it might be in Tser Mearsies (and I thought once again, we need to get big maps). I borrowed one of Irene’s stage outfits—a wig with short curly hair, and a plain, sturdy outfit that would not gain notice in Tser Mearsies.
Early the next morning I got ready. I envisioned that stone wall where I jumped over into the road when I first escaped. I could so clearly see that stone, it was better than any Destination tile pattern. Then I gathered my strength, carefully did the spell ... and it worked!
When the dizziness faded, I found myself crouched right where I’d been when I left that day. It was evening, cold and windy. It felt so weird to be there again—unreal.
A promise is a promise, I thought, and walked around to open the little gate. The trees looked the same in the moonlight, and as I passed places I remembered, it was good to think that Clair was at home and everything was all right, because an echo of all my worries scrambled back to smack me in the spirit like a six week old fish.
So this is another type of adventure, I told myself as I walked up to the servants’ part of the house. My mind almost believed it, but my heart clattered at top speed.
I rapped on the door, and a servant I recognized peered out. She looked surprised, but only to see someone there—she didn’t recognize me as I said, “I’m traveling. May I have lodging for the night?” I pointed toward the north. “Rain is coming.”
“Come into the kitchen, where it is warm, while I ask the Holder.”
She led me past all the laundry and storage rooms toward the kitchen. I smelled the remains of their dinner, and my stomach woke up. At home it was early morning still, and I’d been too weirded out by this mess to eat.
Inside the kitchen, I had a second to see that everything was the same, and to feel the warmth from the oven, and then I saw Rel.
He was sitting at the big preparation table, where the servants ate after the family had been served. Rel looked up at us, then back at his dinner. He looked bigger, somehow, than I’d remembered. Like he was looming at me.
I got mad all over again.
Maraneh, the servant, appeared. “Sit down, child, and I’ll dish you something up. The Holder says you are welcome.”
“Thank you.” I made my voice low. It sounded fake—and the wig made my scalp itch. I thought disguises were supposed to be fun!
Not when a baggie is looming at you, I thought, turning my back on Rel.
Maraneh brought me some savory-smelling pepper soup and a chunk of bread, then nodded at the butter dish. “Sit at the table,” she said, when I looked around the kitchen for somewhere besides that table.
Sooooo I sat down, lowered my head, and dug in. The food was good, and it gave me something to do so I wouldn’t look at Mount Loom over there.
I felt eyes crawling all over me—ominous as a vulture on a branch, as an avalanche about to fall. I finally snuck a peek ... to discover he was just getting up.
He left, without a word or even a sign that another person was in the room. And that’s reason #57 why I hate you, I thought, and imagined how much expression old stone-face would show if I whistled up my Shoe and gave him a good launch.
Maraneh came in when I was done. “The Holder will interview you now.”
“Thanks for the dinner,” I said, biting back an okay. People here didn’t say ‘okay.’
Now it got really weird, that walk along the glass walls with the painted motifs under the ceiling, all the way to the Raneseh’s lair.
Raneseh was there, and everything was the same, right down to the tiny chip on the very end of his desk that I hadn’t remembered until I saw it again. He was obviously in the middle of writing letters, but looked up patiently, and, well, there we all were.
I say ‘we’ because Lord Talks-a-Lot was right there in his old place behind Raneseh’s chair. Looming.
Raneseh greeted me politely, said that they didn’t often have visitors, and where was I from?
“Long way away.” I waved a hand. “I’m kind of on a tour.”
“Stay as long as you like.”
I thanked him and skedaddled.
When I got to the hallway on my way back to the kitchen, I spotted Pralineh, who’d come out of her parlor to see what was going on. When she saw someone her own age, her face brightened. “Would you like to join me?” she asked.
My instinct was to hide, but I
was supposed to be here to keep my promise. So I agreed, and followed her into the sitting room, remembering too clearly that the last time I was here I was faking away at being a friend while figuring out how to steal stuff from her.
“Where are you from? Where-to do you go?” She picked up her embroidery with a sigh. “We have so few visitors.”
“Really? This is a very fine house.”
“It is comfortable, but we are not active in society as some families. Most of my father’s visitors are grown men, and dull. My visitors are always my neighbors.”
“Most of?”
“Yes. Once ...” She looked aside. “My father had a, a guest. Your age. Here for a time.”
“Oh,” I said, and now I really felt uncomfortable. The wig itched, my innards roiled around so I wished I hadn’t taken aboard that dinner-for-breakfast, and I cursed myself for being a bathead and a clotpole. And even so, I still wanted her to talk about me.
But Pralineh just tipped her head, her brow puckered, and she obviously decided against whatever it was she was thinking. “You must see many people from different places on your travels.”
“Oh, that I do,” I said.
She smiled. “What can you tell me?”
I told her about what had happened to me after I left here—only backward, as if the earliest things had just happened, right down to the rope walk. She looked vaguely surprised at that, and I wondered if they hadn’t had a rope walk lately, but she didn’t say anything.
I left out names—no Puddlenose, Captain Heraford, and no Chwahir. After that, we talked a little about her sewing, and then it was time for bed.
I ducked past her maid and bucketed back to the kitchen, where I assured Maraneh (who came looking for me) that I’d be perfectly happy with a blanket in front of the oven, I didn’t care how early they got up to put the bread in.
I couldn’t sleep, of course.
So I let myself out, and ghost footed to the garden, making sure I was not in view of any of the windows. Though I did peek, and everyone had pulled their drapes.
So I climbed up the highest tree and sat there as clouds slowly piled up, blotting out the stars, and just thought. A little of my old feelings stirred up inside, bringing images of home, of Arthla, of the harbor from the high point. I wasn’t homesick, of course, so there was none of that sharp, hurtful worry about Clair and the girls that had goaded me so horribly before.
I felt restless, and I knew it had to do with this dumb disguise, and with the fact that I was here, but I not only hadn’t heard anything about myself, I’d lied to these people more than I had before. I had no excuse. Clair was not in danger, and Kwenz had been defeated. I’d taken a bunch of steps backward, somehow.
Pralineh had obviously thought something about me. She’d been glad to have a visitor—any visitor. Maybe she didn’t care if I ever came back.
Well, I had kept my promise, sort of, in a kind of cowardly way. But it wasn’t enough. So that meant I’d stay the night, and not slink away.
o0o
I woke up wrapped in my blanket cocoon as rain tapped at the windows.
“Hey, you.”
I woke to a familiar voice. Rel!
I’d forgotten that he got up with the servants.
I uncovered an eye, to find him upside down, looming right over me. Air reached my face—and my scalp.
The wig had come off in the night.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I wasn’t sure that was you until you came back to the study.”
I scrambled out of the blanket, shoved the wig into my pocket, and glowered at him.
“This way,” he said abruptly. “The kitchen staff needs the room.”
I was poised to run, then remembered I had my magic—and this was what I had come for. So I stiffened my spine and stalked after him, only my bare feet made no noise on the stone floor.
We went to the storage room where they kept the rag bin. “What are you doing here?” he asked again. His tone wasn’t threatening, but it wasn’t friendly, either. It was just ... Rel.
“Sleeping.” It was weak for a crack, but I’d just woken.
He made what would almost be a semblance of a possibility of what could by a stretch of imagination be called the beginnings of a smile. “You know what gave you away?”
“When I saw your ugly mug I was so ready to barf you remembered me,” I said sweetly. I was waking up fast—nothing like a good, brisk hate to get the brains boiling.
He looked faintly disgusted, and my face heated up—I was being a brat and a clod, I knew it.
“Those blue eyes,” he said. “You’re still angry at me. You don’t understand why we didn’t trust you.”
“It’s you,” I fumed. “Looming at a person, just like a baggie.”
He snorted. “Just because I had to waste my time trying to keep you put for what we thought was your own safety—”
“And you just love doing Raneseh’s dirty work,” I said snidely.
“Dirty work,” he repeated, and for a second I thought he was going to laugh. But nope, he just stood there and Relled at me. “I assure you, we meant the best before we found out.”
“Found out?” I repeated. “Found out what?”
“That the discrepancies between what you told us and the Guardian’s words weighed in your favor. But it took time to discover. You’d left by the time Raneseh’s message could reach his contact, and be answered.”
“You mean, you didn’t write to Kwenz?”
“What would be the point? It was against him that you leveled your accusation. We wanted to set up a meeting, with Raneseh’s contact to mediate.”
I sighed with relief. “And so now you want to know why I’m back.”
“I figured it wouldn’t be to visit. I knew it when you wore that odd disguise, yet when you turned my way, there was that familiar glare.”
I laughed. Kinda painfully.
“So you still hold my actions against me.”
He didn’t look mad, just ... Rel.
“Gnarg,” I cracked. “Who wouldn’t, after taking a look at your glowering glare?”
“My glare?” He looked surprised.
“All the time,” I said, and then, I made a huge effort and swallowed down my nasties, and said, “Well, it looks like a glare. You look like you’re going to take a bite out of somebody. Can’t you smile like a normal person? Afraid it will crack?”
He made a sudden, fake smile with about a million teeth.
“Eugh, that’s disgusting,” I grinched, knowing now that he was laughing, he just didn’t make any noise.
“I was born the way I am,” he said, going back to normal.
I stared at him. Not at the Rel expression, but I squinted, trying to see the person. “You were born with those features,” I said. “But I think it took a billion years of practice to get that look—”
It was then that a whole lot of stuff tentacled into place. If tentacles can actually do that. I was looking at his dark eyes, and I realized the difference between the way they looked at me—at people—and the way he’d looked when up at the wilderness. That lift of the face, the gaze that Puddlenose turned on windows the day before he’d take off.
“You’re no happier than I was here,” I said, almost falling over, the discovery made me so dizzy. “You shoulda left centuries ago.”
“I’m not that old,” he said, but it was automatic. What his tone said was, Whaaaa?
“The Wander. What we in MH call Andrea’s Call. Why you dress like that, when you could be like all the ladies and gentlemen. Why you like the wilderness. We had someone in Mearsies Heili named Andrea, she wouldn’t do what her family wanted for the good of their fortune, and they killed her for it. It’s said her spirit roams the forestland. But Raneseh wouldn’t bump you off, he’s too nice. You stay because of, of, of duty. Don’t you?”
He looked away, and toward the window, and those purple mountains to the north. He didn’t grin, but his face relaxed. Just
a little.
“I’ll bet my Boot you’ve wanted to go wandering.”
“Yes,” he said finally. “But there is no purpose in it. I’ve purpose here, as aide to Raneseh.”
“Have you told him?” I asked, my toes curling on the stone floor. It seemed impossible to be having this talk—but here we were.
“Part of doing one’s duty is not to oblige others,” he began.
“But if you’ve got the Call ... like Puddlenose. And Autumn, of Bermund. And that man in the song you like. I bet Raneseh would understand.”
Rel seemed divided, so it was time for Princess Nosy Parker to butt in.
“C’mon, let’s go beard the ol’ g—uh, go talk to him. Your duty isn’t anything he can’t do, he just doesn’t like to. But he could afford to pay some kid who likes that stuff. C’mon.”
And to my amazement, he went.
When Raneseh saw who I was, he was surprised, but I don’t know about pleased. Pralineh, however, did not hide her pleasure. They were having breakfast. She got up, exclaiming over my abrupt departure.
“Sorry,” I said. “I had stuff to do at home.”
There were a few comments and questions no one answered, I promised Pralineh I’d come to her room, and then she (after a look between Rel and me) got up and left.
“Why are you here?” Raneseh said, looking from me to Rel.
“I’m here because I promised to come back,” I said. “I couldn’t bear having a Mearsiean fooled by a blastnasty Chwahir. I went home and we did what we had to do. I almost got my—” I touched the back of my neck, then shrugged. “Here’s what I can do. I’ve been learning long distance transfer magic. If you’ll trust me, I can take you to see my home. And we’ll leave a marker here for me to send you back.”
Raneseh seemed about to say no, then hesitated. Then he said, “Perhaps we should leave Pralineh behind.”
“Why?” I didn’t wait for any gibble-gabble about activities for young ladies. If she didn’t want to go, that was fine, but she should have her chance.
To my surprise, she said yes.
Well, it worked. I made it safely to the Destination in the White Palace.
It was just sunset, so the first view they got was the back terrace, and the spectacular sunset over the forest below.
Mearsies Heili Bounces Back Page 29