Ever

by Gail Carson Levine

  I doubt this, but I risk smiling at him.

  He drops a plate.

  It plummets. But then, in the instant before it strikes the baked mud street, it hovers in the air and comes down softly, unbroken.

  17

  OLUS

  I AM FURIOUS with myself. I didn’t intend to use my small wind to catch the plate—I did so automatically.

  Kezi is staring openly at me. I shrug and smile apologetically. She doesn’t smile back.

  When she smiled at me before, I felt we were somehow allies. Our alliance is spoiled now, but she doesn’t give me away.

  “Kezi!”

  She turns. I retrieve the fallen plate.

  Aunt Fedo is coming toward her with the fellow who kicked me. “This young man has been begging to be introduced to you.” I see she is proud of herself for bringing him. “He says you are the most beautiful girl here.”

  He puts his fist to his forehead to show his respect. “Anywhere,” he says. The fellow kicks slaves, but he is gallant.

  Kezi bows her head briefly. I think she doesn’t like him either or she would smile.

  “Kezi, daughter of Senat and Merem, meet Elon, nephew of Ibal and Gazu.”

  He is the man she might have married!

  “Are you enjoying the wedding, Kezi?”

  “I’m happy for Belet and Uncle Damki.”

  Aunt Fedo cocks her head. “My rabbit ears hear my name.” She takes two figs from a bowl on the sweets table and gives one to Kezi and one to Elon. “Soon dates and barley,” she says, smiling conspiratorially at each of them. Then she leaves.

  Gallant again, Elon offers his fig to Kezi. She jumps away as if the fig were a scorpion. “I hate figs.” She gives hers to him and wipes her hands against each other.

  He eats the figs quickly, seeming to swallow them whole, as a wolf swallows a sand rat.

  The singer starts to wail again, and the musicians to play.

  “Will you walk with me?” He gestures down the dark avenue, away from the crowd and the torches.

  “No, thank you.”

  “There is nothing wrong in it. Your aunt Fedo said your esteemed pado will speak with me.”

  Her shoulders go up. I think that if she had wings, she would leap into flight. She says nothing.

  “Come, I beg of you. I prayed to Admat that you would come.”

  She nods.

  They walk. It is a black night with no moon, but I can see them. Kezi’s step is graceful. She dances even when she walks.

  He adds, “Thanks to Admat.”

  “As he wishes, so it will be.”

  They fall silent, but there is a little drama in the way they walk. He tries to stay close to her side. She zags away. He zigs near again. They began in the middle of the avenue but swerve toward the wall.

  I have piled dishes long enough. I take the broom again. Making silent sweeping motions an inch above the ground, I follow Kezi and Elon. In a moment I am beyond the dim torchlight. My low wind lifts me so my feet are silent too.

  18

  KEZI

  ELON SAYS, “Your necklace is superb.”

  I dislike even his whispery voice.

  He adds, “It would befit a bride.”

  I laugh. I’m wearing it because I never will be a bride.

  “Did I offend you?” He sounds offended.

  I swallow my laughter. “No. It was nothing. I’m sorry.”

  “I meant my bride. Your mati shouldn’t have let you wear it on a lesser occasion. It should be kept safe.”

  I don’t answer. He stops walking. I turn, wondering why.

  His hands grasp my shoulders. “I would hate to offend you.”

  I try to shrug him off, but his grip is firm. I pull back and feel the wall behind me.

  “If we are almost betrothed, I can kiss you. When I watched you dance . . .” The dark oval of his head comes at me. I can barely make out his parted lips, the faint gleam of his teeth.

  I shout for help, but I’m sure we’re too far away for me to be heard. I cry, “Admat!”

  One of his hands lets go of my shoulder and presses on the back of my head. His teeth clink against mine. His breath smells sour.

  Then his mouth is gone. His hands are gone. A wind blows along the avenue. I wrap my shawl around me to keep it from flying away. Two figures are struggling.

  Elon groans. I hear a thump. The wind dies. One of the figures is at my side, taller than Elon. In the dark I can’t tell if I recognize him. Too late I think of running.

  “Mistress . . .” The voice is hardly louder than a whisper, but it’s deep and it seems to echo. “Pardon me.” He has an accent. His p sounds like a b. Bardon me. I don’t know anyone who speaks with an accent. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No. Thank you for rescuing me.” Who is he? “Thank you.” I am grateful enough to thank him a thousand times.

  “Good. Er . . . good.”

  “Is Elon . . . Will Elon—”

  “Elon is only stunned. He’ll sleep awhile. I’m glad you are fine.”

  “Thank you. How did you know? Did you hear me shout?”

  “Yes, but . . . er . . . I followed you.”

  If he hadn’t just saved me, I might be frightened that he followed us. No. How can I be afraid of someone who sounds afraid of me?

  “Why did you follow us?”

  “I didn’t trust him. He kicked me.”

  My savior is the handsome slave! “You’re the . . . You pile dishes and unpile them.” Maybe Admat did send him.

  He laughs. “I’m not a slave.”

  Why pretend to be one?

  “I’m . . .” He hesitates.

  My guardian?

  “I’m a goatherd.”

  He can’t be!

  “I am Olus, son of Arduk and Hannu.” Foreign names. “I rent grazing land from your pado.”

  Now I am a little frightened. “How do you know who my pado is?”

  “You arrived together. And I heard your aunt say.”

  Ah.

  He adds how generous Pado has been to him, and then I know he is telling the truth. I tell him my name. We start back to the wedding.

  In the distance the musicians are still playing. My slippers shush-shush on the baked mud street. His bare feet pat-pat. My heart does a pat-pat too. Although I can’t see him clearly, I am aware of how glorious he is.

  I wonder why I didn’t hear him following us. Then I remember the plate he dropped, the plate that hung in the air before touching the ground.

  I want to ask him about the plate and his silent feet and why he’s pretending to be a slave and why he came to the wedding. Most of all I want to ask him if he is my guardian. But I’m afraid to. Instead I say, “Where is your pasture?”

  “Close to the northern boundary of your pado’s land. There is a brook.”

  “I know where.” Pado let him have a good spot. “Every autumn we spend two weeks nearby. I love to walk into the hills.”

  “I wish you could see a wedding in Akka, where I come from.”

  I’ve never heard of Akka. “Are your weddings different from ours?”

  “Some parts are identical. There is a marriage contract and eating the bitter and the sweet. But in Akka we have a pantomime. The bride and groom hold hands. Someone—perhaps a friend of the groom—dons a gray tunic. He is Storm. He attempts to tear the couple apart, but they hold fast. Another friend wearing black is War. She tries to separate them, but they hold fast. Someone else may be Gossip. Two mort— Two people may be Children Arguing.”

  I love this. “What does Gossip wear?”

  “Gossip doesn’t have a costume, but Gossip claps together the jawbones of a donkey.”

  “Is there music?”

  “Drums.”

  “Do the bride and groom always hold fast?”

  “They never let go.”

  I wish Olus had kissed me instead of Elon. The most daring thought comes to me. I can’t act on it.

  But Admat sends everything:
my thoughts, my feelings, my death, this goatherd. So perhaps I should. Tomorrow I will have twenty-nine days left.

  “Kezi, I—”

  “Olus, will you erase Elon’s kiss? Will you kiss me?” I hold my breath, waiting.

  His feet stop their pat-pat. Have I shocked him?

  His hand tilts my chin up, so gently.

  I close my eyes and give myself over to his touch. His other hand, gentle too, cups my cheek. He kisses me, a feather kiss. His breath is sweet. He kisses me again, longer. I lean into his chest.

  A wind picks us up, and we rise.

  I am filled with terror.

  19

  OLUS

  SHE SCREAMS, “ADMAT!”

  My high wind blows her scream into the sky. Again I didn’t mean to use my winds. She pushes away from me and starts to fall. I catch her around the waist and bring her down slowly. She runs from me.

  She runs until she reaches the nearest of the feast tables, which is deserted. For several minutes, which pass like months, she lingers there. Then she turns my way. To my amazement, she smiles.

  I rise on my merry wind and smile back, although she cannot see.

  She points her toe, turns her foot to the side, raises her arms, and performs a brief leaping dance. When she’s finished, she joins the dancers again.

  Did she like our kiss?

  20

  KEZI

  AFTER THE WEDDING I sleep into the afternoon. I awaken thinking of Olus.

  Sleep has brought understanding. There is no mention in the holy text of Admat ever sending guardians to people. I am not so extraordinary that he would send one to me.

  Olus must be a masma, a sorcerer—a foreign masma because of his accent and his foreign name. This explains everything: how he kept the plate from breaking, how he followed us without our knowing, how he so easily defeated Elon, how he raised me in the air.

  Masmas are people, like everyone else. Most are believed to be bad, but some are decent, even devout. Olus couldn’t be evil, or Pado would have known. Pado wouldn’t rent his land to an evil person.

  Olus may be able to fly much higher than he lifted me. What marvelous magic!

  I wonder why I caught his interest. Is he thinking of me right now? Or of his goats? Probably his goats!

  I stretch in bed. My legs are sore from so much dancing. I would love to dance while flying. Mmm, mmm. Such a thrill to leap a mile, to touch a cloud.

  These may be sinful thoughts, but I don’t see why.

  I sit up.

  It is as if yesterday were in a corner, waiting to pounce, and now it does. I hadn’t forgotten the oath and the sacrifice, but I hadn’t looked in that corner until now.

  I slump back and roll over, pressing my face into the mattress. My tears seep through the sheet into the wool stuffing. Soon I smell wet sheep. I can’t stop crying.

  Mati comes in and sits next to me. She pulls me against her and rubs my back.

  “Will . . . will . . .”

  “What?”

  “Will . . . will . . . the knife . . . hurt?” The priest’s knife.

  She holds me at arm’s length and touches the tip of my nose the way she used to when I was little. “Admat won’t let it hurt.”

  Maybe he is so angry with me that he wants it to hurt.

  Pado parts the curtain that crosses my doorway. When he sees us crying, he runs in. He kneels at my bedside. The three of us weep, clinging to one another.

  After a while he pulls himself up and sits on the bed, too. The bed groans under the weight of all of us.

  I have no more tears left, so I laugh. “The bed will collapse.”

  “No matter,” Pado says.

  The bed has to last only a few more weeks. Of course, that’s not what he meant.

  Mati says, “Aunt Fedo came while you slept.”

  “We told her,” Pado says. “She’s weeping, too.”

  “She’s here? Where?”

  “In the reception room,” Mati says.

  I don’t want to see her.

  But I do see her. Mati and Pado wait outside my room while I dress in my everyday tunic, which has a green stain at the hem.

  Aunt Fedo is in the copper-inlay chair, head down, looking into her lap. When she hears us, she tries to stand but drops her cane. She bends over to reach for it. Her back shakes with sobs.

  Through her tunic I see the bumps of her spine. Her hair is as much gray as brown. How many more years have I given her?

  We may both die tomorrow, in spite of Pado’s oath. As you wish, so it will be.

  21

  OLUS

  LAST NIGHT, AS I rode my north wind back to my goats, I thought of a glimmer of a plan for how Kezi may be saved, but the plan has a thousand obstacles, and I may be one of them. Before we can face the obstacles, I have to speak to her again, and I don’t know how to accomplish even that.

  I sit at the edge of my brook and watch her. She squats by her aunt’s chair and puts one hand on her aunt’s knee. “Aunt—”

  Aunt Fedo straightens. “My rabbit ears heard Nia tell me to leave. Why didn’t I listen?”

  Kezi smiles. I think I understand why. I’ve observed that Aunt Fedo’s rabbit ears hear well, but often they don’t listen at all.

  “You spared my life! Oh, Kezi . . . Kezi . . . thank you.”

  Kezi’s hand on Aunt Fedo’s knee turns palm up.

  After a long pause Merem says, “Kezi hasn’t breakfasted yet.”

  They go to the eating room, which faces the alley behind the house. Senat and Merem and Aunt Fedo have their second meal of the day while Kezi has her first. It’s simple fare: sheep cheese, barley flatbread, roasted onions, and sweet cucumbers. Kezi closes her eyes while she sucks on the cheese. The others begin to tell stories. While they talk, one or another touches Kezi’s shoulder or her cheek or adds more food to her plate.

  Their first tales are about her when she was a baby.

  “You were motionless only when you slept,” Merem says. “You hardly ever cried.”

  “I used to keep you with me in the counting room sometimes.”

  “Pado, you did?”

  “If you could wave your hands and kick your feet, you were happy. I’d stand over you and watch when I should have been planning crops.”

  “You never crawled,” Aunt Fedo says.

  Merem corrects her. “Once or twice you crawled.”

  Aunt Fedo ignores the correction. “You were too eager to walk and dance.”

  “And climb!” Merem says. She pats Kezi’s hand.

  Senat, Merem, and Aunt Fedo laugh.

  “Nothing was safe from you,” Senat says, breaking off a section of bread for her.

  “Once when Aunt Fedo and I took you to the market . . .” Merem begins.

  Aunt Fedo says, “I had nothing to do with what hap—”

  “Almost happened,” Merem says.

  “What happened?” Kezi looks from one to the other. She seems happy.

  They all seem happy. How can they be happy? But I notice that I’m happy too, listening and watching.

  They tell the climbing story, in which Kezi almost poked her face into a hive of wasps. Then Aunt Fedo tells about Merem when Merem was a little girl. Senat and Merem talk about their courtship. Merem can hardly speak for laughing over an occasion when Senat set his beard on fire.

  “Because he was looking at me!” Merem says, gasping for breath.

  Senat blushes.

  Kezi blushes too, and it occurs to me that she is thinking of me. But she couldn’t be.

  They remain in the eating room all afternoon and into the night. My fresh breeze ripples through to keep them comfortable. They have a wonderful day. We all have a wonderful day. Sometimes Kezi looks away while her aunt and her parents speak. Her face is alert and peaceful. I’m certain she’s concentrating on their voices. Sometimes she watches their faces, her eyes passing from one to the other.

  Senat never goes to his counting room. Merem and Kezi don’t work at
their looms. Aunt Fedo doesn’t leave to manage her own affairs. It’s a holiday, a holiday because Kezi is to die, but a holiday nonetheless.

  22

  KEZI

  THE NEXT MORNING I go to my loom. Mati is already working. On my loom is the marriage rug. I hate the sight of it, but I begin to tie my knots. Even now, I cannot waste so much work.

  Mati’s yarn tangles. For a few minutes she tries to untangle it. She calls herself bumble-fingered, then calls herself cursed, then looks at me, her face stricken, because I’m the one who’s truly cursed. She runs from the courtyard.

  I sit back in my chair, my hands in my lap. I don’t want to weave or even to move. If I could, I would turn myself into the lizard that’s sunning itself on the edge of a fern pot.

  Nia comes into the courtyard to water the ferns. The muscles in her thin arms stand out from the weight of the copper watering pitcher.

  Once, when I was five, she found me playing with a doll that I had stood on Admat’s altar in my bedroom. She rushed at me and pulled me away, scolding that the altar was not a place for games. My doll fell on its head, which Nia said was my punishment. She prayed over me until Mati called her. I’ve always wondered how long she would have prayed if she hadn’t had to stop.

  Now I want to know what she thinks of my sacrifice. She is the most pious among us. Maybe she can explain my sacrifice in a way that will comfort me.

  “Nia?”

  She puts down the pitcher.

  “Why has Admat made this happen to me?”

  “Ah.” She smiles. “Little Mistress, Admat wants you to dance for him alone and make rugs for him alone.” She picks up the pitcher again and begins her task.

  She’s made Admat seem selfish.

  Maybe he will prove himself unselfish and extend my life.

  I don’t hear Pado until he pulls Mati’s chair away from her loom and sits in it. He strums the warp of the loom as if it were a lyre.

  I want to ask him about Olus: How long has Olus rented our land? Does he take good care of his goats? Does Pado like him? But Pado will ask how I know there is a goatherd.